Best Breast Pump – Best Item for Your Baby
Breast pump can be the most important gadget for both mother and baby. This useful tool will be a precious resource, in which mother can feed her baby with the most precious liquid; breast milk. Working mother will obviously require a breast pump to support breastfeeding during working, but a stay-at-home mom will also need this item in case she has to leave her baby with the nanny. With many choices of breast pump available in the market, it is probably confusing for you to pick the best breast pump which accommodates your need.
This article will focus on how to choose the best breast pump based on the energy source as well as some choices of famous brand of breast pumps available in the market and a guidance on choosing the best manual breast pump (which is cheaper). Also, in the last section of this article, I’d like to share my own experience with this favorite gadget and how I manage a schedule for expressing breast milk. Hopefully, this can help you decide the best breast pump for you and your cute little one ^-^.
Important Points When Choosing the Best Breast Pump
Cost might be a main factor when choosing a best breast pump. But there are many other points you must put into consideration before purchasing your best breast pump:
- Is the pump easy to be used?
- Is the pump adjustable?
- Is the pump easy to be cleaned?
- Is the pump cause pain during usage?
- Is the pump efficient? Or in another word, can it help you produce more milk in a certain time?
- How often will you use the pump in a day?
I don’t say that a low cost breast pump is not good while it’s all depends on your requirement. The best breast pump is not always the expensive one. However, a high cost breast pump usually has more added values for the user (that’s why it’s costly).
The electric one is usually more expensive than a manual breast pump. In order to give you a brief description, the following section will describe types of breast pump according to its energy source.
Choosing Best Breast Pump Based on the Energy Source
There are three choices of energy source you can put into consideration while choosing your best breast pump;
Manual Pumps
Manual breast pump is operated by your own hand. You can consider buying this type if you won’t find any electric source in the place where you’re going to pump. This manual pump will be your best breast pump if you plan to pump only once a day, while it can be tiring to use and may be not effective enough if you use it several times a day.
However, manual breast pump is not always cheap (although it’s cheaper than electric ones). The best manual breast pump is a pump that comforts you; don’t burden your hand, arm and neck with excessive fatigue. I suggest not to choose one with bulb and tubing, its quite difficult to be cleaned, hurt your breast and not effective to produce more expressed milk. Choose manual breast pump which imitate the baby’s sucking pattern, which won’t give a sore breast.
Battery-Powered Pumps
The battery-powered pumps are not very popular compared with manual or electric pump. This type is portable but you have to change the batteries frequently, unless your milk supply will be decreased.
Electric Pumps
Many mothers will find electric one is the best breast pump. These pumps usually have two milk compartments which make you possible to express milk from both breasts at the same time. The best news is they operate similar with baby’s sucking pattern which is useful to maintain your milk supply. An electric breast pump may cost a few hundred dollars and may be the most expensive from all type, but they usually have been completed with accessories such as car AC adapter, travel cases, built-in milk coolers and hands free kit.
Selections of Famous Brand of Best Breast Pump
Below are some choices of famous brand of breast pump. Visit Amazon to read more helpful users’ reviews.
Philips AVENT BPA Free Twin Electric Breast Pump, White
Price: approximately $167. Philips Avent Electric Breast Milk can help you emptying your breast milk during working. You can produce until 5 oz of milk in one sitting without loud noise.
Lansinoh Affinity Double Electric Breast Pump
Price: approximately $168. This product is very quiet and very efficient. It has only few parts which make you easy to clean and assembly. You don’t have to clean the tubing while all parts that come in contact with milk are very easy to be sanitized. The operating is also very easy-one dial for suction and one dial for speed.
Ameda Purely Yours Breast Pump
Price: approximately $150. Ameda Purely Yours Breast Pump is easily freestanding; it has nice slots on the pump to hold your pumped milk in the bottles. Your breast milk can not get into tubes, so it can prevent mold to grow in.
Medela Pump in Style Advanced Breast Pump with On the Go Tote
Price: approximately $270. This product is including a cooler bag with ice packs, so you’ll feel like a having a mini fridge. Medela Pump in Style will help you producing breast milk in a shorter time, so it will be a good choice for a busy working breastfeeding mother.
Best Breast Pump – Manual Selection
I wrote this section because I was using a manual breast pump due to my affordability. However I found it was very helpful in supporting an exclusively breastfeeding for my second baby until he was 6 six months. My second manual breast pump helps me providing 500-600 cc of breast milk a day, and its enough for my baby when I left him from 6 am to 4 pm for work. Thanks to my manual breast pump which I rewarded as My 21st Century Favorite Gadget. ^-^
Manual breast pump is also available in various types, feature and price. Unfortunately I made a wrong decision when buying a breast pump for my first daughter. It was very cheap though, but I found it was a horror; it hurt my breast during pumping, it was very tough to operate, it was very difficult to be cleaned and the most important is didn’t give me enough milk. The average amount of expressed milk I can produce with this pump is just 80 cc/day!!! The worst was it worked by pulling out my nipple, very different with a baby’s sucking pattern, so I could not maintain my breast milk supply. May be that’s the reason why my breast milk stopped flowing when my first baby was 4 months.
