Postpartum University® Podcast

EP 144 Postpartum University Podcast: Best of 2023

• Maranda Bower, Postpartum Nutrition Specialist • Episode 144

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What an incredible year it’s been for the Postpartum University podcast!

25 amazing guests have shared their insightful wisdom and expert tips with us.

We’ve reached 50K downloads.

We’re in the top 15% of podcasts in all categories!

And we owe it all to this fantastic community of listeners, moms, and professionals like you who are making it their mission to shift the postpartum paradigm.

Today we’re highlighting our top 10 most downloaded episodes from this year featuring a mix of guest conversations and solo episodes.


In this episode, you’ll hear clips from:



Grab your notebook and enjoy!

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Speaker 1:

Depression, anxiety and autoimmune symptoms after birth is not how it's supposed to be. There is a much better way, and I'm here to show you how to do just that. Hey, my friend, I'm Miranda Bauer, a mother to four kids and a biology student turned scientist obsessed with changing the world through postpartum care. Join us as we talk to mothers and the providers who serve them and getting evidence-based information that actually supports the mind, body and soul in the years after birth. Hey, everyone, it's Miranda Bauer, and today I have this huge gathering of all of the most juicy bits of our podcast over the last entire year, and I am a huge fan of recaps because I feel like you're getting the best of the best in a really small snippet, and that's the time to bust out that pen and paper and really start taking notes. I love doing this for other podcasts. It's my favorite thing, and this year has been a massive, massive year for us. We had over 50,000 downloads, which has been absolutely incredible. We were marked the top 15% of podcasts in the world, and postpartum university is now in over 35 countries, and so we are doing some serious work in bringing you truths about women's health care, about healing in the years after birth, and my inbox of happy people is such a beautiful thing. I am just so grateful that it is truly resonating that people are understanding and feeling so called to listen in, to share this information. That was another huge success, and it's just been an all-around beautiful year. And so here today, I'm going to play you the best of the best this year. I promise you will not be disappointed.

Speaker 1:

But before going into that, I want to be really forward with you about something here. Our reach has been amazing. We're getting downloads and listens, great connections. I have been meetings the most incredible human beings on the planet here on this podcast. You've been listening into this. Our reviews are great too, but they lack so much in number, and partly this is my fault, because I am really awkward about asking for reviews. I am that person who wants it to be natural and to feel authentic, and today I'm going to jump out of my comfort box and I'm going to ask you to please leave a review for this podcast. Come out of your comfort box with me Because, for such an amazing reach, we know we can do even better. We know we can reach even more who are yearning for this information and haven't found it just yet, and reviews help push podcasts up to be seen, so, if you could, we would be so forever grateful if you left a review and, of course, without further ado. Here's your most loved moments on our podcast from 2024.

Speaker 1:

Enjoy, and it's been written about as a condition that can occur in new mothers. It's characterized by feelings of exhaustion, physical weakness, emotional stress, even depression, anxiety, all of these things. But I actually don't like turning this into a pathological issue or a condition, because it's not the fault of some germ or the body being diseased and failing. That term condition is very misleading, because it sounds like women are the problem at hand. Women become something broken to fix, and really the problem is not women at all, but instead a system that is failing them tremendously. We are not supporting women and families as we should. We are not giving them the education about what's happening to their body, how to nourish their body with food, how to set up care systems in place to make sure that they are healing properly, that they're getting enough rest. Instead, they are forced back into the workplace. They're supposed to go back to work and look their best and breastfeed in the process, yet still maintain a clean home and a healthy environment and speak three languages and do all the things right.

Speaker 1:

Of course, I'm over exaggerating and starting to add more things, but the idea is that we are putting so much pressure on the mother to get back to herself after she just had a baby, when really we should be supporting her and healing her body first, that we should be helping her get the rest that she need recover, nourish her body, do all of the things for her, help her take care of her children, do the laundry, do the dishes, so that she can recover and get back to life as she needs to, in the time frame that she needs to. But that's not part of this conversation, but it is in the sense that we need to understand that it's not our fault. This is not our fault. So if you are experiencing this, please note it is not your fault. It is the system that has failed you and nothing more.

