Kristin Revere talks with Lauren Scocozza, Vice President of Product for Willow Innovations, Inc., about why it is important for moms to have a feeding support system and how to set one up.
Hello, hello! This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Lauren Scocozza today. Our topic is all about the importance of having feeding support for moms, whether you’re a new mom or a seasoned mom, and how to set up a feeding support system and all about what’s on the horizon for Willow, which we’re a huge fan of all of Willow accessories at Gold Coast Doulas.
Welcome, Lauren!
Thank you, Kristin! I’m so excited to talk with you today! This is an absolute thrill for me. One of my favorite topics is systems. So I’m super excited for our conversation.
So you are the vice president of product for Willow Innovation, and for our listeners who may not be familiar, you created the first fully in-bra wearable pump and revolutionized how moms pump today. And you are – as you said, leading the mission to elevate maternal experience by developing feeding products that fit into busy moms’ real lives. And then you also have an adorable four-year-old daughter?
Yes, I am in the height of the toddler era at the moment. And I joined Willow in my postpartum era, actually. I have been here for a little over three years. So I was very still fresh in the throes of postpartum in that first year with my daughter when I joined, and so I have a lot of really close emotional empathy for what moms go through, and new moms, especially around feeding. That’s what I’m excited for us to talk about today.
Yes, and I feel like it’s overwhelming. Our clients, whether they’re birth doula clients or students in our classes or baby registry clients – they’re always wondering and overwhelmed by all of the options with those pumping bras and which pump to register for or does insurance cover a particular pump. We get a lot of those questions.
Yeah, and I think a lot about my own pregnancy period when it was time, and I know this is a topic that you guys talk about a lot, which is creating a registry. And part of that is deciding what you need before you’ve ever – especially if you’re a first-time mom, before you’ve ever gone through an experience. And that’s a really tough thing to do, right? Part of what we’re trying to do at Willow, when we think about how we work with new moms or pregnant moms, is trying to conceptualize what it looks like for when you have a new baby. And I think when you’re deciding what goes on your registry or what products you need, thinking about the way that your postpartum experience looks like can really help inform what works for you and what doesn’t. I had a pump through insurance when I had my daughter, and I spent a lot of time tied up to a wall, and that was not really how I had pictured what postpartum was going to be like for me.
One of the reasons I actually came here to work at Willow, because I was so – I didn't know about Willow at the time, you know, when I was registering for products, but when I had found out about it later, I was so incredibly moved by the fact that the founders of this product spent so much time with pregnant moms and early breastfeeding moms and pumping moms, and they kept hearing about how terrible the pumping experience was. And instead of looking at that and saying, we have to get more milk for that baby or something like that, they said that’s really awful for her, and she is – a pumping mom is tied up to the wall 20 minutes at a time, 6 times a day, and she’s not spending time that she could be with her baby or being close in a way that she pictured or she hoped, and I love that they looked at that problem and thought, we can do better for her. And especially for - like, thinking about my own experience and some of my friends, one of the hardest parts about matrescence is this idea that you’re going through a giant change and you don’t necessarily understand where the old you and the new you sort of come together. And especially when you’re breastfeeding or pumping, providing breastmilk for your baby, there’s a physical aspect to that which is really difficult. Even if it comes easy, it’s a lot of work. But there’s also a big mental load to that, too.
So I love that our founders really thought about mom and her experience, and it’s something that our product team continues to put at the center of how we think about what to make and what to create in terms of our new products. And we started in 2014 from a medical device incubator. We still have a lot of that core healthcare DNA, and we utilize that in terms of how we decide what we’re going to make.
So yeah, that’s a little bit about how we started and why inventing the first ever wearable breast pump feels like it just happened. We launched in 2017, but now the market is saturated. There’s lots of wearable breast pumps, but we feel really proud that we stand to change the status quo, right, and really allow moms to feed differently.
Yes! And it’s so important with commuting and traveling moms and the need to pump wherever you go. I’m so thankful now that airports have the pumping pods and workplaces have designated rooms to pump. But it wasn’t always the case.
Right. And of course, you know very well, because of your line of work, the access to being able to pump is just as key. The more milk that you remove, the more milk your body will make. And wearable pumps, such as our Willow 360 and Willow Go, allow you to pump more often so that your body continues to make more milk for your baby. And that’s really the beauty of these wearable pumps. And that’s what we see with our data and from our moms and everyone who uses them.
