How To Clean Used Medela Pump In Style Avanced

Here'south not a topic you'll meet on many tech blogs. How to safely reuse a used breast pump.

Obligatory Disclaimer: I am not a doctor nor breast pump engineer. Do non rely on this commodity for medical communication. I am only describing what nosotros choose to do. For the impatient, skip to the last section.

We're expecting a new baby and madly scrambling to become everything together for the upshot. You'd think with two kids already we might have our act together but its been six years and we gave away or tossed nearly of our baby stuff.

One item, our Ameda Purely Yours Breast Pump, had died. Nosotros bought it because it was ane of the few pumps listed as reusable…alas, made out of plastic it was not to be.

A friend very kindly offered their Medela Pump-In-Manner pump to usa which is really awesome since electrical breast pumps aren't inexpensive. But if you google yous finish upwards reading very dire warnings nearly reusing breast pumps. Some of these warnings are well intentioned from other parents. Some of these warnings are a flake self serving from companies.

Here's the FDA warning provided in many baby forums:

Only FDA cleared, hospital-grade pumps should be used by more than than one person. With the exception of hospital-class pumps, the FDA considers breast pumps single-use devices. That means that a breast pump should only be used past one woman considering there is no way to guarantee the pump can be cleaned and disinfected between uses by different women.

The coin yous may save past ownership a used pump is not worth the health risks to y'all or your baby. Breast pumps that are reused past different mothers can deport infectious diseases, such asHIV or hepatitis.

Ownership a used breast pump or sharing a breast pump may be a violation of the manufacturer's warranty and you may not be able to get help from the manufacturer if y'all have a problem with the pump.

OMG! HIV OR HEPATITIS! Almost sane parents stop considering used pumps correct there. Me, I kept googling. A reporter at U-T San Diego looked into this and information technology turns out that it's not quite that clear cut.

Start, there are no such things as "hospital-grade" pumps as certified by the FDA. The FDA too doesn't certify any chest pump for reuse. The FDA spokesperson Karen Riley had this to say:

"If a breast pump has a separate breast embrace and tubing, and then it can be reused once cleaned," she said, "simply the pumps are not labeled as such.

And

"We have allowed breast pumps that clearly separate (no possible contact of breast milk with the pump mechanism) to exist marketed as reusable with appropriate instructions for cleaning and disinfection," Riley said.

So every bit the commodity states…pretty much the manufacturer decides whether or non to market their breast pumps as reusable and how easy they make to disinfect.

Gee, I wonder if information technology is in Medela's interest to sell everyone a new $300 pump or let folks reuse perfectly good used pumps.

And then, can you safely reuse a Medela pump? Y'all can replace all the external tubing (we bought ours from Amazon) and disinfect the front confront plate only according to Medela in that location's a diaphragm which cannot be adequately disinfected.

The Medela Pump In Fashion® Breastpump has an internal diaphragm that cannot be removed, replaced, or fully sterilized. Therefore, the hazard of cross-contagion associated with re-using a previously owned pump such as the Pump In Fashion cannot be totally dismissed. Multiple use of single-user breastpump automatically voids the warranty of the Medela product. Each female parent who wishes to express milk with a pump should use a clean, uncontaminated breastpump. This is the safest manner to eliminate any take chances of cross-contamination.

This is sort of true. It used to be that you lot could buy a replacement internal diaphragm from resellers. Today, these are all listed as discontinued and to contact Medela. I'yard guessing they aren't likely to sell you one for your used pump. So tin y'all disinfect it enough to exist safe? They sure don't want you to retrieve so.

Hither's the solution we started with:

First question is there any access to the "internal" diaphragm. Really yes. Simply pop off the front plate which you need to exercise to sterilize it anyway. Here'south a nice tear downwards of an older pump in style. The 2008 model we have is largely the same although the face plate was redesigned. The diaphragm looks like this (from Robb's posting):

Information technology'south not hard to disassemble the Medela chest pump. On the one we borrowed it's held in via velcro. And unlike the Ameda it'south not glued plastic but a sturdy metal frame. 1 screw later and you can see the guts. The only somewhat tricky part is accessing the pins for the second plastic face plate that holds the diaphragm in identify.

Once you get this far you realize that Medela could have fabricated this a fairly painless thing to do. Yous as well realize that this $300 chest pump consists of nearly $30 worth of parts and that'south being generous.

Now Robb just used alcohol wipes…which turns out isn't quite enough to kill Hepatitis C viruses. I establish this commodity regarding disinfecting Goldmann tonometers.

Hepatitis C virus was placed on Goldmann tonometer tips, air dried, and then disinfected by dry gauze wipes, isopropyl alcohol wipes, cold h2o washes, povidone iodine x% wipes, and hydrogen peroxide or isopropyl alcohol soaks followed by a cold h2o launder and dry out.

RESULTS:

Percentage of hepatitis C virus RNA remaining after disinfection: dry gauze wipes 95.65%, isopropyl alcohol 5-second wipes 88.91%, cold water wash iv.78%, povidone iodine 10% 5-second wipes 0.72%, hydrogen peroxide soak with cold water launder 0.07%, and isopropyl alcohol soak and cold water wash 0.02%.

