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Kristin Revere and Dr. Desiree Cassell discuss how to find the best pelvic floor physical therapist for your unique needs and when to hire them on the latest episode of Ask the Doulas podcast. 

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Dr. Desiree Cassell.  Dr. Cassell is a doctor of physical therapy specializing in women’s pelvic health.  She is the host of The Balanced Momtality podcast and owner and PT at The Balanced Momtality Women’s Health and Wellness, where she coaches women in person in her home state of New Mexico, as well as virtually all over the world.

She is a foodie, lover of all things movement and nature, and a mom to three energetic and active kids, 13, 6, and 4.  After her first pregnancy, Dr. Cassell suffered with her own pelvic floor dysfunction, and like many, she just accepted it as part of motherhood.  Sadly, that meant no more jumping on trampolines and crossing her legs fiercely every time she sneezed or laughed so she wouldn’t pee herself.

After PT school, she got pregnant with her second and was determined to put her knowledge to the test and was able to completely resolve her issues, even while she was pregnant, leading to her passion in educating, empowering, and supporting other women throughout their lifespans so that they won’t have to accept these common issues as part of life.

Desiree uses a holistic, whole body approach to helping women heal their bodies and stay balanced through all stages of life, starting at the core.

Welcome, Desiree!

Thank you so much for having me!  I am so thrilled to be here!

And our topic is an important one!  We are talking about pelvic floor physical therapy as a way to optimize both your birth experience and postpartum recovery.

Yeah, I am so thrilled to talk about this because this is, again, just something that I didn’t know.  I had already had a baby and I didn’t know that pelvic floor PT was a thing.  So I am just so passionate about spreading the word and just making sure that people are aware that there is support out there and that you don’t need to pee your pants.  We don’t have to accept this common thing.  And I think that’s the thing is it’s common, not normal.  So many things we just accept as normal, and they’re just not.  So I’m thrilled to talk about all the ways that pelvic floor PT can help.

Yes, it’s such an important topic.  I feel like there is more knowledge, in that postnatal phase, especially, of the leaking and the fact that you don’t need to suffer and there is support.  Oftentimes now I’m seeing OBs and midwives talk about pelvic floor physical therapy as an option in that six-week visit.  Before, when I was in my early days as a birth and postpartum doula, my clients weren’t learning about that until I brought it up as an option, and now I feel like there’s more awareness and education within the healthcare system.  Would you agree?

Yes, I do think that it’s kind of a trendy thing right now, which is good.  I think that it’s good to have it just be more in the know that pelvic floor PT exists, at least.  Now it’s about knowing that it’s more than Kegels.  It’s more than peeing your pants.  There are so many other things that pelvic floor PT can prevent and treat.  Again, I think even OBs and midwives and other women’s health providers might know it exists, but there’s still such a misunderstanding of all the ways it can truly help.  Ideally, I’m seeing women pre-pregnancy, during pregnancy, early postpartum, but I see women five, ten years postpartum, twenty years postpartum with that common story of, this started after my first baby, or maybe it started after their third baby.  Or I mentioned this to my provider and they told me to do Kegels.  Or I was told this is normal.  It’s just so disheartening, because it’s not true and we can do better, but it starts with knowing better.  We have to know better before we can do better.  So again, thanks for having me here so we can help our listeners know better so they can do better!

Yes, that’s what it’s all about – knowing your options.  If you don’t know them, then you don’t have any, and then you just end up suffering in silence.  I also feel like, as you said, pelvic floor PT is a trendy topic, so friends are finally talking about it amongst themselves, whereas before it was more of a hidden thing.  I tend to work with a lot of athletes, and in those circles, with runners and swimmers, they talk about pelvic floor physical therapy and physical therapy in general and the ways to return to their passion and their sport without leaking or other physical discomforts, but now it is becoming more mainstream and not just discussed within my circle of clients who happen to be athletes.

Yeah, I’m so thankful for that.  It’s something I think everybody should know.  Everybody does have a pelvic floor, males included, but women are so underserved, and so I do have that passion of just helping women understand their bodies.  This is like a taboo space.  Our culture has made the pelvis and the vagina and anything in that area such a taboo topic where we are afraid to even talk about with maybe even your mom or your sister or your friend.  If you feel brave enough to bring it up with your provider, only for them to blow you off and write you off.  It’s just so unfortunate, and it’s a cycle that needs to be stopped.

Yeah, and I love that your own personal experience in healing yourself led you to focus on this particular specialty because within physical therapy, there’s so many different ways that you can specialize and work with different populations.  I love that your own experience as a mom led to your passion in not only creating your local practice, but supporting more families with your podcast and your virtual services.

Yeah, it’s so funny because it really was so mind blowing.  I did not expect to be a vagina doctor.  That was not where I thought I would go!  I was really into sports, ortho.  You know, I’ve always been athletic.  I did sports through high school and lifted and played basketball recreationally in college.  I stayed active and had my own injuries.   I’ve also had a burn injury and things where I was like, you know, I just like the outpatient ortho world.  And I was so surprised that the women’s health pelvic floor thing kind of just fell in my lap at a clinic that I was really wanting to get into.

Step back just a little bit – my third year of PT school, I was pregnant with my second, and I was still peeing myself from my six-year-old six years ago.  And at that point, I had had that gender health pelvic floor course in my program, and it was just a general pelvic floor health class.  It didn’t go deep, but it was enough to learn that, no, it is not normal to pee yourself and not normal to have a lot of these different aches and pains that we accept during pregnancy.  I learned about pelvic organ prolapse, a term I had never heard before, and I was like, wait, you mean our organs can just fall out of our body?  That is not okay!  At the time, I was like, man, who would ever want to do this specialty?  I give them so much praise, but not for me!  No thanks!

Then I got pregnant with my second, and I thought, you know what, I’m going to actually put what I learned to the test because I’m personally sick of peeing myself.  Like, that’s not okay, and I’m sure it will get worse through this pregnancy, and I was already starting to have some heaviness, which I later learned was pelvic organ prolapse, and some of these other aches and pains that we accept.  And I got it all to go away.  My leaking stopped.  A lot of my pain stopped.  My prolapse heaviness symptoms went away, and it was while I was pregnant.  And that was just that light bulb moment for me of like, oh my gosh, this actually really is a game changer, and how did I not know about this sooner?  It’s just touching back on it being so accepted.  Even my mom is like, yeah, that’s why I don’t get on trampolines anymore.  That’s just what happens when we have kids.  We just are told to accept it and that it’s normal.  Once I learned otherwise, I was on a mission.  But even then, I wasn’t sold that I was going to do that.  Being in that ortho clinic that wanted a women’s health therapist, they said you can do part women’s health, part ortho, and we’ll pay for your training to go take those courses.  I was like, okay, sure, I love women.  I love moms.  Let’s just give it a shot.  After seeing those women and again hearing those stories of being written off, hearing the stories of not having intercourse for five-plus years because of pain or not being able to go out on road trips because they have to pee all the time – getting these women on a different level of quality of life.  That was just so rewarding.  And sometimes – many times – being the first person to really hear them and hear their story and validate them.  It is just such a passion of mine now, and totally unexpected, but now I can talk about it all day long, obviously.

I can tell – it’s beautiful!  So Dr. Cassell, when should women start making that first appointment for pelvic floor physical therapy?  When is a good time to see an expert like yourself?

I am a huge advocate of being proactive and preventative with our health and wellness, so I do think every person should see a pelvic floor PT if you have never seen one.  But again, a lot of these other symptoms that I mentioned that are very local and obvious things, like leaking – and again, it is never normal, so even if you’re leaking on that third sneeze, it’s still not normal.  If you’re leaking because you’re pregnant, still not normal.  You had a baby?  Still not normal.  So any amount, any time – if you did not try to release it and it’s coming out, whether it’s urine, feces, gas – that is not normal.  If you cannot hold that and you are losing control – but also if you’re having inability initiating your urine, or you’re constipated – constipation is another big pelvic floor symptom that so many Americans struggle with.  It goes hand in hand with the gut.  I look at that whole body, whole system approach, so we’re looking at gut health.  The pelvic floor is so intimately connected with everything in that space because of the proximity with bladder and the uterus and the rectum and therefore the GI tract.  So we can see a lot of constipation, bloating.  Pain is another big, obvious thing.  If you’ve got pelvic pain – and this can look like pubic bone pain, tailbone pain, pain with sitting, pain during intercourse, pain after intercourse, heaviness.  Again, heaviness is not normal.  Obviously, there’s some level of normal heaviness when you’re pregnant and it’s your second, third, fourth pregnancy.  Sometimes that heaviness comes on a little sooner.  But even then, we need to make sure it’s not true pelvic organ prolapse because once those pelvic organs, whether it’s bladder, the uterus, the rectum – if they’re starting to lose their structural support with the ligaments, not the muscles – so the ligaments and tendons are there, holding those organs up, and once that starts to stretch and those organs are starting to drop, we need to get on that as soon as possible because age and gravity are not on our side, right?  Things will only get worse, so we need to make sure we’re preventing any extra heaviness and pressure.  That could be from constipation.  That could be from baby.  That could be from pelvic organ prolapse.  That could even be a sensation you’re feeling of heaviness from your pelvic muscles cramping up and spasming because they’re trying so hard to support your body.  So again, heaviness, you really want to look into that.

But then we also want to look outside of the pelvis where things like hip pain, hip dysfunction, hip instability.  A pelvic floor muscle that we have is a hip stabilizer, as well, so we can see a lot of hip issues.  And knowing, too, that the pelvic floor does connect that whole pelvic outlet, so it does connect up to the tailbone, and therefore, that sacrum bone.  We see a lot of spinal issues, so low back pain, SI joint pain, even mid and upper back pain and neck pain.  TMJ is a huge connection both physically and just nervous system wise from the tone and clenching, but there’s a direct fascial link there.  So if you’ve got TMJ, I can pretty much guarantee you’ve got pelvic floor tightness, as well.  And so I think so many people just think of pelvic floor issues and think it’s weak; we need to strengthen it.  When really, so many times, I find that yes, even if weakness is an issue, things are usually too tight because it doesn’t know how to support the body, so therefore it just cramps up and creates a spasm in that muscle.  And you can’t really go into strengthening right away or you’re going to make that situation worse.  Again, it’s really helpful to get that internal assessment to know, where is your pelvic floor?  Are you going to cause more issues by starting to do things like Kegels and strengthening?  Instead, maybe we need to focus on some other things to help that whole system work together.

But before I go off on any of those tangents, I just want to again touch on when you should see a pelvic floor PT, because aside from just those symptoms that I mentioned, another common symptom is diastasis recti, which is that separation of your abdominals that happens with every single pregnant person.  However, we can see excessive forces there which then can cause extra thinning and therefore dysfunction and maybe even a possibility for hernias and things like that.  Hernias are also another sign that you have pressure issues in the core and would benefit from seeing a pelvic floor PT.

But obviously, pregnancy.  Pregnancy is a huge thing, and I think the sooner the better.  If you’re pregnant, again, get in to see a pelvic floor PT before you have any issues because then you can avoid things that we accept like leaking, round ligament pain, SI joint and low back pain, urinary urgency and frequency and just feeling like you have to pee all the time or you can barely make it to the bathroom.  We can avoid a lot of that.  The sooner the better.  And also to prepare for birth, because birth is a marathon, and that marathon of pregnancy, you also need to train for.  We need to make sure you have that flexibility in your pelvic floor muscles to open up and get out of the way so baby can come through, especially if you’re looking at having a vaginal delivery, and especially if you’re having a VBAC.  If we have some scar lines from that Cesarean, we need to make sure things are mobile and moving and that that scar and restriction isn’t going to impede baby from coming through that birth canal safely.  It’s also about optimizing your pushing strategy so we’re not getting too much pressure and causing prolapse.  And we’re looking at how we can optimize recovery and heal optimally postpartum so that you’re avoiding all of those issues.

Also, not just waiting for that six-week check, because unfortunately, that six-week check does such a disservice to what should be happening as moms getting cared for and looked over.  I think six weeks is way too long, but it’s also way too soon to tell someone they’re “cleared” to just return to activity as normal.  Again, postpartum, anyone that’s had a baby, I think, should see a pelvic floor PT.  But if you are having obvious symptoms like I mentioned before, then it’s more of a sign that your body is trying to yell at you to get some help.  So it’s better to be a little bit more proactive, as I say.

Exactly, rather than reactive.  Have a plan, and even if you need to get a referral, which not all pelvic floor physical therapy requires, depending on your insurance plan, you could get that referral done during pregnancy and not wait for that six-week visit.

Yeah, because honestly, especially with the insurance world – and I’m not an insurance based practice, for many reasons, but there’s such a benefit to having those as options, obviously, but one of the big downsides is a wait list.  So if you already know that your due date is coming up – some waits are two to three months, so if you wait for that referral at your six-week check, you’ve already missed that window that is so crucial for healing.  From a pelvic floor PT standpoint and a recovery standpoint, those first ten to twelve weeks are crucial.  That is where we can either put too much pressure on the system and caused a lot of issues, because the tissues are so vulnerable and are trying to heal, and if you are putting too much pressure through the body because you are slouched over, feeding and caring and holding 90% of your day, and you’re not breathing correctly as you’re moving throughout the day, that can cause the leaking and cause the prolapse and cause the pain.  When really, we can optimize reducing that pressure, improving your movement strategies, and helping your body slowly get back into strength training and impact training so that your tissues are actually healing and remodeling at the length and the direction that they should and therefore providing the support you need and preventing issues.  It’s just such a bummer when I see the women who have waited until they got the clearance.  They went straight back into running or something, and they come back four to six months postpartum and now they’ve got all these issues.  I’m like, oh, man, I wish I would have seen you sooner, because we would have made a much bigger impact!

And you mentioned that in pregnancy preparation, it can help with pushing.  I mean, you can see a pelvic floor physical therapist in pregnancy, and there are a lot of things externally that can be done to reduce discomfort and have a better outcome.  You mentioned VBAC as an example.  I do refer a lot of my VBAC clients to pelvic floor physical therapy for the reasons you mentioned.

And that’s so good because it’s something that, to me, seems so obvious.  A C-section is intense.  Birth is intense, even if you had your most “optimal birthing experience.”  You and your body are probably still kind of traumatized and thinking, what the heck did we just go through?  But especially if you ended up with an emergency C-section situation or even opted for that C-section delivery, which again, no shame either way – but your body is going to be going through a lot.  A C-section is not a gentle procedure by any means, and many times, they are just given the pain meds, given the stool softeners, given a handout, and sent on their way.  It’s just so sad because with C-sections especially, you have physical scar lines that are going to be changing how your muscles work, how your body is going to show up for you.  And if you don’t rehab that and get that scar moving and return that core strength and stability, you cause so many issues down the line, and it might not be six weeks, six months.  It might be six years, ten years down the line that we see the issues from that.  But a C-section – it’s just such a bummer.  I do think it should be standard of care to see a pelvic floor PT from any delivery.  But it’s an obvious one for me because it’s a procedure, and abdominal procedures – a physical therapy referral after any abdominal procedure, I think should be standard of care.  It makes so much more sense for them.  On a joint, you get an ACL repair, or even a laparoscopic ankle surgery, and they’re sending you to PT two to three times a week for six to eight weeks.  But they cut into your abdomen, or you birth a child, and there’s nothing.  It’s just so mind boggling to me and so sad, honestly.  I’m just a huge advocate to change that.

I agree.  And as you mentioned, with Cesarean recovery, I feel like there’s a misconception that the only people who need pelvic floor physical therapy are those that had a vaginal birth and maybe some trauma in labor or leakage, but it is both the surgical birth as well as vaginal, as a good candidate for pelvic floor physical therapy.

Totally, because obviously, yes, you might not have vaginally delivered your baby, but say that was an emergency C-section and you did push for a couple hours.  Maybe you’ve been laboring for a couple of days.  Your pelvic floor still took quite the beating during that delivery.  But even if you had a planned C-section and you had zero labor, your pelvic floor still carried that baby for you for nine months.

Exactly, that’s the thing!

It still took a beating, and it’s all connected.  It’s a system.  It’s not just your pelvic floor, and it’s not just your abs.  It’s putting that whole core system back together and making sure it is functioning optimally as it should.  Or are you engaging your core incorrectly and increasing pressure every time you engage your core?  Is your pelvic floor even turning on, because it is part of your core, and if it’s not turning on when it should, then you are going to have issues.  It is something I get asked a lot.  Would that be beneficial for me?  I had a C-section.  And I’m like, yes, you, especially because you had a C-section!  I’m sure we’re looking at back pain a lot of the time.  Scar pain, scar sensitivity, pain with intercourse.  There’s a lot that pelvic floor PT can do.  And even looking up beyond the pelvis at things like mommy wrist or having that nerve pain coming down in your arm.  Upper back pain, neck pain from all of the slouching and carrying and feeding and holding that you’re now doing, that your body hasn’t been used to.  It’s just optimizing our movements and making sure that every time you are bending over and picking up that baby, you’re not increasing pressure on the pelvic floor, and instead, you’re making that actually more of a pelvic floor and core workout, as I like to teach my patients.  I really don’t go for traditional Kegels very often at all.  It’s more looking at how is that whole system working together?  Are you engaging your brace every time you’re bending over, pushing, pulling, carrying anything?  Is your breath working with that core brace as it should?  And then when we do that correctly, everything is a core workout, and therefore everything is a pelvic floor workout.  And then you’re also reducing risk of injury.  Again, I could talk about it all day.  It’s such a benefit and such an underutilized service.

I agree!  Well, thank you for sharing all of your wisdom and passion with our listeners!  What are your top tips for finding the perfect pelvic floor physical therapist?

Good question!  I think that finding someone that is going to look at the whole system, because I’ve had some great physical therapists that are pelvic floor physical therapists in the area, and I’ve been disappointed to hear that they’re not looking beyond the pelvis.  So yes, we need to make sure that that pelvic floor is engaging and functioning well, and obviously, you should be getting an internal vaginal assessment.  I offer virtual coaching, and it so great.  I’ve seen it change lives.  There’s such a benefit from it.  But I do think there’s amazing benefit in also getting that internal, in-person vaginal assessment, and you can get that done during pregnancy.  Some therapists don’t like to do that during pregnancy.  We don’t do it during the first trimester, but I am a therapist who is a big advocate for getting that internal assessment during pregnancy so you can see and know what your pelvic floor is functioning like and positioning like going into delivery.  But again, someone that looks beyond that pelvic floor, looking at that whole system, looking at your feet.  How are your feet transferring forces up to your pelvis?  How is your posture above impacting your pelvic floor function?  Looking at that whole body piece.  And I would say someone that is spending a whole hour at least one on one with you.  If you are getting pushed off to a tech, if you aren’t getting that one on one – pelvic floor is very complex, and a 30-minute session does not cut it.  So we need to have some time with our patients and with our providers to really understand that big picture, and again, looking at it holistically, would probably be my two big tips.

Great advice, Dr. Cassell!  Any final words of wisdom for our listeners?

I think just learn your body!  Connect with your body, and if you are having any of those symptoms I mentioned, get some support.  It’s an awkward topic, I know, but the more we can learn our body and understand our body and how it’s supposed to function, we can understand better when it looks like it’s not doing its job and when we might need some support.  There are so many great resources out there to start with, and it can almost overwhelming.  If you are confused as to what information to take in, that’s where I would get some one on one support from a pelvic floor PT.  But there are some great free resources.  My podcast is one of them, and your podcast that I’m on now is one of them.  So just educate yourself.  Empower yourself.  Know your body, and then you can advocate better for yourself and help spread the word.  This is something that, while it is trendy, there is still a big population subset that does not know that pelvic floor PT is a thing, and I think we all need to know.

We do!  Excellent advice.  So how can our listeners connect with you?

 I do have my own podcast, The Balanced Momtality, Pelvic Floor, Core, and More is my podcast over there.  Another great free resource to just tap in and start listening and learning bits and pieces there.  But if you do want to know more, you can contact me on Instagram and Facebook @thebalancedmomtality.  I did have a hacking issue this morning, unfortunately, so I may need to be redoing my Instagram recount.  I will be so sad if I have to start all over.  But for now, it is The Balanced Momtality, and that is my Instagram page and Facebook.  And then I have my website by the same name, where I do have more information about my services.  Again, I offer virtual coaching and in person if you’re in the New Mexico area.

Love it!  Well, it was a pleasure to chat with you, and I hope to have you on again in the future!

I would be so honored!  Thank you so much!

IMPORTANT LINKS

The Balanced Momtality

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Maranda Bower talk about the importance of postpartum nutrition in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  They also discuss postpartum planning during pregnancy. 

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with my friend Maranda Bower.  Maranda is the CEO and founder of Postpartum University, which is dedicated to empowering both mothers and professionals in redefining maternal well-being.  With her extensive experience in biology, nutrition, and perinatal mental health, Maranda stands as a pioneering figure in the field.  She possesses a profound understanding of the intricate psychological processes that underpin postpartum well-being.  As a prolific researcher and accomplished author, including the best-selling book Reclaiming Postpartum Wellness, her impactful work extends globally.  Maranda is also the founder of the postpartum nutrition certification program, which is the only functional nutrition certification dedicated to the unique period that is postpartum.

Maranda lives in her beautiful homestead in Alaska with her husband, four children, and many unruly chickens.

Welcome, Maranda!

Thank you so much for that introduction!

Yes, I am so excited to chat with you!  You’re one of my sheroes in the field.  I am all about postpartum planning, as you know from prior conversations, so our focus today is not only in prepping for the postnatal phase, but utilizing your wealth of experience in postpartum nutrition.  So let’s get into it!

Yes, my favorite topics ever!  First off, I really love being here, so thank you so much for the opportunity.  And you know, we spend so much time preparing for the birth of our baby, which is incredibly important, but not very many of us plan for what happens after in the postpartum period, beyond let’s get the best car seat and what about the breast pump and make sure that I have all the clothes for my baby.  But what about the mom, right?  Where’s the planning for her health and her well-being?  And what does that look like?

Exactly.  I think starting with your book as an entry point, even pre-conception, not only in the early pregnancy stage, and it certainly would make a wonderful baby shower gift, as a way to really understand the importance of that planning and especially the nutrition aspect of things.

Yeah, thank you for mentioning that.  And I’m a mom.  I’ve got four kids.  And I will tell you, reading a book in postpartum is probably the hardest thing in the world to do.

Yes!  Absolutely!

I know I have a postpartum book, but I don’t recommend it in postpartum, right?  If you’re in the throes of postpartum, yeah, it’s a great read.  It’s going to tell you where to focus your time and your attention and how to get through it.  But if you don’t have that handholding, meaning somebody there to help you and support you through all the things that you’re going through and helping you navigate the intricacies that is early motherhood and the sleepless nights and having to cook the meals and be in the kitchen.  Most of you probably have toddlers at the same time.  Again, I’m a mom of four; I get it.  It’s hard!  It’s really hard.  So reading, preparing for your postpartum, is absolutely amazing.  I highly recommend it if you’re in the position to do so.  And we can also talk about, what if you are in the throes of postpartum?  What can you do to kind of get out of feelings of stress and exhaustion, and what do you do when your body feels like it’s falling apart or you’re dealing with depression and anxiety?  And we can absolutely talk about those things as well if you’d like.

Yes, certainly!  Before we get into those aspects of not only nutrition but depression and anxiety, another thing that I would love to have you fill our listeners in on is your podcast, and that would certainly be a way for the postpartum moms who can’t focus on a book like yours to get some dedicated information on how to care for themselves.

Oh, yes, absolutely.  And the thing about my podcast that I love, and I hear a lot of people love, is the short episodes.  Nothing is over 30 minutes because we’re busy!  And it’s actually geared towards providers and professionals who are in the field, which kind of gives moms the insider scoop of what’s really going on or what they should be looking for in support people in their lives.

Exactly, yeah!

And there’s so much good information about how your body is actually physically functioning, psychologically functioning.  Like, what really changes?  We all know that our body changes, but nobody tells us how it’s changing, and nobody focuses there, which is why I focus so much on postpartum nutrition and things like that, because our gut changes significantly, which changes our brain.  You’ve got the gut-brain access there.  It changes so much of our bodies, and when we understand those intricacies, then we can see, wait a second, the way we’re taught about what is healthy and how to eat during this time – like salads and smoothies, for example – are actually not beneficial to the postpartum body.  Because we understand what is actually shifting and changing.

Yes!  So where to begin?

I don’t know.  I just dropped a big bomb there!

Let’s try to simplify and give our listeners who are in the early postnatal stages or could be in pregnancy and want to understand some easy ways to focus on getting the correct nutrients, minerals, and eating the right foods in the postnatal phase.

Okay, so if I may, maybe we can start with this question and wrap it around or put it into the question of how do we plan for postpartum, if we’re pregnant.

Yes, let’s do it!

And there’s a couple of things that I highly recommend.  If you’re able to, if you’re in a position to where maybe you’re pregnant or you’re planning to be pregnant, to start really looking into how do I take care of myself during this postpartum time.  And the first thing that I absolutely recommend is to just really take assessment of your life, where you are, how you’re living in your life.  What does your lifestyle look like?  Are you able to sit down and relax?  Is that a possibility for you in your life?  Are you constantly saying yes to the things that you really want to say no to?  Is your life so busy that it’s really hard to step away?  Deep, right?  But sometimes, oftentimes, we don’t get real with this.  Or we say, well, yeah, of course, because I have lots of family and I have kids to chase after and I’ve got this and this – and then we get overworked and we get exhausted just thinking about it, rather than actually dealing with the situation at hand, which is – that’s not sustainable.

No, and that leads to depletion, and as you had mentioned earlier, anxiety, depression, lack of sleep. 

Absolutely, all contributing factors.  But if we don’t get real with how we’re living our lives, our lives are going to push us down very quickly.  We are going to fall flat on our faces, and it’s going to hurt, and you’re going to burn out.  You’re going to get sick, and your life is going to force you to pay attention to it, especially in postpartum.  And that’s why often you see that depletion, the exhaustion, the hair falling out in giant clumps.  We see hormone imbalance.  We see depression.  We see anxiety.  All of those things, they’re going to come raging through.  So make sure you’re addressing that and you’re getting real with that.  And that’s probably one of the hardest things to do is just really get real and say, okay, what is it that I need, and how do I step back?  How do I say no in a way that feels good for me and maybe doesn’t hurt other people’s feelings, or whatever the case may be.  And I’ll tell you, when you are pregnant and postpartum, it’s like the ultimate excuse, so use it to your advantage.  “I’ve got kids, I’m sorry!”

That’s step one.  Step two is really, really looking at, okay, how am I going to nourish myself after growing a human being in my body?  That is no small feat.  As a matter of fact, I think it’s one of the biggest feats that we will ever accomplish in our lifetimes, to be able to grow life, give birth to life and sustain a baby with our bodies for many women.  And that’s just – it is miraculous that we are able to do such a thing.  And we have to know that it took all of us to make another baby, to make a child.  And in that, we have to step back and say, okay, well, if it took all of me – like, really, what did it take of me?

And I will tell you, nutrition is one of those foundational pieces that are really coming to life.  A lot of women are starting to understand what nutrition does, and we’re seeing it with the market of supplements and food products and things like that in postpartum because it does make a difference.  It makes a big difference in the way that we feel.  Nutrient depletion is a real issue.  Over 80% of women will experience it in their postpartum.  And when you’re depleted of nutrients, your body cannot function.  Your hormones cannot regulate.  You cannot heal your body.  You cannot produce the breastmilk that you need to and the formulation that it needs.  The composition of your breastmilk changes.  A lot of people don’t like to talk about that.  Breastmilk is still the absolute best for your baby, but it does change things for us when we are depleted.  And if we’re not getting the nutrients that we need, we’re going to feel exhausted.  Our gears are going to feel like they’re grinding.

Thyroid issues – one in seven women will experience thyroid disorders in their lifetime.  That statistic jumps up to 22% in postpartum.  They’ll experience postpartum thyroiditis.  That’s significant, right?  We’re almost at one in four there.  One in four women will experience a thyroid disorder.  And it’s not because – and this is what I always tell people.  We think often that, well, of course my thyroid isn’t functioning right.  I just had a baby.  This is what I hear from providers all the time.  And I hear from moms, because they’re listening to their providers.

And I will tell you, that is so far from the truth.  Yes, we have babies, and our bodies create babies.  That is actually what it’s biologically designed to do, and our bodies do everything they can to find homeostasis, which is a fancy word for saying it tries everything it can to find balance, to find normal.  And those symptoms are symptoms of something wrong, and we know that when we are experiencing depletion, when we’re not getting enough protein, when we’re not getting enough fat, when we’re not getting enough vitamins and minerals, we can develop postpartum thyroiditis.  It’s actually symptomatic of that.  Depression and anxiety in postpartum mimics symptoms of depletion of very key nutrients.

So we have scientifically proven that when we are depleted of key nutrients, we will feel the symptoms of thyroid disorder, hair falling out in clumps, aching joints, exhaustion, fatigue, depression, anxiety, mood swings, hormone imbalance.  These are not normal things in postpartum.  Our world has called them normal because they happen so frequently.

And certainly with breastfeeding and pumping moms, that depletion is intensified because of all of the work the body does.

It’s exacerbated, right?  Yeah, and it just spirals out of control, and you end up severely depleted, right?  And I will tell you, a lot of women are like, well, I thought I was able – and I’ll break this myth real quick because I know your audience will probably love it – they say, if I breastfeed and I don’t eat – I see this often – or I feel like I’m eating, and I’m breastfeeding a lot, but I can’t lose any of the weight – it’s because your body is in a state of starvation.  It feels, because it’s so depleted, that it’s starving, that it’s holding on to every bit that you’re giving it in an effort not to crumble and crash on itself.  And so if you really want to lose the “baby weight,” which I never recommend as a focus whatever.  It’s not a basis of health.  We need fat on our bodies to grow babies and sustain babies and all of the things, and to be healthy.  Actually, our hormones regulate with fat.  So there’s a whole myth out there to bust on that one.  But oftentimes when women come to me and they say, well, I can’t lose any of the weight, I tell them it’s likely because you’re starving of nutrients.

Yeah.  I mean, it makes perfect sense, and as postpartum doulas, we are making sure that our clients stay hydrated, that they’re snacking, that they’re eating healthy food and not just focusing on the casseroles and lasagnas that are brought to them.  The nourishing food that is going to heal them, and if they are breastfeeding or pumping, help give their babies the nutrients they need, as well.

Which is not an easy task.  And this is why I love talking with doulas and educating those people who are in the field, who are doing the hardest work.  If you’re in the home, if you’re holding mama’s hands and walking her through that process, not only is that hard work – it’s such a sacred journey.  I got started doing this work as a doula myself, and it’s by far one of my most favorite.  I just love – I have a special place in my heart for doulas, and I know that they work that they do is so important.  That’s why I love helping them understand what is really transpiring in the body.  And things that we’re often told, like salads and smoothies, are actually not helpful.  It’s not just about how many nutrients a food holds, right?  It’s actually more so about how is that food able to digest in the body.  What’s its bioavailability of nutrients, which is a fancy way of saying, can my body actually digest those nutrients and use them?  And for a postpartum mom, often the answer is no.  So then it becomes, okay, well, what is the most nutrient dense food that is easily absorbable for a mom?  Salads and smoothies are not it.  It’s going to be broths and stews and congee, high fats, high protein, lots of cooked vegetables, so very rich in nutrients which are cooked, which increases the bioavailability of food, which means you’re just drinking liquid nutrients, which means it’s easier on the body to digest and the body is not exerting extra energy to digest the foods.  That in itself is a whole episode, but that is such a key component to healing in the years after having a baby.

Exactly, Maranda, and that is why traditional cultures have always focused on warming foods in the postnatal phase.

It’s so interesting when we look at what we know in the science, which is very little.  Women’s healthcare in general is so understudied; it’s not even funny.  It’s actually very concerning.  And when we look at what is actually available and out there for science right now in this very moment compared to what we see in traditional cultures around the world who have been practicing these things for eons, since the dawn of time, we can see the correlation.  They connect.  They match.  It’s kind of funny; maybe we should stop listening to all of the science and start going back to the traditions of our world and our cultures because they really have it down.

Yes, agreed.  Absolutely.  There is a lot of focus on supplements and fast fixes.  What’s your take on the best way to absorb the nutrients, outside of food?

When we start looking at what’s really happening in the gut, we recognize that if it’s hard for a body to digest raw food, for example, like a salad, it’s going to be hard for a body to absorb a manmade pill.  And we see a lot of studies coming out on supplementation and that it actually might be more harmful than it is good, because what we’re doing is we’re taking components of a food.  We’re taking out vitamins.  We’re taking out minerals.  And what we’re leaving is the rest of the nutrients that are so synergistic to the food itself.  When you are digesting a potato, you’re not just digesting the vitamins of a potato.  It’s not just like here’s your vitamin A.  Here are the vitamins in the potato.  It’s all of those components of the potato that actually make it supportive of digesting each other.  When you start looking at nutrition studies and dietetics, you’ll recognize that many nutrients work together to help each other digest and become bioavailable in the body.  The opposite is also true in that some nutrients don’t work together at all.  And so when we’re consuming this giant multivitamin full of things, it’s kind of funny because a lot of those things are not conducive.  They don’t work together.  They fight with each other, and they’re not going to be digested.  They’re going to be literally flushed down the toilet, a complete waste.  And I love specific supplementation, and the way in which I love supplementation, I will tell you, that I think is so powerful and so necessary for the body, especially in postpartum, because again, the postpartum body needs a lot of support.  Lots and lots of support.  The first thing we think of, well, supplements will be the easiest route.  But I want to tell you: herbs are the easiest route.  Herbs, because they’re so nutrient dense and very easy to digest.  We can either take them not necessarily in supplementation form, but in tea form.  That, my friend, is how you get the boost that you so desperately need, and it’s something that you can feel right away.

And for those who are really deficient – maybe you’re experiencing anemia, which is so common postpartum.  Taking liquid supplements, liquid food-based supplements, that is going to be your friend.  Don’t take pills.  If you can find a liquid supplement for whatever it is that you specifically need – because again, it’s not a one size fits all.  I’m just telling you some general things, but for every person, it’s very different.  There are liquid supplements that are available to you that, if you can’t get with food or enough with food, then you can absolutely take liquid supplements.  But I will tell you, herbs are by far so sustaining.  They’re something that we can grow in our own backyards if we really wanted to, which is why they’re not on the market as something that can really help us.  There was a study that was done on Prozac versus St. John wort, the herb, and which one was more effective.  And it was actually kind of a joke that this researcher was joking with another researcher saying, hey, I bet we can just study this and throw it under the water and everybody would stop going to St. John’s wort for depression support.  And what they actually found is that it works significantly better with far less symptoms.  It was a massive study and it was absolutely amazing.  But they can’t market it.  You can’t go and market that because people can grow it in their own backyards.  It’s not grown in a lab.  It’s not something that – you know, when you look at science, how is it a pill formed?  Well, it’s usually by somebody who comes in to a market and says, I’m going to invest my money in this, and there’s going to be a return on that money, and we have to pay the scientist and all of that.  None of that gets to be done.  Nobody’s going to invest in that because you’re not going to make anything because you can grow it in your own backyard, which means that you’re in control of that.

And there’s so many other components, too, that we can get into.  We need a series.

We do!  It could be a six-part series just for expecting families and then a three-part for birth and baby professionals!

To answer your question a little bit more thoroughly: oftentimes what we’re looking for in those quick fixes is how do we fit everything into this lifestyle that doesn’t support us, and that goes back to the first question, really getting clear about what in your life is not working for you.  Because if you’re just going to insert a baby into this crazy, busy life that most of us lead and expect that it’s not going to take a toll and then just try to throw in a bunch of quick fixes, it’s going to fail.

Right.  So for the birth and baby professionals who are listening, would you fill us in a bit about how they can expand their knowledge on postpartum planning and nutrition?

Oh, my goodness.  I do offer a lot of resources.  You can go to my website.  I have some free handouts that you can use for your clients.  And you will learn a ton just going through those handouts yourself.  And I also offer a certification program for that.  It’s actually the only functional nutrition certification program for postpartum.  There are other programs out there that lump pregnancy and postpartum together, and I am just – I do not agree with that because once we understand those physiological and psychological changes that are occurring in postpartum – yes, birth and pregnancy kind of go together, but we can’t lump them together when we’re talking about nutrition, when we’re talking about a lot of things related to the changes that are occurring in postpartum.  I think for one, making sure that you are really educating yourself, for those providers who are listening in and those doulas and advocates, making sure that you’ve got the right information.  And then passing that along to your clients.  You don’t have to be the doula or the provider who cooks meals.  If you want to, perfect.  That’s amazing.  You can absolutely do that.  There’s a lot of people who are doing that and have to be that person to do that and make a difference.  But I will tell you that not talking about nutrition is leaving a lot on the table for your clients to try to figure out themselves, and if you’re not talking about nutrition, your clients are going to experience all of the things that we say are typical and  normal.

I always say, I want to leave my clients feeling better that I am out of their home and I’ve done my time supporting them than having to rely on me to get what they need.  If they feel like, wow, that was such a transformative experience, having Maranda here, being my doula, supporting me in my journey, and I feel like I have all the tools I need to support myself without her here – that’s a game changer.  That’s a life changer.  That mom is going to go share with all of her friends what she learned.  She’s going to share all of your information, everything.  I don’t want a mom saying, please don’t leave me.  I don’t know what to do without you.

Right.  The goal is to work ourselves out of the job and have our clients feel confident and able to handle this transition, whether it’s baby one or five, without support.  So yes, I totally agree.

Yeah, and nutrition, again, the foundation to all of that.  If you’re not talking about nutrition, your clients are missing out.

Right.  Nutrition and rest, I feel, are the two most important things.  And as you mentioned, in that planning phase, finding out really what motivates you, how to ask for help, what your lifestyle is and how it’s going to change after baby – those are all important questions. 

So any final tips for our listeners, Maranda?

Oh, my goodness.  I feel like we talked a lot about planning for postpartum and maybe even helping your clients plan for postpartum, but what about those clients who are already in the throes?  And I think the same is also true – like, all of these things, and I do want to say, it’s never too late to heal.  I have lots of moms who have come to me two, three, four years postpartum and it’s still possible to heal.  If you’re a doula listening in, or a provider, that means that you still can help moms heal during this time, especially with nutrition.  And I think finding somebody who can help you and walk you through that process of learning what it means and helping you either – if you’re a mom in the home, helping you and literally holding your hand.  I know as a mom of four, this is exactly what we needed.  We kind of made a shift, I think, in the doula world where we were offering a lot of – or just in the mom world, too, of like, well, I’m going to go find a coach or I’m going to go find an online doula to help walk me through and provide the education.  I think that’s great.  It serves a purpose.  But there’s something incredibly valuable and purposeful and necessary about having that extra support on hand.  And so if you’re able to get that, I will tell you, not a single mom says that wasn’t worth it.  But every single mom says, I wish I would have done it.  There’s always regret for not having it.  There’s never any regret for having it.  So if you’re in a position to have the support on hand, to help you navigate what it means to shift your lifestyle so that you don’t have to say yes when you want to say no or to streamline how you clean your house, for goodness sake, because that can make a huge difference, or whatever it is that you’re going through that trips you up, that gets your frustrated, that you just need support with – especially with nutrition – then having that support system in place is so necessary.

It is, definitely.  How can our listeners connect with you?  You have Postpartum University.  You’re on social?

Yeah, I would say the best place – if you’re listening to this podcast and you love podcasts, come listen to me at the Postpartum University podcast.  You can find us on all major channels.  Come listen in.  Come learn.  Come connect with us there.  That’s probably the best place.

Excellent.  And then as far as your book, Reclaiming Postpartum Wellness, where can our listeners pick that up?

Straight on Amazon.  That’s the best place to get it.

Excellent.  Well, thank you so much, and I will have to have you on again, Maranda!

Thank you so much for your time and attention!  I’m just so grateful for being here.

