THE HEGEN BRAND STORY

Hegen was founded with the mission to help, serve and empower women in the sometimes demanding, oftentimes beautiful journey that is motherhood. Beyond creating a beautiful product, we possess a lofty ambition: To celebrate breastfeeding, a mother’s ultimate gift to her child.

 

There are businesses spearheaded by mumpreneurs, and then there is Hegen — a brand that’s the brainchild of a mum, founded to empower other mothers in their journey of nurturing and celebrating new lives.

 

We are in the business of designing impactful products that not just serve its function, but also make a difference in how breastfeeding is perceived. Our products aim to advocate breastfeeding to first-time mothers, protect the nutritional integrity of breastmilk and elevate the breastfeeding experience for parents around the world. 

 

For most mothers, breastfeeding is a profoundly rewarding experience, a cherishable time for building emotional bonds between mother and baby and creating a lasting impact on the physical and psychological health of the children. 

 

“Having successfully breastfed for a decade, I wanted to pay it forward,” says Hegen founder and managing director Yvon Bock, and a mother of four. “Harnessing my background in design and manufacturing, how better to help other working mums like myself than through design, and transform the experience of breastfeeding into a more hassle free experience — in other words, enabling other women to enjoy the journey”

 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), breast milk is crowned as liquid gold, an unreplicable well of treasure that provides up to half or more of an infant's energy and nutritional needs during the initial months of life. It supplements up to half or more of a child’s nourishment needs during the second half of the first year and up to one-third of the second year of life. Despite such overwhelming physical benefits to infants, Yvon discovered that “…out of 95% of mothers who initiate breastfeeding, only 21% of them sustained this for six months or more”. 

 

The reason behind why some mothers are unable to sustainably breastfeed is simple: Mothers cannot balance between the high demands of work and an intense feeding routine in the fast-paced modern society. Some might struggle with stress-related milk supply problems, others may encounter difficulties in having their infants latching on. 

 

Our founder understands this reality with first-hand experiences. Yvon is a devoted mother-of-four to three boys and a girl. She also wears multiple hats in her life: a daughter’s, a daughter-in-law’s, a wife’s, a designer’s and an entrepreneur’s; so she lives through the complex challenges faced by modern mothers. 

 

“Breastfeeding is, obviously, best — that bond formed between mother and child through direct latching is one that reaps endless physical and emotional rewards throughout life, not just during infancy,” says Yvon, who breastfed her daughter for 30 months.

 

“But today’s women are superheroes juggling their careers, passions and duties with the full-time, life-long job of being mummies.

 

Hegen strives to be that support system to allow for women to continue upon the priceless experience of breastfeeding, for as long as they wish to do so.” 

 

Beyond a mere mission to sell bottles or breast pumps, our products are designed by and for mothers. We navigated the sea of challenges and pain points for breastfeeding mothers, and came up with clever solutions for them, transforming the maternal experience from a problematic, borderline annoying chore, into a positive and effortless journey. 

 

And that journey begins with design. We’re not talking about changing the superficial aesthetics such as color or shape of the bottle, creating another eye-candy on the store shelf; but a fundamental change on the concept of the milk bottle itself. 

 

What stands out between Hegen design and other generic design is always in the details: Our star product is the Hegen Press-to-Close, Twist-to-OpenTM (PCTOTM) Express-Store-Feed system, which allows mothers to express and store their breastmilk, as well as feed their young ones with the same single container.

 

Our ergonomic, square-shaped design makes the bottles easy to store, while the no-screw thread, one-hand closure technology allows parents to easily press on and twist off the lids, minimizing spillage and unnecessary wastage of precious breastmilk.

 

Combining form and function, the lids come in on-trend pastel shades — not just for the “wow” factor when mums pull the containers out of their diaper bags, but to color code breastmilk expressed during different times of day. Our compact, tote-friendly PCTOTM Double Electric Breast Pump also comes in a stylish shade of blush — all while offering multiple functions such as a patent pending kneading massage feature to help relieve body aches and tension experienced by do-it-all mums.

 

Through five years of brainstorming, adding, subtracting, refining our baby bottle design, we built a formidable prototype of a milk bottle that shaves off the bulky excess of a traditional bottle, and enhances the efficiency of the breastfeeding process. Why? Because we believe  that breastfeeding should be effortless, seamless and dare we say it - enjoyable! 

 

What began as a simple mission has evolved into a holistic solution for encouraging and prolonging the breastfeeding experience. In fact, our name draws from part of a German idiom, hegen und pflegen, which loosely translates to “what you hunt, you must farm; what you eat, you must crop”. It reflects our belief in generating a positive influence and contribution to both our customers and the global industry as a whole, in everything we put effort in. 

 

From our product designs to community projects, we are here to transform the breastfeeding process and build the foundation of a world-wide support network for mothers everywhere. Our product is renowned for their precision engineering and reliability, and our name resonates with our company philosophy: “be simple, practical and innovative”. Each moment saved from cleaning and assembling feeding bottles, is a moment saved for parent-infant bonding. 

 

Uncompromising safety and quality is the centric principle of our mission. Hegen is a 100% self-funded and bootstrapped start-up, but it is also backed by a parent company with over 30 years of experience in manufacturing state-of-the-art mother, baby care products. Through this connection, the entire manufacturing process can be meticulously monitored,  ensuring all products are crafted with the finest quality, supported by veteran design and production specialists from the industry.

 

Since launching in 2015, the brand has its sights on expanding into 35 markets by 2020. With the aim of expanding our award-winning range of breastfeeding products, Hegen is well on its way to making a difference by providing a sustainable breastfeeding solution to mothers all over the world.