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Breastfeeding Your Preemie
Breastfeeding Premature Infants
By Gail Pirics
Szpak began nursing Ryan after two months, Jen after three and a half months. "Ryan was pretty simple, but I had to learn how to hold him and bring him up to me, not bring my breast down to him," she says. "There were about three or four times when I got both of them latched on and nursing at the same time. Otherwise I would come in and nurse one while pumping for the other and then I would switch off. Once their feedings really took off I would go to the hospital three times a day to feed them."
After four months in the hospital, Ryan was stable enough to venture home while Jennifer remained hospitalized for yet another month. "I was nursing him full time and pumping for Jennifer and bringing it to the hospital," Szpak says. "She came home on oxygen and with a feeding tube because she had been intubated [on a ventilator] for so long that her vocal cords had scarring that wouldn't close up."
Once Jennifer came home, Szpak stopped nursing Ryan and continued to pump for Jennifer until the end of September, some nine months after their arrival.
Looking back, Szpak credited the hospital, including Kolder, for providing a strong support system. "I don't think I could have done it without the nurses and lactation specialist," she says. "The nurses worked with me and would change their feeding schedules to make it convenient for me to get there. I was very proud of the fact that I did it, and the support of people willing to work with me was great. They were so small and so sick and I knew that that was what I could do for them. I don't ever remember feeling that I didn't want to do it."
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