Medela Pump In Style – An ROI

With Sagan being born so early, there were some concerns with whether his latching and suckling would be sufficient to bring in my milk supply. Luckily, I had some lactation counselors that were on the ball and they had me pumping that very first night in the hospital.

Now that Sagan is older and stronger, he does have a few meals here and there directly on the breast, but for the most part, we are “EPing” (Exclusively Pumping). The day we got home from the hospital, Ryan ran out and purchased a Medela Pump in Style from Babies R Us. At first glance, one may think the $299.99 cost is pricey. However, in our case, compared to formula our Medela Pump in Style promises to be a bargain!

I didn’t start recording volume metrics until Sagan was a week old. From July 20th through September 14th (56 days), we’ve pumped 44,866 milliliters (or 1,517 ounces).

Daily Milk Production – July 20, 2011 – September 14, 2011 (Larger View)

Looking at Walmart.com a six-pack of Similac Expert Care – NeoSure 1-Qt Ready-to-Feed Bottle (good for prematurity and catch up growth) comes in at $44.00. Each individual bottle costs $7.33 and contains a quart (756 milliliters) of formula. That comes out to $0.0077 per milliliter ($0.23 an ounce).

That puts the break-even point at 38,716 milliliters (1,317 ounces). We hit that on 9/8/2011 at 4:11 PM after only 50 days of pumping and a number of those days were still building up to a full milk supply!

As a disclaimer, I expect it would be more economical to purchase powder formula as opposed to the ready-to-drink I’ve priced out above. We have yet to purchase formula for Sagan (w00t!), so I wasn’t sure how many ounces the powder would make.

Finally, a quick aside. If you find yourself in a situation where you will be pumping frequently, I highly recommend the Simple Wishes Hands Free Breastpump Bra. At $31.20 it pays for itself at a mere 4,025.63 milliliters (136 ounces). It allows you to pump and still tackle other tasks, like diaper changes, bug fixes, answering support emails… and writing blog posts about your breast pump. 😉

Related Link
Formula Cost Calculator from kellymom

Appendix – Raw Data

Date	Total Milliliters Pumped
7/20/2011	312
7/21/2011	394
7/22/2011	381
7/23/2011	441
7/24/2011	504
7/25/2011	528
7/26/2011	522
7/27/2011	570
7/28/2011	576
7/29/2011	632
7/30/2011	625
7/31/2011	628
8/1/2011	661
8/2/2011	681
8/3/2011	735
8/4/2011	744
8/5/2011	733
8/6/2011	712
8/7/2011	834
8/8/2011	809
8/9/2011	749
8/10/2011	855
8/11/2011	669
8/12/2011	851
8/13/2011	844
8/14/2011	687
8/15/2011	855
8/16/2011	878
8/17/2011	783
8/18/2011	885
8/19/2011	892
8/20/2011	814
8/21/2011	840
8/22/2011	909
8/23/2011	887
8/24/2011	966
8/25/2011	839
8/26/2011	855
8/27/2011	945
8/28/2011	706
8/29/2011	1025
8/30/2011	847
8/31/2011	1030
9/1/2011	787
9/2/2011	1062
9/3/2011	870
9/4/2011	958
9/5/2011	864
9/6/2011	899
9/7/2011	1155
9/8/2011	823
9/9/2011	1009
9/10/2011	912
9/11/2011	998
9/12/2011	841
9/13/2011	1043
9/14/2011	1012