Celebrating Mother’s Day With a Wish for Healthy Babies

My life’s work is to protect and promote babies’ health, and as all parents know (and now the whole world is learning, or seeing in the background on a Zoom call), our personal and professional lives are never really separate.

This is true now more than ever, for all of us and certainly for me, having just launched my new company, healthynest, to be there during a time when parents need us.

Many years ago, I launched my first dream company, Happy Family Organics, on Mother's Day, as a gift to moms. I was sure I was doing my part to change the world so that every baby could have access to clean organic food to support a happy, healthy life. I could never have imagined where the next two decades would take me, professionally or personally.  

A few years later, our oldest child, Zane, was diagnosed with autism at age 2. Zane is now 10, and like the one in six families whose children are diagnosed with developmental disorders every year, we have navigated life with his challenging special needs. We never stop asking questions about his autism and looking for answers. Armed with hundreds of research studies and direct access to the world’s leading obstetricians, developmental pediatricians, neurologists, and environmental biologists and toxicologists, we had our second beautiful connected baby, Asha, now 3.

We’ve learned so much along this journey about what environmental factors – besides nutrition alone – can make a difference in a baby’s health, and I want to share that hard-fought knowledge, to empower parents everywhere, because sharing, connecting and supporting is what we all need, always, but maybe now more than ever.

Something we come back to again and again is that from the moment your baby is born, and for the first three years, they’re creating 1 million or more new neural connections per second! Their physical and emotional environment can shape a developing mind.

Babies deserve a safe space free from toxins, to protect their growing bodies and brains. Emotionally, they need us to be engaged and connected. When we smile at them and experience delight at whatever it is they’re doing, they learn that when they do something, someone cares, and this motivates them to do more. Each of these seemingly small, instinctual interactions is growing their brains by the second.

Renowned developmental pediatrician Stephen Cowan M.D., who has many videos on our site, says: Trust your instincts. Trust your intuition, as long as you can move fear out of it – because fear will cloud your intuition, and your intuition is never wrong. Babies are deeply, unconditionally forgiving, and they don't expect you to get everything right.

Along with advice from greats like Dr. Cowan, EWG has been essential to me as a mother trying to create science-backed products I trust for my own family. That's why I launched my new company, healthynest, with EWG VERIFIED™ cleaning and personal care products, and why we worked closely with EWG scientists to make the safest products for mom and baby we could imagine, even trying to eliminate single use plastic along the way. EWG's VERIFIED program allows us as parents, entrepreneurs and consumers to work together to move the market toward a safer future for us all. Safer products and stricter standards mean a healthier future for many Mother's Days to come.

It’s an honor to wish all of you a Happy Mother's Day. I hope that healthynest – with the information, products and the developmental activities and support you all deserve – will be a gift to you and all superhero parents throughout their journey, so that we can all focus on what matters most – a safe, happy, and healthy life.

Shazi Visram
Founder/Chief Mom, healthynest
EWG board member since 2017


The first 250 people to sign up will receive a gift of one month of our very special healthynest diapering and development program:

  • Developmental activities customized for baby
  • Access to videos – customized activities and additional expert content
  • One month of healthynest diapers
  • Wet and dry wipes 

At healthynest, we want to hear from you. When parents share our ups and downs, we learn and get better together. I’ve learned a lot the hard way, and we would love to hear tips and advice from your amazing journey that make life easier for any of us.  Email or reach out to us on Instagram @healthynesting or Healthynest with your best advice – what you wish someone had told you before becoming a parent. #whatiwishediknew.


Disclaimer: Any views or opinions represented by any third-party materials belong solely to the third party and do not represent the views of EWG.

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