308: The Emily Effect with Megan Johnson: What Every Mom Needs to Know About Postpartum Struggles

Mint Arrow Messages

PodcastOne

Self-improvement, Education

5 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Motherhood is beautiful, but it can also feel overwhelming, isolating, and even scary—especially when postpartum mental health struggles come into play. In this episode, Corrine sits down with Megan Johnson, a therapist and co-founder of The Emily Effect, for an open and much-needed conversation about maternal mental health. Megan shares the heartbreaking story of her sister Emily Dyches, who suffered from severe postpartum anxiety before tragically losing her life. Through Emily’s story, Megan sheds light on the silent battles so many moms face, the stigma that keeps women from speaking up, and the resources that can truly help. Corrine and Megan also discuss signs to watch for, why postpartum struggles aren’t always obvious, and what loved ones can do to help. If you've ever felt like something wasn’t quite right after having a baby—or if you want to better support the moms in your life—this episode will leave you feeling informed, encouraged, and most importantly, less alone. Resources Mentioned: Visit theemilyeffect.org to learn more about The Emily Effect or follow them on Instagram @the_emily_effect Follow @maternalmentalhealthutah for additional support and education Postpartum Support International | Instagram: @postpartumsupportinternational Megan Johnson is the Co-Founder of The Emily Effect, a foundation that honors her late sister Emily Dyches who lost her life to Postpartum Anxiety in February 2016. The mission of The Emily Effect is to raise awareness about maternal mental health and provide resources and support for women and families experiencing Perinatal Mood & Anxiety Disorders. As a practicing therapist and one who has had repeated experiences with depression and anxiety, Megan is passionate about the topic of mental health. She believes that owning and sharing our stories is the most impactful way to educate and create meaningful connection surrounding this crucial topic. Megan, her husband Ray, and their four boys live in Lehi, UT.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I have my friend Megan Johnson here today, and I'm just really grateful that you are here to just talk about something that's very near and dear to my heart.
0:18.8	But I wanted to give you first the chance to just tell people
0:22.7	like who you are and, you know, what you do with the Emily effect. Yeah. So I'm a mom of four.
0:30.6	I live in Utah. And I'm also a therapist. And I've had my own struggles with depression and anxiety. And so the topic of
0:39.8	mental health is something that I'm very passionate about. And that passion reached a new level
0:45.1	when I lost my sister, Emily, back in February of 2016, we're coming up actually on the nine
0:51.9	year anniversary of her passing. I lost her to postpartum anxiety, something that she battled with for about a year before she passed away.
1:03.0	And her story is something that I think resonates with a lot of women.
1:09.0	And so when she passed away, her story was in the limelight.
1:13.0	It was in the news.
1:14.1	And so many people reached out to our family and shared that they had been struggling.
1:18.8	And we knew that there were many women like Emily who had struggled and are struggling like she did.
1:25.0	And we thought it was really important to share her story,
1:33.4	to shed light on this topic. And to use it as a catalyst to create change as far as resources go and to use her story to help other women feel seen and to feel like they deserve to get
1:39.4	help as well. Yeah. And this is something that is personally really important to me too, because when this comes out, we will have just released my story through you guys and through Sturried, came out and did a beautiful job of recording. Yeah, my story was postpartum depression. And so this has just been kind of like a beautiful like thread of,
2:02.5	you know, how how it's all connected us together as friends now. And so, but I want to hear
2:09.1	about Emily as a child, like growing up what your family dynamic was like, what she was like,
2:14.8	you know, before she became a mom. Yeah. Yeah. So five kids and her family.
2:19.9	I'm the youngest. My brother is the oldest. And then there's four of us girls. And Emily is the
2:24.7	oldest. And she's eight years older than me. So growing up, I watched her do everything from the time
2:32.3	I was little, you know, into teenage years of being able to kind of watch that lifespan of hers.
2:39.0	She was just always someone that I wanted to be like.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from PodcastOne, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of PodcastOne and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.