April 2024

Kristin and Heidi discussed her yoga studio’s expansion, including child care and a co-working space.  They also discussed Heidi’s contribution to the fitness section in our upcoming book release, Supported: Your Guide to Birth and Baby.   

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to bring back Heidi McDowell of Mind Body Baby to chat about so many topics today!  But the overarching theme is going to be focusing on creating community and certainly addressing the childcare struggle that moms have, that birth and baby and health and wellness practitioners have in building businesses and making appointments.  Welcome, Heidi!

Hi, Kristin!  I’m happy to be here!

Yes, I’m so excited to chat about your news related to solving some of the challenges with childcare and expanding your own practice!

Yeah, we are really excited to be able to announce that we have purchased with the intentions of expanding into a new 8,000 square foot facility.  We’re calling it a Mega Mom Center.

I love it.

It’s titled the Mind Body Baby Collective.  We are partnering with other women-owned, women-operated businesses to support moms, families, women who are really excited for what we have in store.

It’s so exciting, and Mind Body Baby has always provided childcare, not only for your employees, but for your students, and you are solving this childcare issue by providing it for all of the members of the collective.  So you have massage therapists, doulas, a chiropractic practice – so many different businesses can benefit from the dilemma that those of us doing this work faced when we had young children.

Yeah, absolutely.  It is that two-pronged approach.  Not only is the center operating child care for our services, so Mind Body Baby and everything that we have, like, but we are offering childcare for the entire facility.  So anybody that is within the walls of Mind Body Baby has the opportunity to utilize childcare.  My thought has always been, why do we have to choose between self-care and childcare as a community in a country that is considered to be one of the wealthiest?  I think that we’re really failing women and mothers and families when it comes to the level of support that we offer, and most times, whether it is somebody that’s in the same field of birth work or support, or whether it is that you’re just a mother, you do have to choose.  How are you spending your time?  Do you have access to affordable childcare?  And we’ve noticed that being a barrier for people for being able to, one, provide care to return to the workforce, or to be able to get the self-care that you need and want.  So we’ve opened this space, and we have created a beautiful childcare, and whether it is somebody that is coming in to provide the self-care or somebody that’s coming in to receive the self-care, you have the opportunity now to utilize childcare to allow your child to be cared for by a professional in a space that is safe, that you feel comfortable, and you don’t ever have to wonder or worry if they’re getting what they need because they’re having fun with other kids while you get what you need.

Right, while you get a massage, or take a class that’s not a mommy and me class, not the toddler type of classes.  You can just have that true self care.  And I saw some of your social media promotions about a lounge area where you can just take some time, close your eyes.

That might be my favorite part of the new expansion.  Within the Mind Body Baby space, I was thinking, like, what is something that is considered a luxury for moms, and it’s rest.  So we created two different lounge spaces.  One, we’re aptly calling the Mama Lounge.  That’s more of community; grab a coffee.  We’ll have a tummy time area for little ones.  It’s baby friendly.  Come and meet after class and just enjoy a few moments together.  But the other one we’re calling the Rest Lounge.  We’re going to have seven kind of like rest lounge chairs, pillows, blankets.  They’re going to have divider curtains.  It’s going to have, like, spa music.  And the idea is that it’s childfree, so no kids allowed, but it’s guilt-free rest.  So whether you want to bring a book, grab a coffee, drink a coffee while it’s still hot because we know that that doesn’t happen often.  Listen to a podcast.  Or maybe, just maybe, close your eyes and take a nap.

Exactly.  Even 15 minutes of uninterrupted time can make a big difference.

Oh, my gosh, so much.  And we joke that moms don’t get sleep, moms need rest – but in a true health and wellness sense, we are living in a really heightened nervous system.  Moms are overstimulated.  We’re touched out.  We often are short-tempered and a little bit anxious, and it’s because we are constantly inputting stimulation.  And to have a space that’s very low stimulation to help your nervous system down regulate to help you just feel better in such a way – it’s going to be so beneficial for the family unit, for everybody that’s involved, for your health, for your wellness.  Oh, my goodness.  I’m just so excited for it.  Part of me feels guilty because I’m going to be sending my clients sleeping at work.

No, don’t feel guilty.

I know.  No, I can’t feel guilty, right?  That’s the point, too.  It’s got to be guilt-free.  We’ve got to be able to just know that we get to rest, and there doesn’t have to be a prerequisite to rest.  Rest is productive, too.

Yes, absolutely.  So fill us in about the other practitioners that are part of the Mind Body Collective.

Oh, my gosh, yes!  So excited, we just announced, I think on Saturday, so just a couple days ago, the services that are going to be included.  And when I listed out the menu of choices of things that you have to choose from on a daily basis at the space, my mind was kind of – how did this come together so beautifully?  I’m going to just rattle off some of the things.  I hope I don’t miss anything.  So we’ve got services within services within services.  We’re going to have the on-site childcare and the nursery space.  We’ll have specialty movement classes.  We’re going to have a co-working space.  And then the two lounges, the Mama Lounge and the Rest Lounge.  Within our space, we’re going to have a coffee bar café.  And then we’ve got all of our collective providers.  We’re going to have chiropractic care specializing in prenatal and postpartum.  So everybody’s focus is the same stages of life, so fertility, prenatal, postpartum, and beyond.  We have massage therapy, acupuncture, pelvic floor physical therapy, birth and postpartum support, occupational therapy, lactation and feeding support.  We will have counseling services specializing in perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.

Excellent, and having childcare for that – wow.

Right?  I don’t know if anyone listening or you yourself, Kristin, has ever tried to navigate having a telehealth appointment or a mental health appointment while the reason you have the appointment is like, actively, on your lap or talking to you and you feel like you just can’t get the focus that you need on yourself.

Absolutely, with interruptions, yes, it is challenging to have that telehealth, but also convenient for therapy.  I have experienced that.

Yeah.  I can’t be more elated at the way that this has come together and just the next level of support that we’re going to be bringing in and offering.  It just – it blows my mind at the idea that this has come together the way that I dreamed and hoped that it would.  It really feels like everything that I – I was a pandemic mom.  So going through that – it started with infertility and that feeling isolating, and then becoming a pandemic mom and being – like, hoping that after that fertility journey, I would have my big village of people and support.  Pandemic happened; I had nobody.  And then postpartum, I had my baby.  Everybody met my baby through a window.  And it was just – you know, no village, no support, no community.

So you built what you needed with Mind Body Baby.  And now, this collective even more so!

100% !  I love the idea that as we are growing with the community – like, my baby was just one when I started this, and so a lot of it is just my own personal experience and needs and then feedback from people.  So as we’re growing with our community, if we see a need that’s still not being met, a barrier that’s still not being broken down, we’re able to look at that and say, okay, how can we help?  What can we do?  We have space.  We have a platform.  We have resources.  What can we do to help get the care and the healing, the support, the community into the hands of the people who need it the most?  And those are the life-giving, world-populating mothers.

Yes, and it’s nice that you have so many related practitioners, again, focusing on that pre-conception through early parenting stage, that they can black out their appointments and get a coffee in between, meet a friend, take a nap in between meeting with different practitioners.  I wish that Gold Coast was able to make the move, but we are still a big fan, and we’ll send our clients your way.

I appreciate it, yeah.  I think, too, it’s community support, and part of the community is the practitioners.  I love the idea that our practitioners are moms, too.  We are – right now, it’s seven women-owned and operated businesses, and that’s not even counting the individual, like, businesses that are independent consultants that operate within each business.  But they’re all women and all moms, and so they need the support just as much as everybody else.  And I think that’s part of the reason why they chose to be in the collective because they knew and they understood the level that this is bringing and that they can utilize what we have, too, just as much as the community that they’re serving.

Absolutely.  And I know that there are different types of communities cropping up around the country like these postpartum recovery centers in some of the major cities and multiple collective spaces.  But I do feel like you have a unique slant on yours.  I don’t know if you’ve thought about expanding to other communities or even other states, but it’s a great model.

Thank you.  I appreciate the feedback.  Yeah, it’s definitely a lot of work.

Yes, it’s got to be.

As much as we dream of that – we will see.  We’ll see where we end up and if it’s something that we’re able to scale and share.  We’d love to be able to revolutionize the way that the country receives support and take it further than just West Michigan.

Exactly.  And it is so funny that on social media, I see so many moms talking about how they joined a gym just for the childcare and then they work at the gym instead of working out.  So you’ve got this co-working station.  You have areas that you can have coffee and meet with friends, so more of a social environment.  And then the ability to take any of your fitness-focused classes, which you have – you teach yourself, but you also have a variety of practitioners and offerings, whether it’s infant massage to barre classes to, of course, prenatal yoga.  Do you want to expand a bit about the offerings that you have in your studio?

I would love to.  Yeah, so we – again, growing with the community, it really just started with having prenatal postpartum yoga.  And then realizing that that supports part of the community, but what else?  And we added in barre classes after that.  All of our instructors are cross-trained professionals.  They are experts in pre- and postpartum fitness, and so they know how to keep you safe, first and foremost.  That’s really important to us.  It’s not just about being modified.  It’s about making sure that they can educate and keep safe mom and baby.  And then we just keep adding on.  So from there, we’ve got classes that you can do with your baby.  So we’ve got baby and me yoga, baby wear barre, baby and me dance classes where you baby wear and get to dance with your babe.  Such a great, cute thing that we do!  And then we’ve got things that are more baby-friendly where if you’re not quite ready for the childcare aspect of what we offer, you can bring your baby to your mat and they can watch you grow strong.  We’re expanding that now into being more of like a mama and me where we don’t ever want kiddos to look at their moms or to see the way they lead their life or even hear a story from their mom about all the things they used to do.  We want them to see that their mom can just excel and grow and continue to be strong with their kids, and it’s not a life or a lifestyle they had to leave behind.  So we want them to be able to observe and witness that.  So we created this really cool class.  We joke that we might call it Hot Mess Express where you can bring your kids with you.  And they can watch; they can practice; they can jump on your back.  They can do whatever, but the idea is that they’re just in space with you, and it’s something you can do together and they can see you doing that thing that you love to do to grow stronger.  So we’re really excited about that one coming up.  We’ve got toddler time classes, busy babes.  We’re partnering even with a couple other women-owned businesses that bring in other types of movement classes, things that we don’t necessarily offer.  We’re bringing in different workshops, like baby signs and ASL class.  We’re bringing in bilingual babes, so introductions to early languages.  So beyond movement classes, we’re bringing in experts to help shape and offer you fun things to do with your kiddos.

