Postpartum University® Podcast

Postpartum Depression Is a Symptom, Not a Diagnosis EP 216

• Maranda Bower, Postpartum Nutrition Specialist

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What if postpartum depression isn’t the problem itself… but a symptom of something much deeper? 

This episode is going to make you rethink everything you know about postpartum depression.  Something fixable? I'm breaking it all down: the nutrient depletion, trauma, sleep loss, birth medications, toxins, and isolation that are wrecking postpartum health—and why the current system is failing mothers at the root.

If you're a postpartum provider, doula, therapist, midwife, nurse, or birth professional (or anyone passionate about postpartum recovery), this conversation is ESSENTIAL. It's time to stop labeling and start healing at the core. If you’re searching for functional nutrition, perinatal mental health education, and REAL answers for postpartum healing—you’re exactly in the right place.

Check out this episode on the blog: https://postpartumu.com/podcast/postpartum-depression-is-a-symptom-not-a-diagnosis-ep-216/


Key Time Stamps: 

00:00  The hard truth about postpartum depression
01:06  Miranda’s experience with postpartum depression & bipolar disorder
02:28  Science proves it—but the system doesn’t value mothers
03:30 Postpartum depression as a symptom, not a diagnosis
04:51  Why symptom labels don’t fix root causes
05:50 How postpartum medications can help—and how they can hurt
06:30 Why postpartum care must be more than prescribing meds
08:54 The 6 root causes behind postpartum depression
10:19 The shocking nutrient depletion rates in postpartum women
11:47 Toxic overload and why detox pathways matter
13:57 How sleep deprivation physically rewires the postpartum brain
15:19 Unprocessed trauma and nervous system breakdown
17:47 How birth medications impact postpartum mental health
19:08 The brutal reality of no support and isolated motherhood
20:22  Providers aren’t taught postpartum-specific healing
21:04  Is this anecdotal or real science? (Hint: it’s clinical, it's proven)
22:35  Why depression is the warning light, not the broken engine
23:43  Why moms aren't broken—the care system is
24:34  The new model of postpartum care: body, mind, spirit, and environment
25:41  How Postpartum University is revolutionizing 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, hey, everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Today I am bringing you one of the most important and, yes, probably one of the most controversial conversations that we have ever had on this show. But I am not afraid to have it, because we simply need to. We need to be talking about postpartum depression. We are not talking about it in the way you've heard it talked about before. We're asking the powerful question what if postpartum depression isn't the diagnosis? What if it's a symptom?

Speaker 1:

I want to first say that, before we go any further, that I've been there. I've had postpartum depression after my first baby. I had it after my second as well. I've experienced postpartum anxiety. I've had postpartum bipolar disorder with my third. So when I say that I get this topic and it hits close to home, I mean it with every cell in my third. So when I say that I get this topic and it hits close to home. I mean it with every cell in my body. This is not hypothetical, this isn't a theory. I know the dark, I know the isolation. I know what it's like to feel you were breaking apart inside and to have no one truly see what's happening. And I also know what it means to heal to heal deeply and on the clinical side of things, now that I've been doing this work for years and a professional capacity. So what I share with you today comes not just from science and experience as a biological researcher, as someone who's been here, lived it and have researched it and dedicated my entire life to this, I'm telling you, I want you to feel safe here, I want you to stay curious and I also want you to let this challenge you, because it will Okay. So there's this overwhelming amount of information in science that supports what I'm about to share.

Speaker 1:

In fact, I am currently writing an entire book about how we've missed the mark with science and postpartum care. It's going to be absolutely phenomenal. I am very excited to have this book and to be able to write this. For those of you who don't know, I got a book deal. So cool, but here's the thing right, science knows everything that I'm going to share with you. We know how nutrient depletion, trauma, hormonal shifts, nervous system dysregulation, the impact of maternal mental health, all of this but the system doesn't prioritize the mother. But the system doesn't prioritize the mother. Science is often used to create policy, produce pills and protect profits. It's not to build sustainable, nourishing systems of care for mothers. So, yes, there is evidence, mountains of it, but if we don't value mothers, the evidence means nothing.

Speaker 1:

So here's the thing about postpartum depression. I truly believe that it is a symptom of lack of care. A diagnosis is just a label. It's a way of categorizing symptoms, but it doesn't tell us the root. It doesn't ask why the symptoms are happening, and this is something even Bessel van der Kolk, the author of the Body, keeps the Score. He said this again and again in his book.

