I've been a LLLL for 13 years and a childbirth educator for
nine.  The hospital most of my students birth at used to send moms home
with a useless (maybe less-than-useless) "trombone" pump with poor
suction. Mothers would (sometimes - often enough to remember it well)
come back to reunions and tell me they had given up breastfeeding because
they didn't have enough milk - they knew it because even though they were
engorged, they couldn't get any milk, and there was obviously not enough
to feed a baby.
        I agitated (and sold M-- handpumps) to moms and the hospital
switched to M-- pumps, which are very well-designed, so most moms can get
at least some milk, and some quite a bit.  From my vantage point of
seeing a variety of moms (in a pretty granola town) in my classes and
after, I'd say that suggesting that you may not need a pump has people
looking at you like you have two heads.  (I do bring in pix out of
magazines to classes so we do talk about the fact that you do not need
any of this fancy equipment to breastfeed, and how screwy our culture is
about mother/baby bonding - you know we seem to be agin it alot more than
we're fer it! --and if we love kids we sure have a terrible way of
showing it.)
        So this is a small sample, but I don't mind moms going home with
a little piece of reliable equipment.  I tell them to bring back  pumps
that don't work and get a refund, because many of them get useless pumps
for shower gifts.
        If a mom in class asks me about pumps, I try to give her a
continuum of choices.  some moms never express.  some moms like hand
expression.  some like manual pumps....battery....rentals.  Giving moms
an array of choices lets them make their own decision -- without me
making it for them.
        I have enough trouble making my own decisions.  And I have a high
rate of moms who bottlefeed or quit breastfeeding early who come back
with second babies and ask me how to make breastfeeding work this time!
(Another variation on meeting the mother where she is....)
  ...from beautiful sunny crisp so. Vermont,  Dawn Kersula FACCE, IBCLC
and LLL leader