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Hand expressing your breastmilk

Date issued: December 2022 

Review date: December 2024

Ref: B-471/women’s and children's/AM/Hand expressing your breastmilk v2     

PDF:  Hand expressing your breastmilk final December 2022 v2.pdf [pdf] 120KB

The hormones your body releases when you breastfeed your baby, helps the milk to flow towards the nipple and to stimulate more milk to be produced for the next feed.

These same hormones are helpful when you hand express.

Things that may help your milk to flow:

* If possible have your baby close by or in skin to skin contact.

* Look at a picture of your baby.

* Record a short mobile phone video of your baby and play it back.

* Have some of your baby’s clothing/blanket nearby (to get their scent).

* Find a room/space where you feel relaxed and are unlikely to be interrupted.

* Gently massage your breasts, stroking over the skin towards your nipples.

How to hand express: 

  1. Before you start, wash your hands in hot soapy water, and dry thoroughly.

  2. You will need a sterile container, with a wide brim or a colostrum syringe to express your milk into.

  3. Cup your breast and feel backwards (from nipple to chest), you should  feel a change in texture approximately 2 - 3cm from the nipple, this is the area you will need to focus on.

  4. Using your thumb and the rest of your hand, form a “C” shape, around the area of the breast you have located (see point 3 above).

  5. Without sliding your fingers towards the nipple area, squeeze the breast tissue between your thumb and forefingers and then release.  Keep repeating this “squeeze and release” action.

  6. You will start to see “beads” of milk appearing, which may gradually become drips, and then squirts, as your milk begins to flow more freely,  with the help of your hormones (let-down reflex).

  7. As the flow of milk slows down, move your hands around the breast and repeat this process on a different area, so that you express milk from the complete breast.

  8. You can express from both breasts, either concentrating on one side at a time or swapping between the two, until your milk flow has slowed down to drips or “beads”.

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