MIT Is Hosting a Breast Pump Hackathon 
 
 Yup, you read that right. 
 
 When the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced a competition to improve the condom, it was impressive that an organization decided to take an intimate problem and expose it globally. Now, MIT wants to tackle another under-the-radar, yet needs to be addressed issue—breast pumping. 
 
 MIT says that maternal and neonatal health is a space that “lags behind others” in innovation, and they want to change that. Plus, breast pumping flat-out sucks. As MIT points out on its website: 
 
 The motor is loud. There are too many parts. They are hard to clean. You can’t lay down and pump. There is no good space to pump. It’s hard to keep track of what you pump. Your colleagues think pumping is weird. People are skeeved out by breastmilk. People are embarrassed by breasts. 
 
 Also, let’s not forget that you just pushed a baby out of your body. You’d think that would be the hardest part of being a new mom. But no, then you also have to deal with the annoyances of pumping. 
 
 That’s why the MIT Media Lab is holding a “Make the Breast Pump Not Suck Hackathon” September 20 and 21 in Cambridge, where they’re bringing together 60 to 80 engineers, designers, parents, public health researchers, and lactation consultants to bring innovation to maternal health and make “the breast pump not suck.” 
 
 MIT says on its website that they’re holding the challenge because improving breast pump technology can save lives and money: 
 
 Breast pumping is an experience many women hate, yet it saves the lives of premature babies and permits working women to continue a nursing relationship with their baby. The health benefits of breastfeeding, both to mother and baby, are numerous and include the reductions of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, female cancers, heart disease and osteoporosis. Despite the overwhelming data and worldwide endorsement of breastfeeding for at least two years, many women do not breastfeed or wean after several months. In particular, low-income, working women are rarely able to take extended maternity leave, to afford the cost of a pump, or to pump breastmilk at their workplace. In emerging economies around the world, women who go back to work wean their babies rather than using a breast pump. The breast pump is the rallying cry for the event because it is a symbol of a technology that could be vastly improved in order to save lives, save money and lead to healthier and happier families. At the same time, our goal is to make space for innovation in family life more broadly and support a wide variety of different kinds of projects at the event. 
 
 Tickets are free; Starts Saturday, September 20, 10:00 a.m.; eventbrite.com ||||| Volunteer Li Zhiai, 30, pumps breast milk to donate, to support breastfeeding at the Guangzhou Women and Children's medical centre in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu On September 20 and 21, MIT will attempt to solve one of biggest issues for working mothers — the breast pump. 
 
 MIT is hosting a "Make the Breast Pump Not Suck" hackathon to improve the design and technology behind breast pumps and make the act of pumping less awkward. 
 
 The site lays out all the current problems with the breast pump: 
 
 The motor is loud. There are too many parts. They are hard to clean. You can't lay down and pump. There is no good space to pump. It's hard to keep track of what you pump. Your colleagues think pumping is weird. People are skeeved out by breastmilk. People are embarrassed by breasts. 
 
 That's why MIT is bringing together 150 engineers, designers, parents, public health researchers, and lactation consultants to brainstorm some new innovations. 
 
 After seeing an article in The New York Times about the lack of innovation in breast pumps, a group of five researchers at MIT got together to take action. 
 
 "Maternal health is a field that has sorely lagged behind, and it affects women's ability to work at the level they want to," Alexandra Metral, a research affiliate at MIT Media Lab Fluid Interfaces Group and one of the hackathon organizers, told Business Insider. "A lot of us were parents ourselves and had bad experiences." 
 
 So they decided to do something about it. 
 
 In May, the five researchers hosted a mini hackathon, where they began throwing around ideas for how to improve the breast pump, but they decided to turn it into a larger hackathon to develop the ideas further. 
 
 Participants at the May hackathon. MIT Media Lab 
 
 At that hackathon, ideas ranged from integrating robotics into breast pumps to how to lower the cost on a global scale. They also discussed how to impact policy so that women have better access to private rooms for breast pumping during the workday. 
 
 Possible innovations include: 
 
 Smarter interfaces and guided experiences: Pumps that can interface with your phone; pumps that can inform mom and also reinforce her commitment to her baby. 
 
 Data collection: Could pumps anonymize and transmit data about the milk collected? This could serve to set a research agenda for breastfeeding research, which is often neglected due to lack of data. ||||| On Sept 20-21, 2014, 150 parents, engineers, designers and healthcare givers gathered at the MIT Media Lab for the "Make the Breast Pump Not Suck" Hackathon. Though the hackathon is over we are still accepting ideas for improving the breast pump. Send them to us here . 
 
