Press Room

MOTHERS OF INVENTION

by David Sword
For Columbia Gorge Magazine
Spring 2008

Included in Plato's works of philosophy is the statement "necessity is the mother of invention." Generations of parents have learned that keeping a newborn baby tightly wrapped in a blanket provides the child a warm and comfortable environment. Combined with gentle rocking or swaying, the swaddling helps a newborn feel safe and relaxed. When newborns are relaxed,

"Knowing that we had the potential to go nationwide-instantly-was very exciting." -KIM STOLTE

Swaddling a newborn is effective, but the technique requires practice and patience. While teaching a childbirth-education class at Hood River Hospital, registered nurse Kim Stolte found herself thinking that there must be an easier way. She looked around the room and said, "We need to design an easier swaddling blanket." A few expectant mothers expressed interest immediately. Having been taught to sew by her mother, Stolte combined her years of research and experience in raising her own three children with the aid of members of the class, and the SwaddleKeeper was born.

Although swaddling infants can be traced back beyond the ancient Greeks, there has been lit­tle development in the comforting technique. Stolte and her crew used a simple receiving-type blanket as the template, and with a few "baby-specific" tweaks, including a sewn-in head cradle and a Velcro closure, the SwaddleKeeper, or "SK," as the production team calls it, immediately received rave reviews. The SK is currently sold via its website, in more than 40 retail stores around the country, and in hospital gift shops and specialty baby stores; Stolte has received pos­itive feedback from parents, childbirth educators, doctors and midwives.

Stolte knew that even the most needed product in the world would not sell itself. "Most of the retail stores started carrying SKs after being directly approached by me, or during trade shows," she says. "In Hood River, we sell exclusively at Small Planet Trading, which carries 'fair trade' products from around the world."

The SwaddleKeeper is considered a fair-trade item because it is manufactured locally, and Stolte's business pays a fair wage. Instead of hiring a crew of professional seamstresses, she chose to work with members of another sorority. Affectionately called "Production Moms," Stolte says that most of her production team started as friends she met during the course of living and working in Hood River.

"The Production Moms work to make extra income that supports them living in the Gorge," says Stolte. "Most of them have other jobs or are staying at home with their babies, but all of them work know­ing that they have the flexibility to work around their family, which makes parenting that much easier."

In the beginning of the business venture, Stolte was keen on keep­ing things simple. "I resisted for a very long time to even add more than a few different colors and fabric types," she says. However, the success of her product and a barrage of customer requests led her to expand the offerings-though she has yet to develop any other prod­ucts, SKs are now available in more than 20 fabric colors and types, including organic cotton. Custom embroidery was the next addition: "The most interesting request (so far) was for ‘GO DUCKS’ to be embroidered for some diehard University of Oregon fans."

This responsiveness has paid off-in 2006, SwaddleKeeper was given an iParenting Media award, determined by independent parent-reviewers who use standardized guidelines to evaluate products for children.

"The iParenting Media award really gave the company a boost in confidence," says Stolte. "Having them choose us in the Best Accessory Product category is quite an honor."
With newly found confidence in the product, Stolte and two Production Moms, Autumn Woods and Holly Boardman, hit the road in March 2007 in an attempt to get the product in front of an American icon-Oprah Winfrey. They joined a contest called "The Next Big Idea," which Oprah developed in conjunction with cable shopping network QVC for inventers who are moth­ers. While SwaddleKeeper did not make the final cut, the expe­rience was still valuable.

"Knowing that we had the potential to go nationwide­instantly-was very exciting; it would have been the quick way to the top," says Stolte. "The Oprah experience really pushed the company to evaluate the packaging and presentation of the prod­uct."

Stolte says that she is proud of having made company deci­sions that are based on the "waste not, want not" maxim, "from the types of paper that we print on and packaging choices, to reusing and donating fabric scraps and using organic cotton fab­ric." She will continue to resist the siren's call of cheap, import­ed products: "The amount of news about products made over­seas, with questionable regulations on manufacturing, makes me proud and thankful that we don't manufacture in China or Taiwan. … I love seeing the children of the moms that sew for me."

Jonathan Swift, 18th-century author of Gulliver's Travels, once noted that "discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." Inventors and entrepreneurs like Kim Stolte use this innate sense to develop products like the SwaddleKeeper, helping to improve the lives of those around them.

Testimonials

"We absolutely love the SwaddleKeepers! We keep the babies swaddled all night long and it helps them feel more secure and safe and thus rest more peacefully."