Children's nurses to open baby support studio in Ballyclare

Megan Johns and Kayla Thompson will be opening Safari Baby Studio on the town’s Main Street in July after identifying a need for a service providing support to parents and their babies in the Ballyclare area.

The friends, who met at Queen’s University in Belfast whilst both studying Children’s Nursing, were inspired to create the business following the birth of Kayla’s daughter and an apparent lack of available classes.

Kayla said: “Becoming a parent is no easy task, so we decided to put our minds and skills together to offer parent and baby bonding classes for mums and dads.

"Besides the fact that we’re both children’s nurses, we share another common trait: having both been born in South Africa, hence, we named our business Safari Baby Studio.

"We’re both relatively experienced nurses, having worked in the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children and Antrim Area Hospital. We believe we can transfer our skills to our business and create an environment for parents and babies to bond and thrive.

"We want to support the healthy development of babies, their safety, parent and baby bonding, parental health and wellbeing and to create a supportive networking community for parents.

"We’re completing our courses through Settled Petals, an organisation founded by Susan Wallace.

"We worked with Catherine Henderson who helped us complete the GoSucceed programme, Northern Ireland’s free go-to source for expert business advice, where mentors provide tailored insight and guidance into businesses of all stages.

"We plan to continue working in nursing alongside our small business. For now, it’s the two of us. Who knows what the future will hold, and if the opportunity arises for our team to expand, we’re both on board.”

Detailing the impact the Covid-19 pandemic had on new parents and their babies and how they feel Safari Baby Studio will benefit parents and babies, Megan explained: “Undeniably the Covid-19 pandemic caused huge amounts of hurt and trauma.

"I worked in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit in The Royal Children’s Hospital for Sick Children during the pandemic where staff had to implement a lot of strict rules on the unit.

"You really felt the fear and frustrations of the families in our care, when all they needed was the support from their loved ones.

"Some mums whochad their babies during Covid-19 had to go through the labour and delivery process alone due to more restrictions – it’s unimaginable how this must have been for

parents.

"The effects on mental health will no doubt be lasting, even though the Coronavirus is not having the same impact as it had at the height of the pandemic.

"We believe that providing a space for parents to meet, support each other and share experiences will be empowering and have a valuable impact on their mental health.”

Extending an invite to the business’ official opening, they added: “We’re aiming to open in the week beginning July 15. We’re teaming up with a couple of other small businesses to host an opening day and more information about this will be shared on our Facebook and Instagram pages.”