Postpartum University® Podcast

Postpartum Truths: Transforming Care When Modern Medicine Fails Moms | Janelle Lara EP 225

• Maranda Bower, Postpartum Nutrition Specialist

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As postpartum providers, we're seeing it: new moms are struggling with postpartum depression and anxiety at epidemic rates—now affecting 1 in 3 women. This isn't normal; it's the number one complication of childbirth, and our current postpartum care system is clearly failing. If you're a healthcare professional, perinatal mental health specialist, or functional health practitioner seeking holistic postpartum care solutions and evidence-based strategies to truly help clients heal at the root, you need to understand why this is happening and what we can do about it.

Check out this episode on the blog HERE. 

Key time stamps: 

  • 00:00: The failing postpartum care system and the rise of maternal mental health issues. 
  • 01:57: Postpartum depression is NOT normal but a sign of un-met needs. 
  • 03:53: The inadequacy of postpartum checkups & normalization of suffering. 
  • 06:05: Historical exclusion of women from medical studies
  •  08:50: Gender-specific health research & maternal brain changes. 
  • 12:20: Complex physiological postpartum changes beyond the obvious. 
  • 13:53: Gut health and nervous system regulation in postpartum healing. 
  • 20:12: Learning from cultural postpartum traditions around the world. 
  • 22:03: The importance of herbs  & nutrient-dense postpartum foods. 
  • 23:59: The shift away from traditional support & struggle for modern moms. 
  • 25:43: Postpartum retreats aren't the answer – healing happens at home. 
  • 27:39: Postpartum care appointments and the need for in-home support. 
  • 28:44: The transformative power of 40 days of deep postpartum support.


Connect with Janelle: 

Janelle Lara is a Theologian who focuses primarily on the intersection between Alternative Spirituality and Christian Theology in her research. She enjoys sharing her studies and presenting her findings on her Youtube channel, @janellemlara. She lives in Southeast Georgia with her husband and young children. 

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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 wellbeing. When we think about postpartum, we think about depression. That's the number one thought that comes into our mind, because we are seeing so many women suffer from this, and we have some really old statistics that say one in seven women experience postpartum depression.

Speaker 1:

During COVID, those numbers were one in three, and we haven't done any science or studies or look at depression rates since COVID, but we do know that those numbers are growing exponentially. One in three women will experience some form of mental health disorder during this time. It is the number one issue that we experience. The number one complication of childbirth is mental health disorder and postpartum, and so we have to ask the question what in the world is going on here? Because what we see, what's transpiring? This massive growth, this epidemic? It's growing at epidemic proportions. What's happening is not working and we need to do something better for this.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so really, when we talk about the postpartum crisis, you referenced the mental health crisis, postpartum quite a bit. What is that? Where does that come from? Is it just a natural consequence of giving birth and going through that physical trauma, the emotional trauma right of your entire life transforming now, all of a sudden, your identity revolves around this baby, or is there?

Speaker 1:

more to it.

Speaker 1:

There's so much more to it and I think society right now really truly believes and we've fed women this lie that postpartum depression is just something that happens after having a baby. We've normalized it because it happens so frequently and we really need to take a step back and say wait a second, is this how it's supposed to go? Is this like a biological normal? And that's my background. I specialize in biology and human biology and that's how I've come into this space, after having my own children and really studying this. And no, the answer is no. It's not a biological normal to have postpartum depression, but it is a biological normal to develop postpartum depression when you lack the tools necessary to heal your body. That's a warning sign for your body. It's saying I'm not getting enough, enough support, enough nutrients, enough regulation in my nervous system, whatever it may mean for you. Because I feel like you know it's not so simple. It's very complex and convoluted and there's a lot of pieces that kind of intertwine together and it's not well, one size fits all model and that's what we've been given in postpartum care. We've been given very little in postpartum care. Right, how many appointments do we have to when we're pregnant to go get checked out, get cared for, we get all of the attention. And then postpartum comes and we have one checkup at six weeks. And what do they do during that checkup? Here is a little 10 questionnaires.

Speaker 1:

If you're lucky, you might, you might get a couple of questionnaires about whether or not you have depression, right, and sometimes you might feel that you know that those are relatable to you, and oftentimes, for many women that I speak to, this is not relatable. It wasn't relatable for me, even though I had depression and anxiety. And then you're, you're given an all clear depression and anxiety. And then you're, you're given an all clear and here's your birth control, right, that's, that's care, right, and that is such a cop-out.

