Revolutionizing Postpartum Care: Interview with HEM Support Wear Founder Lauren Fleming

In this episode, I interviewed Lauren Fleming, the founder of HEM Support Wear, a company pioneering the market of external support garments for women experiencing pelvic organ prolapse. Lauren shares her personal journey of discovering prolapse after having her first baby during the pandemic and her struggles with finding comfortable and effective support garments, which led her to create her own. 

We discuss the importance of pelvic floor health, the differences between internal and external support options, and the broader applications of HEM garments for postpartum women and those with conditions like vulvar varicosities. Lauren also addresses the need for aesthetically pleasing and easy-to-use support garments and her efforts to create a supportive community through storytelling and partnerships with healthcare professionals.

Find Lauren IG: @hemsupportwear

                      Facebook: Hem Support Wear


Timeline

00:28 Introduction and Guest Welcome

00:51 Lauren's Journey to Founding Hem Apparel

01:38 Challenges and Solutions in Pelvic Health

04:15 Exploring External and Internal Support Options

07:23 Target Audience and Product Benefits

12:18 Building Community and Raising Awareness

15:30 Future Plans and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Hi there. I'm here today with Lauren Fleming, who is the founder of the hem apparel company. And I wanted to talk to her about her product and why she developed it and, and the, the need that she saw that wasn't being addressed. So welcome Lauren. I'm so happy to have you here today with me. Thank you so much, Sarah.

I'm happy to be here. Um, so, so what, what made you found this company? What were you trying to do? Yeah, it really all started, um, when I had my first baby in May of 2020. So I didn't know anything about, you know, or not much about pelvic health. Hadn't heard of pelvic organ prolapse before. And a few short weeks after having her, you know, learned that I had pelvic organ prolapse.

Can I interrupt you and say that was a crazy time to have a baby or trying to do anything in health care. The pandemic babies. So just to add to the confusion there, that's definitely like an immediate bond, like between me and like parents with like similar kids is like, Oh yeah, we all had a baby during the global pandemic.

Yeah. And then that,  that, yeah, May of 2020 was a crazy time. Okay. So you had your prolapse and it was new to you. You'd never heard of it, which I think is a very common story. You probably thought you were the only person on the Yeah. And thankfully I did have a relationship with a pelvic floor physical therapist.

And so I was able to get in to see her right away, like, you know, early postpartum. And, you know, she confirmed what I was thinking and set me on a great path, you know, towards recovery right away. And as part of that, she recommended that I wear External support garments to help mitigate the symptoms. And it was in trying those garments that I was able to find, um, garments that provided the needed support.

So they would help mitigate symptoms so that I could like walk, hold my baby, do exercises. But they were all uncomfortable for me to wear for various reasons. So whether it was. Thick elastic that like dug into my waist and rubbed my skin or leg openings that didn't fit my body Well or thick fabric and straps that would show through my clothing.

It was for all of those reasons I was just like why isn't there something better and it was one of those things where I just couldn't stop thinking about it And I was like, I feel like there's really an opportunity here For people like myself to find a garment that would provide the needed support, but then also not have the garment be top of mind.

It's like prolapse is enough on your mind. And then you're like, you're pulling and tugging and it's just, it's bothering you. Um, and so, yeah, that's really what sparked this and sent me on this path. And, um, yeah, it was a few short months after kind of trying all those garments that I started making some phone calls to, to garment designers and, Showing them kind of what everything looks like today.

And off we went. So I'm completely amazed with you because I just want to point out that you were doing this all with a small baby, right? In a pandemic and a new diagnosis. And you know, something that is a little bit alarming for people. Um, I, I think it's amazing that you had a friend that was a pelvic floor physical therapist or a connection, right?

Cause that's kind of where a lot of people get lost for a while and they're just not sure who to talk to. So that's an amazing part of your story. I have to tell you that, so, you know, I'm a urogynecologist. I did a fellowship. I, you know, have spent my career, um, dealing with prolapse and incontinence. Um, External support garments are a totally new thing to me, right?

