Postpartum Recovery: Shifting the Paradigm: EP1

Transcript of: Postpartum Recovery: Shifting the Paradigm: EP1

We all get it, postpartum and the years after having a baby is no walk in the park. But you know what? It isn’t just about depression or anxiety either.

Hey, my friend, I’m Maranda Bower – homesteading mama with four wild kids whose life passion and education is all about supporting mothers and providers and understanding the science, the art, and the sacredness of healing after birth.

What we know as common sense in the postpartum years has many women feeling just plain awful. It’s time to bring back the truth and get you the tools you need to heal and thrive in motherhood and beyond.

Welcome to the first episode, my friends! I cannot believe this is finally happening mainly because I have been wanting to start a podcast for years and I probably Hear from my fans at least once a week about how I should be starting one.

So I will tell you this is a really big step and I’m very excited for this I have so much to say about postpartum health and well -being and Much of what I’m going to share with you does not really fit the mold It’s not what everyone else is preaching and sharing about Which wasn’t always the case.

I actually believed a lot of the things I heard initially on postpartum and on healing things, like eating good foods means salads and smoothies, or how you should use those freezer witch hazel pads, or how hormone imbalance is just something that we all go through. And that is very far from the truth. And My opinion of that had significantly changed after my own experiences.

And in postpartum and also after I started researching and studying the science and the cultures around the world and really began deep conversations with other mothers about the postpartum in the years after having a baby. And what I found through that research and through those connections was that there’s some massive myths and misconceptions around postpartum in the years after. And all of that is deeply affecting the way we as mothers experience motherhood.

These myths and misconceptions are happening for two main reasons. One, there just isn’t a lot of data or science on postpartum and caring for mothers. It just doesn’t exist. And two, women are making up their own formulas and plans and solutions to fill a needed gap in our healthcare.

This is a part of postpartum that is so crazy to me because we have been giving birth since the dawn of time, yet supporting women and healing is fairly new.

It’s a new topic and especially in science. And unless you’re searching for information related to breast milk or depression, there just isn’t much. And I can’t help but wonder if men gave birth how much information and science would be available. As a matter of fact, I will tell you, there are actually more studies on postpartum cows than there are on the human body.

Postpartum depression didn’t even become a diagnosis until 1994. And still to this day, the DSM-5, which is the diagnosis tool that professionals use, lists postpartum depression as something that can only be diagnosed in the first four weeks. Most providers are fully aware that this is not the case. However, it’s still listed as such. To this day, I cannot do searches on Pinterest, on the topics of postpartum. I literally cry, y ‘all. It hurts to read because of the amount of misinformation that’s available. And I’m going to be shattering a lot of those beliefs for you here.

So let me tell you, it’s not okay to feel like a hormonal hot mess. It’s not okay to feel or be depleted. It’s not okay to be living in survival mode, barely feeding yourself because you are too exhausted and deprived of the basic necessities of life. And it’s not okay for showers or solo trips to the grocery store to be marketed as self -care. And we say, this is the way it is because this is motherhood. And we are doing this for our children and we don’t have enough support. And a lot of that is absolutely positively true.

But this is not the way motherhood is supposed to be. This is not what our children want or need from us. This has simply become a new societal normal. And we have learned how to not take care of women because we want women to do all of the legwork, right? Women have lost access to the innate knowledge of caring for themselves. No one knows anymore what the postpartum body needs. No one knows how to care for her, how to properly nourish her or give her the support she craves even in the years after her birthing.

So depression, anxiety, hormone imbalances, extreme exhaustion, pelvic health issues, and a host of other issues aren’t the problems. They are symptoms of a much larger problem. And that problem is the inability to care for our mothers and the way that supports healing. And all of this, it impacts our children. It impacts our families. Our children are watching us. They’re learning from you. They’re picking up your coping styles, your eating habits, your belief systems. What you eat, what you consume, who you are, becomes your children. I’ve been seeing this meme go around that says, “Of course, she’ll die for your kids, but will you live healthy for them?” And I often see people blaming the lack of care for mothers in the community.

It’s a community’s responsibility to support a mother. I hear about communities’ inability to care for a mother in birth and postpartum, and how that leaves her hanging by a thread of isolation and depression, especially in 2021, and 2020 really starting at the beginning of COVID.

And I hear about the crazy demands that women must return to work. I have experienced this myself. I get it on a soul level about how we should get our body back, raise healthy children that speak 3 .2 languages, that sleep through the night, that remain in a toxic -free, loving home, all of the things. And we hear all the time about how history told a different story, and that we came together to support one another and serve new COVID herself.

The world of postpartum is littered with the ideas that we need community to support each other and to survive, and without it, that we will fail. But I will tell you, this is not community’s fault. It’s certainly not helping, but it will never help until we rise up and demand the support we deserve.

When women stand up for their needs and say this isn’t how I’m going to experience motherhood, this isn’t okay that I’m the only one doing this deep work in my family, right? This isn’t okay that I’m feeling depressed or anxious all the time. I want a different way. When you say I want a different way, I deserve a different experience.

That’s when the community will rise up. That’s when your partner will listen and rise up too. It first though begins with you in your home, within you and your body, with you communicating, with you expecting, with you making change a reality for yourself and getting the tools you need to make that happen, which is what I’m going to be giving you in this podcast. These are things that we should be told, that we should be educated on, that we should be given before we even have a baby.

And I get it. When you are in the throes of depression and anxiety and autoimmune disease, the last thing that feels possible is making change and getting support. I know this from my own intense experiences with postpartum depression and anxiety and even postpartum bipolar. And I was also diagnosed with a postpartum autoimmune issue.

