When Lydia Simmons describes her first being pregnant, her voice comes via elated. “I used to be 33/34 years previous. I had a stupendous being pregnant. I imply, I could not think about something going higher,” the mompreneur recollects. “Nothing was alarming. Nothing was off-putting. The whole lot was precisely the way in which that you’d hope for in being pregnant.”
However sooner or later between being pregnant and 9 weeks postpartum, Simmons tells EBONY that one thing modified. Whereas the founding father of M.O.O., an acronym for Mother’s Official Goal, felt mentally ready for the challenges that come together with motherhood, she wasn’t conscious of the transformation her physique would endure. Roughly two months after giving start, Simmons says her well being began to alter. “I began having actually low arms. My ears have been ringing. I used to be actually weak,” she remembers. Simmons additionally skilled hair loss, darkish sunken eyes, discoloration of her lips, and was not producing sufficient breast milk to feed her child. “I used to be actually wrestling towards giving her method,” Simmons says. “I wrestled towards that for weeks.”
Between sleep deprivation and having much less time to maintain herself, her signs intensified. It didn’t assist that Simmons’s job at a worldwide design agency got here to an abrupt finish when a higher-up on the firm pushed to have her terminated after claiming they heard her baby cry on a piece name. “I used to be extraordinarily harm, and as my husband arrived house from work that day, and I sat there crying on the desk, he says, ‘Child, I’ve instructed you for months now that you simply wanted to cease working. We’ve met our monetary targets. At present I retire you. You do not have to work anymore.’”
That day in 2018 was a pivotal second for Simmons. It despatched her on the trail to entrepreneurship and advocacy. Quickly after leaving company America, Simmons was within the lab, engaged on creating dietary supplements for ladies that might alleviate the identical signs she skilled in her motherhood journey. As a result of she noticed superb outcomes from substances like sea moss, spirulina, moringa, ginger, and elderberry, Simmons wished to create, in capsule type, a complement that would supply related outcomes.
“After I realized that I had improved my very own scenario, and I had not been capable of finding one thing available on the market to talk to dietary deficiency, psychological well being decline, lactation, simply each day wellness and immunity, I knew that I wanted to assemble a bunch of individuals that would assist information me into the way to put that available on the market. And that is what I did.”
5 years later M.O.O. is a completely established well being expertise agency. Simmons acquired it up and operating with out traders, crowdfunding, or seed cash. Past the pliability that entrepreneurship gives, Simmons is most grateful for the chance to assist different ladies and advocate for maternal well being on their behalf. “I feel that it is vital that we discuss morbidity and what that’s and what which means for ladies who’re pregnant,” says Simmons of doing her half in furthering the dialog on maternal well being to be extra inclusive. “Loads of instances once we discuss postpartum points it’s within the context of when a child is produced, however ladies who miscarry additionally undergo postpartum, and it is a big group of girls.”
Simmons’s aim is to assist any and everyone who can profit from the dietary and well being constructing blocks on their journey. “Whether or not it is psychological well being decline, whether or not it is a dietary deficiency, whether or not it is hormonal imbalance, morbidity, “I need to do my half in advancing maternal fairness,” Simmons says. “That basically is my focus.”