According to this experience, I didn’t want to make the same mistake. I bought another manual breast pump which cost 6 times more than the first one. Fortunately, one of my colleagues also used the same pump, so I asked her to allow me doing a pumping trial. The result is amazing; I can produce 500-600 cc of expressed milk per day.
What I’d like to highlight in this section is; when you decide to buy a manual breast pump, I suggest evaluating these 4 points (especially when you’re a working mom who don’t have much time to express milk in your work station):
- Manual breast pump must be light and portable.
- Manual breast pump must be easy to assembly.
- Manual breast pump must be easy to operate, if possible choose one which you can operate with one hand.
- Manual breast pump must work by imitating baby’s sucking pattern.
So, if you probably have a limited budget, why don’t you consider manual breast pump as the solution for giving the best for your baby? Below are some famous brands of manual breast pump:
Medela Harmony Manual Breast Pump
Price: approximately $28. This manual breast pump is light and simple while it has fewer parts which make it easier to be cleaned. You can pump with one hand since the handle swivels, so you can use it while nursing your baby.
Lansinoh Manual Breast Pump, 1-Count
Price: approximately $30. The suction level of this manual breast pump can be adjusted simply by how far and hard you squeeze the lever. It can express milk quickly and quietly. Lansinoh manual breast pump also has a soft shield at the funnel so it gives comforts to the breast.
Philips AVENT BPA Free Manual Breast Pump, White
Price: approximately $29. This manual breast pump is very portable, easy to put in your (bigger) purse or diaper bag and also very easy to use and can extract high amount of milk. Philips AVENT manual breast pump may squeak every time you pump, but applying a dab of Vaseline in the middle of the pump where the handle attaches to the suction piece can help eliminating the squeaking. The bad news is, this product has many parts, so you’ll feel like you have a small project when putting it all back together.
Maximize Your Best Breast Pump by Performing Expressed Milk Management
Now, as you’ve chosen your best breast pump, you need to plan a schedule for expressing milk. The purpose is to maximize your breast pump to help you providing breast milk for your baby during working. In this last section of this article, I’d like to share my experience on managing expressed breast milk until I can be a successful breastfeeding mother. At least it can help me compensating my feeling of guilt as I could only breastfeeding my first daughter only for 4 months.
5.45-6 am : nurse baby before going to work
6 am : go to work
11.30-12 am : express milk, minimum 200 cc
12-12.30 : lunch
3 pm : end of working hour
3-3.30 pm : express milk before going home, minimum 100 cc
4.30 pm : arrive from work, nurse the baby as usual until time to bed
8 pm : bed time, I can also take some rest.
11 – 11.30 pm : express milk, minimum 100 cc
11.30 pm- 4 am : sleep, nurse the baby from only one breast.
4-4.30 am : express milk from the other breast, minimum 100 cc
With this schedule, I can produce minimum 500 cc breast milk daily which I divide into 5 milk bottles. I did this routine since Kairo was 2 – 12 months with exclusively breast milk for 6 six months. Now, I’ll show you my own best breast pump by Pigeon (cost approximately $35)
Choosing the best breast pump is not a simple thing. It’s not only good for you, but also for your baby who can get the best gift to celebrate his birth; breast milk. A best breast pump may be costly, however for me it is an investment. Besides, after you didn’t use it, you can keep the pump for your next baby or lend it to your friends or relatives to help their baby get the same best gift as yours. ^-^
Recommended Breastfeeding Guidance
At last, I’d like to recommend you a very good reference so that you can enjoy breastfeeding and experience a beautiful bond with your newborn, right from the beginning.
Breastfeeding Simply-How to Make Breastfeeding Easy, Enjoyable and Successful
This e-book is written by Pinky McKay, an Internationally Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) who runs her own private practice in Melbourne. She is a breastfeeding consultant for “Practical Parenting” and “Littlies” (best selling Australian baby magazines) and also author of best selling books (Sleeping Like a Baby, 100 Ways to Calm the Crying and Toddler Tactics).
Some amazing secrets about the world of breastfeeding you’ll learn from this e-book are:
1. how to prepare breastfeeding before delivering a baby.
2. how to find a comfortable positions while nursing.
3. how to maintain an abundant milk supply.
4. how to express, store and thaw your breast milk.
5. breastfeeding management.
6. how to wean your baby gently and gradually.
>>> Click here! To Buy This E-Book Today <<<
and check what bonuses you may get if you purchase this e-book today.
Enjoy your breastfeeding!
Related article: