Postpartum Yoga and the 5 Elements with Jojo Hogan EP 166

I am joined by Jojo Hogan, a renowned expert in the perinatal field. 

I am thrilled to have her join us for this conversation as a respected colleague in the field of postpartum care and a dear friend. 

Today, she shares her wisdom on the transformative power of yoga for postpartum care.

In this episode, we're sharing: 

1. Introduction to Jojo Hogan & the Slow Postpartum Movement - 0:48
   Jojo's extensive background in the perinatal field and her advocacy for the slow postpartum movement.
2. The Philosophy of Yoga in Postpartum - 3:06
   Jojo explains how yoga, an ancient system from India, can benefit new mothers by promoting a balanced life and integrating physical and mental well-being.
3. Regulating the Nervous System Through Yoga - 7:01
   Discussion on the importance of a regulated nervous system for new mothers and how yoga practices can support this, benefiting both the mother and the baby.
4. Ayurvedic Elements in Postpartum Care - 18:14
   Jojo shares how the five elements of Ayurvedic medicine (earth, fire, water, air, and space) can be incorporated into postpartum care to help mothers feel grounded and balanced.
5. Practical Yoga Techniques for New Mothers - 26:22
   Jojo talks about practical and restorative yoga techniques that new mothers can easily incorporate into their daily routine to relieve physical tension and promote relaxation.

Jojo Hogan's insights into the role of yoga and Ayurvedic practices in postpartum care highlight the profound benefits of a slow and intentional approach to recovery after birth.

By integrating these holistic practices, new mothers can nurture their physical and emotional well-being, ultimately creating a more balanced and fulfilling postpartum experience.

Click here for more details about JoJo and how to connect with her work!

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Chapters

• 0:02 Yoga Benefits in Postpartum Phase
• 4:41 Postpartum Yoga Benefits and Nervous System
• 16:17 Regulating Nervous System in Postpartum
• 27:03 Postpartum Yoga and Motherhood Wisdom

Transcript

Maranda Bower: 0:02

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. Hello everyone, welcome to another session for the Integrative Therapies and Postpartum, and today I have one of my absolute most favorite people, jojo Hogan.

Maranda Bower: 0:48

She specializes in perinatal field, with over 20 years as a massage therapist, a yoga teacher and a postpartum doula, and more recently she has focused on educating and inspiring pregnant and new parents as the benefits of honoring the weeks following birth and this time of intentionality, of slowing down and many of you may know Jojo from that hashtag slow postpartum movement. She has created an entire movement. Many of her posts are viral. Posts are viral. You go viral fairly regularly because she's just speaking so well to the wisdom that is postpartum and touching so many lives. So her foundation is the slow living postpartum, slow living. She has this beautiful philosophy and she's going to share a lot of that with us today, particularly on the beautifulness that is yoga, which is very different than what I think a lot of people assume is yoga right, jojo? Because we're talking about yoga in postpartum, which kind of transforms things a little bit.

Jojo Hogan: 2:00

Well, hey, thank you so much, miranda, for having me, and I'm really happy to be here to talk about one of my favorite topics, which is how we can utilize the benefits of the system of yoga in the weeks following birth. And but, just as you say, we were chatting about it before we pressed record. Yoga in the postpartum doesn't really look like you imagine yoga to be right, because how often are new mothers given the opportunity to unroll a yoga mat and or go to a yoga class, or even stop for five minutes to do a downward facing dog, and even that might not even be comfortable, right. So when I talk about yoga in the postpartum, there's different aspects of the practice and the philosophy that I bring into my care of postpartum families, and that's what we're going to talk about today.

Maranda Bower: 2:55

I love that. So what is the philosophy of yoga and how can it benefit new mothers and parents in this postpartum phase?

