The Showdown Between Reusable and Disposable Nursing Pads

After carrying our precious little bundles of joy for10 months (yes, it really is 10 months instead of 9 months) each woman must make a personal decision of whether or not she will be providing breast milk for her child. If a woman does decide to provide breast milk for her child she is then faced with the decision of which nursing pad she will use. The easy thing to do is to buy disposable nursing pads and go on your merry way. However, if you are like me and you want to make sure you are making the right decision for not only yourself but also for your wallet as well as the environment you may be looking at getting yourself some reusable nursing pads. If you are at all considering using reusable nursing pads I have done the leg work for you so that you can make an informed decision about whether or not this is the direction you would like to go. From what I can tell there are six criteria that we need to consider when making a decision about what kind of nursing pad to wear:

• Cost
• Comfort
• Leakage
• Aesthetics
• Environment
• Maintenance

Cost:

In order to do a cost comparison I went to my local Target store to see at what prices the various nursing pads were listed. I chose Target because I feel this is a retail chain that can be found reasonably easy throughout the country and offers prices that are comparable to other big box stores. After browsing the shelves I found only one brand of reusable nursing pads: Gerber. I found only two brands of disposable nursing pads: Lansinoh and Medela. The Lansinoh brand was marginally cheaper than the Medela brand so for the purposes of this comparison I decided to use the Lansinoh brand. Here is a picture of the two brands I decided to compare:

The Lansinoh disposable nursing pads were selling for $8.19 for a box of 60. The Gerber reusable nursing pads were selling for $3.59 for a box of 6. Let’s break this down. Even though the Lansinoh box had 60 pads we must remember that we need to wear 2 pads at a time….therefore, we find ourselves with 30 wears for $8.19. When we divide $8.19 by 30 we get the cost of $.27 cents per wear. The Gerber reusable nursing pads cost $3.59 for a box of 6. In order to determine how many wears we need to get out of the Gerber reusable nursing pads we divide $3.59 by $.27 and get 13.3….lets round this up. At first glance we see that we must get at least 14 wears from the Gerber reusable nursing pads to make them the same cost per wear as the Lansinoh.

However, one additional item to consider is that we need to wash the reusable nursing pads after each wear. Let’s say we use a teaspoon of detergent with every wear of the Gerber reusable nursing pad. A bottle of Woolite at Target costs $3.82 for 16 oz. (or 96 teaspoons). $3.82 divided by 96 is an additional $.04 cents that must be added onto each wear of the disposable nursing pads. Working in this additional element changes the total wear count of the reusable nursing pads to 16 wears. (For those that want to know the math I used: 16 wears times $.04 cents is $.64 cents. $.64 cents plus $3.59 is $4.23. $4.23 divided by 16 is $.26 cents per wear).

The bottom line: If you think you will wear reusable nursing pads more than 16 times it would worth your money to invest in a box.

Comfort:

Comfort is an important factor in this decision due to the fact that when providing breast milk to a child, a woman’s breasts can become quite sore and irritated. After wearing both of these brands I found the Gerber reusable nursing pads to be far more comfortable than the Lansinoh disposable brand. The Gerber reusable pads were made of cotton and were very soft against my skin. I found the disposable nursing pads to be scratchy and itchy.

The bottom line: In my opinion there isn’t even a comparison in this area. The reusable pads are far superior in the area of comfort.

Leakage:

It is important to maintain some sort of modesty when providing breast milk for a child. When going out in public it is important that your shirt stays dry in order to not draw attention to yourself. It was my experience that the disposable Lansinoh nursing pads held much more liquid than the reusable Gerber brand. A few times, when I was especially engorged, the reusable Gerber brand leaked when the disposable Lansinoh brand did not. However, it is important to note that I felt that the Gerber brand did the job just fine when I was not engorged.

The bottom line: If you feel that you may become engorged at a time where it is important to not leak you may want to wear the disposable brand. However, for regular day to day usage the reusable pad worked just fine and did not leak.

Aesthetics:

As you can see from the below picture the disposable pad (on the left) is much larger than the reusable pad (on the right).

Due to the varying sizes of these two pads I found a big difference in the aesthetics of each of the pads under a shirt. When wearing a shirt that was somewhat form fitting the outline of the reusable Gerber brand could be seen through my bra whereas the outline of the disposable brand could not be seen.

The bottom line: If you are wearing a form fitting shirt out in public you may want to wear a disposable pad. If you are wearing a baggy shirt at any time or a form fitting shirt at home, where you don’t care if the outline of your pad can be seen, you would be just fine wearing a reusable pad.

Environment:

The reusable pads are clearly much better for the environment. There is much less waste even with the additional hand washing that is required with reusable nursing pads.

Maintenance:

The disposable pads are clearly much easier in terms of maintenance. After you wear them you simply throw them away and pull out a new pair. Whereas, you will need to wash the reusable pads after each use.

Conclusion:

In my opinion it is important for every lactating woman to have a box of disposable pads as well as a box of reusable pads available for her use. There is no doubt in my mind that a woman who is lactating will find 16 times to use her reusable pads. There are many times in a mother’s life when she finds herself lounging around the house in her baggy sweatshirt and sweatpants. This is an ideal time to wear the reusable pads. Even just wearing them 16 times will help a little bit for the environment, not to mention that the reusable pads are so much more comfortable. Especially for sleeping!

However, it is also important to have a box of disposable pads available for those times when a woman wants to look nice in a tighter fitting top as well as those times when there is a fear of engorgement and a little extra protection is needed.

I hope this helps you to determine which nursing pads would be most appropriate for your use! Here is a site to go to if you are interested in making your own reusable nursing pads.

A New Way to Feed Your Newborn: Exclusively Pumping

If I could venture a guess at the one thing a new mother worries about more than anything else it is how to feed her baby. This seems to be the question of all questions in the arena of new motherhood. Parenting magazine articles dedicate pages and pages to this topic and there are shelves of books and hundreds of web pages all full of opinions as to whether or not to breastfeed or formula feed your baby. Well, this particular blog post is to educate the masses that there is another option for new mothers out there: Exclusively Pumping.

Let me just say that I do not think that formula feeding is bad. And if a mother chooses to formula feed her baby from birth, I believe that mother is just as loving and caring as a mother that chooses to breastfeed. For myself however, I just can’t deny the evidence that breast milk is better for an infant than formula and if a mother would like to be able to provide her infant with breast milk, but the nursing thing just doesn’t work out, that there is another option available.

Exclusively Pumping is when a mother would like to provide her newborn baby with breast milk but for some reason is unable to feed her baby from her breast. It may be that there is a medical reason for not being able to nurse (clef pallet, premature delivery, etc.) or simply that it didn’t work out for other reasons (mastitis, latch problems, inverted nipples, etc.).

I myself exclusively pumped for both of my daughters (and am still exclusively pumping for my second) and have found it to be a livable option. I would have preferred to have been able to exclusively breastfeed in the early months, but it just didn’t work out for us. Therefore, by being able to exclusively pump I was able to provide my daughters with breast milk even though the actual act of breast feeding wasn’t an option. This is something that I am proud of.

Exclusively Pumping is not easy. Essentially a new mother has to “feed” the machine and then “feed” the baby. Typically mothers do not chose to exclusively pump until they have exhausted all resources trying to make breast feeding work. There are many tips and techniques for making exclusively pumping work for you and these can be found at several good websites including an ivillage message board and kellymom.com. I am not going to go into the specifics of how to make exclusive pumping work for you but am rather going to use this post to answer a few typical questions that I receive when I tell people that I am exclusively pumping.

Is exclusively pumping nutritionally just as good as breastfeeding?

It is always best for an infant to receive breast milk straight from the breast because that is when it is the freshest. However, when care is taken to the storage of expressed breast milk, the majority of the benefits are present. The freezing process does cause breast milk to lose some of its nutritional value so if at all possible it is best to give your infant breast milk that hasn’t been frozen. However, if the infant is given frozen breast milk it is still shown to be nutritionally superior to formula.

If you are exclusively pumping how to do you answer the question “Are You Nursing”?

How to answer this question is completely up to the mother. I tend to answer this question differently based on who asked the question. If it is a close friend I smile and give a short explanation that my daughter is receiving breast milk in a bottle. If the person asking the question is not as familiar to me, and more of an acquaintance, I simply say “Yes” and leave it at that.

The most important component of answering this question is to feel confident in your decision to exclusively pump. I can’t stress how important it is to not feel guilty for giving your child expressed breast milk rather than having your child take the milk from your breast; it is your gift to your child.

How many mothers out there are exclusively pumping?

I have never seen a study on this, but I don’t think that there are many. I believe there would be more mothers who chose this option if there were more education about it. As it is today, if breast feeding doesn’t work most mothers immediately turn to formula.

How do you find the time to exclusively pump?

There are tricks to exclusively pumping that make it a little bit easier. There are ways to go “hands free” as well as plugging your pump into an extension cord to give you mobility. I can work at the computer, read, eat, and play with my daughter all while I am pumping. If you get a battery pack to go with your pump you can even pump in your car so long as you take the appropriate measures to maintain your modesty.

Is your baby receiving 100% breast milk?

Both of my daughters received exclusive breast milk until they were 6 weeks old. At that time they received half breast milk and half formula. Any amount of breast milk is a gift and if I can even give them half of their daily intake as breast milk then that is something I am proud of.

All of us mothers need to let go of the “all or nothing” thinking. We can only do our best and our best has to be good enough. Treat yourself kindly and know that you are doing the best you can.

Happy Pumping!