Avent Isis IQ Duo
This was a life-saver! A hospital-grade motor, gentle but productive suction, the ultimate in control! I had used the Avent manual when expressing for my second son. However, I wanted to improve things for my third son, particularly as he had been born prematurely and I felt more anxious that he should receive little or no formula. In Ireland we have six months maternity leave (good!) but after six months no legal right to express breastmilk in the workplace (bad!) My employer was very good about this and allocated me two extra breaks during the working day but at 15 min each I knew time would be tight. 10 minutes to do both breasts and 5 minutes set-up and clean-up time. And the duo did it! I produced anything from 4 to 6 oz in a session which I calculated my son would have drunk if he had been with me, given that he had started solids shortly after I went back to work. The motor was relatively quiet and if I hunched over slightly , I could rest the collecting bottles on my lap thus leaving me fairly hands-free.
Of course, the really great thing about this pump is that you just find the setting you like and press a button and that's it, the motor does the rest. It' s a very instinctive way of doing things and I found that if I imagined the baby suckling and then attempted to mimic that using the control handle I would get the best flow of milk. I wouldn't have been able to tell you, as with some other pumps, that I was pumping on speed 5 and suction 4. But neither would I have been able to tell you what speed and suction my baby was set at so that was OK!
I have some small niggles with the pump. The first is that Avent customer service really could be better. At one point I thought I had lost one of the silicone diaphragms which are essential to the workings of the pump. Luckily I found it! But it did spur me into calling Avent to order a spare. I was told that it was a brand-new product and therefore no spare parts were available! As I gather from the Medela distributors that this would never be an issue with a Medela pump, I really hope that Avent have gotten their act together on this one! I did get spare diaphragms from the USA in the end ( along with a car adapter) but this involved getting the spare parts shipped to my husband's uncle in Kentucky who then had to post it to me in Ireland. Now why did I have to go through this rigmarole when they have a perfectly good distribution service in the UK? Why do Avent cater better for their American customers? Particularly when we on this side of the Atlantic seem to pay a lot more for our pumps? Also I did not like the carrying case for the pump, when compared with what was available for the Medela pumps it was not as functional. However they do seem to have improved this since I bought it which is annoying for me but great for anyone out there thinking of buying it. The third niggle I have and have always had with Avent is the "gel-packs" they provide to keep the milk cool during transport. They keep the milk cool for 4 hours but this is no good for someone like me who does not have access to a refrigerator in work. I need proper camping-style cooling elements, Medela and Ameda provide these with their top-of-the-range pumps so why can't Avent?
Now, if I like a product, I like a product and because the pump worked better for me than a Medela pump, if I had the choice again I would buy this one. But for some people the above "niggles" might be the decider between this and a different pump and with Medela and Ameda's glowing records, Avent might just want to pay attention to some of the minor detail.