Foundation garments – Breast or chest – e.g. – brassieres – Closable aperture permits access to breast i.e. – nursing type
Reexamination Certificate
1997-12-03
2001-04-10
Chapman, Jeanette (Department: 3741)
Foundation garments
Breast or chest, e.g., brassieres
Closable aperture permits access to breast i.e., nursing type
C002S104000, C604S074000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06213840
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Breast pumps systems for breast milk expression are well known. They use either electric or mechanical means for creating vacuum to aid in breast milk expression. Both types conventionally have funnel portions that are held against a woman's breast to both introduce the vacuum to the nipples and to catch the expressed breast milk. The vacuum draws breast milk from a nipple through the funnel portion to a breast milk container for subsequent use.
Hands-free breast pump support devices are also known. However, these devices have many different parts that make their use very complicated, difficult and time-consuming--rendering them ineffective. U.S. Pat. No. 5,575,768 (Lockridge et al.), which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Pat. No. 5,514,166 (Silver et al.), discloses such devices.
In addition to a garment (or bra) and a breast pump's funnel portion, the described breast pump support devices of Lockridge et al. further require a plurality of additional elements in order to support a breast pump device: two or more loops or anchoring members attached to the garment; one or more rubber bands attached to the loops; and a mounting element, which may or may not be removably attached to the funnel portion, that has numerous posts to which the band(s) is/are further attached. The use of these devices is so complicated that many women refuse to use them. The problem with these devices is that the garments used cannot independently support a breast pump device by themselves. Indeed these devices must have additional bulky elements to support the weight of even one breast pump device, which make their use overly complicated, difficult and time-consuming even for the most gifted engineer. Furthermore, these additional support elements suffer from the increased cost of using them.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The principle object of this invention is to provide an inexpensive, easy-to-use, hands-free breast pump supporting bra and system that fully support simultaneously against each breast a funnel portion of a breast pump device with attached conventional breast milk bottle, even when filled with breast milk, without the need of additional support elements such as loops, bands, mounting elements, anchoring members or other support means.
Another object of this invention is to provide a hands-free breast pump support system that can be used in a minimum number of simple and quick steps to minimize the time required to express breast milk.
Another object of this invention is to provide improved hygiene associated with breast milk expression by allowing the system to be conveniently stored as “one-piece” in a refrigerator.
Another object of this invention is to provide a means for conveniently expressing then refrigerating or freezing breast milk for later use.
The breast pump supporting bra, which is used in the claimed system's bra, is made of an elastic material, such as LYCRA or SPANDEX blended with COOLMAX or cotton. In each of the two cup portions of the bra is a slit strategically located where a woman's nipple would lie underneath the fabric when the bra is worn. The funnel portion of the breast pump or the base of the funnel-like portion fits through the slit such that the opening of the funnel portion is facing the woman's breast and the funnel portion's base extends outwardly from the bra. Because the fabric surrounding and defining the slits is elastic, the slit will increase in size when the fabric around it is stretched and subsequently shrink back to its original size after stretching. The size of the slit when stretched must be sufficiently large to accept the smaller of either the funnel-like portion or the funnel-like portion's base.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4633876 (1987-01-01), Scullin
patent: 5514166 (1996-05-01), Silver et al.
patent: 5575768 (1996-11-01), Lockridge et al.
Chapman Jeanette
Oppenheimer Max
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