For You Postpartum

Hi everyone! 👋🏼

Sara and I really want to say a deep and heartfelt thank you to every person who shared about our Pledge Me campaign and pledged to support us, and support this meal service coming to life!

Unfortunately, we didn’t reach our goal and therefore we don’t receive your pledges. We had some incredibly generous donations and we SO wish we could view who pledged what. We would have loved to send individual thank you’s but please let this be a big ✨ THANK YOU! ✨

For us this was a huge exercise in being vulnerable and building community and we feel so proud to have put ourselves out there. Also, we are truly affirmed that this service is so so needed.
We gained so much from running our campaign.

We are super passionate about our vision and will do our best to bring it to life with the resources we have, for those that have been waiting to order, thank you for believing in us and being so patient.

For now, we are going to take the rest of 2021 to reset and be with our families. And early next year we will be reshaping For You and getting clear on where we are starting and where we want to go. Our dream will always be to revolutionise how we honour postpartum and how we take care of postpartum parents.

Thank you for being on this ride with us. We know there are good things to come ❤️

⭐️LAST CHANCE TO SUPPORT US ⭐️

This is the last day to support our campaign to help us launch our naturopathically-formulated meal packages for new parents in Feb 2022 and deliver all over New Zealand.

We created For You Postpartum to pick up the threads of community that have been lost around new parents and bring the focus back to their wellbeing.

We feel deeply that every birthing person needs and deserves to be nourished after birth and it is our mission to bring that to the birthing people of New Zealand. �
We have been inspired by the traditional ways and the wisdom that has been passed down through generations, in many cultures around the world. These cultures understand and value the importance of postpartum, this fourth trimester, and the need for healing and rest to be front and centre.

We want to reimagine and revolutionise the postpartum experience for mothers and parents in Aotearoa.

Our meal packages provide a weeks worth of meals, snacks and tea to assist healing, replenish the body after pregnancy and birth, provide the extra nutrients for breastfeeding and support the body through all the stresses that being a new parent brings.

For more information on what we are creating, click the link to check out our pledge me campaign and click “about” and/or watch our video.

If you believe in our offering you can support us by pledging to our campaign. There are rewards up for grabs too. Thank you to everyone who has supported us so far 💗

https://www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/7077-holistic-postpartum-meal-delivery-service-help-us-support-new-parents-all-over-aotearoa

Hi everybody!

An update on our Pledge Me campaign, we have crowdfunded an amazing $5,705 for this business to be!

We are so incredibly grateful for the support and the enthusiasm and love that has been shown to our budding business baby.

We have just 6 days left of our campaign. If you’ve thought of backing us and our vision, we would LOVE if you could pledge!

It’s been a vulnerable thing to call on our community to get this business off the ground. But Sara and I are both still in our own postpartums and we really want to practice what we preach, which is that receiving support is a strength and building community, instead of centring individualistic ideals, is where it’s at.

We appreciate all of you here with us, even if you’ve just been following along with our journey quietly, we love that you are here. To our pledgers, all 50 of you (so far) are making our dreams come true!

We just received an incredible pledge from one person of $1,500!! Our first Ultimate Supporter who, as part of their reward, will be sending some families in need of support, a For You Postpartum food package. That blew us away and completely hyped us up! We don’t actually see who pledged what at this stage, so we hope we can reach our goal so we can thank each and every one of you for your generous pledge.

Link is in our bio for the campaign and if you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to reach out.

For now, we are totally CELEBRATING $5,705 from 50 of you wonderful humans who want to see us nourish postpartum parents in Aotearoa and be nourished yourself.

We are so happy to have raised over 25% of our final goal and it’s all thanks to you all!

We are at $4000 for our pledge me campaign! 🥳💕🙏🏼

And on that note ~ we wanted to talk about asking for help.

Who else cringes when they think about asking for help?! 😬For most people it feels really hard, we totally get that! However, It’s such an importance practice, especially for new parents.

