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
Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas