Hi everyone so just a quick thought i am hoping to breast feed my next baby due in dec and wondering if breast pumps are an essential. If they are im gonna buy one early so im all prepared. Did anyone have trouble with the manual ones cause they are the best priced but if there crappy let me know and i can save up for an electric. Thanks sorry if i sound a bit blonde
Nup, not essential. I was given a manual one and have access to an electric one but hardly use either. Especially in the begining, you just want to focus on getting breastfeeding working without worrying about pumping as well. If you do need one (cos of a prem baby or similar) then you can buy one or hire one pretty quick. THe ABA hires and sells pumps and you get a discount if you are a member. If you join up you also get a discount on their breastfeeding classes which are also really worthwhile.
I have the avent Isis manual pump and it does the job. I use it once in a blue moon though and didn't buy it til ds was a couple months old as I had mastitis and needed to keep one boob drained to help it clear. I don't think they're an essential unless you're planning on leaving bubs alot or giving EBM frequently.
In a normal breatsfeeding situaton you shouldn't need one and I wouldn't buy one until absolutely necessary because the warranty starts from the ay you purchase it not the day that you start using it......we bought ours early knowing our bubba would have to go to special care and I would need to express.....in hindsight I would leave it to as close as possible to the birth date for the warranty as ours broke down just out of warranty but would have still been in warranty if we had waited a bit longer to purchase it if that makes sense......
I bought mine (Medela Swing - electric) a month or two before DS2 was born but we did have some issues with feeding so i did use it to increase supply and get us back on track so i guess it's not essential but i found it good for us. The Medela Swing i have found great, easy to use, easy to clean not a whole heap of parts of anything etc. so yeh i would definately recommend one of them.
In an ideal world you wouldn't need one really unless you were planning to express, but for me it was an essential piece of kit as it turned out. I bought the tommee tippee manual pump before the birth as i felt i couldn't justify the expense of an electric. We had lots of problems breastfeeding from day 1, and at a few days old when he was screaming with hunger and i just couldn't get him to latch on all day, and had been trying for HOURS, we eventually expressed and fed him with a sterile syringe. I had tried hand expressing but couldn't get any, so having the manual pump in the house was a lifesaver. If we didn't have it my hubby would have had to go out at 11pm and try and find one in an open pharmacy, which would have added a lot of extra stress to the situation. The manula one was pretty useless though, and after a while when we were still having to use it regularly we got a medela swing, and then when i had to go to exclusive expressing we hired a hospital grade one from a breastfeeding centre. When i bought it i wasn't sure if i would use it, but i was very glad to have had it, so personally i would recommend getting one... but that's probably just from my experience. If I had had an easy breastfeeding journey and not needed it then i'm sure i would be saying the opposite!
Can you buy one and keep it unopened and the receipt and return it if it turns out you don't need it?
When i was pg with my first i bought a Tommee Tippee closer to nature manual pump, i used it as soon as i got home from hospital as my supply was in over load and i needed to take some off before DS could latch on and i found having the pump for this rather than hand expressing helped draw the nipple out as well. I continued to use the manual pump until DS was about 10 months old and then it broke, i definately got my monies worth though! ( i had used it heaps for expressing when i was doing night work and when i went back to work) ,I then bought a Medela Mini Electric, which is great and much faster than the manual pump.
Having the pump on hand as soon as i got home was great as it saved having to worry about getting access to one if i needed it ( we live out of town). If you're only planning to express occasionally then a manual pump should be fine, it does take longer but if you're not going to be doing it all the time it wouldn't matter. It really is up to you, they aren't essential but certainly come in handy. Good luck
When DD decided one night to skip her 2am feed and go straight through from 11pm to 5am (lucky I know, she was barely 5 weeks old) I wound up having to send XP scurrying for a 24hr chemist to get me a pump because I was in a fair amount of pain from engorgement and had already soaked the bed with leakage...and had no idea how to hand express to any degree of success.
It might pay to have a relatively cheap basic pump on hand as a "just in case" thing, and then if you wind up using one regularly you could upgrade to one that suits your needs.
Personally I would wait and see if you are going to need one, and if so, how much expressing you will be doing. There is a big difference between expressing every now and then to keep a stock of EBM in the freezer and needing to express every feed for a premmie. Until you know the situation you don't know which pump will be best. Many mums buy a pump before the baby is born (I did way back then) and then find that they don't need it, or it doesn't meet their needs because their situation is different to planned. Most of the time a pump isn't necessary and getting breastfeeding established before buying one makes things easier. As others have said, there are pumps available in hossy and you can hire or buy one very quickly if one is needed for some reason.
I have an "Avent isis" I loved it soooooo much.
Keeping in mind I bought mine back in 1998 and the design has changed a little, but basicly they are the same basic design with less parts now.
Mine has been lent out to so many friends and they have all loved it.
So comfortable and if any part of it breaks those parts are replacable. You just ring Avent and tell them which bit is needing replacement, pay by credit card and out comes the new bit a few days later. Magic
I bought it originaly for piece of mind, so I could leave ds with Mum and go out for a few hours and not stress about not being back in time for a feed. Worked a treat.
I forgot to add earlier that I also had feeding issues with ds (too much too quick) so I was able to drain off some to start with easily and effectivly with pump.
I also had issues with BF dd with not having enough milk so I used it to increase supply. Which sort of worked. I did end up usin a suply line from Nursing Mothers I think they are called Breastfeeding association now, but I'm not 100% on their new name.
Last edited by fromscratch; May 10th, 2011 at 09:06 PM.
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Breast pump essentials
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