Im 8 months pregnant. Can I go ahead and start pumping if Im lactating already?
Pumping your milk causes uterine contractions. You can pump if you are 36 weeks or further along. Otherwise, wait until then. Those moms who breast fed when they were pregnant, were probably early on. And eventually they would have stopped because new-baby-in-tummy needs the nutrition more than the infant does. When you do pump, save the breast milk in a clean, sterilized ice cube tray and freeze. When frozen, pop them out into a freezer baggie. Put into a deep freeze, not a self-defrosting freezer. Those types of freezers actually warm up to melt the frost inside your freezer. You don’t want your breast milk to go through that. When you need to bottle feed for a date on the town with daddy, pop one or two cubes into a bottle and let thaw in the fridge. Discard what is not used.
Are you lactating enough to pump? If you want to pump and collect it, I don’t see why not, breastmilk can be frozen for like 4 months, so you could get a backup stash started. However, I’ve never heard of a woman getting her milk in this early. I leaked colostrum for a while before giving birth, but not enough to collect it. The only other thing to consider is over-establishing your milk supply by pumping too soon. I did that with my first and was just constantly engorged. This time, I waited 2 weeks to pump and have the amount of milk I need, not a surplus. Good luck.
