How Paid Time Off Helps Protect Maternal Mental Health and Well-Being

In this episode of The Paid Leave Podcast, we are focusing on women's mental health and well-being, and the challenges pregnancy can have before and after the baby is born. March 8th is International Women’s Day. This Day gives focus to issues like gender equality, reproductive rights and violence and abuse against women.  International Women’s Day serves as a platform to address the mental health issues that disproportionately affect women. While mental health conditions can affect anyone, women face unique challenges due to societal pressures, biological factors, and caregiving responsibilities.

My guest on this episode is the Founder & Executive Director of the Alliance Center in Stamford, Carolyn Kagan. Carolyn is a licensed clinical social worker and perinatal psychotherapist who designed a holistic maternal mental health practice that provides individual therapy, group support, yoga, and wellness programming for expecting new and experienced mothers and their families. Carolyn talked about the benefits of CT Paid Leave with moms and caregivers. She also sees the benefits as an employer who has had a worker take CT Paid Leave when their baby was premature. She sees how paid leave benefits the retention of good workers because they come back to work as a more whole version of themselves.

To get in touch with Carolyn at The Alliance Center go to their website at The Alliance Center | Rooted in Motherhood | Stamford, CT (thealliancecenterct.com).


For more information or to apply for benefits please go to CT Paid Leave

 (ctpaidleave.org).

https://ctpaidleave.org/s/?language=en_US



https://www.facebook.com/CTPaidLeave



https://www.instagram.com/ctpaidleave/



https://twitter.com/CTPaidLeave



https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ct+paid+leave

Transcript

Nancy Barrow: 0:01

Hello Connecticut, and welcome to The Paid Leave Podcast. The title basically says it all. I'm Nancy Barrow, and I will be delving into this new state program and how it can help you and your family. This podcast will give you information you should know about Connecticut Paid Leave and maybe just a little bit more. Connecticut Paid Leave brings peace of mind to your home, family and workplace. Welcome to The Paid Leave Podcast. March 8 is International Women's Day, and this day gives focus to issues like gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against women, and International Women's Day serves as a platform to address the mental health issues that disproportionately affect women. And while mental health conditions can affect everyone, women also face unique challenges due to societal pressures, biological factors and caregiving responsibilities. And joining me to talk about these issues is the Founder and Executive Director of the Alliance Center in Stamford, Carolyn Kagan. And Carolyn is a licensed clinical social worker and Perinatal psychotherapist who designed a holistic maternal mental health practice that provides individual therapy group support, yoga and wellness programming for expecting new and experienced mothers and their families. And Carolyn specializes in the treatment of perimental mood and anxiety disorders, infertility and loss and the transition into parenthood. And Carolyn is also an active volunteer with postpartum support international, where she helps connect families to resources and support and Carolyn, welcome to The Paid Leave Podcast.

Carolyn Kagan: 1:46

Thank you so much for having me Nancy.

Nancy Barrow: 1:48

I'm so excited to have you. So why don't you tell me about your personal journey. Carolyn, where did your interest start or begin with maternal health, maternal mental health and Peri and Postpartum Support.

Carolyn Kagan: 2:03

Yeah, I would love to as I was sharing before that, before the Alliance Center became the Alliance Center and everything that it is today, it started off as just Alliance Therapy Practice, and that was 14 years ago, and I know that very precisely, because that's also the age of my oldest child. So the practice began very quickly after becoming a mom myself, and at that time, and up until 2020, I was a sole practitioner in private practice specializing in providing individual therapy to moms and moms to be and we have since expanded, not just in name, but also in scope, and we now offer a full slate of comprehensive maternal mental health services. But our mission truly remains the same, and that's to ensure that all moms and moms to be have what they need and access to the services in order to thrive. So I think that's especially fitting to be here today and to be having this conversation about the importance of paid leave.

Nancy Barrow: 3:13

Well, it's great. So 14 years ago, right? You were a new mom. Were you finding that it was hard to get services that you needed, or were there gaps in services for you?

Carolyn Kagan: 3:24

I think I really noticed it amongst my peer group. I was fortunate enough to have been working in the mental health field, and I was very deliberate and proactive with making sure that I was set up with comprehensive care. But I what I found so interesting is that although I'd worked in mental health my entire career, I didn't have the language to be able to communicate with my peers about what they were going through and the resources to share with them so that they could get the support that they needed. And it was really alarming, and it's really, I think, really incredible how far we've come in just 1415, years, and being at the forefront of that in terms of helping, helping to destigmatize the need for mental health services and to be now a provider in this field.