Speaker 1:

It takes a long time to recover from creating a human being and birthing that child into the world. That's no easy feat, and so if we lived in a society that recognized that and honored us women as the life creators that we are, we may have very different outcomes here and this may not be something that you would be experiencing, because we would have a society that would set you up for success, but obviously that's not the case. So you couple all of these things the lack of support, lack of proper nutrition, lack of sleep, lack of nervous system balance and you couple that with hormonal changes and the physical and emotional demands of caring for a new baby and you have a recipe for fatigue, anxiety, depression, difficulty bonding with your baby and all of the things that we have come to normalize as new parents in the postpartum period.

Speaker 2:

Really and I tell all my clients, but particularly my postpartum clients, is you're not getting back to anything right. You're not going back. There's no going back and accepting that you have new roles. You have this new body. There's some mental and physical healing that may need to take place. Your partner has a new role and new responsibility, some mental, emotional healing that may need to take place, and so coming to a place of acceptance, first of having adding a child to your life, is forever life changing and you don't need to go back to feel connected or to feel sexual with your partner or to feel like you have that. You don't have to feel like you lost something, and so a lot of that is just training our brain that what is our new normal?

Speaker 2:

And so I spend a lot of time with my clients talking about what is normal. People come to me like is it normal to blah, blah, blah? Or am I normal if I do this? Or I saw this on TV? Or my friend was having sex with their partner before even the six weeks was up, and so I might not normal, that I don't even want them to be in the same room with me. So the reality is whatever is your normal or you develop to be your new normal, that is normal as long as you, there's no lack of something. So if there is one or both parties that are lacking in connection or intimacy and I'm gonna use intimacy very fluidly, especially in the postpartum stage when people hear me say sex or intimacy, they think penis and vagina, everyone orgasms, and so I'm gonna encourage anyone who's listening to this that change the way you think about intimacy and sex, cause that will help take the pressure off. So intimacy doesn't just have to mean we need to have intercourse or everyone needs to have an orgasm.

Speaker 2:

So changing the language around how we view what intimacy is and developing what becomes normal for you and your partner. So if you're lacking in some way, so if you're lacking in the sexual aspect and you wanna have a discussion about it, or you're lacking in the just general connection, they don't understand me anymore. There's like five different ways that you can be intimate with someone. So it would be obviously the sexual intimacy, what we talked about. Penis and vagina orgasms naked. There's physical intimacy Are you holding hands? Are you cuddling at night? Are you embracing when you come and leave the house? Are you kissing each other? Good morning and good night. There's intellectual intimacy, are you? As we become parents, all we're talking about is what the kids are eating for snacks and who's had to be picked up or dropped off. So are you intentionally engaging in conversation that are stimulating the intellectual part of your relationship?

Speaker 1:

You can get that same I feel like that's a huge component of Convery. I just had to throw that out there and talking about poop, keep going.

Speaker 2:

Exactly talking about poop isn't exactly the most intimate connection with your partner. So are you engaging in the intellectual piece? Emotional intimacy, are you tuned in to how your partner is feeling? And I hope that we also have same-sex couples, but also male counterparts. I hope they're listening, because it's just as much getting them to understand what's going in in the postpartum world as it is for us as women in this postpartum world. So are you engaging emotionally? Do you tell each other that I love you, I appreciate you, you're doing a really great job. Is there anything I can do for you? And then you have your. I lost my turn of thought. Sexual, physical, emotional, spiritual. So what are you connecting with? So, whether it's a higher power or meditation or so, these are all within yourself. You can experience these intimate moments in yourself, but also with your partner, and they all can be as equally, as supportive to an intimate relationship as one or the other.