Jojo Hogan: 3:06

Sure. So, as most of your listeners will know, yoga is a very ancient system that started in India. Really, the system of Ayurveda, which is the medicinal system of yoga, started, we think, probably over 5, years ago, and yoga in itself is is a very um, I'm gonna say, simple but also complex way of living well in the world. Really it's a philosophy. It's not a religion. That's sometimes a common um confusion because people see the Indian aspect of it and it has links with the Hindu system, but actually yoga doesn't follow any particular religious system. It's a spiritual way or philosophy of living well. You know that the ancient yogis said well, if we do this and do this and do this and do this, chances are you're going to have a happier and more balanced life. But they don't ask you to follow a dogma by any way. It's always done. You know. Practice this and if it works for you, then great, and if it doesn't, let it go.

Jojo Hogan: 4:15

But it's complex in the way that it involves many different. There's actually eight limbs of the system of yoga and it covers things like nutrition and breathing and meditation and work and the way that we interact with our environment and those around us, the way we treat our own body the way that we treat other people's bodies. So all of this is part of yoga. Excuse me, I'm just going to clear my throat people's bodies. So all of this is part of yoga. Excuse me, I'm just going to clear my throat, but in the west, of course, as we tend to do, because we're quite body focused, over the last hundred years or so, we've taken the physical aspect of yoga, which is what we call the asana, the poses, which are really there so that we can have a comfortable body to live in, and we use our body as a way of training the mind, if you like.

Jojo Hogan: 5:07

We train the body in order to train the mind.

Jojo Hogan: 5:10

We've taken that bit of it and we've run with it right.

Jojo Hogan: 5:13

We've taken into the gyms and health centers and we've said yoga will give you longer hamstrings and it will cure your back pain and it will make you fitter and it will make you more flexible and strong, and all of those things are true, but actually, really, it's all about the mind. It's about using the body in order to have a more peaceful, balanced, trained, disciplined, if you like, mind. And that is the true essence of yoga yoga, the benefits that we can get from the practice, and so, therefore, when I share this with the pregnant and postpartum families that I work with, I talk about the fact that, yeah, sure, you know, we can definitely help to ease aches and pains in the body and we can strengthen and tone the muscles back to um, you know how, how they were when before you got pregnant. But really, when we talk about using yoga in the postpartum, we're talking about the massive benefits that it brings to your nervous system, um, to your sense of well-being and equilibrium, those kind of things. That's the benefit we're getting from practice.

Maranda Bower: 6:29

That sounds absolutely amazing and so necessary within the postpartum period. There's just so much going on within our bodies and I think you mentioned before the call too, the more that we are aware of these practices, not just yoga and being within our bodies, but also that spiritual aspect. Maybe you can share a little bit more about that, but how that can be so beneficial within that postpartum period and help regulating our nervous system.

Jojo Hogan: 7:01

Yeah, absolutely, and I suppose you know the word spiritual can mean different things to different people, can't it? You know, if you have a faith or a religion, you would see that as being your spiritual practice. But if you don't have a faith or you don't have a religion, then you can still access that most deeper and more profound feelings in the postpartum and in my experience, actually, there's maybe no more important time to experience those feelings, right when you have a baby. It's very, very profound, very deep. It opens up things that you never have maybe anticipated or experienced before when you become a mother or become a new parent. Be anticipated or experienced before when you become a mother or become a new parent. Um, but and I'd love to tell you a little story right at the end of our interview I'll tell you a little story about that. But when we think about the nervous system in postpartum the physical body, the, the emotional body, the mental body and yoga sees all of these bodies as being different but integrated in a in about you we're trying to balance them and integrate them right, the western system of medicine looks at the nervous system and we can talk about our nervous systems as being regulated or unregulated, and I think most people can understand what that means. When we have a regulated nervous system, we feel comfortable. Our heart rate is normal, our blood pressure is good, our breathing is slow and relaxed and we're coming from what we call the parasympathetic nervous system. We're rested and relaxed. But then, when we're unregulated or dysregulated, we can become stressed, obviously anxious. We can suffer from things like depression, anxiety, mood disorders, insomnia, those kind of things, and unfortunately those things are quite prevalent in the postpartum. You talk about it a lot. You talk about it a lot. If we're not getting the proper care in the postpartum weeks, then our nervous systems become unregulated and those that. That can be caused by hormonal imbalance. It can be caused by sleep deprivation and exhaustion. It can be caused by not feeling loved and cared for and supported.

