Geelong, Drysdale and telehealth
If you are worried about how your child eats, sleeps, or keeps getting sick, and the appointments so far have been too short to get to it, it is worth seeing someone who works with your GP and paediatrician rather than around them.
We don’t diagnose or treat medical conditions in children; that stays with your doctor. Our part is the nutritional, herbal and lifestyle work that sits alongside their care.
Eating, gut, sleep and recurrent illness in babies, children and teenagers. A parent or carer comes to every appointment, plans are built around what your family can realistically do, and we work alongside your GP, maternal and child health nurse or paediatrician.
When to see your doctor first. Anything that could be an illness goes to your GP or paediatrician first. In an emergency, call 000.
Mostly the things a ten-minute appointment cannot fit: a proper look at what your child eats and drinks over a week, how they sleep, how their gut behaves, and what has changed. Children are not small adults; their nutrient needs per kilogram are higher, their diets narrow easily, and their sleep and behaviour are tied to both. That is where a naturopath or nutritionist adds something, alongside your GP or paediatrician rather than instead of them.
Anything we suggest for a child is dosed for age and weight, chosen in consultation, and checked against anything they already take. No food comes out of a child’s diet on a hunch or a test result, because restricted diets do children real harm.
Children’s appointments are usually with Morgan Helmling, in Geelong, Drysdale or by telehealth. Morgan opened the clinic with Adrian Stone in 2015 and is an experienced clinical naturopath whose focus spans women’s health, fertility, pregnancy and children’s health.
Common questions
Any age, with the approach set by the age. For babies and toddlers the work is feeding, gut and sleep with the parents, alongside your maternal and child health nurse and GP. For school-age children and teenagers it is food, gut, sleep, energy and routine, with the child in the room.
Not with the diagnosis or its treatment, which stay with your paediatrician and the allied-health team. What a naturopath can do is look at the nutrition, gut and sleep factors that sit around behaviour and attention, and work on the ones that can be changed, alongside that team.
Not stop; children in childcare and school catch several colds a year and that is normal immune development. What we can do is look at whether food, nutrient status through your GP’s bloods, sleep and routine are making it harder to recover, and work on those. Anything that looks like more than a cold goes to your GP.
Most do not, and we start from food. Where a child’s diet has narrowed or a blood test through your GP shows something low, we work on food first and use age-and-weight-dosed support only where it is needed, for as short a time as needed, and never in place of medical care.
Yes, and we prefer to. Bring any results and letters you have; with your consent we send a summary back, and anything that needs their attention goes to them straight away.
No. You can book directly online or by phone. If your GP or paediatrician has ordered recent tests, bring the results and any letters; they shape the plan and often save repeating a test.
Initial consultation 60 min · $189 · Follow-ups 30 min · $89 · No referral needed
Initial consultations are prepaid, whether in clinic, by telehealth or by phone.
For private health consultation claiming, please enquire with your health fund to assess coverage. Nutrition consultations are covered by some private health funds — please check with yours first.
Geelong, Drysdale or telehealth
No referral needed. Bring any recent results.
Children’s appointments are usually with Morgan Helmling, in Geelong, Drysdale or by telehealth. A parent or carer comes to every appointment.
Initial consultation 60 min · $189 · Follow-ups 30 min · $89 · No referral needed
Initial consultations are prepaid, whether in clinic, by telehealth or by phone.
For private health consultation claiming, please enquire with your health fund to assess coverage. Nutrition consultations are covered by some private health funds — please check with yours first.
Or call (03) 5201 0557
