[00:00:00] Dr Renee White: Knowledge is power, and we are all about empowering the mamas of the world. In each episode, we will unravel and interpret the latest research and evidence-based practices for pregnancy, postpartum, and motherhood. As mums and researchers ourselves, we have experienced firsthand the overwhelming complexity of information myths and those classic old wives tales. I'm Dr. Renee White, and this is The [00:00:30] Science of Motherhood.
[00:00:30] Dr Renee White: Hello and welcome to today's episode proudly brought to you by Fill Your Cup, Australia's first doula village, providing evidence-based continuity of care to bridge the maternal support gap when new mothers need it most. If you're pregnant or you've just had a baby, please feel free to jump over to our website. I fill your cup.com to learn more about our birth and postpartum doula packages where we provide [00:01:00] support, food, and guidance, ensuring every mother's Cup is full.
[00:01:06] Dr Renee White: Hello and welcome to the Science of Motherhood. This is episode 179, and I'm your host, Dr. Renee White. Thank you so much for joining us today. We've got an extra special guest on today because there is an amazing book coming out and it is all things mums and it is all things [00:01:30] science and it is totally up our alley. And I have known about this book for quite some time. It is the second of, I guess, a series, the first one being the Complete Guide to Birth and Pregnancy from the lovely authors, Sophie Walker and Jodi Wilson and we have one half of those authors today. And the new book, of course, is the [00:02:00] Complete Guide to Postpartum. Now, when I found out that Jodi was about to pen this second book, I emailed her and said, please, please, please, please, I would love to talk about this with you and gosh, it was, yeah, 2024 start, maybe start of 2024.
[00:02:21] Dr Renee White: I can't remember so long ago that Jodi and I caught up over the phone and we just [00:02:30] talked all things postpartum. And I'm so excited to say that, you know, some of my thoughts and wisdom and science knowledge made it to the book, which is just so, so cool. This is the second book I've been able to contribute to, which is just so, so cool. And particularly around a topic that I am so deeply passionate about as well. So yeah, Jodi and I were chatting at length, as [00:03:00] you can imagine, about this particular topic and then of course I said to her, you know, when, when it's all ready to come out, please come on the podcast 'cause I'm so desperate to talk to you about all of this again in length, and let's record it.
[00:03:15] Dr Renee White: But I had the pleasure of meeting Jodi in person last year as well at this beautiful round table discussion about the care and nurturing and nourishment of women across Australia in [00:03:30] their postpartum. And so that was also a really beautiful opportunity for us to connect and I hope you can hear that in the conversations that we have because it was so difficult to actually press stop at the end of this podcast. We just, you know, I could have spoken to Jodi forever about this particular topic. As you can imagine, we, we dive pretty deep. You know, there's so many [00:04:00] things to cover. We talk about, I guess, the realities of the fact that because this is women's health and research, this is the precipice.
[00:04:11] Dr Renee White: You know, we are just touching the surface of so many things to do with women and becoming mothers and sleep and feeding and all of those really, really important things. We talk about how [00:04:30] complex it was to, I guess, and this is the thing, this is why we do this podcast, to sift out fact from fiction to, there's a lot of voices out there and I tell you what, I, I wouldn't want, I wouldn't have wanted Jodi's job going through particularly sleep and feeding like that is oof. Those, those industries are big and, and we talk about that. We talk about those million [00:05:00] dollar industries and, and what made it to, what made the cut essentially. But we talk about, a lot. The running theme I think in this discussion is normalising experience, understanding that, you know, expectations, realities, all of those things.
[00:05:21] Dr Renee White: This, this book is not just like, it's not like an in, you know, you pick it up, it's an encyclopedia of postpartum. It is [00:05:30] like, you can tell that Jodi has poured her heart and soul into this book. It's so evident on the pages. I cannot wait for you to read this. You can check in our show notes for links to purchase the book. It's gonna be at all amazing, great book sellers. I've already got my pre-order in. As soon as she put it up on Instagram, I was like, bang, sold. So yeah, I really hope you enjoy this discussion. It's absolutely [00:06:00] amazing. Here is Jodi Wilson. Hello and welcome to the podcast Jodi Wilson. How are you today?