Speaker 1:

That's not care, that's not preventative, that's not, that's not medicine in the least bit, and so we're getting absolutely nothing. And you know, when we come back six months later, a year later, we're being told, oh, it's just your hormones. Of course you don't feel like yourself, of course things are a little weird and out of balance, and your mom tells you the same thing and your best friend says, yeah, no worry, like, we all deal with it. This is just how motherhood is. And so, again, we've normalized it because no one knows how to do any better, and that's the frustrating part this brought up so much for me.

Speaker 2:

Obviously, miranda, I've had three kids, you've had four kids and I know that for myself, after following what you teach, which I'm so excited to get into, my post-birth experience was transformed from the first to the second and third after I had met you. But there is so much coming up for me around, I think even starting going back all the way to like college, when I had my first kind of gynecological experiences, right and just that. Like me, I distinctly remember, as a college student, going to the doctor on campus, right, and just saying like my periods are so painful, they last seven to 10 days. It's excruciating, it's debilitating. I don't feel like this is normal, I feel like something is wrong. And the only solution offered was birth control. She was like oh yeah, it's normal. It takes periods like 10 years to regulate. Let's get you on birth control. You won't have any of those symptoms anymore.

Speaker 2:

And I just remember I went on birth control for two months. I absolutely hated it. I blew up, I gained weight, I got cystic acne all along my chin. It was just, it was awful. I did not feel good on it and I was just amazed Like there were no other. You didn't want to ask about my diet. You didn't want to ask about my sleep, sleep habits. You didn't want to ask about my medical history, like there was nothing else and to your point. It just doesn't sound like medicine, it doesn't sound like care. So why is the care for women so bad? Like, why are we being refused this kind of holistic view of?

Speaker 1:

medical care Such a good point. And when we look at the data, when we look at the science, we know, for example, that women were excluded from any sort of medical, scientific experiments or anything like that until the 70s. There was a law that actually prevented women from being included in scientific studies as a means of protecting them because, oh, they're of childbearing age, right. And so we were never included in scientific studies.

Speaker 1:

And if you think about it, the birth control contraceptives were created in the 50s, right, and so who were a part of those studies? Like what was done? Was it humans? Not really. There was not a lot of those studies. Like what was done, was it humans? Not really, there was not a lot of data on that. And thankfully, nowadays we actually are starting to study this. We're starting to recognize that oral contraceptives and hormonal contraceptives actually cause a significant amount of damage and they are not okay for the woman's body in the least bit. We are seeing what it's doing and how it's wreaking havoc, and women are reporting a lot of issues, especially going into menopause. We're starting to recognize wait a second, this isn't the thing.

Speaker 1:

But, going back to your point, so many providers are not trained in this and so much science is lacking. They have nothing to train with. There's no data out there that exists currently. For a lot of women in a women's health care, it's not studied, it wasn't a part of science, and that's true for so many avenues of care. It's not just women-specific things like starting your period or having a period or PCOS or endometriosis those things that we typically see or just postpartum in general. Those, of course, are things that have rarely ever been studied. But even more is how does specific medications affect women? If we take an aspirin, what does that do to our bodies? If we are taking Tylenol, what does that do to our bodies? What about our dietary needs? Those actually were done on studies on men and then reduced to fit that of a woman. So those numbers that were scientifically developed that said these are the amount of nutrients that you need in a given day to make yourself healthy, were all men? Studies never done on women and it was a bunch of men who got together in a room of a panel who made this decision right, and so women are not being included in not only the scientific studies, but they're not being included in the decisions to have those studies. It's not been important until now.

Speaker 1:

And this is a very exciting time for women because we're finally recognizing, we've got studies coming out about all sorts of things about our brains and how it changes when we give birth, and what hormonal birth control does to our bodies, and the fact that so many of our menstrual tools, like pads and tampons, are actually really toxic for our bodies in the way that they're made and developed. And we're learning all of these things. And these women are saying, yes, I knew that I've been saying this. I felt that right and we're getting back to that deeper, knowing that we have always had within us and feeling validated in all of that.

Speaker 1:

And I think this is a really fun time, also a very scary time, but we're making change. Change is oftentimes very scary and there's some big shifts that are quite scary in the healthcare world right now that we're kind of. You know it can go one way or another, especially when it comes to women's healthcare, but we are seeing the need for change and we are seeing women stand up and say I deserve better, and we are also seeing providers say wait a second, I wasn't taught this, I wasn't trained with this. This isn't the answer. There's gotta be something else out there, and that in itself is very exciting that we, as women, get to lead this change for our own children, for our own daughters.

