Dear Cyberyoda,
If you have sterilised the pump from your friend it should be fine to use. My suggestion would be to use the pump from your friend and see how easy it is for you to use. If you find it satisfactory to collect milk then there is no need to get a more powerful expensive pump.
Remember expressing is like breastfeeding - the more you do it the more milk you will get. Thus if you express six times for 10 minutes you’ll get more milk than it you express once for an hour.
Some mothers have difficulty getting the let-down to work well when pumping. It works with no trouble when the baby is breastfeeding directly but doesn't seem to work at all when using the pump. Many things that don’t matter when breastfeeding directly can affect the quantity when pumping. For example, how tried you feel and how much stress you are under.
You can also encourage the let-down reflex artificially, by looking at your baby, or by having a piece of his clothing next to you.
• Apply a warm wet cloth to your breasts.
• Massage the breasts in small circular motions around the perimeter of the breast.
• Gently stroke your breasts with your fingertips in a downward motion toward the nipple
• Lean forward and gently shake the breasts.
• Gently roll the nipple between your finger and thumb.
It may help to try a hand expression technique called the
Marmet Technique,
http://www.lactationinstitute.org/MANUALEX.html
This is useful because it helps the let-down and so you get more milk.
The instruction “
PUSH straight into the chest wall” is important.
(Please note that the diagram of the breast anatomy is out of date. Recent research has discovered that the milk reservoirs under the areola (the dark coloured part of the breast near the nipple) do not exist. The method, however, still works.)
Some mothers have found that the pumps are not good at getting the let-down to happen and so they use hand expression until the let-down and then swap to pumping. You can also use the times at the end of the Marmet Technique, including the massage, stroke and shake but instead of doing the hand expression use the pump.
Best wishes,
SARAH