I’m grateful for you!  Take care!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Postpartum University

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Jennifer Campbell discuss adoption options and re-lactation on the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  Jennifer is the CEO of Doula in Reno.

Hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Jennifer Campbell today.  Jennifer is the owner and founder of Doula in Reno, and she’s also the host of the Becoming Parents podcast.  Welcome, Jennifer!

Thank you!  It’s great to be here!

So excited to chat about the important topic of family planning and the adoption journey, especially your own personal journey as a mother.  I would love to begin with a bit of your background, and if you don’t mind sharing some of your adoption stories with our listeners, that would be fantastic.

I love it!  You know, it’s interesting how you look back at your life at things that were super pivotal that you didn’t realize were super pivotal at the time.  I grew up in a family that there was lots of dysfunction, and my third grade teacher made a monumental difference in my life, just completely changed my trajectory.  She was probably the single biggest influence.  And although I did realize as a little third grader that she made me feel special and smart and important, things in our household got considerably worse after I was in third grade.  But to her, I was worth it, and I knew that.  And that was a lesson that really has lived in me my entire life.  I was actually able 24 years ago – I’m 53 now, and that was third grade.  So 24 years ago, I lived in Alaska, and I flew back to Rhode Island.  I found her, and I said, you know, I talk about you in all my talks about what a difference you made, and really, the only person that needs to know is you.  And I spent a weekend with her.  I’m very grateful for that.  That was one of those moments, one of those things that makes a significant difference later.

Another thing: it was right before my 16^th birthday.  I hadn’t started my period yet.  My mom was concerned about that, and she brought me to an OB-GYN.  I’m a virgin.  Nobody’s even felt my boobs.  And this doctor did an exam on me.  It was a really overwhelmingly positive experience with a male practitioner, which I think a lot of us don’t have that or we’re concerned about that, and I feel really blessed that he was very kind and just gentle in general, in his demeanor, in his exam, because he gave me a vaginal exam.  I had the speculum, the whole thing.  And that’s very uncomfortable for an almost 16-year-old virgin.  And he said to me, I’m not sure exactly what’s going on, but I want you to be aware that it may be really difficult for you to have children.  Don’t be surprised if you end up going through infertility.  Fascinating now that I’m almost 54, thinking what in the world did he see at that appointment?  I was turning 16 within a couple months and just hadn’t started my period.  What was it that made him say that to me?  And honestly at the time, I was like, whatever.  Who cares.  However, later on – and he was also the same doctor when I started my period a couple months later, I was in the hospital.  I was in the hospital for a cyst rupturing.  I was in the hospital because my bleeding was so heavy.  And then I’d be amenorrheic, so I wouldn’t have a cycle for several months, and then when I got one, it was just absolutely debilitating.  So he put me on birth control pills because that’s what you do, right?  I was on birth control pills.  And I went off of them five years later when I got married, and we decided we didn’t want to use birth control.  A year after that, I had had no period, no pregnancy, no miscarriage, nothing.  Nothing had happened in my body for a year.  So automatically, it put me in the infertility category.

I went to an infertility specialist and I was maxed out on Clomid, maxed out on Provera, so they had to induce my cycle with progesterone, with Provera.  And then they induced ovulation or attempted to with Clomid, and I did seven day surgery.  So they flush your fallopian tubes.  They take biopsies from your cervix.  It’s really hard.  I was doing basal body temperature and having sex every other day in this crusade to become pregnant.  And granted, I was 20 years old at that time.  I was young, really young.

So young.  Wow.

The interesting thing – I ended up after ten months, he’s like, we’ve done all the surgeries to figure out what’s wrong.  We can’t figure it out.  You’ve been maxed out on medication.  Next up is IVF.  And I said, I appreciate that, and I’m waving the white flag.  That’s not my journey.  I feel also grateful that I knew at 20 years old, like, no, I am not doing that.  I have so much mad respect for women who end up continuing on with IUI or IVF, but it was absolutely not my path.  And so he was weaning me off the medication and doing bloodwork.  He was this little Asian guy.  I’m 5’9”; he was probably 5’4”, little Asian, very soft spoken, and he walked into the exam room one day, and he hugged me.  And after ten months of working with this man, I was like, what is going on?  And he said, I don’t know how it happened, and it was off of our cycle, but you are pregnant.  Must have randomly thrown out an egg and caught it at the right time.

Amazing!

Yep!  He said, this is a miracle.  It’s your gift from God.  I don’t know that you’ll ever be able to get pregnant again.  Expect that if you get pregnant, you have a higher rate of miscarriage and also that you may have a rough pregnancy because just my hormone levels in general and how much they change during pregnancy.  He was correct.  Again, it’s one of those little drops into your life.  I did end up getting pregnant seven times total.  I lost three.  Four babies in three pregnancies.  My final pregnancy, I lost twins at 16 weeks and ended up having a hysterectomy.  So my biological journey was pretty tough, and the four pregnancies, the four babies I gave birth to, I had really rough pregnancies.  It was easier for me, though, because I had it in my head, right?  You might go through infertility.  You might have a hard time getting pregnant.  Just be aware of that, at 15.  And then he said, realize that you may have a higher rate of miscarriage.  And so I feel grateful because I heard those things, even though they didn’t impact me in the moment, and they definitely made a big impact later.

So I got pregnant.  I had my daughter.  My pregnancies were pretty tough.  And she was born – that’s a totally different story in itself.  She was born with a lung disease.  They told me she wouldn’t live through her first three days, and I would hold her for the first time after she had died.  And that was a really tough situation to be in.  My husband at the time, my ex-husband now, was military, so he wasn’t there.  I was 21.  I didn’t know anything about birth.  And I was supposed to be with a midwife at a birth center who looked at me at 37 weeks when I was in early labor, and I had been on bedrest for a week, and she said, something’s just not right.  You can choose this hospital.  So I went from natural birth, birth center, midwife, to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire, which is a teaching facility.  It’s massive.  And again, I just felt really blessed and grateful for that journey, and I wasn’t leaving the hospital, because if I’m going to hold my daughter for the first time after she died, I’m not going to the Ronald McDonald House.  So a nurse found me on day three, brought me to the nurse’s station, let me shower, sat me down with a lactation consultant.  And I’d been pumping but I’d never seen a pump in my life.  And the lactation consultant sized me and hooked me up and showed me how to work things and put her hand on my leg and said, tell me about your birth story, which I then sobbed for 20 minutes.  But that was why I went into birth work, and that experience is also why I decided, my third grade teacher made a really big difference to me.  And I was a kid that should have been in foster care, and I don’t care if I can get pregnant after this.  I really, really want to do foster care.  And that’s how my adoption journey started.  It was all of that.  It was my teacher.  It was the “you may go through infertility; you may have a high risk of miscarriage.”  My daughter is 32 now.  Spoiler alert: she’s fine.  She’s great.  But it was a really positive and yet very traumatic experience, basically, from start to finish that, one, got me into birth work, and two, I was blessed that I was put on the foster care journey.

So we became foster parents, and I adopted six total, six children total.  Three of them were at birth, which is really unusual.

It is!  Wow.

I got comments – almost all my kids are adults now.  I have one 14-year-old, and there’s an 8-year gap.  So all 17 of 18 kids are all adults now.  We have 18 children total.  Fun and crazy.  And for those just curious, it’s 4 biological, 6 adopted, 2 that were long-term foster care, a foreign exchange students, and 5 step-kids.  That’s the breakdown.

My journey with foster care – I just really wanted to make a difference the way someone had made a difference to me, and I very naively thought that, one, that would be easy, because don’t we all think, I’m going to be a parent; this is going to be great!  I’m not going to make any of my parents’ mistakes.  I’m going to do a great job, and my kids are going to love me for it.  It doesn’t exactly go that way.  But I adopted three babies as infants, and I had people who wanted to adopt say, you know, I’ve been on a waiting list for two years to adopt an infant.  Well, I’m not looking for a Caucasian infant coming from a drug and alcohol free mother with no genetic issues.  And if you’re looking for that, you’re going to be on a waiting list for a while.  I was not.  My first son, I got called right after he was born, within a few hours.  We picked him up at day three.  I had a one-year-old daughter at that point that I was breastfeeding, so I just latched him on and kept going.  By then, I was a breastfeeding counselor, a lactation consult; I was in birth work.  So I just picked him up from the hospital and latched him on and let my milk supply build, and there you go.  He breastfed for over a year and a half.

With the other two adoptions, they were the last of the kids that were adopted.  I was not breastfeeding anymore.  I was an IBCLC, though, so I had a lot of resources, and I just knew you could do it.  I think, again, blind naivete is just a beautiful thing because you just are like, yeah, let’s do this.  It should work fine, because you don’t know any different.  I re-lactated.  Those two were born eight months apart, and so I re-lactated.  I took Diane-35.  It’s a birth control pill that you take, and you skip the sugar pills.  So I went on the Newman protocol, Jack Newman’s protocol, and I took that.  I didn’t have a long time to take that.  Generally, you would do that throughout an entire pregnancy or through the majority of a pregnancy.  I think I only did that for six or eight weeks that I took Diane-35, so it was a shortened time span, but you’re tricking your body into a constant state of pregnancy.  And then I took Domperidone.  The Diane-35 stopped when the baby is born, and you start Domperidone, which is a galactogogue.  It’s for reflux.  Infants can take it.  Reglan is one that’s got some pros and cons to it.  Domperidone is more widely used or was.  That daughter and son are 23 and 22.  So this was a little while ago.  But I took that – I did the Domperidone.  I pumped.  I had a pumping cycle.  And then when she was born, I latched her on.  I didn’t ever get a full milk supply, and I think probably that was because the time that I had prepped my body and did that was short.  Also, during that pregnancy of my first daughter, I had breast augmentation.  So my time was limited.  I had breast augmentation, and then I had limited time to be on Diane-35.  Breast augmentation should not affect that, especially because I had my boobs put back to where they were.  I had them lifted and I had implants put in.  So I wasn’t having any tissue removed.  And in those situations, generally, it’s not that big of an issue, but it wasn’t that I had augmentation; it was just having a surgery on my breast area in general and then throwing myself into re-lactation in a short period of time after that and having the re-lactation protocol be condensed.  I think all of those things.  I just didn’t have a full milk supply, so I used an SNS, a supplemental nursing system.  I got real familiar with lots of them.  I’m like, oh, there’s seven of them?  Let’s get them all and try them.

I love it.  And as a doula and IBCLC, you personally had so many different experiences in your feeding journey to be able to share with clients and research even further.  I think that’s fascinating.

It was great to be able to go through it.  A lot of the times, we know things in working theory, but we haven’t actually had the ability to experience them.  So in my biological and adoption journey, I’m glad I’ve had a lot of personal experience, as well as just having the book smarts, too.  So I went through the protocol.  I used an SNS.  Eight months later, my son was born.  I didn’t go through the protocol again because I was nursing, so I just latched him on.  And I found someone – at that point, I found someone who was donating a lot of frozen milk and she gave me that milk.  We did an exchange.  I lived in Alaska, like I said.  She lived in Seattle, Washington.  And I flew her up and she spent a weekend with her 18-month-old son, and I did all kinds of touristy stuff with her.  She forgot her cooler with all the breastmilk in it at my house.

Oh, no!

Well… she was supposed to.  You can’t pay for breastmilk, so I didn’t.  I just paid for her trip, and she forgot it.  That’s kind of we did, almost 23 years ago.  So I had enough breastmilk that I got my daughter through to her first year and my son through a year.  So I supplemented whatever I was making with the supply that I got from this gorgeous woman in Seattle who had a surplus.  And just like with breastfeeding – like with a lot of things, you get a system.  And I had a really great system of knowing how long I was going to be gone and if I could breastfeed without a supplementer or if I needed to bring it and how you bring it with you in the diaper bag and thaw it out and that sort of thing.  In the bottle – you wear a bottle around your neck, basically, with breastmilk, and then it’s a little tube that you tape to your breast so that the baby will latch on to the nipple and the tube.  And then you can control the flow of that tube.  A lot of the times, I would just have it hanging around my neck, kind of in between my breasts, warming up while we were driving into town.  And then it would hit body temperature.  You just get a good system.  I do remember one time standing in the kitchen with my son.  He was probably  nine or ten months old.  I had the supplementer hooked up, and I was holding him.  He was in the sling, and I had him latched on.  And it wasn’t screwed on correctly or all the way, and the supplementer popped open and breastmilk flooded both of us.

And you’re like, liquid gold!  Oh no!

It’s liquid gold, but I remember looking over at my husband and being like, I’m so done.  And I wasn’t.  I got him a couple more months.  It’s this beautiful, fairy tale thing, and it sounds all great and easy, and I had a good system.  It’s also work and it’s hard.  I was willing to put my body on medications to re-lactate because breastfeeding was more important to me than being on a birth control pill, on Domperidone.  And I think we all have to balance that out.  Can women do that, even if they have never breastfed a baby?  Absolutely.  Are they going to get a full milk supply?  I don’t know.  But they can still breastfeeding and have the bonding, and if that is important to you, even with a partial milk supply and a supplemental nursing system, then you just do it.  You do it, and it’s worth it.  But I think we all have to make that decision because putting yourself on a birth control pill for a certain amount of time and putting yourself on a pumping schedule and then taking a galactogogue, taking Domperidone, and breastfeeding this baby and using a supplementer – that whole process, I got really great at it.  I mean, I did it for a year and a half, plus.  And it’s not easy.  It was absolutely worth it.  The benefits to me were so far better, more, than the fact that I had to take some medication and pump and that it was an inconvenience for me.  But definitely I don’t want to paint it as the prettiest picture ever.  It was a lot of work, and it was challenging and there were times like that.  I remember very vividly that moment and my husband laughing because I got dumped with breastmilk.  This is so frustrating right now.

I also adopted kids at two and five and nine or ten and twelve.  It’s all different, obviously.  Every situation is different.  But for me, that whole natural, more natural lifestyle.  And I could not change these babies, these three babies that I breastfed – I could not make the pregnancy better.  I could not make their genetic issues better.  I couldn’t take away the fact that they were drug exposed or six weeks premature.  I couldn’t remove any of the things that kind of inherently come with adopting foster kids.  But what I could do is give them all the nurturing, the love, the bonding, the breastfeeding, that I gave all of my biological kids, and that meant a lot to me.  I was really blessed.

I was in a foster adoption program, so that’s another question that comes up.  How were you able to breastfeed foster kids?  I was in a foster adoption program, and I had a really amazing – the head of the department was really fascinating.  When I adopted my son, I just said, look, I know it’s going to take six months for this adoption, and things can always fall through, but I really want to breastfeed him, and she said, if you don’t ask, I don’t have to say no.  And I was like, you are fabulous.  Okay.  Sin now; repent later; ask forgiveness, not permission.  Whatever that was.  So again, I’m not encouraging people to go against county law or suggestion, but I was in a really unique situation in a unique location and I had really supportive people around me.  So for the next two babies, I just didn’t ask.  I didn’t say a word, and I just breastfed them, knowing that if something had fallen through, that would have taken a toll on my body to some degree because I would have had a milk supply that had to go away.  And again, it’s just like – you have to look at this from all facets and decide, is it worth the worst case scenario?  Is it worth the side effects?  Is it worth the hassle?  And for me, it was.  And it’s not going to be that way for everyone, but I feel really blessed that I was able to breastfeed seven kids, three of which did not come from my body, for eleven years in total.  And it was a really amazing part of my journey.  And the adoptions, as well; just looking at kids who came from places that weren’t ideal and trying to make that better for them.

So beautiful, and what a sacrifice to re-lactate and give them as much nourishment and also immunity as possible in those early stages.

Yeah, and I think one of them was six weeks premature.  One of them was genetically predisposed to Huntington’s disease, and the other one was drug positive.  And definitely, drug positive, you see what’s happening more than in the others where they’re kind of in the background.  And I was trained to use an NG tube on those last two babies.  I was doing gram scale weight with them every other day, so I could take them home from the hospital just because I had a little extra training.  And watching a child go through pretty severe drug withdrawals for six to eight weeks, just constantly shaking, not being able to manage her body temperature – so she had to be on a heating pad or kangarooed, and that child has been kangarooed by all of her siblings.  There is not a more kangarooed child.  But we watched her over about an eight-week process until it was done and her withdrawers were completely over.  I remember at that five to six week mark when babies start to smile, she would be shaking and looking up at me smiling, and I was like, holy cow.  It was really a blessing.  She couldn’t have given her a better start in her life for what she had gone through in utero through that pregnancy.  I also feel really grateful I got to directly see the results of what I was doing and how much of a difference it can make in their lives.

Wow.  Well, thank you for sharing your stories!  So beautiful, Jen!  I would be curious, with such a large family, how you managed the on-call life of a birth doula, in addition to being an IBCLC lactation consultant.

The first 12 years happened, like I said, right after my first daughter was born.  By the time she was a year old – so 31 years ago – I was a breastfeeding counselor.  I was running the Le Leche League meetings.  And in that 12 years, the last 7, I was actually an assistant to the midwives.  My next three births were homebirths in Alaska, and so I’ve gotten to experience the hospital and the had a positive but tough labor and delivery there, outside of my daughter being born with a lung disease.  I mean, just my experience of labor and delivery in the hospital.  And then I had three homebirths.  And so I apprenticed with them.  I was planning at that point, 30 years ago, to go the midwife route, the homebirth midwife – a lay midwife.  And I was able to balance working clinic hours – obviously, I could bring my baby during births, kind of with my own schedule.  So I did that for 7 years, and I was an IBCLC for 5 of that 12 years.  So I did different things, and I think one thing is, I had a really good support network.  And in Alaska, it’s must more apparent when I was living there that the community raises a child.  I had good friends in the community.  There were three other moms – my sister and two other moms who all lived there, and we rotated babysitting for date nights and for doctors’ appointments, and we also got together.  We did a lot of cooking together, so everybody would bring something.  Like, I would make chili times four, keep one, and give away the other three, but they would all do the same thing.  Alaska is more designed communally because it’s a tough place to live, and I had a really great support network.  I had – he may be my ex-husband for other reasons, but he was really supportive of me being a stay at home mom, doing foster care, and me continuing to fulfill what I wanted to do, even if it had to happen a little bit more slowly because we had a big family.  One thing that we had that was so helpful was someone to clean our house once a week.  I just can’t even tell you.  That’s something I really haven’t had since then.

When I moved from Alaska to Reno and we got divorced, I had to give up birth work, and it was the hardest two years of my adult life.  My ex-husband wasn’t around.  He went to prison.  So for two years, I went from doing birth work and living in Alaska and not having to stress as much about finances and to have this life that I really loved to him going to prison and me having to work up to four jobs.  I had worked two jobs a lot, and I worked up to four sometimes.  I had eight kids at home at the time, and I had to give up birth work, and it was devastating.  It was absolutely devastating.  I gave away everything birth work related.  This was 20 years ago.  I gave everything away.  And it was a mistake.  I wish I hadn’t done that.  But I felt like emotionally it was just so hard to walk away from everything that I loved and that was familiar with and good at because it wouldn’t give me a schedule and an income that I needed for my family.  Birth work is really – it’s not consistent money and it’s not consistent days and times.  So I gave it up.

I remarried.  We’ve been together ten and a half years.  A few years ago, he said, you’re the happiest person that I know, but you don’t do anything that fulfills you.  And we had this really amazing, monumentally pivotal conversation.  I looked at him at the end of our date night – we were at dinner, and I was like, you understand this is a pandora’s box.  Once this is open, we can never come back from this.  And he said, I’ll do everything I can to support you.  And he has.  He’s done everything.  So part of that was me not working and not bringing in an income, and we had to make some adjustments for that.  And then we had to spend money for me to get training.  I did not pick up where I had left off and go the midwifery route.  I did look at that for the first couple months, but ultimately – you know, I’m in Nevada now.  It’s the state laws, it’s the country laws; it’s the politics of it.  It’s the climate, kind of, of the environment you live in.  It’s the cost.  And I kind of looked at all of it and was like, no, I’m not going to pick up where I left off and finish becoming a midwife.  Basically, I’d have to start over again.  But I’m going to go the doula route and be nonmedical and less confrontational, and that was a very good decision.  It was less time and money to get up and running, but it wasn’t just that.  It removes me from a lot of that political climate in this area.  An apprenticeship is harder.  I’m working on – I am a CLE, a lactation educator, so I got that back right away, and I am in a program to get my IBCLC again, because if you’ve done it once, why not make yourself miserable and do it a second time?

Of course, get all those hours in, right.

And I’m really grateful.  I was the first doula in the state of Nevada to become a Medicaid provider.  I’m the only doula in my county, in Washoe County, who’s a Tricare provider, so I work with low income and military.  The only doula who works in the jail here.  Domestic violence and substance use disorders.  So I think birth work has changed a lot.  It was interesting being out of it for about 15 years and then getting back into it and kind of relearning, mapping out how it is now, and it’s really changed so much.  Some of it in good ways and some of it less, but I can take insurance now, which is something I couldn’t do before.  I can work with demographics now.  I’m working with mothers whose babies I would have adopted in the past, and now we have programs set up to help them transition with their baby with drug use and give them that support, which has been really outstanding.  It’s been wonderful.

So I have 15 years’ experience with a break in the middle, and I love it.  It’s a gift.  Being able to do what you love, one, and having to give that up, was devastating, but coming back to it with more experience and time – that’s been really amazing.  And the climate has changed enough that I think it’s better now than it was 20 years ago.  It’s easier.  More people have heard of it.  So I love it.

Right.  We don’t need to educate on what a doula is.

Yeah.  I mean, we still are in that phase, but much less so.  And I get to choose which clients are the best fit.  It’s not just them choosing me; it’s me choosing them.  So it’s been amazing.  But I’m really grateful that I’ve gotten to go back to it.

I love that your husband encouraged you to follow your passion.  What an inspiring story all around, between motherhood and your career and the impact you’re making on the world.  Thank you for sharing with our listeners, Jen!  I would love to hear if you have any final tips for our listeners who are in that pre-conception journey and looking at all of their options.

I would say that I think a lot of us come into birth work out of our own first experience that’s generally traumatic.  And birth work isn’t necessarily what’s going to heal you from that.  You kind of need to work through that on your own aside from birth work, but it also can help heal some of that.  But not to come into it from a sense of, I was traumatized and I don’t want anyone else to be traumatized.  That’s not the right space to be in, to come into it.  And also to realize that you need to treat it as a business.  Another doula and I in the state of Nevada are just getting ready to launch Doula Business Blueprint, which helps doulas run a business.  We both have over a decade of running our own businesses individually.  I think she’s got more time than I have.  I have a decade.  And some of the biggest questions that we get asked by doulas isn’t about birth work.  It’s about actually – this is a business; it’s not a hobby.  So it’s not a fun, cute thing that you do on the side just because you are adamant that no one else experiences the trauma you experienced.  It’s a business that really goes a long way to helping people have the birth that they want, which is not the birth that you want, necessarily.  So I think just going into it with the right attitude, getting support and help, in whatever way that is, to get through your own birth traumas – it’s really important to separate that out and then to learn what it means to run a business wherever you’re located because that’s huge.

It is.  And to know your options, whether it’s in birth work, and part of that is running the business, or in planning your family, to understand that adoption is a great option to consider in addition to fertility treatments and IVF and some of the journeys that you personally went on, to do your research and talk about things openly so other people are aware of all of the options in their career and in the birth and baby space and also in their own family planning.

I agree.  I feel like when I was told that I might not be able to have kids, I was like, eh, watch me.  Hook or crook, I’m going to figure this out.  I want a family, and that’s important, and here I am, 33 years after that conversation, with 18 kids and a blended family.  It definitely does not look at all the way I thought it would on the front end, but to just kind of take each option as you can and know that it doesn’t have to look the same for you as it does to anyone else.

Exactly.  So how can our listeners find you?

Doula in Reno is my website.  The contact form is there.  The phone number is my cell number.  You can email.  Whatever’s the easiest, basically, for them.  All my social media links are there, the podcast is there.  I mean, basically, it’s everything you never wanted to know about me.  It’s all there on the website.  And just from there, whatever is easiest for them to reach out, then they have the link.

Perfect.  And your Becoming Parents podcast is on all the players, so easy to find.

Yes.  Thank you so much!

Well, thanks again, Jen.  It was wonderful to chat with you, and I hope to have you on in the future!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Doula in Reno

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Suzzie Vehrs discuss epidurals as an option in your birth toolbox in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  Suzzie is a birth doula and childbirth educator with She Births Bravely.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Suzzie Vehrs today.  Suzzie is not only a doula, but also a childbirth educator and the founder of She Births Bravely.  Suzzie has worked with hundreds of families on their journey toward childbirth and parenting.  As a mom of two, Suzzie is passionate about empowering parents to make informed decisions about their birthing and parenting experiences.  She uses evidence-based information and practical tools to help parents prepare for birth, whether that be at home or in the hospital, breastfeeding or bottle feeding, and early parenting.  Her classes are designed to be inclusive, respectful, and supportive of all types of birth choices, including natural childbirth, medicated childbirth, and Cesarean birth. 

Welcome, Suzzie!

Hello!  Thank you so much for having me.  It’s so fun to get to collab and talk with other doulas who I love and admire so much!

Well, I am thrilled to chat with you!  And our topic is an important one.  We are going to chat about epidurals, and I love that you are so inclusive, similar to my doula agency, is that you support all types of birth and parenting goals and feeding goals.  I think there is a misconception, even today, with increased awareness for birth doulas, that birth doulas are only for unmedicated births or homebirths.  But at my agency, I’d say half of our clients want an epidural.  I can’t wait to dive into this topic and hear your thoughts on epidurals, not only as a birth doula, but also as a childbirth educator.

My clients are the exact same, and it’s so funny because a lot of my moms look at that and they, 50% of moms are getting epidurals?  Really?  That many people want it?  And the other 50% are saying, oh, my goodness, 50% go without epidurals?  How do they do it?  It’s so great to see when people know what they need and are aware of, like, you know what, I need to have an empowered birth as this.   And the choice will be different for different moms, but as long as it circles back to that feeling of being empowered and being what you need to have a positive and empowering and bonding experience with your family, then the decision is right, yes or no, for an epidural, either way.  So I’m so glad we can talk about it because there are so many misconceptions about what it’s like, what some of the risks are, and why people choose either direction.

Exactly.  I find it interesting, being in this work for going on 12 years, I have clients that want an epidural for one baby and then want to try unmedicated, or the opposite.  So it is interesting.  It’s not just one mindset.  You may want to have a completely different experience, whether it was just to experience the lack of discomfort in labor with an epidural or to be able to move around.  Sometimes with clients the epidural just isn’t working properly and they didn’t have the greatest experience and had poor mobility.  Some clients can get on hands and knees with support and get into all different positions, based on the strength of that epidural and if they have feeling or not.  So it can really vary from baby to baby or individual.

Yeah, absolutely.  I’m curious about – because I brought a bunch of data about the pros and cons, and I really feel like numbers are so important as we’re looking at exploring the fears some people have about epidurals and which ones are really founded or not founded.  But I’m really curious.  There’s a statistic – well, I guess two statistics that I saw early on in my career, actually even before I was a doula when I was making these decisions myself.  One is that nine out of ten women with an epidural get enough pain relief that they don’t need additional medical support with pain.  But then the other is that on average, an epidural lowers pain about three and a half points on a pain scale.  What do you see with your clients as far as how effective epidurals are?

It honestly varies, and I think our bodies are all unique and different.  People have different perceptions of pain, so I think it honestly varies.  I have clients who it’s almost like a party, they feel so good.  They’re putting on music and makeup, getting ready for the birth.  And others are still feeling discomfort.  I’m doing hip squeezes and trying to get them into different positions, and I feel like as a doula, no matter how good the epidural is, that I’m working just as much with my clients who get different pain relief methods, including the epidural, as I do with my unmedicated clients.

Yeah, I feel the same.  I so celebrate when mothers can have the joy and excitement and we can get to that place where the room feels just exciting and is filled with that really positive anticipation and comfort in the moment.  But I don’t necessarily – I think sometimes the expectation is that if I get an epidural, I’ll be completely out of pain.  But one thing that I think surprises a lot of people with epidurals, even if they lower your pain, they don’t necessarily get you out of all of the pain or pressure.  Some people only get relief on one side of the body initially or might have a window where they still have one spot that’s very hard to get to.

Those hot spots can be uncomfortable, yeah.

But then as labor progresses, some of that pain and pressure comes back, even if you’re getting increased doses and having the anesthesiologist come back.  And even the anxiety piece, even if you do get out of pain, if you’re still – like, that mental aspect of how are you managing your emotions in labor becomes very, very important.  Just because the pain is gone doesn’t meant the worry or the stress is gone.  It seems like a lot of my clients find themselves very stressed out, even after getting the epidural, and that’s something we get to work through and talk through, and it’s nice to have somebody there where you can say, like, is this normal, what I’m feeling?  Or how to advocate if it means getting the anesthesiologist back several times in the room to get an epidural that’s not working adjusted.

Yes.  And sometimes, again, it’s perfect, and they are feeling great.  I had two unmedicated births, so I’ve never personally experienced an epidural, but my clients who do, their experience varies.  Some love it, and with every baby, they want that epidural as soon as possible.  Others want to delay the epidural and get as much movement, work on positioning, until they feel like they need it.  When I started as a doula, there was a certain point when you could no longer ask for an epidural, and now, especially with laboring down being so common in the hospitals I work in, I find that clients can, if they’re pushing for a longer length of time and they’re able to get an anesthesiologist in, then they can get an epidural when they’re in the pushing phase.  I’ve had it happen.  Where before, it was kind of like, well, you’re in transition.  You have to get it now or you don’t get another chance.  That is also a beautiful option, and I feel like there’s so many different reasons for getting an epidural.  You mentioned the mental aspect of it.  There could be some trauma in the past where they really need an epidural to relax their body.

Yeah, and sometimes it’s also about – can I tell you a wild birth story?

Yeah!

One time I was with a mom who was planning a home birth, and her labor went really well until she got to 10cm dilated.  We were at home.  She was pushing probably about two and a half hours with literally no change.  It was so hard.  We decided to transfer to the hospital, and the midwives came with us.  When you do that homebirth transfer, usually, the midwives come.  They talked to the OB, and then they hand off the case and the midwives leave and then you’re with the OB team.  With this mom, we got to the hospital, and  she got an epidural.  And they let her sleep, which is wild, because this is where we’ve been past 10cm, and usually there’s this big thing about not pushing for more than three or four.  But this OB was like, no, we’re just going to restart, so take a sleep.  They didn’t start counting the time pushing until after she woke up and started pushing again.  So from the time she reached 10cm to the time that she had her baby was like nine hours because she had pushed for a few hours, then she got an epidural and had a really nice long sleep, and then she woke up and she had to push more.  And I remember that I was brand new.  This one of my very first, like over five years ago.  And I remember the OB, when they were writing the notes and she was stating the time she started pushing, the nurse was like, oh, you started pushing at home, and the OB looked at me and said no, they’re starting now.  I was like, I’m just going to keep my mouth shut here because I think she’s trying to help.  I didn’t want to get the charting wrong.  It was so interesting to see the OB advocate for the patient in that way.  Like, hey, I know you want this natural birth, and what you might need is time to rest and relax and wait.  And it was amazing that she had this natural vaginal birth that started one way at home, that progressed very normally, that had a blip, you know, an unexpected turn, but then still continued on even with the epidural.  Sometimes tools that we don’t initially think will be part of our plan end up being part of our plan, and that can be a good thing when we meet our needs as they evolve.

Absolutely.  It seems like she didn’t have any additional interventions, which can be a concern for some people with their birth plan with not wanting to have additional interventions.  Obviously, avoiding a Cesarean would be an example of that, and there are stats that an epidural can increase pushing length and lead to other interventions including a surgical birth if mother and baby are not responding well.  But it can also, as you mentioned, be an amazing tool in the toolbox.  For some people, it could have been physical exhaustion for her.  It could have been more of a mental block.  So it’s really hard to tell sometimes, but it was obviously what she needed, and she had a provider who was on board with that.  So I love that story!  Thank you for sharing!

And I’m glad that you brought up some of the risks with the longer pushing.  Should we talk more about some of the reasons why some people avoid epidurals?

Sure, yeah!

Or only use them on an as-needed basis sometimes?

Yes, fill our listeners in as if they’re taking your childbirth course!

Okay!  I guess let’s talk first about the rare but real complications, long term complications, and then the short term, more resolvable things for moms and babies.  Is that okay?

Yes, that’d be great!

I know when I ask people about what they’re thinking about epidurals and why they’re leaning towards one or against one, a lot of people tell me that they’re worried about long term chronic things after labor.  The good news is that for things like chronic headaches, chronic back aches, things that might last 18 months or years after labor, are super rare.  But it’s also important to know that they exist.  Epidurals do go into that spinal space right into your back, and so for things like a chronic headache, about 6 out of 1000 people experience having headaches and 5 out of 1000 for the back ache.  So it’s not a lot of people.  The risk there is super low.  For some people, that’s enough to say that I want to see if I can avoid it.

Absolutely.  And again, everyone’s got their different mindset and goals and as I tell my students and clients, it is important to be flexible in birth.  I’m a fan of calling a birth plan your birth preferences in order to not feel like you have failed if your birth plans change, just like your home birth client.  It’s a perfect example.  If she was not as open to different options, like an epidural, she may have felt like she did not accomplish her goals, but she ended up with a great scenario with a supported transfer and got exactly what she needed.

Exactly, yeah.  Let’s see.  Should we talk about other serious and rare complications with epidurals, as well?  I feel like I don’t want to get too scary with any of the data, but I also feel like when you’re making decisions, it can be really frustrating if you don’t hear about this until after something happens.  Have you ever had any of your clients have the spinal headache?

No.

Okay.  So about 4 out of 1000 people will have a spinal headache, which is actually quite treatable.  But it’s really quite intense.

I’ve had clients with the back issue before.

Yeah, it’s just very unlikely.  There are other short term side effects that are more common.  For example, when you get an epidural, it can drop your blood pressure.  About 14% of women can have shivering, ringing in ears, dizziness, nausea, vomiting.  Some people will get itchy.

Shaky legs is very common.

Yes.  And then you’re also at an increased risk of a fever with an epidural.  About 7% of women who have the epidural for less than six hours will have a fever, but if you have it for 18 or more hours, that goes up to 36%, so if you were thinking about timing for an epidural, sometimes it does make sense to, even if you want an epidural, to try to get as far as you can without it, just because fevers, yes, they can be treated, but sometimes they do lead to Cesareans, things like that, more difficult recoveries.  And then I think one of the more difficult ones to cope with is not being able to eat or drink and being put on a clear liquid diet.  Something that’s not a big deal if it’s for a short time, but if you’re in a longer labor, you’re 18, 24 hours in, and you haven’t eaten, it can become quite challenging.

I’m finding that it’s okay to snack now.

Your anesthesiologists are letting you eat?

I’m not talking full meals, but it depends on the hospital.  But with some of the ACOG guidelines, it is okay to have a bite of an energy ball or something.

You are so lucky!  Our anesthesiologists will not allow food after you get the epidural at all.  It’s like popsicles, juice.

That’s the standard thing that the hospital, of course, offers, but if people bring in things – I’ve had my clients eat in front of the nurse, but again, just finger foods, snacks, and not a lot of it.  Certainly, if they’re asking for something, it’s going to be a popsicle or jello or broth. 

That’s amazing that they’re not saying anything.  Our moms are getting just hammered with being – it’s just so highly emphasized, you cannot eat.  Which I love that they’re being more open to it because the research really does show that, one, a little bit of food is good for labor for yourself, as a mother, but also that it’s not as dangerous as we once thought.  That’s amazing.

But it can be exhausting.  Back when there were more restrictions, I would talk to clients about electrolyte drinks – still do, and my students, and even some of those runner’s gummies that marathon runners will bring with them on those long runs to give a little energy without filling the stomach.  And as you mentioned, nausea or vomiting could happen, so you don’t want to have a whole lot of food.  You’re not hungry usually until after you deliver.  But as you had mentioned with those longer labors, and certainly with my clients, if they’re having an induction, oftentimes they can eat in that earlier phase.

Yeah, we’re allowed to eat until you have an epidural, and then that’s about it for us.  It’s so interesting, as I go on different podcasts and I meet doulas from all around the country, it is really interesting how the care changes based on your location.

Absolutely, yeah.  And hospital to hospital, certainly.  But there can be variations in every state.

Yeah.  How do your clients usually feel about epidurals kind of being like a packaged deal with the IV fluids?  And most – not all, but I see most of my moms with epidurals have Pitocin.  Do you feel that a lot of your moms care about that, or is that something that is like it’s okay; it’s worth it?

Again, it depends on what their goals are and what their preparation was.  At Gold Coast, we teach HypnoBirthing, and so that mind-body connection, and many of our students, their goal is at some point in labor, not all, but there are plenty of them in every class, that want an epidural at some point.  Then others are taking HypnoBirthing for an unmedicated birth.  We also have planned surgical births where they may have a fear of the surgery and want to be as relaxed as possible and use some of the breathing and mindfulness techniques.  So I don’t see those that have a plan necessarily having an issue with Pitocin because they won’t necessarily feel it as they would if they were having an unmedicated birth, and certainly the IV is part of the package.  So again, it just depends.  Is this someone who wanted an unmedicated hospital birth as homelike as possible and then needed to have other interventions?  Oftentimes, I see Pitocin comes first and then with the discomfort, some of my clients – not all – choose an epidural.  And others are totally fine with Pitocin and managing that without having any sort of pain medication.

Yeah, I see a lot of my moms – Pitocin is kind of like the moment where they switch to, okay, I was fine before, but now I just really want to get comfortable.  But I do have outliers who are totally fine with the Pitocin and make it through even the induced labors without an epidural, which I think is important because sometimes labor is mind over matter.  In some cases; it’s not always.  There’s always an element of that, and sometimes there’s additional things out of our control where we just need to meet these emerging needs.  But I really love how even your moms who are planning an epidural are working on their pain management skills and tools because it is true that even if you have an epidural, you do have to get far enough into labor to get admitted, and you do have to cope with contractions.  And so to use an epidural as a tool but not as an excuse to not get prepared and not get the groundwork – it’s really amazing that your moms are taking that point of view and putting that work in to ensure that they have a positive birth.

Yes.  And as you had mentioned earlier in conversation about how some of your clients feel that pressure in pushing – which is good and can make it more effective – and others don’t, which then can lengthen the amount of pushing – so breathwork is so important, whether you can feel your pushes or need to be directed and have the ten pounds and so on and have a lot of support on when the contraction begins.  But I have clients with epidurals that can feel the start of a contraction.  It just varies.

And I feel like for a lot of people, as they’re getting later into labor, as their baby is coming down really low, I hear a lot of moms start saying, I feel like I have to poop, and I’m like, okay, it probably is not poop – or maybe it is, but it’s also probably your baby coming really low, and that’s a good time for us to start talking about paying attention to, is that feeling there all the time, or is it coming and going?  Is it getting stronger and weaker?  Because a lot of times as you start paying attention to that feeling, it goes from being like, oh, just an abstract feeling to like, oh, actually, this feeling is adjusting and changing, and that’s what my contractions feel like now is this pressure.  And then as you’re building awareness and paying attention and you’re tuning in to your body, even with an epidural, a lot of moms can start to feel like, yes, this is when I push and no, this isn’t when I push, and this is when I’m on my break, and I think it can be very empowering to push with an epidural, even if it looks a little bit different than pushing naturally.

Right.  We’ve talked about some of the risks and statistics.  What are some of the benefits of an epidural?

The biggest one is hopefully you’re out of pain, at least significant pain!  Like we said right at the beginning, that first statistic that nine out of ten women get adequate pain relief and don’t need additional support with labor pain, and that it does lower the rating on the pain scale on average three and a half points.  I’d say for a lot of people, though, just from my observation – you know, I don’t want to disagree too much with somebody who went out and did the work to ask people and record it and publish the research – but I would say it truly is an average, meaning that some people get much more pain relief and do sleep and relax and get a break from the pain, and if you are just at the three and a half points, then it’s probably not a full, complete, out of pain, but it is out of suffering for most people.  I think pain and suffering, they can go hand in hand, but they don’t have to.  When I’m working out, I’m usually not suffering, but I push myself and have that more intense experience.  But they often do in labor go hand in hand if you haven’t done the work to separate those, right?  Anyway, three and a half is significant, but it’s not everything, so I just hope that as moms are thinking about an epidural and setting their expectations, to know it’s okay and it’s normal if you’re in some discomfort.  As long as you’re out of that place where you’re suffering, I’d say an epidural is a success.

Right.  And then again, it can be positive for someone who experienced abuse or trauma to be able to open up and relax during birth.  That certainly is something that I have witnessed.  Once the epidural is placed, it’s completely different.

Yes, and I think any time we get a choice and we have control, that control can come in different ways.  For some people, control is learning how to work through contractions and feel grounded in that.  And for other people, control is saying, that’s not for me.  I want the epidural.  And so whichever way people land on that, getting the support that is so important.

Absolutely.  And for some options as far as pain management, a narcotic is not a good option for people.  They don’t want to feel out of body.  They know they have negative reactions to certain medications.  So they’re not interested in something like Stadol or Demerol and know that unless nitrous, which isn’t offered in every hospital, is a good option for them, that they might go straight to the epidural and avoid something as far as other pain management options, like that Stadol or Demerol.

Right.  One question that I get a lot from my moms is about breastfeeding and epidurals.  I know some moms worry about whether getting an epidural affect their relationship breastfeeding.  Are you okay if we talk about that real quick?

Sure!

From my point of view, I’m a research girl.  I love being in the studies.  And the truth is that there is a lot of mixed research about epidurals and breastfeeding success.  Some research says it makes no difference, and some says that it is a little bit more common to struggle with breastfeeding after an epidural.  I think one thing that’s really important to note, though, is that pretty much every baby after they’re born will lose a little bit of weight.  It is more common for babies of mothers who had an epidural.  They have also had a significant amount of fluids throughout labor typically, and so sometimes those babies come out – like if you look at yourself and you’ve been on the epidural, and you’re like, oh, I look a little bit bloated.  My hands look a little bit bigger.  My feet look a little bit bigger.  Babies can be bloated as well like that.  Not that it’s dangerous, but it is normal for babies to lose some weight.  Typically, we say about 10% is normal and we hope that they start gaining after that.  If you have a baby that’s breastfeeding and you’re right around that 10% and you had an epidural and you had a lot of fluids, it’s probably a little bit less worrisome than if you did not have any fluids during labor, just because it would be normal, just like you are shedding that extra fluid after labor, your baby is going to shed that, too.  So I do like to give people a heads up for that because I see a lot of moms go and find their baby has lost close to that, like 7, 8, 9%.  And then it’s like panic mode with all the interventions with breastfeeding and just lots of extra work with adding extra pumping and extra check-ins and extra visits.  And while it is good to keep an eye on it, it’s also more normal if you have an epidural to be closer to that full 10% weight loss.

Thank you for sharing that!  Any final tips for our listeners, Suzzie?

I’m a mom that’s had an epidural and has not had an epidural.  Unfortunately, I did have a surgical birth after my epidural, and that was part of the reason that I decided not to do an epidural the next time.  Even with that, I would say that when I look back at my birth stories, I wanted vaginal births both times, and I didn’t get that both times.  I only got it the second time.  And yet I still don’t regret meeting my needs at the time.  I think part of the way we make decisions as we’re going through motherhood is that we come as we are, right?  And it’s okay for us to be imperfect and it’s okay for us to want tools and to use tools available, knowing that they have benefits, they have risks, and we might go through some of those moments that are the more difficult moments or we might have moments where we choose something we initially wouldn’t have.  And that’s okay.  We should be proud of ourselves in those moments for meeting our evolving needs, and we should also just recognize that we have the strength and capacity inside to meet the challenges that are ahead.  I think some of that growth is part of the labor process, no matter which way you give birth, that it can be positive; that  it can be good; that you will bond with your baby; that you have this beautiful life together, no matter which way you gave birth.  That would be my final words.  Like, make a plan that reflects your values.  Get support around it.  And then honor your journey no matter what it is.

Excellent advice, Suzzie!  Thank you!  So how can our listeners connect with you?

I’m on Instagram at She Births Bravely.  You can also check out my website.  I have a lot of in depth articles about recipes, about nutrition, about the pros and cons of different choices on my website.  So if you have more questions, just reach out.  There’s a good chance we have resources that go in depth on a lot of the questions that people ask about labor and about the experiences before, during, and after.

Lovely.  And you’re on Facebook at She Births Bravely.  And for our clients who may want to work with you in person, where do you serve geographically?

I’m in Seattle.

Excellent!  Well, thank you again, Suzzie, and I appreciate all of your information on epidurals!

Thank you so much for having me!  Much love to all of you and all of your listeners!

IMPORTANT LINKS

She Births Bravely

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Olivia Radcliffe discuss common mind monsters that affect moms, especially moms with businesses.  Olivia is the bestselling author of “Hold My Juice Box” and the host of Marketing Like a Mother podcast.    

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas,  and I am thrilled to chat with Olivia Radcliffe today.  Olivia is an award-winning expert in authentic marketing and business strategy.  She helps mompreneurs grow a business and a life that they love, even if they only have naptime to work in.  Olivia is also a best-selling author of Hold My Juice Box and host of the Marketing Like a Mother podcast.  Her favorite title, though, is mama.  Welcome, Olivia!

Thank you so much for having me!

I am excited to talk about your book, your business, and why you focus on supporting mompreneurs, especially when it comes to the business aspect of things because we’re so torn in multiple directions, as I mentioned to you before we hit record.  It can be challenging to get in the right mindset and block out hours to get important work done.

Yeah, absolutely.  That’s probably an understatement.  It can be a lot, day in, day out.

So being a mom – was that your shift in your marketing strategy?  Because you could focus on anyone.

Yeah, it’s funny because the niche of moms with businesses – that kind of chose me.  I did not choose this niche.  It just kind of happened.  I actually just started working out, just as a general business and marketing consultant, and part of my business – I still run just a marketing agency – the more people I worked with, the more I seemed to realize that they were moms who were coming to me.  And before I knew it, it was pretty much solely moms, and I wasn’t even a mom yet at the time when I first started my business.  But I was moving away from a full time job into full time self-employment, and a lot of the strategies I was looking at and that I was working with myself were things that naturally fit very well with someone who is juggling other priorities, like raising tiny humans.  And so it just fit in very, very well.  And then I had my son, and suddenly I was practicing what I preached.  It just took everything to a whole new level.  It has been the most amazing and challenging of experiences to grow the businesses while being a mom and everything else.

Exactly.  I’m totally with you.  I love that you still focus on your core but have niched to help other moms with marketing and business.  And the fact that you’ve got so many projects shows that you’re an organized individual to be able to give advice in that area.  Having a podcast is a lot of work.  Being an author, I know as an author myself, it is so much to not only write a book, but also promote it.

And I will admit that a lot of the writing process took place on my phone on Google Doc early in the morning while my son was still curled up next to me sometimes.  Just little moments that I could get, one minute here and there, just writing.  And before I knew it, I had a book.  But yeah, it is a whole process in itself then to turn around and market this thing and continue to get the word out there.

Exactly.  So as far as the focus of our episode today, we’re going to talk about the mind monsters that can affect moms, especially moms with their own businesses.  So what are your tips on dealing with all of the things that we juggle as moms?

Yeah, I mean, that’s several episodes all put in there because there are so many mind monsters that can plague especially moms with businesses, but pretty much any entrepreneur and any mom, whether you have a business or not.  But there are things like imposter syndrome.  Worrying that you’re a bad mom because you want to work on your business.  Or worrying that you’re a bad entrepreneur because you want to focus on your kids.  Finding that balance between everything.  That guilt, that mom guilt that kind of creeps in with every single thing we do and every decision we make.  Sometimes it just feels like we’re choosing between the lesser of two evils.  And it can really bog you down.  It can feel like a huge weight on your shoulders every day to try to find that balance.  And so that’s actually what my book is about, Hold My Juice Box.  I tackle 14 of the most common of those lies that moms with businesses kind of tell themselves, that they can get stuck in, and that really hold them back.  And I chose that topic as opposed to just a straight up business and marketing book because every single person I’ve worked with, it doesn’t matter if you have the most well-crafted, perfectly positioned marketing plan out there.  If you believe even one of those lies, it will tear you down and you won’t find that success that you’re looking for.  So you have to deal with those mind monsters first and foremost.

I love the title of your book.  It’s perfect.  And I agree, there are so many ways that we can sabotage ourselves with our business and feel guilty.  I feel like the mom guilt – and also focusing on our relationship with our partner and maybe for me, being an entrepreneur, I felt like I was letting my kids down if I ended up going to an event for my business or needed to make sales calls and so on.

Exactly.  And my son – he’s four years old, so he was actually born during the pandemic.  I had him, and within a couple of weeks, we were put on lockdown.  And so the good portion of his life, he thought that human interaction occurred on Zoom and didn’t quite realize that there were other humans out there.  And just by his nature in itself, he naturally is very good at self-play.  It was just me and him for a long time, and he quickly caught on to the, mom has to work or mom’s doing a podcast thing, and he does his lessons, because I do homeschool with him, so he’s either working on his stuff or playing games.  But that does not stop me from feeling insanely guilty.  Every time I’m recording something or I’m in a client meeting and he’s just quietly playing with his cars,  happy as can be, it still is a little knife in my heart thinking, oh, I should be playing with him or something like that.  And sometimes that guilt can be one of two things.  It can be healthy guilt – which yes, there is healthy guilt.  It’s something that happens when we have compromised on our values or hurt others or something that we do need to apologize for, even apologize to ourselves, and kind of work through how to overcome that.  And then there’s toxic guilt, and I think the mom guilt is much more of a toxic guilt because it’s less about actually doing something bad or wrong.  It’s just that we kind of take it on as, we’re bad.  No matter what we do, we’re wrong.  We’re bad.  We feel this shame, this guilt.  And there is nothing we can do to overcome it unless we realize that it is toxic and it is not based on anything solid or real.

So true.  So what other gems do you share in your book?

I packed a lot into the 40,000 words.  I tried to make it as quick and easy and concise for the moms as possible because I know we don’t have a lot of time to just sit and read.  But the other big one that I see a lot of people dealing with, and I’ve dealt with a lot myself, is that kind of fear of failure.  And again, that’s something that happens whether you’re a mom who has a business or not.  It runs the gamut just with the human race in general.  That fear just overall gets kind of a bad rap.  But fear in itself is just a message to us.  It is just telling us that this thing, whatever we’re scared about, there is something in here that we care a lot about.  It is something that’s really important to us.  And so whenever you’re feeling that fear, to kind of sit down a little bit, look at that fear, and figure out what it is you care about, and is it a realistic thing?  Is it something that is kind of a primal instinct, like fear of speaking in public where we’re scared that we’re going to get ridiculed and isolated from our community and cast out of the caves and whatever primal instincts we have?  Or is it something where we can stop and say, okay, look, this isn’t the end of the world.  I care about this because I have so much to gain from this.  And then focus on what it is you have to gain instead of so much on the what it is you have to lose side of things and try to get your brain looking at, what’s the worst situation?  Okay.  I’ve handled it.  I know what I can do.  Now, what is the best case?  What is the best situation that could happen?  And then focus on that.

Certainly, looking at both ends for the problem solvers, like trying to anticipate what may go wrong, makes sense.  But also, many things can go right, and so I love that it’s balanced very evenly so any personality can benefit from it.

Yeah.  And I will admit, I am not a purely just straight up positive thinker.  I like positive thinking.  I love affirmations.  They have definitely helped me a lot.  I understand and appreciate the neuroscience behind kind of rewiring those pathways in your brain and I’ve used it a lot with my clients.  But I will throw it in there, I’m much more of a realistic thinker.  Sometimes things are going to go wrong.  Sometimes you are going to mess up, and you’re going to have the tech issues.  You’re going to get on stage and forget what you wanted to say or something.  And have some sort of idea – don’t plan for that; don’t make that the only thing you focus on – but acknowledge that it could go wrong.  What’s the worst case?  How are you going to handle it?  And see, it’s not all that bad.  Most of the time, it’s going to be okay, and you just move on from there.  And then once you’ve kind of scratched that itch in your brain, like acknowledged that yes, it could go wrong.  This is what I would do.  Then you can focus fully more on the, what if it goes right?  And then you can add in the visualizations and affirmations and kind of focus more on that positive thinking.

I love it.  So for our listeners who are not entrepreneurs, it sounds like they can still apply a lot of the strategies in your book.  Any tips for moms who may be on maternity leave and they’re getting ready to transition back to their corporate job, for example, and how to again handle being a mom and also managing the 9:00 to 5:00?

Absolutely, because a lot of these negative mind monsters, these lies we tell ourselves – a lot of them come into play also when you’re in the corporate world or you’re doing something else in your regular 9:00 to 5:00, and especially if you’re looking at leaving your newborn for the first time and going back into work.  I know that can be a really daunting thing and a lot of guilt can come up, either guilt because you’re looking forward to it or guilt because you just don’t want it to happen and you don’t want to leave your baby.  There’s just so many different emotions.  And I think kind of the same thing of stopping and looking at what you’re feeling because our emotions aren’t there just to keep things interesting.  They’re to kind of send us messages and let us know where we are kind of acting outside of our blueprint of where we think we should be acting.  And take a look at how you’re feeling, how you would like to be feeling, and then what can you change to get to that “I would like to feel…” place.  If it’s something like – you know, maybe you can look at changing your job if you’re having a really hard time leaving your baby and that’s what you don’t want to do.  If you would much rather stay home, then okay, what does this look like?  You’re not boxed in.  Or if you’re feeling guilty because you’re leaving and going back to work and you feel like, I should be wanting to stay.  I shouldn’t feel like I want to go back to work.  Looking at, okay, is that actually a real feeling that I should be feeling?  Is that healthy guilt, or is that something that’s toxic guilt and I need to go back and kind of change my blueprint a little bit?  It is okay for me to want to have an identity aside from just being mom.  And so either changing your circumstances or going back and kind of rewiring your blueprint, so to speak.

That makes complete sense. 

Does it?  Because I kind of feel like I went on a tangent there!

No, I am totally following, and it’s very helpful for our listeners who are going through so many different transitions of having a baby or that are currently pregnant and then either trying to manage their business and juggle that or go back to their day job and feeling very stressed out and anxious about all of the different roles, whether it’s a first time mom or this is baby number five, there’s still stressors.

Yeah, absolutely, and new stressors that are going to come along each and every season of life you’re in, right?  Things are going to shift and change, and just as you catch on to something, a new thing is going to come up.  But I think kind of giving yourself some grace in those situations and realizing that while you can do anything, you can’t do everything all at once, and having that understanding of what your goals are, what are your priorities, how do you want to feel, what does that dream life look like for you, and is what you’re doing kind of helping support what that looks like, or is it something that’s completely contrary to where you want to be?

You talk so much about authentic marketing, and there are many different versions of authenticity.  It could be the mom showing her messy house or just all of the things that she’s juggling in her day.  But I would like to hear from the expert on what you consider authentic marketing to be.

Yeah, well, authentic marketing – there’s lots of different definitions out there.  And ultimately, it is what is true to you.  What feels good to you and how you want to show up in your business.  And so I’ve worked with a whole bunch of women who have taken the business courses or done the coaching and they’re trying to follow someone else’s framework, and it’s just not working for them.  And they’re getting really frustrated and they’re kind of internalizing it and thinking that they’re doing something wrong or they are wrong and maybe they’re just not cut out for this whole entrepreneur thing when the reality is, it’s just the wrong framework.  You need to take bits and pieces and figure out what actually works for your life, your schedule, your strengths.  Acknowledge your weaknesses, also.  Don’t just ignore them.  There’s some things we’re naturally not good at, and that’s okay.  We can outsource those things.  But it’s really looking at what feels good to you and then kind of building up from there in your business and in your marketing plan.  For some moms, that might look like including their kids in all of their marketing.  And for others, that might look like they want to hide their kids’ faces.  And that’s okay.  Both of those are okay.  There is a strategy either way, no matter where you sit in your marketing, whether you want to show your dirty house or not.  I think something I’ve done is, people like looking at my desk for some reason because they think I’m so organized and put together, and partly I am, and also partly I have a four-year-old.  So my desk has toys, and right now I have this – he made me a smoothie, so it’s a cup of leaves and seed pods and random things that he brought in my “smoothie.”  And there is a rapport that you build with your audience when you can show that you’re human, show that kind of vulnerable side a little bit.  But that doesn’t necessarily  mean you have to do that.  You can be completely faceless on social media.  You don’t even have to have social media.  Or you can get on and do lives every day.  The whole point of authentic is that it is customizable to you and what you need.

That is such great advice because I feel like with the videos trending on social media, people feel like they have to make reels and videos constantly, but if they’re a better blogger or have other forms of communication, like having a podcast, that might work better for them for focusing their efforts on anything from a newsletter.  Blogging may be better for their time and sanity than making videos constantly while you’re driving kids to school and sports.  Having that pressure of producing video content daily can be a lot.

Yeah, absolutely.  And I will share that I am very sporadic with my posting on social media at the moment.  I always have been.  Sometimes I go through kicks where I really like posting, and I actually did say I would do a challenge for one of my clients.  I was going to post consistently, like daily or multiple times a day for a month and just see what happens and get her the results, so I might go into that, but that is purely an experiment and because I’m choosing to do it, not because I have to do it.  I have grown multiple successful global businesses without being tied to any sort of social media platform.  So it is definitely possible.  I think that’s the number one thing that people come to me for, beyond not having time: not wanting to be on social media so much.

Right, that is so true.  So tell us where we can find Hold My Juice Box.

It’s available on Amazon, paperback and Kindle, or if you go to my website, thebluebellgroup.com, there’s a link for the hardback, or it should be available in bookstores everywhere, the hardback version.

Awesome.  And then your podcast, Marking Like a Mother?  Tell us a bit about that and where to find it.

Marketing Like a Mother has been the most amazing journey.  I started it with a business bestie, which turned into a second business and was just this whole amazing experience in itself.  But it is really all about digging deep into the things that help you build a business and life you love.  My co-host has had to move on at this point and focus on other things, and so now the podcast is really focused on a lot of really amazing guest experts, but them I’m also mixing in some step by step, super easy, actionable trainings.  So if you have 20 minutes to listen to a quick training episode, you can make some progress for the week.  If that’s all you get done, then that’s great.  And it is available on platforms anywhere, so wherever you like listening to podcasts, just search for Marketing Like A Mother.

Perfect.  And I know you’re very active on social media, so where can our listeners find you?

Instagram right now.  I’m @thebluebellgroup.  Also Facebook, @thebluebellgroup, or search for my profile.  I’m more than happy to connect on there.  Although I will fully just be transparent and tell you that if you DM me, I probably will not respond for a couple weeks or so.

I get that.  That’s how I am with LinkedIn.  I know you’re on LinkedIn for the business professionals who choose to use that platform over, say, Instagram.  So they can find you on that channel, and then you’re on Substack, correct?

Yeah, that is where my podcast is mainly hosted.  If you want to subscribe to the podcast, Marketing Like A Mother, on Substack, then you can get all of the notifications in your inbox weekly with all the show notes and sometimes we send out little fun extra bonuses, as well.

And the website, as you mentioned earlier is thebluebellgroup.com?

Lots of free resources on there if you are just looking to dip your toe in, if you’re kind of curious about this entrepreneur thing or have a business and you’re looking to revamp into something that’s a little more mom-focused.  Definitely some resources on there that can help you out.

Excellent.  Any final tips for our listeners, Olivia?

There’s a phrase that I say all the time with my son and actually we just put it on a T-shirt, so now I have a T-shirt that says it: That’s One Way To Do It.  As you’re going about your journey, being a mom, being an entrepreneur, whatever other titles you have on your list, because I know there’s about a million and a half other titles.  Whatever you’re doing, just keep in mind, that’s just one way to do it.  You don’t have to do it like everybody else says.  You don’t have to stick to any sort of typical box that society or anyone else tries to put you in.  That’s just one way to do it.  You can do it your way completely.  So whatever works best for you, feels best for you, and works for your strengths and your schedule, then that’s the way to go.  That’s where you will find that absolute fulfillment and success.

Again, all going back to authenticity and your own individual strengths.  I love it, Olivia.  I appreciate your time today.

Thank you so much for having me!

IMPORTANT LINKS

The Bluebell Group

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

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Kristin Revere and Kimberly Isburg discuss the myth about baby’s movement in pregnancy and her personal connection with Count the Kicks in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.

Hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am so excited to chat with Kimberly Isburg.  Kimberly is the community manager for Healthy Birth Day, Incorporated, which is also the creator the Count the Kicks Stillbirth Prevention program.  So excited to have you here!

Hi, Kristin!  Thank you so much for having me!  I’m really excited to be here.

So you have a personal story, which I love, Kimberly, about your own pregnancy journeys and how you came to know Count the Kicks.

Yes!  I am a mom of two boys, and I am here in the state of Iowa, which is where Count the Kicks began.  I was certainly familiar with Count the Kicks from my own pregnancies, and used the Count the Kicks method to count kicks with both of my boys.  I never had any problems.  I never really noticed any changes that caused me to need to speak up.  But I loved having that tool and resource and loved getting to know how they were both unique in their movements and in their personalities, and I would say how they were in the womb kind of follows how they are in life.  One is just a little bit more laidback and chill, and one is very much a mover and a shaker and a go-getter.

I found that with my own kids.  My first was always moving and very early on, and my son was more chill.  He was also a bigger baby, so I don’t know if he just had less room.  Who knows, but he is a little bit more laid back than his sister.

Yes.  One of my favorite memories of my own kids during pregnancy – I was holding my oldest, kind of on my belly, pregnant with my second, and I distinctly remember one of the very first big kicks I felt was my youngest kicking the top side of my belly where my oldest was kind of resting on my belly.

I love that!  So for our listeners who are not yet familiar with Count the Kicks, can you give us some of the origin story on why Healthy Birth Day felt it was important to create this awareness program?  Of all the different ways you can focus on advocacy, I find this to be obviously so important, even more so now with the maternal rates that we have.

Like I said, Count the Kicks was founded here in the state of Iowa.  We were founded by five women here in central Iowa who all lost daughters to stillbirth or infant death in the early 2000s.  And they were kind of told that stillbirth is rare, that it doesn’t happen a lot, but it happened to all of them within a fairly short amount of time, and they were all kind of connected to each other by friends and by their faith communities.  They kind of connected with each other in their grief to support each other, and eventually, their conversations turned to, why is this happening?  It isn’t rare.  It happened to all of us, and it’s happening more than anyone realizes.

Stillbirth, if you don’t know, is the loss of a baby during pregnancy at 20 or greater weeks gestation.  What our founders found was that it was happening to around 20-plus thousand families every single year in the US.  That’s about one in every 177 pregnancies.  They really turned their grief into fuel, and they said, we don’t want this to happen to any other families.  We don’t want anyone else to join this club that we’re in where we’ve lost a baby.  So they created the state’s firth stillbirth registry, just to gather additional data and information about the impact of stillbirth in the state of Iowa.  Then they learned about some research out of Norway that showed a 30% reduction in stillbirth when moms are educated on getting to know their baby’s normal movement patterns in the third trimester of pregnancy.  That reduces stillbirth rate by about 30%.  They said if they can do that in Norway, we can do it here in Iowa.  That’s how Count the Kicks was created.  It’s a mom-focused educational empowering program that teaches expectant parents how to monitor their baby’s movements in the third trimester of pregnancy and helps them speak up and empowers them if they notice a chance.

Well, moms get things done, so it makes sense that they banded together!  I love your personal story to be able to – you know, as communication manager, share the message that impacted all of you so personally.

Yes, absolutely.  Really incredible that they just wanted to do something to help other families, and they knew that they could make an impact.  They started out hoping to save just one baby, and about 15 years later, we’ve heard from more than 140 different families in 36 states and 6 countries who reached out to say, hey, Count the Kicks helped my baby get here safely.

I love it so much.  And as far as your personal use of Count the Kicks, was it based on awareness, being located in Iowa and just knowing about the importance of it, or was it something your provider or a other support person told you about?  Was there a risk factor that made you want to monitor kicks?

It was definitely just the awareness here of Count the Kicks in Iowa.  We have these bright yellow educational materials with a pregnant mom on the front, and those were at my doctor’s office, at my provider’s office.  I saw them at every appointment, and they would talk to me and ask, how is your baby moving?  How are your kicks feeling?  Things like that.  It’s definitely something that’s kind of in most providers’ offices here, all of the materials, and that helps just to understand why it’s important and the benefits of kick counting.

And for our listeners in Michigan, there has been quite a bit of advocacy related to Count the Kicks and stillbirth prevention.  You even have a director in Michigan, so that’s awesome!

We do!  We launched our program there in the state of Michigan earlier this year through a partnership with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.  We’re really excited and grateful to partner with them and have the opportunity to get that bright yellow Count the Kicks education into doctors’ offices and midwives and doulas there in the state of Michigan, as well.

That is amazing.  And as you mentioned, it is for everyone.  You were healthy.  You weren’t high risk.  It’s not like you were getting consistent nonstress tests in your provider’s office.  So for people who aren’t high risk, this is just as beneficial because things can happen in pregnancy quickly, and I’ve supported stillbirths, unfortunately, as a doula.  It doesn’t always give a lot of signs at those regular appointments.

Yes.  The research really shows that a change in a baby’s movements can be the first or only sign that there may be an issue with the pregnancy, that your baby may be in distress.  That’s why kick counting is so important for all pregnancies, not just high risk, not just multiples.  It’s important for everyone because really, getting to know that baby’s normal movement pattern kind of gives you that information, that education, to be able to speak up if your baby’s normal ever changes.  And again, every baby and every pregnancy is different, like we talked about.  Every baby is going to move a little bit differently, and so Count the Kicks really makes it easy for you to get to know what’s normal for that baby and that pregnancy.

And whether it’s a handout or utilizing the app, again, all of that information is provided, but I would love to have you give us a rundown of how you count kicks, what would be considered movement that would count, and what would not count.

Yeah.  So Count the Kicks, counting kicks, is really recommended to start at the third trimester of pregnancy, which is 28 weeks, or 26 weeks if you are high risk or pregnant with multiples.  That is because that’s kind of the time in pregnancy when most babies get into more of a recognizable pattern of movement.  So you’re going to want to count every day, once a day, around the same time, and try to pick a time that your baby is active.  So again, around that third trimester, just pay attention to those movements, what times of day are you feeling baby move.  Is it in the morning after you eat breakfast?  Is it in the evening when you finally sit down and relax on the couch or lay down in bed?  Count around that time.  And we do have a free app that’s available in the app store, and it’s available in 20 different languages.  That makes it really easy to do your daily kick count.  When you use the app, you’re going to open it up and click on Start Counting.  Then there’s a teal footprint on the screen, and you’re going to tap it every time you feel your baby move.  It’s going to start a timer.  The types of movements you’re looking for are kicks, pokes, jabs, rolls, swishes.  Any type of intentional movement.  The only thing that doesn’t count are hiccups because hiccups are involuntary.  If you think about when you get hiccups yourself as an adult, you don’t really have much control over it.  You can’t really make them go away.  They kind of just are.  And they’re going to feel very rhythmic and kind of have that pattern, but those intentional movements are what you count.  You count until you get to ten movements, and the timer will stop on the app.  Then it’s going to ask you to rate the strength of your baby’s movements, as well.  Research also shows that the strength of movements is an important sign of your baby’s well-being.  So a 1 on strength is going to be those light fluttery movements, kind of what you might feel early on when you first start to notice your baby moving in pregnancy.  5 is going to be those really big, fierce movements.  Kicks, jabs, things that you might even be able to see on the outside of your belly.  So you rate them 1 to 5 on the strength of movements.  It gives you the ability to take any notes that you might want to take, whether that’s what you ate for lunch that day or a question you want to ask your provider.  You can take those notes and then finish your session.  And then after you do this for a few days, a week or so, you’re going to begin to see kind of a pattern or an average amount of time that it normally takes your baby to get to ten movements.

So helpful!  And how can this information be helpful for anyone who works with expecting families, like a birth doula, for example, or a childbirth educator, even?

Yes!  Again, we all have so many questions in pregnancy.  There’s just a lot of things that are happening.  And I think movements are one of those things that parents have a lot of questions about.  So we absolutely love it when doulas and childbirth educators share Count the Kicks with the clients that they are working with and teach them about how to use it and show them the app and our materials.  Anything you can do to educate them on the importance of kick counting.  It’s also a great way to encourage your clients to bond with their baby.  Most of our app users, about 77%, actually report that it helped to reduce their anxiety about the well-being of their baby.  So these are all great benefits that doulas and childbirth educators can share with expectant parents.  And again, as a doula or a childbirth educator, anyone working with expectant parents, you play an important role in helping to empower them and support them throughout their pregnancy journey.  So if they ever reach out to you and say, my baby is just not moving today or something feels off.  I just don’t feel like things are going like they normally do.  You can play an important role in encouraging them to speak up, to call their provider, to go into the hospital and get checked and make sure that baby is okay.  Most of the time, baby is just fine.  There’s nothing going on.  They’re just having an off day.  But you would always rather go in and get checked and make sure that everything is okay.

100%.  Fully agree.  And so as far as other advocacy that Healthy Birth Day is involved with, I would love to hear more about your actions, not only in Iowa, but federally.

Yes!  Count the Kicks is a program of Healthy Birth Day, Inc., which is the nonprofit organization.  And really, our goal as Healthy Birth Day is to improve birth outcomes nationwide through stillbirth prevention initiatives.  Really, taking a look just at the issue and impact of stillbirth in the US and what can be done nationwide to help improve birth outcomes.  This year, our nonprofit played a vital role in advocating for a bill in congress called the Maternal and Child Health Stillbirth Prevention Act.  That was passed by the senate and by the house and then signed by President Biden in July of this year.  It is huge.  It’s incredible.

What this bill does is, in Title V, there is language about maternal and child health issues that states should address and focus on prevention efforts.  Things like SIDS, things like smoking cessation during pregnancy, maternal mortality and morbidity.  Lots of important things.  But one thing that was never included in Title V in the language was stillbirth or stillbirth prevention.

Right.  It was more on the maternal health, you’re correct.

Yeah.  Stillbirth was left out, probably because at the time they didn’t think stillbirth was something that could be prevented.  But we know now that it can, and the research shows that at least one in four stillbirths can be prevented through increased education about kick counting in pregnancy and other initiatives.  So now Title V includes the words stillbirth and stillbirth prevention, and it’s really a signal to states and to state health departments that they can and they should invest those Title V grant dollars to focus on stillbirth prevention.

That’s so excellent.  How can partners play an active role in stillbirth prevention?

There is so much awareness that needs to be raised about stillbirth.  It’s an issue that we just don’t talk a lot about, yet it’s happening more often than most of us realize.  Partners can help to get information out there.  OF course, we’re also a nonprofit organization, and so we’re always looking for additional funding partners who want to invest in our program and in our work and who really believe in the cause of stillbirth prevention and what can be done to prevent it.  So that’s another way that people can get involved and really help increase awareness about stillbirth and help with kick counting.  That’s our ultimate goal, to help make kick counting a common practice for all expectant parents in the third trimester of pregnancy.

I love it so much.  Very important work.  So any final tips for our listeners?

I think just that we hear a lot of myths about movement in pregnancy and so I just would love to talk about a few of those.  Like I mentioned, we sometimes hear that kick counting might increase anxiety and that’s a reason that people don’t want to talk to pregnant women about it, but our app users actually report that it helps to decrease their anxiety about the well-being of their baby.  It’s also a great opportunity to bond with your baby, to involve your partner or your baby’s older siblings.  Kick counting with Count the Kicks is really easy.  Anybody can do it.  It’s a great way for your whole family to bond.

We also hear that babies run out of room at the end of pregnancy.  That is not true.  Babies do not run out of room.  They should not stop moving.  The types of movements that you might feel may change.  More jabs, fewer big rolls.  But your baby should continue moving up to and during labor and kind of in the same pattern until they arrive.

Excellent information!  So you’ve got two websites.  Would you share those with our listeners?

Sure.  Our nonprofit organization is Healthy Birth Day.  And that’s really focused on stillbirth, the impact of stillbirth in the US.  You can learn more about our advocacy efforts and the Maternal and Child Health Stillbirth Prevention Act.  And then Count the Kicks is the place to go for all things kick counting in pregnancy and education about how to use Count the Kicks, as well as a place to order our education materials.  Those are free in the state of Michigan and also in about 30 other states in the US.

Amazing!  And hopefully soon it will be all 50!

Yes, that is our goal.  We want to get Count the Kicks into all 50 states and see the same success across the US as we’ve seen in Iowa, which we believe would save about 6,000 babies every single year.

That’s a huge difference.  You are also very active on social media?

Yes.  Healthy Birth Day and Count the Kicks are both on Facebook, Instagram, and X.  We have Count the Kicks on TikTok.  Healthy Birth Day is on LinkedIn if you want to connect with us there.  Then we do have a YouTube channel for both Count the Kicks and Healthy Birth Day.

Amazing.  Thank you so much, Kimberly, and again, I appreciate the work you’re doing so much.

Thank you so much, Kristin.  We’re so grateful for the opportunity to share more about Count the Kicks.

It is definitely needed, and I’m excited to have your presence in Michigan.

IMPORTANT LINKS

Healthy Birth Day

Count the Kicks

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Sara Baxter discuss the importance of investing in sustainable products and companies in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas podcast. 

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Sara Baxter.  Sara is the CEO and co-founder of Paperclip.  She’s also a mom of three who juggles business meetings with naptimes, proving that it’s possible to run a thriving company while occasionally using a toddler as a footrest.  As the founder of Paperclip, a baby and child product brand, Sara’s not just running her own business but is also charting a course towards a more sustainable future, one recycled diaper bag at a time.  She also has a passion for homebirths, having three of her own, and had an incredible birthing team.

I am thrilled to chat with you today, Sara!  Welcome!

Yes!  Thank you so much for having me, Kristin!

I am excited to talk about sustainability and why it’s important to choose items that you purchase or register for with sustainability in mind.  Let’s get started!

Yeah!  I mean, I think we can all agree as parents, our kids are the most important thing in our lives.  And I really do believe we should all be making a bigger effort to create a better future for our kids and their kids.  And it sound sometimes so overwhelming, because everything says organic now.  Sustainable products are more expensive, and it does seem like I’m just going to keep doing the things that I’m doing because it works and it’s not expensive.  But I think there are so many little, small changes that we can make every day to make sure that we are being mindful about our purchases and the future of our planet.  There are a couple of quick, little changes that you can make in your daily life.

Some of those are, first and foremost, really getting behind brands that are purpose driven.  At Paperclip, we don’t just create products to make money.  We create products that really have a bigger purpose and a positive impact on our planet.  As you mentioned in your intro, each of our diaper bags are actually made using 45 recycled water bottles.  Those are pulled from our oceans and rivers.

I love your story.  It’s so important to repurpose, and the fact that you are utilizing waste, as you mentioned, with our water being so important.  I live in a Great Lake state, so water is everything to us in Michigan.

Absolutely.  And the sad truth is that plastics are probably never going to go away.

No.

But at least we can do our part by reducing that in some way by repurposing that waste into something that’s really good.

Exactly.  My doula agency is a certified B-Corp, so sustainability is important to us, and giving back and supporting women-owned and local businesses.  I love everything that you’re doing!  And it’s so challenging with inflation for a business like your own to have the sustainable mindset at the forefront because it’s much more expensive.

It is, and it’s so sad that it is that way.  It’s hard because like I said, it feels like we’re just stuck.  We can’t eat organic because it’s twice the price.  We can’t buy products that are more sustainable because they are more expensive.  It feels like we’re up against these big corporations that really have control over all of these decisions, and it shouldn’t be that way.  But I do feel like, slowly but surely, we will get to a place where we’re all speaking up and we’re making big changes in who we’re supporting.

Have you been following the issues that are going on in the food industry right now, as well?

There are so many.  Which issues are you referring to?

The one with Kellogg.  That’s been in the media a lot lately, and it’s a good example of what I’m talking about.  Buying an organic cereal without dyes in it is more expensive; why?  But if we start to get behind brands that actually do care and stop supporting the brands that don’t, slowly but surely, we will make a difference.

Absolutely.  And I find when shopping for cereal for my kids that the sugar-based cereals are the ones that are less expensive versus the healthier – as you mentioned, like the organic options.  But my children and their health is the most important, so I spend more.  When it comes to gifting baby registry items to friends or my own consumer habits, I like to focus on companies that are mission-driven and sustainable items, items that will last, versus the throwaway culture that we live in right now.  Certainly, spending more on quality items and companies like your own that are focused on making the world a better place makes perfect sense to me.

Definitely.  And like I said before, I think all of this can be done in really small ways that are more attainable.  Obviously, supporting the brands that are purpose driven, that’s number one.  Think of other little small things to help our environment.  For example, eliminating single use plastics.  Our feeding products – we sell silicone feeding products.  Not only is that product itself sustainable, just because it basically has lifetime usage.  It doesn’t break down; it’s not tossed away.  It’s a great alternative for paper plates.  But also, all of our products come packaged in a reusable Ziplock bag.  So it’s a really amazing, premium bag that you just wash out after every use.  I don’t even own Ziplock bags anymore.  I use these for everything.

And there’s this amazing company called The World Counts.  It has some really insane statistics about plastic bags.  As of this year, we’ve already products four trillion plastic bags.  And then an estimated 300 million of those just end up in the Atlantic Ocean alone.  It’s crazy.

Devastating.

Yeah, it’s crazy.  But we don’t realize it because it’s just been a part of our daily lives for so long that we just use them and throw them away, and it’s like, okay, that’s fine.  We just don’t think about it.  But again, I think that’s a pretty easy switch you can make.  And obviously, when you buy our products, you get one for free, so it’s kind of nice.  But there’s also tons of brands out there that just sell those on their own.

Yes.  I think with the pandemic, with using the tote bags and your own recycled bags, some of that ended in grocery stores, at least in my area, and it was a bit of going back to the plastic bags temporarily, or paper bags, and now things have returned to some normalcy there, but habits take a while to break.  So the convenience of just getting a plastic bag at the store, but as you mentioned, there’s so much damage to the environment and to our waterways with plastic usage.

Yeah, for sure.  I’ve loved seeing all of the initiatives we’ve made, though, in terms of water.  You know, at the airports now, there’s refill stations, and at schools, there’s refill stations.  I think that’s such a big deal.  I love seeing the little steps that we are making.

Exactly.  And even at parks, you can refill your water bottles, so you don’t have to bring along the plastic bottles.  So let’s talk a bit about registries and outside of your diaper bags, what tips do you have for our audience on having a sustainable baby registry?

I would say, do your research.  Creating a baby registry is so overwhelming because there’s a million products out there that all look the same.  And you’re relying on just your gut instinct or the reviews or whatever to make that decision to add that to your registry, but take the time.  Really look into the brands that are doing a little bit more.  Go to their website directly.  Don’t just rely on the platform that you’re using to build your registry to learn about that brand.  And there’s so many small brands out there.  Ours is one of them.  We’re small but growing.  But really, we’re purpose-driven and we really care about the customer.  When you’re able to check out the website and learn a little bit more about that company, it makes you feel so much better about the products that you’re choosing.

Absolutely.  And as far as other items, are you a fan of a particular registry site?  I know you can add any website like your own to a traditional registry, and people can even add doulas to their baby registries.

That’s so amazing.  I wish that was around when I was having my babies.

Same!

I have used a lot of them.  Baby List has a huge, huge following.

Yes, they do.

