Case Study | From 80ml and near Mastitis to 400ml and successfully Exclusively Pumping

“I cried with relief”

Those four words sum up the overwhelming feeling that new mum Preeti experienced when she first used her Milkbar Advanced Flow Double Electric Breast Pump. 

Up until that point, her journey with breastfeeding had been an emotional one.

Preeti had recently given birth to her first baby - a boy. He was only six days old when she noticed what she thought was blood in his nappy. She rushed him to hospital, to be told that while it wasn’t blood, the colour was because he was so severely dehydrated that his urine was intensely concentrated.

In the space of five days, her newborn baby had lost 13% of his body weight. While Preeti had thought things were going fine, in fact her baby wasn’t latching and sucking correctly.

For the next three days, Preeti visited specialists, Plunket, lactation consultants - basically anyone who could give her a solution to her feeding struggles. But, there was no tongue or lip tie, and Preeti was told by experts, ‘If we can’t teach him, no one can’.

By this point, Preeti almost had mastitis. She was sent home with a rented pump from the hospital, and for the next four weeks, she would painfully pump every hour, barely achieving 50ml of breast milk from each breast.

Distraught, she was “sitting on Facebook crying” when an ad for our Milkbar breastpumps appeared. She read the reviews, and contacted Laura to learn more. At this point, the cost of renting a pump was adding up, while Preeti was achieving little progress with either pain, or milk production. Preeti felt she ‘had nothing to lose’, and purchased the Milkbar Double breastpump.

The purchase, she says, “changed my life”.

“The first time I used it, I got 400ml from both breasts. Previously I was only getting around 80ml. It was such a huge difference, and I remember crying with relief. It was so comfortable and the sucking felt so natural. There was absolutely no pain or discomfort at all.”

Preeti then explained a little more as to why this pump is “everything” to her. 

“Because I was hardly making any milk, I was having to top up my baby’s feeds with formula. But I tried several different ones, and he just kept vomiting them up, so you can imagine how important it was to me to find this pump. I am totally dependent on it to provide my baby with the nourishment he needs.”

Preeti has continued exclusively expressing for the past 7 months. That’s also included a trip to India where she “Pumped on the plane, pumped in the airport, pumped everywhere!”. In that time, she hasn’t had to replace any parts, and says it works just like it did on the day she first took it out of the box.

Choosing the double pump has meant that Preeti has more than halved the time she spends expressing. She says that the flexibility to control each side makes it easy to use. “My right breast is a bit of a slacker. If my left has already done its job, the right side can continue pumping without any interruption.”

At this stage, Preeti’s goal is to continue to express until her baby is around 12 months old, and says she never would have gotten this far at all if it wasn’t for her Milkbar pump.

“I can’t even tell you how bad a time we went through initially. No one told me that it could be normal for him to simply not latch and that pumping is normal too. It’s important for new mums to know that pumping can be so easy. I wish someone had told me earlier that a pump like this existed, and those first few weeks would have been so much easier.”

“The Milkbar breast pump is just amazing; it’s the best pump that I have ever seen or used. Whether you are exclusively pumping, or returning to work and want to express, it is SO worth it.”