Speaker 2:

A hundred percent. So it sounds like really the medical standards that were created for women were really just created for, like, smaller men. Oh, a thousand percent, which is so crazy for me to think about, considering how much we know now about the significant hormonal differences between men and women. Like that's just nuts.

Speaker 1:

We have such a different physiology, like within us, and especially in terms of the hormonal patterns and regulations and cyclical living and all of this, and it's mind boggling to me that we have been labeled just this smaller man.

Speaker 1:

Well, we have so much more needs than so many more, so many men out there just because we're you know, quote unquote smaller doesn't mean that we need less of anything. And then and then we look at medicines and and how they are used within the body. Like we, we know that how medication, medication is generally developed, they're usually studied on men, and so we're starting to see that those, when we're studying women now, because women are saying, wait a second, this is doing something different to my body, or I feel this instead of this, and people are scratching their heads saying, well, what's going on here? And we're recognizing that there's different patterns that a woman's body goes through when it ingests specific medications. That is very different than what happens to a man's body and that in itself is so telling, right? And so we need to bring science back into women's health care.

Speaker 2:

And when you think about how complex the process of growing and birthing a baby right, and then how a woman's just hormones change after she's had that baby, can you walk us through a little bit of those physiological changes? Like you know, I think we talk so much about in science at least in my biology classes it was how the baby is made right and then it's like the embryo and developing into a fetus and how that progresses. But what is happening within the woman's physiology as she's going through each of these stages?

Speaker 1:

So we know that there's a lot of shifts and changes that happen in pregnancy and I and my I know a lot about pregnancy, but my expertise is in postpartum. And so after the birth of a baby, when that baby is born, so too is a mother and her body shifts entirely, and we know that this happens. Right, every woman knows that her body changes, but we don't actually talk about what those changes are. Right, we know that you're bleeding and we know that there's leaking and you know that your uterus is returning to its pre-pregnancy state, but we don't talk about how all of the joints and ligaments and bones require nine to 12 months to return to their pre-pregnancy state, that they shifted so much within you that they take a really long time to get back to where they were. So it's very easy for us in postpartum to actually cause more harm to things like our pelvic floor when we are exercising if we're not doing it right, and unfortunately there is a right versus a wrong in this scenario.

Speaker 1:

Right, our gut changes significantly the way we actually digest our foods, and nobody talks about this. This is a huge component of my work. I have an entire certification for providers on this specific shift within the body, because how we eat is going to dramatically influence the rest of our healing. And when we, when we don't think about this, when we push it off to the side and we are not given you know for for myself particularly, I was never told this information. I have four kids. Never once did a provider, or anyone for that matter, tell me that, hey, your gut is gonna shift dramatically and the way you eat and what you eat is gonna be really, really important and play a significant role in how you heal and therefore your hormonal regulation, your breast milk production, how it's going to heal your tissues and repair your body overall, the way you feel in terms of your health and well-being and how tired you are all of that is going to be impacted by what you eat.

Speaker 1:

And that was revolutionary for me, and learning about that was actually the very beginning of discovering like all of these changes that occur in the body we have the nervous system, the nervous system shifts so much in that occur in the body. We have the nervous system, the nervous system shifts so much in the postpartum body, and it's it's a beautiful thing that's still being discovered and still being studied as we, as we move into this like new era of of understanding women and how their bodies function and work. But what we know is that, for one, the brain is changing. The brain is a big part of the nervous system. We have gray matter that changes significantly. Your brain is literally rewiring to be a mother, and so your brain is shrinking and there's new neurological pathways being developed. And this is not some sort of you know, quote, unquote bad thing that is transpiring. This is an evolutionary process that is so beautiful and so spectacular. It's helping you become the mother in which you can care and support and help your baby thrive. That's a gorgeous thing.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Is that where mom brain comes from? Because it is, it is, it is a real thing, Is that where mom brain comes from, because it is, it is.

