Maternal Mental Health: Pioneering Better Access to Telehealth

Dr. Emily Guarnotta is pioneering telehealth for maternal mental health. As the co-founder of Phoenix Health, Dr. Guarnotta leads a practice dedicated to providing online therapy for maternal mental health concerns, infertility, and grief. She dives into her own struggle with postpartum depression after the birth of her first child and the challenging transition into parenthood. She highlights her commitment to providing high quality care and reducing stigma at-large.  

Dr. Emily Guarnotta is a licensed clinical psychologist and Certified Perinatal Mental Health Provider (PMH-C) specializing in perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, including postpartum depression and anxiety. She also supports individuals facing anxiety, depression, and life transitions. Her work focuses on helping clients navigate challenges with compassion and evidence-based care.

Transcript

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  0:00  

Some type of an obsession, which is either a thought or an image that pops into your head and you feel very distressed by and you feel like you can't get rid of it. So for example, like I'm afraid that my baby is going to stop breathing.

Announcer  0:18  

Welcome to perinatal and reproductive perspectives. This is a podcast where we empower birthing individuals, partners and health professionals with evidence based insights, holistic strategies and relatable stories. Hosted by a healthcare expert. This podcast fosters understanding equity and growth in perinatal and reproductive health. Here's your host, Becky Morrison gleed,

Rebecca Gleed  0:50  

hello, everyone. I am beyond excited for today's episode, which is with Dr Emily Guarnotta. She is doing incredible work. She's the founder of Phoenix health. She is a clinical psychologist and pmhc, welcome Emily. Thank you for having me. Yeah, tell us a little bit about yourself, and maybe before we start, you can tell our audience what is a pmhc?

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  1:21  

It's a great question. So like you mentioned, I'm a psychologist and also a pmhc. And a pmhc stands for perinatal mental health professional, and that's a bunch of kind of fancy words that basically mean I have some extra training and experience working with perinatal mental health or maternal mental health, really working with families going through anything from infertility to mental health concerns related to pregnancy postpartum and pregnancy loss. And I'm also a mom myself, so I have two young children, and like you mentioned, I'm the owner of Phoenix health. We're an online group practice, and we specialize in serving families in the perinatal space.

Rebecca Gleed  2:05  

I'm really looking forward to sharing with our audience more about Phoenix health and how they can access services just learning the little bit that I know it's you're doing incredible work. It's widely available, so we'll get into that. But before we do, can you share a little bit more of like what brought you into the space of perinatal and reproductive mental health?

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  2:29  

I love this question kind of where my professional and personal Yes. So prior, prior to becoming a mom myself, I was more of a general psychologist. I was treating mainly anxiety and depressive disorders. And in hindsight, it sounds really kind of naive that I had this perspective, but I really truly did believe that my training as a mental health professional in some way shielded me from experiencing any perinatal mental health concerns. So I really went into motherhood thinking that I was not going to be the one in five, and I was just going to kind of adjust and, you know, go on with my life. And after I had my first child six years ago, I realized that that was really far from the case, and I was really blindsided by postpartum depression, and I had a really difficult time just adjusting to the new role grieving, grieving, kind of my old life that was really so where I kind of got stuck personally, and it really took me a long time to even acknowledge that that's what it was, And then, let alone, to reach out and seek help. I think I was about eight months postpartum before I even made a call to a therapist. That experience of going through postpartum myself and then really internalizing that stigma, even though I was a mental health professional, led me to want to learn more about this and want to help other families, and then that's really where I pivoted. Pivoted my my work. I

Rebecca Gleed  4:04  

think many moms and professionals can relate until you've been there yourself. I know for me, I didn't know that pmhcs even existed before I had my daughter in 2013 but tell us a little bit more about your experience accessing therapy, like, were you able to find a therapist who was a pmhc or What was that process like for you? I'm

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  4:28  

so glad you asked that question, because for like a lot of people, it really was a challenging process, even though I was in the field myself, this was pre COVID, so telehealth really wasn't a popular thing at the time, and the thought of driving to an office, meeting with someone for 45 minutes and driving home when I was already so overwhelmed and had no time in my schedule, just felt impossible.

