She felt well supported during her IVF journey and was meeting with her doctor regularly throughout her pregnancy. Postnatal, not so much.

“In Ontario after you give birth you are discharged within 24 to 48 hours, you get home, and the questions just start piling up,” the CEO says. “I was completely surprised by the things that I was experiencing physically and mentally — no one had prepared me for that.”

In previous generations — and in non-Western cultures — new parents often receive assistance from medical practitioners or family, but such support is now rare in Canada.

In 2024, Gallagher co-founded Alma Care in two floors of Yorkville’s Kimpton Saint George Hotel, stocked with all the resources parents need to navigate the first few weeks following delivery, for $1,500 a night. That ended in the summer of 2025 as Alma Care pivoted to bringing those resources to parents in their homes.

Today, Alma Care offers services ranging from a month-long “Signature” package — including night and daytime nursing, a lactation consultant, RMT massages and a registered social worker, for $15,000 — to five four-hour daytime sessions with a vetted postnatal care specialist for $900.

“I’m very passionate about working with employers and benefits providers to make this accessible to more families,” Gallagher says.

The Burlington native was exposed to marketing, business operations, wellness and franchising as the daughter of two Subway Sandwich franchisees. After studying marketing and working for marketing agencies, Gallagher joined Freshii in 2016, and Canopy Growth in 2019, before co-founding Alma Care.

Alma Care, she says, now has a team of 140 postnatal care specialists, who have supported 410 families in Ontario and British Columbia over a combined 75,000 hours.

The Star spoke with Gallagher from her home office in Toronto about the gaps that exist for new parents, how many have fewer resources than previous generations, and how Alma Care is shifting from exclusivity to accessibility. 

My parents owned a couple of Subway franchises in Burlington, and I started helping them operate their businesses at the age of eight. I really loved marketing, even though I didn’t realize that’s what it was at the time. 

I also had a paper route, and my dad would put flyers into the newspapers I delivered around the neighbourhood. I quickly gained these operating and marketing skills, and I wanted to pursue that further, which is why I studied marketing at George Brown.

My mom transitioned to a role in development for Subway, which is how I connected with the head office for a job supporting franchisees. We had 500 stores across the region, and I was helping them with operations and local marketing.

In those days Subway was marketing itself as a healthy fast-food alternative.

I’m always looking at the competition, and Freshii was this exciting new high growth fast casual franchise brand. I joined when it was pre-IPO, and it was really fun.

After that I was searching for another high growth franchise in the wellness space and with cannabis legalization in 2018 I was really intrigued by the opportunity.

I had some friends who had worked for Tokyo Smoke before it was sold to Canopy Growth, and I connected with them as they were starting to franchise their retail business. I ultimately led the retail franchise business in Ontario and then eventually across the country.

I left on maternity leave as Canopy began the process of selling off its retail business, which made me suspect there wasn’t going to be a place for me after.

Friends of mine had just invested in another company called Buggy. The CEO had tragically passed away, and they were interested in having me come in as part of the leadership team.

It was an exciting prospect, but not something I could commit to six weeks before giving birth. After the baby arrived, I worked as an adviser and eventually chief revenue officer.

I was really excited about that opportunity, but as I was going through childbirth, I was also discovering this gap in postnatal care, and I become obsessed with solving it.

I went through IVF, so I was supported through the private health care system for a good portion of my journey until pregnancy. Then you go through pregnancy and you’re meeting with your doctor on a regular basis, and there’s lots of information available about what to expect.

And then in Ontario after you give birth you are discharged within 24 to 48 hours, you get home, and the questions just start piling up, but your next routine visit isn’t for six weeks.

I really wish I had a log of my Google searches in those days because you’re constantly looking for answers. I was surprised by the things that I was experiencing physically and mentally; no one had prepared me.

Things as simple as night sweats, which is the normal result of the significant hormonal shift. There’s bleeding after birth, but how do you know how much bleeding is normal? There are so many questions you’re just not prepared to answer, and the more I spoke to parents, the more I realized there’s a lack of guidance on what to expect.

It’s no longer as life-or-death at that point.

There are things you can seek outside of your home if you have a problem, but it goes from proactive to reactive, which means most families get to a crisis before they get help.

I contrast it to my mom, who had four kids 40 years ago.

After she gave birth, she was in the hospital for seven days; she slept in her room, the baby slept in the nursery with a team of nurses who brought them in for feeding. There was a lactation consultant who was helping her and making sure the baby gained weight, and she was able to focus on her physical recovery.

She was 15 years younger than me when she had her first child, so her mom was younger, and at the time it was a lot less common for women to be in the workplace. So, when she went home her mom was able to step in and support her.

When I gave birth, my mom was older, she lived further away, we both have careers we need to focus on; there are so many things that have changed in a generation.

I was thinking about building this in-home service, but around that time I was introduced to the team at Simple Ventures, and they were thinking of doing something similar but in a physical retreat. We came together to start Alma Care in Yorkville, and it evolved into the in-home business later.

It was the best representation of what care could look like for families immediately following birth.

It had round-the-clock access to dedicated support, everything was fully outfitted for anything mom and dad would need, which allowed the family to focus on nothing but recovery and bonding.

We could only see 10 families at a time. Now we can serve hundreds of families from the comfort of their own homes.

Some families come to us before they’re pregnant, others come to us a few months postpartum, and everywhere in between.

We do a complimentary consultation and review their goals, their budget, what support exists for them, and then put together a plan. We provide several vetted caregivers to choose from that can meet their goals and scheduling needs, and they do video interviews with each before making a decision.  

We also provide additional care offerings, whether its physical recovery with RMTs and acupuncturists, mental health support with perinatal mental health experts, feeding support with lactation consultants, or referrals to other trusted experts.

That’s the core process, but we also do monthly community building events where we invite moms out for yoga, Pilates, skin care or other activities related to well-being. 

Our caregivers are very skilled and deserve to be paid a fair wage for the incredibly important work they’re doing.

I’m very passionate about working with employers and benefits providers to make this accessible to more families.

A Manulife study found 40 per cent of women consider quitting after having a baby; that would decrease significantly if they felt supported through postpartum. Anyone with a health care spending account as part of their benefits has a pathway to getting reimbursed.

In our surveys 55 per cent of families felt “confident and calm” after working with us, and there’s a 65 per cent reduction in families who feel “completely overwhelmed.”

Overall, they feel ready to take on this new chapter, and I got to experience the difference myself.

When I had my second child in 2024, I got to experience our Signature Package during a month of at-home recovery, and then I went to the retreat with my daughter.

The retreat was a beautiful experience, but I learned that you can absolutely achieve the same outcomes having care come to your home in a more accessible way.