Our Inventors

Meet Our Mom Inventors

As a Board Member of the Mother’s Milk Bank at Austin with a personal passion for extending the life of breastfeeding, Julie came up with an innovative idea to test breast milk for alcohol. It all started when she was the matron of honor for her sister-in-law. She wanted to participate in the festivities, but was breastfeeding and worried about doing anything that might be harmful to her new baby. 

Julie knew there was conflicting advice concerning alcohol and breast milk and that moms were unnecessarily dumping their breast milk. She certainly didn’t want the alcohol to pass through to her baby in her breast milk. But almost as bad would be pumping and dumping if it wasn’t necessary. (Waste that precious mother’s milk? Noooooo!) 

Julie knew there had to be a way to test breast milk for alcohol. A way to protect the baby ... and let mom enjoy an occasional drink without discarding breast milk unnecessarily. So after the party was over (okay, maybe a few days later) she went to work inventing a reliable, affordable home test. The next thing she knew, the whole family was helping to pack the Milkscreen boxes and carry them to the freight truck outside their home. Her husband donned a pink shirt (the same color as the initial Milkscreen packaging) and went to nursing boutiques across the country selling Milkscreen. Milkscreen now receives national acclaim and is a must-have for millions of breastfeeding moms.

Dede came up with the idea for Walking Wings when her son Mac, was ten months old and wanting to walk everywhere. To help prevent Mac from falling and to save her aching lower back, Dede developed a prototype that solved both problems. (The woman is a genius!) 

A friend saw Dede and her husband using this new walking assistant and asked where they could get one. Dede knew she was onto a good idea. She made a few refinements to the product and then whoosh, just like that, within six months Walking Wings were flying off the shelves of the largest U.S. baby retailer, Babies “R” Us.

As a competitive body builder, Janiene quickly went back to her pre-pregnancy weight after having her first baby. She lost all of the baby weight, but like many women, she noticed her clothes never quite fit the same. While pregnant with baby #2, Janiene used her body building background and knowledge about hormonal changes during pregnancy to come up with a solution: a compression belt to wear around her hips postpartum. She wore the belt for six weeks after the birth of her second child, hoping the combination of compression and the hormone relaxin would help shrink her hips. Sure enough, after wearing the belt her hips were 1.5 inches smaller than before she ever got pregnant. 

Janiene passed the belt around her group of friends to see if they would get similar results ... and they did! (Now they’re her friends for life.) Janiene shared her experience with her OB/GYN, and he strongly suggested she do something with her compression hip belt. Shrinkx Hips is the original and only patented postpartum hip compression belt. Shrinkx Hips has gone from a “mom circle secret” to being a must-have product for thousands of new moms around the world.Shrinkx Hips Patent #: US9044309B2