Speaker 3:

A lot of it is how we relate to our moms and that sort of push and pull of the fact that we want to be really close to them, we want them to approve of us, but in order to do that we have to sacrifice who we are. We have to sacrifice our boundaries to get close to our moms, and so a lot of the times we inherit their wounds and we keep carrying that on and keep carrying that on and passing it on to our daughters and our sons, unless we make a conscious decision to not do it. So if you were raised in a very critical household or a neglectful household and you don't want to bring that in, you are a cycle breaker. But being a cycle breaker is hard because you don't have a roadmap in front of you at all and you're sort of flying by the seat of your pants and trying to make it up as you go along, because you don't have a model to base it on. That, this healing you are a pioneer and it's hard and scary but incredibly important.

Speaker 3:

We are breaking ground, we're breaking traumas, we're identifying traumas, calling our families attention to it, and a lot of the times we're the ones doing the work because we are the ones who are more open to doing the work and our elders still aren't. They cannot come face to face with this reality and I know it brings up a lot of negative feelings for people that why is it that I have to repair myself? But really it's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing to be a pioneer and the one doing this, because the cool part about that you could do it to your own specifications, because the power is in your hands. You can shape this to look over, you want it to look, and you're not doing it because you have to. You're doing it because you want to and because you want to heal. You want to be better for yourself and then hopefully, pass it on to your kids as well, because mom's healing means we're passing on healing to the next generation, which is really, really important.

Speaker 1:

If not you, then who Exactly? I agree, nobody else is going to do it for you. And, with that said, what do we do? You have some incredible tools. We talked about it in the very beginning. We talked about EFT. Tell us about some of these tools. What are they, how can we use them and how can they support us in breaking this generational trauma.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I mean there's lots of tools right, like as we talked about. The first thing you think about is going to therapy very helpful, might be a lengthy process, but it is helpful to start sort of unearthing what your issues are. You could do coaching, you can do yoga, you could do all sorts of things. I focus on EFT, which is emotional freedom technique, or other people might know it as tapping, and it's exactly what that is. It is tapping. You are tapping on about 20 or so acupressure points that are the most correlated with our emotional responses and those acupressure points are located directly on your nervous system. So that's what makes it a somatic therapy is that we're engaging the body in helping our nervous system regulate and get on track. And then we're also bringing in a little bit of CBT in there for reframe. So when we clear out the negative messages, we have some new messages coming in and because we're using our body, our body actually integrates it better than if we were just straight up talking about it.

Speaker 3:

And then the other piece that I bring in absolutely is the self-compassion, because that critical voice. A lot of us are still functioning from that critical voice and it's very hard to continue functioning in a healthy way when all you're hearing is criticism coming from the inside. So the way I kind of do it is that we use the EFT to clear out the criticism and then we bring the self-compassion to start practicing with our compassionate voice to bring this love and compassion towards us. That sort of holds us through the hard times, because healing isn't linear. We are gonna get better and then we're probably gonna get worse and it's gonna go up and down. And that self-compassion allows us to understand that not only is this normal, it's okay, and it doesn't mean that we failed. And when we start talking to us from a compassionate voice instead of a critical one, we realize that we can achieve so much more. We can be gentler with ourselves and we can be gentler with our kids.

Speaker 1:

What we know is the gut microbiome greatly influences your behavior, your mood and the way you think. Okay, Now let's talk about number two hormonal changes. Hormonal changes during pregnancy and postpartum can affect the gut brain access by influencing gut motility, intestinal permeability, the release of neurotransmitters. And these hormones change and impact to the gut brain access, which leads to changes in communication and function. But I wanna stress the importance here that hormonal changes during pregnancy and postpartum are a biological normal. They are supposed to happen. They are there to support you, not make your life miserable.

