The worst part of breast pumping? The logistics. Ask any working, breastfeeding mom and she'll describe the hassle of finding a private room, disrobing, and hooking up to a machine to pump every three to four hours. And then, after she's sat there for 20 minutes, she still needs to store the milk, wash everything, and put it all away.
As an ER doctor and mom of preemie twins, Stella Dao had to pump four to six times a day. She had a big incentive to improve the existing technology. Dao's solution was the Freemie cup, a new kind of breast pump that slides easily and discreetly into your bra. Most breast pumps attach to the breast using a flange, which screws onto a proprietary bottle. That makes every pumping experience, no matter the manufacturer, relatively similar: You have to change your clothes and put on a specialized hands-free pumping bra, hook the flanges into the bra, try to rearrange your clothes around you, start the pump, and cross your fingers that your coworkers don't accidentally walk in on your doing your best Captain Underpants impression in a dark corner.
In contrast, the Freemie cups fit inside the bra and under the clothes you're already wearing. The shells are large, but not embarrassingly so. Instead of skulking in supply closets with bottles dangling from your chest, you can pump quietly and discreetly while sitting at your desk or driving home from work.
Dao's company, Dao Health, released the Freemie cup in 2013. And this year at CES, Dao Health released its latest electric pump, the Freemie Liberty, which will be available for purchase in February for around $300. It's not perfect, but the Liberty is a potent reminder that pumping breast milk doesn't have to be terrible.
The Liberty pump is determinedly utilitarian. It reminds me more of an insulin pump for diabetics than a traditional breast pump. It's a small, gray, six-sided plastic device that fits in the palm of your hand and can clip onto your belt.
Each Freemie collection cup has five components: a breast funnel with a flange system that’s sized to your body; a silicone membrane; a duckbill valve and valve base; and a closed cup. You assemble the membrane, valve, and valve base, then insert it inside the cup to click it closed. You can assemble the cup at home. Then when you're at work or traveling, you quickly insert the cup in your bra and stick the pump's rubber tubing into the top.
You can see vacuum speed, strength, battery life, and time pumped on the LCD screen. The rechargeable battery takes an hour and a half to charge; each charge lasted for three to four 15-minute pumping sessions. The pump has three different customizable memory settings. You can set your optimal vacuum strength and speed for each setting. I set a faster setting for letdown and a slower one for expression.
There’s also an auto-shutoff button, which you can use to turn off the pump after a certain amount of time, choosing from five minute intervals. If you don't select a shutoff time, the pump will automatically shut off after 40 minutes. The automatic shutoff is a pretty big improvement because the quieter and more discreet the pump, the easier it is to forget you have it on. Ever sit down to read a book and lose track of an hour? Now imagine that after that hour, you're not just late to dinner but you're drained drier than a California reservoir in August.
Most wonderfully, the Freemie is remarkably quiet—around 50 dB! My workhorse Medela Pump In Style clocks in at 60 dB. If it weren’t for the enormous plastic shells under my shirt, people wouldn’t even know that I was pumping.
If you’re used to pumping directly into a bottle, it takes some time to get used to the cup collection system. Don't let the picture on the box front fool you: You can’t simply open the box, slip it on under your shirt, and immediately go shopping for hours at the mall while secretly expressing milk.
The cups need to fit as tightly as if you were holding it on with your hands, so you may need to adjust your bra accordingly. I had to sort through my nursing bras to find ones that worked, and occasionally had to hold the cups on with my hands. I could still walk around and run small errands; I just looked a little strange doing so. The breast funnels also only come in two sizes, 25-millimeter and 28-millimeter. For the most effective milk extraction, each funnel needs to fit your nipple. If yours don't happen to fit these particular funnel sizes, you might be SOL--although this February, Freemie will also be releasing a sub-brand called FitMie, a series of silicone inserts that fit inside the Freemie cups and will increase the range of sizes from 15 mm to 26 mm, in one-mm increments.
Given the design and that you're wearing it under your clothes, it’s impossible to tell if it’s working when you’re wearing it. Even on the highest setting, I didn’t find the vacuum to be that noticeable. Occasionally, I’d turn the pump off after 15 to 20 minutes and remove the cup, only to find nothing there.
