title: Does warming the breasts affect the amount of breastmilk production?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Increasing the amount of breastmilk is vital for both the nursing mother and child. Warming up breasts before using electrical pumps to pump out breastmilk may help to increase the amount of breastmilk, especially in the mothers of babies who are being nursed in the neonatal intensive care unit.
  
  
  METHODS
  Thirty-nine mothers whose babies had been admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit were analyzed. A breast compress that was warmed up in a microwave oven for 1 minute at 180 W was applied to one of the breasts for 20 minutes, and both breasts were sucked by an electrical breast pump for 15 minutes. The amount of breastmilk after each procedure was recorded.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The amount of breastmilk that was obtained from warmed breasts was significantly higher than that obtained from nonwarmed breasts (maximum, 47.02 ± 23.01 mL vs. 33.15 ± 19.98 mL) (p=0.000).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Warming up breasts by a breast compress is easy and affordable, and this procedure increases the amount of breastmilk, thus facilitating infant nutrition and recovery especially in the neonatal intensive care unit.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Maltepe University, Üsküdar, Istanbul, Turkey.
authors.forename: Feride
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yiğit
authors.forename: Zerrin
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Çiğdem
authors.forename: Ebru
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Temizsoy
authors.forename: Melek Ersoy
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Cingi
authors.forename: Özlem
authors.initials: Ö
authors.lastname: Korel
authors.forename: Egemen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Yıldırım
authors.forename: Fahri
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ovalı
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D061186:Breast Milk Expression / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006358:Hot Temperature; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007363:Intensive Care Units, Neonatal; D008297:Male; D014421:Turkey