EPISODE Highlights:

Dr. Whitney: Today I’m talking with Sascha Mayer, founder of Mamava, and she helps mamas while they’re traveling. Sascha, tell us what inspired you to start Mamava and how you help support breastfeeding moms.

Sascha: When I had my babies, I wanted to be able to breastfeed after I went back to work. I was able to pump at my office but noticed that when I traveled anywhere, the only place you could really count on to be able to do that was in a restroom. With Mamava, we created freestanding lactation suites that are most often seen in airports but really have been placed everywhere moms work and go including healthcare centers, stadiums, and distribution centers. It came from a personal belief that we could do better and that good design can help facilitate good decisions by employers and help parents.

Dr. Whitney: How long have you guys been doing this as a company?

Sascha: We had our first prototype in 2013 and our first employees at the end of 2015.

Dr. Whitney: Let me talk about the stats of breastfeeding moms in America for those that choose to feed their baby this way or who are able to. America comes in last as far as industrialized countries when it comes to mothers being able to breastfeed their babies for any extended period of time. It’s recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics that children are breastfed exclusively for the first 6 months and then recommended to continue breastfeeding for the first year. Our numbers drop off extremely after the first few weeks. And there’s lots of reasons, including lack of support, no paid parental leave in the United States, and even economic discrepancies. I see your product as really being able to drive those rates back up higher. Is that what you guys were thinking about when you were starting the company?

Sascha: Absolutely. It’s infrastructure that supports this natural human function. Women want to have an authentic choice when they have children. Even our design is very intentional. It doesn’t blend in or look like other structures. Beyond that it’s about the broader conversation with those employers or the facilities managers. When I was breastfeeding it felt very hidden or something that you had to apologize for when you needed to take a break in the business context. So we love it when we see the numbers of women who are breastfeeding going up.

Dr. Whitney: Tell me about the design inside and whose responsibility it is to clean and sanitize it.

Sascha: We sell our units outright. And they’re designed almost with a food prep mentality. So they’re made so that they can be wiped down and cleaned very easily. The expectation is that the facility or employer would maintain them but our hope is that parents that use them are also using them responsibly and we leave calls to action within a visible checklist so they can leave them ready to go for the next person.

Dr. Whitney: How accessible are these units as far as cost? Employers are realizing even more that they’ve got to take care of their employees if they want to keep them around. They really need things that will make being a working parent easier.

Sascha: In the private sector, they start at $10,000 and go up from there with customizations. They install in just about 2 hours, so the change can really happen quickly in a workplace. We definitely recommend a designated lactation space like this because it can create a lot of tension when areas have to be shared.

Dr. Whitney: Have you experienced any pushback while you were creating this product? What’s the conversations you’re hearing about supporting women this way?

Sascha: It’s been really positive. Even from men in the industrial sector who you might not necessarily think would be supportive, really are. They’re a parent or a grandparent and see the need. In the very beginning, there was more education we had to do around the fact that we are trying to give women a choice. We aren’t trying to hide breastfeeding. We’re trying to give women as many choices around how they feed their baby as possible.

Dr. Whitney: Are there things you’ve had to work with as far as chest feeding or transgender or non-binary parents?

Sascha: Yep, we’re a work in progress. We’ve changed a lot of the wording to be more inclusive. Our mirrors used to say, “Looking good, mama” and now they just say “looking good” because we know not everyone identifies as a mother.

Dr. Whitney: Within your app, you have a Mamava locator so moms can really plan out their trips. If they’re going to be traveling or heading to a stadium, they can plan ahead.

Sascha: Yes! And it also includes about 4000 other public lactation rooms that aren’t just Mamava locations. The app is also how they’re able to access it. The app is totally free, but early on we realized that we didn’t want anyone to be able to just go spend their layover relaxing in the pod. So this helps just provide a little bit of friction so that the people who need to use it are really the ones who have access to it.

Dr. Whitney: Tell me about your dreams and goals for Mamava. I see this as such a revolution for mothers so I’d love to know your plans.

Sascha: I think we’ve really only scratched the surface of fixing the problem. Especially for those that are working with hourly wages and situations like that. We know the rates are much lower in the BIPOC population, so we’re focusing on areas surrounding where they typically work. We are trying to continually influence legislation to show how important it is. We want to see more pods in more places and expansion of the app to make it a more functional tool. We really want to elevate the conversation around this fundamental experience and function that women should be able to have if they choose it. 

Dr. Whitney: Where can people find more info about what you’re doing or how they can request to get a pod at their place of employment or even their local stadium?

Sascha: Our website has all the resources but they can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn with a lot of content on the HR side of things. For parents, we have a lot of content on our website surrounding compliance for the law that shows state by state what they need to know. Plus they app lets you find all of our units, those extra lactation spaces, and has lots of great content as well.