Growing and birthing a baby is a profound experience that can range from magical to beautiful to traumatic and everything in between. There’s the fourth trimester, about which no one tells you. There’s the learning curve, for which no one prepares you. There’s the breastfeeding and pelvic-floor struggles, which no one discusses until you’re in that particular hell. There’s the judgments from people who don’t know anything and the endless, Is this normal? Google searches in the middle of the night. There’s the loneliness, isolation, and anxiety that naturally—and hormonally—occurs when your world simultaneously pivots to full-time recovery and full-time caregiver in an instant. And, of course, there’s the fact that the U.S. makes it nearly structurally impossible to handle it all.
That’s why there’s New Mom School, an education and support center dedicated to empowering and gathering women amid their early motherhood journey. Ali Kochtanek, a certified postpartum doula and founder of Survive and Thrive, plans to open St. Louis’ first location this summer.
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The Services
Like its sister locations across the country, the school will host four eight-week, 90-minute classes: first-time newborn moms, second time-plus newborn moms, infants ages 3–6 months, and rising toddlers 6–12 months. The St. Louis studio will also have a partnership with a local breastfeeding clinic housed within the same building that will offer free support services to New Mom members and nonmembers alike. Kochtanek is currently lining up collaborations with other metro area experts including nutritionists and pediatric physical, pelvic floor, breathwork, and movement therapists.
“I fell in love with the concept of this postnatal education, in-person support—being able to reimagine the way that moms are cared for after they give birth,” Kochtanek says. “Women were never supposed to do this alone, ever.”
Beyond supporting mothers with postpartum adjustment, her goal with New Mom is to allow moms to have their questions answered, to blow off steam, and to connect members with maternal mental health support as needed.
Kochtanek is most excited about building community, with a specific assembly of these women at this time. “Even if you have a best friend who gave birth a year before you or six months before you, it’s still not the same,” she adds. “People forget. It’s so easy to just go on to the next phase.”
It’s a generational shift in perspective, Kochtanek adds, that makes something like New Mom School both novel and necessary. “I remember my mom saying to me, ‘This [isolation] is just a part of motherhood.’ I was like, ‘No, no, no. This is not the way it’s supposed to be. It should be enjoyable, and we should feel supported and heard and validated through this process.’ That’s what I think New Mom School is going do for the moms in St. Louis. It’s going to give them a space to express themselves and also to learn from practitioners in the field.”
The Background
Kochtanek was inspired to start her widely followed Instagram page by her child’s previous babysitters, who came to her for advice when they became pregnant. On Instagram, she shares “the basic stuff that you learn as a new mom but you might not know until you get into it.” From the engagement with those followers, her passion grew, and she went on to earn certification as a postpartum doula and sleep specialist. “It’s basically like mothering the mother,” Kochtanek explains. “It’s baby-based as well, but it’s really about taking care of the mom and making them feel confident in this new role.”
With this new training, Kochtanek started a virtual support group, Thriving Mamas, in which she would group babies ages 4—6 months. “My idea was, ‘You’ve just emerged from the fire that is postpartum, the fourth trimester, and then you’re like, What the heck is this?‘” she says. “You still need help. You still need support. All of a sudden, your baby isn’t sleeping; they’re awake much more; you’re feeding them solids; your marriage is shifting. All of a sudden, you’re walking through this moment that’s really… Well, it’s a lot.”
The fact that New Mom School classes take place in person was another big hook for Kochtanek, who explains that there is so much digital and social noise for new parents today. “You need to focus on you and your baby, because there’s no one else like you and your baby. So even though there’s lots of good advice out there, sometimes it’s just too much. If you can, just focus on you, your preferences, and your path; I think that’s most important.”
The Moms
Kochtanek is encouraging moms-to-be to sign up for New Mom School while pregnant, because “we all know how it feels after you have your baby; your head is spinning. Signing up for something new becomes harder. You need to have it planned; you need to know, OK, I’m going to get out of the house for the first time, and I’m gonna go to New Mom School.”
That first-time-out-of-the-house anxiety is one that Kochtanek knows well. “I’m a very social person, but after having a child I was scared, personally, to leave the house. I didn’t know how to go to the grocery store.”
Then, at a bootcamp fitness class, she met another mom who she says saved her motherhood journey. “I truly think that motherhood changes so much when you feel heard and validated and commiserated with and empowered and confident,” she says. “Happier moms equal happier babies, which equal happier communities. That’s my wish for all these moms going through this program, that they walk out feeling like they have someone else they can talk to, that they can hang out with, and that they feel really empowered in motherhood.”
The first 50 moms to sign up for New Mom School in St. Louis will earn 50 percent off.
One of the first things those students will do? “Share your birth story,” Kochtanek says. “For a lot of moms, they never even really get to tell their birth story to anyone. But being able to tell that experience, which for a lot of us, is shocking, and to just share it and express it, and then hear other people’s stories, it’s so therapeutic.”
Describing New Mom School classes as a proverbial hug for women during some of their most monumental changes and challenges, Kochtanek also takes that sentiment literally. “I was just talking to one of my relatives who’s about to give birth, and I told her husband, ‘You need to make sure that you hug her first.’ I will never forget the people that hugged me before they were like, Give me the baby,” she says. “Mental health, emotional health, physical health—all of those things matter for moms, too.”
Kochtanek says she’s thrilled to open the school in St. Louis. “There’s so much support in our hospital systems here and the way that they help us through our pregnancies and through our birth, but I think there is a gap. And it’s not just in St. Louis—it’s a nationwide lack of support for mothers,” she says. “When we support our community’s moms, we’re building a stronger community overall. St. Louis is a great place to raise kids. There are so many things to do, but there really isn’t a support system for the moms. St. Louis is such a special place. It deserves this—these moms deserve this.”
