About The Maternal Stress Project
👋🏼 Hi, I’m Molly.
I’m a stress physiologist by training. Also a recovering academic (PhD + two post-doctorate fellowships later), an early-stage maternal health startup community builder, a co-founder plus founding Executive Director of a non-profit focused on gender equity and working motherhood, a startup advisor, and a mom of two.
To make a long story short, all paths have fueled my interest in (dare I say obsession with?) the intersection of physiology, stress, women’s health, and motherhood in America.
The concept for The Maternal Stress Project was born out of a personal drive to continue pulling all the pieces together. A way to make stress, as a term and concept, actionable. A reframe that could open new opportunities to improve health by giving weight to what we know and what we need to know in order to link societal issues, structural and systemic failures, and key solutions (big and small). An amplification and elevation of the incredible work by experts in each key area.
At its core, The Maternal Stress Project will explore and map the ‘web of stressors' embedded in the journey to and through parenting as experienced by American mothers/caregivers and birthing parents. The newsletter will be equal parts:
dialogue-shift around stress + motherhood + health
documentation + cataloging of research dives and conversations with experts
elevation of key solutions to alleviate and buffer stress (that do not center on the classic “meditate, nap, exercise more” advice typically given for stress management 🙄)
I’m all for access to information (In fact, I think one tactic for reducing our own personal stress is being able to see it, acknowledge it, and name it) so this newsletter is my way of bringing you along for the ride as I explore this beast of a topic.
In the spirit of access to information, all posts will be free to access, BUT if you want to support the enormous amount of work this all takes, please consider a paid subscription or give a gift subscription.
I promise to try my best to keep the academic jargon low 🤓 😁.
Get in touch!
I see The Maternal Stress Project as a central thesis and educational base layer to build upon – contextualizing stress in an actionable way with loads of opportunities for project collaboration. If this work overlaps with your world and expertise, please get in touch and we can brainstorm together!
