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One Tough Mother began as a labour of love. 

After an empowering birth experience that came from being supported and educated, co-founder Kristine was in disbelief that the “what comes next” wasn’t really touched on in any meaningful way. 

Where was the reverence? Seriously… Where was the god damn parade? 

And perhaps most important, why wasn’t anyone preparing us for this?

So One Tough Mother began from the simple idea to create one convenient kit that combines the necessary recovery items people don’t typically know they need, with holistic education about what’s coming. It was called the Postpartum Survival Kit.

Then, over the past year, we moved away from the idea of survival. Afterall, don’t we deserve to thrive in postpartum life? 

The answer, of course, is a resounding yes. Which led to creation of our own line of all-natural, plant-based postpartum products called Thrive Mama.

And we were really proud of everything we were doing… until we weren’t.

As Allison, a full spectrum doula who prioritized inclusivity in her practice, came onboard, we learned more. We learned that this community we’re building, based on our desire to serve and improve postpartum outcomes, was ignoring a whole community of birthers. 

Not everyone who gives birth is a woman. Not everyone who gives birth, will call themselves “mom.”

Intentions matter. When One Tough Mother was founded, it was from a pure place. But we’ve learned more since then. And as Maya Angelou said, “do the best you can until you know better.”

Because that parade? Well, whatever the journey, we should be throwing it for every single human being who has accomplished the beautiful miracle of growing and birthing a baby.

So yes, intentions matter. But there has to be action behind them for it to mean a damn thing. As a result, we’re making some changes that we hope will reflect our heartfelt intent to be allies to the trans people in our birthing community:

1. Inclusive language & assumptions

We have gone through all of our website and educational resources to remove language that makes any assumptions about gender identity. No more “mom” or “mama” unless you have told us that is how you identify. This is our policy moving forward as we create any new resources, events, courses, or even just post on Instagram.

2. Phasing out the Thrive Mama name on our products

Our postpartum recovery products are intended to help everyone who has given birth. To call them Thrive Mama simply doesn’t reflect our goals and our hope for what we’re putting into the world.

Going forward, our company and anything we offer will bear the One Tough Mother name. This is a nod to co-founders Kristine and Allison, whose pronouns are she/her, and who do identify as moms (although Kristine’s kids might think her name is “snack!”). 

We have changed our product names online and altered all of our photography to reflect this, and we will continue phasing this out over the next year. So please note, you may still see the “Thrive Mama” logo in the community for a few more months, but moving forward everything we produce will be brought to you by One Tough Mother.

3. Trans Birth for Birth Workers by Trystan Reese

These changes are something that we have been discussing and planning for months. While it was our goal, from the bottom of our hearts, for One Tough Mother to embody feminist and inclusive values, we knew this had to come from a more informed place.

Our first step was to take the Trans Birth for Birth Workers course by Trystan Reese, in an effort to better understand the lived experience of trans folks who have given or plan to give birth.

We encourage fellow businesses in our community who are looking to make similar changes to do the same. 

Not only is this an appropriate way to learn more about the trans birthing community and get answers to the questions you may have, but it provides financial support to the course creator, Tristan Reese, who has taken the care to produce it.

4. We’re never gonna be perfect

This is probably the hardest pill to swallow when it comes to ally-ship, but we acknowledge this. And we’re not going to let it stop us from trying and doing our best.

We encourage you to reach out to us if anything we produce or say strikes you as problematic, or if you find any language online or in our resources that hasn’t been updated.

Seriously. Email us, we’re real people and we want to hear it:

Kristine - info[at]imonetoughmother[dot]com
Allison - community[at]imonetoughmother[dot]com.