postpartum recovery

Acupuncture during Pregnancy and Postpartum: Podcast Episode #103

Leave a Comment / Ask The Doulas Podcast, Postpartum / By Alyssa Veneklase / acupuncture, birth support, childbirth, gold coast doulas, postpartum depression, postpartum doulas, postpartum recovery, pregnancy insomnia, pregnancy podcast, pregnant

Ask The Doulas Podcast · Acupuncture During Pregnancy and Postpartum

Dr. Carrie Dennie, ND speaks with Alyssa about the benefits of acupuncture during pregnancy and postpartum. You can listen to this complete podcast episode on iTunes or SoundCloud.

Alyssa: Welcome to the Ask the Doulas Podcast. You are listening to Alyssa Veneklase. I am the co-owner of Gold Coast Doulas, and today, I am so excited to be talking to Dr. Carrie Dennie, a naturopathic doctor at what was Grand Rapids Natural Health but is now the Michigan Center for Holistic Medicine. Hello!

Dr. Dennie: Hi, Alyssa! Thank you for having me!

Alyssa: I want to know, do you prefer Dr. Carrie or Dr. Dennie?

Dr. Carrie: Dr. Carrie is fine.

Alyssa: Okay. Dr. Carrie. So I have some questions for you. You started out this path, and you became a naturopathic doctor, but then I was reading your bio. You had one acupuncture treatment and just fell in love with it and then went on to acupuncture school and graduated the valedictorian of your class?

Dr. Carrie: I did.

Alyssa: That’s amazing!

Dr. Carrie: Thank you.

Alyssa: That makes me wonder what happened in that treatment of acupuncture that just made you fall in love with it so much.

Dr. Carrie: So it was interesting because my school has both programs, and we get free access as students to go and have free appointments. And so I had never had it, you know. Heard about it, and so I went and tried it. And it was just — I think the — my favorite part about acupuncture is that it’s so relaxing. I don’t care what you’re coming for, if it was pain, if it’s some sort of an organ dysfunction. Nope — well, yes. That is important, and you can get relief, but also, the relaxation. It just — it’s so amazing. It’s just so invigorating. A lot of my patients will say that they feel gentle sensations when they’re in the treatment. And, again, everybody leaves feeling just relaxed and they end up sleeping better that night or even several days afterwards. Like, there’s just so many different ramifications that can occur as a result of one acupuncture treatment. So that’s why I loved it.

Alyssa: So I’ve only had one, so I’m not very experienced in acupuncture, but what exactly — what is it doing? You know, I know I have these little needles poked in. I would imagine that it’s doing something to my nerves, which then send signals to my brain to do something else?

Dr. Carrie: That is correct. So that’s how we understand it from a conventional medical perspective, is that you have nerve stimulation. The nerves release chemical messengers that can go to the brain, the spinal cord, the muscles, the organs, and then affect change from that point on. Also in general, acupuncture can reduce inflammation. It is a stimulator of endorphins, which are natural pain relievers, so obviously can help relieve pain. It can improve blood flow and circulation. And, again, like I said, it is just relaxing and has an overall mood-boosting affect. One other thing that I will say is that I had a patient recently who was undergoing chemotherapy currently, and they were unable to get their treatment because their white blood cell count was too low. So they came for an acupuncture treatment, and after one, the numbers went up enough that this person was able to get his treatment the next time. Again, it’s so amazing how these little needles can affect great change in the body.

Alyssa: Yeah. So this is kind of a strange question that just popped into my head right now, but what’s the most amount of needles you’ve ever had in someone? Or is it typically, like, only a dozen or so?

Dr. Carrie: So I try to keep it around let’s say 15 or 16, and again, it just all depends what they’re coming for. But the most, I think, that I’ve ever personally put into someone was around 30, and the reason why is that their concern involved their fingers and toes. And so I had needles in between fingers and toes, which is about 18 needles in total, let’s say. And so the rest of the other body points add on top of that. Like I said, normally, I try to keep it less than that, but again, it just all depends. This person who I did all these needles in, they felt benefits afterwards. I love it.

Alyssa: And that’s the point, right?

Dr. Carrie: Exactly.

Alyssa: So how do you integrate the two, then? As a naturopathic doctor, how do you integrate that medicine with acupuncture? Is that a silly question because you’re like, well, they just go hand in hand? The benefits of both?

Dr. Carrie: It’s not silly, but you’re 100% correct. They definitely go hand in hand, and it all depends on the patient. So as a naturopathic doctor, for your listeners who may not know, I am trained as a primary healthcare professional, and I am trained to emphasize prevention, treatment, and optimization of health using natural therapies that are safe. And most of the time, research has proven them to be effective. And so primarily my goals are always to identify the root cause of disease, to reestablish the foundations for health, which basically is diet and lifestyle changes, and then again to support the body’s natural ability to heal itself. And that’s the piece right there where acupuncture just fits in perfectly. Again, tiny needles being applied in random places, if you don’t understand the theory behind it, but it, again, it just has so many different effects on different systems. And so like I said, I was in school for naturopathic medicine, but once I had that treatment, I had to add on my acupuncture degree because it just didn’t make sense to leave without this awesome therapy.

Alyssa: For you, it was just a no-brainer. It was like that missing piece of the pie to what you were already doing?

Dr. Carrie: Yes. And it was interesting, what I was learning, because it just makes so much sense when you really start to dive into the theory and why they are — you know, why this person or these people decided to do these things. It’s just so interesting. And it’s natural. Again, the Chinese developed this over 4,000 years ago. They didn’t have MRIs or X-rays but they were able to ascertain functions of the organs in an — you know, almost in the exact same way that we do in western medicine, but there’s some tweaks. But again, it was just amazing, so I had to do it.

Alyssa: I love it. So, you know, for our listeners, most of them are either pregnant or in this postpartum period. If someone were to come to you pregnant or newly postpartum, would you have to treat them differently, or what would treatment look like for them?

Dr. Carrie: So treatment for anyone is initially a two-hour long appointment, and we talk about everything, especially if they’re coming to me for naturopathic medicine. If they’re coming to me for acupuncture, the initial appointment is an hour and a half, and again, we’re still talking for at least an hour in both sessions. But I’m not just focusing on their chief concern, whether it’s, you know, having lactation issues, or I’ve just got this nausea all of a sudden. You know, it’s more than that. I want to know everything because your health is influenced by so many different factors beyond just the physical. You know, what is your mental emotional state? Do you have any religious or spiritual beliefs? Are you walking in those beliefs? Are you using — are you living those principles? All of that affects your health. But then also, too, we talk about the things that you do and the things that you eat and what comes out of your body every day, and hopefully people are looking at the things that come out because, again, these are all…

Alyssa: It’s important!

Dr. Carrie: Yes! These are clues towards your health. And so we talk about all of those things, and then, you know, the thing that I love about naturopathic medicine and that I incorporate with acupuncture is that I want to heal your whole body. I want to care for your whole body so that you can have the best life that you have because your whole is as well as can be. And so that’s usually how it starts is a two-hour treatment. If it’s acupuncture-based, after we talk, then I start the acupuncture, and I have a whole process, especially for people who don’t or who have never had acupuncture before, and I kind of walk them through it. But then they just get to relax afterwards. And if they like heat, there’s heat therapy that can be provided. Music, you know. Essential oils. It’s just relaxing while you lay there. And you can either focus on your breathing, or if you’re a person that prays, you can pray while you’re laying there or you can meditate. Or you can just, again, invite in relaxation and good vibes and sent out the bad ones while you’re resting and not thinking about all the things you have to do afterwards and the nuances of life that tax our systems.

Alyssa: I think that maybe the relaxation part that people who have not had an acupuncture treatment before might not realize is that you put the needles in, and then — is this the case for you? Do you leave the room and then they have time to relax?

Dr. Carrie: Yes.

Alyssa: And that’s what I didn’t know when I had mine is, oh, I just get to sit here in this beautiful room with the noise machine going. But yeah, that sounds lovely. Heat therapy and essential oils. It’s kind of like you get a massage and then you still get to lay there for a little while.

Dr. Carrie: Yes. You get to bask in stillness, you know, and hopefully, you can let go of all the things that are plaguing you for those moments while you’re laying there and just let your body heal itself. You know what I mean? Let your body do what it can do for you when you’re not under stress all the time.

Alyssa: So are there certain areas of the body, then, that you probably couldn’t work on for a pregnant person? Like, you know, certain spots that might activate labor?

Dr. Carrie: Correct. So with pregnant women, we do not — we’re trained very strictly on this. There are several points we do not do during the pregnancy, and even with my patients that are trying to conceive, depending on what’s going on, I may or may not do them, either. But, yes, we’re trained very much not to do those, unless the woman is in the third trimester. Maybe she’s trending towards her due date or she’s past her due date. She wants to try to avoid an induction process in the hospital. Then we would do those points because we are trying to promote labor.

Alyssa: Yeah. That’s a great point because early in pregnancy, you want to avoid them, but you’ve got this mom who’s 38, 39, 41 weeks, and she is in there for the complete opposite reason. Help me get this baby out!

Dr. Carrie: Exactly.

Alyssa: That makes sense. And then what about postpartum? You know, a newly — you know, there’s all sorts of things with healing and then mental and emotional wellness. Is there anything specific in the postpartum time that you would do for a parent?

Dr. Carrie: Totally. So moms, being a new mom or a new parent in general, is overwhelming. Now there’s a whole other human or humans that you have to care for, and it can definitely be an around-the-clock experience. So the first thing that I would suggest for anyone looking to acupuncture to help is for that relaxation piece, to alleviate anxiety; to relieve stress. For the parent to have, again, that moment, time where they don’t have to worry about the baby or babies or their spouse. They can focus on zenning out, relaxing. So that’s number one. Specifically for new mothers, you know, postpartum depression can be a huge obstacle to battle during this time, and so acupuncture, again, would promote serotonin and dopamine production, and these are the happy hormones. So, again, boosting mood. It can improve sleep and boost energy, which are very much important things to have when you have new babies. But beyond that, again, like you said, there’s healing and rejuvenation that needs to happen after a birth, and acupuncture can definitely assist with that. Another thing that people don’t think about is milk production. Acupuncture can definitely help boost lactation so that, you know, that’s one less thing that mom has to worry about.

Alyssa: So where in the body — I’m picturing nipples or needles in the boobs. Where do you — is there another spot on the body for anyone who might say, oh, that sounds interesting, but I don’t think I could handle a needle in my boob. Where does it go?

Dr. Carrie: Totally! Again, all depends on how they present. But you’re 100% correct. There are points in the chest area where I could put needles. I would not, though, and that’s the beautiful thing about acupuncture, like you said, is there are other places that you can put needles, and the answer is yes. So some are — one is on the shoulder area or in the — yeah, on the shoulder area, and then there’s other that are kind of, again, on the limbs that I could use to boost milk production.

Alyssa: That’s really cool. We have two lactation consultants, and I wonder if they’ve ever recommended acupuncture to anyone who’s struggling with milk production. That’s an interesting idea.

Dr. Carrie: Something else, though, that I want to mention, too, as a naturopathic doctor, is I don’t just think in one lens. I have both on, hopefully, if my brain is working correctly. But I would also be thinking about naturopathic therapy. So as we know, labor is a trauma to the body, and depending on — even if it goes smoothly, or even if there are some complications, like you said, healing reformation needs to be done. But you also need to know the state of your body, and a lot of times, bloodwork is necessary or recommended after labor. And so think of things like just the general CBC in case the person is anemic; looking at the thyroid, because there is a connection between delivery or pregnancy and thyroid dysfunction afterwards. And then simple things like vitamin D. Depending on the time of year, you may have been inside for the majority of your pregnancy because it’s cold. What’s your vitamin D status? And so a lot of these, if there are dysfunctions in these areas, it can mimic depression. And so those are things that you want to look at, also, or consider looking at, but then also other lifestyle things. I know that having new babies is overwhelming, like I said, and so are you taking care of you? Are you going outside if it is nice enough to go outside? If you can go outside, you know, I always recommend people go out for 30 minutes. Take the baby for a walk. Hopefully, the rhythm of the walk will put the little one to sleep, and then you can tuck them in the bed when you get back and hopefully have more time. And especially if you live around nature, if you can go into nature, it’s been proven that being in nature is calming. And so those are other things that I suggest. And then the walk is exercise, and that we know is beneficial to the body, as well. You know, it’s just so many different aspects of being that I look at when people come to see me. And so you likely will hear me say things that are naturopathic tips in my acupuncture appointments, and I definitely recommend acupuncture to the majority of my naturopathic patients, unless I know they don’t like needles.

Alyssa: Right. Well, I think even someone who doesn’t like needles, you could put, like, a sleepy blindfold on them or something, because you can’t even feel them. I was so surprised because I was watching, and I was, like, I didn’t even feel that. That’s wild.

Dr. Carrie: It’s so true. A lot of the times, I do hear from people that they don’t necessarily feel certain points. But I won’t lie and say that there aren’t times where you definitely feel the needle go in. But it’s instantaneous, you know what I mean? It’s not like a lingering pain. You’re not going to lay there in pain for 30 minutes. No. You’re going to be relaxed. But you’re right, and they’re very thin. The needles are almost as thin as a strand of hair. It’s totally different from what people think when they’re normally thinking about getting their blood drawn. That’s a huge needle.

Alyssa: I agree. Totally different. Totally different. You know, that makes me wonder, how young — can you take children? Can you do acupuncture on children or even babies?

Dr. Carrie: Yes. Technically — I wouldn’t say babies, but in China, they do acupuncture as young as one year old. But with children that young, the needles are not in for an extended period of time. It’s more of a stimulation of the point and remove the needle and move on to the next point sort of a thing. With children, I think the youngest person that I’ve done acupuncture on was 14. And so for kids, especially us in America where this is not our culture — it’s the norm to have acupuncture as a therapy that they can readily go to. I would say if you’re children can’t be still for, I don’t know, 10 minutes, let’s say, then they probably shouldn’t come for acupuncture. Again, you have to have the mental capacity to be still and be able to relax and not move.

Alyssa: Right. And that’s why it doesn’t work on babies because they’re flailing their arms all around, and if anything, they’re going to hurt themselves more than heal.

Dr. Carrie: Exactly. Right.

Alyssa: This has been enlightening! Is there anything that you wanted to cover that we didn’t cover?

Dr. Carrie: So I just want to mention, for women who are pregnant, definitely, acupuncture is safe and an awesome way to relieve any of the common symptoms that they have at any stage or that they may have at any stage of pregnancy. During the first trimester, if you are having nausea, vomiting, or you’re just extremely fatigued or you may be constipated or have diarrhea, this is an important way to kind of support those systems and just, again, rejuvenate the body. During the second trimester, a lot of times aches and pains occur or start occurring. That is another great reason for acupuncture. Again, if sleep is starting to become uncomfortable, acupuncture is awesome for insomnia. And then even like hemorrhoids or complications from GI dysfunction can be addressed through acupuncture. And then like we were talking, in the third trimester, if they are close to or beyond their due date, labor induction or labor promotion, I should say. And then one thing that’s really interesting that women may not be aware of is that if your baby is in a breech position and the doctor is talking about a C-section, you can come to an acupuncturist and we can do a sort of heat therapy, and it’s really interesting. It’s over your toe, your pinky toe, and it’s amazing. Again, the woman — it’s ideal if she comes at 36 weeks if she finds this out, but we do this heat therapy, and I send them home with the heat therapy so they can do it at home, but a lot of times, the baby will move into the correct position.

Alyssa: That’s incredible. Is there a statistic on how often that actually works?

Dr. Carrie: I don’t know any off the top of my head, but I know that it’s definitely been studied.

Alyssa: Yeah. I’ve heard of it before.

Dr. Carrie: Yeah. The therapy is called moxibustion.

Alyssa: Say that again?

Dr. Carrie: The therapy is called moxibustion.

Alyssa: Moxibustion. Huh.

Dr. Carrie: It’s basically burning a dry cone of Chinese mug wort over the toe, and it sends this, like, smooth, warming sensation deep into the body. We use it for other reasons as well, but that’s — again, you just get it over the toe, and baby flips over the majority of the time, in my experience.

Alyssa: That little baby pinky toe sends some signal all the way into the womb, and tickles that baby right around?

Dr. Carrie: That’s right.

Alyssa: Wow. Well, thank you so much. If somebody wants to find you specifically, I mean, we’ll link to your website and stuff, but why don’t you tell us how people can find you?

Dr. Carrie: So you can definitely find me on Facebook. I’m Dr. Carrie ND on Facebook, and you can also find me on Instagram. But all of this is available on our website.

Alyssa: Perfect. Well, thank you so much for all of that information. I’m sure everyone will love this, and I have learned so much more about acupuncture!

Dr. Carrie: Well, thank you again for having me. I really appreciate it.

Leave a Comment / Postpartum, Pregnancy, Self-Care / By Alyssa Veneklase / gold coast doulas, pelvic floor, postpartum, postpartum depression, postpartum doulas, postpartum recovery

Have you ever heard of an athlete getting back on the field after a major injury WITHOUT a period of rest followed by intense rehab? Of course not! But somehow the expectation for women after their pregnancy is to mysteriously “bounce back” to normal activity, appearance, and function without any guidance. Most mamas even attempt to do this while caring for one or more very adorable, yet extremely needy human beings.

Wow!! Just writing that paragraph made me feel anxious! Thankfully our society is beginning to recognize the fact that child-rearing is hard work and calling in reinforcements is acceptable and often necessary. Thank you doulas, lactation consultants, counselors, chiropractors and more for all that you do! I would like to propose that a Women’s Health Physical Therapist should ALSO be part of your postpartum team.

Women’s Health Physical Therapists specialize in the changes that occur within your musculoskeletal system (muscles and bones) during and after pregnancy. They often have additional training in pelvic health which means they have specialized skills in how to assess the pelvic floor’s function from an external as well as an internal perspective.

Let me tell you a story about how one woman’s body changed after having her first baby; let’s call this woman Susie. In the delivery room, Susie’s baby made its way through the birth canal so quickly that Susie’s perineum had very little time to stretch to make a clear path for her baby to exit. Susie ended up with significant perineal trauma that required stitches to repair. After the delivery, it was painful for Susie to walk around her hospital room and sitting proved to be very uncomfortable as well. She faithfully rested and used her ice packs for pain relief in hopes that with time she would feel better. As time went on and she saw other new moms grocery shopping, going for walks, and starting to exercise again, Susie started to become worried that she was falling behind in her postpartum recovery! Not only was she still having pelvic pain that got worse with activity, she was now having rectal pain that filled her with dread each time she felt the urge to have a bowel movement. Susie was given the go ahead to return to sexual intercourse and begin exercising again at her 6 week follow-up appointment with her OBGYN, but she knew there was no way she could tolerate these activities without experiencing a lot of pain. Susie had proactively participated in Physical Therapy before delivering her baby, so she bravely asked for another referral.

Although a woman’s body is going to be forever changed after participating in the miracle of creating life, mamas shouldn’t feel like they’re left with a body that is broken. Physical Therapists want to give you tools and strategies that keep you strong so you can participate in activities that make you healthy and happy inside and out! We want you to lift and chase after your little ones, return to intimacy in an enjoyable way with your partner, and be able to participate in activities like barre classes, 5ks, and nature hikes. Sometimes it is a common misconception that women “pee when they sneeze” BECAUSE they had a baby, it’s “normal for sex to hurt” BECAUSE they had a baby, or “vaginal heaviness” occurs BECAUSE they had a baby. While it’s true that these things commonly HAPPEN after we’ve had babies, they aren’t normal or inevitable after having children, and it will likely require more than just lots and lots of kegels to solve these problems.

Let’s check in with Susie again to see how things turned out after going to several Physical Therapy appointments. Susie learned that her pelvic floor and surrounding muscles were very tight (kegels were NOT recommended) and that she needed to learn how to combine breathing, stretching, and relaxing positions to maintain a relaxed and healthy pelvic floor. Her Physical Therapist performed manual techniques to break up scar tissue from her episiotomy which improved the elasticity of her perineum. They even taught her how to work on these things at home on her own between sessions. With hard work and guidance from her Physical Therapist, she was able to enjoy sex with her husband again, have bowel movements with less pain, and exercise with confidence because she had learned safe ways to move her body.

Physical Therapy for mamas can be done during your hospitalization, at an outpatient clinic, or even in your own home! And while there are lots of therapists just waiting for mamas to walk through their doors, it isn’t standard for Physical Therapists to be included in postpartum care in the United States. Good news though, they are accessible and sometimes even covered by insurance when you seek them out. You’ll know you’ve found an exceptional Physical Therapist when they ask about your specific goals, give you tasks to complete at home between sessions, and you notice progress after each session.

Knowledge is power, and I hope that this information empowers you to feel comfortable talking to your providers about Physical Therapy or seeking it out on your own. Mamas do incredible things and they deserve to have the resources they need to live their best life.

Newly postpartum and ready to get started? Download this FREE handout to start your postpartum recovery journey today (even useful for mamas still in the hospital!)

If you’re ever looking for free information from the perspective of a mama and Physical Therapist, I put out videos weekly on my YouTube channel. I also offer 1 on 1 Physical Therapy Evaluation and Treatment sessions for moms living in West Michigan and offer an Online Postpartum Recovery Course for moms that don’t have the time or resources to get out to appointments.

Investing in your health is one of the best investments you can make. Become a STRONG mama so you can grow a STRONG family!

Dr. Nicole Bringer, DPT
Owner of Mamas & Misses, LLC
Email: nicole@mamasandmisses.com
Phone: (616) 466-4889

Physical Therapy During Pregnancy

Leave a Comment / Birth, Pregnancy, Self-Care / By Alyssa Veneklase / gold coast doulas, pelvic floor, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, pregnant

Maternity clothes✓ Registry✓ Hospital tour✓ Doula✓ Photographer✓

What could you possibly be forgetting? What about getting YOURSELF prepared?

Likely from the moment you found out you were pregnant you have been focused on the tiny human growing inside of you. While prenatal vitamins, nursery preparations, and choosing the perfect name are all very important parts of preparing for the birth of your baby, so is preparing YOUR body to birth this baby!

Hopefully in the midst of your nesting you have decided to create a birth plan. As you consider what positions you want to labor and deliver in and what interventions you feel comfortable with during your birth experience, I would challenge you to consider what you are doing to achieve those goals. Hiring a doula and recruiting a rockstar support person is a great place to start, BUT there is more!

Research has shown that the percentage of first time moms that experience perineal tearing during delivery is somewhere between 80-90%. Research also shows that 66% of women that deliver their babies in sidelying have NO perineal trauma and 61% of women that deliver on hands and knees have the same TRAUMA-FREE experience. (Simarro 2017, Walker 2012, Soong 2005, Shorten 2002) Instead of crossing your fingers and hoping for the best when it comes to your perineum, what would it look like to practice different delivery positions with your partner BEFORE you go into labor? What about the evidence that says perineal massage 1-2x per week starting at week 35 can DECREASE your risk for tearing and episiotomies? Have you been taught how to perform this technique and are you taking the time to do it? (Seehusen & Raleigh, 2014) With my first son, I totally missed the boat on perineal massage. I ended up with a nasty episiotomy. You better believe I’ll be making perineal massage a priority this time around!

