Welcome to the Postpartum University podcast, where we support you and your provider in understanding the science, the art, and the sacredness of healing after birth. I’m Maranda Bower, your host, your Postpartum Nutrition Specialist, and homesteading mom with four wild kids. It’s time to get you the holistic, whole body healing that works. Hello, my friends, welcome to the Postpartum University podcast. Of course, I’m Maranda Bower, and I really want to have a conversation about staying healthy this school year. I get it. I am a family of six. I have four kids, three of which are returning to school, and we all know what that means. There’s lots of new germs.
And I’m seeing a lot of new germs, and I’m seeing an increase of illness. I’ve been seeing it for quite some time, and maybe you can relate. People seem to be a lot more sick, and we don’t exactly know why. Maybe there’s the fact that we have been away from our communities and staying in our homes, and therefore we’re coming back and we’re all exposed. Maybe there are some superbugs out there. Really, we don’t exactly know what the case may be. Maybe we’re just exposed to a lot more toxins in the environment now that some other things have come into our world. Either way, we are experiencing an increase of illness.
So, I want to have a conversation today about how do we prevent this illness? How do we take care of ourselves? And how do we stay healthy during this vulnerable time? So, there are two main pillars of health that I want to cover today. The first is preventative health, and then there’s the illness protocol. Unfortunately, we’re never, ever, ever going to get away from being sick. It’s always going to be a part of our life. We have to have healthy immune systems, especially with our kids. One way in which our kids develop that is by getting sick. And that doesn’t mean that your immune system isn’t working. It’s actually a really good thing. It means that your body is working and it’s fighting strongly for you. So, we want that to happen. But we just don’t want it to happen so often, right? And we definitely want to make sure that our time if we do get sick is going to be an easy time, not a really difficult time.
So, let’s talk about these two main pillars of health. The first is preventative health. Preventative care is a lifestyle. It’s an absolute lifestyle. And it’s really confusing because we are bombarded with so much information about how to stay healthy and what we need to do, and all of these come. But I will tell you, if you are interweaving some components that I will be sharing with you here in a moment, into your life and you create a lifestyle of this, it will be so much easier for you to maintain a healthy life and to get sick a lot less, not only for yourself but also for your partner, for your children, or whomever is in your home, okay? So, how do you do that? What are preventative healthcare measures, okay? First is nutrition, first and foremost. We wanna make sure that we are getting all the nutrients that our body needs. And not only are we getting the nutrients that we need, but our bodies are able to absorb those key nutrients.
And so, we can be eating really, really well. But if our body is not absorbing that because our gut health is lacking, then so is our health. Our health is going to lack. And guess what? Most of our immune system is in our gut, not in our bloodstream, as most people think, but in our gut, meaning that the health and well-being of our gut is greatly going to determine whether or not you’re going to be sick. So, make sure that you are eating healthy foods, organic food that is minimally processed, that doesn’t come from a can if you can help it, or doesn’t come from a box, right? Something that comes from your local gardener, if you can, if you’re a local farmer, if you’re able to. Now, if you’re not, that’s totally fine. Just do your best to eat really healthy. And eat really healthy means not a bunch of carbs, not sugar. It means getting lots of vegetables into your body and doing so in a way that’s going to help your body absorb, right?
And I always talk about the effects of soup and having herbs in your teas, and things that are just super easy for your body to absorb. Learning how to cook this is really important because the more you get to love your vegetables, the more that you’re wanting to take that in. And of course, your meat and animal product is incredibly important. Fats play a significant role in our overall health and we are a fat-scared culture. Don’t be afraid of that. I am busting that myth. Once again, here and now, you need that in order to be healthy. So eating fats is going to be a huge benefit. It repairs your tissues. It helps balance your hormones. It helps you build a very strong, robust immune system. Do everything you can to get those fats into you. And doing so with animal product is one of the ways in which you can make it so bioavailable into your body, meaning that it’s very easy to absorb. The animals that we are consuming are doing the hard work of breaking down those key nutrients into usable form.
