September 2024

Laura Navaquin shares her experience utilizing doula support in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  She also talks about her work with Nava Consulting and Inspire Her Foundation. 

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am so excited to chat with Laura Navaquin today.  Laura is the founder of Nava Consulting, LLC, and Inspire Her Foundation.  Her background is very inspiring.  She’s a mother of two, soon to be three – or did you already have your baby?

Yes, I actually just had my baby in May, so he’s now almost three months old in about a week or so.

That’s what I thought!  So I wanted to stop there.  And you have nearly 20 years’ experience in the health insurance industry and climbed the ranks to become vice president of sales, leading a successful team.  In 2023, you made the bold decision to leave corporate America and fully immerse yourself in personal endeavors.  So since spring of 2023, Laura has been instrumental in expanding Inspire Her Foundation, enhancing its community presence, and scaling the real estate portfolio of Navaquin Properties.  She actively mentors students in real estate investing, educating them on how to start or grow their portfolio with minimal personal funds through creative financing.

In addition to her professional pursuits, Laura is a passionate advocate for pursuing dreams and encourages others through speaking engagements and various conferences.  Laura firmly believes that mindset is crucial in achieving success and that nothing is out of reach with determination, the right mindset, and consistency.

Welcome, Laura!

Thank you so much for having me!  I’m definitely excited to jump in and have this conversation with you today.

Yes, and our topic is all about the benefits of doula care, since you personally benefitted from birth doula support.  As a birth and postpartum doula, I often share the benefits of the support on our podcast and wherever I can speak about it, but it’s nice to have someone who hired doulas so we can hear about your own personal journey about why you invested that time and certainly finances in hiring a doula and how it benefitted you during not only your labor but also in pregnancy and that early postnatal phase.

Yes, definitely.  I’ve been fortunate to have been advised to get a doula since our first child back in 2017.  It was a friend of ours, or actually within a group, who recommended we got a doula, so we sought out one, and it was a great opportunity to meet various different women within the industry and select a doula to move forward with who we were able to connect with, felt comfortable with, and have her support throughout the pregnancy and of course, during labor and post-delivery.

Yes, beautiful.  So it sounds like you interviewed multiple doulas.  It’s always helpful to know what was important to you when hiring a doula.  Was it more the individual background or more of a gut connection, or the way the different doulas answered questions?  I find that it depends on a client’s personality.  Some are very analytical and will have ten questions.  They’ll ask every doula the same questions and then have a scoring card.  Others, like myself when I hired doulas, just go on their gut instinct.

Yes, I would say it was a combination of things.  Of course, we had a list of questions that I inquired about with each doula that we spoke to that time around.  Similar, too, with my two following deliveries.  But I had a list of questions of things that were of value to me and important to consider during the delivery.  So I went and worked down that list; that was the first step.  Then the combination of that was just who I felt comfortable with.  I think there’s some people that you just have that connection, that vibe, with, and of course, delivery and birth is a very intimate occurrence, so I wanted to have somebody that I felt comfortable with overall, especially during the delivery.

Yes.  And what was your partner’s role in the doula selection process?

So, again, he as well – I’m the one that met with them, so when I interviewed with them – and I was fortunate for the majority of them to get to meet with them in person over coffee to see how I connected with them, and my husband didn’t get to join those initial meetings.  He really wanted me to find somebody who I personally felt comfortable with and was supportive in that regard.  Other than that, he as well, with the doula that we selected that first time, Alexandra, he felt comfortable with her and connected, as well, and they worked well with each other, as well.

Excellent.  And yes, I find that it does vary.  Sometimes partners’ schedules, especially during work days, can be difficult to manage.  I made the decision for my family, and then my husband met our doulas once I had hired them.  So it does definitely vary based on timing and the stage in pregnancy and the partner availability or interest.  Like you said, your husband trusted your choice, and even though he was very invested in being a team with the doula and everyone else, all of the other medical professionals that you were working with in labor.

Yes.

So as far as how a doula supported you, I’d love to hear more about your personal experience.

Yeah, it was a little different from my first delivery and then my two following pregnancies.  In my first delivery, Alexandra, the doula that we worked with, she supported us during pregnancy.  I would say second and third trimesters, she was providing me with information on breastfeeding.  I’m trying to remember back, as well – it was seven or eight years ago.  My son is seven and a half now.  But she provided information as far as exercising, movement, diet to consider, breastfeeding information to be considering prior, as well as just answering any questions that I had that arose periodically.  I would have a worry or something that would just come to mind, and I would go to her to provide me her input and her expertise in regards to certain topics.  And that’s how she supported me prior to.  And then during delivery, the plan was for her to be with me, but there was a change in plans there because my son actually – during that pregnancy, we were supposed to delivery in a birthing center, and at 36 weeks – exactly 36 weeks, I was driving home from a work meeting, and I got into a minor car accident.  Everyone was fine, but it resulted in him flipping breach that day.  That last month of pregnancy, I was working on getting him to turn back around, which didn’t really end up happening.  We got risked out of the birth center.  We found a different provider who was trained and had delivered breach deliveries.  We were planning to get to him.  He recommended that we labored at home for as long as we could.  That being my first pregnancy and delivery, I didn’t necessarily know how long was too long or what was enough time, so I labored at home with my mother and my husband for as long as I thought was the right time, until we were heading to the hospital.

But I guess we waited a little too long, because we had to divert that plan and go to a local hospital.  Even my doula didn’t make it over prior to the delivery.  Nonetheless, she showed up and was an immense support postpartum or postdelivery with ensuring that I was okay and all the questions I had.  My son was taken to NICU at that point in time, but she was a great support thereafter, and even within the following days and weeks.  We remained in the hospital for about four days with him, and then even after we were discharged, would visit us at home to ensure the baby was latching correctly and help with breastfeeding and positioning and the care of myself and baby postpartum, as well.

That is wonderful that you were able to have that support after.  It can be stressful after a surgical birth with a NICU baby and having the husband or partner follow the baby to the NICU, and then the mother is sometimes alone.  If there’s a doula there, then the doula is able to provide support, come up with a plan for feeding if pumping is needed, if they had intended to breastfeeding, for example.  I’m glad you had that postnatal support because navigating the NICU can be quite stressful!

Yes, definitely.  Ever since having her with that first delivery, we knew that there was no doubt that we needed doula support in our following deliveries because she was such a help and just calming to me with questions that arose or not knowing what steps to follow or whatever it may be.  She was an advocate for us within the hospital, as well, with her experience, and giving us information and comfort.  I highly advocate for anyone considering a doula or sitting on the fence whether to hire a doula or not, to make that investment and do it.  It’s so worth it.

Exactly.  I totally agree.  And I feel like every doula practices in a different way.  So some doulas will come to your home during labor and then follow you over to a hospital or birth center for clients who want to labor at home.  Others arrive at a certain stage in labor, say active labor, and provide support for a certain amount of hours.  At Gold Coast, we support our clients at whatever stage in labor, wherever their labor is.  So if they’re laboring at home and then head to the hospital, we’re following them.  If they want to rest at home, then they let us know when they would like us to arrive, whether it’s in triage or when they’re settled in their room.  You had support from your family there and were likely doing well and potentially not knowing, as you said, when to go in or how far along you were.  There can be some of that confusion, and some doulas do not begin their call time until 38 weeks to 42 weeks.  We’re on call from the moment a contract is signed because we do work with a lot of multiple families, twins and triplets and high risk clients.  We found that that alleviates a lot of stress for our clients that may need to deliver earlier than your typical client would.