Sometimes it is possible to do the thing we’re scared to ask for help with, if we really stretch ourselves and make sacrifices, but it may come at a detriment to ourselves. We love this quote as it speaks to sustainability and the importance of asking for help as a way of preserving your wellbeing. And this is vital because the wellbeing of the parents affects the wellbeing of the whole family.

We are feeling the vulnerability of it right now while we are running and promoting our campaign to raise money to get this business off the ground. The rushes of “we should be able to do this all ourselves, we shouldn’t need to ask for anyone’s help” - that classic DIY kiwi attitude.
But the reality is, we are new mothers too, and we don’t want to do it all by ourselves. We need the support of our community for this one 🤎

We want to invite you to practice asking for help with us. Is there an area of your life that feels heavy and could do with some extra help? Can you imagine what it would feel like to not have to do that thing all by yourself? 😌
Here’s your sign to go and ask for support ✨ you deserve it.

✨ REWARDS ✨

One of the rewards for pledging to support us via our Pledge Me () campaign is this beautiful organic ceremonial cacao from , run by our dear friend Lucy.

Ceremonial cacao is a plant medicine. You may know of cacao powder, used abundantly, cacao in this form is traditionally made into a hot drink to sip on in ceremony.

In this stage (as 100% pure cacao) this magic is completely unrefined, making a rich, heart-opening drink and ritual.
Simply chop or shred some off the block, heat with water and add sweetener of your choice.

Lucy also includes an intention setting card with each bag of cacao, a reminder of the power of a home practice with cacao.

This cacao is grown in Peru and is of the native strain, criollo, encouraging the restoration of native strains in Peru and supporting sustainable practices.

Antioxidant rich, cacao contains many minerals such as magnesium and zinc and is full of bliss compounds, that uplift the spirit and calm the mind whilst encouraging a centred state of being.

No matter if you are postpartum or not, self-care and ritual are both powerful acts that cannot be underestimated.

A wonderful way to cultivate a sense of peace is by connecting with the wisdom and medicine of this cacao.

The link to our Pledge Me campaign is in our bio!

🤍

🤤 Chelsea makes the best postpartum treats!
Now that we have your attention..

A campaign update: we are half way through! 2 more weeks to go..
Although we aren’t half way to our goal yet, we are still feeling hopeful 🤞🏼

We believe so deeply in this service and the impact it will have on new families. Achieving our pledge me goal will ensure we can start delivering food to parents all over NZ in Feb 2022.

Thank you to everyone who has donated or pledged so far 💞 we are sending out the biggest virtual hugs and can’t wait to thank you personally when we get your details.

If you want to support our business head to the link in our bio to check out our campaign.

Swipe left 👉🏽
The Postpartum period is valued and honoured in many cultures around the world. Korean, Chinese, Indian, Latin American and Malawian culture to name a few..

Reading through these slides you will notice the common threads:
♥ rest
♥ confinement
♥ warmth
♥ nourishment
♥ community care
♥ ceremony

These cultures understood the importance of healing after birth to support the parent and babies long term health and wellbeing. This makes a lot of sense to us!

At For You Postpartum we want to bring back the Art of caring for new parents postpartum by using these traditional practices and wisdom to inspire our offerings. All of our meals are nutrient dense, warm, easy to digest and infused with herbs to support healing and breastfeeding. Everything is ready to eat and delivered to your door to bring back the sense of community care or having a village, which most of us in this western society are missing. Providing nourishment so that you can focus on resting and caring for your new baby.

If you believe in our business please support our Pledge Me Campaign so we can start delivering nourishment packages to new parents all over NZ in Feb 2022. Link in our bio 💞

Why is the food we eat after birth so important?

When considering the importance of postpartum nutrition there’s a few things to keep in mind. Firstly, you’ve just spent 9 months growing a human and then went through the intense initiation of labour and birth!💥 The physical demands of both of these is huge. Now, if you are breastfeeding, you have yet another high nutritional demand on the body. The body needs nutrition in order to provide adequate milk for your newborn baby. With that in mind, replenishing the body by choosing to eat nutrient dense and nourishing foods is essential!

