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What would be the appropriate time and duration to perform Kangaroo care (in which baby is supposed to make skin to skin contact) in order to increase breast milk?

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  • Some useful tips to increase breast milk are a) to drink one or two cups/per day of Anise tea (which stimulates breast milk production) b) to have a warm bath and leaving the warm water to get in contact with breasts (this also increases production).
    – awel.llwyd
    Commented Sep 9, 2013 at 12:04

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If you're talking about what is officially termed "kangaroo care", for premature and special-needs babies, then you'd need to follow your doctors' recommendations for their care. Kangaroo care may be recommended for up to several hours at a time, but it would depend on how medically stable the baby was.

On the other hand, if you are talking about a more informal skin-to-skin contact for an otherwise healthy baby, for example if you are struggling with low supply issues, or even if you have plenty of supply but baby isn't gaining weight, then 48 hours of skin-to-skin time would almost certainly resolve it.

I literally took myself and the (then ~2 week old) baby off to bed for a whole weekend and got my husband to deliver regular snacks and drinks. We slept and snuggled and by the end of the weekend things were going much, much better.

There is a good summary of the research on skin-to-skin contact (including kangaroo care in premature and low birthweight babies) here: http://www.unicef.org.uk/BabyFriendly/News-and-Research/Research/Skin-to-skin-contact/

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  • You mean 48 hours "continiously"?
    – Aquarius_Girl
    Commented Sep 9, 2013 at 12:54
  • Yes, as continuously as possible (obviously you have to go to the toilet and so on!).
    – Vicky
    Commented Sep 9, 2013 at 13:05
  • To clarify - if you have a specific problem you want to resolve then I would aim for 48 hours. However, if 48 hours isn't practical then any little skin-to-skin time you can do would help - it's really a case of "the more the merrier".
    – Vicky
    Commented Sep 10, 2013 at 11:03

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