Adoption Support at Forever Parents

Adoption and Breastfeeding

Much to many people’s surprise, it is possible to breastfeed a child that was adopted. More and more women are choosing this as a way to promote bonding and to have the shared experience with their baby. Here, three members of our adoption forums share their experiences.

1) After breastfeeding our two bio-sons for an extended period of time (22 and 16 months, respectively) I knew as soon as I heard it was possible, that I wanted to breastfeed our daughter. For me it was a fairly simple process of RE-lactation. So my experience is different than the adoptive parent who has never bf a child before. Nonetheless, it CAN be and IS done the world over.I prepared my body by using a breast pump several times a day in the 6 weeks before she was born. Within a few weeks my milk returned and by the time she was born, I was producing enough for a newborn. I nursed her for 16 months and believe that for ME, it enhanced our bonding, and helped me feel as close (if not closer) to her than I do to the boys. I am happy to assist and encourage anyone who is interested in adoptive breastfeeding. It was a gift I both gave to and received from my daughter.

2) I was VERY disappointed to have to give up breastfeeding my baby because I was adopting, especially since everything you read says that breast milk is best. Then, while reading a book about adoption, the author mentioned breastfeeding her adopted child. I was blown away. I couldn’t understand how you could do that, so I did some research. I talked to the Le Leche League, I read about it on the Internet, and I bought a book called “Breastfeeding the Adopted Baby” by Debra Peterson. Everything convinced me that it COULD be done if I really wanted to do it. So, I decided to go for it. The first thing I did was research whether or not I needed to pump beforehand. I found out that you can, but you don’t have to. The baby suckling on your breast is what stimulates production, and you can wait until you have the baby in your arms to start this process. I decided NOT to pump first for three reasons: (1) Cost of a breast pump; (2) Amount of time involved in pumping daily while I was still working; and (3) My emotional stability if the adoption fell through and I was lactating. So, for me, the best decision was NOT to pump ahead of time.

Next, I researched the options for feeding the baby through breastfeeding. I decided to go w/a Lact-Aid system. You can read all about the system at www.lact-aid.com.

I took custody of my son straight from the hospital when he was 2 days old. I nursed him from the very beginning. I had to experiment w/several ways to hold him while nursing. When you use the Lact-Aid system, he is drinking the formula out of a tube at the top of your breast. I would scotch tape the tube to the top of my breast so it wouldn’t slide around. For us, the “football” position worked best. He would sit up, facing me while he suckled. He figured out quickly that he needed to keep the tube at the top to eat. (Hey, he’s a smart kid!!)

I breastfed exclusively for the first three weeks. Then, I used the occasional bottle. He was fine doing it either way. I eventually dropped off the breastfeeding to only two feedings a day, and then stopped altogether at 3 months. It was just easier to use bottles. W/a bottle, you just heat the water, combine it w/the powder, and let the baby eat. W/the Lact-Aid, you have to do the above plus fill up the bag and tape the tube to your breast. So, it takes a little more time. And, it takes the baby longer to eat from the breast than from a bottle.

In some ways, it is the “worst of both worlds” because you don’t get the convenience of just letting him latch on like a bio baby, AND you still have the preparation time of preparing a bottle. And breastfeeding takes longer than bottle feeding. But, for us, it was worth it. We bonded so quickly. He learned my scent from having his little nose right there at my breast while he was nourished. He was in a healthier position for suckling (less likely to get ear infections — never got one while I breastfed). He also learned the “better” way to swallow (sucking and swallowing rather than using the tongue to stop the flow from a bottle). I have no regrets.

I never produced any milk. From what I read, you have to have the baby suckle every 2 hours to produce milk. I chose to follow the “Baby Wise” method (which I HIGHLY recommend) to teach my son to sleep through the night, and that method has you feed every 2-1/2 to 3 hours. But I didn’t go into it thinking that milk production was the goal. The goal was for us to bond, and we sure did!!

3) I am in a unique situation in that I am currently nursing a biological son, who just turned two, and I have decided that, unless he chooses to wean himself, I won’t make any effort to wean him, in the hopes that I’ll have a milk supply when our adopted baby comes home. Of course, if this process takes a long time, Carl could end up as the oldest nursing child in history, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I also have an older son who never nursed–he had a weak sucking reflex at birth, and I was not able to sustain a milk supply from pumping alone while we waited for him to get stronger. So he was formula fed from the age of 3 weeks. I was devastated at the time, but as time has passed (he’ll be five soon), I have realized more and more that it was OK–we bonded just fine, my partner loved giving him bottles and missed being able to do that with our second (who never consented to take a bottle). So, from that experience, I’m not panicky at the thought of not being able to nurse our third. I just hope I will be able, and I hope I’ll have milk for her/him, because I did the nursing supplementer route with my oldest and hated it, and probably wouldn’t be interested in doing it with another baby. I like the idea of nursing our third baby, in part because I preferred nursing (it’s much easier and more convenient in my experience–I loved being able to breeze out of the house with nothing more than a small bag with a spare diaper in it instead of a heavy sack of bottles), and in part because to me it feels like a way to symbolically say, “This is really my baby.” But it will be OK if Carl weans himself before the next baby comes, or if the next baby won’t or can’t nurse. I’m pessimistic about the possibility of re-lactation if I don’t have an active supply when the baby is born, because of my past inability to sustain an existing supply by pumping, and I can’t take the drug that can be used to stimulate milk production. But I would probably try–I’ve successfully nursed a baby now, so I suppose it’s a whole new ballgame.

Related Tags: adoption, adopting, adopt breastfeeding

Hello to readers of the breastfeeding carnival

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