What we eat in those first few weeks after birth also plays a huge role in how we recover from birth. Food provides nutrients needed to support many important physical functions and helps our bodies to heal. Our hormones are changing dramatically yet again and the food we eat can either support or challenge that process. Furthermore we can choose foods that are warming to further promote healing and use specific foods and spices to further support healing and provide energy to the body, which is common in many traditional postpartum practices.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine nourishing a new parent with warm, easy to digest and nutritious food is a fundamental part of postpartum care. In Ayurvedic philosophy those first 40 days after birth is said to shape the next 40 years of the birthing persons life. Let that sink in.

A healthy, nourished, new parents sets the tone for a positive parenting journey and longterm health and wellbeing! Plus, a healthy and nourished parent = a healthy and nourished baby ✨

Postpartum depletion is far too common in our western society and can have long lasting health effects such as a dysregulated nervous system, insomnia, postpartum anxiety and depression, thyroid issues, adrenal fatigue and weight gain (to name a few).

This is why we created For You Postpartum. To provide a service that ensures new parents are well nourished because IT IS SO IMPORTANT, and, we get it… With a new baby its hard to find the time to prepare healthy food.

Thats where we come in, we got you māmā! Let us nourish you in the way you deserve to be nourished! 🙏

If you believe in our vision, please check out our pledge me campaign and donate. We need your support ❤️

https://www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/7077-holistic-postpartum-meal-delivery-service-help-us-support-new-parents-all-over-aotearoa

We hit our first milestone!
Thank you to everyone who has supported us and our vision so far. Thank you for sharing our campaign on your social media and making pledges. We see you and and we are so grateful 💞☺️

If you want to see a service like ours exist in NZ to support new parents, please donate 🙏🏼 Even if it’s just $5 , every little bit counts. The link is in our bio.

OUR CAMPAIGN IS LIVE!

If you are on our mailing list or saw a couple of our posts you will know that we have been working on a Pledge Me crowdfunding campaign to raise money to get our business up and running.

We are excited to let you know that it’s here!

We are so proud of what we are creating through this business and this feels like an exciting step towards making our dreams a reality. We have been working diligently to set up the foundations to make this business run successfully and to be able to deliver our meals to parents all over Aotearoa.
Now we just need the support of our community to help us get there.

The perks of supporting our campaign is that not only will you help us bring this offering to new parents but you will also receive some epic rewards! We have things like ceremonial cacao, cookies, tea, books, limited edition ceramics, meal packages, postpartum services and more…. Click the link in our bio to check out our campaign which explains what we're doing and why, and see what rewards you might be able to get for your pledges.

No amount is too little. Even a small donation of $5 not only helps us reach our goals but lets us know you support our vision.

If you don't have any cash to give but want to support us, please share our campaign with your community on social media, or simply spread the word!

The more we talk about postpartum care the more people will realise how important taking care of new parents really is.

Thank you for being here on this ride with us!

🤍

Nothing is ever the same for a parent after the initiation of birth. Physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. They are touched and changed in ways almost indescribable to another person who hasn’t experienced it for themselves. It’s a tender time, beautiful although challenging for most. Parents need extra support and care during this transition- on all levels. This is why we created For You Postpartum, to bring the focus back onto the parents, particularly the birthing person and their wellbeing. Just like the newborn baby, the newborn Mother needs to be cared for too, with nourishment, rest, warmth and love. Tag a parent or parent to be below who needs reminding that they are important too 👇🏻💗

We’ve been a little quiet on here…

We have been busy with the logistics of laying the foundations for us to launch For You Postpartum. There’s so much that goes into setting up a new business, let alone a food business, and we want our offering to truly serve new parents right from the start.

As well as this, one half of For You Postpartum, Chelsea and her wife Kate (pictured) are preparing for Kate’s labour, the birth of their first child as well as cultivating and creating support for their own postpartum!

