Ep 197: Perinatal Mental Health with Anne Wanlund from Canopie

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Continuing on the topic of mental health, this week’s episode is an interview with the CEO and founder of Canopie, Anne Wanlund. Canopie is an app that works in tandem with top perinatal mental health experts to give parents access to clinically-effective therapies. Their mission is to make mental wellness support universal and a standard part of pregnancy and postpartum care.

I appreciate the preventative approach of Anne’s work. It helps bridge the gap between those who need care and the services that can help. Her own experience inspired her to create a solution: something streamlined, easy to use, and affordable - she’s even working to make it FREE!

I want you to know that I am not being compensated for this episode. I think Canopie is doing great work and I just love to bring you all information about tools that may be helpful in your pregnancy, birth and postpartum journey.

In this Episode, You’ll Learn About:

  • How prevalent perinatal issues are
  • How anxiety and depression screening tools are deficient
  • What the financial and societal impacts are of maternal mental health issues
  • What types of preventions are shown to be effective
  • What the Canopie app is and who it works for
  • How shame and stigma stop some people from seeking mental health care
  • What research has been done to evaluate the effectiveness of the app
  • How Canopie interfaces with traditional mental health services

Links Mentioned in the Episode

Keywords

app, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, postpartum mental health

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Keywords

app, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, postpartum mental health

Categories

Podcast

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Speaker 1 (00:00): In this episode, you are going to learn about perinatal mental health with Ann Wand from Canopy. Welcome to the All about Pregnancy and birth podcast. I'm Dr. Nicole Calloway Rankins, a board certified OB gyn, who's been in practice for nearly 15 years. I've had the privilege of helping over 1000 babies into this world, and I'm here to help you be calm, confident, and empowered to have a beautiful pregnancy in birth. Quick note, this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice. Check out the full disclaimer@drnicolerankins.com slash disclaimer. Now, let's get to it.

(00:52): Hello there. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. This is episode number 197. Whether you are a new listener or you've been listening for a while, I am so glad that you are spending some of your time with me today. In today's episode, we have Ann Wk. Anne is the CEO of Canopy, a company that is making mental health a standard part of care for expecting a new moms before Canopy. Anne led several maternal health focused organizations in East Africa, but she was caught off guard when she experienced severe prenatal anxiety during her first pregnancy, and she reflected on the ways that she was, she would have empowered herself, prenatally, and postpartum to prevent that deep spiral that she had. She's thought about things like communicating her feelings better to her partner, her family, her labor and delivery team. She wished that she would've engaged in practices that she could have leaned on and accessed at her most vulnerable moments.

(01:58): She wished that she would've taken a more gentle and nurturing tone to her own self talk during that vulnerable time. So her experience and reflection ultimately led her to create the Canopy app in tandem with some of the top perinatal mental health experts in the field and do that to give all parents access to clinically effective mental health therapies. Her mission is to make maternal mental healthcare universal to address the enormous care gap that we have. And it is so true that there is a huge, huge gap in the available services for perinatal mental health. So we dive into some of the financial societal impacts of maternal mental health issues, and then you're going to learn what the Canopy App is. How does it work? Who is it for? It's, it's a really cool program, actually, the cost of it, the research that's been done to evaluate the effectiveness, effectiveness of the app, how the programs were developed that are in the app.

(03:01): It's a really rigorous background, not like flat by night sort of thing. How does it work with traditional mental health services and so much more? Now, I want to be clear that I have no financial affiliation or incentive with the Canopy app. I'd just love to bring you all information about tools that may be helpful in your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum journey. And I believe that this is definitely something worth looking into and has a lot of potential to be incredibly helpful for many. Now, speaking of tools, another important tool is childbirth education. And if you have not done childbirth education, there are options out there. And I happen to have a great one called the Birth Preparation Course. The birth preparation course is my signature online childbirth education class that will get you calm, confident, and empowered to have a beautiful birth, especially in the hospital.

