I support Medela UK. I support them as a company, I buy their products, I use their products and I occasionally run competitions on this blog for Medela pumps.
I commit not to review or run competitions for Medela bottles without pumps, but I feel unwilling to not publicly support Medela. It would be incredibly hypocritical.
When I had my first child, I used a Medela breastpump to express daily due to massive over supply. Thanks to my breastpump I was able to quickly express and get back to caring for and breastfeeding my baby.
When I had a problem with my pump, the PR company behind Medela – Bump PR – quickly resolved it for me.
I lived in South Africa for six months where I donated breastmilk for HIV positive babies, something I was able to do successfully, quickly, and easily due to my Mini Electric pump. I donated so much milk the staff were shocked.
For me to pretend they don’t exist because they advertise their one very unique teat, in a market flooded with advertising, would just feel wrong. Medela advertise breastfeeding bottles and breastmilk storage. They do not even make or sell formula dispensers, and to my knowledge they are the only producer in the UK who do not. Does that make them blameless? No. Does it make them the best option I believe I have? Yes. (Run a search on different company names on http://www.ibfan.org and of the products available in the UK, Medela comes up the least number of times.) Least bad is still better than very bad!
I know some companies are completely WHO compliant, and that is great, but unfortunately, many of them are not even found in the UK.
Hygeia for example, while being a fantastic company and committed to WHO compliance, is not commonly found in the UK.
Ameda are now available in the UK, from the Ameda website – so again, not commonly available – but go in and out of WHO Compliance.
I don’t even know of others on the market, largely because we don’t get them here.
YOU KNOW HOW SMARTIES is Nestle owned in the UK, but not in the US? Well, if I were in the US and felt that we had the options available to us that the US do, or if I had ever seen a single Medela advert on TV (or even in a magazine?) I might feel differently about it. Either way, if you want to list ‘sins’ of bottle manufacturers, Medela in the UK are about as compliant as those of us who pump can get right now.
