Those women two hundred years ago were not on Instagram. They were not working outside of the home. They were not leaving their baby, and they had tremendously less expectations involved in that transition. That transition, you know, was most likely what they felt they were supposed to be doing, where in our lives, that's something we wanna do, but we're still taking on all the world at the same time. You know, I don't know if anyone can ever really feel prepared to have a baby.
You're handed this tiny human. You're told to rest and enjoy it, and then you're sent home to navigate healing and feeding and sleep deprivation and hormone changes and identity shifts, sometimes even grief or shock or trauma, all while everyone else is telling you what a beautiful time it is and waiting for you to send baby pictures. And the truth is so many women struggle through this postpartum transition, Not just baby blues, but real mental and emotional distress sometimes. And most of them are doing it quietly behind their smile thinking maybe this is just how it's supposed to be and maybe it'll just go away. I'm talking today with doctor Candice Wood.
She is an OB GYN who has spent the last eighteen years walking alongside women through pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and who recognize that our current system may not be serving these new mothers the best way that it could when it comes to mental health. She shares what's really going on hormonally and emotionally in our postpartum phase, how to spot red flags in ourselves or those we love, how to get help most importantly, and what every woman can do to prepare for a healthier and more supported transition into motherhood. If you're expecting, if you're newly postpartum, or if you just wanna feel more equipped to support yourself or someone else, this conversation will offer insight, compassion, and actual tools that you can use. This is especially meaningful for me as I'm pregnant with my fourth baby and preparing for my own fourth postpartum transition. And so this conversation was deeply emotional to me, and I hope that we can offer support to women who are struggling even if it doesn't feel like you have the most difficult postpartum transition, but that it can be a really wonderful postpartum transition.
So stay tuned. Share with anyone you can think of who may benefit from this because this is a conversation that can't just disappear. It has to be put out there and offered to those who need it most. So let's get started. Thank you, doctor Wood, Candice, for coming on today.
It is you're my dear friend, and I am so grateful that you are here. So we get to just sit and talk shop like we do Yep. Even if we're not recording a podcast. Yep. I'm so excited to be here too.
Candice, you have done some amazing work in making this big transition from being a conventional OB GYN to what you're doing now. Will you first tell us a little bit about your transition into Woman Made Well is the name of your clinic. Tell us what brought about that desire to transition into offering full time postpartum support, and tell us a little bit about what you're doing. Well, you know, I have a a path a lot like yours where, you know, did a traditional OBGYN residency, and I practiced for fourteen years as a OB GYN provider working at an academic center training residents and, working with my own private patients and delivering them. And it was like, you know, probably eight years ago, I really started noticing, like, where my passion really was, and it was informing relationships with my patients.
I saw them every visit through their pregnancy, delivered their baby, saw them postpartum. And I started noticing with them, after I'd had my own child too, that there was a lot of things that I experienced that they experienced too. And that neither of us, none of us were prepared for. And it was in that finding that experience that I found I really loved being there for them. I really loved preparing them for them for those experiences, and I really liked trying to figure out the right way to do it without striking fear.
And then I really liked making that relationship so my patients felt they were safe to talk to me. I had a few specific interactions with some of my own patients and some of the residents' patients with women with profound postpartum depression, profound postpartum anxiety, where it was kind of the trigger of, like, no. Like, you really should do this. And that's when I started looking to see if there was some additional training for me. I'd obviously spent my whole career working with women, had four pregnancies of my own five children.
But, obviously, I wanna I wanted to be as trained as I could, and that's when I found postpartum support international, and they have a certification in perinatal mental health. It was a two day course, and then I did all the other training they had. They had courses for advanced pharmacotherapy and advanced psychotherapy. Did all those courses. I attended courses at NASH General with their perinatal psychiatry team, which is phenomenal.
I I still attend their Wednesday rounds where they just talk about patients. So I got some some training, and then comes you, doctor Kraycroft. Around the same time that I was doing all this, I started seeing your Instagram posts about making your change. And it was kind of the the the last domino to knock me over to be like, dude, I can do this. And, and that's when I made the plan to to change my whole focus to perinatal mental health and really helping women with anxiety and depression in pregnancy, postpartum, women who are finding it after, and really helping women, even not with clinical diagnosable depression or anxiety, helping women through that transition so they could navigate into motherhood and be the mothers and the women that they want to be and truly find a way to reach their potential?
Well, I I'm honored. I I had no idea that I played any sort of role in that, but I am just so grateful you're doing what you're doing. I think it's something obviously, a passion you and I both share is not just treating the medical side of and I I wanna get into this in a minute, but not just treating the things that we were trained for in residency and and through school, but actually really getting to know the patient and and really being dissatisfied with the care that we were trained to give, you know, to say, like, oh, I'm so sorry that you're struggling. I can give you the name of a psychiatrist that you can go see for postpartum mental health. OPS, they have a six month wait list, and they won't actually be able to you know, like Yes.
It's it's so frustrating in conventional OB that we we, number one, I think a lot of OBs don't see it. I think a lot of OBs are not necessarily I'll leave it there. Some of them don't see it. Yep. I think you and I, as women and as moms, and, like, we love our patients.
We love our patients so much. Uh-huh. And it's so frustrating that we don't get to really dive in with them. And so that's exactly what you've transitioned to do now. Give us just a brief recap of what our training looks like and what the traditional model of postpartum care looks like, and then tell us a little bit more about how you've used that additional training that you have to transition into this new model of postpartum care.
Well, you know, I I loved my training. I had great training in medical school and my residency program was phenomenal. But as we know, in all specialties, there is an innumerable amount of things to learn. And some of the things that you and me have found to care the most about were not weighted heavily in that. So, when we think about traditional postpartum care, you know, I think the first thing in medical training is you're always trained to, like, be aware of the worst of the worst.
Just like, you know, whenever a patient comes into me with a complaint, I'm always like, Is this a sign of cancer? Okay. Let's rule out that, then let's dial back from there. And so, it's the same thing with postpartum. Like, we're trained to look for those signs of something bad happening.
And I'm sure you learned about the same thing. There's like these 10 Bs of postpartum that we're supposed to learn about and let's see if we can get them all. We want to talk about bleeding. We want to talk about bowel movements. We want to talk about their belly and feel for their uterus shrinking.
We talk about the baby, we talk about the breast, if they're breastfeeding, even if they're not breastfeeding, we're gonna make sure things are going well there. We, to keep with the bees, boinking, intercourse after after having, a baby. Are you not familiar with that? Oh, you haven't heard that? Oh my goodness.
Well, I mean, I'm I've heard of boinking before, but, it it was not in my And it wasn't one of my b's? No. I mean, sex was, but not not I I didn't have it in a b. Yeah. I like that.