[00:06:09] Jodi Wilson: I'm good, Renee, I'm in Tasmania literally, where you are, it's very cold. So although I'm in a nice room,
[00:06:16] Dr Renee White: It is very cold. It is very, very, although I was talking to someone this morning, they were like on the Sunshine Coast and I was just like, oh, whatever. I was like, you know what? It's freezing, but god damn, it's beautiful in [00:06:30] Tasmania.
[00:06:30] Jodi Wilson: It's so beautiful and I've been walking still early morning and just that cold, fresh air. Yeah, because the air here is the purest in the world. The cleanest in the world
[00:06:41] Dr Renee White: It is.
[00:06:42] Jodi Wilson: We've got the studies to show it.
[00:06:43] Dr Renee White: It is,
[00:06:43] Jodi Wilson: and it's, yeah, it's, I find it quite vitalising and my children are totally acclimatised now because they're going off to school in shorts still. Oh, and it's three or four degrees. I'm like, wow, okay. I think we're Tasmanian.
[00:06:56] Dr Renee White: Oh my gosh. Yes. Yeah. There totally becomes a point where [00:07:00] you go, okay, I'm officially a Tasmanian. What happened? Something happened to me the other day and I was like, I'm totally a Tasmanian. I forget what it is now. It was probably like coming home af Oh no, that's right. We went to Melbourne for a weekend and it was too busy for me and it was just so overwhelming and it was just a regular day in Melbourne and I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, we're done. Thanks very much. Goodbye.
[00:07:21] Jodi Wilson: Yeah, and I, I think I was in Melbourne the same time as you. I was actually recording the audio before. Oh. And yeah, I was like, I've enjoyed, I call it [00:07:30] like, you know, just my little trip to the mainland.
[00:07:32] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:07:32] Jodi Wilson: Just to reaffirm why I live in Tasmania.
[00:07:36] Dr Renee White: Absolutely.
[00:07:36] Jodi Wilson: I appreciate the busyness and the bustle and the amazing bookstores, but real, always really happy to fly back into Davenport on a tiny plane and settle back into the slow pace here.
[00:07:50] Dr Renee White: Absolutely. Well look, first congratulations on the book. We've been chatting a little bit offline about it already, but I have to say, and I did touch on [00:08:00] this, like when you browse like bookstores, sections of like pregnancy and the baby area, you know, I find that a lot of them are quite baby focused and I feel like, you know, society is very much like that as well. This book is very different. It is very mother centered and I absolutely bloody love it. Like you've even got topics in there about like maternal loneliness and intrusive [00:08:30] thoughts. Walk me through like the whole, the premise of this book. What were you setting out to achieve?
[00:08:36] Jodi Wilson: It needed to be mother focused because as soon as the baby is born, everyone's like, look at the baby, look at the baby and the stats support that as well in the healthcare industry because as soon as you birth a baby in Australia, whether that's in a public or private hospital, you're going to fall off what's known as the postpartum cliff. Mm-hmm. Which means that there's a void of maternal healthcare after the baby. So even the [00:09:00] health system and the maternity system is set up to push the mother into the shadows. Mm-hmm. No one's gonna say that, but the stats support it. And you speak to any perinatal health professional and they will say that's the reality. So, we know that mothers are currently really challenged by parenthood in 2025.
[00:09:24] Jodi Wilson: They're challenged because we're in a climate crisis and a cost of living crisis and a housing crisis [00:09:30] and because we don't have the support that we once did. Mm-hmm. And the answer to any challenge in postpartum is support. And so our mental health statistics in that perinatal period makes sense and they're not so much a mental illness as such, but a normal human response to a really stressful situation.
[00:09:50] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:51] Jodi Wilson: So mothers need information and we're kind of living in an age where we have an ons sort of information, but that [00:10:00] information is often really shouty and it's very opinionated and it's very tinge with judgment.
