Postpartum University® Podcast

The 5 Sciences of Postpartum Nutrition (It's Not Just Nutrition) EP 234

• Maranda Bower, Postpartum Nutrition Specialist

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The truth about postpartum nutrition goes way beyond kale smoothies and multivitamins. For too long, women's healthcare has failed mothers, leaving them to seek answers from online influencers and fads. But as a provider, you're ready to do more.

This is a deep dive into the five interconnected sciences that truly shape a mother’s healing journey. We're getting to the heart of what's missing in modern care—looking beyond recipes to the deep biological, emotional, and cultural forces that determine a mother's recovery. This is a blueprint for a new standard of holistic postpartum care that empowers you to offer a deeper, more effective kind of support that honors a mother's whole being.

Check out the episode on the blog HERE: https://postpartumu.com/podcast/the-5-sciences-of-postpartum-nutrition-its-not-just-nutrition-ep-234/

Key time stamps: 

  • 0:02 Why the current postpartum care system is failing.
  • 1:50 The myth that postpartum nutrition is just about healthy eating.
  • 2:53 A mother's body is regenerating and recalibrating, not just recovering.
  • 4:31 Science 1: Nutritional Biochemistry and cellular-level healing.
  • 9:26 Science 2: Neuroscience, explaining the profound reorganization of the maternal brain.
  • 12:52 Science 3: Anthropology, the cultural and ancestral roots of postpartum care.
  • 15:31 Science 4: Chronobiology, showing why male-based science fails postpartum women.
  • 17:57 Why postpartum healing is cyclical, not linear.
  • 19:55 Integrating all five sciences for truly holistic care.
  • 23:25 The free resource for providers: the Postpartum Restoration Method Assessment Tool.

NEXT STEPS:

🎒Download the free Postpartum Restoration Method™ Assessment Tool & Guide for Providers
🔔Sign up for the Postpartum Nutrition Certification Waitlist

👍Rate, REVIEW & share the podcast
📱Connect on Instagram!
📚Get a Copy of the BOOK: Reclaiming Postpartum Wellness
🧠Perinatal Mental Health Certificate Training & Additional Courses for Providers & Postpartum Professionals

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. Hey, hey, welcome back to another episode with Miranda Bauer, and I wanna tell you what a whirlwind the last couple of weeks have been. We just got done launching the Postpartum nutrition certification program and with anticipation we expected this it sold out to the waitlist. We are so, so thrilled. I can't tell you how many years of hard work this has been, and it's just been an absolutely mind-boggling, amazing experience. So for all of those who were not able to get in, because we do hold only so many seats, I'm with you. I promise you will get in another time. We're going to work on making sure that more people can get into other cohorts and that might mean having more cohorts, but I think we had to do a little bit of that last year as well, and we were not sure if it was gonna continue on. There's been so many additional changes and such to the landscape and I am just thrilled to know that it is a continuing problem. Right, it's a really good problem to have. So I promise you we will have a slot for you and next time we open up, just make sure you are on the wait list.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so in today's episode I want to cover why so many people hear the phrase postpartum nutrition and they think it means telling moms to eat more leafy greens and taking a multivitamin and drinking water while they breastfeed and all of that is a very, very important. But if you follow me, you have or you've taken the certification. You've already know that it goes so much deeper than that. A lot of people ask me if I had to study to really understand postpartum nutrition, what would that be? And the answer really surprises them because it's not just one thing, it's not just about nutrition. I would never go study just nutrition and dietetics. You have to understand a multitude of sciences and how they interconnect. A multitude of sciences and how they interconnect. And this is how we kind of create the building block and the foundation of good, good quality science and research.

Speaker 1:

Because after birth, a woman's body is doing more than just recovering. She's regenerating, hormonally recalibrating, restructuring her brain, rebuilding her immune system, navigating trauma and depletion and sleep deprivation and all of these other components, and so we have to tie all of these pieces together even more so in postpartum than we would any other time in a woman's life and nutrition is a powerful lever in all of that. But it doesn't live in a vacuum. So in this episode, I'm walking you through the core sciences you must understand if you want to provide real root cause biology, aligned postpartum nutrition care, and I'm going to tell you it's a lot more than just providing meals after birth. I see this so many times over and over again. There's really great information out there and there is really not so great information out there. I'm seeing cookbooks on the market I'm seeing that are specific to postpartum. I'm seeing all of the Pinterest meals that I'm seeing postpartum doulas out there cooking meals and I think that's wonderful. But then you look deeper into what meals are they actually cooking and it makes my head spin. It is not where it needs to be because we're not understanding these other components. So, whether you're a nutritionist or a doula or a therapist, a midwife or just someone who wants to support moms better, this episode is going to give you the blueprint.

