About us

Mumsnet was conceived in early 2000 when JustineMumsnet embarked on a disastrous family holiday. Her idea was to create a website where parents could swap advice about not just holidays but all the other stuff parents talk about. Thirteen years later and who'd have thought it would come to this? Mumsnet is now the UK’s biggest social network for parents, generating over 50 million page views per month and over eight and a half million visits per month. 

Our aim is to:

• Make parents' lives easier by pooling knowledge, advice and support.
• We try, as far as possible to let the conversation flow and not to over-moderate. Mumsnet is a site for grown-ups.
   

Our advertising policy

Mumsnet is a business funded mainly by advertising and we try to be a profitable one but our overarching aim is not the pursuit of profits. We are independently owned and we endeavour to conduct business in an ethical manner.

With this in mind, Mumsnet supports the WHO/UNICEF International Code on the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and we do not accept advertising from a number of companies including Nestle, and for a number of products, such as formula milk and cosmetic surgery or anything that we believe does not sit well with our philosophy - namely to make parents' lives easier.
 

No to payday loan ads

We don't take advertising from loan sharks, as it's obvious from our forums that payday loans can cause misery for families. Read more here.
 

Mumsnet campaigns

Mumsnet is a community and is not a lobby group. We are independently funded and have no particular political axe to grind. That said our members are very active when it comes to something they feel strongly about.

• In March 2012, we launched the We Believe You campaign, showing the hidden scale of rape and sexual assault in the UK. The campaign aims to highlight the prevalence of rape and sexual assault in women's lives, and to dispel the myths surrounding rape, which make women feel they will not be believed.
• In October 2011, we launched our campaign for Better Miscarriage Care and treatment. An integral part of the campaign is the Mumsnet Miscarriage Code of Care a five-point code that proposes a series of simple changes to current health service miscarriage treatment. We believe that, if fully implemented by NHS care providers, these changes would significantly lessen the trauma of early pregnancy loss for parents. So far 100 MP’s have signed up to it.
• We’re members of the Sound off for Justice coalition, opposing the Government's proposed cuts to Legal Aid.
• In February 2011, we challenged major retailers to ensure that lads' mags and similar publications were kept out of children's sight on display stands, and were delighted when almost all of them responded positively, in some cases changing their policies to do so.
• Riven Vincent, a Mumsnetter posted on our Talk boards on 19 January 2011, that she felt the lack of respite help - short breaks for her and her daughter - left her with no choice but to ask social services to take her disabled daughter into residential care. Her post galvanized a huge response from Mumsnetters and led us to partner with Every Disabled Child Matters to urge local authorities to tell us how much money they will be spending on short breaks for families with disabled children in 2010/11. When we know what is really happening in local areas, we will consider urging national Government to ring-fence the £800 million promised for short breaks by David Cameron's government.
• In April 2010, we launched our Let Girls Be Girls campaign, challenging retailers and manufacturers to pledge only to offer products that don't play upon, exploit, or emphasise children's sexuality.
• We're lobbying hard for a change to Internet libel law. We're part of the Libel Reform Campaign and contributed to the consultation process that led to the draft libel reform bill. We will be feeding in to further consultation before the new legislation is introduced in 2012.
• We're part of the EQUALS coalition, which organised events around International Women's Day 2012. We're also part of the Maternal Mortality Coalition, campaigning for action on maternal and newborn health in developing countries.
• In January 2010, the Outdoor Advertising Association pulled posters for a £1.25 million campaign that unwisely declared, "Career women make bad mothers" after an outcry and mass letter-writing campaign on Mumsnet. The OAA issued a formal apology, stating: "We did not intend to cause any offence." The advertising agency responsible for the campaign replaced the posters with new ones stating: "Sexist adverts damage us all."