That’s great.

As far as the prenatal care, you mentioned your doula offered resources in the community or was willing to chat with you if you had any questions.  But did you have in person or virtual prenatal visits to prep for the birth and have the doula answer questions?

That first time around, prior to that last month, we had virtual meetings.  After she was hired, she had an in-person meeting where she came out.  She met my husband, as well.  And then every couple of weeks – I think it was every two weeks, we would do a virtual meeting just to go over questions and whatever it may be, up until the last couple weeks.  She came out two times to meet with my husband and I, go over questions, gave us some additional information to follow, information on HypnoBirthing and other recommendations that she was making for us that we did that time around.  It was a little different in my second and third pregnancies and deliveries.  That was when we were in New York.  We were now living in Florida, so we knew that we unfortunately couldn’t have the same doula, so we reached out and found one.  And I didn’t think at first that I needed a doula this time around for my second delivery.  That was my initial thought, and we actually ended up hiring a birth photographer who is a doula.  And the experience was so great, again, with her, but it was a little different.  We initially did a virtual meeting with her, met her, both my husband and I.  And then still prior to the delivery, she did another virtual meeting where she gave me recommendations on what to wear.  And this one was  little different because we were now doing a homebirth, so recommendations on what to wear, things to consider, being considered for comfort when you’re at home, for resting, for positioning.  Even items for my husband to wear, since we were going to have a pool for him to get into if we elected for him to get in, too.  Snacks to consider and whatnot.  So she met with us virtually to give us all that information and was on call for us at 38 weeks.  The experience was very rewarding with her.  During the delivery, her presence in just providing comfort with me during my first home delivery.

My third delivery was another home delivery.  We were fortunate to have her again along our side as well for the delivery of our son this past May.

Beautiful!  Yes, and as you mentioned, preparation for a homebirth is quite different from a birth center or a hospital.  What a doula may discuss in a prenatal for a homebirth would be quite different, as you mentioned snacks, the food you wanted to eat after delivery, whether or not the individual wanted a birth tub, as you mentioned.  A midwife will often go over all of the supplies to have on hand, but the doula can also provide tips and work as a team with the midwife.  And sometimes a midwife might have apprentices or other individual assistants, so it varies on who the individual ends up hiring.

Exactly.

But I love that you had the combination of a birth photographer and doula to be able to capture the beautiful moments of both of your births at home and also be able to support you emotionally and physically, if that camera is not in her hand.

So as far as the support after, you did mention that the doula with your first child checked in on you to see how breastfeeding was going, answer questions you had, support you emotionally.  Was there anything else in any of your postnatal experiences that you’d like to share with our listeners?

I would say just emphasizing everything that you just mentioned as far as how our first doula supported me postdelivery, but emphasizing the significance of them being there for you emotionally as well.  Having a delivery, especially when it doesn’t go as planned, can throw you off emotionally and mentally, and all those feelings, especially as our hormones shift post-delivery.  But for them being there for you post-delivery, and that was significant for me with my first delivery.  I ended up suffering from postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety, and that was not even necessarily known or diagnosed initially, but her being there, I felt, was a significant help for me in just kind of making me feel at ease and comfortable.  I really valued that component of her presence, still to this day.  She did so much more, as well, but that impact of her being there for me emotionally and mentally was so significant.

I love it.  Excellent.  Thank you for sharing.  So to pivot a little bit and learn more about what you’re doing professionally, I feel like it is very fitting that you’re in real estate because I find that many of my doula clients are making big changes.  They’re either remodeling a home or buying a new home to get ready for, whether it’s baby one or baby four.  And sometimes they’re even buying income properties and setting themselves up for just having some additional income and savings and college funds, all the things.  So you’re in a career that likely interacts with a lot of families making big changes in their lives.

Exactly, yeah.  My husband and I got started in real estate investing back in 2015.  I went full time in 2023, but essentially, we are real estate investors growing our own portfolio, but that has since led to helping others get started investing or purchasing their own home, whether it’s their first home or they’re moving to a larger home or relocating, assisting others in accessing capital, finding properties, especially off market properties, so that their savings is more significant there.  Especially if they are investing.  But helping others navigate that industry, as well, whether for their own personal home or investing endeavors themselves.

Excellent.  And I love the mentoring that you do.  It’s so helpful.

Thank you.

I feel like it can be overwhelming to look at real estate investing during a time of so many different changes like pregnancy and maternity leave.  What tips do you have for our listeners who are going through the change, whether it’s in real estate or in finding a support team, including a doula?

I would say as far as building your birthing team, whether it’s at home, in a birthing center, or in a hospital, just working with a team that you feel comfortable with, sharing your birth plan, even just vocally sharing what your expectations and your hopes are, because your team, I feel, most likely will work as closely to that plan as possible.  And just feeling comfortable with them.  I think that that makes a world of difference, feeling comfortable with the team that you are laboring and delivering with.  And in regards to real estate, whether you’re looking for a personal home, your first home, or moving to a larger home or whatever it may be, or looking to get into real estate investing, I would say that as far as interest rates, don’t let them scare you so much.  I think that’s one of the conversations I have with my community so often is that they’re scared with the interest rates, but there are so many workarounds and ways around the interest rates, as well.  Ultimately, don’t let them scare you, and I’m always here for you, as well, if you have any specific questions on that and how to navigate interest rates or whatever it may be.  Definitely reach out and send me a DM or whatever it may be, and I’d be open and willing to give you any information that I can to help you in your personal circumstances there.

So helpful!  Thank you, Laura!  So you’ve got two websites.  Can you share both of your website information with our listeners?

Yes!  One website is lauranavaquin.com.  That is where I share some information on real estate investing and just other information about myself and encouraging you to go after your goals and dreams, whether that’s building a real estate portfolio, starting a new career, or being an entrepreneur.  And then other website is toinspire.org, and that is a nonprofit founded in 2020, which is a 501(c)(3) which encourages you to go after your goals and dreams by providing skill set training workshops, education, mentorships, and health awareness information.  For the nonprofit, we are based in New York but also run events in California and Florida.

Excellent!  And you’re also on social media.  Any of your favorite spaces to share content?

I would definitely say I’m on Instagram probably the most, both at @lauranavaquin and @inspireherfoundation.  I also have more of a general Instagram with @itslauranava.

And we are fellow members of Entreprenista, for any of our listeners who spend time on that amazing membership community.  You can also find the two of us there!

Well, thank you so much, Laura!  It was wonderful to hear your personal experiences, and congratulations on your recent addition to your family!

Thank you so much!  I can’t believe he’s almost three months.  The time flies!

It sure does, absolutely!  Take care!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Laura Navaquin

Inspire Her Foundation

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

Kristin Revere and Dr. Emilie Wilson discuss the importance of preparing for postpartum during pregnancy on the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  Dr. Wilson also shares self-care tips from her new book, “POST: The Essential Guide to Creating Your Postpartum Self-Care Plan in Pregnancy.”

