Postpartum University® Podcast

Mastering Intuition as a Provider: When to Trust Your Gut vs. Protocol in Postpartum Care EP 204

• Maranda Bower, Postpartum Nutrition Specialist

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What if your gut instinct and intuition as a provider is the missing piece in truly supporting postpartum mothers?

We’ve been trained to rely on tests, checklists, and data, but what if the most powerful tool we have isn’t something that can be measured? 

In this episode, I share a personal experience that shook me to my core—one that proved how deeply connected emotional wounds are to physical symptoms. We dive into why postpartum care has lost its intuitive roots, how women healers throughout history were dismissed or feared for trusting their inner knowing, and why it’s time to bring that back. 

If you’ve ever had a moment where you just knew what a mom needed—without a test or protocol telling you so—this episode will validate what you’ve felt all along. Plus, we discuss how modern biohacking, tracking, and testing have taken us further from the innate wisdom that has guided women’s healing for centuries. If you're a postpartum provider, this episode will reignite your confidence in the deep knowing that makes you extraordinary at what you do.

Check out this episode on the blog: https://postpartumu.com/podcast/mastering-intuition-as-a-provider-when-to-trust-your-gut-vs-protocol-in-postpartum-care-ep-204/


Key Time Stamps: 

00:02 – The gut feeling that changed a client’s postpartum recovery
03:41 – How grief and trauma show up in the body
04:52 – The lost art of trusting intuition in women’s healthcare
06:17 – Why postpartum healing isn’t about biohacking—it’s about deep connection
07:44 – The question every provider must ask: “Am I hesitating because it’s wrong or because I wasn’t taught it?”
09:56 – A personal story of misdiagnosis—and how one doctor trusted her instinct to find the truth
12:48 – Why clients need validation beyond lab results
15:25 – The Postpartum Nutrition Certification: Bridging science and intuition for better care
17:26 – Final thoughts: Why intuition is the missing piece in postpartum healing

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Speaker 1:

The postpartum care system is failing, leaving countless mothers struggling with depression, anxiety and autoimmune conditions. I'm Miranda Bauer and I've helped thousands of providers use holistic care practices to heal their clients at the root. Subscribe now and join us in addressing what modern medicine overlooks, so that you can give your clients real, lasting solutions for lifelong well-being. Hey, welcome to the show. I am going to share with you something that's been on my heart for some time, and it's this recognition that there is something deep inside all of us, especially those of us who are working with postpartum mothers, like a knowing, a feeling, a sense that we can't always articulate, but it speaks louder than any textbook or medical journal ever could. Right, I remember this moment so vividly in my practice that it still makes my skin tingle to this day, and I'm going to tell you. You're going to think that I am absolutely insane. You're going to think that I'm crazy, and this is exactly why I'm sharing it with you. So I had this client and I was working with her through her postpartum healing journey and I had this undeniable pull. We were on a Zoom call together and some things were being. I don't even like remember what we were chatting about at the time. This was a couple of years ago and I had this, this feeling inside. It was something that I could not get away from, like I had to tell her this and I kept thinking to myself I can't tell her what just came up for me. I she's going to think that I'm nuts, she's going to fire me, I am going to lose all credibility. Like this is not rooted in anything that I know. I've never had this experience before. I was so freaking confused, but I will tell you, I was literally going pale and growing cold Like I, my body was physically telling me that I had no other option but to tell my client this. And here's what came to me. Her mom was listening here and she wants my client to know that she loves her and that she's watching over her. And I said that. I said that to my client like I don't know where it came from. It's again never happened to me. Don't know where it came from. It's again never happened to me. I could feel like my whole body just like tense. Like she even mentioned, are you okay? And that's what? Like okay? I have to say this because she saw that something was very wrong with me and I said it, I couldn't hold back, and when I finally spoke those words your mom is listening here, she loves you and she's watching over you she broke down in tears, sobbing, and I had not known this at the time, but her mother had passed away when she was a teenager and she had never heard those words from her mom. She had a difficult relationship as sometimes teens have difficult relationships with your parent, and I had no idea like this wasn't something that she had ever shared with me. And here we are having this conversation. She's crying her eyes out and, of course, we continue working together.

Speaker 1:

We discovered that unspoken grief, that pain that she had buried, that was showing up in her gut symptoms and her physical body. It was reacting to this emotional wound that had been left unhealed for a really long time, and it was actually a matter of a few weeks where she came back and she reported like, like she was just feeling significantly better, most of her symptoms had gone away and she was just absolutely blown away. She felt like she was on cloud nine, like a whole different person that she had just released so much. Just from hearing those words, and I tell you, that moment changed me forever. It's really proof, first off, that our bodies hold memories, just like cells store trauma, and that healing is more than just, you know, lab tests and protocols. But it also made me wonder how many times have providers ignored their own knowing because it didn't fit into a system or it sounded insane, just like the story that I told you.

