Our Story
About Share the Drop
Major medical authorities including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Centers for Disease Control, and the World Health Organization recommend exclusively feeding human milk to infants for the first 6 months of life. And yet, in the United States, only 25% of babies are. That number hasn’t changed in over two decades. What has changed is a more challenging and difficult circumstance new parents are faced with: the necessity for both caregivers to return to work shortly after the baby has arrived, hormonal disorders, breast cancer, mental health issues, among many more.
About Kelly
E-RYT 500, RPYT, LCSW, birth doula
As a registered prenatal yoga teacher and birth doula, Kelly has supported thousands of families through pregnancy, birth and parenthood. In her yoga studio, families connected over the trials and tribulations of pre/postpartum bodies, sleep training, partner relationships and of course, infant feeding. Taking note of her clients’ emotional well being, Kelly realized that feeding newborns created a wave of stress, pressure and often led to postpartum depression. She held weekly free lactation support groups and regularly helped match local families with an excess supply of milk to families in need. And as a breast cancer survivor, she gave particular attention to fellow survivors sourcing milk for their infants.
One particular evening, Kelly was on her phone, scrolling through her contacts to source extra milk for a doula client when she received a text notification from a dating app that she had “matched” with a prospective date. The idea for a mobile app to match human milk donors and recipients was born!
About Celia
MBA
Pregnant with her third child and in a new town, Celia found a prenatal yoga studio for support as much as for the health benefits. She instantly clicked with her instructor, Kelly. Attending classes for the social aspect and kinship, Celia felt a strong sense of community and support. After the birth of her baby, Celia had an oversupply of milk and a freezer full of excess. She hopped on the internet and found a huge village (half a million members) of peer-to-peer milk donors and recipients.
While forming a sacred bond during pregnancy, birth and postpartum, Celia and Kelly set out to develop a solution to solve the disparities between infants with access to breast milk and those without.
A mother of three, Celia shared her excess milk supply with families who couldn’t produce enough milk for their infants. For the last eight years, she has collaborated with change makers, innovators and social entrepreneurs and served as Vice President of the Charlottesville National Organization for Women. From the insight and experience working with phenomenal leaders, Celia is ‘pumped’ to launch a start-up empowering women and families to inclusively care for one another.
A Cooperative Feeding Community
We know that human milk is the gold standard for infant health and nutrition. We know that some lactating mothers produce more supply than just their own infant can consume. We know that wet nursing, first recorded in 3000 BCE, has sustained our civilization from the beginning. And yet, fraught with politics, even breastfeeding has been shamed and shunned. We also know that our world continues to change. We’ve lived through a global pandemic, droughts, wildfires, and other emergencies. Human milk has continued to sustain even the most vulnerable premature babies.
We can’t think of a more crucial time for a modern day solution to #FeedAllTheBabies.
Our Inspo
Before Share the Drop officially launched in 2022, our co-founder, Kelly, spent years connecting families locally and referring friends and friends of friends to Eats on Feets and Human Milk 4 Human Babies (HM4HB), whom we lovingly refer to as the OGs of breast milk sharing.
These groups have done incredible work normalizing the sharing of breast milk. Share the Drop seeks to continue their mission of informal sharing, but in real time, using geolocation technology from our phones – simplifying the process as much as possible for overly tired, stressed, anxious, and busy parents.
In addition to those OGs, we are so grateful for:
- All the mamas from bend – Kelly’s former mother-centric yoga studio in Charlottesville – that inspired her to make the world a better place for parents and babies.
- Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of Bumble, the app that gave Kelly her light-bulb moment to mimic dating app technology for breast milk sharing.