A brief disclaimer:  I do occasional tech writing/editing for Medela and
occasionally supply them with teaching photos.  However I don't depend on
occasional income from them for my living.  My occassional contract work
with them has never kept me from saying what I think about their products,
as anyone knows who has listened to my complaints about the re-naming of
their nipple shields, my doubts about the wide-spread usefulness of feeding
tube devices, or my constant harrassments of both Medela and Hollister to
offer more size options in terms of shields and pump flanges.

That said, I'd like to say something about the marketing of items for
cleansing pumps (both externally with the wipes and internally with the
microwave sterilizer bags).  Please re-read the excellent section in the
current Riordan and Auerbach for a good description of the kind of
pathogenic contamination found on the external surfaces of hospital breast
pumps (and evidence of this as a source of illness in populations of exposed
infants).  I am often shocked that infection control completely seems to
ignore these surfaces in hospt. units where people are sharing pumps.  Also
affected would be work sites with shared rental grade pumps.  While a can of
spray Cavicide or Lysol and some paper towels would be equally effective and
cheaper,  pre-packaged wipes, if available in those environments, would at
least serve to remind people to wipe off those surfaces.  A better and less
environmentally stressful way to package them would be in pop-up dispensers
so that the can could sit by the pump and people could pull up a sheet of
pre-moistened towelette and swab the pump and the switches.

Sterilizing of pump parts is certainly not necessary for everyday use in
populations of women pumping for full term, healthy infants.  For parents of
prematures, running back and forth to the hospt. all day, perhaps microwave
sterilization bags are merely one more way to cut some corners and protect
them from melting pump parts.  I can see them as having limited but
reasonable usefulness.


Barbara Wilson-Clay, BS, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates
LactNews Press
www.lactnews.com

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