(03:59): You'll learn everything from getting in the right mindset to your birth, to the details of all of the things that are happening in your body during labor and birth. You'll get prepared for any possible curve balls that may come your way. You'll learn how to make a birth plan in a way that actually works to help you have the birth that you want, and you'll get some information to help you get off to a great start postpartum. Thousands of women have gone through the birth preparation course, and you should too. Check out all the details of the birth preparation course. I would love to have you head to dr nicole rankins.com/enroll. All right, let's get into the conversation with Anne wlan from Canopy. Thank you so much, Anne, for agreeing to come on to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you talk about yourself and your work today.

Speaker 2 (04:50): Thank you, Dr. Rankins. I'm really excited to be here.

Speaker 1 (04:53): All right. So why don't you start off by telling us a bit about yourself and your work and your family, if you'd like.

Speaker 2 (04:58): Okay. My name is Anne Wonk, and I live in Virginia. I have a three-year-old son. Okay. I'm currently expecting

Speaker 1 (05:10): Oh, congratulations. Thank

Speaker 2 (05:12): You. Right there in it. And I live here with my husband, and my company is focused on maternal mental health and taking a prevention and early intervention approach to maternal mental health conditions.

Speaker 1 (05:28): Awesome. And this is something that we definitely need to do more about because we are kind of failing women miserably in our traditional system. So I know you started the company, it's Canopy, correct? Yeah. After your own experience with perinatal anxiety. So can you tell us a little bit about what that was like for you?

Speaker 2 (05:50): Yeah. It was actually kind of a long winding and reluctant process. I actually have a maternal and child health background. I've worked mostly in global health on maternal and child health nutrition programs actually. Okay. But also kind of other social support designing interventions that serve lots and lots of pregnant or women or new moms. And I was really caught off guard by my experience. And it's not that I actually, I've struggled with depression and anxiety as an adult off and on, but I think I definitely underestimated how the pregnancy experience would affect my anxiety and realized that I basically didn't have any coping skills that would work for me while I was pregnant or that made sense for me. And it really all came to a head in the postpartum period when just more responsibility, less sleep, more stress on relationships. And I had my one month well child visit jack up and was screened for postpartum depression and couldn't actually talk, couldn't actually say one word during that appointment without crying, and didn't actually receive any resources as a result of that screening or having that. Are you serious kind of seriously interaction? Yeah. And it was just something that I realized having a public health background, I was like, wow, this is so common. We're screening for it, but then what is supposed to happen now? What do I do now? And that just really stuck with me.

Speaker 1 (07:42): Oh, that's actually pretty mortifying, because it's like, why are you going to ask and then not provide the help? It's almost like you're checking off the box, but not really helping people with the next step.

Speaker 2 (07:54): Yeah. Yeah. Was really, I really obsessed about this. And when we were starting the company, we actually talked to pediatricians and the American Academy of Pediatrics and found that a few of the issues were things like pediatricians aren't really the mom's doctor. They sometimes don't really know what to do or where to send people. And it's something that is trying to be addressed. Sure. But it's really so many systemic level. Absolutely. Challenges. And I'm sure as an OB you see this too. I mean, it's really, it's not quite out of scope because you're the doctor of the mom, but it is a different area.

Speaker 1 (08:41): For sure. For sure. For sure. So you said you have a background in mostly maternal health nutrition, so exactly what's your education? How'd you get to maternal health in general? I guess

Speaker 2 (08:57): A really good question. So I started out actually working at the State Department in h hiv aids, and was interested in the food and nutrition side of that. Mm-hmm. How our bodies come into this state and what do we do, what is the role of food and nutrition and keeping us healthy. And when I went to grad school, it was really focusing on humanitarian work and international development work. That's what I was really interested in afterwards internationally. And I got hooked up with some emergency doctors who worked at Massachusetts General Hospital who were doing emergency malnutrition interventions in Ethiopia and Uganda. So I joined really as a supply chain person. So really randomly. But I loved the screening. I loved interacting with the moms and the kids, and just felt such a root cause thing to be looking at. Sure. This fundamental state. And so I just kind of built my expertise by working on projects. Mm-hmm. Designing projects and working abroad after grad school, and taking food and nutrition and humanitarian classes in grad

Speaker 1 (10:17): School. Gotcha. Awesome. Awesome. I love it. I love it. So let's talk a little bit about the numbers and the impact that we know about maternal mental health issues, just so we can orient people to that. Cause I don't know that people necessarily understand how major it is. So how many women, especially in the US, are affected by perinatal mental health issues?

