Mothers Need to Nurture Their Own Bodies After Childbirth. Massiel Eversley Has the Scoop.

On her busiest days, when afternoon slumps hit and Massiel Eversley realizes she needs sustenance for the rest of her meetings, she breaks out her all-in-one protein powder. She’ll combine a scoop with frozen banana, peanut butter, and a splash of oat milk—or other ingredients she’s got on hand—to transform the supplement into a “whippy” concoction her family craves.

“My toddler will grab my straw and have a few sips,” Eversley says of her smoothies, which have become staples in her kitchen. Not only do they keep the mother of three full and fueled for meetings and workouts; Eversley’s blends of plant-based ingredients also brought her “peace of mind” after her third pregnancy.

As she researched and experimented with formulations back in 2019, Eversley—a Northeastern University nursing graduate—realized she was her own test subject to fill a gap in the supplement market. Her vegan, low-sugar, and gluten-free product, Nisus Life, is specifically designed to meet the nutritional needs of childbearing people.

Because, Eversley says, healing is hard when parents are preoccupied with raising an infant. Concerns about gestational diabetes beget worries about low milk supply and then layer with signs of upset stomachs from ingredients such as fenugreek (an herb similar to clover). All this consumes parents’ minds as they’re just trying to get to know their new baby.

“There’s no way a mom can figure this out,” Eversley, director of nursing at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, remembers thinking as she traded foods in and out of her diet. Despite her medical background, she still faced struggles in her postpartum journeys.

While in recovery mode after her first child was born, Eversley grappled with her own and her daughter’s food intolerances. Options that were safe for both mother and child as Eversley breastfed were severely limited—she jokes that, at the time, she often subsisted on handfuls of almonds. Two pregnancies later, Eversley found herself frustrated again. She suffered from headaches and stomach pains as she struggled to make sense of the many supplement bottles in her kitchen. Soon, she was in a hospital bed.

Her diagnosis: preeclampsia, a high blood pressure disorder that emerges during or following pregnancy. The health scare encouraged Eversley to “go back to basics” and focus on the three areas where she needed support: lactation, mood, and healing. Luckily for her, she had a background in medicine to guide her. But not everyone does.

“There needs to be more empathy for moms,” says Eversley. “There’s not enough.” She describes the decision fatigue faced by new parents who strive, while short on sleep and restoration, to make the best choices for their little ones. Add their own health concerns to the equation, she says, and the task at hand can feel nearly impossible.

In 2021, Eversley’s solution to the problem expanded from her kitchen to the digital marketplace. While the health advocate and self-proclaimed “nursepreneur” juggled family life and unprecedented responsibility on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, she launched Nisus Life—a product that’s safe for all genders and ages.

Her mission in business, to make nutrition simple and accessible for parents and their children, felt for Eversley like a direct extension of her commitment to care in her day-to-day job. The strength of Eversley’s multidisciplinary perspective is even clearer today. Her product line, on the cusp of expansion, earned her fourth place recognition among Northeastern University’s Innovator Award winners this year.

The annual celebration of changemakers recognizes noteworthy endeavors across disciplines and creates space for founders to connect with their Women Who Empower peers. It’s a brain hive for enterprising students and alumnae which also doubles as a financial incubator. Now in its third year, the initiative recently boasted a new record of funds for Eversley’s cohort: $500,000.

Eversley remembers approaching her husband, Eric, with her tentative game plan to birth Nisus Life into the world. It meant walking away from her position as regional nurse director at the Brigham.

“I’m going to give myself six months,” she remembers telling herself as she prepared for earlier mornings and even later nights. “I was thinking of all the moms that I could help—moms who didn’t even know that they needed me yet.” 

To Eversley’s relief, Eric was in her corner.

“The worst thing would be to not try it, then live life with a lot of regrets,” he reflects now. As a fellow Northeastern graduate who studied business administration, Eric says he understands the entrepreneurial mindset and the many investments—time, energy, money—required to succeed. It’s the same dedication, he adds, that fueled Eversley as she thrived in Northeastern’s competitive nursing program.

Her blend of ambition, balance, and proactivity has helped Eversley stay resolute as she pivots. 

“When a patient is admitted, you already start to plan the discharge,” she explains, relying upon what she calls her “nurse brain.” She approached her immersion in the launch of Nisus Life the same way. If she established a lean business model from the start, partnering early with her formulation expert, contracting her manufacturer, and streamlining consumer testing, she anticipated that she’d return to her nursing position in short order. And she did.

“When she came back, [Massiel] saw what was possible on a larger level, for the good of more,” says Danika Medina, former associate chief nurse at the Brigham. Eversley’s renewed knowledge of complex systems and their interdependencies, Medina adds, helped her to thrive both inside and outside of the hospital setting and put her on parallel tracks bound for the same destination.

“I see it as my main job funding my dream,” explains Eversley—now full-time director of nursing and full-time CEO. But the mission isn’t hers alone. 

Community and access have always hummed at the center of Eversley’s life. She remembers her early days in the Dominican Republic, where family dinners meant shared plates of rice, beans, and chicken; where she once added condensed milk to her Malta and savored a slower paced life; where today, after discovering her own food intolerances, she shares about her protein powder and other compliant foods.

Eversley says that democratization of information is key to breaking down barriers to nutrition and medicine. She knows through personal experience about the difficulties of seeking care in a new country. But she’s also witnessed the disparities exposed by COVID-19 and treated asthma patients who, because they live in “certain area codes,” cope with poor air quality. It’s heavy “baggage” that even a simple and nutritious smoothie can help to lighten, she says.

“Having somebody like me bringing out a product like [Nisus Life can expose] a whole other community of folks that never thought about it to the health benefits of a smoothie.”

The future line of Nisus Life offerings, some of which are already in the works, may include prenatal formulations for expectant parents and supplements for children. Though product development and the consumer testing to follow is time-consuming and expensive, Eversley knows she can stay the course.

“I’ve had a lot of doors slammed in my face,” Eversley says. “But you just have to keep on knocking.”