Well, we we got all the b's. Bowels, birth control, and we do talk about the blues. Oh, yeah, bum and the blues, but it was it's the blues, and it's mentioned, but, like, that's we're supposed to check for it. And studies show that we are okay at asking the question about it as far as a specialty. But when it's there and we get the answer that we don't want to hear, we fail then.
Because most providers don't know what to do next. They don't have a referral, or like you said, which was what I found, I would find a referral, I'd give my patient a number, and then they'd come back and say, She wasn't available, like you said, for six months. And so, we aren't trained really to know what to do. We aren't trained to really know the signs. And I remember many occasions with residents where the one specifically where it was very clear, this woman, she was of Indian descent and she was light and her husband was dark Indian and her baby was dark and she's in for her postpartum visit and the resident was smart enough to know that something was wrong, but she was telling them, I don't want to touch my baby because my baby is dark.
But the resident didn't know what to do. She was like, Something's wrong with this mom and the husband's looking looking at me like, help, I don't know what to do. My mom I don't know why my wife doesn't love my baby when the baby's the same color as me and she loves me. Because we're not trained to know what to do when something's not right in that area. But if the bleeding's not going right, we know exactly what to do.
If we if the belly if the fundus is too high, we have questions. If there's pain with intercourse, we have some answers. And so we just aren't trained to do anything in that arena. And most people most people aren't comfortable asking more questions and figuring out what's going on, where, like, for me, I was so intrigued and then so eager for a solution so that mom could heal that even though I didn't feel prepared, I wanted to know. But conventional training was not there.
I think the training, it was extremely helpful, and I think all OBGYNs, should, it should be part of a residency program to spend these two days with Postpartum Support International. And I'm actually working on that, with ACOG to see if we can formulate that and streamline that. Because it just brings awareness, and the thing that you also learn from PSI is they have great resources for you. They have a phone number you can give to every patient that will get them immediately connected to somebody who is ready to help, and with a long list of providers to connect them with, support groups online. And so that's one very important thing.
But I think the training helped me most to gain confidence in diagnosis and of some of the caveats where OCD develops or bipolar, those things that were more foreign to me. And then with the pharmacotherapy, getting advanced training in usages of medications that can help. And then I think the thing I was most excited about, and I've dove in way deeper myself, is the therapy, the cognitive behavioral therapy and interpersonal therapy, those types of therapy where I can really figure out how to actually create healing pathways for my moms. Yeah. It's so important.
And and I you and I both also agree, like, we're not opposed to our conventional training. We're not opposed to our conventional colleagues. But the fact of it is it's very surgical heavy. It's very medication heavy. It's very obstetric heavy.
We learn a lot about some of the main things, things like management of STDs and pelvic inflammatory disease and management of different types of ovarian masses and management of, you know, different things like this. We spend a lot of time learning how to do surgery, a lot of time learning how to do a c section in our sleep. You know, we all finish being able to do a c section very rapidly, very emergently, and we're good at it. You know? We're we're so it's good.
It's a good thing that we have our training. But it the amount of experience that we have in residency, partially because of the nature of the training, you know, as a resident, we'll have our own patient panel that I don't remember how many I had as a resident, maybe four or five OB patients over the course of, you know, four years. So maybe I have 16 to 20 patients that are mine, that I'm caring for throughout their whole pregnancy journey and then into their postpartum. And then you come out day one and you have a private practice. Yep.
And then suddenly you have all of these postpartum patients, and you're like, so what was I supposed to do here? Because I only did this, like, 16 times. You know? Yep. And so it's just it's I just feel like it's not something that is is adequate.
You know? It's not something that we have the the best training for. So what are some of the issues that you see most maybe starting from from mild and, you know, quote, unquote normal post maybe let's start there. Tell us about what a typical postpartum recovery looks like. Now I I always hesitate here because it's like common does not mean normal.
So just because someone has baby blues or something, is that normal or common? But but what are some of the the common mild things that you see that you're able to really address in postpartum care that make a difference for people? Well, I think one of the most important things that I learned before I started this clinic when I had my own patients was doing some preparation. And in that circumstance, I always made sure at their postpartum visit when they were in the hospital, I'm about to discharge them. I kind of laid some things out as a little, like, map of expectations so that I could potentially help them be prepared.
Because you don't know. There's, like, you know, you're at the hometown buffet, and there's a lot of options. We don't know what's gonna turn up for each mom, but I always talk about the postpartum blues because it's fifty to seventy percent of women who have that. And that presents so differently for every woman. And I don't know if you even experienced it, but with my own self and with my patients, I've seen various presentations.
And it's crying, not because you're sad, it's just crying all the time. And you're somebody who, like, maybe cried during a movie when it was really sad once a month. When you're postpartum, you could cry 10 to 15 times a day. And it's just like, what's wrong with I'm not even sad. I'm holding my baby like they're tears of joy.
And then there can be crying because you are sad and overwhelmed. Then there can be you're just more anxious. And that typically, I find in that first two weeks presents more as irritation. Like, you, like, people and things that did not drive you nuts before are, like, you can barely handle the postpartum nurse in your room without, like, wanting to bite her head off. And that's just not you.
And your husband who's trying to do something helpful, or your partner, you, like, can barely hold it in and you often don't. So, that is often how anxiety presents initially. For me, I often felt, and I specifically remember it with my last delivery, that I was just watching my life and I wasn't actually present during those first two weeks. It was very weird because I had twin babies and I was definitely participating. I was definitely changing diapers and I was definitely figuring out how to nurse two babies at once, but I felt like I was watching my life.
And so, it's really important, I think, for patients to know about that, first off, because if you don't and you've heard about postpartum depression and anxiety, it immediately sparks a, Oh, my goodness, it's happening to me. Panic mode, cortisol levels elevated, and then we're like the snowball effect where I feel like we can actually make a problem. Ever since I started talking to patients about this, and I always say, Okay, that's about the first two weeks, and what I want you to pay attention to is as you move into that third week, is it getting better? Are you crying 65 times a day instead of 85? And notice, I didn't say the crying was gone.
We're just showing that it's decreasing. It's going back to a more you level. Or is the irritability leveling off? If it's not, if any of those symptoms are staying the same, come talk to me. If they're getting worse, definitely call me.
And so that's the first, because that's fifty to seventy percent of people. So everybody needs to be prepared for that. A lot of people do really swimmingly through that. And what symptoms are we looking for after? When it's not a clinical diagnosis of depression or anxiety, what I most commonly see is maybe a lack of connectedness to the baby that's concerning to them.
It's quite common and people still think that something's wrong with them all the time. But no, it's actually really quite common. Second is just a loss of identity, where they they're enjoying it. They're not having negative feelings, but they feel they don't feel this peace or joy that they expected, and they feel lost in it. And, you know, and then others are just which goes along with that is just, you know, they feel like they've lost complete control of their life and have no idea how they're supposed to move forward.
And often they're really grateful that they have somebody who's like, oh, get it. I get it. Instead, because they have so much shame. And then the mo the more typical what people think is there's women who they're having a hard time getting out of bed. They're crying.
