breast massage and hand expressing

Question

would like to check if we should pull and squeeze the nipples during breast massage / to hand express effectively? Ive read articles to say it should be gentle pulling but LC in hospital also just squeeze nipples for milk to come out prior to feed and masseuse also does that to release milkIm a bit confused cos what LC and masseuse did is painful but it really help to release milk and even to the extend of squirting. context: I do have over supply, and usually have engorgement issues. I havent been very successful at hand expressing as I feel pain to do that on myself and milk only comes out in drops. so am pumping most of the time and latch sometimes.

Anonymous · Answer

Hello! This is from what I have learnt from nurses and lactation consultant, and found effective for myself~ I was taught that hand expression isn't really about squeezing the nipple itself - you need to go further back into the wider breast area instead. Placing your hand in a c -or u-shape hold right outside the areola, push inwards towards your chest, before you apply a gentle roll/squeeze. I found that this was a lot less painful than squeezing the nipple tip itself and also helped to stop my engorgement issues (also an oversupplier 🙋‍♀️) as it was removing milk from the deeper tissues effectively 👌 Not sure if I explained properly haha but if it helps, you can search how to hand express on TikTok and there are a lot of video tutorials :)