[00:10:06] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:10:07] Dr Renee White: And it's very black and white depending on who's talking about it. And I think we need to make space for all mothers. Mm-hmm.
[00:10:14] Jodi Wilson: And, and this, we see this in all the choices we make from when we conceive our babies to, to how we birth our babies, to who cares for us along the way and to the support networks we have in postpartum.
[00:10:27] Jodi Wilson: And so I think [00:10:30] the, what mothers really need is evidence-based information. And again, in the postpartum space that is generally minimal. Mm-hmm. So one GP I spoke to referred to postpartum healthcare as the wild west of medicine in that there's so much not evidence-based practice.
[00:10:52] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:10:52] Jodi Wilson: And we see that particularly in infant sleep.
[00:10:55] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:10:56] Jodi Wilson: Which I'm sure I'll get to.
[00:10:57] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:10:59] Jodi Wilson: But [00:11:00] where, where is the resource for a new parent and a, and a new mother, but also this book is for all parents and it's also for all of those people supporting new parents.
[00:11:11] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:12] Jodi Wilson: Where is the book that says, these are your options for infant feeding? These are your options for infant sleep.
[00:11:20] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:11:21] Jodi Wilson: This is the evidence behind these options.
[00:11:25] Dr Renee White: Mm.
[00:11:25] Jodi Wilson: You get to choose because you're the parent. Yeah. It's that simple and it's that hard. [00:11:30]
[00:11:30] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:11:30] Jodi Wilson: And I think that's what the crux of this is, is we get to new parenthood and we have to make so many decisions each day, and it's incredibly overwhelming. And instead of sitting with that overwhelm and perhaps having the one health professional that kind of is very much studying and aware of that perinatal period.
[00:11:50] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:51] Jodi Wilson: We turn to social media.
[00:11:52] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:11:52] Jodi Wilson: And then that overwhelm is just fed by so many different ideas and thoughts and opinions and [00:12:00] anxiety stems from that. And then we, we don't know, like, you know, and I, I talk a lot in this book about the fact that new motherhood is all about not knowing.
[00:12:08] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:09] Jodi Wilson: And that's deeply uncomfortable.
[00:12:10] Dr Renee White: Yes.
[00:12:11] Jodi Wilson: And yes, we birth a baby, but we're also birthing ourselves as a mother. And we are the only one that can do that and that is very confronting.
[00:12:20] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:20] Jodi Wilson: When you're like, no one else can do this for me. And becoming a mother is not just this overnight, I'm a mother. It's a process.
[00:12:29] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:12:29] Jodi Wilson: And it's a [00:12:30] learning process and against that, again, is all these, these idealised images of what perfect motherhood is, and they're not gonna go anywhere because a patriarchal society benefits immensely from mothers that are striving to be perfect.
[00:12:46] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:12:47] Jodi Wilson: But it's really doing so many mother's harm.
[00:12:51] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm absolutely.
[00:12:53] Jodi Wilson: And I think information is, you know, grounded evidence-based information really helps to close that gap [00:13:00] between the expectations we have of ourselves.
[00:13:04] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:04] Jodi Wilson: And that we have of motherhood and the reality, the World Health Organization shows that realistic expectations are one pillar of a really positive postpartum experience.
[00:13:13] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:13:13] Jodi Wilson: So this book will prepare you realistically.
[00:13:18] Dr Renee White: Yeah, 100%. And I loved the fact, as you said, we kind of employ this tact as well in our postpartum planning sessions. Is like, I know that [00:13:30] expecting parents, particularly first time parents. They want that silver bullet of like, just tell me what I have to do. And I'm like, I can't.
[00:13:40] Jodi Wilson: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:40] Dr Renee White: You know, I was that mum who was like, just tell me everything that I need to buy and tell me everything that I need to do to be the best mum ever. And it's kind of like, as you say, the reality of like, here's the toolkit.
