As a notorious cheapskate, it may seem out of character for me to consider wool nursing pads that cost almost $20 a pair. While I was pregnant, I obsessed over this purchase. Nursing pads were something I’d never thought about at all pre-pregnancy. I hadn’t even considered their existence. After doing some reading, I came to the startling realization that lactating women leak. This frightened me.
I learned that there was a simple way to prevent soaking all my shirts in breast milk: wear nursing pads. I didn’t want to buy disposable nursing pads, and I heard cotton nursing pads soaked through too easily and resulted in a cold and clammy chest. Somehow I found www.danishwool.com, a website promoting wool nursing pads. Intriguingly, the website claimed you only really needed one or two pair, because wool has the magical ability to feel dry even when wet. According to the website, the lanolin in the wool “has an antibacterial effect and removes odors.” It goes on to say that “even if wool is wet with sweat, urine or breast-milk, the lanolin goes to work cleansing the wool—it need only be washed when the lanolin needs replenishing.”
As I am not one who needs to constantly clean and disinfect everything, this seemed okay to me. So I bought a pair. I thought I could try them out and order more if necessary. This might be a good strategy for other pregnant women as well, as you never know how leaky you are going to be. Some women nurse for a couple years and need breast pads the whole time. Others find they stop leaking after the first few weeks or months of breastfeeding.
My review: I would recommend LANAcare wool nursing pads, which are very soft and don’t feel wet, as promised. I’d often be surprised to take them out and find them soaked through, as I couldn’t feel the dampness at all. I would often run them under hot water and squeeze them out and let them dry overnight. This is when it would have been handy to have a second pair, but I was too cheap for that kind of practicality! I trusted the claims that the lanolin kept the pads sanitary and never had any problems with thrush or anything else. This product appealed to the environmentalist in me; it was nice to own just one pair of nursing pads instead of an entire box of disposable pads or several cotton pads that needed to be frequently washed and dried. The wool itself is dust mite/chemical/pesticide-free, according the website.
There were only two downsides to these pads, as far as I was concerned: the initial high price and the lumpiness. I had to wear them under a pretty thick bra. They would have been noticeable under a sheer or tight top. I spent a few months wearing looser and thicker clothing than usual. I wore these pads for about six months. At that point, I didn’t seem to need them anymore, even though I was still nursing. Despite these two detractions, I would not hesitate to recommend LANAcare pads for the thrifty, eco-conscious nursing mother.