Speaker 1:

So let's dive in. First and foremost, and the most obvious, is nutrition, nutritional biochemistry. This is the foundation of postpartum nutrition, right? So the obvious one, and it needs to go a little bit more deeper than you think. This is where we zoom in to understand how individual nutrients actually function in the body, not just what's on a food label, but what those nutrients do at a cellular and systematic level. And after birth, a mother's body has just experienced massive physiological loss, with blood tissue hormones and an enormous metabolic shift. So rebuilding isn't about eating healthy. It's about supplying the exact raw materials her body needs to replenish iron and B12, to restore blood volume, regulate cortisol and rebuild adrenal reserves. Heal tissue through collagen formation, which requires, like vitamin C and zinc and protein. Supporting thyroid function through iodine and selenium. Rebalancing neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, through amino acids and omega-3s and B vitamins. All of those components, right, and it goes on and on and on.

Speaker 1:

But here's what most people miss. If her digestion is weak or if she's inflamed, which is a guaranteed biological normal, that happens in postpartum and we'll touch the base on this here very shortly. That happens in postpartum and we'll touch base on this here very shortly. She might not be absorbing any of it. So we do not look at what nutrients she's eating, and that's a key component. We do look at that. But we also ask can her body even use these nutrients? That's where biochemistry matters. It helps us assess nutrient form, cofactors, absorption, completion, whether the supplement she's taking is even doing anything at all. And if you're a provider, you're only looking at food through a macronutrient or calorie lens. Then you're missing 90% of actually what's happening in the postpartum body. This is why in my certification program, yes, we briefly cover why vitamin C is important and why protein is important, why these minerals are important, what they do in the body, but more importantly, how they work synergistically together to support the body and healing and repletion. And really that's only the beginning.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so here's number two anatomy and physiology. And I don't mean just like the textbook version you caught in school. This is the study of how the body works in real time, like how systems change and function under stress and depletion and repair and postpartum. That's a completely different physiological state than most people are trained to understand. When a mother gives birth, she is not you know, quote unquote returning to normal. Her organs are repositioning, her liver is metabolizing birth hormones, her blood vessels are adjusting after a 15 to 20% loss in volume, her uterus is undergoing major involution, her gut permeability is shifting, her thyroid may swing, her brain is remodeling itself and her digestive function often slows down or becomes dysregulated. That's a lot of shifts and changes that happen in a postpartum body, and here's the most important part. None of this is pathological. It's biological.

Speaker 1:

But if you don't understand this physiology, you will pathologicalize a mother's healing, and I know I said that wrong, but you get what I'm saying. You're going to miss what she really needs, like blood building, foods for uterine healing, bitter herbs for liver support, warm, easy to digest meals for the gut. And this is why postpartum nutrition can't just be a set of macros or a chart of recommended vitamins. It has to be physiologically led, because if you don't know what her body is doing, you can't support it. And so when we bring in physiology into the postpartum conversation, everything changes when it comes to food, and actually everything just changes right, like everything that you study, shifts and changes and you're like, oh my gosh, this is a whole new world. You really begin to feel her and feed her in a way that aligns with what her body is already trying to do on a biological level and you become her ally in healing, and that is the power of science.

Speaker 1:

Okay, here's number three, neuroscience. The third critical science, because postpartum doesn't just happen in her body, it also happens in her brain. And during postpartum a woman's brain goes through one of the most profound neurological shifts of her entire life, and studies show that maternal brain shrinks and rewires itself in specific regions to prioritize caregiving, protectiveness, sensory acuity, emotional regulation, responses to her baby and responsiveness to herself and her baby. So what does that mean in practice? It means her stress response is heightened. Her amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for fear and threat detection, is on high alert. Her capacity to tolerate chaos or unmet needs shrinks drastically. Her executive function can feel foggy, and this is what we call mom brain. Right, but I feel like that term mom brain is very dismissive in a sense. That term mom brain is very dismissive in a sense because it is a neurobiological reorganization that's designed to keep a baby alive.

