Spectra - S2 Plus Electric Breast Milk Pump for Baby Feeding - Convenient Breast Feeding Support

First of all, thank you to all the people who took the time out of their busy lives to share very helpful reviews! Special thanks to reviewers Michelle Jang and K. Barnett for helping my wife and I make an informed decision with the Spectra Baby S2. I'm not going to delve or rehash anything they have already mentioned but I will like to contribute our experience with the S2 for others who are trying to decide which breast pump to purchase in this daunting sea of baby related products. So here goes:Our daughter was born 7 weeks prematurely. As a result, my wife was going to 100% breastfeed if her body allowed it. Whether you are a first time parent or a seasoned vet, it's rather scary to see your child so small and so frail with many unknowns. Unfortunately, our little angel had trouble latching on. My wife's team of lactation consultants tried many different angles and attempts to get her to latch, but at the end- our precious little preemie was one that preferred the instant gratification of a bottle. Luckily, my wife was able to express and we are taking it as a blessing. Our insurance company provided us with the Ameda Purely Yours Double Breast Pump. My wife is a planner; so within 3 months of her pregnancy we received the Ameda Purely Yours Pump. We checked online to compare prices and found that Ameda Purely Yours was going for $150. My wife was quite excited about the prospect of using a breast pump and entering the world of motherhood....I on the other hand was ecstatic that we just saved $150 for a pump that looked promising on paper.Fast forward to 33 weeks after the delivery....my wife had her initial consultation with the lactation consultant. I was a bit agitated with the consultant at first because whenever she mentioned breast pump....she was constantly pushing for my wife to rent a "hospital" grade Medela Symphony unit. When my wife mentioned that we brought our own breast pump from home, the consultant asked to see it. She took one glance at the Ameda and shrugged it off. So naturally, my wife and I were completely turned off by her attitude towards the Ameda. She never really gave us an explanation to why the "hospital" grade pump was better than the "consumer" grade pump. Because my wife also has a condition called PCOS, the probability of my wife's chances to express is a lot lower than women without PCOS. For one week, at $20, we told ourselves let's give it a shot and record data on her milk yield. As scientists, we are obsessed with recording data and have been quantifying our daughters milk intake on a daily basis and still to this day my wife has been recording her milk yield. Although one week's data is not as good as a month's or two months of data, my wife's recorded yield between the Ameda and the Medela suggested a large discrepancy between the two units. If my memory serves me correctly, she told me that the average difference in yield was by 15-25 mL. A mother's breast milk is often referred by both healthcare professionals and moms alike as "liquid gold." A difference of 25 mL was enough to convince us that there was merit in renting a Medela unit.Renting a Medela unit from our hospital is currently priced at $85 plus tax per month. The other alternative was to switch to formula...which we did not want to unless we had to. Again, we wanted to give our daughter the maximum benefit of breast milk for as long as my wife could express. According to medical professionals, milk is beneficial to infants due to the passing of mom's antibodies to child. Studies have shown that infants who are fed breast milk tend to be leaner, less likely to get sick, less likely to develop autoimmune diseases as adults, and are less likely to be obese as adults. However, at $85 a month....this was going to get rather expensive really quickly. We already have various bills coming from every direction and the last thing we needed was another bill. Obviously, we would've continued to rent the Medela if we had no other choice.The last time I checked, the Medela Symphony is priced at $1500 and is marketed to hospitals and lactation consultants. There are a couple of vendors out there that will sell to the public but according to Medela....the Symphony is not meant to be sold to the public but rather rented. Medela does offer a "consumer" grade called the Medela Pump In-Style. The Pump In-Style received much better reviews than it's predecessor the Medela Personal Double Pump but we have never owned either so I can't really say one way or the other if they are just as good as the Symphony. Many people have sworn by these consumer grade pumps....but many negative reviews have suggested that the pumps lose suction over time.With only a week left on our Medela rental, I was determined to find an alternative for my wife to help us save more money. Enter the Spectra Baby. I stumbled on the wonderful reviews by Michelle Jang and K. Barnett and decided to take a chance. At $142...now at $128.....why the heck not? For one week, my wife compared her yield between the Spectra S2 and the Symphony. The results were virtually identical! The first thing my wife noticed was that the suction power was just as powerful as the Symphony. The other cool thing is that we were able to use all of her Medela parts with the Spectra with just minor tube modifications shown by Michelle Jang and we were in business!! The Spectra Baby is the best kept secret! Some insurance companies in several states have started to adopt the Spectra systems as they are gaining momentum in popularity. So how is the Spectra better the Medela Symphony?1. Cost2. Weighs significantly less at 3.3 lbs3. Has a night time light4. Can still use existing Medela flanges, pump parts, and various accessoriesMy wife has been using the Spectra S2 since the end of April 2015 to this present day of July 14th, 2015 without any hiccups or degradation in suction.We can't be any happier with the Spectra S2 and I hope this review helps other parents with the decisions. Special thanks to the many people that leave very informative reviews....without your reviews we would've never have known about great products such as this one. I hope to pay it forward with this contribution of a review. Good luck to you all.