So, it’s easier for your body to digest animal product than it is to digest fruits and vegetables. Key fact. Okay. So make sure that one, your gut is super healthy. And you do that first by making sure that you are consuming really good foods. Another question that I’m always asked is about the microbiome, right? What about the gut and everything that lives there that’s supposed to live there and the not so bright things, right? Well, we talk about probiotics a lot and we talk about prebiotics and here’s my take on this based on the science that I have studied for countless years. Probiotics are super important. We’re actually a culture that doesn’t consume a lot of this in its natural form. We go to other cultures around the world and fermented foods are a part of their daily life. And unfortunately, we don’t consume a lot of those fermented foods. So if you are a person who likes fermented foods, or maybe you’ve not tried fermented foods, I highly recommend you do so.
‘Cause that is going to greatly increase the healthy, amazing population of microbiomes that lives in your body and your gut that is there to help you break down and absorb your key nutrients but also really take care of your hormones and your immune system. So do everything that you possibly can to take care of that and if you are a person who needs a probiotic, that’s totally an option too. The thing with probiotics is you want to be taking a very good quality probiotic. Always, always do your research. Don’t get something that’s from your local supermarket. Get something that has substantial evidence behind it and always check in with that evidence. What might be okay in the first six months for your body might not be okay later if something is often found in that product to be not suitable for human consumption, or that their standards have lessened significantly, or it finds out that the company was actually doing XYZ. Whatever the case is, I don’t normally recommend certain brands, because I often find that those brands shift and change over time. The best thing you can do is listen to your body. When you take your probiotic, after a good solid two weeks, you should know whether or not it’s working for you. If it’s not, find something else. If it is, awesome. Continue doing that and continue listening in. That is going to be one of the biggest factors.
You are overall gut health and your nutrition. And listen, I know I’m preaching to the choir. Most of you who have been listening to me know that the significance of nutrition is completely understated. And the reason being is, you know, what, if we’re not getting the nutrients that we need for our body to function, our organs are not going to function at full capacity, meaning that we are not going to be able to take in the nutrients that our body needs even more. We’re not going to be able to detox our body. I mean, we’re exposed to toxins all the time. And here’s another amazing point about living a lifestyle of prevention, detoxing. Okay, so we have nutrition. We want to make sure that we’re eating really well. Second component is detox. And we can’t detox if we’re not eating really well to support the natural detoxification processes of the body.
Now, I teach more on detoxing and postpartum. That’s an actual course that you can find at postpartum university. I highly recommend it. It teaches you about the detoxification processes in the body and how to support it naturally so that it’s safe, so that you are not going to experience negative symptoms. You’re not going to pass along the toxins in your breast milk and all of the other things that we are so afraid of in our culture. Don’t be afraid of detoxing. When you do it in a way that is supportive of the natural processes in the body, you’re not going to have a huge dump in your body that’s gonna make you sick or your baby sick or anything along those lines.
So detoxing is so critical and it’s a part of our everyday lifestyle. We don’t wanna be in a position where we have to take some sort of, I will say unhealthy cleanse or detox protocol or something that makes us feel like yuck every couple of months or every six months or every year or however long you do it.
We want to live a lifestyle that doesn’t require that, and that is a huge part of this, okay? So take a look more at that. And there’s also a podcast episode on detoxing. I highly recommend it. So, nutrition, detoxing, and let’s get to the third preventative, and that is sleep. And I know I’m preaching to the choir because we all know the significance of sleep, but we don’t think that we put enough emphasis on the significance of it. We know it’s important. We value our sleep, especially as mothers. But we are often very much willing to sacrifice ourselves in the process for our partners, for our baby, for whatever else we need to do. Because we are the mom and that’s just how it goes. And I will tell you, there is a way to get better sleep. You do not have to sacrifice yourself in the process. There is a way in which you can get the sleep that your body needs to maintain a healthy immune system, while also meeting the needs of your family and your baby, and that is developmentally appropriate for everyone.