Our bodies become a temporary home for our babies during pregnancy. Our mama bear instincts have already kicked in, and we want to make sure we are creating a healthy and happy environment for our babies to grow within. Exercise and intentional movement is a great way to foster this type of environment for our little ones. Did you know that exercise helps prevent or manage gestational diabetes, high blood pressure and preeclampsia? Exercise also helps us sleep better, reduce our stress levels, and minimize back pain. If your pregnancy is non-complicated and you do not have activity restrictions, you should be exercising! The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommend exercising at a moderate intensity 3-5x per week. Sometimes we become paralyzed when we’re not sure where to start and what’s safe. Trainers, instructors, and Physical Therapists with certifications and experience working with women during pregnancy are great resources for mamas hoping to create safe exercise habits.

Let’s not forget about investing in our pregnant bodies to make life easier for ourselves in the postpartum. During your pregnancy your belly is doubling or even tripling in size. As we gain 25+ pounds, we expect our pelvic floor to step up to the challenge and make sure we don’t pee our pants when we sneeze at the grocery store. There are two studies that give us good reason to keep our pelvic floors strong during pregnancy. The research found that women experienced less urinary incontinence at 35 weeks gestation, 6 weeks postpartum and 6 months postpartum when they did pelvic floor exercises DURING their pregnancy compared to women that DID NOT do pelvic floor exercises. (Boyle et al., 2012, Price et al., 2010) Sidenote: sometimes the phrase “pelvic floor exercises” is confusing. Does that mean kegels? Yes and no. Clear as mud I know! Kegels are pelvic floor exercise where we lift and squeeze our pelvic floor muscles, but it’s also important for our pelvic floors to have the ability to relax and lengthen. Sometimes women experience pelvic pain and incontinence because of overactive pelvic floors (need help relaxing) and sometimes it’s because they have underactive pelvic floors (need more strengthening). Even if you have excellent pelvic floor strength and no concerns about incontinence, it’s still helpful to create a mind-body connection with your pelvic floor. During labor and delivery the goal is to relax and open your pelvic floor while pushing so that your pelvic floor remains healthy even after childbirth. Bonus points if you practice your breathing and pelvic floor relaxation while pregnant in the positions you hope to deliver your baby in.

I’ve been a mom in your shoes, running around with my To-Do list trying to check off all the boxes before my baby arrived. As you prioritize your list and consider your baby budget, remember that your body IS this baby’s home. The way that you prepare your body WILL make a difference on the day that your baby decides to make its grand entrance. Exercise, pelvic floor awareness, perineal massage, and labor positions are all important pieces of the pregnancy puzzle. It’s tempting to become intimidated or overwhelmed at this point because you’re just not sure where to start. Start by consulting a Women’s Health Physical Therapist. Now that you know what your goals are, you have some great questions to ask them! Physical Therapists should be another member of your prenatal team, and we want to help you make your planned Birth Story a reality.

My practice is Mamas & Misses, LLC and we offer In-Home Physical Therapy sessions for women local to West Michigan as well as phone or video consults for those who live further away. One of our missions is to provide knowledge to mamas that will empower you during your pregnancy and postpartum experience; therefore, we have lots of FREE info on our YouTube channel as well as our Instagram account @mamasandmisses_pt.

Dr. Nicole Bringer, DPT
Owner of Mamas & Misses LLC
Email: nicole@mamasandmisses.com
Phone: (616) 466-4889

References

Boyle, R., Hay‐Smith, E. J., Cody, J. D., & Mørkved, S. (2012). Pelvic floor muscle training for prevention and treatment of urinary and faecal incontinence in antenatal and postnatal women. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 10, CD007471. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD007471.pub2

Price, N., Dawood, R., & Jackson, S. R. (2010). Pelvic floor exercise for urinary incontinence: A systematic literature review. Maturitas, 67(4), 309-315. doi: 10.1016/j.maturitas.2010.08.004

Seehusen, D. A., & Raleigh, M. (2014). Antenatal perineal massage to prevent birth trauma. American Family Physician, 89(5), 335-336.

Shorten A, Donsante J, Shorten B. Birth Position, Accoucher, and Perineal Outcomes: Informing Women about Choices for Vaginal Birth. Birth. 2002;29(1):18-27.

Simarro M, Espinosa JA, Salinas C, Ricardo O, Salavadores P, Walker C, Schneider J. A prospective randomized trial of postural changes vs passive supine lying during the second stage of labor under epidural anesthesia. Med. Sci. 2017, 5, 5. doi:10.3390/medsci5010005

Soong B, Barnes M. Maternal position at midwife-attended birth and perineal trauma: is there an association? Birth. 2005;32(3):164-169.

Walker, C., Rodríguez, T., Herranz, A. et al. Int Urogynecol J (2012) 23: 1249. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-012-1675-5

Perinatal Mood Disorders: Podcast Episode #91

Leave a Comment / Ask The Doulas Podcast / By Alyssa Veneklase / birth doula, birth support, childbirth, gold coast doulas, mood disorders, perinatal mood disorders, postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, postpartum doulas, postpartum psychosis, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, pregnancy podcast, stress and pregnancy

Today we talk with Elsa, a therapist at Mindful Counseling in Grand Rapids, Michigan who specializes in perinatal mood disorders. Learn what postpartum anxiety and depression look like, how they are different, and signs to look out for. You can listen to this complete podcast episode on iTunes or SoundCloud.

Kristin: Welcome to Ask the Doulas with Gold Coast Doulas. I’m Kristin, and I’m here today with Elsa Lockman from Mindful Counseling. She’s here to talk to us a bit about postpartum anxiety. Elsa specializes in the following areas: perinatal mood disorders, which includes postpartum depression, anxiety, OCD, grief and loss, eating disorders, and body image issues. She also works with clients dealing with relationship problems, coping with medical illness, trauma and abuse, women’s issues and self-esteem, and mood disorders and anxiety. So obviously, you’re a natural fit working with clients who struggle with everything from eating disorders to anxiety and depression, transitions in their relationships, and expanding their family or having their first child. So today, Elsa, let’s focus a bit on the difference between postpartum depression and anxiety and what women can do if they’re interested in seeking treatment and getting help.

Elsa: Yes, postpartum depression and anxiety can go together. Sometimes women will struggle with anxiety with depression. Sometimes it is separate. Postpartum anxiety and depression can look very different. People classically think of postpartum depression as mothers who don’t connect with their babies, moms who are checked out and can’t get out of bed all day. That’s actually not always the case. Often, women with depression are exhausted and often can’t stop crying. They can’t look, maybe, on the positive side or think rationally. As far as the anxiety, it can come out more in not feeling necessarily down but feeling like you can’t relax; feeling that something bad is going to happen at any time. Having thoughts of something happening to your baby; scary thoughts. Sometimes even flashes of images of very violent things happening or the baby falling, and moms often feel guilty for those, actually, and don’t tell anybody, but they’re actually really important to talk about.

Kristin: I had a friend who was afraid of driving in her car or anyone driving her baby. There can be a lot of, like you said, those intrusive thoughts.

Elsa: Yes, and it’s obsessive sometimes and you can’t get it out of your head. So rationally, you can say, I’m not going to drop the baby going down the stairs. I have the baby in my hands. But it keeps going; it gets hooked, the idea or the image, and then they’ll struggle with almost a loop where it just can’t get out of your head. Or anxiety can present sometimes in something around sickness. No germs. Thinking that my baby is going to get sick; I can’t take her out to the store, and I can’t take her to this house. And how far that goes; I mean, some of these are common sense, and you want to take care of your child, but then how far does it goes? Does it prevent you from doing things that you want to do, or do others notice that maybe this is being a little unreasonable? It seems to be causing you even more anxiety to be thinking some of these things. Another part is that sometimes anxiety can come out as anger. Feeling just angry and irritable; feeling tense. That can come out, obviously, with partners, and they can notice it. Being different, a marked change from before for women. Those are some of the symptoms that come that people can notice with anxiety. Another one would be sleeping; when moms can’t sleep when the baby is actually sleeping. That’s another sign of postpartum anxiety for people to watch out for.

Kristin: Sure. That makes sense. I know even with postpartum doulas in the house, some women still struggle with fully sleeping even though their child is being care for by someone else. And sleep is so essential. There are so many studies on how, if you’re not getting enough sleep, it can lead to mood disorders and anxiety and so on.

Elsa: Yeah, it just leaves women very vulnerable, and now it’s become so normalized that part of the postpartum world is just not getting sleep. And I think it’s also expected that women are also just supposed to go on with their lives and do all the normal things that they’re supposed to do even when they’re running on little to no sleep, and this goes on for weeks or months.

Kristin: Yes! So what resources would you suggest if they’re looking for help? Obviously, we can talk about how to reach out to you!

Elsa: For sure! You can definitely contact Mindful Counseling GR. You can contact Pine Rest. They actually have a mother baby unit, so they actually have therapists that have specialized training, like I do, to work with women postpartum.

Kristin: And now Pine Rest even has the ER when you can —

Elsa: Oh, the urgent care center?

Kristin: Yes, the urgent care center. They can go in at night and not have to go the hospital.

Elsa: yeah, they can go to the urgent care center and get assessed and get attention or treatment a lot quicker. OB offices have a list of therapists who are trained and specialize with postpartum or perinatal mood disorders, which includes anxiety and depression in pregnancy and postpartum. So there’s a list that you can ask for from your OB, as well.

Kristin: Great! How do they directly reach out to you? Are you accepting new patients, Elsa?

Elsa: Yes, I am! You can reach out to me by contacting me through our website.

Kristin: Perfect! Thank you for coming on today!

Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction with Rise Wellness Chiropractic: Podcast Episode #90

Leave a Comment / Ask The Doulas Podcast, Birth, Doulas, Pregnancy / By Alyssa Veneklase / birth doula, chiropractic care, gold coast doulas, high-risk pregnancy, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, pregnancy podcast, pregnant

Dr. Annie and Dr. Rachel talk to Alyssa about Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction (SPD), how to prevent it, how to treat it, and things every pregnant and postpartum woman should be doing! You can listen to this complete podcast episode on iTunes or SoundCloud.

Hello. Welcome to another episode of Ask the Doulas. I am Alyssa, and I’m talking with Dr. Rachel and Dr. Annie again of Rise Wellness Chiropractic. How are you?

Great!

So I got asked by a client about symphysis pubis dysfunction, and I’m not even exactly sure what that is, but you knew. Right when I told you, you knew. So can you tell me?

So SPD — sometimes people think of sensory processing disorder, which is with older kids, but in relation to pregnancy, it’s symphysis pubis dysfunction.

And what the heck does that mean?

It’s a mouthful! So basically, where your two pelvic bones meet in the front is called your symphysis pubis, so that’s where the two bones meet together. There’s cartilage in between there, and that area widens for birth. So usually late second to third trimester, we’ll see some women will start having pain. That can be related to the relaxin that’s in their system that’s helping the ligaments loosen and helping that area separate, but what we usually find is it’s more due to pelvic imbalances. Usually one side of the pelvis is higher than the other or something like that or it’s rubbing in a weird way. That’s usually what causes that symphysis pubis dysfunction.

So it’s strictly for pregnancy?

Yes.

And are there any ways to not get it? Avoid it? Treat it?

Get adjusted!

Yeah, just because if it’s caused from a misalignment —

Exactly. Yeah, if it’s caused from pelvis imbalances, then that is directly a chiropractic issue. It’s biomechanical. That’s something that we can address through adjustments. And then we also have stretches that you can do, and there’s also a Serola belt which is like an SI belt. It goes around your sacroiliac joints, and it’s just a low belt. It doesn’t really do anything in terms of — it’s not like a belly band or something that you would wear to support the baby, but it does help to support the SI joints and keep everything together. Really, it’s hypermobility in that joint that’s causing that pain.

It’s too mobile?

It’s too mobile. Yeah, so we usually see it with not first-time pregnant moms but usually second or third, especially if they’ve had some kind of fall or something like that while pregnant. They can injure their pelvis, and that’s usually what brings those things up. I actually had a patient a couple weeks who came to us for SPD, and under care, she was doing great. All her pain went away. But she had fallen during her first pregnancy, and then during her second pregnancy, she started having all this pain and stuff come on.

So falling during pregnancy; it’s not just like a random fall at any time in your life that could affect this?

It could be. Pregnancy is really good at exacerbating existing issues or past issues. Like if you’ve had any pelvic imbalances in your past and then you’re pregnant, just that relaxin is going to kind of flare things up. Typically, what we see is pain with putting weight on one leg. Climbing stairs is when your pelvis is moving the most, so that’s usually when a lot of the pain is flared up.

Walking; something that you don’t have to do very often.

Yeah!

Sounds horrible!

But sitting is not good for it either. It’s one of those things that nothing is good for it.

Laying hurts; turning while you’re laying. Like that’s not already hard when you’re in the third trimester!

Does it actually cause any more pain or discomfort during labor and delivery?

It can. It depends on really, like, what the pelvis — because if you think of the pelvic bowl, if there’s imbalances in the pelvis, it’s not just affecting the bones. It’s also affecting your pelvic floor muscles. It’s affecting all of your stabilizer muscles. So it can potentially affect how things go during labor. I don’t know if it creates more pain, necessarily, or if it would be, but any pelvic imbalance is going to effect, probably, the efficiency of your labor.

Plus, it doesn’t necessarily clear up after.

That was my next question.

Yeah, it’s not like you deliver the baby and then it’s gone.

Because you still have that imbalance?

Exactly.

Exactly, yeah.

So then what do you do for that? Just keep getting adjusted?

Well, it should clear. If you’re getting adjusted, it should help clear it up while pregnant. So I guess what we’re saying is, you should get checked if it’s happening.

I mean, it’s definitely like you have to retrain that pelvic imbalance somehow, and you do that through chiropractic adjustments or through exercises, through physical therapy, sutff like that.

Yeah. PT floor rehab, yeah.

Probably a combination of both, right?

Right. If you do it all, then you probably have best outcomes.

Yeah, I don’t think we understand how important the pelvic floor is, and all we’ve learned is Kegels. That’s not necessarily even a good thing to think. When I saw a physical therapist for pelvic floor issues specifically, I was, like, that makes so much sense! Even just the way we breathe; I didn’t know that my diaphragm was part of — what would that be? The top? The diaphragm is the top of your pelvic floor?

Yeah. It’s the top of your —

Like the space? I guess I can’t say top of the floor. Your pelvic floor is the floor.

Your intrabdominal space. So it’s like the lid, and then your pelvic floor is the bottom. But it’s a big airtight balloon, pretty much, so when you breathe, it affects everything. But pelvic floor is an issue that we don’t talk about, really, with women in birth, but it’s a huge thing. Every woman who pushes out a baby has pelvic floor issues. Every woman who has a C-section has pelvic floor issues because those are attached to your abdominals, too. So, really, every woman should be getting some kind of rehab on pelvic floor after birth. That’s my soapbox!

I’m in these group exercise classes, and every woman is, like, oh, jumping jacks. I’m going to pee my pants! I had one friend who was, like, I was working out and I didn’t know if it was sweat or I had peed my pants! Yeah. I get it!

Well, pelvic floor and core strength, too, are both things that get overlooked with women after pregnancy, and then we see women with back pain later, and it’s because their core is so weak. So, really, we’re just promoting physical therapy pelvic floor rehab. It’s what needs to be done.

And chiropractic care. Retraining all that neurology is important.

I think even just learning about it! I’ve done yoga classes forever, and they will say, like, during this pose, tighten your pelvic floor. I’m, like, what the hell are they talking about? What? How do I do that? But now after learning that even breathing is different and the feeling of — I hate saying Kegel because it’s not even what it is, but I guess that is the feeling of what you would do to stop your pee, but doing that during certain exercises is a whole different feeling, but I think now that I’m conscious of it, I’m, like, oh, that makes sense. Oh, I can do that here. Okay. It’s gotten a lot better, but I still can’t do jumping jacks.

See? The jumping jacks! I don’t do them either. They’re like, do jumping jacks to warm up, and I’m like… No.

I do the ones where I just put my hands up. I just kick my leg out. I’m fine with it!

It’s what everyone’s doing! They call those jumping jills.

Is there anything else pregnant or postpartum women need to know about symphysis pubis dysfunction?

It’s not something that you need to suffer through. There’s a lot of chiropractic studies where it helps in a lot of case studies, but also, biomechanically, it makes sense. You don’t have to feel like you can’t walk up the stairs or sit or that you have to be in a lot of pain when you’re trying to sleep. Find out you’re pregnant and get under care. That’s really what we tell people.

Tell people where to find you!

We are in East Town in the Kingsley Building right next to Gold Coast Doulas, or you can find us at our website or on Facebook and Instagram. You can message us on those platforms.

Well, as always, thanks! We’ll have you on again soon!

Stress Mastery: Podcast Episode #85

Leave a Comment / Ask The Doulas Podcast / By Alyssa Veneklase / birth support, gold coast doulas, postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, pregnancy podcast, sleep deprivation, stress and pregnancy, tandem nursing

Deb Timmerman, RN, DAIS, CSME speaks with us today about her new certification in Stress Mastery. What does that mean, you ask? It’s all about learning positive ways to handle stress and actually master it, instead of letting stress take over. Listen to see how this can help parents throughout pregnancy and postpartum. You can listen to this complete podcast episode on Itunes or SoundCloud.

Alyssa: Hello, welcome to Ask the Doulas Podcast. I am Alyssa Veneklase, and I’m so excited to be talking to Deb Timmerman today. I haven’t seen you in so long!

Deb: Hi, Alyssa, it’s great to see you, too!

Alyssa: For a little while, we had you teaching a prenatal stress class here, and then life and business just got kind of in the way, and we haven’t scheduled any more, but I loved that class. You have so much good information about stress and how stress affects the body, but now you have some new certifications where you’re actually talking about how our bodies need stress to a certain extent; is that correct?

Deb: I am. So I think maybe the first place to start is, why the prenatal stress education? I’m a member of the Michigan ACEs Initiative Education team, and that’s not a formal name, but a couple years ago, Michigan got some grant money to bring the ACEs study — ACEs stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences study — and the consultants who were involved in that study, they actually set up a agreement for them in Michigan to use the ACEs science to see how we could change the way we’re delivering healthcare in Michigan. So the ACEs study is all about things that happen in childhood, like dysfunctional household, abuse, neglect, and you basically get a score for the ten questions that are on this little survey, and what they found was that the higher your score, so if these things happened to you from 0 to 18, the more likely you are to have emotional, physical, mental health issues as you age, and it even cuts time off your lifespan. As they began to do further studies after that, they found out that some how we deal with stress actually affects our genes and is passed on when you have a baby. That’s a long answer to that, but I think it’s really important because it’s where kids get their start, and if you don’t know about that, you can unknowingly pass on certain things to your kids.

Alyssa: You are in this high-stress environment while pregnant. It’s affecting your baby?

Deb: Yes, it is.

Alyssa: And I remember the movie. It was called Resilience?

Deb: It’s called Resilience, the science of stress, biology of hope. Or maybe that’s backwards; biology of stress; science of hope. Anyway, you can find it, Resilience, and there’s a trailer out. Yes, really interesting movie.

Alyssa: It is. Tell me about your new certifications and this new idea about stress.

Deb: Okay. I was an ACEs kid. Out of ten, my score was six, and when I learned about that particular piece of data in my life, it clarified everything for me.

Alyssa: And six is high?

Deb: Six is high, yes. Anything over four, it really increases your chances and your risk level. So I had a lot of health issues when I was in my 40s. I fell down a flight of stairs on my summer vacation, had a bad injury from that. But also was extremely heavy. I weighed 321 pounds, and I was on diabetes medication and high blood pressure pills, and I had a really high-stress job. And my family life was nuts. So I happened to go to a conference, a nursing conference, and heard about this, and it was like I had discovered something really critical. It was like the missing puzzle piece for me to figure out why I reacted or had the habits that I had, and as I started to travel down that road, I became really interested in sharing that information with people because I think it’s key. We spend a lot of money on the back side of health, taking care of chronic illness. My thought was, wow. This made a huge difference for me. What if I could share that information with folks?

Alyssa: And it’s probably worth noting that you are an RN?

Deb: I am an RN.

Alyssa: And that’s what you were doing in your previous life?

Deb: I did, and I didn’t know about that particular study at that time, and I wasn’t — I mean, they cover the stress response in nursing school, but not to the point with all the brain science and all of that. So in the last 20 years, they’ve made huge discoveries, and it’s super interesting.

Alyssa: When did you leave the nurse world?

Deb: Four years ago, I left the nurse world and started my own practice, but I had trained as a healing touch practitioner. In 2009, I started that, and I don’t remember when I finished, but I was never able to use that in a private practice, but I did in my buildings. I was a nurse manager in both of my previous jobs, and I found that when you teach people those self-care skills, it really changes your culture, and it made us care about each other. When we care about each other, we do better with our patients and the folks that we’re charged with caring for.

Alyssa: So you taught the other nurses or the patients?

Deb: Eventually, we did teach nurses healing touch at the hospice, which was my last job, but there are all kinds of other really cool interventions that you can do to build capacity for stress management, and those are the things that we worked on. You mentioned the stress certification. I’ve been a diplomate of the American Institute of Stress for a couple years, and you get that designation based on the amount of training that you’ve had regarding stress and how you’ve used that to help other people, and at the end of last year, this little thing came in my email box, that they were doing a beta for this stress mastery educator certification, and I got invited to submit an application. I was one of 40 people throughout the world that was chosen for beta one, and we worked with Heidi Hannah. She’s a Ph.D. researcher and stress mastery educator and teaches at Harvard, and she has all these other amazing professors and Ph.Ds. who share this information, so I was super interested and hoped I would get selected just because I thought it would be really neat to learn from these people. And it has been beyond my wildest expectations.

Alyssa: What is stress mastery?

Deb: We talk about stress management like we have to manage stress, but we actually need some stress in our life to help us grow, learn, and adapt. And when we master something, it means that we learn to dance with it in a positive way, and we use it to fuel positive change versus working on controlling what’s going on in our life. So I actually now help people build their capacity versus teaching them how to manage it.

Alyssa: Build my capacity to deal with stress instead of trying to reduce it or eliminate it?

Deb: Yeah. The way we do that is through evidence-based practices like the healing touch that I did. That was one thing I had under my belt, but since then, I’ve become a Tai Chi Easy Practice leader. That’s all about Qigong breathing and moving meditation. I’ve also gotten a certification in mindfulness and meditation. Breathing and some of those other key interventions that we can do on a daily basis throughout our day are really what helps stop that stress reaction and helps us build that capacity.