Speaker 1:

And what we know is that when our hormones that are shifting are not supported, that's when we have a hormone imbalance, that's when we don't feel good. And guess what creates and regulates hormones? Nutrition, nutrients and minerals do? They are literally the fuel of hormones and hormone care for the. It comes from the foods you eat, especially fat. Fat is a key building block to hormones and in our society we tell women that fat is bad and it's not good and we shouldn't eat it because it'll make you fat right. We still have that belief in us when actually it is the very thing that helps to regulate our hormones, and then some. And so we need a lot of extra fat. We need a lot of extra nutrients so that we can support proper hormonal changes.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's talk about the stress response. Pregnancy and postpartum is a time of increased stress, right, Both physical and emotional, and this impacts the gut brain access. Chronic stress can also increase inflammation and disrupt this delicate balance of the gut microbiome. That inflammation, I will tell you, that is brought on by stress and the release of neurotransmitters and cortisol, and all of these they impact the gut microbiome really deeply. A lot of people who experience stress and trauma will have a greater likelihood of experiencing chronic inflammation in their body, which contribute to mood and anxiety disorders.

Speaker 1:

I've had that plenty of times in my life, right, and there are still times. Recently, I came back from a retreat. Things had been crazy chaotic right before I had left state and I really just needed some time. I mean, all my kids were sick and so my husband was left with the house for a couple of days while I was gone and just kind of recovering. And when I came back, I was like I can't do this right, Like I want to honor where I just came from and like the crazy chaos that I had just left, Like I just want it taken care of right and just have a cleaning service come in and do that. That wasn't something that I was always purvy to. I was a single mother. I literally remember counting pennies in the grocery store, Like I have been that person. So I understand that not all of that is applicable and easy for everyone. But there was also a time in my life where I had gathered my tribe, my people who were there to support me in that process.

Speaker 1:

One of my dear friends was just telling me that she it was quite a funny story. She was like, yeah, you know, things have been going good and I was like, well, what have you been doing? And she's like Miranda, this is gonna sound so crazy, she said. But me and her and her friend teamed up and they go to each other's house at least twice a month and they pick a room in that house and then they clean it like completely, like head to toe, and they get rid of anything that doesn't belong or whatever. But they do it together, right? So you know, one week it's one person's home and then the next is somebody else that is the other person's home, and they literally come in and they have, you know food and drink and they put on some music and they tackle an entire room together, right? Is this something you want no out? Is this something you want no out? Like literally going through closets and it's genius, right? Like that's how it's done. And so we don't necessarily need to hire someone. We just need to find a friend who needs the same thing we do and then make an exchange. I hope that's helpful. I hope that's helpful, and I know that I probably went into even more, but the moral of the story is I absolutely do not do it all. No way and heck right. For example, my husband wanted chickens and I was, like, cool, you can have chickens, but I'm in no position to take care of them. It's all you, buddy, right? So he's the guy who has to go out morning and night making sure that all the chickens are well cared for. Like, I put that boundary in place. Yeah, sure, If you want chickens, we can absolutely do chickens, but I'm in no place right now, Like I don't know where I could pencil in taking care of chickens in the dead of winter, especially twice a day. I don't know how to fit that in. But if you can, awesome, that's on you, buddy. Okay, boundaries are super important. All right, we have here in reclaiming postpartum wellness book.

Speaker 1:

You talk about how you get better sleep even with a newborn. You also mentioned how you can do this without sleep training. All I ever hear from my mama groups is that sleep training is a must, but it feels so wrong I just can't bring myself to do it. Can you explain more? I love, love, love this question, Kimberly. So I am looking at this and I want to tell you you, do what your heart is telling you to do. Okay, Do what your heart is telling you to do. If you don't feel that it's a safe thing, if you don't feel like it's a good thing, then don't do it. Okay, I will tell you that there are other ways and I will tell you that many of the sleep training methods that are being taught currently, even by sleep consultants, are not okay.

