A midwife who has delivered thousands of babies developed a product designed for pregnant, labouring and post-natal mums, described as the ‘perfect’ birthing partner.
When ‘accidental entrepreneur’ Darcey Croft, 51, was investigating a risky birth, she realised pregnant women needed support in managing their health, to avoid unnecessary complications. She invented a drink, Isomum, designed to balance out electrolyte levels, the first of its kind she could find on the market, and hopes her product will soon be in hospital bags around the land, allowing women a more relaxed birth.
She tells Metro: ‘If someone can look after their own health and keep their energy up rather than running out of energy because their electrolytes are imbalanced then I can hopefully provide some small element of them getting the birth they wanted.’
Darcey, from Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, was at work one day in 2021 when she came across the case of a mother who had been categorised as low-risk.
She says: ‘She’d been expected to rock up and have her baby without problem and ended up presenting with all the symptoms of pre-eclampsia, a medical emergency. Both she and the baby were very unwell, she had an emergency c-section and the baby was taken to the neonatal intensive care unit.
‘It turned out she had been over hydrating, drinking too much, and her sodium levels were very low, which mimicked the symptoms of pre-eclampsia. Both she and the baby were alright, but they were unwell and she didn’t get the birth she wanted.
‘We would always encourage pregnant women to hydrate but I couldn’t believe we were in 2021 and didn’t yet have a drink designed specifically for labour.’
Sports drinks available often contain too much sugar or caffeine and Darcey says: ‘Whilst pregnant a woman will expend more energy than she ever has in her life, in a short space of time, and I couldn’t find anything to help.
‘It was like a lightbulb went on in my head, I realised if there wasn’t something suitable, I could make one. I felt a moral sense of duty to help.’
Taking into account the sickness many pregnant women suffer in their first trimester and then considering the need for added vitamins for postnatal and breastfeeding support, she started working on Isomum – a drink specifically for expectant, labouring and post-partum mums.
‘I’d had ideas before, so many in fact that my husband David laughed at me, but this time I knew it was a good one – I became an accidental entrepreneur,’ she says.
Darcey got in touch with biochemists, to start researching the formula for her drink, before realising how expensive it would be.
‘I got the maximum start up loan, of £25,000, from the government,’ she says. ‘I put that into research and development, that got me to the stage of having a robust formula, which had been third-party tested and we were very happy with the safety profile.’
She then struggled to find a manufacturer in the UK, so turned to the USA, deciding to launch in both continents simultaneously.
She says: ‘As a rookie, what I discovered early on was that the taste profile between US customers and UK customers was very different, the US customers wanted something much sweeter. We ended up withdrawing from the US, we will go back at some point but will concentrate on the market I know for now.’
From the conception of the idea, she took six months to birth the product in April 2022, alongside working full time for the NHS.
The finished article is a powder designed to be added to still or sparkling water, which includes ingredients such as Magnesium Glycinate (to help muscle tension), Vitamin C (to boost the immune system), Sodium Chloride (for proper hydration), B-Vitamins (for energy), Z(eaxanthin (to enrich breast milk), and Inulin (for the gut) – among other highly-tested elements.
She hired a team to work on her product and help prepare and launch it, funded by her start-up loan, savings, her NHS wage and any other means possible.
She says: ‘I have never had any doubt this would work. I know pregnant women, I’ve looked after them day in, day out, I know what their needs and their worries are and wanted to create a product which fulfills all those things.
‘When you start a business you have to know who your customers are, and you have to know exactly what it is they want, what would benefit them and what they would value.
‘My job as a midwife really does give me that key insight.’
The drinks, available from the Isomum website and on Amazon, have taken off, to such an extent that Darcey now has to decide whether to go for further funding to grow her business.
She says: ‘Currently, we are at the point where we aren’t making a loss. Any profits we have go into developing more flavour profiles and products.’
Her company was awarded Consumer Product StartUp of the Year for the South East in September, making the exhaustion of starting a business worthwhile. She hopes now to expand.
Darcey says: There is opportunity in every challenge. Sometimes I look at the product and think, that was an idea in my head and now it’s making a difference in people’s lives.
‘I would like it to be a birth bag essential, to help women be empowered with knowledge about their own health.’