I am a High Risk OBGYN, trained at Mount Sinai and Columbia. After doing my OBGYN residency, I chose to pursue fellowship because I never wanted to have to turn over my patients when things got complicated. After training, I moved out to the burbs and took on an attending position at Stamford Hospital, where I remained for 16 years. There, I saw patients of all demographics and loved my work. I invested a tremendous amount of time and energy in not just the physical well being of my patients, but their emotional well being as well, as that was so critical to the entire process. Often given the high risk nature of the situations, there was a huge need for attention to psychosocial aspects of care, and I figured out lots of extra ways to get people what they needed. I delivered so many of my friends’ children and cared for so many friends of friends over the years. I wanted every single one of my patients to feel that I cared for them the way I did the people closest to me.
During those early years, I spent time in the NICU—academically, the neonatologists were colleagues who were often involved in complex planning for my in uterine patients, and they also were the ones who shared updates with me when I sat with the parents I had just cared for. I also am the mom of two high risk pregnancy NICU graduates, so I know how it feels to be a NICU parent firsthand.
Over the last 10 years, the medical environment began to shift dramatically. Large hospital entities began to become the norm; enveloping smaller hospitals into parts of a bigger package started to become standard. Insurance companies began to have more power. OBGYNs began to experience changes in their salaries where “RVUs” or essentially units of work started form bigger parts of total incomes, and so volume of patients became more critical. Groups began to merge as well as physician burnout rose; the days of the solo practitioner waned, and having the chance to know the doctor delivering your baby well became increasingly challenging. At the same time, awareness started to finally be drawn to the crisis that is the state maternal mental health in an often fractured mental health care system.
It seemed the perfect storm. Less time, more emotional toll for everyone, enhanced pre pregnancy and pregnancy testing, the pandemic, screening mandates for mood disorders in pregnancy with difficulty handling the answers to the questions that were asked—the system began to feel increasingly broken. I started to feel that I just wasn’t doing enough anymore for the patients not only that I was seeing, but especially for the ones I was not—the friends of friends, the sisters, the cousins, the women themselves—who I would gladly triage a phone call from on my own who were lost or scared or didn't understand what was going on.
The pandemic and an unexpected surgery forced my hand-I left my position and took a long, hard look at what the landscape looked like. I thought about another position at another hospital—but again, I felt the system needed to be directly addressed with knowledge from the inside out. Patients needed to be empowered to get the information they needed, to feel supported when they were scared, to stop using Google, to have help finding a therapist—and none of this was happening on a large scale. I had spoken with so many amazing providers over the years—in holistic medicine, integrative medicine, therapeutic communities—that I had resources to help patients build a tool box. And I spoke the language—I could be way more effective than Google using over 20 years of outcomes to guide my explanations and support.
And so the idea of Blue Moon Perinatal was born. I realized what women needed was an educator and an advocate- part doctor, part therapist, part friend, part coach—to help guide them through their struggles wherever they were—trying to conceive, struggling through IVF or miscarriage, pregnant with a preexisting medical or psychological issue, after a diagnosis of preterm labor, preeclampsia, a scary ultrasound diagnosis, or with postpartum depression or anxiety. Bringing awareness to the need for these services, I feel, can truly begin to address what’s missing.
Blue Moon Perinatal offers women the opportunity to bring their struggles to me. One session, two, through a chunk of time due to a diagnosis or to have an advocate along the entire journey through the end of the 4th trimester—I can be here for you. I see clients on a virtual platform that can be booked through my website. Sessions are typically an hour, but for clients who want to enlist me for more than a session or two, I can break up the time as needed so you understand I’m always there for you. I will typically be able to accommodate a session within 24-48 hours. I truly believe that this new model eventually will prove to large conglomerations to be a patient satisfier and help OBGYN providers provide more streamlined care, as their patients will have knowledge and understand what they need to ask and why. I want to bring my services to as many moms feeling lost, overwhelmed, scared or just disempowered in this system as possible. Because I offer a new service, the word needs to get out. I want to be found by women for women. And I’m here. To translate, educate, make plans and provide support, and help you figure out what you need to feel strong.