Speaker 1:

It is a real thing, right, it's a real thing, mom brain happens because we are, our brains are so rewiring and so the ability to think of, you know, a linear thought and to be able to remember specific words. That's harder for us to do because that's not where our brain is not thinking in that linear, factual way. It's very internal what's happening inside of us. But also when we don't understand those shifts and changes when it comes to our brain and our nervous system, our nervous system meaning that it's more on high alert. It's helping us seek out danger in our environment, in our lives, so that we can protect ourselves and protect our babies, right. And when we don't understand that and we don't live in a place that maybe feels safe within ourselves and we don't feel safe within our bodies, whether it be because, you know, we had a difficult birth experience, trauma and postpartum is very, very common. Trauma and birth because maybe we have a difficult partner, maybe we live in a place that is not safe, you know, all of those things are very true. But also the very fact that we live in this go, go, go, male dominated. You got to get back to work in two weeks. You've got to have this all figured out. Your baby if it's a good baby should be sleeping.

Speaker 1:

And then we have all of this mom guilt and we have shame and we have resentment and we're not getting the support that we need. And that helps that spiral of oh my gosh, I'm not safe in my body and that nervous system goes on overdrive. And then we have things like intrusive thoughts and we have things like depression and anxiety right, which is really the perfect storm. The lack of support for our nervous system and our gut function and getting the right nutrients and not having practical support in our bodies are the perfect recipe for postpartum depression. This is what's really occurring. So we might actually have, like this clinical name, postpartum depression, but, dare I say, postpartum depression is simply a symptom. It's a symptom of not getting our basic human needs met during this sacred time and, of course, our bodies are going to fall apart when we don't have what we need.

Speaker 2:

Miranda, I think so often we get into and in particular, I think, mom to mom it's so easy for us to have these conversations about what was missing, what we needed.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I just I needed my mother-in-law to do my laundry, not hold the baby, right. I needed my husband to be with me in the birth process, not on his phone, right. But what does amazing support look like postpartum? Let's paint the picture of the ideal, and I will say I'm speaking to myself as well as to anyone listening. This may be triggering to hear because our experience was so far off of the ideal, but I think it's so validating to put the ideal out there so that, at the very least, we can feel again validated in our negative emotions, perhaps about what we didn't experience right, and recognizing that it is valid that we wanted more and we didn't get it. But I think, also so that we have something to aspire to, not only as you know, people may be still in birthing age or years, or people who are wanting to have a baby but also when we think about our friends and family members who have babies after us, we know how we can be that support system for them.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk about the amazing ideal postpartum support system. I love that you brought this up and I will tell you I am a high driven, a-type go, go, go person. Okay, so I want to throw that out there, because when I really dug into the different studies and what would it take to have the most perfect postpartum, what would that look like? Because I wanted to experience that for myself and it took a lot of rewiring of my own brain before pregnancy and during pregnancy in order to really appreciate this in postpartum. It was a lot of work for myself, because that's not who I've taken myself to be. But at the same time, I also recognize how much I operate in a state of trauma and I'll explain that a little bit further here in a moment too.

Speaker 1:

What we know of let's quote, unquote the perfect postpartum support. What does that look like? We have a lot of that evidence. We see so much of what that has looked like thanks to past experiences. What other cultures around the world have done for postpartum care that have been lost in recent generations. So when we look at what have people done in the past, what have people done in the past, there is so many striking similarities between all of these cultures around the world. We call them the cultural truths, right, the cultural postpartum truths, and it's community care is first and foremost.

Speaker 1:

You have people, mothers, aunties foremost. You have people mothers, aunties, sisters, neighbors, women coming to you in your home. They are not asking questions, they are just getting to work. They're doing dishes, they're folding laundry, they're doing general sweep. They take your kids, go feed them meals, you know. Have a picnic, go play with them, take them to the park, put them to bed for nap, you know. So you're not doing that extra work. They're cooking all your meals, right. They just show up and they do. They're not bothering you. They're not saying may I hold the baby. They're not expecting you to serve them a meal or a drink or whatever the case may be right. We're not expected to have our house clean. It's all done for us. That was what community was, and community care was centered around mother, not baby. Okay, so it was all about what was mom's needs. Somebody would come in and help her breastfeed. Someone would help draw her bath. They would give her herbal drinks and tinctures, right.

Speaker 1:

Herbs are a massive part of traditional care and same with food, like that is where everything is centered. Cultural tradition centers around herbal support and whatever you know. You look at Chinese herbs. Those are very different than what we see in more Western herbs, but it doesn't matter, it's herbs. Same with food. It doesn't matter what kind of food. Food in general is the center of the conversation and it's warm, nutrient dense, easy to digest. Foods.

