Trish Doyle is an experienced Child and Family Health Professional with Midwifery, Nursing and Lactation and Infant Massage Qualifications. It was her experience in Community Health that inspired her to initiate Nurturing Well Postnatal Support, providing holistic lactation and infant care to new mums and their families through pregnancy and the postnatal period and beyond. Trish supports and guides families as they transition to parenting, offering supportive lactation consultation services and infant massage instruction.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
The passion that inspired my business has come from various directions,: my professional experience, my family, my life experience, and my belief in nurturing women.
My professional experience:
Inspiration for Nurturing Well has come from working within the Community Health sector with parents of babies and young children. Supporting women to enable breastfeeding has been a driving force. My professional growth has included Nursing, Midwifery, and International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC).
Where I have worked, I have seen and heard new mums struggling with feeding issues that could have been overcome with better knowledge, encouragement, networking, and support. I want to provide a service that prepares new parents for breastfeeding, can pre-empt issues and normalise the breastfeeding journey from birth to whenever the mum chooses to wean, by tuning in, personalising, and providing continuity of care for the Nurturing Well mums.
My family has inspired me:
I come from a long line of nurturers: my nanna, mum, aunts, sisters and now my daughter are all nurturers. Women giving back to women: the natural loving art of nurturing. I have focused on breastfeeding, the beautiful, natural engaging act of nurturing your baby. Other women in my family are teachers and carers.
My life experiences:
My life experience has taught me that life does not always turn out like you dreamed it would. Life can throw up challenges along the way, like learning to breastfeed. I encourage parents to be smart and prepare for the 4th trimester with knowledge and skill to be able to tackle what life can throw at you.
My belief in nurturing families:
I believe that every one of us has the potential to nurture well and to be a natural parent. I am inspired by the parents who I have met over the years. They are all doing the very best they can to be awesome parents, and my aim is to support them to work towards their parenting goals.
I also want to see parents enjoying their babies:
Babies are so beautiful. Every moment you spend with your baby you are creating lifelong memories of achievement and satisfaction. Infant massage is a skill that I can teach new mums and dads and they can have fun and meet other parents at the same time.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
I have been dreaming of Nurturing Well for many years but have only recently had the opportunity to fully commit to my own business. I started my nursing career as soon as I left school, working in a local hospital. I then travelled and worked overseas and began to appreciate what our health system can offer, and on my return commenced Midwifery and I loved it. I extended my training to include Child and Family Health (CFH) and was soon working with young families in clinics, and new parent groups, home visits, breastfeeding support, and health promotion. At the same time I had 3 beautiful children of my own.
My yearning to be independent drove me to build on my dream to have my own business and provide private lactation services to enable a personalised approach. This enables me to individualise care so mums can have the opportunity to learn nurturing skills like soothing a baby, breastfeeding, and massage – all skills aimed at building parenting confidence and instilling the belief that you’ve got this!
I have been building on my “tool kit” attending the Infant Massage Information Service (IMIS) training course in Infant Massage, learning a new skill along with my daughter Marissa. She is also a Registered Nurse and Registered Midwife and is studying Lactation. Infant Massage goes hand in hand with Lactation; the emphasis is on skin to skin, relaxation, and nurturing both baby and mum.
Marissa helped me with promotion of the business and set up my website and since then I have been seeing new mums who have reached out to me in their homes. I have a newly renovated space at home to see mums if the need arises and to conduct Infant Massage classes.