Speaker 1:

Right, there's a very, very fine line, and it's hard to find somebody that is going to give you that evidence-based information. Who's going to look at more than just you know? Is sleep training safe in this moment? Who's going to look at long-term studies? Who's going to look at? You know all of the components of what it truly means to sleep train Like you never know.

Speaker 1:

If somebody is saying, while sleep training means like you know, or sleep training means crying out and just leaving your baby there. I've also heard some people say sleep training is holding your baby and your arms until they're about to fall asleep and putting them in their bed, Like so you never know what exactly sleep training means for the individual. So I would really define what that means for you and determine is the like, where's your boundaries right? What feels great for you, what doesn't feel great for you, and really truly look into the stats. I mean we could do an entire episode on sleep training and what that means and the different definitions I should say the different definitions of what that means and the actual evidence that you know either supports those training methods or not.

Speaker 4:

So if we don't have a healthy gut and we don't have a good gut lining, that can really wreak havoc on a lot of our other systems. We can have, you know, different food or liquids go through the, or what they call leaky gut is just food and liquids are going through the gut and getting into our bloodstream, which is actually not really good for us. You know, you see a lot of people with psoriasis or eczema or for, like myself, I have had a dairy issue my entire life. Not, it's more like a sensitivity. If I have too much of it, I end up itching on the inside. So if you take all of that and how we're actually handling our food, and then we're going to be ingesting it ourselves, and then if we're breastfeeding or if we're going to formula feed too, we got to think about what is making up all of that into something that's so pure as a newborn, something that has never had anything else except for, you know, the natural stuff that it gets, the nutrients it gets while it's in the womb.

Speaker 4:

We all know that if we don't have, you know, good food, how it can affect us. So how is that actually affecting the baby too? And it's affecting them tenfold. We see it with a lot of babies who have colic and a lot of times we have to go back to okay, there's something going on with the digestive system. 99% of the time there's always something with the digestive system, not saying that's the only thing we have to go back to, and how is that going to develop with them? I mean, it's really hard to just kind of explain on how it really affects, because it affects everything.

Speaker 4:

So what I learned when I was in class and it's no fault to anybody who chooses to go the formula route or not is that if you give your child breast milk for the first six months, nothing else, nothing can actually get through it. You're not going to create a leaky gut, you're not going to create any bad intestinal problems with just that. They've done studies in Africa where they've given babies completely just breast milk, even with mothers who have been HIV positive, and they were never HIV positive. Now, once you start to introduce something that is not breast milk, it opens up a whole another can of worms, which is no fault of anything, because there's a lot of babies who really need, they need medical intervention right away. They need all sorts of different things, but these are just things that we're learning about how to protect the gut and how it can actually affect. What we give the baby can affect them then and also as time goes on. It's so true.

Speaker 1:

I mean the world as you described it is really created within the gut, like the world of our newborns. We call it the second brain and I would not be surprised if here, very soon, in the next few decades, it becomes the first brain. Our gut is so intrinsically important to our entire bodies. They run so many functions. Your hormones, gut health right, that's gut health. Brain health is really your gut health. When we talk about mental health disorders like depression, anxiety, it's based in your gut health. Right, we have so many components of this. Your skin health that goes again your gut. The way you remove toxins from your body goes back to your gut. That is so much in relationship to what we are doing as humans.

Speaker 4:

Yes, if you think about it, though, obviously, the umbilical cord is connected to the stomach because that's how they get food. Literally, that's connected directly to the gut Right there, from day one, as soon as they're conceived, their gut is being formed. It really is. It could go back to your right would be the first brain. I never really thought about it being the first brain until you said it, but that's true, because that's really where it's connected. I always thought the neck and everything was probably be the first in rules, the body, but no, it's the gut.

