The Story Behind the Village
She Watched Her Patients Struggle Alone. So She Built Prenatal Classes in San Jose That Changed Everything.
Dr. Melissa Adrouny has delivered hundreds of babies in San Jose. Brilliant people. Capable people. People who had planned everything — their careers, their timing, their lives. And then a baby arrived, and the emotional weight of that transition was something no appointment, no prescription, and no medical training had prepared anyone to hold.
"What they needed wasn't medicine," she says. "They needed support."
That moment of recognition is where the Village began. Not in a boardroom. Not with a business plan. In an exam room, watching patient after patient experience what she now calls the emotional whiplash of new parenthood — and realizing she was not equipped to help them in the way they actually needed.
This is the origin story.
Why Pregnancy Is a Transition of Life. Not a Medical Condition
The word matrescence is finally entering mainstream conversation around new parenthood. It describes the identity transformation that happens when someone becomes a parent — psychological, hormonal, physical, emotional — a shift just as profound as adolescence and just as undersupported by the systems around it.
Dr. Adrouny recognized this long before it had a name. What she saw in her practice was a healthcare model built to manage complications. Not to support the full human experience of becoming a parent.
The current healthcare system — third-party payers, reimbursement structures, 15-minute appointments — makes it structurally difficult to integrate the services that actually support this transition. Pelvic floor physical therapy. Lactation support. Acupuncture. Nutrition guidance. Mental health resources. The system was not designed to hold all of this. And the gap it leaves is enormous.
"There was a huge deficit that I myself could not fill," she says, "because I had not been trained to meet all of those other needs."
The Gap in Postpartum Support in San Jose and Why It Is Getting Worse
In a post-pandemic world, Dr. Adrouny points to something that extends beyond healthcare. We have lost what sociologists call the third space — the places beyond home and work where people gather, connect, and simply exist alongside one another.
"We're not going to the movies. We're not going to the bowling alley. We're not going to the mall on the weekend to just walk around and be around other people. That's where humanity happens."
For new parents — already exhausted, already isolated, already navigating a complete identity shift — the loss of those third spaces is felt most acutely. And no digital platform, no app, no AI tool can replace what happens when people who are going through the same thing are physically in the same room together.
"AI is never going to replace the value of human touch," she says. "That's not something you can ever recreate."
The Village was always intentional about having a physical location for exactly this reason. Postpartum support in San Jose had to be real, in-person, and community-first — or it would not work.
The Mommy Matchmaker: Where Community Started
Before the Village had a name, before it had a physical space, Dr. Adrouny was already trying to solve the problem informally. She started doing something she called playing Mommy Matchmaker.
When she could see that two of her patients were in the same situation — newly moved to the Bay Area, no family nearby, navigating the same fears — she would ask permission and connect them. Encourage them to meet up. Put people who were in the same boat in the same room.
"The idea was for them to be able to find the paddle together and be able to weather the storm."
It worked every time. Because what those patients needed was not a referral or a prescription. It was someone who understood. Someone who could say: me too. I am in this too.
That informal matchmaking became the philosophical foundation for everything the Village is now built on.
What Childbirth Preparation in San Jose Actually Changes
The turning point came in January 2023 when Dr. Adrouny made a deliberate structural decision: she shifted her practice to an educational model of care. She began integrating prenatal classes into her San Jose practice — taught by her, specifically designed to give patients the knowledge and tools to enter labor from a place of preparation rather than fear.
"Giving them the pieces of information and the tools they would need to go into labor confident and prepared — so they're not showing up and making decisions based out of fear or anxiety."
The shift was felt almost immediately. Labor and delivery nurses began commenting on something different about her patients. They arrived calm. They asked informed questions. They had agency over their decisions.
"Your patients show up and they're not fearful. They're not scared. They're prepared."
Childbirth preparation in San Jose, done well, does not just change the birth experience. It changes how a person enters the fourth trimester. And that changes everything about how they experience early parenthood.
What Happens Inside the Village's Prenatal Classes
One of the most unexpected and beautiful things Dr. Adrouny has observed in her prenatal classes is what happens when someone arrives for baby number two or three.
They naturally become the expert in the room.
"'I've been through this, and I can speak to it from a little experience.'" And many of those patients — the ones who choose to come back, who choose to take classes again — have had prior birth trauma. Processing their own experience and then sharing wisdom with others who are about to go through it is, she says, incredibly healing.
This is community. Not content. Not curriculum. The real thing.
It is also what no virtual platform can replicate. You cannot watch someone else's face when they hear something that changes everything for them. You cannot sit next to another person in the moment it clicks. You cannot build the kind of trust that makes the postpartum period survivable from behind a screen.
The Dream: One-Stop Prenatal and Postpartum Support in San Jose
Dr. Adrouny has always had a clear vision for what comprehensive care looks like. A one-stop model where people can access everything they need for pregnancy and postpartum in one place.
Nutrition. Pelvic floor physical therapy. Lactation support. Acupuncture. Chiropractic care. Movement classes. Labor coaching. Community.
Not as a luxury. As a standard of care.
"It's been a really, really actually very cool evolution of how we've gotten to where we are today — and we're still evolving. It's constantly a living, breathing, dynamic model of care because we're going to adapt to what our patients need."
The Village is that model. Still evolving. Still adapting. Built around the people inside it.
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The Village San Jose offers Root to Rise, a prenatal class series founded and taught by Dr. Melissa Adrouny, OB-GYN. Classes are designed to give expecting parents the knowledge, tools, and community they need to enter labor confident, prepared, and supported. Learn more at thevillagesanjose.com/root-to-rise-prenatal-class-series.
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Root to Rise is taught by a practicing OB-GYN, not a third-party instructor. The educational model is built around agency — giving patients real clinical knowledge about what is happening in their bodies so they can make informed decisions during labor rather than deferring out of fear. It is also embedded in an in-person community that continues beyond the classroom.
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The Village offers postpartum wellness support, community, classes, esthetics, and connections to practitioners including pelvic floor physical therapy and lactation support. The model is built on the understanding that postpartum support starts before the baby arrives — with preparation, education, and community that does not disappear after delivery. Learn more at thevillagesanjose.com/postpartum-support-san-jose.
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Dr. Adrouny cites the loss of third spaces — places beyond home and work where people gather and connect — as one of the most significant contributors to parental isolation. No digital platform or AI tool can replicate the value of being physically present with people who understand what you are going through. The Village was intentionally built with a physical location for this reason.
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The Village serves anyone navigating pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, or menopause in the San Jose, Campbell, Los Gatos, Willow Glen, Cambrian, and greater South Bay Area. It explicitly welcomes LGBTQ+ families and non-binary individuals. You are welcome here no matter who your doctor is.
The Village is open in San Jose, CA. Prenatal classes, postpartum support, esthetics, infant CPR, perimenopause and menopause wellness and a growing community of people navigating the same transitions you are.
Explore prenatal classes in San Jose → thevillagesanjose.com/root-to-rise-prenatal-class-series
Postpartum support in San Jose → thevillagesanjose.com/postpartum-support-san-jose