And I would tell you that a physical therapist that I met online, um, first brought them to my attention, you know, I mean, probably in about 2020. And before that, I'd never really thought about them. You know, we always thought about internal support and pessaries and that's what you needed. Did you ever try a pessary?

So I actually, I have tried a pessary. It was interesting because the, I feel like the, Um, like, with  early, like, what I'm kind of hearing is that when I was had a recent visit with my she was talking about how now testers are kind of like the 1st  recommendation that they're even going to, like, to even where you're postpartum if you have.

Public work and prolapse, because. Like, research is starting to show how it can, like, help potentially, like, even lessen things versus just main symptoms. Um, so I, I was very interested in a pet story early on, but my 1st experience trying to get 1 was really negative. When I asked the  practice that I was going to to fit me.

It was just a very negative experience and she really kind of discouraged me from it. So I left without even getting fitted. And it was about two years later after having my second baby, um, that I ended up going back and trying again. I was at a different practice with a new doctor and I was able to get fitted for one successfully and I absolutely love it.

I, I, um, I probably got it two or three months ago now and it's been, it's been amazing. It's a great tool. Can you, I, so I definitely agree with it. I think it's a great tool. Um, and you know, it's not for everyone. It's not for every day or it can be for every day, but, um, it, it is a, is, is an awesome additional tool.

Can, So this is really for my own education. I'm just so curious. What's the difference in symptom relief between the external support for you and the internal support  for me personally, when I wear my pessary and it's, you know, it's sitting right and fitting. Well, I don't feel my prolapse symptoms at all.

Whereas when I wear the external support garments, it depends, of course, like on time of day and things, but I feel like they help mitigate, but it doesn't. Um,  I feel like with the pessary, for me, they, I don't have any symptoms and on the external support, it helps like lessen them, but they don't necessarily fully go away.

Okay. When you wear the pessary, do you ever wear them together? I have not. I've talked to, I was doing a, I had a talk with a pelvic floor PT recently, and somebody was also asking that question and they were talking about how there could potentially be a use case where you might find that helpful, but that's going to, it was going to be like more kind of on a case by case basis.

And if you had like Other things going on that maybe then that gentle compression would help with  that's when you might find it helpful to wear both. But it's like, if you're just kind of dealing with heaviness in your pessary takes care of it, then you wouldn't also need the external support. Well, I was also thinking about things like, um.

You know, if you might use it in certain situations, right? So saying you're someone who really likes to lift or you like to run, right? You're doing something very athletic that there might be, or you have, you know, just a really long day. If there might be a time where both are really helpful. Um, because I think it is.

Uh, it is all about having the tools, right? And knowing when to, when to use which tool. Right. So who, so you like your pessary, your pessary works, you like the external support. Um, who's your ideal client? Who did you develop this for? Yeah. So really I had, you know, people like myself and then really any, any person that's dealing with prolapse at any stage of life.

So it works well for people Like me, I'm in my thirties. I've had two kids. I'm, I'm very active and I wanted a garment that would move with me and I didn't have to think about when I was wearing it. And then it's also where, you know, as you're a pair of menopausal menopausal, and then dealing with this, maybe for the 1st time, or things are changing again, you know, it's great at that stage too, because depending on, you know, People's preferences.

It's just another tool that you can have available. So if like, I mean, like we're kind of saying, it's like, maybe you want to wear your pessary 1 day for 1 reason, and then the external support garment works better on a different day for a different reason. And so it's really for that target market is what I had in mind.

What I'm also learning is that they're also proving to be really beneficial for people in general postpartum, especially like with the swelling of the tissues and things like that, that the gentle compression can just help you feel more comfortable and in their high waisted. And so it can kind of just feel like a gentle hug in those early days and weeks, postpartum, regardless of if you have pelvic organ prolapse, we've also had people who have vulvar varicosities and have found that that's also, it's providing.

relief for them as well. So it started with people with pelvic organ prolapse in mind, but I'm finding that there's other instances where people are also finding it helpful. Yeah. So those vulva varicosities, right, which are varicose veins, but instead of them being on your legs, so they're dilated veins, instead of them being on your legs, they can actually be on the vulva.

