CES 2017: Willow Smart Wearable Breast Pump Increases Multitasking Level For Moms By A Factor Of 10

By Edwin Kee
Willow breast pump at CES 2017
 CNN

Men cannot tell you too much about the performance of a breast pump, but the ladies are authority figures on this particular device. The Willow smart wearable breast pump that has debuted at CES 2017 intends to deliver no pain or discomfort, without making the new mother look like a freak when using on. Yes, existing breast pumps that are in the market literally require the mother to put everything down and escape to a comfortable and quiet room in order to express her milk via a breast pump. The Willow breast pump would like to change that scenario, by allowing you to continue whatever you are doing at that point in time.

Touted to be the first smart wearable breast pump in the market, the Willow is made up of hands-free breast pumps, and is shaped to the fit the contour of most breasts. Each pair of teardrop-shaped devices can be slipped into most bras without too much trouble, and then it will get to work without much fanfare at all, which suits the mother perfectly fine since she does not have to grapple with nasty looking tubes or other pesky attachments.

Where does all of the expressed milk go then? Well, within each pump lies a collection bag. This particular collection bag would be able to carry up to a quartet of ounces of milk. The entire Willow system is made up of three pieces, and they are also dishwasher safe. A single charge of the internal batteries allow you to use the Willow for two days at one time, which is not too shabby at all.

Necessity has often been cited to be the mother of all invention, and this was what drove John Chang, the founder and CTO of Willow, to come up with the Willow smart wearable breast pump: his wife and his three children were his inspiration. Chang has faith that the Willow will be able to gain traction in the new parents’ market, as it empowers mothers to breastfeed their newborns without looking out of place, and neither would the regular rhythm of life see too much interruption. After all, the Willow breast pump is discreet in nature, is a snap to use and will run quietly so that no one would be able to know any better. In fact, successful trials of the Willow smart breast pump saw mothers wear them during a train commute, or when they are attending to conference calls without experiencing any kind of performance issues.

To keep up with the times, what is the point of calling the Willow a smart wearable breast pump when it does not come with an app? Hence, there is a companion app to go along with the Willow, being smart enough to figure out how much milk is pumped from each breast, as well as the frequency of pumps performed in addition the time required for each session. This means you do not have to log your activity manually, as the app will do it all for you.

With an asking price of $430 slapped on the Willow smart wearable breast pump as it is being prepared for a spring release, it is definitely far more expensive than other regular, manual breast pumps. However, this is what is known as the price for convenience.