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am so excited to chat with Dr. Emilie Wilson.  She is a naturopathic doctor, an acupuncturist, an author, and a new mother.  Emilie’s clinical background is in women’s cardiometabolic and hormone health.  After a traumatic childbirth in late 2022, Emilie entered a very difficult postpartum time, including struggles with postpartum depression and anxiety.  She knew that if she could struggle this much as a naturopathic doctor, then too many other new parents would, as well.  So Emilie wrote a book to guide expecting parents to create their postpartum self-care plan in pregnancy to set themselves up for the best postpartum experience possible.

In early 2024, her book Post: The Essential Guide to Creating Your Postpartum Self-Care Plan in Pregnancy was released.  By walking expecting parents through specific, research-based steps to create their postpartum self-care plan, Dr. Wilson intends to empower new parents to have the best postpartum time possible so they can focus on what matters: their health and their relationship with their new baby.

Welcome, Dr. Emilie Wilson!

Hi, Kristin!  Thank you so much for having me!  I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here!

I am excited!  My passion is the postpartum phase and having our listeners and our doula clients understand that preparing for that phase is just as important as prepping for the birth.  Just the pregnancy preparation should be much more extensive, so I love that your personal journey and your professional journey led you to focus on the postnatal phase.  With your book, you’re able to reach a much bigger audience than you would with your own practice, so I’m all about that as a fellow author.

Oh, that’s awesome.  Yeah, it feels like the culmination of everything that has been happening so far in my career.  I had this baby and I had this experience, and all of a sudden, I was like, oh, my God, this has brought me to what I’m actually meant to do in my life.  So it’s been really special.

Yes!  I love that, and I feel the same with my own journeys with pregnancies.  I had preeclampsia, and my daughter was in the NICU for a very short time.  My son’s birth was much different, and I prepared in a much different way and hired doulas, so I love that your experience led you to wanting to serve families in this way.  With acupuncture, there’s so much that can be helpful, not only in pregnancy, but postnatal with just getting that balance of hormones and feeling better, any discomfort after labor.  I’d love to address some of your work in acupuncture, as well, Emilie.

I would love to share that information!  I didn’t realize how powerful acupuncture could be for postpartum until after I had my baby and I started working with postpartum women and postpartum people, helping them recover.  I had no idea.  The postpartum period, it’s so wild, and I just personally wasn’t prepared for it.  I think a lot of other women must go into it not being prepared, as well.

Yeah, and I think that people only assume that acupuncture would be beneficial if an induction was pending or baby needed to flip or just more physical issues, but it’s also great for everything from again hormonal imbalances to headaches or a lot of the physical ailments that happen after delivery, even with a simple vaginal birth.  There’s still recovery.

I love that you brought up hormones a couple of times because one of the many things I wasn’t aware of is how amazing our hormonal system is.  I knew that, but the intricacies of a woman’s hormonal balance kind of returning back to its new normal postpartum takes some time and some love and some attention, and acupuncture is really a wonderful way to help women rebalance their hormones as a very low force intervention.  I think it’s an awesome therapeutic for that.

Exactly.  As doulas, we’re always referring our clients to acupuncturists and certainly to naturopaths like yourself.  With my second pregnancy and postpartum days, I worked with a naturopath to try to prevent preeclampsia the second time around.  So it was beyond helpful for me to understand where I was deficient and what my body needed.

I can’t tell you how important this is.  In pregnancy and in postpartum, our nutritional needs change so much, and they change wildly, and they change relatively rapidly, right?  In pregnancy, we have our own health to take care of, but we also are creating this new life form, this brand new baby, and so our body needs extra nutrients.  Then we pretty abruptly enter the postpartum period where all of a sudden it’s about healing our body from a massive event, whether it’s a vaginal childbirth or a Cesarean section.  Those are both massive events, and they require a lot of healing, which requires a lot of nutrients, right?

Absolutely.

Of course, if we’re breastfeeding or lactating, that also requires a huge macro and micronutrient intake.  And then there’s this whole other piece, which I realized in my journey of becoming a mom.  Thank goodness I have this background as a naturopathic doctor, so I’ve been talking about the importance of the adrenal glands for a really long time.  And our adrenals, they require a ton of micronutrients, so that is an ample amount of minerals and an ample amount of vitamins every day, especially if we are being humans in this very fast paced, stressful world.

Yes, agreed, and I found after having both of my kids that my adrenals needed extra support.  It is very important to share that information.  As you mentioned with nutrition, especially with breastfeeding and pumping moms, the one thing that we point out as postpartum doulas is to notice the hormone shifts, not only after that first couple of weeks after delivery, but also when introducing solids and certainly when the breastfeeding journey ends.  There’s not as much information about the changes that occur then and how to balance out the system when those major transitions in the feeding journey happen and how that can affect the mother.

Totally.  And I’ve always been a huge proponent of what I call lifestyle medicine, but I think it resonates for a lot of people.  If we don’t have our relatively healthy diet in place, if we’re not hydrating and we’re not taking care of our stress levels as much as possible, then we are setting ourselves up for depletion, and there’s no medication, there’s no supplement, there’s no magic pill that’s ever going to make up for that.  So in these really important times in our lives as brand new parents, we need extra nutrient support, and we can’t always rely on just taking a bunch of supplements because in pregnancy and then breastfeeding, we have to be very mindful of what we’re putting into our bodies.  It is the best time to get really focused on a healthy diet.  For a lot of us as women, I think it’s an opportunity to heal maybe some old wounds or some old discrepancies in our relationship with food and really find ways to fall in love with food that truly nourishes us.  Think less about the calories and more about the colors and the satisfaction.

And what are your tips about those meal trains and friends and family who want to bring over food?  Say a casserole or something that can last multiple days that may not be the best nutrient-wise for a recovering mother and even the entire family.

That’s such a great question, because we want to leave those doors for support open, right?  What I found in my research is this, and I think this is sort of like the golden key that we can hand out to everyone in our lives, and it is just the Mediterranean diet.  And the research shows overwhelmingly that for women in pregnancy and in postpartum, the Mediterranean diet provides ample nutrients to help us maintain cardiometabolic health and wellness in pregnancy and postpartum.  It helps our mental health in pregnancy and postpartum, and it can help with recovery, that postpartum recovery.  So not only the physical healing from childbirth, but also for women – I hate to use the term – it’s not getting your body back, but it’s returning to a new state of health.  So it’s about getting your energy and your hormones back.

So the Mediterranean diet is, I think, the golden key or the magic formula, if you will.  I think there are a couple of ways to work that, and people can either request of their friends and family that maybe you bring some really simple pre-made Mediterranean diet friendly meals, which can be as simple as beans and rice and veggies and a little bit of meat or fish.  Just think like veggies, grains, healthy, healthy food, and then some appropriate protein; so some healthy proteins.  And I think that most people understand the Mediterranean diet well enough to be able to say, oh, I know what that looks like.  It can even look like healthy pizza, for example.  It doesn’t have to be “healthy food,” but it has to be nourishing and it has to be clean.

