The Quality Of Sportswear For Pregnant Women Is Worrying

In response to the growing demand for maternity sportswear, Nike has launched a special line. Will its competitors follow suit?

New York, USA - Teddi Mellencamp, who recently became pregnant, spent a lot of time looking for sports clothes to wear on the market, and she was frustrated.

As the founder of the fitness and nutrition coaching program allin, she is also a star on Bravo's reality show "Beverly's wife." she has nearly 1 million fans on instagram and will share her fitness and lifestyle products and advice with them. Many sports brands have given her a lot of free products, hoping she can mention it on her instagram page or in front of her customers. When she was six months pregnant, she found that most of the tested products were either too tight or not soft enough, and some of the stitches were deeply embedded in her skin.

"I don't name names, but I don't like the fabrics," Mellencamp said. "In most cases, even like my favorite pants, it's hard to measure the size of these clothes because they roll up at the waist or squeeze into my lower abdomen. Something is missing... For us pregnant mothers, the real point is that we want comfort. "

On the contrary, they are not designed to meet the needs of pregnant women.

This is not to say that there is no pregnant women's underpants or sportswear to choose from - in the multi billion dollar maternity wear market and the more than 500 billion dollar sportswear market, the cross field is expanding. But few brands are particularly attractive to expectant and new mothers. Issues such as fabric and stitching will become more and more uncomfortable as women get pregnant.

Although the whole sports and leisure market is growing, it is a complicated process for pregnant women to buy sportswear. They need to search online forums for clothing suggestions and read the evaluation of various uncomfortable and abnormal fabrics before they can make a decision. During this period of pregnancy, doctors are increasingly encouraging women to exercise.

Although many niche brands have been in the field for years, their influence has been limited. Now, big name sportswear brands are finally beginning to realize the value of this market and its importance to consumers.

Nike, for example, will begin selling the Nike m, its sports collection designed specifically for pregnant women, to consumers on September 17. The new collection, which began in 2017, will include four products: a nursing sports bra made of sweat wicking material, which also includes a pad to hold a breast pump; wide belt tights; a slit bottom jacket for expectant mothers to wear during pregnancy; and an ultra-low neck vest.

Nike's move marks a potentially huge change taking place. Its competitors in women's sportswear, lululemon and Adidas, are likely to join the change or lose this important market opportunity. Neither company has a special maternity line.

According to edited, a retail market intelligence firm that tracks fashion e-commerce sales, the number of online maternity sportswear styles in the United States has increased by 58% since the beginning of this year compared with five years ago. Tights, up 171% since 2015, have driven growth in the segment, and sports lactation bras have grown 45%.

"Even so, it's still a relatively undeveloped market," said Kayla Marci, a market analyst at edited In the past three months, she added, maternity clothing accounted for only 0.5% of the U.S. sportswear market.

Many brands that have launched maternity sportswear, such as blanqi, have been focusing on this area rather than the broader sportswear category, forcing consumers to jump from brand to brand according to their living conditions. For a brand, investment in customer acquisition, like expensive digital marketing, only retains the attention of consumers in a certain period of time.

Nonpregnant fashion retailers such as Australian sportswear brands D + K, gap and Old Navy also sell maternity and non pregnant sportswear. Gap and Old Navy offer tops, bottoms and sports bras for breastfeeding.

One reason for the lack of product supply may be related to the cost and time of brand design of maternity sportswear, and considering the importance of functionality and comfort to the wearer, the design of maternity sportswear needs to be more ergonomic.

Cake is a maternity brand that specializes in the production of breast-feeding bras, which is sold in 46 countries. In 2014, the brand entered the field of pregnant women and lactation sports bras, providing consumers with "high intensity resistant" products, a word commonly used in the description of sports bras, to indicate the intensity of exercise the bra supports. Founded in 2008, the brand also sells underpants for pregnant women, but it is still developing underpants for postpartum wear.

Tracey Montford, founder of cake, said: "the R & D cycle is certainly longer and the cost is higher, because there is a conflict between support and structure and the sense of dress, to ensure that the changing body of pregnant women does not feel uncomfortable."

Nike said its maternity product line was finalized after testing 70 materials under extreme tensile conditions and applying data from more than 150000 full-body scans of pregnant women. The advantage is that the company has enough resources for sports science testing.

For the pregnant Nike enthusiasts, this development is really a long process. "I'm really shocked and disappointed," said Claire Mazur, a frequent runner and brand consultant, about her experience of buying sportswear when she was pregnant. Once, she walked into Nike's flagship store on Broadway in Soho, Manhattan. The sportswear giant had not yet launched maternity wear. She asked an employee to help find the maternity section. She was told that she could try men's or women's sizes.

"It's obviously frustrating for me because it means that the brand I trust and love doesn't have the product I want," Mazur said. "From a messaging perspective, it's very disappointing, and it feels like, 'well, I'm no longer part of this brand, but exercise is more important to me at this very vulnerable time in my life.'

Although there are many difficulties in providing high-quality maternity sportswear, for those brands that do well, they can obtain long-term returns, which can deepen the relationship between brands and consumers at the critical moment of consumers' lives. "Expanding the supply of sportswear in the maternity market will help brands grow by reaching out to new customers and build loyalty among existing customers who can still buy sportswear during pregnancy," said Ayako fujiama, a fashion consultant at Euromonitor

"Look, they're not the first, but they're definitely the first big company to really do that," Mazur said of the launch of Nike maternity line. "It's a very important message."