Introducing our 2026 Changemakers, eight women working to close gaps across maternal health, advocacy, sport, media and business.
Change maker 01
Elaine has leveraged her culture-shifting media experience to drive a multi-million dollar movement, dedicated to expanding solutions to the maternal health crisis in America. Through her rapidly growing nonprofit, birthFUND, that deploys direct grants to families, midwives, and impact-driven storytelling, she is reshaping the national conversation around birth equity.
“Every mother deserves supportive midwifery care.
Every family feels like part of my village. And as a result, I feel responsible for supporting them. For protecting them. For making sure they have what they need when they go through pregnancy, birth, and this massive identity transition."
Elaine Welteroth
Change maker 02
Em Clarkson is reshaping the national conversation around online safety, and what it means to be a woman today - building a digital movement rooted in radical honesty.
“The pressure on women
whether it's put on by ourselves, our peers, or society - is relentless. There's so much to challenge, so much to unpick. But I honestly believe that setting ourselves free of that is going to be the most healing thing we can do.”
Em Clarkson
Change maker 03
Alysia is an Olympic bronze medallist and founder of For All Mothers+, a nonprofit fighting to make care for mothers the gold standard, rather than an afterthought. Her work has helped change how the sports world supports athletes through pregnancy and postpartum, reshaping policies that had gone unquestioned for years.
“Society has built so many barriers for mothers:
not just to grow their families, but to grow in their careers at the same time I knew the invisible labor that mothers face every day needed to be made visible. I truly believe that if we can take care of the moms, then we take care of everyone else."
Alysia Montano
Change maker 04
Throughout her career as one of the UK’s first mainstream plus-sized models, and a former UN Women Ambassador, Jada Sezer has continually come up against societal problems and refused to accept them. Then, she became a mother, and found herself facing a brand new inequality: modern motherhood, and everything it demands.
“They say becoming a mother is when you're affected by inequality
the most in your whole lifetime. Up until motherhood, for the most part, you're fairly equal to your male counterpart. Then you take maternity leave, step back a year, maybe have another child, step back another year - and that's the pivotal point where your male counterpart gets promoted, or takes that job overseas.”
Jada Sezer
Change maker 05
From co-founding the Malala Fund at 22 and fighting for girls' education around the world, to reshaping what community looks like in American kitchens, Shiza Shahid's work has always come back to one idea: belonging. Now, as a new mother, that word means more to her than ever.
"Everything feels different now that I have a daughter.
I think consciously about the words I use around her. Every time I say something that makes myself small, I catch myself and think: 'I don't want that passed down to her. I want to stop that here.' It's really changing who I am and helping me step more fully into who I've always been.”
Shiza Shahid
Change maker 06
At eight, bone cancer took Jess Quinn's leg. She went on to model internationally, compete on Dancing With The Stars, and build a platform around disability and body acceptance. Now, as a new mum, she's reshaping what strength, and "different", looks like for her daughter Marla.
"I spent the first eight years of being an amputee fully hiding my leg.
One day I was out by the pool and my friends encouraged me to throw on some shorts. It was the moment I realized I was the only person holding myself back - my life was going to be so much better if I just embraced my differences."
Jess Quinn
Change maker 07
At eight, bone cancer took Jess Quinn's leg. She went on to model internationally, compete on Dancing With The Stars, and build a platform around disability and body acceptance. Now, as a new mum, she's reshaping what strength, and "different", looks like for her daughter Marla.
"I spent the first eight years of being an amputee fully hiding my leg.
One day I was out by the pool and my friends encouraged me to throw on some shorts. It was the moment I realized I was the only person holding myself back - my life was going to be so much better if I just embraced my differences."
Tinuke & Clo
Change maker 08
Elaine has leveraged her culture-shifting media experience to drive a multi-million dollar movement, dedicated to expanding solutions to the maternal health crisis in America. Through her rapidly growing nonprofit, birthFUND, that deploys direct grants to families, midwives, and impact-driven storytelling, is the .
