Why we do home visits.
By Sister Sindi · Updated May 2026
In the first two weeks after birth, we come to you. It's not a courtesy — it's clinical. Here's what we look for, what we bring, and why it tends to be one of the moments families remember most.
Why home, not clinic
Day five with a newborn is a time when leaving the house feels like climbing a mountain. You haven't slept properly, your body is still healing, the car seat is fiddly, and the appointment time is mid-feed. Driving to a clinic isn't impossible — but it isn't easy.
More importantly, what we see in your home is more useful than what we see in our consult room. Where the baby actually sleeps. How feeding is unfolding in real life. The siblings, the dog, the well-meaning mother-in-law. The small adjustments that would make everything easier.
What we check
A typical home visit takes about 90 minutes. Long enough to be useful, short enough that we leave you to your day.
- For baby — weight, temperature, jaundice, cord, hips and reflexes, feeding latch and rhythm. We watch a feed if you're up for it.
- For mom — blood pressure, perineum healing if relevant, uterine involution, lochia, breast and nipple check, mood screen.
- For both of you — sleep, support, food, anything you've been worrying about and didn't want to phone for.
What we bring
Our travel kit includes: portable scale, blood-pressure cuff, thermometer, otoscope, jaundice meter, urine dipsticks, basic dressings, and a small bag of breastfeeding supports (cooling pads, nipple shields, hand expressers) — all things you might need but probably haven't bought.
We also bring sandwiches sometimes, if we know the visit is happening at lunchtime. Don't tell anyone.
When the visit catches something
About one in seven home visits catches something the family wouldn't have phoned about. A latch that's setting up cracked nipples by week two. A baby whose weight curve is starting to flatten. A blood pressure that's crept up. A mom whose smile is too wide for her eyes.
Often the issue is small but the early catch makes a real difference — a tweak to feeding position that fixes the latch by the next visit, or a quick lab to rule out a postnatal complication.
A note on logistics
You don't need to tidy. We genuinely don't notice — we look at you and your baby. We park where we can, we take our shoes off, we wash our hands, we leave you with notes and a number you can phone with anything that comes up.
A small story
Years ago I visited a new mom on day six. We did everything that needed doing — baby was thriving, mom's bleeding was tapering. As I packed up, I noticed she was crying quietly while loading the dishwasher. We sat down. We talked. She told me she'd been afraid she didn't love the baby enough — afraid to say it out loud at the clinic, afraid the answer would be that something was wrong with her.
It wasn't. Her hormones were doing what hormones do. We talked about what to look out for, made a plan, and a week later she was a different person. She told me later she would never have phoned to talk about that. The visit had to come to her.
It's why we keep doing it.