Hand Expressing

Hand expressing can be useful for several reasons:

• When your milk changes, you may feel engorged and uncomfortable. Your breasts may feel hard, and your baby may struggle to attach. Hand expressing a small amount of milk may soften the breast and help your baby attach
• Sometimes babies can be reluctant to feed, and hand expressing some milk may encourage them.
• If you needed to be separated from your baby when the colostrum is being produced, the amounts are so small you would lose it in a pump. Hand expressing means the colostrum can be collected in a syringe and given to your baby.

Please look at this video for a clip showing you how to hand express.

We also have this video from the Coventry Infant Feeding team explaining what blocked ducts and mastitis are, along with steps you can take to prevent a blocked duct from progressing into mastitis.