Speaker 1:

And historically, women in medicine were feared because of this deep knowing. They were persecuted as witches, burned at the stake, ostracized for trusting their intuition. They knew how to support birth, how to heal, how to read the body, but it was seen as dangerous because it couldn't be controlled or packaged or profited from. Let's be honest, and here we are, generations later, still taught to ignore our intuition in favor of protocols or checklists and systems that tell us we must have a study or a citation or a double-blind placebo trial to back up what our gut already knows. But let me ask you this have you ever worked with a mother, looked her in the eye, listened to her symptoms and just knew? Knew what was going on, not because a test confirmed it, not because a manual told you so, not because every cell in your body said you know, this is not right, but instead because every cell in your body said you know this is not right. But instead, because every cell in your body said this is it. That's what we've lost in postpartum care. That's what we're here to reclaim. I get it.

Speaker 1:

We live in this age of biohacking. Everything right, we measure our sleep track, our food testing, our hormones, microdosing, fasting, supplementing, data collecting right. We measure our sleep track, our food testing, our hormones, microdosing, fasting, supplementing, data collecting right. But what if I told you the answer is not in more tracking, it's in more trusting. We've spent so much time trying to outsmart our own biology that we've forgotten how to live in tune with it.

Speaker 1:

And postpartum moms are told fix your hormones with this biohack or optimize your metabolism with this protocol or follow this one size fits all plan to heal. But postpartum is primal and I know you know that right, I'm speaking to the choir here. It requires nourishment and rest and connection and slowing down, not more biohacks. And the same is true for providers. If we stop chasing protocols and start leading from the heart, everything changes. And I know what you're thinking. Right, you were trained in this protocol. Check these boxes, provide evidence-based care. I get it Like. I teach science, I study biology. I believe in evidence, but I also believe in providers having the confidence to know when to step outside the protocol and trust their experience.

Speaker 1:

So how do you know when to take the leap? How do you know when that's the appropriate thing to do if you're not going to get in trouble or be fired or told that you were some kind of quackery right? I want you to ask yourself this is the big question here. Am I hesitating because this isn't right or am I hesitating because it isn't what I was taught? If your hesitation is rooted in fear of breaking the rules or being judged or stepping outside the system, you have to take a leap Because if it were truly wrong, your gut wouldn't tell you otherwise. Wrong, your gut wouldn't. It wouldn't tell you otherwise.

Speaker 1:

Hey, master class alert. Join me for the four stages of postpartum depletion the missing nutrition strategy. Every provider needs. It's a free 60 minute masterclass and you will learn why moms aren't absorbing the nutrients they need to recover, how postpartum depletion follows a predictable pattern and how to stop it, and the gut hormone connection and why food alone is not enough to fix depletion. Join us on Thursday March 6th at 12 PM. Central and bonus, stay until the end and receive the postpartum recovery Assessment Tool. It's an exclusive resource to immediately transform the way you support your clients. Spots are limited. Reserve your seat now at postpartumu the letter ucom slash masterclass.

Speaker 1:

One of the biggest realizations I've had in my career is that we are being trained to read tests that simply confirm what we already know, based on a client's symptoms. Just think about it for a second right. We see the signs. The body is literally speaking to us every symptom, every complaint, every little clue, every little clue. But instead of being taught how to listen, how to piece it all together, we're taught to rely on data over intuition. I get it, it's easier, it's quantifiable, it's trusted.

Speaker 1:

But I'm going to tell you a story here. Right around um five years old for myself, I was about five Uh, I had, uh, a lot of first off. I had. I was in the. I had a lot of First off. I was in hospitals all the time. All the time, from infancy to around three years old, I was hospitalized on numerous occasions for intestinal bleeding, severe intestinal bleeding, and nobody had really understood what the problem was. But that was what was happening in my life and right around five years old or so, the bleeding had, like, mostly subsided and I had spent, you know, a good solid year out of the hospital, which was a miraculous event in and of itself.

Speaker 1:

But there was something else that was really wrong with me and according to my parents they tell me I was pale, I had sunken eyes, I was always tired, it was very thin and frail, I had thinning hair, like you could see my scalp, and they thought the absolute worst. I mean, could you imagine being parents and this is 35 years ago, nearly that? This is, you know, 35 years ago, nearly that this is occurring right, and the world and medicine was very different. Your options were different. It wasn't like you could go to chat GPT or you could even go search the internet, right, like that wasn't a thing.

Speaker 1:

And literally everywhere I went, some jerk stranger would ask what's wrong with your kid. This is actually something I remember very, very well. Someone always thought and had said out loud in my presence, what's wrong with your kid? Not necessarily looking at me, well, looking at me, not speaking to me and I tell you, like everyone thought something was wrong with me and there was this hunt to find out what it was. And, side note, imagine how that carried me into adulthood, right, okay, so, like six doctors later, no one has answers.

