Last Friday my breastfeeding coalition sponsored a training run by Medela for local WIC agencies and other people involved in breastfeeding support. We had about 20 WIC and other breastfeeding support people there, plus three babies!
The training was on using pumps to sustain breastfeeding. Our coalition just donated three hospital grade pumps to our local WIC offices, so this training opportunity was well timed.
For me, the best part of the morning was checking out the many different pumps the trainer brought.
There were hospital grade pumps (the kind you'd use in the hospital or to increase milk supply), frequent use pumps for working mothers, and manual and basic electric pumps for occasional pumping.
But the most interesting for me were the older manual pumps. I'd heard of the 'bicycle horn' pumps (to the right) but never seen one. Note that the 'reservoir' where the milk collects holds about 1/4 of an ounce, so it would have to be emptied pretty frequently. And there's nothing to prevent milk from going back into the bulb part of the pump, which would be almost impossible to wash.
Don't they look like those bulb syringes for babies' noses? Can you imagine trying to pump at work with one of these things? Most mothers would probably have done much better with hand expression.
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