Speaker 1:

Most of the people that I have worked with who come into postpartum universities say the exact same thing. There's just a list of symptoms that get bundled up and put into this label that says oh, you have X, y, z because you've had, you know this many symptoms that that match this and so you. It becomes a label, but it does nothing more than that. It doesn't teach you how to care for those symptoms, it doesn't say why those symptoms came up in the first place and it certainly doesn't tell you what to do about those symptoms. There's nothing more to it, right? And the whole DSM-5 is built in that way. It's just like a just an encyclopedia of symptoms that are grouped together that create a diagnosis, and that's Western medicine.

Speaker 1:

And most of the women I work with have been told, who have been told, that they have postpartum depression. They're usually given a medication fairly immediately, but very few of them are ever asked what are you eating? Are you sleeping at all? What about birth trauma? What kind of support do you have? Instead, they're usually told things like oh, it's just a chemical imbalance, or oh, it's just a hormonal imbalance, and that's like the thing that explains everything. Right, as if the body exists in isolation from the life around it, as if, you know, we are just supposed to suffer because now we're a mother and that's what it means to be a mother. And worse, they see too many women suffer under medications that don't help or just make them feel worse, and they're told that's normal. Or they're told just stay on it for a couple of years and it'll be fine in the end.

Speaker 1:

But let's be real. These medications, especially in the early postpartum period, can have long-term consequences on the brain. This is the time when the brain is rewiring the most. It is one of the most plastic it's ever been. That means everything we do has lasting effects and lasting consequences. And no, I am not saying that all medications are bad. Medications can be life-saving. I've seen them stabilize someone enough to come back to themselves to breathe again, and that is sacred work too.

Speaker 1:

But what I am saying is we shouldn't have to get to that point in the first place. If we were providing real postpartum care nutritional, emotional, spiritual, physical we wouldn't see these rates of mental health collapse. Right now, postpartum depression accounts for one out of every three women. We wouldn't have to lean on medication as the first and only line of defense, which is currently what we've been doing, and we currently see that those rates are rising and rising, and rising. It wasn't one in three just a decade ago, it was one in seven, and so we have to draw the line. We have to say what is happening here.

Speaker 1:

Meds are not the enemy. Incomplete care is the enemy. You cannot give meds and then be done with it right. If meds are the answer for immediate safety, then the next step is figuring out how to get that body off of those meds after addressing exactly what it needs. But all too often that last part, the long-term care plan that never, ever happens.

Speaker 1:

And we do it oftentimes with not enough information. For example, I once shared on social media this was just not too long ago, I think it was a month or two ago about St John's Wort. It is a plant that has been used for thousands of years and it's actually one of the few herbal remedies that is supported by clinical data and it is proven effective for mild to moderate depression in postpartum. And I shared links to the studies like actual peer reviewed research, and I got torn apart for it because it wasn't a prescription and because I'm posting that clearly I must be anti-medication, and also because it feels too simple. It feels like you know, we've equated science and pharmaceuticals and then if it's natural, then all of a sudden it's quackery. But if we say we believe in science, we have to believe in all of it, not just the parts that feel safe or fit the current system or a current story of what is okay.

Speaker 1:

Before I go on another rant. I want to tell you the six roots of postpartum depression. Let's talk about what is really happening in the body that makes postpartum depression a symptom. It is a symptom of these six things that I'm going to tell you about. First off, the first and foremost, which is no surprise nutrient depletion. Pregnancy pulls from the mother's body. If she doesn't restore those nutrients, she is going to suffer Iron, b12, folate, omega-3s the list goes on. These are critical for mood regulation, for cognition, for energy, and the research is clear, right?

Speaker 1:

We have astounding amount of research that says 80% of women who enter into the postpartum period are depleted of key nutrients and minerals, and many of these nutrient minerals are directly linked to symptoms of depression and even anxiety. Yet most moms are discharged and have zero guidance on replenishment. And it's hard because we have this world that is so full of misinformation when it comes to food and a world that doesn't understand postpartum physiology in the least bit. And then they have recommendations of like salads and smoothies, which are some of the worst foods to consume. And then we are just salads and smoothies, which are some of the worst foods to consume, and then we are just we have such a hard time gaining back the nutrients? Because it's not just about nutrient dense foods, it's also about how are they able to absorb in your body. And I'm telling you this isn't alternative medicine, this is biology. The research is there. Functional and integrative practitioners have known this for decades and silence is just now catching up. But here's the kicker Most providers are not trained in nutrition and if they are, it's minimal and rarely rarely postpartum specific. Actually, I have never seen that in the history of my work in the last 15 years. And that's not provider's fault. It is a gap in the system and we're here to feel it, not shame it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, here's number two toxic buildup. During pregnancy. The body stores toxins a way to protect the baby. It doesn't have a means to get it out as it once did. That detoxification process and the way in which our bodies detoxify through all of the different ways it does so naturally kind of shuts down a little bit so that we can keep that baby safe. We don't want to be having a lot of toxins run through our blood systems or anything like that to make sure that we grow a healthy baby and then after birth those detox pathways open up.

