‘It was a relief’
Like many new moms, Nancy started using an over-the-counter breast pump to provide Ezra with her own milk while the premature newborn was in the NICU and ICC and unable to breastfeed.
“Our pump at home was not doing much,” Nancy explained. “And that’s when a lactation consultant at Children’s Minnesota told me about the program.”
In 2023, Children’s Minnesota launched its own breast pump loaner program, rather than offering new moms hospital-grade pumps via a third party vendor. Now, moms who qualify for the program can temporarily bring home a portable hospital-grade breast pump for free for up to four weeks at a time. Their baby must be at a Children’s Minnesota hospital to qualify for a pump.
Nancy said she was only pumping a minimal amount of milk using a non-hospital-grade pump. With the loaner pump from Children’s Minnesota, she started pumping more milk than Ezra needed as a premature infant and she now has plenty of extra milk to meet Ezra’s needs as he continues to grow.
“It was a relief,” Nancy said. “The consistency compared with the higher-grade pump, I was able to pull the milk out more effectively – it helped me quite a bit.”