Unknown Speaker  4:53  

Impossible. Yeah, yeah,

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  4:54  

so that was really a barrier for a while. I think that's why it took me so. Long to even just start making phone calls. And then when I finally did, I said, Okay, I'll set aside, you know, this hour, hopefully there's a therapist out there that has an appointment in this one little slot that I have in my schedule, and I called around. And again, like a lot of people experience, you're making a lot of phone calls, a lot of outreach, you're not getting responses back, and it's, it's very frustrating, demoralizing. I eventually did find someone, and again, at the time, I also didn't know what a pmhc was, so I wasn't looking for one. I was just looking for any, any mental health professional that would really see me and whose schedule would align with my schedule. I did end up seeing someone, and it really wasn't a great fit. And I don't she wasn't a pmhc, and I, I don't think that necessarily it wasn't a great fit because she wasn't a pmhc, but I think she, she really didn't understand a lot of the intricacies of what I was going through as a new mom, and I took some of her feedback as judgey, whereas I think you know, you're just in such a sensitive, vulnerable place when you're postpartum that I really needed a more gentle, kind of slow approach. And she came on a little bit strong for me. So I actually ended up realizing it wasn't a great fit and going back out to the drawing board. Probably waited another couple months, finally got the courage again to make the calls, and then I did find another therapist who's actually my my therapist. Now I've continued to work with her. She's also not a pmhc, but she's a really great fit in terms of, she's clued into the motherhood piece, she doesn't come across judgy, and she gives me space, and we've been able to work really well together. So I think, like, don't, don't stop if it's not the right fit, or don't assume that that's going to be your always going to be your experience.

Rebecca Gleed  6:53  

That's good advice, and I think many individual will appreciate hearing that. And also, what sounds resonant is the impossible mountain that many of us are climbing to simply get help, not just help, but someone who, like you, said, understands the intricacies and sees you as a person and creates that safe space. I think many moms can relate to feeling judged or feeling like they the mom guilt, all of the I'm not doing this right, all of the what ifs, and to find, you know, a practice such as Phoenix health, where I saw on your website, you're very transparent of reduced stigma. It's a safe place. Therapists are vetted, and that's an incredible commitment to this population. I want to ask you mentioned you gave birth pre COVID, but I think you said you had two kids, so I'm just doing the math of did you experience your second during the pandemic? Or do you have any like stories from other, maybe clients that just anecdotally lived through pregnancy, the perinatal period during the pandemic?

Unknown Speaker  8:14  

Yeah. So I had my

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  8:16  

first child pre pandemic, and then my second child in the end of 2020, so yeah, my pregnancy was I found out I was expecting right around the time that everything shut down. So they were vastly different experiences. I actually feel very fortunate that I got to experience a pre pandemic pregnancy my first time. Because my really goes out to people who whose first, or maybe only time, is going through that during the pandemic and how isolating that is. I think it helped that I had somewhat, you know, of a quote, unquote, normal pregnancy first.

Rebecca Gleed  8:58  

When you juxtapose those two experiences, what stands out to you?

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  9:02  

You know, I think the isolation was definitely for me, was very real during the pandemic, but I've always been a smaller circle type of person, so I did feel like I had support, because I had a smaller circle that I was more connected to, whereas pre pandemic, maybe there was more people around, but it wasn't necessarily higher quality support, if that kind of makes sense. But I think you know, any pregnancy different, pregnancies are going to be different and different postpartum periods, babies are all going to be different for different reasons. And I think some people find the first one more challenging. You know, there's that debate amongst moms like, is it hard to go from zero to one or one to two? And I think it's just, you know, it's all really different to see you're a different person going into another pregnancy too.

Rebecca Gleed  9:57  

I had an 18 month old when the. Pandemic hit, and I thinking back, it's like, how, how did we do that with little ones? But here we are. Yeah, we made it

Unknown Speaker  10:09  

through the other side. Exactly.

Rebecca Gleed  10:12  

Tell us a little bit about P mad, so that's an abbreviation for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. I was looking at all of the different conditions that you all treat and help our listeners. For those who don't know what pmeds are, better understand when we throw out the term p meds, what are we talking about? That's

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  10:33  

a great question. So pm ads are perinatal mental health conditions. So these are conditions, mental health conditions that develop either during pregnancy or during the first year postpartum, and they're more than just the baby blues. The baby blues are mild mood changes, anxiety, some insomnia that usually develops a couple days after you give birth and can last up to two weeks. PMAs can either persist beyond that two weeks continue, or they're they're more severe than you know, what we would justify as miles, like miles, you can still kind of function. You come in and out of it, you have moments of relief, whereas something that's more severe, it's going to persist. You know, most days, throughout the day, you're not going to find that you have a lot of relief, and it's going to interfere with your ability to, you know, take care of yourself, or take care of your baby, or do the things that you need to do to function. And there are different types of perinatal mental health concerns. The most well known is postpartum depression, which is a depressed mood, a low mood. But actually the most common is postpartum anxiety, which is a worry or a sense of fear that could be about anything, but often has something to do with the baby, like, you know, a fear of something bad happening to the baby, or self doubt that you can be a good mom. And then we also have post traumatic stress disorder, which can develop after a traumatic birth. We have perinatal OCD, which are obsessions and compulsions,

Rebecca Gleed  12:10  

help to help the audience. A little bit more about how that might look, whether in the form of checking the baby monitor or the outlet. Or how does that? How do you typically see that presenting in moms.

