By: Gesche Haas
Gesche Haas is the founder & CEO of Dreamers & Doers, a highly curated community and PR Hype Machine™ for extraordinary women entrepreneurs.
After facing fertility struggles, enduring a miscarriage, and eventually becoming pregnant through IVF, Anastasia Shubareva-Epshtein expected to feel pure joy about what came next. Instead, pregnancy arrived layered with anxiety, shaped by loss, compounded by the hormonal whiplash of fertility treatments, and heavy with fear about what could still go wrong.
Searching for reassurance, Anastasia turned to pregnancy tracking apps, hoping for comfort and clarity. What she found instead felt alienating: glossy, picture-perfect portrayals of pregnancy that left no room for grief, complexity, or caution. Rather than feeling supported, she felt isolated and quietly ashamed for not embodying the glowing mom-to-be narrative.
That disconnect sparked something bigger. Determined to transform her experience into meaningful support for others navigating pregnancy after loss, Anastasia built what she couldn’t find. Alongside the arrival of her first child, Carea was born.
Grounded in deep user research and shaped by countless conversations with women who felt overlooked by traditional tools, Carea is the first pregnancy tracker designed with a mental-health-first approach, meeting women where they actually are, not where they’re told they should be.
What is the underlying mission of your work or business? How does your work make a difference in people’s lives?
Our mission is simple but urgent: to provide genuine, supportive care throughout pregnancy and postpartum that’s centered on the woman, not just the baby. With one in four pregnancies ending in miscarriage and one in six couples undergoing fertility treatment, there’s a clear need for a more honest, compassionate digital support tool that recognizes how complex the entire journey can feel.
Carea offers women a safe, trigger-free space to find evidence-based information to make informed choices, mental health tools designed to calm fear and anxiety, and a supportive community of women who truly get it.
Our goal is to bring all these vital tools and resources together in one trusted place, delivering thoughtful, trauma-aware care that traditional pregnancy and postpartum apps simply don’t provide. We want every woman to feel genuinely supported, no matter how complex or tender her path to motherhood may be.
What sets your company apart in a crowded market? What do you believe is your unique contribution to your industry?
Recent industry research shows that 72% of pregnancy apps don’t acknowledge pregnancy loss at all, and that only about 10% offer any tailored support for it. This is exactly where we knew we had to do things differently. We deeply understand how unique (and often anxiety-filled) the journey can be for someone who has already experienced a miscarriage.
From the very start, Carea gives each user the option to indicate whether their pregnancy follows a loss. This allows us to remove potentially triggering content and instead personalize the user’s in-app experience by recommending articles, podcasts, and resources that speak directly to the experience of pregnancy after loss, supporting them with empathy every step of the way.
Another key difference is our dedicated support for pregnancies following IVF or other fertility treatments. We know this journey brings its own emotional and medical realities, including daily injections and strict medication routines, so we built a robust medication tracker and a progress bar to help parents-to-be stay on top of every dose, while giving them a sense of motivation and reassurance along the way.
What core values guide your business? How do these principles reflect your personal values, and how do they influence your leadership?
Kindness guides both our business and my leadership style. As a woman in leadership, it can be tempting to feel you have to toughen up or mask your natural empathy to be taken seriously, but over time, I’ve learned that my empathy and kindness are exactly what make me a better, more effective leader and that true respect comes from showing up as your authentic self. For me, kindness isn’t negotiable. It’s the foundation of how I lead my team and the backbone of our company culture. It shapes how we communicate with each other and how we support our users, and it sits at the very heart of every new feature we build.
Trust and transparency are equally important. Working in femtech means we have an enormous responsibility to handle our users’ deeply sensitive data with the highest care. From day one, I pledged that we would follow the strictest European privacy standards and treat every bit of data with the respect it deserves. I still remember reading heartbreaking stories of women who received baby products in the mail after reporting a pregnancy loss to another app. As an industry, we must do better.
How do you personally define success? In what ways does this definition guide both your business and personal life?
When I started Carea, I told myself that if we could help even one woman feel less alone in the trenches of pregnancy and postpartum, we would have already achieved our mission. That will always be our true measure of success, which is why we put so much emphasis on listening to real, qualitative feedback from our users.
Of course, we’re also a business, not a non-profit, and with our growing in-house team, we have to stay focused on healthy financial KPIs, too. At the heart of everything, though, I want us to always remember why we started: to show up for women when they need it most.
For me, success, both personally and for Carea, means making a real difference for women during some of the most vulnerable, raw, and life-changing moments of their health journeys. That will always come first.
What has been your greatest challenge in blending work with life? How have you managed to create a sense of harmony between the two?
I started building my business while I was still in early pregnancy, so my biggest challenge has been that having a baby and launching a company happened side by side. But this overlap has also taught me so much about showing up as my most authentic self, both as a founder and as a mother. To me, those roles aren’t separate; they’re deeply connected and constantly inform each other.
One of the hardest parts has been learning how to be fully present for both my child and my business. In the early days, I tried to juggle it all at once; working with my baby in my arms, breastfeeding him while on Zoom calls… but I quickly realized it wasn’t sustainable. Accepting help and setting clear, dedicated time for work has been key. It means that when I am with my child, I can be fully present instead of feeling pulled in every direction. I can also disconnect from my phone.
I’ve come to accept that there’s no such thing as a perfect balance. Instead of beating myself up for what didn’t get crossed off the to-do list, I try to focus on what I did accomplish and to remind myself that sometimes, that’s more than enough.
Can you share a significant life event that profoundly changed your perspective on leadership? How has it inspired the way you lead?
The most inspirational leaders I’ve encountered in my life have all shared one thing in common: an unapologetic sense of authenticity. It’s the quality I admire most in others, yet, ironically, it’s also the one I’ve struggled with the most myself. Like so many women, I’d describe myself as a recovering people pleaser. It took time (and a lot of unlearning) to stop hiding behind masks and to trust that my true self could be a strong leader, without needing to appear tougher or stricter than I really am.
Leading with vulnerability has become my second guiding principle. Because my company is rooted in such a deeply personal story, I’ve made it my mission to show up openly and honestly, not just with my team but also with our users. I truly believe that when we lead with vulnerability, we build real trust and genuine connection, and that’s what makes a company culture feel human and meaningful.
What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in your entrepreneurial journey so far?
Finding your why is the most important lesson I’ve learned. I would advise other new leaders to do the same! Entrepreneurship is a rollercoaster with plenty of ups and downs, and in the beginning, it can feel like mostly downs. Having an unshakable reason for why you show up every day makes all the difference when things get tough.
I’ve had to learn that so much of my day-to-day is about trade-offs, especially as a mother. I can’t be in two places at once. When I say yes to working on my business, I’m saying no to spending that same time with my child, but I’ve come to see that this doesn’t have to be a negative thing. Building a business with real purpose gives me energy and inspiration, which ultimately makes me a better mother, too.
For me, it’s all about being intentional and committing to being fully present wherever I am, whether that’s with my team, my company, or my child.
Anastasia is a member of Dreamers & Doers, an award-winning community that amplifies extraordinary women entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders by securing PR, forging authentic connections, and curating high-impact resources. Learn more about Dreamers & Doers and get involved here.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this article and through the Carea app is intended for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider for any medical concerns or treatment.