And they’re unique in the way that they obviously have brands that they carry directly but also you have the ability to add any brand that’s out there into that registry, whereas an Amazon registry, that’s obviously very, very convenient, but that wouldn’t be my first choice, the reason being that anybody can sell on Amazon these days.  For example, if you’re looking for a diaper bag, it’s maybe going to be something that wasn’t sustainably sourced or wasn’t manufactured properly.  You don’t really get as much information about that brand through a lot of these sellers on Amazon, so Baby List would be my first choice.  What about you?

I am a fan of Baby List as well, and I agree that some of the convenience of a site like, say, Amazon or Target would be appealing to certain families, but I really talk to my birth and postpartum clients about really looking at their own individual values and creating a customized list from a site like Baby List.  If sustainability is their number one focus, then choosing small businesses with a sustainable focus that are making an impact and, again, registering for fewer items, but items that are going to get utilized versus sitting around gathering dust.  You don’t need all the onesies.  You don’t need ten different bottles.  I mean, just looking at the important needs first, and don’t worry about things that you’ll need when your child is two years old or even one, because it’s going to sit around for so long. 

For sure.  Definitely.   I think another suggestion for when you create your registry is to not always be scared of the price.  We have this weird way of justifying spending $250 on a meal that we get once but we can’t always see that value in a product that literally lasts us years.  And I’m guilty of it, too.  Our diaper bag, our best-selling diaper bag, is $199, and for some people, that feels too expensive, but when you think about it, this bag is lasting you four plus years, or as long as you are changing your baby or using it for your next child.  When it all comes down to it, there’s so much value in that price.  Just always remember that and that you’re not just paying for that product for one time.  There is value in it.  That would be another tip.

Absolutely.  It’s something you use every day, and if it’s one that’s durable, you can use it for each child. 

So what are your thoughts on ways that our listeners can connect with sustainable businesses like your own?  Do you have any favorite directories or ways to search and really vet out the businesses?

Yeah, I think you were just saying that your doula business is also B-Corp certified?

Yes.

That’s a great resource.  We’re in the process of applying for that, as well.  Certifications; check for what types of awards they’ve won.  Always look at the mission statement.  I think that tells you a lot about who they are as a brand.  I know for us right now on our website, one of our main pages on our navigation is Our Eco Efforts.  And usually, when you go to a site, if they are a sustainable-forward business, they’re going to have that information readily available for you to review.  It’s a quick search.  If it’s on their main header, for me at least, I know that this brand actually is doing a lot to make an impact on the planet.  They have eco efforts and they’re able to explain what those are with a lot of information.  So again, that goes back to doing your research.

Right.  So if our listeners could only purchase one item from Paperclip, where would you direct them?

Oh, gosh, that’s a hard one.  Our diaper bags have been with us as long as we’ve been a business, and they’re tried and true.  There’s really nothing else like it out there.  Not only are they made with recycled water bottles, but they’re premium bags.  They’re very durable.  They also have a patented integrated changing station.  You literally just unzip the front of the bag.  It rolls out, and you can change your baby anywhere, anytime.  You have that privacy and that convenience.  So that’s our number one selling product and has been for as long as we’ve been in business.  We’re actually rolling out a high chair in a few months here, too.

I will be on the lookout! 

Yes, please!  We should hopefully have them here by January.

Okay, soon!

Yes, it’s very exciting.

Absolutely.  So Sara, as you mentioned earlier with the petition for Kellogg, how can we as consumers expect more from the big businesses that tend to have a lot more control over what we see in the stores?  Again, using that Kellog example, how can change be made to become more sustainable universally versus just focusing on companies like B-Corps and your own company that are very mission-driven?

I think it just starts with – honestly, a boycott is a strong word, but just choosing not to support companies like that.  I mean, why would we, when they are truly acknowledging the fact that they are putting ingredients in our products that are very, very harmful for us?  And for me, I’m not a huge activist where I’m out there picketing.  I love the people who do have the courage to do that.  But for me, I’m just going to stop supporting you.  And then obviously spreading that awareness I think is always important too.  Sharing on social media or just having open conversations like you and I are having right now.

Right, so signing petitions, using your dollar to make change in that way by not purchasing those items.  I think certainly understanding ingredients and the makeup of not only our food but the goods that we’re buying, as you mentioned with plastics, that aren’t recycled, and how we can make more impact with our buying power.

Absolutely.  Yes.  I mean, it seems like such a hurdle.  It’s one of those things where you’re just like, how are we ever going to be able to be in a place where we are fully eco-friendly and we are having foods that are good for us?  It feels really unattainable.  But I really do believe that through education, conversation, and really speaking your voice, I think there can be change.

Yes.  And as moms, we do have to think of the planet that we’re leaving behind for our grandkids and our own kids and anything that we can do to make change will certainly impact their lives.

Absolutely.  Just think about what this planet was like a hundred years ago.  It’s crazy.  You can’t even really fathom what it will be like in another hundred years.  You can’t even imagine it.

Exactly.  I’m with you.  So what are your top tips for our listeners who are looking at making some changes in their buying habits?

Again, I’ll summarize a little bit, but support the brands that are purpose-driven.  There are so many out there.  You just have to be willing to seek them out.  I think making small changes like with disposable plastic bags; maybe opting for those reusable Ziplock bags instead of plastics.  Another one that I do at home that is a small difference – I don’t use paper towels.  Even though those are made out of paper, it’s still extra waste.  So I actually just will buy a pack of those white cleaning rags and instead of using a paper towel to clean off my counters or whatever, I’ll just spray it down and wipe it with the rags and then just throw them in the wash.  Maybe I have paper towels for backup for food or whatever it may be, but I probably go through one roll every six months.

Nice.  Great tip!

Yeah, I mean, it’s just those small things that you can do each day to make a little bit of a difference.  We don’t have to go out there and buy electric cars.  That’s not an attainable goal for a lot of people.  Starting small and making small changes.

Yes, it all adds up, that’s for sure, Sara.  How can our listeners connect with you?  I know you’re on social media.  You’ve got an amazing website.

Yes, if you want to connect with me personally, I’m always open to that.  My Instagram is @sarabaxter.  And then you can also check out Paperclip on Instagram @paperclip_life.  And then our website is papercliplife.com.

Thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom and the work you’re doing!  Your company is incredible, Sara.

Thank you so much, and it’s been a privilege to be able to chat with you today!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Paperclip

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

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Kristin Revere and Jacqueline Kincer discuss how partners can support breastfeeding and pumping on the latest episode of Ask the Doulas podcast.  Jacqueline is a breastfeeding expert and CEO of Holistic Lactation.     

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat today with Jacqueline Kincer.  Jacqueline is a breastfeeding expert and the CEO of Holistic Lactation, where she combines her clinical experience as an IBCLC with a commitment to supporting breastfeeding families.  With a background as a lactation consultant, Jacqueline has developed premium lactation supplements and leads The Nurture Collective, an online program offering guides, courses, and IBCLC support.  Her holistic approach addresses the diverse challenges mothers face, emphasizing the importance of both practical guidance and emotional support.  Jacqueline’s dedication continues to inspire countless moms and families, helping them find the solutions they need to define their own breastfeeding success.

Welcome, Jacqueline!

Yeah, thank you, Kristin!  I’m super excited to be here and chat with you today!

Yes!  And our topic is so important.  It’s how partners can support breastfeeding.

Yeah, they can do a lot!  I’m really excited because I think this is a topic that doesn’t get spoken about often enough, and it really should.  This is an episode that your listeners are probably going to be like, hey, babe, I need you to listen to this episode.

Absolutely!  So let’s get into a bit about your personal journey.  What led you to focusing on supporting families with lactation?

Definitely was not on my radar at all.  I was actually a stockbroker when I was pregnant with my first.  He’s 11 now.  Yeah, loved it, great job.  I was doing really well.  In fact, I actually got promoted while I was pregnant, and I saw myself going back to it, but taking a bit more time than the standard maternity leave in the US.  But then I had my son, and I took a Bradley method class for preparing for the birth, which is 12 weeks long.  And I read a book or two and did some research.  I thought I was super prepared.  And then this baby came, and I realized I was not prepared at all.  And my birth didn’t go the way I had planned, either, so I invested all this time in planning a birth that is hours long, right, and then I did not prepare for postpartum.   Initially, I had a doula.  I had a midwife.  I had the whole thing, right?  They’re trying to help me with this latch in the hospital, and I even took a breastfeeding class, actually, but it mainly taught us about the benefits of breastmilk; very little about breastfeeding.  That was not very helpful.  I brought the packet with me to the hospital.  I remember that and looking at it going, none of these things are helpful right now.  It’s like the latch hurt.  My nipples are bruised.  What’s going on?  And there was a lactation consultant.  She came in, and she would just grab my baby, slam his head on my boob, and be like, yeah, just do that.  And I was like, do what, exactly?  I can’t – that seems forceful, for one, but two, I’m not able to do that.  And she would walk out, and that’s it.

So I go home thinking, okay, well, this is just how it is.  I was determined to breastfeed, for whatever reason.  I don’t know, it just didn’t really enter my mind to not do it, I guess.  I didn’t know anything about formula.  It wasn’t something I’d researched.  I wasn’t having an issue making milk, so that was good.  Well, I didn’t really know, but it didn’t seem like it, right?  I mean, he had diapers and he was putting on weight.

I went to the pediatrician.  She was also a lactation consultant, an actual IBCLD.

Nice!  That’s rare!

Yeah!  I chose her specifically for that reason.  So I go to her, and I was like, it really hurts.  You know, what about this position, or this one?  I figured I just needed a different position.  And she was like, stop worrying about the position.  Just do the basic whatever works.  And I was like, okay.  But there was no discussion about how breastfeeding was painful for me and that it was potentially a problem or any of that.

So then fast forward to six weeks postpartum.  I go to my first Le Leche League meeting, which I think was the first time I had left the house myself with the baby and not with my husband or someone else.  And I heard at that meeting for the first time ever that breastfeeding isn’t supposed to be painful.  What I did was I got internally angry because I was like, well, breastfeeding is painful for me.  There wasn’t a solution.  It was just part of a discussion that they were having in the meeting, and it certainly wasn’t an affront to me.  No one even knew breastfeeding was painful for me.  I hadn’t brought it up.  But then I remembered just feeling angry.  Like, what do you know?  Breastfeeding is painful.  And I just felt alone and rejected and I don’t know; it was weird.

So breastfeeding stopped being as painful as time went on and I kept with it, and it wasn’t until – gosh, I don’t know.  I got involved in doing breastfeeding support because I always – I felt like I just kept trying to figure out why it was hurting or why was he so fussy, why was he spitting up.  There were all these things that I kept looking into.  Like, is it normal that I leak so much?  He has baby acne; what’s going on?  I’m researching all of these things.  And I guess I never stopped.

So then I decided that I would make a career out of it.  In my studies to become a lactation consultant, that’s when I figured out, oh, pain is actually a problem, and it turned out that my son had a tongue tie and a lip tie.  And once we got his lip tie fixed, which was when he was a toddler – he was 21 months.  I was still nursing.  For the first time ever, I experienced comfortable breastfeeding.  It wasn’t painful at that point.  If you had asked me if I was uncomfortable, I wouldn’t have said I was.  But all of a sudden, I felt the difference, and it was crazy to notice that.  Anyway, that made me super passionate about tongue tie and lip tie.  I still wasn’t certified.  I was still doing my clinical hours, but that’s what really got me excited about how other moms need to know this information.

Absolutely.  Yeah, that would have been my guess when you were describing pain.  My son, my second child, had a tongue tie, and I didn’t have pain nursing my daughter, but certainly with my son.

Yeah, it doesn’t have to be painful with that.  That’s the other thing.

So what was your experience with your partner’s involvement in supporting you personally?

It was interesting.  Again, I wasn’t prepared.  I had no idea what it was going to be like on the other side of things.  I don’t know what I thought.  I think that’s common, though.  I didn’t have any siblings.  I didn’t have any other friends with babies, so this was really new territory.  My husband was the oldest.  He has a sister.  So there wasn’t any previous exposure to raising and taking care of babies that either one of us had.  I dove into research mode.  I was taking a pause from work, and I had the time.  Of course, he had two weeks off or something, and then he went back to work.  And he worked from home, so he was here to help out.  Like, he could stay with our baby while I took a shower quickly or something like that.  He could sometimes hold him while he was on a conference call or something.  So that was great.  All of those things in terms of physical help were really great, but there were things where – I don’t know that this is uncommon, but it also is unique to me as a person, that I internalized a lot of things.  I felt like my husband couldn’t understand what I was going through, why I was – he would kind of criticize me.  “You’re just constantly researching things,” and I’m like, yeah, because I don’t know anything about having a baby, and you should maybe research, too.  And I would try to share things with him, and he wouldn’t really read the article or he wouldn’t listen to the podcast episode or he wouldn’t look at the book.  And so I just started to feel a bit of distance in terms of that, coparenting with him.  And so I started a moms’ group and I really leaned into that and found my tribe of people that understood.  I got most of my emotional and parenting support through that.  But yeah, my husband, one, didn’t seem quite as interested in the parenting adventure as I was.

Very typical until baby is there.  Then it’s a totally different thing.

Right?  And I think he kind of felt like, well, she seems like she’s got this.  She’s the one doing all the research, and she’s not working right now, so I’ll just let her handle it.  But then over time, some resentment did build on both of our parts where I was like, well, you should be more involved, and he was like, but you won’t let me be involved.  So I’m not saying – it wasn’t good or bad.  There’s both sides.  But I think we were just really unprepared and we faltered in our communication with one another.  It was a rocky road at times.

So what is your advice, working with families and how partners can be supportive of the breastfeeding and/or pumping journey?

I think one of the best things that you could do is talk to people that you know and trust who have children, ideally have had babies recently, and ask them, what were your initial days like with the baby?  What would you have done differently?  What do you think worked really well?  Ask those questions to real people that you know and trust because they’re going to give you the real story.  No book, no podcast can truly ever prepare you, you know what I mean?  Like, and what I mean by that is, I have a really good friend who I wish I had met earlier in life.  And we had a mutual friend who was pregnant, and she gave her the best advice.  I will mince words; I will not say it as well as she did, and she’s Australian, so she has a cool accent and it sounded even better.  But she was like, look, this is going to be the hardest thing that you’re ever going to go through in your life once you have this baby.  This whole transition of you becoming a mom – it’s awful.  You’re going to be sleep deprived.  You’re going to be this, you’re going to be that.  No one really tells you what it’s like.  But it’s also going to be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.  That’s the best way to sum it up.  Of course, I’m the woman, the mother who’s gone through it, so it’s sometimes difficult for me to really say what it’s like to be the man or the partner or the husband or whatever, but I think that’s true for them as well.  And we can’t leave them out of the equation.

So I think honest communication up front.  Be on solid ground with your communication with one another.  You have to be open.  You have to be willing to receive each other’s emotions about things and be curious about how they’re feeling and all of that because hormonally, for the mother, there’s all these big changes.  Her brain – I mean, we know, there are real changes that happen to a mother’s brain very, very quickly during pregnancy but especially immediately postpartum.  And you really need to have a good read on your partner and you have to have a good sense of how they’re feeling.  You have to have great communication.  So I think on both sides, but really, the one who isn’t birthing the baby is going to have to take on a bigger load for not just a week or a couple weeks.  Well, forever, honestly.  But it’s going to be really intense because your partner is healing.  She just gave birth or had a C-section and that’s a major surgery, and she is going to need taking care of.  But that means you have to take care of yourself so you can take care of her, too.  So it’s a lot.  I would just say it’s a lot.  It’s not scary.  It’s not bad.  But it’s a lot.

And I find that dads tend to love to figure out the gear.  I know my husband – my daughter was in the NICU, so he figured out the hospital grade pump that we rented and all of the gear that I hadn’t prepped for with taking a breastfeeding class and thinking that I would just feed my baby.  But we had some transitions before I could adjust, so he loved figuring out all of the feeding gear.

Yes, which – see, that’s where I would caution people when it comes to breastfeeding because you think that you’re so prepared, and I know you want to put it on the registry so that other people can purchase these things for you, but there is so much that you don’t know whether or not you’re going to need or if you’re going to need that exact brand or item until you’re on the other side.  Like, I always tell my clients, I wouldn’t buy bottles ahead of time.  Like, unless you know you’re having a preemie or something, then buy a bottle specifically for a preemie.  You can get a pump through insurance if you’re in the US, those sorts of things.  But really try not to go nuts and just ask for gift cards or tell people, I’m going to be adding things to the registry once the baby is here, and that’s a great time.  Because people still like to buy you newborn gifts and things.  I know the gear is – what a lot of families do is they go and read reviews on products from other parents, but as a professional and seeing that not all baby bottles are designed well – in fact, most of them are not, and so you don’t know, right?  Is this one going to cause your baby to spit up?  Is it going to feed them too quickly?  Just because some other family “liked” the bottle doesn’t mean it’s a good bottle for your baby.  So I try to caution parents, like, other than diapers and clothing and whatever, those kinds of things – I usually suggest holding off.  Dads are like, oh, I want to get all technical.  Sorry, guys.  Don’t, not yet.  Be prepared; have options.  Have a couple things.  Or at least, I tell people, if you have these things purchased for you, don’t open the packaging so that you can return it in case it doesn’t work out.

So true!  100%.  I’m a baby registry consultant in addition to being a birth and postpartum doula, so I agree with you.

Yeah, don’t open it.  Don’t wash it.  Don’t put it away.

Exactly.  If it is purchased, hold off.  You just don’t know exactly what your baby’s needs are going to be, as you mentioned.  And as far as taking classes, an evidence-focused, very hands-on breastfeeding class – I know the one that we teach at Gold Coast is very partner-involved and demonstrates different latches and so on.  Do you recommend that partners attend and do some preparation during pregnancy?

I do.  I think just to be good support is knowing the things that your partner needs to know, especially during their recovery when they may not remember or their brain just went through something crazy and then they’re sleep deprived.  We need someone who’s got it together to remind them, right?  Hey, remember in that class they showed us this, and then you’re like, oh, yeah, thanks.  And someone who gets it, because I think what’s really hard is there’s a lot that can be going on in the moment for a mom.  Let’s say she’s trying to get her baby to latch and she’s struggling and her partner is right there.  If she has to explain to that person what she learned in a class, like, now that’s just double labor for her.  We don’t want to create a situation like that.  He should come in knowing the basics and be there to support her.  I think also what’s important about taking a breastfeeding class or going through that, for the dad’s side of things, is that it also helps them not give what they would perceive as supportive advice but really isn’t.  What I mean by that is, I can’t tell you how many appointments I’ve had with clients where the dad will just say, “I just don’t understand why she’s doing this to herself.  Can’t we just give formula?”  And they think that they’re offering a solution, right, like a lot of men like to offer solutions instead of really hearing the struggle, and that can be very frustrating.  But it’s well intentioned.  Over here, the mom is in tears saying, I have put in so much effort and I am trying my hardest and I just want to breastfeed this baby.  I want to have this connection.  I want to do it for the health benefits.  Whatever the reasons are, and for you to suggest formula is completely dismissive of my feelings.  So we don’t want a scenario like that.  I think most importantly, ask your partner.  Hey, what are your goals?  You plan on breastfeeding?  What does that mean to you?  Why do you want to breastfeed?  What do you know about it?  What are your goals?  How can I support you in those goals?  Just asking lots of questions and having a foundation of a great breastfeeding class, that’s an awesome way to start.

Exactly.  And how can partners support with supply issues?

Good question.  Don’t suggest formula.

As you mentioned, that is the first go-to, but I feel like there’s so much more, especially with your education, that partners can do to help.

Yes.  Don’t worry; the pediatrician or lactation consultant will do that.  You don’t need to, hopefully.  I mean, if you’re truly concerned about the health of your child, then yes, obviously, please suggest that.  But realistically, just listen to their concerns.  Hey, I can see that this is really upsetting for you.  Do you want to talk about it?  Just asking those questions, being curious.  Don’t make assumptions.  Don’t offer solutions.  Don’t come home with lactation cookies and lactation tea and be like, hey, I got everything for you.  Unless you know that she wants that, don’t assume.  Ask her what she needs.  Ask her what she wants.  If she doesn’t know, then you’re welcome to make suggestions, but I think it’s when moms don’t want to disappoint.  They’re like, okay, well maybe I should try this.  My husband bought me this stuff.  Maybe it’s not the right thing.  I think trying to get out of that solution-oriented problem solving and just talking, communicating, listening, lending an ear.  I think also just reassuring your partner.  Saying all the things that they’re doing great or that are going well.  Hey, you know what?  It’s awesome you’ve been able to give our baby breastmilk for two weeks.  That’s more than a lot of moms, and I’m so proud of you.  Just that kind of thing, that kind of encouragement.  Like, look, when he’s latched, he just relaxes.  He’s so calm.  He loves when you nurse him.  Or when she’s pumping, wow, you are working so hard at pumping for our baby.  You are so dedicated.  I appreciate you.  Just things like that.

Affirmations go a long way.

Yeah, affirmations, listening, support.  Stay away from solutions and problem solving.  Feel free to make suggestions, like, hey, I see how hard you’re struggling.  Maybe it’s time to reach out to a lactation consultant to get some more help.  Instead of saying, like, I really think you should see a lactation consultant.  It’s all about those kinds of things of just tuning in, asking questions, not making assumptions.  I think pumping is also especially hard where sometimes dads and mothers-in-law and other people will say things like, why don’t you pump so I can just feed the baby a bottle?  You didn’t really reduce the amount of labor for her if the alternative was that she could have nursed the baby.  But if she is pumping because she needs to or wants to, you can be so supportive and helpful with washing and drying all of those pump parts and making sure they’re ready to go for the next time.  Bringing her a glass of water, because as soon as that milk starts flowing, I guarantee she is thirsty like she’s never been thirsty in her life.  Getting her a snack, having something ready and available for her to eat quickly because you get very hungry when you’re making milk a lot of the time.  Those sorts of things can go a long way.  If it’s the middle of the night, you already woke up.  You heard the baby.  Go and get the baby out of the bassinet or the crib.  Bring the baby to her for her to nurse the baby, and then go lay the baby back down for her.  Participate in it.  Know the struggle with her.  Understand what’s going on.  And you’ll do great.

Beautiful advice.  So how can our listeners connect with you?  I know you have so many different programs and ways that no matter where our listeners or doula clients live, they’d be able to connect with you.

Yeah, really just our website is kind of the hub for everything.  So they can go to Holistic Lactation, and on there, we have our Nurtured Collective program, which is a collection of courses but also a community.  I didn’t really create it to be a course that you go through, like here’s the introduction and part one and part two and then the conclusion.  It’s like choose your own adventure.  If you join and you have a six-month old, you can go to the section for things that happen when they’re six months old, or I have a clogged duct, or whatever it is.  You don’t need to worry about the rest of the content, although you certainly can.  And then we have a community, so the members and us – myself and another IBCLC, Kate, where we’re giving you the expert advice.  We’re encouraging you.  We’re answering your questions.  But then the other moms – every time one of our members posts or comments on another member’s posts, I am always blown away.  It’s like – I don’t know.  I guess they just follow the lead that Kate and I have set, and I’m like, you said what I would have said.  That was amazing.  There’s so much thought and intention put into the responses.  We’ve tried to really curate the content in a way that you know when you come into it, this is not a hot mess mom’s group.  There’s no mom shaming.  There’s no – everyone is so empathetic and understanding.  It is like a sigh of relief in there.  I love the Nurtered Collective.  You can kind of choose your own adventure in there and be a part of it for as long as you want.  So yeah, we would love to have people.  And then we’re really active on Instagram @holisticlactation.

And you also have supplements, correct?

I do.  I don’t even want to come across as super salesy about it, but yes.  Currently, we have two.  One is the Advanced Lactation Formula, which is mostly meant for milk supply and breastmilk quality and postpartum energy.  And then Lactation Flow Formula, which also is for milk supply, but clogged ducts, mastitis, engorgement, and those sorts of things.  And then we’ll be introducing others soon.

Exciting!

Yeah, I made those supplements.  They’re unique blends because I was recommending individual herbs or supplements to clients and then trying to take three or four things and then get the dosages right and it’s expensive and it all adds up.  They were like, isn’t there just something all in one I can take?  Which I get.  Mom life, right?  And I was like, no.  And then they were like, you should make something of your own.  I was like, oh, ha ha, I don’t do that.  Here I am.  I did it.

I love it.  You see a need; you might as well solve the problem.

Exactly.  And our course material is more like – like I said, it’s not exactly a course.  Kate and I have put a lot of work into this where it’s concise, but it’s also in depth.  You get what you need.  You get all the practical stuff.  There’s no fluff.  It’s the realities of breastfeeding, what to do when you encounter all of these different challenges.  So you don’t have to beat around the bush and scan 15 blog articles and watch videos on YouTube and all of that.

That is so beautiful.  Any final advice for our listeners, Jacqueline?

Yeah, I would say that a lot of people, especially moms who obviously deeply care about these babies that they’re having, can be too hard on themselves.  I’m speaking from experience.  And what I would say is that the sooner that you can really know that you are doing the best you can at this moment in time and that you don’t need to beat yourself up.  You’re not a bad mom.  You’re not doing things wrong.  Problems are real.  Do not dismiss your own problems.  Do not think that you’re a failure because something is not going the way that you thought it was going to go or the way you want it to go.  Things happen.  You’re going to be okay.  You’re doing great, and you are totally not alone.

Excellent advice!  Thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom!  We’ll have to have you on again!

I would love that!  Thanks for having me, Kristin!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Holistic Lactation

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

 Kristin Revere and Aly Dabbs discuss how dropping naps too soon can affect sleep at night in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas podcast.  Aly gives tips on how parents can push through this phase.  She is the founder of Restful Baby and has a podcast called Aly, The Restful Mama.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Aly Dabbs today.  Our topic is all about toddler naps.  Aly is a wife and mama to two wildly curious boys and lives in the Nashville area.  She graduated from Center from Pediatric Sleep Management in September 2023 and started her business, Restful Baby, in February 2024.  Aly hired a sleep consultant with her firstborn and saw firsthand the benefits of teaching her baby to sleep independently.  When pregnant with her second, Aly kept feeling this pull to help other moms navigate a time that feels really, really hard and often isolating.  Through working with families, watching her own toddler grow, and taking continuing education classes, Aly has developed a love for all things toddler sleep.  It is her passion to help exhausted toddler moms work through those big toddler emotions, to get their child to sleep through the night, and in their own bed.  Her approach is to lead with love and take this dreaded thing – bedtime and naptime – and turn it into something fun.

Since starting her business, Aly has learned a ton about networking with local businesses, marketing herself on social media, and has also launched her own podcast, Aly, The Restful Mama. 

Welcome, Aly!

Hi!  Thanks for having me!  I’m so excited!

Yes!  This chat is so important.  Even the doulas on my team – and we have four sleep consultants at Gold Coast – struggle with getting their toddlers to nap.  It’s those battles that continue when you’re dealing with a newborn and trying to get naptime in an established routine.  I would love to hear your thoughts on navigating that very important naptime for toddlers.

Absolutely.  Naps can be so tricky.  They’re a little bit more complex and a whole thing in and of itself.  I think it’s such a great topic.

Absolutely!  And I know that naptime effects sleep time, and so it’s important to continue that, even if you’re getting some resistance from your toddler.

Yes.  Especially those two-year-olds that have the whole fear of missing out.  It’s a real thing for these little guys, and they can really start to fight naps and not want to miss out on anything.  Moms, it’s just a phase.  We have to push through.

Yes!  So where to begin, Aly?  I would love your tips.

So a lot of moms – and I do work primarily with toddlers, even though I do help the little ones, but the season of this summer, I’ve worked with a lot of moms who are expecting second babies.  They are realizing that sleep is going to be a lot harder once they have maybe a toddler who’s fighting naps and having issues at bedtime, and then they’re going to have a new baby and starting all of the middle of the night wakes and feedings.  The exhaustion multiplies, so they have those feelings and fears, and they want to get sleep in a better place before a new baby comes.  So I’ve been working with a lot of soon to be second time moms wanting to get sleep in a better place for their toddlers, whether they’re dealing with inconsistent naps or fights at bedtime.  For naps for the toddlers, it is so common for a two-year-old to start protesting, resisting, fighting, having big emotions, about naptime.  For all of those reasons: not wanting to miss out, feeling like they really don’t want to sleep.  And a lot of moms are like, okay, my toddler is done napping.  We made it to two years.

Right.  I see it on social media all the time.  It’s like, okay, my kid said they’re done today.  Naptime is not a thing anymore.

Yes, and I think the statistic is that 2.5% of two year olds are napping, but they don’t need to, and then it’s really the 97.5% are more like four to five years old.  Naps come up a lot, and I always tell my moms, really try to get it to four.  If you’re getting those nap strikes at two, it’s just a phase.  Keep going.  You can get to the other side and naps will get in a better place.  Those are some things that I work with my families on, whether it’s just a nap strike or just getting naps more consistent.  And then I have some tips and tricks, too, for when it is time to drop the nap closer to four or even five.  Some kids continue to nap later into life, which is awesome.  Keep the nap as long as possible.  But then there are some transition tips for when it is time to drop a nap and getting some quiet time in replacement of that nap as well.

That is so important, even for those three to four year olds where the mom wants to rest when baby is during the day and there isn’t a set naptime and the child’s got a very short daycare or preschool phase and may be home during naptime.

Oh, yes.  I think it’s probably harder sometimes for the stay at home moms because if they’re there and their toddler is fighting naps, they maybe kind of give up or they assume, okay, my child is done napping.  Or they spend an hour or two trying to get them to nap, and then naptime is past, versus daycare having a little bit more structure.  And toddlers are so much like monkey see, monkey see.  If the other kids are laying down, even if they have some trouble with naptime – because I have worked with daycares, too, to help with that – but they maybe are more likely to lay down just like the other kids are, where they maybe don’t do that at home, right?

Absolutely, yes.  As you mentioned, it’s more of that imitation, and if that’s the routine at daycare and there’s not that structure at home, then even on weekends, those routines that are established may go away unless following the patterns of the daycare is something that’s done in the household.

Yes, and through sleep training, whether with the little ones or the toddlers, my big push is consistency, right?  We want to make sure that we’re being consistent on all fronts, and that way the toddler knows what to expect.  If you’re maybe enforcing it one day and not the next, it can be a little confusing and probably frustrating for the child and for the parent, if I’m being honest.

Yes, I totally agree, Aly.  And what are your thoughts on the theory that if you eliminate the toddler nap during the day, that they will sleep longer at night?

You will very likely find an overtired toddler who missed their nap, is super fussy, extra cranky, giving you a hard time at dinner or right before bed, or the toddler who gets the second wind and is doing the zoomies all over the house right before bedtime, running around like a crazy person, because they’re just so tired that they really can’t function anymore.  You are more likely to start seeing pushback at bedtime, fighting bedtime harder, or maybe your toddler normally sleeps through the night pretty well, but now they’re waking up throughout the night or super early in the morning, and it seems so backwards, but when your child is overtired, it’s more disruptive to sleep, and you start seeing other disturbances and early morning wakeups, middle of the night wakeups, or the overall bedtime fight because they’re just too tired.  And I know it seems so backwards.  I hear a lot of moms or grandparents say oh, the child is going to sleep so well tonight because I ran them so hard at the park.  They didn’t take a nap.  They’re going to be exhausted!  And in my head, whenever I hear that, I’m like, oh, no, it’s going to be a long night.  Even for my own mom, when she takes my three year old and maybe he takes a shorter nap or she skips it and then they go do all these things and have so much fun and she’s like, oh, he’s going to sleep great tonight – and in my head I’m thinking, it’s going to be a long night.

Exactly.  That is the truth!  The theory that if you skip it or tire them out, that it’s going to be an easy night, it’s not reality at all.

Right.  So kind of my tips for if you have the two year old or three year old who’s fighting nap – again, push through.  Hold on to that nap.  Keep going.  Working on your nap routine, making sure it’s consistent with a mini version of what you do at bedtime.  I really like the Hatch sound machine because it has a light feature that you can use and you can change it from your phone.  So kind of like the OK to Wake clocks, if you’re familiar with that, the light is red overnight while you’re supposed to be sleeping, and then in the morning when you’re able to get up and leave the bedroom, the light turns green.  I use kind of a modified version of that for naptime, kind of like the stoplight, where when the light is red, you need to be actively laying down trying to sleep.  And then the light can change to yellow, maybe 30 or 45 minutes into to the nap, and then for another 15 to 30 minutes, the light turns yellow.  At that point, the toddler can get out of bed.  They can play with some quiet, approved toys in the bedroom that you’ve already discussed with your toddler.  Maybe take out anything really loud or crazy that they have, and they can maybe do a puzzle or play with some blocks.  My toddler can’t read yet, but he picks up his books and kind of pretends that he’s reading, and he’ll kind of remember stories that we’ve told him based on the book.  Have some of those things that they can do quietly for the allotted time while the light is yellow.  And then when the light turns green, they’re able to get up, leave the room, and play.  Naptime is over.  And that’s the bigger thing when we’re transitioning away from naps and still having quiet time because even if your toddler is four and they drop a nap, 12 to 13 hours in a day is a long time without any rest for your toddler, especially when they’re used to having that nap.  So from napping even an hour a day to nothing can be really hard and you can have those fussy, cranky evenings.  Whereas if you start implementing quiet time, even after they are old enough to drop that nap, it can kind of help get you through the rest of the day.  And so when you have that two or three year old that’s fighting it, if we are working on getting naps more consistent or pushing through that nap strike, we’re going to be following kind of the same steps that we’re doing in maybe a sleep plan overnight, but if they’re really fighting it, I would much rather you implement the quiet time than skip it altogether.

That makes complete sense.  So what other tips do you have for families who are trying to navigate the stressful time – or if there’s a caregiver in the house, say an au pair or a nanny – how do you work with families where other people need to implement the daytime and overnight plans?

Great question.  My answer for both would be communication.  One of the reasons that I absolutely love working with toddlers is because they can communicate with you.  They can be involved in the decision making.  They can really get into the process, whether it’s overnight, fixing bedtime, or working through nap problems.  You can really get them on board and involved in such a different way than we can with the little babies who are working through sleep training.  And same with day care or nannies or maybe grandparents are helping out.  I find that a lot of times, people really want to help.  If you go to your daycare provider and you let them know, hey, this is kind of what we’re going through.  This is what we’re working on at home.  More times than not, they are on board and they want to help you.  They want to do the same things that you’re doing at home or tell you what they’re doing there so you can kind of mimic what they’re doing a little bit.

Same with a nanny coming into your home.  I think communication goes a really long way and letting them know what you’re working on and why it’s so important.  Same with the little kids.  My big push is, every time I work with a family with toddlers, I want every family that I work with to call a family meeting.  Let the child know what’s expected at bedtime or naptime and why it’s so important.  I send little videos to the toddlers that I work with.  They’re like, “Hi, I’m Aly.  I’ve been working with your Mommy.”  I talk about why sleep is so important for your body and all of these things, and they really, really get into it.  That gets them really excited about it, and then you’re also talking to them about it in a positive way.  You can make it really fun.  You can have it where they send videos to grandparents after naptime to say, “I waited for my light to turn green,” or whatever it is that you’re working on.  And then when that goal is reached, celebrate it.  Let them call grandparents.  Let them call aunts and uncles.  If they’re in daycare, they can tell their teacher in the morning.  Whatever it is.  If you’re working with a sleep trainer and they do send videos back and forth like me – I love getting videos back from my toddlers, especially when they’re so excited because they’ve reached that goal.  It’s a big deal for them.

Absolutely.  I love that you mentioned grandparents, Aly, because grandparents are often caregivers now that we’re in this childcare shortage.  And with inflation, it’s hard to afford childcare.  So it can be challenging for grandparents who are used to parenting a certain way to follow your individual family goals that may differ from even their other children and how their other grandkids sleep or don’t handle naptime, for example.

Absolutely.  I’ve definitely worked with families who had the maybe over-opinionated mother-in-law who says, you know, we didn’t do this whenever I was raising your husband or whatever.  Or their own moms are like, well, you didn’t sleep like that.  You were fine.  Look how you turned out.  But again, I think talking to them and kind of meeting them where they are – and I know people are different, but more times than not, I think that people are really on board with helping, especially if they know why.  If you tell them, look, my little guy is waking up seven times a night, even if only briefly.  They’re getting up out of bed and they’re coming into my room.  I’m just so tired.  We really have to work through this, and even if it’s going to be a week or two weeks of a push, we’re going to come out on the other side and let them know, like, hey, this is temporary.

And I’m not the sleep consultant who’s super rigid and strict.  Nothing has to be so serious.  I’m all about having fun with it.  A lot of moms come to me and they’re like, you know, I want to do this, but I want to be able to still have my toddler in my bed with me sometimes.  I want to still be able to snuggle with my baby.  And I am all for that.  I think when those are the exceptions, that’s different than the norm.  And we can get sleep in a better place, and then every now and then, you can still have those fun nights, or maybe when it’s storming or a little one is sick or maybe a family fun night where we watched a movie and we’re going to stick you in bed with us just because.

Yeah, absolutely.  So what is the benefit to working with a sleep consultant or coach like yourself versus reading a book or going through a program that is not customized the way you’re talking about meeting individual needs and so on?

Oh, my gosh, great question.  So for all of the information out there on Google – there is a million things.  You can type in one question about your little one’s sleep, and you’re going to get a million different answers, a bunch of different ways to treat that issue.  It can be really overwhelming.  You’re maybe asking your girlfriends what worked with their kiddos.  You’re in Facebook mom groups kind of stalking all the questions and trying to find the answers.  But every kid is different, so what worked for your best friend or another mom in a Facebook mom group might not work for yours.  And then for those generic sleep plans – you can type into Google a sleep plan for a six month old, and something is going to come out.  They’re going to spit out something.  But what if you are the working mom, and that sleep plan says your baby wakes up at 7:30, but you have to be out of the house by 6:45?  That now has skewed the whole schedule.  That doesn’t work for you.  If it has these nap schedules but daycare doesn’t do that – Google doesn’t take into account what you’re going through.  It also doesn’t take into account what sleep issues you have, and more importantly, what sleep goals do you have.  What are you wanting to achieve out of this?  I can come up with a sleep plan based on age, but my number one is, I want to know that mom or dad’s sleep goals.  What are they actually working towards?  Because if I give them a sleep plan – yeah, it will get your baby sleeping, but maybe you had something more specific in mind that you’re really, really wanting to focus on those 5:30 a.m. wakeups or you’re still breastfeeding and you want to be able to do that through the night, which I am all for.  Those custom sleep plans really get to the heart of what are you going through, and what does your child respond to?  I worked with two kiddos this summer, different families, same age, a boy and a girl, and we worked on different things.  I really try to get what motivates the toddler and then going more towards, let’s have fun with it.  Let’s get them involved.  Let’s see what they respond to.

The little boy, he was working towards being able to go get a Build A Bear.  He had a sticker chart, and he working towards earning a bear.  And he went to Build A Bear and he got to pick out his stuffed animal.  He was telling all the workers that he learned how to sleep in his own bed – because he was sleeping on the couch with mom and then being moved into mom and dad’s bed after he fell asleep.  He was so excited, and I got videos all the time for him.  He was really, really into.

At the same time, the little girl I was working with, same age, she told her mom that she could throw that sticker chart in the trash.  She didn’t want it.  She didn’t need any more toys.  We switched gears.  We were working on the OK to Wake for sleeping in because she was getting up at 4:45 every morning, and we were trying to get that closer to 6:30.  We were going to do it where she had a date with Mom.  They could go have a pancake breakfast or something, just the two of them.  But she was like, I spend enough time with you.  She was not into any of these little rewards that we were coming up with.  So we had to really get creative: what does she want?  What will she respond to where she’s going to work towards that?  And we figured it out.  It was pretty funny.  But it just goes to show you that kids respond differently.  They work towards things differently.  They have different motivators.  They’re just all so different and so special.

They are!  So now I’m invested – what was her motivator?