Alyssa: What if somebody is like you before with a really stressful job and a stressful home life? All these stressors: you don’t want people to try to eliminate some of that? You just want them to learn effective ways to cope?

Deb: Well, I don’t think that you really — coping means that we have to continue to deal with it, and yes, you do have to decide what you’re going to work on first, and there are certain areas of life that you’re going to have to make some decisions about and maybe pare down, or maybe that job is really horrible for your health and it’s time for you to move on. So we do validated stress assessments to figure out what areas of your life and out of sync and where your stress issues come from so that you can make good decisions. Oftentimes, when you’re in the midst of it, you just know that the world is falling down around you, and you don’t have any clarity about where that stress is coming from.

Alyssa: So how do you differ from a therapist or a counselor? Or do you also kind of work that in?

Deb: I would say I work in tandem with a therapist or a counselor. I’m not going to talk to you about all the things that happened to you in your childhood. I don’t get into all of that. We use the ACEs screen as a way to help you recognize how your stress patterns developed and then look at the different areas that are out of balance in your life, and then I’m going to teach you how to do a daily practice to help yourself not be so triggered. Triggers and tamers, I would look at; what are you stress triggers; how can we work with that; what kind of language are you using with yourself. That negative stuff breeds more negativity. How can we switch that around to help you have a more positive outlook? I do a lot with breathwork. It is one of the easiest ways to get that stress reaction to moderate and to get you into that rest and digest state so that you can think clearly. The way the brain is organized, the brain’s number one job, priority one, is safety. It’s always scanning, looking at the environment, trying to figure out how to keep you safe. The stress reaction is what keeps you safe. It gives you that juice, that bolt, of adrenaline to get to safety. But when you’re stuck in that feedback loop and that’s your whole life, you really can’t think and use the part of your brain for higher executive functioning because that feedback loop kind of gets in this little track. Do you know those people in your life, where they’re kind of stuck in that? Things are always falling down around them. Some of the exercises for building capacity are to be able to get that to shut off so that your brain can actually rewire and build new circuitry for that. That’s capacity-building.

Alyssa: Do you think everyone in general could benefit from some sort of practice?

Deb: Absolutely.

Alyssa: It’s not just the high anxiety, panic mode — I mean, I think we all feel it at some point, right? So even if you don’t have it on a daily basis, you’re noticing it — like you said, what are your triggers? So how do you — we talked a little bit about prenatal. What about a postpartum mom who has sleep deprivation working against her, as well, and then maybe new triggers that she didn’t even know existed before, who says I don’t have time to do Tai Chi with you. Are you crazy? I can’t do Tai Chi and meditate. How would you help a mom who came to you and said, what can you do for me?

Deb: I would tell a mom like that, what did you do to take care of yourself before, and what are you doing now? Typically, when a new baby comes in or there’s a child, they take first priority, and oftentimes, moms are trying to work and take care of this, and the demands are huge. So first we would walk through, what are you doing now? What did you love? What do you have time to do? How can we structure something so that you give yourself some attention every day? We’ve all heard that adage, you can’t give from an empty cup. That’s super important. Your child, from zero to three, learns from serve and return, and you need to have the energy to show up for your child every day so that that child learns to feel safe with you, cared for, and loved. If you don’t have that ability for your child, then you’re going to be suffering with problems further on down because your child develops anxiety, sleep issues, all those things.

Alyssa: And what do you mean, develops from serve and return?

Deb: Babies mimic what we do to them, the cooing, the eye movement, hugs, kisses. That’s serve and return. When you’re munching on your baby and nuzzling, that actually builds their neural circuitry and helps them feel safe. It’s a normal part of development. We used to think that babies got all their neurons and they were never going to get another one after they were born, and what you had, if you didn’t use, you would lose. There’s a little bit of truth to that. What gets paid attention to develops, and what doesn’t eventually kind of gets pruned away. There’s a process actually called pruning in the brain. But we know that neural circuitry actually develops now from our experiences and the things that happen in our world around us, so you want to create that loving, safe environment for your baby, and if you come home stressed out and you have nothing else left to give, are you doing the right thing for that child?

Alyssa: So zero to three is really, really important?

Deb: Very important!

Alyssa: Into my brain is popping this video I saw where a mom gives a sad face or a mad face and the baby mimics that. There’s an actual study, and I’m forgetting the name of it.

Deb: I don’t know that particular study, but the Center for Child Development at Harvard does a lot with that serve and return, and they actually have a campaign going right now. I’ll post that link on my website, and you can look at that if you’re interested. Lots of wonderful videos about how the brain develops and why that’s so important. Back to the mom: trying to figure out what she can do within her day to recharge her batteries is super important. Actually, I just met with a mom this morning. I think her little guy is four, and then she’s got one that’s maybe two. And she said that they just went through a period of stress where their family dog was sick, and they had some financial issues, and their older one started acting out. My question to her was, and what was going on in your household? She said it was chaos, and then she looked at me and goes, oh, crap, he saw that, didn’t he? So yes, that is exactly what happens. And their job is to build a relationship with you, so if you can’t be present, they’re going to act out because they’re trying to get their needs met.

Alyssa: They notice everything. My daughter is six, and nothing gets by her.

Deb: I think I saw a picture with her meditating someplace when you were off, and I thought, wow, Alyssa, that’s awesome. What a great skill to teach your child!

Alyssa: Well, it’s amazing even in schools now; I think they know the importance of this. They’re teaching yoga. They’re teaching mindfulness. They’re teaching meditation. And even if it’s only once a week — I never had that as a kid.

Deb: Well, and when it becomes part of what we do as our daily practice, it becomes easy. It becomes habit. So then it’s not like you have to spend all this time on self-care. You have it integrated into your day. That’s really my job; to teach you how to discover all these different practices that might speak to you because what you love isn’t necessarily going to be what someone else loves. Figuring that out, and then how do you work that into your day, and how do you sustain that for long term?

Alyssa: That’s the hard part, especially as a mother. My days are never the same, so I would love to be able to say, from 9:00 to 10:00 AM every day, I’m going to do this. Doesn’t happen. I mean, on top of that, I’m a business owner, too, right, so the day just gets more hairy. But having someone say, okay, well, let’s figure out something that can work for you. If you can’t do it at 9:00 today, let’s do it at 8:00.

Deb: The newest research that’s out there is that you should start your day with that practice before you even hop out of bed, and my favorite go-to is a guided meditation. It’s the thing that always made me feel really good, and it’s the thing that I teach because I love it. There’s lots of them on YouTube, and the cool thing about YouTube is you can pick the amount of time that you have. Maybe today you have five minutes, and tomorrow you have ten, but building that and scheduling that into your week. And then because there’s so many different ones, you could pick the rate of speech, the kind of voice. Like, I have one that I love at night. It’s an Aussie guy who does a sleep thing that’s maybe 26 minutes. I’m never awake by the end of that. I usually wake up the next day and it’s still frozen on my iPad. It’s wonderful.

Alyssa: For someone who has never experienced a guided meditation, you could choose some with or without talking? Or do they all have talking?

Deb: A guided meditation typically is something that helps cue you by voice to pay attention to your body in the here and now, and there’s all different kinds of scripts out there, but for someone who’s just beginning, I think a breathing thing, a couple minutes of breathing, is really good, and then after you get comfortable with that, you can explore. We know that the brain needs 10 to 20 minutes of that prime-timing in the morning, but truly, any time you can do 30 seconds or more with focused attention on that effort, it’s still beneficial to your body.

Alyssa: My Apple watch actually does that for me. It will tell me when to breathe.

Deb: Yeah, it has a breathing app. Perfect.

Alyssa: So that alone, if I do it — most of the time, I’m somewhere that I can’t do it and I just dismiss it.

Deb: If I was working with you to coach, I would talk about what you already have in place, and we would work on building that. How could you work that into your day, and really, even if you’re in a meeting, you could excuse yourself, go to the restroom or whatever, if you were that committed, or reset your watch or program it so that it works around your meetings. Those are all things that you can integrate into your day.

Alyssa: I love it.

Deb: It’s easy.

Alyssa: I mean, it is. We just find excuses of why we can’t or shouldn’t. I just feel like we’re always full of excuses.

Deb: Well, I think that’s what I’ve appreciated being part of this stress mastery educator process. Heidi is wonderful at being able to package things in a way that are easy and doable. Three steps to getting your stress mastered: assess, appreciate, adjust. Figure out where you’re out; appreciate what you can learn; and then those tools to adjust. And then the BFF model, so yeah, being your own best friend, but it really stands for breathe, feel, and focus. It’s really that simple. We make it difficult because we think it’s this thing that has to take a lot of time. What takes time is changing the habit, but once it gets integrated, then it’s easy.

Alyssa: And then coming full circle here, working that in to your daily practice and having your children see that as part of your practice, right?

Deb: Yes.

Alyssa: Because then they are like, oh, this is just something we do.

Deb: Yes. Last week, I actually taught teachers how to look at their own stress, a group of 20, to look at what was happening, and they got to choose the track that they wanted to be in, so at the start of the two days that we were together, why are you here? My mother in law is driving me crazy; I need to figure out how to get hold of my stressor. At the end of my day, I have nothing left for my family. Starting with the ACEs piece that we talked about and recognizing how they developed the way they look at stress. What were the patterns? What are their triggers? It was really beneficial for them. Many of them have ACE training otherwise in their classrooms, but they don’t know how to apply it to their own lives. I mentioned that puzzle piece for me. That was it. Okay, now that I understand how I developed it, now I can shift because I can appreciate how I got where I am and make those adjustments. It makes it a whole lot easier than someone saying, oh, I have to do these ten things today because I have to manage my stress. At the end of the two days, it was so fun to go around in the circle and to hear them say what they learned about their own issue and what their one takeaway was going to be and how they were going to integrate it. You can throw out everything you’ve done and say that you have to start with ten things, but the reality is, we don’t have time for that, and it needs to be graduated. You start with one thing, two things, three things, and pretty soon, you start to feel the shift, and then you’re motivated to do the rest of the work. So yes, they’ll go back and model that, hopefully, for their students.

Alyssa: For their classroom, yeah.

Deb: I taught some interventions, some Tai Chi interventions, moving meditation, breathwork, short meditations. You don’t have to come up with all the stuff on your own. There are tons of resources out there. My job is to just share those resources with you and have you pick what you want.

Alyssa: Tell us how people find you. I know you have a website.

Deb: Yes, and you can follow me on Facebook. Deb Timmerman is my name. I’m on LinkedIn. Same thing, Deb Timmerman, RN. And then on my website.

Alyssa: And people can find you there?

Deb: They can find me there.

Alyssa: Ask questions?

Deb: Ask questions!

Alyssa: And set up a consult?

Deb: Yep, sure can!

Alyssa: Is it just kind of like booking an appointment? And what do appointments look like — 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 20 minutes?

Deb: I typically offer an assessment or at least a meet and greet first to find out if we’re even compatible in working together. That’s usually a 30- or 45-minute, either online; we can do a Zoom call, or we can meet in person if you’re local over coffee, and finding out what your goals are. What is it you hope to learn? Why did you call me? What’s your reason? What’s your motivation? And then I would recommend, based on that appointment, what I thought was a good strategy for us and how long that might take and what that would cost, and then we would work together.

Alyssa: Excellent. Are you covered by insurance or not?

Deb: We are not at this point covered by insurance, but I think that’s going to change because there is a big shift with all this ACEs movement, and they’re all getting on board. Yeah, but in terms of investment, I think — my job isn’t to stick around forever. It’s to give you those tools so that you can go on your own, and if you need a little check-up now and again, that’s easy to do. We offer all kinds of online resources for people, and a podcast. There are medications on there that you can do.

Alyssa: What’s your podcast called?

Deb: It’s called Mindful Moments.

Alyssa: How fitting!

Deb: Those podcasts, there’s always a little nugget of information. Usually, they’re short, 7 to 8 minutes, but there’s a couple that are 20, like if you need a longer relaxation and have time.

Alyssa: I will have to look it up myself! Thanks for sharing!

How Sleep Deprivation Impacts New Parents

Leave a Comment / Parenting, Sleep / By Alyssa Veneklase / baby monitor, gold coast doulas, postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, postpartum doulas, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, pregnant, safe sleep, sleep consultant, sleep deprivation, sleep tips, sleeping during pregnancy

Becoming a parent is one of the most exciting and scary milestones of a person’s life. It’s likely your emotions will run the gamut from excited anticipation and joy, to fear of the unknown and uncertainty about what’s ahead and how you’re coping with parenthood. Managing night time feeds, tending to your baby throughout the day, and trying to keep up with your other responsibilities as you acclimatize to parenthood can make sleep difficult. While this is somewhat expected, sleep deprivation can have a serious impact on the health of new mothers and their babies, so it is important to get as much rest as possible.

The importance of sleep for new parents
The diminished quality and quantity of sleep that new parents often experience can result in physical and mental fatigue and an increased risk of postpartum depression. Prolonged lack of sleep or poor sleep quality can also increase the risk of diabetes, weaken your immune system, reduce attention and focus, and impair hormone production, causing weight gain, loss of libido, and moodiness.

Because our bodies require sleep to function correctly – and a specific amount of sleep that allows us to cycle through the various sleep stages several times throughout the night – a dip in the standard or quantity of hours we accumulate asleep in bed can have a far-reaching impact on our health and quality of life. One recent study found an association between poor sleep quality and postpartum depression.

There are two main phases of sleep – NREM (non-rapid eye movement) and REM (rapid eye movement, when dreams occur). Throughout these stages, specific changes and functions are carried out in our bodies and brains. NREM phases are when most of the physically restorative processes of sleep are performed. Our muscles and cells are repaired, our immune system is boosted, and the deep sleep of stage three NREM is what’s needed to wake feeling refreshed in the morning.

REM sleep occurs around 90 minutes after we first fall asleep and NREM phases are complete. This is the dreaming phase and the time that our brains process the salient and emotional experiences from waking life. When our body doesn’t get the required amount of sleep, it is unable to consolidate all the emotional and experiential data we have collected while awake, neither is it able to complete the physically restorative processes we need to feel refreshed and energized. That’s why we feel fatigued, forget things easily, and may find it difficult to manage our emotions.

Tips for getting the right amount of sleep
While some disruption to your sleep is to be expected as you adjust to the new normal; the good news is that there are a range of tactics and strategies you can employ to still get the amount of sleep your body needs.

Create the right environment for sleep:
When you do head to bed, it is important that you are able to drift off to sleep as quickly as possible so you can maximize your sleep time. To create the right environment for good sleep, keep your bedroom cool and dark. Light affects our melatonin production and signals to our brain that it’s time to get up. Turn the baby monitor down too so their snuffles and murmurs don’t disturb you, but you’ll still wake if they cry out for comfort. If you do have trouble falling asleep, try a wind-down relaxation or mindfulness meditation that will help calm your mind and body.

Share the responsibility:
Taking care of a baby is a 24/7 job that requires constant activity and emotional resilience. No one should expect that they can do this on their own.

Negotiate a schedule with your partner that lets you share nighttime feeds, diaper changes, and those evenings when baby just doesn’t want to go to bed. It’s necessary to ensure you have the right support so the sleep and health of you, your partner, and baby don’t suffer.

Accept help:
Have you ever heard the African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child”? This isn’t just about the direct interactions; it’s all the support functions that are needed to raise a happy healthy child too. Don’t be afraid to ask for help with the cooking, cleaning, endless laundry, groceries, or just holding your baby for a while so you can have a shower and dress! The everyday, mundane tasks that were so simple pre-baby can take monumental effort to complete once there’s a baby in the house. Most people know this and will be happy to lend a hand.

Embrace the nap:
Babies rarely sleep for more than four hours at a time. While this is a major contributing factor to those interrupted nights, the multiple two to three-hour naps your baby takes through the day provides ample opportunity for you to rest too – if you let yourself. Resist the urge to catch up on chores and instead take a half hour nap that will help manage your fatigue. Avoid sleeping longer than 45 minutes though as this will adversely impact your night’s sleep.

Christine Huegel is on the Editorial Team of Mattress Advisor, covering a variety of topics pertaining to sleep health in order to help people get their best night’s sleep.

Image via www.pexels.com.

Understanding Your Cycle: Podcast Episode #82

Leave a Comment / Ask The Doulas Podcast, Pregnancy / By Alyssa Veneklase / gold coast doulas, high-risk pregnancy, postpartum, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, pregnancy insomnia, pregnancy podcast, pregnant, sleeping during pregnancy

Dr. Nave now works with queens through her virtual practice Hormonal Balance. She talks with us today about a woman’s monthly cycle. What’s “normal”? What if you don’t get a period at all? Is PMS a real thing? You can listen to this complete podcast episode on iTunes or SoundCloud.

Alyssa: Hello, welcome to Ask the Doulas. I am Alyssa, and I’m here with Kristin. Our guest today is Dr. Nave, who is a naturopathic doctor at Health for Life Grand Rapids.

Dr. Nave: Hi!

Alyssa: We were excited to meet you – what was it, a few weeks ago? We presented to your team, and you – I was really intrigued. Tell everyone what you specialize in as an ND, and then they’ll know why I wanted to talk to you so bad.

Dr. Nave: I am especially excited about assisting women to reconnect to their identities, and the way in which I do that is by really looking at their hormones, their mental health, their physical health, and other aspects of their life.

Alyssa: Do you only work with women?

Dr. Nave: No, I do not, but my passion is women.

Alyssa: So today you’re going to talk about cycles, and I know you have a couple specific thing about a woman’s cycle that you want to talk about, so explain what those are, and then let’s just dive in.

Dr. Nave: Okay. I want to talk about what a typical cycle should look like, so this is how your cycle should look if nothing is going wrong. And then we’ll transition to talking about PCOS and what is going on with that.

Alyssa: And what does PCOS stand for?

Dr. Nave: PCOS is polycystic ovarian syndrome. In medical terminology, a syndrome just means a cluster of symptoms that fit this particular diagnosis, and so with PCOS, what’s happening is that the woman isn’t bleeding or she has skipped periods, and that is due to low progesterone, which is an important hormone that allows the endometrial lining, basically, in the uterus so that implantation of the fertilized egg can happen.

Alyssa: Okay. So let’s talk first about what it should look like.

Dr. Nave: Sure. With our cycle, there are five main hormones that influence a woman’s hormonal cycle. We have LH and FSH, which are the hormones that are produced by the brain to tell an egg to mature and to allow the endometrial lining, which is basically the build-up of tissue in the uterus that allows the implanted fertilized egg to become a baby. So we have those two hormones that are produced by the brain, and then we have estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone that are produced in the ovary.

Alyssa: All the time, or only if an egg is implanted?

Dr. Nave: At specific times. A typical cycle, in terms of what we would call the normal cycle or the optimal cycle, would be a 28-day cycle. We have some leeway in terms of, in the medical community, how we diagnose whether it’s too long or too short, whether it be above 35 days or less than 21. For me, I think it’s best if it’s 28 days because it’s kind of like cycle with the moon, so the lunar cycle, because it also helps with the math. So we’ll just use 28 for the typical just for explaining what happens. In the first 14 days, that’s what we call the ovulatory – like, the building up of estrogen. The brain tells the ovary, by way of follicular stimulated hormone, FHS, to make one of the eggs mature. So it’s like, hey, ovary, let one of these eggs become the mother, so to speak. The brain does that, and then the ovary responds by allowing one of the eggs to become mature. We have multiple eggs that are responding during this time in different life stages, but the one that is the oldest usually gets picked, in terms of its life phase. It becomes mature; the estrogen is being made by the egg itself, which allows for that ovulation to occur. FHS tells the egg to become mature, and then the egg itself makes estrogen so the egg can further mature. It’s a fascinating, interesting thing that’s happening.

Alyssa: That’s during ovulation?

Dr. Nave: Yes, so during the first 14 days of your cycle, the estrogen is building up so that the egg can fully mature. Then what happens is that there are two types of cells that are a part of the egg. One produces estrogen, and the other aspect makes testosterone, so those are the other two hormones that we’re talking about. Once the egg matures and it’s released, the thing that’s left behind is called the corpus luteum, also known as the yellow body. That then makes progesterone. All of this is sort of happening at the same time, so we say 14 days for the ovulatory phase, but really, it’s like the brain is telling the body to make progesterone at the same time it’s telling the body to make estrogen. It’s just that it’s at a lower level. Until the egg is released. You don’t really have that progesterone being made.

Alyssa: It’s ebbing and flowing based on the day of your cycle?

Dr. Nave: Yes, yes. Around day 14 is when the egg is released. It’s the highest level of estrogen at that point in time, and then the yellow body that’s left behind – the brain told the egg, by way of the luteinizing hormone, LH, to start making progesterone. Are you following?

Alyssa: Kind of, yeah. In my head, that little egg is moving along, following a timeline.

Dr. Nave: Right! At day 14, we have the highest estrogen, and progesterone starts to climb up.

Alyssa: And estrogen is decreasing and progesterone is increasing?

Dr. Nave: Yeah, estrogen is at its peak; progesterone starts to spike up a lot more. I’m grossly simplifying it, sorry! As the progesterone is being built up – so the corpus luteum is making the progesterone because the brain told it, hey, make progesterone by way of the LH, the luteinizing hormone. That causes, then, the endometrial lining in the uterus to build up so that implantation of the egg can happen. Towards day 28, which is when you expect bleeding to occur – basically, the reason why bleeding occurs is that the progesterone starts declining at that point because progesterone is necessary for the build-up of the uterine wall so that implantation can happen, but if there’s no fertilization off the egg, then it basically is a withdrawal of the progesterone, and then it just sloughs off.

Alyssa: So day number one is not the – is that the day your period starts?

Dr. Nave: Yes.

Alyssa: So day 28, then, is the day before you period starts? Okay, I’m seeing the timeline in my head.

Dr. Nave: Yeah. Day one, when a doctor asks a woman, okay, what’s day one of your period, he or she is technically asking, when’s the first day of your bleeding. Technically, we’re always cycling, but we consider day one the last time you bled. That’s what the cycle should look like. Now, when we experience our periods, even though people consider it the status quo that we experience PMS, we don’t have to experience it. Does that make sense?

Alyssa: The hormonal changes don’t necessarily mean that we’re going to have the mental and – becoming angry or disorganized or frustrated?

Dr. Nave: Yeah. Seeing those symptoms for a woman, that would indicate to me that maybe the ratio is a little bit off. Some examples are acne or being really bloated. Being bloated, puffy, having water retention and having really heavy bleeding – that could be a sign that the woman is experiencing what we call estrogen dominance. Now, estrogen dominance doesn’t necessarily mean that she has high estrogen. It could just mean that her progesterone is low and therefore throwing off the ratio so that when she’s experiencing premenstrual syndrome, PMS, she’s experiencing these symptoms, even though if it were normal, she wouldn’t have to.

Alyssa: So you’re not saying that PMS is made up. It’s a real thing; it just means there’s an imbalance somewhere? It can be fixed, that you don’t have to deal with this stuff?

