My questions is the reason I started this journey as a newborn care specialist and postpartum doula. There is a lack of postnatal support for the mom’s here in the USA. I can’t help all new mom’s, but I can help some and that is better than not doing anything. A lot of the families I work with don’t have family living in the same city or even the same state. Job opportunities take families out of state and away from extended family. This leaves some of these new parents feeling isolated. Technology allows us to feel connected to family, even though we may be miles away, but it’s not the same as having family just down the road.

In New Zealand we have a service called Plunket. It is there to support new parents with children from birth to 5 years old. Plunket nurses come to your home after baby is born to make sure that breastfeeding is going well. They check baby’s weight to make sure everything is going smoothly. Another service they offer is putting you in touch with other new mum’s in your neighborhood. In some communities each new mum takes a turn hosting a morning tea in their home so that you have that connection with other mum’s and not feel so isolated. Plunket is available to every mum in New Zealand it doesn’t matter how much money you have, or what part of town you live in. It only matters that you’ve had a baby. I am not saying that this service is perfect but I believe that it has made a huge difference for so many new mum’s especially.

I would love to offer something like this here in Mobile, AL but I wouldn’t know where to start. If we did create some type of non profit there is so much red tape. Privacy issues for starters. How would we be able to put mom’s together to have morning tea? You couldn’t because the medical departments wouldn’t be able to divulge that information. Could it be a service that doctor’s offices offered that could be paid for by health insurance? Everyone has to have health insurance now so could we work something out that way? Right now this is in the too hard basket for me but if you have any thoughts I would love to hear from you.

I have attached a Plunket video if you would like to learn more. Some words that you will hear in the video are Whanau which means Family and Tamariki which means child or children. https://www.plunket.org.nz/