H&M Review: Maternity Clothes Stores

H&M, or Hennes & Mauritz, is a Swedish clothing retailer that has been a staple in the fashion industry since its founding in 1947 by Erling Persson. Initially named "Hennes," meaning "hers" in Swedish, the first store in Västerås, Sweden, exclusively sold women's clothing. Over the years, H&M expanded its offerings to include men's and children's clothing after acquiring the hunting apparel retailer Mauritz Widforss in 1968. Today, H&M is known for its fast-fashion approach, offering affordable and trendy clothing to a global audience.

Cute selection of all of the maternity must-haves

As you'd expect from H&M as a fashion-forward yet budget-friendly retailer, the maternity clothes selection isn't going to break the bank while still keeping you looking on-trend. We were excited to see some dressy options for under $90, like the Mama Sequined Tie-Belt Dress ($74.99 to $89.99, depending on the dress length and style) and the Mama Bow-Detail Off-the-Shoulder little black dress ($59.99). Want to keep wearing your pre-pregnancy jeans a little longer? Check out the Mama Waistband Extender, priced at just $8.99. You'll find just under 100 items to choose from in H&M's maternity selection, covering all of your basic staples like underwear, tops, and bottoms, plus extras like swimwear and pajamas.

Jeans without the obvious front panel? You got it

One of our favorite pieces at H&M are the Mama Before & After jeans ($49.99). We don't love maternity pants that have the big stretchy panel in the front, so these jeans that rely on stretchy elastic in the waistband while still maintaining the look of "normal" jeans? Yes, please. Plus, if you've had a baby before, you know that it takes time to fit back into your previous pants (...if ever...), so we're all for these jeans that let you look cute before and after baby's arrival.

Free rewards program lowers the free shipping threshold

If you haven't already, consider registering for H&M's free rewards program. You'll get free shipping on orders over $40 at the Core level, and on all orders at the Plus level (once you've earned 500 points). Extra benefits include a 10% welcome discount, a birthday surprise, exclusive member prices, and more. Otherwise, you'll have to order at least $60 to get no-cost delivery at H&M (so why not earn points instead?).

Free returns in store, $3.99 by mail

How about returns? Your best bet with any H&M return is to take your order into a local store, if you've got one nearby - because there's no charge. If you don't have one conveniently located, you can absolutely return your maternity clothes to the online warehouse, but there will be a return fee of $3.99. That covers the USPS shipping (you can either download and print a label or show the provided QR code at the post office), which will be deducted from your refund.

"F" from the BBB

As far as H&M's reputation goes, we were shocked to see that the retailer has an "F" rating from the Better Business Bureau. The reasons are twofold. First, the BBB seriously downgraded H&M for failing to respond to nearly 100 complaints. We get it: this is a huge company, not based in the US. But, other international retailers with a presence in the States have no trouble tasking someone with responding to everyone reporting problems to the BBB, so H&M could do better in that regard. The second problem pointed out by the BBB is a lawsuit brought by the New York Attorney's Office that recovered $36M in "unlawfully-kept" money from unused gift cards. Oopsie.

Big problems with orders and customer service

However, here's our biggest concern with H&M: as we browsed the 200+ complaints filed with the BBB in the last three years, a pattern emerged with respect to online orders: customers regularly report being shipped the wrong clothes. Those problems are usually easy to take care of, but where the real difficulty comes in is when there are missing items. Often, instead of taking the customers' word for it, H&M denies the replacement request, accuses the customer of having "too many missing items" (we're not sure how that's the shoppers' fault), or only offers a refund for returning the non-missing items. (We haven't figured out how to return things that are missing, either.)

Problems focus on online orders

We thought we'd find a lot of complaints with in-store purchases, but the ones we read on the BBB site were almost exclusively for online orders. That continued to be the case when we popped over to Trustpilot, just to make sure that the BBB-reported issues weren't an anomaly. Nope. Over more than 14,000 ratings, H&M had 74% 1-star reviews. Those pointed out an issue that could really impact mamas-to-be: the sizing on H&M clothing is notoriously off, and if you have to do returns by mail in your trial-and-error of getting the right size, that $3.99 return fee (which used to be free, we found out) is going to chafe.

Not recommended for maternity clothes

H&M disappoints us. We've always had a great in-store experience, so to learn that they're failing so consistently with online orders was not a pleasant surprise. Yes, the maternity clothing is cute and affordable, but so is what you can find with the higher-ranked retailers on our list. H&M may very well be more hassle than it's worth, so we'd recommend you go elsewhere for your bump-friendly apparel.

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On the H&M website