Breastfeeding can present all kinds of challenges. Jules Sherman, MFA ’12, has a story of her own: Her baby was delivered after a troubled labor by vacuum assist, which injured the infant’s jaw. She couldn’t breastfeed, so Sherman had to hand-express milk, starting with the colostrum, the protein-rich serum full of antibodies that’s so important for newborns. But the existing collection system was terrible: a urine cup, from which the nurses tediously scraped drops for her child.
Now, there’s a better way. Sherman harnessed her industrial design experience from Stanford’s d.school to create specialized attachments for breast pumps and manual funnels to collect colostrum. The system — dubbed Primo-Lacto — channels the liquid directly into the syringe that’s used to feed the child. “The beauty of my product is there’s no transfer of material,” Sherman says. Her creation, which began commercial production this year, preserves 75 percent more colostrum than typical hand-expression and 45 percent more colostrum than breast pumping. “To have some dedicated tools in those first few days not only encourages mothers to continue breastfeeding,” Sherman says, “it makes for healthier babies.”