We have some exciting things happening in the coming months for For You Postpartum, and we can’t wait to share it with you all.

For now we would just like to say thank you for being here & believing in our vision for postpartum support.

Every comment, message & share means the world to us! 🤍

T E A

Formulated and created for you, by founders — naturopaths and herbalists — Chelsea & Sara.
With your postpartum landscape in mind.

The magic, ritual and healing that dried herbs offer is very special to us, and we want to share that with you.

Let our teas soothe frazzled nerves from long nights, balance the hormonal ups and downs, open your heart & calm your mind.

Brewing a cup can be a simple but powerful act of presence.

All part of our postpartum meal package. Coming 2022.

We see you.

You are doing such an incredible job.

The time you spent growing your baby during pregnancy continues outside of the womb, feeding them and nourishing them to grow.

You deserve to not have to lift a finger postpartum aside from picking up and cuddling your baby.

Let our meals nourish and feed you whilst you do that for your little human.

Launching 2022.

📸

Little update from us, thank you for all of you who have entered your email to be notified when we launch! We feel so grateful for all the support & love coming through for this offering.

The best way to be in the loop with For You Postpartum is to go to the link in our bio and enter your email (the page looks like this)

For anyone that has their own business, you know it’s a labour of love! And we wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. We feel so motivated by supporting new mothers and parents with this meals and we are getting so close to being able to get into the kitchen and get making, for you.

🤍

Hi all 💗
It’s been a quick moment. We are busy getting everything up and running behind the scenes so that we can bring you nourishing and comforting postpartum meals.

We want to be totally transparent here on this platform and let you in on what’s going on. We are busy finding the best and most efficient ways to courier food around New Zealand (as we found from our story polls that people are from all over), how we can offer menus that suit all preferences, where we can make our food in the safest way possible, and more! Some parts of this process are turning out to take a bit longer than we imagined.

We are balancing this with babies to care for, one baby on the way, full-time work and further study. We know a few of you are having babies soon and are asking when you can order. We just want to ask for your patience 🙏🏼
We hear you and we are getting everything ready as soon as we can manage. We don’t have a specific date for launch as we are still waiting for some things to be ticked off so we can deliver safe meals, but you’ll know as soon as we do launch!

We love receiving your messages and hearing that you’re interested in us. We will most definitely get in touch via your email (link in bio to provide your email!) when we are ready to drop delicious meals to your door.

Wishing everyone love and care. If you are navigating early postpartum, or just postpartum at any stage, we commend you and are cheering you on! 🙌🏼

We will be sharing a bit more about us as individuals more on our story so you can get to know us a bit more! Stay tuned.

Love from
Sara & Chelsea 💗

A sneak peek of some of our meals on the winter menu in all their glory.

Coming soon…

Jujubes or Chinese red dates.
An essential postpartum herb & food, jujubes replenish and nourish the blood, warm the body, are high in antioxidants & are calming for the nervous system.

Chinese red dates can be added to broths, soups, congee and also boiled and drunk as a healing tea, such as the ‘Zuo Yuezi’ tea we include in our package. Made up of Chinese red dates and goji (Gou Qi Zi) to restore vitality & balance the body.

Welcome if you're new around here!

We are Chelsea and Sara, best friends and founders of For You Postpartum.

We are so excited to create this community and offer these meals for you during your postpartum. As naturopaths, we have formulated our meals around medicinal and healing principles for your recovery and transition into being a new parent.

We are getting everything set up and ready to launch, so the best way to stay in the know is to click the link in our About section and pop in your email! We will be announcing via email first when packages are available.

Thank you for all your love and support!

Arohanui
Chelsea & Sara

What is va**nal or pelvic steaming?

Part of our full package includes herbal soaks, for bathing, for a peri bottle or for va**nal steaming.

Often referred to with many names; va**nal steaming, yoni steaming, pelvic steaming or chai-yok, allows herbs and the warmth of steam to support the v***a, va**na & uterus relax, heal and clear stagnation.

