Bay Shore mom opens postpartum support center for new mothers

At 94 W. Main St. in downtown Bay Shore, Lisa Lackner will open Beyond Motherhood on June 8, a postpartum support center built for women who need help after they leave the hospital and do not know where to turn. The new space is designed for women navigating postpartum depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and other perinatal mental health challenges, with support groups, educational programming and child-watch services.

Lackner, a Bay Shore resident and physician assistant, said her own recovery pushed her to create the center. After a difficult pregnancy, her daughter was born at 37 weeks and weighed 5 pounds, and two weeks later Lackner was diagnosed with postpartum preeclampsia. She said the diagnosis set off severe depression, anxiety and OCD, and she described herself as “pacing the hallway saying I was going to die” while feeling ignored when she tried to get help.

Beyond Motherhood is meant to be more than a counseling room. Lackner says it will partner with doulas, therapists and lactation consultants, and it will offer virtual memberships for mothers who cannot yet come in person or are not ready to do so. The membership page says new members receive a personal onboarding email from Lackner after purchase, but it does not show a posted fee on the public page.

The opening lands in a larger maternal-health gap that Suffolk County families know well. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says about 1 in 8 women with a recent live birth report symptoms of postpartum depression, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends screening for depression and anxiety during prenatal and postpartum care, with comprehensive postpartum care no later than 12 weeks after birth. Suffolk County’s Healthy Baby and Me program offers free, confidential help through community health workers, and county resources point families to the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline, the Postpartum Resource Center of New York and 988.

Suffolk County Legislator Steven J. Flotteron congratulated Lackner on the opening, calling Beyond Motherhood a postpartum peer support community in Bay Shore. For mothers in western Suffolk who are trying to manage recovery, feeding, and mental health at the same time, the center adds a nearby option in a county where support often still has to be assembled piece by piece.