I recently had a baby and needed to use a breast pump to collect milk for my newborn child. I wanted to use a product that was BPA free, and found that Medela is the only company on the market that gaurantees that every plastic part of their breast pump that comes in contact with milk is BPA free. Since this was the product the hospitals used as well, I decided to investigate. The Medela breast pump comes in various prices, sizes and capacities. The one the hospital gives to use, and recommends is a 2000$ electronic pump, the Medela Symphony. This can be rented at any drugstore in Calgary for 3-5$/day, or 75-100$/month, depending on where you go. Super drug mart is the cheapest and Kendall pharmacy and Shoppers drug Mart the most expensive. Once you rent this pump, you also need to buy tubing, the membrane, and breast mold, costing about 50$. If you use this pump in the hospital, perhaps you can take the parts you used from there.
The other options are these- Some people prefer to buy an electronic lower grade Medela pump for about 400$ new, or 200$ used on e-bay or such. I would suggest renting, unless you plan to use this pump for more than a month. I didnt need to.
Infact, I bought a 67$ manual Medela Harmony breast pump, which comes with two BPA free plastic milk bottles, the breast mold and handheld pump, with a nice book on instructions and tips to breastfeedind and proper storage of breast milk. The only problem was, if you push on the moldable breast mold instead of the hard plastic clamps it comes with the mold very quickly warps and doesnt make a proper suction around the breast anymore. I returned mine for a new product (even though they clearly state they will not return this product once opened, if it is defective or breaks right away they will excahnge it at Toys-r-us). I have since been using the manual hand pump, I pump about twice a day and this product works fine for me. I have noticed that the manual pump can be attached to an electronic motorized attachment which was about 125$ at Toys-r-us.
I would highly recommend the hand held manual Medela breast pump for occasional use, if pumping more than 3 times a day, I recommend the electronic breast pump from Medela.
Written by Smriti on October 5th, 2008 with no comments.
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Upon recently having a baby, I got a gift certificate to this baby store in Calgary. I had visited their Market Mall outlet and was quite happy with the environmentally conscience products they carry. Since i live closer to the Crowfoot branch, I decided to go there. I need to find washable or flushable diapers for my new baby, she was only 6lb at the time. Well, once I was in the store, the two nice ladies whom were helping other customers didnt bother to greet me, or even look at me. I browed around for 2-3 minutes, when I noticed that both the sales women were now free, and simply chatting and complaining to each other. I made eye contact with one, and she was polite enough to ask me if I needed help. I said yes, I needed this particular product. The girl promptly said, well, the only thing we have is for babies over 8lb, and turned around to go. I stopped her and asked if they had any slow flow nipples that would fit a Medela feeding bottle, to which she said they had no slow flow nipples and I should probably go to Shoppers Drug mart and look for them there. I asked her if she had any other product that could help me, and she said no they didnt. So I said thanks and decided to look around anyways. In the meantime, I noticed a frantic dad had come in, he asked the other sales girl if they had any pacifiers for a newborn (which I know that they do have). The sales girl promptly said no they didnt and that he should go to Shoppers Drug Mart or TOys-r-Us and look there.
In my browsing, I found a Green to Grow BPA free feeding bottle with slow flow nipples that I liked, and a separate package of slow flow nipples (I guess its not in the sales girl’s job description to recommend a product to a customer!). I brought my items to the front desk, where the two women were sitting and again complaining about something or someone. I asked how many nipples were in the package i was holding, the girl looked at it, and didnt know, so she asked the other girl, and she didn’t know either. SO they simply looked at me and said, that they didnt know. Anyways, I decided to get the items, my baby needed slow flowing nipples and bottles. So I pulled out my gift certificate to pay. The girl looked at it as if it was some kind of alien, then showed it to the other girl, and she said well, we dont take those, when I protested saying that it was a gift for 200$ from Bo bebe, she said, well its from the Market Mall location, you need to go there to spend it. I thought that was ridiculous so I told her so, so she said, ok they would take it, if I would spend the entire 200$ at that moment! I thought that was simply dumb and decided to leave without my items. In the meantime the first sales girl had rung my items through and said that I owed 35$, I said I wasnt going to buy anything, when she looked surprised that I didnt want to pay cash for my items, and irritated that she would now have to void the sale.
I wonder where in the world BoBebe hired these two idiots, they have obviously never ever even seen a child forget having or caring for one. I think stores like these should be more cognizant of whom they hire, and yes, they were also only interested in those customers whom were dressed posh and looked like they would spend a lot of money, talk about discrimination. I am NEVER going back here. Infact I went to the market mall store, and they were more than helpful, curteous and patient with new mothers and babies, not only looking out to make a buck.
Written by Smriti on October 5th, 2008 with 15 comments.
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