Candy.  It was so funny.  I pulled out all the stops for this little girl.  They were so funny.  They were cracking me up.  But we did Bedtime Passes, so she would get so many Bedtime Passes at night, and then if she kept them, however many – let’s say she had three Bedtime Passes.  If she got up in the middle of the night, Mom would take one of her Bedtime Passes away.  Then if she still had one or two in the morning, she could trade them in for something.  She didn’t care about it.  She was getting up all the time.  So I was like, give her extra Bedtime Passes – the goal being we want her to be successful.  We want her to win.  We don’t want her to go all night and not have any because we want her to learn that if she keeps a pass, she gets something – for a temporary basis as she’s working towards later sleep.  So we shifted it to candy because the mom says she really likes sweets.  And I was like, well, if you’re okay with her having maybe some M&Ms in the morning, let’s just try it.  And this little girl – we told her the night before.  She had her Bedtime Passes.  She knew what she was going to get if she kept them.  She kept every single one of them.  She didn’t get up one time.  And then when her light turned green, she ran out of her room, and she was like, I get candy!

Oh, so funny!  I love it.  And I also think it’s so unique that you’re in the thick of it with your own kids, so you can be so relatable to your clients.

Yeah, we have a one year old and a three year old, both boys, so it has been neat kind of being back in the baby days and everything with multiple naps and following wake windows and all of that.  We finally got him down to one nap a day, so they nap kind of together.  Whereas before, my baby would nap twice a nap, so from 10:30 to 12:00, and then my toddler would go down, and when my toddler would wake up, the baby would go down for a nap.  Every day, one of my children were napping.  It was like we didn’t leave the house.  We couldn’t do anything because we really don’t want to mess up naptime.  It felt crazy.  I’m so glad that now they’re kind of napping once a day at the same time, and it’s really opened up some of that time for us to go and do things again.

That’s perfect.  So any final tips for our listeners, Aly?

What I tell every single mom is give yourself some grace.  It is super hard.  Mom life is insane, and it’s amazing and wonderful and beautiful, but it’s also very challenging.  You question yourself, and you’re always wanting to be the best.  And you are.  You are the best person, the best mom for your kid.  Lean into that, and it will all be okay.

Agreed.  Great advice!  So how can our listeners find you?

The easiest way is Instagram.  I am @aly_sleepconsultant.  Super easy to find there.  Give me a follow.  And then my website is restfulbaby.com.  And I do have a podcast, Aly, The Restful Mama on Apple, Spotify, wherever.  It’s all things momhood and sleep.  I also have my sleep packages, and if you guys are listening, you can just let me know that you found me from Kristin, and we can do $50 off.

Excellent!  What a gift!  And as you mentioned, you live in the Nashville area, but you work with clients all over the country, correct?

Yes, that is the beauty of it.  I’ve worked with people in New York and Texas and California.  Everything is virtual, so we can get on regular phone calls, Facetime, texting.  It just depends.  Some moms are anti-phone calls, which I get.  It’s so much easier to text.  That’s totally fine.  I also send videos back and forth with mom’s permission for their little one to be involved.  I email over the sleep plans and all of that good stuff.  So yes, all virtual.  Wherever you are, we can work together.

Beautiful!  Thank you so much, Aly!  Appreciate all of your wisdom today!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Restful Baby

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Sarah Marie shared her personal birth and maternity leave stories in this informative Ask the Doulas podcast episode.  She gives listeners tools and resources to better plan for birth and baby on the emotional vs. physical level. 

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to be chatting with Sarah Marie Bilger.  Aside from being the owner of Entering Motherhood, Sarah Marie is a mom of two, wife, and birth and postpartum doula.  Sarah is certified as a postpartum nutrition professional through Postpartum University and holds a doula certification specifically centered around VBAC preparation through the VBAC Link.  Sarah Marie loves capturing motherhood moments through photography and is an active member of Birth Worker Academy.  She is the host of the Entering Motherhood podcast.  After an unplanned Cesarean with her daughter in 2019, Sarah Marie quickly realized the lack of support and misinformation surrounding pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.  Later noticing she had postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, and was needing to work through some past trauma, she sought out any help she could get her hands on and began healing as she navigated motherhood as best she could.

Welcome, Sarah Marie!

Hi!  Thank you so much for having me!  I’m excited to be here!

I’m excited to chat!  Our topic today is the mental preparation that is needed for the birth as well as the postnatal phase.  Let’s get into it!

I think this is super important because it’s so much a part of my story and really what happened in my situation and what I see in clients and so much of what I feel we’re lacking right now because there’s so much physical preparation.  Do all the squats and eat this way and all the doing.  We don’t really focus on what it takes to mentally prepare for not only birth but the postpartum phase as well.

Yes, I 100% agree.  At Gold Coast, one of our primary classes that we teach is HypnoBirthing, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, the mental preparation that is involved in that class, whereas some classes are focused more on the physical end of things.

Yeah, that is one thing that I took during my VBAC and something that I recommend to clients, even first time parents, because it really helps you drop into that space to focus on what you need to be doing and it helps just block out any sort of external factors that might be happening.

Exactly, definitely.  And then as far as your personal story, how did you utilize some of those mental tools, not only for your labor, but also in the motherhood phase?  We are mothers all over again, whether it’s baby one or baby three.

For my first – my daughter was born in 2019, and she was an unplanned Cesarean.  I had my water break first.  That was the first sign of any sort of labor.  All of my birthing classes and people had said, oh, your water is not going to break like in the movies, and it’s not going to be the first thing that happens; don’t worry!  And so when it did – and that’s what happened.  I think what was playing over and over again in my head was, this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.  This isn’t how it’s supposed to be happening.  And I couldn’t get out of that loop of, this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.  And I didn’t have the tools and the resources that I have now and that I teach my clients of how we can really flip it around, and even if something unexpected happens, we can navigate and figure out what our next move is going to be.  And so Hypnobabies, HypnoBirthing was something that I took for my son’s birth, my VBAC.  And also just really exploring the what-if’s on a deeper layer of kind of understanding, if this does happen, how are we going to approach it, or what is that going to look like?  And if something goes not necessarily according to plan, how can we navigate that moving forward without being flustered or upset?  The same has really flowed into my motherhood experience and how I raise my children and how we navigate different things that happen at home and just all those little things that maybe you didn’t necessarily plan for but happen anyway because it’s life, and we’re not supposed to know everything that’s going to be happening.  How can we really approach it with a better mindset and a more optimistic outlook?

Yes, and not let fear get in the way, even with a prior birth experience that wasn’t the way you had envisioned.

Right.

Very helpful!  Let’s lean into a bit of your mothering journey.  Now, you mentioned utilizing some of the similar tools.  Is that more in those stressful moments, utilizing visualization or breath work?  Can you walk our listeners through some examples?

Yes!  I think for me, a lot of what was going on in my early motherhood experience was a lot of anxiety, a lot of the unknown, a lot of, well, what does this mean, or how do we handle this.  I’ve never done this before.  And I think it was just – you know, I went to therapy for the first time in my life, which is useful for, I would say, most people, even if you go for a short duration of time.  And it allowed me to really just get deeper and ask questions and see what was going on internally as opposed to just how I physically was feeling or looking.  And it allowed me to really just think about, what am I doing, and do I want to be continuing to do this?  You know, I was having those thoughts of, like, what if she goes over here and how does this happen?  Am I doing this right?  And I think it really just helped solidify and build that confidence that I needed in my motherhood journey and allowed me to feel more confident in the things that I was doing and know that the choices that I was making were the right choices at the time and the right choices for our family specifically.  And so I think that’s a lot of what I really try to instill in new moms.  You’re not going to know everything.  You’re not supposed to have it all figured out.  But be confident in the choices that you’re making and really root back to, why do you want to do that.  I think when we have our minds made up of why something is important to us, it’s a lot harder to really break away from that or teeter on the line of, like, should I do this?  Shouldn’t I do that?  And I think that can carry through in a lot of different aspects of our motherhood experience.

Exactly.  I’m really happy that you talked about your personal journey with anxiety and depression because I feel like it’s being talked about more, but not often enough.  And the fact that you sought out therapy for the first time.  What were some of the signs that you noticed that it was beyond the typical baby blues and that you needed additional support?

I had gone back to work.  At that time, I was working as a mechanical engineer, and I had gone back to work at eight week – nine weeks postpartum.  So I had eight weeks off for the Cesarean.  I took an extra week off of vacation.  And so at nine weeks, we dropped our daughter off at daycare, and I started back at work.  And I think up until that point, I was really just existing and going through the motions of trying to navigate everything and trying to figure out what was going on.  I didn’t really take the time to stop.  And so when I went back to work, again, it was just one more thing that was just, you know, I’ve just got to make it through the day.  I’ve just got to go and pump and do all these things.  And I can’t remember exactly at what point – maybe it was about three months postpartum or so.  I was just crying on my bedroom floor, and I was like, who am I?  What am I even doing?  What is going on?  I don’t get to see my daughter at all.  We would come home and it would be bedtime almost for her.  And so it was just like this really big shift, and a lot of people talk about the identity shift and new things that are happening and everything like that, but it was so much more than that because I was really just struggling with like, is this even what I want to be doing?  Why am I feeling so strongly about all of my emotions and all of my feelings and everything that’s going on?  And my husband just kind of looked at me like, I don’t know.  He was kind of lost for words.  I had never felt like this in my life, and I just really said, I think I just need to talk to somebody.  And it was just a lot of very strong feelings, and I’m proud of myself for really being so self-aware that I could put myself in that space of saying, like, okay, well, let’s just try therapy.  Let’s try all the things.  I think I’ve always been a go-getter in that kind of stuff.  If something’s not working, I need to fix it and solve it and put the pieces together.

That’s the engineer in you!

I was like, this doesn’t seem like how it’s supposed to be.  And I know that there is all the untalked about conversations and the parts that nobody tells you about, but this was just so much more of an internal struggle.  I really didn’t know who I was or what I was doing or what I wanted.  So going to therapy was super helpful for me to really solidify those thoughts and have a professional to speak to.

Yes.  Very helpful.  And you mentioned taking an extra week off, but you were working in a male dominated field.  What was it like?  You talked about pumping and that back to work environment.  Of course, there’s the childcare and the struggle we have right now, being in a childcare crisis for working families.  So much additional stress happens with that return to work. 

Yeah, I think for me, I was very fortunate because there was another mom who had literally just gotten back from maternity leave right before I left, so she was just a few months ahead of me on her journey, and we sat right next to each other.  So as soon as I came back, I had a pumping buddy.  I had somebody who was literally going through it with me.  And then a couple months down the line, at one point, four of us were sharing the room.  But it wasn’t for the mom before me – we had no place to pump.  There wasn’t a designated lactation room.  There wasn’t anybody that had asked or needed one before us.  And so she really pioneered that in our office and said, hey, look, we need somewhere to store our milk.  We need a private space with no windows, no way of seeing in.  We need somewhere that we can pump.  We need outlets.  We need all these different things to efficiently be able to do that.  And so they set us up in a room downstairs with a little mini fridge and there was a table.  The sink was actually outside of the room, so we had to kind of bring all of our pump parts into the other room, but it was so nice to have that designated space.  If we didn’t ask for it, I don’t know really what would have been done.  But yeah, it was something that we really had to explain to them and say to them, this is what we need to exist so that we can efficiently store our milk and pump.

And then the daycare was right across the street, so I was able to go there at lunch.  I was only pumping a few times a day and then physically going over to the daycare and nursing my daughter at lunch.

That’s amazing.

That was really nice, and it broke up my days.  But if we had a meeting or something going on that I couldn’t make it over there, it was kind of hard to go the full work day without seeing her.

Of course!  So how did you make the big transition to birth and postpartum work from being an engineer?

It was a journey.  It was a lot of just – again, going to therapy and starting that journey of saying, what is it that I really want to be doing?  I think for engineering, it was kind of the thing of, I was always really good at math and science.  I was always really good at schoolwork.  I was able to get things done and accomplish all of that stuff, but it was never something that I was truly passionate about.  It was just something I was good at.  And I always say that I just kind of fell into it.  It just sort of worked out, and I don’t regret any of it.  I learned so much being in the field.  I met my husband, who’s a mechanical engineer as well, at college.  A lot of good came out of it, but it was never something that I said, like, oh, wouldn’t it be so cool if I did this, or am I truly passionate about this?  Work was work, and I went, and I did it, and I was good at it.  But in becoming a mom, I needed to have more of a passion for my work, and more of a – you know, if I’m leaving my children to go and do this, it has to be worth it.  And so I bounced around a bunch of different ideas.  I started my podcast in 2021, and that really just sparked off the conversation around birth and postpartum.  I enjoyed talking about it, and my whole motherhood experience.  And I enjoyed communicating with different birth workers and digging into all the research and finding out as much as I could about every different aspect of birth and postpartum.  And in doing all of the research and all of the knowledge that I had gained, I really just focused on doula work because it felt the most connected to my purpose of what I’m really supposed to be doing.  Now, it’s been five years of a stretch of figuring out what I wanted to do, and now this is what I do full time.  I do birth and postpartum work, and I just love it.  I feel so called to it, and I just feel like this is what I was meant to be doing all along.  It was just a journey of getting here.

Right!  And many of us get into birth and postpartum work from our own personal experiences, whether they were positive or they were challenging.  I didn’t enter the doula space until I had my second child, but I had hired doulas.

Yeah, I had no idea what a doula was until I got pregnant with my first.  That’s how out of touch – I had no idea about the birth community and everything.  I just figured, oh, I’m pregnant.  I’m going to go to an OB.  I’m going to have a hospital birth.  That’s what your options are.  That’s why I feel even more lit up and passionate about it because I want people to know what all of the different options are and all the different possibilities, and it’s not this world that we live in.  It’s very practical, and there’s so much a part of doula work that can be helpful for any kind of birthing experience.

Right.  And with my first birth, I didn’t know – I knew what doulas were, but I didn’t know how to find them in my area.  They weren’t that popular.  My daughter is going on 14, and I knew about them after her birth, getting more engaged in the breastfeeding community.  And that was my first call once I knew I was pregnant again was to doulas I had met through some breastfeeding activism.  But I agree, back in the day, it was seen of more of a crunchy thing.  And even in TV and movies, doulas are still sort of given those labels and associated more with homebirth or unmedicated birth.  But doulas support all locations for birthing and all types of birth and certainly the postpartum doula role is even less familiar to many than the birth doula role.  I love that you are a professional in both areas and you’re also focused on nutrition, which again, we’ve learned so much about the depletion that results in the deficiencies in minerals and vitamins and nutrients after having a baby, but certainly during pregnancy.  I’d love to hear a bit more about why you were led to focus on the postpartum nutrition.

Yeah, I think that was part of my healing journey with my first.  It was something that really kind of drew me in because I was thinking I was doing all of the things to heal properly, and it still just didn’t seem like things were clicking.  And so again, I just went into the research of it and really tried to understand, why am I still not feeling back to – I’m not saying back to yourself, but just feeling like I can really heal in the way that I felt like I needed to.  And when I focused on my nutrition and I really learned about all of the different deficiencies and what could be going on, I just felt so much better.  I was seeing the work physically in myself change, and so I just felt like I needed to shout it from the rooftops and say, there’s something to this, and there really is a science behind it of how we need to be nourishing ourselves during pregnancy and especially in the postpartum period.  I completely 180’d my experience with my second.  When you talk about postpartum hair loss, for example, I was losing a lot of hair with my daughter and a lot of just that – I would say common experience that we’re seeing now with, oh, yeah, you lose your hair; this is normal.  And while it’s common, I wouldn’t say that it’s normal.  You have to really evaluate what is going on and how much hair loss are you experiencing.  Maybe it is a nutrient deficiency and it’s not something that should be occurring in the magnitude that it is.  I didn’t lose nearly as much with my son.  I mean, you lose hair every day, but not in the amount that I had with my daughter compared to my son.  And I just felt so much more myself, quickly, and I felt like the healing and nourishing side was happening so much more that time around.  It’s something that I share with my clients and something that I really try to instill in them, to honor their body during that time, to rest, to heal, to eat nourishing foods, something that’s comforting and warm and soothing, to be replenishing their body during that time.

Yes, exactly!  And especially for pumping and breastfeeding moms, you’re even more deficient, and so that focus on nutrition can help prevent some of the anxiety and depression.  As you mentioned, hair loss; the tired feeling that doesn’t go away.

Yeah, absolutely.

I could talk to you forever, Sarah Marie, but we are running short on time.  I would love to circle back to our topic and see what final thoughts you have related to mental preparation for birth and postpartum.

Yeah, I think really just trying to tap into that intuition.  I know sometimes that can be difficult for a lot of us to really trust ourselves and trust the process, but just doing little steps here and there to try and listen to that inner voice and listen to what your body is telling you and what your baby is telling you and really just hold on to that mental preparation of birth and the postpartum experience because there’s a lot to be unpacked and a lot that we can open up to if we really tap into that and allow ourselves to honor that time and experience all that birth has to give us.

Excellent advice!  Thank you, Sarah Marie!  So how can our listeners connect with you?

The easiest way would be to head over to Entering Motherhood.  That is the podcast that I host, so wherever you’re listening to this podcast, you can search Entering Motherhood, and you should be able to find it there.  I also have a website, enteringmotherhood.com, and I am most active on Instagram @entering_motherhood.

Excellent!  Thank you, and I hope we can connect again soon!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Entering Motherhood

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Jayme Bess discuss the options for embryo donation for families and the benefits for donors in this informative episode.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Jayme Bess today about embryo donation.  Jayme is the founder and CEO of Acts of Kindness Embryo Donation.  Acts of Kindness is a team of compassionate women who help intended parents start or grow their family through embryo donation.  They embrace all family types and offer a comprehensive range of options including non-identified anonymous, semi-open, and open donor recipient relationships.  Their dedication to inclusivity drives them to provide resources tailored to each individual’s unique needs, ensuring that everyone receives the support they deserve.

Above all, Acts of Kindness is focused on offering hope and opportunity to all and to give each embryo the chance at life it deserves.

Welcome, Jayme!

Thank you!  Pleasure to be here this morning.

I would love to hear more about how you personally became passionate about embryo donation.

A few years ago, I was working as a financial counselor for another fertility group, and we just decided that donor conception was really expensive, so we decided to offer an in-house program at a cheaper rate, and this is how we started embryo adoption was through donation.  We just offered it as a cheaper cost.  So over the years, the need for that program just grew because it was a more affordable option for everybody, and from there, we just decided earlier this year to break off from that company and start our own.  That’s kind of where we are today.  We’ve refocused, and we’ve decided to offer different options and focus more on those who have gone through IVF procedures in the past and had embryos left over that are looking for a recipient family to donate their embryos to us and for us to find recipients for those.

It’s so beautiful, and as I mentioned to you in a prior conversation, I had a doula client years back who went through that process of donating her embryos, and I was fascinated by that.  She spent a lot of time finding the perfect match for donation, so I love that there is a service that helps connect families and that you made it easier because it took her so long to be able to donate her embryos.

Yes, private matching can be very difficult because there’s a lot of steps involved and it’s a very intricate process, especially with several of the different REI labs and different clinics.  They all have different stipulations on what they will accept and won’t accept, so just having a service out there that provides that support is invaluable for these people.

Absolutely.  As far as the work you do, you serve anyone, anywhere, correct?

Correct.  So we are trying to branch out and go global.  We’re actually working on one case now that’s being shipped to Iran, so that’s pretty big for us.

That’s huge.

Yes, and we’ve dealt with one in Canada so far.  We’re just looking to expand our services and really open this up to anybody who’s looking for a more affordable option to grow their family.

Can you give us a range, when you say affordable, about what that would look like financially for a family?

Yes.  We don’t actually charge for the embryos themselves.  We don’t sell embryos.  We just have an exclusive package that’s a flat fee for our services and the transfer of ownership paperwork in our package is $7,000.

That is affordable.

It is, and then if you stick with our partner clinic, which is in St. Louis, Missouri, they’re only $3,000.  So for a total of $10,000, you can go ahead and get your matching with your embryos and have the FET treatment.  That’s usually about a third of what IVF costs.

Exactly.  I am familiar with those costs for IVF, and that is big savings.  So as far as the length of time a family would have to donate, do you have any tips on that?  How many years would an embryo be able to be good for, as far as matching?

We’ve had embryos older than 20 years that have been donated to us, and as long as the embryology team at the accepting clinic knows how to thaw the slow freeze methods and is able to use them, these embryos can go as far back as needed.

Fascinating.

Exactly, so they’re all frozen at about day five, day six, day seven; sometimes a day three.  And they just don’t develop past that, so when they unthaw, it’s just like they’re fresh.

Beautiful.

Yes.

You mentioned IVF and different family planning methods.  What does your typical family look like?  Have they tried IVF and that wasn’t successful, or looked into adoption?  I would love to hear more about what you’re seeing as far as your clientele.

You know, it honestly really varies.  We see a lot of different aspects of life.  We see them all the way from, hey, we’re a young couple who’s tried IUIs who just can’t afford IVF so we’re going to start here.  Genetics just don’t matter to us.  We’ve seen some who have done IVF nine times and it’s just every time, their egg quality is not good or it just doesn’t inseminate or for some reason they’re all abnormal; egg quality factors.  They come to us for that.  We’ve also seen women who are older who were career driven and just didn’t preserve their oocytes in time who want to come back and now have a child in life.  So it’s just all different ranges.  LGBTQ+, we cater to them as well.  We’re friendly, so that’s another great family building option for them, as well.

Yeah, I saw you pride yourselves on being inclusive.  That is fantastic.  As far as the process goes, what would the average length of time be for a family from beginning to work with you to the process of being matched and beginning the journey to conception?

It honestly can go pretty quickly.  The way our program works is when we get a donation in, we actually bring those embryos on site to our clinic.  So the embryos are all ready to go, ready to match, as soon as we find a recipient.  We house everything online in our online database.  That’s available to all our recipients for free.  What they do is they go in and they look at the donor profiles, and if they want to match with one, they just hit “Reserve Now.”  At that point, we’ll look at the donation preferences just to make sure it’s a good match for everybody, and if the match looks like it matches everything up, then we’ll go ahead and complete the adoption, basically.  So it can go as quickly as 24 to 48 hours for them to match and have the adoption completely completed, and then they can either come for the FET, which normally takes about 30 to 45 days to set up, or they can have it shipped off site which may take one to two weeks.  Within 30 days, they can match and have their treatment done.

That is amazing.  And are surrogates involved?

Sometimes, yes.  Surrogacy is tricky.  Gestational carriers require a lot more testing on the embryos than some of them do have because a lot of these are patient-donated embryos.  They were created for sexually intimate partner use, so they did not have the infectious disease testing.  Some of these donors don’t want to have that done afterwards, either.  They are still FDA compliant; you just have to put the warning on there, you know, it carries the risk that infectious disease can happen from the transfer of these.  But some clinics, especially the ones that are dealing with GCs, just won’t accept those.

That makes sense.

That’s kind of the hiccup we have there, but we do get other embryos in that were donor created that have all the testing, so if we’re dealing with a recipient who’s using a GC, we normally tell them to look at those profiles first because we know that those are more widely accepted.

Excellent.  What are some common questions that you receive from potential clients?

Usually, it’s how long does this take?  What does the embryo grading mean?  Will my clinic accept these embryos?  How does the process work?  They’re all just really fascinated with it because it’s still new.

Right.  I’m fascinated!  I love learning about all of the options for families. 

Definitely.  And then the one thing that we did do differently is that we offer all the different types of donation and adoption cases.  Most of the agencies just focus on either private matching directed donation cases or they’re anonymous, where we actually offer all three.  We offer the closed donation, the semi-open, and the open.  So our recipients do find that to be very proactive, and they come to us for that reason because we cater to all the different types.

Yes, it does seem like it’s a rare service.  So what does semi-open entail?

Semi-open is basically that we utilize a third party program called ADC Donor Nexxus, and what that is, it houses the donors’ and the recipients’ information as far as their demographics, their stories, their medical history, and it requires that they report back every two years with any changes that they may have.  That program also allows them to opt in for secure communication.  And in most cases with semi-open, they’ll go in every two years and give updates.  Sometimes they’ll send pictures.  Once the child turns 18, they’ve agreed to meet up.

That’s so helpful that they’re able to share medical information that could be needed for the child later in life.

Yes, especially if it’s a split recipient, because then you can add both recipients, and every family gets each other’s updates.  So if there’s half-siblings out there that are actually true siblings, you can see where they’re at in life, as well.

I love that.  And then what would a fully open donor mean?

It’s along the same process, only they just stay in communication more, and they have the option to meet up in person.

And then obviously anonymous makes sense; no information is given?

Right, no contact information is exchanged.  However, with us, we do have all the physical characteristics, the genetic history, the medical history of the family, and photos are shared.  So they do have a lot of the information.  It’s just no contact.

And is that medical information updated over time, or is it just at the time of donation?

Just at the time of donation, unless they opt in to share that, through that platform.  But it’s optional with the closed questions.

And another question I have for you, Jayme, as far as the families who are considering their choices and what to do with the remaining embryos, why should a family donate?

So really, you only have a few options when it comes to your embryos and what you’re going to do with them.  The most obvious one is to continue storage, which is going to cost you roughly anywhere between $500 to $600 a year to continue storage on those.  So if you’re never going to use them, you’re just paying on something you’re not going to ever utilize.

Yeah, that’s expensive.

It is.  It can be expensive over time.  The other option is to medically discard them.  And let’s just be honest, when you medically discard something, you’re putting it in a red plastic trash bag, and you’re just throwing it away.

Right, and for people who are pro-life, for example, that is important to them.  That may not be a choice.

It’s hard on your morals, yes, definitely.  The other option would be to donate it to medical research.  There’s a lot of programs out there that just do not accept them anymore.  So that is hard to find.  And then the last option, which we’re hoping to bring more light to and make it more widely known, is donation.  With donation, you’re actually giving your embryos a chance at life and to be able to thrive.

Right.  I didn’t realize that there were as many options.  I didn’t even think about the medical research aspect with embryos, but as you mentioned, that’s so limited.

It is.  We actually started a new program, a student teaching program, that will accept any abnormal embryos for medical research and for student teaching.

Okay.  So what else should our listeners know about this important service that you offer?

Really, that it’s just out there.  It exists for anybody who’s looking for a different way to grow their family.  We would love to see this more known for people, more accepted.  Usually, donor conception is not talked about very often because it just seems kind of bizarre in some ways to people, so we want to break those barriers open and just let them know that this option exists and it’s okay.  And we would love for you to check us out and recommend us to anybody that’s looking for this service.

Any other final tips for our listeners, Jayme?

Really, just help one another, you know?  Life goes on no matter what happens, and wherever you’re at in this fertility journey, we know that it’s painful, but we’re here to support you in any way that we can.  So even if you’re not looking at this for an option and you just need somebody to talk to about where you’re at on your journey, we’re here for you as well.

So how can our listeners find you?

We’re available through our social media and also our website.  From there, you can see all of our different resources.  We have a Donors page, a Recipients page, and then one that you go to for extra support if you’re looking for extra support on your journey.  We’re available on Instagram @aokembryos, as well as TikTok, and then on Facebook at Acts of Kindness Embryo Donation.

Excellent.  Well, thank you for offering this service globally now to the world and for the work that you’re doing.  It’s so important.

Thank you so much.  It was a pleasure sharing with you!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Acts of Kindness

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Meagan Heaton discuss VBAC preparation for families and tips for doulas supporting VBACs in this informative episode of Ask the Doulas.  Meagan is the CEO of VBAC Link. 

Hello, hello.  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with my new friend Meagan Heaton.  Our topic today is all about VBACs.  Meagan is the VBAC Link owner and founder.  She’s a doula, and she’s also a VBAC mom after two Cesareans.  Very impressive!  Welcome to the show!  I would love to hear more about your personal story, Meagan!

Thank you so, so much!  It is such an honor to be here with you and be talking with your audience and sharing my story.  I do love my story.  I really hold it near and dear to my heart because I truly believe that my stories are what led me here today.  I think that’s a lot of the times how birth doulas get into birth work, too, just based off of their own experience.

As you kind of mentioned, I did.  I had two C-sections, and with my first C-section, I was young.  I was very uneducated.  Very, very uneducated.  I actually just downloaded an app, and that’s what told me what to expect.

That’s really typical, Meagan.

I was just like, this will tell me!  And it told me what size my baby was, and it told me what pregnancy symptom I might be experiencing that week.  That was really about it.  It just didn’t tell me much, and I was just kind of okay with that.  And so when my water broke spontaneously at 39 weeks, I did what a lot of people do or are told to do or believe is what we should do because we see it on movies and on Friends and other TV shows.  When your water breaks, you run right to the hospital because you’re having a baby, right?

That’s what media tells us, for sure.

It really is.  And honestly, it’s even what my doctor said.  Like, oh, if your water breaks, you come right in.  And I didn’t know anything different.  So I did.  I went in, and I got there and they were like, well, you’re not really dilated.  Let’s just start Pitocin.  And it’s kind of weird to think back and think, oh, I was induced, because that’s now how I was seeing it then.  I didn’t realize, oh, my water broke.  I go in and they start Pitocin.  That’s an induction.  They were inducing my labor that wasn’t quite happening yet.  And I was like, okay, sure.  So I started Pitocin, and 12 hours later, I had made it to 3 centimeter, which to me, I was really excited about.  That seemed great.  Unfortunately, to my provider, it wasn’t good enough.  They said no, this isn’t going to happen.  Your labor is not going.  Your body doesn’t know how to do it.  You’re going to have to have a C-section.  So I was wheeled down to a C-section.  I remember laying there and hearing them talk about the weather.  My baby was born November 4^th, and it was the first big snowstorm of the year.  One of the doctors had just gotten back from Hawaii, and they were talking about how depressing it was to be here in the snow again and not on the beach.

And this is your moment!

This is my moment!  This is the time that I feel like I should be the one being talked to and about my baby and so excited, and it just was so disconnected.  And my baby was born, and I of course was excited, but I also had this weird feeling of, why am I crying?  Why don’t I feel more?  I mean, if I’m being honest, it kind of sucked.  It really sucked.  It wasn’t what I had hoped for or, I guess, what I had imagined.  I don’t even know why I imagined anything, because I didn’t know a lot, right?  I wasn’t even educated.  But it didn’t feel the way like I felt like I should be feeling.

Then I decided to learn more about my options.  My doctor didn’t actually really tell me much about VBAC when I got pregnant, but I had kind of learned about it, and people kept saying, VBAC!  You can VBAC!  And I’m like, what in the heck is VBAC?  So I would search VBACK.  I just didn’t even know anything about it.  I did soon find out that VBAC is vaginal birth after Cesarean.  And I was like, wait, this is a thing?  I can do this!  So I said to my doctor, hey, do you support VBAC?  And he said yeah.  I was like, great.  Sounds good!  So the plan was to VBAC.  I did start learning more about what happens in birth, and I definitely learned from my first birth that maybe the app that I got was not the only thing to go off of as far as education goes.  I found myself at 38 weeks this time.  My husband was out of town, and my water broke again.  Oh, my goodness!  I was feeling a little stressed because he’s out of town, so we got him in town, and my mom was here.  He and my mom were like, you need to go.  And I’m like, I don’t.  I’m barely contracting.  Literally, barely contracting.  Maybe every 25 minutes, maybe 20.  And only a 40-second long cramp.

No need to rush in, yeah.

No need to rush in, and I had learned at this point that I didn’t need to run to the doctor or to the hospital.  Even though I knew that, my mom and my husband – I love them.  Don’t get me wrong, I love them.  But they did not know that.  And I really wanted to hire a doula with this pregnancy, but we financially were not in a good space, and my husband really didn’t understand and wasn’t super on board, and I didn’t feel like fighting him hard enough.  I wish I would have.  But I didn’t have a doula, either.  So I kind of felt pressured, and we went to the hospital.  He was exhausted.  He passed out.  If you can imagine his rush of, oh, my gosh, my wife’s water broke.  I’m in Texas!  I have to get home; my wife is going to have a baby!  And I think he just crashed.  It was so much, and by the time he got there, he was exhausted.  So he fell asleep, and I’m just sitting here, twiddling my thumbs, barely contracting.  This nurse comes in and was so friendly and warm.  We were chatting, and she’s like, all right, you know, not much is happening.  But that’s okay, your body can do this.  Let’s get you a peanut ball.  Let’s get you on the birth ball.  Let’s move!

Amazing!  Doula-like!

So much doula-like!  As we were chatting – guess what?  She was a doula!

Oh, that’s why!  Okay!

Yes, she was a doula, and I was like, oh, this is amazing!  For me, I was like, this is a blessing.  I got my doula after all!  But you know what happens; at 6:00, 7:00, depending on the hospital, they leave.  They’re gone.  She left.  And when my new nurse came in, it wasn’t the warm energy that she had brought.  And it was like, well, we can’t do anything for you.  We can’t give you Pitocin.  We can’t do anything for you.  You’re only a 1.  We can’t do anything, so your doctors are going to come talk to you.  So when he came in, it was very much, we’re going to go have a C-section.

It was hard.  It was really hard.  It was not what I wanted.  My husband wasn’t super on board with VBAC, just because my doctor was saying C-section, at that point.  We walked down, and I had a second C-section.  It was undesired completely, but it was such a healing experience.  And I think sometimes when people  hear that, they’re like, wait, what?  But you didn’t want that!  How is that healing at all?  But it really was.  My husband reminded my provider, hey, she wanted to watch it in a mirror.  That was something I really wanted.  And I had told him that, and it was really kind of fun and special, because I was like, oh, he was listening!  He was listening along the way, even though I didn’t think he was.  He was.  So yeah, I watched my baby be born through this mirror.  It’s definitely different, but it was amazing.  And the anesthesiologist was playing music, and they put my baby on my chest.  It was the best thing ever.  You know those belly bands that they kind of hold the monitors on with?  They put that on like a tube top and stuffed my baby in that so she was secure.  So for anyone listening, if you have a C-section, planned or not, that is something that really helped me.  They stuck her in, and it was amazing.  So amazing.

I went in the postpartum unit, and here I am, Googling how to become a doula.  I became a doula quickly after that.  I definitely knew in the future, I was going to VBAC.  And that’s what I did; I had a VBAC!  I went into labor spontaneously again.  My water broke.  This time I had multiple doulas.  At this point, I was a doula and had so much support.  I had switched providers during my pregnancy from a different provider to another provider that would truly support my VBAC and have more options.  I had the most joyous experience when my midwife said, Meagan, reach down and grab your baby!  I reached down, and I pulled him out.  I had him on my chest.  And it was really long; a 42-hour long labor.  I was just so exhausted, but so high on life and birth.  I just can’t explain this joy.  And I remember screaming, you guys, I did it!  This is possible!  My pelvis isn’t too small!  My body really can do this!  All these things that I was told were false, were absolutely false.  Soon after that is when the VBAC Link was born with a friend.  We started it in 2018, and we just were like, we need to help people know more about their options for birth.  Is it possible?  Is VBAC really possible?  Yeah, guys, it is.  It’s totally possible.  I just have to tell you that!  It is so possible!

And I love that you explained all of your different stories, Meagan, with the Cesarean that went against all of your plans to the second surgical birth where you were able to experience more of labor, move, follow more of your birth preferences, and then have a family-centered Cesarean that gave you some healing from the first experience.  And then the journey to become a doula and create this program from scratch that you needed to exist and to then be able to make even more impact by training doulas to support families and giving families more education.

Yeah, exactly!  During my VBAC journey, there wasn’t a lot of information, and the information that was out there was kind of scattered all around.  I still think that today.  You could find how positive VBAC is and how little risk it is, to how scary it is and how you shouldn’t do it.  But there wasn’t a lot of information in one place.  We had ICAN.  We had VBAC Facts, things like that.  And it was so great, but then there was a lot of static out there.  So we wanted to create a space where people could come, both parents and birth workers, and really dive deep into the nitty gritty of VBAC and what does it look like, what are some tips for people to do.  Because I wanted to know what I could do to increase my chances of a VBAC.  And then to have this birth worker network where people can find a doula all over the world, literally.  We have doulas in Kuwait, even, who have a deeper knowledge of VBAC.  I mean, I’m just here in Utah.  I can’t change the VBAC world alone.  Birth workers have such an amazing impact on birth and people’s overall outcomes.  That’s why we wanted to broaden it past parents and reach doulas.

Yes, and I agree that back when I started as a doula, ICAN was about it.  Some local support groups.  But it was challenging for my clients to be able to, one, find the right provider.  You mentioned switching providers later in pregnancy and finding someone who wasn’t just tolerant of VBAC birth but also more supportive and was 100% on board because providers will sometimes say, oh, yeah, I’m all for a VBAC, but really understanding and is passionate about it and who has a track record that is pro-VBAC.

Yes!  I love that you mentioned that because that is honestly one of the number one tips, if not the number one tip, that I give parents who are wanting to VBAC.  Find a truly supportive, truly loving provider.  Someone who is up to date, that is not going to put all the restrictions on you, because even my first provider, right?  Sure, yeah, we support VBAC.  But in the end, he wasn’t even close to supporting VBAC.  In fact, I was bullied into a repeat Cesarean.  And not even just VBAC parents; I think even first time parents, really, a big goal is finding a supportive provider that aligns with you and your desires and who’s up to date with evidence based care.  That’s one of the number one tips.

And then, of course, education.  Education is so important.  I want to say I learned the hard way, right?  I want to kick myself because I should have learned!  But then again, I look back and say, I didn’t learn, and that’s why I’m here today.  So I go back and forth.  But learn as much as you can.  That is why we have the VBAC Link course, and we have a 20% off discount for any parents looking for deeper education in VBAC, and they can use BIRTH20 at checkout.  But really diving into the education.  Find a great provider.  Hire a doula!  Guys, if you can hire a doula, it’s so good.  There’s actual evidence on it.  I’m sure you’re aware of the evidence on doulas.

Oh, yes, but our listeners may not be.  There is so much benefit, especially with VBAC families, to hiring not only a doula but also a doula who is VBAC certified through your group as well as others.  I think VBAC Link has an exceptional certification program.  The doulas on my team that are certified through you are highly in demand by clients.  It’s not just the experience that our families are looking for, but they want the certification.  It’s not just, oh, I’ve attended five VBACs.  They want the education behind it and the full understanding from doulas now.

Yeah, and a lot of our doulas, I know, bring the actual book.  We have an actual book, over 100 pages.  They bring those to the births.  If there are providers coming in saying a statistic or something like that, they can kind of fact check a little bit and have that.  I just think it’s so great.  And of course, I believe I was a good doula not certified in VBAC.  I don’t think I was less.  But I definitely have that deeper, richer knowledge and knowing like, oh, they just said that.  I’ve learned that actually is not quite true.  Or there’s actually an alternative to that.  Let’s talk about that and really kind of help open conversation within the client and the provider, too.

Exactly, and having that community, whether it’s parent focused or the doulas, on the updated evidence based information, what the stats are, and staying current even after the certification.  I think the benefit to some of the communities you created is key and just an extra bonus from going through the actual program.

Yeah, and I love that you mentioned along the way – like, evidence does change.  Things are being studied, and there are certain things that, unfortunately, aren’t continued to be studied.  I mean, there’s a study from 2005, and that’s the last best study we can find.  But as things are evolving and updating, we’re updating that course and our doulas and parents.  Even if you’ve had one birth and then four years later, you have another birth, you might want to tune in to that course.  They have lifetime access to that course so they can see if there’s been updates to the course and things like that and studies that are provided in there.  We always want to make sure that you are up to date on the best evidence based care so you can know and you can help guide your clients.  Or if you’re a mom, you can feel prepared and educated.

I love it.  So I know we’ve talked a bit about the parent perspective and some of the benefits that doulas would have in going through VBAC certification, but I would love to hear your thoughts on how a VBAC parent would be different from a parent who may be a first time family or a couple that has had multiple vaginal births.

