For every new mother out there, amongst the most important of all activities is to feed the child. Breastfeeding is only as important for a newborn as is the use of vital organs in the body. A great deal of stress is attached to both the newborn child as well as the mother.
For in the early days, it’s not only vital to tread every tiny step with a precautionary approach, but also to take care that the infant is fed properly.
Therefore, breastfeeding and the quality of it goes a long way to determine the initial make-up of a child. But at the same time, there’s this great deal of concern that new mothers are exposed to.
For in all simplicity, breastfeeding can be a painful exercise, an ordeal even, if you like. Pumping the breast to build up the pressure so as to lactate- can it ever be a less-painful process?
Currently, research suggests, about 13 million moms worldwide use a breast pump to produce milk for their children. It’s such a sensitive issue, a health strickler of a kind that if ignored, then lack of breastfeeding a child may go a long way to undermine his or her health.
But that told, there’s an awful lot pressure that young mothers have to go through. The process of applying the breast pump so as to feed a baby is never easy. One’s got to endure.
Although, now it seems, thanks to a timely and novel innovation- that may no longer be a concern facing young mothers. Young creators- Adriana C. Vazquez Ortiz and Sujay Suresh- happen to have invented a near antithesis to the breast pump.
A brand new invention-LiLu- is supposedly a paradigm shift in the way women engage in breastfeeding their children, the process no longer requiring them to undergo a strenuous experience.
Of around the 13 million young (or new) mothers who use a breast pump, most of them are more likely to have a negative experience, contends Ms Adriana C. Vazquez Ortiz. But what actually makes the pump a difficult measure to cope with is the sheer fact that it’s not only painful to use but makes one uncomfortable.
On top of it all, it often is a time-consuming process, a sheer buzzkill for young lives out there. And there we go. Against a template of such peculiar challenges, Ms Adriana Vazquez, a graduate of MIT came up with an ambitious but first of its kind product that addresses the immediate concerns mothers face while using the breast pump.
Their solution? A compression bra that’s totally hands-free and also free of the ordeal that mothers have had to previously endure. The creation, called the LiLu, is a bra that has hitherto neither been seen or used. The bra hooks onto an existing pumping bra, can be charged for two days, and uses air instead of hands to massage a mother’s breasts while she pumps. It is compatible with most standard pumps on the market today.
But that being told, the creation of the LiLu wasn’t all that easy; it took its own course of time and effort- its creators contend. After spending laborious sessions during useful pertinent research, surveying countless beta testers, consulting with lactation experts- the product was finally birthed.
Interestingly, one among its brainchild is a graduate holding a degree in mathematics, yards away from the context of lifestyle entrepreneurship. That’s Ms Vazquez Ortiz. Having created a considerable difference- upon market feedback- the creators confess, it is really rewarding that they have led to a difference for mothers out there.
But the most important constituent or proof of their success was that despite limited marketing efforts, LiLu was being enquired of through several emails and suggestions asked by mothers who’d keep a correspondence with the founders.
That said, even as these are early days for LiLu, both Mr Suresh and Ms Ortiz contend, they aim to bring about a huge transformation to lives life of mothers in what is arguable, the most vital and once in a lifetime experience of their lives: motherhood. With technology at the backdrop of their resourceful product- this, it seems- is just the beginning for LiLu. Did one ever think that something as onerous as breastfeeding could’ve been much easier? That’s LiLu for you!