Is a high-tech pumping bra needed in today's world?

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Public breastfeeding has been pushed into the spotlight many times this year. From pedestrians who publicly nursed their children to officials who comforted their kids in parliament, these moms all proved one point: Babies don’t wait up.

The mission of catering to your children on demand, 24/7 is hard to accomplish, which is when breast pumps come in handy. And today's breast pumps are getting more technical like everything else.

At Tuesday’s TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, startup company Lilu staged a prototype of its pumping bra, a large sports-bra-like gadget, promising to pump more milk in less time.

Its built-in automated compressor imitates finger stimulation on breasts to help get 50 percent more milk out within the same period of time compared with regular pumps.

Evi Triantafyllides, a Lilu spokesperson, told Engadget that the bra massages the whole breast, which brings forward the "hindmilk" of the breast and can effectively reduce the chances for mastitis.

Lilu's built-in compressor imitates finger stimulation around the breasts to help get milk out effectively. /Gif via Lilu

The pumping bra can be worn over regular or nursing bras. To use, one can pull down the two flaps up front, snap on the pumping bottle, and hit the middle button to turn on the pump. The pressure of the compressor is adjustable and can be charged via a micro-USB cable.

Lilu's bra is one step forward compared with regular manual pumps, which require a long process without effectively extracting the milk, and the electric ones, which create loud noises and require moms to “chain” themselves to a power outlet when being used.

The idea for Lilu's pumping bra came from Adriana Vazquez and Sujay Suresh, who graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Pennsylvania, respectively.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Vazquez explained that a friend who returned to work after having a child was her inspiration for the device.

"It was the first time I saw up close what it was like to be a working mother," Vazquez told TechCrunch. "It struck me how little I knew about the challenges that working moms face."

Larissa Waters breastfeeds her baby Alia Joy during a session in the Senate Chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Tuesday, May 9, 2017. /AP Photo

People’s opinions on publicly nursing a child differ, but one thing we can all agree on is that breast milk is beneficial to the newborns. The milk contains a mixture of vitamins, protein and fat. The antibodies in the milk can also help babies fight off bacteria and viruses.

Breastfeeding, therefore, is often recommended by doctors and lactation experts. In fact, China's State Council even issued a nutrition plan to increase the rate of breastfeeding for infants younger than 6 months to 10 percent by the year of 2030.

Future technology in breastfeeding is much needed for those who encounter troubles providing breast milk to their children at any given time.

As for now, the pricey, high-tech pumping bras may not be every household’s first choice, but the hope for affordable breast pumping technology is on the rise.