Postnatal support families can pay for, from hotel stays to night nannies

Portia O’Kane and Stefni Baigent-Lucas believe the newborn bubble should last as long as possible.

Together, they run LuxeCare NZ, which provides postnatal stays at Auckland’s five-star Cordis Hotel.

Guests can pay between $1180 and $1400 for a night in a suite while getting to grips with new parenthood, though most stay for two nights.

Each room comes with products for parents and baby, with breakfast and food vouchers provided daily. Access to the hotel’s spa, gym and pool is included and some suites come with a kitchenette and second bedroom.

Guests are visited daily by Libby Cain, a lactation consultant, midwife and nurse. She remains on-call throughout their stay.

Two families check in each week on average, most coming through private obstetric practices. The business has been running for six years and has started to include first-time mothers and is looking to expand to Wellington.

While LuxeCare provides clinical support, O’Kane and Baigent-Lucas are clear it is not a healthcare service. Rather, it is a space where people can relax with their new baby before returning home.

“You don’t rest at home, even though we say we should and we want to,” O’Kane says. “Here ... it’s like time stops ... That’s what we want for our clients.”

While the price point is high, Cain believes LuxeCare is filling a gap for families – especially those who live away from their wider “village”.

“Women deserve to be pampered after giving birth,” Cain says.

Karitane nurses and nannies have long focused on supporting families as they navigate parenthood.

The agency has been running since 1978 and offers its services in Auckland, Tauranga, Hawke’s Bay, Wellington and Christchurch.

“We provide services from day zip, as soon as baby is born,” manager Kirsten Varley says. “Day, night, live-in nanny, we can tailor it to the person too.”

Varley has been with the agency for 20 years and says nannying isn’t as common in New Zealand as it is in bigger centres like Sydney and London. Population size and cost play a role.

“It’s not cheap, I’ll admit that,” she says.

Varley declined to say how much Karitane charges, but night nannies require an eight-hour minimum booking and this is one of the agency’s most popular services, providing overnight support for newborns.

The night nanny assists with feeds, nappy changes, settling the baby and sterilising bottles while the parents sleep. The nanny also gives sleep and feeding advice.

Varley says demand for this service is rising as people increasingly live further away from their support networks. Some families will gift a night nanny to new parents if they can’t physically be there to help.

“If you can afford it, after a decent night’s sleep, everything looks so much better in the morning.”

Birthcare general manager Christine Mellor oversees the care of about 250 women and babies every month.

Women from across Auckland transfer to recuperate at the 44-bed maternity hospital, which has recently been refurbished. This includes within the building, as it is now also home to Health New Zealand’s primary birthing and assessment unit, Whānau Ngā Uri.

“It’s a real privilege to be a small part of people’s journey into parenthood and to be able to make a difference to their experience of the early days,” Mellor says.

Birthcare has three room types, available for up to three nights, including a fully funded option, which is often a shared room.

The private ($550 a night) and premium rooms ($840 a night) differ in size but both have an ensuite bathroom, breastfeeding chair and space for a partner or family member to stay. Mellor says these are more popular than the free rooms.

“With this being a special time, there’s often a feeling that they want to do it really well and really have that extra privacy, space and just enjoy it.”

A direct phone line connects all guests to a team of experienced midwives and nurses 24 hours a day, Mellor says.

All rooms include meals, but the paid tiers have a more expansive menu. Additional common rooms provide space for parents to relax.

Mellor says Birthcare aims to be a one-stop shop for whānau from before the baby is born. Funded services include lactation consultants and pelvic health physiotherapists. Additional services like antenatal classes, acupuncture, chiropractors and massage are available for a cost.

“We’ve got something for everyone ... we offer the same level of excellent maternity care irrespective of which room people choose,” she says.

Joanne Whorwood has run The Night Nanny in Auckland for three years and seen demand for her service grow.

Families tend to book two to three nights during the baby’s first six months, but some engage her services on a more casual basis. In a typical week, she works five nights, split between two families.

Whorwood gets two to three inquiries a week and has had to turn some people away because she’s reached capacity.

Her rates start at $42 an hour for eight hours, caring for one baby.

While it might seem like a luxury for some, she says services like hers are valuable for anyone, whether they’re recovering from surgery, sleep-deprived or don’t have their family around them.

“People don’t have the village that they used to have ... an extra pair of hands helps to take the pressure off,” Whorwood says.

When midwife and nurse Emma Hughson had children, she was surprised by how challenging it felt despite her clinical training.

That realisation spurred her to start Multiple Choice four years ago, a small business in Queenstown providing postnatal support online and in person.

Hughson’s service covers questions or challenges parents are facing, including feeding and sleeping, as well as personalised antenatal consultations.

She only takes on clients after they’ve been formally discharged from their midwife, typically about six weeks postpartum. Most come to her through word of mouth.

Hughson also runs a small group antenatal education course, for which there is “huge demand” and provides a small amount of in-home evening support for people wanting a few hours to rest.

Her online consults cost $180 an hour, while her in-home visits range from $250 for an hour-and-a-half postnatal visit to $600 for six hours of antenatal education.

She believes her services provide connection.

“Knowing that there’s people out there that do this sort of work and want to support people. And it creates a sense of community ... all my antenatal classes have continued to catch up.”

The secret to Ili Zulkiflee’s business is in the name. Mamas Village is “about everyone working together to support Mum,” she says.

Zulkiflee is a yoga teacher, breastfeeding peer supporter and postpartum doula who offers pregnancy, birth and postpartum support in Alexandra and Queenstown.

Her business is built on an “east meets west” philosophy. Zulkiflee is originally from Malaysia and takes inspiration from the traditional 40-day postnatal confinement period. In that time, the woman’s only job is to rest, eat and feed the baby.

While Mamas Village doesn’t enforce a strict confinement, she encourages women to have a graduated approach to getting back into routine. Her constant reminder: “You just did so much, no one is expecting anything from you.”

She usually provides postpartum support for one woman a month, consisting of weekly three-hour sessions. In that time, she shops for groceries, cooks and looks after both baby and mum.

Cost is the biggest barrier she sees in her work – a lot of people are happy to pay for support prenatally, but not so much postpartum.

Zulkiflee believes this period is just as important because that is where mental health challenges start to creep in.

Her services start at $100 for postpartum support planning, while birth and postpartum support starts at $1600.

Midwife Rachael Macdonald and her partner Hayley Palmer have plans for a pregnancy resort on Waiheke Island.

Waiheke Haven will offer babymoon retreats, postnatal and fourth trimester stays for up to 12 weeks postpartum, with wraparound clinical support for every guest.

They intend to open in March 2027.

The inspiration is Macdonald’s desire to provide more maternity services locally. There’s no birthing unit on the island, so the only options are homebirth or transfer to Auckland City Hospital.

Macdonald and Palmer have no official contracts yet, but initial feedback from the community has been positive.

People are already getting in touch via the website and want to know more about the babymoon.

“When we’ve talked to people that’s the one they seem to love the most,” Palmer says.

“It’s an opportunity for them to disconnect from life a little bit and focus on what the future is going to bring, but knowing they’ve got the clinical care if they need it.”

The prices haven’t been set, but the duo say the babymoon will be targeted at holidaymakers, whereas they aim to make postpartum stays more affordable for locals at between $300 and $400 a night.

“We want to make it accessible to basically anyone that we work with here ... They do deserve an excellent standard of care and they also deserve to be able to take a little bit of a break,” Palmer says.