Healing the Tigress: An AAPI Maternal Mental Health Podcast

Of all the perinatal mental health disorders, postpartum psychosis is considered a medical emergency and absolutely requires treatment. It affects 1 to 2 in 1000 mothers and is often misunderstood.  On this episode, our guest is Jigyna Patel, a South Asian mom of 3 girls from Houston, Texas. Her perinatal story spans over 10 years, including many different layers: the cultural stigma South Asians...

On today's episode, we sit down and talk about breastfeeding and mental health with Anhoni Patel, the founder of the popular Mrs. Patel's Ayurvedic Treats and Teas for lactation and pregnancy support. Anhoni started her small business in 2012 while 4 months postpartum with her second child to make Ayurvedic inspired treats and teas to support pregnancy, lactation, and women's health...

Today's guest is someone Peggy and Jasmine have grown up with in their college years through early adulthood and motherhood, and we were so excited and honored to interview her. You may know her too as one of the OG YouTube content creators, FrmHeadtoToe! Jen Chae is a Korean American beauty and lifestyle content creator. Over the last 16 years she has cultivated a following of over 2 million...

Last year, an avid listener from the beginning suggested that we should have an episode for the expectant new mom that they can refer friends to as a resource, not necessarily focused on just perinatal mental health disorders but how to better prepare for new motherhood in general. We know it can be kind of scary to hear about all the things that could happen and in turn maybe it induces more anxi...

Today's episode dives into a different side of postpartum depression and treatment options that are not as widely discussed. We were joined on this episode by Stephanie Wu, a Taiwanese American occupational therapist and perinatal mental health certified professional, who talked to us about her treatment resistant depression after the birth of her second child. Stephanie has been very open ab...

To kick off 2025, we invited Alyce Chan, stand up comedian and founder of MomCom NYC onto the podcast!  Alyce is a Chinese Canadian/American mom of two boys and has been featured in the New York Comedy Festival and placed finalist in the esteemed Boston comedy festival. You've likely seen her work on ScaryMommy and other major parenting platforms. Alyce has also appeared on ABC, Hulu, The Dre...

The episode today explores two big themes we haven't touched upon yet on this podcast-- being child-free by choice and then the journey of adoption. Our guest today is Katy Wang, a Taiwanese American early childhood educator for the past 15 years in both private and independent schools all over the Bay Area. Katy has held a variety of positions--everything from an assistant teacher to teacher...

In honor of Veterans’ Day this month, we wanted to highlight a motherhood journey of a veteran who not only served her country but also now serves the needs of so many mothers in their postpartum period. Our guest today is none other than Stephiney Foley, CEO and Founder of Yuzi Care. She is a postpartum doula, army veteran, military spouse, West Point Grad, and mother of two biracial boys. Stephi...

For this next episode, we were so excited to interview Susan Lieu, the Vietnamese American author of the moving memoir The Manicurist's Daughter . This debut memoir has been featured not only on Apple but in the New York Times, NPR books, Elle Magazine, LA Times, and the Washington Post. We talk with Susan about how losing her mother at a young age (11) was such a pivotal event in her life, t...

Trigger Warning: We will be discussing pregnancy loss in this episode. In honor of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Month, we wanted to share the story of our next guest, Eileen Santos Rosete. Eileen is Filipino American and it's fitting she is our guest this month too, as October is also Filipino American History Month. She holds a master of science in marriage and family therapy, is certified as a...

Today's guest has a personal story behind it, and we're very honored to have on Sia Clyde, an influential mommy fitness blogger and NASM-certified personal trainer! When Jasmine (one of our show's co-hosts) was in the depths of her postpartum depression and insomnia, her husband sent her an email late one night with some blog posts talking about postpartum depression and medications...

Maternal suicide is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality in the U.S. and up to 20% of maternal deaths are due to suicide. People of color are more likely to report suicidal ideation in the immediate postpartum period as compared to their white counterparts, with Asian women cited as 9x more likely. Yet, we don't hear about the stories as much. This is why it is so important to cont...