Dr. Nave: Absolutely. And the weepiness: estrogen. Estrogen is important for our bone health, our cardiovascular health. It’s the reason why we as women don’t get heart attacks until much later in life because it protects our hearts; it’s important for our bone health, which is why when you experience menopause or perimenopause, it’s very important to get your bone density checked. That’s the importance of estrogen. And then testosterone, which is produced by the egg, is important for sex drive and being able to be aroused.

Alyssa: What happens in a woman’s body when they’re aroused that helps with implantation?

Dr. Nave: When the woman is aroused, that allows the cervix to sort of pulsate so that when climax is achieved, the sperm can travel up into the uterus and, hey, let’s get to the egg wherever it is. It also allows for the vaginal canal, which typically is around three inches, which sounds crazy, but it actually lengthens and stretches. It’s a muscle that moves to accommodate the penis, if you’re having that kind of intercourse, or allow for artificial insemination in that way. So it increases the likelihood of implantation successfully occurring. It’s so cool!

Alyssa: We’ll pause so everyone can visualize!

Dr. Nave: Our bodies are amazing! In order for conception to occur, not only do the hormones have to cycle how they should, but you have to address your mental health; are you in the space that you can have intercourse or whatever it is? The ovary itself isn’t even attached to the uterus. There’s a gap between the two of them, and we have chemotaxis – basically a chemical, like how your body produces the hormones, that attracts the egg to go down the fallopian tube as opposed to staying in your abdominal area.

Alyssa: So every time you see a picture, it looks like…

Dr. Nave: They’re attached? Yes. But they’re not.

Alyssa: So they have to let go and then actually be drawn up by the fallopian tube and then into the uterus? They’re not attached?

Dr. Nave: No. We have connective tissue or fascia that’s in that area –

Alyssa: Which helps kind of push it in the right direction, probably?

Dr. Nave: Not exactly. It’s more like it creates this compartment so that your uterus isn’t just floating around in your abdominal cavity. We have this connective tissue that anchors it in that area so there’s less likelihood that a fertilized egg will end up outside of the uterus, which is why ectopic pregnancies are so low in terms of their incidence. But we also have these finger-like projections in the fallopian tube that brushes the egg along. So it’s not just the hormone that’s attracting the egg to where it needs to go and we have all these other signaling processing that are working.

Alyssa: I’m picturing a crowd surfer pushing it along.

Dr. Nave: We’re all supporting you! So that’s what a normal cycle should look like.

Alyssa: Ideally, that’s what it should look like?

Dr. Nave: Yes, ideally, that’s what it should look like.

Alyssa: And when a woman doesn’t have her cycle?

Dr. Nave: When she doesn’t have her cycle, then we have to consider two different things. Is it that she’s not bleeding at all, which we call amenorrhea, or are there greater than 35 days between each cycle, in which case we call that oligomenorrhea, or many menses, technically.

Alyssa: It seems like it would be the opposite because there’s a big space between. But either way, it’s a problem, and that will help determine how you treat it?

Dr. Nave: Yes. And so if it is that a woman isn’t bleeding, as in amenorrhea, then we have to consider why is that the case. Is it that she’s pregnant? That would be the first thing to assess. Is she pregnant? Okay, she’s not. What exactly is going on? One particular condition that I’ve been hearing or rather seeing more women experience is called PCOS. We mentioned it earlier, that PCOS stands for polycystic ovarian syndrome or Stein-Leventhal syndrome. Basically, what’s happening is that instead of the progesterone going up around day 14 to day 28, instead of it increasing, the body is changing it into another type of hormone. Just to give you some context, our bodies use cholesterol to make all our steroid hormones, which are all our sex hormones as well as cortisol. Our bodies use the cholesterol and then turn it into pregnenolone which is like the mother of all of those hormones. Pregnenolone can then become progesterone. It can become testosterone. It can become estrogen, which we have three different types of estrogens, or it can become cortisol. In PCOS, what’s happening is that instead of the pregnenolone going down to becoming progesterone, it’s getting turned into either testosterone, estrogen, or cortisol. A woman who potentially has PCOS or has been confirmed with that diagnosis – in addition to having amenorrhea, for her to be diagnosed with it, she also has to have two out of three symptom criteria. We have what’s called hyperandrogenism, which is high testosterone, and some of the symptoms she could experience would be cystic acne or hirsutism, which is just a fancy term for hair in unwanted places, like coarse, thick hair along your hairline or along your breast or in places that aren’t typical areas that you have hair distribution. That’s one, and then the amenorrhea that we talked about, and the last one is seeing cysts. The only way that we can really assess if there are cysts in the ovary is if we do a transvaginal ultrasound. I say we, but not me, but the actual tech would do that for you, and basically, they place a probe inside the vaginal canal, and they use an ultrasound on top of the abdomen to visualize if there are any cysts in the ovary. The reason why we get the cysts – to back up again to looking at the cycle, instead of the egg being released, the egg just stays there, because you need the progesterone to tell the egg, hey, release.

Alyssa: It stays where?

Dr. Nave: It stays in the ovary. And then in the ovary itself, you have all these eggs that look like they’re just about to release, but they end up forming what’s called a cyst. It can be fluid filled. Cyst is just a fancy term for a ball, kind of.

Alyssa: I didn’t know a cyst could be an egg that didn’t move.

Dr. Nave: That didn’t move, yeah.

Alyssa: So when people say they’ve had ovarian cysts burst, it could be an egg that didn’t move? Could be, doesn’t have to be?

Dr. Nave: Could be, doesn’t have to be. It could just be fluid. But in the case of PCOS, it’s like the ovary doesn’t release the egg, so it becomes mature, kind of, but not to the point where it actually releases because we don’t have any progesterone, or there’s minimal levels of progesterone so that if and when a woman experiences bleeding, if she has PCOS – so long cycle or no bleeding at all – in the long cycle aspect of things, there’s no egg. It’s just blood or tissue that got to build up a little bit.

Alyssa: So the egg still is stuck in the ovary?

Dr. Nave: Yes. I mean, you could have some release at some point if her progesterone can get high enough that that can occur, but it’s kind of scattered. You can’t really track it per se because it’s insufficient.

Alyssa: So she’s having them, just not – I guess 35 days instead of 28 – wouldn’t most women just go, oh, that’s no big deal; I just have a long cycle? What are the other symptoms? What else would they see?

Dr. Nave: She could have the symptoms of PMS but never actually bleed. So she’s still cycling, because remember you’re still cycling, always, whether you bleed or don’t bleed; the hormones are still doing their thing. She can experience the PMS symptoms but not bleed, which means that she’s not able to get pregnant. And even if you don’t ever want to get pregnant, our uterus is what I like to call an emunctory. An emunctory is basically an organ that our bodies use to detox or remove toxins. If we are not bleeding, that means those hormones are getting reabsorbed into our bodies, which for a woman, if she’s estrogen-dominant, it basically reinforces the estrogen dominance because she’s reabsorbing it in her intestines, which makes the symptoms to get worse. Because to get rid of our hormones, once they’ve done their thing and we’ve shed our lining and we bleed, the other way in which we get rid of our steroid hormones is by poop. So if you’re not pooping, then…

Alyssa: Is that another symptom or side effect? Is that a cycle issue, or not?

Dr. Nave: It could be a cycle issue. One of the symptoms that women sometimes experience is when they’re on their periods, either they’re constipated or they have really loose stool, and that’s because of hormones.

Alyssa: They call it period poop, and I never knew why.

Dr. Nave: Yeah, it’s because of the hormones.

Alyssa: So it’s normal? If you’re having a regular cycle and you have a day of poop that’s not normal, it’s just your hormones? That’s normal?

Dr. Nave: Normal in the sense of it’s to be expected with what you’re experiencing, yes. Other things that can happen with PCOS, and this is not with every woman, is that some women gain weight. Some don’t. For a woman that does gain weight if she has PCOS, what’s happening is that the body is converting the progesterone into cortisol. And cortisol is the hormone that affects our sleep-wake cycle. So when you first wake up in the morning, the reason why you’re fully awake is cortisol. It spikes at that point. What happens when we’re under a lot of stress, or if you have PCOS, our bodies are making a lot more cortisol, and that cortisol allows for the breakdown of stored glucose and the conversion of other proteins and fats into glucose. This issue with that happening for prolonged periods is that the woman can experience what’s called insulin insensitivity, so her body is no longer able to respond to insulin, which means that when she eats, then she can’t stabilize her blood sugar, which means that the sugar stays longer in the bloodstream, which causes damage to small blood vessels and nerves, which is what happens in diabetes. That’s why for a woman with PCOS, having metformin might work, which is why some doctors place a woman with PCOS on metformin to increase her chances of conceiving. It’s not just the hormones that affect your cycle; hormones influence every aspect of our lives, from the moment we wake up and take our first breath to the moment that we pass on into the next life. It’s this orchestra that each hormone has a part to play and influence each other in term of how effectively each part is able to do their part.

Alyssa: So let’s say I came in and I had questions about my cycle. What’s the first thing that a woman could expect? Bloodwork?

Dr. Nave: The first thing I would want to know is what labs she’s already gotten done. Has she gotten her thyroid checked? And when I say thyroid, I don’t just mean THS because THS is just your brain telling your thyroid, hey, make the thing. It’s also looking at the levels of the thyroid hormones because you have two types of those. You have free T3 and free T4. Their ratio is also important. So thyroid function; CBC, which just stands for a complete blood count. It’s checking for anemia, because that could be another reason for amenorrhea. You may not be bleeding because you’re iron deficient. And then I would also want CMP. That’s a complete metabolic panel, and that looks at the kidney and liver function, which are affected if blood sugar isn’t being regulated effectively. On the CMP, there’s also a fasting blood glucose on there, so that would be something to look at. I would also want to review her symptoms. What symptoms are you experiencing? Are you experiencing acne? Are you experiencing bloating and irritability on your menses? Do you experience depression on your period? There’s also the consideration that we have PMS, and then we have PMDD, which is premenstrual dysphoric disorder, which is basically PMS on steroids. It’s like the cycle overall is so horrendous that the woman can’t go to work. It’s affecting her daily life, affecting her mental health. She’s more depressed on her period, more irritable, or really angry, or in so much pain that she can’t leave her home. Looking at her as a whole person is what I’m about. And she’s the expert in her experience, right? She knows what it’s like to walk in her body, to experience these symptoms, how they affect her life, and then both of us taking our expertise to work together to get to the root of why this is happening and give the body the tool that it needs so it can rectify it.

Alyssa: You just reminded me that I need to make an appointment with you. I remember when I met you the first time, I was like, yeah, I need to see her, because not only have I turned 40, but I know my hormones are changing. My periods are changing. Just weird things happening. So how do people find you? What’s the best way to get ahold of you?

Dr. Nave: I am at Health For Life Grand Rapids, and you can check the website and look for my page. There’s a 15-minute free meet and greet and consult, so we can see if we’re a good fit. I can hear about your concerns, and you can get the cure that you need.

Alyssa: I love it. Thank you so much for joining us. We’re going to have you on again, and we’ll talk about some other intriguing topics. Again, thanks for tuning in. This is Ask the Doulas Podcast; you can always find us on our website and on Facebook and Instagram. Remember, these moments are golden.

Pregnancy Shouldn’t Be Painful

Leave a Comment / Pregnancy / By Kristin Revere / birth support, gold coast doulas, high-risk pregnancy, pelvic floor, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, pregnant

Gold Coast is thrilled to present a guest post by Sally Talbot, PT, Senior PT and co-owner of Health Motion Physical Therapy.

Pregnancy is a wonderful and amazing time. However, creating a new life does create some major changes in the body. Pain in different areas during pregnancy is a common complaint. Physio–pedia.com states that back pain occurs in 60-70% of pregnancies. While pain can be common, it is NOT normal and does not need to be tolerated. Pain can be stressful, and we know that increased stress for a mother can cause increased stress for baby.

Pain with pregnancy is not normal, and something can and should be done about it. Physical therapists are very helpful at safely decreasing pain and increasing function in pregnant women, helping them have a more enjoyable experience.

Here are some common pain complaints often associated with pregnancy and how PT can help:

Low back or sacroiliac pain: With increased weight gain (all out front), the center of gravity shifts and pulls the back into more of an arched position. Try standing this way – it is not comfortable. Also the abdominals are weakened due to being stretched with the increasing size of baby. This causes more work for the lower back. It is also common for the pelvis to become mal-aligned during pregnancy due to increased ligament laxity. All these factors put more stress on low back muscles and joints and can cause pain. Physical therapy can restore alignment of the back and pelvis and loosen tight muscles and strengthen others to make sure you can feel your best.

Mid back pain: Increasing weight of the breasts requires more work from the mid back to sit up straight and to lift and carry things. This overwork can result in pain and, if left untreated, it can continue well into the postpartum period, especially if mom is breastfeeding. Holding that newborn is harder than it seems. Physical therapy can assure that the joints of the upper back are moving well, loosen tight muscles, and stretch others to help improve posture and decrease pain.

Groin and pubic symphysis pain: Later in pregnancy, as the baby drops lower in the pelvis, there is more pressure on the pelvic joints (SI joint and pubic symphysis) and nerves that serve the groin and legs. This can cause pain, making it hard to walk or turn in bed. Weakness or muscle imbalance can contribute to this and make it worse. This is the one diagnosis that most people think that they have to live with – not necessarily true….. Maintaining good pelvic alignment is key with this – PT can do that as well as recommend positions and strategies when that new bundle of joy gets on your nerves literally.

Headaches: Headaches can be more common with pregnancy due to changes in posture, increased weight of breasts, hormonal changes, or general fatigue. Tight muscles and weak muscles will make these headaches worse. Even if headaches are hormonal, treatment to the muscles and joints of the neck and upper back can lessen the severity and intensity of the headaches and the need for medication.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: Numbness in the palm of the hand focusing on the thumb and first 2-3 fingers can be a common complaint later in pregnancy, especially at night. Increased fluid retention can cause compression of the nerve that passes through the carpal tunnel in the wrist. This can be greatly improved with physical therapy.

How PT can help. A physical therapist will be able to thoroughly evaluate the issue you are having and locate the source of the problem and all the contributing factors. They will then create a specialized program to correct the cause of the issue and help you adjust to the changes that your body is going through. This program will include: manual therapy to loosen tight muscles or align the spine and pelvis better, modalities (such as electrical stimulation – yes it is safe!) to speed healing and recovery and provide pain relief, positioning or bracing solutions if needed, and exercises that will help the body keep up with the increasing demands of the pregnancy. Physical therapy decreases the need for medication and missed days from work/life. Help is available.

If you are having pain and wonder how/if physical therapy could help you, call and a come in for a free consultation. Just mention that you saw this blog post. You can also schedule through the website at healthmotionpt.com.

Health Motion Physical Therapy
South East: 3826 44th St, SE Kentwood, MI 49512 616-554-0918
North East: 3001 Fuller St NE Grand Rapids, MI 49505 616-451-4284

Remember PT is safe for mom and baby. You don’t have to hurt.

Supporting a Postpartum Mother: Podcast Episode #79

Leave a Comment / Ask The Doulas Podcast, Parenting, Postpartum, Pregnancy, Self-Care, Sleep / By Alyssa Veneklase / gold coast doulas, mood disorders, night nanny, night nurse, overnight doula, perinatal mood disorders, postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, postpartum doulas, postpartum psychosis, postpartum recovery, pregnancy podcast, stress and pregnancy

Elsa Lockman, LMSW of Mindful Counseling talks to us today about how partners, family members, and other caregivers can support a mother during those critical postpartum weeks to ensure she seeks help if needed. How do you approach a new mother and what are her best options for care? You can listen to this complete podcast episode on iTunes or SoundCloud.

Kristin: Welcome to Ask the Doulas with Gold Coast Doulas. I’m Kristin, and I’m here today with Elsa Lockman. She’s with Mindful Counseling, and we are talking about how partners and other caregivers and family members can support a woman who has potential signs of postpartum depression or mood disorders.

Elsa: Yes. So postpartum is going to be an emotional time, so tears, some anger, sadness, are all part of the experience. After about two to three weeks out, if spouse or a friend or a mother is noticing maybe a mom is crying more than usual, isn’t really looking forward to things, has these unusual fears that they can’t seem to let go of. Another sign would be not seeming to eat very much or either sleeping a lot or not being able to sleep when the baby is sleeping. If they’re noticing those signs, it would maybe be a sign that they could go talk to somebody as far as a therapist or go see their doctor. Approaching Mom would be in a way to not criticize mom as if she’s doing anything wrong. She’s not doing anything wrong, so start off with validating, actually. She’s doing a great job with how hard it is; validate how hard she’s working, and try to tell her that it doesn’t have to be this way. She doesn’t have to do it alone.

Kristin: How does the caregiver know if it is baby blues or if it’s something that she needs help for? Because, of course, there can be that hormonal fluctuation. They may be teary.

Elsa: Baby blues usually stops after three weeks postpartum. So after that would be maybe a sign that there’s more going on. But I would say, is it getting it the way of functioning? Is it getting in the way of relationships? Is it getting in the way of their working in the home or outside of the home, getting those things done? To a degree, that is expected postpartum; not everything running smoothly, but are relationships being affected? Those would be signs that it’s more than just baby blues.

Kristin: How can a spouse, partner, or caregiver be supportive in order to empower her to get help? Is it best for them to directly reach out for help for her if they’re seeing signs, or what do you recommend?

Elsa: I recommend the mom reaching out, so that would be encouraging Mom to reach out herself. And maybe she needs to talk to a friend and have more time with friends or more time to herself; maybe that would help. See how that works. If that seems to help and is enough to alleviate whatever stress is going on, then that works, but maybe if it’s not working, then take it to another level, which would be contacting a therapist or your doctor.

Kristin: And since, obviously, women have multiple doctors — they’re seeing their OB or midwife and family doctor and their pediatrician — does it matter who they’re speaking with about getting help?

Elsa: No, it wouldn’t matter who you see. Usually the OB would be the person that they’ve seen most recently, but they can even bring it up to the pediatrician, since moms see the pediatrician very often.

Kristin: And as far as getting help for our local listeners and clients, they can reach out to you directly? How do they access you at Mindful Counseling, Elsa?

Elsa: They can go to the website, and they can contact me through there. Another resource would be Pine Rest, and through your OB’s office, there also is a list of therapists who specialize in perinatal mood disorders, which includes postpartum depression and anxiety.

Kristin: That’s so helpful. And in past conversations, you had mentioned that women can bring their babies to therapy; that you allow that with clients you’re working with, and I know Pine Rest encourages that with their mother-baby program?

Elsa: Yes, for sure. Bring your baby to the session; you can feed the baby, breastfeed, anything. Coming with your baby is welcomed and encouraged, for sure.

Kristin: Do you have any final thoughts or tips to share?

Elsa: Just that it doesn’t have to be going through this alone. It’s very normalized for women to feel that anxiety is just part of the postpartum experience or feeling depressed and stressed is part of it, and while it might be a new phase and there’s a lot going on, it doesn’t have to be that women are just suffering through it.

Kristin: Great point. Thanks so much, Elsa, for being on!

EMDR Therapy: An Overview

Leave a Comment / Parenting, Self-Care / By Alyssa Veneklase / gold coast doulas, perinatal mood disorders, postpartum, postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, pregnant

We are so excited to share this guest blog by Joshua Nave LLMSW and Paul Krauss MA LPC of Health for Life GR. We get asked frequently about EMDR Therapy, so read below to find out what it is and how it works!

This blog is a discussion of the basics of what Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR) is, its origins, and how it can help people. Many people have heard about EMDR in one fashion or another, and with over 2 million people reporting healing from its use (Trauma Center, 2007), it’s no wonder that more and more people are asking “Just what is EMDR?” So let’s begin with trying to answer just that: what is EMDR therapy?

EMDR therapy is a physiological psychotherapy technique that aims at unlocking the body’s natural ability to process information and heal from past trauma and current distress (EMDRIA, 2019). EMDR therapy seeks to access the process that the human brain uses during the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) cycle of sleep to reduce the disturbance caused by memories, events, and thoughts that have become stuck or intrusively repeated in a person’s mind and/or behavior and personality. EMDR therapy is an advanced type of empirically-validated therapy that can be utilized by Masters-Level Counselors with specific advanced training (post-graduate school). Hundreds of studies have confirmed that when human beings are enduring great duress or stress, the brain becomes incapable of processing information as it normally does. While the brain may change its normal processing abilities to protect the person during a stressful situation–there are often negative side effects. Information that is not processed in a normal manner, due to a stressful or traumatic event can then become “locked” within the mind, and as the brain attempts to process that event, an individual may experience a repetition of the very stress, pain, thoughts, and other body sensations that they experienced during the original event(s).

EMDR therapy works on multiple levels of the brain, both incorporating talk therapy and elements of the rational brain, along with the deeper memory systems as well as the physical memory to allow an individual to access those “locked” stressful/traumatic events in a therapeutic environment– so that the effect on the brain is essentially “reprocessing” the stressful or traumatic event in an adaptive way that allows resolution of suffering. As the brain processes the event, individuals become able to embody with healthy and adaptive beliefs about themselves both from the past and during the current time, which can build long-term resiliency in an individual. In addition, EMDR therapy works to clear the body of disturbing physical sensations associated with the event, or what is sometimes called “the felt sense.” To this day, scientists and medical professionals have been unable to ascertain the exact mechanism of action that helps to change brain and body’s response to triggers and associated negative stimuli (all of the elements that make EMDR therapy effective), nevertheless study after study demonstrates its tremendous positive effect on people, and often shows improved outcomes over such therapies as CBT and traditional talk therapy. Counselors who utilize EMDR therapy often theorize that it is the use of rapid eye movement or other forms of bilateral stimulation (BLS) during the treatment, combined with the cognitive elements of counseling, which ultimately causes the stress reduction and adaptive processing to occur.

Francine Shapiro originally theorized the foundations of EMDR therapy in 1987 when she discovered that rapid eye movement could have a beneficial effect on reducing the effects of stress and the effects of traumatic memories (EMDR Institutive, 2019). Dr. Shapiro later went on to perform clinical trials to test her theories, and today, EMDR Therapy is a certified evidence-based approach to recovering from traumatic experiences. In addition, EMDR Therapy has been reported to be effective with anxiety, depression, panic disorders, addictions, body dysmorphic conditions, phobias, pain disorders, and more (Legg, 2017). Many people have sought EMDR Therapy as a method of treatment for these conditions instead of the traditional route of medication first.

Is EMDR Therapy right for you? If you suffer from repeating intrusive memories, feelings, body sensations, or thoughts of past disturbing events, or in fact, any of the symptoms previously discussed, then EMDR Therapy could assist you in your healing. If you are interested in receiving a different method of healing where you are in control of having the healthier life you’ve always wanted, then I encourage you to contact a licensed therapist who’s undergone EMDRIA approved training in providing EMDR Therapy services.