Speaker 1:

Right, they had a rhythm, they had a very pronounced way in which they were doing this and the way in which they were serving these things, and a mother was the center of all of it. Everything, whatever she needed, it was done, and people came to you in your home. So, basically, you're, you're like a queen in your castle. That's really how it felt for so many women. You did you just were there, you could be, you could sleep, somebody could take your baby, if that's what you wanted, draw a bath, hold your baby, like those were the only times that baby was really ever held by someone else. Otherwise, it was you getting to bond with your baby, to nourish your baby, to learn how to breastfeed. Whether it's your first time or your 10th time, it's always new, it's always different. Right, and to be nourished in this way and in today's world it's very challenging because we are all so busy, we're all so overworked, we're all all of us moms are exhausted and burnt, and so the very idea of taking care of ourselves, let alone going to our friend's house who just had a baby, we might understand the significance of that, we might want that so much for our friend or for our sister, or even for ourselves, but it's so difficult to manage, it's so hard, and I think that's where we've kind of gotten lost in this, and also we just have forgotten what it means to give right.

Speaker 1:

Our grandmothers and great grandmothers were the generations that really started to experience the shift and becoming more independent and not necessarily having this kind of support system, and it was the generations before that really had it. And so our generations have forgotten, and so when they show up in the house, they're like oh, house, baby, let me hold your baby. This is amazing. Baby, baby, baby. And then we forget about moms. But that's not how people really want it to be either. I think you know we, if, if mom said, hey, do you mind doing the dishes before holding the baby, that that person is going to be like yes, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, no problem whatsoever, you know, and then they're gonna go do the dishes or the laundry or whatever it is that you need, like it's not a question whatsoever, like they've just forgot in their brains like how to help.

Speaker 1:

And I think us, as women, we have been fed this lie that we have to do it all, that if we ask for support, that somehow we are failing, that if we are not doing it all, then we are not okay, that we are a failure, we're not good enough. And this is something that I deeply struggled with for myself after the first and my second and even my third. I thought that I had to have it all figured out, especially as somebody who is trained in this, who does this work for a living, who had been a doula, who has supported thousands of women in this context and trained providers over and over and over again. How could I not know this? How could I be suffering from this right? And it's because I thought I should know it all. I should already have this all laid out. And that's where we are, and I will tell you, too, to carry on this conversation again.

Speaker 1:

We're seeing the shift, we're seeing the change in our current culture and this more westernized world and in a way to deal with this lack and to make up for it, because we understand wait a second how we're doing postpartum is not working and we need to get back to what we knew worked. We've developed things like postpartum retreats and the idea of it sounds magical. I can go to this facility and I could be like a hotel, right, somebody else is gonna clean up after me. There's no mess all over the house. Like I'm not gonna have to clean the bathroom, I'm not gonna have to do laundry or dishes. Somebody is going to come do my nails. Somebody is going to pamper me and give me massages and and feed me all the meals. Like that sounds absolutely delicious. Right To have a lactation consultant on hand to have like everything that you would possibly need, and the idea of it sounds great.

Speaker 1:

But what I'm seeing is is that it's not working. It's not working because it is not in the home. A mother needs to be a queen in her home. That's where the transition really lies when she is supported in her own space and done in such a way that helps her recognize that what she has is good enough that she doesn't need some external thing to support her. As silly as it sounds. It's so interconnected into the depths of our soul and our well-being and who we are as women and as, now, mothers, and it goes very, very deep and we can have very deep conversations here we have time, but this is really where it transpires and we need to do better and we need to do that for women in their home, not asking them to go elsewhere.

Speaker 1:

I was just I'm writing another book and I'm very excited about this book and I was talking about how, you know, we could have all of the specialties. We can have a pelvic floor physical therapist and a counselor and this mom group and we can have, you know, our OB that we go see and and like all of these appointments that we're going to have to get in order to have the best care possible, and how absolutely overwhelming and impossible that is. Could you just? You're a mom, you get it right Having, if it was your second or your third, you have an infant, then you have toddlers to go to these appointments, which are usually between nine and five, when your partner is off at work and completely unable to help you and you're supposed to tote around and get all of these self-care things done. It's impossible. It's like a full-time job. It's not okay. It's not okay. It needs to come to you in your home.

Speaker 2:

That's where care needs to happen, and how long does this supportive period need to last?

