A lot of people - to some extent understandably, I'd probably have to agree - find discussions about female bodily fluids a bit 'icky'. If this is you, you should immediately turn away....

I'm not a naturally boastful person but that said, I do consider myself to be a bit of a champion breast-feeder; bearing in mind that this holds true only as long as the standards I read about so regularly in eg. the 'Daily Mail' and other papers - wherein are quoted inflamatory statistics such as '80% of women find find breast feeding onerous / painful etc., or they don't like having a little baby hanging off their tit, and so give it up after the first 20 minutes' - are to be believed, at any rate.

So I breast-fed the first one for two and a half years (which admittedly was getting a bit over the top by the end of it) and the second one nine months and still counting. Which I mention because presumably, this would make me a significant contributor to Boots Disposable Breast Pads' target market.

Unfortunately I didn't get on well with these when I bought a box when I had my first sprog and only ended up using them on a very few occasions. I can't recall how much I paid for the pads back then, but I understand it's currently about the £4 mark for a 40-changes-of-two-pads (ie 80 pad) supply. This seems a bit pricey, considering what the breast pads are - which is oddly-stuffed, circular bits of papery material, each about 6cm in diameter. They have a very slippery, silky covering that is presumably supposed to be for comforts' sake -

For comforts' sake! The number of bras I've tried on over the years that feel like they've been made primarily out of industrial-grade wire wool! It's a bit late to be worrying about a market womens' comfort in the breast area, I would say -

- but I found the covering makes these pads slip about and not stay in their allotted place. (You slip them into the front of your bra, and that's supposed to hold them where they should be). They don't seem to be made out of any kind of super-absorbable fabric - such as you'd get in those cardboard-thin liquid absorbing pads for - shall we say - 'downstairs' use, and what they most reminded me of was 1970s sanitary wear. I suppose the super-absorbable materials might have 'chemicals' in that you wouldn't want getting into your baby's breast-milk.

The main thing that occurs to me in terms of reviewing these pads - apart from how unpleasant it was to have to fish one out of my bra once it had become saturated with human milk, which I found happened in very little time when I used them most, just after I'd given birth - is that they came in what seemed to me to be an unnecessarily capacious big pink cardboard box, that was difficult to accomodate (on the wardrobe shelf where I kept mine, at any rate). Once the box was open the pads were just in two loose stacks inside, and had a tendency to all cascade out whenever I opened the cupboard I kept them in, which was not ideal.

Suffice to say that I didn't bother with these at all when I had my second sprog. The thing with secreting breast milk is - in my experience at any rate - it settles down to a pretty reliable 'supply and demand' pattern within a couple of months after the birth (at most). I found that the need for breast pads to absorb any excess only occurred fairly early on in the first few months of breast-feeding, to be honest (although I can well imagine that other peoples' experiences could be quite different). At the time when I was leaking milk myself, I found sticking a face flannel down my top to absorb any excess was a lot comfier and more practical (in terms of the amounts absorbed) than messing about with piddling little nasty Boots breast pads. Obviously, I couldn't go out like that - (well. I do live pretty much a backwater of the non-fashionable part of Gloucestershire, and there are regularly folk you see quietly going their business here who are far more bizarre in their outward appearance than just someone with a breast-milk-soaked face-flannel stuffed down her top would be, but such is the beauty of this part the world that in Dursley, nobody even gives them a second look - but I'm speaking of accepted generalities, here) - however, and I suppose if I had been trying to look my best (look my best in the first few months after giving birth! Hah!) a product like the Boots breast pad would've been quite handy.