Excellent.  I know Alyssa teaches your sleep workshop on occasion.  So lovely. 

We tell everybody, you’re going to want to sleep.  You’re going to wonder how you could ever think about sleep so much as the fourth trimester of your life.  So that’s a beautiful offering, too.  We love that one.

So Heidi, as far as your true passion in creating this amazing collective, what is your mantra or what keeps you going with all the chaos from finding the perfect building to assembling the members of the collective?  You’ve got a lot on your plate with your existing studio, being a mom, and so I would love for you to just share maybe a meditation that you use or a mantra with our listeners.

Yeah.  Well, I have two.  One is my motivation mantra that brings in the passion, and that is: we can do better.  We can do better for ourselves; we can do better for this community.  We can do better.  And I say that all the time when things just aren’t adding up, when it feels like there’s those barriers.  But the other one is for my own mental health to keep me sane on the days where it seems like I’m doing everything, but really I’m breaking down on the inside or maybe even the outside.  Having a good cry while I’m overwhelmed because I’m human.  And that one is, I can’t be everything to everyone.  While I’m trying to create something for everyone, while I’m trying to use all these different pieces and parts and have them work together, I’m going to let people down, and so I have to remind myself that while I’m doing this beautiful thing, I’m also going to disappoint people at the same time.  So we can do better, but I also can’t be everything to everyone.

Beautiful.  I love it.  Thank you for sharing.  Alyssa and I recently announced our book that’s coming out on Mother’s Day, and we invited you to be our expert contributor on fitness, whether it’s prenatal or postpartum.  So can’t wait for our listeners and clients to see your section that covers everything from swimming to prenatal yoga to different exercises to walking, ways you can move your body in a healthy way.

Well, first of all, I’m so proud of both you and Alyssa for having the mental capacity to put a book together.  You’re so busy.  It’s a long process.  It’s amazing.  I can’t wait to see it, to read it.  Thank you so much for trusting me to be a contributor to your book.  It’s such an honor, and I hope that it’s just so well received because the intentions behind it are so beautiful.

Well, thank you.  And similar to our Becoming a Mother course, rather than trying to bring the information from our point of view, we wanted to bring in experts, so we do have everything from a pediatrician contributing to a mental health therapist to you of course with the fitness section, and so many beautiful client stories, whether it’s their birth story to their caring for a newborn to their feeding journey.  So it really was a beautiful group effort in creating Supported.

Oh, my gosh, it sounds so lovely.  I really can’t wait.  I’m so excited to be able to share it.

Maybe we can come in to your birth story class and share some of the stories.  We could get some of our clients to share their own experiences.  That would be a fun way to do a reading.

That is such a great idea!  I absolutely love that.  Please do!

Yes, we’ll be in touch!

I love the idea, too, that you took out the opinions and the bias and you made it evidence-based information.  And then shared stories.  I think that’s really what – as doulas, what we try to offer all the time, and you just wrapped it all up and put it in a book.

Yes, we tried!  But we would love to continue to partner with you.  Please share all of your different social channels, your website, so our listeners can learn more.

Yes.  The website is Mind Body Baby.  Our social channel recently got an update because we’re no longer just Mind Body Baby.  We are now Mind Body Baby _ Collective to really encompass all that goodness that we have.  I know, yay!  Yeah, we’re hoping to have our grand opening celebration this summer and would love to see you there and have you as a part of it.

Of course, can’t wait!  And we’ll miss you in East Town, but at least you’re here for a little while longer.

I know, kind of bittersweet.  We love that studio.  It really feels like a space that we grew up in.  It kind of held us all and supported everybody, and we watched a lot of families grow within that space, including my own.  So it is bittersweet, but we know the expansion is necessary in order to grow the level of services that we have to grow in the space that we have.

Exactly.  I’m so excited for you.  Well, thanks for hopping on, and we will chat soon!

Thank you so much, Kristin!  Talk soon!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Mind Body Baby Collective

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming a Mother course

 Kristin Revere and Dr. Diane Speier chat about how to best plan and prep for the postnatal phase.  They discuss everything from communication to support options in this informative episode.  Dr. Speier is also the creator of the Digital Doula 2.0 app. 

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Diane Speier today.  Before emigrating to the UK, Diane was the founder and director of the Family Tree Center for Parents in New York, offering classes, groups, and workshops for prospective and new parents for 20 years.  Diane became a certified childbirth educator and started attending births as a doula in 1978.  Diane is the author of the book Life After Birth: A Parent’s Holistic Guide for Thriving in the Fourth Trimester, drawing on her 45-plus years of experience with helping parents make a smooth transition from pregnancy to parenthood.  The book is unique in applying energy medicine to the postpartum period for the enhanced wellbeing of new parents.

Welcome, Diane!

Oh, I’m so glad to be here with you, Kristin!

Yes, I’ve looked forward to our conversation!  I am all about talking about resources and support for that postnatal phase, and I’m also very curious about how you got into doula work because in 1978, doulas were not known the way they are now, and there weren’t the number of training organizations.  It was a very new industry.  So I love that you have been supporting families in so many different ways as an educator, author, and as a doula over these years.

Well, I didn’t know I was being a doula when I was doing it.  It ended up being that some of the people who were my clients in my birth education classes wanted me to be there with them, and I just started attending these births and being in a supportive role.  Also, you know, assisting and supporting the partner to be engaged in a way that was very meaningful and purposeful but that was just something that came from the connection I had with my clients and the trust that they had in me.  So I think what it was, beginning maybe 1990, Penny Simkin came up with DONA International – or it wasn’t even international at that stage.  I was sort of grandfathered in, and I’m not part of a list or anything in that sense, but the fact that I had been doing it for so long –

You were one of their early doulas, unofficially.  I love that.  Wasn’t it the 80s that it officially started?

Well, I don’t actually know.  Maybe I’m wrong, but maybe I became aware of it in about 1990, and then I came to live in the UK in 1998.  But at that point, I was doing birth doula work and I was doing postpartum doula work and appearing on lists and things when there were local and regional kinds of articles about doulas and stuff like that, and it was – you know, I feel that it was a privilege to be able to do doula work with people, whether it was during the birth or afterwards.  I mean, there’s definite connection that’s established between a doula and a mother when she’s giving birth.

Absolutely.

And although it’s different when you’re coming into the home and you’re helping out and you’re assisting with people, it’s not quite the same, but I love the aspect of getting people on their feet and helping them to manage what was going on in the household and creating space, holding space so they could just spend time with their babies, learning what they needed to know in order to be a parent.  And my doing all the other tasks and things to create that space for them.  I really enjoyed it.  It was something that felt very empowering.

The second ten years of my teaching birth education was the methodology that I called birth empowerment, and I really am very dedicated to the idea that birth can be an empowering experience and that the transition to parenthood can also be an empowering experience.  And I think that’s the underlying theme of Life After Birth, the book that I wrote.

Yes.  I love how everything progressed very organically from education to doula support to becoming an author, to be able to reach an even broader audience.

Right.  And I’m even going further than that now because I’m in the process of developing an online course that’s called Eight Keys for Thriving in the Fourth Trimester, and that, I’m hoping, will be an even greater audience for understanding that people are very engaged with planning their birth experience, but they don’t really give much thought to planning what happens afterwards.

Exactly.  I feel the same way.  I feel like we should plan for the postpartum phase as much as we do for – and I don’t even want to say people are overplanning for their birth itself.  Now, let’s put into the time, say, decorating a nursery and registering for items and getting everything put away and washed.  That’s the kind of dedication that I would like to have for the postnatal phase.

You know, there’s a book out there that I’m not very in favor of that actually says that’s what you need to do to plan for your postpartum experience is get those things set up, and it’s like, wait.  That’s just material stuff.  That’s not the reality of – what kind of emotional changes are we going to go through?  What kind of role changes are you going to go through?  What kind of relationship changes are you going to go through?  That – we need to really discuss it because it leads to something called baby shock.

Exactly.

If you’re in the hospital, you go home with the baby – or even if you’re in the birth center – come home with your baby, and it’s almost like, what now?  And if you have that information and you also have resources, then you can feel more in charge of the experience, even though it’s going to be hairy for a while, even though they’re going to be heated exchanges and stuff.  And if you know that, 92% of couples experience increased conflict in the first year after a baby is born.  Then you’re not going to think that there’s something wrong with you or there’s something wrong with your marriage because the two of you are fighting now on any number of things.  It’s that kind of information that I’m dedicated to spreading out there and providing in an online course, and ideally, people would engage while they’re still pregnant so that it’s in advance and they can be prepared.  But it’s also something that somebody who has a newborn baby can dip into from time to time because each lesson takes about five minutes, and they can be gradually gathering up this information that’s going to help them feel stronger and more confident and more competent as they transition to this new experience.  I’m kind of excited about that.  I think it’s going to launch in April, and we’re just getting the recordings done now.  There are eight modules for this.  They cover the whole shebang of what could come up and how you can be prepared and how you can do things that will help you feel better.  It also incorporates a whole energy medicine piece, as well.

