In The News

Lianhe Zaobao | Featured Article May 2021

Confinement is an important period for mommies after childbirth, the Pre-Partum and Post-Partum care varies from the start of 10 months pregnancy. This includes Pre-Partum, Post-Partum massage, and lactation consultation as well.

Some mothers not only have to take care of their newborn, they will also go around in search for lactation services to help with their engorgement and as well as Post-Partum massage for their Post-Partum recuperation, causing them to be overly-occupied in their search effort without much rest.

Yen Lim, founder of Madam Partum, saw the need in the mother and baby market and decided to start Madam Partum with the vision to provide one-stop service for mothers and babies, without any hassle or stress. She effectively harnessed digital platforms to communicate with first time mommies, and put in place an eShop to make pregnancy related products such as confinement care products, breastfeeding products and also consultation services available online. therefore, allowing mommies to enquire about the services and purchase the products conveniently, without the need to step out of their home.

Based on her personal experience as a mother of two to a 10 years old son and a 9 years old daughter, she started Madam Partum. Her biggest challenge during her Post-Partum is her breastfeeding issue, and her father Mr. Lim Choon Huat, a TCM Physician and the founder of Chien Chi Tow Healthcare, utilising the TCM Concept to help her recuperation from her Post-Partum journey and ease her engorgement issues.

Yen was immersed greatly in the concept of TCM while she observes her father treating his patients from a tender age. Thereafter, her interest grew in Wellness Tuina, and after graduating from school, she started helping out in her father’s business and applied TCM care concept to Madam Partum’s pregnancy care.

Circuit Breaker

The start of Madam Partum has been through physical participation in Baby Expo to gain brand awareness, and the brand continues to amass positive traction with the opening of Madam Partum’s flagship store at Tanjong Katong. However, just as Madam Partum prepares to extend the outreach to more mothers, the Covid 19 pandemic strikes and forces a halt to many plans. However, Yen took this opportunity to expand the business and outreach digitally instead to ride out the pandemic.

She illustrates “I remember last year during the circuit breaker, there were many mommies who could not find a confinement nanny or domestic helper in time for their confinement. Also during their confinement period, they faced breastfeeding issues and felt helpless.” She also adds “We realise that there were mommies needing help, so we utilise Zoom Webinar to offer online guidance for mommies on “How to Increase Low Milk Supply and How to clear blocked milk ducts”. During the two webinars, more than 500 sign ups were maxed for each webinar.

Other than that, Madam Partum utilises Instagram to conduct IG Live series with celebrity artists and also some influencer mommies, such as 933 DJ Lim Peifen, Singer Tay Kewei and founder of Love Bonito, Rachel Lim, as they shared their own personal motherhood journey.

Yen also mentioned that she doesn’t specifically look for celebrity artist or influencer mommies, she is just personally very passionate in helping mothers in their pregnancy journey, as they happen to be also in the season of pregnancy or motherhood. She also shared “If I know someone around me is pregnant, I would usually go forth and see what help the mother needs. There are times when I go out with my daughter and she sees a pregnant mother in need, she will let me know and ask me to see how I can help out.”

Digitalisation to suit Mothers’ needs

Going back to the topic, there are different products and services catered to Pre-Partum and Post-Partum Care. The needs and wants of each mother are also different, hence, the Pregnancy Care industry is very niche and needs to be personalised while the products and services offered are planned to be holistic and comprehensive. Hence, Yen is very adamant for the growth of Madam Partum, the service level, product quality and digitalisation is important, to set Madam Partum apart from competitors.

She also mentioned, “The entry barrier is low when competitors try to offer a single service, for example, Post-Partum Massage, as all they have to do is to set up a Social Media account and a Facebook Page to start offering the service.”

Even though digitalisation brings together many competitions, she believes that taking advantage of the digitalisation platforms and social media, providing the right information when mothers need and also offering solutions when they are looking for one is the way to go.

Since the pandemic and circuit breaker, many have turned to working from home and home-based learning. To some mothers, it might mean a longer confinement period as she continues to stay at home while she starts working after her maternity leave. So the best form of communication will be through the online channels.

Yen shared that through mommies’ sharing their personal experiences has since then established a mothers’ support group which provides answers to some issues they faced during their pregnancy and confinement. Providing them a channel or platform for them to understand that there are mothers out there who might face similar issues and how they overcome it. Letting them know they are not alone in this parenting journey.

Confinement Herbal Bundle (DIY)

On top of that, there are confinement herbal bundles which consist of 28 Days of individually packed confinement herbal soup packs, herbal tea packs and herbal bath packs which can be bought individually too such as Green Papaya Pro-Lactation Soup and Imperial Ginseng Nourishing Soup.

These are conveniently packed so that mothers can prepare her own herbal soup, tea or bath even if mothers don’t have any confinement nanny or helper during her confinement period. Yen designed the confinement herbal bundle so that even a first time mother will be able to cook a delicious and nutritious meal at home.

It is also strongly recommended for mothers to have in place their confinement and breastfeeding plan. Some factors to consider when having a confinement plan are physical recuperation, dietary and nutritional intake, and positive emotion management. As for breastfeeding plans, mommies can attempt to understand more about breastfeeding basics and knowledge, how to use breast pumps, and how to relieve engorgement.

While Yen is not a certified TCM Chinese Physician, she is a Certified Lactation Specialist and she is also an active member of Breastfeeding Mothers’ Support Group where she helps consult mothers with breastfeeding issues through WhatsApp.

She highlighted a recent encounter, “Recently, I met a mother who is suffering from low milk supply and as a Malaysian working in Singapore, she is facing difficulty providing breast milk for her baby back in Malaysia. This has worsened due to global lockdown, and she has to resort to freezing her breast milk and arrange for it to be shipped back home to her baby once she has accumulated a month’s storage to make sure that her baby still is able to take in the precious breastmilk. Understanding what these mothers’ faced, I am determined to impart my breastfeeding knowledge to her and help her increase her breast milk supply.”