One of the common reason's for people to rent pumps is so that they can sleep
at night. However I always warn against this practice.
Prolactin levels rise with sleep, they also rise with suckling, sexual
activity etc...
We have found that not feeding or pumping at night (at least once ) rapidly
reduces milk supply. This especially holds true in premie moms who tend to
skip pumping at night. The natural prolactin cycle helps ge the mom off to an
abundant supply in the early weeks.
When I get a mom that wants dad to be able to feed, I suggest that she have
him do the feeding during the late afternoon/early evening-- when supply is
low anyway and the household is busy. It frees her up for *chores* and gives
dad some time alone with the baby when they are both awake to enjoy it.
As a sideline: One of the reasons BF works so well as a birth control method
in other countries is that the infant's are given unrestricted access to the
breast at night (I believe this was in Karen Wade's lecture at ILCA 2 years
ago.)
Marie Davis RNCLC