I’m Dr. Hannah, a Pediatrician, Mom, and Nature Lover. 

Growing up, our family vacations were often outside. My love for the outdoors started with my dad. He was an avid hiker and backpacker in the Philippines and he raised us outside. Some of my fondest memories with him growing up were during hikes or family camping trips. My first backpacking trip was with him to Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in California. 

While I enjoyed spending time outside, it was not a big priority for me throughout college and graduate school. It was not until medical school and residency where I found myself intentionally scheduling outdoor time for myself, whether it was planning vacations that had a big outdoor component, hiking and backpacking, or walking my dog. In medical school, I did a wilderness medicine elective during my fourth year that was so much fun. And my now husband and I did our first backpacking thru hike together on the Lost Coast Trail in residency. Through these adventures, I could clearly see the impacts of being outside not just on my physical health but with my mental health as well. 

Becoming a mother really changed and strengthened my relationship to the outdoors. My daughter was born in the middle of the summer, during a stretch of triple digit weather days and during the fire season. I was trying to balance the steep learning curve of motherhood with taking the time to get on walks in my neighborhood for my sanity and to get my body moving again especially in the postpartum period. I remember checking my weather app regularly to look at what the high for the day was and by what time I needed to get out the door with my newborn before it got too hot. And, I remember checking the air quality index regularly to even see if it was safe for me to get outside with her. That’s when I started to learn more about climate change and health. I saw the impacts on my patients regularly but only started to put the two together after my daughter was born. 

I started gardening first as a new hobby but as I started to learn more about growing food, caring for the soil, pollinator biodiversity, and living with the seasons, I felt a bigger and bigger pull to do more for the environment. The garden brought nature closer to me during the times that we couldn’t get out on the trail. It also forced me to slow down, to watch vegetables grow from seedlings into large plants, to observe whether the right flowers were getting pollinated to produce fruit. Throughout this process, I would bring my daughter outside with me. 

With my love for the outdoors, combined with my new gardening hobby, I was determined to let my children grow up with a relationship to nature and be outdoorsy kids. I could see how much it helped me with my physical and mental health and I want that for my kids as well. 

Then as a pediatrician, again and again, I kept seeing patients who struggled with weight, who struggled with high cholesterol and fatty liver even as young as 3 years old. I kept seeing patients who were spending their days indoors, on phones and on screens. I kept seeing preteens and teens struggling with anxiety and depression. And with all this, I knew that being outside and spending time in nature could be part of the solution to so many of these challenges. 

That’s how I got here. 

Join me in this journey to get more nature into your life and into your kids’ lives.