Regarding if a mother is too sick to pump. I like the comment that
breastfeeding gets sacrificed on the altar of ignorance here...I have to
advocate, and inform of the benefits. Pumping helps in recovery.
We had a critically ill mother of a 5 month old, who was hit by a car on her
bike. She was supine, and had a major abdominal incision, which couldn't be
"closed", so it was "open" still, with a sort of clear dressing on a large
open area. (They were going to go back to surgery in a couple of days and
close it when some swelling and bleeding had slowed.) She had broken bones,
severe blood loss and was unstable.
We didn't know if we should help her with a wean or not. her husband said
that the had planned to breastfeed a year, so we made the decision to pump.
She was in a coma.  She was engorged, and obviously it would conceivably
contribute to her discomfort. We were able to pump without moving her. We put
towels around her breasts, and the milk flowed into the towels. We would
remove the flange every so often to let the milk run down into the towels.
The nurses were able to continue helping her, although the frquency was not
every 3 hours. We were advised not to use the milk because she was on an
experimental blood pressure medication at the time.
It felt good to see her sitting up and pumping a couple of weeks
later,anxious to be getting well enough to go back to her home and baby. She
was thankful we pumped her.
Fritzi Drosten
SF Bay area, california

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