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I had mixed reactions to this article. On the one hand, as a parent I've often thought about neglected business opportunities to meet certain fertility, pregnan

I had mixed reactions to this article. On the one hand, as a parent I've often thought about neglected business opportunities to meet certain fertility, pregnancy, and parenting needs, and this article resonated with that for me. But on the other hand, as you're mentioning, this area is a lot more complex than the article is letting on. My wife pumped exclusively until our child was about 1.5 years old, and one thing I noticed was that as she went on, she went from various hand pumps to various electric pumps, and then back to hand pumps for several months because the paraphernalia and power requirements involved were more troublesome than they were worth. I remember reading about this pump in early stages, and it sounded wonderful, and still sounds nice. But I'm not sure my wife would have actually been interested in it after a certain point in time, because it's still bulkier than a basic hand pump. At that big of price, they'd actually be losing out on two points, the extreme price and the bulk. Maybe going into pumping at the beginning, she would have purchased it if it had been available, but it's difficult for me to say. It's very expensive for what you'd be getting relative to the alternatives.

silencio 9y ago
Yes. We had fertility issues too (so hard to find apps that support that!) and as a mostly-SAHP here I feel out of place in SF and struggle to find resources beyond facebook groups. Resources like Winnie (https://winnie.com/ https://winnie.com/), in fact, which reduces a lot of my stress over taking a baby to a restaurant. I can definitely get on the rage-train about these things not getting funding while Juicero and Theranos throw away $$$$$$$. I think there's even more that I haven't delved into in my comment that might be a concern. As you point out, yup, experiences and preferences are all over the map. I'm sure these companies did their market research, and all three of the ones I mentioned definitely target pain points for pumpers (comfort, milk amount, and ease-of-use). I'm sure cost will become less of an issue once insurances start partially covering the pumps. Just, who knows if it will work out, it's complex for sure. And I say this as one of the few(er) parents that would not hesitate to drop $1k on a new pump if I could. Hell, there is even a video making the rounds in my EP groups of someone demonstrating hand-expressing 6 ounces (a lot!) of milk, for underproducers and for people stuck in hurricane-stricken-no-power areas to learn from. Too bad Facebook keeps removing the videos for explicit content. But the half hour of wringing out a boob just to feed your baby... many parents will definitely do whatever it takes! Your wife is a saint. I am so sick of looking at pumps (all four of my pumps...) and pump parts. I am quitting cold turkey on day 366 of pumping. No pump design for no amount of money will help me with that, hah.

silencio 9y ago

Yes. We had fertility issues too (so hard to find apps that support that!) and as a mostly-SAHP here I feel out of place in SF and struggle to find resources beyond facebook groups. Resources like Winnie (https://winnie.com/ https://winnie.com/), in fact, which reduces a lot of my stress over taking a baby to a restaurant. I can definitely get on the rage-train about these things not getting funding while Juicero and Theranos throw away $$$$$$$. I think there's even more that I haven't delved into in my comment that might be a concern. As you point out, yup, experiences and preferences are all over the map. I'm sure these companies did their market research, and all three of the ones I mentioned definitely target pain points for pumpers (comfort, milk amount, and ease-of-use). I'm sure cost will become less of an issue once insurances start partially covering the pumps. Just, who knows if it will work out, it's complex for sure. And I say this as one of the few(er) parents that would not hesitate to drop $1k on a new pump if I could. Hell, there is even a video making the rounds in my EP groups of someone demonstrating hand-expressing 6 ounces (a lot!) of milk, for underproducers and for people stuck in hurricane-stricken-no-power areas to learn from. Too bad Facebook keeps removing the videos for explicit content. But the half hour of wringing out a boob just to feed your baby... many parents will definitely do whatever it takes! Your wife is a saint. I am so sick of looking at pumps (all four of my pumps...) and pump parts. I am quitting cold turkey on day 366 of pumping. No pump design for no amount of money will help me with that, hah.