And the Winner of the Breast Pump Hackathon Is….

Mamajamas sponsored the Make the Breast Pump Not Suck Hackathon this past weekend out of the MIT Media Lab.

Teams worked all weekend to innovate what has come to be regarded as themost archaic, dread-provoking piece of new mom equipment: The Breast Pump. (For those who haven’t heard or don’t get it, you can read about one mother’s painful pumping journey here.)

There were many great Pump innovations that came out of the event, but ultimately, first prize ($3,000 and a trip for two to the Bay Area!) went to these folks.

I love that you can wear the “Mighty Mom Utility Belt” under clothing and pump while you’re on the go without folks noticing. It will also be nice to have data as to how much you’ve pumped on each side, when you’re most productive, etc. (I still think they should have taken my idea of including an optional back massager….)

See the full results, all the designs, and videos from each of the teams here.

Congratulations to all those who participated! And thank you on behalf of new mothers everywhere. I really hope this spurs innovation that ends up on the market!

A Mother’s Pumping Journey Continues: Back to Work

This is the second of a two part series on pumping. The first covered supply issues in the early post-partum weeks. This one details the post-post-partum return to professional life. 

Pumping Condition #2: You are going back to work.

I have heard stories of work places that allow women to book a conference room to pump, and know that some women have an office with a door that closes for privacy. I imagine that, if not ideal, these conditions could provide for a sustainable and secure pumping environment. I, however, am a designer that works in a very open office. Thirty of us young-ish, creative things share a large, single room with no doors or private conference areas. We do have two unisex toilets with doors that lock.

Two women had previously attempted the pumping-at-work scenario in my office. The first found a convent across the street. She was not Catholic, but she couldn’t handle the knocking every 2.5 minutes as she sat on the toilet trying to pump with people waiting in line to pee. The nuns were amazing, and they let her sit in a room without a toilet to pump until she was finished. Unfortunately, this situation was not long for the world. It turns out pumping off-site takes you away from work for a long time, especially if you have to thank (very kind) nuns every time you pump. She moved on to an office with a better pumping policy: her home.

The second woman was not worried about the knocking on the shared bathroom door. She printed and laminated a sign that read ‘PUMPING IN PROGRESS’ in bold sans-serif text. She posted it on one of the two restroom doors and no one bothered her. She pumped for 6 months on the toilet with great success. I admire this woman. I am not this woman.

I actually considered bringing my great, gold, rented Medela Symphony breast pump with me to work. I even repurposed a really fantastic (and enormous) leather bag that I bought I Argentina to hoist around the 7 lb machine, knowing that the Pump in Style I had responsibly purchased before giving birth would leave me with less than an ounce of milk within days. But there was no outlet adequate to handle the machine in the bathroom, and I was managing too much at work to take hours a day to sit with the nuns (though in retrospect, I really should have given that a shot).

I did try using my Pump in Style, a really useful little portable pump, for a short period of time. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it as a great route for anyone that doesn’t have supply issues. It’s battery operated (you can even pump in the car, which is very entertaining at stoplights), and it’s often covered by insurance if you’ve had a diagnosed struggle with breast-feeding. N.B. to users: The loud whooshing in the background can be distracting on business calls.

My story does not have a happy pumping ending, however. I was not able to retain my supply once I returned to work in spite of my bathroom pumping efforts. I tried breast-feeding again with my daughter two years later. I was prepared with a pre-rented Symphony in my post-partum hospital room, correctly sized nipple shields, and a prophylactic appointment with an amazing lactation consultant named Susan. My daughter latched immediately after birth, and sucked vigorously, but my milk supply was still too low after the first weeks. I lasted for several months, supplementing after the first three weeks and pumping until my supply diminished dramatically. I finally accepted that hugging my baby without tubes and holding my jilted 2-year-old was ultimately more important than pumping.

Although this post may sound like a cautionary tale, it is truly a critique of the industry that surrounds the products available to us during a time of incredible transition in our lives. Even  Wikipedia’s take on breast pumping – which can be backed up by that guy that got stuck next to me at the stoplight while I  was ‘Pumping In Style’ on the way to a meeting – states that a breast pump is analogous to a milking machine used in commercial dairy production. And that is exactly how the products associated with pumping encourage us to feel. Breast pumping products are the overt, physical counterparts to the unmet and largely invisible challenges, such as our cultural procedures for re-integrating mothers into the workplace and increasing awareness about post-partum depression, that make the transition into motherhood more difficult than it should be.

How is it possible that there is not a better way? Is it because we are ensconced in a culture that largely lives in ignorance of the fact that many women, by choice or need, return to work less than 12 weeks after giving birth? Are we more accepting of sub-par products because we’re too busy trying to keep our babies alive? It certainly isn’t because corporations are blind to the trigger of childbirth as the perfect opportunity for customer development and loyalty.

There’s an opportunity here. If you are looking to overhaul the mommy-milking industry, call me. I’ll design for free.

