STL Nurture Collective is the center all first-time moms need

Six weeks after giving birth, many new moms are told some version of, You’re cleared—good luck! But as anyone who has experienced postpartum knows, at that stage, bodies still hurt, emotions are raw, babies might not latch, and the “village” everyone promised often doesn’t quite shows up.

In South City, STL Nurture Collective is quietly rewriting that script, bringing chiropractic care, pelvic floor and pediatric physical therapy, mental health services, massage, and community programming under one roof—so postpartum care doesn’t end at survival, but begins with being truly seen and supported.

The first steps

The idea was born when Dr. Sara Strohmeyer, owner of Transcendent Chiropractic, discovered a lack of care options in her own postpartum experience and in her neighborhood as a whole. “There’s a huge pediatrics practice down here, but otherwise, finding a pelvic floor therapist is next to impossible, and pediatric physical therapy—I didn’t even know what that was until I had my third and fourth kids,” Strohmeyer says. “Looking back now, I know I could have done all these things for my kids and for myself and maybe not have ripped out half of my hair. I just wanted a space where everybody can come together, and we could provide all these services so that moms weren’t so overwhelmed, and everything was here in one building, and moms weren’t trying to find all of these things in all of these different places.”

Strohmeyer got to work assembling a group of providers under one roof, with all of them catering to women and families in that tender time of need:

• Dr. Audrey, associate chiropractor of Transcendent Chiropractic
• Dr. Alyssa Hoyer, owner of Together in Motion Pediatric Physical Therapy
• Dr. Ashley Williams, owner of PelviMama Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy
• Dr. Erika Franta, licensed pediatric psychologist with Brave Young Minds
• Rebecca Renee, licensed massage therapist and owner of Relax & Refine
• Kait Strohmeyer, office manager of Transcendent Chiropractic

Officially announced in December 2025 as STL Nurture Collective, each practitioner came in with their own skillsets and experience, but the mission is shared. “A lot of the moms that I see… after they have the baby, everything transitions to, It’s about the baby, and then as they get a little bit beyond that, they know they’re a mom, but they kind of forget that they’re postpartum,” Strohmeyer says. “So for me, the idea of nurturing is that, No, we’re still taking care of you, too. You don’t just disappear into the background. It’s still very much about you and your care. And if we take care of you, that gives you more bandwidth to really engage and take care of your kids, too.”

What to expect when you’re expecting (and beyond)

The integrated, one-stop-shop approach to care that STL Nurture Collective provides smooths the navigation of many types of physical and mental hurdles commonly faced in pregnancy and postpartum.

“Usually, families reach out to one of us first—whatever their priority is, whether that’s pelvic floor adjustments, pediatric PT, massage, whatever,” Strohmeyer says. “And from there, we all have that conversation…of, Oh, hey, my child needs this or I’m experiencing this, and then we introduce them to a person who can help with that need, and then they book with that person. It’s nice because the other practitioner is already in the building, so then the mom and the child can lay eyes on who we’re talking to and actually have that conversation with them in person, almost like a mini consult, before they even take that next step. So then they’re comfortable with who they’re going to be seeing.”

Strohmeyer adds that providers have noticed challenges or needs more quickly with the integrative structure, and clients and patients, therefore, have seen improvements much faster. For Williams, the nature of pelvic floor therapy and birth doula work means that she’s often seeing new moms very early in their postpartum—or even pregnancy—journey, and the intimacy of the care leads to conversations for which she’s happy to be able to offer solution-oriented pathways.

“We’re often getting really in-depth about her family in general, and so whenever she says, ‘Oh, yeah, breastfeeding is terrible,’ or ‘I have pain with the latch,’ or ‘She hardly latches,’ then I can easily say, Well, let’s go see Dr. Alyssa. It’s nice to just be like, ‘Oh, well, why don’t you go next door just to see what she says?’”

Some of the providers within STL Nurture Collective accept insurance, and some do not, but Hoyer says being cash-based in her practice allows for more freedom and flexibility in the care she can offer her patients, such as visiting a new breastfeeding mom’s house for evaluation because the baby’s latch wouldn’t transfer from clinic to home. “I’ve seen a lot more progress quicker because we don’t have the limitations that insurance places on our plans of care,” she adds. “I can help the family unit as a whole. I can help treat the mom to then help treat her child in a sense. And that’s where you really can enhance that connection and that growth, not only in the child but the parent, because by treating the parent, you’re then treating the child.”

“Wrap and Recharge” events have been a major success for the group, with present-wrapping help at the holidays, facials and massages that give moms some “me” time, and play time during which moms can ask providers their burning questions as kids play. 

This spring, the collective will be adding aesthetician services through Relax & Refine. Hoyer will also begin offering classes for parents who might not need continuous care but do need short-term help with developmental milestones such as walking, crawling, or tummy time. The group is also working to bring in other professionals that offer essential education, such as CPR training. “That way, families can still come into that familiar space but get that full support that they need to feel comfortable as parents,” Hoyer says.

The waiting room of STL Nurture Collective is circular in shape, and doors are always open when patients aren’t being seen. “It ends up being a big mom conversation because you’re always finishing out your conversation when you’re moving toward the waiting area or the front door, and, I feel like more than once one of us has run out of our rooms and said, ‘Oh, my gosh, I have experience with that!’” Strohmeyer says. “It’s beyond professional knowledge. We’re almost all moms, so the waiting area is just a giant community of, ‘Hey, this is what we’ve learned.’”

Care starts now

Strohmeyer explains that the providers of STL Nurture Collective view their collective job as figuring out what moms don’t know they need and how to pull all those elements together for them.

“We’re trying to find the gaps between motherhood and the outside world, and trying to fill those gaps as best we can with nurturing and support,” she adds. “Where is the rest of the world dropping the ball for these women? We want to be that spot that picks it up and helps them along so that they are thriving and not just surviving.”

With a community connection at STL Nurture Collective’s heart, the group has a range of messages that they wish could reach women in the St. Louis area who are about to go through pregnancy and postpartum. Primarily, Hoyer says, it’s that preventative care is just as important as care: “You don’t have to wait until it’s bad.”

Strohmeyer agrees: “It’s going to be stressful—it just is. There’s a lot of a lot of change out there, and it’s hard not to be overwhelmed. But I think preparing yourself and your body before you even begin to think about entering the stage is super important. I wish that I had brought myself to that mindset before I had entered the stage instead of trying to play catch up afterward. Even if it’s a minor physical symptom, it is worth it to address before your hormones go nuts and the stress on your body increases tenfold.”

Williams tells women, “Just give me an hour of your time, no matter where you are. If you just knew how the pelvic floor actually works, then you would know that you wanted help during pregnancy or postpartum. You would know how important it was.”

Franta notes that she advises such preparation extend to the mind as well. “Parenthood is actually a lot of individual work,” she says. “The best thing we can do is prepare ourselves to be emotionally and mentally the best version, prior to all these physical and hormonal changes, the pain, being relied on solely by this other being. No matter how cute they are, it’s still so stressful and physically hard… Our minds and our bodies really go together, seamlessly. And so we really need to prepare both of those to get to that space, to be ready.”

Rebecca Renee says she hopes that STL Nurture Collective can help women find themselves again—or better yet, never lose themselves in the first place: “We’re trying to have these women prepare themselves the best they can before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and after pregnancy to still be them. We want to make sure that you are you, and that your mind and body are full and healthy—so you can stay you, and then be a better parent, or simply a better human.”