Jojo Hogan: 9:23

Having having to do too much right, being caring for this baby and doing all of the other things, and these kind of things can dysregulate a parent's nervous system. The important thing about that is that our babies, our newborn babies, depend on us to be regulated because they can't regulate their own nervous systems. This is the important thing that we need to understand is that newborn babies don't have the ability to regulate their own nervous system, so they depend on us to be regulated in order to regulate them right. That's why I really think this is the foundation of the importance of postpartum care, of slowing down the postpartum, of making sure that the new parents' needs are being met and they're being cared for by others so that they, in turn, can help their babies regulate. When a parent and a baby are both dysregulated, then that's always going to be problematic, right?

Jojo Hogan: 10:29

So regulating the new parent's nervous system in a way is kind of the foundation of what I do as a postpartum doula. Right, I could say that I cook for new parents and I massage them and I care, care for them and I make cups of tea and I listen to them and I cuddle their baby while they rest All of those practical skills, for sure. What I'm really doing is I'm loving them and I'm caring for them and I'm helping them regulate their nervous system so that they feel relaxed and calm and they are, in turn, able to offer that to their baby from a place of wellbeing and being rested, relaxed, nurtured, nourished. Yeah, that's quite a long-winded way of answering your question.

Maranda Bower: 11:17

It's so true, though I have a story to share in regard to that. I remember there was a OT professional here in my area and she reached out and connected with me about a mom and baby that was really struggling within her care, breastfeeding, and her baby is just incredibly fussy and physically there was absolutely nothing wrong and she was trained in myofascial release and she was looking inside the mouth for tongue ties and there was the baby had received chiropractic adjustments and all of this and yet baby was still incredibly fussy. And I remember asking her specifically well, fussy. And I remember asking her specifically well, how does mom feel in her body right now? And she there.

Maranda Bower: 12:15

It was two parts.

Maranda Bower: 12:15

At first she was really angry with me and she didn't actually respond to me and I and I knew that she wasn't responding, obviously, but she came back later and was like I didn't realize that it could be so simple.

Maranda Bower: 12:26

Mom was really stressed out, mom, you know, and and we see this often because when a baby's stressed out and we see things, you know, oftentimes like colic, we say we call it colic and other things right we see a baby who's just not being able to be soothed and that triggers things within our brain and our nervous system to be on high alert and to feel almost very dysregulated, and so it creates this spiral. But when we're able to step back and regulate for ourselves, then we help co-regulate our babies and bring everyone back down to a place that feels so beautiful and so regulated. And I just I remember that story so well because she was like I can't believe that I missed something so simple. Um, and and that's what we do we have a tendency to over complicate everything and postpone and and women's health in general, right. So I'm so glad that you are sharing this because it's so true.

Maranda Bower: 13:28

This is the work that we are doing and yoga is simply a tool to help us get there correct, that's exactly right.

Jojo Hogan: 13:37

And sometimes the tool can be used by the new mother or the new parent. I might teach them some deep breathing exercises. That will help to trigger, that will stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. It's no coincidence we say just take a few deep breaths. Right, put your baby down, walk away, take a few deep breaths, come back. Even that simple exercise can help to calm us down. But I think your point is very interesting because you're very correct in saying that our nervous system response to our babies crying or being fussy, it creates a stress in us, an anxiety. Right, that's actually a normal response. That's actually a normal response. That's actually a normal physiological response.

Jojo Hogan: 14:25

When your baby cries, your baby's chi, your baby's particular cry, the, the tempo, the tombra, the pitch, the volume, all of that is designed, completely designed, to make you go crazy until you can make the baby stop crying. Right, that's how evolution has made sure that we don't. I mean, imagine if we just thought oh, I don't care about that baby crying, I'm just going to walk over here and do something else. That's not how evolution has designed our mothering, nurturing, parenting abilities. It's designed it for us, our anxiety, to go up and up and up until we can make the baby stop crying, and that's great, because that means you're a good parent, it means you are doing what you're meant to do. However, sometimes we can't make a baby stop crying because we the baby is crying for some reason that, when we've all been here as mothers right, you feed the baby you change the baby's nappy, you rock the baby, you carry the baby and then you're like this is all I've got.

