You’ve talked about your own challenges being a new mother. Describe some of the challenges of new motherhood. What was your key to not only getting over those challenges, but navigating through them? The most profound challenge for me was the shift I experienced in my identity: I was 31 when I became a mother, and so I had gotten to know myself, my priorities, and my relationships for more than three decades. But becoming a mother shifted my relationship to everything and everyone, including myself. On top of this psychological change, I also found the physicality of new motherhood surprising: Beginning with the marathon of birth, a difficult recovery from an episiotomy, and challenges with breastfeeding. The experience was humbling, and I found that I had to seek support in order to navigate these challenges — but at first, that support was hard to come by, which ultimately is what led me to build Motherfigure. I credit the “team” I assembled, including a doula, lactation consultant, pelvic floor physical therapist, and Pilates instructor, with helping me move forward, changed but stronger. What are some specific ways Motherfigure is impacting the women you serve? At the end of the day we’re empowering moms and helping new parents feel less alone. We’re enabling moms to process their birth experiences and find community through storytelling; dispelling the notion that there’s one “right” way to parent; and connecting moms with providers. I’m most proud of the way we’ve been able to make information more accessible — some moms have reached out to me about the eye-opening insight our hospital and birth center profiles have given them; others have actually been able to find mental health providers who specialize in perinatal mood and anxiety disorders; still others have connected with nonjudgmental lactation consultants who in addition to helping with the physical work of lactating can also support unpacking a complicated relationship to nursing. Tell us about Motherlode and how it is helping women maintain maternal wellness. The Motherlode is our national, community-driven perinatal wellness provider directory. Our goal is to create awareness of different support available to birthing people throughout the United States — and actually help them find it. We include categories ranging from doulas to pelvic floor physical therapists to lactation consultants to mental health providers who focus on serving the perinatal population. Families can filter for things relevant to them, like virtual services or trauma-informed providers, and they can read detailed, contextualized reviews from other families (kind of like “Yelp for Moms”). We also help people choose their birth locations, which has a huge impact on birth outcomes but often isn’t given second thought. Through our partnership with Leapfrog,
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Motherfigure features more than 1,400 hospitals across the United States and provides their self-reported key statistics related to maternal outcomes, including total number of births, episiotomy rates, C-section rates, and more — all statistics that are too hard to come by, but are really important for people to be informed about. Through our partnership with the American Association of Birth Centers, we showcase hundreds of freestanding birth centers nationwide and include things like midwives on staff, pain relief options, emergency transfer rates and more. We are currently in a time when companies and organizations are encouraged to create and maintain a diverse team and customer base. How is Motherfigure playing a role in this national conversation and the movement to more diversity? I believe a couple of things are really important here – transparency, accountability, and humility. I’m proud that we have a growing team of people who identify as women — many of whom are moms themselves — who are building Motherfigure, from our editor to community managers to our developer and designer. And it’s hugely motivating for me that we are able to support the many providers on our directory who are themselves entrepreneurial woman small business owners. But we need to do better and bring more non-white contributors onto our team, into our directory, and in our magazine. It’s no secret that the birth world, and many of the providers who support the journey to motherhood, and healthcare in general, is devastatingly white. In certain parts of the country, it’s not even possible to have an all-Black care team — because there aren’t enough Black providers. That needs to change. We’ve been in business less than a year, and yet as I look forward, one way we will have to achieve our mission is to bring more people into these professions and make it feasible for them to grow their businesses. That’s one reason why we are committed to providing the listings on Motherfigure free of charge to both families and providers, in order to make things more accessible. There are lots of barriers that exist in the birth world, not to mention in the business and startup community. One of our goals is to make it easier for providers to find clients — and for aspiring entrepreneurs to take the leap, too. Awareness is another one of the first steps we are taking to effect change — we want to shine a light on these disparities, and their consequences, while also giving some source of hope. To that end, we will release a Maternal Health Report annually beginning in 2021, and in addition, we will be releasing a Provider Transparency Report, also in 2021.