One of the things we really wanted to make sure to do on Healing the Tigress was to be as inclusive as possible of all our AAPI folks’ stories. And that also means we want to make sure to highlight stories of AAPI LGBTQ+ parents and their mental health as well.  For our first guest of this season, we were very excited to have the popular wedding and elopement photographer and former cardiac ICU RN...

For our season finale, we are joined by the wonderful Dr. Kalena Kaopuuokalani Lanuza, who is a doctorally prepared Certified Family and Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and Certified Lactation Counselor. She specializes in reproductive psychiatric mental health and cares for Native Hawaiian and Pasifika wāhine (women) in Hawai'i and throughout the diaspora in Washington, Oregon a...

For Father's Day and Men's Mental Health Month, we wanted to get another AAPI dad on the show to talk about their experience in fatherhood in relationship to mental health.  Joining us for this episode is Dr. Matt Dinh, PharmD, who is a Vietnamese American father of two and a pharmacist by trade. Matt talks to us about how his wife did not experience any postpartum mental health disorder...

Infertility impacts one in six people of reproductive age and nearly one in four female physicians who are trying to have a baby face infertility issues. This statistic is no mystery to our guest, Dr. Joyce Park, who many of you may know as @TeaWithMD on social media.  Joyce's journey with IVF began when her firstborn was just 18 months old, after trying for a second child for quite some time...

Bipolar disorder affects 2-3% of the general population, and about half of the women with bipolar disorder are first diagnosed in the postpartum period. In today's episode, we talk with a mother with lived experience of bipolar 1 disorder and how it affected her journey to and through motherhood. Michelle Yang is third generation ethnic Chinese born in South Korea, and she immigrated to the U...

For Maternal Mental Health Month, we knew we wanted to have a discussion on medications in the perinatal period. Because as much as AAPI folks can be reluctant to do therapy, they can also be just as wary about taking medications. But sometimes medications can play an important role in recovery, just like therapy can. So we wanted to talk with an expert on the psychiatric medications used during t...

Many of you have heard or read about Dr. Jasmine's postpartum depression story and know that insomnia was a huge piece of the story. While "postpartum insomnia" is not a true technical diagnosis, many moms have reached out to her about feeling so lost, confused, and unseen in their insomnia struggles after having a baby too -- especially after Jasmine's recent appearance on Rac...

We are thrilled to have Allison Livingston on our podcast for today's episode to talk about her lived experience with perinatal obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and postpartum depression (PPD). Allison is a Korean-American adoptee and a mom of two. She has a B.A. in International Business and a M.A. in Early Childhood Education. Allison was a teacher for 5 years and then things shifted aft...

TW: Topics of miscarriage and suicide are briefly discussed in this episode.  You may recognize our next guest from a New York Times story featuring real-life women's stories on postpartum depression last summer. In this episode, we talk with Shivani Hiralal about her experiences with miscarriages, an ectopic pregnancy, a traumatic birth, and then postpartum depression. Amidst the roller coas...

Recently we had an episode on the decision to have just one child, but there is another side to “one and done” families who may not be this way by choice. We offer a Trigger Warning before you listen that this episode does talk about miscarriage. For this episode, we sit down with Val from @thewabisabimama to talk about her motherhood story. Val is a fourth-generation Japanese American mother, who...

The episode today is rich with a wide range of topics from public policy, to race and racism, to PPD/PPA/PPOCD. A heartwarming message we also get to highlight is how it’s never too late to change your career and chase your dreams.  Divya Kumar, LICSW, ScM, PMH-C is a South Asian-American psychotherapist with a public health background who specializes in perinatal mental health, trauma, and the li...

TW: Miscarriages are briefly discussed in this episode. If you asked Shannon Eng when she was younger how many kids she wanted, she might have told you ten! She thought she wanted a lot of children, despite being an only child herself. And then she became a mother right before the world shut down for a global pandemic.  The idea of having more children soon changed after Shannon went through postp...

You may know our latest guest as the popular "Untigering" on Instagram or from her book by the same name. Iris Chen is a recovering tiger mother, parent coach, and founder of the Untigering movement. After seeing the negative effects of authoritarian parenting and unhealthy cultural expectations in her own life, Iris is now on a mission to promote mental health, peaceful parenting, and s...