[00:13:54] Jodi Wilson: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:55] Dr Renee White: And what's gonna work for your family, you know, between the three and six month [00:14:00] period is gonna be completely different from the nine to 12 month period. And I guess having that understanding and the why's behind it, I think really help parents, but also, as you say, like normalising the experience of it's okay to not get it right and it's okay to change your mind and it's okay that, you know, this is an evolving process through the whole thing. I wanna make a, [00:14:30] um, one comment when we met each other in person last year for that beautiful round table discussion up north in Tassie.
[00:14:39] Dr Renee White: You, you'd mentioned at the time, I think you had just finished the book, or you were just finishing and you had kind of, you'd found your word when you were describing Matrescence, which was to feel untethered and like, I still have goosebumps as I've [00:15:00] said that it resonated with me so much. I was like, yes, Jodi. Yes, untethered. Walk us through that. Tell us like that process and, and, and maybe for, for mothers to be, you know, who are pregnant and are like, what the heck what is this untethered process that I'm about to embark on.
[00:15:21] Jodi Wilson: Mm-hmm. So Naomi Stadlen, who's a psychotherapist from the UK, she describes that feeling as being all at sea.[00:15:30]
[00:15:30] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:30] Jodi Wilson: And Julianne Boutaleb, who's a perinatal psychologist in the UK as well, she used that all at sea analogy as well. And I thought, well that's ex, that's precisely what it feels like. And I, you know, my eldest is 18 this year.
[00:15:45] Dr Renee White: Holy moly.
[00:15:47] Jodi Wilson: Yeah. I've got four kids and so when I'm writing this book, I'm returning to that first postpartum in particular.
[00:15:55] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:55] Jodi Wilson: Because I feel like that's the that's the [00:16:00] walking through the fire bit.
[00:16:00] Dr Renee White: Yeah. That's the baptism of fire ones.
[00:16:02] Jodi Wilson: Yeah and what I remember most profoundly is feeling completely untethered and not knowing which direction to turn and I, it's, I could not articulate that then, but it was just like, it was like I didn't know who I was, I didn't know what I should be doing next.
[00:16:22] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:16:23] Jodi Wilson: This not knowing and the, the discomfort of that and the, the sea analogy is great [00:16:30] because I did not feel grounded.
[00:16:31] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:32] Jodi Wilson: I was just like, every, and a lot of that is because I am an an naturally anxious person and I was so much up here.
[00:16:40] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:16:41] Jodi Wilson: But yeah, it just felt like no one could even provide answers for me.
[00:16:46] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:47] Jodi Wilson: And now I understand Matrescence and I understand maternal brain circuitry, but that maternal brain circuitry research
[00:16:53] Dr Renee White: mm-hmm
[00:16:54] Jodi Wilson: was done, was published in 2017, which is after I had my fourth baby.
[00:16:58] Dr Renee White: What yeah. Yes.
[00:16:59] Jodi Wilson: But we [00:17:00] are, we are in such a profoundly important time in maternal health in that, you know, when I spoke to Dr. Aurélie Athan, about Matrescence and she heads the school of Matrescence and Reproductive Identity at Columbia State University. And she said in all of history it was angry mothers and angry women, that went looking for the answers when they didn't exist. And that's precisely what those two neuroscientists [00:17:30] did from Spain when they discovered that the brain changes so significantly in pregnancy. They were angry because they'd become mothers and they were like, why don't we have any science on this?
[00:17:40] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:17:40] Jodi Wilson: And we don't have a lot of science in this perinatal period because it's ethically complicated.
[00:17:44] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:17:45] Jodi Wilson: Because you can't impose on mothers and new babies. But, and I don't think science is the answer to everything, but it also gives us a really good grounding in our, in our biology
[00:17:56] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:17:56] Jodi Wilson: And in our, in evolution that where there's a lot of [00:18:00] understanding that comes from that and then anecdotally, all of the perinatal health specialists I spoke to agreed that it, it's that sense of not knowing that's so uncomfortable and that sees, you know, especially professional women.