It is brilliant and so needed, certainly. So what are your tips for our listeners who are considering all of their options in planning for their feeding journey, whether they’re going to plan to breastfeed with the goal of pumping when they return to work and getting a stash set aside in advance, or if they plan to be exclusive pumpers?
Absolutely, and I think this is a great question. I liked what you were saying about sometimes talking to pregnant moms or early first time moms, and what that feeding journey could look like and what they might need for it. I think one of the most difficult parts for me personally when I was pregnant as a first time mom was sort of envisioning what was past the birth. I almost couldn’t get over like, okay, what’s the birth going to be like? This is going to be either the most pain I’ve been through – I didn't know what it was going to be like when I got home. I just kept thinking about the birth.
Very common!
Yeah, very common, right? So it’s hard to conceptualize what it means. And then you also have people saying things to you like you’ll have maternal instincts and you’ll just know what to do. And I think in the age of constant information that we live in now, a lot of those messages are coming at you all of the time, and it can feel really hard and overwhelming when you do first get home from the hospital. You’re like, did someone just allow me to take home my baby with no instruction manual? What do I do now? Which is why I’m so thankful for experts like you and postpartum doulas and people who are there to help mom and reassure parents that they’re on the right track.
In general, I think when moms are trying to think about their feeding journey, there are definitely questions you get, like, oh, are you planning to breastfeed? Of course, yes, I would like to breastfeed. Or no, I would not like to do that. But you have no idea what’s going to happen, right? There’s so many possibilities. And I think it’s really hard to conceptualize what to do when you get home, as well. Like, what does your space look like? How does it feel when you have this new roommate coming home who actually doesn’t sleep on any kind of schedule for quite some time?
And so when we talk to pregnant moms and new moms about this, we are mostly, in the beginning, trying to help explain the idea of feeding support and feeding support systems and some tips to set yourself up for success. I think the beauty of having postpartum doulas and lactation consultants is they can help you work through systems like that, as well. And we’re always trying to create products that work within those kinds of systems.
So, for example, one of the things that I was thinking about: we have a great registry product called the Find Your Flow Feeding Kit, and what it does is it actually includes several products for breast care, and really for early postpartum breast care. A lot of these products are perfect for that. And it comes in a 12-piece kit and it actually has virtual feeding and breast care content inside, and even a free virtual IBCLC appointment to help you get started in a way that you feel confident.
That is wonderful! I feel like after baby arrives, the gifts are all for baby. But the mother needs care, too. So this kit is brilliant, not only for a baby shower gift, but also for that postnatal way to pamper a new or seasoned mom.
Yeah, and I think there are a lot of postpartum products for mom that are focused around the birth. There are fewer that are about breast care. And breast care is directly related to feeding, right? If you’re choosing to breastfeed and pump, which obviously, at Willow, we talk to a lot of those moms – there are lots of things that can happen and change in those early weeks with your breasts. There’s pain. There’s discomfort. Even wearing a bra can feel overwhelming at times. And you might not expect all of that change to happen so fast. Your breasts are also leaking when your milk comes in. It can be very frustrating in those early days. I think about it all of the time, of just constantly changing my clothes and feeling like I’m always wet, or feeling sticky and uncomfortable. There’s so much healing that happens in your body after birth, but then your breasts are changing, as well. So again, it’s one of those things where it’s not very much talked about, right, when you’re going to all your third trimester OB-GYN appointments. A lot of it is focused on the birth and not necessarily on breast care and what feeding is going to feel like and be like after birth.
Exactly, and that’s why I feel like a breastfeeding class – we offer both a breastfeeding class as Gold Coast, as well as a pumping class, and having that education during pregnancy and having partners or other support people attend so they can better support the feeding journey.
That is so crucial. In my job now, I think all of the time about how I wished I was better set up for success myself postpartum with that kind of – I mean, I took the birthing classes and things like that, but breastfeeding and pumping felt like an overwhelming black hole that I could not understand, and I really do love that that’s part of the curriculum that you guys are doing. Because that shift in mindset around feeding is going to happen postpartum, whether you’re prepared or not. If you decide that you’d like to breastfeed and pump and provide breastmilk for your baby, in the beginning it’s a 24-hour job.
It sure is.