They're they're depressed. No desire to do anything. I've had several patients who they have are so blessed to have family members. The family members are completely taking care of the baby. The mom is in the room completely motivated without any motivation, and not even knowing, you know, what is her purpose.
I'm failing my baby. I'm failing myself. And then anxiety, everybody kinda knows how that presents, but where they are not sleeping because they're so scared about the baby. They can't leave the house anymore. Everything in their life has changed, and they know that the baby's okay, but they can't get their head to turn off.
And that's the one that heightens the fastest to a problem, because they're not sleeping, and sleep is so important. And so those are, you know, if you just ask me the most typical, that's probably the most typical. I get a surprise every couple months of like, Woah, haven't heard that before. But almost all the time, my patients have a lot of comfort and I'm like listening to their whole story and I'm like, well, just so you know, I've heard your story before. And that brings them a lot of comfort because I think a lot of women just think they're the only person who's feeling what they're feeling.
Well and I think they feel it it's a very scary way to feel that way, you know, especially if you've talked to a lot of women, and and hopefully we're getting the word out more about postpartum depression and just postpartum changes in general. But if you haven't talked to a lot of people or hear heard about this, you feel like you are really broken. You must be a really terrible mom Mhmm. To feel disconnected from your baby, right, that like that. Right?
That's me saying that's how people feel, not that that's true. It's not true. It's not true at all, but it's very scary to feel that way. And I hope that some people are listening who are not postpartum or having babies. I hope some people are listening who are the supporters of women having babies because it can be scary for them, just like you talked about that husband who was like, What is happening?
My wife was real normal. She was really excited to have this baby, and now suddenly she doesn't wanna touch this baby. It can be very alarming for people who are supporting the postpartum woman to be able to to know even where to start or or they will feel like their their person, you know, their daughter or their wife or their whoever, is really broken. And for for you to be able to have that conversation and say, it's not broken Mhmm. But we should do something about it.
It's not normal, but it's not your fault. It's not that you're a bad person. So I think that's really important to set them up for that, to watch for that as they're leaving the hospital, and then to check-in again. I think that's probably and tell me what you think about this, but that's probably one of the places where we have inadequacies in our current, I would say culture, not just medical model, but just in our culture is I mean, we all have, as OBs, we all have our spiel that takes us anywhere from five to twenty minutes, you know, and it depends on how many patients we need to see and what we're going to next. But we all have our spiel that we go over with our postpartum patients.
Do you know how much they have to absorb in the hospital as they're going home? Also, they're sleep deprived. Also, they may have been in labor for two days. Also, they weren't sleeping for the two weeks leading up to that. And if they had a complication and if they had a baby in the NICU, etcetera, etcetera, like, these women are not at optimal learning conditions.
But we still I mean, it's still good. We have to have that. But then in our current model, we would and I I did this for years. You know, we would be like, okay. Bye.
See you in six weeks. Yep. And it would be like this quick, like, call me if you need me. But, like, but probably you won't need me. And and I think that for women who are very, very extreme, hopefully, we do a better job of catching those folks.
But for women who are just kind of not great, you know, I think those are the ones that fall through the cracks the most. Uh-huh. What are some things that you can do to or that you choose to do to help prevent that downward spiral if someone's not great to to keep them from getting worse? But, also, I just feel bad that our expectation is that, like, not great is adequate. Like Yeah.
How about great? Like, how about we aim for great? You know? Mhmm. What are some things that you support women to do to prevent that downward and also to kind of turn it around if it is struggling and they're in that, like, I wanna keep it kinda mild, and then we'll go to the more severe to help them feel better?
One of the most important things is, you know, what I I started before with my old clinic. Like, I would have every patient come at three weeks, and they could decline that if they wanted. But I would say, I wanna see you at three weeks because that's when you're in the middle of the trenches. That's when you should be coming out of the blues. And, you know, it was after a few times when I saw somebody at six weeks and they told me, because, again, I was close to all my patients.
And it was like, I felt gut punched in my stomach when they would tell me about these struggles. I'm like, oh, crap. If I had just I could have solved that in, like, two sentences. I could have saved that all that pain. And not because I'm some miracle worker at all.
It's just because I I know the facts and I've I've been there not with, you know, I haven't experienced everything myself, but I've experienced it with my patients. And so it was at that point that I started that and thank heavens, a few years later, maybe five, ACOG is now recommending a three week check-in, which is huge because it is right after, you know, I think patients knowing about the postpartum blues is crucial and then having that checkpoint and having the mom's mental and physical health being the primary concern of that visit. Not birth control. We, you know, we can, of course, always talk about that. But, I feel like sometimes that's all that the, that the training is pushed to talk about, is make sure the birth control is on board.
But I think that is crucial and that's, I have found that to be so helpful in my patients. You can pick up on things when they're going south and also you're like a touch point for a huge pat on the back, you're doing awesome. Our culture, you know, I I tell this to patients all the time, like, our country, phenomenal. It's an amazing place, Even despite all the excitement that we've experienced in the last several years, it's still an amazing place to live. And the rights that women have in this country are incredible, but they were at a cost.
And we, you know, one of my patients, I took care of her to thirty three weeks through all of her pregnancies, and then she would fly to China and deliver because that's where she was from and they had wanted dual citizenship. And I would always check-in with her because it's so easy to communicate across the country the world these days. And she would be, like, in a spa being taken care of for six weeks, and her baby would just be brought to her to be fed, and then she would get to recover because that's what her culture does. And, you know, there's other patients, and I know you could share some stories too, where their mom flies in from the other side of the world and stays for six months, taking care of everything as she adjusts, recovers physically, but then adjusts to motherhood, being supported through that transition her body has just been through, and then that transition in roles and responsibilities that she's now having to figure out those responsibilities. Here in America, because we have all these fantastic rights and we've proven that we are so strong and we can do anything anybody else can do, we should be back to work at six weeks.
And I know you've had patients that went back sooner because I've had I'm like, are you two weeks? Are you kidding me? Like, please let me write. No, I need to go back. I really have to.
And so I think, like, there's some cultural issues that make it really hard because the expectations that are set because of that, we believe that we should be able to do all that. And then that's the right way to do all that. And I would have to say, hard stop, that's not. My three month recovery and then going back to the crazy pace of what you and I know we went back to, that's not the way to transition to motherhood. That's not the right way to.
And can you do it? And will I support you? Yes. Because most of my moms are doing that, but that's what's so difficult. And I think understanding that and understanding how not natural that is, Well, those women two hundred years ago were not on Instagram.
Well, those women two hundred years ago were not on Instagram. They were not most likely almost 100% working outside of the home. Were they working 100 because they were making their own butter and milk and cleaning the clothes on their own and making the soap to do it? But they were not leaving their baby and they had tremendous less expectations involved in that transition. That transition, you know, was most likely what they felt they were supposed to be doing, where in our lives, that's something we wanna do, but we're still taking on all the world at the same time.
