US 2026/0241083 A1Published application

Breast pump

AssigneeMedela, Inc.

InventorsCharles Kim, Kalpesh Patel

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Abstract

A breast pump including a breast shield adapted to at least in part receive a breast of a lactating mother or user. The breast pump has an aggregate for generating a cyclic suction profile for expressing milk from the breast. The breast pump has a milk container providing a reservoir for the expressed milk and a controller for controlling the aggregate. The aggregate may be formed by a motor and a pump transferring the rotational movement of the motor into at least one cyclic suction profile, which suction profile includes a vacuum start phase, a vacuum application phase, a vacuum maintenance phase and a vacuum release phase consecutive to each other and specifically designed with respect to relative duration within the suction cycle and pressure effective in respective phase to optimize the vacuum application to the breast of the user with the scope to obtain an increase milk extraction.

Claims12

Dependent claims

A suction profile for a breast pump comprising a vacuum start phase, a vacuum application phase, a vacuum maintenance phase and a vacuum release phase, wherein the vacuum start phase is followed by the vacuum application phase, wherein the vacuum application phase is followed by the vacuum maintenance phase, wherein the vacuum maintenance phase is followed by the vacuum release phase, wherein the vacuum release phase defines the end of the cycle,

wherein the vacuum start phase extends over between 15 to 21% of the cycle duration and has and has an average pressure slope of between −80 and −120 mmHg/s,
wherein the vacuum application phase extends over between 25 to 35 % of the cycle duration and has an average pressure slope of between −600 and −700 mmHg/s,
wherein the vacuum maintenance phase extends over between 23 to 33 % of the cycle duration and has an average pressure slope of between −10 mmHg/s and 10 mmHg/s,
wherein the vacuum release phase extends over between 17 to 27% of the cycle duration and increases the pressure from the pressure at the end of the vacuum maintenance phase to the pressure at the start of the vacuum start phase.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.