And some, they tend to get so much worse during pregnancy because of the additional blood flow. And those patients, are just so uncomfortable, right? So that's a, that's a really interesting, um, I mean, I guess I would use the word market, but I mean, that's a group that needs help, right? Right. Cause there aren't a lot of tools for them.

Um,  okay. So I've talked to a lot of younger women that have prolapse. Um, and one of the things that I think younger women struggle with is that a lot of these products. Um, aren't very attractive, right? They're very functional. Um, they're not very attractive. They're hard to get on. And, and, and that becomes, um, I think really difficult for some women, right?

Because we all want to be kind of attractive. And when you're putting on this kind of very. I don't know, medieval looking garment that was sent to you in a not so pretty package. I mean, I talked to someone the other day and she said, I just want it to look like, you know, packages that I get from anthropology.

I just want it to be, you know, kind of beautiful. Is that something that you have addressed? That was, that was one of the key things that I wanted to, um, to address when I did this. So it was one, I wanted a garment that was functional and supportive to or comfortable to wear, but it was exactly that. Like the ones that I was getting in the mail were in clunky plastic packaging.

It looked like it was branding from the fifties or it was very medical. And so it was exactly that experience where I was like, I'm already struggling. Um, I'm already like, what is happening to me? I just want relief. And then I'm spending a decent amount of money and I don't even like the product that I'm getting.

And so it's definitely, I've been in creating the brand. I have been very intentional about when you're getting into this in the mail, it's, it's almost, it's an unboxing experience. Like the packaging looks nice. The garment itself looks nice, but also like when you're on the website, it feels like it could be any kind of personal care brand.

It's not just this. Yeah, I just kind of dated medical thing where you feel like you're just disappointed, you know, that you even have to buy it kind of a thing. And that was really important to me to make the entire experience from shopping on the website to getting it in the mail. Just make that feel like a good experience.

experience. Yeah. I think that's so important, right? Because I think there are so many body image issues that happen, um, with, with prolapse. And in medicine, we frequently think about things just from such a functional perspective that we're not thinking about all of those. Lovely things, right? Those soft things, those things that we all like the things that, you know, Apple did so well and, and kind of taught us about, um, and, and things that I think,  um, you know, are really important, but sometimes in medicine, we, we undervalue those things. 

So you sit at an interesting place, right? Because you're kind of marketing to young women that have prolapsed. Are you doing any kind of outreach or trying to create groups with those people? Um, because I think a lot of people are looking for support and community, but it's, it's hard to find. I mean, there are a lot of women that have prolapsed,  um, but it, it's, um, you know, it can be hard to find in your own neighborhood. 

Absolutely. Yeah. And so we're trying to. As far as like, how we're working to raise awareness, we are working directly with health care professionals where we send like a sample kit and so they can get a garment and the marketing materials to include at their practice and have those 1 on 1 discussions with patients.

And then, as far as the trying to build community and raise awareness. We're working between like our social media channels and then the blogs on our website where we're doing, we have two different series that we're working on. One's called the hem spotlight, where we ask people like myself to just, Hey, would you like to share your story?

And maybe, you know, kind of put that out there so that other people can realize, you know, they're not alone. They can relate to it. They can kind of see how everyone's. Journeys are different. And so we're trying to raise awareness through the education and just information on the blog. And then also being able to kind of lift each other up with those stories um, and, and build that over, over time. 

Do you, so one of the things that, you know, we always kind of thought when I was training is that nobody ever wanted to talk about these issues and no one wanted to tell their personal story. Do you find that, or do you find that, um, no, women are really looking to tell their personal stories to help somebody else? 

That's a great question. I feel like we're seeing more and more people who are ready to talk about it. I think especially right now I'm seeing it's interesting because when I was first starting this in early 2020, I had, I had noted a lot of like pelvic health accounts on Instagram and kind of their following and that kind of thing.

And then I was recently, um, Looking at it again, and it has been amazing to see the growth of those accounts over these last 4 years. And I think, I think we're just seeing this movement towards people are tired of suffering and silence and they're, they're ready to start talking about it. And of course, that's not everybody and you also have to have the language to know what to talk about, like, with your symptoms and things like that.