Speaker 1:

But if the liver and the gut are not supported, this toxic overload, it becomes toxic overload and that leads to symptoms that mirror depression and anxiety. And again, this is highly researched. We know the effects of plastic, we know the effects of heavy metals within our body. We know exactly what all of these things are doing within us. We have the evidence and we know that we're so full of toxins and, honestly, a lot of these things are not something that we are ever going to get away from. It's going to happen. We are going to be exposed. We cannot prevent toxin exposure whatsoever, but we can support helping our bodies detox, especially in the postpartum period. But if we're experiencing constipation, if we are having a hard time sweating which happens sometimes if we are not getting the right foods and we're feeling sluggish and our lymphatic system is sluggish, if we're not getting the movement that our body needs in a way in which we need it and I'm not talking about exercising hard then that toxin overload within our bodies becomes a thing and it will hurt and it doesn't feel good physically and emotionally.

Speaker 1:

Here's another kicker, and y'all know this so so well, especially if you know what it means to be a mom. You know about sleep deprivation. It is a known trigger for mood disorders. Lack of sleep leads to elevated cortisol, inflammation, emotional dysregulation, and yet our culture expects mothers to parent without rest, or they expect our babies to do all of the sleeping. Sleeping and postpartum is a multi-billion dollar industry. Somebody always has something to say about how to sleep well in postpartum, and most of that is geared toward making sure that our babies sleep through the night, no matter if it is a biological normal for our babies, so that we as mothers can continue being productive within society. That's the kicker right there, and the way in which we need to sleep has to change. We have to do something different and many of us are not in a position to because we don't live in a society that supports that. We have to go back to work, we have to go take care of the other kids, and we are doing it oftentimes very solo, and that makes things extremely difficult for sleep.

Speaker 1:

Okay, number four is trauma and nervous system dysregulation. Unprocessed trauma, whether from childhood, pregnancy, birth, especially birth that lives in that body and it dysregulates the nervous system. It keeps cortisol high. It makes healing feel impossible. This is so often what happens as well with when we have intrusive thoughts. Women often experience intrusive thoughts. I think 80, the stat was 80% of women who are in the postpartum years experience a form of intrusive thoughts.

Speaker 1:

And when you become a mother, the nervous system is literally rewiring. The brain is rewiring, and so there's a lot of things that are happening to help you connect with your baby and to make sure that your baby and you stay alive right, but what happens if we are in a state of constant stress and we feel unsupported and we are left alone? Those are warning signs in our body that something is wrong. Okay, if you think about, you know, going back to the stone age or going back to our hunting gathering phase we lived together in a community and if we were isolated, if we were all of a sudden we found ourselves by ourselves, then that becomes a really scary situation. That's a danger, that's a warning, and so your brain sends a warning to your whole, entire body that says something's wrong, something's not right. And oftentimes in postpartum we are left alone, we are sitting in isolation, we are not okay, and that signals to the body hey, you're about to become bait, right, you're about to get a lion chasing you, right, or whatever the case may be, and oftentimes we live in that state because we're not getting our needs met, and that's just one example. But if we also have a really difficult birth and we didn't have an opportunity to process that because we're so busy taking care of a baby and learning how to navigate raising a child, whether it's your first or your 10th, it's always something new, it's always a different way of being in your life and it takes a lot of work. On top of healing from the birth experience itself, it's like it can feel really, really challenging.

Speaker 1:

And here is another taboo conversation, and number five is birth medications. So taboo, but it matters. Right. We need to be talking about how pitocin and epidurals and antibiotics and birth control all impact gut health, hormones and the nervous system and have been clinically linked to causing postpartum depression Pitocin, epidurals, antibiotics and birth control Every single one of them linked to increasing rates of postpartum depression. Okay, I know some people are very mad at me for saying things like that, but I'm telling you that's the truth. You can go find it. We send the data on that. We actually just sent out the information on that not too long ago in our newsletter, with the data, with the links all there, all the scientific studies. If you're not on that list, definitely get on our newsletter list ASAP, because we send that stuff out quite frequently so that you can stay up to date on the latest information. Anyway, the evidence is there, the science is there, we know it. It's not refutable. And here's another one that is probably. It's definitely not as taboo and everybody knows it.

