The ultimate Mother's Day gift: Seattle company seeks to improve postpartum care

In many Asian cultures, mothers will take a month or longer after giving birth to spend time at a special retreat. There, they receive comprehensive postpartum care, have help caring for the baby, and engage in a variety of traditional treatments to help recover from the birth.

Many of these countries have better maternal health outcomes than the U.S., where 52% of maternal pregnancy-related deaths happen postpartum.

That was the inspiration for Yuzi, a Seattle-based company that has set out to improve postpartum care for new mothers in the U.S.

“America is so behind in maternal care,” said Yuzi Co-founder and CEO Stephiney Foley.

She sums it up simply: “When you’re pregnant, you’re on a pedestal. But once you give birth, you’re invisible.”

For Foley, it’s personal. Like approximately 85% of mothers, she experienced postpartum depression and anxiety after the birth of her second child.

“I remember going bowling with a bunch of my girlfriends and one of my friends asked how I was doing and I just broke down in tears,” she said. “That’s not a normal reaction.”

The postpartum experience in the U.S. can be very isolating and many mothers get little support from professionals.

So Foley and her cofounders have set out to change that. They’ve partnered with Columbia Hospitality to utilize the Lodge at St. Edwards, a beautiful resort outside of Seattle, to provide a retreat space for new mothers. The retreat includes 24/7 care for mother and baby, information sessions, spa treatments, meals designed for recovering mothers and lactation support.

It became clear very quickly that Yuzi was onto something. The company held an open house this week and already has 150 nights of prepaid reservations for expectant mothers.

Yuzi — which is a play on the Mandarin phrase “zuo yue zi,” loosely translated to “do the month” or “sitting the moon” — is also using technology to provide resources beyond the retreat and to help build community amongst new mothers.

Foley wants this service to be available to all women, regardless of their economic situation. She grew up in a household with a single mother who was also an immigrant.

“I think about my mom a lot,” she said. “I want people like my mother to be able to afford this.”

That means lobbying to get financial support from state governments and insurers. Because, as Foley puts it, postpartum depression is truly democratic.

“It doesn’t care if you’re Beyoncé or Stephiney,” she said. “Everywhere in America, postpartum care should be a right and not a privilege.”