Average Price: $30-40
Availability: Widely available
Product Link: EvenFlo Comfort Select
Rating:

The Evenflo Comfort Select pump is a single-breast automatic pump with automatic cycling and a vacuum control dial to adjust suction. It operates on power from either 3 AA batteries or an AC Adapter.

This breast pump can be credited with teaching me an important lesson that any mom that plans on breastfeeding may find herself learning: research pumps in advance. Even if you’re planning on exclusively breastfeeding, you should familiarize yourself with the variety of breast pumps that are on the market, and make sure that you have at least a small portable pump by the time you go to the hospital to give birth.

My daughter refused to latch on properly for the first few days after he was born and I quickly found myself engorged and in tears. I sent my husband running to the drug store with instructions to “BUY ME A PUMP. NOW!” and he returned with this Evenflo pump.

NOISE LEVEL

Turning it on, it sounded like a coffee grinder, not a very pleasant association for a mom to have with a contraption that she is supposed to place her breasts in. The nice thing about this pump is that it’s definitely “discrete”. If you’re pumping away, someone will think you’re just grinding a lot of coffee. No one could possibly imagine that someone would be pumping milk with a unit that sounds like this.

EASE OF USE

For the first 15 minutes, I couldn’t get the suction to work. It WOULD NOT WORK. I followed the troubleshooting instructions, took apart and re-assembled everything a few times, and then miraculously with the last re-assembly it decided to work. I discovered that it is somewhat particular about how you attach the top unit to the bottle. With this figured out, I then attacked the concept of the inner padding insert. The instructions said that larger-breasted women may not be able to use the pad. Now, my breasts are not large breasts by any means. A B-cup when I’m not engorged. My breast was too big for the insert. So I don’t know who would use the insert exactly. But I had to remove the insert in order for the pump to work. Even with my breasts fully emptied, the insert would prevent the pump from being able to latch on.

COMFORT

Perhaps with the padded insert this pump would be more comfortable. Without it, however, it is unbelievably uncomfortable. At the lowest suction settings this pump would not latch on. At the higher settings it quickly caused my nipples to crack and bleed. The high noise level and lack of comfort made it so that my breasts would refuse to let down the milk, even when fully engorged and leaking.

ACCESSORIES

The Comfort Select comes with a collection bottle, a fast-flowing nipple with a wide base, a handful of disposable breast pads to get you started, and a carrying case. Be careful with the bottle, as it is somewhat difficult to replace. I had no luck with using other bottles with a similar size opening, and had to pump into this single bottle and pour the milk into other storage bottles or into bags. The nipple that comes with the bottle has a very wide opening and the milk flows VERY fast without any pressure or suckling being applied to it. (Watch out that the bottle doesn’t tip over- the milk will pour out through the opening.) My daughter used this bottle briefly and would splutter as the milk flowed too quickly for her to swallow.

THE GOOD

This pump does have a few good aspects to it. The small size makes it convenient to carry. The battery operation makes it easy to have a portable pump that doesn’t require you to manually compress a lever. The vibrations of the motor stimulate the breast and could conceivably help with let-down through that extra stimulation. If you can get it to work for you, these aspects might be things that you enjoy. The low price point is also nice when compared to the more expensive pumps that run upwards of $200.

CONCLUSION

I normally love Evenflo products and find them to be of consistently high quality, with a great price point. This pump is the exception. I wouldn’t recommend it to my worst enemy. I am now happily using a Avent Isis pump which is a manual pump in the same price range.