After welcoming her daughters into the world with two wonderful home births, Mirjana Medic recognised the need for better support products and education for women, to allow them to achieve the birthing experience they desire. She launched her little birth shop, Birthmother, to support, care, empower and enlighten women to have the best maternal experience possible. She wants to remind women that their bodies are the vessel for a loving birth, and that self-love and self-care during this journey is essential. Birthmother provides evidence-based options that will support a soon-to-be mama in all stages of her maternal journey and aims to be that one place where expecting mamas can come to to arrange the support essentials needed for a positive pregnancy, birth and postpartum experience.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
After having two wonderful home births to welcome my beautiful daughters into the world, I realised the importance of supporting and educating women through their birthing journey. I recognised the need for support products, education and networks for women to have the birthing experience that they desire. Whilst I was well supported for my births, through this experience I learnt that natural, clean support options were not widely known about and could not be conveniently acquired in a single store. I started my business with the goal of providing that little birth shop that women could visit to fulfil their pregnancy, birthing and postpartum needs.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
I went with a soft launch, offering the essentials for birthing, pregnancy and postpartum support. My focus is on the quality of products and customer experience from shopping through to opening their products. I want to ensure the experience has a personal feel to it, which is something I will maintain as the range and volume grows.
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
The realisation that some of the most useful support products are not widely known about. Through my work as a doula, I would turn up to births with the CUB (Comfortable Upright Birth Stool) to support my clients, and midwives would comment on how awesome the CUB is and that they had never seen one before. Labour TENS are now starting to become more popular but I still get women who comment that they wish they had known about the TENS the first time they birthed. I am passionate about the promotion and education around these and similar products to ensure women know what is available to them to support them through their labour. These items are evidence based, they work and they reduce the need for intervention. I have made them accessible to women nationally, who can just jump on the website and book in their support for their big day.