And I think that is the joke that people say to you. Well, when the baby comes, you’ll never sleep again. They don’t really tell you what the shape of that looks like, right? If you’re a lactating mom and you’re deciding to breastfeed and pump, you’re feeding your baby every two to three hours around the clock, and so it’s not that you’ll never sleep, but you’re not getting enough in a chunk to feel rested, right?
One of the systems that we talk about is, if you have a partner or a doula or a support system, what can you do when you’re pregnant around your home to help set you up for success when you come home in those early postpartum weeks and you are doing that 24 hour feeding cycle. I know that you guys probably help moms set up their spaces all the time.
We do. A little station with all of the mom care needs, as well as the baby or babies, if they’re multiples.
I love that. We have some great content from experts – postpartum doulas like yourself – who helped us create these kind of systems and ways of helping mom understand her space, but then helping us create the products that fit into that system. And so if you think about the idea of a nursing cart – that’s more popular now. This Find Your Flow Feeding Kit that has these early breast care items has a lot of what you need to get that nursing cart started. So like cooling gel nipple pads and reusable breast pads for leaking. Hot/cold breast therapy packs. Warm helps the milk get started, and cold can help soothe and also slow it down.
When you’re pregnant, you’re not sure how breastfeeding will go. You may be an oversupplier and or undersupplier. Your milk regulates for quite some time in the beginning, so it’s kind of all over the place. And some of these tools can help you feel more comfort or more healing as your nipples and your breasts are super sensitive and you’re working on either latch during breastfeeding or also getting used to pumping.
No matter how you plan, things may change. I know I took a breastfeeding class with my first pregnancy, and then my daughter ended up with a short NICU stay, so I needed to pump in the hospital and then go back from my postpartum room to the NICU and had a short amount of time, once I was able to give her my pumped milk, to feed her, because everything was so structured. And then eventually, I wanted to transition to breastfeeding and had to get additional help from lactation consultants. So it’s helpful to have a pumping plan, even if your idea is to wait until you transition back to work, because a NICU stay may happen or something else can come up. I was not prepared for a pumping journey so early on.
I feel that very closely, personally. Myself, I had my daughter during the height of COVID, and I had postpartum complications. And so I was readmitted to the hospital twice, but because of the rules at the time, she wasn’t allowed to come with me. So in a similar way to the baby being in the NICU, we were separated, and we had not planned for that. I think there’s so much that you think about with birth and how that’s going to go, and there’s a lot of possibilities that can happen postpartum, but I think instead of being worried or overanxious about all the possibilities, I think thinking through the plan, which is what they coach you on when you’re doing a birth plan, right? Thinking through a postpartum feeding plan will help you make decisions when you get thrown a curve ball, like you did or I did. Maybe that means you feel you would like to breastfeed, but you want to pump later, but something could happen. What happened to me is my husband had to give my baby a bottle before my milk came in, so I’m so glad that a friend of mine had put in a registry gift a container of formula. It wasn’t what my original plan was, but again, curve balls get thrown all the time. We were separated, and the baby needed to eat. When I came back home and we learned to latch and all of those things, I got to have some of what I initially wanted from the beginning, that closeness, the goals that I had for myself. But also, that was one of the first big feeding lessons that I learned, which was it’s never going to be exactly what you want, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work for you and your baby, right?
Yes. I love that. It’s all about being flexible and knowing that if you have the right support team, you can figure out anything that might come your way, whether it’s a change in birth plan or the postnatal plan, like you mentioned getting readmitted and knowing that you had support from friends and your partner certainly helped.
Absolutely. I think the other sort of tip around early feeding and coming home postpartum can also be a little bit of what we were talking about, that 24-hour cycle of feeding. A hard lesson that I learned early on was night parenting looks a little different than daytime parenting, and I didn't really have a good setup at home that was ready for that nighttime parenting. You know, I think a lot about how when I first came home after my hospital stay, my body was still healing from birth, and I realized that I never knew I had such a high bed that I could not get into! My husband and I and my baby were sleeping in the living room because the couch was the easiest way for me to get up and down as my body was healing. But we hadn’t really planned on that, you know? We had a nursery setup, an area with the bassinet, we had our room. But okay, now we’re all in the living room. How long are we going to be in here for? Do we need to set up some stations here? We didn't have any of that. And so in fact the baby woke up in the middle of the night, one of the first two nights, and we couldn't see anything because we didn't even have a lamp. Like, we just had the overhead lights. It was like, okay, what does it look like at night? We need some soft light. We can’t use our phone camera for all of this. It was kind of like learning by being thrown into the fire. Oh, okay, I need to set up my space to work for us. And that was such an amazing revelation. And I know that postpartum doulas often meet with parents when they’re pregnant to help them prepare plans about their space and how to change it.
