The boutique, which opened in September, is the brainchild of an Encinitas obstetrician, Dr. Robert Biter, and retail business consultant Laura Ann Fairchild. They met last year when Fairchild was pregnant with her first child and Biter was her physician.
“We offer the one-stop shop, the learning environment where you can buy products approved by an OB-GYN and a new mom,” Fairchild said. “We really are a resource for moms for the nine months of pregnancy up to 4T.”
Added Biter, “I wanted to show that you can have healthier products and a more holistic beginning of life that’s stylish and fun and cool.”
Biter found out about Fairchild’s retail background during her pregnancy with son Rion, now 5 months old. Biter is in the process of building a birth center in Carlsbad that will focus on natural childbirth. To go along with that, he wanted to have a boutique to help his patients find the products and services he was recommending to them.
“I was sending them all over the Web and to different stores to help them in their journey to parenthood,” Biter said.
He also was suggesting yoga classes to help with childbirth or baby massage to help new mothers cope with a fussy newborn.
“I would make those recommendations and get a patient to buy into this, and then they would ask me, ‘Where do I go?’ ” Biter said.
Babies by the Sea Boutique sells a variety of products, from a prenatal cradle support system that helps alleviate lower back pain to breast-feeding supplies and pumps that one might not find in a “box store,” Biter said.
The store also offers all-natural supplements, books on art and education, wooden toys painted with vegetable-based dyes, and clothing and accessories made with organic and remnant fabrics.
Screenshot from Babies by the Sea Boutique