
Podcast by Emily Sylvester

Podcast by Emily Sylvester

10 March 2026
In honor of National Nutrition Month, Emily sits down with Dr. Loneke Blackman Carr to explore why nutrition advice alone rarely changes health outcomes. As a behavioral scientist, professor, and registered dietitian, with Dr. Loneke shares how caregiving demands, structural barriers, and lived environments shape the way women eat, move, and care for their health. Dr. Loneke is currently Assistant Professor of Community & Public Health Nutrition at UCONN.
You’ll hear:
This episode is for clinicians, dietitians, women’s health advocates, and healthcare leaders who want to understand how nutrition, equity, and context intersect in maternal and women’s health. If you’re working to improve patient outcomes and build care models that actually fit women’s lives, this conversation will change how you think about nutrition interventions.
Show Resources
✅ New episodes of the Mother of Fact Podcast drop on the second Tuesday of every month. Follow, subscribe, and share with a colleague who’s ready to help transform care at work and beyond.
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40:45

10 February 2026
In this episode, Emily sits down with Kristin McGregor, PhD — clinical psychologist and National Clinical Director of Integrated Behavioral Health at LifeStance Health — to unpack what integrated care really looks like when it centers women and families. From fertility to postpartum to menopause, they explore what happens when we stop treating mental health as separate and start embedding it where it belongs.
You’ll hear:
This episode is for OB/GYNs, pediatricians, care teams, maternal health leaders and advocates who want to create care pathways that actually serve birthing people, especially when they’re most vulnerable. It’s also for anyone building systems that treat mental health as health, not a referral out.
Show Resources:
✅ New episodes of the Mother of Fact Podcast drop on the second Tuesday of every month. Follow, subscribe, and share with a colleague who’s ready to help transform care at work and beyond.
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44:22

13 January 2026
When is the right time for employers to take women’s health seriously? According to Jim Hettenbach, VP and Head of Business Ventures at Unum, that time was yesterday — and the smartest companies are already catching up.
In this energizing and insight-packed episode, Emily sits down with Jim to explore how employer benefits are evolving beyond check-the-box wellness to whole-person care — including nutrition care, lactation support, postpartum recovery, and pelvic floor rehab (yes, even that!).
With humor and honesty, Jim shares what it was like to be one of the only men talking about maternal health in corporate rooms — and why that’s exactly what needs to happen if we want to scale meaningful change.
You’ll hear:
Whether you’re a healthcare leader, policy advocate, HR decision-maker, or women’s health entrepreneur, this episode will give you a behind-the-scenes look at the real conversations happening around maternal health, innovation, and what it takes to build a better, more human-centered future of work.
Show Resources:
Learn more about Unum.
Connect with Jim Hettenbach on LinkedIn.
Follow Mother of Fact for more episodes, tools, and updates.
✅ New episodes of the Mother of Fact Podcast drop on the second Tuesday of every month. Follow, subscribe, and share with a colleague who’s ready to help transform care at work and beyond.
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46:32

09 December 2025
AI is changing healthcare — but Modality is proving that the most powerful innovations start with people.
Emily Sylvester sits down with Laura Vitale, Founder & CEO of Modality, for an honest conversation about how we train, support, and retain the frontline workers who form the backbone of our care systems. Laura shares how Modality uses AI-powered “practice conversations” to help staff build real motivational interviewing and trauma-informed skills—skills that can be measured with nuance, tracked over time, and seamlessly brought into supervision to strengthen teams from the inside out.
Together, they explore how Modality is transforming clinical environments by reducing training time, supporting compliance, improving fidelity to evidence-based practices, and reducing burnout by giving staff renewed confidence and support. They also dig into the realities of workforce turnover, Medicaid-centered care settings, and what it truly takes to design innovation with overstretched teams instead of adding to their burden. From replacing day-long trainings with six-minute challenges to embedding skill-building directly into workflows, Laura explains why Modality’s flexible, human-centered design resonates so powerfully on the front lines.
This episode is a thoughtful look at the future of training, the emotional weight of clinical work, the cost of burnout, and the creativity required to build products that genuinely support people doing incredibly hard jobs.
To learn more about Laura and Modality visit findmodality.com.
Follow Laura's journey on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-vitale-87980916/
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11 November 2025
What does real postpartum support look like when you’re running a startup, healing from birth, and parenting a NICU baby — all at once?
In this powerful, raw, and heart-hitting episode, Emily sits down with Sam Gardner, founder of Continuity Co. and Happy Pillar), to talk about building mental health infrastructure for working moms — while barely surviving her own postpartum experience.
This conversation is a must-listen for women’s health providers, maternal care innovators, clinical champions, entrepreneurs and investors who want to learn how the system is broken — and want to be part of reshaping it.
You’ll hear:
This is the real talk no one gives you in a training. If you’re advising patients returning to work, leading teams of mothers, or building maternal health programs — you need to hear this.
Plus: Learn how Continuity KoE is flipping the script for founders, building embedded leadership so mothers can take real leave without blowing up their businesses.
Resources + Links:
Don’t miss upcoming episodes! Follow @motheroffact for new drops, tools, and stories at the intersection of clinical care, equity, and maternal health innovation.
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08 October 2025
In this episode of Mother of Fact: the podcast—conversations with leaders transforming women’s health—host Emily Sylvester, Founder & CEO of Mother of Fact, sits down with Amy VanHaren, founder of Pumpspotting.
Amy has spent the past decade redefining how mothers connect and find support through technology, storytelling, and community. From her journey across the country in the Breast Express bus—a roving space for breastfeeding awareness and connection—to scaling digital platforms that reach hundreds of thousands of parents, Amy has built a movement centered on belonging and care.
Together, Emily and Amy explore the power of storytelling in maternal health, how digital tools can strengthen—not replace—human connection, and what it takes to build systems that truly support parents and families.
If you’ve ever wondered how technology can make maternal care more human, this episode offers both inspiration and practical insight.
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