About us
The Profiling and Understanding Milk Pumps, Expenses and Disbursements (PUMPED) project is a health systems research initiative dedicated to uncovering the economic, social, and technical dimensions of breast pumps across Germany. It is a pilot research project funded by the Friedrich-Baur Foundation (Friedrich-Baur Stiftung) from July 2024 to July 2026. The goal of the PUMPED project is to provide a comprehensive overview of the procurement, rental, distribution, utilization, and characteristics of breast pumps in order to understand the market landscape in Germany and how the associated costs and reimbursements affect users, institutions, and the broader health system.
Breast pumps are medical devices used to express breast milk for infants who are unable to directly breastfeed, for example, sick and premature infants. Access to breast pumps is also important for sustaining breast milk supply when mothers and infants are separated, for instance, when mothers return to work. Human milk contains valuable nutrients and immunological factors that are central to child health and development. Breastfeeding and human milk protect the health of mothers and children, providing lifelong reduction of risk for many diseases, and is of particular importance for small, sick, and preterm infants.
Bringing together expertise from the fields of maternal and child health and nutrition, psychology, epidemiology, and public health, the PUMPED project explores national data on breast pumps, including trends in health expenditures, accessibility, disparities in funding of ancillary costs, and challenges in disbursement pathways. By gathering data and engaging with stakeholders, including mothers, healthcare providers, and data scientists, we aim to inform better decision-making, equitable access, and sustainable practices around the expression of human milk for infants. The insights gained from this project are intended to support innovations in technology, improvements in public policy, and provide a more transparent understanding of how breast pumps can be sustainably and equitably integrated into healthcare systems for the benefit of mothers and infants.