Mother of Fact: the podcast

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Podcast by Emily Sylvester

Mother of Fact: the podcast

Conversations with the clinicians, directors, and changemakers shaping the future of maternal and reproductive health and wellness. Hosted by Emily Sylvester, Founder & CEO of Mother of Fact, this podcast dives into the real-world strategies, challenges, and breakthroughs transforming care for moms and babies. From front-line clinical insights to system-level solutions, each episode offers practical takeaways and fresh ideas for improving outcomes, streamlining operations, and advancing health equity.

Latest episodes

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09 December 2025

Designing Care That Works: How AI & Motivational Interviewing Strengthens Families and Frontline Teams

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

Between a Birth and a Board Meeting: The Untold Story of Postpartum Leadership

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:

  • Why supporting women at work is essential to improving outcomes in pregnancy and postpartum

  • How capacity ≠ capability, and why we need to stop glorifying over-functioning mothers

  • The medical realities of postpartum recovery — and the gaps in continuity of care even for health-literate moms

  • The real mental load of being a CEO and a mom, and what it looks like to actually put care infrastructure in place

  • Why working through postpartum can tank both business and wellbeing — and what resilient, long-game leadership really looks like

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

Power in Connection: Amy VanHaren on Storytelling, Tech, and Maternal Health

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.

Key Topics Discussed

  • Amy’s journey from startup founder to national maternal health advocate
  • The origins and impact of the Breast Express bus
  • Why storytelling is essential to changing the maternal health narrative
  • The role of technology in building real connection and community
  • Lessons learned from scaling Pumpspotting and empowering parents
  • What the future of maternal health innovation could look like

Guest Links & Mentions

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