Dr Dawn Kingston

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Calgary, AB
Dr Dawn Kingston

https://www.drdawnmentalhealth4women.com/research-studies I’m Dr. Dawn Kingston and I’m on a mission to help women live their best lives. I want to change this.

Dr. Dawn Kingston & The HOPE Team
Helping Women Overcome Mental Heathcare Barriers
🌼HOPE: Free selfguided therapy
📖Book: Your Brain on Pregnancy
🐑Farm in off hrs
⬇️Join a research study! My work centers on helping pregnant women take care of their mental and emotional well-being. Healthy families depend upon healthy mothers, and my goal is to help mothers be at their very best. I have two grown sons of my own, and I know firsthand that I can only support them well when I am healthy myself. As an associate professor at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, and holder of the Lois Hole Hospital for Women Cross-Provincial Chair in Perinatal Mental Health, I’m able to help pregnant women build strong emotional health and become the parent they want to be. I’ve been doing research on prenatal mental health for the past 10 years. I became seriously interested in women’s mental health during pregnancy when I was a nurse caring for sick infants in a neonatal intensive care unit. I realized that the medical field was focused on physical pregnancy problems, but some new research was linking prenatal stress, anxiety and depression to preterm birth and other health problems in children whose mothers suffered with prenatal anxiety or depression. A decade later, we now know that mental health problems are among the most common health problems in pregnancy. Unfortunately, help for emotional and mental health during pregnancy is often unavailable when and where women need it and they end up feeling alone and desperate. My goal is to share information and answers to questions that I constantly hear from women, their families and their prenatal care providers and provide bottom line, practical solutions that you can use to support your emotional health. Everything I offer will be based on our best evidence for how to prevent and treat emotional health problems in pregnancy. One last thing. The material I provide is meant to help you find the help you need to restore or maintain you mental and emotional health. As with all online health information, you should share it with your own provider before beginning any course of treatment. Warmly,
Dr. K

12/02/2025

✨ I got my head examined for…. my mother. ✨

Our mothers, grandmothers, and aunts went through life without research that truly understood women’s brains. But now, we can change that.

Dr. Dawn Kingston and her team are studying EEG brain scans to better understand women’s mental health at different life stages. By participating, I’m helping pave the way for future non-invasive therapies that could support women’s mental health and well-being—something my mother never had.

Join me in making a difference. 💜

📍 Edmonton & Calgary
📩 hope@ucalgary.ca

This study has received approval from the Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board at the University of Calgary -0104.

11/28/2025

Did you know that approximately 75% of women aged between 45 years and 55 years suffer from symptoms of menopause”?

Explore resource recommendations for menopause and mental health through

books
websites
journals
and more.

11/25/2025

In our research, we have found that many women prefer to self manage their mental health experience. That’s why the platform was created with the help of funders in the Alberta area.

The HOPE Platform offers three types of therapy in course format for a self-guided experience:

CBT - Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
IPT - Interpersonal Psychotherapy, and
a mini course on trauma.

While these courses do not replace professional therapeutic support, it meets the need for mental health support in those periods between sessions, or if an individual is not ready to reach out to a healthcare professional for whatever reason.

Got questions about the platform? Feel free to ask away!

11/17/2025

The new HOPE Platform is now live!

Some new changes in this enhanced version of the HOPE Platform include:

- The HOPE Platform living on the same website as all of our other resources - no more clicking between two sites!
- Structural changes for easier navigation
- Easier, clearer access to therapies, topics, resources and screeners
- Progress bars to track and bookmark progress while completing therapy courses

The HOPE Platform was initially designed and continues to be a research-based resource to support women’s mental health throughout life. It fills a gap and a need for self-guided care, whether that is due to long wait times for professional help, support needed in-between therapy appointments, a desire to manage mental health on one’s own, or something else, HOPE is here for you and/or your clients.

11/05/2025

Further barriers to mental healthcare include lack of knowledge and stigma.

