Andrea Hedley
NCSA Founder & Executive Director
Advanced Newborn Care Specialist
Born and raised in the UK, Andrea moved to California in 2010. Soon after settling in the San Francisco Bay Area, she began her Postpartum Doula training with DONA, Lactation Educator and Working With Multiples training through CAPPA and was drawn to working with twin families. Andrea soon realized that whilst she loved the postpartum doula ethos of working with the family as a whole and the focus often being on Mum’s needs, a lot of her client families actually had different needs. Often the twin babies were premature, and contracts would start in the NICU alongside parents, with the babies having more specialized, even medical needs that the family requested support with during the transition from hospital and during the first few months at home.
Andrea began looking for more specialized baby-focused training and soon found and completed a Newborn Care Specialist course and immediately felt that the role of a Newborn Care Specialist better fitted her work.
Andrea is extremely passionate about continuing education and the importance of offering the most up-to-date information and resources to client families. She is a Certified Child Passenger Safety Technician, a Certified Breastfeeding Specialist, and has completed her IBCLC education and training and is currently working on her clinical hours before taking the final IBLCE Exam. She is a PMH-C and has qualifications in Perinatal Mental Health, including Perinatal Psychopharmacology, Infant Sensory Processing Early Intervention and Boston Children’s Hospital Brazelton Institute’s Newborn Behavioral Assessment Scale and Newborn Behavior Observations System. And is also qualified and experienced in tongue ties and infant feeding and supporting cleft-affected infants.
Andrea works throughout the US almost exclusively with multiples, has experience working with micro-preemies as small as two pounds, is comfortable working with high-profile families and has travelled internationally with client families.
She is excited to be able to help other Newborn Care Specialists achieve their professional best and to raise the profile of the newborn care specialist industry through her role as Executive Director of the NCSA.