 Compress Express : A breast pump that mimics the natural and age-old art of hand expression, instead of archaic vacuum technology that dominates the market. Inspired by the simplicity of blood pressure cuffs, this project's gentle compression technology enables efficient milk expression and creates a discreetly wearable, virtually silent and hands-free breast pumping experience. This project, led by Susan Thompson, has been under development for two years and received the Pioneer Award for early and persistent innovation. Contact the team via Susan Thompson 
 
 Second Nature is a breast pump that mimics the way that a baby suckles with massage and compression. This team also designed soft, low-profile flanges to be worn discreetly. Contact the team via Kristy Johnson 
 
 PumpIO : An open software and hardware platform to make the breast pumping experience smarter, more data-rich and less isolating. PumpIO puts pumping women in touch with lactation consultants and communities as they are pumping, when they have questions and to help reinforce their commitment to their baby. Contact the team via Max Metral 
 
 Helping Hands : a sturdy, easy to clean, minimal parts, hands free compression bra designed by nursing moms. The bra helps women manually express breastmilk (a technique proven to be as effective as electric pumps) without their hands. Contact the team via Katherine Ong 
 
 Mighty Mom utility belt is a fashionable, discrete, hands-free wearable pump that automatically logs and analyses your personal data. Contact the team via Erin Freeburger or Robyn Churchill 
 
 1st Prize, $3000 (sponsored by Vecna Technologies ) and a trip for two team members to Silicon Valley to pitch their ideas to investors (sponsored by Pejman Mar Ventures ) 
 
 We welcome you using these images for your articles and stories. 
 
 You can see all of the awesome projects that were prototyped at the hackathon here on ChallengePost: http://breastpumphackathon.challengepost.com/submissions 
 
 What do you want to accomplish? We want to seed ideas, connections and projects that will make the breast pump experience not suck so much. Covening talented people for a weekend is a first step. We also see this as an opportunity to catalyze innovation in maternal and pediatric health more generally. 
 
 What's a hackathon? A hackathon is a high-energy, collaborative event that seeks to bring together a diverse group of people to explore key issues and challenges in a particular field. Traditionally, hackathons have been mostly technical in nature, focusing on software engineering and, occasionally, on hardware development; our goal is to reach out to a wider range of talents and skills to investigate creative solutions for the maternal and neonatal healthcare space. 
 
 Who's coming? 150 people that will self-organize into teams of 5-10 people per team. For our hackathon teams, we are looking for a mix of breastpump users, engineers, designers, health care and lactation specialists, and educators. Registration is free and open to the public but space is limited. You must register in order to attend and unfortunately all of our space is now full. 
 
 Who organized this? We are a group of MIT Media Lab students and researchers who are also parents: Tal Achituv is a Research Assistant in the Fluid Interfaces group. His background is in hardware and software engineering and he has founded several companies. He is the father of Shira (2), and Lior who was born just last month. (@achituv) Catherine D'Ignazio is a Research Affiliate in the Civic Media group. She is also an Assistant Professor of Civic Media and Data Visualization at Emerson College and a Fellow at the Engagement Lab. Her background is in the arts, data visualization and software development. She likes making fun, magical things with social impact. She has three kids and has pumped for all three. Her youngest is 14 months old and hung out at the Media Lab for the first 6 months of her life. (@kanarinka) Alexis Hope is a Research Assistant in the Civic Media group. Her background is in human-centered design, qualitative research, and maternal health. Prior to coming to the lab, she worked on a project to build a low-cost, easy-to-use ultrasound system for midwives in Kenya and Uganda. She has no kids yet, but hopes that by the time she does there is a better breast pump! (@alexishope) Taylor Levy is a Research Assistant in the Playful Systems group. Her background is in industrial design and graphics. She had a baby named Pau ("POW") just six weeks ago. Alexandra Metral is a Research Affiliate in the Fluid Interfaces group. (The irony of the groupâ€™s name is not lost on her.) She is an artist/designer/local politician/stylist/educator, and also has experience running start-up ventures. Idea Translation, Life-Extension and Fun are common features of her work. She has nursed her three young children, the first with chronic illnesses which presented in nicu. Also pumped for an adopted neighbor. Alexandra and her family are bi-coastal, silicon valley is her other pod. (@alexmetral) Dave Raymond is an honorary member of the Civic Media group and the Director of Training and Business Development for Vecna Technologies. He manages their multimillion dollar digital technology rollout to the VA Hospital System and loves improving health care for veterans. He has three kids and embraces the insanity by playing in a heavy metal band. Che-Wei Wang is a Research Assistant in the Playful Systems group. He is baby Pau's dad and a whiz with hardware design and development. 
 