When I did the training – I did the first year of the training ten years ago.  I finished eleven years ago.  And I didn’t continue, but there were so many little techniques that would be so useful that right away, I thought, I can definitely add this into the book that I was writing.  And I talked with the people who were the – it’s from Eden Energy Medicine and Donna Eden and her husband David Feinstein and I.  We had a meeting together and I shared with them what I wanted to do because Donna wrote a book called Energy Medicine for Women, and there was virtually nothing in there about birth and what happens after birth.  So they were so excited that I was now going to apply the principles of what I had learned towards new mothers and partners too.  It’s not exclusively for the women.  And then I came to the second year in 2022.  We finished a year ago.  And I haven’t really had anything in yet, but there’s more content to come, and I can include that in the online course.  So I’m just excited that there are opportunities to provide additional resources for our new mothers.

Yeah, it’s so excellent!  I’m curious, since you do live in the UK, how are you adapting to other cultures with that fourth trimester preparation?  It can be so different, say, in Europe compared to the United States.

It is different.  I’ve been here for almost 26 years now in July.  When I first came here, I was working on my Ph.D. actually.  I got my Ph.D. based on the account from my clients, my birth preparation clients, over a course of 20 years.  I initially thought I might do some kind of comparative, but it wasn’t feasible in terms of comparing what had happened for 20 years in New York before I came here versus what I might be encountering here.  So we changed it, and it became a feminist retrospective ethnography of my professional practice.  And so what I did was, particularly when it comes to midwifery care – so midwifery care in the United States only represents somewhere around 8% of births that take place.  But in the UK, for instance, the midwife is the first point of contact.  So maternity care is essentially designed for midwifery care and the person would only encounter and obstetrician if there was some level of complications.  So it’s completely different than the obstetric model of the United States.

So I did a master’s dissertation on midwifery as a case study because I needed to learn how they were different.  But the thing that really struck me as not as good as the American system is that you have midwives that see you in the community before and after the birth, and then you have midwives that are due for the birth.  So the majority of people have babies in the hospital.  I think maybe 2 or 3% of people have home births here.  And you go into the hospital.  You don’t know the midwives.  You’re seeing them for the first time.  They don’t know you.  And so I think the fragmentation of care is not right.  In America, if you decide to have a midwife with you, she’ll be there the whole – or someone from their practice will be there from the beginning right through to the end, and I think that’s better.

And then when it came to doula work – when I left the academic realm – because I was there for about twelve years altogether – I registered with the doula UK organization.  And it’s not that different from what DONA does.  And I spoke.  I presented at conferences in 2017, 2018.  I did that for a while, but I did stop.  My last birth, my last childbirth doula role, was a very complicated one.  It was a woman having her fourth baby, and we certainly expecting things to move quickly.  And we had one false alarm, and I drove out there; about an hour drive away, and I came back home.  And then the next time when she was actually in labor, we went there, and I think the thing that was really not very helpful was that she had her three other kids sort of wandering around demanding attention.

It’s hard to do the work of labor when you’re parenting!

Exactly.  So we were all there trying to facilitate this amidst all of that.  Birth pool was filled, but she didn’t get into it, and she petered out, as will happen, because the children were there.  So we went to sleep, and I went to sleep, but the next day I had another job that I had to be at at 10:00 in the morning.  And I couldn’t really cancel it, so I had to leave.  And sure enough, after I left, her labor started to go, and she gave birth.  So I missed it, and I thought, okay, that’s it, I’m too old for this.

The on call life is hard.  I’ve been on call, and I have a partner most of the time unless it’s a repeat client, so I have a shared call model, but it is challenging.  I’ve been a birth doula for over ten years, and yeah, that part of it.  And you don’t want to miss a birth, but sometimes things happen.

That’s right, and in this case, if I’d just stayed there, it would have been three days total.  You know what, I still need my sleep, and I still need – I slept on the sofa that night, but I thought, okay, I can’t manage different things happening, when they start to sort of overlay each other.  It becomes too complicated to do.  That was in 2018.  That was the end of my actual doula work.  And I have not done postnatal doula work here, come to think of it.

Okay, so it was only the US that you did the postpartum?

It was only in the US that I did the postpartum, yeah, and I did a lot of it.

Now, in the UK, do they utilize postpartum doulas, or is it more relying on family or nannies?

They do, but they do it in a different way.  I’m trying to think; maybe I did do.  But my way of doing it was that I would come in, like, three days a week for a couple of hours each day for a couple of weeks, and they did it in a more open ended way here.  It wasn’t sort of any kind of schedule.  It was just like, over a period of six weeks, we’ll come in, and I never quite understood how that worked.  But they were sort of curious about the fact that I had this sort of scheduled out routine, which I think, if I’m honest, I think that the knowledge that I was going to show up at a certain time was very comforting for my moms.  And they all knew Diana will be here at such and such a time, and I’ll ask those questions then.

But in addition, I ran a mother and baby class for 20 years, as well, and that was a very rich kind of environment for the mothers because they also scheduled their life around those two classes a week that they would come to my classes.  And I really feel so strongly about the need for community for the postnatal period and the fact that there really isn’t that – when I started teaching this class, it was about 1981 in New York.  I went around to the pediatricians, and I said, oh, I’m going to start this class for mothers and babies, and they said – one of the doctors sat with me and said, I think it’s a great idea because when you’re in the suburbs, it can be so isolating.  When you’re in the city, you can walk down to the park and there’s a park bench, and someone else can sit down and you can start talking.  He said, in the suburbs, you don’t have that kind of experience, so this is exactly the kind of thing that we would really encourage.  So I was like, okay, I’ve got the blessing.  And I did it for 20 years.  I actually continued it here after I came for a couple of years, and I found that the mothers of young babies were not that different here than they are in New York.

Makes sense.  We all have the same needs to connect and to share our own experience and stories because I find that after delivery with well-meaning family and friends, it’s all about the baby, but the mother can sometimes get lost in the process and lose her identity, her former self and so on, and no one really wants to, say, validate what she went through, help her process the birth.  It’s all about, oh, this baby’s adorable, you should be so thankful that you have this healthy baby, and people wanting to hold baby.

And that’s completely wrong.  That was one of the motivations for writing the book was the fact that she does – she sort of vanishes into the background, and all eyes turn to the baby.  For nine months, she was being celebrated because she was creating life, and then boom, she has the baby and she’s like chopped liver.

Exactly.  It’s like, what about me?

Yeah.  So my book was really to pay attention to the mother and her experience and then also put it within the frame of the whole family.  It’s not just the baby.  It’s the mother and it’s the partner.  Everybody’s having an experience that we need to really validate and confirm, and this is what I feel we need to really give.  It’s just not fair.  I never thought it was fair, in all my years of doing it.

And nothing’s changed.  It’s still not fair.

It’s just unfortunate.  My daughter-in-law is pregnant at the moment and due in June, and they were about to move.  I think they’re very caught up in getting all the logistics done before we sort of sit down and talk about it.  But when I was talking with her on one of our Facetimes, and she was saying, well, what would you like to do?  Would you like to just come and sort of meet the baby and see the baby after it’s born, or would you like to sort of do your whole doula thing?  And I said, well, I’m quite happy to come and do that for you, and I explained to her what that might include.  I haven’t heard back from them yet as far as that, but I think it’s going to be determined by my son whether or not.  But at this point, I have to buy tickets for my flights and find myself an Airbnb, so I can’t wait too much longer.  But it is a real disservice to childbearing women that their experience after the birth is just not appreciated and not centered in terms of the family experience.  We will all write books and celebrate and get the message out that, yeah, it was a big experience to have a baby and to go through the whole childbirth experience, and we really appreciate how challenging the new mothering experience is for you, and people will want to see your baby, but do yourself a favor, and wait.  Because that’s the thing.

You can’t get that time back.

No, that’s right.  And it’s so exhausting when they come.

Exactly.  You can’t predict when baby will wake or need a diaper change or need a feeding.

And if people come to your house, you feel like you need to play hostess and the rest of it.  So no, I say take that time during the fourth trimester to create your little babymoon, your little bubble of who’s in the family.  Of course, there may be older children, as well.  And save those visits for later when you feel stronger and you’re kind of getting your act together.  The exception to that is, if people bring food.

Exactly, or offer to help.

Right.  They cannot come empty handed.  So if they bring food, that’s okay.  If they say, I’ll do the laundry or I’ll wash the dishes or I’ll do the shopping, that’s okay.  But to just come and say googoo, gaga – no.

Yes, where you feel like you have to have snacks for the guests and entertain them when you’re recovering from a major life occurrence, no matter how you give birth.

That’s right.  Absolutely.  Wait on that.  So if I were to describe the modules of my online course – I took it from one of the chapters of my book where I called this the postpartum wellness plan, and wellness was an acronym.  The W stood for we, which is about dealing with relationship stress that happens after birth.  The first E was for energy medicine, so I’m introducing something that’s not well known and yet so easy to do.  Anybody including a child can do it.  And then the first L is for loving kindness because I think one of the things that I have a podcast – well, actually, it was Instagram Live last night – talking about the fact that a lot of times after women have their baby come, they’re very self-critical, and I’m not doing this right or there’s something wrong with me or whatever.  And understanding the premise of loving kindness is that you’re extending your good wishes out to the world out to a person that you love, out to somebody who is neutral, out to a patron.  But also, to yourself.  Bringing that love back to yourself.  May I have physical happiness, mental happiness.  May I have ease of well being.  And a lot of people find that difficult to do and challenging, but it’s still something we need to foster, that you’re okay.  We’re okay.  And this is hard, but I’m okay.  And I can love myself, even though I’m going through a difficult and challenging time now.

The second L stands for less is more, and that’s what we were talking about with less is more – less visitors.  Less stuff.  Less paraphernalia.  Less social media.  Less all of these things that impact on us in sometimes a very profound way.

The N stands for new normal because normal has changed.

That’s not talked about enough, the fact that you can’t go back.  It won’t be the same.  The new normal – that’s everything.

