A Review : Haakaa Silicone Breast Pump

Something funny happened this morning. The Man is usually in charge of all midnight and early morning diaper changes. I’d wake him up to do it since he sleeps through most of the through-the-night-feeds. I actually think he has the shorter end of the deal because I only have to bring baby to the breasts, and baby and I then drift back to sleep, but he’d have to wake up properly to change nappies.

Anyway, he brought the baby back to me, all fresh and clean this morning, and I continued nursing baby while patting his bum to help him sleep. It was all smooth and soft and at first I thought..ahhhhhhh..the feel of clean diapers (I was half asleep and groggy). But upon further patting…I realized I was patting on baby’s bare bottom! It jolted me awake and gave me mild panic because the baby had just farted (fart, shart..we never really know). But all was well and we had a laugh over it.

I want to write about the Haakaa Silicone Breast Pump.

The second picture is taken from https://www.instagram.com/itsybitsybabymalaysia/ - what a perfectly composed picture! The pump is seen with a cap in the first picture, and a flower stopper in the second picture.

It was my first proper piece of breastfeeding equipment and I feel all nostalgic about it.

What is it?

The Haakaa Silicone Breast Pump is a one-piece silicone cup that is soft. You squeeze it once and cup it onto your nipple, and it creates a vacuum, suctioning it to your breast, and it will stay put until the air pressure inside regulate and there’s no more suction. When that happens, there will be a sound of air being released (a pop!), and it doesn’t fall off the breasts immediately without warning – you do have a few seconds to catch it, it loosely hang around the breast until you take it off.

I first bought it after reading about how the internet moms rave over it. They say it catches the let-down from your other breast when you feed baby from one breast. Some moms even managed to build their freezer stash from this humble piece of silicone! I was intrigued and I gave it a go.

Firstly I must say that I owe my babies’ first few bottle feedings to the Haakaa. It collected the milk flowing from the other breast every time I nursed baby, and you’d be surprised how much there is! The milk is accumulated and we used it to see if baby will drink from the bottle. We only did this from week 4 onwards – I didn’t want baby to be confused by the bottle (since it is easier to drink from bottle and the suckling pattern is different between breast and bottle teat). He drank from the bottle, no problem and my mum would bottle feed him once a day to give me a break / some time to shower in peace. All with milk collected using this Haakaa cup.

The design and thinking behind this pump is indeed genius – no parts (besides the stopper or cap), no assembly required, easy and instinctive to use. But I must say that it is not entirely painless. Different women have different experience with it, but I know I’m not the only one who feel that this could be painful. To call it a pump when it functions more as a collection cup is a slight misnomer, but not entirely wrong because the vacuum created by the suction does put pressure on your nipple, resulting in slight stimulation for let-down.  The nipples become grotesquely LARGE and it is kept in that state until there is no more suction. It won’t immediately hurt, and it is not a sharp, instant pain. But if your nipples are already sore from the constant nursing / pumping, the vacuum enlargement can be quite uncomfortable.

Since I do tandem pumping (ie nurse baby on one side and pump on the other side) – I prefer to use the electric pump (I have the Spectra S1). Its speed and suction is adjustable, and I find it a gentler way to draw milk from the breasts compared to Haakaa’s blunt suctioning of nipples. It also goes without saying that I can get more milk with an electric pump compared to the Haakaa, though I have been surprised before – I’d gotten up to 3oz from one breast with the Haakaa, and that’s quite comparable to the electric pump. Occasionally I still take it out for its ease of usage and no need for any assembly – very important with a hungry, screaming infant.

Overall, I’d recommend this product. But this won’t be your primary pump. It’s more like the useful side-kick, ever ready, ever willing to serve. I can imagine it being very useful too if you have an overactive let-down – if your other nipple starts spraying when you feed baby from the other boob. All the milk will go to waste, not to mention make a mess!

Ps: everytime the pump depressurise and make a sound, The man will ask if me or the Baby farted. So there you go. It makes a fart sound as a warning, not exactly a POP sound.