Yes, I agree.  Diet is so important, especially with depletion and needing to nourish yourself throughout the day and have things that are easy to eat.  Snacking for breastfeeding moms is so important, so having some nourishing, bite-sized snacks is also very helpful.  Like right at the bedside if they’re rooming in, or in a place that’s easy to access.  I’ve found even personally that I would forget to snack or eat enough throughout the day. 

Yeah, me too.  And one of the things that was a go-to for me that I think is really pretty easy to stock up on in pregnancy – for people who are into this – for me, it was cheese plates.  Every single day, I would make myself a cheese plate.  I bought enough little blocks of cheese, and I would make myself a little cheese plate.  I always made sure I had some nuts or seeds, and I always made sure I had some fruits and veggies, but then I also would have bread and cheese, so it was a nice way to be Mediterranean diet friendly, get some protein, some fat, and a lot of those micronutrients that we need while we’re healing.  When we think of healthy food, we don’t always think of a cheese plate, but I think that’s really a huge piece of the conversation in postpartum.  When we’re feeling really depleted, we need comfort food.  So how do we reframe this idea of healthy, convenient comfort food for people?

Agreed.  I am all for figuring out what works for you and your family and budget, what works for anyone who wants to help in that postnatal phase.  As postpartum doulas, we often do some light meal preparation or cut up fruit and veggies, get healthy snacks.  These are great tips for anyone who’s caregiving, like a nanny or a postpartum doula.  Grandparents are often very involved in caregiving, as well.

Yes.  Another thing that I’ve found that a lot of postpartum people really seem to resonate with is chips and salsa and guacamole.  Simple, simple; and yet it provides micronutrients.  It provides carbohydrates.  It provides healthy fats.  Relatively shelf stable.  The guac can be premade at the store.  My one caveat is always as much as possible getting organic because we want to really minimize the amount of pesticides or harmful chemicals that are going into a woman’s body in pregnancy and postpartum.  But outside of that, I think that there’s so much room and opportunity for us to have a conversation about what does healthy comfort food really look like for you?

Right, yeah.  And everyone’s got different foods that really help them feel more relaxed and comfortable.  And as you mentioned, snacking on cheese or chips and guacamole doesn’t feel like they’re in diet mode or being forced to eat.  It’s enjoyable and filling and easy to eat with one hand if needed.  I’m curious about your thoughts on self-care because everyone has different definitions; similar to comfort food.  Everyone’s got a different version of self-care.

I think the number one thing for self-care, above and beyond anything else, is just being able to be tuned in enough to ourselves to understand – to listen to our body’s cues and understand if there’s some need that we have that’s not being met.  And the easiest time in our lives to be tuned out to that is probably postpartum when we are so focused on this new baby.  And we just have been through something massive, and it’s really easy to not listen to your body’s cues.  That was something that I went through personally, and that’s also something that I hear from a lot of other women.  I think above and beyond anything, it’s not my job and it’s not my place to tell women how their postpartum experience should look.  It’s my job and my place to help women understand what it is that they need and find realistic ways to help them get that.  For a lot of us, it has to do with utilizing our support systems, because no woman can or should go through postpartum alone.  I think we all think that we’re going to be able to, but we shouldn’t even have to try.  So for me self-care is, as much as possible, listening to yourself and your body and then utilizing your support group to make sure that you’re getting your needs met.

I love it.  Yeah, and some people think it’s more of physical, like going to get a massage or a pedicure and something that would creep into the budget or require leaving the home, but self-care is so much more than that.  It can be just taking a moment for yourself and stepping outside and meditating or praying.  There’s so many ways.  There’s more than just sleep when the baby sleep; trying to incorporate rest.  And oftentimes, it’s hard to fully fall asleep, so I tell my clients to rest whenever they can and that their body can repair itself even if they can’t fully fall asleep during nap times and so on.

I love that.  Again, I think that that’s exactly what we need.  We just need to listen to our bodies enough to know what it is that we’re missing out on.  For some women, they might found out – for example, if rest is something that they’re challenged by or challenged with finding the time or space for, maybe that is where we start to look at their budget.  Can you find some money for a nanny to come in a couple of hours a week if you have maybe another child or even a family member to come take care of the new baby for an hour or two?  Maybe you need a professional laundry service for a little while or a housecleaning service.  There are ways to figure out how to solve the problem and get people what they need.  I think the number one thing is identifying the problem, and nobody’s going to know that better than the woman herself.

Exactly.  So is there anything that you’d like to share as far as tips within your book?

Oh, my goodness, I have so many.  Well, so I’ll begin with this: the whole purpose of POST is to help people create that postpartum self-care plan, ideally in pregnancy, but it really walks women through the research-based areas of care that seem to make the most difference, and it’s not mind-blowing.  It’s diet, hydration, exercise, sleep, and stress management.  And then there are worlds within that, but I think that those five areas, starting to consider those areas and figure out a plan as soon as possible, are really, really important.  I feel like as far as something that’s really actionable that people can kind of take away from this: the Mediterranean diet, again, is huge.  The research time and time again shows that just following this Mediterranean diet of whole foods, healthy fats, healthy carbs, healthy veggies and fruits, can really change the trajectory of women’s health.  So I think the Mediterranean diet is huge.  I think hydration is huge.  There is this general rule – I’m sure you probably have heard of it – but women are supposed to drink half their body weight in ounces.  That’s great for most of us, but then in pregnancy, we really need to drink a little bit more than that, right?  So half your body weight – the old rule, plus you want to drink a little bit more than that.  So you want to probably get up to, for most women, you want to drink at least an extra 20 ounces a day on top of that, give or take.  Then if you’re breastfeeding, too, you want to drink that extra water and then also an extra glass anytime you’re breastfeeding.  That’s something that I try to impress on people, that not only do you need a lot of nutrients to help boost your health and recovery, but you also need that hydration.  It’s so important because outside of being an athlete – you know, people who are high intensity athletes – postpartum breastfeeding people have the highest nutrient and water requirements in the entire human lifespan.  So what we’re doing here is really, really important.

It is, agreed.  Thank you for sharing that!  Anything else you’d like to address from your book, Emilie?

Yeah, I think the other piece is really the support piece, which I touched on before, but it’s so important for us to plan ahead and really start contacting our people in pregnancy and get a sense from them.  Once the baby comes, would you be willing to provide me support in any way, whether that’s like a meal train or childcare or grocery shopping?  And then I walk people through this in the book, but let’s create a little bit of a plan.  Are there any time frames throughout the week or the month that you know you might be more likely to be available?  And a good time for me to contact you.  What are some things you might be willing to help out with in that period of time?  Really just setting yourself up for, if you need something, then you don’t even have to think about who to call.  You have the list right there.  And the same thing goes with your medical care team.  You want to have your list right there so you don’t have to think about who to call or when to call them.  You just know who to call.  Or you can talk to your partner or another close person and they know who to call.  So I think those pieces are so important.  The support piece is really one of the missing pieces in postpartum wellness.

Agreed.  And people want to help, but they often don’t know how to help, other than holding the baby.  Oftentimes, there’s so much focus on the mother during pregnancy, but she’s left behind after delivering because everybody wants to bring gifts for the baby and hold the baby, but then the mother has a lot of needs as well.  So it’s good to have communication during pregnancy to set expectations of what can be helpful, not only for the baby, but also for the mother.

