Hey, I’m Kiersten!
Welcome to Natural Home Apothecary – a place where I passionately share about how to satisfy your family’s basic needs at home.
In real life, I’m a wife, mother, registered nurse, compulsive researcher, and backyard hobby homesteader residing on the East End of Long Island with my family, children and animals.
After almost 15 years of working in health care with 14 of those spent in nursing, the pandemic changed my perspective and outlook on how I view the definition of “health”.
Separately, I was floating through the American healthcare system as a patient afflicted with autoimmune disease, hyperemesis gravidarum, severe pre-eclampsia with hospitalization, and unexplained anemias…little help was to be found despite having worked side by side with countless doctors as an RN.
The only constant was that I found myself ending up in the Emergency Department more often. I truly felt like the larger system had completely failed us despite years worth of training as a nurse.
After a decade of tedious research, self-experiments with remedies, and MAJOR overhauls to my diet and lifestyle, I finally began to see improvements in my health.
Now, life is so much better than I ever could have imagined.
After several variations, Natural Home Apothecary was born
This blog was started in 2017 (with 3 name changes before I got it right) and is a product of almost a decade’s worth of private and professional research to freely share everything valuable that I have learned.
Sometimes this looks like natural cold & flu remedies, sometimes this looks like a discussion about ingredients with natural alternatives, it may look like mental health development or self care, and sometimes this looks like our favorite German, Pennsylvania Dutch, Amish, or sourdough recipes (among many others!).
Life nowadays looks quiet and simple, but most importantly – life is happy. Take what you need, leave the rest behind.
Professional Notations
My area of expertise in nursing lie within hematology (study of blood), oncology (study of cancer), immunology (study of our immune system and its failures), and nurse midwifery (natural pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum care for mom and baby up to the first year of life).
Over the last decade, my research has been centered around microbiology, autoimmune disease, chemicals and substances that induce neurological damage and/or cancer, management of allergies, childhood illnesses and well baby care, and traditional healing modalities – specifically of the Amish communities local to Eastern Pennsylvania.
Notable academic papers include “Improving Maternal Health Outcomes in Vulnerable Populations”, “Improving Global Access to Maternal Healthcare in Low-Resource Settings”, and “Conceptual Analysis of Maternal Identity Achievement”.
I am a former member of the American College of Nurse Midwives, Emergency Nurses Association, and American Psychiatric Nurses Association. In 2020, I was accepted to a graduate program in Philadelphia to become a nurse midwife but declined my seat to focus on our family and home.
Meet Our Contributing Author – Heather Mandracchia
In 2023, Heather joined Natural Home Apothecary as a valuable contributor and author. She brings with her vast expertise and knowledge of home gardening, passion for literacy development within the educational system, and strong desire to move towards self-sufficiency for her and her family.
Heather is a devoted wife, mother, teacher, master gardener, and homemaker. She can most likely be found with her hands in the soil, working with the Earth, harvesting nature’s gifts into her kitchen to prepare nourishing meals from scratch for her family. Heather uses every opportunity to share traditional skills and teach those inquiring minds around her.