So, I am going to leave you also with a link where you can go take a look at an article I wrote on how to get enough sleep with a newborn. No matter if you have a newborn or a toddler and you’re not getting enough sleep. That is first and foremost, and I will tell you my biggest recommendation is to make it a priority. When you start making sleep a priority and you start having conversations with your partner or whomever, you say, “Hey, you know what? This is so important to me. I have to do something. How can we make this happen together?” What is it that I need to do? When you start saying, “You know what? I’m no longer going to do the dishes and the laundry when my kids go to sleep, because I’m prioritizing my sleep over everything else, things will radically shift for you.” I know it sounds funny and I know it sounds almost a little silly, but I promise you, over and over and over again, it pays off. Is this episode resonating with you? We certainly hope so. If you are loving this content, please take a moment to give this podcast a review. It truly means the world to me and my team. Thanks so much. Okay, here’s the last component of preventative care and creating a lifestyle that’s going to support your immune system. And that is supporting your nervous system.
Okay, I know it sounds funny, but your nervous system takes care of so many different processes in your body and is responsible for a huge part of your immune system as well. And so when your body is stressed or you have experienced any form of trauma that is lingering in your body, you will have a difficult time with your immune system. Okay, so I’m going to back up here and I’m going to explain this in two different parts. The first part is stress. We talk about stress all the time. We know the effects of stress on our body. There are a number of studies over and over and over again that reflect that living a stressful lifestyle or not having your needs being met, if you’re constantly pushing through, if you’re exhausted at the end of the day because you’re doing too much, if you are stressed all the time and that is a natural space for you to live, you will have a lower immune system because your nervous system is high functioning and it’s taking up so much energy and time and nutrients from your body to operate in that space. It brings you down, it wears on your adrenals, it wears your nervous system, it wears everything, all the systems in your body, and even affects your hormones. And so how do we get out of the stressful lifestyle? It’s easier said than done, I know. But it can be done. Take a couple of minutes to write down all of the things in your life that stress you out. What are some things that you can do? How can you pass off and delegate? How can you shift those things around?
I know that last season, life was super crazy busy for me. I was toting my kids around. I was practically living in my car going back and forth from one daughter’s gymnastic practice to another horseback riding to another’s music lessons. And I was losing my mind. And so I had to sit down with my husband and say, okay, what can we do differently? Because this is no longer working. I am super stressed out. It’s not working for me, for our youngest child either. They’re stressed out. We have to do something different. And so we had to come up with a way to make it better. Turns out that my daughter didn’t want to do gymnastics. She wasn’t too interested. She was just doing it because her sister did. She really wanted to do horseback riding. So we were able to find a schedule that worked for her. So we eliminated some of the things that worked for her on our plate. And then my husband said, you know what? I bet I can rearrange some of my work schedule. And he took three days out of the six days that we were running to practices to take care of it.
So he took on half of the responsibility, and so we were both able to sit back and relax a lot more because we made those shifts. We investigated what’s working for us, what’s not working for us, how can we make this better? Okay? So obviously, it’s not always that easy. I get it. I know. I’m a mom of four who runs a very big business and I homestead. I know things happen. You can’t prevent all of the things, right? I get it. But you can eliminate the day-to-day stress by shifting the things in your life that are stressful and doing something different about it. If you don’t start implementing change, nothing will ever change and will always feel awful. So do something, even if it’s a matter of, “I don’t even know if this is gonna work, but I’m gonna try it anyway and see.” Sometimes that’s all it takes. Here’s another component of this. Let’s talk about trauma. Trauma is something that we often experience in our life, especially as women. We are notoriously more traumatized for sexual violence, for violence in the birth room, or for general trauma in the birth room.
And so oftentimes, especially if you’re listening to this, and you are in the postpartum period, you know, 30% of women feel that their birth experience was traumatic in some way, that’s not including those who felt that their pregnancy was traumatic or that their postpartum was traumatic in some way or some form. And so I want to tell you that if that was part of your experience or that you’ve experienced any sort of life trauma that has been unhealed, that gets stored in your body, okay? Scientific proof, we actually store that in the cells of our body and that actually, if we leave it unhealed, if we didn’t work on that or we are still processing that, that stays within ourselves and actually gets passed down through the generations. And so by working on healing us, we simultaneously work on healing the generations after us. So if there is ever a reason to work on healing the trauma that you’ve ever experienced in your life, let it be your children. But I will tell you that doing so will dramatically change your life. So make sure that you are working on your nervous system, whether that is finding support, somebody that you can talk to, whether that be a best friend, or counselor, somebody who can listen in, someone who can be there and provide non-judgmental advice or a listening ear, that is where you wanna go.