“Every deserves supportive midwifery care.
Every family feels like part of my village. And as a result, I feel responsible for supporting them. For protecting them. For making sure they have what they need when they go through p
@elainewelteroth
Coming soon
How has becoming a mother changed you?
“Motherhood has truly made me the best version of myself. Me as a mom is someone I couldn't have imagined before. She has all the confidence I needed as a child and as a young woman.”
What has motherhood taught you?
“I'm hopeful for a world where mothers actually get the support they need - and have enough examples of what support can look like, so they even know what to ask for. Because having a support system is everything."
What has motherhood taught you about yourself?
“My babies have introduced me to a new version of myself - the most patient, most tender, soft version of myself that I literally did not know existed until I met them. They’ve expanded my life, my purpose, my work.”
If you could sit with yourself during those first few weeks postpartum, what would you say?
“Stop rushing. You rush yourself out the door, you rush yourself back into your clothes, back into your relationships, your friendships. And you’re rushing back to a version of yourself and your life that isn’t there anymore.”
What’s the mission at For All Mothers +?
"We want the gold standard for infrastructural care to be the first thought, not just an afterthought or a miscellaneous line item when it comes to caring for moms. We recently found that 73% of athletes who are mothers faced a decrease in funding from their sponsors, or a complete termination altogether.
The system is telling women they have to choose between their careers and their families."
Why do you wear a flower in your hair?
“It's something that embodies strength for me, and allows me to hold onto my femininity. I won't be told that I can't bring my femininity into strength and into bravery."
How does the 9-to-5 model fail mothers?
"Having to sit in an office 9 to 5 while also coming home to do dinner, put a wash on, and make sure your child's emotional needs are met - it's all too much.
A question I like to ask is: how can ambition and motherhood coexist, and what way can you make that work holistically for your family?"
What are you hopeful about for the future of motherhood?
"I'm really hopeful that the future of motherhood looks distinctly different to how our mothers experienced it.
You're a mother, but you're also a human, and you get to live your dreams, not put them on the back burner. And show up for yourself as much as you show up for your kids."
Has motherhood changed what community means to you?
“Community has always been so important to me. It is a lonely thing to be an immigrant, and you work hard to build community. And then motherhood gave it to me all at once - the most communal experience of my life, and a daily reminder that we were never meant to do this alone.”
What are you most hopeful about for the future of motherhood?
“We need more support for parents at the government level - federal, guaranteed parental leave. Every parent deserves the chance to be present for their children, and not be stretched so thin they're running on empty. We are so far behind in providing the basics to set up families to succeed."
Has motherhood changed how you see your own strength?
“Just being a mum day-to-day has been really eye-opening to my strength, and how much I can do given how differently abled my body is. I've spent my whole life adapting, and I'm used to life being a little bit more challenging. Motherhood has just been another part of that journey."
What does being a Changemaker mean to you?
"Even saying it, the imposter syndrome instantly creeps in - but it does feel like a massive honor. I take my role of advocating for different bodies really seriously, so the fact that it's helping other people is something I do not take for granted at all."
Has motherhood changed how you see your own strength?
“Just being a mum day-to-day has been really eye-opening to my strength, and how much I can do given how differently abled my body is. I've spent my whole life adapting, and I'm used to life being a lig. Motherhood has just been another part of that journey."
What does being a Changemaker mean to you?
"Even saying it, the imposter syndrome instantly creeps in - but it does feel like a massive honor. I take my role of advocodies really seriously, so the fact that it's helping other people is something I do not take for granted at all."
How has becoming a mother changed you?
“My babies have introduced me to a new version of myself - the most patient, most tender, soft version of myself that I literally did not know existed until I met them. They’ve expanded my life, my purpose, my work.”
What are you optimistic about for the future of motherhood?
“I'm hopeful for a world where mothers actually get the support they need - and have enough examples of what support can look like, so they even know what to ask for. Because having a support system is everything.”
