Royal Preston Hospital - Electric Breast Pumps x4

UPDATE: This equipment was delivered in 2005.

The Neo Natal Unit at the Royal Preston Hospital is a busy regional centre, accepting premature and very sick babies from hospitals across the North West. The unit has 20 cots, and can accept babies from as early as 23 weeks, and weighing as little as 450g.

In the early days of life a pre-term baby needs to gain weight fast. By far the best feed is the mother’s breast milk, because it is natural and easier to digest. It also builds up immunity, reduces allergies and reduces other complications common to premature babies such as life-threatening bowel conditions. In the early weeks of life, a premature baby cannot feed through suckling, and must be fed by tubes. It is therefore necessary for mothers to express milk so that babies can be tube-fed.

Expressing milk can be hard for any new mother, but for one who has the stress of having had a premature labour and a very sick child, it can be impossible. The traditional hand-pumps are ineffective and do not match the sucking action of a baby. This means that it is slow and painful to express. The new pump is much more like the natural sucking action, can be easily used at home, and mothers can then bring the milk in for babies.

Medical staff on the unit have asked us to help by providing four Electric Breast Pumps to assist mothers to express milk for very sick and pre-term babies. This state of the art piece of equipment is much more effective than equipment currently on the unit, and will help mothers to easily produce natural breastmilk for their babies.

The pumps will cost £445 each, and are exclusively for use by the Neo-Natal Unit in Preston.