Speaker 1:

In many cultures it's that six weeks or 40 days is what it's called, and many, many cultures across the world. And when you're deeply supported for those 40 days or those six weeks you're, there is something magical that happens to the body. Where you arrive. From that you kind of come out of your cocoon, you blossom, you grow your wings and you're like wow, I can do this. And oftentimes I think a lot of women think that means now I'm done and I can just move on and I don't have to worry about taking care of myself, I can just get back to the crazy swing of life. And that's not true either. That's not.

Speaker 1:

What I'm saying is that you can just return to the chaos that is. It still means that you have to take care of yourself. It still means that you have to do things differently, that you can't be that go, go, go. You have to rearrange your life and to make sure that you're getting the care that you need, so that your family's getting the care that they need. But I will say but when we get that solid foundation of six weeks or 40 days, then that feels so much more doable and our body literally has had the foundation of healing to make that possible, so that we're not feeling so exhausted, we're not feeling the depletion in our bones. You know that rawness that happens with. I just can't do this anymore. I'm crawling at the end of the day Like I just can't function. There's none of that when we've been deeply supported in a way in which our body needs.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I really, really want to get into how long postpartum actually lasts and then also the nutritional basics that we need, because we're told that you're postpartum for six weeks and then you go back to work, and I know that's not true. You have research that says it's not true. How long is a mom postpartum even after just one kid? It's not true. How long is a mom postpartum even after just one kid?

Speaker 1:

Well, I mentioned how the joints and ligaments take up to a year to return to their pre-pregnancy state, right? Then we have brain changes that take an upwards of two to three years, right. So that mom brain two to three years postpartum, and that's not including. If you're breastfeeding it's longer, right. So we know that the hormonal changes take two to three years, again, not including breastfeeding. So you can add at least an additional year after breastfeeding, whatever that means for you and getting back into what feels like a normal for you, where you are back in your body, almost not necessarily reborn or not getting your body back, cause I don't believe in that whatsoever.

Speaker 1:

Nothing was taken from you. This is just who you are in your space as a mother. We know studies show that five to six years. So oftentimes, you know you know nutritionally we'll talk about that as well it takes a good two to three years to replete your nutrient stores because it takes so much to grow a human being and to birth a human being and oftentimes for many to breastfeed that baby as well. That's a lot of your being that is being created for another.

Speaker 1:

So it takes a long time and you know it depends on where you are in your postpartum journey and I think this is the hardest part of all postpartum things right, because we're always looking for the, the finite, a finite answer. We're looking for just that quick thing. Just tell me what it is right. Is it a year, is it two years? Is it three years? The answer is yes, yes, yes, like, and it depends on who you are. How much time did you get in the very early stages of postpartum? How much support did you get? How much were you nourished? How good do you feel in your body? How was your birth experience? What's your history? Like you know, all of those will play a deep role in how you are feeling in the years after having a baby. We just know it's years, it's not months, it's years and, depending on you know all of the above of your experiences, it could be four years, it could be six years, it could be three.

Speaker 2:

That's so helpful and I think you know, for the again, for those of us who have multiple children, just that recognition of it could be 11 years that you're postpartum right, because if you start with one and then you have a couple more kids, it takes time. What are the nutritional basics? And you talk about this in your book I'm going to go ahead and just pull it up so the Reclaiming Postpartum Wellness, which is an amazing book and you share so much of your knowledge. I think this is a really, really good starting point for women who are just being introduced to you right now and who just want, like, where do I start postpartum? And I will link it down below. You have some recipes here, but can we talk about like the basic kind of foundational framework of your nutrition plan postpartum?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely so. First off, I'm glad that you love the fact that I couldn't give a solid answer to how long of postpartum you will be. But, with that said, it doesn't matter where you are in your postpartum period, you could be several years out and it's never too late to heal your body. And I think a lot of women ask that question of like how long am I supposed to be in this space? Because they're tired and they're frustrated and they want out and this is not how they want to feel in their body. And I will tell you there is a better way and no matter where you are in your experience, you can have a better experience and it doesn't have to be dark, it doesn't have to be complicated, it doesn't have to be resentful and fearful and painful and all of those other things. We don't have to live in that space. So, no matter where you are in your postpartum journey, whether you're coming up in postpartum to a postpartum experience and you're pregnant, or you're weeks out, months out, years out that book is a really great starting point because I actually show you what's happening within your body, the physiological and psychological changes, and then I give you the tools and which to support those changes so that you can maximize feeling better. And one of those ways in which to do it, and one of the most important pieces to that whole puzzle, is postpartum nutrition, because 80% of women enter postpartum very depleted of key nutrients. Right, we're just not eating well and we're not eating enough, and oftentimes we're relying on supplements. And oftentimes we're relying on supplements and oftentimes women don't even have access to quality foods in their areas, right. And so what we're finding is is that so many women enter into this space very, very depleted, and that makes sense, because you grew a human being with your body Like oh my word like so much has just transpired for you. So, and then you have the birth experience, which, you know, a lot of people have equated to running a marathon. And what happens when a person is about to run a marathon? Before they run a marathon, they are carb loading, they are protein loading, you know, not immediately before, but they're. They're preparing their body deeply Right, and that's hard to do when you're pregnant is to prepare for that, right, like you only have so much room in that space in your gut to have a whole meal, right, so it's a little bit harder to do. And then you enter in postpartum. So let's talk about the postpartum physiological shifts that take place in the gut. Let's talk about the postpartum physiological shifts that take place in the gut.

