The Medela Swing Breast Pump Helped Me Go To My Best Friend's Hen Party Completely Pain-Free
Honestly, it’s life changing is a regular series where we talk about the weird and wonderful possessions we can’t imagine life without. Think of it as an ode to the mundane, bizarre and, sometimes, wholly unnecessary products in our lives.
If you’ve breastfed, chances are you’ve suffered the discomfort of feeling engorged. It happens when your breasts are too full with milk: sometimes as a result of those early days, when your body hasn’t quite settled into the rhythm of supply and demand; or if your baby’s feeding patterns change; or if they can’t latch on properly. At times like this, you need the Medela Swing Flex 2-Phase electric breast pump. For me, it was a life-saver.
If you’ve used one, then you’ll recognise that unique sound immediately – like something you might hear on a farm. Yet the steady bovine sound is comforting, too, because it only means one thing: that you’re working as hard as you can to produce liquid gold. The Medela Swing pump was the fastest, most effective way I found to do it, but it’s not cheap (£139.99 at the moment from Boots).
Still, it worked. Whenever I felt like my breasts had turned to footballs, I turned to my trusty friend - the Medela Swing. And so did all of my friends. It was like a cult buy we’d recommend to each other whenever one of us was pregnant and wondering which essentials we would need.
It also became vital when my best friend was getting married. My daughter was only six months old, and I was in the thick of breastfeeding. I couldn’t foresee how I would be able to go to the hen party without doing something to relieve the feeling you get when a few hours pass without expressing milk - that unmistakable feeling of pressure inside your breasts; which swell up and become hard and lumpy (that’s the milk ducts filling up). I was also worried that if I didn’t express some milk to take the edge off, I might be at risk of contracting mastitis.
