We recently connected with Kianna Griffin and have shared our conversation below.

Kianna, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Hi, I’m Kianna!

I am the creator of Nurtured Root + Co. – a Birth and Postpartum doula service, offering childbirth education and an apothecary for natural healing for a holistic childbirth experience.

Why Nurtured Root + Co? With my love of earth and nature, I believe that we are born with all of the tools and surrounded by natural resources to take care of ourselves in the best way we can. There are many ways to connect with our bodies and the earth – breathing, yoga, meditation, and many other practices, and through these we can heal ourselves and manage through painful events whether it be physical or mental.

When you nurture plants, they grow. When you nurture the flowers, they bloom. When we nurture our babies, they thrive. So what happens when we nurture ourselves and others? We are empowered to be our best, feel loved and safe and taken care of! Through my studies with herbalism, it made it my mission to create healthy, natural lotions, bath teas, etc to help heal the body from the inside and out that are safe for all members of the family. And through my studies of the body and natural movement it is my mission to help birthing families trust themselves and manage through pregnancy, labor and postpartum with breathing, massage, and yoga.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My journey toward becoming part of the birth community began many years ago, as I was originally pursuing a career as a labor and delivery nurse. It wasn’t until after the traumatic experience of birth with my own children that I realized how important it is to feel supported, educated, and heard through our child birthing experience. Specifically with my daughter who was born a month into COVID 19 lockdown, I felt coerced into unnecessary interventions that effected breastfeeding and postpartum healing, neglected after experiencing 4 days of prodromal labor, and trying to navigate being a brand new mother after an unplanned cesarian with postpartum depression during a time when we felt like it was unsafe for us to see our own family members, I was really left feeling awful about my experience. Though I had an incredibly supportive partner by my side, but he new little about childbirth as well. There was just so much I didn’t understand and choices I didn’t know I had about my own body and baby and it created a fire in me to learn more.

As an incredibly nurturing person, I always knew that I wanted to help make a positive impact on the experience families had during their magical time, but once I experienced it, there was a whole different eagerness to educate myself and others. I wanted to teach everyone about ways to avoid what me and so many others had been through as much as possible so they can feel empowered to make decisions right for them, and feel supported by those around them in their sacred birth space to reduce the risk of birth trauma and postpartum mood disorders. Then one day I came across the word “Doula” which was something that I had never really knew about!

Birth Doulas are professionally trained birth coaches who provide evidence-based education and continuous physical, emotional and informational support to the birthing families before, during and after childbirth to help them achieve the most satisfying experience possible. I knew that if I joined this beautiful community of birth work, I would never feel like I was “working” again. I did a bit more research of how to become a Doula, finished my training in January 2023, and voila – here I am! My biggest goal is to be a constant support system and provide families with knowledge and practice for birth with a holistic approach through education, herbalism, relaxation, breath work, and much more. Additionally, as a woman of color I feel even more passionate about advocacy, but especially for fellow families of color and low income families. Sometimes, doula services can seem out of reach, but I strive to offer sliding scale costs and free education to be able to impact families from all walks of life.

I believe we can make our way through any challenges that comes our way as long as we trust in ourselves and have loving, encouraging support from those around us – the saying “it takes a village” is so very true, and your intuition will never steer you wrong.

You can do hard things. :)

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

The best source of new clients has been word of mouth and my website! Most families I have worked with so far have appreciated the available information there is to read through to get to know me and my services a bit better before requesting an interview.

Have you ever had to pivot?

My whole working life I had been either a bartender or a server, and then ended with a desk job when I became pregnant with my daughter. Being a person who is very artistic with a lifelong wish of owning my own store while being a nurse, these jobs were not fulfilling for me and I wanted to start my own business while in school for a side job. My original adventure into entrepreneurship was creating a mental health advocacy brand called Skai, where I created clothing that spread awareness about mental health while I was navigating through postpartum anxiety and depression. This business gave me a lot of practice into the business world, as this is where I learned about LLCs, creating a website, social media and ads, managing sales, etc. This business adventure quickly came to an end though as it became too overwhelming for me to run a business while in school and being a new mother. It also didn’t bring me much satisfaction as a creative individual because I used a printing company and drop shipper.

The following year, I had adventured into the world of sewing and had a more successful business hand making lingerie to promote body positivity which allowed me to have more of a creative approach to a business. This 2nd endeavor gave me a lot more experience into the business world and gave me a lot of local recognition, but after the birth of my 2nd child and a very hard cesarian recovery, I did not find much time to be able to sew at my sewing machine while tending to my toddler and newborn. Being an incredibly creative person, I couldn’t sit still for long so I started knitting and crocheting to fulfill my need of creating things. I knit and crocheted so many baby items and through my love for families and babies, I knew this one would stick! Taking my knowledge from my previous business adventures, I created my small batch handmade business called Luna By Skai, where I sell my hand knit and sewn baby gifts, which I also use to gift to my doula clients for Nurtured Root + Co! Through my trials of dabbling into the entrepreneur world, I am so happy for my experiences because they all brought me to where I am today!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.nurturedrootco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nurturedroot.co/?hl=en
• Other: https://doulamatch.net/profile/34631/kianna-griffin

Image Credits
Hannah Lombardi