The Breakfast of Breastfeeding Champions

It's just a crummy 2.0mpx iPhone photo, but doesn't that look good? That was my breakfast this morning prepared in my oversized mug here at my office. It's a medley of steel cut oats cooked in 2% milk with nuts and dried fruit added. I started eating steel cut oats about two months ago hoping they would help me with breastmilk supply. I thought I had read somewhere that they helped increase supply. On doing further research, I have discovered that oatmeal is not a galactagogue, but it is certainly nutritious (and filling!). And, where oatmeal is concerned, the less refined it is, the better (nutritionally speaking, anyway). Steel cut oats take longer to cook, but I can (and do) prepare them in the microwave. I just watch carefully so that they don't boil over. I love them! They are very comforting. And we all know that comfort + relaxtion = oxytocin, which equals better letdown and/or breastmilk pump yield. So, ta-da... there you have it.

Some recommended reading on adding oatmeal to your diet if you are lactating (and even if you're not):

Oatmeal for Increasing Milk Supply by Kelly Bonyata, BS, IBCLC of kellymom.com

Is Your Breastmilk Waning? by Jean Weiss for MSN Health & Fitness (Excellent article!!!)

These are the products I use to make my oatmeal (add milk).

*1/4 cup Quaker Steel Cut Oats

*1 cup 2% milk (works fine with skim or water, too)

*1/4 cup Planters NUT-rition Bone Health Mix (I threw a few chopped dates in this time, too)

My breakfast was about 440 calories, 58 grams of carbohydrate and 17grams of protein. The fat content is a little high at 17grams, but I'm not dieting. I could cut down on that by omitting nuts and using skim milk or water, but I'm eating "good" fat from nutritious foods, so I don't really feel bad about it. This is a hearty, delicious meal that gets my day going (and sticks to my ribs) without making me feel sluggish. It beats a biscuit and bo-rounds any day.

Who's WHO?

Since taking my Medela Pump in Style apart yesterday (looking for mold and milk residue), I have not been able to stop obsessing over the issue of open-system pumps. I read a lot of comments about Medela not being compliant with WHO Code. Well, what is WHO code?  I didn't know.

First of all, WHO is the World Health Organization. In May 1980 at the 33rd World Health Assembly, WHO and UNICEF adopted an international code for the marketing of infant forumla and breast feeding substitutes.  The thirty-six page pdf file of the document can be found in its entireity at the WHO website. While well-intentioned and certainly important, WHO code is not law. Granted, any company wishing to promote itself as concerned with the health of its customers would want to comply. 

Medela is considered non-compliant with WHO code. 

Given the fact that mold issues have been found in some of Medela's open-system pumps, this really looks bad, but it's not the reason Medela was found non-compliant.  According to a 2009 position statement presented by Medela Chairman of the Board, Michael Larsson, the reason was that they marketed BPA free bottles and nipples. The full document and other position statements are available at Medela.com (Direct Link).

I am not siding with Medela. I am just trying to get the facts straight because, until yesterday, I did not know about any of this. It really opened my eyes because I am an educated woman living above the poverty line, and yet I have been completely ignorant. I use Medela products because they are what was recommended to me by my IBCLC. I thought I was being given the best information from a trustworthy source. After all of my reading and personal research, my view has changed. I still don't think Medela is the devil, though. I do still think that some lactivists go very far overboard on what they call advocacy. The way to promote breastfeeding is not to alienate mothers by shaming them for their choices. I think anyone who truly supports breastfeeding should start by actually being supportive. We could all stand to be a lot more supportive as a community.

Breast is best, especially if you don't stress...

It looks like a bit of a ruckus was started over the entry: "Why you shouldn't buy, sell or borrow a secondhand Medela Swing Pump," posted on the Dispelling Breastfeeding Myths blog. The author took apart her Swing pump to show what looked like mold and dried milk inside. It is not the first blog entry of its kind that I have seen on the 'net. The blog entry was re-posted by well-intentioned women who run breastfeeding support sites and facebook pages. A lot of mothers were rightfully concerned. The majority of commenters said they wanted to stop using their Medela pumps.  There were also commenters who said Medela didn't care about anything but making money.

My comment on the facebook wall of The Leaky Boob was: "I think that post is overkill. My pump has been used in pumping for three babies over the course of 4 years. I honestly have never seen milk back up into the tubing (when I overflow, it goes onto my clothes). It's probably 'dirty' inside, anyway. I'm not going to freak out about the possiblity of particles blowing into my milk from inside the pump though. Me and my family are healthy and no one is immunocompromised. I just don't think it's worth getting that worked up about unless you are dealing with a sickly infant."  So far, over a dozen mothers have "liked" my comment, which is encouraging.

Despite my outward confidence, curiosity got the best of me.  Before I even had a chance to leave work for the day, I started to pull my breast pump apart. I just had to know...  Was there mold growing in my pump?  As stated in my comment above, my breast pump is over four years old and has been used to pump for three babies. I have a Medela Pump 'n Style. I couldn't find one on the Medela website for comparison, so I don't think they are made any longer. Still, for the benefit of any mothers out there who are still using one of these (and are quietly freaking out inside), I give you my photos:

A photo of the front casing of my pump with tubing and power cord attached.

This is what the back of the cover plate looks like on the other side. Those tiny little holes are the other side of where the tubes attach. The round white rubber piece covers the pump mechanism inside. It's not waterproof around the edges and probably isn't airtight either, but doesn't seem easily penetrable. I didn't clean anything before I took these pictures. If you click to enlarge them, you will see that there were some fibers there. It looked like fabric fiber or maybe some dust, but no dried milk and certainly not any mold.

This is what the inside looks like behind the membrane on the left side. Nothing nasty there...

And the other side. Still nothing scary.

But then I saw something black.

Oh no...

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But it's probably just some lubricant or something. This is a machine with moving parts, after all.

The point is... it wasn't mold.

Getting the pump back together was interesting.  I had to use one of those key-cards you get from the grocery store to help me squeeze the lip of the rubber cover back into the groove it came out of. That gave me further reassurance that things weren't going to be going into or out of my pump very easily.



Here's a video of my pump in action (without the faceplate on). The rolling action of the diaphragm is what creates the suction. I went ahead and tested it on myself too, just to be sure I hadn't ruined it. It still works.

So, that's my filthy dirty four year old Medela pump. It may not perform as well as it once did, but it still gets the job done.  It's no monster.  I hope that helps dispell the myth that all open-system pumps are unsafe for repeated use. I just don't think it's true.