 Why is this awesome? As one of the midwives at our first hackathon said, "Maternal health lags behind other sectors for innovation." We are bringing together people from diverse fields, sectors and backgrounds to take a crack at making life better for moms, babies and new families. We see our role as a catalyst for new connections and new ideas that will inspire participants and highlight maternal and pediatric health as a vibrant, exciting space to be working in for the design and engineering leaders of tomorrow. 
 
 Why is breastmilk magic? The health benefits of breastfeeding (both to mother and baby!) are numerous and include the reductions of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, obesity, female cancers, heart disease and osteoporosis. Despite the overwhelming data and worldwide endorsement of breastfeeding for at least two years, many women do not breastfeed at all or wean after several months. In particular, low-income, working women are rarely able to take extended maternity leave, to afford the cost of a pump, or to pump breastmilk at their workplace. In emerging economies around the world, women who go back to work wean their babies rather than using a breast pump. 
 
 Why does breastpumping suck? Read our blog post about our prior hackathon that went viral. 
 
 I'm a nursing mom/lactation expert. How can I help? The Breast Pump User and Health Care slots are full but there are a couple ways you can still help this effort. Submit your ideas! Click here to send us your best ideas. We are compiling an amazing, open data set of hundreds of creative, awesome ideas from pumping moms (and trans-dads). Teams will be reading about your responses and ideas at the hackathon. Donate your breast pumps. Bring your old pumps to the third floor of the MIT Media Lab, corner of Ames & Amherst St, in Cambridge. There is a donation box for pumps we can use at the hackathon. Get some media attention for the event in your locale. Part of this is about raising the profile of maternal health and bringing public attention to the idea that there are so many ways that our society could better support families and children. Show up. If in Boston, you can come by the hackathon at 5pm on Saturday to give teams feedback on their ideas. You can come listen to the final team pitches from 4pm - 6:30pm on Sunday and see who wins the grand prize, too. Connect with us post-hackathon. We are a little overwhelmed right now but afterwards we will be looking for ways to keep the momentum going. 
 
 I'm a coder/hacker/designer. How can I help? The Engineering and Designer tickets are all sold out, but there are a couple ways to help from afar: Help us analyze and visualize the user-submitted ideas. Do you have data visualization or NLP skills? Email us and we'll send you the data set of amazing, creative ideas submitted by pump users. We'd love some innovative visualizations and ways to group and categorize the unstructured text. We can print out your work to be shown at the hackathon if it helps give insight into the user perspective. Connect with us post-hackathon. We are a little overwhelmed right now but afterwards we will be looking for ways to keep the momentum going. 
 
 What's the structure of the event? Our program will begin with introductions and inspirational talks from our sponsors and guest speakers. Next, hackathon registrants will provide brief â€śrocket pitchesâ€ť about any idea they want to work on, inviting attendees to join their teams and share their skills. Once teams are created, the hacking begins. Problems are explored, ideas are shared, and innovative solutions are crafted. All meals, water, coffee, and tea will be provided to properly fuel our collaboration. We'll also have a bunch of awesome tech on hand - 3D printers, wearable prototyping materials, arduinos, Raspberry Pis and more. What teams create is theirs to keep. At the end of Day 1, each team will provide a brief update of their progress before adjourning for the evening. Additional venues for collaboration will be provided for teams that wish to collaborate past the official Day 1 wrap-up time of 7pm. Day 2 will feature continuing collaboration through most of the day. Teams will present their ideas before a panel of expert judges, who will award prizes for the four most promising projects before the event comes to a close. 
 
 Is it free? Do you have to register? Yes. And Yes. It's free but space, materials and food are limited and we can't allow in people that are not registered. Unfortunately all the slots are now filled and we can't accept any more participants.. 
 
 What are the prizes? First prize - $3,000 (Vecna Technologies) and a trip for two team members to Silicon Valley to pitch your idea to VCs (Pejman Mar Ventures) 
 
 Second prize - $2,000 (Medela) 
 
 Third prize - $1,000 (Naia Health) 
 
 Outstanding User-Focused Design prize - $500 (Moxxly) 
 
 Who is supporting this effort? 
 