Nancy Barrow: 4:19

Yeah, it's very interesting, I think, too, if we go back to the pandemic, right, like, I think teletherapy was so big, and everybody was going through something, you know, whatever it was that you were going through, right? I don't think anyone came out unscathed from from the pandemic, and I think it really normalized mental health and mental wellness. Did you see that?

Carolyn Kagan: 4:41

Yeah, absolutely. And care became a lot more accessible during that time as well, which is why, you know, the practice was, although it had always been in my mind as an entire network of support that really needed to rise up to support moms, I was given that nudge during the pain. Pandemic because I became busier than ever when care became a lot more accessible.

Nancy Barrow: 5:04

Yeah, I think teletherapy is really important. Yeah. Do you still do teletherapy?

Carolyn Kagan: 5:10

I do. I do. I would say about 5050, these days, between in person and telehealth, the moms that we work with at the Alliance Center are our greatest inspiration. They are the ones who are saying, hey, I need help, and really pushing through a lot of fear and guilt and a cumbersome medical system in order to receive support. So they're working really hard to change their lives and the lives of their families, and without even knowing it, changing the lives of our community at large. Because each time, I think, each time a person reaches out for help, that again, it helps to destigmatize the need for mental health support. Personally, when I began to hear the same complaint, the same need, over and over again, that sparks something in me, it's a signal of that something is missing, and we could create a service or an offering around it.

Nancy Barrow: 6:07

Yeah and what were you finding that was missing? That's the interesting thing. Like, what were you finding were the big gaps?

Carolyn Kagan: 6:14

Other specialized care so providers that knew this population really well, like you could go to any yoga studio and take a class, but does that instructor know how to work with a pregnant body and what types of accommodations need to be made? You can go to any prescriber and get, you know, an antidepressant. But does that provider really understand the intricacies of working with a pregnant person and also treating not just the mom, but then also the baby as a result of that? So that is what I found over and over again, and those were the clues that I took to create a lot of our offerings. We then source our clients, you know, talk with them about what their needs are, and gather feedback and interest. You know, we love a good focus group here, and then I check in with our team and our team of community partners to see who could really carry this forth, and this is really cool to see something that was once just a vision really come to life, and that, I think could be said about everything we do at the Alliance center. It's really cool to watch it, something you just thought about, dreamed about now for it to come to fruition.

Nancy Barrow: 7:41

I love the fact that your staff is all women, yes, because women know women. I mean, we know, yeah. I just kind of feel like we have that innate knowledge, right? We know exactly what's going on and and I feel like there's an empathy there. When you know someone who looks like you, who's female knows exactly what you're going through. I feel like there's, there's that relatability to other women. Yeah, was that sort of intentional?

Carolyn Kagan: 8:09

It wasn't actually, I don't think it was deliberate, but I'm glad the way that it has come to be upon reflection. I see you know why that why our team is entirely female. I mean, the Alliance Center's core values center on things like community and collaboration and nurturing and motherhood, of course, and healing. So I think that these values are intrinsically feminine. You know, they bring a feminine energy. So anyone who shares those core values, they feel a magnetic pull towards us and want to work with us. And those people just happen to be women! We got really lucky with, you know, having a community partner who I've known for a very long time, who was once a midwife, and now specializes in perinatal mental health, and again, we wear our values on our sleeves, the way I kind of describe it. And she felt felt very connected to the work that we were doing, and she was beginning to really specialize in this work. And she asked if she could come on board, and I was thrilled knowing just how important medication is to overall health and wellness. Medication management is a really important part of how we support moms and moms to be because for some women, therapy alone isn't enough, and I could say that about probably all of our complementary services, and that's okay to say that one modality isn't enough for healing, because, again, we're really intricate beings, so we need more options. So it's a service I'm really proud to be able to offer and to continue to demystify with medication management. We use it as part of a collaborative and thoughtful approach to care. So like I mentioned, Dr Beardsley is specializing in this space, and she really understands the unique considerations of pregnancy and breastfeeding and sleep deprivation in the postpartum nervous system, and having that in house means that we can work in tandem with her to really reduce barriers to care so moms don't have to navigate multiple providers or having to explain their stories over and over again. You know, having a prescriber on our team allows for close coordination between between us, and the result is care that feels really integrated and not fragmented. Perinatal mental health refers to that period of time, or really anything related to pregnancy. And it's not just limited to pregnancy or those first few weeks after delivery, it can again. It can begin during pregnancy and show up for months or even years after childbirth, especially, especially if it's gone untreated. So I think the right time to seek support is a moment that something feels off, and whether that is like persistent anxiety or sadness or irritability, intrusive thoughts or even overwhelm, or when someone just doesn't feel like themselves anymore. And of course, this can be different for everyone, because mental health is deeply personal and also exist on a continuum. So I would say, for example, during pregnancy, many moms do experience anxiety and mood changes, fear and grief, and sometimes that's related to a personal history or even their experience getting pregnant, or past trauma, or the major identity shift that is already underway. So some of this is to be expected, and that's why I think that mental health during pregnancy and postpartum is extremely important.

