Whatever your reasons for purchasing a breast pump, it’s important you choose one that suits your needs. A good breast pump should be efficient, comfortable and easy to use while fitting effortlessly into your lifestyle. There are many factors to take into consideration before your purchase such as how frequently you plan on using it and how portable it should be. Choosing your breast pump is a personal decision and one that shouldn’t be hurried.

Breast pumps are available as manually operated or electric. Both have their own pros and cons which you’ll need to weigh up before making your purchase. Generally you’ll find a greater choice of electric pumps, but well known brands such as Medela and Philips Avent manufacture both.

Breast pump work by mimicking the suckling action of your baby. The milk is collected through the suction cap and delivered straight into a sterilized bottle which you can then store for later or freeze. If you’re fully breastfeeding your baby, it’s best to wait until around 4-6 weeks after the birth before expressing as this gives your milk supply enough time to become fully established.

Reasons for using a breast pump

Many mothers choose to Baby Bottle Sterilizer and bottle feed. Expressing allows you to store breast milk for later use, enabling someone else to bottle feed your baby in your absence. Sometimes, if mother or baby cannot manage the breast feeding process properly, expressing enables her baby to still benefit from her nutritious breast milk. Breast pumps are also useful to help relieve overfull breasts or for increasing the milk supply.

Manual pumps

Manual pumps are quiet, lightweight and easily portable, so will easily fit into your bag. Many women find them more comfortable to use than the electric alternative as they allow greater control of the suction speed. However, it can become tiring as you need to manually squeeze the pump. And if you’re expressing from both forklift this could take up to half an hour and you may need to use both hands.

Most are sold with optional extras such as breast pads, different sized suction caps, extra storage bottles and a carry case. Manual pumps are the cheapest option and are the best choice for infrequent use. If you’re planning to express breast milk at work, you may feel more comfortable using the more discreet manual breast pump.

Mains and battery powered

Electric Baby Bottle Warmer are powerful and highly efficient, making light work of expressing your milk. They’re the ideal option if you’re planning to express

Well, it’s official: The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) hates breastfeeding moms.

The IRS has ruled that flexible spending accounts — the tax-sheltered accounts set up to cover legitimate medical expenses — should not cover breast pumps or materials associated with Breast Pump because it “has ruled that breast-feeding does not have enough health benefits to quality as a form of medical care.”

Come again, IRS? Seriously?

They cover zit creams, pain killers, artificial turf (for allergy sufferers), but not breastfeeding pumps, which can be a pretty penny. Some of the best ones are close to $300 and often not covered by insurance.

Seriously, we can’t do better than this?

The IRS completely ignored the growing body of research showing the many (many!) good things that come from breast milk. According to The New York Times:

The antibodies passed from mother to child in breast milk could reduce disease among infants — including one recent study that found it could prevent the premature death of 900 babies a year.

And that’s not all. Harvard Medical School did a study showing that if 90 percent of mothers followed the standard medical advice of feeding infants only breast milk for their first six months, the United States could save $13 billion a year in health care costs.

“The old adage that breast-feeding is a child’s first immunization is really is true,” said Dr. Robert W. Block, president-elect of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “So we need to do Baby Bottle Warmer we can to remove the barriers that make it difficult.”

Why do so many people seem to want to make breastfeeding, maternity leave, and childcare so difficult? We are not asking for government handouts, but let’s be serious. My husband and I pay $3,000 a month in childcare and only $5,000 a year is part of flex spending. And now my $300 breast pump that I was very lucky to have covered by Baby Bottle Sterilizer wouldn’t be classified as a medical expense?

Do we want people to have children or not in this country?

The IRS likened breast milk to any healthy food and said pumps are no more deserving of a tax break than orange juicers. Yes, they seriously said that.

Oh, but lucky us! We do get one nod under the new health law. We will be permitted unpaid breaks to use breast pumps. Unpaid. Wow. Aren’t we lucky to live in such a progressive country?

“There’s been a lot of progress in the past few years making the public, the medical establishment and even Congress recognize the health benefits of breast-feeding,” said Melissa Bonghi, a lactation consultant in Bainbridge Island, Wash. “But I guess the I.R.S. will just take a little longer.”

Breastfeeding advocates say they will return to Congress to get a tax break after being disappointed by the IRS, but the defeat says more about this country’s attitude toward moms — working die casting, specifically — than anything else.

Working moms need support to continue breastfeeding. They need places to pump privately and places in which to store that milk. The message the IRS seems to be sending is that breastfeeding is only for the wealthy, those who can afford $350 breast pumps and hundreds of Baby Bottle Sterilizer in accessories each year. No one is asking for anything for free. We are still paying for the pumps. It just makes sense to at least give a little tax break on such a big purchase.

And while the IRS will make exceptions for mothers who get notes from the doctor saying breastfeeding is “medically necessary,” it seems a little ridiculous to have to jump through so many hoops for a service that should be a given.

But oh no. That would be too easy. Let’s not make it easier for working moms. That would be way too progressive for our bootstrapping country where nothing is free. Except AstroTurf, natch.