Yeah.  VBAC should not be different, right?  It should just be, someone wanting to go in and have their baby just like anybody else.  But it is different.  The fact of the matter is that it is different.  And as a doula, if I have a VBAC client, I expect and know that they may need more from me than some other first time parents or someone who’s had four vaginal births before.  And it’s not just because – I’ll use myself as an example.  I had never had a vaginal birth, so I was essentially just a first-time mom.  There was a lot more in my past that I needed to work through, process, and understand.  And I find that to be true with a lot of VBAC clients where they have experiences.  And sometimes it might not even be associated or recognized as trauma, mentally.  But then physically, our bodies respond as trauma, and if we don’t work through that, that can impact our future, right?  It can impact the way we dilate or the way our labor starts or the way our mindset is when we walk into the birthing space, wherever that may be.  I think that as doulas and birth workers, we need to expect that our VBAC clients are a little more tender, and I use tender as in just knowing that they’ve got some more.  They’ve got some more to work through.  I was also told that my pelvis was too small, so not only did I have experience that I needed to work through, I had a lot that I had to mentally work through to know that my body was capable.  I had to re-find the belief and the faith in my body’s ability to give birth.  That sucked that I had to do that.  But I was so grateful for my birth doulas and for my education in VBAC to be able to do that.  Not only is it different to prepare them for birth, but navigating finding support for VBAC parents – and this is nationwide – can sometimes be very difficult.  And if I’m going to be super honest with you, it really ticks me off.  It makes me so mad that someone has to fight so hard to find that support.  It should not be that hard.  It shouldn’t.   But it tends to be.  And that, I feel like, is a big part of what I do for my doula clients is knowing and being connected to my birthing community and all the hospitals and the birthing centers and the homebirth midwives and knowing who supports VBAC and who is that truly supportive provider, not just that tolerant, okay, sure, I’ll let you try type of provider.  Yeah, I think being a birth worker, we have this space where we really can identify those people, those providers, and help guide our client to the right provider.  And let me tell you – I’m going to be honest – sometimes, we’ll get a VBAC client, and they are with a provider that we know is not supportive.  And we know that we might have to navigate some of the hardships that a provider may throw at someone.  But if someone is asking and they want to know, hey, I’m really not feeling the support, or hey, this was said to me today; is there evidence on this?  Then we’re able to do that and spend time with them.  And sometimes labor can be longer with VBAC, so we have to know that, as birth workers, VBAC labors can be long.  I mean, mine was 42 hours long.  With my first birth, it was 12 hours long when he called it.  The second one, it was 18 hours total.  I was not there for very long because, again, I tried to wait it out and was waiting for my husband.  But my body in particular just takes time.  And a lot of VBAC moms do, just like first time moms.  I mean, my body hadn’t done it before, so you have to kind of expect that sometimes labor can take a little longer.

And I’ve attended some VBAC births that are very quick, even quicker than my vaginal birthing clients.  It was amazing how quick some of those ended up being, but then as you mentioned, some can be longer.  As a doula, there’s no formula.  Every body and baby are different. 

Yeah, and I think as doulas, it’s really important, too, to kind of know a little bit more, too, on pelvic dynamics and understanding positions of babies because we know that birth workers can help so much with that, as well.  So to your point, we had a VBAC mom who was kind of having a very fast labor and then it kind of stalled for an hour, and it was just a positional thing.  And then within an hour later, she had her baby.  So her whole VBAC was, like, six and a half hours.  Wild.  But yeah, I think the biggest thing for birth workers is know that VBAC clients might need some extra love and guidance and education.

So true.  And as you mentioned, the mental aspect of it.  It’s important for anyone who’s supporting VBAC families that there is that tenderness and that emotional support.  There can be some blockages that could have happened from the past birth or births that could be carried and could stall labor.  I feel like it’s so important to deal with some of that.  We teach HypnoBirthing at Gold Coast Doulas, and that mental aspect of it has really been helpful for our VBAC families to do some of the fear releases and process things and really do the work in pregnancy, as you had mentioned you did with your last two pregnancies where you did so much to prepare and really wanted to ensure that birth didn’t happen to you, that you were an active participant and had the education and you could advocate for yourself, even before you became a doula.

Yes, exactly!  If there’s anything I wish for anyone during their birth experience, whatever you desire or how it goes: be an active participant, just like you said.  Don’t let birth just happen to you, and I think that’s really hard sometimes because we don’t feel like we have a voice, or we don’t know we can say something else, say no, or maybe later, or I don’t know these things.  I think that’s really helpful where doulas come in so helpfully with that because we can kind of help you find your voice and kind of help you know your options and again facilitate that conversation versus just being told what you’re going to do or what someone is going to do to you.

Exactly.  Any final tips for our listeners, Meagan?

Oh, man, yeah.  I just think, get your birth team.  Get your education.  And birth team goes even into chiropractic care and yourself.  Remember that you are an active participant on your own birth team.  Sometimes I feel like clients can hire a doula thinking that the doulas are going to do it all, but if you don’t have the education yourself, that’s not good either.  We want to have a whole team full of education.  So educate yourself and make sure that you are prepared.  Find that provider.  Check into chiropractic care.  Whatever it may be.  Hire that doula.  And really just create your space to be positive and know that it’s okay if something negative is coming in, that it’s okay to just say no, thank you, I’m going to excuse that.  My mom was not a very positive person in my labor, and that was really hard for me because I wanted her to be there, but I had to be like, Mom, not now.  I had to kind of exit her from my space that was safe.  And I think that’s important to know, that it’s okay to do that.  You are worth so much.  You deserve so much.  And you can have a better birth experience, and that’s our goal at the VBAC link is to have a better birth experience no matter what that may be or what you may choose.  But definitely get the education.

I love it!  Thank you!  So as you mentioned, the VBAC Link – there are lots of different sites within the website, but what is your domain name, and how can we connect with you on social media and all of the different Facebook communities you have?

Yes!  Okay, so you can find us at www.thevbaclink.com.  And on there, you can find our blog.  We post blogs all the time.  We have so many blogs full of incredible information, studies, suggestions, all of those things.  Of course, we have our podcast.  You can find our podcast anywhere that you listen to podcasts.  It’s The VBAC Link, and we share weekly stories of people all over the world sharing their experience and their journeys.  We also have providers and doulas coming on and sharing tips and things like that.  We have our resource page.  We have our doula directory, so if you’re looking for a doula who is VBAC certified, go over there.  It’s www.thevbaclink.com/findadoula.  Type in your ZIP code; you never know, there may be a doula in your area who you can interview.  Then we have our course for VBAC, for parents and birth workers.  Again, we have a 20% off discount code for any of your audience members, both birth workers and parents, and you can check it out using the code BIRTH20 for 20% off the course.

On social media, just The VBAC Link.  You can find us anywhere.  YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest even.  TikTok.  Facebook.  All those places.  And then kind of what you said, we have some amazing groups on Facebook, so if you’re looking for a community of people with the same desires and questions and goals as you, we have a private Facebook group, and you can search The VBAC Link Community.  There are some questions that you do have to answer to get in, but once you answer those questions, we can let you in, and oh, my gosh, that community is so amazing.  It’s so special.  Going and reading and just seeing the outpouring of love and support from the community is amazing.  And then we actually have a CBAC community as well.  CBAC is a new term we’re throwing out at you.  That’s Cesarean birth after Cesarean.  Sometimes the goal of a VBAC doesn’t always happen and it ends in a Cesarean, or someone may choose to have a scheduled Cesarean, right?  And we just want you to know that we love our CBAC mamas just as much as we love our VBAC mamas.  We love all of you, and we do have that group and you can search that on Facebook.  It’s The CBAC Link Community.

Beautiful!  Thank you for sharing all of your wisdom on VBACs and your passion, Meagan.  It was a delight to chat with you today!

IMPORTANT LINKS

VBAC Link

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Kayli Joann discuss Kayli’s entrepreneurial journey, which started out of her frustration with finding postpartum bras and nightgowns that made her feel beautiful.  She decided to create her own line of clothing, Tender Seasons.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Kayli Joann.  She is the owner and founder of Tender Seasons.  Kayli was born and raised in Michigan and still resides there with her husband and two children.  She is passionate about motherhood, and nothing gives her more joy than being a mom.

Our topic today is all about reclaiming your beauty and the self-image you had pre-pregnancy after having a baby.  So I’m excited to dive into this subject with Kayli, who has personal experience with it as a mother and then created her business based on the struggles she had in finding clothing and nightwear that made her feel sexy and confident after having a baby. 

Welcome, Kayli!

Thank you!  Thank you for having me!

Let’s get into it!  Tell us about your big why for creating your business and your personal struggle in finding nightgowns and clothing that made you feel like your former self or less like that mom who is feeling frumpy and just not ready to receive visitors.  All of the things that we feel as a postpartum mom!

Yes!  So my journey started with my first pregnancy with my oldest son.  He’s four now.  And I got pregnant and by the end of my pregnancy, I had gained 60 pounds.  So I definitely felt different.  I looked different.  I had all of the fun stuff with the puffy ankles and puffy face.  I felt miserable.  I went shopping to try to find some maternity stuff but also for postpartum, and my options were very limited.  And nothing felt like my true style.  Like, it just felt like the same style that I literally saw my older sisters wear, my mom wear, my grandma wear.  I was like, why hasn’t anybody put more effort into this?  Especially with nightgowns.

I was going to go for a weekend getaway, kind of like a babymoon.  I want to say I was 35 weeks pregnant.  And I went shopping to try to find a maternity nightgown, and I could not find anything.  I ended up buying one that was three sizes too big.  It wasn’t even maternity, and it looked awful.  That was kind of where the frustration started.  And then I ended up having my son, and then I realized when I started breastfeeding that the nursing bra options were really not great, either.  I was packing my hospital bag, and I was looking at the bras that I had, and I had looked all over.  And I was like, well, these are really not cute, but I guess I’ll deliver in this one because it’s kind of a purple color versus just the skin color and black.

So yeah, I had my son, and the frustrations just continued.  I didn’t really feel like myself, and I know with motherhood, you’re a whole new version of yourself, but when I looked in the mirror, I had the added weight gain but also the type of clothing that I like to wear, I couldn’t wear.  Either I couldn’t fit it, or the breastfeeding options were not great.  Especially the nightgowns and the bras; that’s what I just kept thinking of.

When my son was three months old, I was like, okay, if nobody is going to do this, I’m just going to do it.  I had no experience with designing or running my own business.  My dad had run his own business my whole life, but I really didn’t try to learn ins and outs of that.  So I was kind of nervous, but I was like, you know what, I have to start somewhere.

Like I said, my son was three months old, and I remember this moment exactly.  I think about this all the time.  He was in a little bouncy seat just kicking, and I was like, I’m just going to start somewhere.  So I grabbed a piece of paper and some pencils and I sat down and just drew up a nightgown, a maternity and nursing nightgown.  That’s where it all started, honestly.

I love it so much.  And your bras are beautiful, and you’ve expanded to some baby gear.  Like, you have swaddles and cute little hats and leggings and so much more than your original vision.

Yes.

Did that come from feedback from your early customers on what they needed, or how did you expand your vision to be more encompassing?

Some of it was from customers saying, hey, we’d love to see this.  We started with one nightgown in one color, and then it became the same nightgown in three colors.  Then we had a couple of other maternity dresses, and one bra that we started with.  And people really liked it, and we were like, oh, okay, this is going well!  But then with our manufacturing, we had a couple issues with trying to create the extra large sizes.  We have now been able to get this specific bra into size 3XL, but we were hearing from women that were 4XL, 5XL that they can’t fit into them, and nobody else has my size.  So that’s why we came out with our second bra, our Eden bra, to fill that need, but also so much more.  It’s the three in one, so it’s perfect for nursing, sleep, and delivery.

That is so beautiful because I feel like, one, bras are expensive.  And as a birth doula and a postpartum doula, I’m always talking about what you can wear in labor, not to wear a sports bra because it might get cut off, and what might make them feel good in labor and also be able to have that skin to skin time.  As a postpartum doula, helping them plan for their return home and all about enjoying that skin to skin time, whether they’re breastfeeding or not with baby, and being comfortable.  Leakage that comes with that postnatal time.  What would make them feel good about themselves, especially because there are a lot of interruptions, whether it’s your hospital stay or coming home.  There’s visitors, family members, and you want to look and feel good.

Absolutely.  And the craziest thing that I did not realize before I had my son was that I would be wearing a diaper.  People joke about it, but I had no idea.  It was hard enough, and being in a diaper just felt humiliating.

And you’re leaking everywhere and sore, and you just don’t feel beautiful.  And then after you have a baby, it’s all about baby.  During pregnancy, especially if it’s your first, the mother is celebrated, and there might be a shower or sprinkle and family members are talking about your cute baby bump and so on.  And then after you’ve gone through this transformative experience, whether it’s baby one or baby five, then everyone wants to hold the baby.  The gifts are for the baby.  And the mother feels left behind.  It’s hard to even process the experience.  Like you talked about, you’re wearing a diaper; the leaking.  It’s feeling just less than in that stage where your hormones feel like a roller coaster of emotions.  You might feel weepy.  And then you look at this outfit that you’re wearing.

The fact that you’re making women feel celebrated and beautiful in this time that they can feel a little left out is wonderful to me.

Well, thank you!  Yeah, women and new moms are a big passion of ours.  Me and Lynee, my business partner, we felt a huge need for this.  And we also dealt with these issues ourselves.  So after we were like, okay, we’re going to do this – we were like, okay, moms need to find out about this.  We really wanted to help mothers change the narrative and to feel empowered and not to feel weak.  Sometimes for some women, it’s hard to walk.  It’s hard to move.  All of this, just after giving birth.  What you wear does make a difference, but also you want something that’s comfortable and not completely unrealistic.  That has been really beautiful, to see the community that has been created through this and all the women that we have been able to reach out to and help and encourage.  It has been bigger than we even thought.  That’s been really, really cool to see.

Yes!  And Kayli, I feel like just the change in relationship, especially if this is a first baby, and wanting to feel beautiful for your partner and not just feel like parents.  Put some priority into the relationship.  If you’re not wearing this frumpy gown – I remember when I had kids.  My daughter is 13 now, my first child, and my son is 11.  I pretty much only had Motherhood Maternity to shop at, and I had this little gray nursing tank and robe and pant set that I wore postpartum pretty much constantly.  And I felt really frumpy in it, personally.  And now there are all of these cute gowns and robes and florals.  I just didn’t have a whole lot of options back then.

Yeah.  I had gotten a gift from someone at my baby shower, which had the sweetest intentions, and they were like, this is a dress that you can wear for delivery, and also, you could leave the hospital in it.  So I tried it on when I was pregnant with my first son, and I looked in the mirror, and it was this huge, baggy, heavy dress.  It was green.  And I started laughing and I said to my husband, I look like Shrek.  I literally look like an ogre.

So yeah, it is true.  You want to look good for your partner, and you want to feel confident.  They can say, oh, you look amazing and all this stuff, but you have to truly believe it.

Yes, you do!

It’s such a mental thing.

Yeah.  And every day, it’s trying to feel more like yourself and the woman that you are versus getting into that mom role and feeling like you exist only to change baby, feed baby, help baby sleep.  To get some normalcy back and feel beautiful and sexy and feel like you are still desirable is a huge shift.  I think that fashion and your line of bras and the gowns can make a huge impact on the little steps.

Oh, absolutely.  And sometimes it’s as little as just wearing a bra that makes you feel cute.  Whether we realize it or not, what we wear does impact our brain and how we take care of ourselves.  With postpartum, I like to encourage moms even with the little things, like brush your hair.  Wear something that makes you feel cute.  What we really want moms to feel – and I feel like it’s not talked about enough – is that what you did was absolutely incredible, and we want you to feel powerful, empowered.  We want you to feel beautiful, sexy, and to actually believe it.

Because of social media, Pinterest, Instagram – I feel like the postnatal phase is documented a lot more than when I had my kids.  So wanting to look beautiful in a photo of a nightgown or with a robe – I don’t want to say Pinterest perfect, but you get where I’m going with that.  There is that pressure in pregnancy and certainly early parenting to keep up with what you’re seeing online.  Now there are so many other choices fashion-wise for mother and baby.  Again, those cute swaddles and hats that you have.  If that makes you feel good, having these beautiful choices for the photos or videos, it’s another great thing to consider.

Definitely.  When I had my second son, Tender Seasons had already started.  I started it in 2020, and we officially launched our website in 2022.  That’s when Lynee, my sister-in-law, and I started working together as business partners.  That was, by the way, the best decision I ever made.

Yeah, it can be tough to work with family, so I’m impressed that it worked out well!

Definitely.  And with working together, our talents just complement each other so well.  It was kind of fun because she had two kids already, and I just had one when we started.  And a dream of mine was, next time I have my next baby and I’m in the hospital, I want to wear my stuff that helps me feel cute and strong.  And so when I had my second son, I was wearing a nightgown for delivery, and then I was wearing our bras for postpartum, but during my hospital stay, I had brought several of our items, and my baby was in our hat and swaddle.  I had this dream of, while I was in labor, orders coming in and me getting the notifications on my phone.  And it was super fun having that experience that I had dreamed of come to life.  And then when family came to visit me, I did – I felt so much better.  I felt cute, and I felt presentable.  And that was huge.

Yeah, it really does make a difference.  And setting some boundaries, limiting visitors, trying to rest.  Whether our listeners feel comfortable, now that visitor restrictions have lifted in most parts of the country – having five people in and out of their labor room or the visitors in the postpartum room, or waiting until they get home –  you never know when baby might need to feed.  With the bras, I feel like they’re beautiful, but also, they’re discreet.  If you needed to nurse in public, if you were comfortable doing that without a cover, that could be an option for you with family members or friends coming and going constantly.

Yes, absolutely.  You definitely said it.  With being able to do it quickly in public, whether you decide to use a nursing cover or not – I’m not, but I’m not against them.  I think they’re wonderful.  It’s about each individual and their comfort level; that’s the right thing.  But one thing when we came out with our bras that was important to us was to have that easy, quick access.  When you have a crying, screaming, newborn and they’re ready to eat, you’ve just got to get it out quick.  So that’s nice.  We have our lace bra and then our Eden bra.  Our lace bra has quick, easy nursing clips, and you can do it just with one hand.  And then with our Eden bra, you just pull it to the side.  With postpartum, while your body is trying to decide, like, how much milk am I supposed to make for baby – personally, I dealt with milk leakage for a while.  Like, for several months.

So did I, with both kids.

Yeah, and I’d wake up in a puddle of milk.  I’m like, what just happened?  So that was one thing with our lace bra that was really important to us.  It’s leakproof.  Milk leaks are not an issue.  It absorbs the milk leaks so you’re not getting it through your shirt.  I was at my newborn’s checkup appointment, and I’m sitting in the waiting room, and people were starting to look at me.  I was like, what’s going on?  And I look down – this was with my first son.  I had through my bra, through my shirt, a stream trickling down to my lap, of milk.

I’ve been there.  It’s the worst.  I marched in a parade once and I leaked through my shirt, and there was nowhere for me to go.  I was pushing the stroller with my son, and I was leaking, and it was hot.  The worst!

These are parts of motherhood, and I think that finding ways to help things be more seamless is important.  Motherhood is busy, and it’s chaotic at times.

There are so many new gadgets that I’m thankful for, for clients.  Like the milk collectors and so many more breastfeeding and pumping related gadgets to make life easier.  Back when I had kids, it was, like, bamboo pad inserts, and I would be feeding on one side and leaking on the other.  The bamboo inserts wouldn’t collect enough, as an overproducer.  I am thankful for the milk collectors!

Yes, very true!

So one thing I would love to cover with you, Kayli, is you mentioned your bras being able to support larger breast sizes.  But it can be difficult in pregnancy and in the postnatal phase to choose the right bra because our sizes change so drastically when our supply establishes, during pregnancy, when things settle as far as supply.  You can often need to purchase multiple bras in different sizes.  It can be challenging to find the best fit.  So what are your tips in handling those changes?

So typically, we suggest size up.  But if you’re wanting something that is going to work for you while you’re pregnant and once your milk supply decides to regulate, our stuff is very stretchy, so usually that will do the trick.  But if you want to play it safe, order the size that you’re currently in while pregnant, and then size up, so that if that happens where your breasts get a lot larger when the milk comes in, you’ll have that second option for however long that takes.  If they decide to go back down, you’ll have the other one that you had in pregnancy.  But a lot of women are buying our bras while they’re pregnant, and it works all through.  I think it’s more of those extreme cases where they go up, like, three sizes when their milk comes in that they might need to get another size.  But all of our products are extremely stretchy and soft.  You’re never going to feel pushed on.  Especially with clogging milk ducts – I have dealt with clogged milk ducts in the past, and it is one of the most painful things.  What the lactation consultant told me was, you have to make sure that stuff is not pushing.  Your clothing, your bras are not pushing on your milk ducts.  That was something that was super important to us, too.  We do not want moms to have to deal with that.

Yeah, it’s very uncomfortable.  That is amazing.  So is there anything else that you would like to highlight from your product line?

We came out with a baby balm a couple years ago because my son was dealing with diaper rash.  And nothing was working for him.  The rash just kept coming back.  I tried all of the diaper rash creams and pastes; you name it.  So we came out with our baby balm.  It was originally called Baby Bum Balm, but then our customers were like, hey, I’m actually using this all over my baby’s body.  It’s working great for eczema, cradle cap.  So we kind of rebranded that and decided to make it an All-Over Baby Balm.  That was a complete game changer.  My son’s diaper rash went away right away within 24 hours.  It never came back.  I used it all the way until he was potty trained.  This has been a very popular product because moms are using it for all these different things, and it’s helping with a lot of stuff.  My youngest deals with eczema, so I’ve used this on his skin and it helps him so, so much.  With this formula, it’s all organic.  Everything is very clean ingredients.  I’m trying to remember off the top of my head every single ingredient, but one of the main ingredients, our oil is infused with calendula flower.  Calendula is extremely healing and has been known to help with burn scars and all sorts of different things.  Having that in there, it does this hydrating and nourishing and healing all in one.  It has been something that moms actually love and keep coming back for more.  It was life changing for me and my household.

Again, solving problems!  You couldn’t find the right products, so you created it yourself.  That’s what moms do!

Yes.  That’s another thing; I want to encourage moms that you can do whatever you put your mind to.  Just because you have a baby or children, don’t feel selfish for trying to follow your dreams and to be doing things for yourself, as well.  I know a lot of moms will feel selfish for doing anything for themselves after they have baby.  Everything inside them is like, take care of the baby all the time.  Baby, baby, baby.  And everyone, including your partner and your children, are going to be – they’re happy when mom is happy.  So I feel like it’s important to take the time to do things that help you take care of everyone else because you can’t pour from an empty cup.

Right.  So true.  Excellent.  Any final tips for our listeners, Kayli?  Anything about balancing motherhood or preparing for the postnatal phase; anything you want to suggest?

Give yourself grace.  Give yourself time.  And try to find the beauty of your changing body because for some reason, the minute you have your baby, people are like, oh, you’ve got to get the baby weight off.  You’ve got to do this.  Hide the stretch marks.  That’s something that we’re not okay with.  We encourage women to be healthy, but also, that starts with a healthy brain.  Loving and embracing your changing body – if you have stretch marks, okay, cool!  Look, you have something that shows what you did.  You grew a human.  And that’s absolutely incredible.  So kind of changing things in your brain, to look at that and be like, wow.  And say to your body, thank you, instead of just squeezing the parts that are a little fluffier than they were before.  I think it’s important to realize that it’s beautiful.  Everything that you’ve gone through in creating a human – it is beautiful.  That’s what I want mothers to know.  Just give yourself grace and be kind to yourself.

Beautiful.  So how can our listeners connect with you, Kayli?

We’re on social media.  We’re on Facebook and Instagram.  We are also on TikTok.  But the best way to reach out to us – if you just want tips on sizing or if you have any questions or you just want to say hi, probably the easiest way is to send us a message on Instagram.  We also have a couple email addresses as well.  Tenderseasons.lynee@gmail.com is a good one if you want to contact Lynee.  Both of us love to hear from our customers, and we do not mind when customers are like, hey, I’m this size; what size do you suggest?  Or they’re like, this is my first baby; I’m worried about sizing for when milk comes in.  Some people are nervous to reach out to brands because they’re afraid that their messages won’t get a reply or that they’re bugging people, but with us, we love hearing from our customers.  So do not feel bad; we love hearing from you.  It makes our day when we hear from our customers, honestly.

I love it so much, and everything that you’re doing at Tender Seasons.  Thanks for sharing your founders story with us, Kayli!

Of course, of course!  Thank you for having me!  This has been such an honor.

It has been my pleasure, and I look forward to chatting with you again soon!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Tender Seasons

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Jacque Ordner discuss finding ways to make pumping more effective, comfortable, and sustainable in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  Jacque is an IBCLC, BSN, RN, RLC, and Motif Medical Advisor. 

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas.  I am thrilled to chat with Jacque Ordner today.  Jacque has many titles: IBCLC, BSN, RN, RLC.  And she is an advisor to Motif Medical.

As a registered nurse and IBCLC, Jacque has worked with breastfeeding families in the clinic, hospital, and private practice settings.  As a mom of four, Jacque is intimately familiar with the struggles that breastfeeding families face, and she loves helping families create personalized feeding plans to help them reach their breastfeeding goals.  Jacque has developed much of her career to creating lactation, birth, and baby care educational programs that equip new parents for the journey ahead.  She is passionate about finding ways to make pumping more effective, comfortable, and sustainable.

Welcome, Jacque!

Thank you so much!  I’m glad to be here!

I am excited to dive into the pumping topic, especially making pumping more comfortable.  I’d love to hear your tips for our listeners.

Absolutely.  This is something I’m really passionate about, working with families in private practice and advising Motif Medical.  The goal is to make pumping more comfortable, rather than something that we just absolutely dread.  There’s always going to be parts of it that we dread; washing parts, and all those things.  But my biggest tips are to understand, first of all, that it shouldn’t hurt, and if it does, that means that we need to investigate the underlying causes of that.  Most often, it’s flange size.  We need to get the right flange fit.  Other causes could be an underlying infection, or maybe we have soreness going on with baby’s latch, and that’s sort of transferring over and being exacerbated by pumping.  But honestly, most of the time, we’re not getting that flange fit correct.  That’s usually the first place that I start.

That makes sense.  So I know that with my own pumping and breastfeeding journey, it was difficult to find the right size.  And one breast can be a different size than the other, and trying to make that comfortable, you don’t have to just grin and bear it.  There is so much more that you can do, such as find a lactation consultant like yourself to help with that journey.

Yes!  And what’s really exciting is over the last, I would say, five to eight years, maybe, we have seen more of a focus on sort of just looking at nipple sizes and saying, okay, maybe this size 24 that comes in the box as “standard” isn’t really standard.  People are surprised to find out that flange sizes that sort of just came when we started working with pumps when they were invented – that wasn’t based on science having to do with human nipple sizes.  It was really science having to do with dairy animals.  And last time I checked, most of us don’t look like dairy animals when we’re talking about our anatomy.  It makes a lot of sense that we really need to revisit that topic, and thankfully, there is a lot of new information emerging.

Something I’m really excited about with Motif is we are taking a look at all of our flange sizing guidance, and you will see it’s a big process to change everything that comes in the box and to change all of the instructions about how to get your flange size.  But that is something that Motif has been willing to take on, and we are changing all that guidance to more closely align with the newer information that’s coming out.  And that information really is that most people’s nipples are smaller than 24mm.  They need a smaller flange size.  So we’re trying to adapt to that and provide moms what they need to be comfortable without having to jump through all these hoops.

So we’ve got this new flange sizing sort of criteria that we’re working with or instructions that we’re providing to parents, and that is you want to stimulate your nipples.  You want to get them to perk up, be everted as much as possible.  Sometimes we have nipple shapes and sizes that are a little bit more difficult to measure and to size, and so that’s when you need to seek out that expert help.  We’ve got a couple of flange sizing tools.  One is like a measurement tape.  It’s actually on a card.  And it’s like a ruler, but with the millimeter measurements, so you can measure from one side to the other of the base of your nipple after you’ve got it everted.  The other one has the holes that you can slide over the nipple itself.  You want to use something like that to measure in millimeters, and you do want to measure both sides, like you mentioned.  And then after you have your measurement, we’re not adding as much as we used to.  The current information is that we only need to be adding maybe zero to three millimeters, where we used to say two or four, or some sources said two to five.  And we’re finding that just like when baby’s mouth is stimulating that nipple tissue, baby’s mouth is touching the nipple on all sides, so it’s no longer this, oh, no, you can’t have the nipple touching.  It’s the nipple can touch as long as we’re not seeing a lot of swelling and it’s not painful.  So we’re definitely expecting a shift in how moms are able to size themselves, as long as they have the correct information, which is sort of the most important starting point.

Absolutely.  I’d love to hear more about Motif Medical.

I’m so excited to work with Motif.  As somebody who loves pumping, and as a mom of four, I have nursed my babies; I have exclusively pumped.  At times, I’ve pumped for a couple of adoptions.  So pumping is something I’m passionate about personally and professionally.  And what I love about Motif is they seek the information from parents and from professionals.  They want to know what makes lives easier, but not just what products can we put out there to market and make money.  Obviously, business is business, and you have to have products that sell to make a business work, but they’re really interested in, let’s solve problems.  Let’s figure out how we can make our pumps more effective.  Let’s get this flange sizing thing figured out.  Let’s make milk storage easier.  Because the whole idea is to make pumping easier and to help families meet their breastfeeding goals.  I just love that they’re constantly seeking information from the people who are boots on the ground, in the thick of it, so they can improve their products.

My favorite product from Motif is the Motif Luna pump.  It is an absolute workhorse pump.  It’s a pump that you could exclusively pump with.  I have exclusively pumped with it.  It’s a pump that you can build supply with right out of the gate.  And it rivals hospital rentals as far as performance.

That’s amazing!

It is!  When you look at the technical features, it really does rival the hospital rentals, and it’s available through insurance.  Usually, even to get the battery option is a lesser upcharge for moms than many other pumps on the market.  So I just sing its praises all the time.

I had to rent a hospital grade pump as my daughter was in the NICU and came home, so that was challenging.  I love that there are other options like Motif’s pump that have the strength of a hospital grade pump but you don’t have – I mean, it’s pretty big and bulky.

Yeah, and the Motif Luna is – you would just be surprised at how lightweight it is and how quiet it is.  I remember the hospital rentals that you’re just like, I’m going to turn this thing on and wake my baby up in the middle of the night, and that is so frustrating.  I’m excited for the advances that are happening in this space so that families who are dealing with all these other things – we can at least make pumping a little bit easier.

Excellent.  What are your tips for our listeners who are pumping at work?

Oh, my goodness.  First of all, it’s not easy, and there are no magic formulas to just take out all of the difficulty.  But I like to remind families that I work with that just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s bad.  So we can do really hard things and have really positive results for ourselves, and sometimes it’s just important when you’re in the thick of it to remember that it’s okay that pumping is hard at work and continuing to breastfeed while I’m at work, it’s hard.  Hard doesn’t equal bad, and there can be good things that are coming out on the other side.  The focus on those positives can really be motivating.

I think the biggest tip I have is not to get so overwhelmed with what you see on social media.  Probably three, four, five years ago, that was not my biggest tip, but it has become that way because so many families are coming to me.  Moms are saying, I’m only pumping four ounces at every pump session, and I’m shouting, going yes, that’s wonderful; that’s a great amount.  But mom is dejected because she’s seeing amounts from influencers on social media that are ten ounces, eight ounces at a pumping session, so there’s this disconnect between what real, normal output is versus oversupply.  So my first tip is to know what normal is.  25 ounces a day is the average intake for a breastfed baby from one month all the way to six months when we introduce solids.  So if you’re seeing somebody pumping eight to ten ounces at every pump session on Instagram, that’s an oversupply, and you don’t need to feel like you’re doing something wrong if you’re not getting those amounts.

I would say my second biggest tip is to know that some milk removal is better than no milk removal.  So if you’re in a situation – like especially teachers that I work with, nurses – being a nurse, I remember you couldn’t even go to the bathroom, let alone get in a pumping session sometimes.  Having this sort of mentality of, I’m going to do some milk removal, even if I can’t get in a full pumping session, can really be beneficial at protecting your supply.  So learned the skill of hand expression.  I can’t tell you the number of times I hand expressed into a sterile urine cup when I was working in the hospital because that’s what I could do.  I could steal away for five minutes, wash my hands.  I had a sterile container.  And I expressed some milk rather than skipping a full pumping session.

I had to do that as a doula, as well.  I can totally relate.  At a birth, you have just a few minutes. 

Yes!  Yeah, and you’re just like, some relief.  But also, you’re at least telling your body, I need some of this milk, and it’s more protective to your milk supply.

I think also reminding ourselves that breastfeeding doesn’t have to be all or nothing.  If you go back to work and you’re doing all the things and your mental health starts to struggle; you feel like, I just maybe need some formula.  First of all, I would highly encourage you to work with an IBCLC because sometimes there are things that maybe you’re missing.  You need somebody to look at big picture, and there are some ways to adjust things and you can meet whatever your original goals were.  And sometimes we need to adjust our goals.  And it’s okay.  You’re not unsuccessful if your goals change and you maybe aren’t producing 100% of what baby takes.  Now, it’s entirely possible to produce 100%, but sometimes we have to look at the whole big picture and decide what our priorities are.  And you’re not failing if you’re making 30%, 80%.  It doesn’t always have to be 100% of what baby is taking.

So true.  So I would love to talk a bit more about how partners can support the pumping journey. 

I’m sure that you work with partners so much as a doula, and I always champion doulas as the coach kind of mentality with partners.  But partners can really influence so much and breastfeeding in general that they just don’t realize.  Sometimes we get focused on, I’m not the one physically feeding the baby, if mom is nursing directly at breast.  If I’m not the one physically feeding the baby, somehow I’m not bonding with my baby.  And I love to tell partners that every time you meet a need for your baby, you are creating attachment.  You can work on anticipating and recognizing their needs, and then that helps foster the secure attachment.  So every time you change a diaper, every time you bring baby to mom for a nursing session, every time you wash pump bottles, every time you give the baby a bath – you are doing something that is supporting your baby’s basic needs, and that is creating secure attachment.  So try not to be so focused on, I have to directly feed my baby to have a bond, because that’s just not true.  And then basic things for mom, too: meeting her needs is also supporting her.  Filling her water cup every time she sits down to nurse or pump.  Washing those pump parts.  Oh, my goodness.  I told my husband he never looked better to me than when he was at the sink washing my pump parts.  Doing things like asking, what can I do that would be make it easier for you right now, because as moms, sometimes we’re sitting down and we have 10,000 things running through our brains.  It looks like we’re just pumping.  It looks like we’re just nursing our baby.  But mentally, we’re juggling a lot of things.  And so having a partner that says, what are you thinking about, and what can I take off your plate that maybe has nothing to do with baby care or nothing to do with pumping, but is just something else in our lives and the management of our household that can be handled?

And then research really tells us that being a cheerleader is so valuable for success when it comes to breastfeeding.  So no matter how your partner is feeding the baby, whether we’re pumping and bottle feeding, directly nursing, doing a combination of both – telling her that she is doing a great job, encouraging her when times are tough.  Maybe we’re dealing with cluster feeding or a dip in supply.  Helping to provide factual information, so learning about breastfeeding as a partner so you can then reinforce with factual information is really, really important for success overall.

Excellent.  And with partner involvement, I’m always suggesting that they attend a breastfeeding and/or pumping class to be able to understand how to put a pump together or how to be that encourager and help in other ways to optimize rest for the new mom.

Absolutely.  Even just having somebody sitting next to you in class – you’re just not going through that experience alone.  It doesn’t feel like it’s all on your shoulders.  It’s so important.

And my final question for you, Jacque, is you mentioned that insurance covers the Motif pumps and some of the differences with your pumps, but I would love to have your tips in selecting the right pump that works for the individual based on their needs and goals.  And also, how do you figure out if your insurance covers a particular pump?

Fantastic question!  First of all, the insurance piece is easiest, so we’ll start with that.  You can actually go right onto the Motif Medical website, motifmedical.com, and there is an insurance lookup tool where you can put in your insurance information and it will pop up different DMEs, durable medical equipment, providers who carry Motif pumps and work with your insurance.  Probably the most well known is Aeroflow.  Lots of people are really familiar with Aeroflow because they’ve got the whole things figured out.  We’ve had to send things to your house and all of that.  But there are tons of other DMEs as well who do the same thing and different DMEs might have different options based on your insurance provider.  So if you don’t find the pump that you’re looking for at one, check with another one.  That’s something I highly recommend.  And you can find even a brick and mortar store if that’s important to you to go touch the pump.  There are definitely still brick and mortar DMEs available, and the insurance lookup tool on the site will tell you all of that information if you want to go see and touch the pumps, which I’m somebody that would want to go do that.

As far as choosing a pump, on our website, I’ve written some recent blog content really diving into this, but we divide them into really primary and secondary pumps, and that’s not like, oh, this pump is just better and this pump is worse.  It’s really more about how we’re using them.  So the Luna, because it has a really high performing motor – it’s a double electric pump.  It has the independent cycle and vacuum, so you can adjust how fast or slow it is pulling the nipple, cycles per minute or sucks per minute, versus the vacuum.  They’re independent of each other.  So you can have it going really fast with a really high vacuum or low vacuum and vice versa.  So that is kind of the hallmark of a primary use pump.  And then the other thing is that it uses traditional flanges because we tend to see better milk removal with traditional flanges.

So then in our secondary pump category, we have things like the Motif Duo.  We have a wearable pump called the Motif Aura.  And those would be more of your secondary pumps, meaning we’re not going to rely on those for building a milk supply or exclusive pumping or maybe regularly pumping back at work.  We might have a secondary pump that we use sometimes, but we’re also going to have that primary pump like the Luna to really have those effective, efficient pumping sessions to just undergird the whole process.

So think of your primary pump like the Luna as the one that you probably want to use your insurance benefit for, and then something portable or wearable like the Duo or the Aura, these smaller, more portable pumps.  That’s something you put on your baby registry as an extra.  Really nice to have, but you want to have that primary pump as the main pump that you’re using to remove your milk.

The other thing when you’re looking at choosing a pump is battery options.  So a lot of the primary pumps out there, like Luna, you have plug-in option, and then you have the same pump, but it has a rechargeable battery, and I can tell you in all the families that I’ve worked with, no one has ever been sorry that they scraped together a $30 upgrade fee or a $40 or $50 upgrade fee for that rechargeable battery.  So any sense that you might need to be pumping in the car or where there’s no electricity or even in a power outage – if you’re exclusively pumping and the power goes out, having that charged battery is going to be really important to your pumping journey.

And then the other thing is knowing that flange sizing.  With Motif, it’s across the board once you figure out your flange size.  You can apply that to all of the pumps.  And so making sure that you can have an idea of what your flange size is and that as you’re shopping for pumps, make sure that that pump has some sort of option to size for you.  A lot of times, it’s a third party insert that is compatible, and that’s totally fine.  With Motif, we want you to use whatever size works for you, so it doesn’t have to be our product, but something that’s compatible that would size it for you.  So just making sure that is an option.  You don’t purchase a pump and then realize, oh, there’s not an insert available for this particular pump that fits me.

Makes sense.  And you mentioned your website for Motif Medical, but how can our listeners and doula clients connect?  I know you’re also on social media, for example.

We are.  Yes, you can find us on Instagram, on Facebook.  Definitely, you can even reach out.  If you go to our website and read a blog and you want to leave a comment, that’s always an option, as well.  We have great customer service.  That’s one of the things I absolutely love about Motif.  We get high marks in customer service, and those gals work so hard to make sure customers are happy.  You can always reach out to us for customer service, and that is available through the website as well, or you can call customer service directly.

Excellent.  Thank you so much for sharing all of your pumping wisdom, Jacque, and we’ll have to have you on again.

Loved it!  Thanks so much for the conversation!  Such an important topic.  I appreciate it.