What happens is, people were sort of very – they’re focused on looking backwards instead of looking forward.  And what we need to do is embrace the fact that it’s changed.  Everything’s changed.  And wonderful things can be ahead of us, even though we’re not having that experience of what we were before children came into our lives.  So I thought that was important.  I think the second E stands for expectations and the need to manage them because we can have realistic expectations or unrealistic ones, and we can have helpful ones or unhelpful ones, but we need to manage them, and we need to – because we end up dealing with internal expectations of our own and then external expectations.  We can have other people’s ideas about how you should be doing things.  So here’s where I have them confront the whole word “should.”  People are talking to you about “shoulds” – stop listening.

Yes, agreed.

It’s their story.  It’s not yours.  So, yeah, expectations are important to monitor.  And then also there are two S’s which stand for self-care and support.  And I’m not talking about self-care in the sense of finding yourself at a spa, but doing day to day things, everyday things, that are taking care of yourself so that you can take care of your baby.  And the support goes to the whole idea of community.  The community of new mothers is what I saw from my exercise classes all those years, how women would create these sort of cohesive groups, and then I would bump into them in elementary schools ten years later, and they’d say, we’re still friends.  It would make me smile.  It really would.

So yeah, these are the modules, and I think that if someone has all of these things addressed, then they can make a real smooth transition into and right through the fourth trimester and really feel ready to take on the world when they emerge.  So that’s my intention, and I’m looking forward to launch.  And I’m actually going to start it as a very reduced course so that people are kind of beta testing it, so that people can give us feedback about each module as it comes up.  What worked, what didn’t work, what would you like to see more of.  We’re going to drip it out every couple of weeks and allow that time for people to review it and send us back some feedback if they feel it’s important, and we’ll really fine tune it into something that really is the best we can possibly do.

That’s what I did with our online course, Becoming a Mother.  We did some live launches, three live launches, and then used feedback from the early students in the course and then adapted it by the time it went evergreen.

Maybe I’ll get it out before my new grandchild arrives.  I’ll get the first few sessions out before then, yeah.  And you know something, I’m getting on in my years now.  And people at some point said to me, aren’t you tired of this?  When I went through menopause and past menopause.  And I don’t get tired of it.  I don’t get tired of it.  It’s just something I feel – it’s almost in my DNA, that I feel so drawn to helping this very vulnerable stage in a person’s life so they can feel more confident about what they’re doing.

You said you’ve been doing this for about ten years; is that right?

Correct.

Do you notice any changes in terms of mothers’ anxiety levels?  Is that enough time to be able to say?  Because if I were to compare what I hear and what I read now in the 21^st century versus when I finished teaching in New York in 1998, I feel like the level of anxiety has jumped.

Yes.  It’s so much higher.  I started teaching classes after my son was born, so that’s 11 years, and I became a doula 10 years ago.  Yes, I have noticed, especially since the pandemic, that anxiety is heightened.  There’s more fears going into childbirth.  We happen to teach HypnoBirthing, so we address some of those fears, and it is very mental and using some of the visualization, positive self-talk that you discussed.  So I feel that method helps, but not all of our doula clients align with that or choose to take a childbirth class.  But there is a lot more fear, a lot more anxiety.  I don’t know if it’s the reliance on social media and being on all of the time with work.

I think that’s a good point.  I think that’s really a good point because I think that you’re getting above the water level, gliding across the water, and paddling like crazy underneath the water, and so you see a very skewed version of what somebody else’s experience is, and then yours – the reality doesn’t seem to match up.  I think that’s a form of pressure; would you agree?

I would absolutely agree.  On a previous podcast, I had discussed a bit about how social media can be good and bad in many ways.  There’s that filtered Pinterest, Instagram perfect life, and then you’re getting into the comparison game.  But I also appreciate social media and some of the vulnerability that moms are sharing and showing that their house is a mess or that they’re struggling to make it easier for some of their audience.  Say they’re a celebrity or an influencer and people are following them, and they’re going through real struggles and sharing those.  Then I feel like that can be helpful.

Yeah, I think it can go both ways.  It’s a double edged sword.  You can find the support that you need, but you can also feel that pressure to perform when you’re just trying to get by day to day.  I think that might be contributing to the state of anxiety that mothers are approaching parenthood with, and how that becomes a barrier to opening up to the possibilities.  Do you think people are having less childbirth preparation these days?

I find that our in-person classes have gotten smaller.  Maybe it’s a lack of time or traveling.  My agency also offers some virtual Zoom classes, some self-paced classes, and then the Becoming A Mother course, so there are a lot of things to choose from, but I do feel like that in-person connection – and I know before I became a doula, I took Lamaze with both of my kids, back to back births, and had a real connection, as you described with some of your postnatal classes, with fellow students, and I’m still friends with many of them.  We organized our own meetups with our babies and later toddlers and found out that a few of us were pregnant at the same time with our second babies.  It was quite lovely.  We intentionally created that community, but I learn better in person, so I always choose in person.  But other people, it doesn’t really work for them, for many reasons.  Maybe it’s childcare if it’s their second baby.

And I find that it’s an interesting thing that now people sort of say, well, I don’t have time.  Yet, 40 years ago, people were saying, oh, I have to get ready for birth, so I’m going to make that time.  And my daughter-in-law said, well, there was this one course that was, like, two hours over the weekend.  Or she can do the HypnoBirthing course.  And I said, well, you’re not going to get anything out of a two-hour class on a weekend, so I would suggest you do a HypnoBirthing.  Do you do the Marie Mongan version?

Yes, we sure do.  I love the original.

I actually did that.  When I was moving back into the birth world after I left academia, I did a course that was taught here of the Marie Mongan version of HypnoBirthing, and because I am also a hypnotherapist.  So I thought, well, this is going to pull together two aspects of my work.  It’s almost a synthesis.  I really appreciated what it had to offer.  So I would – at this stage, I would definitely suggest that.  What do people think they need, two hours to prepare for birth?  But there must be people out there that say yeah.  And then they get to the birth and everything gets completely screwed up, right, because they weren’t prepared for this or they didn’t understand that.

Exactly.  They don’t understand what their body is going through.  They don’t understand the intervention choices or stages of labor.  There’s so many things that can’t be covered in two hours.  I teach a very hands-on Comfort Measures for Labor class, and I tell couples who take it that they’re not going to learn everything that you would in a comprehensive childbirth class, but at least it gets the partners connecting, talking, moving.  Whether they have a doula or not, the partners are learning some hands-on techniques.  But that will not prepare them for what they’re going to encounter in labor.  It might make labor more comfortable, but yeah, there’s so much more.

When I was teaching, I would teach just a class on the first stage of labor, and then a second class on the second stage of labor, and then a class on the interventions, and then another class on what you just described in terms of labor support and what you can be doing together.  And I think that what happens is people come into it – they go into labor and they feel the pain, and that’s all that they focus their attention on.  I have this pain.  They don’t know why that pain is happening, so that whole – I give a whole three hours’ worth of information about what’s actually happening during the first stage of labor.  Your body is contracting and it’s also retracting.  And when you know that, you may be feeling the pain, but you know that there’s a real good reason why you’re feeling the pain, and if you haven’t had that education, you won’t – it’s just pain.

Exactly, and they just want it to go away.  But it’s pain with a purpose, or discomfort is what I like to call it.  I don’t consider it pain because you get a break.

That’s right.  And it’s finite.

Yeah, exactly.  You get to meet your baby.  Again, purpose.

That’s right.  Each contraction gets you closer to that.  I just think that – I still feel that education is really important because having that under your belt when you’re going through labor means that there’s a good reason and there’s a good purpose, pain with a purpose.  And really focusing on the fact that this is a powerful experience, as well, not just a painful experience, but it’s really a powerful experience, getting your baby born.

So powerful, yes.  It was one of my biggest moments.  I felt so accomplished, and I’ve never run a marathon, but it sort of feels like that.  I used to be a runner, and really, that visualization.  I felt with both of my births, although they were completely different from each other, were both very empowering for me.

Yeah, all of my births – I have four children – all of my births were very different.  I had a hospital birth with a doctor the first time around because I didn’t know any better in ’74.  And then I had my second child in a birth center in the New York Maternity Center Association, which went out of business and became Childbirth Connection along the way.  But that was the first birth center to open up in the state, and it was in New York, with a midwife.  The third birth was an attempt to have a homebirth, but I ended up being a hospital transfer for a forceps delivery.  And the fourth birth was at home.

All different.  Very different.

Yeah.  The only thing I haven’t done – I haven’t done a Cesarean section, and I haven’t had an anesthetized birth.  I had a pudendal block for the delivery of the forceps delivery because I didn’t want full anesthesia.  But I’ve really sampled a lot of the possibilities in terms of location, anyway.

That’s helpful with your background as an author, creating this app, and understanding different experiences personally and also professionally.

Diane, I could talk to you forever, but we’re running out of time.  So let’s touch a bit about how to connect with you, how to purchase your book, buy your app, how to find the course when it’s out, and of course, your website.

So my website would be www.dianespeier.com.  And the name of the book is Life After Birth: A Parent’s Holistic Guide to Thriving in the Fourth Trimester.  The app is a companion for that.  The sections of the app match the sections of the book, but increase that information and add more and also the links that were in the book in black and white become live links in the app.  And that’s called Digital Doula 2.0.  And it’s available in the app store, as well as in Google Play.

Do you have a chat feature in the app?

We just added a chat feature in the app this past year, and what I want to do – it’s not being used the way we intended, but I changed the app developer in the last year, and I need to sort of follow up on that so that it becomes more communal and we can have group chats in it, and I haven’t worked that out yet.  I’ve had other things going on at a fast pace.

Right, with this course launch.  There’s a lot going on.