Second time mom here, my first born didn't latch and I had problems with my milk supply due to medical conditions and I was advised by a lactation consultant to rent a hospital grade pump, which we didn't because it would be too costly to do it and even more costly to buy one... so we stick with the electric pump sent by our insurance, Ameda Purely Yours ( which I'm happy to say they discontinued, that thing litterly sucks at sucking, not even gonna go into details in here!)So this time around you couldn't imagine how happy I was to come across with spectra S2, it is hospital grade and affordable! I contact my friend who is a la lech league member and I asked her, is that true what they say about this pump on the reviews? I asked her because she conducts a lots of meetings with the LLL and she told me, yes a lot of moms are very happy with this pump... and right away I thought this the one! Just in case my second one doesn't latch either and I have to become a exclusive pumper, if not still a good pump for occasional pumping( since it is compact, lightweight and quite), just one thing was bothering me the recent bad costume service reviews I had read.So the first part of this review is focused on their customer service.Costumer service experience: I'll tell you, when my pump arrived the package wasn't damaged at all, but when I took it out of the box, I noticed some scratch marks on the side, as shown on the pictures, and I was like omg my worst nightmare became true! I'll have to use their costumer service! Even tho my pump worked just fine, I didn't notice anything wrong with it, other than the marks, I still decided to contact them to have it replace just in case it would cause me problems later on with constant use.So I read the instructions that came with it, to contact them thru Facebook, email or phone, but it said clearly that thru Facebook would be the fastest, see picture attached, which I have no problem with it... I hate to call anyone specially costumer services where you left on hold for hours, you have to put your phone on the charger, so you loose mobility and have to use the speaker phone and it's a mess cause it drops the quality of the call and been a mom you constantly dealing with "small emergencies" , loud tv and screaming, it is not just an option to me, personally!.. so I happily contacted them thru Facebook, got a fast response, like within 2 hours, send the picture you can see on this review and right away no questions asked they issued me a replacement that arrived within 2 days. Plus, if you follow them on Facebook they have a lots of demo videos and tips that I wasn't a were of , so I super recommend. If you are one of those that, doesn't like social media , no worries I made a test myself. At the same time I sent the message thru Facebook book I also contacted their costumer service thru email, as shown in the instruction card and I also contacted iserve, the sellrer, thru the marketplace here about the problem, that was in the morning. The email responses arrived in the afternoon from both of them, spectra and iserve. Iserve very cordially informed me that I should contact spectra since my package wasn't damaged, otherwise they would replaced it and spectra as I already knew said they would be happy to replace the item and that they were sorry for the inconvenience. So they were not lying about it , Facebook is the fastest way to contact them following by email. No problems with the seller or the maker of this pump. I did not use call center, so I can't say anything about it, as I told you beforehand calling is not for this moma here 😊Bottom line, if you like me and you are in doubt about buy it or not because you are afraid that their costumer service sucks and they will not honor their warranty, do not worry it, they will replace and they do not suck!As this pump has a lots of part that you can buy it here that are not made by spectra, be aware that using them you may be voiding your own warranty! I know this pump has a lot of parts for cheaper that are made from different brands and lots of adapters that allows you to used bottles from Mandela pumps and etc without have to buy all new ones, but just have in mind that it could be an issue later on in case you need replacement of the machine ....Now for the second part of my review the pump itself:Well so far I noticed it is indeed quieter than most, I love the night light future, easy to assemble and clean. Very compact and light weight, easy to carry around the house, I have no issue with the corded length, and if you do I suggest a cord extension.My only issues with this pump so far is that their user manual isn't one of the clearest when it comes to talking about the pre set cycles modes, which I ended up getting a more clear answer about them and have a better understanding after iserve contacted me back they answer my questions so I'm very happy about. Shout out to spectra here, please make a better user manual with more deep info about your product and keep a simple chart for quickly assemble and use instructions for those that don't care about all minimal specifications!Lastly, the bottle holder on the top of this pump, it is only for 1 bottle instead of 2, why they did that is beyond me and the one they have doesn't hold the bottle very well, it can be very easily knocked it off, but those issues are not biggie compare to the overall in my opinion.Also if you have an emergency you can buy parts for it on Target storesUpdate: It is a great pump, I ended up exclusive pumping, been pumping way more milk than the last time. For EP I would advise get extra parts and bottles, makes things easier when you have to pump about every 2 to 3 hours.