Reading · Dovetail® · RSS Amplifier

Kristin Smith has spent 20 years helping new families survive the hardest weeks of their lives.

Kristin Smith has spent 20 years helping new families survive the hardest weeks of their lives. As the founder of Well Supported Family — a team of over 200 postpartum doulas, newborn care specialists, and nurses operating across 12 states — she’s built the modern village that most families desperately need and almost nobody has access to.

Now she has a two-month-old of her own. An adopted son she got the call about while she was standing at an elephant orphanage in Kenya. He came home through the NICU. And for the first time, she’s on the parent side of everything she’s built — learning what it feels like to need the very support she’s spent two decades providing.

In this conversation, Ashley and Kristin talk about the postpartum care gap, the different paths to parenthood, what actually happens in those first nights home, and what it looks like to practice exactly what you preach.

In This Episode

How Kristin started — a postpartum doula at 19 after having her daughter with almost no support
Growing Well Supported Family from a private practice to a team of 200+ across 12 states
Why postpartum care in the US is so inadequate — and what it would take to fix it
What in-home newborn care actually looks like and how it’s tailored to each family
The RV team, the travel team, and how they reach families in almost every state
NICU babies coming home — the adjustment nobody prepares families for
The call from Kenya — a failed adoption, four days into a trip, at an elephant orphanage
Three rounds of IVF and what that experience gave her as a provider
Being on the parent side for the first time — and convincing herself her own baby was broken
Why adopted babies don’t get the postpartum support they need — and the rude awakening that followed
The philosophy at the heart of her work: build children into your life, not your life around them
What’s next — expanding into mental health support and more states

Quotes From This Episode

“You can have a wound inside your body the size of a basketball, and it was attached. Just because nobody sees it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

— Kristin Smith

“I don’t believe parents should build their life around children. I believe they should build children into their lives.”

— Kristin Smith

“I was at the elephant orphanage when this baby was born. That feels so symbolic.”

— Kristin Smith

“I was convinced he was broken. I’m a professional. What is he doing? And then someone said, he was four weeks early. You’re expecting a lot right now.”

— Kristin Smith

“It’s not just giving them the break they need — it’s helping them learn to build a life with their child.”

— Kristin Smith

Resources & Links