Yeah.  And so let me also give you the other website, which is called thrivinginthe4thtrimester.com.  They can get information about the online course there and put their name on the waiting list, but also, there’s a free download there from energy medicine.  We created a digital download called Energy Matters in Postpartum Resilience.  That’s something that people can purchase, but it’s also a bonus as part of the online course.  But then there’s a free download, which is the first part, called the Daily Energy Routine.  And they can get that.  So if they go to Thriving in the 4^th Trimester, that’s where they can access anything related to the online course, as well as some information about energy medicine for free and some to purchase, because the full digital download is a 60-page document, so it’s a little book, and it’s really good.

You can find me on Facebook at Dr. Diane S. Speier.  On Instagram, it’s @drdianespeier.  Did I leave anything out?

Are you on LinkedIn?

I think it’s Diane Speier on LinkedIn.  And you can also find the Digital Doula page on Facebook, as well.  I’ll never get tired of this, and because of that, we should have another conversation down the road, Kristin, somewhere.

Let’s do.  I would love that, Diane.  Thank you for sharing all of your wisdom.  Would you like to leave our listeners with one final tip?

One final tip.  What would I choose?  Look after each other during this very tumultuous time in your life.  Just look after each other so you can be a team, and I like to use the word duet because you’re sort of singing a different part, but the harmony that comes together with that is really a wonderful song.  So look after each other, because people do not know that having a baby really does change the nature of your partnership a lot, which is why We became the first module of the online course.

Thank you.  Excellent advice, and I appreciate all of your time.

And I appreciate what you’re doing, Kristin.  I think it’s really wonderful to see how you are providing resources for the community, as well.

Thank you, Diane!  Take care!

IMPORTANT RESOURCES

Dr. Diane Speier

Thriving in the 4^th Trimester

Birth and Postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming a Mother course

All of the courses available from Gold Coast Doulas

Kristin Revere and Christine Brown address everything from handling tantrums to managing a child’s big feelings in the latest episode of Ask the Doulas.  You can listen to this episode on your favorite podcast player.  

Hello, this is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with my friend Christine Brown today.  Christine is the CEO and lead sleep and behavior consultant of Bella Luna Family.  Welcome back, Christine!

Thank you so much for having me again!  I’m so excited to be here!

Yes!  And our last conversation was all about potty training, and I consider you our expert since you’re part of our Becoming course as our expert in potty training and we always refer to your podcast and blog with our clients.  So thank you for sharing all of your knowledge!  Our topic today is one of your other specialties, behavior.  I would love to dive into that.  We chatted earlier about some of the typical questions that you get from parents that you work with in regards to behavior.  What is your top question that you get asked, Christine?

I think probably the biggest thing is, do you have anything quick that I can do to improve behavior with my child?  Because sometimes too much, we get too much advice and try to implement it all at the same time.  That can feel a little bit overwhelming.  Sometimes it’s easy to just focus on one small thing, especially if you feel like you’re in a cycle with your toddler or your preschooler where you’re just not cooperative very well.  And so that thing that I recommend the most is, focusing on the positive.  I know that sounds so simplistic, but what happens is – I don’t know if you remember this, or you might even go through it now.  But when we’re in a difficult phase of our child’s development or we’ve got a lot of stuff going on in our lives coupled with our child just going through normal developmental things that are age appropriate for them, it’s easy to start focusing on all of the things that we don’t like about our child’s behavior.  And I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, what we focus on, we get more, right?  And so the number one thing, and I joke when I say this, but when I start feeling like I want to run away from home, because I think sometimes moms, we’re just like, oh, my gosh.  This is so much.  I don’t know how to deal with all of this.  When I start to have those types of feelings, I recognize, man, I’m really focused on all of these things that I don’t like, and I really need to change my perspective and start focusing on all of the things that my child does and says on a daily basis that are amazing because sometimes we lose sight of that.  And we don’t give that positive feedback to our little ones.  No one performs or acts better when they’re feeling worse about themselves.

So true, yes.

And one of the ways I like to think about it is, imagine early in your relationship, if you have a partner – and I’m going to be very gender stereotypical right now, so just pardon me on that – but it’s like, oh, my gosh, thank you so much for taking out the trash, right?  So grateful.  And oh, my God, that was the best dinner ever.  It was so great.  And then what happens is we get into marriage or our relationship; maybe we have our kids, and then it’s like, he didn’t even put a bag back in the trash can, right?  This again?  And so what happens is when we start to really focus on those types of things, it makes us less likely to want to serve.  And our children really do want to make us happy, even though sometimes their behaviors are challenging, and so if we just start focusing on all of those positive behaviors on a daily basis, we’re going to start seeing more of that flow out of them, and it really can change the energy in the house very, very quickly.

Makes sense.  Excellent.  So what’s next?

So other things that can also help increase cooperation in toddlers: there’s really two kind of main things that toddlers need developmentally at this point, and the first one is attention and connection.  And sometimes the worst behavior is a call for attention or connection, and this can be hard because sometimes we’re like, I’m with my kids all the time.  But we may be doing a lot of different things while we’re with our kids, and we might be distracted.  Our kiddos really need something short, even can be 10 or 15 minutes a day, but really getting down, focusing, doing child-led play with them, and really filling up that cup of theirs.  That can really help improve behavior because the more connected our children feel to us, the better their behavior is going to be.

That makes sense.

And if you’re having bedtime battles with your little one, I love doing after dinner shutting off all screens, putting all technology and devices away, and just getting down on the floor and pouring in because that can make the disconnect at bedtime much easier because they feel like that cup has been filled.

Excellent.

And the flip side of that, especially with our toddlers and our preschoolers, is lots of choices.  We control so much of our young children’s lives, right?  We control who their friends are, where they go to school, what they eat, their choice of clothes, all of that.  And one of their primary needs is to feel like they’ve got some power.  The way we can do that is offer age-appropriate choices because that way, once they feel like they have some of that power, they don’t have to dig their heels in and push back on us so much because they feel like they’ve gotten control over their own lives.  I always think about it imagining if someone controlled every aspect of our lives and we didn’t feel like we had any choice.  I always think about that from our children’s perspective.  They need to feel powerful so that they have that agency over their own life, but age appropriate choices.  Do you want to wear the red shirt or the blue shirt?  Do you want to use the green cup or the yellow cup?  Do you want to put your shoes on yourself, or do you need my help?  Do you want to climb in your car seat and I’ll buckle you in, or do you want Mommy to put you in there?  Lots of those types of age appropriate choices really gives kids that power that they’re craving.

Excellent.  And as a parent of twins, I’m sure that you’ve had to navigate big emotions and giving them choices probably reduces a lot of those tantrums and so on.

Yeah, it definitely did.  My twins definitely liked to have – my son and I even had an incident last night where – he’s nine.  My twins are now nine.  We had a bit of tussle last night, and I had to take a deep breath and be like, it’s okay.  We can undo anything.  Just give him the opportunity to do that.  And I think one of the other things that’s important with choices, too, is knowing when to use them.  So if our kiddos are overtired, overstimulated, or hungry, that’s probably not a time to offer a lot of choices because their emotional reserves are low at that point.  So offering choices in other times, but sometimes we need to make decisions for our kids when they’re in those.

So you mentioned mealtime or hunger.  What are your tips for managing behavior issues during mealtimes, whether it’s at home or in public?

So from my perspective, I think sometimes we have really big expectations of what our children are capable of doing when it comes to mealtimes.  So the number one thing is having realistic expectations of a parent, like how long our children are actually going to be able to sit in their seat and stay still.  I like to use visual timers for children that get up from the table a lot.  Saying ten minutes is how long we have to stay at the table and actually having the child have a visual timer can be really helpful because then they know when they can get up, and that can be a game changer, especially if you have a child that’s up every one or two minutes.  If we’re setting small increments of time and expecting them to just stay there for that amount of time, that can be really helpful.  I have a lot of parents come to me and they’re like, well, we’re still eating, and our little one wants to get up.  And I’m like, yeah, but they’re two.  They can’t sit there for very long.  That’s just not how our little ones are.  They need to get up and move, so kind of letting them do that.

If children are throwing food, to me that means they’re done eating, and so at that point I pick up and plate and say, if you get hungry, you can come back and finish, but when you throw your food, you’re telling me that you’re done.

What other things do you hear from parents as challenges that they come up against?

Naptime, certainly, and getting up frequently, complaining, just the struggle with, of course, bedtime as well, but certainly naps.

Yes, naps can be challenging.  I’m a firm believer in that there’s three things that children can control: eating, sleeping, and going to the bathroom.  From an eating and a potty perspective, I think that should really be child-led, but from a sleep perspective, I think we do have to help our children make choices in that respect.  They can’t actually make the choices.  We have to make the choices for them.  And when it comes time for nap, I always like to say, especially to toddlers and big kids, you don’t have to sleep, but you do have to rest.  And so they have quiet time, whether that’s an hour or 90 minutes or two minutes depending on the age of the child, where they’re in their room, in their crib or in their bed, where they’re having some down time.  That way, they have the downtime, and how they choose to spend that time is up to them.  They can be upset or they can just relax or they can choose to sleep, but they still have to have that down time.

Yes.  What are your tips when a child does have those big feelings?  What do you recommend parents you work with as far as tools to navigate that?

The number one thing is that sometimes our children’s big feelings are very triggering for us, especially if our own feelings weren’t validated when we were younger.  So when they’re having big feelings, it really can trigger us, and it can make us react to those big feelings.  The first thing I recommend, number one, is staying calm, because if our child is having big feelings and we get really upset, we’re just adding fuel to the fire, and it oftentimes will make the feeling even larger and can prolong any sort of tantrum that could be happening.

Second, this is a mantra that I say to myself over and over again when my children are not acting logically.  I have to remind myself, 25.  Because I remind myself that our children’s brains are not fully developed until they’re 25.  When we’re expecting them to react in a way that is logical for an adult brain, I have to remind myself, okay, well, my child may not be capable of my logical, rational adult thoughts right now because their brain is not going to be fully developed until they’re 25.  So that also helps me to be calm and patient because I realize that I’m dealing with someone who doesn’t have a fully developed brain, and that’s going to take some time.  That allows me to stay more patient and calm with my child.