Yes, they do, definitely. And whether it’s looking at stations – and some of our clients may be in their living room during the day and then in their bedroom with a bassinet, and others may prefer to have baby in the nursery. We try to optimize feeding as well as sleep in all of the spaces that our clients and their babies are.
And then as far as the wearable pumps, any tips for our listeners in selecting one? How do you make sure the fit is perfect when you’re potentially ordering it online, for example?
Yeah, the fit is crucial for success with wearable pumps, in general. One of the nice things about that breast care kit that I was talking about earlier that we sell – it actually includes a nipple sizing guide in it. So even if you get that as part of your registry before you choose a pump, you’re able to size yourself. I think the most important thing that most IBCLCs or LCs will tell you is your nipple size will probably change over the course of your pumping, right? Early postpartum, you’ll be one size, and then as your milk comes in and as your journey continues, your nipples and your breasts – everything changes constantly. So having a great nipple sizing tool like we have in our Find Your Flow kit – and we also include in all of our pump kits – is crucial. And resizing yourself is crucial. So sizing yourself once and being sort of done, remembering that your body is going to continue to change is great and saying, if you are starting to pump and it’s not feeling right – pumping should never hurt, ever. That’s a good sign that something is incorrect, so whether that means you’re the wrong size or something with the pump itself is not great – like, pumping should not hurt.
Now, in general, breasts can be sore, of course, in early postpartum, but in general pumping should not hurt. So resizing yourself, looking at size – it’s crucial. And one of the differences with wearable pumps, obviously, from a traditional desktop pump is that you can’t always see your nipple with them on because they’re wearable in your bra, and so that’s why sizing with a nipple ruler is so crucially important.
I also think that working with an IBCLC or an LC is really helpful and really great. And there are definitely appointments that you can get covered by certain insurances, so I always recommend people looking into that. And we have great IBCLC partners here at Willow as well who will even help with virtual consultations for free if someone can’t afford it or doesn’t have insurance to cover it. So I think in order to be set up for success, knowing that breastfeeding and pumping are not just things you should know how to do, but they are skills that you can learn and get great expert advice from will help you sort of reach out and say, what’s my modern village look like? Doulas to postpartum sleep experts to IBCLCs. Who can I go to, to help me through this really new time in my life? I think those things are really key in general.
In general, for wearable pumps, in the same vein of pumping should never hurt – one of the things that we worked on at Willow with our Willow Go pump is to basically make it the most comfortable pump on the planet. That was really our goal. Comfort is so related to output. That has to be comfortable. There is a lot that we designed intentionally into this pump to make it the most comfortable, and mainly I would say to new moms is thinking about the flange itself, and that is the space where your nipple enters into that’s connected to the rest of the pump. Our flange is pretty long, and that is on purpose. Your nipple will expand into the flange as the motor pulls for the tug and release to indicate to your breast that it’s time to express milk, and you want that to be long and comfortable so that your nipple has room to expand into it. Our flange also has no hard edges that press against your skin, so there’s no feeling of pain or discomfort from that, and it’s one continuous long piece. So as your nipple enters into the flange, there’s nothing rubbing against your nipple as it goes in and out, which is really crucial. And it’s one of the reasons why Willow Go continues to be moms’ favorite pump. It wins lots of awards for output, and you can see in reviews online, it’s definitely a hospital grade wearable pump that is most comfortable for moms, so they have the most output success with it. So those would be things that I would look into, for sure.
If you’re looking at a pump – every pump kind of markets very similarly now, so it’s like everything is discreet. Everything is hospital grade. I would really look at some of the details of how the pumps are made. A smaller pump isn’t always the most comfortable because the shorter the flange, the more your nipple is going to hit either the back of it or rub against it in some way. So I would definitely look into the design and mechanics of certain pumps when you’re looking at them, especially for wearable pumps, because some of those things are really important to having success.
Right. And then your pumps tend to be on the quiet side compared to a lot of other pumps. That’s also something to factor in.
