What bothered me about the situation Barb Whitehead posted is the remark
that the mom was borrowing a friend's pump.  Pumps are personal hygiene
items designed for single user use due to the potential for cross-infection.
Rental grade pumps have safety features in terms of either filters which
switch off the pump if milk backs up into the tubing, or they have contained
kits which don't allow milk to escape up into the motor.

The issue with other pumps (ie purchasable ones)  is that the motors cannot
be sterilized.  There is a theoretical possibility that when milk hits the
bottom of the collection bottle an aresol mist from the splash will contain
small viral particles which will be inhaled by the pump and sucked up into
the motor compartment.  Even if a mother sanitizes the bottle and flange,
she generally doesn't take apart the motor casing and spray it down with
antiseptic.  It is the potential that aspirated viral particles may be blown
back down to re-seed another mothers milk which makes this a risky practice.
If you don't believe that milk is aspirated up into these motors, just find
one which has been in use for a while and take it apart.  I've done this at
the advice of the Mag-Mag people when a woman came in with one of their
pumps which wouldn't work.  I called the cust. serv. # and they said take it
apart and wash out all the crud.  It was pretty disgusting.

I cring when I hear women are sharing pumps, or have purchased on second
hand.

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BSEd, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates, Austin, Texas
http://www.jump.net/~bwc/lactnews.html

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