On top of that, just recognizing the feeling, helping our children name those feelings and then validating the feelings because oftentimes many of us – I was raised by boomers, and so I was kind of the, rub some dirt in it kid generation.  Your feelings just didn’t – our parents didn’t get that, and so they didn’t know how to give it.  And now our generation that are raising children are doing things differently, and we are trying to have more respectful parenting.  One of the ways that you can really be a respectful parent is just validating those big feelings that your little ones has.  It doesn’t mean you need to give in to if they’re having a big t antrum because they want another cookie.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to give in to that big feeling just to kind of keep the peace.  Just recognize it’s okay for your child to have those big feelings, right?  Our job is to stay calm and just validate.  “I know” are some of the most powerful words in the English dictionary when it comes to parenting because it lets our child know, I hear you.  I see you.  I see where you’re coming from.  I recognize what your feelings are.  And it’s important to, especially when they’re really little, help them understand what that feeling is.  I see that you’re really mad.  I see that you’re really sad.  And then validate it.  I know you want a cookie.  Cookies are so delicious.  Saying something like that instead of like, no, you can’t have a cookie; stop crying.  You’re going to get a much better response from your child if you validate their feelings before holding any sort of boundary.

And that transitions well into the tantrum area.  What are your tips related to how to handle the child who’s on the floor and just can’t be consoled?

Yes.  Like I mentioned, the first thing with tantrums – and again, these can be really triggering for us as adults, too, especially if we’re feeling low on reserves, but still staying calm is just so important because it truly is adding gas to a fire if we get really upset.  So stay calm.  And another thing that’s important here is when your child is having a tantrum, recognizing they are not coming from a place where it’s premeditated.  When children are having tantrums, their logical brain has been shut down, and they are more operating on that emotional, more primitive brain, right?  Trying to create logic and talk to them about their feelings and being logical with them and expecting logic from them – they’re just not capable.  Until they’ve calmed down, they can’t really hear a lot of what we’re saying.  So if we stay calm, and also limit our words.  Oftentimes when our children are tantruming, we’re trying to talk it through with them and trying to figure it out in the moment.  Sometimes it’s better to just say, I see that you’re really mad right now, and I understand.  Mommy’s here if you need me.  I’m right here when you’re ready for a hug.  You let me know.  And just kind of leave it at that.  That’s also going to allow your child to regulate better because you’re just there, calm, being there and present, and we’re not talking a ton about it, which can really create that tantrum going on much longer than it needs to.

Excellent.  What other tips do you have for our listeners related to behavior issues?

Kind of on that same vein of handling tantrums, time out is a really highly debated topic, right?  I’m a fan of time out because time out truly means to just rest, take a break.  That’s what it means.  So when our children are in a really heightened state, sometimes they do need a time out.  But it’s not like the traditional time out where you think like, oh, you’re going in your room to think about your behavior because oftentimes when we try to do that, our child feels more isolated, and that can really amp things up even more.  And so I’m a big fan of putting together a peaceful pillow or a cozy corner, someplace where our children can go to calm themselves down that’s not a negative place.  It’s in the main living area.  And they can go there if you see that your child is about to go into a tantrum phase.  You can do that in advance.  Like, I see that we’re starting to get really mad.  Let’s go sit together and read a book or something like that.  Sometimes we can preemptively get in front of it.  And sometimes I – unless a child is really breaking a golden rule, and golden rules are, I will not hurt myself; I will not hurt others; and I will not destroy property.  I’m not a fan of sending them necessarily to time out as a punitive way of doing things, but if they are breaking one of those golden rules, I do think that they need some time in a spot that’s a positive place.  It’s not just a negative place, and they’re not isolated, to tell their body to stop, to stop that behavior because it’s not safe.  And then once they’ve stopped the behavior and they come out of time out, just focusing on what went right.  You told your body to stop hitting.  Great job.  Do you want to come help me do X?  Something like that.  We don’t want to punish because that’s not how our children learn, but once everything is really calm is when we have the opportunity for teachable moments.  Our children are going to make a ton of mistakes.  That’s part of it.  We’ve all gone through the process of making mistakes, right?  I’ve made millions of mistakes throughout my life.  And that’s part of how our children learn so they have to make mistakes and we have to let them make mistakes so that they can learn from it.  If the child has been throwing or hitting or kicking, that’s when you can talk about what could we do instead.  That really hurt my body.  Next time you’re feeling really mad, you can’t hit.  That’s not safe.  I love myself too much for you to let you hit me, and I love you too much to let anyone hit you, right?  So what can we do instead next time when you’re feeling really angry?  For a younger child, you could say I’m really mad; you can stop your feet and say I’m really mad.  Give them approved behaviors and ways of expressing those big feelings.  And then if the child has broken a golden rule, sometimes we have to help them figure out how make it right, whether that’s a logical or natural consequence.  Natural consequences are like cause and effect, right?  You threw something and it broke, and now I need you to help me fix it.  Another thing is if a child hit another child, I always say to my son, how can we make this right?  And at first, I had to help them figure out ways that they could make it right.  Like, if that person wants a hug, do you want to give them a hug?  Do you want to say I’m sorry?  Do you want to color a picture?  Those are different ways I’ve helped them, and now I ask them that same question.  I’m like, how do you want to make this right with that person, and they’ve come to the place where they can actually make those decisions and figure that out for themselves.

I love that so much, Christine.

And it’s important because that’s how we truly change behavior is if the child has natural or logical consequences; that’s where they learn.  They’re like, oh, I don’t want to have to keep doing that.  I don’t want to do that again.  And when you’ve given them other tools and other ways of doing things, it might take a little while for them to get there, but you’re going to be so proud when instead of hitting, they’ve said, like, I don’t like that; I’m really angry.  That’s when as parents we’re like, oh, this hard work is working!

Yes!  So how do you navigate technology?  You mentioned screens off near bedtime and on the floor play.  I feel like this is a common issue for parents of younger children like toddlers, as well as older kids, because there’s so much even in school related to working on computers and technology.  It’s a part of our lives now.

Yeah.  So I am not the technology police at home.  I have read all of the studies.  I know the benefits and the downfalls.  We do live in such a technology focused society, and I do understand, it’s addicting for not just children, but it can be the same for adults.  For younger kids, I think following the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations overall is good, positive, helpful guidance.  As they get a little bit older, they’re allowed to have a little bit more, but also ensuring that lots of breaks are happening in between.  We’ve been through phases – one of my sons has ADHD, which means that his brain is wired for what he’s interested in, and he’s interested in technology.  So we’ve gone through phases where we’ve had to go on more of a technology diet than others because of the behavior that was resulting from having too much screen time.  But I think as parents, we’re just trying to strike the balance.  And reevaluating as time goes on.  My husband and I for a long time had a no technology during the week policy, and that didn’t mean TV; it was more like games and screens.  But my children have gotten to a place where they’re nine and a half now, and they’re better at turning it off and going and doing other things instead of just staying on it all the time.  And when they’re asked to get off of it, it’s not a big struggle.  And so we’ve actually recently loosened up a little bit more so they get a little bit of screen time at home during the week.  At this age, it’s so important for them to connect with their friends, and that’s one way that they’re able to do it.  I think it’s just reevaluating as our kids get older, what makes sense for your family, how your child reacts to technology, and making your rules based on your own specific child and your family’s philosophies.

Very helpful.  So what other questions are you seeing from your clients related to behavior that we didn’t cover?

I think another one is not listening.  Lots of, like, how do I get my child to listen better?  This is a big one, and let’s be honest, as moms, nothing is more frustrating than repeating yourself a thousand times; am I right?

Yes!  Even with teenagers, I feel like I’m still repeating myself to my 13-year-old.

Oh, for sure.  I mean, usually they’re distracted with technology, right?  This is what I feel like I look like when my kids aren’t listening and I’m repeating myself over and over again is like the cartoons where the steam used to come out of the ears and the head started popping off the body.  That’s how I feel inside.

But there are things that we can do to really get our children to listen better that they just play into looking at things from a respectful standpoint, right?  If we’re constantly ordering and directing and we’re just focused on almost that authoritarian, like, do as I say, don’t question me – oftentimes, you will find that when you take that approach, that children don’t listen as much.  They tend to shut down a lot.  So number one is ensuring you’ve got that strong connection because if our kids don’t feel connected to us, they’re not going to listen to us.  It’s kind of like thinking about, like, do you have a friend who isn’t respectful to you?  Are you going to take their advice when they try to talk to you about something?  Probably not.  You’re going to tune them out a little bit more, right?  So I think about that.  Just making sure that you have that connection, making sure that you’re giving lots of love and affection and attention and spending time together and being interested in what they’re interested in, having that legitimate, true relationship and connection.  That really opens up the ears because even think about it in your own relationships with your spouse or your partner.  If you guys aren’t connected, oftentimes the communication just isn’t there.  We’re less likely to hear what the other person is saying in the way that they meant to say it.  Does that make sense?

Exactly.  It does.  Very helpful.

And the other thing – I have many things about this, but oftentimes the most popular, especially when we have toddlers and young preschoolers, I felt like I was trying to keep my twin boys alive all the time when they were younger.  So my most popular words coming out of my mouth felt like, “No,” “stop,” and “don’t.”  But then when I started doing more behavior work and I started thinking about it, when I have someone – even though they’re children and they’re young – when they hear no, stop, and don’t all the time, they’re going to tune us out a little bit more.  So when we actually need it, when we’re in a safety situation where they’re running away from us in the parking lot, if we always say no, stop, and don’t, they might disregard us when it’s a true safety issue.  So we want to kind of reserve those.  And there’s different ways to say no without saying no that can also decrease tantrums, as well.  “Can I have a cookie?”  What’s our natural inclination?  “No, I’m making dinner.”  Temper tantrum down on the floor.  But if you say, “Yes, after dinner you can have a cookie,” you’ve said no without saying no.  You’ve just told them when they can have it.  “I want ice cream.”  “Oh, I know.”  (Validate the feeling.)  “Ice cream is so delicious.  But today has already been an ice cream day, so tomorrow can be another ice cream day.”  You’re saying no without actually saying no.  That works really, really well.