Totally, and I think too, this is life that we’re talking about, so everything can and will change.  But having some kind of framework is so important because new moms need to be held just like new babies need to be held.  I remember before I had my daughter, I always gave my friends who had had their babies kind of a wide berth because I thought they probably want to be alone with their baby.  I feel like now, gosh, that was such a missed opportunity on my part.  I wish I could have been there for them more.  I didn’t realize, because I hadn’t been through it, how much support they probably needed, and I thought I was doing the right thing by just giving them time and space.  But I realize now, no, we actually do really need to be there for each other.

Exactly.  I did the same thing before having kids.  I gave them space and didn’t want to be another visitor bothering them.  I now know, both as a mom and doula, how I can help families and clients to better meet their needs.

That’s so awesome.  It’s so important.

It is.  So how can our listeners find your book, first of all?

It’s on Amazon.  It’s called Post: The Essential Guide to Creating Your Postpartum Self-Care Plan in Pregnancy.  Kind of a long title.  There’s also a direct link to it on my website, which is www.sanoswellness.com.

And then as far as your practice, if our listeners want to reach out to you directly, whether it’s with a question or to work with you – it sounds like the website is the best place to reach you?

Well, you can access my email through the website, which is great.  I am very responsive on email.  And then also on Instagram, and it’s the same label on Instagram, @sanoswellness.  Just drop me a DM.  I’m really good at responding there, as well.

Excellent.  Well, I could chat with you forever, Emilie.  Thank you so much for sharing your story and for birthing a book, as well as a baby.  It’s amazing.

Well, thank you!  You did the same thing, so you know the work involved there, but thank you!

Yes!  I look forward to chatting with you again in the future!

That sounds great, Kristin.  Thank you again for having me – this has been so wonderful!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Sanos Wellness

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

Kristin Revere and Jeaneen Tang discuss how parent and caregiver education and training on early language development skills and strategies is so important.  Jeaneen also shares tips from her new book, Play Dumb and Sabotage.  

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am excited to chat with Jeaneen Tang today.  Jeaneen is a speech language pathologist and mother of a special needs child.  Along with her over 20 years of experience with working with children and adults with neurodiversity, she also has an 11-year-old son who is neurodivergent.  He suffered a traumatic brain injury and stroke at 13 months old.  Jeaneen’s personal and professional relationship with this amazing population has forever changed her, and she hopes to change their world, as well. 

Jeaneen recently published her first book called Play Dumb and Sabotage.  It addresses early language development and is meant to be helpful for parents, caregivers such as doulas, and educators to work through any issues with young children and hopefully decrease the number of children needing speech therapy later on. 

Jeaneen believes we can achieve success and raise confident communicators.  Welcome, Jeaneen!

Thank you for having me on, Kristin!

I am ready to learn from you.  We haven’t had a speech pathologist on Ask the Doulas in a while, and with your personal and professional training, I’m curious to learn more about how as postpartum doulas, we can give the proper referrals to our clients who are looking for help earlier rather than waiting for any delays that may happen later on.

Absolutely.  I think that working with people like you, the doulas, is so important because you guys are so trained in the whole birthing process and postpartum process and you guys have a great relationship and rapport with your clients.  It’s a natural communication for you to help with any red flags they might see, any difficulties that they might be concerned about or not even aware about.  Sometimes parents get to this point where there’s the idea that, oh, their child is fine, even though they might have a gut feeling that there might be some kind of delay, and they come into a state of almost denial and they continue to go on as everyday until the child becomes almost two years old and they’re not talking.  So it’s great to nip it in the bud and get that help as soon as possible.

Exactly.  And at Gold Coast, we do work with families with NICU babies and a lot of twin and triplet babies.  They are often asking us for referrals for speech pathologists and other services in our community, so your book is a great resource, as well as your website, for our clients.

Thank you!  Yes, I think like birth training, parent training in language is as important because they take so much time in learning how to give birth and what happens after birth, how to diaper their baby, how to feed their baby and everything, but they don’t necessarily learn how to interact with their child and how to promote that language and introduce how to do vocal play and how to have this back and forth conversation, whether it be nonverbal or with babbling or moving forward to words.

So Jeaneen, is this something that you recommend parents prepare for during pregnancy, like they would with taking a childbirth class or breastfeeding class, or is this something that is more of an after delivery type of planning and prep?

I think it’s great if they could start planning and taking a look at the book and the strategies before they have their baby, because you know after you have your child, you’re just so tired and you’re just going that having to pick up a book when you’re exhausted is almost too much.

Right.

Does that make sense?

It absolutely does.  And that’s what I tell my clients.  They’re sleep deprived, even if they work with an overnight postpartum doula or a newborn care specialist.  They’re tired, and so to do as much preparation and planning during pregnancy and even sometimes preconception can be so beneficial.  I love the resources that you offer.  I’d love to hear more about how you can work with our listeners, whether it’s connecting with you directly or picking up your book.

Absolutely.  You know, I have a handful of friends who are having babies now, and I’ve been giving my book as a baby shower gift.

Oh, beautiful!

It’s available in paperback, and I have a lot of parents who are like, you know, I have your book but I haven’t read it yet because I’m so busy.  So it is available on Audible, as well, and it will be available on Spotify and wherever you can get audiobooks very soon.  So it’s very easy to get.  It’s a very easy read.  It’s very conversational, and it’s also very easy to listen to.  I did not record it myself, but my narrator was great in how she was able to convey my book and she was very communicative on how to relay my message as best as she could.  So I think it’s a great resource.

And I agree with you.  For busy parents, it’s amazing to have an audio format as well as, of course, a physical copy to be able to go back to certain chapters that apply.  Even if they listen to the audiobook during pregnancy, they may want to go back to certain sections as they are in that early parenting phase that may be a little bit blurry.

Absolutely.  You go through that pregnancy brain and straight into a mommy fog, and that kind of just doesn’t go away.  My son is almost 11, and I’m like, oh, my gosh.  When am I going to catch up on all that sleep?  It’s like a never ending thing.  But they can reach out to me on my website.  I have a website called Play Dumb and Sabotage.  They can reach out there and be added to my email list.  I’m starting a newsletter and will hopefully do some online training, as well.  They can also just reach out and just ask any questions that they might have.

Beautiful.  So you mentioned not only parent education but caregivers.  So do you help prepare nannies or au pairs and other caregivers, even grandparents, who are actively involved in childcare?  As we both know, we’re in a childcare crisis.  There is a lack of options and certainly very few affordable options.  Our listeners are getting creative with finding care, whether it’s working from home and trying to manage things themselves.  But how do you focus on educating others who are involved in caring for newborns and children?

I think it’s important for everybody who is involved in that child’s life to be educated and taught how to use language strategies, whether it be the grandparents, nannies, preschool teachers, daycare staff, other teachers.  Everybody who’s going to be active in that child’s life is really important.  So I provide direct trainings to preschools right now.  They have reached out to me.  I’m reaching out to my local YMCAs and reaching out to parents and sometimes there’s nannies that come along.  When I work with my clients in early intervention, some of those clients have nannies at home, so I do direct trainings with the nannies, as well, alongside the parents.  So I think it’s all important for everybody in that child’s life to be on the same page because if you have the parent doing the strategies but the grandparents are still tending to every need that child might have before the child’s able to even know that they need something, then there is a disconnect in the flow of the therapy and the flow of how that child is going to be able to practice that language.