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  12:21  

Yeah. So perinatal CD, there's usually some type of an obsession, which is either a thought or an image that pops into your head and you feel very distressed by and you you feel like you can't get rid of it. So for example, like I'm afraid that my baby is going to stop breathing. That's a really common one that I hear, and then that causes that thought or that image causes so much anxiety and distress that you engage in some kind of a compulsion which helps alleviate that anxiety. So for example, you know, I'm afraid my baby's going to stop breathing, so I repeatedly check on them when they're sleeping, and now I can't sleep because I'm kind of stuck in the cycle. You get some relief from that anxiety, but then that anxiety comes back, and it's this vicious cycle that just feels like you can't get off of it.

Rebecca Gleed  13:12  

Great example, I hear that a lot in my practice, too, of the checking behaviors, or maybe you're driving and you have those intrusive thoughts, so you end up staying home all day, every day. It takes different forms. You also talked about postpartum PTSD. Can you talk a little bit more of when you someone might develop that, and what that looks like, symptomatic, wise,

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  13:35  

postpartum PTSD can develop after experiencing a traumatic birth, and a traumatic birth, the definition of that is really personal. So what may be traumatic to me may or not be traumatic to you, but often it's a birth where you might be in harm, or your baby might be in harm, or things really go unexpected, unexpected things happen, or there's a sense of not feeling heard or supported or helpless during the birth experience. Not everyone that experiences a birth trauma develops PTSD, but some people do, and the way that that tends to look is there's actually a series of a cluster of four different symptom types that we see, one of them is a change in kind of your mood. So that could be depression. That could be having a lot of negative thoughts about what happened. We often see some kind of hyper vigilance. So that could be like feeling really on edge all the time, or feeling like you're easily startled, like waiting for the next shoe to drop, something else bad is going to happen. We often see an avoidance so that could be trying to avoid thinking about the trauma, thinking about the birth. One common one that I hear a lot is avoiding even driving past the hospital where the birth happened, just not wanting to be reminded of it at all. All, and then the final one, oh, intrusions. And intrusions could be thoughts. They could be flashbacks. They could be nightmares about the birth. That's kind of like feeling like you're reliving it or it's replaying in the present moment. I

Rebecca Gleed  15:16  

think that'll be very helpful, and I appreciate how you conceptualize that those four pillars, those are kind of the foundations of the PTSD, and the P, for those, if I didn't explain this in the beginning, is the postpartum elements, so typically, like in the birthing experience. And then the second phase is what Emily is describing as those four pillars of how those symptoms present. And then for pmeds, what is standard of practice? What when you're vetting therapists and or if maybe you're a therapist going through the components of care training? What type of training are pmhcs Getting? Pmhcs

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  15:55  

are, in addition to their their education that they might have, as say, a licensed therapist or licensed psychologist, they're doing coursework where they're learning about the pm ads, they're learning about treatment, and they're learning about different ways of supporting this population. So they have to complete pretty extensive amount of coursework. They also have to have some clinical experience working with perinatal families, and then they have to actually take an exam. And once they pass that exam, studies that test them on all these different elements that they're learning, then they are able to say that they're a pmhc. They meet that

Unknown Speaker  16:34  

criteria. If

Rebecca Gleed  16:36  

there's a client coming through, you know, Phoenix health, what what can they expect in terms of maybe diagnostic assessment and then treatment.

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  16:46  

So our first session is typically a diagnostic intake session, where we really want to hear your story. We want to hear what you've been through, what brought you here. We're going to ask, you know, pretty extensive questions about about your past and your present, and kind of try to understand how all of those come together. From there, we like to have a really transparent conversation about what your goals are and what you're looking for, and how we can meet you kind of where you're at. We'll also provide some feedback on what we think what type of treatment we think would be most helpful. We're also interested in hearing if there's something you're really looking for, and we come to an agreement about the treatment plan. And then from there, we really work with folks on creating a treatment plan that works with their lifestyles. So ideally, we would like to see you weekly in the beginning, but if that's not feasible for whatever reason, we'll have a conversation about how we can still provide quality care, but in a way that is able to fit within your lifestyle and your needs and your preferences. I

Rebecca Gleed  17:57  

mean, it sounds very individualized, person centered. And that was another just looking at your website, it really stood out to me your commitment to quality care. And something else that caught my attention was your commitment to reducing stigma for pmeds. And I would love to hear what does that mean to you, and then do you? Are you seeing that more broadly or in other forms or fashions?