 Vecna Technologies, Inc., is a healthcare IT company based in Cambridge MA. Vecna Medical's products include a suite of patient self-service products (Patient Portal, Patient Kiosk, and Patient Queuing), QC PathFinder (electronic infection surveillance software), and QC Bot (healthcare delivery robot). Vecna is sponsoring the First Prize. Pejman Mar Ventures is an investment firm located in Silicon Valley. Pejman Mar Ventures is sponsoring two members of the winning team to fly to Silicon Valley and pitch their idea to investors. Medela, Inc. Founded in 1961 in Zug, Switzerland by Olle Larsson, Medela continues to grow under the ownership of the Larsson family today. Medela serves its customers through 18 subsidiaries distributing to over 90 countries worldwide. Medelaâ€™s U.S. subsidiary, Medela, Inc., has been serving the American market for nearly 30 years. Medelaâ€™s Breastfeeding Division exists to enhance mother and baby health through the life-giving benefits of breastmilk. Our destiny statement guides all that we do, and inspires us to find new ways to support mothers on their breastfeeding journey. Medela is sponsoring the Second Prize. Naia Health Inc., is a seed stage company developing digital, consumer-focused health products that will revolutionize the well-being and lifestyle of mothers and babies. Our initial product is a first-of-kind, radically improved breast pump for nursing moms that is hospital grade, yet fits into your favorite handbag. Naia Health is sponsoring the Third Prize. Lasinoh. Founded by a breastfeeding mom in 1984, Lansinoh has been helping moms breastfeed for more than 30 years. Our family of products is designed for those who know that breastfeeding is one of the greatest gifts they can give their baby, but may need a little help along the way. Lasinoh is underwriting the catering for the event. Simple Wishes was founded in 2008 by four sisters who had a â€śSimple Wishâ€ť...make the experience of using a breast pump easier. Their Signature Hands Free Pumping Bra, is often described as a â€ślifesaverâ€ť. Pumping Essentials is a boutique medical supply business that helps moms navigate the often confusing process of getting their breastpump covered by insurance. Simple wishes and Pumping Essentials are sponsoring scholarships for attendees who work with low-income mothers to be able to attend the event. Moxxly is a consumer products company designing for modern women. We work at the crossroads of user-centered design, branding, and technology to create products that empower women. Our first product is an elegant pump system that allows women to breastfeed with their shirt on while receiving real-time data about their supply. Moxxly is sponsoring a prize for Outstanding User-Focused Design. Mamajamas. The goal of Mamajamas is to help new and expecting parents buy only stuff they need â€” to help them spend less time thinking about stuff and more time enjoying pregnancy and new parenthood. Ameda Inc. Todayâ€™s Ameda breast pumps combine founding engineer Einar Egnellâ€™s innovative technology with the features a 21st century mother expects. Everything Ameda offers â€“ breast pumps and products, breastfeeding education, support of lactation professionals â€“ reflects our passion for breastfeeding. Since 1942, Ameda has been the leading innovator and has delivered unmatched quality and service to lactation professionals, institutions and most importantly, mothers. Ameda is sponsoring scholarships for attendees who work with low-income mothers to be able to attend the event. The MIT Center for Civic Media works hand in hand with diverse communities to collaboratively create, design, deploy, and assess civic media tools and practices. The MIT Center for Bits and Atoms is an interdisciplinary initiative exploring the boundary between computer science and physical science. CBA studies how to turn data into things, and things into data. It manages facilities, runs research programs, supervises students, works with sponsors, creates startups, and does public outreach. iKatun is a non-profit organization that supports cultural events, exhibitions and conferences at the intersection of civic engagement and innovation. iKatun is an organizing partner for this event. 
 
 What if I need financial support to attend? We are pleased to offer hackathon scholarships of $500 to people from the Boston area who can speak to the challenges that lower income women face in breastfeeding or pumping breastmilk for their babies. Scholarship recipients might be parents, pumps users, caregivers, community health providers, or other technical or non-technical professions. Each scholarship recipient receives $500 to cover costs of childcare for the two days and transportation to the event. These scholarships are generously underwritten by Simple Wishes, Pumping Essentials, Mamajamas and Ameda. To apply for a scholarship, write an email to breastpump-organizers@media.mit.edu with a couple sentences describing your how your work engages with lower income breastfeeding or pumping women. Email us at breastpump-organizers@media.mit.edu. ||||| Exclusive pumping is becoming more popular among American moms, often seen as a way moms can “have it all.” Meanwhile, the effects on maternal and infant health—and workplace policies—are rarely discussed. 
 
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 A serious pregnancy complication sent first-time mom Missy Boss into an emergency cesarean section; by the time she delivered, her blood pressure was at pre-stroke levels. Boss says since she didn’t have the all-natural, drug-free childbirth she’d planned, she was “determined to do at least one thing right: breastfeed.” 
 
 In the 56 hours after coming home from the hospital with her son, Boss never slept. Her son wouldn’t nurse. She spent one entire eight-hour stretch just trying to get him to latch onto her breast, but he wasn’t having it. She’d had as many lactation consultant visits as her insurance would cover and couldn’t afford the $600 per visit after that. “I already felt like a failure as a mother in so many ways,” Boss says. “Could I do nothing right?” 
 
 There’s an assumption that bottle-feeding breast milk to a child is equivalent to breastfeeding, but that may not be the case. 
 
 When she told her doula (who she didn’t end up needing at the birth) about how much trouble she was having breastfeeding, she told Boss that she had experienced similar problems with her first child, and ended up exclusively pumping her breast milk for two years. Missy decided to give it a try. 
 
 Exclusive pumping—feeding your baby only breast milk, only from a bottle—is traditionally the territory of mothers whose babies are in the neonatal intensive care unit or otherwise medically unable to suckle directly at the breast. With the widespread availability of portable, personal electric breast pumps that can empty both breasts at the same time, hands-free, in a matter of minutes, more moms have begun to jump on the “EPing” bandwagon. These moms, like Boss, were unable to establish a successful breastfeeding relationship despite their best efforts, but they still wanted to feed their babies breast milk. 
 
 The practice of pumping frequently or exclusively is continuing to grow. According to data from the latest iteration of the Infant Feeding Practices Survey (2005-07), among U.S. moms of healthy, full-term infants, 85 percent have used a breast pump at some point, 25 percent pump their milk regularly, and six percent pump exclusively. Problematically, the rise of pumping also implies that moms don’t need as much time at home to spend with their babies—they can simply pump, store, and go back to work. What most moms may not know is that beneath the perceived convenience of pumping, there are potential consequences both for workplace norms and for the health of themselves and their infants. There’s an assumption that bottle-feeding breast milk to a child is equivalent to breastfeeding, but that may not be the case. 
 
 “UNBEKNOWNST TO MOST HEALTH professionals, a revolution is taking place in the way U.S. infants are fed human milk. The possible benefits or harms resulting from exclusive pumping merit careful study,” a recent commentary in the American Journal of Public Health noted. The authors wrote that this “quiet revolution in milk expression” (when milk is removed from the breasts sans baby, either manually or with a pump) could be good for babies if they receive more human milk and for a longer period; where it may be problematic is if babies are fed too much, given milk that is an inappropriate composition, or, worse, contaminated. 
 
 More specifically, “While expressed breast milk is recognized as far superior to infant formula, the lactation community has begun to question whether [it] confers similar protection to that derived by directly breastfeeding,” according to Donna Chapman, writing in the Journal of Human Lactation. Such protections include reducing the incidence of gastrointestinal illnesses, upper respiratory infections, asthma, obesity, both types of diabetes, and certain childhood cancers. 
 
 Breastfeeding is about more than the milk. Babies don’t just breastfeed for nutrition; they nurse for comfort, closeness, soothing, and security. 
 
 Part of the problem is a lack of research. A 2013 systematic review of literature on the subject by researchers at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Victoria, Australia, found only 22 research papers addressing breast milk expression. Most papers discussed expression for sick or premature infants; the rest were commentaries calling for more research. With only seven papers reporting on expression by mothers of healthy, full-term infants, the authors concluded that there is “limited evidence” on the outcomes of the practice—and some studies resulted in contradictory results. Compounding the inconsistencies is that “breastfeeding was the term used to describe any breast milk intake, regardless of the mode of its delivery.” Since pumping has become more popular, studies should make a distinction between direct breastfeeding and feeding a baby breast milk from the bottle, the authors write. 
 
 “Promotion of breast-milk feeding as identical to breastfeeding is misleading,” says Virginia Thorley, a lactation consultant and honorary research fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia. “The new challenge is to use language accurately, and tell mothers the truth that feeding their milk to their babies by bottle is less than equivalent to breastfeeding.” 
 
 Thorley has written extensively on the potential perils of “normalizing” the separation of breast milk from breasts. She says that bottle-feeding of breast milk has a place in specific circumstances, such as when a baby is unable to adequately stimulate the mother’s milk supply, or in cases like Boss’, where a baby is unable to nurse directly. And while she agrees bottled breast milk is better than infant formula, “breastfeeding is about more than the milk.” Babies don’t just breastfeed for nutrition; they nurse for comfort, closeness, soothing, and security. 
 
 Boss admits that, at first, she was worried about missing out on some of the benefits that breastfeeding ensures: the bonding, the closeness, the skin-to-skin contact. “But then I realized that parents can bond with their children in so many other ways,” she says. “Breastfeeding is just one thing of many that we can do to make sure our children know we love them and care about them.” 
 
 DESPITE THE NEED FOR additional research, current studies point to several problematic aspects of exclusive pumping. One concern is that babies only fed by bottle eat more and thus grow differently. A 2010 analysis shows that babies fed breast milk by bottle in early infancy were more likely to empty their bottles later in infancy than their breastfeeding counterparts. Infants fed both at the breast and with bottles of expressed breast milk gained weight at a similar rate to those only breastfed, but infants gained more weight per month when fed only by bottle (formula or breast milk). There are multiple theories for why: Babies can get milk out of bottles quicker than breasts, caregivers tend to encourage infants to finish their bottles, and it is thought that breastfeeding teaches babies when to stop eating. 
 
 The underlying message [is] that milk expressing is incidental to her real work and her real life, as an employee. The elephant in the room is the deplorable lack of paid maternity leave. 
 
 Another analysis found that infants who were not directly breastfed have a significant increase in coughing and wheezing episodes compared to those who were. Some research suggests storing expressed breast milk may interfere with its beneficial properties. Freezing can break down its immunological cells and lipids (but doesn’t affect its antimicrobial proteins), refrigeration reduces ascorbic acid concentrations, and both storage methods reduce antioxidant activity. Microwave thawing, which is not recommended, drastically decreases breast milk’s anti-infective elements. The effects of these changes, if any, are unknown. 
 
 The content of the breast milk itself may differ when it is exclusively pumped. A mother’s breast milk changes according to a baby’s needs, as it ages, as well as throughout the course of a day and the course of each feeding session. Research has confirmed that the fat concentration of expressed milk increases with the baby’s age in the same way that breast-fed milk does. But if mothers don’t pump for long enough at each session, their infants may receive predominantly fore milk (which is high in carbohydrates) and not get enough hind milk (which is high in fat). 
 
 As for contamination, everything breast milk touches outside the body during the process of expression and bottle-feeding is a chance for it to obtain harmful bacteria. Bacterial counts are higher in milk expressed with a pump than in milk expressed by hand. 
 
 Thorley adds that breastfeeding protects against ear infections not just because of breast milk’s anti-infective elements, but because of the posture of the baby’s head and the dynamics of the suck/swallow/breathe cycle while nursing. She says babies fed by bottle miss out on these aspects. 
 
 And we haven’t even addressed the potential health impacts for mothers. We don’t know if pumping breast milk offers moms the same benefits of breastfeeding, such as increased postpartum weight loss, and reduced risk of postpartum depression, multiple reproductive cancers, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. 
 
 BOSS TOLD ME THAT many people assume mothers who pump exclusively are doing so out of convenience, rather than necessity or utter desperation: “Moms frequently feel attacked and criticized by friends, family, Internet strangers, etc. Everyone seems to think that EPing is a lifestyle choice, done for convenience.” Exclusive pumping is a lot of work; it can’t be a decision moms take lightly. 
 
 Whether it counts under “necessary” or “for convenience” is debatable, but one of the more controversial aspects of the exclusive pumping debate is that many working mothers are adopting the practice. As Jill Lepore noted in a 2009 New Yorker article: “To follow a doctor’s orders, a woman who returns to work 12 weeks after childbirth has to find a way to feed her baby her own milk for another nine months. The nation suffers, in short, from a Human Milk Gap. There are three ways to bridge that gap: longer maternity leaves, on-site infant childcare, and pumps. Much effort has been spent implementing option No. 3, the cheap way out.” 
 
 Judging by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s September hack-a-thon to “make the breast pump not suck,” we appear to have chosen pumping as the answer. The hack-a-thon winner was a utility-belt pump, designed for moms who aren’t able to take breaks. CNN explained that: “Pumping while working means stopping all activity and heading to a secluded room for half an hour, multiple times a day. That loss of productivity is bad for employers and employees.” 
 
 Breast pumps are marketed as an essential accessory of modern motherhood to wealthy countries with expendable income. 
 
 According to Thorley, pump harnesses that allow mothers to work while pumping were already heavily promoted years ago: “The underlying message [is] that milk expressing is incidental to her real work and her real life, as an employee. The elephant in the room is the deplorable lack of paid maternity leave. I believe improving work conditions should be a high priority—not making fancier pumps.” All the well-intentioned advocates of better breast pumps and more access to lactation rooms should be aware that those policies actually promote more separation of mom and baby, not less. 
 
 Breast pumps are marketed as an essential accessory of modern motherhood to wealthy countries with expendable income, Thorley says, and she laments the death of the art of hand expressing breast milk. She takes issue with exclusive pumping becoming a life “choice,” and is concerned about the feeding of expressed milk shifting from something needed in relatively few circumstances to the norm. 
 
 The normalization of exclusive pumping could have major societal implications: It may erode societal support for breastfeeding, for example. There’s also a danger that moms will go straight for the pump and never even attempt to breastfeed their babies, and that the availability of efficient pumps will make it more difficult to argue for the importance of legislated maternity leave. Pumping may simply be too burdensome an activity—yet another expectation—to add to a mother’s already complex life. As Thorley puts it: “More work for tired mothers.” 
 
 FOR THE FIRST FEW weeks of exclusive pumping, Boss says she was lucky to get two hours of sleep a night. Her initial goal was to pump milk for her son for three months. Three months came and went, and she realized it really wasn’t that hard once she got used to it—even though she was pumping 12 times a day. “I got really efficient at it. I would just sit here at the kitchen table, pumping milk and catching up on Game of Thrones at 2 a.m.,” Boss tells me. “I read every book while pumping in the middle of the night.” Her next goal was six months. Six months came and went; now that her son is 14 months old, she is finally putting the pump away. She estimates that she has pumped a total of 2,300 times. 
 
 The three infant-feeding options available—formula, pumped breast milk, and breastfeeding—likely fall on a continuum of good, better, best. Many parents end up using the feeding method their baby or situation dictates (baby refuses bottles, can’t latch on breast, or has a bad reaction to formula; mom must return to work quickly, etc.). For parents who have the luxury of truly choosing any feeding method, it’s fine to choose exclusive pumping in the same way that it’s fine to choose formula, as long as they understand the differences in health outcomes. The problem is that for exclusively pumped milk, moms need to understand there’s still a lot we don’t know. 
 
 “I feel like I both succeeded and failed. Many moms can’t or won’t exclusively pump for as long as I did, but I still feel like I failed at breastfeeding,” Boss says. “I realize I did the best that I could. And that’s all our kids can ask from us.”
– It might not be the first thing that comes to mind after the word "hackathon," but organizers of an upcoming one at MIT say the world is long overdue for a better breast pump. Engineers, designers, moms, and health experts will gather later this month for reasons spelled out by organizers at their website: "The motor is loud. There are too many parts. They are hard to clean. You can’t lay down and pump. There is no good space to pump. It’s hard to keep track of what you pump. Your colleagues think pumping is weird. People are skeeved out by breastmilk. People are embarrassed by breasts." The Sept. 20-21 hackathon is an offshoot of a smaller brainstorming session in May that was in itself prompted by this article in the New York Times lamenting the baffling lack of progress on breast pumps. By and large, they remain complicated and sometimes painful. It's about time, writes Melissa Malamut at Boston Magazine. "Let’s not forget that you just pushed a baby out of your body. You’d think that would be the hardest part of being a new mom. But no, then you also have to deal with the annoyances of pumping." Business Insider calls it "one of the biggest issues for working mothers," and NBC News notes that half of all new mothers breastfeed for six months, meaning that most require pumps for at least parts of that stretch. The public health benefits of breastfeeding are "huge," say organizers, making the current pump designs all the more frustrating. Hackathon participants will split into teams and pitch prototypes at the end of the session. (A new issue: Moms who breastfeed while using medical marijuana.)