Speaker 1:

Yes, it's so true. We really need to take that into consideration as we are growing a human being. Within our body there is a capacity to heal and postpartum that we really, really need to speak on. We have a significant capacity to heal our bodies and multiple cultures across the world it is believed that we are closest to God in the postpartum period because we have this unique ability to heal some very, very deep wounds. That's because of some of the significant postpartum changes that occur. I'll mention a couple, but this is a completely different episode in and of itself. I'm going to create this episode because, as I was creating this one, I was like oh, this is a whole another one.

Speaker 1:

But we have microchimerism, which is the presence of cells from the baby that goes into the mother's bloodstream. It contributes to the capacity for deep, deep healing during the postpartum period, but it's also the opposite. It also has the ability to trigger autoimmune disease. Our bodies are not very taken care of during this time, very much supported during this time. We can very much have postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, postpartum autoimmune health issues. We also have neuroplasticity working for us. Our maternal instincts are working for us. There's an emotional release that's working for us. Plus, we have this ability to get more community support. It's a little bit easier to ask for help when we're in the postpartum period than, say, when we're not. I'm never saying that it's easy. I know how many of us struggle with asking for help in general, but if you think about it, it's a lot easier for us to ask our partners to take extra time off work to be with us when we have a newborn baby at home, rather than not asking for any support because we're struggling with something else. We have this need for self-care and rest. We have more of an ability to heal our bodies on a biological level, especially when it comes to the microchimerism and the cells that are working through our bodies to help us deeply heal. The hormones that are running through our bodies, the neuroplasticity that's changing. That gives us the ability to heal old patterns and mental processes. There's so much that are going on. That's really working in our favor. They're working in our favor to help us heal deeply and postpartum and this is a really beautiful thing because we need to heal deeply. We need to heal those wounds so that we can break those generational traumas, so that we can raise our children in a way in which we find beneficial and supportive and helpful to them, in a way in which we want to be mothers, and it's going to take this radical healing.

Speaker 1:

And if you're listening into this and you're thinking, gosh, I wish I had known this before, I wish I had listened to this while I was pregnant, I wish I had known of this, I'm telling you it is never too late. Take the opportunity to use this to your advantage. And I'm telling you it all boils down to this we have a very different approach to healing. I have my five-point framework that I share explicitly in my membership programs, in my book Reclaiming Postpartum Wellness, on how to heal, how to find support, nourishment, sleep, hormone balance and nervous system balance, as well as finding your natural rhythms within your body, especially related to your cycle, and using those five points to radically heal your body. That's what it takes to do this. So you're already tapped into this healing right. You've already cracked the healing code. That is what I'm saying. You have cracked the healing code by just being in postpartum. Now you just need to support the natural biological changes that are occurring within your body. Support those changes with my five-point framework and you've got yourself a recipe for success.

Speaker 1:

There's a gentle, holistic approach that is essential for effective postpartum healing because it recognizes this interconnectedness of the physical, the emotional and the spiritual aspects of a woman's well-being during this transformative period. That is why healing with this five-point framework is so necessary, because it touches based on all of them, right, they're all so very interrelated to one another. And that childbirth, that postpartum, brings about those profound changes in a person's body the mind, body, spirit and addresses all of these dimensions that are so crucial for achieving that optimal health and well-being. It goes beyond just the recovery of the body after childbirth. It involves nurturing the body through proper nutrition, gentle movement, this restorative practices that support tissue repair and hormone balance and overall vitality of the body. And this holistic approach recognizes those important factors of nourishing foods and adequate hydration and gentle exercises.

Speaker 1:

And we say all the time like, oh, I already know all this stuff. Right, I already know all of this. But to know it and to apply it are two very, very different things. How often are you applying the things that you already know and how often do you feel you know something and it's not accurate whatsoever, because our society has a very different way of teaching us, living without postpartum anxiety and depression isn't just about escaping its grasp. It's about embracing a lifestyle that genuinely works, a lifestyle that nourishes our mind, our body, our souls. It's a lifestyle that allows us to celebrate the beauty of motherhood while caring for our mental and physical well-being with intention and love. And, dare I say, that is like the biggest missing factor in our society today, because we can't focus there. We are too busy doing all the other things that life has given us.

