Gift of Life founder creates Windermere Baby and Family Wellness Center

After years of experience with labor and delivery, legal nursing and wedding and event planning, Rosie Moore had a question for herself: How can I make a difference but at the same time earn a living?

For Moore, a Windermere resident and founder of nonprofit The Gift of Life, choosing her next step was important. Having recently earned a doctoral degree in nurse practice and developed a transition program for parents of premature babies, Moore decided to return to her roots in labor and delivery. She will pursue a career as a nurse doula and create something new in the process — the Windermere Baby and Family Wellness Center.

“In January — I’ve been working for corporate America for many years and doing The Gift of Life — but I wanted to do something more,” she said. “I woke up one day and I said, ‘I need to do something more for people, but I need to be able to get paid for it because the charity does not pay me.’ Corporate America was just not doing it for me — they paid well, but I wasn’t feeling fulfillment because I felt I wasn’t able to reach people for what I wanted to do for them.”

Moore decided to go back to her nursing roots and become a certified doula. Doulas provide emotional, physical and educational support to expectant mothers during the labor process and postpartum. They are professionally trained in childbirth and aim to help women have safe, memorable birth experiences.

Along with a paying career doing something she’s passionate about, she will continue to run The Gift of Life and do wedding and event planning — but all services now are under one umbrella.

Windermere Baby and Family Wellness Center is a “baby concierge place,” where wedding and event planning, doula and other ancillary services are being offered. It is currently mobile, but Moore hopes to one day have office space to offer more to her clients. The goal of the center is to allow clients the freedom to enjoy pregnancy and motherhood by having services available in one spot.

“We decided to open the center, which is mobile right now until we find a location,” Moore said. “We travel to the hospital or home or birthing center. They can reach out to us as soon as they know they’re pregnant. …We have a conversation about their birth plan, they talk to their doctors, and we are considered a coach for them.”

WBFWC offers the services of “labor and postpartum doulas, lactation specialists, birth-education classes, infant CPR and maternity concierge services while a mother is on bed rest,” according to its website, with the goal of giving families a different approach to starting and raising their families.

Moore hopes to use her newest endeavor to educate women on good prenatal care and taking care of themselves to avoid premature birth and unnecessary surgeries, but she also wants to make pregnancy as stress-free as possible for her clients.

“We consider ourselves a concierge service and have partner relationships with yoga and pilates instructors, massage therapists and ultrasound technicians,” she said. “There’s everything all under one roof for them to make it easy, and (we’re) connected with them from day one. If they want maternity or labor pictures, we have several photographers we’re contracted with. We make referrals to where they need to go for all these services.”

Her nonprofit, The Gift of Life, will work seamlessly with WBFWC. For example, if a client comes through WBFWC for doula services and something happens where they must go into premature birth, Moore can refer them to The Gift of Life and connect them with mentors and resources. 

“I’m looking forward to the day we can have the (physical space for the) wellness center, where everything is housed there,” Moore said. “(Then) we can do the consults for the doula services and be able to offer lamaze, mommy-me classes, massage therapy, facials and that kind of thing there, so it gives them the ability to be in one place without having to travel. It would be opening up as a community service so they have a place to go where everything is all right there.”