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  18:24  

Yeah, for me, I mean, when I shared my own story of how long it took to seek help, I know what it feels like to have that internalized stigma, even though logically, I know or I would say to my clients that, of course, you deserve to get help, and there's no shame and asking for help, but yet, there's this sense of shame and feeling like I'm so fortunate to be a mom, or, you know, I wanted this so much, and I'm so lucky, and so many people don't have this opportunity, you know, how dare I not love every minute of it. Or how could I feel depressed or anxious? And on top of that, you know, sometimes people do, often unintentionally say things that can kind of make you feel at times, you know, even a little bit worse, you know. And I think sometimes, then that kind of just exacerbates something that you're already feeling. So it's really important, I think, that we're able to have these conversations and really normalize for postpartum families that it's not a character defect. If you're struggling with this, it's actually really, it's a real mental health condition. And just like you would get treatment for a physical condition, you deserve to get treatment for a mental condition, and when you do, you get better, and then you're able to move forward.

Rebecca Gleed  19:40  

I love that commitment to reducing stigma, especially in such a unique time. It's a major life transition, you know, and we don't get manuals for you know, how to transition to motherhood. So I love this, this idea you also mentioned, and you mentioned this earlier, to incorporating the family. Families. And I think oftentimes we see this as an individual one on one, but tell our audience a little bit more how that might look if you're incorporating maybe a partner or other family members that are important to the birthing individuals, treatment or supporter or resource system? Yeah,

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  20:23  

at Phoenix health, our approach is very like you mentioned, individualized. So if I'm seeing a new mom and she's sharing that there are some issues in her romantic relationship that are maybe either causing or worsening her symptoms, I might ask her or explore her openness to having her partner join for maybe a session or two, just to talk through how we can kind of improve their communication or help them get on the same page. Sometimes I'll see that there's a bigger problem and I and then in that case, I might recommend that they see an outside provider for couples or family therapy, but sometimes it's nice to kind of have just a session where I can introduce myself and I can hear a little bit of their perspective too, because I'm very, very aware that, you know, we're getting kind of one side in the therapy room, and sometimes family members or support people are seeing something Different. That's also important for us to know, and with the client's permission, sometimes the client feels relieved when I ask, because they're like, that's great. Now I don't have to feel all the pressure to share everything. My partner can tell you what they're seeing, and you can get a better idea. And some people aren't comfortable with that, and that's okay, too, but it is something that I think is helpful

Rebecca Gleed  21:40  

and helpful that you all are paying attention to that and that it's person centered, individualized. So if you see, you know, diagnostically, there's a relational component, let's at least open up the option to bring in a partner, a family member. That's That sounds flexible and like you're willing to creatively solution?

Unknown Speaker  22:02  

Yeah, I think as a provider,

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  22:04  

you have to really be flexible. I would say that that's one of, in my opinion, one of the most important things that I look for. You know, in a mental health professional that I see, I

Rebecca Gleed  22:14  

couldn't agree more, and how many times people the feedback that I'm getting is, hey, thanks for working with me, Thanks for seeing thanks for asking that question, can go a long way. And it sounds like you all are really committed to that. It's definitely important to us. Yeah, if we pivot into more of the reproductive mental health you pointed to infertility, perhaps in grief and loss, tell listeners a little bit more about grief, loss and fertility, that type of work.

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  22:47  

We often see clients coming in who are experiencing infertility or have recently experienced a pregnancy loss and are feeling often feeling really alone, like they don't have a safe space to talk about it. Maybe family and friends know, and they don't know how to talk about it with them, or maybe they don't know. So we try to offer that safe space where they can process all of their feelings that are coming up for them. In regards to infertility, often people feel like they can't share everything they're feeling, because the feelings can feel very messy at times, because there might be sadness, there might be even anger, there might be envy, there's just so so much going on that they need a place to kind of unload it and then be able to sort through it with someone else who's going to be non judgmental. And with pregnancy loss, something that I see a lot is people feeling like they have a certain amount of time to grieve, and then when they hit that timeline, they should be they should be moving on. And whether that's a message they're giving themselves or a message they're hearing externally, our work is really helping them understand that this is a very real loss, even if they didn't meet their baby personally, it's still a loss, and their feelings still matter. And giving them that space to process that and understand that, and really giving them permission, I would say, is the biggest thing. A lot of people who have experienced pregnancy loss don't feel like they have that permission to grieve.