So it's difficult. Hey. It's Mallory. Can you do us a big favor? If you're loving the uplift for her podcast, we would be so grateful if you could leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
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It's difficult. And and I like that you point out, you know, the idea of a village or a tribe or a family, you know, in most other cultures through time, it was not just like, oh, you've had a baby? Good luck. Like, see you on the other side. It it it has traditionally been a time of coming together and support, and it's it's really quite absurd if you really start thinking about all that goes into it.
I mean, the idea alone of the physical recovery and the physical recovery is vastly variable. Right? Some people will have a terrible c section recovery. Some people have a really easy c section recovery. Some people have a horrendous vaginal birth recovery with Yep.
Tons of pain and weeks before you can even sit anywhere without pain. Yep. And you're trying to, at the same time as you're having a physical recovery and I don't mean to get grotesque, but I do wanna just call it what it is. I mean, you're bleeding heavily. You're trying to mess with changing giant pads and and trash, and it's it's a really big deal.
And on top of that, you're feeding your baby every two to three hours, usually. If you're breastfeeding, there can be tremendous pain associated with that. Yep. Also, a huge learning curve that you're like, I do not know what I'm doing, and it is the the whole life source of this human who I am solely responsible for, and I don't know how to do it, or I'm failing, or it's not working, or I'm not making enough milk, or are am I making enough milk? Because no one can tell me because I can't tell.
I just know my baby's crying all the time. Also, add to that lack of sleep, and also add to that, I'm not going to making myself a meal, like, so I'm either starving or I'm grabbing whatever I can grab quickly off of the counter. And you can really see. Yep. I'm exhausted just talking about it, but you can really see how much it starts to compound.
And then you add to that this independence that that I think in a lot of ways is self inflicted. You know? We we feel like we really can do it. You know? Like, I mean, it's not that I feel like I have to do it, but I can.
Like, I'm fine. I don't need that. And so you're doing all of this on your own, and you may have a super crazy supportive husband. You may not. Yep.
You know, you may have a super supportive mom or mother-in-law or sister. You may not. And all of these things just compound together. Anyway, I got a little off base, but I just wanna call it what it is. Like, it's kind of an absurd experience.
Well and it's you know, you described it so well, and then we could put, like, 18 more layers in there Yes. Of other things. But I remember the first psychiatry conference I went to with Doctor. Lee Cohen, who, if you look up the articles about SSRIs and pregnancy, his name is all over most of them. He's phenomenal, but he talked about when he was finishing his psychiatry residency and he told his dad what he was going to focus his career on, he says, I'm going to do perinatal reproductive psychiatry so I can help women who are struggling postpartum.
And his dad said, Well, you're not going to have a job because pregnancy and postpartum are the most blissful times in life. And it's always you know, I remember the first time he said it, and he's you know, I've gone to other conferences and he shares it again, but it's so profound because it's so true. We having a baby and that opportunity to be able to do that and experience it is absolutely incredible. But the the story that's told and even even when you watch movies about deliveries and they always push twice and the baby comes out. How many times did I get to push twice with a patient?
I can probably count them on my hands and toes maybe. When how many times have I pushed for over two hours that I've lost count of. And so it's it's really just, I think, understanding what really happens is not to convince people not to do it. It's to better prepare people, because like you said, it's almost ridiculous to think about how we do set ourselves up for failure as independent women. And I know I'm guilty of it myself.
I mean, by the time I had a kid, I'd already finished med school for OB GYN. Like, I knew what I was getting into and and that was a total joke. I did not know. I did a two week breastfeeding course where I spent two weeks with a lactation consultant. And I will tell you, I learned nothing during those two weeks that actually helped me when I was like in tears, my nipples falling off, and I was like, nobody told me anything.
And I promise you, I tell everybody the things that I wish I had known now, again, to prepare. I mean, I think that's why I'm so passionate about this, and I can tell even though that's not your focus, you're passionate about it too, because it's not like it's, one of those things where it's so hard to fix the problem. Yeah. It's one of those things where, like, if people knew and if we as a culture decided to go back towards what we had been doing before, where we supported women, supported families as they grew, we could change a lot of aspects of this quite easily. Yeah.
And I think, you know, going back to that idea of the three week visit, there really are so many things we can do to support the physical transformation or the physical transition, rather. And those are things that that I can't tell you everything potential for the upcoming. Like, I need to see you and say, what are you dealing with? And then let me help you. Yep.
You know, for example, one of the things that is hugely helpful is our baths. And Mhmm. We're often telling women not to bathe for six weeks. Right? Like, don't soak in a tub for six weeks, which I don't know if you tell people that still tell women that at this point, but there was no great data to say don't do that.
And one of the most pain relieving things you can do is to take, like, gravity off of your bum Yep. As those stitches are healing, and it decreases the inflammation and you get out and feel so much better. And that's not something that I can go into that every time that they're gonna remember at their visit before they leave the hospital. But if they call me and say, like, I am really struggling. I am really in a lot of pain.
That's when I can say, try that. You know, if they say my nipples are falling off or they're cracked and bleeding, then we say, like, okay. There's, like, 10 different things that we can do about that. And it's not gonna make it pain free. It's not gonna make it easy.
But, certainly, we can support you in that. And I think one of the things that you're mentioning that's more beneficial than just about anything is saying, I'm here. Mhmm. And I'm gonna listen to you, and I'm gonna validate you, and I'm gonna say, like, this is hard, and you're not alone. And if I can make it easier for you, I'm gonna make it easier.
But even just being there and listening to someone and giving a woman a chance to break down a little bit and be, like, admitting things that they may feel ashamed of. Like, this isn't what I thought it was gonna be. I don't feel how I thought I was gonna feel. I'm I'm struggling more than I thought I would. Those are huge things that you need to be able to express to someone and get off your chest and to express them to someone in a safe and expert position who can say, do you know what?
That doesn't make you a bad mom. That doesn't make you a scary person. Like, we're gonna get through this is is a huge part of the battle. I think a lot of people probably leave that visit just feeling like, okay. Here we go.
That is why I have continued to do it. It is the most rewarding experience, and I when the tears come, they're like, oh my goodness. I'm so sorry. I'm crying. I'm like, nope.
That means we're getting somewhere. And it, like, I, like, I, like, ease in. I'm like, okay. I I've got her to, like, trust me. I feel so honored, to be perfectly honest, I feel completely honored with every mom who ever comes and sits on my big navy blue couch.
I first of all have a tremendous respect for them because they're coming to meet someone they don't know, often they have never met me before, and to talk about real vulnerable things, about feeling like they're not a good mom, or scary things, intrusive thoughts they're having. And so, I already, like, applaud them, and I know, I know without a doubt, without hearing anything, that they are an amazing mom, because they are putting their potential emotions second to try to be able to become the mom that they want to become and heal. And the second thing is, I feel so honored because so many women I've had multiple times where they just start going and they say, I've never told somebody that before. And that that's when I also know and I can get I often get emotional and I'll try not to today, but because I know healing is happening then. Because they're feeling heard, they're feeling safe.
