CERP: yes
E-CERP:
Is FemTech Our Friend? The Promise, and the Risks, for Lactation and Perinatal Care
Speaker: Laurel Wilson
Focus
- Technology in Lactation and Perinatal Care
- Ethics, Equity, and Privacy
Abstract
As digital health continues to expand, FemTech has rapidly emerged as a powerful force in women’s and perinatal healthcare. Encompassing technologies such as mobile apps, wearable devices, breast pump innovations, artificial intelligence, and virtual care platforms, FemTech is transforming how individuals track, manage, and experience their reproductive and lactation journeys. With the industry projected to approach a $100 billion market, its influence is only accelerating.
But with rapid growth comes critical questions.
While FemTech offers unprecedented opportunities for education, access, and personalized care, it also raises complex concerns around data privacy, surveillance, equity, and ethical responsibility. Who owns the data? Who benefits from it, and who is left out? How do these tools support or undermine informed decision-making, autonomy, and culturally competent care?
This session takes a bold and balanced look at the evolving FemTech landscape in lactation and perinatal health. We will explore current technologies, from breast/chest pumping innovations and tracking apps to virtual lactation support, and examine both their potential and their pitfalls. Special attention will be given to issues of intersectionality, including the experiences of LGBTQIA+ families, marginalized communities, and those at risk of being excluded or exploited by digital health systems.
Participants will leave with a critical framework for evaluating FemTech, understanding its implications for practice, and navigating the ethical tensions between innovation, access, and protection. This is not just about what FemTech can do, but what it should do.
Outline
- What is FemTech? Definitions and scope
- FemTech across the lifespan: from adolescence to postpartum
- FemTech and feminism: empowerment, tension, and critique
- Categories of FemTech: apps, devices, platforms, and AI
- Breast/chest pumping technology as FemTech
- Evolution over time
- Digitization and app integration
- Mobile lactation support: access vs. risk
- Current lactation-focused FemTech tools
- Data privacy, surveillance, and ownership
- Equity and intersectionality in FemTech
- LGBTQIA+ considerations
- Structural inequities and access gaps
- Risks of exclusion and exploitation
- Ethical considerations and future directions
Objectives
- Define FemTech as it relates to the perinatal and lactation community
- Identify at least two examples of FemTech used in perinatal or lactation care
- Describe at least one potential privacy or ethical concern associated with FemTech