IMPORTANT LINKS

Motif Medical

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Dr. Ari Brown focus on the benefits of goat milk formula on the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  Dr. Brown is the chief medical advisor at Kabrita.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Dr. Ari Brown.  Dr. Brown is a pediatrician, best-selling author, and chief medical advisor at Kabrita.  She has been in private practice for over 25 years.  Her passion to advocate for children and educate families extends beyond the office setting.  She is the co-author of the best-selling 411 Parenting book series, including Baby 411: Clear Answers and Smart Advice for Your Baby’s First Year; Expecting 411, and Toddler 411.  Dr. Brown has received several professional awards, including the American Academy of Pediatrics Advocacy Award and the Ralph Feigin MD Award for Professional Excellence.

Welcome, Dr. Brown!

Thank you so much for having me!

What an impressive background!  I don’t know how you have the time to author three books.  I’ve only authored one, and it took me two years!

Well, it’s been a journey.  Let’s say I didn’t get much sleep during those years, put it that way.

I can only imagine!  I’m excited to learn from you.  It is excellent timing in that we’re recording this during National Breastfeeding Awareness Month, but we are going to talk about all types of feeding today.  So I’d love to get into a bit more about your background and what led you to focus on feeding topics, especially goat milk formula.

Sure.  So I am starting my 30^th year of practice.  My gosh.  And I see a lot of newborns.  Over the years, I’ve cared for too many to count, and now those little babies – some of those are parents and bringing their babies to me now!

That’s so lovely!  The full circle!

It does.  It feels full circle, and it’s really – I have to say, I have the best job in the world because I get to be part of all of these families’ experiences and share in watching their kids grow up.  And what a great gig, right?  But I think in my experience – and also, by the way, I’m a parent too – I know what keeps parents up at night.  And the reality is that we’ve been given this very precious gift, and we don’t want to screw it up.  So the stakes feel really high, and we all want to do our best, right?  I think what I’ve learned on this journey of walking this road with parents is they feel much more empowered when they’re knowledgeable and also learning that we’re all just trying to do our best and that no one is every going to be the perfect parent, right?  So I try to give parents that knowledge base.  I feel very passionate about education, which is why I write books and do speaking engagements and do all these crazy things.  And I also want them to feel like they don’t need to be a martyr, right, and that they have to be open minded and realize that we’re not going to be able to control all the variables, as much as we would love to do that.  And so we want parents to be confident in the way that they feed their baby, and I think that when it comes to breastfeeding particularly, the struggles early on can feel insurmountable, and I don’t think people are prepared for that.  So that’s part of the education piece is preparing families for, wow, this may seem like a natural thing, but it doesn’t come naturally for everybody, and everybody has to learn.  The baby has to learn.  You have to learn.  And that takes some practice, and sometimes there’s some challenges.  And those challenges are early, right when you’ve delivered a baby and you’re exhausted and your hormones are all over the place.  All of those things can conspire to make that journey very early on very difficult.  And so teaching families where they can get help and being prepared for that is one of my missions.

And how that led to goat milk based infant formula?  Well, the interesting thing is, watching my families over the years, I’ve learned a lot of things from them and what’s important to them.  I had families that were basically buying not regulated formula from Europe – basically, being bootlegged.  It’s almost like prohibition days, and people were bootlegging this formula with a middle man that was questionable.  Like, where are you getting this product?  And these families would be saying, well, I’m buying this and I’m getting – and I’m like, why are you doing this?  I was actually pretty intrigued by this whole process, which was really kind of consumer driven.  People were looking for something better as an alternative that they could feel confident about to feed their babies.  So I kind of became goat curious, as an American pediatrician, because we didn’t have that, any goat milk based product, in the American market.  I came across Kabrita while they were going through the entire process, which by the way, the only goat milk based infant formula in the US that meets all FDA requirements, and they did this whole process and they did it right.  I kind of stumbled upon them back in 2018 as they were going through this process and was really excited that they were doing it right.  They were doing the work and doing the research and the clinical trials and getting it published and really demonstrating the efficacy – and we’ll talk more about why I’m excited about goat milk based infant formula, but they brought this product to market through the correct channels where you can actually buy it the way you’re supposed to be able to buy a product in the US, and so that’s why I’m excited about this.  It does offer a great option for families if they are combo feeding or if they ultimately formula feed their baby.

That makes complete sense.  And of course, we’ve gone through the formula shortage.  You mentioned trying to buy European formula, buying formula online and not knowing the source.  There was a lot of desperation, not only in being able to find formula, but also afford it.

Right, yeah.  I think the infant formula shortage demonstrated that the American formula supply system is kind of messed up.  And there had been kind of – not a monopoly but an oligopoly, kind of two major manufacturers.  And some of it is because we have a system where we have the WIC program, which is the Woman, Infant, and Children program where government subsidizes infant formula for families, which is fantastic, but because there are these government contracts, it kind of restricts the marketplace, right?  And then when we had a problem and we lost basically 40% of our infant formula supply in the US overnight because one manufacturing plant had a problem with a contamination event, it made us realize, wow, we probably need to have more options here in the US.  And so I think that has been an eye opener and hopefully an opportunity for us to have more options.  That did bring in other infant formulas, and it is a nice reminder that Kabrita, like I said, had been going through this entire regulatory process and meeting all of the hurdles.  Some of these other products that have kind of entered the market only have emergency discretion use because of the infant formula shortage, and for them to maintain their supply in the US, they have to go through the same FDA regulatory hurdles, which that has not happened for those products yet.  But I am thankful that it’s been a horrible situation, but it’s offered an opportunity to have more options for us and a more stable infant formula supply, hopefully, in the future.

Exactly.  So Dr. Brown, I would love for you to explain the difference between goat milk formula and the, say, cow milk based, and the pros and cons of each.  And certainly, as families are making choices, it’s good to have all of the information.  I know with a lot of my clients, their infant or baby might have skin reactions or some allergies to the milk based formulas.

Sure.  So let’s start really simple and talk about what infant formula is.  So it’s a chemical formula.  That’s why it’s called formula.  But as we have evolved, as civilization has evolved, we have created options to approximate and resemble human milk, as much as we can.  And so people have tried many different kind of formula bases over the years and then tried to modify it, which is the formula piece, to compare it as much as possible to human milk.  And to be clear, there is nothing like human milk.  Breastmilk – human milk is made for human babies, right?  And it’s living food, and it’s dynamic food.  It’s never exactly the same for every person or even on a daily basis, right?  So you’re never going to get exact comparison.  But when you’re trying to create these infant formulas, historically, what has been the most popular base has been cow milk protein.  And I think a lot of people don’t realize it, because that’s what’s so prevalent.  When you look at a can of formula, you don’t realize, oh, this is made out of cow milk or this is made out of goat milk.  In general, the leader in the marketplace, or at least in the United States for – I will say goat milk based infant formula has been around for decades worldwide.  This is not new there.  It’s just new in the US.  But cow milk has been the prevailing base for infant formula.  And most babies tolerate it and do fine with it.  And all of the what we call macronutrients and micronutrients – so your macronutrients are your fat and your protein and your carbohydrate, and your micronutrients are your vitamins and minerals, like folic acid and vitamin D and all the other ones.  So those ingredients are regulated.  So for any product to be sold in the United States – or the EU has their standards, and wouldn’t it be great if we all had one universal standard, but we don’t.  The United States has 29 ingredients that have to be regulated and meet those standards to be able to be sold in the US and meet all FDA requirements.  All of those ingredients are as close to, again, human milk as possible.  And then there are some premium ingredients that some manufacturers will add, and that kind of falls under what we call bioactives.  So they’re probiotics or prebiotics.  Other things that, again, are present in human milk and then are added to infant formula to try to resemble human milk as much as possible.  But the base, again, is kind of the protein, right?  So cow milk protein has historically been the most popular base.

Now, there are some babies who cannot tolerate that protein, and there are some babies who are actually allergic to that protein.  So for babies who struggle with tolerance issues – you may have a fussy, gassy baby; constipated baby; unhappy baby.  And then when you have a baby who has a true allergy, you may seem eczema.  The one key thing that we’re looking for as pediatricians is blood in the stool.  There is – it’s called a food protein induced proctitis, but what happens is the lining of the gut gets irritated because of this protein allergy, and then the baby may have this – what looks like slimy, mucous, snotty-looking stool, but then when you test it in the lab, there’s actually blood in it.  Some babies, you will actually see the blood visibly.

So for those kids, you can’t have them on a cow milk protein based infant formula.  You have to use something that’s considered hypoallergenic where the protein has been totally broken down or an elemental formula where it’s just amino acids floating around, like the protein is just amino acids.  It’s not even cow milk based.  And we have tried other alternatives.  In the US, there’s also a soy-based product for some babies and for families who for dietary reasons do not want a cow-based product.  So we’ve had kind of these categories of cow milk based infant formula, soy based infant formula, hypoallergenic where the protein is really, really broken down, and then elemental formulas where it’s just amino acids and there’s not even any cow milk.

But these babies that have trouble tolerating the cow milk protein, that’s when people are seeking alternatives because it’s really not fun to have a baby who’s miserable, right?  And so that’s where goat milk infant based formula has risen in popularity, but what I always try to tell people is this is not just a niche product for babies who can’t tolerate cow milk protein.  It is completely acceptable as first line nutrition.  You don’t have to wait until your baby has a problem with cow milk to try goat milk based infant formula, and in fact, that’s now been endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics.  They put out an endorsement in 2023 regarding that.

But here’s the difference.  So why is goat milk protein different than cow milk protein, and why is it more tolerated?  So the key is – and this is where we’re getting a little bit granular, a little nitty gritty – but if everyone remembers Little Miss Muffet, sitting on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey – milk proteins are casein, which is the curds, and whey is very liquidy.  And casein, when it gets digested in the gut – curds.  Kind of like cottage cheese, like those clumps.  And so the big difference between goat milk and cow milk, naturally, is that the goat milk protein, that casein protein, is more like human milk, which is why it’s more easily digested.  And so it’s got more beta casein and it’s got less alpha S1 casein than cow milk, and it’s got more alpha S2 casein.  So it’s a little bit granular, but at the end of the day, the casein makes the curds different.  And the goat casein curds are softer and looser, so they’re easier to digest, versus the cow milk curds.  And so when you look at the data on these clinical trials of the babies who drink the goat milk based infant formula versus the cow milk based infant formula, it’s more tolerable.  You have fewer reports of the gassiness, colicky behavior, constipation, and even there’s some data on sleep where the babies sleep a little bit more comfortably and slightly longer, which for a newborn, I don’t give anyone – I don’t tell anyone their baby is going to sleep, so this is not like the baby is going to sleep through the night.  But it does seem that it’s more tolerated.  And so that’s really the key difference between those two.  Now that Kabrita is out – it came out in January here in the US – I’ve had families who have started cow milk based infant formula, and if the babies are having trouble with it, I’m like, let’s try this!  Let’s see how it goes!  And I’ve had good success with families.  So I can say clinically that I do think I have some happier babies after trying it.  I’m very excited about that.

The other piece that’s a little bit different between the cow milk and the goat milk is something called oligosaccharides, and again, this is a little bit granular, but these are prebiotics that are in huge numbers in human milk.  Huge, like third leading ingredient in human milk.  And goat milk naturally contains five times more oligosaccharides than the cow milk.  So that makes a big difference.  Also, there’s a diversity in the population.  So what it does is it fosters the baby’s microbiome because you need the prebiotics to grow those little germs that help your gut digest.  That’s also a reason why goat milk based infant formula has an advantage over the cow milk based because it’s supporting the microbiome and the gut health.

So where can our listeners and doula clients find Kabrita?

Super easy.  It’s on Amazon now.  You can buy it directly from Kabrita if you go to Kabrita.com.  You’ll be able to order it directly online and you can even set a schedule and set it and forget it and it shows up however often you want it to.  As far as in stores, there are a variety of supermarkets that are now carrying it nationwide.  Whole Foods is now carrying it.  And stay tuned because there’s a lot of other places that are coming, probably by the end of the year.

Exciting!  I’d love to take a few minutes to chat about your books.  I’m sure that our listeners would be interested in ordering the entire series.  They’re so helpful!

That was an evolution of families coming in, really seeking information.  I’m working on my second generation of parents, right?  But I’ve watched this evolution of parents who crave information, and they want more detail and they really want to understand and make science based decisions, right?  And as the growth of the internet and opportunities to filter information on that become more and more confusing – it’s overwhelming.  You have a vast array of information.  You just don’t know if it’s accurate, right?  And so as I watched my parents in my practice struggle with wanting to learn more, but I don’t know what I can trust.  Can you help me?  It exceeded the duration of our well check time, and I was like, how can I really give you more information, what you really need, and how can I be kind of at your bedside when I’m actually not physically there?  That was the birth of Baby 411.  It was really just all the questions that parents asked.  I think people still buy books, which is exciting.  As a book author, I’m so glad people still buy books because I think it’s super important to have everything in one place.  But in the day – you know, I’ve kind of picked up all the parenting books that were on the bookshelves, and I was like, what is missing here?  Because clearly people are reading this stuff, and they still don’t know what they need to know.  And so what I realized is that most of them are not written by somebody who lives in Exam Room 1.  And that’s what I can honestly say is I spend my days in Exam Room 1, and I’ve made a career of conversations with families.  So it’s really that level of detail.  And now we have a challenge, because I’m on the tenth edition of Baby 411.  We update our books every two years.  So I’ll say to my parents, if you have a question that is not in this book, you get added to the next edition.

I love it!  Because everything changes, even in two years, with sleep, feeding, all of the things.

Exactly.  So we update it.  I’m on social media.  I’m on TikTok.  My daughter, who is an adult now, was like, you need to be on TikTok.  That’s where people are who are young parents.  And I’m like, oh, okay.  So I’m actually on TikTok, but I will say, in between every update on my books, I’m always posting new information, and when there’s something that’s buzzing, I definitely address it so that people will understand, what do I really need to be concerned about?  Is this new study important, or is it just hype and the headline and the clickbait?  So anyway, I encourage people to follow me there because I really try to keep people abreast of new and changing things and then again, we update the books every two years.  So it’s very relevant and timely and evidence-based.

So where can they find your books?

Again, go to Amazon.  Our books are sold nationwide where books are sold, so every national bookstore carries them.  Amazon, or you can go to Baby411.com and buy it direct.

Beautiful.  Dr. Brown, you mentioned TikTok.  I’ve seen your videos on Instagram, as well.  I’ll have to check out your TikTok.  But yeah, they’re very helpful and engaging.  Where else can our listeners connect with you?  You mentioned your website.  Any other social media spaces you are spending time with?  Facebook, for example?

You know, it’s interesting.  I think that when I post to Instagram, it will go directly to Facebook, and it’s a generational thing.  I think you have to be everywhere all at once, I guess.  But I will say that I’m probably a little less active on Facebook.  But yes, we have our fan page @expecting411 on Facebook, and that is the portal for all three of our books.

Wonderful.  Any final tips for our listeners, Dr. Brown?

I think one of the things I like to tell families is to give yourself permission.  I think particularly moms, but dads, too.  I think that we put our children first, and they are our highest priority.  And for good reason, but I think that you need to take a step back sometimes and go, you know what, I am a parent.  I’m a spouse.  I’m a sibling, a child.  You have so many roles and you wear so many hats, and I think at some point, a lot of parents kind of become martyrs.  So I always remind people that happy parents make happy babies.  So make sure that you take care of yourself.  Don’t forget about yourself in this equation, and I think that it makes a much more joyous parent and a much better relationship with your child.

Excellent advice!  Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and we’ll have to chat again soon!

My pleasure!  Thank you so much for having me!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Kabrita

Baby 411

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

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!

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Anna Rodney shares hospital birth prep tips with Kristin Revere in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  Anna is the founder of Birth and Baby University.  Gold Coast Doulas is an affiliate for the online Birth and Baby University class, Preparing for Your Hospital Birth. 

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin with Ask the Doulas, and I am so excited to chat with my friend Anna Rodney today.  Anna is the founder and CEO of Chicago Family Doulas and the creator of Birth and Baby University.  Anna is a committed lifelong learner and has spent her entire adult life in the field of education.  After the birth of her first child in 2009, Anna became incredibly committed to learning as much as possible about birth and babies.  She first became a labor and postpartum doula and childbirth educator and has continued to grow her knowledge base and accomplishments.  Anna is a newborn care specialist, lactation educator, Lamaze instructor, Happiest Baby on the Block parent educator, a former HypnoBirth instructor, and faculty for CAPPA.  CAPPA is a doula training organization.  Anna trains labor and postpartum doulas and childbirth educators through CAPPA.  Her commitment to learning is only matched with her commitment to supporting and educating families and their incredible journey to parenthood.

Welcome, Anna!

Thank you so much for having me!  That was such a nice introduction!  I appreciate that!

Of course!  You are so accomplished.  I’ve been a longtime admirer, and it’s been great to reconnect with you again more recently.

Same!  I’ve watched you from afar for many years also and all that you do for your community and the doula community.  It’s always incredible.

There’s so much work to be done.  I feel like it is a passion of mine that just won’t cease.  A lot of people burn out, as you know, in our industry.  The average doula is only doing this work for three years, and you and I have worked hard to make things more sustainable for doulas and trying to advance the career.  So I do appreciate that!

Really exciting and relevant for, again, supporting families and making impact, and our discussion is centered around preparing for your hospital birth.

Absolutely.  I’d say a majority of our families are giving birth at the hospital, and I have created so many classes over the years.  A few years ago I was like, I think it would be very important to have a class helping families prepare for their hospital birth outside of the hospital so it could still remain that unbiased support and help them create real questions and real opinions, not being told how to have a baby at one specific or particular hospital.

Exactly.  I am with you.  I feel like, again, the hospital classes are an excellent option, and they are, as you mentioned, focused on specific hospital policies and procedures and are not as customized.  They’re made to be as inclusive for all patients, but with your course, once you approached me about being an affiliate for your Birth and Baby University classes, I wasn’t sure how we could partner because at Gold Coast, we have so many classes, including HypnoBirthing, and I teach a Comfort Measures for Labor class.  But we don’t have anything specifically to preparing for a hospital birth, and it is so unique.  So I’d love for you to fill in our doula clients and listeners on more of your unique focus in this particular class and what would separate this class from other online classes or even in person out of hospital classes, and then of course the hospital classes themselves.

Yeah, absolutely.  So I touched on it just a little bit, but thinking about having a hospital birth, it’s very different from having a birth at a birth center or a home birth.  And one thing that was always really important to me is that whoever is taking my classes feels like all or almost all of the content of the class applies to them.  And that was something that I’ve always held really close to me because I never want somebody to be sitting in a class feeling like this isn’t about me, or how would I use this.  I’m having a homebirth; how would I use this?  So I really wanted to hone in on our target audience, which honestly, mostly has births at a hospital.  So that was really important to me, that everything in the class applies to them.  As a doula trainer, I feel like I get this really broad lens because I’m training doulas from all over the country.  So I’m training doulas from New York, California, Georgia, everywhere.  And some of them are nurses.  Some of them have been doulas for a very long time.  And I get to learn about all different ways that hospitals operate, what’s allowed and not allowed, and it was really shocking to me to see such a huge difference.  And I love bringing that lens into my trainings, and I thought, oh, wow, this is a lens that I can actually bring into a class.

In Chicago, we offer Preparing for your Hospital Birth in Chicago because I want it to be very specific to the area hospitals.  But it’s not very different from our just Preparing For Your Hospital Birth class, but learning about what protocols and procedures are possibly available in every hospital and what maybe they can ask for, what are common things.  So my take on it is, hey, these things happen all over the place.  What is allowed?  What can you advocate for at your specific hospital?  What sits well with you?

It’s interesting where families come from in terms of what they believe is possible.  And often, they believe what people around them tell them is possible.  And Kristin, as doulas, a lot of possible if they ask.  So that’s a huge platform for this class.  Hey, did you know that you can have skin to skin with your baby?  You can even have that for one hour.  They don’t have to take baby from you and weigh them and measure them.  And did you know that your water might be able to be broken for 12 to 24 hours before even heading in?  All of these really big, important changing possibilities that I think families don’t know to ask for and they’re not being offered.  So it’s really about empowering families to ask questions, to know what’s possible, to know why people make choices that they do, come to terms with what choices they’re comfortable with.  A big part of my classes, always, is about empowering families to feel like they have some control and that it’s up to them and they need to work within their comfort levels.

Exactly.  And your class is also very partner-involved, which is helpful because partners want to help, but they don’t know what to ask for, and that could be anything from a birthing ball to the heat packs at hospitals to understanding all of their options and even the importance of a birth preference sheet or birth plan and how that can help them work with their birth team, whether or not they have a doula.

Yes, absolutely.  Thanks for saying that!  Yes, it’s very much partner involved.  It doesn’t have to be if there is no partner, but a support person involved, as well.  Somebody who understands why choices are being made for the family and by the family and helping to make sure that those happen.  I think building investment in the process and the outcome is a huge part of the class, establishing conversations and boundaries.  I was a special ed teacher before becoming a doula and diving in here, but one of my huge ideas always has been information is just information unless you make it usable.  So I approach every single class I create with that mindset.  Here’s the information, but so what?  Why do you care?  Why do I care about this?  Why might you care?  Maybe you don’t care about it.  But I really want to build that structure around information so that families can dive deeper and connect it to them.  That’s so important to me.

Yes.  And I find with some of my Gold Coast clients, we have partners who are traveling for work or they could be a military family, and the fact that you have this online component makes it a lot easier.  As doulas, we often serve a large territory for our agencies.  For example, at Gold Coast, we serve Northern Michigan and Southwest Michigan for postpartum support, but we aren’t teaching classes in person in those areas.  We have clients that have needs, and a class like this is so helpful.

Yes, absolutely.  I mean, just making it accessible and having families break it down in a way that they can, at home when they’re sitting with their partner, talking about these sorts of things, they could spend an hour talking about why they may choose an unmedicated birth, where in a class – I love in person classes; don’t get me wrong – but time is limited.  So they might have to table the conversation and finish it later in a class, where at home, they can choose what’s the most important to them, watch about it, re-watch about it, talk about it for as long as they want.  So there’s absolutely perks to having an in-person class and perks to doing an at-home class, for sure.

And you did mention being able to rewatch things.  So if you’re taking the class early in pregnancy and it gets closer to your due date and you’ve forgotten some of the material from class that is very important to your goals for your birth, then the fact that you can watch it over, versus an in-person class, like a hospital class, for example, that is one weekend or multiple evenings for a couple hours here and there.  That information, other than the worksheets you’re given, is gone.  It’s not like you can access the instructor readily unless it’s potentially a doula who’s teaching that you happen to be working with who you have access to at all times.

Absolutely.  There’s that, and we do have – like, all of our classes come with a very comprehensive workbook that has questions and activities but also very helpful handouts and information that they can take screenshots of with their phone and pictures of with their phone and save it for the day of or labor or they can just have it out in labor and be like, oh, yeah, we did talk about comfort measures.  Here’s the handout for that.  Or yeah, I do remember we talked about when to head to the hospital.  What was said about that?  What did our doctor say about that?  Oh, yeah, there’s a page about it.  Like, very usable in the moment activities, as well.

Beautiful.  And as you mentioned with some of the comfort measures, the early labor tips, if the partner has forgotten and wants to support, then having screenshots or going through the workbook can be very helpful.   I know with my first birth, I didn’t know what doulas were and took Lamaze and worked with a nurse midwife, but my husband had a workbook from our Lamaze class, and he was looking up different things to try.  And of course, I had doulas the second time around, so he didn’t have to know all of the things.  But I think some of the key points that you cover in this class would be great to jot down notes for discussion with a provider at those very brief prenatal visits, unless of course you’re working with a nurse midwife who may have more time than your OB-GYN.  But also in the prenatal visit or visits with your doula, going through some of the information that is important to your unique goals and questions you may have, having access to that information and using it with your support team or any friends or family who might be supporting you as well.

Absolutely.  I always teach doulas this and guide my doulas on my team in the same capacity, but I say the prenatal visit, if you’re doing one, do that after someone has taken their classes because then they’ll have this great foundation, and you can build from that.  Rather than teaching someone about early labor for 45 minutes in a prenatal visit, it would be great for you to say, hey, bring whatever materials you have from your classes that you took.  Let’s talk about questions that you have.  Write down questions when you’re taking those classes, and I’m happy to answer those and build that into our prenatal visit.  It really can make the doula experience so much richer, and I just feel like families get so much more invested when they’ve taken classes, and that makes them more satisfied with all of it, with their experience with the doula, with their doctor, with their midwife, with the hospital, with their birth, with their baby.  It all intertwines so beautifully if families feel prepared and supported and cared for and like they had a voice.

Exactly.  I agree.  Preparation is important, and not every family wants to invest time or has the ability to afford a class.  There are certainly other options, but I’ve found that people who want a doula and can’t make that work for their budget – if they’re investing in a class, then they’re getting information a doula may share at a prenatal.  They’re able to prepare and feel confident with the support that their partner or other family member or friend is able to give them.

Absolutely.  I do think it makes such a difference, having not only the birthing person, but also their partner know all the why’s for all the things so that in the moment, everything feels so much smoother and less intimidating and scary.  I agree; not everyone will want a doula; not everyone will be able to afford a doula, but taking well-done classes will make a positive impact.

Exactly.  And your class is affordable!  It’s $97, and if our listeners happen to be in West Michigan and are Gold Coast clients, then they can register on our Gold Coast clients, but through your Birth and Baby University, you have a full curriculum of different options class-wise.  So if you’d like to touch on your other options and how our listeners who are outside of Michigan are able to register for one or multiple classes that you offer?

Yeah, absolutely!  Well, anyone listening, whether they’re in California or New York, can absolutely register for your Preparing For Your Hospital Birth class.  But if they do hop on our Birth and Baby University, they’ll find that we have quite a few options on there, and we’re actually always working on building in more classes, so there’s more to come, which I’ll talk about what’s being added soon.  But currently, we have Preparing For Your Hospital Birth, Bringing Home Baby.  Well, let me talk about the birth ones.  Preparing For Your Hospital Birth, Intro to Childbirth, Comfort Measures.  Then the preparing for baby classes include Bringing Home Baby and then a simplified class called Newborn Care 101.  We created this class because we were getting an influx of families who maybe were adopting or having surrogates.  All the things from Bringing Home Baby like postpartum recovery weren’t applying to them, and it’s so important to us that people sit in the class and feel like this is all meaningful information to me.  So we created a really hands-on Newborn Care 101 class where it talks about feeding your baby and bathing your baby and swaddling and troubleshooting tricky situations with your baby, but it’s very baby-focused.

I love that you have two options.

Yes.  You know, I’m really about making sure that it applies to everyone.  We want to support all of our families, and that’s been a great addition.  Then we have a breastfeeding class and like I said, all of our classes come with these really comprehensive workbooks so that families can remember things, write down their answers, and dive deeper into the material itself and also have lots of really helpful handouts and information that they could bring with them.  Or when they’re nursing their baby, they can look through and be like, oh, yeah, this is normal.  I remember from the class, but I also have this great book that reminds me, oh, yeah, feeding my baby every two hours is normal.

Then we have a VBAC class that’s getting put on our website very soon, and we’ll have a twin class coming up really soon.  We’re just in the final stage of recording those and making them look perfect, and those will get on there.  Also, our goal is to have these classes available in multiple languages at some point, but right now, Intro to Childbirth, Preparing For Your Hospital Birth, Bringing Home Baby, and Breastfeeding are also offered in Spanish.

Wonderful!

Yes, it’s unheard of, unfortunately!  That was one of the big reasons I wanted to do that is I don’t think they exist anywhere, and something that I love about having prerecorded classes and materials like this is I can share them for free.  I do share a lot of our Spanish curriculum and classes with hospitals so that they can offer it for free to their patients who need it.  We are sharing a lot with the refugee community, like the Venezuelan refugees, trying to get them access to this information, because as you can imagine, navigating a whole new system in a language that is foreign is really overwhelming.

Definitely.  That is so wonderful.  And once some of your newer classes are up, we will add those to the Gold Coast website, certainly.  We aren’t teaching a VBAC class.  We do have an in-person customized multiples class, but for people who want a self-paced option for twins, I am all about having that, as well.  We will be making updates when you do, then!

Awesome!  And as you can imagine as a project person like I know you are, too, I do have a list of a whole bunch of other classes that I would like to create but haven’t done so yet.

I love it.  And over time, with videos, you can always re-record and update things as, say, hospital policies and procedures change.  There have been so many changes since I became a doula, whether it’s feeding information, safe sleep, car seat safety.  Things are always being updated, especially with technology advancement.

Absolutely.  That is definitely an ongoing thing we do.  We create videos surrounding all these different topics, as well, and we’ll be like, well, now we have a video for that.  We need to embed that.  Now we need to embed this.  So it does make it easy to update classes.  I mean, we do have printed books for our families taking in-person classes, but we update those also often, so it keeps us on our toes, for sure.

Absolutely.  Anna, what other tips do you have for our listeners who are preparing for a hospital birth?

Yeah, I think, like you said earlier, I think taking classes from hospitals can absolutely be helpful, so please don’t think I’m saying never take any classes from hospitals.  But it depends on the area that you live in.  There are some hospitals that offer more comprehensive classes and some hospitals that offer really short lecture-style classes.  So just know what’s offered and know that other options exist out there in terms of classes.  But I think what is super important about taking a class like Preparing For Your Hospital Birth is knowing that even if your hospital doesn’t offer something, that it might be an option somewhere else.  So a really simple example of this is a tub or showers.  Sometimes people are delivering in hospitals and they’re like, oh, you know, my hospital doesn’t even have tubs or they don’t have showers.  They take this class and they’re like, oh, wow, maybe some hospitals do absolutely have these things.  Or we talk about, can you get out of the bed in labor?  I know it seems silly to even say something like that, but to be honest, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had families tell me, oh, the hospital said once my water breaks, I’m not allowed to stand up outside of the bed.  And it’s like, really?  They said that?  That’s not true.  Like, you should have the option.  So I’m hoping that people take this class and feel that they really do have much more control than maybe their friends have told them or that their doctor has mentioned to them.

One big belief that I have is that absolutely different ways to ask questions and some ways you ask a question results in being empowered, and some ways you ask a question results in giving away your power.  And we have a section in the class devoted to this, but a really simple example that I like to share in most of my classes is a family asked their doctor, oh, so when my water breaks, should I head straight to the hospital?  That answer is probably yes in most circumstances, if you ask that question.  If you ask a similar question and say, if my water breaks, I’d like to stay home for as long as possible.  Is that 12 hours?  16 hours?  24 hours?  I’m comfortable monitoring what that looks like and smells like.  I know what to look for.  How long can I stay home for?  That answer is going to be 12, 16, or 24 hours, most of the time.

Right.  It all depends.

Are you asking as a patient, or are you asking like this is my birth and this is what I want?  And you will get a very different answer.  One thing I often talk with families about, and I hear this often – they’ll say something along the lines of, well, I’ll just do whatever my doctor says to do.  And I say, well, that’s great.  That’s great that you trust your doctor and you like them.  One thing to be aware of is that your doctor may not share all of your options or possibilities.  And then I give them that example, and they’re like, I’m going to try it.  And they try it and they’re like, you’re right.  I asked in this way, and it totally changed their response.  It’s true.  In most hospitals, you have some wiggle room with provider practices, and they may or may not be open to changing the way they say something to you if you advocate for yourself.  I’m really excited to have that as an option for families.  If they know the questions to ask and they know how to ask those questions, they will have more possibilities on the table, and that’s so important to me.  Even if it’s not the exact birth that they imagined and hoped for as we know birth is unpredictable, they still will have some power in that, and they usually leave feeling more satisfied and respected and cared for.  I am always heartbroken when I hear a family say, like, I don’t even know what happened.  I don’t know – I don’t know what happened in my birth.  I don’t know how it came to this.  That’s one of those words or phrases that sits with me for a long time.  When a family says that to me, I always feel devastated for them.  And so my hope in all our classes is that we can help families feel like they know what happened.  They know why it happened.  They know how it led to that.  They know choices that they made along the way that were choices rather than things they felt like they had to do.

Exactly.  Birth happening to you, versus making informed decisions. 

Yes.  And I absolutely know that birth is unpredictable and not always as we imagine it to be, but I also know that there could be a lot more power given to the family if they know how to go about receiving that power.

Yes.  Absolutely.  Anything else that we didn’t cover that you’d like to share, Anna?

I would say also that the Preparing For Your Hospital Birth class is not just about decision-making.  It’s absolutely teaching about what happens in labor, comfort measures.  A lot of the other things that are more focused on are absolutely mentioned and talked about in this class, but obviously, in Comfort Measures, that’s the focus and we talk only about comfort measures for the most part.  But in this class, you can’t avoid talking about having birth in a hospital without going over all of these very important details that make for questions and options.  But a lot of knowing what to expect in a hospital and knowing how to navigate it that I think a lot of classes don’t have a focus on.  That’s a big focus in this class.  So absolutely, we’ve gotten great feedback about it from our families.  Families take it and they say, oh, wow, I had no idea that I could ask these questions or that I could ask for any of these things.

Right.  Knowledge is power.  So thank you for bringing these beautiful classes to the world and to Gold Coast clients!  I would love to have you share – let’s start with both of your websites and then get into all of your social media channels that you spend time on.

That’s a lot!  Like you mentioned earlier, I own Chicago Family Doulas, which is obviously a Chicago and suburbs of Chicago based doula agency.  And we have the opportunity to support so many families in that setting.  We have over 200 doulas on our team and a really amazing admin team of about 13 people now.  We have a big reach.  I love the lens that that has given me.  But we have that business, and then I also have, like you mentioned, Birth and Baby University.

I’d say the best way to contact me is at hello@chicagofamilydoulas.com.  That is a very busy email that we check hundreds of times a day, so we definitely get back to families really quick and get back to doulas very quickly on that platform.

Then I have an Anna Rodney Doula Trainer website as well where I provide lots of resources to doulas and doula agency owners and birth workers and perinatal professionals.  That’s another connected business that I have.

Birth and Baby University is where you find your classes if you’re not going to Gold Coast for the hospital class?

Yes, absolutely.  So Birth and Baby University is a big class platform dedicated to expecting families with prerecorded self-paced classes on that platform.

And then what are your favorite social media channels?  As you mentioned, you’re pretty much everywhere, but where do you spend the most time?

Yeah, it’s pretty well divided up, but we’re on Instagram and Facebook with all three of those companies, so Chicago Family Doulas, Birth and Baby University, and Anna Rodney Doula.  And we do have a really fun TikTok channel on Birth and Baby University.  That one is one I fought against for years, but – I have!  I always say the younger, cuter version of me, my cousin Nina, runs that channel.  And I think that’s been going well because she loves doing it, and that was one of the things that I did not love doing.

I am with you on that.  I feel like I’m too old.  We have a TikTok channel, but I just can’t get into video the way that I can with other forms of content like blogging, podcasts, and so on.

Same.  I’m just like – everything I do on TikTok, I’m like, really?  What am I supposed to be doing?  I want to give longwinded information and people don’t really want to hear that.

No, it’s all these short clips, and I’m a talker, so YouTube is definitely more my strong suit when it comes to video.

Yep.  At Birth and Baby University, we have a YouTube channel, also.  We kind of are spread out, but we have lots of amazing followers and contributors to our blogs and our social media also.  So that’s all been fun.

Well, I appreciate the work you’re doing.  Thank you for sharing your wisdom with our listeners and doula clients.  I’ll have to have you on again, Anna!

Yeah, I would love to talk about all the things.  We can absolutely talk about anything birth and baby and agency owning, all of it.

Yes, let’s do it again!  I’ll wait for your next series of classes to come out and we can do a combined podcast on some of your new options!

Awesome!  Thank you so much, Kristin!  I really appreciate it!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Preparing For Your Hospital Birth

Birth and Baby University

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Christi Kmecik shares her journey with loss and how she was drawn to create a beautiful line of grief cards.  She also gives tips on how to support someone who is grieving.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin with Ask the Doulas, and I am excited to chat with my friend Christi Kmecik.  Christi is the owner and founder of Written Hugs Designs.  She’s been married to her husband Gary for over 13 years.  She has three kids, and she started Written Hugs Designs to help people feel more seen, more connected, and less alone.

Welcome, Christi!

Thank you!  Happy to be here!

I would love to learn a bit about your journey, and being that Ask the Doulas supports families from the early family planning stage through the toddler years, I’d love to hear more about how your business helps families with all different types of loss.

Yeah, happy to share.  I’ve been through a lot of different kinds of loss myself in this space.  I’ve been through miscarriages, and it was really through the seasons of miscarriages in my life that I first began to realize how uncomfortable we are as a society with grief, with pain, with loss, especially when it comes to babies or miscarriages or stillbirths.  And my experience led me to circles of other grieving parents who had different stories to mine, but we all had a very similar feel, that society in general doesn’t know how to show up for us, doesn’t know how to make space for us.  And that was kind of the beginning of my desire to help change things.  Written Hugs Designs – I started it in hopes of helping people connect through the hard things when words are hard to find, and acknowledging how holidays are harder when you’re grieving.  I remember the first Christmas after my first miscarriage, and it just felt like the rest of the world had already moved on, and I still couldn’t breathe.  I really found that in sitting in different supportive circles or in my own life experience, that it seemed like everyone else was grieving an announcement and I was grieving a lifetime.  It was a very disconnected experience of grief and perception and reality and all of the things.

So what I do when I design a card is I’m trying to help bridge the gap for people to feel more seen.  I think these cards should exist.  I think some of the these things are hard to say for the average person, and I am somebody who values words very deeply.  Words are sacred to me, and I also empathize a lot with other people and what they’re going through, so I’m happy to create these things in an effort that the person receiving a card from someone feels seen, feels less alone, feels more connected and not isolated and disconnected like I felt through so many things.

That is so lovely.  And I do feel like it’s hard with traditional cards to really express the deep sorrow that we have when our friends or family members experience a loss.  And since you are such an empathetic individual by nature and have personally experienced many types of loss, the meaning behind your cards – and I know when you gifted me a card, it was so beautiful.  You’re an artist, so the images on the cards – you create them yourself, so it’s not just the messaging.  There’s so much beauty in the gift that you give your customers and families alike.

Thank you.  I’m glad you brought up the artwork, too.  That’s definitely something that I keep in mind as I create it, of what something feels like or how I’m feeling at the time as I’m creating it, in an effort to also bridge that gap and an effort to also have some kind of emotional connection even before the card is opened and read.

I love it.  So other types of cards that can be helpful, other than infant loss – give us examples of all of the different cards that you’ve created and how people can find your cards, where they can purchase them.

Yeah, my cards fall into a few categories.  One is straight sympathy where they’re created either with a specific kind of relationship loss in mind, or in general, coming alongside somebody who you know is going through something, going through their grief journey, and you want to come alongside them and say something more than just “My Sympathies.”  Here’s an example of one of those.

As the waves of grief come, remember you are not alone.  Please reach out for support.  Let us lift the burdens that you can share so the weight of it all doesn’t pull you under.  We are here for you and so sorry for you loss.

Beautiful.

So there’s cards like that, that aren’t necessarily about the relationship specifically.  Or I have cards that are about the relationship specifically.  I have cards that are coming for loss of babies, multiple, loss of baby, loss of baby boy, loss of baby girl, loss of daughter, loss of son, among other relationships, as well.  So that’s the straight sympathy cards.

Then I have holiday or celebration sympathy cards.  They acknowledge how this particular celebration or gathering may be harder because you’re also grieving.  Grieving the loss of a child during Christmas or the loss of a loved one during Christmas; grieving a loss over Mother’s Day, or infertility during Mother’s Day, or where Mother’s Day is both joyous and sorrowful; if you happen to have joy as well during that day, but you’re also grieving the loss of a child.  I have a both/and card for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

A birthday card for somebody who is also grieving.  Cards like these really acknowledge how the celebration itself, society itself, doesn’t tend to make space for our realities when we’re also grieving, so I decided to make them in hopes that those people don’t feel more disconnected and more “other” and more alone in their reality because we haven’t decided to make space.  I have made space for them in these cards.

I have cards that lean into positive affirmation, into encouragement.  I think these are a really beautiful thing that could be touching to this community.  Cards that say, you are enough.  You matter.  You are loved.  You are brave.  You can do hard things.  These kinds of words of encouragement that we may not be telling ourselves as we’re in the thick of it, but we really need to hear.

