“Breast is best” we’ve all heard it. What they don’t tell you is breastfeeding is the hardest thing you will probably ever do. In that first week at home with my new baby, I considered throwing in the towel about a hundred times and I realized why so many mom’s don’t breastfeed, or stop.

My baby latched well in hospital, but it was a completely different story when we got home and I was on my own with her. I ended up with a starving, screaming baby. I didn’t invest in a breast pump before I had my baby, because I wasn’t sure if it would be wasted or not, should I not be able to breastfeed. I did however get given a manual breast pump, so I did have that handy. It was NOT for me. I found it harsh and painful (maybe I wasn’t doing it right). It also only made my breasts more engorged. I read online somewhere that engorgement can be made worse if pumping soon after having a C-Section, because of the IV fluids you are given? So I spent the entire night watching YouTube tutorials, trying to teach myself to express by hand to get some milk, and to relieve the engorgement. I think I got 5mls. So I was in pain, had cracked bleeding nipples, and baby was still starving and refusing to latch.

On the second day my husband and I thought, well it’s decision time, do we go and buy formula? We instead came home with nipple shields, breast cold packs, nipple cream, bottles with various teet sizes and an electric pump. I spent a fortune, but I needed everything and anything that was going to make this ordeal easier for me so I could keep my sanity. And I needed to give it another try due to the expectation I had of ‘breastfeeding being a natural part of being a mom’. Although now I know that it is not a natural thing that comes easily as a baby is handed to you- it takes a bit of figuring out and al lot of perseverance!

Thankfully for us the nipple shields were the magic trick and got my baby to latch again. But the electric pump did help to get enough milk out to be able to catch her up a bit. We had bought the bottom of the range (cheapest) pump in case that also didn’t work out, and I thought to myself “at least I have it now and I’ll be able to pump regularly to build up a freezer stash”. However the sterilizing of the bottles and all the millions of parts that made up the pump drove me crazy, and worse added an extra hour to my day…. an hour you don’t really have when you are feeding on demand. I really take my hat off to moms who formula feed because bottles are a lot of work! Needless to say the pump was packed away and only used when I had a very urgent need to pump out a full feed/bottle.

During this ordeal I did what all mom’s do, and surrounded myself with support groups and online resources and was relieved to discover other moms had difficulty finding time to pump. I had come across a one-piece pump on a breastfeeding blog (the women were raving about it) and I thought – this sounds like my kind of thing. But I could not find anything of the sort stocked in South Africa.

And so… began the hunt to find one for myself. But why stop there? If my experience could have been made easier by something so simple, you can be guaranteed I will be getting one for each and every one of my friends who are soon to be moms.

That is why we decided to launch Moooka and bring this amazing product into the country. It’s not going to break your bank and should be considered in your essential items when preparing for baby. Weather you end up breastfeeding or not, I really hope that this product will help you in some way during that first (awful) week. Even if to only help relieve the engorgement.

For me it has become my breastfeeding best friend – I pump in the car on my way to work, while cleaning the house and while feeding baby on the other side, saving me a ton of time.

AN UPDATE FROM THE CREATOR

We launched Moooka in May 2017 and it has gone from strength to strength and grown in popularity. We are very proud of the awareness we have and continue to create in the SA retail market when it comes to Silicone Breast Pumps (because they really are amazing devices!)- even if it has meant we have helped open doors to many competitor products following our lead. 

Unfortunately when you do something well, there are people in the world that will copy you and piggy back on your success. But we are not the type to get despondent! In fact we saw it as a challenge to grow further and it has been one of the motivations behind bringing the production of the Moooka to SA soil. We have invested all our time and energy into updating and tweaking the design to ensure it is everything a mom would need out of this pump, and have registered our designs so we can proudly own everything about the Moooka.

We have tried to be innovative in this silicone pump world and have sourced the highest quality (and FDA approved) material and pigmentation to now bring the Moooka 2.0 to you in four beautiful colours- because being a mom is an individual experience, why not have your pump in a colour you really like too?

It is of the utmost importance to us to give you a product we can 100% guarantee will be safe for you and your baby- and we have the certification to prove this. We are also very excited to have hands-on involvement in managing the entire process, from material sourcing, to production and to retail to ensure the integrity and quality of the product is protected throughout.

We are very excited about the plan and growth for the business in 2019, and plan on also giving back to the community wherever we can.

Most of all, the last 2 years have been more than we could have wished for when it comes to working at the baby expo’s and getting to know our moms personally. Having mom’s share their stories and struggles and getting the opportunity to occasionally give new expectant moms and dads a step-by-step walk through on what you could expect in those first few days- based on our own experiences and knowledge we have picked up along the way- really makes what we do more than a business, and more than a job!

We thank all our moms for their support and for many, their continued and referral support! We wouldn’t be where we are without you and we look forward to growing the Moooka fan base into the next decade!