October 15, 2025
Postpartum Night Sweats: Podcast Episode #312
Ever woken up drenched and wondering if you’ll ever sleep comfortably again? You’re not alone. In this candid episode of Ask the Doulas, we dive into the all-too-common struggle of postpartum night sweats, sharing our own experiences and giving some tips for relief.
We’re joined by Jackie Hutson, founder of Piper & Mint, a brand redefining postpartum comfort with mint-infused, sweat-wicking luxury pajamas designed to help women finally rest well again. Tune in for real talk, practical tips, and a little postpartum self-care inspiration.
Hello! This is Kristin with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Jackie Hutson today. Jackie is the owner and founder of Piper & Mint, and she’s a fellow podcast co-host, The Sourcing Gals. It’s a podcast that lists the veil on manufacturing and helping other idea-makers launch their own product-based businesses.
Welcome, Jackie! Our topic is so important. We’re talking about postpartum night sweats and a bit about how Piper & Mint has solved the problem that you personally experienced.
Yes! It is so great to be here, Kristin! Thank you for having me. I’m excited to talk with you and talk about my journey, my postpartum journey and my journey to get pregnant. It was a long one, to be honest.
Tell us more about what led you to create Piper & Mint.
I had about a three-year fertility journey. And it’s so funny, right? You go your whole life trying not to get pregnant, and then I remember the time where I was like, oh, we’re trying now. And I thought – I mean, this is so silly. We even went on a vacation, and on that vacation, I was like, okay, I can’t eat turkey; I can’t go in a hot tub. I mean, so silly that I was already thinking that this thing had happened and I needed to take care of myself. And it turns out, it took almost three years. I had a bicornate uterus, I found out. I had a septum. I had to get a big mass of tissue removed. All these things were test after test and just finding one more hurdle after the next. So finally, we had a successful pregnancy, and I did in fact have my son, but you would think after three years of infertility – I read a lot of books, but the one thing I never seemed to read about and not hear about from my OB-GYN was postpartum night sweats. I remember I was literally three days postpartum – you know, first child, right? So you are just trying to live, basically, to survive. And I wake up drenched in sweat, and the first thing I thought was, oh, my goodness, I think I read about this. This must be mastitis. Then thinking, oh, my breasts don’t hurt and nursing is fine. Again, a quick Google search, and I realized, this is just my hormones. This is my hormones, and this is postpartum night sweats. And I started circulating this conversation with friends and realizing that this is somewhere where there’s not a lot of data out there statistically. But what I have found roughly, the research that has been done, about 50% of postpartum women will experience night sweats. And then anecdotally what I have found with launching my brand now is that some of those women have it for a short period of time. My night sweats were actually of fairly short duration, maybe a week to two weeks. But I have a lot of mamas that I talk to who are in nine months, ten months, a year postpartum and still having chronic night sweats. So it’s really not a one-size fits all. But it’s something that I experienced.
My background is actually in product development and manufacturing. I’ve worked in corporate retail for over 20 years, helping other brands launch businesses. And really what happened was these postpartum night sweats were just – again, the few precious hours of sleep you get as a new mom, and then all of a sudden you’re being awakened drenched in sweat. Do you take a shower? Do you sleep on a towel? All these things that people say you can do, but it’s not really getting to the root cause of it. You’re still having to wake up, change your clothes. “Wear workout clothes,” someone said. Okay, but I’m nursing. Workout shirts are not conducive to middle of the night feedings when you’re trying to nurse.
So the wheels started to turn, and a friend actually came to me and said, hey, you know how to make products. She was actually experiencing the same thing. So she’s like, you can make something to solve this, basically. What’s so interesting is that my son, who I had this experience with, is now 12 years old. And I just a year and a half ago launched this business. So that shows you how long I kind of sat with this idea. In hindsight, I think the timing couldn’t have been better. I know so much more now than I did 12 years ago about life, about business, about manufacturing, being an entrepreneur. But it really was that problem that I saw and realizing when I looked at the market, there was nobody fixing it. Even 12 years later, the solve wasn’t there. So that’s what really gave me the confidence to launch Piper & Mint.
And that is what it’s all about. I feel like moms get things done. We see a need, and we go out there and fix it. And you happen to have that perfect background to be able to launch without needing to hire advisors or really seek out help. I have friends who have started mom brands, and they didn’t have the background you did, so it was more of a challenge. They needed a team of support behind them. And you already have that experience. But I agree that it is different anecdotally, from my own experience to supporting birth and postpartum clients over the years. Some, depending again on their feeding and their recovery journey and their own internal hormone fluctuations that they deal with, may have a more extended period of time with those night sweats. And as you mentioned, the importance of needing the nursing tanks, which you have developed, and the ease to not only offer the cooling but also the ability to feed your baby. Or for the exclusive pumping moms, the ability to pump overnight. Or if they’re wearing the pajamas during the day, which many moms do in that recovery time.
