28 November 2006
A new service in the U.K. is providing expectant mothers with the sort of advice once offered across the kitchen table by in-the-know sisters and girlfriends.
Babyplanners is a prenatal consulting firm that will track down the perfect stroller, find the pregnancy yoga class nearest to the office or vet doulas for high-powered moms too busy to do so themselves. The service debuted in London in September and organizers are eyeing international expansion, including possible branches in Montreal and Toronto.
The inspiration for Babyplanners came to Keely Paice three years ago when she was pregnant with her first child and too busy with a journalism career to enjoy sifting through piles of receiving blankets and sleepers.
"I thought it would have been brilliant if I'd had someone who would come to my house or my office and just tell me everything I needed to know in an impartial way," she says.
Now, armed with experience from the birth of her two children and research gleaned from websites, other mothers and companies catering to them, Paice does the legwork for her clients.
"It was conceived for professional women who work until two weeks before they're due and quite literally do not have the time, or don't want to spend their weekends or their precious time on maternity leave running around the shops," Paice says.
Packages range in price from the basic one at $200 to ones costing several thousand dollars.
"It all boils down to that feeling of wanting to manage this like you've managed any other challenge in your life," says Ann Douglas, a Canadian mother of four and author of The Mother of All Baby Books. "If you were the kind of person who had a database to manage your wedding, you might want a database to manage your baby."
New parents vastly overestimate what they initially need to care for their little bundle, she says, likening the situation to an anxious six-year-old marching off to the first day of Grade 1 with a backpack full of shiny new supplies they will never use.
"There's that illusion that if you have all the right stuff the transition to motherhood is going to be so much easier," Douglas says.
"You can have all the right stuff and it's still going to be tough, because there's no easy fast track to making that transition."