Hi, all, In response to Deb K's question about what others do in their NICU's about cleaning equipment, how to store, etc. We are following the advice given by Mary Rose Tully (Raleigh, NC - Mother's Milk Bank) when she presented an 8 hour conference in Salt Lake in 1999 about Breastfeeding in the NICU. She said that rinsing pump parts with cold water right away, and washing with hot soapy water, followed by rinsing twice to remove detergent residue is adequate cleaning. No research says sterilization of pump parts is necessary. The dishwasher is fine. Put dried pump parts in a clean quart-size ziplock bag after every pumping/washing. Pump parts should not air dry in proximity to a sink where handwashing takes place. She suggests clean (not sterile) volufeeds for storage. She also mentioned sterile water bottles emptied, or urine specimen containers (which ARE sterile). She discouraged milk in plastic bags for the NICU because it tends to be the "dirtiest" (bacterially contaminated) milk that they receive in the milk bank. We have found that if the instructions are simple, the mothers are very compliant. The more difficult the instructions become, and the more complicated the process, the more frequently those poor stressed-out moms just give up and don't do any of it. Hope this helps. Deanne, R.N. IBCLC NICU Utah Valley Regional Medical Center *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html