At Canopie, Anne Wanlund Provides Specialized Maternal Mental Healthcare
[Music] and thank you so much for taking the time with me today to catch me up on what you’re working on with canopy well thank you so much for having me i’m super excited to share what we’re working on and the problem the big opportunity in the space so you’re really upgrading the way that that women get care when they’re struggling with mental health challenges as moms kind of break that down for me well it’s interesting because you know maternity care is all focused on education and prevention but the most likely thing that’s going to happen to you as a new mom is you’re going to struggle with depression and anxiety but we do nothing about that in our maternity care which makes no sense at all um so what we’re really doing is intervening early in the process and getting effective scalable support to moms in a universal way by working through existing work streams existing maternity care pathways and and doing that at scale my understanding is that you you’ve been working in advocacy uh you haven’t always been in health tech and and this is a new business for you so kind of what what brought you into this uh mission yeah um so i’ve worked in maternal and child health for most of my career actually in east africa so working with moms and babies on nutrition um but you know what really brought my attention to the issue was my own struggle um i had my son a few years ago and um it was both the most wonderful time in the world and also the most terrible time in the world um for me and um you know i was screened by my ob and my pediatrician um and realized that you know i wasn’t being connected to resources um they there were no resources for me and um i we kind of dug into the the issue more with researchers interviewed a lot of moms um a lot of practitioners and realized there’s just a huge resource gap and a huge um gap in knowledge of you know what to do with a mom um when she’s struggling but you know where we really see the opportunity is is not just the care and treatment you know we have a solution that is effective treatment but you can actually deliver the same technology early and prevent um the the health outcomes that are related to untreated maternal mental health conditions like preterm births c-sections preeclampsia um you know you name it these f your mental health and your physical health are inextricably linked so we’re trying to head off those those costs and those outcomes early so walk me through the actual patient experience how do you actually head these things off we’re talking about an early appointment with your ob being introduced to this kind of product walk me through the process yeah so um you know our goal because maternal mental health conditions are so common um our goal is to introduce the resource really early at the time of screening and kind of um relate unrelated to the actual screening score because so many people are actually missed in that process um so a mom will download the app she’ll be screened for depression and anxiety but we also at that time customize a program for her so based on whether she might have risk factors for anxiety or have symptoms of anxiety or depression or high stress um we also ask questions about her relationships her um her sleep um what concern she has uh is she struggling with uh um worried about her baby’s development or bonding with her baby work um there’s so many really common influences that sort of help push us into these low and anxious cycles um and then we customize a 12-day uh 12-minute a day program for her um super manageable based on techniques that we’ve tested but also sourced from randomized controlled trials things that have already been shown to be really really effective for preventing and treating these disorders and then refer her to additional support if she needs it okay okay yeah how effective is a 12-day 12 minutes a day you know one of the themes i feel like i’m hearing uh throughout these interviews is sometimes the best innovation is a simple innovation it’s a small step forward so how powerful is that kind of program well um our randomized controlled trial showed that 80 of moms who had symptoms of depression were below the referral threshold at the end of our program which is extreme and a really high treatment effect really really strong program so they are effective um and our goal was to just make it as easy as possible to do the program so super simple you know it’s in english and spanish audio and text based um we also have short videos and read along text the whole goal was accessibility um and and basically you know using a very good clinical product and leveraging the resource but research but making it really really kind of a wonderful experience for moms is this company based in the u.s yes yeah i just i just think about your your history your work history and i’m guessing that you have thoughts about the impact this could have globally absolutely i mean so we are doing some work in the uk we’re interested in single-payer markets because you know the people who are most interested in working with us and our early customers are risk-bearing organizations their health plans their integrated delivery networks who see the rising costs of maternity maternity care see this huge gap in maternal mental health and understand that we have to do something to address it and most of the the world is single-payer systems how do you quantify the potential cost savings to a single-payer system i mean it’s huge i mean uh maternal mental health conditions are the highest costing maternal morbidity um in the u.s so that 18 billion dollars a year um so so the opportunity is enormous and 50 of maternal mental health conditions can be prevented so you can do the math there it’s it’s thousands and thousands of dollars per per birth per year do you feel like this is an area that’s been neglected very neglected yeah i mean through my own experience but you know it’s also just very very obvious we’ve never talked to a single partner or customer who’s been like oh yeah we’ve got this handled no we don’t but it’s just getting started okay so what’s next for canopy what are you excited about yeah it’s really excited about this year you know we spent the last year really refining our product testing it getting our research advisors on board and this year is all about growth and scale and partnering um so we’ve got some great um stuff happening with some health plans and health systems in massachusetts and florida and dc and north carolina and yeah we’re just excited about growing and and learning and getting better so who’s an ideal partner for you uh it’s really integrated delivery networks um and and and health plans um we are you know really really interested in low-income moms in particular medicaid populations because they tend to have more struggles and need you know a higher need in those populations so that’s who we designed the product for but if we address those barriers for that population we can be relevant for any population and thank you so much for taking the time with me today i just i love the passion that you have for this it’s coming out of a personal experience and yet you’ve also developed a really unique uh ex you know skill set and i know you know you’ve got a great team as well so we’ll be watching what you do next thank you logan thanks so much you
Anne Wanlund, CEO & Co-founder of Canopie, is on a mission to provide every mother with access to preventative mental healthcare. 85% of new mothers who are screened for postpartum depression and other postpartum conditions need help but don’t receive it or can’t access it due to costs or the time and logistics of child care.
For expecting and new mothers experiencing symptoms of mood disorders or who are at elevated risk, Canopie – which StartUp Health backed in 2021 – provides program-based, personalized care with targeted focus on maternal mental health rather than a broad focus on mental health or maternal health.
—
Connect with the team at Canopie: https://www.startuphealth.com/canopie
Invest in Health Moonshots: https://healthmoonshots.com
Get investment from StartUp Health: https://www.startuphealth.com/getting-started
Connect with StartUpHealth:
Website: https://www.startuphealth.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startuphealth/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/startuphealth
Podcast: https://startup-health-now.blubrry.net/