Speaker 1:

Number six is lack of support. There's no help, there's no village, no validation, no care. This is the foundation of maternal suffering. When a mother is left alone, everything breaks. We're not meant to live in isolation, and yet here we are. A mother returns home from birth, sometimes from surgery, and she's expected to parent a newborn and feed herself and heal and run a household and chase the toddlers, and then return to work and do all over everything again and again, every single day. And then we wonder why she's breaking. And postpartum depression is what happens when a mother's basic needs have been ignored so long that her body finally says I cannot carry this any longer. And that's really the roots. Right there, all of that right, and there's no particular order for it. It's nutrition toxins, sleep deprivation, trauma, birth medications, lack of support. Sometimes it's one, sometimes it's all six, it's convoluted, it's tricky, there's lots, they're all intertwined, right. That's just the way it is.

Speaker 1:

And I know you might be thinking well, I was never taught this. This isn't something that is part of my training. And exactly that's the problem. Most providers are not trained in postpartum specific care, not even OBs, not in nutrition, not in trauma, not in nervous system support. And it's not because they don't care, it's because the system doesn't teach. I've had hundreds of providers come through my certification programs and my work and say I had to unlearn so much. And again, it's not their fault, but we do have a responsibility to grow and I hear this all the time.

Speaker 1:

Is this anecdotal? Is this just anecdotal evidence? Well, first off, anecdotal evidence is evidence and no. This is clinical, it's studied, it's real. Iron deficient women are three times more likely to have postpartum depression. B12 deficiency mimics anxiety, gut inflammation impacts serotonin levels. This is not woo, this is physiology. Serotonin levels this is not woo, this is physiology. And if we dismiss that because it doesn't come in a pharmaceutical label, then we're doing a disservice to mothers.

Speaker 1:

When we see symptoms like depression and anxiety, fatigue, rage, intrusive thoughts, deep apathy, they are not random, they're not isolated events. These are messengers signaling that something in the body is off. This is not a biological normal thing that's supposed to happen, but it is a biological normal response to when our needs are not being met. Something deeper is happening beneath the surface, but our medical system has trained us to treat symptoms like isolated problems diagnose, label, prescribe, repeat without asking why those symptoms are happening in the first place. Depression is not the root cause. It is a symptom of a larger physiological and emotional breakdown. It's the red light warning flashing on the dashboard, not the broken engine that's underneath.

Speaker 1:

I'm telling you, when a mother is profoundly depleted, not sleeping, lacking critical nutrients, carrying unprocessed trauma and trying to function without support, yeah, duh, of course. Of course her mental health is going to collapse. The body is designed to communicate distress and for many, depression is that signal. But instead of asking what symptoms need repair, we put tape over the dashboard light and just tell her it's mom life. We've normalized the suffering. We hand her pills and pat her on the back and say that's the best you're likely going to do. Get over it. This is it. This is motherhood. The world sucks and then send her home where there's no support system, not even teaching her how to get one, not even offering care, support circle opportunities, whatever local things, and then wonder why so many women don't get better or why they feel like they're losing themselves more and more with each passing day.

Speaker 1:

The truth is, postpartum depression is the tip of the iceberg, and until we stop focusing solely on the symptoms and start rebuilding the entire system body, mind and environment we will continue to see mothers fall through the cracks, not because they're broken, but because the care they deserve doesn't exist in the current model. The beautiful truth is this can change. Mothers don't have to suffer, depression doesn't have to be the inevitable outcome of giving birth, and providers don't have to carry the weight of a broken system on their shoulders anymore. Because here's the thing providers do care deeply. Moms want the education, the information, right and providers.

Speaker 1:

We enter the field ready to help, ready to heal, to walk alongside others in their most vulnerable seasons, but most of them were trained in a system that doesn't prioritize mothers, where postpartum education was barely even touched and where root cause care, healing, was woo or not even part of the conversation.

Speaker 1:

And that's not their fault, it's not a lack of compassion, it's a lack of tools, and what we need now is a new model of care, one that doesn't ask providers to choose between the heart and the protocol, but gives them the freedom to follow both a bigger picture one that integrates biology and trauma, and community and nourishment and rest not as afterthoughts but as essential components of healing, and that is why we are building postpartum university and why it is what it is today.

Speaker 1:

This is what our community is all about, and this is the shift. When we start supporting providers with the education they were never given, we empower them to support mothers in a way they never even thought possible, because when we change postpartum care, we change the world, and we are all doing it together. 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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