Absolutely. And some of the best testimonials we get are actually from second or third time moms, which I always take as a badge of honor. They’ve been through it before; they kind of know. A lot of moms with toddlers; like, I got to run around, and I can’t actually sit and be tied to a wall. I have to actually be moving, and I want to get a pump session in. Those are some of our features – quiet, small, discreet. Those things are all really important, and like I said, a lot of pumps will say that, but what we find is our pumps continue to get the best output in the time that moms are pumping, which is really at the core of what you want to be successful.
So what’s next for Willow, Lauren?
As we talked about, we’re definitely passionate about helping moms and sort of elevating that maternal experience. And we want to build solutions that really work for moms’ real lives. Our pumps are smart pumps, so they’re app connected, and you can control those pumps from your phone. So for ultimate discretion, sticking them in your bra, being able to pump, and starting and stopping them and controlling the suction all from your phone is super helpful. But also we want that to go beyond. So in the same way that you’re helping prepare pregnant moms and even early postpartum moms for what’s to come and how to work through different curve balls that they get, we would like our app to do more work than just control the pumps. And we’ve added a ton of content from experts, like doulas like yourself, IBCLCs, OB-GYNs. We have one click to services for people to be able to have virtual appointments if they need them. And we just launched a couple weeks ago a partnership with a healthcare AI tool called Emma. It is absolutely fantastic. It was built by women who wanted to help scale the experts and the vetted scientific information that’s out there, just for women’s health. So you can actually ask Emma questions about feeding, about postpartum, all the way to menopause, if you wanted to. She’s really focused on women’s healthcare, and she can help guide you to some great resources.
So we want to be there for moms as they’re figuring this thing out. Feeding your baby and being postpartum is a huge mental load. And anything that we can do to make it a little bit easier for her, that’s what we’re going to focus on doing. So items like our kit that has everything you need in it for breast care are the types of products that we’re going to continue to launch. You can actually buy our Willow Go and 360 products in Target and Amazon and places like that, but we’re going to be introducing some new products next year to support that feeding journey and help mom create some systems that alleviate that mental load and increase her accessibility to postpartum products.
Excellent. Any final tips for our listeners?
Yeah, I was thinking about this. I know this is a question that you ask. I was trying to think about what I would have hoped somebody would have said to me when I was trying to breastfeed and pump, when I felt like it was overwhelming or a little hard. I think what I would have said to me four years ago is that any amount of breastmilk that I can provide for my baby has benefits for me and my baby. The longer that I can do it, the longer those benefits last, but it’s a marathon, not a sprint. So it doesn’t matter if you breastfeed once a day or eight times a day. It all counts. It all matters. And we even have data and some studies that show that even just 50 milliliters, which is a little bit less than 2 ounces, of breastmilk per day can provide babies with the same important nutritional and immune-boosting benefits as being exclusively breastfed. So any amount of breastmilk is great. I think sometimes it can feel black and white or a binary, like I’m either doing this or I’m not, and the truth is, most women are doing a combination of lots of things throughout their feeding journey.
Exactly. Supplementation may be needed. A mix of pumped milk and breastfed – I agree.
We did the study earlier this year – it was almost 2000 moms. More than 60% who met their feeding goal combo fed. There’s lots of tools, like pumps, like formula, that can help you be successful in breastfeeding. And it looks different for everyone. It even looks different between babies, which I’m sure you’ve seen. It’s not a failure if it doesn’t look exactly how you pictured, and at the end of the day, there’s no mom better for that baby than you. And that’s what I would say to anybody who’s starting out on this journey and what I wish that I could say to my former self.
So true! Excellent tip! So how can our listeners connect with you?
We are online on our website. You can see all of the products that we have for feeding and postpartum there. And on Instagram @willowpump. We have a really great Willow mom community that is growing every day, and people share all kinds of tips and tricks and connect with each other. It’s sort of that modern village that I love. So that’s what I would say!
Excellent! And then you mentioned your products are available at Target and Amazon, as well?
Yes, as well as on our website, and of course, through insurance. You can definitely get our pumps through insurance and some of our other products, as well.
Well, thank you so much, Lauren! I appreciate the time and all of your wisdom! We’ll have to have you on again!
It was so fantastic to speak with you, Kristin! Thank you for having me!
IMPORTANT LINKS
Willow Innovations
Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas
Becoming A Mother course
Buy our book, Supported
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