The Village JournalCaring for the Person Behind the Monitor
Why we’re partnering with Owlet, and what the future holds for the wellness of moms and babies.
So much of the care around pregnancy and new parenthood focuses on the baby. Heart rates, weight checks, sleep windows, feeding logs. Every appointment has a chart, and very few of those charts ask how the mother is doing. Like us, maybe you felt like you were slowly disappearing behind all the things you can measure, check, and monitor with your baby.
Between the two of us, we’ve been through infertility, NICU stays, and postpartum mental health conditions. Our paths looked different, but we both spent time at home wondering whether what we were feeling was normal, and whether anyone would notice if it wasn’t.
We built VillageFor so moms feel supported as they prepare for motherhood and, later, care for their babies. Today we’re sharing that VillageFor is partnering with Owlet to help accomplish our mission of making sure every mom has the tools to thrive in her motherhood journey.
Why Owlet
For more than a decade, Owlet has helped parents keep watch over their babies. That kind of trust is earned, and it comes with an understanding of the ten fingers and toes that are at stake. But also a shared knowing of who is standing behind the monitor, a mom carrying feelings she maybe hasn’t even said out loud yet.
Owlet recognizes that too. What brought us together is a belief we both hold: caring for a baby and caring for the person raising them were never meant to be two separate jobs.
For years, technology has helped parents better understand how their babies are doing. But the mental health of the person caring for that baby has too often been left out of the conversation.
This partnership is an opportunity to change that. By bringing Owlet’s experience in infant monitoring together with VillageFor’s approach to maternal mental health, we’re working toward a future where supporting the baby and supporting the mother are part of the same conversation.
Owlet has always believed technology can give families greater insight and confidence during some of the most important moments of their lives. Our partnership with VillageFor creates an opportunity to expand that support beyond the baby and think more holistically about the mother, too. By bringing together the insights families have about their babies with a better understanding of how mothers are doing, we have the potential to change what support looks like for the whole family.
That is the future we’re working toward. One where a mother’s mental health is not treated as separate from her baby’s well-being, and where families have more ways to recognize when support is needed.
What the partnership means
As part of our partnership, Owlet360 members will receive three months of free access to Village Plus, plus 15% off for the rest of the year.
VillageFor members can save $40 on an eligible Dream Sock® or Dream Duo™ with code VILLAGEFOR40.
If you found us through Owlet, welcome. VillageFor is a maternal mental health platform built for every path to motherhood, including trying to conceive, pregnancy, loss, NICU, adoption, and postpartum. Alongside regular mood check-ins, guided journaling, grounding tools, and mental health screening, two features are designed to make it easier to understand how you’re doing and bring support into everyday life.
Voice Journal: hear what your voice can tell you.
Some days, it’s hard to explain how you feel. Other days, you’re so busy getting through everything that you haven’t stopped to ask.
Voice Journal gives you a way to pause, talk and learn more about yourself. Powered by Canary Speech’s vocal biomarker technology, it analyzes acoustic patterns in a 45-second recording and gives you results across Mood, Stress and Overall Wellness.
Talk about the night you had. The appointment you’re waiting for. The things you haven’t said out loud. Then follow your results alongside mood check-ins and weekly assessments to see how you’re doing across days, weeks and months.
One difficult day can feel like everything. A better week can pass without you noticing. Seeing your patterns gives you more to reflect on, and more to bring into a conversation about the support you need.
Your recordings are deleted after analysis. Voice Journal is not diagnostic.
My Village: “Let me know if you need anything” becomes actual help.
You can be surrounded by love and still be carrying too much alone. The people closest to you may want to help without knowing what you need, what you’re going through or where to begin.
My Village brings them into the experience with you.
Invite the people you trust and decide what each person can see. Give them a clearer understanding of your chapter of motherhood through personalized Ways to Support, and send requests for the help that would make a difference.
Take the next feed. Come with me to the appointment. Bring dinner. Give me an hour to sleep. Ask how I’m doing, and stay for the answer.
Your village gets guidance. You get a way to ask beyond “I’m fine.” Village Plus includes space for up to five trusted supporters.
Together, Voice Journal helps you recognize what you’re carrying, and My Village helps the people you trust understand how to show up.
If you’re already part of VillageFor, nothing about your experience changes. You’ll just see Owlet, one more villager, there to support your motherhood journey.
What October holds
October carries a lot for both of us. For Owlet, it’s SIDS Awareness Month, a cause that shaped the company from the start. It’s also home to two dates we’ll be marking together.
Wednesday, October 7: Ask Her Twice
When someone asks a mother how she’s doing, the first answer is almost always “I’m okay.” It’s the generic answer that gets everyone through the conversation, and rarely the whole story. Asking again, and meaning it, is how the real answer gets room to come out.
Ahead of World Mental Health Day, we hosted Ask Her Twice in New York, bringing together voices from lived experience, clinical care, advocacy, and culture. Through two panels, The State of Maternal Mental Health and The Village Around Her, we opened conversations about what mothers need and how the people around them can show up. We’ll continue sharing moments from the event here and on Instagram.
Saturday, October 10: World Mental Health Day
We’ll be going phrase by phrase through what “I’m okay” usually means, and what a lot of mothers would say if they had the space. Follow along on Instagram @villagefor_.
Thursday, October 15: Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day
At 7 p.m. local time, families everywhere light a candle for the babies they’ve lost during pregnancy and infancy. Owlet’s commitment to every baby and every parent extends to honoring babies who are no longer here and the parents who love them deeply. Owlet will be resharing photos of remembrance candles utilizing the hashtag #TheyWereHere in memory of these babies who are so loved.
If October is a hard month for you, you get to decide how much of it you take part in.
After October
Awareness months end, but what you’re carrying doesn’t follow a calendar. VillageFor is here for every day of your journey. It’s there for a two-minute check-in between everything else, for the thing you haven’t said to anyone yet, and for helping the people around you understand what you need.
We’re grateful to be doing this with a partner who believes the person behind the monitor deserves care too.
Love,
Cait & Christy