Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Peck.
Hi Sarah, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I went back to nursing school as a second career after working (and not working) as an actress in Los Angeles for 5 years. I was drawn to the hard work and compassion required to be a nurse. In school, I realized that I wanted to focus on either women’s health or newborn care. I spent my final rotation during my Master’s in the Neonatal ICU and I fell in love with it. The infants in the NICU are incredibly resilient and having a front-row view of their development felt like an incredible privilege.
I realized that I wanted to work as a Neonatal ICU nurse, but I wanted to pursue a certification in lactation consulting and education to better serve the parents in the NICU as well. I completed my hours to become an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) before starting my first job as a bedside RN at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA.
I worked both as a NICU RN and IBCLC while living in Boston. I would tend to patients 3 days a week and spend the other 2 days helping new mothers navigate early infant feeding as part of the team at Boston NAPS. These two jobs ended up being truly transformative. I was able to hone my skills as a bedside RN with the premature infants in the NICU while also serving new parents and their infants in-home. Through this experience, my goal became to one day start my own business providing newborn care and infant feeding education to new parents in-home post-delivery.
As was the case with so many, the pandemic had other plans! My husband and I were planning on leaving Boston in May 2020. It didn’t make sense for me to start a business at that time, so I sought and found a job as a bedside RN at Cedars Sinai NICU. There I was able to continue to build my skillset and also start a small network of providers in Los Angeles.
Finally in February of 2021, Nesting Lactation Nursing Corp launched! I decided to leave my job as a bedside RN in the NICU and start seeing patients in-home and virtually to help with infant feeding and newborn care. I have always wanted to serve patients from the comfort of their own homes. The one thing that was lacking for me in the NICU was my ability to give ample time to the parents and meet their needs as well as the needs of their child.
Now I am able to do just that! I love my job and feel privileged to be able to help new parents and their infants. I would not have been able to build this business without the support and guidance by all my peers, coworkers and bosses along the way. I am grateful for all the women who helped me carve this path and grateful to all the women I am able to serve!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh yes, there’s always bumps in the road! I had initially planned to start this company a year prior, but with the state of the pandemic in 2020, it just didn’t make sense. After launching, it was difficult to be patient with the process of starting a small business. It always starts slow, but I was ready to be seeing patients regularly. I had to work on trusting the process and that the client base would come in time.
Working from home, as many know, can be difficult to self-motivate. I have definitely had slower days where I am paralyzed by what feels like an endless to-do list. I have tried to work on balance and knowing that those days happen and every day can’t be a fully productive day.
Working for yourself is wonderful in its flexibility. I can take time off whenever I need to, which is wonderful, but it can be hard to gauge whether you are doing enough at any given time. It’s been a process, but every day I try to improve and grow.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Nesting Lactation provides newborn care and infant feeding services from the privacy of your own home. I am currently the only provider at the company and with my experience as a NICU RN and Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), I provide evidence-based and compassionate care to all my patients.
I approach every patient as an individual and I shape my care based on their goals. My role is to provide education and guidance to help them find a better balance in the early postpartum period. I want my patients to feel empowered to feed their infants however works best for them! I use my experience in the NICU to inform my newborn care techniques and I use my education as an IBCLC to guide parents with up-to-date evidence-based information.
I am proud that I am able to take the time to form personalized care for each and every one of my patients in their time of need. The early postpartum period is a whirlwind of opinions and information, and I try to be a stable and calming voice.
What’s next?
My goal is to continue to grow by hiring more providers and hopefully building a pre-recorded class that my patients can access before giving birth. I want to centralize and streamline the information on newborn care and infant feeding so that parents don’t feel so overwhelmed with all the conflicting information on the internet.
I am looking forward to seeing Nesting Lactation expand past Los Angeles and to be able to provide education and care to new parents around the country. The new parenthood experience is confusing to navigate, and I want to help make it more personalized and palatable.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.nestinglactation.com
- Instagram: @nesting.lactation
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-peck-878aba14/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/nesting-lactation-los-angeles
Image Credits
Kerry Henderson