Discover
our
2026
Changemakers
Elaine has leveraged her culture-shifting media experience to drive a multi-million dollar movement, dedicated to expanding solutions to the maternal health crisis in America. Through her rapidly growing nonprofit, birthFUND, that deploys direct grants to families, midwives, and impact-driven storytelling, she is reshaping the national conversation around birth equity.
Read our interview with Elaine
Take me to the blog
Writer, creator and campaigner Em Clarkson is reshaping the national conversation around women's health, online safety, and what it means to be a woman today. Through her advocacy, she has played a pivotal role in influencing the Women's Health Strategy to better support those suffering from hyperemesis nationwide, while building a digital community rooted in radical honesty and connection.
Read our interview with Em
Interview coming soon
An Olympic bronze medalist known as "the pregnant runner" for competing eight months pregnant at USA Nationals, Alysia has spent the years since building For All Mothers+, a nonprofit pushing sports - and society - toward a gold standard of care for mother-athletes.
Read our interview with Alysia
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As the first size 16 model on ASOS and the first size 16 woman on the cover of Women's Health UK, Jada has spent her career turning firsts into a broader mission - launching the CEO Mum podcast, a space for women navigating both motherhood and ambition, and most recently founding MOTHER AI, built to reduce the invisible mental load carried by mothers.
Read our interview with Jada
Take me to the blog
From co-founding the Malala Fund at 22 and fighting for girls' education around the world, to reshaping what community looks like in American kitchens, Shiza Shahid's work has always come back to one idea: belonging. Now, as a new mother, that word means more to her than ever.
Read our interview with Shiza
Take me to the blog
At eight, bone cancer took Jess Quinn's leg. She went on to model internationally, compete on Dancing With The Stars, and build a platform around disability and body acceptance. Now, as a new mum, she's reshaping what strength, and "different", looks like for her daughter Marla.
Read our interview with Jess
Take me to the blog
Tinuke and Clo turned their own experiences as Black mothers into Five X More, the grassroots organization behind one of the UK's most urgent maternal health campaigns. Since 2018, they've led the fight to close the gap in Black maternal health outcomes, pushing for Black women to be seen, heard and listened to in maternity care. Their goal is to work until Five X More no longer needs to exist.
Read our interview with Tinuke & Clo
Take me to the blog
Babba built Ceremonia while pregnant and made it the first Latina-owned haircare brand on Sephora's shelves. She raised over $11 million in funding, much of it while visibly pregnant and up against the motherhood penalty. Today she's a mother of four, and she's showing a new generation of founders that ambition and motherhood can grow together.
Read our interview with Babba
Read the full interviewOur cohort of eight Changemakers are each actively working to close the gaps laid out in our 2026 Motherhood Index, across maternal health, advocacy, sport, media, and entrepreneurship.
The
Motherhood
Index
The Motherhood Index, produced by Peanut and Nuna, is the new cultural authority on modern parenthood.
Drawing on the survey responses of 4,000 women across the globe, analysis of over 420,000 community posts and in-depth qualitative interviews, the Motherhood Index exists to educate the rest of the world on what matters most to mothers in 2026.
The stories borne from the data are not always comfortable, but they are essential. Alongside hardship we see threads of adaptation, honesty, reinvention and mothers building the infrastructure they need for themselves, not waiting to be saved.
Across five pillars - health, community, identity, purchasing, and the future - the Index surfaces the tensions, contradictions, and quiet urgencies that define motherhood today. Because truly understanding what it means to be a mother today is a cultural imperative.
Modern mothers are speaking more openly about identity, burnout, ambition, loneliness, trauma and matrescence than any other generation. And with that, they are becoming clearer and more uncompromising about what they need from the future.
Check out the previous
Peanut x Nuna campaigns
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Read moreThe world's largest community for women through all stages of motherhood, because you were never meant to do this alone.
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