Jojo Hogan: 15:27

Why is the baby still crying? We don't know sometimes. Sometimes babies nervous systems are dysregulated for some other reason. It could be a bit of birth getting over the birth, it could be some reason that we're just not sure about. Sometimes their little nervous systems just need to calibrate. This is the reason we need others around us right to help, to support, because sometimes you just need to hand that baby to someone else and and maybe your nervous system is so dysregulated because you've been listening to this baby cry for an hour and you're just about to go insane. You know you need to hand that baby over or at least have someone pour you a hot bath or give you a cup of tea or give you something that's going to help you, because sometimes you can't regulate your own nervous system.

Maranda Bower: 16:17

I was just thinking that as you were speaking. You know, here we are the people who are here to help regulate our baby's nervous system, and in postpartum it sounds like we need help regulating our own nervous system. You know it's such a mothers need mothering, right?

Jojo Hogan: 16:36

It goes back to that beautiful saying mothering right, it goes back to that beautiful saying, correct? And that is just exactly what I do in my work. I think of that as I mother the mother, and I've got a little sort of simple ways of doing it. Now can I share them with you?

Maranda Bower: 17:33

Oh yes, Hands down.

Jojo Hogan: 17:35

Because in the system of Ayurvedic medicine, as I say, which is is the system of yoga, and this is where the yoga comes in, right, not the. You're not asking people to do yoga poses, although we might lie on the floor and wriggle around and stretch out our bodies and shoulders, for sure, but in the system of ayurvedic medicine, we look at the five elements. This and this is used in many systems of traditional medicine, including chinese medicine and even um in medicine before modern day medicine came in. So we've got the five elements, and they are, as you know, earth, fire, water, air, and in Ayurvedic medicine there's also space, or spirit as well. Well, and when I teach this, I tell my students, when I work with doulas and birth professionals, or I teach my new parents, that we can think about putting these nervous system regulations and categorizing them into the five elements. Right, so I use I tend to use all of them, maybe even all in one visit, maybe only one or two, but I'll share with you how I categorize them, just so it might be of use to your students as well. So the first one is fire, and in traditional postpartum care all over the world, we use heat.

Jojo Hogan: 18:56

In the postpartum weeks. We warm the mother. She's traditionally seen because of the energetic imbalance that follows birth, pregnancy and birth. Her energy system is seen as cold, cold and spacious. So we need to bring the fire back in. We need to bring the warmth back in to help regulate her and help energize her again and help boost her digestive system as well. So I use fire by warming the mother. I bring a wheat bag, a warm wheat bag or a hot water bottle for her to cuddle. I might put a warm wrap on her belly to bring the energy back into the belly. But also I see fire as being the sun, the sunlight. And actually it's really important for mothers and new parents to get out into the sunlight, natural light, and get their eyeballs in the sun. It doesn't work through windows, right? You actually have to be standing outside, and if it's a cold, wintry day maybe it's not going to work so well. But just natural light is a good way of bringing the fire element and regulating the melatonin in the body as well, which helps with sleep regulation. So that's the fire, the warmth and the sunlight, and then we've got water.

Jojo Hogan: 20:09

Now water is hydration, right, making sure that she's drinking enough, um, bringing the fire element in as well. Not too many cold drinks. The drinks that she drinks should be warm or at least room temperature. But hot cups of tea and warm milky drinks help to bring that fire element in and also the water, but they are grounding as well, yeah, and of course, a lovely hot bath. Lying in a bath or having a hot shower. It's a great way for mums just to have that little bit of space, and often I'll take baby and say, hey, you're going to have a shower and make it nice and warm and give yourself some time and space to sit under some hot water. So that's the water, the earth I always think about. There's two things that I bring in with earth, and that is to go and put your feet on the earth if at all possible. We know that that's a grounding thing to do so as long as it's not freezing, cold and muddy, which it is in England at the moment.

