Philips Avent Built a Text Tool for the Hardest Postpartum Job: Asking for Help
Philips Avent’s free Share the Care Connector, launched August 5 with Gina Rodriguez, texts friends and relatives concrete ways to show up after a birth. A March of Dimes survey behind the campaign found most people would help if asked, while most new moms still struggle to say what they need.
Everyone says they will help with the baby. Then Tuesday hits, the sink fills, and nobody knows whether “help” means lasagna, laundry, or sitting on the couch so you can shower without narrating your life.
On August 5, Philips Avent launched the Share the Care Connector, a free texting tool for that awkward middle. You invite people into a small circle, name the kinds of help you actually want, and the system pings them with prompts: drop a meal, run an errand, check in, show up in a way that does not require a group-chat negotiation.
Gina Rodriguez, an actress and mom, appears in the campaign with tips and short video messages. Brenda Kapner, who leads mother and childcare for Philips in North America, summed up the pitch: caring for a baby starts with caring for the person holding the baby.
For a lot of diaspora households, the interesting part sits under the app. Philips and March of Dimes surveyed people about postpartum support and found a familiar gap.
Plenty of friends and relatives say they would help. Plenty of new moms still cannot get the ask out of their mouths.
The survey behind the launch
Philips Avent and March of Dimes worked with The Harris Poll on an online survey of 2,400 U.S. adults (April 21 to May 3, 2025). That included 454 moms of infants or toddlers age 3 and under, plus 138 Hispanic moms in that group. Figures the campaign leans on: about 9 in 10 people say they are comfortable helping a new parent if asked; 62% of moms say voicing support needs is hard (76% among Hispanic moms in the sample); about two-thirds of parents say the first three months after birth are when they need the most help; nearly one in five moms reported no support beyond a partner; among those who got help, 42% said it was not enough; 90% of moms with an infant or toddler called self-care essential, while 80% said they get less than an hour a day to themselves. This is brand-partner research, so treat it as a clear sketch of the ask gap, not a clinical study.
A lot of postpartum loneliness happens in rooms full of people who meant to help. A text tool cannot fix in-laws, but it can make the willing village a little easier to activate.
How the tool works in plain English
The site is share-the-care.pregnancy.plus. You add friends, family, neighbors, whoever you trust enough to text about real life.
You choose the kinds of help you want most, and you can name one person as a “Most Valuable Villager” to help keep the schedule from falling on you. Those people then get SMS suggestions so they are not stuck guessing whether you need soup or silence.
You decide when support starts, who stays on the list, and what information gets shared. That privacy piece matters. Your mother-in-law does not need a play-by-play of every nap fail.
Nobody should expect an app to wash bottles or settle a family fight. At best, it cuts the apologetic texts where you explain why dinner would help.
Why people offer, and why moms still freeze
Offering help in the abstract is easy. Naming a need at 2 a.m., with your shirt inside out, is another skill entirely.
New parents are figuring out feeding, sleep, and recovery while half the group chat still wants photos. Asking someone to sit with your loneliness can feel riskier than asking for diapers. The survey found the hardest asks were often mental and emotional, not only chores.
In campaign interviews, Rodriguez has talked about trying to do everything after her first child’s difficult start, then deciding with her second that she would fall apart without backup. Plenty of households recognize that shift without sharing her story.
In families that treat toughness as love, asking can sound like you failed a test you never signed up for. A prompt from an SMS tool will not rewrite that culture. It can give you a smaller opening: the text arrived because the system suggested it, not because you were “too weak” to cope.
When help shows up with an agenda
A lot of diaspora postpartum already comes with people: parents on a flight, aunties with soup, cousins who say they “just want to help.” That can keep a household afloat. It can also take over the kitchen, the sleep plan, and who gets to hold the baby.
Leaving a bag of food on the porch is one kind of care. Staying three weeks and correcting your latch is another. Zuo yue zi and other recovery customs can feel like rest in one house and surveillance in the next.
Put the Connector to work with people who can follow a clear ask. Keep a shorter list for relatives who need a doorstep script: “We are grateful for dinner. We need quiet after 8.” A partner can send that message so the person who just gave birth is not cast as the difficult one.
If the problem is distance, the same idea still helps. Local friends can handle trash night while grandparents show up on FaceTime.
If you are the friend or the partner
You do not need a perfect invitation. Offer one specific thing with a time attached. Thursday at 6, chicken and rice on the porch. Saturday morning, you take the baby so they can sleep.
Ask what would feel good this week, then take the answer seriously. Some weeks people want company. Some weeks they want a full fridge and no conversation.
Partners: this is your job too, not a side quest for the group chat. You can own the signup, the grocery run, and the relative who wants to “just pop by.” Our postpartum guide for dads is for the nights when the brand tool is closed and the baby is still awake.
If someone’s mood is slipping, food delivery is kindness, not care. Call the midwife or OB, and look at a postpartum mental-health resource when shame is louder than hunger.
Use it if it helps. Skip it if it adds noise.
If the Connector makes asking feel less humiliating, try it. Free is fine. A logo on the text does not make the need less real.
If another SMS thread sounds exhausting, steal the structure and leave the brand behind: one person coordinating, a short list of needs, concrete offers instead of “let me know.”
The survey’s stubborn point is simpler than the product. People often want to help. Someone still has to open the door without apologizing for being tired.