When Emily Silver and Jamie O'Day founded Boston NAPS to offer at-home prenatal and postpartum care, it was spurred by patients who would ask Silver and O'Day to come home with them.
Silver and O'Day, both certified lactation consultants and former full-time labor and delivery nurses at Beth Israel, founded Boston NAPS in 2011 to do exactly that: provide at-home lactation and nursing care for new mothers and their newborns.
Boston NAPS' cadre of 20 registered nurses and 15 fitness professionals would visit new mothers at their homes, providing prenatal to post-partum care, including nursing care, fitness classes and more.
Everything seemed to go fine with their business until the pandemic hit.
"We never imagined this at all," O'Day told BostInno. "I think the lesson that we have learned is while it's been challenging, you can always adjust your mindset and think of ways you can use this time to create some good."
O'Day is referring to her startup's new initiative: Nurture by NAPS. The newly-launched project is a digital education platform for expecting and new mothers.
Offered as a subscription service, the package comes divided into five programs, starting from prenatal care going up to 12 months after childbirth. Priced between $175 and $195, users can access video content produced by medical professionals, live webinars, an "Ask a Nurse" feature as well as weekly live Q&A sessions.
The original launch for the project was slated for Spring 2021. As home-visits became ill-advised under lockdown restrictions, the duo utilized the time to begin working on an expedited release.
"Initially, we were taking the time to work on our business that we couldn't imagine was doable," O'Day said. "Our goal wasn't to launch this until Spring 2021. We needed the time to be able to create the content, which we didn't have. But those two things coincided with the pandemic, and this ended up being something people want and need."
Its beta launch, offered to founding members in May, was sold out within 48 hours. And, from then until its official launch, the team has been able to add additional programming content.
