Kellie Eason is a passionate, caring lactation consultant with over two decades of experience as a former nurse and midwife and International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. She is passionate about sharing her wealth of knowledge and is dedicated to helping new moms and dads achieve their parenting goals. Offers prenatal parent preparation, feeding, parenting and sleep support, at MILK early parenting support you’ll feel heard and supported, with comprehensive assessments tailored to your needs, along with training and planning to ensure success on your parenting journey. Here Kellie talks to The Natural Parent Magazine about the inspiration behind her business, the challenges she has overcome and her hopes and dreams for the future.
The passion: What inspired you to create your business?
I grew up with a natural affinity and passion for all things motherhood, family, pregnancy, birth and children. My grandmother was a doula in Italy in the 1920s, so I think I was naturally born into families with babies.
My journey led me to Nursing and Midwifery and then to becoming a Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). I worked in mainstream healthcare for 20 years and three years ago, I had started MILK early parenting support.
In my time, I have also completed other university courses in early parenting, holistic mother-infant-family health, development, psychology, infant sleep and pediatric oral musculoskeletal therapy (suck training), infant bodywork, etc. A few years as an IBCLC in dental practice providing high volume surgical procedures for release of lip and tongue tie – this led me to learn and manage more complex infant feeding problems, where infant neurodisorders, sucking dysfunction, refusal to feed, fussiness and infant sleep – are often seen related issues.
I always knew I wanted to work independently, but felt it was important to ensure I had a fulfilling career with experience, knowledge and insights to offer families. When it came to the end of my career in Nursing and Midwifery, I knew I could not stay true to my innermost passion and values of supporting families in the way they need – so I left mainstream healthcare in 2014. This is what MILK early parenting support he was born.
MILK stands for “Intimate Moments of Love and Kinship”. This couldn’t be truer to what our business stands for. We support families from the prenatal period to the baby’s first birthday.
Using a holistic family-centred approach, I use my varied skills to support families in the antenatal period to prepare for birth, life with baby and breastfeeding. I support families after birth with a focus on strengthening organic parent-infant connections, as well as providing gentle holistic breastfeeding, lactation and infant sleep support.
Many moms I see have postpartum exhaustion and as a result I see many babies with neurobehavioral dysfunction (ie fussiness, settling difficulties). I provide great support for this through nutritional supplements and neuroregulatory therapies, which can easily be taught to parents for self and baby care.
Positive breastfeeding, induced lactation and the use of the infant’s body and oral myofunctional therapies to support infant feeding issues are also areas of particular interest to me. I work in partnership with a large group of complementary health professionals who are able to practice their therapies alongside mine for maximum benefit to families in need.
The launch: How did you get started in the first place?
I initially started supporting families alongside my regular work as a nurse and midwife. It was quite easy, because I love supporting families and meeting new people from all different backgrounds.
Dealing with all the logistics involved in owning your own business, like getting my name out there, registering our business name, insurance, fees, healthcare software, networking – these were all new experiences, which were exciting and challenging at the same time.
There is no playbook to support you in starting your own business, but working your way through building your business has been a deep and long learning curve.
Innovation: What has been the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
For me, the biggest discovery is when families introduce me to others and I’ve discovered that the community knows who I am. This is the biggest compliment, because for me, it tells me that I am recognized as trustworthy and able to serve the needs of others in the best possible way.
It is absolutely amazing to empower families prenatally through parenting and breastfeeding preparation and then learn about their journey afterwards.
The ultimate breakthrough is when you support families who are going through tough times and then turn the corner and don’t need you anymore. It’s interesting because you want them to get to that point where they don’t need you anymore, but then they miss you because you’ve built such great relationships with them. The beauty is that they always know they can come back to me for any questions or support they need with their baby and future babies, which is great. I love our little one MILK early parenting support village! To know that I was the one who started the business, words cannot explain how privileged I feel to know that these wonderful families trust their care with me.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
This is the hardest of all.
My family had to make a lot of sacrifices to achieve this MILK early parenting support in order to function. If it wasn’t for my husband Neil’s support, I honestly wouldn’t be able to do this. This means missed outings, 24/7 phone calls and years of lost family time.
Now that we’ve been in business for 11 years, I have to put more barriers between family and work, so I’m limiting my clientele so that MILK it’s more personalized than ever. This gives me the time I want to spend with my family and give them the parts of me they need and want to give.
