Lactation Data Orgy

I really should be grading, but there is data to be graphed!

I use an electric breast milk pump to express milk for my baby while I am at work. I measure the amount of milk produced by each breast at each pumping, along with the time of day and time elapsed since I pumped or nursed last. The following graphs include total breast milk produced, and are posted for fun and for your critique/ interpretation. I am trying to find a pattern in order to further optimize my breast milk production, as I produce only about 1/3 to 1/2 of the milk my baby needs in a day.

Fig. 1
These are the results from two weeks of pumping, with an average of two pumping session per day. These data include both variable times between pumping sessions and variable pumping lengths. I wondered if there was a correlation between how long I pumped as to how much milk was expressed, hence

Fig. 2
It appears that pumping time is correlated with milk production. I then sought to keep pumping times constant at 20 minutes, for the next two weeks and explore whether milk production depended on time since last expression.

Fig. 3

Pumping was complete (as measured by no further increases in volume in last minute of pumping) nearly every session. More informative might be whether the rate of milk production varied with time between expression.

Fig. 4

The data are suggestive of a slight negative correlation, but the non-significance of a linear fit suggests that pumping rate is constant over varying expression intervals. Using this rate as a baseline, I intend to begin supplementing with More Milk Plus capsules and Mothers' Milk tea, two herbal remedies whose effectiveness has not been clearly documented in scientific studies (that I am aware of) to improve lactation. Nonetheless, these remedies are being recommended among laywomen as potent galactogogues. Results and comparison are expected to be posted on this blog in 2-4 weeks.