Hi Everyone,

I am hoping that some of you experienced adoptive moms will share your experiences with your child's birthmother and the hospital staff regarding breastfeeding.

I have already decided that I am going to mention the fact that I plan to breastfeed in my "Dear Birthmother" letter, so it will not be a total surprise to our birthmother.

My situation is that I did the accelerated protocol. I have been pumping for 7 weeks now, and I now have 7 ounces per day. I have been increasing about 1 oz per week, and since we probably won't have a placement until sometime in the fall, I will probably have something like a full supply when we go to meet our new little one.

Do any of you have any wisdom to share about handling this situation in the hospital? Any tips for dealing with our birthmother and the hospital staff?

I'm looking forward to hearing from you seasoned moms. Thanks so much!

-Jenny M. in MI

I adopted in December of 2010, and did not mention to the birthmother that I was planning on breastfeeding, on the advice of our social worker. She said that it "weirds out" some of the birthmothers, and thought it would be best to keep it to ourselves. The agency was generally supportive, but also protective of the birthmother's feelings. Our adoption is semi-open at the birthmother's request, so her finding out later and feeling deceived was not a concern.

I don't have any experience, but one LC my mother knows personally told her that the hospitals she deals with will NOT let an adoptive mother breastfeed the baby in the hospital (I'm guessing on the grounds that the baby is legally the birthmom's). Since my sister is our baby's birthmother, I'm planning on just waiting until the nurses clear out and then nursing anyway, but I'm a little nervous about the whole thing. I'd hate to have to wait until we get discharged to start nursing!

Tobin,
This last adoption, we did room in with the baby. I was still establishing my supply and I didn't try to bf the baby while we were in the hospital. I think the nurses would have been supportive, but the ped we had was such a pain I didn't want to deal with it (she wanted to know exactly how much formula the baby was drinking - you obviously can't provide that when you are nursing).

We stayed two nights in the hospital and I started nursing her as soon as we got to the hotel. I also had brought some frozen milk with and I started supplementing with that then too. She had no problem making the transition to breast.

In your case, I would definitely nurse though.

Jennifer

Also - in our first adoption we weren't placed with our daughter until she was 2 days old and I didn't really nurse her regularly until she was a week old (she was a stork drop so I had no notice and didn't have any milk when she arrived, so I just focused on pumping for the first week while we were at the hotel) and she also had no problem transitioning to the breast.