Maranda Bower: 21:07

But if it's a nice day, Alaska too. Alaska too.

Jojo Hogan: 21:10

I wouldn't so much be getting them to put their bare feet on the earth, right, but it'd be great if you could actually even just get out in nature. Sometimes it's okay to wrap yourself up in a big coat and wrap baby up and go for a little walk outside, but ideally I'd get bare feet on the earth if I could, even if it was just for a few minutes or just going to sit outside in the garden, being in that natural space if at all possible and I know that's not always possible for all mothers. But earth I always think about is food as well. When you know we have that nourishing food, which I know, of course, is your passion as well.

Jojo Hogan: 21:48

The food is grounding and those traditional postpartum foods that we eat in the first few weeks are um, uh, you know, densely nutritious, right high in protein, oily, good fats in those foods and all of those foods are grounding. And in ayurvedic medicine we, we often encourage women to eat food. That is, when I say sweet, I don't mean full of sugar, but I mean things like um, uh, you know, sweet potatoes and pumpkins and, um, you know, those kind of sweet, grounding, uh porridges and dals ghee and it's like fall food, right like exactly so you feel like you've got something in your tummy that's going to ground you down, because when we're feeling hungry we're often quite dysregulated, and how many times do you arrive with a new mum and she hasn't had breakfast yet?

Jojo Hogan: 22:41

So the first thing I'm doing is going to get some food into her, you know, ground her with that earth energy and then we go into air, and air is fresh air for sure, if we can get her out into the nature, remember that we can take some fresh air.

Jojo Hogan: 22:56

But also breathing exercises, very simple, deep, diaphragmatic breaths, and extending out that exhalation, focusing on her breath in order to regulate her nervous system. Taking those deep breaths is the air element and space or spirit I kind of think about as being taking just some space for herself, right, connecting with, if she has a spiritual practice, whether it's a religious practice or just some yoga or whatever she does, that makes her heart happy. That is her own thing, that is her own space, that she needs time out from her baby occasionally, if she wants that time out. And of course we could bring all of that in together. We could have a hot bath with a cup of tea and some lovely essential oils and some deep breathing and that's her half an hour away just to regulate her nervous system. So yeah, so that's how I bring the yogic five elements into my work.

Maranda Bower: 24:04

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Maranda Bower: 24:45

Don't miss your opportunity to help women and families who desperately need your holistic support. Go to wwwpostpartumucom. We're accepting registrations right now and we can't wait to see you there. It's so true, like bringing these components of the earth and the gifts that we've been given by God or divine creation or whatever it is that you want to call. It is such a beautiful thing in the postpartum period and these are tools that we can use, and you had mentioned you know the different ways in which you support postpartum moms and parents during this time, and I know yoga is the tool, but it's almost like all of these pieces are getting infused into that aspect and because of that, then, we have a very well-balanced relationship care, we have a well-balanced nervous system. We have all of the components that we need to truly thrive during this time, which is which we don't talk about no, and, as you can see, many of them involve having other people to care for you, right, and I?

Jojo Hogan: 26:04

I think that that's the kicker, unfortunately, is that it's all very well for us to say that, and I'm privileged enough to have an amazing job where I care for women who can invest in my care, but many women and new families don't necessarily have the ability to afford postpartum doula care, but I can still share this information with them because it's still important. You can bring these aspects into your own care, even if you don't necessarily have other people around, although I would argue that gathering your village of support is just so important, asking for that help, whether you invest in it, or whether you ask friends and family to be there to care for you, to bring you food, to cuddle your baby while you take some time out you know all of these things but if you don't have the care around that you deserve and need, you can bring these aspects of yoga into your own care and don't get me wrong the physical aspect of yoga.

Jojo Hogan: 27:03

I definitely do that with my clients too.

Jojo Hogan: 27:06

We will unroll the yoga mat and maybe we'll just do five minutes of shoulder stretches because your back is feeling so tight from cuddling your baby for what seems like days on end.