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By Elizabeth ChristofOretti

Elizabeth Christoforetti practices broadly across scales as an architectural and urban designer. She studied religion at Bowdoin College in Maine, designed objects at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and received her Master in Architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Elizabeth currently holds a lecturer position at Northeastern University, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate design studios. She lives in Cambridge, MA with her husband and two young children.

FOR pumping Gear RECOMMENDATIONS and More FROM Elizabeth, CHECK OUT HER MAMAJAMAS LIST.

One Mother’s Pumping Journey: Short on Milk, Long on Stress

Breast feeding turned out not to be the romp through a spring meadow that I had expected. It was not blissful, relaxing or carefree. My baby was screaming, and the incessant pumping – and cleaning, and pumping again – made me feel like a cow in a commercial milking station. It all seemed painfully “steampunk” with industrial accessories in lovely shades of light pink and pale yellow.

There are two common events that call for the adoption of the more-than-occasional breast pump: there is pumping because you desperately need to increase your post-partum milk supply, and there is pumping because you’re away from your baby but still need to provide sustenance for your child. This is the first in a two-part commentary on my journey through pumping, covering the cascading waterfall of events triggered by my low milk supply in the early post-partum weeks. Back-to-work pumping thoughts will follow in a second post.

Pumping Condition #1: Your baby is not gaining weight in the first weeks of life.

In spite of what some may tell you is impossible, it is in fact very possible that you have found yourself with milk supply issues in the first weeks of your child’s life and are coming up short when it comes to baby nourishment. Whatever the reason – your body’s quirks, your baby’s inability to latch, maybe even the massive amount of stress you feel as a result of the trauma of childbirth – you are now in a MUST-MAKE-MILK post-partum fog. You are doing whatever you can to feed your baby that precious liquid that comes from your own breasts, but it’s a struggle.

Step 1. Pump all the time. Pump between breast feedings and bottle supplements, pump on the road, get up every hour-and-a-half to pump in the middle of the night. For higher efficiency pumping, massage your breasts while pumping. But this requires a hands-free pumping bustier, a product that could use a serious design overhaul. If you don’t already feel sexy in the weeks since you’ve given birth, Google image search ‘pumping bustier.’ I don’t know why these women are all smiling.

Step 2. Check-in with your top-notch lactation consultant (again). Your baby needs a pre- and post-feeding weigh-in to see how much milk is actually being consumed at each feed. Rent a professional grade pump immediately. The Medela Symphony might literally be worth its weight in gold. It looks like gold and it’s really heavy. Luckily, you can rent it for less than $20/month from your local pharmacy or hospital. Be sure to find the correct breast shield size. I recommend buying a funnel a size up. There is no reason at all to squeeze into that smaller size. Trust me. Your already painful nipples will thank you.

Step 3. The SNS (Suplemental Nursing System). Because what you really want now are more tubes. You tape the delicate SNS tubing system to your nipples just above your areola so that your baby can suck and stimulate your milk production, but also receive a dose of much-needed formula based nutrition between pumpings. If you are into outdoor sports, it’s like a Camelback that hangs around your neck with a tiny little tube taped to each nipple so that your baby can simultaneously encourage an increase in milky supply and receive formula-based nutrition. This is another worthwhile Google image search.

Step 4. If your baby is still not gaining weight at the correct rate, you have reached the moment when you now need to supplement your baby more fully with formula and yourself with Fenugreek, an herb that, in high doses, can make you smell like day-old pancakes with cheap syrup. Although your perfume may not be ideal, the Fenugreek does actually work. I did not learn about Fenugreek until 6 weeks into the process, but had I been aware that it was helpful, I would have started on a reasonable dose as soon as I realized there was an issue. Continue to pump with your new hospital grade pump while wearing your light pink pumping bustier and supplementing your baby with organic formula through the SNS that may or may not give them awful gas at each feeding. Do your best to hold and feed your baby by bottle while you are pumping with a funnel and tubes attached to each nipple. I recently attended a performance of Russian circus acts at the Boston Symphony and believe that successful pumping-while-feeding should be considered a feat not unlike some of the more clever Russian contortion acts.

Step 5. Stasis. You eventually find the right balance of pumping and formula to allow your baby to grow, which, if you have guilt over feeding your baby formula, is useful. It’s also helpful to note that the personal pressures many new mothers feel to fully and frictionlessly nurse their children into toddlerhood is not insignificant. Our current mommy culture is not always friendly to the bottle-toting-mommy, the inevitable result of breast feeding difficulties or a return to work. It’s too bad. Our health professionals and larger cultural networks could do more to prepare new parents for the challenges of feeding in the early months, and our cultural awareness of the incredible emotional challenges faced by new families could be increased.

Step 6. Maternity leave ends. Ready the pumping stations for a new challenge. Back to work…

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By Elizabeth ChristofOretti

Elizabeth Christoforetti practices broadly across scales as an architectural and urban designer. She studied religion at Bowdoin College in Maine, designed objects at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and received her Master in Architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Elizabeth currently holds a lecturer position at Northeastern University, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate design studios. She lives in Cambridge, MA with her husband and two young children.

FOR pumping Gear RECOMMENDATIONS and More FROM Elizabeth, CHECK OUT HER MAMAJAMAS LIST.