Speaker 1:

Now here's where nutrition becomes vital the brain's ability to rewire, regulate emotion, buffer stress. It depends heavily, heavily, on nutritions and nutrients like choline, dha, b vitamins, magnesium, iron, amino acids, and when these are low, as they often are in postpartum, it can worsen intrusive thoughts. It can increase anxiety. It can worsen intrusive thoughts, it can increase anxiety, it reduces resilience and it slows healing. And if you're a provider working with postpartum women and you don't understand this neurobiology, you might misunderstand what she's going through. You might label her behavior as irrational or her emotions as just hormones, when really her brain is doing its job, but without the fuel or support that it needs. So neuroscience helps us understand why a nutrient-depleted mom may be more reactive, more overwhelmed, more shut down, and it gives us the key to support her recovery not just physiologically but biologically. So if we want to support postpartum healing, we key to support her recovery not just physiologically but biologically. So if we want to support postpartum healing, we have to support the brain. That's leading the way.

Speaker 1:

Okay, number four this one is huge. The fourth science is actually where I very much began all of my work after I discovered that there was hardly any science on postpartum. So 15 years ago the only thing that we had was anthropological studies. Anthropology is the study of human societies, traditions and cultural evolution. And why is this important?

Speaker 1:

Because postpartum care is not just biological, it's cultural, and the way we treat postpartum women today in Western society is, frankly, like an anomaly. This is not what we do for women and across every traditional culture, from Ayurvedic to Chinese medicine to Mayan to Moroccan, Postpartum is seen as a sacred, protected window of time. New mothers are not expected to bounce back or do it alone. They're supported by entire communities with rituals, warm foods, rest, massage, herbs and time. And these cultures didn't need clinical studies to tell them that postpartum recovery requires more than a six-week checkup. They practiced ancestral wisdom that prioritized nutrient-dense meals, emotional support, slowing down to allow the body and the nervous system to truly heal.

Speaker 1:

And when we lose this cultural scaffolding, if you will, postpartum becomes medicalized and isolated and rushed, and women are discharged from hospitals in hours, handed a bottle of vitamins, oftentimes prescription medication, and expected to resume a totally normal life, but without the nutrients, without the care or the space to do it. And understanding anthropology gives us the why behind so many of the nutritional protocols we teach today. Why bone broth? Why warming foods? Why not cold smoothies right after birth? Because these patterns are echoed across cultures that have been supporting mothers for thousands of years and they work. So when you learn postpartum nutrition. You're not just learning about vitamins. You're reconnecting with the collective wisdom of mothers across time. You're remembering the food is medicine and healing is culture Probably one of the most foundational pieces of this entire puzzle.

Speaker 1:

I actually thought maybe I should put it first because it is one of the most important, or maybe I should put it last because it's so important. Either way, it is what it is, it's here. It's so, so, very critical. And here's the last one for you, and you may or may not have heard about this this is called chronobiology. It is the science of biological rhythms and it deserves its own section here in this podcast. It's really about how time cycles and timing affect the body's healing and behavior and metabolism and so much more. And if you're working in postpartum nutrition, this isn't just a helpful lens, it's absolutely essential. But here's what's even more critical to understand Female chronobiology is vastly different from male chronobiology and most of what we've come to accept in medicine, nutrition and even productivity and the culture that we live in it's actually been built on male biological rhythms.

Speaker 1:

The male body operates on a 24-hour hormone cycle. Testosterone rises in the morning, dips in the evening, evening, and resets every day. Nearly all research on medications, food timing, exercise science, even sleep everything that you can think of has been built around this specific clock. And the female body, on other hand, operates on a 28 to 35 days infradian rhythm. Okay, and this cyclical change in estrogen, progesterone, insulin sensitivity, neurotransmitters and even immune function operate on this, and that's before we even add in the massive hormonal upheaval of pregnancy, birth and postpartum. So when we apply male-based science to the female body in postpartum, we miss the mark entirely, right? We ignore the week-long recovery timeline of tissue healing, the weeks, weeks long. We overlook how sleep loss affects female brains differently, often leading to anxiety and depression more rapidly than it does for men. We apply bounce back pressures rooted in male biology and masculine productivity standards.