Okay.  Excellent.  So outside of going to your website and getting information that way, as well as your social media – I know you’re on Instagram – but also with the book content, how can people find a credible speech language pathologist in their local area?  What tips do you have for our listeners?

So to find a speech therapist in your local area, I would definitely reach out to the department that would be handling early intervention.  In Los Angeles, California, it is the Regional Center.  So you get a referral to the Regional Center, and they would help connect you with some licensed and credible speech language pathologists that they vendor with, so they are able to vet those speech therapists.  There’s also – online, there’s myself.  I can also refer to some local speech therapists.  I’ve also connected with a speech therapist in Minnesota on a podcast, and she does amazing work there.  There are a lot of speech therapists on Instagram, as well, who have great tips to help with different strategies and play.  A lot of early intervention is structured play, so it is learning strategies that you can implement into your child’s daily life and then practice that and become your child’s play partner.

Beautiful.  I love that.  So that would be a little bit of mat time, tummy time.  You could incorporate some of the techniques that they learn from your book and website.  And you had mentioned babble play, as well.  Can you elaborate on that, Jeaneen?

Absolutely.  So before a child can say words, they’re going to have to learn how to produce sounds.  A lot of the early sounds might be ma-ma-ma, da-da-da, ba-ba-ba.  Things that are repetitious.  That’s why we think, oh, the child said mama, because that’s one of the first sounds they might make, or dada.  Right?  It’s like, oh, they said their first word.  But they’re really just playing with their sounds.  So until they’re able to consistently call you mama or their father dada consistently, that’s not really a true word.  They’re really just vocally playing.  The way that we can help as their communicative partners is to respond to their vocal play or initiate vocal play with them so they can learn that, oh, they are making sounds.  They can react to someone who is communicating with them, and the communicative partner can react to what they are saying themselves.  And then you can play and change and vary those sounds so they can start to mimic intonation.  They can learn that, oh, if they move their tongue in a different way or their jaw in a different way, different sounds will come out.  So there is that communication that happens, even if there aren’t actual words going on.  There’s facial expressions.  There’s eye contact.  There’s gestures.  There is play in the voice.  And all of that is super important for them to know that there is interaction happening and that they can affect how somebody else responds to them.

Excellent.  I love that.  So any signs that our listeners should be looking out for, for delays?

Yes, if the child is not responding to sounds.  Say you have a rattle or some kind of toy that makes a noise and the child is not turning to that toy or item, you might want to check their hearing because there can be a hearing delay or a hearing loss.  Or there could be some other abilities; maybe autism or something, that is affecting their ability to attend to their environment.  If they are not babbling before one year – actually, you know, it would be six months, even before that – if they’re not babbling before that, it’s a sign that they have some delay in language or speech.  If they’re not saying their first word by around one year, then that’s a red flag that oh, they are not on track for their speech.  You want them saying two rows in a row, connecting two words, by two years.  And then at three years, connecting at least three to five words or more at that point.  So if a child is not saying their first word by 13 months, 14 months, 15 months – you definitely want to flag that.  Maybe get a referral from your pediatrician or reach out to your local agency.

Excellent.  So as a doula, I’ve noticed more and more tongue ties and lip ties.  How would that affect speech if it gets missed until a child is older?

That can definitely affect how the child is able to move their tongue or their lips.  If caught early on, they do have a surgical procedure to release that, but unless it’s very severe, the child should be able to accommodate their tongue movements.  I have a short frenulum, the ligament at the bottom of the tongue.  It’s short, but it’s not severely short.  I’ve learned after going through my speech therapy program that, oh, I accommodate certain sounds by just producing it by moving my tongue in a different way.  So it should not affect babbling so much, but it might affect where the placement of the tongue is for certain sounds.

That makes sense.  Is there anything else you’d like to highlight from your book, or tips that you share on social media, Jeaneen?

Yes, the title of my book is Play Dumb and Sabotage, and the subtitle is Mindfully Under-Anticipating the Child’s Needs and Create Opportunity to Practice Language.  The “play dumb” is really about knowing what the child needs, but willing yourself to not over-anticipate everything they need, because that really is a detriment for them to practice their language.  As parents, as caregivers, we think being a good caregiver and a good parent is anticipating everything the child needs and providing that before the child even knows that they need something.  Before they’re even hungry, we start feeding them.  Before their soiled, or if they’re just soiled a little bit in their diaper, we’re going to change.  We’re going to get their clothes changed.  We’re going to give them a blanket before they’re even cold.  We want to make sure that they’re comfortable, make sure that they’re not crying.  And by doing that, we are taking away opportunities where we can practice interactions with that child.  So for snack time, children are given a whole bowl of snack rather than just a couple little pieces.  If we just give a couple pieces, they then have to ask for more or indicate that they want something more.  If there’s a toy that they love, a great strategy is to have it in sight but just out of reach, so they can indicate that they want that thing, that they need something.  And then also when we are instructing them – instead of just changing their clothes, we offer them choices.  “Do you want to wear the blue shirt or the green shirt?”  “Do you want to wear the red pants or the yellow pants?”  And then also providing the vocabulary, as well as showing the items, so they know that this is the red shirt.  This is the blue shirt, and so on and so forth, because we don’t know vocabulary unless we’re introduced to it and experience it.  Does that make sense?

It does, absolutely.  So helpful.  Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, and I’m glad that you were able to impact even more families with your book being there as far as audio and print format.  I would love to have you share your website again for our listeners and your social media links and different ways that they can connect with you.

They can go to my website, Play Dumb and Sabotage.  I’m on Instagram @playdumbandsabotage, as well as my personal Instagram with is @jt808.

Thank you so much, and again, I appreciate the work you’re doing!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Play Dumb & Sabotage

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 

Kristin Revere and Jackie Cook discuss her work with clients and employers on maternity leave preparation and her Expecting Success program on the latest episode of Ask the Doulas. 

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with my friend Jackie Cook today.  I met Jackie back when I was doing a baby registry training through Be Her Village and then begged her to bring her 9in|9out Baby Expo to Grand Rapids, which she did!  So we formed this friendship over the years, but I’ve always been amazed by the work that Jackie does in the postnatal, maternity leave, preparation phase because I feel like it can be overwhelming to navigate all of the options, and it’s so important to understand all of the benefits with your employer and make a plan during pregnancy for your maternity and paternity leaves versus trying to figure it out when you have a baby, whether you’re a pro and it’s baby four, or it’s your first baby.

So, welcome, Jackie!

Good morning, Kristin!  Thanks for having me on!

Yes!  I would love to have you fill our listeners in on your story.  I know it, but share your background and your own experiences with having kids and what led you to create Popins.

Absolutely.  I’m happy to share.  I currently have what seems like super huge, old, independent kids that are almost 9 and 6 years old.  We’re in this kind of new phase of elementary school and activities.  But rewinding nine years when I was pregnant with my son, we were working over in the Netherlands.  And I had a really big job, and while we were super excited to be pregnant – it was a very much wanted baby – the timing wasn’t great.  My due date actually aligned with a couple of really big work projects, which were the whole reason we were over in the Netherlands in the first place.  Oh, no was kind of my first reaction, which is not great, necessarily!

