Photos: Carmen Bird
After 48 hours of inconsolable tears from her newborn son Anderson, despite breastfeeding him around the clock, Wendy Poon instinctively knew something was wrong.
Racing into hospital, the first-time mum was horrified to learn the situation was critical as he hadn’t been getting enough breast milk and was starving.
“I felt so guilty,” recalls Wendy, 35. “I had given birth to this perfect little being. But I had low milk supply and didn’t know I wasn’t producing enough.”
After dreaming during pregnancy of how magic and easy it was going to be to feed and cuddle her baby, the Auckland mum was distraught.
“I used to think about those moments when you hold your child in your arms and how amazing it would be,” explains Wendy. “But I was extremely sleep-deprived and struggling. I would feed, or what I thought was feeding him, and he would fall asleep. Then half an hour later he would wake up crying and screaming again.”
Adding to her stress, Anderson, now seven, was a small baby, just 2.5kg at birth. He was consistently in the bottom 10th percentile for foetal growth during Wendy’s pregnancy.
After three days in hospital, where medical staff closely monitored him, feeding a combination of formula and breast milk, they were discharged.
Determined to find a way to breastfeed, Wendy says she was lucky to have her in-laws staying with her. It’s a common practice in South East Asian culture, where older women take over cooking, cleaning and caring for the new mum for at least the first month. This allows mother and baby to recover and connect.
Following medical advice to pump breast milk regularly and supplement her son’s feed with baby formula, Wendy also began researching maternal nutrition. She started to blend her own herbs and spices revered in Malaysian culture in the hope it would boost her milk supply.
“The first time I pumped post-hospital, I only got 20-30ml of milk, which was nothing when baby’s stomach needed 50-90ml. After taking the blend three times a day, the next week, I was pumping 50-60ml. By the third week, I was up to 120ml.”
Delighted with the results, Wendy was able to transition back to exclusively feeding breast milk. Unconsciously the idea for her now seven-figure business Mammas Milk Bar was conceived.
“For me, the feeling of being able to provide for my baby has been a really healing process. Very fundamental to my mental health,” says Wendy. She is quick to acknowledge there are also many reasons parents opt to formula feed.
Two years later, when her daughter Amelia, now five, was born in 2019 – another smaller than average baby at 2.9kg – Wendy had her blends prepared to start taking them straight away.
Again she felt they greatly improved her ability to breastfeed. When Covid lockdowns began approximately a year later, Wendy had more time on her hands. She kept coming back to the thought, “What if these could help other women too?”
She explains, “Once you become a mum, this whole motherhood community is suddenly open to you. I loved the thought of being able to help others. I never wanted another mum to experience what I did and feel like she was failing her baby.
“I made a few samples and sent them out to lactation consultants, midwives and some mums in a Facebook group with babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
“Then I was out walking when I got the first message. It was from a NICU mum showing me a comparison of how much milk she pumped after taking the blend. I stopped in my tracks with my heart racing. It felt so good to know it had helped someone else.”
From there, it grew rapidly with Wendy initially mixing the blends once a fortnight in a commercial kitchen. She used ingredients like organic brewer’s yeast, maca powder, sacha inchi and moringa leaf. But after 12 months, demand had soared, with Wendy quitting her architect day job to focus full-time on the business.
Wendy’s certification in child nutrition and Mammas Milk Bar’s 2000+ positive reviews, endorsement by lactation consultant Kathy McCormack, and expansion into pregnancy and postpartum products showcase their growth.
Thrilled to be helping so many Kiwi mums, this year Wendy is excitedly planning to go global as she explores options in Australia and Singapore.
“I’m most proud of knowing our blends have helped lots of women – that was always the goal,” she says. “It’s so amazing to think about being able to help my own future grandkids. That would
be the best legacy to leave behind.”
For more information, visit mammasmilkbar.com.