Speaker 2 (10:41): So it's very interesting. So between one and five and one and seven. But our national screening rates are, so that puts us in the millions. Our national screening rates are actually below 20%. And about 30% of moms don't feel comfortable being honest on screening questionnaires like the item bro, postnatal depression scale for many reasons. Stigma, worries about what's going to happen to their kid if they're honest. Sure. What is that next step going to be? Sure. And then also, we do have a problem, which is that our screening tools are not necessarily going to be so accurate across demographic groups. They haven't been well-tested or calibrated for all moms. And that I think there's a big limiting factor in the data, but it's really common. Having anxiety or depression is the most common complication of pregnancy and childbirth. It is the most likely thing that will happen, but the vast majority of people don't get any support at all.

(11:57): Right. And in terms of the numbers, black women are twice as likely to struggle with a perinatal mood and anxiety disorder. A Latino women two to three times does not affect all of us equally at all. And certainly access to resources also does not affect us all equally. Sure. So this is really, it is absolutely a public health issue because untreated depression is associated with cycles of inequality and inequity. It perpetuates challenges that kids experience later, emotionally, behaviorally, academically. Sure. And so what really draws me to this topic is that it is a root a issue. There are all kinds of influences. It's complex. There's so many reasons why this happens to us and why this period is so uniquely difficult but we can't ignore that. It's a really acute time. Absolutely. In

Speaker 1 (13:01): People's lives. Absolutely. Yeah. For sure. And I also want to mention that I think we're getting better about talking about depression, but we actually don't talk, I don't think enough about anxiety. I think I probably had anxiety after my first and not realizing what it was after having a preemie and those kinds of things. So I think it's important that, I'm glad that we're talking about both depression and anxiety, because I think a lot of people don't realize that that can be a issue also.

Speaker 2 (13:32): And it's also devastating. I mean, low mood and depression that's more studied, and it's obviously very devastating and very, very challenging. But I would say that anxiety at this point feels a little bit more neglected. And in that there's also kind of a higher barrier then to getting support. Mm-hmm. Because you think, well, am I bad enough or Sure. I suppose I'm not getting through the day I can get out of bed. And so the limitations of just focusing on depression are that we're missing a lot of other stuff that's going on with people.

Speaker 1 (14:14): For sure. For sure. So there's one thing to go from, I know I have this concern, or I had this thing happen to me and getting help for yourself to starting a whole new company. So you, let's talk about what is the Canopy app, and then how did you get to that point where you're like, this is what I think is a good idea to do.

Speaker 2 (14:42): True. Now it feels so inevitable. Of course, we would end up here, of course, this is what I would be doing. But I really wanted, we were transitioning back from, we were living in Tanzania Trans. Mm-hmm. Transitioned back to the US and I really did want to do something domestically. I wanted to do something in the us but my background actually really in most ways, didn't translate that well to working in the structures and systems we have here. And so I kind of knew that I would be forging my own path somehow. And I had been realizing how much I loved entrepreneurship and working with a team and working through big issues. And I thought, this is massive. Right? This is something where there is a big opportunity to make a big difference in people's lives if there is a solution, if there is something to actually do here. So then what we did was we spoke to a lot of experts. I mentioned the American Academy of Pediatrics. We talked to many obs mm-hmm. Acog, perinatal mental health researchers, hundreds and hundreds of moms, community-based organizations. We were really trying to understand what the gap was like, what was really fueling this issue. And when you say we, who is we? So, and my co-founder, who is also named Anne. Okay.

(16:26): So she also has a public health background. So we were working together interviewing, researching, just immersing ourselves in the research. And we realized two really important things. One is that and as a doctor, I'm sure you're very familiar with this concept, but treatment is prevention where you can actually deliver an intervention is a preventative measure. And that can be really, really powerful. And that actually exists in mental health too. And the other was that there were interventions that could be delivered at a population level that were shown to be effective and recommended by policy bodies like the US Preventive Services Task force for at a big kind of scalable level, delivering clinical techniques and programs that could really support people. So what the Canopy app is, the app itself delivers their 12 day programs. They're just two to two and a half hours long of audio, text, video exercises interactive guided journaling and things like that in English.

