A new product has been invented to make soon-to-be dads lactate and able to breastfeed their baby themselves.
Product designer Marie-Claire Springham has invented a way for fathers to breastfeed using a hormone kit that enables men to lactate. Among all the existing products designed to help fathers share breastfeeding duties, this is a first. We’ve come a long way since Caresse Crosby’s nursing bra in 1913, for sure.
The Independent reported that only 34 per cent of babies in Britain were receiving breast milk at six months old. London graduate Springham has addressed this breastfeeding issue in the UK with her still-in-prototype ‘Chestfeeding’ kit. The kit could be the answer to helping mothers who struggle to produce breast milk by sharing duties with the father.
Milky revolution
The revolutionary product contains a breast pump, a compression vest and the hormones meant to stimulate lactation. Men might experience breast growth as a side effect, which is due to the progestin and domperidone hormone combination they would need to take.
In an article published by Dezeen, Springham explains that the Chestfeeding kit comes with a process for involved couples. Future parents would have to sign up to a pre-natal course at the beginning of their pregnancy. Once signed up, fathers would receive a nine-month supply of the progestin drug. Progestin is currently used as a non-oestrogen-based oral contraceptive pill.
Closer paternal bond
While in an interview for Men’s Health, Springham says: “I can’t see why couples wouldn’t use this. It seems unusual but women have been using hormones to change their bodies since they developed the birth-control pill.”
The Chestfeeding kit is yet another product aimed to involve both parents equally for the care of their baby. A father breastfeeding would not only help the mother when she is too tired to feed the baby, or having difficulties producing breast milk, but would also enhance the father’s relationship with the infant.
