Expert Interview: Kate Ward of The Bump

What types of resources does The Bump offer?

One of the most useful things for pregnant women on The Bump would be the message boards, just the advice from people who have been where you are or who have just recently been where you are is really helpful. We also have a lot of interactive tools, we have calculators for ovulation and we now have a contraction calculator which is kind of fun. I was pregnant when I first started working on The Bump and the contraction calculator was one of the things I really wanted to get, and it’s kind of a recent addition. We have a pregnancy check-list which is supposed to help you keep track of the things you need to do and get done before the baby comes. We have the baby namer, we have tickers for people to use which is really more fun than anything else, but I know as someone who was recently pregnant and actually is pregnant again
it’s really fun to see those weeks change. And we have a lot of logs for new moms too, like a breastfeeding log, a sleep log, an activity log to help try and keep the paranoia level down those first few months and help make you feel normal, or at the very least keep everything organized for what you want to talk to your doctor about.
Do you have a lot of information on multiples on your site?

We have the message board, and we now have a multiples expert. She’s (Karen Moise, RN) a nurse who deals a lot with delivering multiples, new moms with moms with multiples, woman who are pregnant with multiples, things like that. So we do have certain questions that she’s the one who always answers, anytime we get any multiples questions we send them to her. She’s a pretty recent addition, I think we’ve had her for the past 4 months, maybe? I don’t know how much people are aware of the fact that she exists.

What are some of the latest trends you are seeing with new moms?

I think new moms are getting very into using their phones for things. You know I was saying we have a lot of print outs, a lot of logs, but these new moms are really getting into using their iPhone’s to keep track of things. There are a lot of apps geared towards new moms and pregnant moms now. I think a lot of people are using the breastfeeding apps, the feeding baby apps, the changing baby apps, all that kind of stuff. That’s definitely the huge trend. The other thing is the healthy baby and eco-friendly mommy which that stuff is one of our most popular boards.

Are a lot more moms going green and asking for green nursery ideas?

Yes, we definitely get a lot of questions like that. And anytime we do any kind of toys round up or clothes round up or registry round up we try to include a lot of things like that because I think they can be a little harder to find.

There have been a lot of product recalls on baby specific items, what should new parents be looking for in hopes to avoid their purchases being recalled?

That’s really a tough thing to do, because even brands that are really well regarded have had recalls recently, like MaClaren, which was a voluntary recall. I think the only thing you can do is follow the instructions that come with the product and obviously talk to other moms about the products that they have used. I think a lot of times with the drop crib recall, a lot of moms would have probably advised against getting those to begin with because they are somewhat dangerous. We actually advise against getting those all together. But I think the biggest thing a new mom can do is register all your products because that’s how you’re going to find out if it’s been recalled. We do have a recall board that people can subscribe to via RSS where we’re always posting the latest recalls. The best thing you can do is stay informed because it’s just too hard to try and make sure that you are buying things that aren’t going to be recalled.