Shared Symphony or my own Pump-In-Style

[panacea]

I'm pregnant with my 3rd baby and will be going back to work after he or she is born. I'm planning on about 8 weeks off but then will be working full time. I'm a nurse and I work nights, so full time is 3 12-hour overnight shifts per week. I do not want to switch to the day shift, nor would it be easy for me to do so.

My unit has a Symphony breastpump available for staff or patients to use. I'm debating between using the Symphony (with my own, clean supplies, of course) or buying my own Pump-In-Style instead. It seems like the hospital-grade pump would be the best way to keep my milk supply up, but using a pump that other people also use makes me a little squeamish. If I used the symphony, I would probably buy a manual pump to use at home also but would not buy a PIS.

Any thoughts? I was a sahm with my other two babies and have never had to pump at work before, so the only pump I've ever used is the Avent Isis.

[whitnessforhim]

Sharing the pump wouldn't bother me much because its not like your sharing the actual pump pieces, just the motor itself. Thats the same thing as renting it.

I rented the Symphony for 6mo. and thought it was a fantastic pump. Since I planned on nursing for a while after this I decided to buy a pump. I bought the Medela FreeStyle and love it. I've been pumping with this pump for 9mo. now and have seen no difference in this pump vs the Symphony. They both work great.

I've heard a lot of good things about the PIS but decided to go with the FreeStyle because of how easy it is to carry around. It fits in the palm of your hand and is so much less bulkier than any other pump. This was most important to me since I work full-time. It also runs on rechargeable batteries which last me 1-2 wks depending on how much I pump at work. I highly recommend this pump for the working mom if you decide to buy one.

For me if money was tight I'd probably just use Symphony at work and not worry about buying one or at least until later. If I had the cash to spare now I'd buy one. It would be nice to always have one on hand for those just in case times.

Hope this helps.

[madelsmama]

I have used the Symphony in our pumping room a few times. There was nothing icky about it. EVERYTHING, except the actual unit, is yours.

If it's available to you for free, try using it a few times. If you don't like it, then you can invest in the PIS.

[zediseot]

I love the symphony. I rented one after a supply dip with ds and with this baby, I just rented one at the hospital from the beginning. I like it much better than the pis (which the the pump I started with after I returned to work with ds). Like a pp said, since the symphony is no cost to you and every part you need for the symphony would transfer tot he pis, there's no reason you can't buy a pis if the symphony doesn't work out for you.

[Prettyskittle82]

I would use the Symphony at work... but you might want to consider something for when you need to pump when you're not at work....

[KerryS]

Another thing to consider is - what do you do when you need to pump and another staff member or patient is using it? I'm also a nurse on an OB unit, and we have two lactinas on the floor, and there have been several times when I have had to wait to use it. So I just bring my own PISA now instead.

But I would not hesitate to use a shared Symphony. If nothing else, you can wipe it down with Cavi-wipes first or whatever your unit uses to wipe off equipment.

[panacea]

thanks for the feedback everybody.

Kerry, I haven't ever seen a patient use our Symphony. We have it at the lactation consultant's insistence but typically we take our patients to the postpartum unit within an hour or two of delivery and baby is at the bedside the entire time. There is one other nurse on my unit now who is pg, I don't often work with her but I'd hate for one of us to have to wait for the other to pump if we're working together! So that is something I hadn't thought of, but it's definitely something to think about. Hmm. Thanks for that, I really hadn't thought about that.

I was planning to buy an Isis or similar manual pump if I decided to just use the Symphony. So I would have a pump to use at home and, I suppose, if someone else was using the Symphony, but I've never been able to express a ton using a manual pump so I wouldn't be comfortable relying on that frequently.

I'm leaning toward doing both and just buying a PIS AND using the Symphony. It feels sort of wasteful to buy an expensive pump when I have one available at work - but formula is probably more expensive over time, if we have to supplement because I can't keep my supply up.

Gosh, I feel like a first-time mom here! This is sort of intimidating.

[Prettyskittle82]

I was reading about that in one of the parenting magazines, and it says that rental pumps like the Symphony and the Lactina are closed circiuit pumps, so milk can't get into the parts like the other pumps, so its safer to use those than any other pump that someone else has used.