EMDR Therapy is an effective psychotherapy method when its methodology is followed by a licensed counselor. It is important to have the right fit for you, so when investigating, make sure you feel aligned with your therapist and that they are experienced and knowledgeable and have valid EMDR therapy training. If you’re interested in a free 15-minute consultation to either learn more about EMDR or to set up an appointment, please visit our website at healthforlifegr.com. At Health for Life Grand Rapids, we are now proud to have a counseling wing called The Trauma Informed Counseling Center of Grand Rapids. You can also give us a call at 616-200-4433.

References:

EMDR Institute. (2019). History of EMDR.

EMDRIA. (2019). How does EMDR work?

Legg, T. (2017). EMDR therapy: What you need to know.

Krauss, P. (2019). The trauma informed counseling center of grand rapids.

Trauma Center. (2007). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR).

About the Authors:

Paul Krauss MA LPC is the Clinical Director of Health for Life Grand Rapids, home of The Trauma-Informed Counseling Center of Grand Rapids. Paul is also a Private Practice Psychotherapist, host of the Intentional Clinician podcast, Behavioral Health Consultant, Clinical Trainer, and Counseling Supervisor. Paul is the creator of the National Violence Prevention Hotline (in progress) as well as the Intentional Clinician Training Program for Counselors.

Joshua Nave MA LLMSW
“I became a social worker and ultimately a therapist to assist in God’s mission to bring healing to the hurt. Through my years of work in the field of trauma, behavioral health, and the broader social work field, I discovered that many of us are held back from reaching true healing by the traumas and lessons imparted on us in our early childhood. It has thus been my passion over the past several years to provide early childhood intervention to families struggling when their young children, as well as assisting adults in overcoming the barriers to healthy living through trauma-informed therapies. I have used my training in Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), Play Therapy, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR) to assist my clients in achieving a more complete and healthy life. It is my belief that all individuals have not only intrinsic value, but also the natural capacity for healing and change.

As a therapist, I provide my clients with a truly “client-driven experience.” I am skilled at partnering with you to identify the changes that you wish to make in your family’s life, or even your individual life, and developing a plan to achieve success. I look forward to partnering with you on reaching your potential through natural healing!”

Postpartum Support for Business Owners: Podcast Episode #74

Leave a Comment / Ask The Doulas Podcast, Doulas, Parenting, Postpartum / By Alyssa Veneklase / breastfeeding, breastfeeding consultant, gold coast doulas, lactation, lactation consultant, postpartum, postpartum doulas, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, pregnancy podcast, pregnant

On this week’s episode of Ask the Doulas, we chat with Chris Emmer, owner of Biz Babysitters, about postpartum life and owning your own business. You can listen to this complete podcast episode on iTunes or SoundCloud.

Alyssa: This is Alyssa. I am recording with Chris Emmer again. Welcome to the Ask the Doulas Podcast. How are you, Chris?

Chris: Good, how are you?

Alyssa: So we talked to you about sleep before, and today we’re going to talk a little bit about being a mom in business and how that affected us. We were talking about this book you just read and the rage, the fire, that it lights under you about just how – I don’t know, would you say a mother in general, or would you say a whole family, is treated during pregnancy and how we’re just kind of disregarded during this postpartum time? And how we wish more was part of the whole process. You get pregnant, and you just get X, Y, and Z, instead of having to seek it out yourself and pay for it all yourself.

Chris: Right, that’s the biggest thing is that there is this huge lack of support postpartum. I guess I can only speak from my experience, but I felt like when you’re pregnant, you see the doctor every two weeks, and people open doors for you, and they smile at you, and you just hold your belly and you’re so cute. And then you have the baby, and it’s like wait, what? It’s just a complete shock, and it’s like, now is the time I need people to be nice to me! This is the hard part!

Alyssa: Yeah, you’re completely forgotten, and it’s all about the baby. Nobody’s holding a door open. I mean, how many moms do I see trying to struggle with a toddler in one arm and trying to push a stroller through a door, and I’m watching people walk by? I’m running up to her, like, let me get the door for you! Why are people just completely ignoring you?

Chris: Blowing past you like you’re not there, yes. Absolutely. So, I mean, I don’t know what your birth experience was, but there was a six-week checkup or an eight-week checkup, maybe, and at that appointment, my OB said, and I quote, “You are a normal person now. Go back to life as it was.”

Alyssa: Huh.

Chris: And I was like, but…

Alyssa: I’m not! And define “normal,” please!

Chris: How do you know I was even normal before? But yeah, and then that was it, and then she scheduled me an appointment for one year out or whatever, just a normal physical exam like you would have just as a person before kids. And that just felt so shocking and kind of, to be honest, just cruel and unjust. Like, you’re in this huge transition, the most incredible and important transition of your life, and the bottom drops out, and you’re completely alone there. And we know that mental health is a huge issue postpartum, and there was really no education on that besides circling which happy face you feel like today.

Alyssa: Yeah, we’ve been talking to pediatrician offices a lot because they oftentimes are the ones who see this mom and baby before the six-week checkup, so they’re the ones who are seeing this mom struggling with breastfeeding. She’s crying all the time. We can tell she’s not sleeping. Let’s talk about her mental health. Even though you’re here for me to see this baby, I’ll weigh the baby and do all the things I need to do with the baby, but let’s also ask Mom. So thinking about tests, you know, different tests and not just picking the smiley face; let’s really ask you some real questions. Because, yeah, six weeks is too long. It’s way too long to wait to see a mom, and then to tell her that she’s normal and to go home and go on with life. I mean, maybe somebody feels kind of back of normal again at six weeks, but sex is not the same at six weeks. You might not even be completely healed, especially from a Cesarean. Maybe breastfeeding is still not going well. How do I deal with these leaky boobs? What’s going on? Nothing is normal!

Chris: There is zero, zero normal, and I think in that circumstance, being told, “You’re normal now,” when on the inside you’re like, “This is anything but! I feel like an alien in my own body and in my own brain and in my life! Who am I?” You look in the mirror and honestly have no idea who you’re looking at, and to be told you’re normal, then it adds, I think, a layer of shame, because you’re like, oh, I’m supposed to be back…

Alyssa: They think I’m all right, so what am I doing wrong?

Chris: Yes, and then I think of the way that I handled that appointment. I probably just smiled and giggled and said, oh, thanks! Yay, I can chaturanga again! See you at yoga; bye! You know, and then just acted happy and normal, and then got in my car and cried or whatever happened next. But yeah, getting back to what we were originally on – now, I’m almost a year out, and I’m coming to a point where I can look back, and I’m processing all the different stages and reflecting on what everything meant, and I’m getting really obsessed with this transition and I’m soaking up all this literature on how we do it in other countries. My question for you is this: how do you come to terms with that? It feels so – I don’t know.

Alyssa: Just unjust?

Chris: Yes.

Alyssa: I think knowing that what we’re doing at Gold Coast is just a small, small piece of this pie, right? We’re one tiny piece of this bigger puzzle. I could look at the whole big picture and get really, really angry, but what can I do right here, right now, for my community? But then, even then, I’m like, okay, so, even in my community, there is just a small portion of people who can afford this because it’s not covered by insurance. So what about the rest of the community that I can’t help? So we just do the best we can. And every family that we support, we support them the best we can, and we know that we’re making a difference for those families. And then they’re going to, in turn, hopefully, kind of pay it forward, right? Like, either tell someone there’s this support available, or they’ll say, “I struggled too. I want to help you.” You know, my sister, my neighbor, my friend: be that support! Because maybe your neighbor can’t afford to hire a postpartum doula, but you have a group of friends who could stop over. You know, I’m going to stop over for two hours today. She’s going to stop over for two hours tomorrow.

Chris: That’s a really cool way to think about it, the ripple-out effect. Because you do need a lactation consultant; you need a sleep trainer. All these things; where the lack is in other areas, you end up having to find that somewhere else. So what about people who can’t afford these things? But I love what you said, that you could teach this one family this thing, and then you know that that mom is on a group text with, like, 15 other people. Like, I’m in probably five different group texts with different groups, like my cousins that are also moms, my friends from growing up that are also moms, and we’ll text each other pictures of things like a rash. The trickle-down image is cool to think about, that if you equip one family with the tools to do something, that they can then kind of pay it forward.

Alyssa: Yeah, and I think, too, about sleep. So I try to make my plans very affordable, but there’s always going to be people who can’t even afford the most affordable package, so I’m like, what can I do? Maybe a class. So I’m actually working on a class right now where I can give new parents some of this basic knowledge about healthy sleep habits. But again, like we talked with your sleep podcast, there’s not just one solution that works. So I don’t want people to think that by taking this class, they’re going to walk away and say, “I can now get my kid to sleep through the night.” I will give you the tools that I can that are generalized to children in certain age groups, but then from there, they kind of just have to take it on their own, if they can’t afford to have me walk with them and hold their hand through the whole process. But I guess it’s one step of, like, what else can I do to reach those people who maybe can’t afford everything? I think we’re just slowly working on it. We’re finding ways to infiltrate the community in so many different ways, whether it’s volunteering. We used to teach free classes at Babies R Us until they closed. That was another way that we could just get information into the community and let people know, you have options. You have a ton of resources in this community, and here they are.

Chris: That’s so cool.

Alyssa: Otherwise, yeah, you can get really, really mad about it.

Chris: Yeah, you can get really mad!

Alyssa: And I think that is the fires that burns. That’s what makes us passionate about what we do, because it is not fair that moms feel so isolated and alone once they have a baby. It’s not fair.

Chris: And then take that passion and turn it into something that can help people.

Alyssa: Yeah. So this kind of is a good lead-in to your new business because you, reflecting now back over the past year and owning your own business, and thinking, “Oh, I got this; I can do it all during my maternity leave” – even though you work for yourself and you don’t really give yourself a leave. Life still goes on; you still have emails to deal with and all your social media stuff, and looking back and saying, how can I help other moms when they’re going through this transition? So explain what you went through and what made you start this new business.

Chris: Yeah. So a little bit of background info: I have a social media business, so I do social media for a handful of clients, and when I was prepping for my ‘maternity leave’ last spring, I thought I was getting ahead of the game. I was, like, “Chris, you’re amazing! Look at you pulling it together!” I hired some people to my team. I started training them. I started onboarding them. I thought I had all my systems put together, and I thought everything was awesome. In my head, I was going to take at least one full month off, not even checking email, just completely logged off. In my head, I was, like, wearing a maxi dress in a field, holding a baby, effortlessly breastfeeding, with sunshine. It was going to be awesome. And then I thought that I would just slowly ease my way back in and maybe come back in September. In reality, what happened was I had a C-section. My water broke one week early and I ended up having a C-section, and in the hospital still, just hours after my surgery, I was doing clients’ posts on social media and doing their engagement because I hadn’t tested my team. I actually had a few people who I had hired who ended up just not working out. And so it all fell back on me because, as a business owner, it does. And so that was just in the hospital, and then getting home and starting to learn how to do, like, sleep training and breastfeeding and even just dealing with my own healing – that was more than a full-time job already, so I was trying to balance that with continuing to work. So there was zero maternity leave there, and that made my transition, which was already really pretty tough, a lot harder than it needed to be, and I can see that looking back. I’m like, whoa, girl. That was nuts. But at the time, it felt like the only thing that I could do. And so, like we said, looking back and seeing that, I’m like – it fires me up, and I don’t want anybody to have to do that. And I will do anything again to prevent that for other people. So when I see women who are pregnant and own their own business, I just want to shake them and tell them, “You don’t know what’s coming! You need to prepare!” Because I wish that somebody would have done that to me. But all I can do is offer to them what I wish I would have had. So I started a business now called Biz Babysitters, and what we do is we take over clients’ social media completely. So we can handle posting; we can handle stories; we can handle DMs, engagement, comments – literally everything. We can handle your inbox, as well, so that you can log off totally in your maternity leave. Because there is such a temptation to just bust out your phone, and there are so many things that you think, while you’re breastfeeding or raising a newborn, that you can quickly, easily do. You just can’t!

Alyssa: On that note – so I too was a breastfeeding mom, scrolling through my iPhone. I recently learned that there’s an increased risk of SIDS by trying to multitask while breastfeeding because you can get your kid in an unsafe position. Like, especially a teeny-tiny baby who needs to be held in the right position. They can suffocate on the breast. So that’s another reason for mom to just put your phone down.

Chris: Put your phone down!

Alyssa: Yeah, stop multitasking.

Chris: Two other things with that. One is the blue light that comes off your phone. If you’re shining that in your baby’s face in the middle of the night and then wondering why they don’t sleep or why you don’t go back to sleep? I would get up and breastfeed my baby and be scrolling through Instagram, and then I would lay down in bed exhausted but completely unable to fall back asleep, and I think it was because I was staring into a glowing blue light. And the other thing is just the mental health aspect of social media. There’s so many more studies coming out on this now, but Instagram is not good for our mental health. You’ve got to really clean up your feed and be intentional about it if you want Instagram or whatever app to not send you down a shame or comparison spiral. And I remember feeling, while spending hours and hours on Instagram and breastfeeding, that this whole world was out there happening around me, and I was watching all the fun things everyone was doing, and I remember just feeling like I was stuck in this one place. So I could feel the negative effects of being on social media in my immediate postpartum, very strongly. So I think that just acknowledging, like, maybe this might not be a great thing for you in a time when you are so tender and vulnerable.

Alyssa: So we had talked about this, and you had said, “I wish somebody would have told me all these things I needed postpartum,” and then you were looking back through old emails and you found one from me, saying, “Hey, you should take my newborn class.” And you were, like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m too tired.” And now you’re like, well, shoot, I wish I would have done that! So how do you tell moms who are pregnant and saying, just like you did, “I got this. I’m lining everything up; all the Ts are crossed; the Is are dotted; when I go on maternity leave, everything is done. I’m good.” And you’re saying, no, you actually need to prepare. How do we really reach people? You don’t know what you don’t know, so unfortunately, this mom isn’t going to know she needs you or me until she’s already in the thick of it and losing her mind and crying and saying she can’t handle this anymore. So maybe it’s just education? They need to hear it over and over and over again that this harder than you expect, and you have to prepare ahead of time.

Chris: Right. I don’t know! This is the hardest part, because you’re exactly right, you don’t know until you know, and I looked back this morning on that email that I had sent you, where I was like, eh, I think we’re good. We were so not good! Oh, my God! That’s the hardest thing, I guess. All you can do is share your story, and maybe it will connect with some people. But I think that a lot of it is, in that state of shock afterwards, to be there to help out, too, as sort of like a 911.

Alyssa: And we have that. You know, a lot of people call us. “We need postpartum help,” or, “I need sleep help.” And it is like, how soon can you start? But with your business, if I was a new mom and I was in the middle of this social media campaign, but you don’t know anything – like, how would a mom do that 911 with you?

Chris: Right.

Alyssa: Would that even work?

Chris: It would, because we’ve got systems set up, like our intake forms and everything. I mean, it wouldn’t be as effortless. You know, you would have to go through a lot of onboarding because we need to figure out your voice, your tone. A lot of it we can do just from stalking your account and everything that you already have out there on the internet, but yeah, there is a little bit of work that needs to go into handing off the reins to somebody. But I really like to tell people – this is the cheesiest – it’s a skill to chill. But it’s for real, especially for people who own a business. We are a weird breed of people where you don’t know how to relax because you’re so passionate about your business that a second that you have to breathe, you are probably dropping into your business. I don’t know. I was that way.

Alyssa: No, it’s true. I’m always on, and I think occasionally, let’s say an appointment cancels or I end up having an hour of free time. I find myself wandering, and I don’t even know what to do. What do I do right now? I just finished all my work because I was supposed to be doing this other thing right now, but I can’t get out of that mode to just sit and read or go for a walk. I’m trying to get a lot better at that. It’s beautiful out; I should go for a walk. But it is hard to get out of that mode and into chill mode.

Chris: Yes, so it takes practice because it’s shocking. And so I love to recommend to people to get started working together around 30 weeks. Go through all the intake forms; get everything put together, so that you can start your log-off at, like, 36 or 37 weeks. And in those last couple weeks, you can start to practice relaxing and see what it feels like to not check your email, and see what it feels like to not being in your Instagram DMs every 15 minutes. Fill in your vice of choice, but you can start to slowly – just like how you want to phase slowly back into working, you can slowly phase out of it. And you don’t know what’s going to happen towards the end of your pregnancy. You could go into early labor. You could want to nest so bad that you just wander around Home Goods for eight hours. So I love to tell people to start early; start around 30 weeks, then slowly phase it out. We can work out any kinks, and then you can practice for maybe a week, maybe two weeks, seeing what it’s like to be completely stepped back and completely relaxed. And I think that’s a great way to mentally and physically prepare for your immediate postpartum as well so that you aren’t tempted to jump back in. That little reaction you get with your thumb when you turn your screen on where it just goes to Instagram and you don’t think about it – you can start deprogramming that now.

Alyssa: That’s really smart. So for any moms who are listening to this and going, “Oh, my God. I need that. I’m a business owner and I’m pregnant.” Whether it’s your first or fourth, you can use this. How do they find you?

Chris: You can find me on Instagram, of course.

Alyssa: Of course. You have a beautiful Instagram feed. I love it.

Chris: I’m such a nerd for Instagram. I love it so much. So on Instagram, I’m @bizbabysitters. And you can find every other piece of information from that point. Instagram is the hub. And then bizbabysitters.com is the website. I also have a free maternity leave planning workbook for anybody who is coming up on your maternity leave and you’re not sure you want to work with somebody. This is totally free and a good way to just get started wrapping your head around a game plan.

Alyssa: And they can download that on your website, too?

Chris: Mm-hmm, bizbabysitters.com/freebie.

Alyssa: Lovely! Well, thanks for joining me today! Is there anything else that you want to say about either your business or this crazy mess of being a mompreneur?

Chris: I think it’s such an interesting, cool breed of women. And there’s so many more of us now! A big shift is happening, I think, and it’s really cool to be part of it.

Alyssa: I have a daughter, and so do you, so I think it’s really cool that as Sam gets older, she’s going to see you as your own boss. I think that’s really cool. My daughter knows that I own my own business and I am my boss, and I work when I want to work – and I’m going to get better at working less – but I just think it’s really cool and empowering. That, in and of itself, is really empowering.

Chris: It is! Julie, the postpartum doula at Gold Coast, left me a stickie note. She always leaves little stickie notes, and I save all of them. She left a stickie note that said, “You are setting a good example for your daughter.” And I was, like, tears!

Alyssa: Tears! Oh, Julie.

Chris: She’s the best!

Alyssa: Yes, we love her too!

Chris: So I guess also just a reminder that you’re not alone, even if you feel that way. We’re all feeling it.

Alyssa: So help a sister out. Stop this mom shaming stuff. You are no better than another mom, and don’t even try to make yourself look better than another mom. We’re all struggling in our own way, no matter what stage; six weeks or six years. We all have different struggles.

Chris: Yeah, and different areas of thriving, as well. We’re all in it together.

Alyssa: Thanks, girl!

Chris: Thank you!

Podcast Episode #71: Bedrest Support

Leave a Comment / Ask The Doulas Podcast / By Alyssa Veneklase / antepartum doula, gold coast doulas, postpartum, postpartum doulas, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, pregnancy podcast, pregnant

What the heck is an antepartum doula? Well, it basically means bed rest support for mothers who are high risk. But a bed rest doula can also help families that aren’t necessarily on bed rest. Maybe a mom needs help running errands, finding community resources, preparing for baby showers, putting away gifts, nesting! Listen and learn more about what an antepartum doula does! You can listen to this complete podcast episode on iTunes or SoundCloud.

Alyssa: Hi and welcome to Ask the Doulas with Gold Coast Doulas. I am Alyssa.

Kristin: And I am Kristin.

Alyssa: Today’s question is what is an antepartum doula, and I think it’s a really good question. We actually just kind of changed this on our website recently because antepartum is such a strange word. It actually refers more to our bedrest doulas, so it’s before birth, whereas postpartum support is after you have your baby. Antepartum support would be while you’re still pregnant.

Kristin: Exactly.

Alyssa: Do you want to talk about the role of a bedrest doula?

Kristin: Bedrest doulas can support at home or in the hospital for clients who are on bedrest for a variety of reasons. They could be carrying multiples, or they could have placenta previa or preeclampsia like I did during my first pregnancy, and they just need to limit movement. So we’re there to help, whether it’s in the hospital or at home. We can help even with birth plans or if they want to take a childbirth class; we can help with childbirth preparation if they are in bed for a part or all of their pregnancy. On the postpartum end, some of our bedrest doulas have similar responsibilities to our postpartum doulas.

Alyssa: Yeah, I’m even thinking on the bedrest end — let’s say, especially with clients with multiples, you could be put on bedrest at 22 weeks. Think about having baby showers planned. How do you do baby showers? If you’ve already had your baby showers, how do you unpack all these gifts? How do you put these gifts away? How do you get a nursery ready? Day-to-day things; how do you get groceries? You can get Shipt from Meijer or whatever, but every little day-to-day thing. If you have older children, who’s getting them to school? Who’s helping around the house? There’s just so many things that you can’t do when you’re on bedrest. It’s a little bit different with postpartum because you can still do many of those things.

Kristin: But yeah, how do you prepare meals when you’re supposed to be in bed the entire time? How are you feeding and nourishing yourself? If there are prescriptions that need to be picked up, who’s going to do that if your partner is at work?

Alyssa: Yes. We can help you run errands. We can help you prep meals. We can bring you to doctor’s appointments. We can…

Kristin: Take your dog out!

Alyssa: Yeah, and help with older siblings. Put away gifts and organize the baby’s room and fix the closet situation that’s overflowing and falling over when you open the doors. All the things that we get around the 35 week mark when you feel like you’re nesting and you want to get everything done, and you can’t because you’re in a bed. So I think that’s probably some of the major things for bedrest support.

Kristin: Yeah, and certainly community resources if they need to reach out to anyone or prepare for resources; if Baby could potentially be premature, so different support groups and resources outside of their medical provider that they can rely on after the baby’s born. And then also the emotional end of it is huge. I know I was only on bedrest a short time, but it was a big, scary time in my life, and to have someone to just process that with and know that they’re supported and not alone in this journey, that they have someone.

Alyssa: It’s so isolating to be stuck in bed for weeks; sometimes months.

Kristin: I mean, to have someone to talk to!

Alyssa: And then, too, we can bring classes. Gold Coast offers so many amazing classes, and we can bring them to parents in their home for women who are on bedrest. So with all of our classes, for a minimal additional fee, we’ll bring the class to you and we can offer you a class in bed, literally.

Kristin: Yes, so for our multiples clients, we have Preparing for Multiples, so if you’re expecting twins or triplets and you’re on bedrest, we’ll bring the class to you so you’ll know what to expect. Same with the newborn class that Alyssa teaches; amazing to have that option. And breastfeeding.

