Meet Emma Jarvis, Co-Founder at Pregnancy Subscription Service: dearbump

Dearbump started as a monthly subscription box that contains the perfect products and most pertinent information for every stage of pregnancy.

We have combined our products with expert fitness, nutrition and digital wellbeing support, to help businesses support employees throughout pregnancy, maternity leave, and then return to work.
 
 

 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

There’s a huge problem with retaining new mothers in the workplace and I truly believe that our new wellbeing service can help corporations solve this issue.

It’s estimated that around 54,000 pregnant women in this country leave the workplace every year which maybe isn’t that surprising when you hear that 90% of mothers returning to work after pregnancy report that they have no formal support plan and one in three finds returning difficult

With two sons, it’s certainly something I have experienced. Despite having always considered myself incredibly ambitious and dedicated to my career I chose not to return to my R&D job following my first pregnancy.

It felt like talk of development and promotions were put on hold as soon as I announced my pregnancy. The attitude seemed to be ‘Now you’re pregnant you won’t care about your career as much’ which couldn’t have been further from the truth. I felt so disillusioned with it all, I decided not to go back, bring my idea of maternity support in the workplace to life and concentrate on dearbump full-time.
 

How has the company evolved during the pandemic?

 
Like any small business, the first couple of years were hard work in terms of building awareness and getting the product out there, but we grew steadily and then a well-orchestrated social media campaign last year resulted in a whole new following and various celebrity fans including Lucy Mecklenburgh.

During the pandemic, we raised more than £170,000 through crowdfunding to finance the corporate scheme side of the business.

Thinking dear bump to the next level and by launching the UK’s first corporate pregnancy programme. It’s a revolutionary idea – that dearbump not only provides their monthly boxes to pregnant employees but will support them through their pregnancy and return to work with regular well-being checks alongside fitness and nutrition advice.

In essence, businesses invest in dearbump so that it becomes a supportive middleman between the employee and their employer.
 

What can we hope to see from dearbump in the future?

 
We have listened to our customers and are constantly improving our offering, and one of the things that keep coming up is support for dads. We have some exciting plans for this! Entering the b2b market will also enable us to offer support to all parents, not just mums.