Photo by Erin Nelson.
Quinn Reitz, owner of the Nursing Queen, shows a modification she designed on a shirt, that provides easy access for breastfeeding, at the Nursing Queen warehouse Aug. 25.
When Quinn Reitz had her first child, she found herself disappointed with the breastfeeding clothes on the market at the time.
So the Hoover mom decided to start her own business called Nursing Queen in 2017. She began operating out of her Green Valley home as an online retailer, but last year she opened a storefront and warehouse in Pelham.
Most of her business remains online, but Reitz says she loves meeting the customers and babies when they come by the store.
After her first child was born, she was looking for loose and flowy shirts with more discreet nursing openings. What she found at the time were clingy clothes with obvious nursing flaps.
Although she had been a TV news reporter and had no experience in fashion design, she began to look into designing her own breastfeeding clothes. She sought resources online about how to start a clothing line and searched high and low for possible clothing factories.
One factory told her she needed to go back to the basics: understanding fabric. She started by visiting a fabric expo in Miami, and now she can see a shirt in any store and identify its exact blend of fabric, she said.
Once she got a feel for the fabric, she started Nursing Queen with a hoodie and a tank top. Now she works with overseas manufacturers to produce a variety of styles, and she tests the styles and fabrics herself.
Reitz opened Nursing Queen’s brick-and-mortar location in June 2021 because the business was taking over her house. When she had filled the garage, the basement, and the guest room and had added a storage shed to the backyard, she realized she was at max capacity. Now, instead of her team packaging items on the washer and dryer, they have several work tables and shelves in their warehouse.
Nursing Queen’s work hours are convenient for their staff of mainly mothers because they all come in after school dropoff and leave at the same time to pick up their children from school.
When designing the clothes, Reitz takes inspiration from mainstream clothing. She’ll be wearing something and think, “How can I make this breastfeeding-friendly?”
She hides zippers behind ruffles and in the seams of tiered dresses and color-blocked tops. Styles are trendy and bright but also comfortable and wearable. Nursing Queen’s clothes are also designed to be more discreet. While breastfeeding, the top of the breast and the stomach remain covered, and often no one can tell the person is nursing.
Nursing Queen’s clothing allows breastfeeders to avoid wearing a nursing tank top under a normal shirt, a practice that can be hot during Alabama summers. When it’s cold outside, the company’s sweatshirts allow users to remain covered instead of having to pull up a regular sweatshirt and uncover their stomachs.
Those who breastfeed their babies while in a baby carrier also find the nursing clothes helpful so they don’t have to juggle multiple layers of clothing while wearing the carrier, she said. Styles with a zipper all the way across are popular among pumping moms because the shirts allow them to pump both sides at once.
As a bonus, many customers report the clothes are stylish and discreet enough to continue wearing after they’re done breastfeeding, Reitz said. They just pop the zipper pull inside the shirt where it cannot be seen.
Reitz has many more ideas for her business and said she will continue to expand her offerings. For example, she would love to create formal wear for nursing parents and beautiful dresses for attending children’s baptisms.
Reitz affirms that moms can decide with their babies how best to feed them, but “we’re here to support breastfeeding moms, pumping moms and exclusively pumping moms if you choose that.”
For more information, visit nursingqueen.com or find someone at the store weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at 206 Oak Mountain Circle in Pelham.
