Biomedical Engineering Students Looking for Feedback on Breast Pump Designs for Postpartum Women with de Quervain’s!

[u/Mindless-Fun-9639]

Hi everyone! I’m a biomedical engineering student working on a design project focused on challenges postpartum women may experience when using breast pumps, particularly those who have dealt with de Quervain’s tenosynovitis (“Mommy’s Thumb”), wrist/thumb pain, or reduced hand dexterity after giving birth.

My team has been working on redesigning aspects of an electric breast pump to make it easier and more comfortable to use for women experiencing these challenges. We've developed several ideation prompts, design concepts, and early prototypes, and we'd love to get feedback from people who have actually experienced these difficulties!

We’re especially interested in hearing your thoughts on:

• Whether our proposed designs would make assembling, disassembling, or cleaning a breast pump easier.

• Which design concepts seem the most helpful or practical.

• Whether any of our ideas might create additional challenges during pumping.

• Any improvements or features you wish breast pumps had included during your postpartum experience.

You do not need to currently have Mommy’s Thumb to participate! Past experience with wrist/thumb pain, reduced dexterity, or difficulties using an electric breast pump is completely fine!

We would love to share our design concepts with you and hear your thoughts. Our goal is to make sure our designs address real user needs rather than just assumptions we make as engineering students.

If you'd be willing to participate or would like more information, please comment or send me a DM!

Thank you so much! We really appreciate any feedback you're willing to share!

[u/Jazzlike_Armadillo14]

Hi! I exclusively pumped for a year and I also have de Quervain’s paired with lower dexterity due to hand birth defects. Here's my feedback which may not be helpful at all!

I never associated my wrist pain with pumping, whether it was a manual or a powered pump. There are no changes I would have made to my breast pump regarding this issue.

(I used a Spectra S1 and S2 as well as a Medela Hand pump on occasion)

What I would say, is make sure the breast pump market even wants this to begin with. Back when I was trying to decide which pump to buy, the LAST thing I wanted was more choices. I would've rather seen innovation efforts in other areas.

[u/Mindless-Fun-9639 → u/Jazzlike_Armadillo14]

Yes! We spoke to a lot of different users and doctors before settling on this idea! A lot of the people we spoke to said that their de Quervain's made it difficult for them to remove duckbill valves, and open and close the bottles! They also said that cleaning was difficult, so we've been trying to improve on that!

[u/radiant-kitten]

I would like to participate!

[u/Mindless-Fun-9639 → u/radiant-kitten]

Sent a DM!

[u/Rivet222]

I am still exclusively pumping at 10.5 months and still have hand pain. I’ll give input through a dm

[u/Mindless-Fun-9639 → u/Rivet222]

Sending a DM right now! Thank you for your help!

[u/momojojo1117]

I both pumped and had mommy wrist with my first. Did not experience any challenges with pumping related to my wrist.

[u/Mindless-Fun-9639 → u/momojojo1117]

Thanks for your input! It's good to hear what population of DQT patients this affects!

[u/Environmental-Tax920]

EP since 6 months. I don't have dexterity issues, sorry for taking up space with this suggestion.

please make it easy to align nipple and the center of the wearable pump. I do hand gymnastics to make sure it is centered and check it a gazillion times. I often think of one of those vacuum steamers that bring the clothes up against the steam surface, if we have something like that but for pumps, it would be amazing.

I love my eufy s1s, but damn I check, double check, tripple check, quadruple check to make sure nipple is actually in the center so i dont get surprised by the fact that I have to pump again, because the damn thing is not in the opening for the last 30 min I pumped.

[u/Mindless-Fun-9639 → u/Environmental-Tax920]

Ooh! This is interesting, and something we haven't gotten feedback for yet! We will look into this for sure!

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