And it's crazy, Mallory. It's crazy because I really have gotten more passionate as I dove into this, that during this transition, so many things that needed to get healed from past come up as Yeah. As these women are trying to figure out how to be the best version of themselves for this beautiful child, that even if they're not feeling attached to, that they, that they want to be something potentially different than what they had before. And, and that's why these things come up, and it's such a beautiful thing, and so, you, you nailed it. Like, the first thing that I think that I do for women, or try to do, is listen.
Yeah. I have a lot of things that I can do, but just listening to them, letting them know they're not crazy, letting them know the story is not one that I've heard not heard before, and that I I'm gonna be I'm gonna be there working with them towards their goals until they feel like they're there. And we we always talk about how we're making a cake, and we got the layers, and I'm gonna be there till we're putting those final decorations that aren't needed, but that we'd like to do so that the cake is just just exactly what we want. It's a beautiful thing, and I I literally could talk for hours about the experiences and the backgrounds that these women are coming from and how much they're fighting to break cycles, to be the women they wanna be, and and fighting against hormones, against lack of support. I literally feel so much confidence in the world because of the women that I've met who are trying to raise our next generation.
Yeah. That it it really is remarkable. Let's get into the nitty gritty a little more of what are some of the mindsets that set people up for maybe a harder transition. One of them I'm thinking of is, like, perfectionism, you know, a really rigid birth story. What are some of the things that you see that you wish you could get to people ahead of time and say, maybe let's work through this before your birth so that we can really set you up for a smoother transition after.
Is there anything that comes to mind there? Well, the greatest chance of having a great postpartum is if you're feeling great in pregnancy. And so, you know, the first group of people that I always think about are the women who are depressed or anxious in pregnancy. Like, I need them in my clinic yesterday. Because if we can get to the source of that, get that treated, get that, you know, whether it's via therapy or medication, if that's what the mother wants, that's my goal.
Because that is, you know, directly correlated. If you're depressed during pregnancy, it is most likely not going to get better when you have the added lack of sleep and added responsibility of keeping a human alive. So, that's the first group, anybody who has active mood issues. But you bring up some of the other highlights of people where somebody who has is extremely Type A and has really high expectations and very specific expectations. And that starts with delivery, and then it goes on to expectations about how motherhood's going to be, expectations about how their child's gonna be.
And if if I can get to visit them before, we're gonna talk I mean, I love birth plans. I think birth plans have a place. And I if I could advocate, I would think that everybody should do a birth plan and talk to their doctor about it so that they end up from that appointment that they're both moving forward and on the same page. Because, you know, those expectations, we as physicians, I want to fulfill every single one of them, but when I can't, it's, there's a reason and I love, you know, and I always did a visit at thirty six weeks where we talked about this and we talked about the things that can change and why, so that my patients, when they weren't in duress, got to answer all ask all their questions and get them answered. And so that's one thing, the expectations of delivery, so that I already don't have a mom who has a traumatic delivery.
Almost every delivery can arguably be a little bit traumatic, depending on it. But if a mom feels like she knew what was going on, even if something very traumatic happens, I find from my experience, there's not trauma that's moved along with it. Then setting expectations of what postpartum is going to be like and where your expectations about what you and your baby should be able to accomplish and should be setting as your goals is very important. I have a lot of moms who I think Instagram sets their expectation, and I think that's the worst thing in the world. I agree.
Comparison is truly the spiff of joy. Our our brain compares. It's a natural tendency, but it should be a tendency that's used to help us see, Oh, that's nice that she does that. I wonder if maybe that would be something for me to think about. But that's not how our brain takes it.
Our brain says, Oh my goodness, she's perfect. I'm a failure. And so what that does is it sets us up for always feeling less than. And the reason that even during my career I feel like the numbers of depression and poor transition to motherhood have increased is is single handedly because of that. Because when I think of my mom and your mom, my mom had, like, the ladies in the neighborhood that she could maybe compare to if she, like, actually walked out of the house and went over to their house.
And maybe the women that she went to at church, she could see, like, oh my goodness, her kids all look together and she got dressed today. I'm I'm in shambles. So there was, like, a couple opportunities every week where she could think, like, man, I maybe am not doing so hot. Where us, we pick up our phone and we see all the vacations that another woman's going on with her five beautiful children and that she her house is perfectly clean, and she has this adorable picture every single month, and she's keeping a journal of all her baby's accomplishments, and they're already going to swim school, and her baby already speaks Chinese at three months. And and you can just from the from your the, like, the comfort of your own home while you're nursing your baby, you can recognize that you're an utter failure.
So, I think, really setting those expectations of what your goals are as a mom, what your goals are in your relationship, and what your goals are in your family. I love if I could sit down and even over one or two visits, really iron that out with women so that we can hold ourselves to that and not hold ourselves to and and actually call out when those expectations from elsewhere are coming and say, that's not my goal. And that's not what is important to me. That's great for them. I'm so happy that their, you know, their child already speaks Chinese.
But that wasn't on my goal list. And so that's probably one of the biggest that I work with. It probably is one of the biggest. And then I think the other is, you know, along with that, there are people who are more anxious and getting on board with coping mechanisms and RD strategies for how to handle that anxiety postpartum is essential. Yeah.
And and what to look for too Yeah. Helping them understand what they're gonna look for. Mhmm. What about setting yourself up for a smooth postpartum transition from a physical standpoint, from a habit standpoint? What are some things that women can do throughout their pregnancy or before to hopefully set them up for more success postpartum?
Sleep's gonna be the first and most important thing. Like, when I have a patient, I always say, okay, how are we going to enable you to sleep? And if you're a breastfeeding mom, I know it's never gonna be more than every two and like a two to three hour stint in that first couple weeks. But who's gonna provide naps for you? Who's gonna take care of that baby so you're taking naps during the day when you can?
And so I, you know, figuring out how to encourage sleep is is essential because it's one of the things hormones and and everybody's effect from the plummeting of hormones after delivery, we can't predict that. But everybody needs sleep and a lot of people have the ability to support that. I do have some patients who are doing it completely on their own and so that's a struggle. But sleep is one thing. Eating better is another.
I remember hearing, and I still, like, I still valued the advice, but I remember a mom who had my exact family, three babies and then was having twins, and she said the greatest advice my OB gave me was, you know, just plan on eating cereal for, like, the next six weeks of your life. And I was like, Oh, that's great. That's gonna take the stress off me from preparing food for my family and myself. And that's what I did, because in that lifetime, I hadn't really understood how much a difference eating properly could do for me. And so another thing is in advance, you know, prep stuff, get, you know, there's easy things that are super nutritious, like having nuts as your snack instead of Cheetos, huge difference.
