On Thursday, October 8, Mama Glow–an online health, wellness,and lifestyle resource for expectant and new mothers–hosted a conversation on Business, Babies, Breastfeeding: The challenges + triumphs of modern motherhood + the workplace.
To kick off the conversation, guest were treated to light refreshments and a bite to eat before an hour of networking along the terrace of a private penthouse in SoHo. Once each guest took their seats, Latham Thomas, the co-founder of Mama Glow, welcomed the attendees and shared her company’s commitment to “helping women feel radiant throughout their pregnancy and into new motherhood.” Thomas then introduced the panelist Yoko Shimada of MITERA, who also presented the event, Jodie Snyder Morel a co-founder of lifestyle brand/jewelry line Dannijo, and the moderator, Rebecca Sinn an editor at Self magazine.
Once the crowd finished applauding the women, Sinn began the conversation by asking Morel of her experience traveling with her child while breastfeeding.
“Your body changes depending on how stressed you are,” Morel said. While everyone in the crowd nodded their heads, Morel continued by discussing a particular trip where her breast milk was down for almost an entire day and once her supply did return she found her hotel was unable to hold her milk in their kitchen fridge. Morel also noted that it is always important to bring a portal crib to hotels and a change of clothes while in the airport, just in case your adorable baby decides to spit up on your attire, multiple times.
Sinn then asked each panelist if they had any confidence booster to help mothers who would like to travel with their children.
Morel started off by telling the crowd, how her life didn’t need to stop just because she had a child. Instead she adjusted her child to her own routine and lifestyle. She also noted that late night flights were easy, due to her child sleeping right through them. Shimada also believed that it was best to travel while her children were young and her favorite part of traveling was experiencing everything again through her child’s eyes.
As everyone wrapped up their thoughts, Sinn change the direction of the conversation from traveling and asked Shimada her experiences on balancing work while breastfeeding.
“There is no balance,” Shimada said. “It’s just hard. You explain to your employer that you have to pump, but they don’t really work around you, so you have to work around them a lot of the time.” Shimada continued the discussion by describing how she felt when she missed her pump session, how she never felt glamorous while pumping, to always bringing a change of clothes to work, and even discussed how much she hated the lactation room at work that she simply decided to place a sign on your office door, when pumping, letting everyone know not to come in.
While the crowd laughed, the conversation lead into how Shimada women’s fashion/maternity collection MITERA was born and how naming the collection took a yearlong process and even felt like birthing another child! She even went on to discuss the design process and how she wore the items in her line for five years before the collection was complete.
Before the discussion wrapped up, each panelist spoke briefly on why they decided to breastfeed, how long they stuck to it.
To learn more about Mama Glow, visit mamaglow.com!