And so I know all of these things deeply. And I will clarify too, that I absolutely love the idea of a community where we raise each other’s children and share the massive load of motherhood. I love the painted pictures of life after giving birth, where the villages come and bring savory meals and protect your space and hold your baby while you rest and give you a massage and listen to your transformation. As you see it without judgment. And although this is important to do and completely educating our communities on these are absolutely necessary we cannot rely on them in the meantime, especially when every other mother is experiencing these overwhelming mental health concerns.

If our modern world is to change, we have to begin in your home, with you, and by recognizing that you are good enough, you are important enough, you need to know that how you experience your years, and postpartum will dictate your menopause. That how you experience your years postpartum will shape the way your children will experience the world. This is the modern world here, and we need a new way to support our modern motherhood right now. You have to step up no matter how hard that is and seek the support you need until you get it, and seek it from sources that are ready to give it, like this very different podcast.

And I often get asked this question: why postpartum though, why focus on supporting women during this time, what about preconception or pregnancy?

And this is such a great question because those areas are also very important. But I found in my work that postpartum is one of the most understudied and undervalued times in our life, where 90% of the information that we hear is not accurate to healing our bodies. Coping, maybe, but healing and coping are two very different things. And postpartum has the ability to open us up to the power that resides within the act of giving birth. No matter how traumatic or blissful, however you view that experience, it allows women to see that there is a completely new world available to them and that you have this opportunity to become closer to your roots, closer to remembering who you are. It brings up challenges, past traumas, the hurt parts of us so that we can heal.

The years postpartum is a time of great healing. It’s an invitation to dive deeper, to experience a transformation that is almost out of this world.

And I get this sounds a little woo. I get this sounds a little woo, but what I’m going to bring you in this podcast is a lot of science. You are going to be blown away.

But the important piece to take away from this is that you are in a unique place to restore, revive, rejuvenate, harmonize your body and remember your power as a mother and as a woman. Of course, keep educating people, keep expressing your needs, keep telling your truth about why community support for mothers has the power to change the world and keep searching for better answers for your providers from science.

But as you do, you have to be the person who takes action for yourself. You are your best advocate. And I know that so much of what I’m sharing here might be very different from what you’re hearing.

Again, this is part of the reason why I’m doing this podcast because I recognize that my approach to supporting women is vastly different, which is fine because it’s getting amazing results. You can read a lot of the testimonials. You can see why so many women are coming to this and wanting this information because it works, because it makes sense, because it feels good, it’s empowering and it’s changing the lives of women everywhere. But in order to do that, we have to reverse many of the things that we have once believed.

We are breaking the paradigms of what we know about postpartum, and the first is that it begins within you.

That is self -care. And in the following episodes, you are going to learn all of the pieces that I use to help my clients heal, to help my community heal, to do all of the things that I’m sharing with you here to really, truly make a difference from the roots of this.

So I can’t wait, stay tuned for all of the things.

Before you leave this episode for another, I want to first acknowledge my amazing launch affiliate sisters who’ve made this podcast a reality. Y ‘all, it takes a team to do big things, right? Just as in motherhood, it takes community. It takes a big, big team to do the work that we are doing here. And it first began with this dream, with this vision, which is exactly what it needs for you to take this vision and apply it to yourself and then find that team to support you. And that’s exactly what we’ve done here.

So the work that I do and the level of support that I have cannot go unnoticed here. So creating this podcast and spreading the word about this work, I had to partner with eight different women, eight amazing soulful experts who support women in the years postpartum. And I want to take a second to introduce them to you right now.

Of course, I’m going to share their links in the show notes. And trust me when I say you want to to look them up because they are excellent resources for you and your healing, especially as we move forward in your journey and your healing journey on this podcast.

Dr. Logan Spasic, she’s a postpartum wellness coach and women’s health physical therapist. She helps moms prevent postpartum health issues through group programs and individual coaching with a focus on mental and emotional wellbeing.

Janelle Laura, she is the part -time CEO. She helps women build a six -figure business while working only 20 hours a week or less. She is an absolute godsend, especially for those who are wanting to spend more time with their families and with their children doing what they love.

Laura Spencer, she guides overwhelmed first -time moms through the growing pains of really early motherhood by helping them overcome their anxiety, their self -judgment, and their need to control so that they can really confidently and compassionately embrace the new person that they are becoming in motherhood.

Heather Reed, she is a certified pediatric sleep coach. She’s absolutely amazing, helping families to thrive using her own proprietary ACE sleep system while teaching their baby and toddler’s healthy sleep habits.

Dr. Stacey Lowe, she provides chiropractic care to women and preconception, pregnancy, and postpartum in infants. She’s been doing that for over 16 years. If you do not have a chiropractor, you absolutely want one.

Jodi Cogden, she is a postpartum doula and lactation educator trainer and birth business consultant. She owns a doula agency as well. She is absolutely amazing at all the things that she teaches.

Jennifer Bronzewick supports women and teens who struggle with burnout and anxiety, helps them get to their root cause, healing themselves, and becoming resilient.

And of course, last but not least, Jinnika Warren. She is a certified labor doula, postpartum doula, provider of postpartum meals. She runs evidence -based birth, rebozo, trainings, all sorts of amazing things.

Thank you all to all of you who made this podcast reality. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are changing and saving the lives of so many women. Thanks for tuning in and taking the time to learn about how to support your body in deep healing.

We don’t do this work just for us or for you. Your healing impacts your children, your relationships and your community. We do this work because the health and vibrancy of our world begins with its mothers.

I hope you have taken some valuable information today and applied it to your own life. If you aren’t sure where to begin, reach out about working together one-on-one or at minimum learning about my postpartum nutrition plan, which is where I start every single one of my clients. And you can do that by going to MarandaBower.com. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Let us know by leaving a review and we will see you next time.