(17:48): And they're bite sized, really tiny, few minute long sessions thinking about a mom, nursing or feeding her baby in the middle of the night, not accessing support in any other way at that point. But you might be really struggling. So we were thinking about these moments when people really, really need support and what really could work for anybody in their schedules. So we knew it had to be asynchronous, you know, could just work through it at your own time, regardless of your childcare time, resources. And so we were adapting existing research and treatment arms, and then framing them in a compassionate, it's called compassion focused therapy. But the idea is that it reduces shame and stigma, and it opens us up to being more kind of really open to care and care seeking. So it's this really beautiful way of connecting with what are the biological or societal reasons we might feel some way, and how can we use our minds and our bodies to feel calmer, to feel happier, to use the same techniques we use to soothe the baby, really to soothe ourselves. And then the therapeutic techniques are cognitive behavioral therapy and interpersonal therapy techniques. That's the core of the program. But we also do virtual classes. We also are launching a community at the end of February where we're focusing on specific groups, subgroups within kind of people who are struggling to make sure that everybody feels like they have somewhere to go. We talk about relationships, bonding, baby development, sleep feeding, all of the things that are, feel very much feel very salient to where whatever someone is going through in the expecting or postpartum period.

Speaker 1 (19:52): Sure. Sure. So a couple things that stood out for me. Number one, the prevention piece. I don't know that we necessarily think of how to prevent mental health things from popping up. So I love that. I think that's really important and crucial. And of course, that you said it's bite size and you can do it whenever you can. And it doesn't sound like it's very long or involved but definitely has some benefits. And I guess we'll talk, we'll get to have you tested it and things like that, and people in research. But I'm curious, what is the cost? How does that structure work?

Speaker 2 (20:36): So our goal is really that it ends up being free for every mom. So we're working with health systems, health plans. We actually have a partnership with the mayor of Washington DC Oh. So it's nice free for moms in dc but do it's also free if moms are struggling at all with bills or that we have a different path in. But then if you are just coming to the app directly and are kind of, okay the initial cost is $48, but then we give you 50% back if you complete the program. Ah. Cause they're trying

Speaker 1 (21:15): To

Speaker 2 (21:15): Get

Speaker 1 (21:16): People to Gotcha. have

Speaker 2 (21:19): The maximum impact and then it $24.

Speaker 1 (21:22): Gotcha. Gotcha. So just one time or monthly? Or

Speaker 2 (21:25): Just one time. Because we really don't want people to stay on the app forever. I mean, you can stay on it for as long as you want. Sure. But we don't want to promise people every month you'll feel better. Sure. We really want people to do the program , get as much in whatever timeline they need, get as much as they can out of it, and then if it's not working for them to know quickly so we can help connect you to additional resources.

Speaker 1 (21:56): Gotcha. Gotcha. So what research has been done to evaluate the effectiveness of the program?

Speaker 2 (22:04): So first, we only used techniques and the structure of things that had already been tested. And we were looking at meta-analysis, not just randomized controlled trials, but really summaries of controlled trials to tell us, okay, this is what we think works about this. Sure.

Speaker 1 (22:26): And so for those of y'all listening, that is research speak for the best types of studies to look at. So randomized control trials are the most rigorous, but then when you look at all of the compilation of those together and then analyze it, that adds another layer of data. So I'm saying all that to say, this is very serious, how you approached making sure that it's effective.

Speaker 2 (22:48): We started from a research grant, so we had to be really rigorous. And then also the public health sides of us. We wanted to make sure that we weren't putting something out there that could possibly well, one, make someone feel worse. And we went through a really rigorous process with that, but that had the very best chance of working. And then we did test it. We actually did it internationally. We recruited just using an online study platform. We did a randomized controlled trial of expecting a new moms in different countries because we wanted to start to see if there were any cultural differences, if there was anything that we could understand about the types of people who might benefit and who might not benefit. And the only statistically almost significant difference was that older moms did slightly worse than younger

Speaker 1 (23:45): Moms.