Rebecca Gleed  24:22  

I hear this a lot too, and I hope that offers some hope to anybody listening, experiencing that there's no end button to grief. It comes in different forms. Everyone experiences it differently. And same with infertility, that oftentimes there's you've mentioned should we should on ourselves of we should be accepting this binary. We should be doing something different. And I often hear, I don't know if you hear this too, Emily is like, I didn't know there was a space for me with having mental health symptoms with PCOS or a hysterectomy or the male factor. Right? And there's so much like, oh my gosh, there's space for me here, when oftentimes it ends at the medical system, as opposed to no as, PMH, we're doing this work too, or as infertility counselors there, there is space. And it sounds like you offer that,

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  25:18  

yeah, I think you know, there's just, there's not a lot of education out there that mental health professionals can help, help you if you've gone going through infertility, or you've had a loss, we do tend to think of it as being for, you know, a perinatal mental health concern, like postpartum anxiety or depression, but we can help with a lot of different things and help you feel unstuck.

Rebecca Gleed  25:42  

In general. What type of advice would you give moms, new parents, fathers, in 2025 when? Hey, yes, we're quote, unquote, post pandemic, but there's a lot of stress we feel in the world. There's still, I think, a lot of under resourced components to, you know where they might live, or you know how we operate in 2025 systemically. Are there any nuggets that you would give to parents? Think the biggest

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  26:13  

thing that really comes to mind is understanding that it is a process. And I know it sounds very cliche, but it really is true that becoming a parent is such a huge thing that you're not going to feel like you have it together on day one, nor should you. And just to understand that it is going to take time to adjust. It's going to take time to normalize things. It's going to take time to get back to your baseline, and just to not judge that process, I think the problem becomes when we start feeling like we need to be there faster, or we're, you know, everyone else has it together and we don't. It's that judgment that really makes the process more stressful, whereas if we can give ourselves permission and say it's normal for me to feel well, well, I want to be careful of saying that, because it's not normal to be dealing with a perinatal mental health condition. You should and you deserve to get help. But I'm talking more about the stress of the process and the transformation is that it's normal to not feel like you have it all together immediately. I

Rebecca Gleed  27:17  

love those pieces of reducing judgment and then normalizing some of this. And none of us do as much as we want to take those, you know, pictures for Instagram or kind of do the highlight reels behind the scenes. Oftentimes it's the mom of, oh my gosh, if this person saw the inside of my car my house,

Speaker 4  27:37  

would I be judged? And what it took to take that beautiful picture, or what it took

Rebecca Gleed  27:42  

to take that picture? Yes. I'm also curious, do you have any if we have hospitals or L and DS or birthing centers listening, what can we do a better job of in terms of this handoff of, okay, you know you're discharging, you're medically stable. Your baby's medically stable. And these parents or birthing individuals are often, at least from my seat reporting, oh my gosh, it was terrifying putting my baby in the in the car seat for the first time. Or I haven't slept for three days. It's a anecdotally, a clunky transition, and can be quite scary for folks going from that discharge process to home. Typically, you're seen for a six week postpartum OBGYN appointment, and that might be it. And so I'm wondering is, we're in this space together, in the community, what can we do better in terms of supporting new parents in that transition? I

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  28:51  

love that question. I think especially you know, the professionals that have that first contact with you in the in labor and delivery or in the birthing center, that's a lot of pressure. I mean, you're the first people interacting with these new parents, and your words really matter. You're doing you're doing amazing work, and you you have such an important role, and yet you have so many demands on you too limited time, and it could be very stressful to be in the situation that you're in, so I want to come from a place of understanding that too. But if I was to say advice, it would just be to really keep in mind that your words and your actions are so important at that stage, that these families are so vulnerable. And just to be, you know, extra mindful and to read between the lines too with new parents, because sometimes they're not they're afraid to say that they're struggling, but you can kind of see it in their actions. Or if you're reading between between the lines, you can sense it. So just to be aware that these conditions and Perinatal stress. Isn't always going to be verbalized so beautifully. Sometimes it's going to come out a little bit messy. And just to keep that on your radar too,

