Breast pump - electric or manual?

A breast pump, in my opinion, is not one of the necessities you should stock up on before giving birth. If immediately after the birth it turns out that it is needed, for example, to rock the lactation or because the baby can not eat on its own or for any other reason, then you can send your husband to the store and after a quarter of an hour he will be back with the breast pump (and maybe he will also buy some cake on the way).

However, you may not need a breast pump until the baby is six months old or not at all, so I think you can hold off on the decision to buy one until "after the baby is born.".

Types of breast pumps

The basic division of breast pumps is that into electric and manual ones. Electric ones are plugged in and our only job is to hold the breast pump to the breast. This solution is the most convenient, but if you will need a breast pump only occasionally, you can consider buying a manual breast pump. The manual breast pump is, first of all, cheaper, but unfortunately it takes some strength to use it. However, if our plan for maternity leave is to develop biceps and learn patience, this will be a good choice!

Electric breast pumps

Among electric breast pumps, the Medela Swing Maxi Calma model definitely stands out. It is very quiet and can be plugged in or powered by batteries. The solution with batteries is convenient if the hour of expressing milk falls when we are out of the house, in the open air or without access to electricity.

This model can be used to pull breast milk from both breasts simultaneously. If you are interested in such an option, because, for example, you have twins and need a lot of milk per feeding, it is worth buying a corset, which also has Medela in its offer. Then, while expressing breast milk, we will have our hands free, just in time to pull the escaping baby out of the pond or add coffee to a cup for ourselves.

The other noteworthy solution from Medela is the Mini Electric model. Unfortunately, it is not particularly quiet, and if you intend to use it at work, it is unlikely to make a secret of it (if you feel like it). Well, unless we are going to lock ourselves in the bathroom and inform our co-workers that we are going to fly a drone there. Mini Electric will work great at home or while traveling. It's lightweight, compact, easy to disassemble and clean and can run on both electricity and batteries.

Manual breast pumps

I think you can buy a manual breast pump if you assume you'll use it once a year, possibly twice a year, or if you want to save money on fitness and burn some calories while pumping (although that's a bit pointless, since feeding alone makes you burn approx. 500 calories!).

However, if you opt for a manual breast pump, here again it is worth recommending Medela, Harmony model. The advantage of this breast pump is that we do not need either electricity or batteries to run it. It is also very quiet. Basically, its only downside is that it requires physical involvement from the woman and thus, pumping does not proceed evenly and steadily as with an electric breast pump and for this reason it may be less efficient. That is to say, we can simply shuffle our hands for two hours, develop soreness in our biceps and it may turn out that the pumped milk barely covers the bottom of the bottle - but, of course, this does not have to be the case at all!