Surgery

PLEASE follow Karrie_Locher on all socials. She is a brilliant resource and has tons of info!

Is your surgery outpatient? I know you said you’re EBF, but a suggestion I have would be to pump pre-surgery so you have extra milk for when you’re recovering. Most anesthetic and pain medications are compatible with breastfeeding and you should be able to breastfeed as soon as you’re awake, alert and stable. Definitely let your anesthesiologist and surgeon know that you’re breastfeeding! I’m a surgical nurse. You got this!

@Haley I think it is an outpatient surgery, but my bladder hates catheters. Both times I’ve had one, once removed my bladder forgets how to pee and I always ended up with it back in for 24hours 😞

Just ask when you’re able to breastfeed again. My anesthesiologist told me to pump and dump one time. Said they like to be safe instead of sorry. It didn’t affect my supply at all. Surgery is always scary, but I’m sending all the good vibes 🫶🏻

Make sure you LO take a bottle ok. I would start doing a bottle a day of BM so one day when you are in hospital she gets all her milk from a bottle she is used to she really want care. Then on the advice of your doctor you go to NF again. Pump loads so you have a stash for a longer hospital stay. It also might be handy she takes a bottle anyway - mine flipped between the two from 6 weeks and it actually gave me a break and the ability to leave the babies and pop out. I fed like this for 14mths

@Francesca she can take a bottle, she’s not the happiest about it but will have it. I have a stash building at the moment and I have about 16 frozen bags of 120-180ml milk in each. I’m not sure how much I’ll need, but the stash started back in January when my medical issues first started.