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When my husband Mike and I started our family, we decided that breast
milk was the best choice for our babies. We made the choice to pump primarily
so that Mike could feed our children and therefore bond with them as I
was.
And there's no doubt about it, the convenience benefits of
pumping are a big plus too:
- a helping hand is always an option: as a small business
owner, I never really had maternity leaves to stay home and concentrate
on just taking care of my babies, so I had to juggle doing that and
working in the home at the same time. Occasionally, my sister or my mom
or anyone else could help out with this by bottle-feeding them for me.
- both
my girls were really lazy nursers (suck, suck, rest, suck, suck,
rest....45 minutes later!!!) and therefore a faster bottle feed was
sometimes a must.
- pumping helped with my milk production.
- although
I was comfortable with breastfeeding in public places, the ogles and
stares indicated to me that not everyone else was! And that darn
receiving blanket was forever falling off my shoulder and flashing my
milkers for all the world to see! I wish I had known about MoBoleez back then.
I would have bought one PDQ!
Even finding the time to pump
was a challenge, so I wanted something fast. I wasn't able to use a
manual pump as both pregnancies were kind enough to bring along their
friend carpal tunnel syndrome - so I rented a
hospital-grade, double, electric pump. My letdown was pretty slow though
and even with the "skookum" pump, sometimes it took 30 minutes or more
to get enough milk for my little ones!
When I started to pump on a
daily basis, not only were my hands going numb and aching from holding
the horns, I was frustrated by how boring it was! And being one of those
never-sit-still-for-a-minute gals, all I could think of the whole time I
was pumping was all the other "stuff" that needed to be done! I
couldn't even look through one of the magazines in my ever-expanding
pile of mail because both my hands were busy holding the horns on my
breasts! On one occasion, I actually tried flipping the pages with my
elbow and ended up in the chiropractor's office.
Then I thought,
"I wonder if...", and my very good friend Google and I searched the
internet for something that would hold the horns for me. I only found a
few products, none of which were readily available in Canada and all of
which were "less than attractive" (insert eye roll here). Why is it that
when you become a mom, it's assumed that you no longer have any style?
I
found a pumping bra - but unfortunately I barely had enough
time to pump, let alone change from my nursing bra to my pumping bra and
then from my pumping bra back to my nursing bra!
I also found a pumping/nursing
bra combo (that kinda sounds like an Olympic event) - but the
feedback on this product is that most people only use it for pumping as
the third layer makes it bulky and lumpy-looking under your clothes. No
thank you to that I said! We're lumpy enough after giving birth, right?
File this one with the pumping bra reject.
I also found a pumping
bra that wasn't really a bra but a wide band, with a zipper no
less! I visualized the zipper splitting or catching my skin as I tried
to zip it up over my ginormously engorged breasts!
Then there was
the pumping kit with which you had to buy THEIR nursing bra
(whether you like it or not) and then attach a bunch of elastics all
over the place to hold the horns in place. It reminded me of playing
with Cat's Cradle string figures when I was a little girl. Try doing
that with Carpal Tunnel!
Finally, I found a pumping band
that looked like medical bandages wrapped all around your chest - and
all I could think was, "I'm a mommy, not a mummy!" The feedback on this
product is that the fabric is scratchy and uncomfortable and that some
brands of pump horns are difficult to get into the buttonhole-style
openings. Consumers also don't like the permanently attached neck strap
and many were cutting it off.
My 15 years in the apparel industry
and over 30 years of sewing experience came in handy when I mocked-up a
pumping support (who knows when I had time to do this?). It held the
horns on my behalf and therefore freed my hands for other much more
important things (like answering a business phone call with spit-up
running down the back of my shirt or reading Dora Goes
for a Ride to my 2-year-old "just one more time"). My pumping
sessions melted away while I surfed the internet, paid bills, stayed on
top of business emails, caught up on reading or talked on the phone
(among countless other tasks).
All kidding aside, I think that
breastfeeding and pumping are very important topics - topics that
millions of first-time parents find themselves in the throes of with no
previous experience and often little or no support! Well, I'm happy to
say that here at Snugabell, we're here to help you in any way that we
can.
After hundreds of pumping sessions, three years of
research and development and two children, I believe that I know what a
pumping support should offer a nursing mom. I refined the design to be
not only functional and user-friendly, but pretty darn funky too! And
now I'm offering it to you in a handful of fun
and fabulous prints, two widths and six sizes - all designed to perfectly
fit your amazingly beautiful, milk-producing body!
Whether your
pump is rented or purchased, single or double, battery-powered or
electric, you need PumpEase hands-free pumping support ...because
women like pretty things EVEN when they're pumping!™
Wendy Armbruster Bell
Founder & Creative Director
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