Alyssa: Breastfeeding support; yeah, a breastfeeding class while you’re still pregnant, and then in-home support once you have the baby or babies. I think just bedrest support in general is so important, but people don’t know what it is, and the term antepartum still probably throws some people off.

Kristin: And in the hospital, it can get lonely as well. I had a friend who was on bedrest in the hospital for 20 weeks of her pregnancy, and it was her second child.

Alyssa: That sounds expensive!

Kristin: Yeah, she had a good insurance, luckily, but I kept sending her care packages because I lived in a different city than her and knew that she had to just be bored out of her mind. So bedrest doulas are here to support you whether you’re in the home or in the hospital through the remainder of your pregnancy, and from that point on, you can choose to have birth doula support if you want or plan for postpartum support, but sometimes clients just hire us for bedrest support alone.

Alyssa: If you’re interested in finding us, you can see our entire list of services on our website. We are also on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks for tuning in. These moments are golden!

Thanks to Pediatric Dental Specialists of West Michigan for sponsoring this podcast episode!

Podcast Episode #69: Postpartum Fitness

Leave a Comment / Ask The Doulas Podcast, Postpartum, Self-Care / By Alyssa Veneklase / chiropractic care, gold coast doulas, postpartum, postpartum depression, postpartum doulas, postpartum recovery, pregnancy podcast

Today we talk with Dr. Theresa, Chiropractor and BIRTHFIT Instructor in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We ask her about what’s safe for a pregnant and postpartum mom to be doing and why having a supportive tribe around is so important. You can listen to this complete podcast episode on iTunes or SoundCloud. Be sure to listen in or keep reading to get a special discount code for your BIRTHFIT registration!

Kristin: Welcome to Ask the Doulas with Gold Coast Doulas! I’m Kristin.

Alyssa: And I’m Alyssa.

Kristin: And we’re here with Dr. Theresa today from BIRTHFIT. She is also a chiropractor and does many things, which she’ll explain later. So, Dr. Theresa, tell us about BIRTHFIT and why you decided to bring this to Grand Rapids.

Dr. Theresa: Yeah, so I have been in practice for about seven years, focused on the perinatal population, and I found this big disconnect in the postpartum time where women are preparing for birth, and it’s kind of like this mindset of, okay, I just need to get through birth. And we’re kind of forgetting about that postpartum time where the real work begins, because now you’re not only taking care of a new family member, but you need to heal and take care of yourself, too. So I really wanted to help with that time specifically and give women more information on what they can do.

Kristin: So when does a woman typically take your class after they’ve had their baby?

Dr. Theresa: We recommend the first two weeks postpartum as the coregulation period, so that would be way too early to take my class. That’s when you are bonding with Baby, hopefully not really leaving the house at all, and usually after that time, women are like, okay, I’m ready. So probably the earliest somebody has taken my class was after two weeks postpartum, and that was almost an exception to my rule because of her fitness level during her pregnancy and before. But for the most part, I recommend four to six weeks as a perfect time. But also with that being said, postpartum is forever, and I’ve had moms that are a year or two years postpartum take the class.

Kristin: That’s what I’ve seen on your social media posts, and tell us about how babies are involved.

Dr. Theresa: Yeah! I kind of time my classes so that, even though women are on their maternity leave, they may have other kiddos at home that they want their husband to come home and take care of. But Baby needs to come with Mom, and we totally encourage that because they need to nurse or they need to be tended to during our class. So we encourage moms to bring their babies; bring your favorite carrier, and we can implement them during the workout in a safe way.

Kristin: That is amazing. Do you find, since you also have a prenatal series, that women take that during pregnancy, and then you’re able to extend the relationship into the postpartum time?

Dr. Theresa: Yes, that is the goal, and my last session for the prenatal series is all about postpartum. So I talk to them about things they can during pregnancy to stay active and hopefully lead to better birth outcomes, but then what can you start doing postpartum at what time. So for those first two weeks, right away, women can start working on their belly breath, whether they’ve had a C-section or a vaginal birth. They can start doing that to mobilize their pelvic floor in a really gentle way, and then also reteach their abdominal wall how to come back together.

Kristin: You mentioned Cesarean. If she had a Cesarean, does the provider need to give approval at some point for her to start taking your series, or how does that work?

Dr. Theresa: Good question. So, typically they’re released for exercise, depending on the person, between 8 to 12 weeks or whenever the scab falls off is usually another really good time to start doing some exercise. And with those women, we teach the slow-is-fast mindset anyway, for everybody, but especially for those women, because now there’s a different pull happening when they move. So that can be a little bit scary, so we talk through those things; we talk through signs that, okay, we need to slow down a little bit. So it’s totally customizable to the woman and the birth that she had, which is also why I keep the class sizes small. They’re limited to about ten people per class, so I make sure everybody’s being tended to.

Kristin: Now, of course, you mentioned some of your students are very fit and they exercise throughout pregnancy. So say they’re a CrossFitter or they took prenatal yoga. What about women who were not in shape before they got pregnant and who are trying this and worried about their fitness level?

Dr. Theresa: Yes! Those are my favorite clients that I have in these classes because most of the women have never picked up a barbell before; women like that who have really never exercised. And when I first did this, you think BIRTHFIT; CrossFit — is it the same thing? And it is not the same thing at all, so I don’t want that to intimidate people. When I say barbell, that could be an empty 15-pound barbell that’s just there to give you a little bit of load, and it can even help you with your form on some of the movements. So we go really slow, and we really focus on form and breathing through each and every movement. And I love to see how confident these women get when they have a barbell in their hand. Or when we’re coaching pull-ups and we use a band to help assist them with the pull-up, and they have so much fun! They’re like, I never thought I could do a pull-up before! And it’s just the coolest thing to see.

Kristin: So what, of all the focuses you could have, why are you so passionate about the postpartum phase in women’s life? You’re focused, obviously, on prenatal, as well.

Dr. Theresa: So I think we’re really luck in Grand Rapids. There are so many resources for prenatal. There are some awesome childbirth education classes, and I see a lot of people preparing and taking multiple childbirth education classes and taking, like, car safety and CPR and all the things to get ready for a baby, and then postpartum kind of looks like this, where they go to their six-week checkup, and they’re released for exercise and maybe they’re given a sheet with exercises to do on it, like strengthen your abs and do Kegels. And it’s such a blanket recommendation that is not doing service to women the way that we need them to be feeling really connected back to their body through the four pillars of BIRTHFIT, which are fitness, nutrition, mindset, and connection. So I think those four things are so important in the postpartum time that women aren’t having the opportunity to do or they’re not understanding how they can do it postpartum. So I want to take each person and individualize to them: what can you do postpartum to really help fill your cup so you can take care of everybody else?

Kristin: And it sounds like a wonderful community. Women are often isolated after giving birth and they struggle with childcare or even wanting to leave their child. So they can bring Baby with them and find a circle that women are going through the same thing around the same time; some may have toddlers and be the “wise ones” to give the newer moms some advice. So I think that part of it sounds great because everyone needs a tribe. I know that word is overused, but it’s true.

Dr. Theresa: Yeah, and that is so fun, to see them exchanging phone numbers. This summer is the first year — because I just finished up my first year of BIRTHFIT. I started in 2018, so now I’m on my second cycle of it, and we’re going to do a meet-up this summer where, whether it’s going out for coffee or meeting in a park or whatever, because women are asking for that. They want to see the people that they took class with; they want to talk to other people. So I really loved that. We also have a private Facebook group, so they’re able to still keep in touch that way, too.

Kristin: And then you’re able to give them resources in the community if they need to see a pelvic floor therapist. I know you said you work on the pelvic floor, but they need recommendations, and as an expert, you’re able to give them.

Dr. Theresa: Absolutely.

Kristin: And postpartum doula recommendations and sleep and lactation and whatever they might be looking for?

Dr. Theresa: Yes, exactly, and I really keep that door open. We always have, during each class — so we meet twice a week for four weeks during the series. At each class, there’s a workout, but then there’s always an education component, whether I’m having my good friend Emily VanHOeven from Spectrum Health, who’s a pelvic floor PT; she comes in and gives a really awesome presentation and answers questions for these women. I have a nutritionist come in, Jenna Hibler, who you guys had interviewed. She comes in and talks about nutrition. So I have these different resources and topics, depending on — and sometimes it changes, depending on the needs of the group. I kind of ask them in the beginning what they’re looking for and what they need, so that way I make sure, at some point, they’re getting that.

Kristin: That’s great!

Dr. Theresa: Yeah, it’s really fun!

Kristin: Alyssa, is anything coming to mind for you?

Alyssa: Where were you six years ago?! Because, yeah, it was really hard to find things to bring my daughter to with me postpartum. And I know some moms are like, no, I don’t want to bring my kid with me; I’m coming alone. This is my time. But when that’s not an option, it’s good to have a place that you can bring your baby, even if it’s just in a car seat right next to you. I mean, I’ve done that before, too.

Dr. Theresa: Absolutely, yeah. And the postpartum series takes place at the CrossFit gym I go to, CrossFit 616, and they have a childcare room there, which you never see. Especially in a CrossFit gym, it’s unheard of. And we’ve had a baby boom in the last couple of years within our gym, so it is not uncommon to see women breastfeeding just at the gym, out in the open, and it’s not uncommon to see somebody else holding somebody else’s baby and just kind of helping out. So it’s a great community.

Kristin: Yeah, I would not picture a childcare room in CrossFit at all!

Dr. Theresa: There’s a TV; they have PBS Kids. It’s pretty nice.

Kristin: I’ve supported some birth doula clients who were CrossFit, and they were incredibly strong and determined. So, yeah, I’m inspired that they’re so healthy that they could exercise in that way through the entire pregnancy.

Dr. Theresa: Exactly, and those are sometimes the hardest ones to teach that slow-is-fast mindset, and there have been several high-level CrossFitter women coming out now, like athletes coming out and saying, I really wish that after my first baby, I had done this differently because I did some serious damage just starting too soon. And then after they have their second baby, they’re like, I’m doing this differently and slowing down.

Alyssa: I like that you talk about breathing, even just having that breath, like that yoga breath, of when you breathe in, your stomach should expand, and that actually helps your pelvic floor. You don’t know that — I didn’t know that until I saw a pelvic floor therapist. I’m, like, breathing helps make my pelvic floor stronger? And it does! And how slow and gentle that is for somebody who just gave birth, no matter whether you had a Cesarean or a vaginal birth; that slow movement makes you stronger. Your breath makes you stronger.

Dr. Theresa: Absolutely. Those are our top pelvic floor tips: belly breathing and LuLuLemon high-waisted pants because they give just enough compression without too much downward pressure.

Kristin: And the focus on nutrition is key. Woman are so depleted, especially if they’re breastfeeding, so making sure that that’s part of the class and having someone who specializes in nutrition speaking — I love that you bring in experts.

Alyssa: If you want to ever talk about sleep, I would love to come in and talk about sleep.

Dr. Theresa: Yes! I am always looking for people who want to come in and talk to these women because it takes some of the pressure off of me, too, and they don’t have to listen to me talk the whole time. It’s nice to hear from an expert! That would be great! And a postpartum doula — I think a lot of women don’t know that’s a thing. That’s big.

Kristin: And I think of it as more of the tasks that we do as postpartum doulas, like someone to clean up or do meal preparation, and caring for the baby, but we are caring the whole baby and setting up strong systems and supporting sleep. So it could be anything from three hours in a week to 24/7, and so we’d love to come in and talk about our role and how we can support a family.

Alyssa: That would almost be better for a prenatal series, to get them thinking about it before. I think the biggest thing is that we plan for this birth, and then it’s like, what now? What do I do? I’m home alone with this baby. So talking to them about the resources that they have postpartum before the baby actually comes. Not that it’s too late; if you have a six-week old or a six-month old, you can still hire a doula, but it’s certainly more critical in those first few weeks.

Dr. Theresa: Right. And I find in my classes, it’s the women who are third- or fourth-time moms, even fifth-time moms, that are like, I understand why I need all of this stuff now to help support me. Even though you would look at them and think, oh, they must know it all; they’ve been through this — but those are the women who are seeking more information, I find, and they’re the ones hiring doulas and really trying to prepare because they know what they’re in for.

Alyssa: Exactly! They know how hard it is. These first-time moms are in this state of bliss, which you should be, thinking about all the wonderful things that will happen, but no matter what kind of birth you have, you’re going to be waking up every two to three hours while you’re healing. So you’re not getting the rest you need to heal. You can’t really exercise yet. You’re sleep deprived, and you are in pain. It’s hard!

Dr. Theresa: It is! It’s really hard! It’s so good to have support, from having somebody coming into your home to having that tribe, again, using that word, but having that tribe to talk about those things together. One of my favorite topics that we talk about during the postpartum series — and it’s totally one of those things I was nervous to even bring up because I don’t want to offend anybody, but talking about having sex for the first time. We’re talking about all of these things that other women are like, oh, my gosh — you, too? So having those resources to be able to talk — I think that’s a perfect thing, that you could have a conversation about that one-on-one with your doula, because I don’t know how many OBs are talking about that.

Alyssa: It’s a lot of what our doulas do postpartum is just tell them, this is normal; this is okay. Let’s normalize this. You know, as a first-time mom, breastfeeding is really hard and I’m failing. No, no, no. This is normal. Let’s talk to a lactation consultant, or let’s just change your latch a little. Some very simple things a doula can help with, but this mom might not even know she has a problem with latch. She might not know that it’s a problem that her nipples are cracked and bleeding. The doula can say, no, this isn’t normal; you do need to seek out additional help.

Dr. Theresa: Totally. Something that I’ve seen crop up a couple times lately are vasospasms, that they just have no idea what that is, so they don’t do anything about it, and it’s like, oh, this is a perfect opportunity to work with a doula or work with somebody who can be, like, oh, yeah, I’ve seen this before; this is what you do.

Alyssa: What’s a vasospasm?

Dr. Theresa: From nursing; it’s like Raynaud’s in your fingers where you lose blood supply, so the nipples turn white and it’s super painful. It’s like frostbite on your fingers, you know, that searing pain.

Alyssa: I get that on my fingers all the time. I can’t imagine that on my nipples!

Dr. Theresa: I know, yeah! And it’s things like warm compresses, checking latch; you can use some magnesium to help dilate the blood vessels. So some things like that can really save that mom some excruciating pain. Yeah, just talking about those things that people think are normal, and you’re like, no; that’s not normal. We can do stuff about that.

Alyssa: Well, and that’s the beauty of a doula, too. It’s different than a babysitter. It’s different than a nanny. Doulas have this vast knowledge and experience and resource base to share, and sometimes, it’s crying and talking together. Sometimes it’s just like, okay, go take a nap and I’ll clean up your house, and that mom feels like a million bucks after a two-hour nap and a clean living room when she makes up. It’s much, much more than that.

Kristin: And a doula, just like you, as an instructor, would have resources to say, hey, you should really check out this BIRTHFIT postpartum series, or you need to go see a chiropractor, or there are some things that you can do in the community. You can do to La Leche League meetings and bring your baby with you.

Alyssa: And I think that’s what you’re doing, too. It’s so much more than just going to work out. You mentioned those four pillars; they’re getting that, and that’s why they want to keep coming back and why it feels so good.

Dr. Theresa: Absolutely! And changing that mindset, because women want to come for the workout. They’re, like, yes, I want to get back in shape, and that’s kind of their focus is that physical piece. But we sneak in all this other educational stuff that they didn’t know that they needed, and they are able to leave with so much more than they thought they were going to get. I love that. I love seeing that.

Kristin: So, Dr. Theresa, tell us when your next series is, how people can find you and register, and any other info that is relevant.

Dr. Theresa: Yes! So this year, with the postpartum series, I also developed a workshop to do before the actual series starts. So the postpartum workshop is a two-hour event where we just focus on body weight exercises, more like floor exercises, which are great for that early postpartum time for Mom to get reconnected to her body. And it’s great, too, if Mom can’t commit to four weeks, but my goal is that women are taking the workshop and then they take the series, which builds on the workshop. So the next workshop starts April 23rd, and that’s from 6:00 to 8:00 PM at Renew Mama Studio, and then the series starts a week or two later; I believe it’s May 4th, something like that. It starts in May, and that will go for four weeks twice a week. And you can find more information on our website on how to register.

Kristin: And you said you had a special coupon code for Gold Coast clients and our podcast listeners?

Dr. Theresa: Yes, absolutely. So I’m offering $20 off registration using code BFLOVESGCD. That promo code can just be applied at checkout.

Kristin: Fantastic! Well, thanks for joining us today. It’s so good to see you, Dr. Theresa!

Dr. Theresa: Thank you! It’s so good to be here! Thank you for inviting me!

Your Trusted Birth Team

Leave a Comment / Birth, Parenting / By Alyssa Veneklase / antepartum doula, babies, birth doula, birth support, childbirth, gold coast doulas, midwife, night nanny, night nurse, overnight doula, postpartum, postpartum doulas, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, sleep consultant, spectrum health

We all know that becoming a parent is difficult, but most first time parents don’t really have a full understanding of how hard it will be until they’re in the midst of it. They may encounter fertility struggles or miscarriages; they realize that planning during pregnancy takes a lot of work; they have to find an OB or midwife they trust; they may hire a doula; and it takes time for new parents to put a postpartum support network in place.

Add on to that the stressors of guilt, living up to “social media standards”, unwanted advice from friends and family, fear of failure, and lack of confidence. It’s overwhelming and can leave parents feeling defeated before they even begin.

With information at our fingertips, how do we discern what’s evidence-based and what’s junk? What’s worth worrying about and what’s not? How does a parent today make an informed decision?

Luckily, our West Michigan families have so many great health care professionals to choose from and tons of options for support. We’re going to tell you how to begin this journey on the right path so you don’t go through this alone. If you are supported by a trusted team throughout, you are more likely to have a positive birth experience.

Let’s talk about some myths. It’s important to talk about the misconceptions the public has on every area of the support team. Let’s debunk those!

Doula Myth #1: Doulas only support home births.
At Gold Coast Doulas, over 80 percent of our births happen in a hospital. Our clients are seeking professional, experienced doula support in the hospital setting.

Doula Myth #2: Doulas only support parents who want an all-natural delivery.
Gold Coast Doulas supports any birth and respects all birth preferences.

Doula Myth #3: Doulas catch babies.
Definitely not! We are not a replacement for any medical staff, we are an added member of your birth team, there to offer informational, emotional, and physical support throughout pregnancy, labor, and delivery.

Doula Myth #4: Doulas only offer birth support.
We have antepartum doulas that offer support for mothers on bed rest, are high-risk, or for any reason need additional help while pregnant. We also have postpartum doulas that support families once a baby, or babies arrive. They offer in-home care, day and overnight. They are like a night nanny and infant care specialist rolled into one!

Hospital Birth Myth #1: You can’t have an unmedicated birth in a hospital.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. Many of our birth clients prefer an unmedicated birth in the safety of a hospital setting. Our West Michigan hospitals have many different options for a laboring person.

Hospital Birth Myth #2: An induction leads to a cesarean.
This is not always the case. In many cases, labor induction leads to a successful vaginal birth.

Hospital Birth Myth #3: You can’t move around during labor.
As long as you don’t have an epidural, movement is encouraged. Even with an epidural, there are many possible position changes in bed that your birth doula can help you with. You won’t be lying on your back the entire time. Most hospitals have walking monitors for those who wish to move around during labor.

Midwife Myth #1: Midwives only support home births.
We have many local midwives that do support home births, one midwife that delivers in a birth house, and there are plenty of Certified Nurse Midwives that practice in hospitals! There are midwives in West Michigan for any kind of birth preference you have.

Midwife Myth #2: Midwives only support women during pregnancy and birth.
Many midwives also offer well-woman care (annual exams).

OB Myth #1: They aren’t supportive of vaginal births after cesareans (VBAC) and it’s best to attempt one at home.
This is often based on the hospital’s policy rather than preference of the doctor. Many hospitals are supportive of VBACs.

OB Myth #2: They do not work with doulas.
This is not the case. Many of our clients see an Obstetrician and most are very comfortable with professional doulas. Our team is always willing to accompany clients to a prenatal appointment if the provider is not comfortable with working with a doula.

OB Myth #3: They don’t like birth plans.
While this may be partially true just because many “birth plans” are eight pages long. Many things patients put on their birth plan are already protocol at most hospitals (skin to skin, delayed newborn procedures, etc). Knowing that providers have to see many patients in one day, it’s important to keep in mind that they cannot read through an eight page plan. Give them the information that is specific to you. “I want dimmed lights and music.” “I don’t want to be touched when I’m laboring.”

Millennials are over 80 percent of the pregnant population right now and they want answers! They want a relationship, and they want a team they can trust. Our parents and grandparents had one doctor who did everything. They trusted anything the doctor said and definitely didn’t go searching for answers on their own.

Medical care is different today, and families expect a different approach to their healthcare. Oftentimes they don’t even realize they need something more until they are expecting a child. It’s probably one of the biggest unknowns to ever happen in someone’s life. Having a trusted team by your side through the entire process can relieve the stress, pressure, and oftentimes unnecessary anxiety that comes with planning and preparing for pregnancy, labor, and postpartum.

If you are pregnant or even just thinking about starting or growing your family soon, reach out to us. We can offer local resources and our doulas are here to be your guides when you are ready.

In the meantime, here are some trusted online sources we recommend. Try your hardest not to get information from individuals online (mom groups, Facebook, etc)!

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)

March of Dimes

Evidence Based Birth

Podcast Episode #68: Overnight Doula Support

Leave a Comment / Ask The Doulas Podcast, Doulas, Parenting, Sleep / By Alyssa Veneklase / birth support, gold coast doulas, mood disorders, night nanny, night nurse, overnight doula, postpartum, postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, postpartum doulas, postpartum psychosis, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, pregnancy podcast, pregnant, sleep deprivation

Many of our clients and listeners don’t fully understand what overnight doula support looks like. Kristin and Alyssa, both Certified Postpartum Doulas, discuss the kinds of support their clients look for and how their team of doulas support families in their homes. You can listen to this complete podcast on iTunes or SoundCloud. You can also learn more here about overnight postpartum doula support.

Kristin: Welcome to Ask the Doulas with Gold Coast Doulas. I’m Kristin.

Alyssa: And I’m Alyssa.

Kristin: And we’re here to chat about what an overnight postpartum doula does, as that is a question that we get asked often by our clients and our podcast listeners. So, Alyssa, my first question to you is, as a postpartum doula and sleep specialist, what do you see as the key benefits to a family in hiring overnight postpartum doula support?

