The new Neotech Bridge Breastfeeding Assistance Device is designed to help mothers worldwide with breastfeeding immediately after childbirth. The device features liquid silicone rubber (LSR) moulding from Silcotech.
Neotech Bridge
“We’ve heard stories from focus groups with moms who said they struggled to produce enough milk after childbirth— and all said that this product can really help supplement the baby at a time when milk production is low and help start to produce more,” said Craig McCrary, President of Neotech, a Valencia, CA-based company that develops specialised, high quality products made primarily in the USA for the NICU, PICU, and beyond.
The Bridge Kit features a thin, silicone nipple cover, with a built-in channel that attaches to a syringe. Silcotech drew on its years of experience in baby feeding products, including baby nursing shields, to mould this revolutionary product.
“It started from handmaking prototypes to handmaking parts to a new tool built—there was an elaborate progression of technology and advanced manufacturing to get the product where it is today,” said Dan Morris, business development manager at Silcotech. “When it comes to the mould, the technology is in the delivery of the silicone.”
Bridge manufacturing development
The Bridge was created by a board-certified lactation consultant to help mothers who experience breastfeeding challenges, including difficulty with infant feeding at the breast, pain, and milk quantity. The inventors came to Silcotech with their idea for the Bridge, which was a nipple shield with an integrated supplementary feeding tube. There was not a product on the market that existed with this fully integrated tube and syringe connection.
“We helped them make a silicone shield that had an integrated channel and tube for delivering formula into the nipple shield from an external syringe,” Morris said. “We developed a two-stage process at first, then a two-shot mould that moulds the part with an open flap, then seals the flap with a second shot of silicone.”
Morris said the biggest challenge of this moulded part would be creating a channel internal to the nipple shield in an automated way. The mocked-up prototype used a piece of ‘glued-in’ tubing from the inlet tube to the nipple tip. This was not directly injection mouldable and would acquire subassembly, Morris said.
Silcotech proposed an aluminium 105-class tool based on early design iterations and a purchase order was placed. While the ultimate design would be a two-shot moulding, at this early stage, Morris said, the second sealing shot of silicone for the liquid channel was left to be a manual process until the part design development matured faster.
The first parts order was received and a short run production using the 105-class tooling started. The customer took these parts to the market along with the kit of components required to operate the Bridge, which included tubing and syringes. Morris said the customer feedback was fantastic and the enthusiasm for this product grew.
Automating the part production
After thousands of parts were moulded using the prototype tooling, a 103-class mould was quoted by Silcotech to replace the original 105 aluminium mould. Sealing of the fluid flow channel inside the nipple shield was still kept to a manual process.
Silcotech decided to support the program as volumes were growing by investing in the design and building a 2-cavity “Sealing” tool, which was an insert over-mould in which two breast shields were inserted and the fluid channel was sealed in a full injection moulding process.
“This was a big help in meeting customer demand, increasing part quality and consistency, and was a valuable step prior to designing a fully automatic two-shot moulding process to create the finished product,” Morris said.
Neotech Products acquired the product line and technology from the original inventors and immediately planned to scale up production by purchasing a 101-class mould that was fully automated in a 2+2 two cavity, two-shot design that moulded breast shields with tubes, then sealed the internal flow channel in one process.
“Silcotech leveraged its knowledge of creating hollow spaces in silicone parts as well as two-shot moulding technologies to start the design of the ultimate moulding systems,” Morris said. “The two-shot moulding solution shows this product is now matured and is scalable.”
Market opportunity
The Neotech Bridge is a silicone nipple cover with a built-in channel that attaches to a syringe filled with breastmilk or formula. The syringe allows mothers to control the amount and flow to keep the baby at the breast, feeding continuously which help to further promote natural milk production.
The market opportunity is vast as a large percentage of mothers experience breastfeeding challenges. While initially targeting hospitals, Neotech is now also focused on the retail space as well. And since taking over the product, Neotech continues to grow sales each year.
Both Neotech and Silcotech emphasised the powerful impact of this product.
“It’s important to cover the technical ground, but without the powerful and emotional story behind it, it wouldn’t have near the impact,” McCrary of Neotech said. “The stories of the effectiveness of this product have been amazing to hear.”
