If anyone thought that having a baby was some sort of fashion accessory or in any way glamorous, they only have to hear the dulcet tones of a breast pump in action to obliterate that preconception. I fell, foolishly, into that category. In all honesty, I feel a bit sorry for breast feeding women who have a baby gnawing on a nipple for the best part of an hour and then have to sit whilst they hook up to a glorified milking pump. I tell you, on the wife’s behalf, breast has better actually be best!! 

To make this whole process a touch more bearable, having an efficient pump is crucial. I was sent the Medala Swing to test out, (well, for the wife to test out) and see if it is as efficient as everyone says.

The Swing comes pretty much ready to be assembled which is very simple to do and therefore saves the hassle and faffing of connecting tricky tubes and valves. It really is

straight forward; I didn’t even need the instructions! These parts assemble and dissemble with ease which means cleaning isn’t any more laborious than it has to be. Our one came with an award winning teat too called the Calma. This is really helpful because it means you can use the bottle straight away rather than decant it into another one. 

One of the best things about this pump is that the 2 settings allow you to ease yourself into it. You don’t connect yourself up and have your nipple stretched and pulled within an inch of its life, but rather it starts of with a gentle massaging and gradually increases as milk starts to flow. The buttons on the motor allow you to have good control over the suction power and you can flutter between the 2 suction settings. The feeling is supposedly very similar to that of a baby suckling although I’ll have to take the wife’s word for this as I haven’t tried either the baby or the pump…honest! 

We have experienced a couple of other pumps and this one certainly comes out on top. The ‘off yellow’ is an interesting colour choice, but that’s merely cosmetic. I think at 3am the last thing on your mind will be the colour of the breast pump!

Dads, if your wife needs a good quality breast pump, definitely look at this one. It comes in really competitively priced so its well worth considering. The Medela Swing has won plenty of awards, so it’s no surprise that it receives an official Dad Network star rating of 5 / 5 stars and our award of recommendation.