Philly’s first luxury postpartum retreat offers yoga for mom and a doula to watch baby

After Meghan Gallagher gave birth, she knew she wanted more help than she could get in the hospital.

She soon found the Shoshana, a luxury retreat for postpartum parents and their babies that opened last month in the Logan Hotel.

The Shoshana is Philadelphia’s first postpartum retreat, but similar outposts have popped up in places like Tokyo, and more recently in New York City and Washington, DC.

The retreats cater to the recovery needs of mom and her brand new baby, offering everything from parenting classes, lactation support, and nutritious, gourmet meals as well as a 24-hour nursery (something rarely available in local hospitals anymore) for whenever parents would like rest. The nursery is equipped with video monitors so parents can check on their little ones from the comfort of their luxury hotel rooms. Moms can also take yoga classes and get massages.

Rates at the Shoshana start at $1,100 a night but for $3,500 a night, guests will have access to a personal doula to provide support and care for the whole family. The Shoshana does not currently accept insurance.

Founded by Spencer Isen, a Philadelphia native with a background in finance and real estate, the Shoshana grew from his own experience becoming a parent.

“As someone who stood beside my wife during her postpartum journey, I intimately understand the physical, emotional, and mental transformation new mothers experience,” Isen wrote in his letter to new moms on the Shoshana’s website.

“There’s not really a holistic, comprehensive option for moms postpartum, and our goal is to really be that place where moms can come settle and have all the support they need … as they move through the postpartum journey,” Isen said.

Although Philadelphia is the poorest big city in America, Isen is confident that his luxury product will succeed here. He points out that Philadelphia is surrounded by middle- to upper-class suburbs and says bookings at the Shoshana have come from around the tristate area.

“I’m from Philly, so naturally this city made sense to me,“ said Isen. “While right now this is a luxury product, our goal is to eventually make it more accessible to mothers” of more income levels, “not just those who can … afford to pay for it out of pocket.”

Isen hopes the Shoshana will someday be able to take some sort of insurance, considering many offerings are overseen by medical personnel, including nurses and lactation consultants.

Gallagher, who lives in South Philly, says the high price tag was worth it for her family.

“At first I was put off by the price,” she said. But then she factored in the cost of the room, meals, and professional caregivers.

According to Care.com, the average cost of a night nurse in the Philadelphia area is $21 per hour, and many require long term contracts of eight to 12 weeks. The Shoshana recommends staying at least five days and that rate includes quite a bit more than just eight hours of baby care.

“The mental health and nutrition aspect alone make the price worth it,” said Gallagher.

For the director of care, Briana Davis, working at the Shoshana was a no-brainer.

After spending several years as a labor and delivery nurse in New Jersey hospitals, Davis wanted to spend more time with patients. She loved her work but felt like there was a “gap” in the postpartum care.

Now, she feels a renewed sense of purpose.

“I could have an impact here, more so than when I was a nurse on the floor,” she said.

Davis, who says she has a passion for postpartum mental health care, hopes that the Shoshana can help more women stay healthy, physically and emotionally, after giving birth. Postpartum depression affects one in seven women after giving birth, according to the National Library of Medicine.

Parents who don’t have “a village” — a common term used to describe a network of family and close friends who offer child-care support — due to a cross-country move or other circumstances, can find help at the Shoshana, she says.

At the Shoshana, “there are classes to help with every aspect of postpartum care, and it’s a very nice environment where they get the chance to have additional support,” Davis said.

Davis sees postpartum retreats as an extension of a family’s original hospital stay, but with a luxury touch.

“We want guests to have a luxury experience, and we want to go beyond just educating them,” she said. “We also want them to de-stress and not have to worry about cleaning their dishes and doing their laundry.”

Gallagher says her family’s stay at the Shoshana was a welcome break from the grind of early parenting.

“This is exactly what I needed when I was freshly postpartum, because my husband and I kind of were serious that we didn’t want to leave the hospital with our son,” she said. “If they would have kept us for a week, we would have stayed.”

For most of the family’s three-night stay, baby Rhys stayed in the nursery, but since Gallagher was nursing, she was in and out frequently.

It wasn’t until the third night that she was comfortable enough to leave him overnight.

The Shoshana’s staff helped Rhys get on a schedule, while allowing Gallagher to lean into self-care. “One day I went and got a massage while they watched him, and I was able to meet with a nutritionist and postpartum therapist,” she said.

Other amenities she considered were infant safety and CPR, a baby wearing class, and group therapy.

Overall, she found serenity in the experience.

“We would wake up, go feed my son, and then hang out with him, and then I would leave him in the nursery and go take a hot shower by myself, order breakfast to our room,” she said. “My husband would go to the gym, and we would just kind of relax into the morning while they had Rhys in the nursery.”