If you’d told me a year ago that I’d end up helping run a postpartum recovery company, I probably would’ve laughed in your face. Not in a rude way. Just in a very confident, very naive, “I’ve got this” kind of way.
Because honestly, I thought I was going to breathe my baby out and bounce back like a boomerang.
I had prepared for birth like it was an Olympic event. Hospital bag packed weeks early. Tiny onesies folded into neat little piles. Snacks for labour, playlists for labour, a birth plan for labour. I knew what I wanted the room to feel like, what music I wanted playing, what kind of birth I was hoping for. I’d even told everyone my adjective for the day was “playful” so we all needed to bring fun, playful energy. Which is deeply funny to me now given how the whole thing actually played out.
What I didn’t prepare for at all was what happened after.
And I think that’s the bit I really want to talk about because every birth is different. Every labour story is different. Every woman’s experience is different. But postpartum? Postpartum is something every birthing parent goes through in some form, and I just don’t think we talk enough about how much support women actually need once the baby is here.
Because no one really prepares you for that moment after birth where you try to stand up and realise your body feels like it belongs to someone else. No one prepares you for how much going to the toilet can suddenly feel like a full psychological event. Or the fear of looking at your stitches. Or the weird mix of adrenaline, love, hormones, terror and physical wreckage that all arrive at once. I remember thinking, I know I’ve had a baby, but it also feels like I’ve been hit by a truck and then asked to keep a tiny person alive on no sleep.
I had what I politely call a pretty spicy birth and the recovery absolutely knocked me sideways. I was so focused on keeping this tiny little Coco alive and fed and loved that I barely had the bandwidth to think about what I needed, but my body was screaming for attention. Sitting hurt. Standing hurt. Rolling over in bed hurt. Laughing hurt. Existing hurt. I was trying to learn how to breastfeed while also trying to work out how to shower, how to pee without fear, how to get in and out of bed, and whether I would ever feel normal again.
I remember one night standing in the bathroom at some ungodly hour holding a peri bottle in one hand and trying not to cry because something as basic as going to the toilet had become this whole ordeal. And it wasn’t just the physical pain. It was the mental load of it all. Feed the baby. Burp the baby. Change the baby. Try to sleep. Ice pack. Pain relief. Pads. Toilet. Cry a little. Repeat.
And then there was the frozen nappy incident, which in hindsight feels very on brand for me and also completely deranged.
I was so desperate for relief that a nurse brought me a frozen baby nappy to use. It went terribly. I had a lot of bleeding, some of it dried into the fold of the nappy and onto my stitches, and when I pulled my underwear down, my stitches basically came with it. If your entire body just clenched reading that, yes. Correct. It was every bit as horrific as it sounds. At the time I remember thinking, surely women have been doing this forever, so why do I feel like I’ve been sent into the wild with no map, no supplies and a frozen nappy attached to my vagina?
That was the thing that kept hitting me in those early weeks. I had prepared so much for birth. I had prepared for the baby. I had not prepared for postpartum. Not the physical recovery, obviously, but also not the emotional whiplash of it all. The huge love. The fear. The identity shift. The complete exhaustion. The 3am loneliness that creeps in when everyone else is asleep and you’re sitting there wondering if what you’re feeling is normal. I also felt very humbled because I didn’t expect to recover in a way that felt like I had done something wrong.
And while my birth story is my birth story, that feeling of being wildly underprepared for recovery is something I hear from women over and over again. Not because everyone has the same birth or the same healing journey, but because postpartum asks a lot of you no matter how your baby gets here. Whether you have a straightforward vaginal birth, an emergency c section, stitches, swelling, tears, feeding issues, or just the general shock of trying to care for a newborn while your own body feels like it’s gone twelve rounds, postpartum is a lot. It deserves way more thought, way more conversation and way more support than most of us are given.
I found myself searching for anything that might make recovery feel even slightly more manageable. I tried products from all sorts of brands because when you’re in that state you become very open to anything that promises relief. Some things were helpful, some were all hype, and some felt like they’d been designed by someone who had maybe read the word postpartum in a book once but had never actually met a woman who’d just given birth. The products I kept reaching for were from Vital Bits.
What I loved about them was that they felt genuinely practical. Not gimmicky. Not overly cute. Not like someone had put a bow on postpartum and tried to market it as self care. They felt like products made by people who actually understood what new mums need when they’re bleeding, sore, hormonal, exhausted and trying to function on no sleep. They were the things I kept recommending in voice notes to girlfriends and replying about in DMs when women asked what had helped me. The things I wanted within arm’s reach in the bathroom. The things I really wish I’d had from day one.
After I shared more of my postpartum experience online, I started talking to the team behind Vital Bits. At first it was just that. Me as a customer sharing what I’d used and what had genuinely helped. But the conversations kept growing. They wanted the honest version, not the polished one. They wanted to know what actually worked, what didn’t, what I wished existed, what I would tell a brand if they genuinely wanted to support women better after birth.
And because I had very recently lived it, I had quite a lot to say.
I knew what it felt like to dread sitting down. I knew what it felt like to structure your whole day around pain relief and bathroom trips and ice packs. I knew what it was like trying to smile at visitors while secretly counting down until you could go lie down again. I knew what it was like to feel so grateful for your baby and still think wow, nobody warned me recovery would be this intense. And I knew how much it mattered when one tiny thing made the day easier, whether that was a product that actually soothed, a pair of briefs that didn’t make everything worse, or simply feeling like someone had thought about the mother for once.
The more we talked, the more I realised this was about so much more than products. It was about the giant gap that exists in postpartum care and how normal it’s become for women to just soldier on through it. It was about making mums feel seen in a moment where so much of the focus naturally shifts to the baby. It was about saying yes, the baby matters deeply, but so does the woman who just brought that baby into the world.
And that’s the part that really got me. Not the idea of “this could happen to you” because postpartum looks different for everyone. It was more the idea that whatever your birth looks like, postpartum is worth preparing for. You deserve support before you’re standing in a bathroom at 2am trying to work out how to heal with a peri bottle in one hand and absolutely no clue what you’re doing. You deserve products that are genuinely helpful. You deserve to feel looked after too.
Without really planning to, I became more and more involved. Somewhere along the way it stopped feeling like I was just recommending a brand I liked and started feeling like I was part of something I deeply cared about.
Joining the team felt natural because it didn’t come from strategy. It came from lived experience. From being the woman standing in the bathroom at 2am trying to work out how to heal. From being the new mum who felt wildly underprepared for recovery. From knowing how much it matters when something small makes you feel even five percent more comfortable, more supported, more human.
Now I get to help build something I genuinely believe in, not because it sounds nice in a bio, but because I know firsthand how much postpartum support matters. I know what it’s like to be in the thick of it. I know how invisible recovery can feel. And I know that if we can make one woman feel more prepared, more cared for, less alone, and less like she has to MacGyver her own postpartum recovery with a frozen nappy, then we’re doing something worthwhile.
That’s why I’m here.
– Kim
