why i care so deeply about maternal wellness

because women deserve more support, more education, and more honest conversations around maternal health

A gentle note: this piece touches on pregnancy loss, recovery, and women’s health experiences. Please read with care.

My experience with pregnancy loss completely shifted the way I view women’s health.

Before pregnancy, I thought maternal health mostly began once you became pregnant. Maybe even after you gave birth. I didn’t fully understand how much of it begins long before that. The nourishment. The hormones. The stress. Sleep. The emotional and physical load women carry before, during, and after pregnancy.

And honestly? I don’t think enough women are taught any of this.

Maternal wellness is real. It deserves more attention, education, care, and conversation than it currently gets.

We spend so much time talking about wellness online, but so little of it is centered around supporting women through one of the most transformative experiences of their lives. Not just pregnancy itself, but everything surrounding it. Fertility. Loss. Recovery. Postpartum. Nourishment. Hormones. Mental health. Healing.

That became impossible for me to ignore after my miscarriage.

Recovering after pregnancy loss was deeply emotional in ways I wasn’t fully prepared for. Physically, mentally, emotionally, there were so many things happening in my body all at once, and so much of the recovery felt unspoken. From a kidney infection to a double UTI shortly after, I found myself navigating layers of healing I never expected.

I remember thinking: why are women expected to just quietly carry all of this?

That experience is a huge part of why Plant-Based Maman exists today.

Not because I have all the answers. I absolutely do not. But because I want women to feel less alone, more informed, and more supported than I did at times throughout this journey.

And honestly, I’ve realized that knowledge itself can be healing.

Not fear-based wellness. Not perfection. Not trying to “optimize” every part of womanhood. Just understanding our bodies better and learning how to support them with more intention.

When my husband and I decided we were ready to try for a baby, I started paying closer attention to my wellbeing, and lifestyle. I paused summer wine on the patio with friends, water for this girl. I moved my body more consistently. I tracked my cycle more carefully. I prioritized sleep, hydration, nourishment, stress management, and boundaries. Especially boundaries.

I also started realizing how deeply connected everything really is. Our hormones, our stress levels, our nourishment, our relationships, our environments, our nervous systems. None of it exists separately.

And now, after everything we’ve experienced, I care about this even more deeply.

Not from a place of fear. From a place of respect. Respect for the fact that our bodies are constantly communicating with us, even when we’ve been taught to ignore them.

One of my close friends keeps reminding me of something that has stayed with me through this entire season: your body knows what to do.

And honestly, I believe that more now than ever.

Even through the loss, the surgery, the recovery, and all of the uncertainty, my body has continued trying to protect me, heal me, and communicate with me. That doesn’t erase the pain of what happened, but it has completely changed the way I see my body.

I’m learning to stop viewing my body as something that failed me and start viewing it as something that deserves care, nourishment, education, patience, and compassion.

That shift has changed everything.

I’ve spent the last several months learning more about women’s health, nourishment, fertility, hormones, and maternal wellness in a way I never had before. And the more I learn, the more I realize how much women deserve better support, education, and care throughout these seasons of life.

Because this space was never just about recipes or wellness routines. It became something much bigger than that.

It became a place to talk honestly about becoming a mother. All of it. The hope, the grief, the healing, the nourishment, the questions, the waiting, the joy, and the things women are too often expected to carry silently.

So no, my miscarriage did not happen “for a reason.” I would never say that.

But I do believe I get to choose what I do with my experience now. And I choose to keep building this space with the hope that another woman somewhere might feel a little less alone because of it.

And while this space will naturally hold a lot of conversations around motherhood, fertility, pregnancy, postpartum, and nourishment, I also hope it can simply be a place where women feel supported in learning more about their bodies and wellbeing overall.

Whether motherhood is part of your story or not, you are still worthy of care, nourishment, education, and wellness that actually supports your life.

And if anything shared here ever helps you support someone you love along the way, that matters too.

One publication I’ve especially loved lately is Borne. The conversations they’re creating around maternal health, birth equity, and women’s wellness feel incredibly important and deeply aligned with the kind of space I hope to continue building here.

Because women deserve better conversations around their health. More honesty. More education. More support.

I hope this space can become a small part of that.

If you’re someone working in maternal health, whether as a doula, midwife, delivery nurse, or educator, I’d truly love to connect and hear your perspective, too.

I’m still healing, still growing, and still moving through all of this in real time. But I’ll be here sharing what I’m learning as I go.

x, holy