On LactApp
LactApp was founded in Barcelona in 2016. Marina Linares and her team spent 8 years building a virtual breastfeeding assistant that reached more than a million downloads, 50,000 active users, and 19% of new mothers in Spain. Academic studies reported 87.8% satisfaction and a 77% Orcha rating (PubMed 39491383). Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez publicly endorsed the project.
In November 2025, LactApp entered insolvency proceedings. Press coverage (El Español, 2025-11-10) pointed to a free model sustained by donations and public subsidies (~€224,000 in 2023) as one of the causes of a non-sustainable cash situation.
We are not writing this to celebrate. We write because users need a reliable alternative, and because LactApp set a reasonable expectation of what a digital lactation resource should offer.
What LactApp leaves to the ecosystem
- A clear expectation: a nursing mother should be able to ask questions at a workable cost and receive evidence-based answers.
- A known usage pattern: 100,000+ weekly queries, mostly specific questions on feeding, medication and infant care.
- A trained audience: users understand the difference between a “general consultation” and a “personal IBCLC consultation”.
The gap is not only technical. It is one of trust: where to turn when the app you used for months stops updating.
What Evigrade does that LactApp did not
LactApp was primarily a conversational lactation assistant with a strong community component. Evigrade is an evidence-based reference with three structural differences.
1. Cross-category coverage: drugs, cosmetics, supplements
LactApp covered mostly drugs and clinical questions. Cosmetics and supplements were out of scope.
Evigrade checks all three axes at once. A nursing mother can verify:
- “Can I take amoxicillin for mastitis?” (drug)
- “Is my retinol cream compatible with breastfeeding?” (cosmetic)
- “Does the omega-3 I am taking play well with ibuprofen?” (supplement + drug)
All three questions are answered against the same database, with the same methodology.
2. Explicit evidence per card
Every cosmetic ingredient, every active drug substance and every drug interaction shows the source: AEMPS, EMA, FDA, e-lactancia.org, LactMed, Cochrane. No averaged opinion. Evidence tiers are visible to the user.
This matters in lactation: many popular recommendations are based on theoretical caution rather than clinical data. Showing the source lets a mother distinguish “avoid because of evidence of harm” from “avoid because of lack of data”.
3. Sustainable subscription model
Evigrade has a broad free tier (the full database of cards, medical calculators, basic INCI checker) and a Pro subscription for advanced features (unlimited interaction checks, comparator, exclusion list, professional PDF).
We do not depend on grants or donations to keep operations going. Pricing is set per local market – Pro in Spain costs less than one pregnancy test a month. Profi (for IBCLC, pharmacists, nutritionists) covers patient-consultation workflows with signed PDFs and client folders.
This is the difference from LactApp and from government-funded apps that closed in other countries (NPS MedicineWise Australia 2022, Pillbox NLM USA 2021): a model that pays for itself and scales with users, not with public budgets.
What is already in place
- A dedicated Spanish hub: Breastfeeding: what is safe, what to avoid.
- A cosmetic checker focused on lactation: Check a cream during breastfeeding.
- Journal articles on the most frequent questions – antibiotics, cosmetics and contraception during breastfeeding, published together with this note.
- Drug coverage with breastfeeding clinical notes from AEMPS and FDA, cosmetic ingredients classified per AEMPS and e-lactancia.org, and an interaction checker that flags risky combinations in polymedicated patients.
Whom we are looking for
- IBCLC consultants in Spain willing to use Evigrade in clinic or to take a Profi plan with signed PDFs.
- Pediatricians and gynecologists willing to review content in their areas and join the editorial board.
- Professionals and developers from LactApp who want to continue the mission in another form – there are ways to preserve accumulated knowledge beyond a single product.
To get in touch: [email protected] or the tariffs page at Pricing.
Closing
LactApp left a real mark on the Spanish lactation ecosystem. Continuity of that mission is not the property of any one app: it is a shared responsibility across IBCLCs, pediatricians, gynecologists, pharmacists and sustainable digital tools.
What Evigrade commits to: cross-category coverage, explicit evidence and a model that does not rely on subsidies. That is the concrete contribution we bring to the gap that remains.
Evigrade team. May 2026. More information: evigrade.com/es/lactancia.