The Best Breast Pump
With so many new choices popping up every year, choosing the best breast pump may feel daunting. This year, we held a breast pump tournament on our Instagram to help us determine which breast pump reigned supreme in 2023! We discovered many interesting things through the data, and we can’t wait to share what we learned.
So how did it work? For our Breast Pump Tournament, we started out by asking our community to share what their favorite breast pump was. We got many submissions and narrowed the list down to 8 that were shared most often. We set them against each other based on categories: Best General Breast Pump, Best wearable breast pump, Best Milk Collector, and Best Manual Breast Pump.
Round 1 | Best Breast Pumps by Category
BEST GENERAL BREAST PUMP
Most parents who pump will utilize a basic, double electric pump at some point in their breastfeeding journeys. General Breast Pumps were the first category to be put to polling. In this category, our community favorites were the Spectra Double Electric Breast Pump and the Medela Sonata. When these two faced off, Spectra won the popular vote 70% to 30%.
BEST WEARABLE BREAST PUMP
For parents on the go, wearable breast pumps are quite alluring. They allow you to pump while you carry on with your daily tasks. In this category, our community paired the Willow Wearable Breast Pump and Elvie Wearable Pump. Willow lost out to Elvie this round with 66% voting for Elvie, and 34% opting for the Willow pump.
BEST MILK COLLECTOR
For those who want to put the more passively released milk to good use as supplementation, milk collectors are a fantastic option! Milk collectors catch milk that would otherwise be lost in a bra or breast pad. They are also great low-stimulation options for relieving pain by engorgement. For this category, our community faced off the Haakaa Milk Collector against Milkie’s Milk Saver. This was an absolute blow out with 98% voting for Haakaa over 2% for Milkie’s.
BEST MANUAL BREAST PUMP
Hand pumps come in handy to help relieve engorgement and are a great option for many parents who don’t want to be tethered to cords in order to pump. For manual breast pumps, our community liked the Lansinoh Manual Breast Pump and Medela Harmony best. Medela came out on top with 62% of the votes, vs. Lansinoh’s 38%.
After this first round of voting, we moved on to round 2 of the tournament.
Round 2 | Which is Better? Electric vs. Manual Breast Pumps
In round 2, we decided to pair the winner from the general breast pump category with the winner from the wearable pump category and the winner from the milk collector category with the manual pump category. Spectra faced off with Elvie and Haakaa faced off with Medela Harmony.
BEST ELECTRIC BREAST PUMP
We paired the winners of the electric categories from round 1 together to see which electric breast pump our community liked best. The Spectra Doula Electric Breast Pump and the Elvie Wearable Breast Pump are clearly both favorites in their own right, but when put to poll against one another, the Spectra won with a whopping 90% of the votes vs. 10% for Elvie.
These results have caused us to assume that wearable pumps are less popular when compared to traditional electric pumps. While each has its rightful place, it was clear our community found more value in the “old fashioned” sit-down pump vs. the on-the-go wearable alternative.
BEST ANALOG BREAST PUMP
We paired the winners of the “analog” categories from round 1 together to see which option was the community favorite. The Haakaa Milk Collector and the Medela Harmony are both great options, but when only one can be chosen, our community opted for the Haakaa Milk Collector. 81% voted for Haakaa vs. 19% for Medela Harmony.
These two pumps, while neither requires electricity, are used for separate functions. The milk collector is more of a passive milk collection option and the manual pump is used typically in place of an electric breast pump to empty the breast. While both of these devices are favorites for our community, we have guessed that Haakaa wound up on top due to its unique uses and flexibility. The Haakaa Milk Collector is often used to reduce engorgement in the early days of breastfeeding while your milk supply is regulating and can be used during each feed throughout the cycle of a breastfeeding journey to collect milk that would otherwise be discarded without needing to pump or add more stimulation which may lead to oversupply.
Round 3 | Our Community’s Favorite Breast Pump
In the final round of the tournament, we put the two community favorites together to see which one had the biggest fan base. While drastically different in their uses, the Spectra Double Electric Pump was set against the Haakaa Milk Collector.
Our community voted the Spectra as the clear winner with 74% of the votes. Haakaa received 26%. This was a tough category for many, judging by the messages we received. Our community loved both of these products so much! In the end, our community showed more preference for the Spectra Doula Electric Pump over the Haakaa Milk Collector. Perhaps that’s because the Haakaa doesn’t take the place of a traditional breast pump for families who supplement part or full time.
We suspect that our community saw the value in the low-stimulation Haakaa during their breastfeeding experiences, but when considering the product that is the best fit for supplementation, agreed that the Spectra was the better option.
We think all of the products included in our Breast Pump Tournament are excellent choices! This was a really fun experiment and we learned quite a bit by looking over the results.
So, what is the best breast pump? The product that works for you! If you need a little help deciding which may be the best choice, we hope this breakdown has helped make the decision a little easier.