What it's like to have hyperlactation syndrome: 'We had to buy 3 deep freezers just to store all of the breast milk'

Breast milk production is often a big concern for nursing moms. Produce too little milk and you'll need to supplement with formula, which can be costly and stressful for those who are set on breastfeeding. Make too much milk and you run the risk of developing uncomfortable health conditions like the painful breast infection mastitis.

But some women don't just make too much milk, they have a condition known as hyperlactation syndrome, in which they produce breast milk in massive quantities. "Hyperlactation occurs when milk production greatly exceeds what the baby needs," Rachelle Lessen, a lactation consultant at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, tells Yahoo Life. Mothers who have hyperlactation syndrome may produce the same amount of milk in a pumping session as most breastfeeding moms produce in a day.

For mothers with hyperlactation syndrome, it "can be challenging for a baby to feed if they are getting 'blasted' from the milk," says Leigh Anne O'Connor, a board-certified lactation consultant and La Leche League leader. It can also be difficult for moms to navigate. Mothers with hyperlactation syndrome tell Yahoo Life that their lives revolve around pumping — and that's a lot to deal with while already juggling life with a newborn.

For moms who struggle to produce enough milk, hyperlactation syndrome can sound like a dream. But women who experience it say it's anything but. Here's what it's like to live with this condition.

"It's all-encompassing and life-altering."

Mom of three Elisabeth Anderson Sierra currently holds the Guinness World Record for the most breast milk donated by an individual. Sierra, 36, has hyperlactation syndrome, which causes her to produce 200 ounces of breast milk a day — 10 times more than what a typical breastfeeding mom pumps.

Sierra tells Yahoo Life that she was officially diagnosed with hyperlactation syndrome in 2015 but says that she "knew something was up before that." Sierra says she started producing milk while she was about 14 weeks into her pregnancy with her first child. "I started leaking breast milk profusely, but I was told it was normal by my midwives and care team," she says. "I think they thought I was talking about producing milliliters — I was producing ounces."

Sierra's daughter was born in 2014, and during a house call from a midwife, she learned that her milk production was not typical. "I was trying to nurse my baby, and she was having such a hard time because there was so much milk. She was basically being waterboarded," she says. Sierra remembers telling her midwife that pumping was going well, before opening her full-size freezer, which was packed with milk. Sierra says her midwife "kind of freaked out and said, 'This is not normal.'"

Sierra has experienced hyperlactation syndrome with all three of her children and has learned to work around it. "I pump about five to six times a day," says Sierra, who serves as director of lactation services for BabyBuddha and uses the brand's portable breast pump. She creates "bricks" of milk, which are 14 6-oz. bags, stacked on top of each other and sealed in a Ziploc bag. "It forms a solid brick of milk to maximize storage space in the freezer," she says. Each brick is made up of about 84 ounces of milk, and she makes two and a half bricks a day.

Sierra, who is a military veteran, donates her excess milk to Global Military Lactation Community, an organization that works to support the lactation journeys of military mothers.

Sierra, who is still nursing her youngest child, says she has to have a full pumping session before she can breastfeed her son. "I can then nurse my baby without him struggling to keep up," she says. She has also developed mastitis "at least once a year," noting that she's "always in danger" of developing it again.

"I could look at this situation with a lot of despair because it's all-encompassing and life-altering, or I can focus on the positive aspects," she says. "The positives are that I can feed my own baby without worrying too much and share the excess with others."

Sierra says she tries to get to know the recipients of her excess milk and develop a relationship with them. "Sometimes we even have playdates," she says. "It's really fulfilling to see breast milk making such a difference in the lives of so many little ones. I definitely lean into that."

"I almost died."

It wasn't until she had her second child that Megan Martin discovered she had hyperlactation syndrome. "I just thought I was an overproducer," the 32-year-old tells Yahoo Life. "It turns out that's not the case."

Martin has produced up to 150 extra ounces of breast milk on top of feeding her children. "I would feed my son first and then pump after," she says. "But my body was just making tons of milk, and I couldn't stop it." She started using a nipple shield and learned to pump for 10 minutes before feeding her son. "Before that, there was so much milk it would drown him."

She ended up developing mastitis eight times with her son and 11 times with her daughter, who was born in 2020. Martin says she used to have to wake up every two hours to pump and had alarms set throughout the night. "It was really, really bad," she says. "I lost tons of hair. The entire first year of my daughter's life revolved around me pumping and breastfeeding. It was a full-time job."

But the health complications didn't end there. Martin ended up in kidney failure from malnutrition after having her daughter and producing too much milk. She went to the ER after experiencing "a ton of digestive distress," noting that she just felt like something was off with her health and couldn't stop vomiting. "I had already produced 50 ounces of milk on top of feeding my daughter, with no food and no water," she says.

At the hospital, Martin says, doctors ran several tests before asking her if she had been starving herself for weeks. "I was eating 3,500 calories a day," she remembers. "I had to pump while I was there, and the doctor was shocked at how much I produced.

"I was admitted to the ICU, and I spent three days in the hospital," she continues. "My body didn't care how much water or food I had. It was producing as much breast milk as it could, and it valued that over my life." She was diagnosed with hyperlactation syndrome and was told to eat 5,500 to 6,000 calories a day until she stopped nursing.

Martin was put on a plan to try to wean her daughter but says that her body became efficient at producing the same amount of milk, even though she was pumping less often. "My husband was up all hours of the night bagging milk," she says. "We bagged and froze thousands of ounces. We had to buy three deep freezers just to store all of the breast milk we had." (She was finally able to fully wean her daughter in March 2021.)

Though she says hyperlactation syndrome has been "glorified" and that she's been told how lucky she is to have had it, Martin says, "I almost died. We couldn't go anywhere without a breast pump."