I just got my new breast milk pump, the Ardo Calypso. My current milk pump is the one sold by Bosom Beauty as a breast enhancement pump. The owner of Bosom Beauty (aka Gismostore) has always claimed that he worked with the makers of the pump to create a version that was more suitable for breast enhancement than a normal breast milk pump, and I always suspected he was lying, but now I’m not so sure. The BB pump has drastically stronger suction and a much shorter “release” cycle than my new Ardo Pump. Breast milk pumps suck and then release pressure over and over again to simulate the way a baby suckles. The stronger pressure and shorter release cycle of the BB is a good thing if you want a lot more short term swelling and a very short wear time. It’s not so great if you want gentle suction and a very long wear time. It also automatically turns off after 30 min, so you can’t use it while sleeping. That being said, the BB pump is also much, much quieter than the Ardo pump despite being a lot stronger. Thats odd, because I saw plenty of reviews claiming that the Ardo Calypso is the quietest “name brand” pump on the market. If that’s true, I can’t imagine how loud the other name brand pumps must be. Not only is the normal suction loud, but every few minutes the Ardo pump makes a super long louder suction noise and then goes back to its usual quieter pump and release mode. I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to happen, but I really wish it didn’t. It doesn’t hurt or anything like that, but it’s really loud when it happens.
The minimum Ardo Calypso vacuum pressure is 37 mmhg per cup increasing in 9 mmhg increments to 100mg. That’s less than the 125 mmhg I was hoping for but it’s still 4 times stronger than the average pressure of the Brava pump. The Brava pump is so gentle that the first time I tried it out I thought it wasn’t sucking at all and I messaged the seller about replacing my “broken” pump. Thank god my message was polite because I was totally wrong.
The weird thing is that even though the Ardo pump is much stronger than the Brava pump, so far it seems much more comfortable than the Brava because of its long release cycle. For the first time in my life, I think I might not have visible ring marks after pumping. At the very least, I might not get those bright red painful pumping marks on my sternum where it sticks. I’ll check my skin in the morning and update this post. I think you might not even need any padding while using this pump, but I won’t be testing that out any time soon.
I still haven’t received the yoga mat that I was planning to use to make new padding. I don’t have my goats rue or fenugreek yet either. For now, I’ll just be testing out this new pump.