Pump and slump: Freemie is the breast pump for sleepy mothers
No need to stay awake. Freemie's hands-free breast pump will let you sleep on the job.
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Until now, pumping breast milk has involved sitting in an easy chair, hooked up to a contraption of tubes and suction cups that looks more like a B-movie Sci-Fi prop than a way to feed your baby.
Freemie wants to change that.
From US health-tech company Dao Health, Freemie has been making storage cups for breast pumps for years. But with the Freemie Liberty (launched here at CES 2018), the company has created a hands-free breast pump with a programmable sleep timer that lets mothers set-and-forget while they pump (hallelujah).
A close-up of the Freemie pump portion.
Mobile breast pumps aren't a new concept. At CES 2017, rival brand Willow generated a lot of buzz with a breast-pump that slips straight into a bra. But parenting tech is a booming area: Plenty of tech brands are looking to make raising kids easier, with products like high-tech baby monitors and self-adjusting car seats, and they're keen to capitalise on the lucrative new-parent dollar.
The Freemie Liberty is quiet. On the show floor at CES Unveiled, I couldn't hear the pump over the noise of the room, and up close it's about as loud as a vibrating phone. The gadget's creator, ER doctor Stella Dao (who started Freemie with her husband) says that silence is golden.
"A lot of women find the noise of a pump really embarrassing," she said. "This removes a big barrier."
In creating the pump (and as a mother of twins who were born premature), Dao said she wanted something that could go in a bra, could work hands-free and be mobile.
Specs
- Lightweight, "hospital-grade" breast pump
- Sleep timer -- program pump to run 5 to 40 minutes
- Uses reusable cups for milk storage
- 10 speeds, 11 suction settings, three programmable memory buttons
- Pump into one or two removable, teardrop-shaped cups.
- Freemie claims the pump is 10 percent quieter than leading pump brands like Medela
The Freemie Liberty hits Babys R Us and Buy Buy Baby in the US this month, followed by other countries by the end of March. The final price is still to be announced, but Dao Health says it will sell for roughly $300 (about £220 or AU$380 converted).
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