Lots of “Yes, and.”  I always think about this.  I do this with my husband.  I’ll be thinking – obviously, we have different upbringings, different minds, and he’ll have one idea of a way to do things, and I’ll have my idea, right?  And if I say to him, that’s a stupid idea.  We should do it my way.  He’s going to shut down, right?  He’s not going to be listening to me.  Whereas if I say, “Yes, we could do it that way, or we could do it this way,” he’s going to be more open and receptive to thinking about the way that I think that we should do it.

Nice.  Excellent tips.  So what would it be like for our listeners or our doula clients to work with you and your team at Bella Luna Family?

Essentially, what we do is when we start working with a family, we always start by having you fill out an intake form, and that’s where we collect lots of different information because we like to look at every situation holistically.  So we’re looking at everything from sleep, behavior, potty training, nutrition, where the parents are at, and so that’s how we start everything.  From there, we meet with families one on one, and we have conversation about the most challenging aspects that are happening whether it’s potty training or sleep or behavior.  And we kind of have a conversation and share insight and educate on what’s normal.  Parents leave there with action steps on what they can do, and we like to try to keep it really simple.  You’re working on some small things.  Small things can really help improve.  And then we’re continually working with people.  We build on those skills as time goes on.

Excellent.  And you can be found all over social media and your website.   Where would you like to direct our listeners?

I’m thinking I will add a freebie.  If people want to download, I have a Taming Tantrums Checklist.  That tends to be a great way to start.  So if people want more insight about that topic, and also to get on our mailing list.  I send newsletters every other week filled with lots of good insight.

Thank you so much, Christine!  I loved chatting with you again.  What a great resource for all of our listeners!

Thank you, Kristin!  It was so great chatting with you again!

IMPORTANT LINKS

Bella Luna Families

Taming Tantrums freebie

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Kristin Revere and Lynn Schulte discuss postpartum healing including hemorrhoids, fissures, and tears as well as preventative steps to take during pregnancy.

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Lynn Schulte today.  Lynn is the founder of the Institute for Birth Healing, and our topic is all about postpartum healing and recovery after birth.  Welcome, Lynn!

Thanks, Kristin, so much!  I so appreciate any opportunity I get to be able to share what I know and to help moms.

So happy to have all of your wisdom here for our listeners!  Would you start by filling us in on your extensive bio?  I was looking over all of your skill sets, and you have a wealth of experience in not only pelvic floor physical therapy but also just healing in general and body work.

Yeah.  I’ve been a physical therapist for over 30 years and have taken lots of different continuing education courses, but I would say that my specialty really is connecting a person to a deeper part of themselves and really trying to tap into – my gift is being able to understand why the body is doing what it’s doing and getting to the root cause of tension in the body or why a muscle won’t let go.  That is just something that I’ve discovered and developed over the years on my own, not from necessarily taking a particular course.  So I love that deeper healing work, and really working with trauma, because that’s the trauma response in the body that can sometimes cause a freeze response in the body and then the tissues don’t really know that the trauma event is over.  That freeze response is still held in the tissues.  I love that deeper dive.

When we talk about postpartum healing, there’s healing on many different levels.  There’s physical healing, and that’s what we really want to talk about today.  Emotional healing, and there’s energetic healing, too.  I want people to recognize that there is more.  When the physical  healing isn’t really working, there’s a deeper issue that may be at play that’s keeping that physical healing from happening.

Makes sense.  So what are your top tips for our listeners when they are preparing for birth, and then we’ll talk about healing.

So really we need to understand that what we bring to our birth that’s being held in our body is going to impact that birth.  It’s really about getting your body assessed prior to going into labor and making sure that the baby has the space and the balance within your uterus and your abdomen to get into a good position to come on out, making sure that your pelvic bones have the ability to move, open, for baby to pass through, and then releasing your pelvic floor muscles as well and making sure that those are like trampolines: able to bounce and give and lengthen to allow the baby to come on out.  And so I think every pregnant person should not only just be seeing an OB-GYN or a midwife but also a body worker, someone who is trained in what to look for and how to help create balance and space for baby and assess the body so that baby can come on out.  We go into birth just assuming the baby will come on out, and I think that we should be assessing the body more to make sure that it’s ready for birth.

And I feel like there are more and more trained body balancing practitioners, especially in my area, so it is a great referral source, in addition to physical therapy, pelvic floor therapy, not only during pregnancy but also immediately postpartum.

Right.  And it’s really important – I think the most important aspects of the body is the uterine ligaments, making sure that those are nice and released and balanced, but also making sure that your pelvic floor muscles have the ability to lengthen for birth is critical.  And that you know how to push a baby out.  Too many people that I work with in my practice come in and I ask them to push – I’m intravaginal and I ask them to push my fingers out.  They actually tighten their pelvic floor.  That happening at birth can create those stage 3 or stage 4 tears that go into the anal structure.  We really want to try to avoid that, and we do that by making sure the muscles lengthen when you’re pushing.

And tearing is one of the biggest concerns my childbirth students have, as well as my birth doula clients.  That fear of tearing is really overwhelming to them and they want to know how to prevent it.

People talk about doing perineal massage, and the research isn’t confirming one way or another saying that it’s helpful.  But my thought is that we need to be focusing on the pelvic floor muscles themselves, not just that perineal area, like the opening of your vaginal space.  That opening is not where we need to focus.  We need to be getting our fingers in deeper and working with the pelvic floor muscles because I feel like the skin is going to follow the muscles.  So if the muscles can lengthen and relax, the skin is going to follow.

That makes perfect sense.  So after delivery, then, let’s get into concerns.  You mentioned tearing, of course.  Let’s talk about healing and what your tips are, whether it’s a minor tear or you’re dealing with something fourth degree. 

So one of the biggest issues that I find postpartum is that the bones of the pelvis actually need to open up for a baby to come on out.  So the two sit bones that you’re sitting on, your tailbone, all three of those bones need to open up, so your sit bones go wider and your tailbone should lift backwards, which is really hard to do when you’re laying on your back, trying to push a baby out.  So that position that the doctors find so convenient for them is actually not always the best position for a birthing person to be in because the sacrum needs to lift backwards in order for that baby to come on out, and if you’re laying on it, then the entire pelvis has to lift up for the baby to come on out.  The pelvic outlet, from the tip of the tailbone to the ischial tuberosities, that needs to widen for baby to come on out, and I have found, what I want everyone to know, is that that not all the time do those bones go back to their original position.  I find open birthing pattern in the majority of the clients that I work with in the clinic, whether they’re coming to me for back pain, pelvic pain, symphysis pubis dysfunction, pelvic floor tension or tightness or pain, pain with intercourse, prolapse, stress incontinence.  All of those issues that are very common after having a baby can be attributed to the bones of the pelvis not being in their original position.  And when you know what to look for and you know how to close the bones back up to help them get into their proper place, a lot of those problems go away, especially the back pain and the pelvic pain.

Now, some of the signs that your pelvis may be stuck in an open birthing pattern is when you lay on a hard surface, your sacrum doesn’t feel good.  It hurts to lay on a hard surface on your back.   If you’re sitting, sometimes sitting feels off balance or off kilter because one of your sit bones had to move out to the side more than the other one.  One of the key factors that you know if you go see a pelvic floor PT and you’re working in the postpartum period and they don’t ask you what position you were in when your baby came out, they’re not going to be looking at the bones of the pelvic.  And a lot of the pelvic floor PTs do not get this concept, unless they’ve trained with me.  I’m the only one out there talking about this idea of an open birthing pattern.  And so I do have a directory on my website of practitioners that I’ve trained so that you can go and see if there’s someone in your area.  But this idea that the bones don’t always go back to their original position is not something that every practitioner out there is looking for.

Very interesting.  I do have clients – we have postpartum doulas at Gold Coast as well as birth doulas who are working with our clients up to the first year, and they have that lower back discomfort, especially with breastfeeding in those healing first six weeks.  So that sounds like obviously an issue that could be prevented and addressed early on.

Absolutely.  And there is an exercise that people can do resisting their knees together and resisting their knees going apart.  I have a video on my YouTube channel, which is Institute for Birth Healing.  That’s the channel on YouTube.  If you go on there and just search for closing the bones after birth and exercise to close the bones after birth – I think it’s titled that.  But it shows you how to do it.  And I believe in the video I show someone doing it to you, but if you just bend your knees up, you can use your own fists and your own hands to resist those movements, so you don’t need someone externally to help you.  You can do this to yourself; just bend your knees up toward your chest and do the exercises.  But we’re using the adductors of your hip muscles and the abductors to help bring the bones of the pelvis back together again.  So sometimes that can be really helpful for some people.  The sooner we do that, the better.  I really wish every doula knew how to instruct their clients in doing that because that can be done right after birth.  We don’t need to wait, as long as it doesn’t create pain.

