Today, there are almost one million women-owned businesses in the UK, making up over a quarter of all firms, and the numbers are growing. According to the Office for National Statistics, around half a million women work from home. One particular growth area is online business, which enables many mums who want to pursue a career, or continue to make money, the opportunity to work from home. There's even a recognised term for work-at-home mums - WAHs. We spoke to three online WAHs to find out how they set up, what has changed in their lives and how successful they are.

emma Emma Isherwood, 30, from Aberystwyth, is mum to Thomas, 17 months. She and her husband, Andrew, a web designer, came up with the idea for their interactive listings site soon after Thomas was born

"When I was on maternity leave, we found it hard to find baby-friendly places to visit with good changing facilities. Andrew and I searched the Internet and couldn't find a one-stop listings site, so we set up our own. Now we cover family-friendly establishments and organisations in general: restaurants, pubs, holiday venues, shopping centres - anything and everything parents want to review with facilities for babies and children up to teenage.

"What's great about the site is that parents' views are objective - which is why we didn't want to be funded by advertisers, so we're a non-profit making set-up. We do have a few banner ads to cover the charge for hosting the site (about £30 a year), but the aim is purely to help other parents as well as ourselves. Having said that, a sponsorship deal would help with promotional costs.

"It wasn't hard to set up the site because Andrew does it for a living. I'm still working full-time as a promotions assistant for an environmental research organisation and we run the site around our jobs. It doesn't take up a massive amount of time because the input comes from other parents. Most of our time is spent advertising our service at nurseries and other places that might be able to benefit, as well as checking entries for any unsuitable content.

"One day, if our database builds up enough, we might consider selling the site, but at the moment we're really enjoying running it."

You can visit Emma's interactive site at www.changemynappy.co.uk

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