Dear all:

I fear I may be in some time warp because of my retarded social development.  I had my 
son when I was 41 so I really never learned hand expression for him until I started 
lactation consultant training.  I went through a variety of pumps from the nasty little 
single pump that the 20 year old next door neighbor gave me because she gave up on 
breastfeeding after 2 days.  That ridiculous little pump would stretch my nipple out like a 
rubber band and had no cycling action.  I had to cover a hole with my thumb and let go 
when the suction was too high.  Needless to say --- that was not a particularly productive 
relationship and it ended up in the trash quickly.  Then a friend sent me her Sierra 
Lactation pump.  The LC who saw me for took one look at it (after I think I plied her with 
questions for about 3 hours) and was unable to figure it out.  It had a complicated system 
of little tubes and valves that fit one into another. I think I finally figured it out by 
watching a video and it worked well until the motor blew up at  work one day.  Then I 
moved on to pumps that are more familiar to those who work in the US or Australia.  

I learned to hand express on other mothers.  When I was in training to become an LC I 
actually had less opportunity to express for my son than I did in my not so friendly to 
expressing work place.  So, there were times when I would hand express in some 
bathroom somewhere going from one client to another.  I was able to use a rental pump 
when my mentors would see someone in their office.  I was NOT good at hand expressing 
milk from myself, while I am reasonable at expressing milk from other mothers 
compared to Manhattan standards.  I'm not sure I would pass a test in Norway.  As for 
self expression, the issue stems I think from the two operations for fibroadenomas.  The 
first severed nerve endings and that side has always been sensitive to touch.  My son was 
OK, but hand expression or other manual touch was not.  The pump was somehow 
neutral.  Had I been trained to hand expression earlier, I think I would have been fine on 
the breast that had no fibroadenomas --- but by then I had a mental barrier.  

Best, Susan Burger

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