Motherhood is a transformatory phase of a woman to a Mother. Every woman dreams to be a mother to a child and when this Child is born we should note the famous quote, “It takes a village to raise a child! ”

Birth and Beyond Clinic -Child Care and Lactation Counseling Center’s founder, Dr Surabhi Goverdhan Sangwai, Paediatrician, Lactation Consultant, Infant and Young Child Nutrition Expert, and FTT care Provider, experienced it first-hand when she became a proud mother. Her breastfeeding journey was quite challenging. Despite having such thorough knowledge and having helped many mothers, she couldn’t breastfeed her baby exclusively for almost a week after birth.

She then realized the need for an additional and skillful hand-holding during a mother’s immediate postpartum period. She discovered the agony of a mother who gives birth to a new life for the first time who has to support the baby’s life only on the milk her body is designed to produce naturally and starts facing challenges right from the early days.

An Essential Link in the Healthcare Loop

The theory and influencers around a mother would never be on one page leading her to further stages of confusion and anxiety. Being a mother to this baby and playing the several roles a woman is expected to model, Dr Surabhi decided to venture into the field of Lactation Counseling as an addition to her work in Pediatrics and  to create an additional link in the Health Care loop. Where the mother would usually meet an obstetrician for her prenatal care, and later she goes to a pediatrician till the child grows 18 years.

Dr. Sangwai is a Consultant Paediatrician, neonatologist and passionate promoter of breastfeeding and optimal infant feeding practices in the community and has been advocating its importance through her practice in pediatrics for almost a decade. She finished her graduation in medicine from PDMMC, Amravati (MS) and did her Post Graduation in Pediatrics from DMIMS, Sawangi (MS). She had worked in several public, rural, and urban health centers and medical colleges before she founded this one of its kind state of art Lactation Counseling Center at Nagpur, which is dedicated to providing thorough guidance on various possible breastfeeding challenges and childcare queries faced by parents and families routinely and in exceptions as well.

A unit of Sangwai Clinics, Birth and Beyond Clinic is a unique setup where breastfeeding mother and baby dyads are helped with their challenges during the first few weeks postpartum. This center was founded by Dr Surabhi Goverdhan Sangwai, a Consultant Pediatrician and an avid Breastfeeding Support Professional, amidst the challenging times of Covid pandemic in the year 2020. She had been working with children and their parents for a decade now. She is an Infant and Young Child Nutrition expert and the first Pediatrician in Nagpur to have received a scholarship for learning the Functional Tongue Ties and their impact on breastfeeding. She is a certified Functional Tongue Tie Care provider.

She informs, “We have a Comprehensive Dental Care and Implant Clinic under the same head where we take care of the babies with oral restrictions and sleep issues .”

This clinic is headed by Dr Prasanna Sangwai, a Consultant Implantologist and Prosthodontic Dental Surgeon with over 15 years of experience and expertise.

Recently the Dental Clinic was bestowed with an interesting opportunity where Dr Surabhi mentions, “The famous Indian cricketer Ravindra Jadeja got his dental treatment done at our ‘Sanjeev Dental Clinic,’ a unit of Sangwai Clinics, at Nagpur, Maharashtra, India, before his test match in Nagpur, in the month of February 2023.”

Dr.Surabhi and Dr.Prasanna Sangwai collaborate to provide evidence-based care to children with oral restrictions and sleep issues.

An International Board Certified Lactation Consultant 

Dr Surabhi is Nagpur’s first lady Pediatrician to have bagged the prestigious credential of International Board Certified Lactation Consultant from the IBLCE, USA, in the year 2020, which was a product of her sincere motivation to promote breastfeeding in the community. Her clinic offers Lactation Counseling with Comprehensive Child Care to the mother-baby dyads from the Antenatal period to early postpartum and continued support till two years and beyond.

The quality of hand-holding, which a mother needs in this crucial phase of her life, is provided at this center. Regular follow-ups with mothers through telephonic support is one of the special services available at Birth and Beyond Lactation Counseling Center India.

Dr Surabhi works on the panel of several organizations (including websites and apps)  related to mother and child care all over India and can be reached through her website, www.sangwaiclinics.com and also those platforms digitally. Here are a few of them, including BPNI, Nourish 1000 days, MomKidCare, BabyVerse, Humm Care , Sangopan TenderCare Pvt Ltd and many more.