Speaker 2 (23:46): Okay. That was really the only thing. Interesting. And that the higher your initial Edinburg postnatal depression scale score, the scale that we used to compare the baseline, what you started with, and the line, what you ended with, the moms who had higher initial scores, had bigger drops, had a better outcome. So that is something that is interesting from the treatment as prevention approach is we try to make sure the programs really relevant and really does a lot for people who might be at risk, but not actually experiencing Sure. Any real bad symptoms yet. Gotcha. Gotcha. So 79% of participants in our treatment group had a clinically significant improvement in their score. So four or more points improvement on the Edinburg postnatal depression scale. And that was just our initial research. We're actually working on getting a lot more clinical research. So actually working in a clinical setting started this year because that's really important for getting doctors like you, unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (25:02): That is true. That is true. That is true. And tell me again, what is the optimal time for folks to go through the program is, or is there an optimal time

Speaker 2 (25:14): From a public health perspective? Really as early as possible. So we're actually doing focus groups on this now. We just launched a childbirth and coping around fear and anxiety, using your mind to calm yourself around childbirth. We're trying to get people earlier working on issues that are more relevant earlier in pregnancy. So it's really the best possible, ironically, time to do a program like this is before you start feeling

Speaker 1 (25:47): Low. Gotcha. Gotcha. So while you're still pregnant, or do you wait until after you're done?

Speaker 2 (25:54): Pregnant is ideal. Okay. Yeah. But we, of course, the program is for the whole perinatal period. We sure, sure. Customize what you see Sure. And information you get. Yeah. But it's relevant for the whole, yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:12): I feel like third trimester would be good. I mean, obviously I'm not part of your program or anything like that, but just in general, I think we need to start, and we're not trained to do this at all, helping women towards, in the last 10 to 12 weeks of pregnancy, start preparing for postpartum because we focus so much on you get to birth, and even that is . The education we provide is spotty, but there's almost, we don't give people much preparation at all. And maybe here's your breast pump and things like that, but just a more comprehensive approach to here, anticipatory. What is the next step in preparing people for it?

Speaker 2 (26:58): Oh my goodness. I could not agree with you more. So we were in the hospital, I know you have experience with this too. We had a baby in the NICU for a little bit and I did not want to leave the hospital. And we had a few extra days, but we were just drinking through a fire hose, the hospital discharged folder, now do this and this and this, and remember this and this and this. And I was so worried about what would happen when we got home. I just felt so unprepared. And that's really exactly right. We're trying to help people in that postpartum period plan for all the possibilities. And really, we promote things that, we call them non plans in a way. It's like, well, when things don't go quite according to plan, what are we going to do? How are we going to cope? Who's our support system? Because that's really when we need the most help. And nothing ever goes according to

Speaker 1 (28:04): That is life actually. That's

Speaker 2 (28:07): The only

Speaker 1 (28:07): Rule. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think if I'm understanding correctly, you're approaching it from the perspective. This doesn't have to be labor intensive. This isn't a labor intensive thing. It's something that is fairly short. The duration is short, but it can have a lot of benefits that can last.

Speaker 2 (28:31): That's exactly right. Two hours is really what we're aiming for. That's kind of consistently what the research shows us in terms of what you need to do to have a sustained impact. And so we're just constantly trying to get people to that two hours and trying different ways of doing it. But that's absolutely right. It can feel like hard work, but we try to make it feel as easy and pleasant as possible and relevant.

Speaker 1 (29:05): Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah. I mean, there's something we, I don't know. I think we do enough emphasis on helping folks invest in themselves or it taking the time. There's so much focus on the baby and the baby coming, and without remembering that the most important piece of the baby being healthy is having healthy mom, healthy parents. And we need to invest in ourselves and take that time worth it, and our children are worth it. So not to guilt trip anybody, but I just think our society allow us to take that approach sometimes

Speaker 2 (29:45): That that's just so true. And I just think that's such a common experience, like a shared experience, especially from moms. And many of us take examples from what we saw at home or what we've seen, whatever in society or as what good is supposed to look like. And we form these rules in our heads thinking, okay, this is what I have to do. This is what I have to do in order to do it. Well, sure. Or this is, but it's a really good opportunity to become aware of what is the source of those rules. If I break that rule, is that really going to have the outcome that I worry about? Or what is the real thing I'm looking to do here? But I couldn't agree with you more. I think the most critical thing is for parents to take care of themselves. This is kids pick up on when we're not doing well.