Speaker 1:

Postpartum healing is not a return to the baseline, it is a recalibration of the entire female system and we need to track the rhythm of healing over time. Right On day one through five there's a hormonal crash. There's acute inflammation, high bleeding, support moms with warming and mineral rich, easy to digest foods, and weeks two to six we have neurological rewiring that continues on. Significantly, it happens in two to six weeks, but it continues on for two plus years. After having a baby. We also have hormonal shifts rising, sleep deprivation, focus on blood sugar stabilization, a nervous system or nourishment right. And then, three months to six months postpartum, we often experience a crash period. That's where nutrient stores are completely depleted, especially in a mom who didn't get the support that she needed. Inflammation is peaking, stress is compounding. We're introducing deeper mineral depletion and gut healing foods and adaptogenic herbs, especially for moms who didn't get the support that they need right.

Speaker 1:

And let's not even forget the circadian rhythm right, which is part of chronobiology. Women are more sensitive to light cycles and sleep-wake cycles and balances. Disruption in her further dysregulates hormones and digestion, which are both critical for postpartum recovery. So chronobiology teaches us that timing matters. What a mother needs on day three is not the same of what she needs in year three and, crazy enough, they are all very much interconnected in a very cyclical fashion. So we can't keep treating women like they're just small men on a 24-hour clock. If we do so, we're going to fail them and their recovery.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's take a breath and bring this all together. We just walked through the critical sciences that go far beyond traditional nutrition textbooks. Actually, there's very few nutritional textbooks that have anything in postpartum at all, but from an anthropological and neuroscientific, and biological and neurobiological view, a lens. When we add all of these together, we explore this deep, multi-layered systems that have shaped a postpartum body, mind, body and spirit. And the truth is, postpartum nutrition is never about just the food. It's about understanding how the body's physiology adapts after birth, how hormonal tides shift, how cultural practices either support or deplete, how timing, rhythm and rest work with or against a mother's healing, how the brain rewires for protection and connection, and how trauma, depletion and disconnection can derail all of it if we truly don't see what's going on.

Speaker 1:

This is why so many providers feel like something is missing, because if you only study one science, say nutrition, and you walk away with macronutrients or clinical lab values, then you miss the whole story. So whether you're a nutritionist or a doula or a mental health therapist or a midwife or coach, this knowledge will change how you support your clients. Go dig deeper, go ask these questions, go ask different questions. You provide deeper care in everything that you do. We don't just hand out meal plans. You see the whole story behind exhaustion and anxiety and hormone balances and disconnection and, most importantly, you stop blaming the mother. Nobody here I know nobody does that, but I like we also see where, like people do that. Like if you listen to this podcast, clearly you don't, but like we see that happen today in our society and it's like mind boggling to me Because really, when you understand the systems right Biological, cultural, emotional they're all stacked against a mom. This is all stacked against her. Okay, I want you to be able to, like, really apply this knowledge immediately.

Speaker 1:

Expand your intake assessments to include nervous system symptoms, sleep rhythms and historical patterns of nourishment. Like you can start doing this today. Consider the cultural lens. Ask what traditions your clients come from and whether they were honored or ignored. Look at time differently. Don't just ask what are you eating, ask how often, how consistently on a regular basis through your monthly cycle, and bring in the brain. Ask about mood overwhelm, sensory overload. Then think what's happening neurologically. Honor her story, ask what postpartum was supposed to be like for them and what actually happened. So you don't need a degree in every science, or any science actually, but you do need a framework that honors the complexity of this time and when you do that, everything changes for your clients, for your practice and for you. And if you want to go deeper. Download that framework that changes everything.

Speaker 1:

We have the postpartum restoration method and the assessment tool that goes with it. So if this conversation opens your eyes to how multi-dimensional postpartum nutrition truly is, I want you to download our free resource. This isn't just a checklist. The Postpartum Restoration Method Assessment Tool is the exact framework I teach providers all over the world in over 55 different countries right, we teach them how to understand depletion, trauma, nervous system dysregulation and nutrient and how all of those intersect. We teach how to assess what's actually going on in the whole client's body right, the whole client's body and life and offer care plans rooted in real science and postpartum restoration. And I give you all of the training for that.

Speaker 1:

You can go to postpartumu the letter ucom slash assessment and this tool will help you cut through the noise. It's going to help you serve more confidently and feel deeply aligned with the kind of support that your clients actually need. So I will see you in the assessment guide. 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 and 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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