Postpartum Depression & Perinatal Mental Health Support in San Jose: Meet Jess, LCSW

If you have asked yourself "is this normal?" since having a baby, you are not the only one. Jess, a licensed clinical social worker who leads perinatal support groups at the Village in San Jose, says it is the question she hears more than any other. New parents come to her wondering what is wrong with them, when often nothing is wrong at all. They are simply going through something hard, without enough support around them.

Jess knows this from both sides. She has worked as a clinician for six years, but it was becoming a parent herself that changed everything. After the birth of her son, she went through her own perinatal mental health disorder in early postpartum. That experience reshaped her career and her purpose. Today she focuses entirely on perinatal mental health, and she leads several groups at the Village designed to help San Jose parents feel less alone.

Why So Many Parents Feel Like Something Is Wrong

Jess identifies as queer and is raising her son with her wife. She describes her own path to motherhood as groundbreaking for her personally, and it is part of why she brings so much heart to this work. Before her son was born, she worked in schools as a therapist. She understood mental health from a clinical perspective. What she did not fully understand, until she lived it, was how heavy the perinatal period can feel and how little support most people have during it.

She hears the same worries over and over from the parents she works with. Is this normal? What is wrong with me? A big part of the problem, Jess says, is social media. New parents are bombarded with images and messages about how postpartum life is supposed to look and feel. That noise drowns out something much more important: a parent's own intuition.

Jess wants to help people quiet that outside noise and trust themselves again. She believes real support does not come from a feed. It comes from real people, in real community.

Community as the First Line of Support

Jess is direct about what helped her most during her own struggle. It was not a podcast or an app. It was leaning into group support and seeing other mothers going through something similar, in person, in a real room. She believes that if she had not found that community, she would have felt like something was seriously wrong with her, when really she just needed people who understood.

She has heard the same thing from countless other parents. Without community, many would have felt completely isolated during a time that is already overwhelming. Jess points out that our culture has drifted away from communal support over generations. Birthing parents used to be surrounded by extended family and neighbors during this stage of life. Today, many people in San Jose, Los Gatos, Campbell, and across the South Bay are navigating postpartum life without family nearby. That is exactly why the Village exists.

For parents who are not ready to walk into a room full of strangers, Jess also points to free virtual resources. Postpartum Support International hosts a wide range of free groups, including one for queer and trans parents, where Jess volunteers as a support facilitator. She acknowledges that even leaving the house can feel impossible in early postpartum. Starting online, from your own couch, is a completely valid first step toward finding community.

The Reproductive Grief and Loss Circle

One of the groups Jess leads at the Village is a Reproductive Grief and Loss circle. This is a support space for mothers and birthing parents who have experienced any kind of reproductive loss, including abortion, termination, or stillbirth. Jess describes it as a space to come in with whatever you need to bring with you, without judgment.

She will be co-facilitating this circle with a close friend of over 20 years who has her own lived experience with pregnancy loss. Jess believes strongly in bringing lived experience into the room alongside clinical training, because grief needs both.

Mom Parts Salon

Jess also leads a Mom Parts Salon circle, open to any mother or birth parent at any stage of the postpartum journey, whether that is two months postpartum or 20 years postpartum. This group is based on the Mom Parts model, developed by author Jessica Zucker in her book on postpartum depression called When Good Moms Feel Bad.

The sessions are experiential. Jess guides participants through meditation, followed by an activity and group processing. The goal is to help each parent explore the different internal parts of themselves that show up in motherhood. Childhood experiences often resurface in unexpected ways once someone becomes a parent. Jess sees this work as a way for parents to take care of themselves so they can show up fully for their children, and for their own inner child too.

Understanding Perinatal Well‌ness Workshop

The third offering Jess brings to the Village is a more formal workshop on understanding perinatal mental health disorders. This session walks through statistics on perinatal mental health, common myths and misconceptions, and the specific disorders parents may experience along with their symptoms.

Jess closes the workshop with practical resources, coping tools, and a short introduction to the concept of matrescence, the developmental process of becoming a mother. She wants attendees to leave with real tools they can use immediately, not just information that scares them.

This workshop is not only for new parents. Jess welcomes birth workers looking to refresh their knowledge, as well as anyone who simply wants to understand what postpartum depression or perinatal anxiety can look like. She often hears from people who wish they had taken a class like this sooner, including from her own past self as a clinician who did not yet understand these disorders from the inside.

Why This Work Matters Beyond the Individual

Jess sees perinatal support as something much bigger than any one family. She believes there is deep strength inside every birthing parent, even when postpartum has left them feeling physically and emotionally wide open. She also points out that non-birthing parents go through their own process of becoming during this time, and they deserve support too.

The impact of postpartum support does not stop with the parents. Jess connects strong early support to healthy childhood development, and ultimately to the kind of adults those children become. Attachment, she says, is one of the most foundational pieces of a person's entire life. Supporting parents well in the perinatal period is one way to support the next generation before it even begins.

Find Support at the Village in San Jose

Whether you are pregnant, newly postpartum, or years into parenthood and still processing what happened during that time, you do not have to figure it out alone. Jess's groups at the Village give San Jose parents a place to ask "is this normal?" out loud and get an honest, compassionate answer.

Learn more about perinatal mental health resources at the Village.