Nuby Natural Touch Ultimate Double Digital Breast Pump review

What were your first impressions of the Double Digital Breast Pump?

I liked the fact the control unit is small enough to hold in one hand, and the touch-screen looks smart and sleek.

How does it compare to other pumps?

It uses a similar design to the market-leading Medela pump, but is slightly more fiddly to put together. It is small and portable, but doesn’t leave your hands free like the Elvie (although it is much cheaper than this model).

How portable is it?

For an electric breast pump, the Nuby is small and portable. The rechargeable battery lasts for three hours and means you won’t find yourself forced to express while sat on the floor next to a plug socket – as I’ve found myself doing with some other pumps. It’s also quiet – I’ve used it next to my sleeping baby and he didn’t wake. It does leave you very much on display, however, so I wouldn’t use it in front of anyone.

How effective is the Double Digital Breast Pump?

The Nuby Natural Touch Ultimate breast pump has a stimulation mode, which mimics the way your baby initially sucks to encourage your milk to flow, and this helps you get more liquid out when pumping. It also makes it comfortable to use, as the stimulation phase is much gentler than the suction phase.

You can turn the strength of the suction up, but you can’t adjust the suction speed as you can with some other pumps.

What is particularly useful about the Nuby Natural Touch Ultimate Digital Breast Pump?

The collection bottles are standard Nuby bottles (£7.20 on Amazon). So you can attach a teat straight on top to feed your baby the milk you’ve expressed. And you can use any Nuby bottles to collect milk into when expressing. The countdown timer is useful, too, especially if you’re trying to pump for the same amount of time each day.

How could the Nuby Natural Touch Ultimate Digital Breast Pump be improved?

The biggest drawback to the Nuby pump is that I found it leaked, and when you’ve struggled to find time to express, spilt milk really does make you want to cry! The funnels that sit over your boobs are almost at a right angle to the collection bottles below, so I found if I leaned back on the sofa while pumping, milk would drip out down my chest. This meant I had to sit hunched over to ensure all the milk flowed down into the bottles.

The pump comes with bottle holders to keep them upright when you’ve finished expressing, but these are very lightweight plastic and won’t keep the containers upright if you put them down on a soft surface like your bed or the sofa. And I found, to my extreme annoyance, that if you lie the pump down, milk will leak out where the top of the bottle screws into the base of the pump section.

You also need three hands to use the double pump, which is frustrating! You need a hand to hold it over each boob and another to operate the controls. It would be useful if the pump automatically switched to collection after a couple of minutes, as some other pumps do, and if it remembered your preferred suction strength.

Is the Nuby Natural Touch Ultimate Digital Breast Pump simple to clean?

It comes apart easily and can be washed in soapy water. But it’s tricky and time-consuming to get all the parts dry. At first I was sterilising it using tablets in cold water and leaving the pump in the solution until I was ready to use it. I’d wait for my baby to go down for a nap, then dry and assemble all the parts of the pump as fast as I could.

But by the time I then started pumping, my baby would be on the verge of waking up. If you plan to use it a lot, then it’s worth investing in a steam steriliser that will dry the components for you.

The Nuby Natural Touch Steriliser and Dryer (£35) will take all the parts for a single pump with space to spare but, annoyingly, doesn’t have room for all the parts of the double pump.

What’s in the box?

• The control unit
• Power cable
• Suction cups, with silicone shield inserts and collection bottles
• Tubing to connect to the control unit
• A teat and lid
• A dummy

Is the Nuby Natural Touch Ultimate Digital Breast Pump easy to put together?

It’s straightforward to put together, although the silicone shields are fiddly to get into place.

Who would the Nuby Natural Touch Ultimate Digital Breast Pump be most useful for?

This pump is ideal if you want to express once a week, so someone else can give your baby a bottle while you get an early night or have time to do something for yourself.

What would you have wanted to know before buying the pump?

The cups that go over your boobs are on the bulky side. I found I had to be pretty much topless to use the pump easily. If I tried using it through the small holes in a breastfeeding top, I ended up with milk all over the fabric. If you want to use this pump frequently, I’d recommend buying, or making, a bra to hold it in place. At least if your hands are free you can multi-task and do something else at the same time as expressing.

Is the pump good value for money?

The Nuby Natural Touch Ultimate Digital Double Breast Pump is £145, making it cheaper than the Medela Swing but more expensive than the Lansinoh double pump.

Where can I buy the Nuby Natural Touch Ultimate Digital Breast Pump?

It's available to buy from Amazon, Nuby and Boots

MadeForMums Verdict

This is a good mid-range pump for mums who want to express once a week, so they can get out of the house. It’s quiet and portable, but the suction could be improved and we found it leaked.

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