Avent sucks
Saturday, June 14, 2008 My Avent Isis pump is officially going in the trash and I'm mad, annoyed, ticked, pissed...take your pick!
Up until now, the pump that I had been using to pump at work for my kids is my Medela Pump in Style Advanced (PISA). It is a great double electric pump that is designed for working and pumping moms and that is 100% BPA free. However, I also own an Avent Isis pump. It was the first pump that I got. I bought it before my son was born and when he wasn't able to latch for the first few months, it is what I used to establish and maintain my milk supply. Although it isn't designed for that purpose (it is an occasional use pump), I couldn't afford to buy a double electric until I went back to work, so I made do with the Avent Isis and it served me well. It is a great little pump and I even gave the Avent Isis as a shower gift to friends too.
Sometime last year I started hearing about all the concern with Bisphenol A (BPA) in plastics and the fact that harmful chemicals can leach out of these plastics and into the liquids that are being consumed in them. I knew that Health Canada was studying the issue, so when I needed to buy new bottles or cups for any purpose, I bought BPA free, but I didn't throw out all of the bottles containing BPA until Health Canada's report came out and declared BPA to be dangerous.
Despite primarily using my Medela PISA, I continued using my Avent Isis from time to time if I was going to be somewhere where it was inconvenient to lug around and use a large double electric pump. However, I was looking for alternatives to the Avent bottles, since they contain BPA. For a while I used a Klean Kanteen (made out of stainless steel), which screwed into the Avent pump okay, but the suction wasn't great for some reason. Then when I was about to give up, Avent put out full page ads in several national and local newspapers indicating that it now had BPA free bottles and sippy cups and it would give two free samples of them to consumers that called their 1-800 number. Although I was pissed that they continued to insist that their BPA bottles were perfectly safe (to avoid class action law suits no doubt), I thought this was a good gesture and a move in the right direction. I was told it would be about 2 to 3 weeks before I got my free samples. I figured I would try them out and if I liked them, I might buy some more. Well.....it is now 6 weeks later and I still don't have my free samples. And I have read that the BPA-free bottles are now delayed until at least August. What kind of company does a major publicity campaign offering a free product and then later decides that they won't be available for months? That is just nuts.
On Monday I go back to work after an extended vacation. I will only be pumping once per day and don't want to lug my Medela PISA with me all the time. And since Avent isn't really offering any options, I went out and bought a Medela Harmony. I'm not happy that I had to buy a new pump this late in the game, but I can't sit around waiting for Avent to do right by its customers either.
For anyone looking for good info on which baby products contain BPA and which ones are BPA free, the Z Report on BPA in Children's Feeding Products has an excellent listing and review.
Reader Comments (2)
[...] Avent sucks: This post was purely a rant. I didn’t expect it to get a lot of traffic. I just needed to let off some steam. Little did I realize that the Z-report on BPA in Children’s Products that I linked to also links to all blogs that link to it. Since the Z-report gets tons of traffic, my post ended up getting lots of traffic from that site. [...]
[...] and I’ve blogged about pumps, including reviewing breast pumps and looking at issues with breast pumps and breast pump companies. Through that experience, I’ve realized how important for moms to [...]