Menstrual cups, birth control pill packs, IUDs, pessaries, nursing bras, baby bottles, strollers, and snot suckers are among the items that take the spotlight in Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births. These and other objects that support reproductive health and childrearing, displayed on the walls and vitrines at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), may be familiar to you. They might even be tucked in your medicine cabinet, underwear drawer, or bag right now, or entangled with memories from your childhood or stories from your parents or grandparents. Every consumer product, societal system, and architectural space in the full-floor exhibition — featuring more than 250 examples spanning the past 150 years or so — illuminates how design shapes diverse experiences of parenthood, from navigating fertility and conception to pregnancy, birth, and postpartum life.
MAD is the latest stop for the traveling exhibition, which kicked off in 2021. It was orchestrated by Designing Motherhood, a collaborative project with a mission to deepen awareness about the “arc of human reproduction.” This endeavor has taken several forms: a book, an open-source curriculum, public programs, a portrait series, partnerships with maternity-care organizations, and the Instagram account that started it all in 2019. For each stop of the Designing Motherhood museum tour, the show gets refreshed to meet the moment and tap into both the host institution’s collections and nuances of the local culture. Now in its sixth iteration, it includes a new section devoted to product design as a nod to New York City’s history as a design hub and its resident parents; for instance, a wall of strollers built for urban life speaks to those seeking products suited to city streets and subway stairs.
Installation view of Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births at the Museum of Arts and Design
The show opens with a section on labor and birth, and a trio of “baby boxes” — kits stocked with essential supplies for newborns and their caregivers. An Äitiyspakkaus (maternity package) from Finland offers a glimpse at a contemporary version of the original baby boxes, which launched in the country in 1938. The Finnish government provides these starter kits to new parents free of charge. This concept eventually spread to other countries, only recently making its way to the United States. A sample NYC Baby Box — available to those who give birth at four NYC Health + Hospitals locations as of October 2025 — displays its contents: diapers, clothing, and rash cream, to name a few. (Recently, mayor-elect Mamdani announced plans for NYC Baby Baskets stocked with similar supplies and resources for new parents.)
Other New York City-centric designs make appearances, too, including the once-ubiquitous NYC Condoms (2007) and posters with information in 14 languages about the New York City Abortion Access Hub. The show continues with sections devoted to menstruation, conception and pregnancy, community care and knowledge sharing, tools for pregnancy and postpartum care, and baby gear. Throughout, the displays highlight the challenges of navigating the healthcare system, barriers to accessing care, and the alarmingly high rates of maternal deaths in the US, a crisis that disproportionately affects Black women.
Installation view of a display in Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births at the Museum of Arts and Design
During your visit, pay attention to the polka dots: Each item is paired with a number on a silver dot that corresponds with a blurb in the gallery guide, a printed paper booklet packed with historical details, design backstories, and notes on the inventors. Few labels appear throughout the exhibition, so this book, along with 10 audio tour stops, are the main ways to learn about the designs. If you skip the guide, you’ll miss out on all manner of fascinating facts. For example, did you know that the famed Lindbergh baby kidnapping in 1932 inspired the president of the Zenith Radio Corporation to create a prototype for the first baby monitor? Or that a type of surgical cotton (called Cellucotton) and technology for spotting submarines — both World War I innovations — later became the basis for mainstays for reproductive healthcare: ultrasound machines and menstrual pads and tampons?
There’s something quietly powerful about seeing these inventions receive the museum treatment. A tampon hidden in a closed fist during the walk to the office bathroom, say, has a different aura than one displayed in a well-lit exhibition case in a major institution. Gone are the shadows and sense of concealment and secrecy. By discussing body processes and topics often shrouded in shame and euphemism in straightforward and informed ways, this taboo-busting show invites open conversation and knowledge sharing, while giving credit to the innovators behind life-improving products and devices.
Installation view of archival posters and articles in Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births at the Museum of Arts and Design
From the oldest objects (a 19th-century breast pump and reproduction of a speculum from c. 79 CE) to the most of-the-moment products from 2025 (a donut pillow, a Mamava breastfeeding bench), Designing Motherhood adds detail and dimension to even the most familiar items. With its vast and varied collection, it chronicles the promise of design to improve lives, as well as its failings. A memorable presentation of advertisements reveals products that seem wildly unsafe by today’s standards (including a “portable baby cage” and an “auto strap for front-seat tots”). All were produced prior to 1972, when the US Consumer Product Safety Commission established federal safety regulations and systems for recalling dangerous products and reducing risk of injury. As the wall label notes, staffing and funding for this government agency remains uncertain.
In a moment saturated with similar uncertainty, as the Trump administration threatens Americans’ access to essential healthcare, services, and research, Designing Motherhood offers a clear-eyed antidote to despair and inertia. Practical resources and examples plucked from history serve as real-life models — for activism and action, for community-led care, for innovating, solving problems, and designing tools for better living.
Refuse bin containing recalled items dating from 1972 to the present.
Jess T. Dugan, “Self-portrait with Vanessa and Elinor (2 days old)” (2018), archival pigment prints
Left: DIY Doula: Self-Care for Before, During, & After Your Abortion (2016); right: Mick Moran, My Choice Always in All Ways: A Zine About Abortion for Trans & Nonbinary Folks (2025)
Ford Motor Company, Tot-Guard car seat, designed 1968 (this photograph 1973)
NYC Baby Box (2025)
Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births continues at the Museum of Arts and Design (2 Columbus Circle, Columbus Circle, Manhattan) through March 15, 2026. The exhibition was organized by Juliana Rowen Barton, Michelle Millar Fisher, Zoë Greggs, Gabriella Nelson, Amber Winick, Elizabeth Koehn, and Alexandra Schwartz.
