our founder story

karli buchling, founder of natal comfort, inventor of anna pregnancy pillow, front lying pregnancy pillow, health benefits, evidence-based research

Hi, I am Karli.  Founder of Natal Comfort, Inventor of Anna Pregnancy Pillow.

I am, and always will be, someone who sleeps on my stomach.  If I can’t, I don't sleep well, and we all know how important sleep is.

So when I discovered that I was pregnant I was concerned that I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to sleep on my front.

I started looking into it.

I made several shocking discoveries:

  • Whilst millions of women want to lie/sleep on their stomach, (5m in the UK alone) they don’t have access to an easy & comfortable solution to do this at home
  • Going to sleep on your back is extremely dangerous for unborn babies, increasing your risk of stillbirth by 15%
  • Side sleeping, which is promoted as the only way to sleep during pregnancy, is one of the main causes of back & hip pain during pregnancy

Putting this to one side, I also found that lying bump-down during pregnancy holds a range of evidence-based benefits including

  • Improving placenta performance
  • Relieving back, hip & pelvic pain
  • Improving blood & oxygen flow between mum & baby

I was amazed to discover that there were no viable solutions to help me sleep on my front.

The fact is that evidence-based research shows that it is perfectly safe to lie on your bump, and even holds a range of health benefits for both mum & baby.

The real problem is that women don’t know this, and there is a stigma that you will squash your baby.  Blogs written by medical professionals make these claims to scare us, I guess, when there is no evidence to support these claims.

So, I decided to spend the next couple of years researching, talking to experts, and obtaining medical advice, so that I could create a solution that would allow women to lie bump-down during their pregnancy in the comfort of their own home.

My first pregnancy allowed me to bring 2 things into this world; Anna, my beautiful daughter, and her namesake Anna, the cushion that allows you to lie bump-down during pregnancy.

Anna is the first, but will not be the only, product under the Natal Comfort brand.

Our mission is to help all women have a comfortable, healthy and positive pregnancy.