Also journaling, statistically, we know that journaling has a significant reduction of stress and trauma within our lives. We are able to process so much by getting it out of our bodies onto paper. So journaling is one of the best forms. Also doing things like yoga, breathing exercises, meditations, prayer, all of those are supportive of the nervous system. But I will tell you, you can do all of those things to support your body, but if you are constantly living in a state of stress, it will not be helpful for you because you’re going to constantly feel like you’re getting nowhere. Okay, so that is the main pillar, right? Preventative care, we have nutrition, we have deep sleep, and nervous system care, okay? Those are essential. Build that into your life and you will magically have a far better immune system.
Now let’s talk and shift the conversation a little bit on actual illness protocol. So what happens when we do get sick? Because there’s gonna be times when we actually do and that’s completely okay. It doesn’t mean that you messed up, that you didn’t do something good enough or anything of the nature. We know that there is a lot of bugs out there, a lot of things that can make us sick. And we just kind of have to go with the flow, especially with our children. As they’re building their immune systems, this is part of the process. So I always recommend getting fresh air. If you can, make sure that it’s warm, fresh air. You’re in the middle of winter and a lot of that might not be okay. That’s, I’m speaking to myself as someone who lives in Alaska. We don’t get a lot of fresh air in the winter when we’re sick, right? Because we need to keep things super warm. But here’s the thing, keep things super warm. Have heat packs. I actually have a mineral heat lamp that I love. So when somebody has an upset tummy, that mineral heat lamp can go on their belly. When they have chest congestion, that helps break up that congestion so that it can get out of their body. It’s absolutely amazing. Epsom salt baths, really warm baths, as warm as you can, is also very helpful. It supports the body in combating whatever it is that’s there.
Remember, things like fevers are a natural part of the process of your body getting rid of whatever it is in there that shouldn’t be, right? And so I never give my kids anything for their fevers unless it’s been a long time and it’s impacting their ability to eat or drink water or anything along those lines. I avoid it at all costs. Let the body do its natural means to get rid of whatever it is that’s there. Increasing the body temperature is absolutely fine when fevers are not present. Again, it’s part of the natural process. So allow that. Heat is something that we love and we want and it’s going to be really, really beneficial. So of course, follow your doctor’s recommendations. Do your research. Even if you talk to your doctor, research, research, research, you’ll be amazed at what you find. So I’ll leave the conversation there, but heat is amazing.
Getting fresh air, if you can, as long as it’s warm, fresh air depending on where you live in the world. And then there’s some really amazing herbs and syrups and tinctures that you can use, some vitamins that I recommend, A, C, and zinc, magnesium sprays, broths, and soups. I actually have a huge list of kids at homeopathy that I also recommend. And I am going to recommend these things actually on my articles/blog.
And so I’ll leave the link where you can find more of this information for both preventative care and also my holistic protocol for the first signs of illness and during illness when you do get sick.
Thank you. Remember, just because somebody gets sick doesn’t mean that you’re not good enough, that you have failed in some way, or that you’re not doing what you’re supposed to. It’s part of the natural process of growing up. And as you are working toward this healthy lifestyle, it’ll just be what it is until you have that healthy immune system that can fight so much.
So if you have any questions, connect with us in our Facebook group, the postpartum circle. We would love to have you and hear your thoughts on all of this. I would absolutely love to see you there.
And of course, if you love this episode and you found it helpful, please drop us a review. We would appreciate it so, so much. Love this episode. Let us know by leaving an amazing review. Your support is everything.
Want more? Head over to postpartumu.com, that’s postpartum, the letter u.com, and explore how we support moms like you in holistic whole body healing that’s specific for the unique needs of mamas in the years postpartum. See you there.