Jojo Hogan: 27:19

We can do some lovely physical stretches into the body, although I always explain to my clients that we only do as much as your body wants and needs and we don't push it. Your body still has quite a lot of relaxant the hormone relaxant in there, so your muscles, but more importantly, your joints, are a little bit more flexible. So we have to be careful, we have to not overstretch and we just do what feels good, right, and as soon as you feel tired you just rest. And most of the yoga that I teach in the postpartum is what we call restorative yoga and that means that you're basically just lying on the floor, you know, rolled over, lying over a rolled towel or resting your head on a chair or doing something where you can just take 10 deep breaths in a stretch and then gently come out of it, and you might only do two or three minutes and it will feel wonderful in your body, but you're certainly not doing an hour or so or going to a class in those first few weeks.

Maranda Bower: 28:20

You have mentioned recently this thing and I really want to ask you about this. You say, I quote your baby is your yoga in the first postpartum weeks. Tell us about what that means.

Jojo Hogan: 28:33

Oh well, that is my story actually, that I wanted to tell you oh, yay yay, yeah.

Jojo Hogan: 28:39

So that's the story of I was doing my yoga teacher training many years ago. It was nearly well. How old is my son? 25 this year. So it was 25 25 years ago. I was pregnant in the first year. I was so I'm. So I'm such a control freak, miranda, I'm so organized that I thought, okay, I'm going to do this yoga teacher training, I'm going to get pregnant on the in the first year, because it was a two-year training, right, I'm going to get pregnant. I'll do the first year when I'm pregnant. Then there's a three-month gap in the middle. I'm going to have the baby in the three month gap and then I'll do the second year, you know, after I've had this baby. Honestly, you know I am so organized that I did that, I arranged that Right.

Jojo Hogan: 29:15

So I did the whole first year when I was pregnant, which was fine, and then I had Oisin, my son, in the in the middle of the gap, three month gap.

Maranda Bower: 29:27

You did that.

Jojo Hogan: 29:28

It worked out, and you did it that way. Wow, beautiful, I did it. Yeah, that's when it all falls to pieces, though, because the second year I had this, I think he was eight weeks old when I went back to do my training and as part of the training, I think we had one weekend a month, was the course.

Jojo Hogan: 29:44

And in between that time, we were told that we should be doing an hour and a half practice a day, right, every day. An hour and a half practice a day, right, every day. An hour and a half practice, plus all the homework and the coursework. Right? I thought, well, that's fine, it's easy, I'll just do the yoga when the baby's sleeping, because what else have I got to do? I've got this newborn baby. I'm going to have all this time on my hands. Of course, you know what happened.

Jojo Hogan: 30:05

Three months later, I go to my yoga teacher in tears. I haven't even unrolled my yoga mat, I've done no practice. Um, I said to him I'm. I was in tears, you know. I said I'm never going to be able to become a yoga teacher. I haven't even done any yoga and got this newborn baby and I can't even touch my toes. My body's recovering from and for me.

Jojo Hogan: 30:31

He was a very wise father of four babies and he just looked at me and he said your baby is your yoga, right, your baby is your yoga. And that just touched me on such a profound level because, of course, what he meant was that yoga is not about touching your toes. You know, yoga is a spiritual practice which teaches you how to open your heart and how to live in the world and how to have patience and trust and love. And yoga is about being in the world, and there is no deeper spiritual practice than having a baby, right? Is there anything that opens your heart bigger and more wide than when your baby is born, blows your heart apart? Is there anything that teaches you unlimited patience? Is there anything that challenges you more on every single level physical, emotional, spiritual, mental? You know, having a baby is the biggest spiritual practice that maybe you'll ever go through. And that's what he meant is that yoga is far more than just touching your toes, and this is the road that you're walking now. Is your spiritual practice, and allow that to happen. Let that be be with that.