Nancy Barrow: 12:21

In the introduction, you mentioned the introduction into parenthood, and there is no manual for becoming a parent, and I think that must be a really stressful time. How do you help support the to be moms?

Carolyn Kagan: 12:35

Oh yeah, I definitely want to zero in on that idea that there is no manual and it's a steep learning. There's so much to figure out at a time when you're also not your best self. It's an extremely vulnerable time going through pregnancy and everything that's related to that, and then, you know, leaving the hospital with a brand new baby, and you're just expected to figure it out. So I think what we do really uniquely well at the Alliance center is again, trying to be proactive with supporting moms, not just thinking about what they need, practically speaking, in order to be well, but also what they need emotionally in order to be well. During some of our individual sessions, we do a lot of postpartum planning, and again, that isn't just about, you know, who's going to be delivering meals and who's going to be cleaning all those those things are important. We're already talking about what to expect and how your own your own early childhood experiences influencing influence how you see parenting, and we've talked about the division of labor and also early warning signs of a perinatal mood and anxiety disorder, and also what your options are if those things do emerge, and doing that well in advance, because the last thing that you need when you are in those early days, weeks and months postpartum is to be strategizing.

Nancy Barrow: 14:18

Yeah, that's so interesting. And do you also offer like support groups, like therapy with new moms? You know that all have these questions, and they can ask the questions and it's a comfortable environment.

Carolyn Kagan: 14:32

Yeah, I love this question, because we do offer individual therapy along with group therapy or support groups, and they're both wonderful, but they achieve different things. Support groups can be really helpful when a mom is feeling isolated or questioning whether whatever she's going through is quote, unquote normal, so it can be really helpful and. Moments like this, to have a frame of reference of people who are in the same boat, so to speak, one of the biggest benefits of group therapy is that is that peer support, you know, hearing from other moms that the same fears, frustrations and challenges and even the mixed emotions that come with motherhood. Being in that same space with other women who feel similarly can help you feel like you're not alone, because motherhood can be extremely isolating.

Nancy Barrow: 15:31

Tell me about the career coaching that you offer. Does this sort of help bridge the gap for moms going back to work while the baby's maybe at home or at daycare, because that's tough. I can't imagine.

Carolyn Kagan: 15:46

It serves, actually, many different purposes. So like adding career coaching, I mean, that was our most recent addition last year. I have just been blown away by the response. We added the service after knowing from our own lived experience as moms and caregivers that are also working and then hearing from countless women again about how challenging it is to juggle both the career in caregiving and the lack of practical support to not only help to ease the Transition to motherhood, but also the day to day struggles. So our findings were further confirmed through our own little research project last year and and focus group discussions, and we heard from over 100 women in our community about what their needs were and what real support could look like. So we launched this career coaching aspect to the practice, and not only does it help clients plan for leave, but it helps them prepare to return to work, and whether that's immediately after their leave or if they've taken a break from the workforce, most importantly is has helped our clients really develop their identity as working parents, and helps them identify what their new gifts and skills are as a result of becoming a mom.

Nancy Barrow: 17:16

Yeah I think that that's so important that transition right like there's those big transitions, even figuring out your leave is is really interesting. And I know you mentioned caregiver, so let's talk about Connecticut Paid Leave and and how that how valuable is that to your clients?