46% of women were concerned about what would happen if they discussed struggles with emotional wellbeing.

45% were worried about being put on anti-depressants.

45% would not want to be seen as “depressed” or “anxious”.

I see all those three as barriers - one being stigma, being seen differently because of what we’re experiencing.

The others being system barriers. We can fix these right? Simple tweaks can ease concern and lead to support.

For example:

- We can tell women what will happen next.
- We can share with women that there are many alternatives for help (beyond antidepressants).
- We can make a simple but empowering language tweak by not focusing on, ‘You are depressed,’ and instead ‘You are having depressive symptoms’.

What do you think? Do you have other simple suggestions to make it easier for women to seek mental health support?

11/03/2025

What are some of the barriers to screening and mental health care that women experience?

The number one thing that we’ve identified in our research, is almost 76% of women have told us that their partner, friends, or family have told them that their emotional swings are “normal” and not to worry. That’s 3 out of 4.

That can be good but it can also be not good right? If it’s encouraging a woman to dismiss her symptoms.

Almost 71% of women said, “I think I can handle my mood on my own,” and therefore they didn’t want to talk to a provider, psychologist, family doctor.

67% (67.6%) said, “I would rather discuss my feelings with my partner, friends, or family.”

Now although we’ve identified those as barriers, are they barriers? Perhaps these signal to us that women want to and prefer to self-manage their emotional wellbeing. We can at least start there and if they need help, reach out.

10/31/2025

‘Birth trauma’ is a broad term and can sound clinical. Putting it into context makes it more relatable and human. Here are some examples of what it can look like:

🔹A mother who experiences a traumatic birth may feel: anxious, fearful, confused and unheard.

🔹Experiencing these feelings may affect how a woman feels later, e.g. drop in confidence in a later pregnancy, anger, or extreme vigilance toward baby.

🔹Anxiety around experiencing, coping with and recovering from a traumatic birth may be made more or less difficult depending on past traumas and quality of support.

If you are struggling and suspect you may be dealing with some post birth trauma, anxiety, or postpartum depression, don’t wait. Traumatic births can lead to ongoing feelings of anxiety or depression, so it is vital that a mother’s needs are heard. ⁠ Reach out for help.

10/29/2025

There’s lots of research around what kind of tools are best to ask the question to identify who may be struggling with depression or anxiety, but these are free. The Patient Health Questionnaire, the General Anxiety Disorder are free on the web. Women can get them, there are 9 or 10 questions, very simple.

The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) can screen for depression, and the General Anxiety Questionnaire is just 7 questions and can help us understand where the patient is at.

As the provider, I’m interested in not just the total score at the end but also what women validate and confirm. And then I can go to them and say, ‘I see (on this one for example), that you’re having trouble with relaxing over half the days.’ So the items of the individual questions can become really important for assessing as well.

On Self-Advocacy:
If you are the patient and you are interested in seeking help for your mental wellbeing, a screener can be a great place to start. One way to start a conversation with a healthcare provider can be by completing a screener, and bringing your results with you the next time you have a pregnancy or postpartum check-up.

10/24/2025

In our conversations with other women, we’ve found a common theme that crops up over and over - ‘Menopause? I’s just not talked about.’ The older the woman, the greater the pressure it has been to be silent about menopause. Women talked about their mothers and their grandmothers, keeping quiet and in doing so, staying isolated in physical and yes, emotional challenges this period in life can bring.

So let’s talk about it. Talking about it reduces stigma and opens doors to get support. You are not alone in this experience and you don’t have to go through it alone. Reach out to your healthcare provider, and if you don’t feel heard, reach out to a trusted friend.

Want some more menopause support? Check out the blog for articles addressing topics such as hormonal replacement therapy, irritability, effects on relationships, caregiver burnout and more.

Address

Calgary, AB

Website

http://www.hopementalhealth4women.com/, https://www.drdawnmentalhealth4women.com/

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