Yes, and that’s okay – as they should! They need to be caring for themselves as much as that baby. So, yes. And what was really important for me was finding fabric also that was safe for mom and baby. That is a big part of my journey, as well: finding within this world of manufacturing that I come from, sustainability. Like, how can we be sustainable? How can we think about the environment? How can we think about the chemicals that we’re putting on our bodies? So it was all these things that motherhood has taught me and the pulling on those strings, to your point of my product development background and understanding how to make product.
And to be fair, there was a network of people behind me, but luckily, those were people that I had worked with along my corporate journey that were very excited to come in and just lend a hand. Like, hey, you should try this fabric. Hey, you should try this factory; different things like that.
So I will say it was all those different components that kind of built what the brand is now, which we are a mint-infused pajama line. And that sounds like, oh, mint? But the pjs don’t smell like mint itself. But what mint gives you, it’s a natural antibacterial. So what happens is if you have a night sweat, the mint kills the odor so you don’t wake up in the morning smelling like it. And one of the most fun things that happened when I was in the very early stages of this, a new mama, actually a neighbor of mine, was like, “Jackie, I don’t wake up smelling like breastmilk in the morning.” And I was like, oh, my gosh, we all know that smell, that dried breastmilk smell that you get. It’s just a part of postpartum life. But it makes sense because the mint in the yarns – we have patented technology that we take and we extract the mint botanicals. We infuse it in the yarns, and it makes it naturally antibacterial. And then also, as you can imagine, mint is a cooling herb, a cooling plant, so the fabric itself just also gets that really cool touch to it. And then a lot of pajamas on the market and a lot of baby products use bamboo, which is a great fabric. But we actually use Modal, which I like to say is the better sister to bamboo because Modal actually performs better. It wicks sweat away faster and dries quicker. It also still is very sustainably sourced, like bamboo. It comes from beech tree pulp versus bamboo pulp. So you’re still in the same family in regards to safe products for you and for baby. But I have found with my testing and my focus group feedback and my mamas that have been sweating for months – when I finally got these pjs in their hands, they were like, wow, this changed my nights. And rest is just so important, and it’s so hard to get as a new mom. Even as a mom now – I have a 12-year-old and a 9-year-old, and getting rest is hard, here and there where I can get it in, right? But I do think that Piper & Mint is more than just pajamas. It really is about letting women know, it’s okay to invest in yourself. Your rest and your self-care is even more important, to be honest, than the baby’s because you need to be as whole as you can be so that you can actually give, not just emotionally but nutritionally. You’re literally feeding your baby if you are breastfeeding or pumping. So it was really trying to take into account all of those aspects. Motherhood, the journey, and then even with my fertility journey – you know, back then, there was not the same community that I see out there today. I mean, it warms my heart so much to see on Instagram people sharing. I mean, Instagram was just coming out when I had my son. It wasn’t a platform where you had a voice. It was a picture platform. So the fact that now Instagram and social media and even people like yourself, like the amazing doula community that you are building – all of these things have happened to help support women through that journey. I felt so lonely in my fertility journey. I had two miscarriages, which also was very lonely. And actually, I should say they weren’t even miscarriages. They were lost pregnancies, but I had to go through D&Cs with both of them, which was by far the most traumatic thing that I had ever gone through at the time. And so just knowing that there is such great community out there – I wish I would have had that. I so wish I would have had that. And there’s still some trauma I’m even dealing with today because I didn’t have that support. I didn’t have that community. And so now to be able to play a part in that – we actually give a portion of every pajama sold to go back to this amazing nonprofit organization called Baby Quest. If you don’t know it, you should definitely look it up. It was started by a mom and her daughter. Her daughter was going through really hard infertility. And realizing that a lot of families don’t even have the opportunity to go through fertility treatment because they can’t afford it. So it’s an organization that provides grants to couples and people that need that extra financial help to actually have a chance at creating their family. So all these things that just are a part of me, are a part of motherhood. I feel so blessed that I can roll them up into a business and help women in so many ways right now.
That’s what it’s all about. My business, Gold Coast Doulas, is a certified B-Corp. So giving back, not only in time but also financially to causes especially targeted to serving low income women and children, is a core focus. So I totally understand wanting to have a for-profit business but also do good in the world. And your own personal journey in picking that nonprofit – which today, nonprofits are underfunded and the federal grants are not as available. So the fact that businesses are helping sustain organizations like Baby Quest is, in my opinion, so important.