Or both. Yes. You can have both for sure, but having the nuts. And then, you know, when family and friends want to do something, I often say, like, one of the best things anybody ever did for me postpartum was coming over with fresh cut fruit. Yeah.
Because I you always almost everybody likes fresh cut fruit, but the idea of chopping up a watermelon when I haven't slept last night, nope. There's just no way. So making sure that you have good nutrition, that's a huge thing. And then making sure, you know, I work a lot with patients about talking about the support that they do have, whether it's a partner or whether we got mothers in law, sisters, neighbors, whatever. And figuring out the strengths of each of those individuals and what they bring to the table and what they value in each of them.
And then setting up a plan where in advance, because again, one of the biggest things postpartum is feeling not in control, and that can sometimes be in the support taking over and not doing things the way you want. But I found when we make a plan before and, you know, you say, hey, mom in law, you are so good at, like, I we absolutely love your enchiladas. They are the best enchiladas ever, and you're so natural with our cousin. So I know you're great with babies. So I was wondering if you would bring enchiladas once a week, and then on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, could you come and give me a nap and hold the baby from two to four?
And you're controlling the amount of time that she's gonna be in your house. At the same time, you just made her feel good about herself instead of saying, I only want you to come three times a week, and the only thing I really want you to do is bring some food. And when you go about it that way, you it's just like everybody wins. And so we do a lot of working on that so we can have the right support there that you need, and then we also reserve the right to adjust that, because you may end up actually wanting more than you think, or you may end up finding that it's kind of too much, breastfeeding isn't going so well, and you know, for that first week, you'd really just like to be alone with your partner as you're trying to figure out those things. As you hopefully know, I am intensely passionate about sharing all things health and wellness with you.
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One of the things that I think of too is you mentioned food and I think crock pot meals in the freezer and things like that. But, again, hopefully, if anyone's listening who the the people who are listening who are not pregnant and postpartum but maybe just wanna support women who are postpartum to bring those meals that are nutrient dense. And the reason I say eat both is because I think our brains go they can go a little funny postpartum where you're like, but I am craving the thing. You know? And and then our all or nothing brain is like, well, I can't have the unhealthy thing.
I should only have the healthy thing. And, honestly, postpartum is a time of just seeking comfort and seeking rest and seeking energy, but it it really does I'm pregnant now with my fourth, and the first trimester was was a little a little I was exhausted, and I was not eating healthy. And I gave myself grace for that to say, like, look, we're all gonna survive and eat cereal and whatever. But the other part that I noticed was I started feeling like trash because I was exhausted worse than from not eating well. And so it's it is a little bit of a I wanna give people grace and I I want them to give themselves grace.
But also there are rules of biology that, like, your body will work better if you have nourishment on board. So keeping that prenatal vitamin going and and eating those nourishing foods. And if you've gotta have the Cheetos too, by all means Yeah. Do what you need to do. But but nourish for some cereal.
Delicious. It is delicious, and it's a great treat. But you nor your children will be satiated. And we had cereal this week because all of us were checked out and said, like, we're done. Yeah.
And you know what? An hour later, my daughter was like, I'm hungry. We didn't have dinner. And I was like, I gave you dinner. That was cereal.
That was cereal. It didn't do the trick for her. So and we were all kind of hunting after that. So Yep. So give ourselves grace, but also nourish so your your body will work the best.
Mhmm. What about postpartum? Is there anything that you wanna add to that about supporting the physical transition postpartum? We don't have time to get into sort of the the wound recovery and that sort of thing, but but from a mental health standpoint, are there some physical habits I think from a conventional standpoint, we say, don't exercise, don't do too much, don't you know? And at the same time, a lot of people will go into what I call cave mode where it's like you don't leave the house and you don't see anyone and you keep the blinds drawn.
Is there are there any habits that you feel like are especially supportive for mental health postpartum once you're in it? Oh, 1100%. Some things are absolutely essential, and one of them is getting out and getting sun every day. It's a must. And it when you don't do it, it does have a significant effect on your mental health.
Studies have proven that. One specific study recommends twenty minutes, three times a week, in nature, without technology. And that sometimes is like, my patients, like, what? I'm supposed to, like, not be on my phone? But it is, you know, what's important is you actually being in your own space and the sunlight and the tree.
And the study says, for all of us that do not live, you know, on a farm, you just need to be by a tree. And here in Arizona, in the summer, it can be very difficult for my patients and we always, I always gear up for for patients, trying to come up with things for them to do outside. And then in the, you know, our six months of heaven, it's so easy. They can, they can do whatever outside. But getting outside is super important and I love the twenty minutes, but right now, I tell my patients five because it is so hot here.
Next, moving your body. Yes. You need to be cleared from your OB first, you know, resuming your normal exercise. But I moving your body is essential for, you know, so many good things. And, again, the study supports exercise, regular exercise decreases anxiety and depression.
So it's one of those, like, for me, you know, I send patients with my assignments and, like, that's one of them. Like, I need your body moving. And we we start slow and move up where, you know, I'm just gonna start with walking now, and I and I don't want you to walk very far from your house. Like, you should, like, walk two houses down and walk two houses back because you can feel great, but then you can sometimes get yourself stuck somewhere where you're calling for help because it's too hard to get back, especially the C section patients. Other than that, another important thing that's a little bit further along, but often I get my patients seeing a pelvic physical therapist before, but definitely after, a lot of changes happen.
And a lot of us, before pelvic physical therapy, pelvic floor physical therapy was as well known it is now, made it through okay. But my goodness, I have never ever had a patient say, I'm so mad you sent me there. That was such a waste of time. In fact, it's always the opposite. That was absolutely incredible.
I understand my anatomy so much better. I feel so much more in control. I learned how to do correct abdominal crunches. I remember hearing that before I really understood pelvic floor physical therapy, and I was like, what? They just do so many good things for women that change your recovery.
So, I encourage that to every postpartum mom. Sits baths for tears that are uncomfortable. Icing is incredibly helpful in those circumstances as well. And, you know, those are kind of the top things I think about with physical recovery besides nourishing yourself, staying hydrated, and then, of course, you know, the most important for your psyche organ in the body, the brain, giving it some downtime and rest. And I guess one more thing, you know, one thing I'm starting to push more and more, which does work kind of in line with the exercises, meditation is just incredibly important and figuring out what that means to you.
So many people cringe when they hear the word. Like, that's not me. I'm not some yogi. But it, you know, it can be any millions of different ways. You can even do it through an app.
You can do it through exercise, which is kind of one one thing that I've done. But it's just, you know, it's been amazing to me as a mom to to even work with that with my children now when they get stressed over things and they're, you know, teaching them breathing exercises and teaching them and it's it's absolutely incredible how quickly you can ground them back down when, you know, before my words of telling them they should be okay just aren't doing it. And so working and and having a practice of that can also smooth the transition that you're going through as you, you know, enter motherhood or enter motherhood of two or more if it's a a second or third pregnancy. I love all of that. I think it's easy for our our type a brains or our perfectionistic thinking to then, like, be like, that's a lot that you're asking me to do.
