Before Courtney Klein gave birth to her first child in 2019, she learned a valuable lesson. There are plenty of resources out there about babies and parenting. It’s a lot harder to gather information about what it’s like to go through pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum experience. During her pregnancy, Klein researched all kinds of things—What kinds of foods and ingredients are ideal for moms and babies? What kinds of clothes are best? What kinds of things should be avoided? “I read all of the books,” she says. Klein emerged from her pregnancy with a wealth of knowledge that she was eager to share. After moving her family from New York City back to her hometown of St. Louis before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Klein asked herself a question: What can I do to support other mothers who might not have the same resources? The answer was Birth Order, an online marketplace Klein created two years ago to offer new moms and moms-to-be carefully-curated items to assist them through each stage of their pregnancy.
What was it about the pregnancy experience that made you feel like this was a kind of company that women could benefit from having? When I talk to my mom’s generation, there’s this attitude where people think pregnancy needs to be painful and hard. It’s like they’re saying We figured it out and suffered through it, like it’s this sort of rite of passage. But I think that’s a societal idea that we’re changing. There are now these online communities—the pregnancy space on Instagram and Facebook is massive—where pregnant and postpartum moms are sharing resources. With that, I saw an opportunity to create a place where they know they can come and be able to trust that everything is pregnancy safe and of a high quality.
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So, in a sense, it’s equal parts access and empowerment that you’re trying to provide. Right. One of my goals is to encourage peoples’ support systems to use baby showers to give mom things for her comfort and recovery. I’ve heard people say, “Why would we give something for the mom?” Well, it’s because she needs help. But for some people, the idea of giving mom a nipple cream instead of a pack of onesies is a big hurdle.
How do you determine which products are most important for your customers? I don’t want to sell them things that they don’t need. A lot of my vendors are also moms who saw a gap in the market when they were pregnant. So, for instance, they created a body oil that they would have really loved. I think a lot of first-time moms trust the advice of other women who’ve been there. I have a high standard for what I want my customers to have.
What are some of the top sellers? My top item is the handheld massage roller. It was recommended to me by some birthing doulas, who will use it to massage mom in between contractions to try and loosen those muscles. I get people who come back to buy another because their husbands have stolen the one they have. The peri bottle is very popular, and then there’s the nipple cream. It’s almost why I started this business. Someone sent it to me when I was breastfeeding and it changed my life.
It feels like a lot of pregnancy products have always been very baby-focused, and not as much centered on the mother’s needs. Are we getting to a point where selling peri bottles, for example, is becoming more mainstream? I think so. Moms have gotten very vocal, especially on the internet, about demanding more help. Frida is an example of a company that started with the baby, which everyone is very comfortable with, and then slowly phased into the mom stuff. I also credit Target for doing a lot more to offer postpartum care. It’s definitely something that’s changing.
It’s clear you want to be a resource for moms and moms-to-be. Who are your go-to resources for pregnancy information? I’m a big podcast listener. I have two favorites. One is called the Informed Pregnancy Podcast. It’s hosted by Dr. Elliot Berlin, a pregnancy chiropractor who is also a doula. He does these really great before and after birth stories where he interviews pregnant people a few weeks before they have their baby, and then again a few weeks after. They talk about their expectations and then what really happened. It’s really good.
Do you have another favorite podcast? Yes. It’s called Zombiemum and it’s all about postpartum mental health. It was created by an English writer who had postpartum psychosis. She interviews other people who’ve had varying experiences with postpartum depression and anxiety, and it’s very interesting.
Have you thought about starting your own podcast? Yes, I think it would be really interesting to do one based on everything here in St. Louis, especially because we have a couple of these very big hospitals. It would be interesting to have people share their birth stories and be a resource that’s hyperlocal to St. Louis.