Sharing the immersive benefits that Birth and Beyond Clinic provides its clients, Dr Surabhi says that a mother should feel glad about her creation and enjoy the phase of motherhood she has stepped into. After visiting this center, most mothers have felt the utmost need for Lactation Counseling during their postpartum period. Many mothers have also reported feeling at ease and more confident about themselves and their caretaking capacities once they get this session after delivery. Also, the technical and practical hand-holding provided here is a unique feature of the healthcare professional involved in their care plan. The easily available service with specialized dentistry is an additional benefit to parents facing issues with poor oral hygiene, pediatric sleep / breathing issues or associated dental problems of children.

This center strictly prohibits using infant milk substitutes or accessories available in the market and abides by the IMS Act in India.

The comprehensive child care provided here covers the following list of services: –

• Breastfeeding Speciality Support 0-2 years
• Optimal Nutrition for growth and Development (0-18years)
• Asthma Care Clinic.
• Routine and Special Immunization/Vaccination with National Guidelines. (0-18 years)
• Behavior disorders in Children. (0-18 years)
• Development Assessment of children. (0-5 years)
• Adolescent Counseling.
• Infectious Diseases treatment.
• All other Pediatric queries. (0-18 yrs.)

Helping Mothers via Telemedicine

Being an experienced leader, Dr Surabhi shares her opinion on how adopting modern technologies like AI and ML impacts the Child Healthcare space and how her Clinic/Center is adapting to the change. She says that COVID has taught humanity a lesson to upgrade and enhance the survival strategies where technology has proven an amicable role. Birth and Beyond Child Care and Lactation Counseling center is a prominent service provider  for parents seeking help for their breastfeeding and child nutrition assistance in central and pan India. She adds, “We have been helping mothers in Pan India and using Telemedicine as an important platform for the same with all the ethical considerations.”

According to Dr Surabhi, child healthcare’s crucial role is increasing daily. She says, “COVID affected the elderly to start with and still is a disease of the aged predominantly: Children were less affected in the first wave, and of them, the breastfed babies were the last to get it. We must realize that immunity has played an important role in modifying the disease response. Although we consider children a vulnerable group of the immune susceptible population, they could still manage to get less affected in the first wave. So it is of utmost importance that we take care of our children today in gross as well as microscopy lest they form an immunocompetent force to fight the future pandemics.”

Several countries in the world have been fighting malnutrition for under five years. Therefore, the child healthcare sector involving healthcare experts, governments, and organizations are continuously developing and promoting the scope of working for this future progeny to be better with all the possible methods to prevent malnutrition and enhance the expression of their highest growth potential.

Proliferating Correct Infant/Baby Feeding Practices 

She furthers that considering the current scenario, the biggest challenge is to create awareness regarding the importance of this part of a healthcare facility. People are exposed to many marketing gimmicks that mislead most parents to start their babies by providing infant milk substitutes and packaged foods.

Organizations like BPNI are fighting hard to create an impact for a healthy nation, as the foundation of health lies in the optimal growth and development of our children, who will form future generations. She assures, “Our clinic and Center abide by the IMS act in India and conduct regular activities on social and public platforms to promote the correct practices of Infant and Young Child Feeding as guided by WHO and UNICEF.”

As an expert in this field, Dr Surabhi updates her credentials by conducting research, clinical case presentations and attending conferences of her speciality. She is a Life member of the Indian Academy of Paediatrics, Human Milk Bank Association of India, IYCF chapter, BPNI, ILCA and several other prestigious organizations in India and the world.

Ensuring the Fittest Humankind

In her advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the Healthcare space, Dr Surabhi says, “Health, in my view, is a state which needs to be invested in holistically  and can then be gifted to humanity by service.” So those who desire to be an entrepreneur in this sector,  should feel compassion above making money. “As we know the law of the universe, which depicts since ages, what we give comes back to us.”

So if you contribute to health, the same will also make you wealthy. Never forget that compassion makes the human a being in harmony which shall prevail incessantly, and thereby the one who holds the healing touch is the same who has learnt the art of delegating health care truthfully!

On envisioning scaling Birth and Beyond Clinic’s operations and offerings in future, Dr Surabhi reveals that this setup is progressive to involve a team management protocol where a mother-baby dyad is going to learn to become comfortable with each other and mother can get more confident in her caretaking capacities along with a holistic approach which beliefs in healing a human from within, be it a mother, a baby or their family.

A pediatrician, an obstetrician, a lactation counselor, a dentist, a pediatric physiotherapist and a psychiatrist are the possible links as they may need to reach out. All of them can be found in the expert team of Birth and Beyond Child Care and Lactation Counseling Center situated at Bajaj Nagar, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India.

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