Speaker 1:

I've had, I've got a million blood draws and protocols and tests, and I step into this new doctor's office and she takes one look at me and she says she's anemic. And so, alas, I have the answer, I have the medicine and I got better. I got better really fast and the doctor didn't need a test. She just followed the generations of healers and providers before the time of technology. And, look, I get it. I know how hard it is because when you only have a few minutes with your clients, you feel like you need data to be certain. And it's hard because these tests give you something tangible, something that can't be questioned. And it's hard because clients don't trust their own bodies anymore, like they need a piece of paper to believe it. And it's hard because clients don't trust their own bodies anymore, like they need a piece of paper to believe it. And this is where us, as providers, have to step in.

Speaker 1:

I had a client with a long list of symptoms and we spent an entire session going over every single detail what she was eating, what she was drinking, her lifestyle, sleeping, the times of day she felt good and bad. Every last like poop conversation including because you know I'm asking about poop and, as we like, took a step back and we were looking at the full picture. It was like boom, I know exactly what's going on here. You're reacting to coffee and caffeine and I said you should consider taking this out and see how you feel. And so she did and she felt amazing. But within a few days she went back to the coffee and she felt awful again and she said to me why do I feel so bad? Right, and so I had to bring her back. We had to talk through what it was that we just had a conversation about and why we came to this conclusion. But she wasn't like connecting her symptoms to her experience. So she's like I think I'm going to take an allergy test, like there's something here. I had to take an allergy test and guess what? The test came back saying that she was allergic to coffee beans and her response was oh wow, I guess I won't drink coffee now. And then she felt better and she finally, like made the connection, not when her body already told her the answer and we already saw it, but like she had to see it on paper. So I'm telling you, I get it.

Speaker 1:

This is one of the few reasons we will always need tests. This isn't a bash on them. It's not a bash on protocols or tests or anything like that. We love them, we need them right and we should use them, but also we know when exactly they are useful. And we can also agree that there's more to the story that we already know deep within and as providers, we have two choices Like we can continue relying on protocols and tests and reinforcing this idea that healing is something external, something that we can only validate when we see numbers, or we can lead differently. We can teach our clients how to listen, how to trust, how to recognize the signals within their body that their body is constantly giving them, and use tests and protocols and all of the above to support that inner knowing. And here's the thing If you don't trust your own ability to see the patterns, to recognize the root cause, to trust your gut, your clients are not going to either.

Speaker 1:

There's a huge distinction, and this is actually why I created a postpartum nutrition certification program to give providers the knowledge and tools to confidently support moms beyond what the system has taught them, which, let's be honest, when it comes to postpartum care, it is nil. The system has taught you nothing. There's a huge gap in women's healthcare, particularly in postpartum, and that's why we're here for right, because the frustration and the lack of real postpartum education in your training right, the hesitancy to make recommendations because it's in your training right, the hesitancy to make recommendations because it's out of scope, right, postpartum nutrition depletion, gut health it's not something you are taught and you feel kind of left out of the loop. Right, you feel like your clients are missing something deeper, but you don't have the tools or the training to get there. And then you're stuck between you know what is protocol or what you were trained and what you know deeply in your heart and in your gut to be true. And if that's all of you, if you're like, oh my gosh, that's me, I'm telling you you belong in this program.

Speaker 1:

We teach the science and the intuition. We bridge the gap between holistic healing and research-backed care. We show you how to trust yourself and your training. We literally show you what was lost, and mothers deserve providers who listen, who see them and who trust what can't always be measured on paper. So I want to leave you with a challenge today. The next time your gut tells you something, pause, listen, see if it's fear or knowing, because our intuition is not the enemy of science. It is not the enemy of science, it's the missing piece that makes postpartum care whole again.

Speaker 1:

And if you're ready to build your knowledge and your confidence and your ability to support postpartum moms at this deeper level, then come get into the postpartum nutrition certification.

Speaker 1:

It is opening up here just in a few days and this is where you belong to kind of like bring it all together and go, ask yourself those questions, tune in to what you are doing in your practice and see where you can bring in more of that intuition, more of that deeper knowing and how can you support your clients and gaining that as well, and tapping into their innate knowledge and supporting them and their growth so that they become that tuned in person who can support themselves and ideally, never need us anymore.

Speaker 1:

That's the end result right. End result, right. Thanks so much for being a part of this crucial conversation. I know you're dedicated to advancing postpartum care and if you're ready to dig deeper, come join us on our newsletter, where I share exclusive insights, resources and the latest tools to help you make a lasting impact on postpartum health. Sign up at postpartumu the letter ucom which is in the show notes, and if you found today's episode valuable, please leave a review to help us reach more providers like you. Together, we're building a future where mothers are fully supported and thriving.

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Maranda Bower

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