Speaker 1:

So in my book I share the Mama Thrive method. It's whole body support, nourishment, sleep, nervous system care and rhythms and rituals. Literally, there's imagine an ongoing circle, right? And these components the whole body support, nourishment, sleep, nervous system care and rhythms and rituals are kind of making this circle and it goes round and round and this is the cycle that you want to follow for your lifestyle. It's legit a lifestyle. These are the pieces that are interwoven into my own life.

Speaker 1:

If I just did them once in a while, when I find a moment, they wouldn't work. It would work for a hot minute and I'm telling you, as mamas, we don't need to live from one hot minute to the next. We need to live fully in the ebbs and flows and feel content and nourished and loved along the way. Yes, there's an ebb and flow and there's moments we don't feel amazing. Living in bliss and happiness is not a 24 seven thing. That's unattainable, it's unachievable, it's not a great standard to live by, but being content as life happens, knowing there will be good moments following the not so good moments, knowing that you can always come back to you, knowing that you will always feel like you can come back into a safe place in your body, that is the goal, and so that's why it's so important to create an easy, minimalist lifestyle that focuses on this mama thrive method, which is the key components to your health and well being.

Speaker 1:

When you focus here and reduce everything else, get rid of the rest, delegate it, take it out of your off your plate, go, go, give it to somebody else. Who who maybe wants it, you know. Donate your things, all, all the stuff, seriously cleanse, get rid of it. It's so amazing and it's life changing and it's very much easier to be on track and keep things simple. There's so much more that I could cover in this episode, like finding your community support, how you can find the right help, and so much more, and I encourage you to really sit down with a pen and paper and determine what's working in your life, clear out what isn't, get rid of the noise, the distractions, the things that take you away from caring for yourself and doing what you feel is important being a healthy lifestyle that supports you, and big times of change like having a baby, being in the postpartum period this is such a game changer, and this very thing can help prevent so many from experiencing postpartum depression and anxiety, and it's something we have control over in our lives, unlike race or social status or being a one, which is really a whole other podcast episode. So I'm mentioning it because I very much value it and feel it's important, but we'll come back to it. I've already had more other episodes, but we'll leave it at that and, as we really wrap up this episode, remember that preventing postpartum depression and anxiety is not about perfection, but about progress and supporting your unique needs, and by embracing the Mama Thrive method and interweaving its principles into your lives, you set yourself up on a path of success, of self-discovery, of self-care and empowerment. And, of course, there are times you're going to get off track, but you always have something to come back to and it feels good, it feels easy, you yearn for it, you desire it and it clears out the rest of the gunk, that it doesn't matter to you, and it allows you to show up as the best mom that you want to be and the mother that you want to show up. As In our modern world, the concept of sacred can sometimes seem elusive or even misunderstood.

Speaker 1:

It's a term that evokes various images and emotions and deeply personal experiences to each of us. As we embark on this journey to making postpartum sacred, it's really crucial to lay the foundation that by exploring what the sacred truly means in the context of this transformative experience. So, at its essence, the sacred is about recognizing the extraordinary within the ordinary. It's about finding profound meaning in the seemingly mundane aspects of life. It's the deep connection between the physical and the spiritual, the emotional and the transcendental. It's a reminder that our human experience is not limited to the material and the tangible. It encompasses the intangible, the spiritual, the deeply emotional, and oftentimes this cannot be named. It's a feeling, it's an experience that doesn't have words. So why does this matter in the realm of postpartum? Well, postpartum isn't just a physical recovery. It's this profound emotional and spiritual journey as well. It's a time when a woman undergoes remarkable transformation, both in her body and her identity, and it's a time when we're vulnerable and there's growth. And this rediscovery, and within this journey lies an opportunity to infuse that sacred, acknowledging the spiritual and emotional dimensions of this really life altering experience. So by making postpartum sacred, we honor the full spectrum of this transformation. We create a space for emotional healing, spiritual growth and deep connection. It's an approach that goes beyond the medical and physical aspects. It encompasses the holistic well-being of the mother and her family.