But I remember going in to meet with my boss to tell him that I was pregnant and being so nervous.  And this was a boss I’d worked with a couple of years.  He was a wonderful manager.  But still, I was super nervous to share this really delightful life event with him because of the impact that I thought it might have on my job and my career.

In fact, it went just fine.  The first thing he said was congratulations; I’m so happy for you.  Which is absolutely the right thing to say and what every manager should say!  It’s not what always happens for everyone, but it was great.  And I spent the next few months really getting ready to not just have my first kid, but also get my job ready and help my clients feel like they would be okay without me.  They were also really supportive.  I think I was probably more nervous than they were.  They were like, Jackie, people have babies.  We’ll be fine.

And after my son was born, it was like, oh, they were right.  People have babies.  They’ll be fine.  I was completely consumed with this new human that I was taking care of.

So in the Netherlands, we’ve had amazing postpartum support.  They have a system of care that’s very similar to what you do at Gold Coast with postpartum doulas, but that’s just the standard.  Everyone gets, essentially, a postpartum doula for the first few days that they’re home with their baby.  So my husband and I just really were able to delight in our first weeks with our son.  We had a lot of confidence that breastfeeding was going well.  We had an opportunity to get a couple naps in because our doula would say, okay, I’m taking the baby now for the hour.  Eat your lunch, and then lay down.  And it was amazing!

A couple years after that, we moved back to the US and were pregnant with our daughter, who is now six.  And I thought, oh, gosh, we have this.  We know what we’re doing.  It’s our second time around.  We’re going to rock it.  And everything went just fine from a medical standpoint.  We had a really healthy delivery, really healthy birth, really healthy baby.  And then I got home and I realized I didn’t have that person that I’d had the first time around who checked my stitches and checked on breastfeeding and held our baby and showed us how to give a newborn a bath.  And we had good friends; we had family support, and that really was very important and very helpful.  But I missed that expert support.  The first time I gave our daughter a bath at home, we were in a different house; we had different stuff.  And I think I ended up getting more of the bath water on myself than on her because I just didn’t have the logistics figured out.  I’d forgotten what that was like from three years earlier.

I do love that nurses do the home visits.  You have doulas.  Midwives also do home care.  It’s such a fantastic model.  And then they also have such a lengthy leave time for maternity and paternity leave.

Yes, absolutely.  And I think regardless of who you have supporting you, I am such an evangelist now for lining up postpartum support before your delivery, whether that’s a doula or a midwife or a group like Nurse Family Partnership, if you have that in your area.  Because just having someone who – that’s what they do.  They help parents with new babies in their home.  It makes such a huge difference in starting that new version of your family on a good foundation.

Exactly.  And I know that you also work not only with the expecting family but also with employers.  So can you elaborate on that a bit more, about how you work with the HR department or employers directly?

Yeah, absolutely!  So really that experience, those contrasting experiences of my own kids, helped me tune into what my team members were going through when I got back to work, what my friends were going through as they grew their families.  And I started looking more at how could we support people as they’re getting ready to have their baby, as they’re transitioning back to work, and I think employers play a huge role in that.  So as I started Popins and looked at, what does one need to do to prepare for a parental leave, and how can you transition well back to work – I think the employer is a really key role in that.  So I work with HR departments on a couple levels.  One of the first things I like to do is just take a look at, what are their benefit offerings?  What are their policies and guidelines around parental support?  And an obvious level, the first question is, do they offer paid leave?  In the US, that’s not a requirement.  It is becoming more attractive for employers to do and to look for in employee benefits, so that’s something that we certainly talk about and look at.

But I also think it’s really important to highlight more standard benefits that employers can expose or put a spotlight on for their employees that are growing their families.  So, for example, many employers offer health savings accounts, and that can be used for a number of different things, specifically in this phase where someone is growing their family, it can be used for some of these expert services often, like lactation support or doula support, to things that your insurance may or may not cover.  You can leverage your employer benefits like a health savings account for those types of things.

So that’s some of the work that I do with both the employer, as well as individuals, to make sure that people are thinking about how they can make the most of the money they have available to them.  And then employers can make the most of the benefits that they’re offering to help their employees have a really good experience as they’re growing their families.

Yes.  And then in the last couple of years, I’ve seen so many more fertility-based benefits that also extend to birth support and certainly postpartum doula support, Carrot Fertility being the largest, that many employers have been taking on, and then Progeny and certainly other employees are looking into their individual company’s plan, which if they’re self-funded, as you know, they can create their own plans.  So we worked with an area construction company and added doulas to their benefits and helped them create a customized program.  There are lots of different options.  What are you seeing with navigating those?

With Popins, what I talk to employers about is adding Popins in as a benefit for that individual support as well.  So we at the HR level talk about, how are you describing and sharing your benefits and policies?  How are you training your managers on how to react and how to get answers for consistency and time savings?  And then also, is there an opportunity to offer our one on one guidance and support for both preparation and return to work?  Because that offers an option where someone who’s not the employer can talk to an expecting parent about how they’re going to have the right support when they get home on their maternity leave.  So I have not met many managers or HR people that really want to talk about pelvic floor therapy or consultants with their team members, but that’s something that, from a Popins standpoint, I can talk to those people about and help them get the support that they need so that when it’s time for them to go back to work, they’re going back as a more whole, healthy person and family.

Yeah, that is so needed.  I feel like as I’m talking to my birth and postpartum doula clients, they don’t even know what their benefits include, and back when I worked in corporate America, we had a lot of different presentations, as you mentioned, like you coming in and the different benefits that we had.  Say it’s vision, and someone would come in and explain the vision benefit to us that wasn’t our HR department.  So I was able to better understand this huge packet of benefits by some of that work.  So what you’re saying makes complete sense.  Or just sharing information in company newsletters or emails and so on to highlight, because it can be overwhelming.  And for spouses to try to figure out their partner’s benefits – like, I don’t fully understand my husband’s and what we have available to us.

And I don’t know if you’ve seen this also, Kristin, but I think what I’ve been finding is that for expecting parents, it’s just an overwhelming time.  There’s so much new information coming at them around doctors’ appointments and baby development and how are you preparing for birth, and all of that on top of the normal day to day life.  And so if their employer says, hey, we have this program that we will cover and we’ll support you – I think it feels easier to take advantage of than if it’s one more thing that the person has to seek out.

Exactly.  Or they may not read through everything and have no idea that this benefit existed unless, say, a coworker told them that they took advantage of a particular program or service, whether it’s therapy or whatever it might be.

Yeah, and that’s one of the things that I feel very passionate about is just any avenue to get more word out there, whether it’s the, hey, please tell your coworker, or did you know that these are some of the common areas that people struggle with?  And I think we’re seeing more of this, where there’s more awareness around mental health, especially in the prenatal and postpartum phases, where there is getting to be more awareness around lactation support.  So things like the Pump Act that came out last year that requires employers to provide time and space that’s not a bathroom for their employees to pump.  These are good things that are just, I think, enhancing and increasing the conversation around areas that are struggles for many, many new parents, and I think we share this passion, Kristin, that there’s no need for new parents to suffer in isolation.  It’s really hard being a new parent, but you don’t have to do it alone.