Speaker 1 (30:47): Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. For sure. For sure. And is this just for moms or is it for Dads two?

Speaker 2 (30:55): We have four different channels. One is for new moms. Okay. One's for expected moms, one's for people who identify as caregivers, and another is for fathers.

Speaker 1 (31:09): Okay. Okay. All right. Oh, interesting. Identify as caregivers, so that could be grandparents or some, yeah. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So then how does this interface with traditional mental health services?

Speaker 2 (31:24): So when we work with a health system or a health plan, what we do is we basically triage into it covered services

(31:34): For people who are having maybe experiencing some more heightened or more acute symptoms. And then there's still available. All of our more kind of scalable support is still available to those people, but it allows us to identify people earlier who might need support, because it's always better to get someone into any form of treatment early than waiting Sure. Until it's too late. So, sure. We're capturing risk factors. We look at social determinants of health. We look, we really try to capture as much about the person as we can to understand, okay, what does the full picture of support look like? And that can be in one partnership. We help people get into just individual therapy services. And in that case, we always try to vet the professionals to make sure they have a perinatal mental health experience. And our practicing evidence-based care then. But we can also escalate people into other high-risk pregnancy services that might be offered. And we're doing that too, because there's so much overlap, and it is just such a complicated time. Yes,

Speaker 1 (32:58): Yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (33:03): So that that's really how we do it. And then of course, in the app, we have in-app emergency calling and texting and English and Spanish to the maternal mental health hotline to warm lines to other kinds of emergency support. So it's always a kind of a button away to get immediate 24 7

Speaker 1 (33:23): Support. So this definitely is not a replacement for traditional mental health services. It works with it and helps to connect people to it hopefully in a more efficient way.

Speaker 2 (33:35): That's exactly right. And I think one of the, especially moms in some integrated networks or who are uncovered by public plans, they might be waiting two or three months before they see a professional. And we need to be providing something in that period, whatever it is, to make sure people are getting some form of support. So we really are very focused on that gap in prevention and what is happening in that period for other folks before they can get more support.

Speaker 1 (34:13): Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. Well then as we wrap up, what would you say is the most frustrating part of your work?

Speaker 2 (34:22): I think it's that I feel so urgent about this issue, and I feel like it should be everybody's top priority. And Healthcare has a lot of things going on.

Speaker 1 (34:32): Right. Other

Speaker 2 (34:34): Things

Speaker 1 (34:34): Too.

Speaker 2 (34:35): But I think there are so many, and we kind of talked about it a little bit. There's there, there's so little understanding of maternal mental health conditions right now, and relatively given the magnitude and the severity of what is experienced. But I think very little investment and focus. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:58): Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And then what is the most rewarding part of your work?

Speaker 2 (35:04): The moms, we get a lot of, so we do a lot of interviews with our moms, just to make sure, how are you finding this? Where can we improve?

Speaker 1 (35:18): Sure. And how many moms have you had participate in it?

Speaker 2 (35:23): We've had just over 5,000. Oh,

Speaker 1 (35:25): Wow. Okay. So

Speaker 2 (35:26): We got some moms. We've got lots of moms. And I'm hoping this is a year where we've gotten a lot of our foundation builder and we're ready to grow. So I'm hoping we get 10 times that. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (35:43): I mean, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but you say connecting with the moms and hearing their stories is some of the most rewarding part.

Speaker 2 (35:52): Yes, absolutely. I think that's what keeps us going. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (35:56): Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So then, what is your favorite piece of advice that you would give to expectant parents?