Jojo Hogan: 32:00

Your baby lives in the present moment all the time, right, as yogis, we spend hours and hours in meditation, trying to be mindful, to live in the present moment. We're told about this mindfulness, aren't we? You know this yoga, it's the zeitgeist. Now Everybody's talking about mindfulness. Well, what is mindfulness? Mindfulness is being present, and our babies are always present. They're like little Buddhas, right, little yogis, and our practice is to be with them in the present moment to join them where they are. Yeah, and so that's what he meant Learn from your baby, observe your baby, be with your baby, be present and ride the waves, ride the challenges and learn from becoming a mother how to be in the world, and that was a beautiful thing.

Maranda Bower: 32:55

And it is absolutely gorgeous. Thank you so much for all of your wisdom and your stories. This has been so enlightening, and I know that you also have a new program. Can you share a little bit more about your program, Because I am in awe of your work? I have been a follow of yours for a very long time and I actually have so many clients of mine who come through the certification program and our membership, who are going to you and vice versa. Like we share the same people often, Um and so I think it's so relevant what you're doing and and and the anyway, just share your genius and what it is that you've created for others.

Jojo Hogan: 33:43

Oh, thank you. I've got two little programs. Actually, One is for um he says little you're amazing.

Maranda Bower: 33:50

It's not little. Yes, keep going.

Jojo Hogan: 33:53

The one program is for pregnant mamas to learn to plan, because I think that that so much of this work and I'm sure you'll agree is that when we plan for the postpartum, we can. That's the missing bit of the link, isn't it? We tend to plan for our birth and we plan the nursery and we plan all the things that we need to buy for our baby, but we forget to plan for the postpartum weeks. As I heard someone say once. I knew I was pregnant but why didn't anyone tell me I was going to have a baby? Right? And that's so true in my experience.

Jojo Hogan: 34:27

So I created a little course for new mother or pregnant mothers and parents to do before they have babies, so that they can know all the things that they need to know about planning, making a postpartum plan a slow postpartum plan, the importance of slowing down, and then that kind of covers all of the topics that I work with.

Jojo Hogan: 34:47

All of the topics that I work with, so a little bit of yoga and nervous system regulation and building your village and just touching on a little bit of cooking and nutrition, but nowhere near as in-depth as you go. And then I've taken that course and so many doulas and birth workers wanted to learn the skills that I bring into the slow postpartum space that I created a course for doulas and birth professionals as well. So it's the sort of same nine steps, the same nine lessons as I work with about intentionality and working with challenges and the physical healing of the body, mental, emotional, birth trauma, cooking in the home for new parents, birth trauma, cooking in the home for new parents, working with families, family dynamics, you know all those kinds of things. Just put those together in a course which is called the Art of Slow Postpartum and that just launched a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, but it's available, for sure, on my website.

Maranda Bower: 35:45

I love it. Thank you so much and, of course, we're going to have the link and everything there so that you can take a look. You know, if you're somebody who's been wanting to become a doula, this is not necessarily a doula certification, but I highly recommend it as your source of information, as your source of training. This is just a very profound training that she's been doing and it and it happened very similarly to how my life has happened and enrolled.

Maranda Bower: 36:13

I was working directly with moms and supporting them and and then I had professionals saying wait a second, what are you doing? My clients are saying this or they're getting off medications or you know we're we're able to do things in a way that we've never been able to move past because of your work. What are you doing? And I think the same is true for you the providers are saying wait a second, what are you doing with this mom? How is that working? You're amazing. I hear the things that people are saying about you. What is it that you're doing? And so it's such a great, amazing resource that you have created for so many people.

Jojo Hogan: 36:49

Also, you can only work with one family at a time. Right, I can only be there for one family at a time. I don't really only work with one, maybe maximum two families at a time, and so I feel that this work needs to be out into the world, and I'd love to be able to share it with other doulas and birth professionals so that they can share it with their families and share it with their families, and then it can spread across the world. The importance of slowing down the postpartum yes, yes, amen.

Maranda Bower: 37:17

Jojo, thank you again so much for your time and of course, we're going to have all of this information for you so that you can go take a look at her her things. And thank you just from the bottom of my heart. I love our conversations together and I can't wait to have more. Just from the bottom of my heart. I love our conversations together and I can't wait to have more. 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 the 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 wwwpostpartumucom. We'll see you next week.