With home-visit services, midwives offer a comfortable and budget-friendly postpartum recovery for mothers.

For mothers who have just given birth, mother-and-baby spas have become one of the essential treatments in modern postpartum recovery. However, some may not be confident to go outside their home after experiencing the physical changes caused by pregnancy, labor and breastfeeding. Fortunately for them, some midwives have now made their services available for home visits.

Such a service is offered by Laili Romdina, who started her career practicing at a midwife's clinic in South Jakarta after achieving her midwifery diploma.

"I worked for seven months [while starting my business]," said the 25-year-old. "In the eighth month, I could no longer [effectively] divide my time, so I decided to resign and focus on the business."

The business was Ayra Homecare. The mother-and-baby home-care service was born in August 2017, as Laili was about to receive her diploma.

"Before [my capstone defense], I was idle for several months, so I joined mother and baby treatment training. After certification, I didn't immediately open my home care [service] because I wasn't feeling confident."

Laili noticed that other midwives already had their own clinics or were opening their baby spas. It was rare, however, for anyone to provide home-care services.

"I decided to just provide home care because there was no budget to make a baby spa outlet. At that time, it was uncommon to have a baby massage performed by a midwife and at a cost that was certainly different from traditional massage," said Laili. "The challenge was to find customers at the beginning."

Now, Laili has a troop of midwives in her team. With almost 50,000 followers on Instagram, finding a customer is no longer a hassle for her.

"We are spread all over Jabodetabek, and we're coordinating through a WhatsApp group [because we don't really gather at one place]," she explained. "There are approximately 40 active midwives, but not all of them [accepts job orders] every day, some [limit themselves to] only receive 10 jobs in one month."

Laili is not the only midwife to take the entrepreneurial path. Even before the pandemic, the home-care business was a robust scene that many may not have noticed, except for mothers.

A nice alternative

Laily Zahra was pregnant in the middle of the pandemic. As her baby bump grew, so did the soreness. 

"I was craving a massage like the one ninik-ninik [normally elderly masseuse ladies] often provide," the 28-year-old East Jakarta resident laughed. "Maybe it's because I usually get massages from powerful ninik-ninik [I was actually a bit disappointed] by the home-care service I ordered."

Laily said she found the service through social media. "It was a famous [service] provider, many Instagram celebrities endorsed it, but the massage was too gentle for me," said Laily while asking not to reveal the provider's name. "The plus points were it provided health checks and it had strict COVID-19 protocols."

Many home-care services provide pregnancy massages to soothe the soreness that most mothers experience during pregnancy. Ayra, for example, provides prenatal packages with a price range from Rp 390,000 (US$27.20) up to Rp 720,000 that includes acupressure, breastfeeding massages, perineum massages and even prenatal yoga. There are also postpartum packages, newborn care packages and baby spas.

Providing similar treatment with similar packages is Wilda Amalia, known for her home-care business named Rubidza that has been around much longer than Ayra. Rubidza was established in 2015 by Wilda, a 34-year-old midwife from Cibinong, Bogor. 

Wilda is a graduate of midwifery with a bachelor’s in public health, who had practiced for seven years in two different clinics in Central Jakarta and South Jakarta after graduating from midwifery in 2009.

"Rubidza was born from my personal experience of the baby blues when my first child was born. At that time, I was not able to [easily] breastfeed my baby, so I needed special assistance so I could breastfeed in a good and correct position," she said. "However, at that time, there were no midwives who did home visits, so I struggled on my own to breastfeed my baby comfortably."

However, unlike Ayra, even though it is also active on social media, Rubidza relies more on word-of-mouth marketing. It started in 2015, and many loyal customers remain faithful to the business.

"I know Rubidza from my office colleagues, a group of mothers who dominate the lactation room," said Fatimatuzzahra from Bintaro, South Jakarta, who was seven months pregnant when she found out about Rubidza. "It was my first time using a maternity massage service. Due to my large bump, I often got cramps in my legs."

Zahra, as the 33-year-old is often called, remains faithful to the service. Her daughter is now almost five years old, and she still receives toddler massages from Rubidza.

"The price is budget-friendly, [and] the midwives are professional [...] so you don't have to leave the house," Zahra explained. "During this pandemic, I am not worried because Rubidza is strict with their procedures. They are very disciplined and always do swab tests routinely and inform the customer about the results of the tests."

Win-win for everyone

Wilda established her service out of anxiety. She met a lot of mothers failing to breastfeed because of the lack of information and assistance when breastfeeding their baby for the first time.

"I saw a lot of patients who were not able to breastfeed properly, and this made me anxious as a midwife. I don't want my patients to experience the same thing that I experienced before," she said. 

"Rubidza was created with the breastfeeding assistance service as the focus, including consultation on lactation with additional lactation massage services. We provide home visits so that patients can be more comfortable."

Currently, Rubidza has a small team of four midwives and two staff to help with the operations, including Wilda "Ida" Hadiani, a midwife from West Jakarta. However, Ida still plans to return to the medical service when the time is right. "I still want to help people give birth," said the 25-year-old.

Evie Yusniawati, on the other hand, an independent home-care service provider in West Jakarta, said she planned to stick to providing the home-care service instead of returning to work in clinics. "[I tried the gig] because I wanted to work flexible hours," she said.

The business has proven to be beneficial for both mothers and midwives. At Ayra, the management applies commission-based benefits for its midwives to ensure flexibility, such as the one coveted by Evie.

"[We established] a profit-sharing system. 70 percent of the payments, including transportation fees and tips from the customers, go to the midwives, [while the rest] are for Ayra's management," said Laili, who also has no intention of returning to clinic-based medical services so she can continue to nurture her business, although she said her new path was by no means less difficult.

"The hardest thing in this profession, both physically and mentally, is probably the erratic weather … not to mention the traffic," Wilda explained when asked about the challenges in running her business.

"From a mental health point of view, more often than not, we support clients who are feeling down due to the baby blues and lack of confidence in their breast milk production or in caring for their babies. This means it is necessary for us to mentally prepare ourselves to be more patient in accompanying them and providing these services."

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