medela calma mebrane issues

[daemonbyte]

Given that medela don't mention these things in their calma bottle lid packages (I found out after contacting them about it) I thought I would warn parents that use them. They only have a use life of 1-3 months apparently. They also only work with breast milk. If you use them with formula(we didn't) or past a couple of months (we did) the membrane breaks. Attached is some pictures to show the problem. Because we didn't know of this issue one of them broke completely and we can only assume our son swallowed it. Upon seeing the damage I checked our other lids and found 2 others cracking. So please if you use them regularly check the membranes for cracks and then get rid of them before they fully break. We got lucky that the membrane breaking off caused our son no issue.

Dear Customer, we are so sorry to hear about the difficulties you have experienced with our product. The Medela Calma is a feeding device specifically made for use with breastmilk. Medela has pioneered innovative products which help to enhance babies’ health through the life-giving benefits of breastmilk.
With the Calma breastmilk feeding solution you can trust in a product that has been developed on a well-established research foundation. This research has shown that your baby is able to maintain with Calma the same behaviours learnt at the breast.
Although your baby will always prefer and benefit from breastfeeding, if you are separated from your baby, Calma provides an excellent alternative for feeding breastmilk that stands to minimize any interference with the breastfeeding relationship between you and your baby.
For hygiene reasons, we do recommend replacing the teats after 3 months and can confirm all of the information required including advice regarding how to clean and check the Calma after each use, can be found in the instructions booklet supplied with the product.
If you would like to discuss this further please feel free to contact our Customer Service Team.

I have already contacted your customer service team and that is why I know half the stuff I do now know. I have read your included booklet cover to cover and it most certainly does contain any of the information I posted. As I said my wife breast fed but your lid membranes still broke off. Until that moment I was happy with your product despite the high price. Any future children will not be using your bottles however because I can not trust they will not break bits of plastic into their mouths and it might end badly next time. Given that you and the rest of your team seem to think the advise in the booklets is enough and won't do anything to make the bottles unsafe further validates my decision to avoid your products for safety reasons

Thank you for your reply, we are really sorry to hear about the difficulties you have experienced with the Calma. We are aware you have already spoken with our Customer Services team however we would like to discuss this with you further and ensure we fully investigate, it would also be helpful if you could send the Calma's in to us for testing. Please could you contact us on 0161 776 0400 in order for us to help. Our phone line is open from 8.30am - 4.30pm Monday to Thursday and 8.30am to 4pm Friday.

I have no interest in running up a phone bill while yet another one of you tells me things are in the instruction leaflet when they are not. If you actually want to do something to help then try these things:

1. Put on the box "for breast milk only" and change the line in the booklet from "We do not recommend you use formula" to "you can not use formula". Why this is not the case when you have said here and your service reps and told me separately that these lids are not to be used with formula I don't know.

2. Change the line in the booklet from "replace every 3 months for hygiene reasons" to "stop using them after 3 months as they can crack and cause a danger". That would have helped me.

3. Put in the booklet that the parent should check them from time to time in case a crack is appearing. You know this can happen so why not warn us so we can watch out for it. That also would have helped me.

And finally if you really are planning on doing an inspection and actually plan to use the lids I will happily send them to an address you give me. Otherwise I will just save the postage and throw them in the bin for you.

God we are using these with formula as we are mix feeding. Thank you for posting this.

Thank you for your comments. Yes, we would like to test your Calma’s, it would be great if you can send them to the address below and once received we will contact you directly to discuss.
Medela UK Ltd
Huntsman Drive
Northbank Industrial Estate
Irlam
Manchester
M44 5EG

This has happened to us too.

This recently happened to us too.