Speaker 1:

One common misconception is that, by embracing the sacred postpartum, that it's some sort of woo-woo kind of thing or it's an impractical concept, something reserved for those who subscribe to this alternative or mystical or new age belief system. And the truth is, making postpartum sacred isn't about pursuing those esoteric or unattainable ideas. It's really about recognizing this deeply human, emotional and spiritual dimension of postpartum. It's about acknowledging that this period of transformation is both natural and significant and deserving of care and reverence. And another misconception is making postpartum sacred is that there's an impossible endeavor. Right, it's too many demands in this modern life, it's too fast-paced, where technology driven, and this leaves little room for that reflection in ceremonian ritual. However, this misconception can be challenged by understanding that the sacredness is found in those everyday moments. It doesn't always require these grand rituals or elaborate practices. It can manifest in small, intentional actions, and the way we prioritize and honor the postpartum experience is a reflection within this. So, while the misconceptions about postpartum sacredness may exist, it's really essential to recognize that this concept is accessible, it's meaningful and it's within reach of anyone willing to embrace it. It's about reclaiming a holistic approach to postpartum care, one that nourishes not only the body but also the spirit and the soul.

Speaker 1:

What is the cause of postpartum rage? And I will tell you. In the medical world it's not fully understood, just as most perinatal mental health disorders are not fully understand, and we know it to be related to this hormonal change. It's really easy to blame anything related to postpartum on hormonal changes, because we simply don't understand the hormonal changes either. But really, when we get down to it, there's such an immense pressure and stress, the lack of support, the lack of understanding, especially from our partners, because sometimes rage has a tendency to either blow up at anyone and everyone or sometimes only particular people that trigger us and sometimes, often, especially if we're holding resentment about something that maybe happened during the birth experience or an angry conversation we had before the birth that didn't get resolved. That can lead to resentment. The lack of nutrition, gluten we'll cover that here in a second being a main factor the resentment for a particular person in your life, even your baby.

Speaker 1:

Maybe there's resentment for not letting you sleep or for taking away your life. It might sound funny and we might, as a person who might not be going through it, say how could we do that? But really those thoughts are real and they need to be acknowledged for exactly what they are. These are real thoughts. They are not bad people for having them. As a matter of fact, most of us 80% of moms report having these thoughts. So you are far more likely to experience them than not. But these are the things that happen.

Speaker 1:

And again, the stress of new parenthood, of not understanding the level of responsibility and challenges and we might think we know, but nobody ever really knows until you're in the experience. That's just parenthood in general. I would never imagine raising a baby. I was a childcare provider for 14 years. I knew exactly what it meant to have a newborn and a family, but I didn't know exactly what it would mean for me, and that's a big, big change that can occur in those very early weeks and months and even years, because postpartum we're always changing, we're always shifting, we're always growing, especially with that of our babies and families. So lots of things. Yes, there's hormonal changes happening, but there's this physical and emotional stress, the demands of childbirth, the demands of parenthood that puts a lot on our bodies and our mind. Sleep deprivation is massive. We don't get enough sleep and we, absolutely positively, don't get enough nutrition, and some of the foods that we eat during the postpartum period can greatly exacerbate the symptoms of postpartum rage.

Speaker 1:

I am so grateful you turned into the Postpartum University podcast. We've hoped you enjoyed this episode enough to leave us a quick review and, more importantly, I hope more than ever that you take what you've learned here, applied it to your own life and consider joining us in a postpartum university membership. It's a private space where mothers and providers learn the real truth and the real tools needed to heal in the years postpartum. You can learn more at wwwpostpartumu. That's the letter youcom. We'll see you next week.

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Maranda Bower

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