In 2012, I was on maternity leave from my sports marketing job after the birth of my first child, Marnie. She was a sweet, loving baby, and like any new parent, I was always looking for ways to soothe her when she cried. I found that she would become calm and still when lying on my bare chest–a position known as skin-to-skin contact (SSC), which supports newborns’ health, and strengthens the bond between parent and child. 

One day, when she was just two weeks old and asleep on my chest as I lay on my bed, I briefly lifted my hands from her back to send a text to my sister, Ashley. In an instant, she startled and slipped, landing onto our hardwood floor. My husband and I panicked and rushed her to the nearest emergency room in Toronto.

The ER doctor reassured us that incidents like this were common and that there was no need to worry. Still, I was shaken, and from that moment on, I never took my hands off Marnie while she lay on my chest. I started buying every product designed to keep a child secured to the parent’s body–wraps, carriers, slings, and baby-wearing shirts–but all were designed for carrying a baby while walking. They were stiff and cumbersome, full of clips, belts, and buckles, which made SSC much harder. Wrapping the baby in these devices took too long and was uncomfortable for both of us. I wanted something simple that I could slip on to keep Marnie snug on my chest while she rested, but I couldn’t find anything that worked.

Most North American hospitals recommend one hour of SSC daily to help regulate newborns’ vital signs and reduce stress, but many newborns struggle to stay on their mothers’ chests for a full hour. Some hospitals even have staff physically hold babies in place, which sometimes leads to repetitive strain injuries. It became clear to me that parents and hospitals needed a safer, simpler solution. 

Eight months later, I borrowed my mother-in-law’s sewing machine and made something I hoped could keep Marnie snug against me during SSC. It was a simple rectangular piece of polka-dot fabric with big swatches of Velcro. From that day forward, I used it to keep Marnie secure on my chest, and I began to wonder if it could help other parents too. That homemade creation eventually became the template for the Joeyband, the safe and adjustable SSC support device I launched in 2013, named after baby kangaroos, or joeys, who stay in their mothers’ pouches for months after birth.  

I wanted to know whether anyone else had tackled this problem, so that year, I turned to a friend who was a patent agent. She helped me conduct a worldwide search for any device specifically designed for SSC, and the results showed nothing like it existed. We proceeded to secure the patent, and my sister and co-founder, Ashley, agreed to help fund the business.

I connected with someone in the fashion industry who built prototypes and hired her to create an improved version of what I had originally sewn. She also helped source a fabric supplier for a soft, stretchy fabric that could wrap around the body easily without irritating sensitive skin, and worked with  a fashion student to turn it into 20 samples. When I asked a group of friends who were mothers to test them, I quickly realized the device needed to be more adjustable since babies’ and postpartum bodies change so rapidly. After incorporating those adjustments, I took the updated prototypes to a Canadian manufacturer.

With the Joeyband, Ashley and I attended our first retail trade show, the ABC Kids Show in Las Vegas, where an American e-commerce baby goods retailer placed our first order. Shortly afterward, I launched our website, and within weeks, a nurse in Toronto emailed to say her hospital had been looking for a product like ours for their NICU. The momentum grew when a  popular mommy blogger posted about our product, and a leading breastfeeding non-profit organization, La Leche League International, added our product to their book, Sweet Sleep: Nighttime and Naptime Strategies for the Breastfeeding Family. 

In 2017, five years into the business, I entered an innovation contest run by the non-profit SheEO (now Coralus), which awarded winners a five-year, no-interest loan. Sarah-Almaza Cox, a healthcare executive and one of the fund’s investors, reached out to say she had been eager to meet a woman in healthcare who had invented something she could help bring to market. Ashley and I met Sarah and immediately knew she belonged on our team as a co-founder. Her intelligence, experience, and passion for our product were unmistakable.

In 2018, an Ivy League hospital in Connecticut conducted a study on the Joeyband, showing it could increase breastfeeding rates, improve patient satisfaction, and reduce infant falls. Soon, other hospitals began researching the product, revealing that it could help regulate a baby’s temperature, heart rate, and breathing by maintaining secure, continuous SSC, while supporting maternal postpartum recovery and bonding. Recent research further shows that SSC accelerates brain development, reduces crying, and that holding a baby on the non-birthing parent’s chest on the day of birth can create a bond nearly as strong as with the birthing parent. We realized the Joeyband was following the path we had always envisioned—it could be medically essential and transform maternal and newborn care, becoming a standard practice in hospital policies and procedures.

We now partner with hospitals to demonstrate how the Joeyband can improve clinical outcomes, including faster cesarean recovery, reduced opioid use, and shorter hospital stays. While these benefits result from increased SSC, hospitals have seen measurable improvements with the Joeyband because it makes the practice more comfortable, secure, and accessible, enabling parents to engage in it more frequently and for longer periods. In Canada, the Joeyband can also help save the healthcare system costs. For example, studies show reducing NICU stays could save a hospital $6,000 per day, and improving breastfeeding rates could save up to $71.5 million in Ontario’s long-term healthcare costs alone.

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Today, the Joeyband is used in over 200 hospitals across North America and the U.K. We grew more than 40 per cent in our last fiscal year and have supported over 100,000 users. All materials are sourced in North America and manufactured in Canada, ensuring product availability, supporting the local economy, and reducing our environmental footprint. We continue working to bring the Joeyband into every Canadian hospital, though approval cycles can take up to 18 months. At the same time, our retail outreach remains strong, with shows like the nationwide The Baby Show often selling out multiple times a year.

In the meantime, we’re grateful to spread awareness about the importance of SSC and sell directly to families who benefit immensely from our product. Two years after first designing the Joeyband on my mother-in-law’s sewing machine, I delivered my second daughter, Maxine, at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital. When my roommate at the hospital’s baby was crying, she asked why my daughter hadn’t made a peep. “It’s skin-to-skin contact,” I told her. “Here, take a Joeyband.”

– As told to Samantha Fink