Rebecca Gleed  30:07  

by putting quotes down on some of my notes of read between the lines, if providers can hear that and accentuate that quote from Emily, read between the lines, I love that sometimes I catch myself of maybe I can skip this question, or maybe I don't need to ask about this, but I know better, because oftentimes when I still ask the question, they're like, I wasn't going to share this, or it's scary for me to disclose this aspect of where I'm struggling. I'm glad you asked that, and so as providers, I just love that read between the lines. Yeah, any other advice that you would give for individuals, professionals, even PMH sees, I think another,

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  30:53  

another piece of advice that I always like to give is just that it's never too early to seek help. So you know, even if you're just a couple of days or weeks in and you're feeling like something's not right, sometimes people will say, Well, you know, I'll wait and see. I'll wait and see. I just always say that it's never too early if you're not feeling right, and you know yourself and your body and your brain and something's off, there's no reason really to wait if the care is there and it's accessible and you can find it, I just encourage you to seek help sooner rather than later, because a lot of times the sooner you can kind of get in there, then you can catch up a bit faster, so you're a bit more proactive

Unknown Speaker  31:33  

versus reactive.

Rebecca Gleed  31:35  

And how might that look? What are the earliest signs? So maybe a new parent listening will say, Oh, maybe I should pick up the phone now, as opposed to when they're very symptomatic. What would be some of those early signs?

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  31:51  

It could really be everything from mood swings to feeling down, a lot crying, a lot anxiety, fear, worry, one of the signs that I think doesn't get enough air time is irritability and rage, although we are talking a bit more about maternal rage, but irritability specifically, I think sometimes that gets just pushed to the side as just she's hormonal, she's irritable, You know that, or that's just her personality, but irritability is actually a symptom of depression and of anxiety. So if you're feeling more irritable than usual, that's definitely something to be aware of, and for family and friends to know that irritability isn't mean that she's just not a nice person, or she's hormonal, but that that could be a sign that she's really struggling. I

Rebecca Gleed  32:41  

think that's an excellent tip for not just those folks experiencing it, but also family members to perhaps gently notice and instead of deducing them to their hormones or some other explanation that there can be a pause of, hey, maybe, maybe they're experiencing PPA or PPD or something else, and how do we love and support them better? Yeah, it's

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  33:05  

very hard to do if it's directed towards you. I think the human reaction is to get kind of defensive if someone's more irritable towards you. But if you can take that pause and remember, you know she this mom is postpartum, maybe this is a sign of something else. Maybe she is really struggling. Maybe I can check in with her about it. Very hard to do in the moment. But if you can take that pause, try to breathe and then respond in that way, you know you could be catching an early sign. Yeah,

Rebecca Gleed  33:32  

I'm sure that you're aware of being a pmhc, of the prevalence of pmads for dads too. Can you tell audience a little bit more about how you support dads? I

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  33:45  

think supporting dads and non birthing partners is so important. Perinatal mental health does not just apply to birthing birthing individuals or birthing women. We know that dads believe the rate is about one in 10 experience a perinatal mental health condition, and we work with dads as couples. We work with dads individually. We love working with with non birthing partners, because they're going through their own role changes. And you know, if we're talking about heterosexual couples, I would say something that I see come up a lot is a pressure to provide financially and still want to be a present parent, and also sometimes feeling like you're not getting as much attention from your partner, and all these different things that can bring up a lot of feelings. So having a safe space to work through that and to try to understand, you know, maybe what's going on for your partner that's causing some of these changes, how you can support them, and also how you can communicate your feelings to them can be really helpful.

Rebecca Gleed  34:47  

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I cannot emphasize how happy I was to find you and to see the work that you're doing. And I can't think of a better reason to have you on today to promote. This wonderful commitment to the perinatal reproductive community. So thank you. And where can listeners find you? How can they access your services? Yeah,

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  35:12  

well, they you can find us at join Phoenix health.com, that's our website, and you can learn more on our website, you can fill out an intake form and you can even schedule a free consultation. So that's the best way to reach us.

Rebecca Gleed  35:27  

Fantastic. Are you on any social platforms or any other platforms where people can find you? We are, yeah.

Dr. Emily Guarnotta  35:34  

We're on Instagram and Facebook and Tiktok at join Phoenix health.

Rebecca Gleed  35:39  

Fantastic. Well, thank you, Emily, it has been a pleasure having you on, and I think the audience will feel the same and find your words helpful and benefit from services. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. Rebecca.

Speaker 2  35:58  

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