Breast Pump Review - Medela Swing type

It was in my 3rd trimister that I came to know about a breast pump. I came across a discussion in a forum about expressing the BM using a pump, storing it and using it later. Thought "Ok, this is for working moms, since I am gonna stay at home I don't really need it" and then totally forgot abt it. I initially thought once I deliver the baby, I'll automatically produce milk and the baby will latch on easily. But, I was totally wrong.

Breastfeeding was not that simple n easy as I'd thought. I had cracked nipples, wasn't producing enough milk for the first few days and when the milk production was good enough baby wasn't latching properly. So I ended up having lumps in my breasts which were even more painful. My gyny suggested me to use a breast pump. I could get only a manual pump in our town which looked like an auto horn just as Sree mentioned in her review. It took 1.5hrs for me to pump just 4oz of milk :(( and after each pumping session I almost collapsed. So finally decided to go for an electric pump. Called up Sree and she suggested me to go for Core. Finding an electric breast pump in our town was out of question (none of my family members've heard abt a breast pump till then) and so I asked my aunt in hyd to get one for me. She couldn't find this Core breast pump and hence my next option was Medela. Though it was a bit expensive (around 10K) for my requirement, since I wasn't sure about other brands I had to go for this Medela Swing type Electric breast pump. This brand was suggested earlier in the forum by many of our friends.

This breast pump was absolutely one of the best purchases I've ever made. It made my job easier. I expressed almost 8oz in less than 20min. It can be used both electrically and battery-operated. I mostly used with the battery operated mode. It has a 2-phase pumping programme, phase 1 is the stimulation phase where the nipple is stimulated just like when the baby is sucking rapidly. Once the milk let down starts phase 2 - Expression phase begins in which the pump speed slows down. It is portable, easy to clean n sterilize. For the first one month I used this pump almost everyday. Finally my baby got adjusted to latching and I slowly reduced expressing milk. I prefered to feed him directly than using a bottle. The only draw back I found with this was, it makes some noise in the stimulation phase.

I haven't made use of this pump to its full extent, because I'm a stay-at-home mom. Once the latching issues were resolved, I used to express only when I had to go out for shopping or when I needed some rest. I used this for 4 months and passed it on to one of my friends who is a working mom. She has been using this for the past couple of months and had no issues till now. And yeah, this comes with a one-year warranty. I got this from Mothercare, Hyderabad. I would recommed this to working moms who express milk at a regular basis.

Thanks to all my TIA friends and especially Sree for their suggestions.