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Date: | Wed, 1 Sep 2010 17:00:23 EDT |
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Ruth asks:
Our hospital is trying to decide how many more breast pumps are needed
for our inpatients.
We have 4500 - 5000 births per year. We also have a level 3 NICU. How
many hospital grade pumps are recommended for a facility this size? We
currently have 11 pumps on the postpartum unit, 4 in NICU and 1 in
Pediatrics.
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Might I politely suggest: LOTS MORE!! You need to get an average of how
many mothers in postpartum are pumping or need to pump routinely (that
would be all the moms that have babies in the NICU, all the moms that have
babies that can't/won't latch for whatever reason, all the moms that have
chosen to pump instead of breastfeed (sad face here), all the moms that have
such severe sore nipples that they can't/won't put the baby to breast.... Each
one needs their own pump -- not sharing between umpty other moms.
For the NICU, how many babies do you have in the NICU? How many of them
need breastmilk? Look at your averages. You need at least one pump per
mother/baby dyad. At least enough to accommodate the moms that are pumping
routinely when they come in. The last thing a stressed mom needs in the
NICU or on PP is to have to wait to pump because another mom has the pump, or
she has to wait for the RN to find it, or the stress of the RN having to
find it.
And, if you have 5000 deliveries/year, you need to have at least 2 or 3
pumps in L&D so that the mom whose baby goes to the NICU and she can't
breastfeed immediately can pump in L&D so she can get that lovely bolus of
colostrum which can then bet sent to the NICU.
Peds? How many of your moms need to pump for their babies? How big is
your Peds unit? Seems to me that given the number of deliveries you are
doing with a level 3 NICU, your peds unit is also fairly large. What is the
average number of moms pumping in Peds. I don't think you need as many pumps
there as you do in the NICU -- they can share a bit more freely, but I
think 1 is not enough.
My Not So Humble Opinion.
Jan Barger, RN, MA, IBCLC, FILCA
Wheaton IL, USA
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