Inexpensive, practical, and efficient (updated)
Written: Jan 31 '01 (Updated Jul 27 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Inexpensive, easy to use, single/double pump, very portable, won't butcher your breasts, great customer service
Cons: Semi-automatic suction, noise
The Bottom Line: An excellent pump for an excellent price. I highly recommend it.
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| kaserin's Full Review: Bailey Nurture Iii |
The Bailey Nurture III is the 3rd of a long line of breast pumps that I've used. My quest for the perfect breast pump began with the birth of my daughter almost 4 years ago. We received a hand-me-down Medela Mini-Electric pump and the Medela manual hand pump when my daughter was about 4 weeks old. I first tried using the manual hand pump. I found it to be really cumbersome and tiring having to use both hands to pump. With the Mini-Electric pump, I could feed the baby on one side and pump on the other, but only in the day time... the sound of the pump was too loud to use at night. Also, my breasts always felt butchered after I used it.
I began working full-time when my daughter was 6 weeks old. At first I carried the Mini-Electric pump to work with me, but it was really time consuming only being able to pump one side at a time. (One milking session would take me about 30 minutes.) One of my coworkers who was also pumping recommended the Nurture III, which was recommended to her by a lactation consultant. I bought it at Kaiser Permanente for $90 almost 4 years ago (great deal!). It didn't come with a tote bag, but I was able to purchase one with extra storage bottles for only $30 at KnoxBreastfeeding.com (another great deal!). It took a little bit of time to get used to controlling the suction myself, but after I perfected my technique, I was able to pump about 10 ounces in less than 15 minutes.
I really liked being able to control the suction on my own... no sore breasts. It requires the coordination of one fingertip and some familiarity with how your own breasts let down, but I found this to be a plus rather than a minus. The only thing I didn't care for, as with all electric breast pumps, is the noise. (It's not as noisy as the Medela Mini-Electric pump but is still very noisy. It makes a humming/buzzing sound.) When I needed to go somewhere where I couldn't pump in complete privacy, I brought my Ameda Egnell One-Hand manual pump with me instead. (By the way, this manual pump puts the Medela manual one to shame.)
I'm about to have my second baby and plan to pump with this one as well. We recently called Bailey to order some replacement parts. They were extremely helpful, and we received the parts in 2 days.
UPDATED
Since the birth of my son, I've had the opportunity to test drive 2 other electric breast pumps (the Ameda Purely Yours and Medela Pump-In-Style) and wanted to share my comparisons and thoughts about the Nurture III versus the other 2 popular electric pumps.
Pros:
User-regulated cycling - The pump uses 2 rubber rings around the openings of the 2 bottles and a tube between the 2 breast shields to create a vacuum. The cycling is created by covering a removing a finger over a hole on the cap of one of the breast shields. On a good day, if I was in a groove I could get as much milk, sometimes more (sometimes much more), than an automatic cycling breast pump just because I could quicken or slow the pace as needed.
Very discreet, portable tote - I have a dark blue canvas CaringBag Tote for my Nurture III. It is about 1/3 the size of the totes for the Purely Yours and the Pump-In Style AND 1/2 the weight. There are 2 compartments: the top holds the breast pump, tubing, breast shields, and bottle stands; the bottom holds 1 Blue Ice (the kind for cooling 6 soda cans), and 6 milk bottles. The CaringBag Tote is so small and light that it fits in my back pack. It looks like a canvas lunch bag...it is definitely the most discreet looking out of the three totes. When I was waiting for the Purely Yours, my cousin let me borrow her Pump-In-Style. The day I returned to work from maternity leave, I carried 3 huge bags to work: my back pack with notebook, writing utencils, and Palm VII, etc.; my very heavy laptop bag, and the 7+ lbs. Pump-In-Style. It really bothered me that the Pump-In-Style was so big, bulky, and heavy, and had room for only 4 bottles. This is only enough for 2 pumping sessions. And, as "fashionable" as the Pump-In-Style bag looked on the outside, I definitely wouldn't have called it "discreet". I thought the Purely Yours would be lighter, if not less bulky, than the Pump-In-Style. I was wrong. While the Purely Yours motor is about a pound (as opposed to 4.1 lbs. for the Pump-In-Style), the entire tote with everything in it weighs almost as much as the Pump-In-Style tote and is just as huge and bulky. The Purely Yours is very utilitarian and can hold 6 bottles, but it doesn't look "fashionable" or "discreet". Also, neither of these totes, each with 3 ice packs, can keep the milk cool as long as the Nurture III CaringBag Tote (up to 16 hours according to the manual). When I came home from work, the 3 ice packs in the Pump-In-Style were still cool but already all melted. The Blue Ice In the CaringBag Tote was still very cold and partially frozen, and the milk was still extremely cold.
- Long warranty - The Nuture III has a 2 year warranty instead of the 1-year warranty that the other 2 have.
- Filter-protected motor - It doesn't have a closed-system like the Purely Yours, but there is a filter that keeps the milk from flowing into the tubes that connect to the motor.
Cons:
- User-regulated cycling - On bad day, when I wasn't into a groove, I couldn't get as much milk as I could with an fully automatic pump. Also, if I positioned the Bobby pillow just right, I could type emails with both hands with the other 2 pump, and could type with only one hand (and a little bit of coordination) with the Nurture III. :)
- Can't pump into disposable or freezer bags - Because of the way the vacuum system works, it needs to use rubber rings between the breast shields and bottles, so this excludes the use of plastic bags.
- Requires electrical outlet (no batteries or car adapter) - The one thing feature I really wished the Nurture III had was that it could run on batteries. I felt that that I was only thing that kept it from being the perfect highly portable and discreet little electric pump.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
kaserin
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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