You're Not Meant to Do This Alone: The Case for Community-Supported Beginnings
Birth Roots, Portland, Me
Softness isn't just about tiny clothes and cozy fabrics; it’s also about how we show up for one another. Few moments are as tender, disorienting, and powerful as the early days of parenthood, and yet, far too often, new parents are left to navigate them alone.
Leah Deragon, co-founder of Birth Roots in Portland, Maine, has spent the last two decades working to change that. Through community-based education, support, and advocacy, Birth Roots is redefining what care looks like during the perinatal period. Leah sat down with Izzy Lee’s to share what she's learned, why community matters more than ever, and how we can all play a part in reshaping the story of early parenthood.
Can you share your background and the mission of Birth Roots?
LD: I’m the co-founder and Director of Mission and Impact at Birth Roots. I’ve spent the last two decades teaching childbirth education and facilitating postnatal classes. Birth Roots was launched in 2004 by me and another local birth doula. We were seeing something heartbreaking—new parents feeling profoundly isolated, with no language or structure for the social side of parenting. The medical side got all the attention, but what about the emotional and relational aspects of this massive life shift?
We wanted to create something that met those unmet needs. Since then, Birth Roots has helped shift the parenting experience for a generation of families. We’re a nonprofit that focuses on providing community-based education and support from pregnancy through the early years of parenting. Because changing the way we care for parents changes everything.
Maternal mental health crises have been on the rise. Can you explain why that is?
LB: Even 20 years ago, it was painfully clear to us that new parents, regardless of income or background, felt alone and unsupported. There were no systems in place, no structure for what should be a collective transition. Parents were expected to “figure it out” in isolation, often without even knowing what support they should be getting.
In the US, we have created a culture that places the entire burden on the individual household, rather than recognizing that raising children is, and has always been, a shared effort. When the incredible labor of early parenting is undervalued and overextended, it leads to burnout, self-blame, and a deep sense of personal failure.
At Birth Roots, our goal has been to not only provide local, non-clinical care, but also to shift this narrative—to show that none of us are meant to do this alone.
Birth Roots is about building community. Why is community critical for new parents?
LD: Community is essential because it protects. At Birth Roots, we’ve spent years cultivating what we call a “Culture of Support.” That means offering classes, groups, and events that do more than deliver information; they create connection. They meet the non-clinical needs that are just as real and urgent.
One way we do this is through Shared Identity Groups. These are spaces of safety and solidarity for families who may be more vulnerable to preventable trauma or marginalization. We also advocate at the policy level for things like Paid Family Leave, because we know that care doesn’t stop with individual support, it extends to systemic change.
If there was ONE thing you could tell a recent parent or someone on the journey to becoming a parent, what would that be?
LD: If I could share one truth, it’s this: changing the way we think and talk about early parenthood is culture-shifting work. We need to collectively agree that newborns—and the people caring for them—shouldn’t be left to fend for themselves.
There’s clinical care, and there’s non-clinical care. Both are necessary. And both are powerful. Let’s start by recognizing the vulnerability of this life stage and build the kind of culture that surrounds parents with the care and support they deserve.
Leah and the Birth Roots' team continue to remind us that moving the needle and shifting the cultural context for parenting often begins with small, shared moments, or a truth spoken out loud, leading to the discovery of how not alone we are in our longing for a more honest narrative of parenthood.