Hello, All.
       My name is Dee Kassing.  I am an LLLL (for 17 years) and IBCLC in
private practice (for 8 years).  My husband, Jim, and I have been married for
26 years, and we have a son, Dan, who is 23 and a daughter, Sarah, who will
be 21 in June.  (The thought of having to say I am the mother of two grown
children is making me feel old!)  I am looking forward to learning from all
my colleagues on this list about many breastfeeding topics.
       I noticed that you have been discussing the Whisper Wear pumps and
thought I would share what I have figured out about them so far.  I do offer
them through my business.  (I carry other brands as well.)  Because I feel so
uneasy about just taking $200 from a mother for a pump that has very little
history and hasn't had hundreds of thousands of mothers use it over the
years, I invite every mother who is interested in the WW pump to come spend
an hour in my office and try it out.  I purchased a single pump specifically
for this purpose, and I sterilize the breastcup, valve and stem between
clients.
       So far, this pump has not worked well for mothers who are overweight
(or, as the WW company puts it, have "excessive abdominal tissue").  The stem
gets bent in half as it comes out from the bra and then bends back over the
rolls that begin right under the breast.  The milk can't roll down the stem
when it's bent like this, and the milk ends up leaking into the mother's bra.
 Not only is this very messy, but all that wonderful breastmilk is then
unavailable to the baby!
       Things that make the pump work better:  wear a snug bra that does not
have an underwire, and does not have stretch cups.  It works better if the
pump is really being pushed snugly by the bra into the breast tissue.  But
mothers who are prone to recurrent plugged ducts are afraid to wear the pump
so tightly (which I can certainly understand).  But I haven't seen the pump
work very well unless it is really pressed into the breast.
       Also, the valve needs to be positioned so that the long opening runs
from the 3:00 to the 9:00 position (or parallel to mom's chest wall).  If it
is placed in the 12 - 6 position (perpendicular to the chest wall), it can
get squeezed and be held permanently in the open position and then there
won't be any suction.
       One mother who tried it was using a Classic to provide milk for a baby
who was not coming to breast.  Her milk supply had dropped very low because,
when she came to try the WW, her baby had just gotten home after a 3-day
rehospitalization for pneumonia.  She had not pumped at all during those
three days.  She thought if she could wear the WW to pump, she would be able
to do more pumping and rebuild her supply faster, because she wouldn't have
to sit still to pump as she did with the Classic.  She was able to get out
about 4 oz total after pumping each breast for 20 minutes.  (Remember, I only
have a single pump for them to try--couldn't afford to buy a double I
wouldn't be selling--so we leave the bag attached and move it from one breast
to the other after 20 minutes.)  This might seem like a lot, but remember she
hadn't removed any milk from the breast for 3 days.  I checked with her 3
days later and she said she loved the pump, and she thought her supply was
beginning to increase.  However, at 7 days, she called me and said the pump
kept cutting out.  It was then that I learned that, since she had purchased
it, she had been wearing the pump for 1 hour (!), taking a break for 20-30
minutes, wearing it for another hour, and following that pattern throughout
the entire day!  When I realized that, I was not impressed that she "thought"
her milk supply was increasing by day 3--I think she should have had gallons
of milk with all that stimulation!  And I really think she just burned out
the motor by using it so constantly.  (By the way, I did *not* suggest she
use the pump this way.  I suggested she wear it for 20 minutes every 2 hours
and at least once during the night.)  Even so, the folks at WW offered to
trade her pump for a new one, so they could examine it.  They did ask her to
mail the broken pump to them first (a reasonable request), and then they
promised they would overnight a new pump to her.  I wanted to know that a
company I was dealing with would have good customer service, so I called her
once, and wrote her a note with her next rental renewal bill, asking if they
really replaced the pump quickly.  When I called, she said she had never
gotten around to mailing the broken pump and was just using the Classic.  And
when I wrote, she did not respond, just merely sent the next month's rent, so
I'm guessing she still didn't mail it.
       So I am a bit disappointed by the mixed results I have seen.  Perhaps
some of you have learned more tricks to make this pump work better.
       Dee Kassing, BS, MLS, IBCLC

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