[00:18:16] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:18:17] Jodi Wilson: Who are used to ticking a lot of boxes.
[00:18:19] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:19] Jodi Wilson: And completing a lot of tasks and meeting deadlines, and really living with that quite constant sense of achievement and accomplishment and that does not [00:18:30] exist in postpartum.
[00:18:31] Dr Renee White: No,
[00:18:31] Jodi Wilson: it does not. And so it's deeply unsettling and then you start to question your worth and your ego gets a hit and you're like, am I not very good at this? And it's that all of that kind of guilt and questioning comes up and yet there is profound comfort when we're told, well, we're not supposed to have all the answers.
[00:18:51] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:51] Jodi Wilson: Like this is a period of profound learning.
[00:18:55] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:18:56] Jodi Wilson: And your baby is learning, and you're learning, and [00:19:00] there's ob obviously that learning and connection and, and relating to each other, but I know that there is a lot of literature over the past 20 years, and there's even more now about that process of unfurling into motherhood. And it's a such a slow it, it's slow and agonising at times, and at other times it can feel incredibly beautiful and incredibly powerful. And I, I find it very comforting as well, that with all this talk about [00:19:30] postpartum, we're also seeing so much more discussion about perimenopause.
[00:19:35] Dr Renee White: Yes.
[00:19:36] Jodi Wilson: But what we're not seeing is the discussion about how they overlap because there's so many more women having babies at a later age, and postpartum and perimenopause are overlapping. And yet there's so few studies on that.
[00:19:50] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:19:50] Jodi Wilson: And so I hope there's more studies soon because I think I find it very fascinating that that, you know and social [00:20:00] media and doulas have been so pertinent in this discussion. So they're really talking about the reality of motherhood. And Rachel, I don't know if you've, if you've read Rachel Cusk's, a Life, a Life's Work, I think that was published in 2005, but she was the first one to really bring maternal ambivalence to the page.
[00:20:17] Dr Renee White: Okay.
[00:20:18] Jodi Wilson: So she was talking about the, you know, the love she had for her children, but also those like deep permeating sense of hate for the act of mothering.
[00:20:26] Dr Renee White: Yes.
[00:20:27] Jodi Wilson: And that's why it was so important to put that in the book [00:20:30] as well. Like, I did not leave a stone unturned because I wanted to bring all of this uncomfortable stuff to the page.
[00:20:36] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:37] Jodi Wilson: To reiterate that it is normal.
[00:20:38] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:20:39] Jodi Wilson: And that the dichotomy of early motherhood is the joy and the grief and the regret.
[00:20:44] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:45] Jodi Wilson: And the disappointment.
[00:20:46] Dr Renee White: Yes.
[00:20:47] Jodi Wilson: And the awe and the happiness.
[00:20:48] Dr Renee White: And the resentment.
[00:20:50] Jodi Wilson: And the resentment and all of the, the fact that all of those feelings can be felt within an hour.
[00:20:55] Dr Renee White: Yes. Oh my God. Yes.
[00:20:57] Jodi Wilson: And I just, I just [00:21:00] want mothers to read this book and to feel like there's not something wrong with them.
[00:21:05] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:21:05] Jodi Wilson: And there's two words that are repeated throughout the book. Normal and expected.
[00:21:10] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:21:10] Jodi Wilson: And we really need to lift the lid on what post, what re the reality of postpartum is. What's normal and expected. Because there's so many mothers sitting in the isolations of their homes, watching mothers on social media who have got, who are hustling and have got perfect homes and perfect [00:21:30] children. And it's also polished.
[00:21:32] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:21:32] Jodi Wilson: And they're sitting there questioning why they can't do that and questioning these feelings that are coming up that are so normal, but are considered negative or bad.
[00:21:44] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:21:45] Jodi Wilson: But they're just normal human emotions. We need to normalise them. Anger is normal.
[00:21:50] Dr Renee White: Yeah. 100%
[00:21:52] Jodi Wilson: Rage is normal, but why do we have maternal rage and not paternal rage? Why do we have mother guilt and not [00:22:00] paternal guilt? And it's, it just comes back to the fact that that society idolises mothers.
