Meet our naturopath Ashlee Yates
An incredibly positive health outcome for her child led naturopath Ashlee yates to focus on paediatrics and her knowledge is so valuable to all families.
Naturopath Ashlee Yates has been through every parent’s worst nightmare with her eldest child being diagnosed with kidney disease. However, this is a good news story with her son’s health improving largely thanks to an integrative healthcare team.
This experience and her incredible clinical knowledge have shaped Ashlee into a trusting and empathetic pracitioner (traits we hold highly here at NFK). Her passion for assisting families in improving their children’s health, particularly those faced with chronic issues, is inspiring.
As every child’s needs are unique (something Ashlee experienced first-hand), Ashlee takes an individualised approach. You won’t receive a cookie-cutter prescription or goals that are unrealistic for your family’s lifestyle. Ashlee will provide you with evidence-based natural healthcare that’s tailored to your child and achievable for your family.
Ashlee Yates is available for online naturopath consultations at Nutrition For Kids. To find out if Ashlee is a pracitioner you can connect with, she’s answered a few of our top questions.
Meet Naturopath Ashlee Yates
1. Why work with kids and stressed out mums?
It seems like a whole lifetime ago that I was dropped into the deep end when it comes to motherhood and stress. My eldest child was born with kidney disease, diagnosed in utero, following a previous pregnancy loss. It was my worst nightmare after what I thought had already been my worst nightmare.
At birth, he required urgent specialist review. At 18 months, he was given a clean bill of health. I dedicated everything I had in me to support his growth and development. An integrative approach to healthcare, utilising herbal and nutritional medicines alongside specialist care, changed his initial prognosis in a way that still brings tears to my eyes.
He has now been here for almost a decade. He has one final review with our pediatric urologist in a few months time where we expect he will be discharged from any and all follow-up monitoring. I have lived through the experience of being a parent to a child with a chronic disease, that was all the motivation I needed to pursue a clinical focus towards children's health.
2. Favourite way to start your day?
A warm morning, listening to the rainbow lorikeets in my gumtree (my home is adjacent to a national park). I love waking up to one or two of my kiddos crawling into bed with me so we can get some good quality snugs in before the morning rush kicks off.
I guess it probably wouldn't be a 'morning rush' if we just got up and got on with the weekday/school routine.
3. Drink of choice?
Gin and soda with lime in summer, or cab sav in winter. I'm guessing that's probably not what you meant though!
I live across the road from a cold-pressed juice kitchen, they have two different green juice blends that go down pretty well before happy hour starts. Special mention to macadamia milk which I use in my morning coffee (full disclosure - once you try macadamia milk you'll never be able to go back to almond).
4. Favourite food?
Oh, what a horrible question, who can narrow it down to just one! I love cherries, going cherry-picking with my kids is one of my favourite family activities over the summer. My husband grew up on an oyster farm, so his seafood preparation skills are pretty much ingrained into his DNA. There's no way to truly express how grateful I am for that.
5. Where will we find you when you’re not in the clinic?
I hike in the national park almost daily with my blue heeler, Raj. I love gardening, so I'll often do a quick lap of my backyard between consults to do a bit of weeding or try to talk the local wildlife out of destroying my fruit trees.
Aside from that, I'm the parent of the kids that have a ridiculously long list of extracurricular activities, so my second job is as an unpaid chauffeur. I honestly don't know how it got so bad. I've never encouraged after school activities, but both of my kids absolutely love sport and unfortunately, they seem to be quite good at it.
6. What’s your go-to weeknight meal?
I don't usually cook dinner, I handle breakfast and lunch boxes and my husband takes care of evening meals. Generally speaking, we prioritise meals that have leftovers. This way there's enough for lunch the following day or dinner the next night if we're both tied up with work.
We do a roast every Sunday, and I make a big batch of quinoa with steamed greens and dukkah. We'll get 3-4 subsequent meals out of this, either for mid-week lunches or dinners. I really love my quinoa greens recipe for its simplicity and versatility, when we have this in the fridge all we need to do is cook a protein and dinner is sorted with all the important food groups included.
7. Favourite travel destination (for when we get there!)?
I love getting back to the coast on the Eyre Peninsula. I don't hesitate to pull my kids out of school here and there so we can sneak in a long weekend of camping. Getting back to nature really helps me to reset if work and life, in general, has been frantic.
I'm also really looking forward to taking my kids to the Gold Coast, they've just reached that age where they're tall enough for roller coasters (I realise that's probably an odd milestone for a mum to look forward to). My favourite childhood memory is going on every single ride at Disneyland so I'm keen to share a similar experience with my own kids.
8. What are you reading right now?
I'm working my way through a pediatric mastery course reading material. It's essential to stay up to date with new research that's always coming to light in herbal and nutritional medicine, especially in the pediatric field.
9. If you could prescribe any tip/dietary/lifestyle recommendation to parents about their child’s health, what would it be?
Some words of reassurance; you have done the absolute best that you could with the knowledge and resources that you had available to you at the time. Also, don't buy multi-vitamin gummies for kids!
AT NUTRITION FOR KIDS, WE’RE PASSIONATE ABOUT HOLISTIC HEALTH CARE.
Naturopath Ashlee Yates is available for online consultations to help optimise your child’s health. Ashlee works in a variety of areas from infant health right through to supporting your growing teenager.
Book with Ashlee today here