Speaker 2 (36:03): I think it's related to what we were talking about, which is that I think we can really lose ourselves in the process of caring for a child. And that can feel like the right thing in the moment, or feel like the noble thing to do. But I think really identifying early on, what are the things that are going to keep you going? How can, it's not all going to look the same. We can't do all the same things that we used to do, but what are the things that really matter to you that really make you feel like, that makes you feel alive, that you can brain through, carry through that period and really set an example for your kid, you know, learn

Speaker 1 (36:48): From us. Absolutely. Absolutely. So then, where can people learn more about Canopy?

Speaker 2 (36:53): So you can find us on the app store if you search for a canopy for parents, and then our website is www.canopy.app. And then the end of this month, we'll be launching our community platform. So hopefully by the time this podcast airs, people will have yet another form of support that they can access through the app.

Speaker 1 (37:17): Awesome. And Canopy is spelled how? Yes.

Speaker 2 (37:20): not, yeah. The way it's supposed to be spelled right. , C A N O P I

Speaker 1 (37:26): E. Got it. Got it. All right. Well, thank you so much, Anne, for agreeing to come on to the podcast. I love to share things with folks that I think have a lot of promise and to help really help people in ways that are new, innovative, but also easy to do and not adding another thing to your plate. So I appreciate your time. For sure.

Speaker 2 (37:47): Thank you, Dr. Rankins. It has been such a pleasure talking with you, and you're doing such great work by sharing information and education and such a relatable and bite sized way. Oh, I follow you on Instagram.

Speaker 1 (37:59): Oh, thank you.

(38:08): That a great conversation. I think this app can be really, really helpful. And I love how she took her personal experience and turned it into something positive where she's trying to help so many more people with their own maternal mental health. Now, after every episode when I have a guest on, I do something called Dr. Nicole's notes, where I do my top three or four takeaways from the conversation. Here are my Dr. Nicole's from my conversation with Anne. Number one, I really appreciate and love how this app takes a prevention approach. We do not do enough, especially in the traditional US medical system to focus on prevention. Prevention is a really important part of health, and I wish we focused on it more. We take a very much so disease focused, problem focused approach to health. And I just really love how this is a prevention approach to help keep things from getting so bad that you may not even need more severe or more intense services.

(39:11): Number two, be selfish with pouring into yourself as you're having a baby, as you're pregnant. There is so much emphasis on the baby and things for the baby, and here comes the baby, and all of that is fine and good. But one of the things that I always say is that you cannot have a healthy baby without having a healthy mom. So be selfish with pouring into yourself and your own health and your own wellbeing. That is actually the first step in order to have a healthy baby. So pour into yourself, pour into your mental health, take that time to do so. And then the final thing I'll say is that taking care of yourself, pouring in yourself doesn't have to be time intensive, right? This particular app, she said it's like a two and a half hour program. As much as we scroll on social media and things like that, you can find those few minutes a day to take time and invest in yourself and invest in your health because you are 1000% worth it.

(40:18): You are worth that investment of time. And this is such a better way to use technology. We all know that we walk around with these personal computers in our hands, and they're extremely useful, but they can also be incredibly harmful. We know that social media can be harmful to our health, and we can get sucked into things, and it's not necessarily healthy, but this is a great way to use technology in a positive way and to take care of yourself and to do so in a way that doesn't have to be time intensive. And speaking of time, the birth preparation course doesn't take that much time either. It's about 10 hours of content for the entire course. You can binge it in a weekend, or you can do a little bit over the course of a few days or a couple weeks or a couple months even if you wanted to you, because you can join the birth preparation course at any time.

(41:12): So do check out the birth preparation course, my online childbirth education class that gets you calm, confident, and empower for birth. Check it out@drnicolerankins.com slash enroll. All right. So there you have it. Do me a solid share. This podcast with a friend sharing is caring and it helps me to fulfill my passion and purpose of reaching and serving more folks. So share this podcast, please. I was so, so appreciated. Also, subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening to me right now, and let me know what you think about the podcast. I love it when folks send me dms on Instagram and just tell me their thoughts about the show. You can also fill out things like the reviews on Apple podcast, but just a DM is fine. I'm on Instagram at Dr. Nicole Rankins and just shoot me a note. Let me know what you think about the episodes, because I absolutely love to hear from you. All right, so that's it for this episode. Do come on back next week and remember that you deserve a beautiful pregnancy and birth.

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