Carolyn Kagan: 17:35

Oh, my goodness, it is incredibly valuable for the families that we work with because we know that having enough time to heal and bond is one of the most protective factors for the mental health of the parent and also everyone in that family system bonding leave ideally allows for both parents to be present during that critical window of attachment and recovery and the major transition and when partners are able to take leave as well, we often see less isolation for moms and more shared caregiving and a smoother transition for the entire family. So the caregiver leave is especially important, you know, for parents who are in a partnership, but also parents who are single, parents who have experienced medical complications as a result of labor and delivery were those who have a NICU stay, because like having the ability to bring in a support person, and you know as part of your care team really does help to significantly reduce stress and prevent moms from pushing themselves too hard too soon. And then, from the mental health perspective, in my opinion, paid leave, as I always say now, it's not just it's not a luxury. I think of it as a form of prevention, because it gives families the breathing room to heal and to bond and to receive care, which can make a meaningful difference, not only for that individual, but everyone in that family system for their entire lives.

Nancy Barrow: 19:26

Tell me what you would like listeners to take away from this podcast?

Carolyn Kagan: 19:31

Carolyn, oh, my goodness, there's so much. And I know we've covered a lot of ground in a short period of time, but I really want people to take away from this conversation is that maternal mental health challenges can show up, but during pregnancy and right after birth and well beyond that newborn phase, especially if it's not treated. I want people to know. Know that there is no right time to ask for help, and the most important thing is recognizing that you don't have to navigate this season alone, and that you don't have to wait until you're in crisis in order to reach out for help. And programs like netiquette paid leave can make a really big difference because they give families something we know protects mental health, and that's the gift of time, you know, time to bond, time to heal, time to adjust after the many transitions that happen throughout motherhood, and time to bring in some support, and whether that's through a partner or another trusted caregiver or even a professional. And at the Alliance center, we help moms use that time really intentionally, and again, through postpartum planning and individual therapy and things like group support and community based care, so that they feel really resourced and confident instead of feeling overwhelmed. And if there is just one core message, I hope people remember it's this. I want people to know that needing support does not mean that you're failing at motherhood. I want them to know that it means that they're human and that they deserve care and compassion throughout their transition to motherhood, and programs like Connecticut paid leave and the Alliance Center helped to make that possible.

Nancy Barrow: 21:41

Have you known patients who have used Connecticut Paid Leave, and how did it help them?

Carolyn Kagan: 21:47

Yeah, we have known countless patients who have used Connecticut Paid Leave, and the story that sticks out to me the most is actually one of our team members who used paid leave last year when she ended up delivering two months early. And just as an employee, I was as an employer, I was really pleased with how easy it was to navigate the system, and she reflected that back to me as well, and then also being able to have access to this program and the income replacement that it provided to her and her family. She was able to just focus on taking care of herself and her brand new baby, and didn't have to worry about work. And that was the greatest, greatest Gift.

Nancy Barrow: 22:39

And it really does bring them back to you, a whole person, almost, right? It really does bring them back to work, feeling better that they have a great leader, right? They have a great company that they're working for that offers this to them, right?

Carolyn Kagan: 22:56

Yeah, I have found that it helps us attract and to retain you know, high quality team members. And you're right when they do come back to us after having that time, they come back more like their whole selves. And when our team members can feel like their whole selves, and they can provide care from a really generous and grounded place. But also, CT Paid Leave is a great example. We want to just be able we want to amplify it so other people can pay attention and replicate it across the board.

Nancy Barrow: 23:27

You know, I couldn't have said that any better. I want to thank my guest, Carolyn Kagan, the Founder and Executive Director of The Alliance Center in Stamford, for joining me on the podcast today. Carolyn, thank you so much. You're just a wealth of knowledge, and you just have this really beautiful spirit about you. I don't know if people tell you that, but you really do have this wonderful spirit about you that's very positive.

Carolyn Kagan: 23:48

Oh, thank you, Nancy for saying that and for having me here today.

Nancy Barrow: 23:51

For more information or to apply for benefits, please go to ctpaidleave.org. This has been another edition of The Paid Leave Podcast. Please like and subscribe so you'll be notified about new podcasts that become available. Connecticut Paid Leave is a public act with a personal purpose. I'm Nancy Barrow, and thanks for listening.