Like, you want me to go through that list? And I think the big part is, yes, all of that will be supportive, but especially if you're not feeling well. Like Yep. It's a different story. If you're thriving and you're doing great, like, really, do whatever you wanna do.
You know? Like, you can call the shots. But but if you're struggling, these are things that can be really beneficial. And I think especially really seeing the nuance and all of that, I I love that you say, like, twenty minutes is recommended, but also let's do five Yep. Or four or one.
And and I I have and you have talked to so many women, and you know exactly what the barriers are going to be. Like, well, then I have to get my baby ready, and it's too hot for the baby in the stroller and, like, stand on the porch. Right. Can you stand inside your house with the door open? Like, how do we how do we pull back and see the nuance here so you still get the benefit without feeling that it has to be over the top?
And the same thing with sleep. Right? Can you, yes, it would be great to sleep every time your baby sleeps, like we're told, but, like, how about once? How about half an hour? You know?
Can you can you find the nuance in that that's going to support you? I think too with meditation, which I'm a huge fan of, but meditative thinking is really about dropping into a deeper space that is just being, and it's very, very present. And so that's I really think that's, like, nature's way is through breastfeeding or feeding your baby, is they are right there 12 inches you know, their head is 12 inches from your face, and just really staring at them and focusing on their breathing while they're while they're eating or sleeping and matching you can't match your breathing because they breathe so fast, but really just sinking into your breath and kind of just being in that moment is a deeply meditative state. So I just wanna call attention to those objections that I know are gonna come up in our brain. But if you're not doing well, choose one.
Choose two. Add them on one one day at a time and keep keep adding these things on because they really do make a difference. And the whole point of all of this, and I'm sure you'll agree, is this is where I get a little bit mad because the whole point of all of this is this is a year of your life, possibly more depending on how many children you're having. You deserve for it to be at least okay, if not great and pretty good. And so when people just say, like, yeah, having a newborn is just really hard, I reject that.
Like, yes, and I mean, certainly, it is a major transition. I don't minimize that. But, also, can we support you so that it's a better time for you and and making that a more, I don't wanna say, more effective healing, but but really just a lovely time. You know? Can we can we take the hard and also add some good to it?
And I'm not saying we can get rid of the hard, but I also don't think we should just accept that it's all just hard. A 100%. And, you know, several of my kids had witching hours, as I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, where it just every day, they cry for two hours during that time for the first, like, six to eight to twelve weeks. And I I would incessantly, with my first, try to fix it. And every day when it would come, I'd try this, I'd try that.
This seemed to work. I'd do it the next day. It didn't work. And and, you know, it was in in the interim of that, my my second child, where I started recognizing some cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. And I started, like, saying, this is what it is.
The logic tells me I'm not going to fix it. So, why don't I do something that I like and then just endure it, treat it like a job, and stop expecting myself to fix it so that I have this negative feeling about myself? So, this was, this dates me guys, because my my second is now 12. There were not AirPods and they did not connect to your TV on the wall and so I had to turn on Law and Order because it was always on because I also didn't have Netflix and demand. It was just like, what was on the cable?
And Law and Order was always on. So, I would turn on Law and Order, all the lights, the volume just high enough that I could hear, and I would just walk with my crying baby. And that was my Law and Order time. And I was doing something that I would never probably afford myself to do for, like, an hour and a half, two hours, just watch Law and Order in in my life. That wasn't something I forwarded, but that's what I did.
And it was amazing. Like, instead of, like, hating those moments, I was like, oh, it's his time. Let's turn on the show. It's our time. Yeah.
And and I wasn't upset that I wasn't accomplishing what because I changed my accomplishment goals. So my goal was to, like, make sure he felt okay during it and that he wasn't feeling abandoned, which I still think when you've had enough, it's fine to leave your baby, go take a breather. But this was a repetitive thing and I wasn't going to be able to just let him cry for three hours every night from these periods. And this was, it was a game changer for me and then magically they grow out of it. But, it was amazing how when I realized how I could function through motherhood and recognize my strengths and needs, and that's something I work with moms all the time.
You know, you do not need to be your mother. You do not need to be the mother you watched in a movie. There are simple things a baby needs. A baby needs to be fed, changed, roof over the head, and they need to be touched and interacted with. But all the other things, like sewing their own clothes, making their food from scratch, making sure to do all the activities, I guarantee mother Teresa was not in swimming lessons at three months and she was not watching baby Einstein and she clearly was an amazing person and we can come up with more examples as well.
But I think I love to work with women to help them recognize and play to their strengths. And that's when you end up loving motherhood, when you're like, no, I don't especially love changing diapers. Breastfeeding wasn't that bonding experience that it was for my best friend, but my goodness, I love this, and I'm good at this. And dive into those things. And so I think that's really a key thing to think about too, as you make this transition, that as we talk about how some of it is so hard, there are hard things.
But if we figure out how our personality, our needs, our how our brain works around those hard things, we can always gamify it. We can always figure out how to get the support for that one thing. And then we can lean in and really dive into the things that we really enjoy and make all the rest worth it. And I think all of us can think of something in life that we had to do a hard thing to get to the reward, and I think if we can focus on those things that we love so much, it can make those things that are so difficult easier to bear. And and I know you probably felt this too with that expertise or that competence that I gained in having one child when I had another.
I was like, okay, this is hard, but I know it ends. Yeah. And so, like, I I can do it, and this is how I'm gonna handle it this time. And and I'm gonna focus again on the things I love, and that's gonna carry me through the things that aren't aren't really my cup of tea. Really, really good points.
Now my last question here, I meant to leave more time for it, but I we are out of time, but I can't not just mention it because I don't think we talk enough about it, is when people have really significant and quite serious mental health concerns postpartum, I think we want to emphasize that there is a spectrum and there's baby blues and then there's a little bit of, like, I'm just not thrilled about this time of life, and then there's some mild postpartum depression. But you mentioned briefly at the beginning some of these more severe changes, postpartum OCD, severe postpartum anxiety, like I can't leave my house, postpartum psychosis, suicidal thoughts, and and severe depression that way. We we don't have time to talk about them in detail, but will you just kind of lay out what are some of the big warning signs so people know, like, okay. I'm struggling. I should talk to my OB or someone like you who provides postpartum support.
And when it is really quite serious that, no. This needs medical intervention. This needs to be with a professional to intervene. Some of the biggest signs that I look for, and this is where I know we're really talking about depression and we need care, that's when the thoughts you're having are about yourself. That I'm not a good mom at all, I shouldn't be here, he or she'd be better off without me, they'd be luckier if they were in a different home, huge red flags.