[00:22:06] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:22:06] Jodi Wilson: And is very quick to vilify them too.
[00:22:09] Dr Renee White: Oh, 100%. Yeah. Like so many of that resonates with me. Like I, when my daughter was six, seven weeks old, we had to make a mad dash from Melbourne to Tassie because unfortunately a family member was very, very ill. And, you know, we were kind of doing the last goodbyes and things like [00:22:30] that. And I remember it being one of the most horrific experiences as a new mum. You know, having to, the mental load of, you know, getting everything together and getting on a plane and like the concept of like, oh my God, how do we get to the airport? Do we, like, do we drive our car? Like when we get to Tasmania, like my fam, because it was so last minute, my family didn't have things here in Tassie for us. And then, and then I look at social media and there's like people who are like [00:23:00] jetting around the world with a five week old or whatever. And I'm just like, how the heck do you look so put together? Like I was a mess, like a complete and utter psychotic mess the entire time. And yeah, it is, it is that, that moment in time where you kind of have to say to yourself, that's not real.
[00:23:21] Jodi Wilson: Mm.
[00:23:21] Dr Renee White: Like it's a snapshot, Renee. It is a Polaroid in someone's life movie. Like you have to just sit back and, and, [00:23:30] and just stop having those thoughts because yeah, you just think you back and think, oh my God, am I a crap mum?
[00:23:37] Jodi Wilson: Mm.
[00:23:37] Dr Renee White: Why can't I do it all?
[00:23:39] Jodi Wilson: And I think it's so important to notice that, or to note that the perfect mum does not exist.
[00:23:44] Dr Renee White: Yes.
[00:23:45] Jodi Wilson: She, she is a myth. She does not exist. The best mum does not exist. Like I've never seen one, I'm definitely not one and so many of the psychologists and psychiatrists and social workers I spoke to were like, [00:24:00] she is a figment of our imagination.
[00:24:02] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:02] Jodi Wilson: And she's doing so much harm.
[00:24:04] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:24:05] Jodi Wilson: But what exists is the mother that is hopefully informed, and I really believe that. Dr. Aurélie Athan, who is that head of Matrescence, and she really revived the term a few years back. She said we really lacked curiosity about mothers who did really well in postpartum because we are [00:24:30] often seeing mothers falling apart in postpartum and crying out for help.
[00:24:33] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:34] Jodi Wilson: And that's, you know, reflective in our perinatal anxiety and depression rates. And I think it's probably quite evident on social media as well, where at one end the spectrum, you've got the mother that, has the beautiful nursery and is totally polished. And then on the other end, there's the mother that's sobbing in a corner.
[00:24:54] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:24:55] Jodi Wilson: And looking very disheveled and, and quite overtly crying out [00:25:00] for help.
[00:25:00] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:01] Jodi Wilson: But in the middle is, you know, a whole array of experiences but what Dr. Athan's said is that we really lack curiosity about the mothers that did really well in postpartum.
[00:25:11] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:11] Jodi Wilson: And her research shows that they were really good forecasters, so they weren't Pollyanna types.
[00:25:18] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:18] Jodi Wilson: And they didn't love every minute.
[00:25:19] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:20] Jodi Wilson: But they had a really educated understanding of what postpartum would look like for them and I really believe that [00:25:30] the Complete Guide to Postpartum offers parents that really stick day to day understanding of what you can expect in postpartum.
[00:25:39] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:39] Jodi Wilson: Which is you have no idea what each day is going to bring.
[00:25:43] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:25:43] Jodi Wilson: But one bad day does not mean you're going to have a bad week.
[00:25:47] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. I, I'd love to know, when you were talking to these amazing researchers, was there anything that really shocked you or you thought, what the [00:26:00] heck? How do we not know this already? Like, how is this not being documented?
[00:26:04] Jodi Wilson: I think it was probably in regards to evolutionary biology.