Exactly.  And sometimes well-meaning friends and family members will just give time and space when actually, it can be so beneficial to offer support or let them process their birth or hold their baby for a minute.  So yes, it can be very isolating, and I feel like we never fully came back from the isolation of the pandemic.  People are still more isolated than what I saw pre-pandemic.

Yeah, that’s a really good point.  I think that was such a hard time for people to be having new babies because there was so much unknown and fear, and a lot of the services that I was able to take advantage of six years ago pre-pandemic didn’t survive and are now starting to find their ways back.  I live in the Madison, Wisconsin area, and we’re starting to see more mom-baby groups in person, more music baby classes, more swim classes.  Those types of things seem to be regaining their traction again, but it’s been slow, and it can be hard to find a community.  If your listeners are hearing this and they’re like, I really need a community – please don’t give up.  Please try to find it.  Groups like Gold Coast Doulas and Popins, we can help make that easier to navigate or direct folks that are looking for community in a certain direction in your area, but it’s so worth it if you can find it.  It’s just hard, and your friends that are not in the same phase of life as you might just not get it.  And that’s okay.  It doesn’t mean they’re bad people or not good friends.  But I think it’s important to have people that are in that chapter with you.

Absolutely.  So tell us about your Expecting Success program, Jackie.

Yeah, thanks, that’s a good transition.  Part of our individual Popins programming is we offer really prenatal support and guidance, that maternity leave prep, through preparing at home.  So that’s lining you up with your local support network, as well as helping you align expectations with your loved ones who want to help out in the area.  And then we continue that on through your return to work.  So getting that transition back into the workplace, figuring out how do you manage childcare with your job, who’s going to order diapers, all of that.  Stuff that maybe didn’t exist in your life six months earlier.  About a nine-month engagement, prenatal to postpartum.  And our Expecting Success group takes that and adds in a networking component.  This is a fully virtual offering.  We’re currently putting together a group to start this fall for folks that have due dates in the November to January range.  And the goal is really to have that individual support in parallel with a small group that you can meet with and talk about whatever is top of mind.  So in previous groups, we would come together and I would think, oh, we’re definitely going to spend this time talking about how people are going to clear their calendars for their maternity leave.  And I was so wrong!  No one wanted to talk about clearing their Outlook calendar.  What they wanted to talk about was, hey, what kind of birth class are you taking?  Or, should I be worried about this childbirth thing that I’ve never done before?  So it’s really a nice window of time where professionals can meet with others that are in the same chapter of life as them and talk about things that they probably don’t really want to talk about at work but that are top of mind and that do need some processing.

And do you work with employers to fund that, or is it self-pay for the members of the community?

It can be either.  I’ve had prior clients do both.  If their employer is open to a conversation, that is certainly the preference, that their employer will cover it, and we can see a lot of benefit for the likelihood that this person is going to have a really clean exit into their parental leave as well as a much better supported, more productive return to work.  So there’s definitely clear benefit for the business to fund it.  But I’ve had some clients that use existing employer funds in creative ways, as well.  So if your company offers a professional development fund, for example, or a learning fund or a wellness fund, those are kind of budgeted areas that I’ve had clients access to pay for Popins services.  And then certainly, out of pocket is an option, and I’m always happy to talk to someone one on one about what their needs are and build out a budgeting plan as needed.

Okay, excellent!  So what are your top tips for our listeners who are preparing for their family leave?

Ooh, love this question.  Everyone has advice, right?  So I think one of my top tips is actually do what works for you and toss out the rest.  So that includes any of my tips that you hear.  If it doesn’t resonate – if you hear me say, like, absolutely everyone should have a postpartum doula – which I absolutely say – but it doesn’t resonate with you for a variety of reasons, then do what you feel like is going to work for you.  I do feel very strongly that as you’re preparing for your parental leave, lining up your expert support in your community for when you get home is one of the best gifts you can give yourself.  So the top areas that I recommend people look at and that I help connect people with in their community include doulas, birth and/or postpartum support, mental health support – so knowing who in the area or who through your insurance focuses specifically on postpartum mental health, like anxiety, depression, et cetera.  Often, that can be through your health system, but sometimes you need someone faster.  Lactation, and pelvic floor physical therapy.  Those are some of the areas that I recommend people know who their go-to people are, who the go-to experts are in their community, so that if or when they need help in those areas, they don’t have to spend a lot of time Googling at 2:00 in the morning.  They already have the number of the person they’re going to call.  Maybe they already have the appointment set up for an assessment or an eval.

Yeah, so I think that’s kind of my top area in the prepping for parental leave is the at-home stuff.  Everything else, we can work through.  Clearing your calendar is actually quite straightforward.  It’s just making sure you actually do it so that you’re not taking a call from the delivery room.

Right, and I’ve seen that as a birth doula too many times.  Or I’ve had clients work on their laptops trying to get those last-minute emails out and get everything set.  So yes, if there’s a way to get it done before – but babies come when they want to, so as much as you can plan and prepare, sometimes things are out of our control.

Yeah, and I think that’s such a smart point.  My main philosophy with the Popins prep is, have everything set to go two weeks before your due date, and that’s going to cover most cases.  There are some people, of course, as you know, that do deliver more than two weeks early, for a variety of reasons, but statistically, if you have everything wrapped up and you are acting as a lame duck two weeks before your due date, you’re going to be in pretty good shape.

Right.  And then I’m sure you work with clients who are navigating bed rest or multiples, and that is a whole different scenario as far as preparation and leave goes.

Yeah.  I think on the multiples side, my advice would be that you have that same support that I mentioned, but make sure they have some experience with multiples.  I had a friend who had twins in the Netherlands, and a very similar experience to mine where they had that standard of care postpartum doula come in, but they had two.  So they had kind of the older, very experienced doula that worked with the, and then that person brought a second set of hands that was a bit more junior, but it meant that they just had more hands on deck.  And I think when it comes to breastfeeding, there are ways to breastfeed multiples, and there are experts out there that know a lot of great tips and tricks to help set you up for success in that area, as well.

Absolutely.  Great tips!  So how can our listeners and doula clients connect with you, Jackie?

My website is popinsfam.com.  And you can get a sense of my services, as well as schedule a discovery call right from my website.  You can also find me on LinkedIn as Jacquelyn Cook or through Popins.  Those are the best ways to connect with me.  And like I said, I’m always happy to do an intro call with anyone who’s expecting or getting ready to go back to work, or even if you’ve been back at work for a couple weeks after baby and it’s just not going well.  Happy to hop on a call and give some quick tips, as well as share a more expanded, individualized program based on your needs.

Exactly.  And information on your Expecting Success program, of course, is on your website?

Yes, absolutely, and for that program, again, we’re looking for folks who have due dates, specifically expecting moms who have due dates in the November through January time period, and we’re planning to start up in early fall.

Excellent.  Well, thanks so much, Jackie!  I loved our chat!  We’ll have to talk again in the future!

Looking forward to it, Kristin!  Appreciate you having me on, and keep doing the great work that you’re doing!

IMPORTANT LINKS

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Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

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