Alyssa: Whether they hire for sleep or not, it helps the parents get sleep. So let’s say they’re not even hiring me for a sleep consult. Parents don’t understand what sleep deprivation means until their in the midst of it, probably at least three weeks in. Like, our bodies are designed to survive a couple weeks of this, sometimes even three or four, but after that, our systems start to shut down. So if you think about overnight support being this trusted person who sleeps in your home to take over all those overnight responsibilities so that you can get a good night’s rest. Even a six-hour stretch or sometimes even a four-hour stretch makes you feel like a whole new person the next day when you’re used to only sleeping maybe one- or two-hour chunks. A four-hour stretch seems amazing in that moment, whereas right now if you told me I could only have four hours of sleep tonight, I would cry. I would be miserable the next day. And you, Kristin, as a birth doula, you know that feeling. If you’ve had one night of no sleep, you’re just wrecked. So you’re running on adrenaline. You’re sleep deprived. So having a doula come in and take over all that responsibility at night — obviously, she can’t breastfeed your baby, but you have a couple different choices if you’re a breastfeeding mom. If you’re a bottle-feeding with formula mom, you can literally go to sleep at 10:00 PM and wake up whenever you want because the doula can just feed that baby every three hours.

Kristin: Exactly, and clean the bottles and change the diapers and burp the baby, all of it.

Alyssa: Yeah. So if your partner is feeding in the middle of the night, you’re certainly not going to wake up to clean bottles and parts in the morning. The doula does do that. But for a breastfeeding mom, you can choose to pump instead of breastfeeding because it’s usually a lot quicker. So you pump and you set those bottles out for the doula. The doula wakes up when the baby wakes up; feeds the baby; burps the baby; changes the baby; gets the baby back to sleep — and Mom’s sleeping this whole time. Or, if Mom chooses to breastfeed, the doula can bring Baby to Mom so Mom doesn’t even have to get out of bed. I was just talking to Kelly Emory, our lactation consultant friend, and she was saying that when she was nursing, she would just side lie and her husband would bring the baby to her. She would lie on her side, so she didn’t have to get up. She didn’t even have to open her eyes if she didn’t want to. She was still kind of in this half-sleep state, and then when Baby was done on that side, her husband would take the baby and she’d roll over and she would feed on the other side, and then the husband would take the baby away, change the baby, burp the baby, and do all that stuff. So she said it was amazing. She took over one shift of the night, and he took over the next, so she would get a six-hour chunk of sleep and would feel amazing in the morning. So you’re able to tackle all those everyday tasks during the day because you didn’t have to also worry about those at night.

Kristin: Yes! And I’ve also had overnight clients who prefer to come into the nursery and sit in a rocker and feed their baby rather than have me come in and disrupt their husband’s sleep.

Alyssa: Sometimes they’re sleeping in separate rooms, too, because they’ve become used to that. So oftentimes, my goal as an overnight doula is to have both parents sleeping in bed together again, or wherever you were before this baby arrived.

Kristin: Right, no more partner on the couch or in the guest bedroom.

Alyssa: Right.

Kristin: So as far as other tasks of an overnight postpartum doula, sleep is one. So we can get Baby back to sleep and if they’re working with a certified sleep consultant, like you, then they can implement that.

Alyssa: Yeah, I guess I didn’t answer that initial question. So if they do work with me as a sleep consultant, you can hire an overnight doula in conjunction with. So I offer this customized sleep plan for your family, and then our doula knows that plan, understands that plan, and implements that plan overnight.

Kristin: That’s amazing.

Alyssa: So you wake up again refreshed because you’ve slept, and then you have the energy to implement the sleep plan during the day. And then the doula comes in at night and implements that plan overnight. So it’s consistency because that’s always the key with any sort of sleep consult is that you have to be consistent. You can’t just do it during the day and then give up at night because you’re tired. Your plan will fail.

Kristin: And so who hires a postpartum overnight doula, and how often do they use the doula support?

Alyssa: Who hires them? Tired families hire them! You get to the point of exhaustion. I don’t think when you’re pregnant you’re thinking about an overnight doula because you truly don’t understand what you’re in for. But newborn babies sleep all the time, so they could sleep up to 22 out of 24 hours a day, so you’re thinking, well, of course, like, newborn babies sleep all the time. I’m going to sleep when the baby sleeps. They’re going to be feeding every two to three hours!

Kristin: They get up a lot!

Alyssa: Which means all day and all night, you will be up feeding every two to three hours, at least. So your sleep becomes these little tiny chunks. Because if you think if you have a newborn baby that’s eating every two hours, and it takes you an hour to breastfeed, and then after the breastfeeding session, you have to burp; you have to change the diaper; you have to get the baby back to sleep. You’ve maybe got 30 to 45 minutes, if you’re lucky, to sleep before the baby needs to feed again.

Kristin: And some clients hire us for one overnight to get a good night of sleep and catch up; other clients hire us every night, and we bring in a team, in and out, or have one doula consistently. And some of our clientele have a partner who travels a lot, or I’ve even supported a family where the mother was going back to work from maternity leave and was traveling for her job, so as an overnight doula, I supported the husband as he cared for the toddler that was waking; I was caring for the baby. And so there are a lot of unique situations, but a lot of our moms who have partners who travel a lot want that extra support, whether they have a new baby or other kids in the household that need support, as well.

Alyssa: I think it depends on resources. So if someone is sleep deprived and they’re like, I just need one night of reprieve, and that’s all we can afford and that’s what we’re going to do, then that’s what they do.

Kristin: Exactly.

Alyssa: Even if they don’t have the resources, oftentimes during pregnancy, if parents have the foresight to ask for postpartum support as a baby shower gift, they can have several overnights gifted to them by friends and family.

Kristin: Which is better than all the toys and clothes they’ll outgrow.

Alyssa: I always tell them, you’re going to get mounds of plastic junk that you’ll literally look at and say that’s hundreds of dollars’ worth of stuff I’m never going to use, and you could have had an overnight doula in your home so you could sleep.

Kristin: Easily!

Alyssa: So I think it’s just based on resources because, like you said, we’ve had people hire us for, you know, two overnights and we’ve had two months straight. So I think it just depends. I mean, I don’t know that it’s a type of client. I think that’s just kind of based on resources available.

Kristin: And we certainly support families who are struggling with postpartum mood disorders and anxiety, but that is not all that we serve as far as clientele. But for moms who are being treated in therapy, then we certainly are able to give them much-needed support and rest as we care for their baby, and we do have a package where we are able to lower our hourly rate for clients who are in the Pine Rest mother-baby program or are seeking therapy.

Alyssa: Yeah, sleep deprivation is considered to be the number one cause of perinatal mood disorders, so all these moms with anxiety, depression, up to postpartum psychosis — when you’re sleep deprived, you’re literally torturing your brain and your body, and it’s really hard to function. So sleep is such an imperative thing, and for your baby, too. If you’re not sleeping and your baby’s not sleeping, physiologically, that baby needs sleep in order to grow, for their brain to develop, for their immune system to function properly. It’s so critical for both parents and children.

Kristin: Agreed. So, really, anyone can benefit from it. Our shortest shift would be coming in at 10:00 PM and leaving at 6:00 AM, but a lot of clients extend that time.

Alyssa: I’ve found that a lot of people like you to come a little bit earlier, especially if they have older children. So if there’s older siblings, let’s say 6:00 comes around and you’re trying to get dinner on the table. You have a two-year-old, a five-year-old, and a newborn.

Kristin: That’s a lot!

Alyssa: That overnight shift tends to, when parents say, yeah, yeah, come at 8:00 or 9:00 when I’m going to go to bed — that very quickly changes to 5:00 or 6:00. So either that shift moves up, or it just lengthens. So the doula can come from, a lot of times, 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM, and they do a lot of 12-hour shifts because they’re there for the hustle and bustle of getting dinner, wrangling toddlers, helping with the newborn, and then helping with bedtime routines for two or three children and then taking that infant newborn and helping them get to sleep. Usually, it’s in that order. Like, the doula will take the baby and put them to sleep, and then the parents get to spend some quality time with this toddler who is usually lashing out because they are used to being the only child, if there’s only one, and are really, really seeking that one-on-one attention that they’re not getting anymore.

Kristin: Yeah, that’s the perfect time to bond, and they can read them a bedtime story and sing songs; whatever their nighttime routines were before Baby arrived.

Alyssa: Yeah, and that’s one thing I stress, too, with my sleep consults is just having a really good bedtime routine, and even if I’m doing a consult for one child and there’s others in the household, I usually ask about them, too, because if you’ve got three kids who all have a different bedtime, and each bedtime routine is taking an hour, certainly whoever’s last on that list is going to bed at 9:00 or something, which is way too late for these little kids. So trying to consolidate and have a system in place and just get a schedule that works for the family, for everyone in the family, is a really big goal.

Kristin: Awesome advice.

Alyssa: So you mentioned earlier that a doula sleeps when the baby sleeps, and sometimes parents wonder, well, what do you mean? What does that look like? Depending on the house, we’ve had doulas sleeping on sofas in the living room.

Kristin: Yes, that’s what I’ve done.

Alyssa: We’ve had doulas sleeping in a spare room. We’ve had doulas sleeping in a spare room on the same floor, in a spare room on a different floor, and you can make anything work.

Kristin: With monitors and technology now, you know the second a baby stirs.

Alyssa: So parents are always like, oh, shoot, I don’t know how this is going to work. How am I going to do that? We’ve had blow-up mattresses in the nursery. Ideally, you want the doula to be as close to the nursey as possible, so they’re the one, when they hear that baby, they’re up; they’re there.

Kristin: No one else gets woken up in the household.

Alyssa: Yeah, you want the parents to be as far away. So sometimes I even tell them if you have a spare bedroom in the basement, go sleep there, because even with one of my most recent sleep clients, the first night we did the sleep consult, the doula was there overnight, and I contacted them the next day: how did you sleep? And they were like, oh, I wanted to so bad, but I kept hearing this phantom crying. Even when the babies weren’t crying, they hear it, anyway. So it does take, as parents, who are used to not sleeping for week after week after week — it takes time for your body and brain to adjust back to, oh, I’m able to sleep again. So it’s not instant. It usually takes at least a couple nights to get your brain to say, I can sleep. It’s okay to sleep through the night. I don’t have any responsibilities tonight. This doula is taking care of it. And it’s just a matter of them getting sleep in two-hour chunks instead of the parents getting sleep in two-hour chunks. So a doula can usually do two or three in a row before they’re too exhausted.

Kristin: Just like a birth doula. We can do a couple nights with a client in the hospital without sleep, and then we’re done.

Alyssa: Yeah. So for those clients of ours who we’ve had for two weeks straight or two months straight, it’s several doulas taking turns. Otherwise, they’re just too exhausted.

Kristin: Right, and that’s where we sometimes will bring in a team if it is continuous care.

Alyssa: But I think ideally, with sleep training, I would love to see every parent have a sleep plan and then a doula for five nights. That would just be — I don’t know; I think the mental well-being of these parents would increase drastically if they were able to do both.

Kristin: I would have loved an overnight doula with my kids being 21 months apart; having a toddler and a newborn. It would have been amazing.

Alyssa: Well, and some people, too, think it’s weird to have somebody sleeping in your home. I mean, always, when they meet the doula, they’re totally fine with it, but it is a weird thought to have this stranger come into your home who’s going to care for your babies. That’s why I think we’re so adamant about talking about our training and our certification process, and we’ve done background checks for people who want us to.

Kristin: Yeah, and we’ve shown immunization records and CPR certifications and so on and liability insurance. We have all of that.

Alyssa: Yeah, because especially with a mom with anxiety who needs to sleep and knows she needs this help, but now she has anxiety because a stranger is going to be sleeping in her home — we need to do whatever you have to, to make that mom feel comfortable to be able to sleep.

Kristin: Yes, and we’re there to do just that. So feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions about overnight doulas. We’d love to work with your family! Remember, these moments are golden.

Podcast Episode #62: Newborn Traumas

Leave a Comment / Ask The Doulas Podcast / By Alyssa Veneklase / babies, chiropractic care, colic, gold coast doulas, postpartum, postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, pregnancy podcast, pregnant

What is birth trauma and do all babies experience it? How can you remedy it? Dr. Annie and Dr. Rachel of Rise Wellness Chiropractic give us several examples of common birth traumas, what they mean, and how chiropractic care can help. You can listen to this complete podcast episode on iTunes or SoundCloud.

Kristin: Welcome to Ask the Doulas with Gold Coast Doulas. This is Kristin, and I’m here with my business partner, Alyssa.

Alyssa: Hello!

Kristin: And we have Dr. Annie from Rise Wellness, as well as Dr. Rachel. Today we are talking about birth trauma with babies and how a chiropractor can help them, especially since you have a focus on newborns. So, Annie, tell us some different ways that you can help parents.

Dr. Annie: Sure. Well, first, I want to talk about what birth trauma means. It’s not necessarily that all births are categorized as traumatic births, but let’s say there is a lot of pressure on the mom and the baby while the natural birth process is happening. So even with a natural birth, there can still be some things that show up in little kiddos after. But if there is any sort of birth trauma, if Mom has to get an epidural, that can affect the baby. If there are risks of C-section, stuff like that, any of those red flags that are happening during labor, that can all lead to birth trauma, too.

Dr. Rachel: You’re probably wondering why an epidural would even effect the baby and create more of a birth trauma. What happens is when Mom gets an epidural, you can’t feel from the waist down, so we can’t feel when we’re supposed to push. So what happens is that the baby’s head puts more pressure on the cervix that you can’t feel, and it can cause some birth injury in the cervical spine. Minor, but it can still have effects later on.

Dr. Annie: Yes. And then they’re also more likely to need intervention at birth, too, so whether that’s help pulling the baby out by the head and neck or if that’s use of forceps or vacuum-assisted. And all of those put a lot of pressure on the upper cervical spine of the baby, where the neck is, and your spinal cord goes through that area. So that’s what we find in kiddos, even after a natural birth process, but especially in those instances where there’s been a lot of intervention. We see a lot of upper cervical misalignment that affects the nervous system. And so what we want is to take care of is correcting that misalignment so that they can develop the way that they’re supposed so that their bodies work. A lot of people think of brachial plexus injuries in kids, when the shoulder gets stuck and there’s traction on the brachial plexus, but if there’s enough traction there to injure those nerves in the arm, there’s enough pressure just in a natural birth that can affect the whole nervous system through the neck.

Kristin: We find with breastfeeding there can be some issues with the latch or a baby preferring one side to the other, and that could be, obviously, remedied by chiropractor care. Maybe something happened during birth where they’re just having some issues with their neck and alignment and so on.

Dr. Rachel: Yeah, that’s super common. We see that. That’s one of the first signs that there could have been upper cervical misalignment is if a baby prefers one side or one breast when they’re breastfeeding or if they have latching difficulty because that all has to do with how they can turn their head, how the muscles in their face are working, what position their jaw is in. So we see that a lot, and when we do home visits, that’s often for a baby who’s head is turned to one side, and then we can correct that with a simple gentle adjustment, and then it’s amazing. They breastfeed like a champ after that.

Dr. Annie: I would say a big one, too, right now is the torticollis and the flat head. I would say that’s later; you see that later, but it probably started with favoring nursing or with latching difficulty that didn’t get corrected. They’re favoring, so they always want to turn to one side. And then they hyper-develop those muscles on that side, and then just further down the road, it becomes harder and harder to correct.

Dr. Rachel: That’s why we always say it’s good to get your babies checked.

Alyssa: Maybe that’s why I’m so lumpy on this side!

Dr. Rachel: It’s probably your parents’ fault! I blame everything on my parents!

Alyssa: I had no idea!

Dr. Rachel: It all started with the birth!

Kristin: And then, certainly, babies that are colicky or have other issues at birth can be helped by chiropractor care. That’s an easy fix?

Dr. Annie: Yeah. And we’ll say this, just so people don’t think we’re crazy. There was a study done by an MD, Gutman, and he found spinal injury present in 80% of infants examined shortly after birth.

Dr. Rachel: Out of a thousand births.

Dr. Annie: Yeah. Causing interference to neurological and immune function. So like I said, even just the natural birth process. I mean, think about it. If they’re pulling — what is it, 60 to 90 pounds of axial pressure, they say? So even a natural delivery. And just the whole process of babies going through. The uterus contracting; that’s going to cause some sort of distress on that spine.

Dr. Rachel: And we see that. I mean, we see other things, too, in kiddos who ended up C-section. Because they don’t go through the vaginal canal, they don’t get that compression, and so when they’re pulled out of the abdomen, they have a lot of those issues, too, but then their lungs aren’t cleared of fluid and stuff, so then they’re more likely to have allergies and asthma and stuff like that, too, because of those things never getting corrected.

Kristin: So can you explain to our listeners what an adjustment for a newborn is like so they can rest assured that it’s very gentle?

Dr. Rachel: Yes. So the ICPA says you’re going to use the same amount of pressure that you would use to check the ripeness of a tomato. So it is so gentle. If you push your finger on your eyelid, the amount of pressure that you can just feel — that’s how much pressure we’re using to adjust a newborn, especially.

Dr. Annie: We’re using our pinkies. There’s no instrument; there’s no twisting, cracking, popping.

Kristin: And I think that’s what people imagine is the cracking. So it’s not like that? And the fact that you do home visits is amazing, so people can come to your office here in East Town, and for certain cases with newborns, you’ll go to their homes. That’s so wonderful!

Dr. Annie: We do that with most of the moms that we’ve seen throughout their pregnancy. As soon as their baby is born, they call us up and ask us to come over to their house and check the baby, please.

Kristin: And do you also adjust the mom when you do these home visits?

Dr. Rachel: We usually do. I think almost every time. And sometimes Dad, if Dad’s home.

Dr. Annie: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s important for the whole family. Birth is stressful! It’s stressful on everybody. It’s stressful on the mom’s spinal mechanics and on her body, but emotionally stressful on both parents, too.

Dr. Rachel: And on your body. We see doulas after the birth!

Kristin: You are so helpful to me after a birth because we have some recovery, as well, especially if it’s a physical birth, or even if it’s not as physical and my client’s sleeping with an epidural and I’m trying to get rest in a waiting room and kind of shoving myself into these strange positions on a chair to sleep. I definitely recover faster and my immune system is much stronger as a result of chiropractic care, so I appreciate you both! Thank you for explaining some of the remedies for different newborn traumas they experience. How can we find you?

Dr. Annie: You can find us on our website. Or you can find us on Facebook and Instagram. Both are @risewellnesschiro. It’s probably the best way to find us and get in contact with us.

Kristin: You’re still accepting new patients, correct?

Dr. Annie: Yep!

Kristin: Awesome.

Dr. Annie: Oh, yeah, we’ll take all the babies!

Kristin: Thank you so much for chatting with us, Dr. Annie and Dr. Rachel, and we will see you next time!

Dr. Annie: Thanks for having us!

Podcast Episode #61: Postpartum Wellness

Leave a Comment / Ask The Doulas Podcast, Postpartum, Pregnancy, Self-Care / By Alyssa Veneklase / babies, gold coast doulas, postpartum, postpartum doulas, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, pregnancy podcast, pregnant, sleep deprivation

Dr. Erica of Root Functional Medicine gives moms some tips about staying healthy through pregnancy and into the postpartum period. We also talk about her upcoming Postpartum Wellness class on March 7. You can listen to this complete podcast episode on iTunes or SoundCloud.

This podcast episode is sponsored by LifeFuel, providing healthy meal delivery in West Michigan. We love partnering with LifeFuel!

Alyssa: Hello! Welcome to another episode of Ask the Doulas. I am Alyssa Veneklase, co-owner of Gold Coast Doulas, and today I’m talking to Dr. Erica Armstrong of Root Functional Medicine. Hello, Dr. Erica! Welcome.

Dr. Erica: Hello, thank you for having me!

Alyssa: My business partner, Kristin, has been talking to you, but I want to know a little bit about Root Functional Medicine, and then we will talk about an event that we’re going to have together here in our space. So tell me a little bit about what you do.

Dr. Erica: So I am a functional medicine doctor. My background was in family medicine for several years before I went through functional medicine training, and Kelsey, our dietician, and I created a specialty practice in functional medicine, the first of its kind in West Michigan, and we partner up to help patients really get to the root cause of why they’re not feeling well. That’s kind of the basis of functional medicine; we look at people in a holistic sense and try to solve problems at the root, and a lot of the time, we do need to make nutritional changes, and so it just made perfect sense to partner up with a dietician to do that.

Alyssa: So explain to me what a functional medicine doctor does versus a regular medical doctor. How would you, in very simple terms, explain what functional medicine is?

Dr. Erica: Sure, I would say there’s not a simple explanation other than it’s a different model of healthcare entirely. Functional medicine isn’t the symptom, one diagnosis, one treatment, the typical path that gets rushed through. It really is stepping back, looking at the entire picture since birth and even before birth of a patient because they’re not just a snapshot in time. We look at their genetics. We look at their microbiome. We look at their nutrition and lifestyle and really plot everything on something called a functional medicine matrix, and we try to balance the imbalances. And then we look at lab testing that’s simply not available in traditional labs to see how the body is actually functioning, and with that information, we can be much more preventative and not only help people stay away from disease but actually help them feel well.

Alyssa: Yeah, I think of it as — you know how you go to a doctor within one medical system, and then you go to another one, and you’re answering the same questions all the time, but nobody seems to be talking together. And functional medicine is like having all those specialties together talking to one another, so the heart specialist isn’t just looking at your heart. The heart specialist should also be asking about nutrition and diet. You know, it’s not just all these segmented pieces.

Dr. Erica: Yeah, that’s absolutely right. In traditional healthcare, we tend to silo things, but yes, if you have a heart issue, it doesn’t stop there. There are other things that we need to look at, so it’s really putting the big picture together.

Alyssa: So you and Kelsey — she does the dietician part of it? We should have her on sometime, too, because I love talking about diet and sleep since I do sleep consults and food, especially for little ones. Do you see children, as well?

Dr. Erica: We do, yeah. We can see all ages, and I do a lot of nutrition, too. Just in functional medicine training, a vast majority of that is nutrition, but Kelsey does help a lot with specific diets and troubleshooting, and she has a lot of nutrition knowledge that she shares with patients, too.

Alyssa: Let’s talk about this event and tell people what it is that you do to help pregnant women and what they can look forward to if they come to this event.

Dr. Erica: Yeah, so even before pregnancy, really optimizing wellness and things like just trying to make sure they’re eating balanced, healthy meals is important, and then things to look out for in the postpartum period where we’re often sleep deprived and have higher cortisol levels and how to navigate and troubleshoot those areas, how to plan ahead for that.

Alyssa: So this event we’re having is on March 7th from 6:30 to 8:00 PM and it’s going to be here in our office in the Kingsley Building. Seating is limited because our office can only hold so many people. It’s $35.00 per person, and we’re going to create a link and post it on Facebook and put it on our website. Are we calling it How to Set Yourself Up for Success in the Postpartum Period?

Dr. Erica: Yes!

Alyssa: So we’re going to talk about good foods during pregnancy, what to watch out for, sleep deprivation and cortisol, like you just mentioned, tips for dealing with that, and then how to evaluate adrenals and thyroid, which I know is a common question for a lot of women, pregnant or not.