[00:26:09] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm. Oh God. I love that massive science nerd when it comes to that,
[00:26:15] Jodi Wilson: and it just still baffles me.
[00:26:19] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:20] Jodi Wilson: Why parents are not taught evolutionary biology about their newborns.
[00:26:26] Dr Renee White: Yes.
[00:26:27] Jodi Wilson: So a baby is born [00:26:30] and their habitat. We all know what a habitat is when we're talking about animals. And I think it's important to reiterate that we are animals too. Like we are nature. Our baby's habitat is us, like we are their whole world because we're all they've ever known.
[00:26:48] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:49] Jodi Wilson: So if we think about why the baby isn't sleeping in the cold, hard, still bassinet, and yet they settle on us because [00:27:00] we are warm and we smell like home and our heartbeat is familiar and there's a rhythm to our bodies. Like why? And I know that there's so many thousands of parents every day, millions of parents every day going, why won't the baby sleep in the bassinet?
[00:27:16] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:27:17] Jodi Wilson: That they'll settle on me.
[00:27:18] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Why have I got a barnacle baby?
[00:27:20] Jodi Wilson: Yeah, exactly. You are your baby's habitat. That's not easy in this modern life though, because we are living in a [00:27:30] cost of living crisis where parents are having to go back to work. And I think what was like, I admit, and I even said to my publisher very early on in the writing process that I'm not sure I can write a hopeful book.
[00:27:42] Dr Renee White: Mm.
[00:27:42] Jodi Wilson: And that makes me really sad. It still makes me really sad because mums have it so much harder today than I did even 18 years ago. I could live off, my partner and I, our rent was under $300 a week.
[00:27:58] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:27:58] Jodi Wilson: You know, we could live off [00:28:00] one income. We had Kevin Rudd's baby bonus.
[00:28:02] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:28:03] Jodi Wilson: If I was a 22-year-old now having my first baby. That's a completely different scenario, and that is one massive reason why it's hard and new parents are going back to work earlier than they expected or planned for or hoped and it's directly informing how they choose to feed their baby and how they choose to approach infant sleep.
[00:28:26] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:28:26] Jodi Wilson: So these massive decisions we're making as parents are being [00:28:30] influenced very directly by the need to go back to work to pay the mortgage or to pay rent.
[00:28:36] Dr Renee White: Mm yeah.
[00:28:38] Jodi Wilson: Um, and so we can have all this information about evolutionary biology and the fact that our babies continue to grow and develop in our arms. It's a term coined by Ashley Montagu called exterogestation. So, we, we are mammals without a pouch, but our pouch is our arm. So we're carrying mammals and our [00:29:00] babies essentially there's one train of thought that says that our babies are born so early and so incapable because they need that stimulation of the world for their brain to develop. And so they continue developing in our arms until they're old enough to be able to crawl away from us and that's at about 7, 8, 9 months.
[00:29:22] Dr Renee White: Wow. I love that so much.
[00:29:26] Jodi Wilson: Yeah.
[00:29:26] Dr Renee White: That, that's almost like, to me, that's almost [00:29:30] like tapping into that breast crawl, like that first breast crawl. Oh, okay. I love that. I'm gonna look that up. That is so, so, so good.
[00:29:39] Jodi Wilson: Yeah. It's, yeah. It's, it's really, but you know, that's, that's all well and good to understand the evolutionary biology and that our babies should be on us and that our babies develop on us and we should spend as much time, you know, nurturing and caring for our babies. And aside from that, there is a train of thought about, you know, if we look at anthropology through the years, it has [00:30:00] looked at alloparenting.
[00:30:01] Dr Renee White: Yes.
[00:30:02] Jodi Wilson: Um, and Sarah Blaffer Hrdy really looked into this and that showed that in many cultures around the world, still newborn babies are cared for by so many different people.
[00:30:13] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:13] Jodi Wilson: By aunties and uncles and siblings and neighbors and grandparents and her research shows that by three weeks of age, the newborn babies was with people other than the parents for 40% of the time.
