Get found by parents who need you most

A NOTE FROM RAJI

“The photographs are the easy part. The hard part is what gets said in between.”

I've spent years photographing maternity sessions and newborn shoots across Melbourne.

The mum at 36 weeks who tells me — half-laughing, half in tears — that she's spent six weeks trying to find a doula and just gave up. The new mother who arrives for a newborn shoot running on three hours of sleep, asking if I know “anyone, anyone at all” who can help her with feeding. The dad who messages weeks later asking if I have a sleep consultant to recommend, because they've already tried four and none felt right.

I always know someone. I always do. Almost every brilliant doula, lactation consultant, and sleep specialist in Melbourne has been in my studio at some point — photographing their own kids, or referred by another mum, or quietly recommending each other. They are extraordinary at what they do. And almost none of them are easy to find.

That's what kept circling in my head. Not the photographs. The realisation that the women I was photographing — exhausted, overwhelmed, doing their best — were searching for help that already existed. The system was failing them on both ends. Failing the parents who couldn't find the right person. And failing the pros who deserve to be found.

First Flutter is what came out of that thought. A platform where parents can find the right person at the right moment, instead of three weeks too late. Where the pros we admire — the ones who hold families through their hardest weeks — can be discovered without having to fight Instagram's algorithm or wait on a referral that may never come.

We're starting in Melbourne — and the first fifty professionals to join get three months of Featured on us.

If you're a pregnancy or newborn professional in Melbourne, and you've ever felt like the families who needed you most didn't quite find you in time — we'd love to talk.

Raji

Founder, First Flutter, Melbourne