Medela Swing Electric Breast Pump (Medela Swing Electric Breast Pump)

Member Name: Mrs-LT

Product:	Medela Swing Electric Breast Pump
Date:	24/01/09 (168 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use

Disadvantages: Expensive, noisy, painful...

This breast pump costs £84.99 from Mothercare. Well it will be slightly less now since the VAT rate was cut but it was £84.99 last summer anyway.

This is definately a very high-tech pump. It has two phases to mimic baby's sucking and apparently optimise efficiency, although in all honesty all it did was confuse me. It has a control that you use to increase or decrease the strength of the suction around your nipple. It pumps very quickly at first and then slows down.

I also tried the Tommee Tippee Closer To Nature Freedom Manual a few times (although LO never took to expressed milk so I used neither over a prolonged period) and I certainly do not feel that this is worth the £60 price difference between the two. Luckily I bought the manual and borrowed the electric as I would have been gutted to have forked out nearly £100 on it.

There is nothing wrong with it per se, I just do not feel it is any better or more efficient than the manual, all it did was HURT my nipples. It is so powerful that they ended up bleeding and I cried every time I fed my son. It took ages to half fill the tiny bottle that comes with the pump so it was not hugely efficient.

Where it does beat the manual pumps hands down though is ease of use - you are not in danger of an aching wrist from using this as you just literally hold it gently onto your nipple and it does all of the work for you. But the pain afterwards - oh my gosh it flet like my nipple had been through an old-fashioned mangle!

It is also noisy but this was not a problem for me as I only intended to use it at home. Also, as most people would not use the Medela bottles you would then have to transfer the milk into your bottle of choice - again not a big deal but adding to the overall effort.

My advice would be if you are set on an electric pump, at least get feeding and expressing established first before you fork out on one of these - it is a lot of money to waste if it doesn't work out.

Summary: I would advise you to try a manual first as this could be a rather big waste of money unnecessarily