If it creates pain, then try the opposite direction, and then if that’s still painful, that person needs help.  They need to find a practitioner who knows how to work with the bones of their pelvis to help bring them back into place.  And if you are a mom and you’re working with a pelvic floor PT or chiropractor, let them know.  I have online courses.  Treating the Postpartum Pelvis is an online course that I have that a practitioner can take.  My courses are only for practitioners because you need to have a license to touch, to do these techniques that you’ll learn in these courses.  Let your practitioner know, go take that course, and then come help me.  That’s the best way for you to get help because in the Treating the Postpartum Pelvis course, there’s four different patterns I find in the pelvis after birth, and it teaches practitioners how to close up the bones, how to get rid of those patterns in the pelvis after birth.  And I tell you, every day in my clinic, moms get off of the table and they feel so much better.  So different in their body after birth, because I’ve adjusted their pelvic bones and gotten them back into a better position.  The pelvic floor muscles attach to those bones, so if the bones are splayed open from a baby coming out, your pelvic floor muscles are now lengthened.  They’re on stretch.  And sometimes the tension or the heaviness that you’re feeling in your pelvic floor or in your perineal area could be because those muscles are trying to keep your bones together.  They’re trying to help you out.  And so if you go and you see a pelvic floor therapist and they try to release the tension without adjusting the bones, then it could make your pain worse.  They’re taking the job away from the muscles.  The muscles are trying to stabilize you, and if they try to release those muscles and they haven’t stabilized your bones, your pain can get worse.  So please know that, and if your physical therapist or your chiropractor – I know chiropractors are adjusting the bones, but they’re not looking at the bones of the pelvis in the way that I teach.  There’s different motions that the pelvis goes through that everybody agrees on, but nobody is really agreeing to this idea that the bones of the pelvis can stay stuck in an open birthing pattern.  And it’s funny, Kristin, because so many laypeople and doulas, as well, are like, oh, that makes so much sense.

It does, absolutely.  And I remember in my early years as a doula, I attended a Zulu workshop, and there was a closing of the bones ritual.  Now, that was more symbolic and healing after birth.  It wasn’t necessarily dealing with your topic, but that term was very familiar to me.

Right, and that’s a beautiful ceremony.  It’s a beautiful idea.  I love it.  But it may not address everything because the hip bones are in the way to really moving the ischial bones back into place, and that sacrum being backwards might need some external mobilization.

I do have a free course on my website.  It’s the Sacral Flexion Pattern.  Again, this is for practitioners.  The common postpartum patterns, anyone can sign up and take a look at.  I go into more detail of all the different things that can happen in the postpartum body, but the sacral flexion pattern is really for practitioners.  And I teach practitioners how to treat the sacral flexion pattern, and that is a game changer.  Again, like I said, the pelvic floor muscles are on stretch.  When we bring those bones back together, then the pelvic floor muscles are in a much better position to be stronger.  And there’s a couple other things that can limit pelvic floor muscles’ strength, and tearing is one of those things that we talked about.  When we have scar tissue in there, scar tissue is not as flexible as normal, healthy muscle tissue.  And so the scar tissue can inhibit that muscle from being able to function well.  But you yourself can get in there and massage that scar tissue.  Just offer compression to it and squeeze it and see if you can’t get it to, like, melt between your fingers, because that can help minimize the amount of scar tissue in there.

The other thing I want to make people aware of is when we’re stuck in this open birthing pattern and these pelvic floor muscles are on stretch, trying to have intercourse can be really, really painful because the muscles – the vaginal opening is on stretch.  It can’t open up more to allow the penis to come in.  That insertional pain is the pelvic floor muscles are not happy.  They need help relaxing so that the penis can insert without pain.  We need to release that scar tissue, and we need to relax the pelvic floor muscles to help with insertional pain with intercourse.

There’s also deep thrusting pain with intercourse, which can be from the cervix not being able to move out of the way, and scar tissue from C-section scars can cause that.

Back to another issue for why the pelvic floor muscles can’t be strong after birth is that as that baby comes on out, it smushes the bladder out of the way, and it can smush it off to the side, and then the bladder gets stuck over there.  And I can find the cervix in any position intravaginally after birth.  It can be stuck to your right wall, your left side vaginal wall.  It can be pulled back.  It can be poking into your bladder.  If it’s poking into your bladder, you feel like you have to pee all the time.  So getting that cervix back into its midline position by balancing the uterine ligaments and getting the bladder back into place instantaneously changes the strength of the pelvic floor muscles.

That’s amazing, because that is a common concern is that, yeah, frequent urge to urinate after that postpartum healing phase.

And that stress incontinence.  When the bladder is off to the side, the pressure from your abdomen can’t reach the urethra.  And so that’s why the pressure only hits the bladder and so that’s why we leak.  If we can get the bladder back into place, then some of that abdominal pressure can hit the urethra and the bladder and keep the differentiation of pressure inside so that you don’t leak.   That’s a bigger concept than most people might understand there, and I’ve really simplified it, but there is a reason, with the bladder being off, that can cause stress incontinence.

Another thing that can cause stress incontinence is that your lower body is jutting out when you go to laugh, cough, sneeze, which increases pressure on your bladder.  So your upper abdominal muscles are pushing down, causing your belly to jut outward, and that can increase pressure and every time you do that, you can be leaking urine.  So you need to learn how to get your lower belly muscles activating stronger than your upper ones to keep the pressure away from the bladder when you laugh, cough, sneeze.  So if people just put their hands on their lower belly and they cough, the belly should draw up and in.  If it’s pushing out, that’s something that you need to work with for your belly.

Excellent tip.  Another common postpartum concern is hemorrhoids.  How would some of your tips factor in there?

Yeah, so the hemorrhoids are around the anal sphincter muscle, and the anal sphincter muscle, I find, knots in most every single postpartum person that I work with.  And the anal sphincter muscle gets so stretched out from the way the baby has come on out vaginally.  And those knots can create problems with hemorrhoids and also fissures.  A fissure is a tear inside the rectal anal canal that every time you have a bowel movement, you’re opening up that wound, and it really feels like you’re pooping glass.  It’s so painful.  So any time anyone is dealing with hemorrhoids or fissures, you need to release the knot in your anal sphincter muscle, and it’s super easy to do the top half.  You can just put your thumb in vaginally and your finger in on the anus and just kind of press around and see if you feel any knots or tenderness.  But to do the lower half of the anus, you need to maybe put your thumb in on the anus and kind of push down.  If you think about the anus like a clock, you should be able to push in all different hours of the clock, and they should feel nice and mushy and mobile.  But if it’s harder or thicker, that’s a tension in that muscle, and it needs release work.  Compression of that knot in that muscle can help it to release.  And so if you can check that out yourself and try to release what you can – if not, one of my practitioners who have taken my postpartum course can help you out.  They know how to release it, and then they can show you how to continue to do it yourself because you definitely – if you’re dealing with a fissure, you definitely want to release your anal sphincter muscle before every single bowel movement.

Excellent.  So is there a point where it would be recommended to release some of that tension?  Would it be immediately after birth or waiting for six weeks?

It depends on if you have any tearing.  So you need to let any tearing or episiotomy scar tissue heal well because it’s going to be way too uncomfortable if you still have stitches in there or if you have an open wound.  With a fissure, I find the open wound is opposite of where the tension is.  So if you have a sense of where the pain is in your rectum as you’re having a bowel movement, try assessing the opposite side of that circle and seeing if you can release that tissue.  That can help because it’s a circle muscle.  It all needs to open up evenly to allow the stool to come on out.  When we have those knots, that knot area can’t open up as freely, so the opposite side has to open up more.  Something’s got to give in order for that stool to come out, and that’s why tears open is because too much pressure is happening there because the opposite side can’t open as well.  So releasing that allows that sphincter muscle to open up more evenly, and it takes the strain off that open wound.  And that’s what helps it to heal.

But I’m saying if you tore vaginally and you had an episiotomy, wait for that tissue to heal before you go messing around in it.  But if you have a fissure and an open wound, you want to try to work with the anus outside prior to having bowel movements to help that to heal.

Okay.  Thank you.  Any other tips or healing conditions that we didn’t discuss?

Oh, there’s so much.  There’s diastasis recti, and you need to release the oblique muscles for that.  There’s an oblique release that needs to happen to help speed up the healing of diastasis.  And then understanding how the belly gets messed up from birth – all that is covered in my Confidence in the Core, Floor, and More course.  That course is designed for moms, so you guys can check that one out.  All the other courses on my website are for practitioners.  But that has a ton of information in it that can help you understand why your body is being the way it is and what you’re experiencing.  And that Confidence in the Core, Floor, and More online course is appropriate for anyone to take.  There’s more information there.

And then I really just want postpartum people to know that healing is possible.  Doctors don’t give you that sense.  So they’re just kind of like, oh, well, you had a baby.  What do you expect?  And there is healing that can occur, no matter how old your baby is.  Please know that there is support for you to feel better in your body after birth.  And if you’ve been working with a pelvic floor PT or you’ve been seeing a chiropractor for a while and you’re not getting results, please check out one of my birth healing practitioners on my website.  Check out the link to the directory and see if there’s someone nearby.  And also recognize that if you feel your birth was traumatic, you need to work with the trauma from that birth first.  And that is something that I can assist people with via Zoom.  You do not need to be in person to do that trauma release work.  That can be done over Zoom.  So you can reach out to me at the Center for Birth Healing.  That’s my clinical practice.  Just reach out and fill out a form and we’ll get in touch and we can set something up.  That is how I would like to support moms, knowing that there’s practitioners that I’ve trained that know what I’ve talked about here today, and they can support you.

I also have a Facebook group, Institute for Birth Healing Community, that not all of my practitioners who have studied with me are on my directory yet.  I’m working on it.  But there are lots of others who have taken my courses that just are not in that directory.  So find my Institute for Birth Healing Community group.  It’s another avenue to try to connect with someone in your area.  Ask the join that.  And there’s practitioners and moms in there alike, and you can see if there’s someone in your area that people recommend.

Excellent.  You shared so much wisdom in 30 minutes.  Any other social channels you’d like to promote outside of the Facebook group and your website?

Yeah, @instituteforbirthhealing on Instagram.  Join me there, and you can hear what I have to say on Instagram, too.  And then I talked about the YouTube channel, as well.  Those are the best channels for me.  Thank you.

Thanks so much!  We’ll have to have you on again, Lynn.

Absolutely.  I would love that.

IMPORTANT LINKS

Institute for Birth Healing

Lynn’s directory of practitioners

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming a Mother course