I Produce Over 1.5 GALLONS Of Breastmilk A Day Due To A Rare Condition – It Made Me A Guinness Book Of World Record Holder

A mother of three from Portland produces up to 1.5 liters of breast milk every day due to a rare health condition.

Elisabeth Anderson-Sierra, 35, was diagnosed with hyperlactation syndrome in 2014, which causes her to produce about 200 oz of breast milk, far more than the 60 oz she needs to feed her seven-month-old son Benjamin.

She stays attached to a breast pump for about five hours a day, producing enough bags to regularly fill the freezer in her kitchen, as well as two others in her garage, almost as quickly as she can donate them to mothers who can’t produce the breast pump. breast milk that their babies depend on for survival.

She has decided to use her condition to do good. In all, she has donated more than 54,000 fluid ounces of vital life-sustaining breast milk to needy families, the equivalent of nearly 422 gallons, earning her a Guinness World Record this year.

Ms Anderson-Sierra has been awarded the world record for the highest amount of breast milk donated to needy babies and while she is content to know that her more than 1,600 liters of donated milk has helped countless people, she is considering a double mastectomy to halt her hyperlactation to invoke.

Anderson-Sierra was diagnosed in 2014 with hyperlactation causing her to produce much more than the 60oz she needs to feed her seven month old son Benjamin

In all, she has donated more than 54,000 fluid ounces of crucial life-sustaining breast milk to needy families, the equivalent of nearly 422 gallons

Only a few months after the birth of her first daughter Isabella in 2014, she was diagnosed with hyperlactation, although she did not start producing milk until 14 weeks of pregnancy, while the norm is between 16 and 22 weeks.

Doctors ran a barrage of tests, including a CAT scan of her pituitary gland, a small, pea-sized gland that produces and releases hormones that regulate the activity of the endocrine system.

A hormonal shift during her pregnancy had caused it to enlarge to produce too much prolactin, a hormone responsible for stimulating milk production in the mammary glands of the breasts.

She said, “The endocrinologist said I could take the medication bromocriptine to reduce my prolactin stores. But if I did, I could potentially lose all my supply and not have enough milk to feed Isabella (her eldest daughter).

“The other option was close monitoring, medical care, and testing to make sure I stayed healthy. I went for the second option because I wouldn’t think about not being able to feed my baby.’

By the time she was 20 weeks pregnant, Ms. Anderson-Sierra was producing 30 ounces of milk daily and had to put washcloths over her nipples to absorb the excess. It was then that she began donating her milk to a local midwifery practice, then to a large California milk bank, and directly to mothers who reached out on Facebook.

While it is normal for a new mother to have a slightly enlarged pituitary gland after giving birth, it usually returns to its normal size. Hers, however, didn’t.

It is difficult to determine the actual number of women affected by hyperlactation syndrome because data on its prevalence is extremely limited. And the prevalence can vary in different populations depending on several factors, such as cultural norms surrounding breastfeeding and awareness of the condition among medical professionals.

The freezer in her kitchen was so full during and after her pregnancy that her husband had to remove the ice maker. Eventually, the Anderson-Sierras acquired industrial-sized freezers that are now in the garage where she deposits bags of milk to donate.

She said: ‘Producing milk was actually more uncomfortable than being pregnant. I continued to make even more milk after my daughter Isabella was born.

‘I should be pumping before breastfeeding. If I tried to nurse her when I was full she would essentially get waterboarded. I had to pump so often I was almost housebound.’

She breastfeeds five or six times a day, she said, which means she often has to pump discreetly on the go, for example while driving

She started producing milk just three months after her first pregnancy, but it wasn’t until three months after the birth of her first child, Isabella, in 2014, that she was diagnosed with hyperlactation syndrome.

Hyperlactation can cause a nursing baby to suffocate. It can also lead to the child becoming overweight. According to Ms. Anderson-Sierra, her three children were born small but “got super fat because they were fed so much” at four months.

The sheer amount of milk she has produced and donated is astonishing, so much so that this year she set a world record for the amount of milk donated. According to Guinness World Records, she has provided more than 422 liters of breast milk.

The Guinness record may be an undercount. In a separate post on her Instagram account, Ms. Anderson-Sierra claims to have donated more than 700 liters in nine years.

Many women produce more milk than their baby needs, making the condition difficult to diagnose and potentially underreported.

Her almost constant pumping and feeding sessions were at times a source of stress and isolation, with Ms Anderson-Sierra saying she couldn’t imagine being a mother who didn’t breastfeed her children Isabella, Sophia and Benjamin.

She’s considering having a double mastectomy, a procedure in which a doctor removes all breast tissue, but wouldn’t do it until her youngest Benjamin is weaned.

Ms. Anderson-Sierra is one of millions of mothers who believe in the outrageous nutritional benefits of breast milk, especially for boosting the immune system of children who are too young or too vulnerable to be immunized.

She said, “My older kids still like to drink my milk in their oatmeal. They don’t get sick from childhood illnesses like colds and viral bugs from school, and I believe my milk has helped with their immune systems.”

Many mothers continue to breastfeed their children into toddlerhood because of these nutritional and immunological benefits.

For example, antibodies to the coronavirus are detected in the breast milk of women vaccinated with mRNA vaccines, and that protection is passed on to the baby, according to a report in JAMA Pediatrics.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the vast majority of babies born in the U.S. in 2019 — about 83 percent — are exclusively breastfed for the first few months of life.

But by the time the baby reaches six months, breastfeeding rates take a nosedive. Less than 56 percent of American babies are breastfed for six months, and less than a quarter of them are exclusively breastfed. This can be due to many factors, including time and work constraints or some health condition that prevents a mother from producing milk.