Carol "Zoe" Klingler, left, a nurse with Hospice Atlanta, listens as Gladys W. Franklin describes how she's feeling.

Like everyone else, nurses only get 24 hours in a day. "So if they're going to help more people, you're always looking for ways to do something better," said Ellen Lundy, RN, IBCLC. She was willing to turn inventor to help more mothers who are breast-feeding.

A nurse for more than 30 years, Lundy knew she wanted to work in labor and delivery after the birth of her first child.

"I was very interested in natural childbirth and breast-feeding and became a La Leche League leader to help new moms with breast-feeding," Lundy said. In 1987, she became an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.

"I was the one called in to help if women were having trouble getting started with nursing," Lundy said. She began to realize that mothers of preemies born at 24 to 25 weeks faced special challenges.

"In order to feed their babies, these new moms would have to pump [for] 20 minutes, five to eight times a day," she said. "Many were driving an hour or more to get to the hospital to be with their babies, and they had families, jobs, cooking and lots of other things to do.

"Sometimes they'd get to the hospital only to be told that their baby was out of milk and they'd have to pump before they could even hold their child."

Knowing that smaller motors and new technology had made improvements to insulin pumps and pacemakers, Lundy couldn't understand why women had to use the same hand-held breast pump that had been invented 30 years ago. She believed that the conspicuous pump kept working mothers from breast-feeding longer.

Klingler and Franklin share a hug.

"My father was an engineer and I had some inventors among my ancestors, so I bought a beeper-type motor, attached some tubing and pump parts with a glue gun and made the first prototype," Lundy said.

It would take Lundy about another 15 years to get the product to market. She used her knowledge of breastfeeding to help an engineer replicate a baby's sucking and create a pump small enough to fit into a bra and quiet enough to go out in public.

A stem connects to a small sterile milk bag below which can go directly into the refrigerator, and it leaves the wearer's hands completely free.

"Getting through the patent process was the biggest hurdle," Lundy said. "Patent attorneys cost about $230 an hour — not easy to come by on a nurse's salary — and my first company went bankrupt after I'd spent $8,000."

She eventually got her money back and did get her pump registered with the patent office.

This month, the Whisper Wear Pump will have been on the market for two years and has been used by thousands of women.

"When a mother tells me that she was able to breast-feed for a year and that she couldn't have done it without Whisper Wear, or when a mother of preemie triplets is able to feed all three babies and bring them home, I know all the work was worth it," Lundy said. "Many times I was ready to throw in the towel, but this is what God wanted me to do, because he kept throwing it back at me."

Lundy's invention has allowed her to affect the lives of many people.

"As a labor and delivery nurse, I could help maybe five to 10 new mothers a day with breast-feeding. As a lactation consultant, about 21 was the limit in a 12-hour shift. Now, I'm helping thousands of new mothers every day," Lundy said.

For information on the product, go to www.whisperwear.com.