Dr. Erica: Yes, we end up seeing a lot of thyroid disease coming after pregnancy, for a variety of reasons. So how to test for that and assess it from a functional standpoint.

Alyssa: And then we have — and you might need to help me with this; talk about some adaptogens in food? What is that?

Dr. Erica: So adaptogens just means that it helps your body adapt to situations, so certain things like mushrooms or ashwagandha, those are called adaptogens. So if people are having a lot of high cortisol levels, actually eating that food helps because food can talk to your genes and tell your genes to turn on or off and produce more or less cortisol. That’s a very scientific answer, sorry!

Alyssa: No, I get it! And then the last thing I have on here, “some supportive things to do such as basic ideas that can be forgotten during the postpartum period.” What do you mean by that?

Dr. Erica: So even just remembering to continue your prenatal vitamins. Things can get so out of routine with a newborn baby that you forget to do simple things that can help you feel well. We end up seeing a lot of nutritional deficiencies just after giving birth, especially vitamin D. There’s a lot of vitamin D deficiency in general in West Michigan, but if you’re breastfeeding, you’re at more risk for that. And then magnesium deficiency, which many of us are deficient in. So just those two simple vitamins, we can test those levels, and people end up feeling a lot better when we replace those.

Alyssa: So who would you say should come to this event? Women who are pregnant, trying to conceive, postpartum, all of the above?

Dr. Erica: I think all of the above, for sure, because we’re going to talk about a lot of general health tips, as well, as focusing on the postpartum period.

Alyssa: Okay! So again the event is called How to Set Yourself Up for Success in the Postpartum Period, but even if you’re pregnant, I always tell people to plan ahead. So it’s good to learn this stuff so that you’re not in the midst of all this chaos with a newborn at home, and going, oh, shoot. If you know this stuff, you can plan ahead. And again, that’s going to be on March 7th from 6:30 to 8:00 PM, so if you’re interested, you can go to our contact form and let us know you’re interested in the event. I would still like to know a little bit more about your practice. Where are you located?

Dr. Erica: We’re located in downtown Grand Rapids, and we mainly see people in person, but we can also see people virtually throughout the state of Michigan via telemedicine, and some people will drive in for the first visit and then follow up virtually, as well. We have different packages on our website. You can either work with Kelsey in nutrition package or with me in functional medicine or with both of us in what we call the Get to the Root package in where we work together for at least three months and really help get to the root cause of feeling better.

Alyssa: I love that you can do it virtually, especially for postpartum moms!

Dr. Erica: Yes, it makes a lot of sense not to have to lug the baby in!

Alyssa: Yeah, it’s the last thing you want to do! You’re in your yoga pants; you don’t want to have to drive downtown and probably run in to somebody that you know with no makeup on and all that stuff. It’s just a lot easier, especially if you have a newborn and toddlers at home to not have to leave.

Dr. Erica: Yeah, and we can attach all the food plans and wellness plans right to the patient portal.

Alyssa: That’s really convenient! Well, if anyone is interested in getting ahold of you, what’s the easiest way?

Dr. Erica: There’s a contact form right on our website. And we’d be happy to answer your questions. We’re also on Instagram and Facebook as Root Functional Medicine, and we post most of our updates there.

Alyssa: And we’ll share the Facebook event, as well. Again, it’s How to Set Yourself Up for Success in the Postpartum Period and it will be on March 7th from 6:30 to 8:00 PM here at the Gold Coast Doulas office. Well, thank you, Dr. Erica! Thanks for joining us!

Dr. Erica: Thank you!

Alyssa: And tell Kelsey we’ll have her on sometime, too.

Dr. Erica: Sounds good!

How ZENBands Became a Part of Pregnancy

Leave a Comment / HypnoBirthing / By Alyssa Veneklase / babies, gold coast doulas, guided meditation, Hypnobirthing, postpartum, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, pregnant, self-hypnosis

Gold Coast Doulas is pleased to announce a guest blog by Dr. Erin Stair on her headbands that are perfect for listening to HypnoBirthing scripts or childbirth playlists. I use them for listening to podcasts like “Ask the Doulas” with Gold Coast Doulas on Soundcloud and Itunes.

Erin is the creator of ZENBands, ZENTones, author of Manic Kingdom, and the founder of bloomingwellness.com. She writes all of the blogs at blooming wellness and interviews all of the guests, with the hopes of building an intersection between science and wellness. She is a graduate of West Point, where she was recruited to play soccer, and after the Army, went on to medical school, earned her medical degree, and then received the Global Health Leadership scholarship from New York University, which she used to earn her Masters of Public Health. She has a keen interest in population-level interventions for stress, depression, obesity, anxiety, and disease reduction in general, and for the last several years, has served as the chief of research for an international digital health company. She lives in New York City and is always working on her next book.

I’ve always been very interested in noninvasive, natural anxiety-reducing techniques and how effective they are during stressful times. My interest led me into the world of sound therapy, particularly binaural beats, or what some call phantom beats. Many people listen to binaural beats to help reduce stress, anxiety, induce sleep and boost mood. The scientific body of evidence for binaural beats isn’t robust, but there is no shortage of anecdotal evidence, and I’m betting this will be a hotbed for future research. After talking to a few scientists and sound engineers, I began designing my own binaural arrangements ( ZENTones) including arranging different frequencies of sounds with sequences of tones. I held several focus groups during which volunteers, mainly veterans with PTSD, listened to the arrangements of sounds to see if various ones improved sleep quality, reduced anxiety or boosted mood. Many folks listened while lying down and a recurring theme in feedback sessions was that their headphones or earbuds were uncomfortable. Their ears hurt after lying down, and the headphones/earbuds were painful or too heavy. Their feedback was my inspiration for creating the ZENBand.

I wanted to create something simple, lightweight, eco-friendly, and portable that would help make listening to the ZENTones more comfortable. I also wanted to include tenets of color therapy in our design, since color significantly impacts mood. Hence, the ZENBand , a headband and speakers combo, was born. We use cotton for the bands for two reasons: Cotton is lightweight, and unlike many artificially-designed cooling fabrics, polyester and fleece, cotton does not contain microplastics. There are flat, lightweight, custom-made pillow speakers inside the band that can be removed and easily plug into phones, laptops or MP3 players. They truly feel like cushions for the ears. We also get them made in a variety of colors, so folks can find one that suits their mood. The speakers are purposely not noise-canceling, as we want people to be able to hear others around them, especially since a lot of folks wear them at night. You still want the ability to hear noises, alarms, kids crying or dogs barking. Furthermore, ZENBands can also act as eye masks to help keep out ambient light and reduce anxiety. Light can aggravate anxiety and stress. Based on feedback, the next version coming out this Spring will be a little wider, to make it easier to pull the ZENBand over the eyes and optimize the relaxation response.

While most of our customers used the ZENTones and ZENBand for anxiety, travel, or sleep, one time I received a message from a woman who was pregnant and close to giving birth. She asked if I could expedite shipping, because she planned on wearing the ZENBand for hypnosis during labor. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but after receiving several more orders with a similar request, I started researching relaxation techniques for pregnant women. They included deep breathing exercises, pregnancy cards, prenatal yoga, positive affirmations, guided meditations and hypnosis. I even talked to Ob/Gyn doctors and midwives who mentioned noticing reduced anxiety and fear levels in women in labor who used one of the aforementioned anxiety reducing technique during pregnancy.

That was a few years back and now we get orders from pregnant women all over the world. We work with a lot of birth professionals and birth centers. Women have sent us photos of them in labor, wearing their ZENBands, and it’s pretty awesome. We love being part of the birth process, even if it’s just a tiny part in making women more comfortable. A lot of women write us and tell us that they love that the ZENBand allows them to listen to their relaxation scripts or birthing music while also keeping their hair and sweat out of their eyes. I should note that the ZENBand is not Bluetooth, as we feel more comfortable with reducing EMF exposure so close to one’s head, and we want to make sure that people always have access to their sounds/affirmations when they need them most. Bluetooth doesn’t always work well in every location, including hospital rooms. Also, phones can be a big distraction when it comes to relaxing. Phones can be a huge source of anxiety and listening sessions can be interrupted with incoming calls or the impulse to jump on Social Media or check your messages. To help eliminate those impulses, reduce anxiety and enhance relaxation, we recommend using the ZENBand with an old-fashioned Mp-3 player. It can be pleasantly refreshing and a much needed break from our phones.

To check out ZENBands and ZENTones, please visit us at bloomingwellness.com. As a token of our appreciation, please use code ZEN for a first-time customer discount.

Erin Stair, MD, MPH, founder of Bloomingwellness.com

*Note: Gold Coast was not compensated for promoting this product. It is one we personally use and recommend.

Podcast Episode #60: A Naturopath’s Perspective on Pregnancy and Depression

Leave a Comment / Ask The Doulas Podcast, Parenting, Pregnancy, Self-Care, Sleep / By Alyssa Veneklase / gold coast doulas, perinatal mood disorders, postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, postpartum doulas, postpartum psychosis, postpartum recovery, pregnancy, pregnancy insomnia, pregnancy podcast, pregnant, sleep deprivation, tandem nursing

Doctor Janna Hibler, ND talks to Alyssa and Kristin about how a naturopathic doctor treats pregnant and postpartum women, body and mind. You can listen to this complete podcast episode on iTunes and SoundCloud.

Alyssa: Hello, welcome to Ask the Doulas podcast. I am Alyssa Veneklase, co-owner of Gold Coast Doulas, and I am here with Kristin, my business partner today, and Janna Hibler. She’s a naturopathic doctor and clinical nutritionist. Hello, Janna!

Janna: Hi, how’s it going, guys?

Alyssa: So Kristin and I met you at a little gathering of the minds at Grand Rapids Natural Health Recently. We kind of hit it off, and then you and I got coffee, and we hit it off even further. We got to chatting forever, so we were like, let’s just pause this and record our conversation! And today, first, I want to know a little bit more about what you do, but when the two of us were talking, we spoke quite a bit about postpartum depression, and I want to talk about what happens leading up to that, even before you get pregnant, but then during pregnancy, too. What does that look like? What do depression and anxiety look like? How do we nip that in the bud?

Janna: Yeah, definitely! So it’s really important for all of us mamas and future mamas to know that how we are before we get pregnant and give birth is a good indicator of how our health might look like after we give birth. Things you mentioned such as anxiety or depression tend to get more severe after we give birth just because of the extreme stress and sleep deprivation that we are under, having a newborn. I like to emphasize to my patients that this is nothing to feel bad about. It’s just when you don’t sleep, you don’t release the same neurotransmitters and have the same brain chemistry with certain levels of uppers and feel-good hormones. So it’s kind of…

Alyssa: I’m obviously a big proponent of sleep for babies and parents. So what would you tell a parent who says I’m not even pregnant yet; I’m thinking about getting pregnant. How does a person even know if they have depression or anxiety? And what do you do about it? Let’s say that I’m kind of a depressed person or I get anxious about things at work or with my friends or my family. What do you recommend? And then let’s say I came to see you as a naturopathic doctor.

Janna: So again, I like to really emphasize that you are normal and this is a normal part of being a female. If we’re talking evolutionarily speaking, we were made to be out in nature, and so when we’re put in the city, even if we’re out half an hour from Grand Rapids downtown, there’s a lot of lights. There’s a lot of noises. There’s a lot of things going on that cause an overresponse, and that can lead to anxiety and depression. So some symptoms might be feeling nervous in certain situations or some OCD tendencies, or a lower mood display and laughing less or getting less excited about certain things in life. These can be very mild, but if you look at them over the course of the day, if you have a lot of little things, they do add up. So when you walk into a naturopathic doctor’s office, something I really love and take to heart is that we have our medical concentration, but we also have a lot of education with psychology and knowing how the brain works. So I would ask you a bunch of questions; the normal medical questions you get, but in addition, we’re going to ask about your sleep cycles, your exercise, your diet regimen. All these play a part in our mental health, and my end goal is for everybody to feel their best all the time. In order to find out how people are feeling, I like to run a series of either urinary or blood tests. This can give us an indication of brain chemistry, hormone levels, cortisol, in addition to the normal things like checking sugar and red blood cells. I really like to hone in on these specialty tests because by checking our brain chemistry, I can find exactly what neurotransmitters might be high or low, and we can treat appropriately.

Alyssa: So when you talk about neurotransmitters, what does that mean? What are you looking at and what does that mean to you?

Janna: So our neurotransmitters; there’s the common ones we’ve all heard of like dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, epinephrine, even histamine. There is a whole slew of uppers and downers, and basically, we take the brain chemistry analysis tests so we can see if some of them are off. Some people that have allergies have high histamine levels. That’s an upper, so when we have allergies, those people actually tend to have anxiety, as well. And so we can actually nip the anxiety in the bud by treating the allergies and reducing histamine levels. So it’s really a cool science.

Alyssa: And the cortisol and serotonin and melatonin, all those things you can actually check with blood and urine?

Janna: Exactly, yeah.

Kristin: And a lot of women have issues with their thyroid; is that part of the testing, that you can check thyroid levels?

Janna: Absolutely. I like to refer to it as our hormone triangle where we have our thyroid as the king, our sex hormones like estrogen, progesterone, and then we have our cortisol. All three of those categories play a huge role in our hormone development and picture that we have, so we do a lot of intensive testing to find out where those levels are at.

Alyssa: And what would you do if I came in and my cortisol levels were sky-high and you noticed something with my thyroid? What would you tell me to do?

Janna: So depending on your lab results, the thyroid could be treated in two ways. One, sometimes we do give conventional medications, and then another way to treat, depending on your levels, is with herbs. We can give a series of botanical herbs to actually bring your levels back to normal, as well as certain nutrients. There’s a number of co-factors that actually feed our thyroid hormone to turn from its inactive to active form, and without them, we will not function. So that’s things like vitamin D and iron and vitamin C; very common nutrients that we take for granted, but they play a vital role in our thyroid health.

Alyssa: So how long do you test that out before you put them on a drug?

Janna: Typically, I like to give a patient three to six months to see if we can fix it with nutrients and herbs. Again, it comes back to what the patient wants. If a patient wants results this month, then we might take a more aggressive treatment plan. But if they’re willing to do it completely naturally, then three to six months.

Alyssa: So let’s say I get it under control; I’m pregnant, and I still notice now that I still have some anxiety or depression. What do you do during pregnancy?

Janna: I really like to encourage diet and exercise and sleep. Those are our biggest best friends to really help out. Different lifestyle factors can have a huge effect on our mood and behavior. So let’s start with maybe some foods. We could eat a diet rich in dopamine, so we could do things like chocolate. I mean, who doesn’t love chocolate? We all love it, but do we know it’s high in magnesium and it’s high in zinc? Those are vital co-factors to run our brain chemistry. We can also have blueberries or nuts and seeds, which are high in vitamin B6 and 9 and all these B vitamins to help also with our mood. We could do some grass-fed or fermented foods, which help with our gastrointestinal health, which again, I’m sure you guys have all heard of the gut being the second brain. And then sulfur; sulfur-rich foods like onions and garlic that actually help with detox, so if we are having some things get backed up, we can help get them out. So we really try to approach it from a multifactorial view hitting all points. How’s our diet? How’s our exercise? How’s our sleep? How’s our stress? And a lot of what I get into with patients, too, is how is your relationship at home? Do you feel supported? Do you feel loved? Do you feel heard by your partner? By your business partners, your coworkers? These are all part of our needs that play a role in our mental health when we’re pregnant and when we’re not pregnant.

Alyssa: I was going to say those are things that should be carried over throughout, right?

Janna: Yeah, yeah!

Alyssa: Meanwhile, exercising and getting enough sleep.

Janna: Totally, and pregnancy just kind of is that opportunity where we find our weaknesses in our body, and it’s actually a great opportunity to increase our health for the rest of our life and find out things we wouldn’t know about it unless we were pregnant.

Alyssa: Oftentimes, I feel like that is the point in a woman’s brain and body where we finally start to understand and care about what’s happening to our body, and because we’re growing another human, then we’re like, oh, I better start taking care of myself so that I can take care of this baby.

Janna: Yeah, and I think that has a lot to do with what happens after we give birth and why a lot of moms struggle. I mean, I want to say that loud on this podcast right now that mom life is hard. It is a struggle, and I know we all try to put on a face that we’re doing well and everything’s perfect at home, but mom life is hard, and that’s maybe another podcast sometime, but that’s a conversation I’d love to get started because it is hard, and to that extent, why we have a hard time after birth is a lot of the time – and I’m sure you guys see this all the time, being in the house with moms – that the moms forget about themselves. They put all of their energy, all of their love, into their baby, and I was guilty of it, too. I mean, I have a two-year-old, and I definitely did it. I’m still guilty of it some days because we love that human so, so much. But I think it’s really important for our mental health and as mothers to put the energy back into ourselves and remember that we really can’t pour from an empty cup, and we have to be healthy and strong ourselves in order to make strong and healthy babies.

Alyssa: So what do you recommend to a mom who’s suffering from depression? You know, maybe they had a beautiful pregnancy, easy labor and delivery, and then they’re like, oh, my God; this is way harder than I thought, and then sink into a depression that they’ve never experienced before. How do you get them out that?

Janna: And so many moms do! There are so, so many out there that come in, and they’re like, not even my husband knows how sad I am; not even my best friend knows how sad I am, and that’s where I really encourage everyone to just start reaching out. I don’t want you to be ashamed; I don’t want you to feel guilty, because it doesn’t mean you’re a bad mom. You’re an excellent mom because you care so, so much, and asking for that help and taking that first step, making people aware that this is something I do need help with, and receiving that love. From a medical standpoint, too, we’ll go in and I’ll help adjust hormones and your brain chemistry with either herbs or conventional treatments or nutrient levels to help your body, but I think so much of it also comes from a mental and emotional spot of feeling supported and loved by your people around you.

Alyssa: So is naturopathic medicine, in general, more of a functional approach versus the medical approach or kind of a combination?

Janna: Exactly, yeah, and functional medicine is so great. That is the bridge between conventional medicine and natural medicine because we all agree on it, you know. We see a lab level, and it’s important to attend to it when it’s on its lower level. Traditionally-minded thinking, we only would treat something like vitamin D if it was set low because that’s the level that can cause rickets and true mobility issues, but what about everybody that has low-normal, that they’re in that functional, funky range? That’s at a stage that can cause depression, that you can get autoimmune diseases. So as a naturopathic doctor, I really work on treating it then and now so we can prevent getting those diseases because they may not pop up in five or even ten years, but they will happen if they’re not treated.

Kristin: Even in pregnancy, there’s evidence that preeclampsia with the lack of vitamin D, that can be a factor in developing preeclampsia.

Janna: Exactly, and that’s how it can be that simple sometimes where moms come in and, hey, they just want to run a nutrient panel just to find out what are their baseline nutrients, and then that way when breastfeeding comes into play, especially for extended breastfeeding – I’ve been breastfeeding for two and a half years, so that’s something I’ve been keeping a constant eye on, what are my nutrient levels, because we don’t want to cause other problems from just being depleted. So yeah, that’s a great point.

Alyssa: Depleted is a good word to describe mothers postpartum, I think. Most of us at some point just feel depleted, whether it’s mentally, physically, whether it’s just breastfeeding. That alone can make you feel depleted; this baby is literally sucking the life out of me!

Janna: Because you’re giving everything!

Kristin: I tandem nursed, so I really felt depleted when I was nursing two!

Alyssa: It’s like this weird tug of war between “I love doing this” and “I hate doing this so much.” I remember getting so over it when I was done, and then a month later I missed it. I was like, oh, my God; I’m not breastfeeding anymore! But I was so ready to throw those pump accessories in the trash and celebrate, but it’s just a weird…

Janna: It is! And every mom is different, so we like to celebrate moms at each level, whether they want to breastfeed for three months or six months or a year. We all have our breaking point, and we want to prevent us from getting to that point. Mama matters, too!

Kristin: For sure!

Alyssa: Well, thank you so much for joining us, and if people want to find you to come visit you or just ask you questions or follow you on Instagram, where do they find you?

Janna: Absolutely! So I’m currently accepting patients at Grand Rapids Natural Health, and I’m also on social media as holisticmommyandmedoc, and you can reach out there anytime. My name is Janna Hibler on Facebook, and feel free to message me anytime. I like to get to know my mamas. Since I just moved from Vermont, I’m looking to build up my network of mamas because we are a tribe and we all need to stick with each other, so whether it’s personally or professionally, I do want to link up with you!

Alyssa: Thank you so much!

Kristin: Thanks, Janna! We appreciate it!

Getting To Know Your Pelvic Floor

Leave a Comment / Self-Care / By Kristin Revere / pelvic floor, postpartum recovery

We are pleased to present a guest blog by Melissa VanKampen, PTA. Melissa has been working in the field of physical therapy for 18 years with the last 8 focusing on pelvic health in particular. She works for Northern Physical Therapy in Coopersville, MI. though Northern has six locations with several of them offering pelvic health therapy. If you have any questions or concerns regarding YOUR pelvic health please feel free to contact Melissa at melissavankampen at http://www.northernpts.com or 616.997.6172.

We have all heard the term “pelvic floor” especially in the last 5 years, everyone from Good Housekeeping to Cosmo has an opinion on what to do with it, what it should look like and what is “normal”. Most women don’t find it an easy subject to address even with friends let alone their health professional. When they do muster the courage to bring it up, they are told it is normal or it is just something they have to live with. So let’s find out what your pelvic floor really is and does for you.

What is your pelvic floor? It is a group of muscles that connect from your tailbone to your pubic bone with many fascial attachments. It has 3 muscle layers that have distinct functions and plays a role in everything you do throughout a day.

The pelvic floor has 3 basic functions:
Organ support: It is the bottom end of the canister that forms your “core” with your diaphragm being the top and the abdominals forming the body of the can. These muscles working together keep your intestines, bladder, and uterus where they should be in your body. Symptoms of heaviness, pressure , aching in your pelvis, or the feeling that something is “falling out” signal that those muscle may not be working as well as they should be.

Continence: If you are leaking urine at times or in places that you don’t want to be, you probably have some form of INcontinence. This is not a normal process of aging or childbirth. You may also experience fecal incontinence. This is often because the muscles are not strong enough to hold against gravity or they may be experiencing another kind of dysfunction. Other signs of dysfunction are the feeling of having to urinate all the time, or not feeling that you empty your bladder when you go.

Sexual appreciation: the ability to experience arousal, intercourse and orgasm. Pain with intercourse is a sign that the pelvic floor muscles may be spasmed or you may have some scar tissue from a surgical procedure.

All of these functions can be affected by diet, lifestyle, childbirth, surgical procedures, hormonal changes, disease processes , or biomechanical dysfunctions. A trained pelvic therapist will go through a thorough history to determine what the cause of your symptoms may be. They will then develop a custom treatment to restore balance back to your body. That is why it is so important to begin a conversation with a health care professional such as your doctor or pelvic health trained physical therapist to address how they can help you with your specific needs. Trust your instincts, you know what is “right” for your body.