Breast pump: Encyclopedia - Breast pump

Breast pump

A breast pump is a mechanical or electrical device that extracts milk from the breasts of a woman who is breastfeeding. Mechanically, a breast pump is directly analogous to a milking machine used in commercial dairy production.

The expressed breast milk (EBM) may be stored for feeding to a baby by bottle at a later time. Expressed milk may be kept at room temperature for up to ten hours (at 66-72 degrees Fahrenheit, around 20 degrees Celsius), refrigerated for up to 8 days, or frozen for six months in a deep freeze separate from a refrigerator maintained at a temperature of 0 degrees Fahrenheit, −18 degrees Celsius. Expressed milk may be donated to milk banks, which provide human breast milk to premature infants and other high-risk children whose mothers cannot provide for them.

A breast pump may be used for a variety of reasons. Many women use them to continue breastfeeding after they return to work, pumping while away from their child, and having a caregiver feed the expressed milk when the baby and mother are separated. A breast pump may be used to stimulate lactation for women with a low milk supply, or who have not just given birth. A breast pump may be used to relieve engorgement, a painful condition whereby the breasts are overfull, possibly preventing a proper latch by the infant. If an infant does not latch properly for direct breastfeeding, and the mother still desires the benefits of breast milk, she may choose to pump exclusively. Finally, pumping may be desirable to continue lactation and its associated hormones to aid in recovery from pregnancy even if the pumped milk is not used.

Breast pumps may be manual, operated by manipulating a handle in a repetitive fashion, allowing the user to directly control the pressure and frequency of pumps. Any long-term use, however, usually requires an electrically powered model, where a small motor supplies suction through plastic tubing to a horn that fits over the breast. The portions of the pump that come into direct contact with the expressed milk must be sterilized to prevent contamination.

Breast pumps can be designed to be part of a "feeding system" so that the milk storage portion of the pump is the baby bottle used to feed the infant.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Breast pump", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki