I’ve got a(nother) stinking cold. On the plus side this means I can make use of the greatest of the working Mum benefits – I’ve called in sick and am home alone with a Lemsip! Yay! (sort of yay). I would go back to bed at this point but there are several tons of machinery and a dozen shouty builders resurfacing the road outside so instead I’m going to share two of the more curious things I’ve found on the internet while poorly sick.
The – Make The Breast Pump Not Suck- Hackathon:
Breast pumps suck, and not just literally. Once my babies were born I often felt that my sole purpose on Earth was to lactate. Regularly plugging myself into an uncomfortable, fiddly device that made loud Mooo Mooo noises really did nothing to stop me feeling like little more than a one woman dairy herd.
But maybe there is hope. Last weekend MIT media lab held a hackathon. Hackathons are usually intense sessions where software engineers and programmers get together to create something new or solve problems. This event took that idea and applied it to breast pumps, it also brought in designers and, most importantly, the Mums who have to use these things. They then spent 2 days working in small teams to re-invent the dreaded breast pump.
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| I’m guessing this is the first hackathon with a sewing machine, though perhaps not the first with fake boobs Photo Credit – Che-Wei Wang |
The winning team came up with a tool belt system that allowed for discreet hands free pumping – (apparently you could pump on your commute, can’t imagine trying that on the 9.01 with my massive mooing device). It also records data about your milk which you can then track on a smart phone app. I’m not sure how much that last bit appeals to me but it could provide reassurance for women worried about milk supply or quality.
The runners up focused on imitating manual expression by building a bra containing chambers filled with warmable beads that can be gentle inflated. This also sounds like it would be a great help for Mums with mastitis and certainly better than my attempts to juggle boob, hot water bottle and pump while hideously feverish!
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Never to young to start hacking (or napping)
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More info about the Hackathon and the ideas it produced can be found here. Let’s hope this is the start of lots more innovation to make Mums lives easier (and less bovine).
Baby Wearing Warriors:
Baby wearing, carrying babies and young children in a sling rather than in a buggy, is increasingly popular. Devotees claim that it promotes attachment (not just physically!) and bonding between parent and child and is more natural as it’s what our ancestors did and what many mothers in non-western societies still do. But what if historic baby wearing wasn’t about nurturing the child at all or even just a matter of convenience? What if strapping a screaming child to your back was actually a serious military strategy?
In case you’re wondering, no, this isn’t serious but it did win an award at last years BAHfest – that’s the Bad Ad Hoc Hypothesis festival by the way, and it made me giggle:
Right I’m off to make another Lemsip and probably a large mug of tomato soup.
SBx
southwarkbelle.com 