Yeah. It’s been an awesome journey, and it’s been great to connect with other moms and hear about their journeys that they’re going through. Also seeing how our pajamas really are helping women. And that was the whole point. It was a purpose-driven business in regard to the fact that there was a need in the market that I saw. There’s an issue that we’re dealing with. And to be honest – we haven’t talked about this yet, but unfortunately, those postpartum night sweats, they tend to revisit you later in life during the phase called perimenopause and menopause, which I am just, as a mid-40s something, just starting to experience that myself. So it’s been really exciting. I launched the business fully supporting the postpartum market. Our pajamas are nursing friendly. They’re actually for pregnancy as well. I have a lot of mamas who are going through IVF treatments, and their hormones are shifting. They’re having night sweats because of that as well, or their injection sites are really tender. Our pajamas are made with really, really soft fabric and really soft stretchy elastic to help grow with your belly and also be able to rest above your incision lines. All of these are things I tried to keep in mind when developing the product.
But we launched and all of a sudden, I have all these slightly different demographics of women that were starting to send me messages. Like, “Hey, what about us?” And it was all these women in perimenopause and menopause that are struggling for longer durations of time, to be honest. You can be sweating for years in that phase. So basically, we got that information and said, oh, my goodness, that wasn’t my experience. I wasn’t there yet, so I didn’t even think about it. And we have now since added non-postpartum pajamas, and it ends up that it’s the majority of the business right now.
That’s an amazing pivot!
I just spent last weekend in New York at this big Naomi Watts event called The Swell. She’s creating community for women’s health, specifically women’s health in midlife. And I just think in general that women’s health – we’re finally talking about it. I mean, we were always talking about it, but other people are finally talking about it, and it’s actually getting a little bit more of a microphone. Now, so much more still has to be done. There’s still so much of a lack of research and all the things and coverage. There’s so much more that we as a society need support on. But the fact that we’re talking about these things, the fact that there are podcasts like yours talking about the journey for those going through fertility and pregnancy and postpartum – I just love the vibrations that are happening in the universe right now in regard to women’s health and actually shining a light that, yes, we do need support, and there are tools and things that are out there, and we just need to make sure we’re educating other women about it because science has told us one thing, but the data is telling us something totally different.
Exactly. I have a pair of your shorts and a tank from a couple of years ago.
That was our OG launch!
Totally! And I’m in the thick of perimenopause, and I love how soft they still are and the cooling effect. It’s perfect. For me, this stage is not changing, and I’m still having the night sweats. So I so appreciate being able to personally speak to your brand when talking about options for pajamas with my birth clients, with my students, and our postpartum clients. I have a pre-teen and a teenager, and I find that when I had kids, we didn’t have fashionable pjs to wear in the hospital. We wore the gown or our own clothes. But now you have these cute nursing tank sets, so when people are wanting their pictures in the hospital, or if they’re having a homebirth, to have cute tops but still functional, and you have some great colors to choose from. I certainly suggest your brand often.
Thank you! We’re actually coming out with a lot of new styles this holiday, too. We’ll have some button-down styles. We’ll also have some nightgowns. We’ve had a lot of C-section mamas say, hey, I would love your pajamas, but can you do it in a nightgown because I literally want nothing touching my belly. Which I get; I had a C-section with my second child. So we’re going to have some kind of oversized sleep tees, or you can call them nightgowns, coming out as well. And then we have a lot of our perimenopausal women that want tanks, but not the nursing friendly kind. They just want a regular non-nursing tank, so we have those coming out, as well. And then the other exciting thing is, when you think about postpartum night sweats or menopausal night sweats – you sweat in lots of places. And basically, where the fabric is touching you is where the magic happens. So if you sweat on your legs, you might think, oh, I wear shorts, I sweat on my legs. Now, you actually want our pants then because the pants – where the fabric touches you where you’re sweating, it’s going to wick it away and dry quickly. So the other request from a lot of women was, we sweat behind our neck. So we are coming out with pillowcases this holiday as well. And even husbands are like, wait a minute, where do we get in? Well, they can get a pillowcase for now. We’re even talking about maybe sheets for next year as well. So we’re definitely excited to be expanding the product assortment as the business continues to grow, as we continue to get momentum. We’re working with some really amazing new mama influencers that have really just latched on to our brand and really believe in what we’re doing and building. So it’s just been exciting to see this community that is coming out to help me, and it’s really just me. And I have an amazing girl that helps me from a marketing standpoint, but that’s it. I’ve self-funded this. And I believe that hopefully I can help inspire other women, which is why, to your point, I have another podcast that really talks about the realities of launching a product-based business and how so many of us women have these wonderful ideas in our head, and sometimes they just stay in our head. I mean, my own idea stayed in my head for over ten years. So I’m hoping that by hearing my story and knowing that, yes, I did have a background in product development, but I knew nothing about marketing. So while someone might come from a different perspective than me, and they might need help with the product side, but maybe they really understand how to market and build community. So there’s still things that I’m still learning a lot every day about the business. But I look back and say, wow, we’ve accomplished so much in a year and a half, and we’re helping so many women. And some of the DMs that I’ve been getting from a lot of new mamas that are just like, this is just one less thing I have to worry about at night. This just brings me comfort, or I’m wearing them during the day and I don’t want to take them off. That just warms my soul to know that they’ve invested in themselves. Or they put it on their registry, and so someone else gifted them and they’re getting to enjoy a little bit of comfort during a very hard time. Postpartum is a very hard time. There’s so much happening to your body. Lack of sleep, all the things that go into it. So it’s just been great to hear the positive feedback from people.