Speaker 1:

After birth, your nervous system shifts entirely. It goes into a state of overdrive, almost where it's like I have to focus on healing. This is my priority. I've got to stop bleeding. My hormones are shifting. I've got to live, right, I've got to live. And so your nervous system shifts and it goes into a state of a fight or flight or freeze, or whatever. It is right. This is got to live. And so your nervous system shifts and it goes into a state of a fight or flight or freeze, or whatever it is right. This is how we know it scientifically to be.

Speaker 1:

Your body is not in a rest, calm, you know, digest state, as we call it. That's not what it's doing in the least bit. So when that happens after birth and it doesn't matter what kind of birth experience you've had, you could have the most amazing birth experience it doesn't matter. Your body's in a survival state. It's doing everything it can to hurry up, stop the bleeding, repair whatever it is that it needs, and it stays in that state for quite some time, for days and weeks, depending on your birth experience, much longer depending on the amount of support. You get much longer, right? And so when that happens, our ability to digest, so our bodies create gastric acids and enzymes that are necessary to break down the nutrients in your gut. So if you're eating food, that food has to be broken down so that it can be absorbed into your body. And so your body is saying I just don't have the ability right now, I don't have the energy, I cannot focus on creating those gastric acids and enzymes and all of those things that are necessary to break that food down. This is not my area of focus. I got to go. I got to go figure out how to live right now. Right, so we're not digesting. This is not a massive thing that you are needing, even though you might be absolutely starving and postpartum right, you might.

Speaker 1:

That first meal after having a baby is often where, just like, give me everything. Right, we had to be really careful about how we eat. Yes, I want you to have that giant chocolate cake and I want you to eat. You know all the sushi in the world that you got. You know you weren't able to eat and and pregnancy, whatever the case may be. Yes, I want you to have, like the feast of feast. However, your body is not wanting you to have that. It wants you to eat. You're saying is it ready to digest that? Yeah, it's not ready. It's not ready. Our brain is ready for it. We want it because we haven't had it in forever, right, and now that we have this room and this space, you know our brains are wanting it, but our body says no, this is not the time. So what we have to do instead is eat foods that are already broken down, that are already easy for our body to absorb.

Speaker 1:

So a lot of times when we look at postpartum foods and I see this all the time the focus is nutrient dense and we need nutrient dense. We want all the nutrient dense foods because we need a lot of nutrients and we recognize that. We know that Science has already proven that a million times over, and women really don't need science to prove that to them. They already have got it. They already innately know I need a lot of nutrients. So they focus on nutrient-dense foods. However, this is where so many get it wrong, because I can go to Pinterest and search all of the postpartum meals and I will cry at what I find, because a lot of times it's salads and smoothies and big dense casseroles, right, and we call that nutrient dense and it is. It's very nutrient dense, but it is the worst thing for a postpartum mom because it's not easy to digest and that's what they forget.

Speaker 1:

So, yes, nutrient-dense foods that are easy to digest. That's step two. So when we look at this in a cultural sense, we already know that cultures around the world, they all practice the exact same thing. Their ingredients are slightly different, but the way in which they cook these foods and the way in which they're presented are all the same Soups, broths, stews right, they are, they're liquid form. They're easy to digest because the cooking process has already done so much of the breaking down of those nutrients. And that is very helpful for a postpartum body because you don't want extra energy to go into trying to get your body to absorb food when that energy really needs to go to other parts of your body and healing and hormones and all of the things you don't want to exert extra energy you don't have. So the key component there is to make sure that you're combining to, you know, the nutrient dense foods that are easy to digest.