89% of Hepatitis C virus RNA left after five 2nd Isopropyl wipes isn't so skilful. It probably means some are still agile. What I did was to pull the pump unit out and then I could set it on it's dorsum on a apartment surface. So I filled the concave diaphragm with seventy% isopropyl booze and left information technology for 5 minutes then carefully dumped it out with soaking the motor. I wiped down the edges with more alcohol and finally took tissue, saturated information technology with alcohol, and left information technology across the diaphragm for 5 minutes. A lot of this was random experimentation to figure out an adequate way to "soak" without taking the assembly autonomously and really soaking.

Replicating the cold water wash was pretty much impossible without risking the electronics board, again considering I wasn't willing to popular the diaphragm out of the pump. I wasn't really sure I could actually reassemble it. So I wiped it several times with a moisture fabric. If there were any hepatitis virus (which I doubt) contagion on the surface it was probably down below 1% at this point.

Given that I didn't believe there was annihilation wrong in the first place and I repeatedly soaked and wiped the surface with alcohol (wasn't going to risk iodine) I would take gone with this equally a 99%+ rubber solution.

As for HIV and herpes and other viruses it seems they are less hardy than Hepatitis. Wiping with an isopropyl booze swab and so allowing the alcohol to evaporate seems to "inactivate" these viruses.

If you are using whatsoever Medela pump (new or used), I recommend wiping down the diaphragm regularly with an alcohol swab, let evaporate and then wipe down with h2o anyhow. Milk Can arrive there and you can go mold growth on the surface. That'south pretty nasty and a complaint y'all meet on Amazon.

Here's the Actual Solution We're Going To Employ

99%+ condom isn't actually 100% safe. Even bold I got any viral contamination downward to 0.02% some parents are still likely unwilling to have the risk. Given that I wasn't able to exercise the full cold water rinse it's probably not that depression anyway.

Recall that I said nosotros take a cleaved Ameda Purely Yours breast pump?

The reason this kind of pump can be safely reused is because it'southward a fully "closed" system. Meaning the function that touches milk is fully contained in the replaceable breast shield. You can never go milk into the pump portion and there's no air commutation between the two sections. What happens is that the pump creates suction which collapses a diaphragm inside the chest shield associates…creating localized suction inside the shield. The only parts that milk tin can touch are the fully sterilizable or replaceable parts.

Ameda claims:

The HygieniKit is the only milk drove arrangement approved past the FDA to protect against cantankerous contamination. It besides safeguards the purity of expressed milk from bacteria and viruses by keeping milk and exterior air split up from i another.

The Medela pump generates the same amount or more suction than our broken Purely Yours did. The tubing is same size and then I plugged the Ameda kit into the Medela pump. The external diaphragm in the Ameda breast shield collapses just fine despite some minor leakage and the combo probably works better than the original Ameda pump (don't enquire how this was tested). Certainly better than when it was half working.

As far as I can tell (remember disclaimers above) this is a 100% condom solution regardless of how contaminated the diaphragm is on the Medela. There's simply no contact with the air used for suction. Milk tin can never make it the tubing nor ever impact whatever role of the Medela pump.

You can purchase the Ameda parts from Amazon. I believe that the total replacement kit should work and even comes with a 1-hand-manual pump as a bonus. I'thou not sure since nosotros already have all the parts I need. I may buy information technology anyhow since our kit is 6 years onetime and a petty worn anyway. If I do, I'll report what I detect.

This technique should exist able to work with whatsoever breast pump that uses similarly sized tubing for suction.

Of import annotation:

This worked on the Medela Pump-In-Style 2008 handbag model because the Ameda tubes fit tightly into the front confront plate. The Medela tubes are harder than the Ameda ones but the same size. Newer Medela models have a dissimilar confront plate but the replacement Medela tubes I purchased fit all of Pump-In-Manner ones merely the only model I tested (because it's the only 1 I have access to) is the 2008 model.

The price at the time of writing for the replacement Ameda kit is $46 from Amazon. Because these components are unmarried user use they are not returnable if opened. If it doesn't work with your used pump you volition be out the price of the kit although you tin still use it as a manual pump.

Also, since my wife isn't pumping still it may be that the Medela kit simply works ameliorate than the Ameda kit. Medela is a popular brand for a reason. One, they seem to exist built better. Second, they may but work ameliorate.

If that's the case, we'll likely go with just using the Medela tubing and breast shields since I already bought all the parts and opened them (once again, single user). For me, I'm reasonably certain I did enough to kill annihilation that might accept been on that diaphragm.

Also consider, every bit stated by Medela, if you lot are reusing someone else's pump the warranty is automatically void.

Links (Active on January 2022)

http://world wide web.fda.gov/medicaldevices/productsandmedicalprocedures/homehealthandconsumer/consumerproducts/breastpumps/ucm061939.htm#4

Why does the FDA tell consumers that breast pumps tin't be reused? | UTSanDiego.com.

Tin can you reuse a breast pump safely? What is Medela hiding? | Medical Noise.

Are used chest pumps a no-no?