Because the signs of depression are postpartum. Like, you're tired, you're not motivated to do anything, you don't really want to get ready, you're eating less, more, etcetera. They're they're, like, they fit it to a tee. So how do I distinguish it? It's more, how do you feel about yourself?
And I always ask mom, my moms, rank yourself from one to 10. Where where do you fit on that spectrum? And we dive in from there. But, you know, if you're having thoughts that your child would be better off in the care of someone else, that's 100% the appointment should already be scheduled. As far as anxiety, the the kind of worrisome symptoms that come there, the lack of sleep clearly.
Like, and if your partner is not sleeping, you need to call for them. The the patients that I've run into the most trouble with, I always saw them later, not before, but, you know, and their provider had already sent them to an inpatient unit because they were not sleeping. I would love to get them before that. So if you are not sleeping, you, like, get a provider. You don't just get through it.
Yeah. You you got it. You don't. It's bad. Like, it it it goes zero to 60 pretty quick when you're not sleeping.
Your brain needs that. But then with the intrusive thoughts, intrusive thoughts are incredibly common. We all have them. They start as, like, you know, the fear that you're gonna show up to give your presentation and you're gonna be in your underpants. Like, that's an intrusive thought.
But then when we're moms, they get a little bit scarier because they are just our worst fears. And it's, you know, you dropping the baby down the stairs, hugely common. You know, the ceiling fan when you're sitting in the room is going to fall and kill your baby or, you know, worse, like you're going to purposely drop your baby in the bathtub. Again, those are your worst fears. Your deepest, darkest fear is that you would be responsible for your baby's death.
You want it or you actually are conceiving it. It just means, honestly, that's your worst fear and that's a great worst fear. Honestly, great. I'm glad you're scared of that because that that is like really scary. That could be bad.
And so when you have those intrusive thoughts and you can't get over them and they're getting more colorful, vibrant, yes. That's a time to call. Not because something bad's gonna happen, but we need to start working on that. If you, you or your partner doesn't recognize those as abnormal, that's when you should have called, like, three days ago. And they're sharing thoughts about that, but they don't think it's abnormal, or your brain doesn't think it's abnormal.
And then again, that's obviously difficult for you to tell, but that's very uncommon. But those are, you know, and and I have had women who have had a psychotic break, and there was no sign before. And, honestly, they actually recover quite well. But those are the typical signs that I would I would be wanting to see somebody yesterday with those. And there's amazing treatments that are, you know, they're actually doing a lot more work to try to find treatments specific for postpartum depression, and a lot of you guys have heard probably heard about the new med that is actually an oral medication.
But they're doing work finally because this is different. It's it's not cookie cutter depression anxiety. We can still treat it like that and and use those meds, but I am excited that they're trying to figure out what actually is going on in women's brains that set them up. Because when I've seen it in women I knew before, it's like, wow. Yeah.
That is it. Where most of the time, the postpartum depression I I diagnose is postpartum depression, but it's more like transition malfunction and to a different degree. But when you see the one that's purely brought on by, like, hormones and what that's doing to the brain, it's it's a force to be reckoned with. But you will like if you find a provider and with postpartum support international, wherever you are, there's someone to call that will help you. You will get the help you need and you will if you put the time, you do the things you've you will like, I've never seen a mom not recover to be back where, you know, even though moms I had one and we are out of time, but where, like, she was sure.
It was two years into it when I met her. She was like, I'm never gonna be the same. Yeah. And and thank heavens, like, that's not the story she tells today. Well, thank you for saying all of that.
I just want people to know that there are resources out there, and I hope that this empowers women to not feel afraid to speak up if you're having thoughts that feel really strange or scary to you. I think that's probably one of the biggest delays in treatment is that women are either afraid to speak up or they're just hoping it'll go away. Yes. And and you don't have to do that. That's you don't have to live through that on your own.
I can't speak for everyone, but I will say most, most, most OB GYNs and midwives will not be scared if you share those thoughts with them. They'll recognize it, that there's something that needs support, but they will not be like, oh my gosh. What is this woman talking about? You know? Like Yes.
No. It it we are trained as much as I kind of talked about our training, that we are trained on to say, like, oh, there's something wrong. You need support. And we're not always very good at finding support, but you've mentioned some great resources, and we'll put that in the show notes as well so people know where to find these resources and and don't be afraid to speak up. What is what is the last thought you'd like to share?
Just the the last three things you just wanna shout from the rooftops that women need to know about this postpartum mental health transition. Well, I I think the most important thing to know is that transitions are hard. I mean, you think about any new thing, moving to a new area, starting a new job, starting a new semester in college, when you think about anything new, those first weeks of anything new are pretty miserable and pretty challenging. And then you take a transition to motherhood, it's just like taking it to a whole another level and loaded with the expectations, whole life long expectations of what it's going to be like and who you're going to be like in that. So, if you just think of that, you're like, Oh, okay, that's why.
And so, understanding that, I think that's the first thing. And then, you know, again, I wish I could meet with every woman in pregnancy to, like, set the stage for who they want to be in that transition, who they want to come out with on the end, and then build that foundation so that's what they can do. I would love to do that, but that's what I want each mom to do. I really want every mom to, in their pregnancy, be thinking about where they're actually headed with this. Slow down, be intentional, and then reach out for help when you're struggling.
And again, you know, every mom in Arizona, and I already talked to Doctor. Craycroft, I think I'm going to probably get my Utah license soon. Obviously, I'd love to help you and my podcast is there, but with, we're going to put the PSI number. There is always help that is on the other side of these 24 hotlines and never hesitate. And the last thing is, I am so passionate about what diving into motherhood can do for every woman.
I, like I told you, I have been humbled to tears. I have met the most incredible women sitting on the opposite side of my room on that couch, baring their souls to me, and I have seen women change from incredible people to people that I, like, can't even describe. And it's all because of fighting for their ability to be the mom that they want to be, fighting for their NICU baby, fighting for their child that has, you know, is unexpected as a diagnosis. Women are incredible. And it's my passion to make sure that women can become and reach their potential through motherhood, and any way that we can help them.
I know Doctor. Craycroft is helping him too. I just am so passionate about making sure that moms get to be the moms they want to be, and I know that it's it's a it is one clear way that they can reach their potential. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of that. I I just I couldn't agree more.
It's such an important topic, and I'm so glad you're doing what you're doing. Tell people where they can find you and follow you. My website's Woman Made Well, and that links directly to my podcast, which is Woman Made Well. There's online course that people can do and they'll probably be more in the future. And then for all the folks in Arizona, I have a clinic where I'm seeing patients and obviously would love to see you there.
And we're thinking about doing a postpartum boot camp, so we can have moms come during pregnancy as a class and get prepared for pregnancy and continue meeting postpartum to get them through that transition. And so lots going on, and it's just lovely to be with you always. Well, thank you so much for coming on. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode.
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