Speaker 1:

And what happens if we're not eating nutrient dense foods? Let's talk about that Gas, bloating, constipation, right, and in postpartum, oftentimes we call that normal, we tell all the time that's normal, that's just your hormones and of course you're afraid to poop because you just gave birth and, yes, like the first, poop is always the hardest right. And if we're having, if we're not eating well, because our body is struggling, then that food literally will sit in the gut longer. And what happens to food that sits in the gut longer? I say this lightly, this is not exactly what happens, but it's food that sits longer, kind of rots, right, and it's not necessarily what's happening in your gut, but it causes the bloating, it causes the gas, it causes the discomfort and the indigestion. It's not digesting well. And then what happens? If that happens for a long period of time, your body is going to say wait a second, she's eating celery again or whatever it is. Or you know chicken nuggets, leftover chicken nuggets, you know from your toddler, whatever it is that you're eating. And it's going to say this is bad, right.

Speaker 1:

And now we have food sensitivities and we have allergies and we have leaky gut right and it spirals. It spirals out of control. And we know the connection between the gut and the brain. We call it the gut brain axis. Right, this is not new science, this is very old science and it's very, very helpful. And I love the science because there's so much more that is growing and we're learning and shifting. And I will tell you, we know how deeply connected our hormones are within our gut. Our feel-good hormones are actually created in the gut, not the brain.

Speaker 1:

And so when the gut is not getting what it needs and its inability to absorb and digest, and now it's having bloated and it's having inflammation, okay, so in postpartum we already have high levels of inflammation and that's a biological normal. We need that inflammation because that inflammation is the trigger in our body that says, hey, something's not right. We want to make sure that you heal and in order for you to heal, we have to ramp up inflammation so that everybody's on high alert and we get to healing, and we want that. That's a biological normal. But what happens is that inflammation is not supported. We don't help that inflammation heal. We don't help our bodies. We're not supporting our bodies, especially with nutrition.

Speaker 1:

Nutrition is the foundational to everything right. Nutrition is what makes white blood cells. Nutrition is what heals tissues right. Nutrition is what creates hormones and regulates hormones. You cannot live without nutrition. It does everything within your body, and so when we are not getting the nutrients that we need, that inflammation continues to stay where it's at or even gets worse. And when we have inflammation in our bodies, it wreaks havoc on everything right.

Speaker 1:

We can actually predict when somebody has inflammatory markers in their gut to postpartum depression and depression in general. We know that if somebody has these inflammatory markers and they don't even have depression, we can predict that it will happen. We will know when somebody is going to have depression because of the inflammatory markers that are that exist within their gut. And so this is, this is like this is gut brain access, one-on-one right Like, and so you have to make sure that your gut is super healthy and if it's not, you're going to experience it here and mental health disorders and it there's. It goes both ways, and there's so many more components that we can dive into, but that's a huge, huge component right there.

Speaker 2:

That's huge and I think, because it's so difficult for the mom to do anything postpartum, I'm sure that that nourishment is the first thing to go. I know that was the case for me with my oldest. It was like, okay, I had her in the middle of the night, so my first meal was McDonald's and it was huge because I hadn't eaten Right. And then you know you're not cooking, so you're eating like easy Mac and quick meals and fast food and whatever people drop off, which is typically salads and casseroles and things like that. And so it makes perfect sense that it makes perfect sense that the disorders that are so common postpartum are directly related to, kind of the first thing to go out the door postpartum, which is this like warm, nutritious, nourishing, these nourishing meals.

Speaker 2:

So, miranda, how can my audience find you? I'm going to link Reclaiming Postpartum Wellness, this beautiful, full color, amazing book, and it's just, it's so gorgeous, it's so perfect, for it's an easy, simple read for any woman who's a mother or is going to be a mother. But how else can people find you if they want to learn more about you and your work?

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for this, Janelle. This has been an amazing conversation. I feel like we can sit here and chat for hours at length, even more. There's so much more to say about everything here, so thank you for all of that. And for those of you listening in who want more information, you can go find my podcast. That's a really great place to connect If you love listening here on YouTube. I don't have videos, but I have audio. You can go tune in to my podcast, Postpartum University, and you can go to our website, postpartumu, the letter ucom, and you can find us there and tune in.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, miranda. That'll all be linked below. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1:

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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