What this care covers
The perinatal period has its own difficulties, and they are not simply ordinary anxiety or depression that happen to arrive at a busy time. Pregnancy, birth, and early parenthood each carry their own risks, and treatment works better when it is aimed at what is actually happening.
- Maternal mental health: pregnancy and prenatal support, postpartum depression and anxiety, perinatal OCD, and birth trauma.
- Postpartum adjustment: the shift into motherhood, changes in a relationship, and the identity questions and overwhelm that often go unspoken.
- Women’s mental health: fertility, hormonal transitions, and the other life stages that get folded into “hormones” and left there.
Intrusive thoughts are more common than most mothers are told
Many new parents experience sudden, unwanted thoughts about harm coming to their baby. They are frightening, they feel shameful, and they are one of the most under-disclosed experiences in new parenthood—often because a mother fears what will happen if she says them out loud.
Unwanted intrusive thoughts of this kind are a recognized feature of perinatal anxiety and OCD, they are distinct from any intention to act, and they respond to treatment. Naming them to a clinician who works with them regularly is usually the point at which they start to loosen.
Who provides it
Dr. Elena Bicherova is a licensed psychologist who holds a doctorate in psychology and an academic background in counseling psychology, with more than sixty scientific publications. Her approach is warm, collaborative, and strengths-based, drawing on evidence-based methods rather than a single fixed model.
She also sees clients in Russian, which is rare in perinatal care and matters a great deal to the families it fits.
How sessions work
All of this care is delivered by telehealth to clients located in Florida or Iowa. There is no drive, no waiting room, and no need to arrange childcare in order to be seen. The free 15-minute consultation is a video call about what you are dealing with and whether the fit feels right, before anything is booked.
Sessions run in the evening, 5:00–8:00 pm ET. Dr. Bicherova practices from the Pacific time zone, so the hours that are hardest to find elsewhere are ordinary afternoon hours for her. When the day belongs to a baby, that is often the difference between therapy being possible and not.
Haven also welcomes conversations with lactation consultants, doulas, midwives, obstetric practices, and birthing centers looking for a referral route for perinatal mental health.
