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April 2012 Moms
Your thoughts...breast feeding/pumping related.
I am/was truly determined to breastfeed my daughter until she turns 1 year. The thing that concerns me is that I work in a clinical laboratory. I don't work with bacteria but I do handle human blood, bone marrow and urine. I get these specimens for cancer reasons only however, there really is no way for us to know if these patients have something in their blood we or even they dont know about.
Obviously, I am super sterile about my work. I wear gloves, work in a vacuumed hood, wash my hands all the time. BUT, I still have to pump milk during my time at work. I go to a lactation room to do it but I am still a little wigged out by the slim to none possibility of transferring something to the milk. I just don't know the actual danger that is posed here - if there is any at all and sometimes I wonder if breast feeding is worth any possible risk.
Any sciency geeks/nurse/hospital workers care to share their opinion? I am also interested in what non-sciency people think as well.
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Re: Your thoughts...breast feeding/pumping related.
Disclaimer: not a sciency geek.
I would probably worry too, b/c that's how I am, but I wouldn't think it's any different from living in the world, touching things, etc. You're wearing gloves and washing your hands. That should be enough.
I also work in a lab, but we don't handle clinical samples like you do (large-scale DNA sequencing). I have always been more concerned with the hazardous chemicals that I might come into contact with. There were a few I have worked with in the past where skin exposure could cause reproductive issues in women (!!!).
I would say the chances of something being transmitted into your milk would be extremely slim, especially if you are taking all of the proper precautions. I can see why you'd worry though. PP made a good point, there's probably a better chance of contamination with things you'd encounter in everyday life.
This. All of it, including the not a science geek. But I feel like your environment is probably MORE sterile than like, a family restroom in a mall (idk if anyone pumps there though, just saying), because there needs to be so many precautions with what you do. However I would probably worry too, but I'm sure its fine!
The chain of events would have to be pretty complicated. You would have to be lax in your procedures; your lapse would have to be with contaminated samples; the contamination would have to be something that could hurt LO; you would have to handle your pump in such a way that it would contaminate your milk; it would have to live or be active long enough to then get into LOs system. It seems like such a remote possibility that I would not worry about it.