Supportful began with the careI almost never found.

Two versions of maternal care

My experiences of pregnancy showed me two completely different versions of maternal care. In the first two, I did not know what support existed. In the other two, I experienced what pregnancy and postpartum could feel like when different practitioners supported me across the physical, emotional and practical parts of the journey.

The difference was not that I suddenly had all the answers. It was that I had finally experienced how much support was available—and I could not stop thinking about how easily I might never have found it.

The search that opened a door

I was born and raised in Canada. I went through years of school, healthcare appointments and pregnancy without ever being taught about many of the practitioners and forms of care that would later transform my experience.

During my third pregnancy, I was struggling with sciatic pain and searching for someone who might be able to help. After what felt like endless searching, I came across a Facebook comment mentioning a chiropractor trained in the Webster Technique.

I took those words back to Google, searched for someone with that training near me and found Dr. Laura.

That search changed far more than how I understood my pain. It opened the door to midwifery and to an entirely different understanding of maternal care. I began learning about practitioners and support options I had never known existed—and about how different forms of care could work alongside one another.

What changed my experience

The difference between those pregnancies was not simply knowing where to look.

It was experiencing care from multiple practitioners who each supported a different layer of pregnancy and postpartum. Each brought something distinct, and together they changed how informed, cared for and supported I felt.

The experience did not remove every challenge. It showed me how different those challenges could feel when I was surrounded by practitioners who understood and supported different parts of the journey.

But I had found that care through persistence, an online comment and chance.

I kept returning to the same questions: Why had no one taught me that these options existed? Why did discovering meaningful support depend on happening across the right person or searching for exactly the right words?

A woman’s ability to understand her options should not depend on her location, finances, personal connections or how much time and energy she has available to search.

Why Supportful exists

Supportful exists because care should not be discovered by accident.

It is being built so women can better understand the different practitioners and forms of support available throughout maternal health—before they reach a moment of uncertainty or crisis.

My hope is that Supportful will help women feel informed enough to ask questions, confident enough to advocate for themselves and supported enough to know that they do not have to navigate these experiences alone.

Supportful is being built for women across Canada, beginning with our first rollout in Ontario. As it grows, the mission will remain the same: to make meaningful maternal health support easier to understand and access, regardless of where a woman lives or who she happens to know.

your village, your way.

No two women will need the same combination of care and support.

Supportful is not about defining one correct path. It is about making the options easier to understand so every woman can build a circle of care that reflects her needs, values, circumstances and journey.