Ardo Calyspo Breast Pump Review

Some time ago we gave away an Ardo Calypso Breast Pump courtesy of Ardo UK. Here's a review I received from the winner: 

'Hiya ,

I'd just like to take the chance to say thank you again for the wonderful prize - it may sound silly but it has really changed my life! I've written a little review just to say how much I love it!

I have been breastfeeding my daughter Rosie-Faith for 5 months now and absolutely love it , although I have always found expressing milk to be a chore which I did not look forward to ......... that was until I tried the Ardo Calypso Electric breastpump.

It is blissful!

The instructions were so simple , it was extremely easy to assemble and to take apart again to clean (an important consideration for a busy Mum of two like myself.)

I was so impressed with the efficiency of the pump.

I was able to express as much milk as I needed whilst experiencing complete comfort and ease.

The pump has many different combinations of vacuum and cycle , meaning you can mimic your baby's natural feeding pattern.

The feature which I valued the most was the 'VacuuSeal' technology which is a small membrane in the top of the pump which prevents bacteria and impurities from contaminating the breastmilk. This provided me with complete peace of mind that I was feeding my baby the very best.

I would honestly recommend this breastpump to each and every breastfeeding Mummy or Mum-to-be as I feel it is the perfect combination between comfort and efficiency.

I have been using it every day , and now expressing milk is something I look forward to.'

~ Please note: The above should not be interpreted as an endorsement from the DBM group or myself. No-one was paid for this review. 

Tummy Balls!

How often do you hear someone say that they simply didn't make enough milk to breastfeed their baby?

When I hear this I must admit I often wonder if the person really didn't make enough milk* or if they were actually suffering from a case of ISIS (aka insufficent support and information syndrome).

That's why when I saw these appear on my facebook newsfeed,

I was completely delighted.

I've seen similar products elsewhere on the net in the past, but I've always thought there were ridiculously over-priced and they seemed only to be available to professionals. These, on the other hand, are totally affordable (£5.99) and just seem so much more accessible for ordinary mums.

What are they?

They're 'tummy balls'. They show the approximate size of a new baby's tummy at 1, 3 and 10 days old. Amanda at 'Reclaiming Normal, Birth and Postnatal Doula Services' has kept it very simple - to her enormous credit!

These little balls make such a powerful myth-busting visual statement that I really wanted to put them on the blog. 

There is a shooter marble showing how a brand new baby's tummy only holds between 5 and 7 mls of colostrum; a ping pong ball to represent the 22 - 27 mls it can manage by day 3; and a plastic egg showing the 60 - 80ml that a 10 day old baby's tummy can hold at one time.

In 'old money' that means a teaspoon at a time on day 1, less than a fluid ounce per feed by day 3, and 2-3 ounces at a time by day 10 (there's a great link here giving more on these 'norms').

This simple visual could save new mums such a lot of worry! So many post-partum mothers get freaked out to find they're only producing a (perfectly normal) few mls of colostrum whilst the lady across the room is providing her new baby with 40mls of Cow & Gate. Being able to hold a marble/ ping pong ball in your hand really brings it home just how unnecessary large amounts of milk are in the early days... 

If you over-feed a new baby they are more inclined to bring the milk back up (reflux). You are simply asking their little tummy to hold more than it's able to. Put your marble next to 40mls of formula milk and it's pretty easy to see where the problem arises.

If only Bounty would do something useful and put THESE in their bags, eh? 

If you have a friend who is expecting a baby, you could really do a whole lot worse than buy her a set of these tummy balls (complete with organza bag!). How FABULOUSLY EMPOWERING to be able to answer the 'just give that baby a bottle' brigade by wordlessly lobbing a ping pong ball in their direction... ;)

You can find out more about Amanda's tummy balls here**.  

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*Obviously some mums do suffer from genuine (as opposed to perceived) supply issues - there are lots of possible causes for a real milk supply production.
** Nb - I have not been paid to write this! I just think stuff like this is too good not to share. 

(Also - since I wrote the original post, Ardo have been in touch with me to point out that they also sell 'BellyBalls' - a similar product to the above. As Ardo are currently a WHO code compliant company - something of a rarity these days - I'm happy to include them here too.)

The Witches of Breastfeeding.

In today's Telegraph, Anna White (tired mum of twins) coined the phrase 'the witches of breastfeeding' seemingly to describe anyone who advocates for breastfeeding. 

I love it!

Rather embarrassingly she has hit the nail on the head. The uncomfortable truth is that in our (still) male-dominated culture, men cannot breastfeed. Formula milk means you don't need a woman in order to feed a baby, and scientists are already on the way to producing artificial wombs which will see to it that women are not needed in order to grow or birth them either. Breastfeeding challenges the status quo - and as a result there's a lot of breast envy about!

Many so-called 'witches' were (in fact) lay-healers - wise women. They helped people when they were ill, attended women in childbirth and they helped them to breastfeed their babies. When the male-only Church became dominant, witches were persecuted and burned at the stake... The male-only Universities churned out male physicians and childbirth became a male-dominated affair. Along the way a huge amount of precious knowledge got lost. 

One could argue that the 'breastfeeding witches' are working hard to give some of that lost knowledge about that most womanly of arts back to mothers. Anna White may not have wanted to know about it, but I meet a lot of mums who desperately do.

So I'm a witch?

Bring it on. 

http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/witches.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerit-quealy/forgotten-women-witches-h_b_859230.html
http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-witchcraft-and-witches.htm