A wonderful practice for postpartum healing but also used as a self-care practice to ease stress, connect with your body and support the menstrual cycle.

Steaming in the postpartum period after all births, va**nal or not, supports you by increasing the circulation of blood, lymph & Qi in the body and this herbal steaming penetrates the reproductive organs gently and deeply, keeping the body warm and helping to heal the placental site.
Steaming positively affects the rest of the body too and has been seen to relieve tender breasts & swelling in the legs and elsewhere in the body post-birth.

Pictured is our herbal soak, a mix of the following organic dried herbs: calendula, chamomile, witch hazel, lavender, yarrow & comfrey.

You can get steaming seats, adapt a chair to have a hole in the middle, squat over a pot of steaming herbs or put a bowl in your toilet with your herbs and hot water, which may sound strange but works a treat. You don’t really need any fancy equipment!

If you have given birth va**nally, you can begin steaming once you are no longer bleeding heavily. If you have had a caesarean birth, waiting six weeks or until your stitches are fully healed is recommended.

Have you tried this healing practice?

Our meals are not just like any “regular” meals.

As naturopaths and herbalists we believe in food as medicine and the power of herbs to assist in healing. We are designing our menu using specific ingredients to aid in your recovery by rebuilding your nutrient and energy stores, promoting healing and supporting breastfeeding.

Proper nutrition and herbal support is vital for physical and emotional resilience when navigating the new challenges motherhood and parenthood brings. With nutrition and herbs we can help to prevent chronic fatigue, elevated stress hormones and other physical imbalances that lead to other issues such as insomnia, postpartum anxiety & depression, thyroid issues and weight gain (to name a few). Taking care and replenishing the body postpartum is VITAL for long-term health.

We can’t wait to share our menu with you soon!

We want to help care for you so you can care for your baby 🤍

Conserving and building warmth in the body is an essential part of the initial postpartum period. Keeping the body warm supports circulation and healing.

For a new parent, keeping the abdomen and womb space warm is essential for returning the womb and reproductive system to a healthy normal. Cold is stagnating for the circulation of blood can lead to more pain and dysfunction. Also, eating warm foods after birth such as soups and stews, is important in many cultures because cold or raw foods are believed to dampen digestive fire, forcing your spleen and stomach to work harder than necessary.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, after birth the digestive system is considered weak and conserving energy is important. Stoking digestive fire using warm foods and spices helps to ensure you absorb as much nutrients as possible from your food and less energy is spent on digestion.

Our warm meals, soups and elixirs for your postpartum are filled with spices that are warming and grounding. They support healing, balance blood sugars and aid digestion, among many other benefits.

📸 NOURIS(her) Doula

We have been inspired by the traditional ways and the wisdom that has been passed down from generation to generation, in many cultures around the world. China, India, Russia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Mexico to name a few, these cultures considered the postpartum period to be a very special time of rest and healing.

It looked slightly different in each, different time frames, different traditional recipes were used, different rituals, different herbal medicines… But these cultures all shared a similar intention and perspective.
The common theme and priority: Allow the new mother or parent to retreat, rest, be nourished and supported by their village, and keep them warm.

We want to bring back the old ways of rest. We want to be a part of your village.

Postpartum Meal service and care packages coming soon!

📸 sherida_rae_photography

Thank you for being here!

Our names are Chelsea Hannam & Sara McKean and For You Postpartum is our new offering for postpartum families.

We are both naturopaths and herbalists in Aotearoa, Chelsea is a birth & postpartum doula and nutritionist alongside this and Sara is continuing her education in wellness by embarking on studies in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and acupuncture.

For You Postpartum is a support community for you, offering nourishing postpartum foods to heal and replete the body, as well as doula care and many more offerings to come.

We support all families and all people who are postpartum.
Our packages include medicinal foods, centering warm, slow-cooked foods that follow Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Ayurvedic postpartum food philosophies. We also include thoughtfully created herbal blends and soaks in our Nourishment Packages.

We can't wait to support you.

With love & care
Chelsea and Sara