I bet! So what are your other tips for our listeners around that postnatal recovery phase?
Each person is different, but I really got a lot better about asking for help with my second child than my first. I think my first, I thought, well, I want to do this. I want to learn this on my own. And I just realized, for those that have strong relationships with their mothers – my mother came, and I think she stayed with me for maybe one or two weeks with my first. My second, I was like, you’re staying for three months. You’re staying for my whole maternity leave! Just having that community that, back in the olden days, everyone grew up with these tribes, these groups of women that would help support. So I think number one is, it’s okay to ask for help and you should ask for help. But then also setting boundaries, too, and it’s okay to say, hey, I need some alone time. I remember with my first son, it was a day where we just had a lot of friends and family stopping by, and I remember it was after lunch, and I just started crying. My mom was like, what’s wrong, and I was like, I feel like I haven’t held my baby today, because everybody else was holding the baby. She was like, okay, we’re going to get everybody to leave and give you your own time. So while I say lean into that community and ask for help, it’s also just as important to have your boundaries. And those boundaries are going to change. I had an idea of what my postpartum journey was going to be like, and then it all went out the window. When it actually happens and your hormones kick in and the sleep patterns, right? So I think it’s also okay to say, you know what, no, I actually want some alone time right now. No, thank you, I don’t actually need the help. Or no, I’m not ready for you to come over and see my baby just yet. Those are all okay things, as well. So I really believe that you need to be your own advocate in that way, both when you’re asking for help and also when you’re setting those boundaries of when you might actually need some time alone with the baby.
So I would say that. And then just as best as you can, taking care of yourself when you can, and that’s a little bit in tandem with asking for help. Go take that shower. Those showers – I can just remember how amazing it feels to get those showers in, right? Knowing that it’s going to be okay. Lean in when you need it. Set those boundaries when you need it. But be sure you’re not totally dismissing yourself in this because you are the heart of that baby, literally. You breathed life into it, and you are feeding it, and so you need to make sure you can find those opportunities, those windows, although they might be small, to really make sure you’re taking care of yourself, too.
I love it! So how can our listeners connect with you, Jackie? I know you’re all over social. You have an amazing site.
Oh, thank you! Our website is Piper and Mint. And basically, it’s the same handle for everything. We’re super active on Instagram @piperandmint. TikTok, we’re starting to try to dip our toe more in the water there, so more to come, but we’re definitely super active on Instagram. And I also have a podcast if you are something that’s listening being like, oh, I’ve been thinking about an idea. I wonder if I should do something with it. That’s at The Sourcing Gals, and we’re on Apple and Spotify and YouTube for that, as well.
Also, if you are someone that’s like, I want to check out these jammies – Gold Coast Doulas is actually an affiliate of yours. So if they go into our website and they add to cart, they can use the promotional code Gold Coast Doulas at checkout and get an extra 10% off, and that usually will stack with a site-wide promotion. So if you are waiting for a 15% off sitewide sale, you can actually add that Gold Coast Doulas at checkout and get an extra 10% kicker. So it’s a really great opportunity for us to share the love back with your listeners. Thank you for this amazing opportunity to talk about my postpartum journey and also the brand that we’re building!
I love it. So they can connect with you, as you mentioned, at Piper and Mint on the website?
Yes. And send me DMs. I love hearing stories. If you end up purchasing our pjs or if you already own them, send me pictures and DMs. It’s so fun to see them in the wild and hear the responses from women.
I love it. Thank you so much for sharing your story, Jackie, and making an amazing product!
Thank you so much, Kristin!
IMPORTANT LINKS