Um, but I do think we're starting to see people being more willing to share their stories. And then I think it's like that snowball effect too, where it's like, Oh. Well, my neighbor has this thing or my aunt has this thing and I had no idea and then you realize, oh, if I start talking about this, I find more and more people in my community that are dealing with the same things.

Yeah, it's such an  interesting time in the world and I have very mixed feelings about social media and, and. But I, I think that, you know, for situations like this, I think it is such a benefit and I think it really helps women to see, you know, a lot of times people assume that her laps is a little old lady disease.

Right. And so, you know, when you're newly postpartum and you see somebody else who is newly postpartum and is a young, attractive person, you think, Oh, Oh. This it just normalizes it right and just makes it, um, you know, makes you feel less isolated. So I think that's such an important part of the of the work that you're doing.

Um, what what are you going to do next? I mean, this is pretty impressive. Thank you. Right now. I'm really just focused on, um, you know, we had some production challenges early on. And so we're just working on getting, like, all of, like, yeah, I mean,  Let me guess. It was supply chain. It actually wasn't. It was actually just a local production partner that just could not consistently meet quality.

So it was really hard  actually. Thankfully, I haven't been too impacted by supply chain stuff yet. I don't know how I've escaped it, but knock on wood. So yeah, don't question it. Just be happy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So right now we're really focusing on raising, raising awareness of our new garment and the option and how it compares to others so that people can.

Better understand, you know, what options are out there and how ours fits in and then working on again, just like raising awareness, trying to have people. I, my goal is for people to not feel like me, where they feel blindsided and like, it's their fault. And just like, what, what are the next steps for me?

Can I have other kids? Like, what does this mean for me? It was so, it was such a hard experience. I just hope that more and more people. When they, when they have this, that's not their experience. They can know, Hey, there's, there's tools for me. I know the steps that I can take to start getting help with this.

And it just doesn't feel as terrifying as I know it feels for a lot of people. I really think that when, you know, women are pregnant and they're having their counseling and they're going through classes, that it's something that we should bring up in a very gentle fashion, right? I mean, you don't have to tell story horror stories.

You don't have to go into huge detail, but. Just to say, sometimes this happens. And if this happens, you know, here are your resources, right. And just file this away somewhere so that if you need it, you can, you can find it. Um, because I think, you know, having a new baby is hard. And then if you are, you know, trying to research something, do something in daylight hours, I mean, it, it all just becomes that much more.

Difficult. Right. Um, So yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with you. There's so much education that that needs to be done, you know, in the, in the UK, they have proposed educating girls about, um, the pelvic floor during sex education, right. As teens, just to start it then. And I, I think that that would be great, but I, um, I don't know that we're quite there yet.

Yeah, no, I know. It is an interesting thing. Like when I tell people what I'm working on or I'll be in like a, like a mentorship program and there'll be males in there and I'm talking about pelvic floor and I'm like, guys, everyone has a pelvic floor. Like, this is not just a women's issue, but people don't know.

It's just, it's very little understood. People don't know. And it's frequently like a conversation stopper. Right. I mean, when I'm at parties and people ask what I do, you know, well, it's funny, it goes both ways, right? Men want nothing to do with it and do not want to talk about the pelvic floor and women will frequently go, and then start asking me a million questions.

I bet. What about this? And what about this? And should I do this? And I have this. And what do you think? And can you look at this? And I'm like, okay, so this, this may be a little bit much. Um, but, but I think  yeah, I think it, I mean, we're all, it all comes from a lack of information, right. And not knowing where to get that information.

So if someone is interested in your product and trying it out, where can they get it? So you can order through our website. It's hem support, where. com HGM support, where, um, and all of our information's on there with the sizing, the garment comes in two styles. We have a curvy and a straight, and that was a, another key part for me was.

When I was trying other garments, I'm, I'm the curvy style and a lot of them didn't accommodate my body very well. And then user testing, that's what we realized was we needed to have both. So we have two styles and nine sizes and we've got sizing info on the website and you can always email us. Um, but yeah, him support word.

com and you can find us there. Okay. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much, Sarah. It's great talking with you.