And then the last kind of card that I make is something called a keepsake prompt card.  And they are geared more toward the happy celebrations where you want to be intentional in the connection with somebody, so there are prompts inside to fill out.  If it’s a birthday, they say things like, my favorite thing we do together is _____.  If I could give you anything in the whole wide world, I would give you _____.  I hope you always know _____.  It’s a really beautiful way to stop, be intentional, say the things that maybe you haven’t said before, and I find it to be a really touching way to connect with someone instead of just signing your name in another card.

So those are the kinds of cards that I have, and they’re all really geared toward intentional connection, especially when words are hard to find.

So as you described some of even your affirmation cards, I’m thinking of our doula clients who may be on bedrest, who may be celebrating a pregnancy but also grieving a prior loss and they’re in that in between space.  And then just a simple, you are loved, you are enough – all of that can make a difference in a time where it is stressful and you feel like one foot is grieving and then the other part of your body is wanting to celebrate and be joyous, but you’re torn.  It’s like you’re almost split in half.  And you had mentioned multiples.  We work with a lot of twin and triplet clients.  There may be a loss of one of the babies, and then they’re still stuck in too many different emotions, and people don’t know what to say or how to be there for them.  And sometimes people say the wrong things, like “At least you have one healthy baby of the twins.”  When you have these cards or these prompts, it can make a big difference because as you said at the start of our conversation, Christi, words matter, and sometimes those words can sit with you.  Even when I’ve attended births as a doula and hospital staff says something, like again, “At least you have a healthy baby,” or some of those things that can really hurt.  “You should be thankful even though you had a traumatic birth or didn’t get what you wanted.”  Even processing birth trauma, it can be helpful to have a card or a friend listen and really feel like you’ve been heard.

Absolutely.  Yeah, I think you hit it right on the head with your examples.  “At least” – starting the sentence that is spoken to somebody who is grieving, is going to be followed with some kind of invalidation, some kind of taking permission away to feel what they’re feeling.  And I’ve found that it does the opposite.  It doesn’t bring comfort to the griever.  It makes them feel more unseen.  It makes them feel more misunderstood, and it could lead to feeling like, what’s wrong with me?  Why can’t I just be happy?  And the answer is, because you’re grieving.  It’s normal.  It’s okay to grieve that you had a traumatic birth.  It’s okay to do that because it’s within us and it needs to come out.  And when we try to ignore it and shove it down, it will come out sideways.  What a gift of a doula to be able to walk someone through permission to grieve in that space.  Sometimes we are so vulnerable when we are pregnant, expecting, going through birth, having just had birth, whatever step along the way we are, and having a doula that gives us permission to grieve is really powerful.  It’s really powerful.  I know for me, I’ve had many people in my life come alongside me and simply give me permission to grieve, and I’m so grateful for them because I didn’t know I could do that.  I didn’t know I could do that within my own self, but the fact that they did it for me – now I know I can do that.  But at the time, I really needed that support from somebody else, someone outside myself, to understand what it was.  It’s grief.  Understand it’s not wrong.  It simply is, and you have permission to feel it and move through it.  It’s just a really powerful thing that you can give to people.

It really is.  And you mentioned different milestones, like holidays or the anniversary of what would have been the birthday for baby.  What are times that our audience, who may not have personally suffered loss, can really keep in mind when trying to be sensitive, and if they’re thinking of sending a card, what would be appropriate?  You had mentioned Christmas or Mother’s Day. 

I think if they celebrate Christmas, that’s a big one.  For many people who celebrate Christmas, it’s got so many personal and societal expectations of how it’s happy and bringing everyone together, and then you have all these expectations that you have for what it will look like with the baby that you’re expecting.  When it doesn’t end up happening, if you lose your baby, if you miscarry like I did, this Christmas doesn’t look the way it should because I should have been eight months pregnant now, or the gifts we would have been given would have been all about baby.  There’s just so many things about it that feel wrong to you, but you also feel like you can’t talk about it because it feels like everyone else has moved on.  Acknowledging that with a card that simply says, it may feel like the world has moved on, but I want you to know that you matter and you’re not alone and you are seen – it’s a gift that will help them release the feeling of being alone.

The other one that I think is really powerful, I have cards for the month anniversary, acknowledging it.  My miscarriage of twins happened in July, so acknowledging how July itself is harder because there are things that my body remembers about this month that I can’t just ignore.  And if I’m going through it, to have someone else acknowledge that, hey, I just want you to know that I’m thinking about you, and I understand how July could be harder for you, and I want you to know that you matter to me – that can be a really beautiful gift for them, as well.

Definitely.  Thank you for sharing that.  So for our listeners who are personally going through loss, what tips do you have for them?

I would say that if you haven’t already experienced it, it can feel shocking that people’s reactions, in my experience, fall into really three main categories.  One is where somebody shows up in a very meaningful way that feels like they’re present, that feels like they’re listening and that they really are feeling the thing with you.

The other is, people are really uncomfortable with it, and in an effort to try to ease your suffering, will say something like, “At least ______.”  “At least you have a healthy baby.”  “At least you weren’t further along.”  Whatever it is.  I would encourage you to understand that although their intent is to not hurt you, that it’s okay to recognize that what they said hurt and felt invalidating, and it’s okay to grieve that somebody just did that to you.

The third thing that I’ve found is people don’t know what to say.  They know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the invalidating comments.  They don’t want to do that, and they also are so afraid that whatever they say will inadvertently hurt you that they simply don’t acknowledge it at all.  And what I would encourage you to recognize in that moment is that, again, their intent is to not hurt you, but their impact, that I have felt, is that they are putting the weight of their discomfort on you to pretend like your reality isn’t what it is.  Understand that that is something to grieve.  It is okay to grieve when somebody does that.  It’s okay to acknowledge that was not their intent.  And the thing that I’ve found the most shocking about those three different categories of people is that it does not matter how close or not close a relationship is to you.   You will have people who fall into all three categories across the board.  You will have complete strangers who you don’t know show up for you in the most meaningful way if they find out that’s what happened.  You will have people who may be your best friend of a lifetime who say the invalidating thing, or a family member say nothing or not acknowledge it.  And that to me was the most shocking.  I kind of assumed that the closer to me, the more meaningful the response and the further away, the more invalidating, and that’s just not what I experienced.

So if you are grieving, I would just tell you that if that’s what you’re experiencing, you’re not alone.  I’ve experienced it most.  Most people I’ve talked to have experienced it as well, and your feeling of people’s lack of capacity to show up for you is valid.  I hope you can also hold on to their intent, which is to not hurt you.

Having said that, I do want to acknowledge that there are malicious people.  There are malicious people who may say something with intent to hurt you.  That’s not what I mean.  If there is somebody in your life who, knowing your loss, says something with intent to hurt you, they are not a safe person.  If you’re experiencing that, I would strongly recommend you talk to your doula or a therapist and get some external help to make sense of what’s happening because unfortunately, there are people who do want to cause harm.  I just want to acknowledge that it’s different than the first three that I mentioned.

That makes complete sense, and so true.  So how can our listeners find your cards and connect with you personally, Christi?

My cards are all on my website, Written Hugs Designs.  And all of my variations that I have on hand are listed there.  I do have the loss of babies, loss of baby, baby boy, baby girl – those are all coming and will be up shortly, so check back in a couple of weeks.  They are on order, so they are coming.  And I’m also on Instagram and Facebook @writtenhugsdesigns.  You can find me there!

Thank you so much, Christi!  I know I’ll be ordering more of your cards myself.

Thank you, Kristin!  I appreciate you inviting me on, and thank you so much for doing this really important work and helping people learn how to connect through loss in this way.

Thank you!  I appreciate the work you’re doing!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Written Hugs

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Kelly Cox discuss milk sharing and her new platform called Share the Drop 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 Kelly Cox today.  Kelly is a registered prenatal yoga teacher, a birth doula, a former mental health therapist, and a breast cancer survivor.  Her experience in working with pregnant and new mothers for 15-plus years led her to create Share the Drop.

Welcome, Kelly!

Thank you for having me!  I’m so excited to talk!

Yes, I would love to hear more about your story!  Obviously, you’ve worked in the prenatal and postnatal phase for quite some time, but to create an app and get into the tech space is a much different venture than working in this service business.

Absolutely.  I am the least tech-savvy human you may ever meet.  My friends laugh that I’m in this tech space, but I just had this idea, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so here I am.

I love it!  It’s all about solving problems.  So tell us a bit more about the informal breastmilk sharing concept and how you’re able to connect donors to families in need virtually.

Well, I operated a pre- and postnatal yoga studio here in Charlottesville, Virginia, for about ten years.  We closed during COVID.  And I was always working with prenatal clients and doula clients with kind of a more therapeutic hat on, of thinking about what they were going through, trials and tribulations of getting pregnant, staying pregnant, preparing for how everything in life was about to change, but really wanted to think more about mental health-wise, how were they doing?

And it wasn’t until I really started working with doula clients and started paying attention to how the moms were returning to the studio that it became very clear to me the stress and anxiety wrapped around how you feed your infants.

100%.  Totally agree.

I think we spend so much time getting pregnant, and then we worry about how we’re going to get the baby out, and there’s very little prep for what actually happens after.

Yeah, and we went through a formula shortage, so people who needed to supplement or were unable to breastfeed were struggling and having to order European formula.  This obviously was all during that time of your big idea to create this platform.

Yes.  So I was constantly at the studio being bombarded with women who said, hey, I have so much milk.  I don’t know what to do with it.  And then other women were just scrambling and saying I either can’t produce enough, I have to go back to work, I have a medical issue, and how do I get breastmilk?  And so for years and years, I sent people to Facebook groups, and always they came back with the same response, that it’s so clunky.  It takes time.  Once you get into a group and get accepted, it was all forum-based posts, so someone might post at 6:00 in the morning, you have 100 ounces to give, and then someone else is posting right on top of that.  And so they just said as new moms, we don’t have the time to do this.  So I just was personally introducing women in town.

Beautiful.

This happened for years and years at the studio, and I always thought, there should be another way.  It’s a long story, but I actually came up with this idea because one night I was emailing two women.  One had milk to give; one needed milk.  And I knew they lived a couple miles away, so I was introducing them via email, and my phone went off with a notification from Bumble saying, oh, I had a match.  And it was like this life-changing moment.  I was thinking, oh, my gosh.  If I can go onto an app and create my ideal mate and then the algorithm works like it does and matches me with this perfect mate ten miles away, I thought, okay, this has to happen.  So it just sat in my head, and I was really busy.  I had a studio and I was a doula and I was doing all these things.  And so when we closed during COVID, the voice wouldn’t stop.  I was like, I have to do this.  And so because the process is so clunky on these forum-based groups, I really wanted it to be in real time.  So if you go onto Share the Drop, either a donor or a recipient just goes on and creates an account, and then we use zip codes.  That’s one of the main things you put into the account because my idea is not find a donor two states away, have them pack up the milk, pay for shipping, have to wait for it.  Let’s not only meet someone in your own community who might have extra milk but also meet your neighbors.  We used to raise babies together in community with aunties and grannies and sisters, and that just doesn’t happen as much anymore.  The biggest thing that happened after a decade of owning the studio was –  like, prenatal yoga is great.  Postnatal yoga is great.  I can do that kind of work in my sleep.  But it was really the moms who would meet on their mats, newly pregnant or new to motherhood, and then they would keep coming back and sitting next to each other, and then I would see them having coffee after.  This community I live in is not that big, so now I see them three kids later.  They’re still hanging out with the same moms that they met in a yoga class.  And I realize it’s the community aspect that parents really, really need and can benefit from.

100%.  And certainly not every community has a milk bank.  We have one about an hour away from Grand Rapids, but there are so many restrictions.  It’s basically NICU babies and the most need.  So not everyone qualifies.  And then there are restrictions as far as donating, so as you mentioned, there are all of these Facebook groups, and before I found your app, in researching for our new book, Supported: Your Guide to Birth and Baby, I really only was referring to either the milk bank or some of those Facebook groups to our doula clients.

Yes.  I think there’s 33 milk banks in the country.  So it’s rare that someone is going to live very close.  First of all, the process to get approved for those formal milk banks can take 30 to 45 days, and then like you said, not everyone can donate.  And so my idea of peer to peer milk sharing is really based on a lot of what Eats On Feets has been doing for a lot of years.  I believe that if there’s a woman who has excess production and more than her baby could ever consume and that baby is gaining weight and meeting developmental milestones, that would be the perfect option for people who can’t produce breast milk, can’t find formula on the shelves, can’t afford formula.  I just think that this whole conversation around breast is best, fed is best, is causing a lot of anxiety and feelings of inadequacy if you can’t produce enough.  And there are people in your community who have excess, and if you do this safely – we talk a lot about dating your donor.  It’s the exact same questions you would ask if you were on a dating site.  What is your lifestyle?  We have filters on there for do you drink caffeine, do you drink alcohol, do you take prescription medication.  Are you allergic to anything?  We want to know what’s in the milk.  And then it’s all about recipients making good choices for themselves.

As a doula, I’m not of the mindset that there’s only one way to have a baby.  I always tell my clients, this is your birth, your body.  Do all the research you can, and then you can make the best informed decisions on what you want to do during birth.  And I think it should be the same thing if you’re going to use someone’s milk.

Yes.  So it’s basically a trust.  You’re having people fill out the forms, but you’re not requiring blood work, for example.  They’re just listing if they take medication or if they’re drinking coffee and so on?

Yes.  And then we do ask donors when they’re onboarding – we say, are you willing to share any recent medical lab work with a recipient if asked?  Clearly, we’re not uploading that to the app because of HIPAA, but if they would, we put a little medical icon on their badge, so that’s one more safety feature that recipients know, hey, this woman is willing to share her recent lab work, which is great.

That is.  That’s a big relief for some families who want that information.

Absolutely.  The part about using zip codes is not only can you meet your neighbors, but you can vet.  You can say, oh, Kristin, did you use a doula?  Who’s your pediatrician?  To get to know who you’re talking to, but then to say, do we have any friends in common?  And then vet them that way.  We talk about meeting in a safe place, meet during the day, when it’s light out.  Meet in a public place.  I have a neonatologist on my board of advisors, and he said in the very beginning, the questions you should ask someone before you take their milk are the same questions you should ask someone before you sleep with them for the first time.

Yeah, makes sense!

It’s totally the exact same thing.  I get a lot of feedback of, oh, this is gross; why would I drink someone else’s milk?  And I just kind of sit back and say, well, we drink cow milk and we drink sheep milk.  It is the perfect food.  If you can breastfeed, fantastic.  If you’re an exclusive pumper, great.  If you find a formula that works, great.  I don’t think there should be any shame no matter how you feed.  And I think informal milk sharing should be in the conversation.

I agree.  And it’s also, I have found in working as a doula, that some of our families experience loss and want to donate milk in that way.  Do you have stories of, as a way of grieving, where families are longing to share breast milk to help other families in need?

Yes.  Actually, I had a client at my yoga studio, and it was after her loss that I really started to think more about this app.  She was pregnant with her second.  At 38 weeks, she delivered a baby still.  And it was very important to her that she honor that life, and so I helped connect her to a local woman who was pregnant with her fourth baby.  Just diagnosed with breast cancer and knew she had to have a mastectomy right after delivery.  So that woman, the grieving mother, pumped for six months and delivered it to this other mother in need, and then the rest, gave to our milk bank her in Norfolk, Virginia.  This woman is so sweet.  I see her all the time, and we always talk about what a healing process that was for her.

It really can be.  That’s beautiful to have that story as part of the journey in starting Share the Drop and that it can certainly, with grieving, benefit so many other families and is a way to give back in such a personal way.

Yes.  I have users who have reached out and said, you know, my first baby was in the NICU.  We received donor milk.  It made such a difference, and that’s why I want to give my excess now.

I love it. 

I remember in the beginning of this, looking for investors and talking to some people, and I was in a room with a group of men, and one of them said, why wouldn’t you pay donors for milk?  And why would someone just do this out of the goodness of their heart?  And I couldn’t think of anything to say other than that women are amazing.  We’re the healers.  We’re the ones who are going to save the world.  So I don’t see where the question is.

Right.  But I’m sure that as an investor, they’re looking at the potential income that paying for the milk could help grow your business, certainly, and help grow their investment in your business.

They did invest in me.  And they’ve been fantastic cheerleaders.  One of the biggest ways we keep this safe is we do not pay donors for milk.  I understand the time and effort that goes into pumping and storing and donating.  However, I think when you open the door to monetizing a human liquid, you risk opening the doors for fraudulent behavior.  You can water down anything, sell it as milk, and this is when babies get sick.  So the app is free for anyone to create an account.  Donors always use it for free.  Recipients create an account for free, and then you can see who’s in your feed, and you never have to pay.  There’s a $9.99 a month subscription fee.  You never have to pay that until you find someone you want to message, and then that’s unlimited.  I waive that fee if they’re WIC or SNAP eligible.  I want no barriers to entrance whatsoever.  And then I also have a giving program where anyone can go onto the website and purchase a subscription to give out.  And I have had some people go on there and just say, hey, I got donor milk years ago.  I’d like to just feed it forward.  I just want it to be accessible.

As far as apps, it would be on the Google Play store?  How else can our listeners find Share the Drop?

We are on the Google Play store.  We are not on Apple.  I spent months and months rewriting code, trying to resubmit.  They have finally come back and said that this is not a concept the Apple store condones.  There is an app on their platform that does exactly this; however, they do pay donors for milk.  So at that point, I was not interested in fighting with Apple, and so I pivoted, and I made a web app.  So at our website, Share the Drop, you can create an account right there.

For me, running a business, this means I don’t have to give Apple 30% of my proceeds.  But users can use it on a computer.  You don’t have to have a smartphone.  You can use it on a computer at the library.  It actually makes me more inclusive.  It did sting a little bit not to be on the app store.  You think you’re going to build this app and of course it’s in all the big stores, and the more I pulled away from it, I realized, I own the web app.  It works just as fine.  It works just as savvy.  You can get push notifications.  And so yes, it is on Google Play, but anyone else can just go directly to the website and create an account.

Yes, and I agree with you that it’s so much more accessible.  Not everyone has a mobile phone that has data, internet, and so on.  As you mentioned, being able to go to the library and log in is very helpful.

So what’s next for Share the Drop?

It’s built.  It’s running well.  My biggest hurdle right now is just knowledge that it’s out there.  So that’s why I reach out to everyone to tell them about this.  I think if it’s an option, even if families need it in the very beginning until their milk supply comes in, it could be a short term option.  It could be a long term option.  But I really just need folks to know that it’s available.  So if you are on Facebook groups sharing and you’re finding that that’s cumbersome and takes too much time, go create an account.  It’s free to create an account and to look, so it’s really just spreading the word, which is a huge undertaking.  I’ve been working in my community for 15-plus years marketing a studio and marketing my doula services, but I’ve never had to take it to this national level.  And so yeah, just spreading the word as far and wide as we can.

I love it.  So Kelly, what kind of insight do you have as far as the states that you’re in and cities?  Where are you most located?  Would it be in your home state, or what are you finding as far as data?

Yeah, so most of our users are from the central Virginia area where I am, so Richland, DC.  We have quite a few users in DC.  I’ve been able to build some great social media partnerships.  Doula agencies in Boston and Chicago and Atlanta, so those are our top markets.  However, we’re available nationwide, so I’ve just been asking users – I have users email me and say, hey, I’m done donating.  Can you help me create my account?  And I’m always like, absolutely, but tell your neighbors who are having babies.  Tell anyone you know with excess.  Really spreading the word like that.  I mean, advertising is one thing, but when you deal with moms, you quickly realize that moms just talk about everything all day long.

They sure do, yes.

What they’re eating, what they’re drinking, what they’re buying, what their babies are doing, and so trying to, little by little, build this little army of moms who will continue to spread the word.

That’s what it’s all about.  And then as you know, being a fellow doula, part of our role is to give our clients trusted resources and recommendations, just like your app.  And that is, again, one of the most common needs for families is milk sharing, where to donate.  And so you’re solving so many problems and still keeping it local and not having to deal with shipping out of state.  As you mentioned before, even having relationships or seeing the person that you’re donating to can make a big impact.

Yes, absolutely.  I really believe that what we’re missing out most in our current world and our society is community.  We’re a lot more transient.  If you can just meet your neighbors, talk to them more, no matter what stage of life you’re in, and be active in your community.  Understand who the helpers are.  I think we can solve a lot of what’s plaguing families right now.  Especially coming out of COVID.  I realize it’s been a while, but it still feels like we’re in it in some ways.  It was the communities and the neighbor partnerships that really, I think, solidified families and took care of them during that time.

Agreed.  Yeah, it does feel like things have not fully gone back to pre-pandemic times, and there’s still more isolation.  You feel like there is less community, and a lot of businesses that did support prenatal and postnatal moms had to close during the pandemic.  Some are opening back up, but there is that missing link since the pandemic.

Yeah, and I see a lot of prenatal offerings coming back, but I don’t see as much as postnatal as I think there should be.  You know, I always tell yoga clients and doula clients while they’re pregnant, do your research about pregnancy and labor, but really, really focus on breastfeeding.  Take a breastfeeding class if you can.  Go sit in on a Le Leche League meeting.  Have extending family members taken an online breastfeeding class so that they can understand more and be supportive.  If we put more steady time into what’s really going to happen that first year, I think new moms would fare a lot better.

Agreed.  So Kelly, for our listeners who are pre-conception or early in pregnancy, what are the benefits of donating breastmilk?  The second part of that question is, what are the benefits of receiving donated breastmilk?

Every woman I have ever met with excess breastmilk understands how important it is and what a vital nutrient it is.  I have never had anyone say, hey, can you help me sell this?  They’re always like, this has done so well for my child.  I can’t believe I’m making so much.  Can you help me find someone?  I mean, I think any woman helping another woman – that’s the biggest benefit.  Years ago, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I had a lot of women come to me, other survivors, saying how can I get milk, but a lot of other women saying, hey, I understand.  This has opened my eyes to the fact that, of course, a breast cancer survivor, if she had a mastectomy, couldn’t feed.  Can you please help me find a survivor?  Absolutely.  The benefits of donating are really altruistic.  Helping your neighbor.  I’m a big fan of karma.  I think everything comes back.  Any time I’ve been able to help someone, it’s made me feel better about my life.

For a recipient, if you just are having trouble feeding for any reason but you believe that breastmilk is the best option for your infant and you don’t want formula or you can’t find formula – it’s out there and it’s safe.  It’s the perfect food.  It has the perfect blend of carbohydrates, proteins, fats.  We have huge companies trying to replicate breastmilk because they know how good it is.  So if you choose it and that’s what you want for your infant, great.  Here’s an option to get it.  I do have people asking about safety.  We talk about safety measures and how to meet your donor and all these questions to ask, but if you’re really worried, you can buy testing strips for alcohol.  My friend Dr. Trill over at Free to Feed has just come out with a new testing strip that will actually test for certain things.  If you know your baby has some allergens, it can test milk that you get to see if there’s any gluten in the milk or dairy.

And then last but not least, you can do home pasteurization, which is very simple.  It’s a very vital food that you can get from a neighbor.  But what if you can’t find your formula?  We just had another formula recall, I think, three weeks ago.  Some formulas have been difficult to find.  And families are struggling financially, so you think about a $9.99 a month fee, as our admin fee.  It’s so much cheaper than buying formula.

It is, no doubt.

And if there’s excess out there, I think it should go to infants in need and take that financial piece out of it.  We talk about being commerce free.  I do tell users, if you find a trusted donor and they’re giving you milk on a regular basis, buy them new storage bags.  Replenish that, so that they’re not spending their own money on that.  But I think we can set the standard for helping your neighbor a lot more than we do.

We can.  Totally agree.  So any final tips for our listeners, Kelly?

Just go onto our website.  You can read about us.  Anyone, anytime, can email me.  It’s kelly@sharethedrop.com.  Ask me any questions.  Give me feedback.  I’ve got pretty thick skin.  Realize that we don’t have huge users in every city, and so it might be a while before you find people in your community, but you can create an account and then keep signing on and seeing what’s there.  But just talk to people about their experiences.  Did you ever donate milk?  Have you ever received milk?  Listen to what that experience was like.

Agreed, yes.  It certainly helps to have personal experience.  Ask your friends.  Having your personal testimonials and stories that you shared today is also helpful.  If you just venture on a site and don’t have the background information that you shared, it can be a little overwhelming and scary.

Yes, absolutely.  It’s all about the more you know.  So read, ask questions.  I’m a big fan of any sort of informational support groups, whether that’s about getting pregnant, delivery, the first three months.  Go into your community and see who else is talking about these things because the knowledge will help in every aspect of parenting.

Agreed.  Well, thank you so much for sharing your story, Kelly.  I so appreciate the work you’re doing.

Thank you so much!  Thanks for having me on today.

IMPORTANT LINKS

Share the Drop

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported

Kristin Revere and Dr. Lora Grasso discusses small changes that can help you maintain your health after having a baby in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  Dr. Grasso is the founder of APEX Coaching.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am so excited to chat with my friend, Dr. Lora Grasso.  She has an extensive background in health and education, and our topic today is focused on health as a new mom and small changes that can be made to stay on top of your health at such a challenging time, whether this is your first baby or your fifth.  Welcome, Dr. Lora Grasso!

Hi!  It’s so nice to be here, Kristin!  Thanks for having me!

Yes!  I’m excited to get into it!  And again, your background is so extensive.  I figured it’d be better for you to really walk us through your journey in health and education and how it led you to focusing on supporting new moms with health coaching.

Sure thing.  So I started off – I was always in health.  My entire professional career, I was in health and education.  And I started off with getting my bachelor’s degree in health and physical education.  I taught in public education for a little over a decade until I had my wonderful twins, who are now eight years old.   In the process, I also got my master’s degree in exercise science, and I, of course, tend to take on the world, and I worked on my doctoral degree right as I was having my newborn twins.

That really was a wakeup call to this whole mothering thing and being able to do it all.  Then when I went back into the workforce, I went into virtual education.  I could be home with my kids and be there for them and have my own thing in education.  I quickly worked my way up to assistant director at that company.  I really loved it.  And then I just went on to find an opportunity teaching at an elementary school of my children, and that just did not work out for me.  It was not for me.  The schedule was tough with being basically a single mom at that point.

And if a kid is sick, it’s not like you can call off work.  So much to navigate.  Although the thought, obviously, was good, to be in their own school.

I always tossed around the idea of coaching because I’ve been trained as a personal trainer.  I have a certification in personal training and a health coach certification, both of those since around 2001 to 2004.  I’ve trained all age groups, all capacities, all skill levels.  I really love that.  I’ve always been involved in the exercise arena.  I’ve also competed in figure competitions, which is another thing a lot of people don’t know about me, but it’s a branch of body building.  That taught me a lot about nutrition, really.  That gave me a lot of my background in that.  And I said, why not now?  I always wanted to do health coaching.  So why not now, and I left that job and decided to go out on my own and start my own health coaching because I knew mothers needed it.  I know we always put ourselves last.  I know we need all the help we can get, and just that support, too, of each other.  We’re all going through this.  We’re there to help each other.  What can I do to make that whole process easier and simpler and just make your everyday life better and not let your health go by the wayside because you’re raising little ones?

Exactly.  And your business, APEX Coaching with Lora, is so focused on moms and women, based on your own personal experience, so I would love to get into some tips for our listeners and how to, again, make some actionable changes, what it might look like to work with a coach like yourself.  You’re not the typical health coach, with such an extensive background.  So I’d love to hear more about how you can be helpful and what moms can do.

Right.  Well, one of the biggest things here is there’s no one size fits all, and there’s no fast fix.  We all want that.  We all want that instant gratification.  Sure, it feels great, but it’s not going to stick with you for life.  So if you cannot look at a health change or a plan and say that you cannot stick with this for your lifetime, or a very long time, then it’s not the plan for you.  And everyone is different.  The programs that I build are very comprehensive.  You can’t just look at what you eat and how you move.  There’s much more to it than that.  Your daily behaviors, handling your everyday stress, your habits.  Sleep is a huge one, and I’ll talk about that more with new mothers because that impacts every aspect of your health: mental, physical, social.

Absolutely.  That is what we stress as postpartum doulas and sleep consultants.  It can affect so much more than mental health.  I mean, it compounds.  So I love that you focus on that in your plans, as well.

Yes.  And there are lots of little tricks you can do.  That’s my philosophy, too, that if you want to sustain change, if you want something you can stick with, it can’t be this huge all-encompassing, overwhelming change, like a lot of these fads are.  It has to be small, sustainable ones.  So what I do is I look at what you like, what would stick with your schedule, how can it fit with your life, not making your life fit to it, but how can it fit in your life.  So sleep, for example.  We know that first year, we try as hard as we can, but we’re not going to get as much sleep as we want.  It’s very baby-focused, that first year, at least.  And we do the best to get it in where we can.  But there are other tricks, too, like using light is very important for maintaining your circadian rhythms and getting more quality sleep, even if you’re not getting quantity.  There’s a lot that you can do to help with quality.  Like that first sunlight and sunset – there’s a lower angle light that comes in.  If you get that early light and the evening light, it helps to set your rhythms, which help you get better quality sleep.  When you sleep, ensuring that it’s cold, it’s dark, it’s quiet.  Those are other things.  Granted, you could have a crying baby.  We all know that that’s going to happen.  We all know it’s not realistic to think we’re going to have the perfect sleeping environment.  But when you do get sleep, doing that, if you need to take a midday nap, have blackout curtains.  If you can, have someone else watch the baby so you can be in a quiet, dark, cooler place.  That’s going to make you feel better.

I always say don’t make any big decisions when you’re sleep deprived because it affects you so drastically.  I mean, I’ve been there.  I know how it feels.  I know how those days can seem way worse when you don’t have that sleep.

Especially with twins.  That’s a whole different experience, navigating feeding two, and different sleep schedules, trying to get them on the same page as far as all of their activities throughout the day and night.  I give you a lot of credit!

Absolutely.  But any new mother – like you said, after the fifth child, even though you have the experience, it’s never a breeze, and every child is different.  We know there’s some children who are going to be more colicky and more difficult to handle.  Think about what works with them, too.  You want them on as much of a schedule as you can.  Right?  You want to do that for yourself, too.  Going back to circadian rhythms and trying to get quality sleep – things you do throughout the day, like when you eat, when you move, any type of movement.  It doesn’t have to be an extreme, regimented exercise routine.  Just walking.  Doing that at consistent times every day helps set that rhythm as well.

Yes.  I love that.  So Lora, as far as your typical coaching client, are their concerns more about getting back to their old size they had before having kids, or is it more in getting energy?  What are the top concerns?  Is it weight or having a better diet or energy? 

I think the biggest ones are fatigue and your pre-baby body, which really, we have to learn to love and accept who we are after children because there’s just no way that you’re going to be exactly what you are and who were before you had kids.  We think about physically, we’re not the same.  My feet grew!  That’s one thing.  I have extra skin.  Those are things that are just there.  But you’re also – you are different inside.  You know how life-changing having a child is, and we have to learn to accept that.  We have to learn to accept the way our bodies are.  But with that said, there are definitely things that we can do to make us feel more confident and stronger and gain more energy because the most common complaint you hear about motherhood is I’m tired.  I’m just tired.  That creates that cycle, too, because you’re too tired to feel like you can exercise, but in the end, exercising is going to give you energy.  So it’s hard to get past that, and the biggest thing is building habits.  There’s a great book by James Clear called Atomic Habits.  I highly recommend a read for anyone out there.

I love that book, as well.

So good!  One of the examples I like to explain that he gives in the book is that when he’s trying to get someone to go to the gym, and he said, just go every day for five minutes.  You probably think, what’s that going to do for me?  What you’re doing in the beginning is strictly setting the habit.  Get into the habit and change the identity and everything else is going to follow.  Once you start doing that, you’re like, I am the person who exercises regularly.  And you start to do it more.  So the idea is don’t bite off more than you can chew.  Even something as simple as, you want to meditate every day.  Just start by getting your mat out everyday and then go from there.  Especially as mothers with very limited time – and I always take that into account when I’m working with clients – we need to know what our schedule is, what’s realistic.  If you are absolutely not a morning person, morning workouts are not going to be for you.  You’re setting yourself up for failure if you’re like, every day I’m going to get up at 4:00 a.m. and I’m going to exercise.  You just have to do what’s realistic and what’s going to work for you, and you can always go up from there.  You can always take more baby steps – since we’re talking about babies, right?  It’s about being realistic and taking those small steps that you can sustain, that you can stick with.

I love it.  And how do you factor in breastfeeding or pumping moms as far as their goals and their diet and ability to have the time to even work out when you’re feeding a lot more frequently than using formula?

Well, a couple of things with that.  I think a lot of us get stuck in what it means to work out or exercise, and it doesn’t have to be this, going to the gym, doing this many sets and reps, or doing this YouTube workout.  Really, put it in your mind as movement, especially that first year.  Get out and walk your baby.  Take them on a daily walk.  Move more.  When you’re parking somewhere, parking further away.  Just getting strictly more movement in.  And one thing, a misnomer I’d like to clear up with breastfeeding: you do need more calories, right?  You need 350 to 500 more calories.  But you also need to keep in mind what that is because I think a lot of people think – and that’s when their weight can get carried away – that they need to eat a lot more to sustain this.  But in reality, up to 500 calories is three cups of popcorn.  It’s two slices of cheese on toast.  It’s one and a half bagels with cream cheese.  It’s really, when you think about it, not that much.  So being careful with that, and I’m not a big proponent of calorie counting.  I do it in the beginning with a lot of my clients just to see kind of where we are, and it’s usually a wakeup call to see, oh, I didn’t realize it was that much.  But again, do you want to count calories for the rest of your life?

Obviously not!

Right!  So realistically, we just need to do an assessment at first, and then realize what we can sustain and what makes sense as far as the amount to make up for what we’re doing, whether that’s breastfeeding, whether that’s working out, whether that’s training for something.  I think people get a little carried away, and people do this, too, when they’re pregnant with cravings.  Like, I need to eat so much more for the baby.  I need to eat so much more.  You definitely don’t want to deprive your baby, but you also don’t want to be misled on what you’re intaking.  It’s setting yourself up for something that’s hard to rebound from.

That makes perfect sense.  And hydration, obviously, is key, especially if you are pumping or breastfeeding and having water throughout the day is so important.

Absolutely.  Hydration is huge.  There’s actually a link between your amount of sleep and hydration, so especially when you’re not sleeping as much, you need to drink even more.  It will be more trips to the bathroom, but very important as far as your health.

Exactly.  Thank you for that!  What are your other tips for small changes that mom can make in that first year?

I think a support system is huge, as well, if you can have accountability and support with other moms.  There’s great Facebook groups.  I have a Facebook group I started.  I’m going to put it out there – anyone is welcome to join.  It’s called Momentum Wellness Lounge.  There’s support in there.  There’s tips in there.  I think another thing to keep in mind with those small things is your mental health.  Having time for you – and everyone is like, I don’t have time!  It comes down to priorities.  You have to make time for you, and I’m not saying 20 minutes, even.  I’m saying 5 minutes.  Everyone can take 5 minutes out of their day to step away, to read for 5 minutes.  Just lay there and do nothing for 5 minutes.  Once again, it’s the little things, and that’s something that you can look forward to everyday, as well, when you’re in the chaotic realm of motherhood.  That’s so important with your mental health.  Writing things out, too, getting things off your mind and onto paper helps a lot of people.

100% agree.  Yeah, we talk about writing out the birth story and doing some journaling and meditating.  Taking that time, and I know there’s always that temptation, if baby is sleeping, to get on social media or answer some emails, but taking, as you mentioned, 5 or 10 minutes for yourself can change your entire day.

Yes, and I also say with social media, just be very careful.  I mean, it’s the perfect storm for depression, right, because you’re sleep deprived, which every single mental illness is linked to sleep in some way.  So you’re already sleep deprived.  Your world is around this baby.  You have this whole new identity that you’re still trying to learn about yourself.  And then you’re going on social media, where people are depicting their best lives.  People are going on vacations.  People are having a blast.  So it can be great for support – like go to some of those mom groups and vent or get advice – but also just be careful and just know everyone is putting out their best selves.  There’s a lot of people on there who are dealing with the same stuff that you are.

Right, and I do like that there’s more vulnerability now on social media, and people are showing the messy house or talking about mental health struggles.  But there’s still so much of that Pinterest perfect and Instagram lifestyle photos that are hard to keep up with.  I really like your tips of finding a community, like your community where you have moms going through the same things at the same time, supporting each other.

Yes.  Something that I will admit I struggle with, too, is asking for help.  Ask for help.  Someone – I think it was Brene Brown – brought this up in one of her books, about think about the other side of the help offer.  Like, I know when someone asks me, I love to help.  I love when people reach out to me and ask for help, so think about that next time that you’re asking.  Typically, especially the people who care about you and are around you would want to help you.  It’s hard for us.

And we’re not mind readers.  We often don’t know how to help, so it’s good to have that clear direction.

Yes, even for those five minutes to step away, I think anyone would love to help a new mother for five minutes.

Absolutely.  So Lora, what does it look like to work with you if our listeners are interested in moving forward with a consultation?  Can you walk us through that?

Yes, I offer free consultations, and that’s just us getting to know each other and making sure that we’re a right fit for each other.  From there, we’re going to talk about everything.  I mean, in order for it to be personalized, I need to really know what you like, what you don’t like, what you’re doing, what you’d like to do, your goals, your habits, your behaviors, where you see yourself in five years.  We go through a pretty in-depth analysis of where you are and where you’d like to be.  And from there, you’re going to get a very personalized plan.  We try to do it – again, I mean, that’s a lot of factors that I take into account.  So we pick out the big ones first, which usually means nailing down the sleep.  And I’ll tell you, I’ve had clients and I’ve read in several pieces of literature and articles too about people solely changing their sleep and seeing all these changes from it before even doing nutrition and exercise.  So that sleep is going to be a big factor for new moms, especially.  But I’ll do it in a way that you’re not overwhelmed because it’s a lot of factors, and it will be very personalized to you.  There will be constant feedback, constant communication, as far as, “Lora, I don’t really like this part or I’m not doing well with that.  What can we change?”  And then it will be consistent check-ins.  Some of it, depending on the needs of the client, will be that I will assess and say when we need a check-in, but sometimes client preference, too, as far as what works best for them.  It’s really a matter of getting to know the client, them getting to know me and my style, and figuring out how we can reach those goals together.

Love it.  What is the average length of time that a client works with you?  Is it a year?  Three months?  Or is it different for everyone based on their needs?

Right.  It’s a little different.  There’s three months, six months, and one year programs that we start with, and then people will renew, or some people will feel like, I’m good.  I feel like I’m good where I am right now.  And some of those people come back, too.  I always say I’m here.  This is up to you, what you feel that you need.  I’m going to give my feedback on where I feel that you are and where you need to be, as well, as your support and your coach.  But we have many ways to meet your needs.

Beautiful.  Any final tips that we didn’t chat about, Lora?

Something I always say is think of what you would tell your best friend when you’re giving advice – because we’re so hard on ourselves, you know, just as being a mother and trying to juggle it all.  Now that you have kids, think of what you would tell them.  Think of how you would tell them to make sure they’re taking care of themselves.  Now we’re always being the model for them.  They have such unconditional love.  They’re going to love you no matter what, but they’re watching what you do.  So if you’re not taking care of yourself, what are you showing them?

So true.  Excellent advice.  How can our listeners find you, Lora?

My Instagram is @lorae5.  It’s a mesh of personal and some professional tips on there, as well, but it’s important for people to know me as a mother, too.  That’s why I do that.  I have my website.  And then the Momentum Wellness Lounge, on Facebook, as well.  Just send a message that you want to join, and I’ll approve you and bring you in!

Excellent!  Thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom with us!  Appreciate you, Lora!

I appreciate you!  Thank you!  I’m rooting for all you new moms out there!

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