With the pump in style and any breast pump for that matter there is always the possibility of milk backing up into the pump itself thru the tubing. That is why it is considered a single patient use item. I have seen it first hand. During pump repair where the inside of the tubing meets the machine on the inside. It can get corroded with dry milk. Remember the machine mimics sucking. Now hopefully this has not happened but the company can not guarrantee that it wont. Sometimes the mom who had the pump dosnt even know it is happening. Anyhow, this is just my opinion on it. Sorry.

I know you can contact medela directly by going to their website. Perhaps they can give you some suggestions on ensuring the pump you have will be safe to reuse. I know they rent sets & others have used pumps that have been used before so it's not impossible. I wouldn't give up hope on the pump you have until you have all the details from the company itself. Here is the website:

http://www.medelabreastfeedingus.com

Your absolutley right ... they do rent hospital grade pumps which have external tubing and get hospital grade cleanings. Contacting Medela again would be a good idea.

One thing I'm seeing is that there can be a "mist" from the milk that can travel all the way up the tubing and into the motor, which can't be cleaned. And then somehow it gets sucked back down the tubes and into the milk. I'm not sure if I should believe this, or it is just another way for the company to make more money. I'm going to phone my OB on Monday and ask her I think.

I think that it is better to get a new pump, there are cheaper places, target is one of them, it is 250 for a pump! Thats a 100 dollar difference
its not worth the risk in my opinion

You can also find new pumps & tubing, etc. on Ebay for a lot cheaper than retail stores. I think there's even a seller on Ebay who is an authorized Medela retailer but if I remember right, the prices were still cheaper than stores. :)

Also.... just typed "how to sanitize a used breast pump" into google & a bunch of articles came up telling the pros & cons & how-tos of everything.

Sorry to say that I kindof disagree with everyone here. Even though I think it's a good thing to have a new pump I simply couldn't afford one.

I bought one used for $75 and my husband took it apart and cleaned it and I took all of the parts and put them in a medela plastic bag that you can buy for the microwave and simply microwaved all the parts to clean them. The bag is to disinfect 99.9%. Even if you don't know someone that can take it apart to clean the motor you could take it somewhere to have it cleaned and still have it be cheaper than the brand new ones in the store.

I nursed my dd for 13m and pumped 150 bags of milk and never had any problems and really, didn't have any worries. I'm planning on using again for this next one due in 10 wks.