Talk:Breast pump

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[edit] External Links to breast pump manufacturers

Someone removed the link to Medela.com, yet kept the link to breastpump.com? That's just nuts. I have been an LC in Chicagoland for close to 8 years and have never met anyone who used the foot pump from breastpump.com. Most women use a Medela or an Ameda pump for home use.

I am going to add the link back to Medela. Teachtosing

Anyone have a more representative picture of an electric breast pump? SallyB 04:41, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

As a LC I frequently visit Cerean.net as it's the only site on the net that talks openly about breast pump products, manufacturer policies and dealer information. Where else can you find the wholesale prices of pumps without being a dealer?

So, I changed the link back to the home page a few days ago - now it was changed back to the insurance page. I read the reason about the site not being changed since September 2005, but that was only the 'news' section. It seems they moved the content and links to the home page which is updated several times per month.

What is the policy of external links and the breast pump categroy here on wiki?

All the general links are commercial sites that sell products (except Cerean). Maybe I'm a bit sensitive at being edited, but it seems that as far as non-biased breast pump information goes Cerean is the only one that will talk openly about bad products or policies, yet we are not sharing that information with visitors.

--- Unsigned comment by Teachtosing 15:37, May 31, 2006

That's a great point. I edited the link. MamaGeek Joy 11:03, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What External Links Should be Allowed?

I too would like to engage a discussion about what kind of external links should be allowed. I think it is interesting that Medela and Ameda were left off the list for a long time, in favor of BabyCenter, Breastfeeding Essentials and BreastPumps 101, that all sell breast pumps.

Were Medela and Ameda left off because they sell breast pumps? If we justify Medela and Ameda, how do we justify the above three?

Should we add links to Whisper Wear, Avent, Whittlestone, Bailey, etc? Should we leave off Evenflo and The First Years because they make crummy breast pumps?

What about Cerean.net? Are they too commercial because they have Google Ads?

I agree - this is a topic that is good for discussion. I have been removing www.babylovesyourmilk.com from the external link section as the site looks,feel,smells totally spammy. A quick look shows babylovesyourmilk.com is a newly created site (May 2006) with 3 or 4 different Ad locations on each page and sort of cookie cutter articles. In certain cases we just need to use our best judgement. Cerean.net has been around for several years providing unique information and only has a single Google Ad on each page. Pure Non-commercial links is something that is becomming increasingly difficult to find with the widespread use of contextual advertisement (Google and Yahoo Ads for example). To me, there is a big difference between Cerean.net and babylovesyourmilk.com. The other external links are also to commercial sites - some that are selling products.

I am also not sure why there are no links to other major breast pump manufacturers if we are linking to Medela/Ameda. Or, do we only include the companies with the best reputations? Based upon what source? Once, I added a link to Whittlestone and it was removed as being commercial - all the while the link to Medela stayed.

Should we include the major manufacturers who have the greatest annual sales? (Where do you find those figures?) I think the easiest thing to do would be to go to the Overture Keyword Tool http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ and type in "breast pump." The top 10 brands mentioned are the ones that people searching on the internet have the greatest interest in and this encyclopedia entry would provide them the convenience of all the links in one place. A quick keyword search today revealed these brands as the top breast pumps: Medela, Ameda-Hollister, Avent, Evenflo, The First Years, Playtex, Lansinoh, Whittlestone, Whisper Wear, Gerber. (Above unsigned comment made by MMkds 15:06, September 6, 2006)

BabyLovesYourMilk is spam. Someone has been adding it to External Links on numerous articles in Wikipedia, and repeatedly putting it back, even after major collaborators remove it. The site does not contain any original information, and is not a good source for an encyclopedia. MamaGeek ^{(talk/contrib)}

11:28, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I see a couple more suspicious sites. Mothersagainstmedela.com was created at the end of August. It has all the right buzz words and links to both Wikipedia and 2 Government sites. Why would a brand new site be receive a link from WikiPedia? Answer: To support another site. Mothersagainstmedela.com doesn't have any new information that has not already been spoken about on other sites, but it does have three external links - 1. to wikipedia 2. to a government site and 3. to a blog that is supported by Ads (including Adsense). This technique is a popular way to increase a site's ranking in the search engine results. The site that will benefit is he baby blog. The dummy site is the one we are linking. I am removing the link to Mothersagainstmedela.com.Teachtosing

15:10 4 November 2006 (UTC)

YES of COURSE we should add links to Whisper Wear and Avent and Whittlestone and Bailey and Evenflo and The First Years and Limerick and VersaPed any other breastpump manufacturer. When I was first using a breastpump I was desperate for information on every manufacturer that existed so that I could make an informed decision, but none existed all in one place. And since that time the field of breastpumps, many of very high quality, has exploded. It's smacks of elitism to buy into the marketing hype by the oldest two companies claiming to be the "authorities" simply because they are the oldest two. I'll tell you, they're not "authorities" any more. Breastfeeding women are. This is fueling the inventions of all the new styles of breastpumps. These inventions have been fueling competition, and the older manufacturers have been playing catch-up. Plus, many of the manufacturers that Lactation Consultants have commonly been sneering at have been vastly improving their own products. That's what competition does. Why would you hold back this information from the millions of breastfeeding mothers all with different preferences and needs? I say don't hold it back. If a woman comes to this wiki page looking for information on breast pump manufacturers, by golly give her all of them. If she's smart enough to breastfeed her baby, she is smart enough to make her own decisions about which breastpump she uses. You have the link to Cerean. Let her read the reviews. You wouldn't want Wikipedia to become known as just the shill of the two dominant companies, would you? Does Microsoft need a shill? Does Apple need a shill? Put BACK the links to Bailey, Whittlestone, et al. Open up the windows and let some air in, please. AZSuz

11 December 2006

I agree with opening the windows and letting in some air. Let there be lots of competition among the manufacturers and lots of information about who those manufacturers are and what they are doing. I am adding on Whittlestone, Dr. Brown's, Playtex, Lansinoh and WhisperWear to the manufacturers' list. They all have something different to add to the breast pump scene. MMkds

18:50 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I have been following GotBreastPump.com for a while as an exclusive pumping mom. I think it is a really good website for breast pumps, especially exclusive pumping moms. AZSuz wrote, "When I was first using a breastpump I was desperate for information on every manufacturer that existed so that I could make an informed decision, but none existed all in one place" When I was pumping for my last baby a couple of years ago, there was no central place to get information about breast pumping. I luckily found this website early on for this baby. They have tons of information, ONLY pertaining to pumping, and they do not sell anything. They have links to different stores that sell different breast pumps, but they don't sell anything themselves. Therefore, I am placing there website back onto this article page. wndyw1