[00:30:25] Dr Renee White: Yeah right.
[00:30:26] Jodi Wilson: But that's the village we're missing.
[00:30:27] Dr Renee White: Yeah,
[00:30:28] Jodi Wilson: Yeah you know, so this, we've got [00:30:30] all this evolutionary biology talk, and then we've got the void of the village.
[00:30:34] Dr Renee White: Mm.
[00:30:35] Jodi Wilson: And then we've got modern pressures of cost of living and going back to work, and they don't all fit together. That's why it's so hard.
[00:30:42] Dr Renee White: Absolutely.
[00:30:43] Jodi Wilson: And I think that's why mothers are really crying out for support because we've got, we've got evolution, which, and there's a lot of comfort to be found in that, to help us understand our babies and how our babies sleep and how our babies eat and how they behave. But that doesn't necessarily [00:31:00] fit in with, the demands of modern life.
[00:31:03] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:31:03] Jodi Wilson: And another really beautiful thing I came across in the research was that it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a community to raise a mother.
[00:31:13] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:31:13] Jodi Wilson: And yeah, and community and community is, has always existed for mothers. And it doesn't exist now. I think it, it's starting to exist more and more as we see the rise of doulas and podcasts like this and [00:31:30] just more women talking openly about how mo motherhood feels. But one of the most beautiful, I'm a bit of a language nerd, so I always kind of look at the origin of words.
[00:31:39] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:40] Jodi Wilson: And the origin of the word gossip, which I love
[00:31:43] Dr Renee White: mm-hmm.
[00:31:43] Jodi Wilson: Comes from a woman's lying in. So in England they, you know they called it a lying in when you would rest before your baby was born and afterwards.
[00:31:54] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:55] Jodi Wilson: And a merry meet of gossips at a women's lying in was when all [00:32:00] the women would surround the new mother and, and speak about, about new motherhood and about how to look after a baby and the youngest siblings and neighbors were there to learn before they'd given birth and so all new mums should be encouraged to gossip.
[00:32:17] Dr Renee White: I bloody love that.
[00:32:19] Jodi Wilson: I know. I just, I think that's beautiful and I think we've lost that because we're not, we're not having those honest, heartfelt conversations with a mother while we care for [00:32:30] her as she rests.
[00:32:31] Dr Renee White: Absolutely. Absolutely. I was talking to another guest on the podcast about that like level of sharing of experience and also to be seen like she was saying how, you know, when she hears mums, like a new mums go, oh I'm not gonna go to that mother's group. You know, what if I, what if I don't like anyone? Or, you know, I, I'm, I'm just happy to be by myself at home with my baby. And she said, you know, I feel really [00:33:00] sorry for those people, but I also say to them, just go, like, just give it a go. Because it is, it is about sharing those experiences and normalising what you're going through and albeit, you know, you might not be lifelong friends and that's okay.
[00:33:18] Jodi Wilson: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:18] Dr Renee White: But in, I think that particularly those early newborn days, like that first six months, I think it's so important to have that WhatsApp group where someone's up at 3:00 AM with you going, my [00:33:30] kid will not go to sleep please, someone help me.
[00:33:33] Jodi Wilson: And you know, that's, it's those conversations that are considered early mental health prevention.
[00:33:38] Dr Renee White: Yes. Yes.
[00:33:39] Jodi Wilson: And when we don't have, when we don't have safe community spaces for mothers to go and to congregate and to talk, we're essentially intensifying perinatal mental illness.
[00:33:53] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:53] Jodi Wilson: Because that early intervention is not happening and
[00:33:56] Dr Renee White: yeah.
[00:33:57] Jodi Wilson: Tasmania actually does that really well. I interviewed [00:34:00] Meagan Smith, who runs the West Ulverstone Family and Child Center.
[00:34:03] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:04] Jodi Wilson: And her whole, which isn't, it's an area that has quite a low socioeconomic demographic, which I would say probably exists across the whole of the state.
[00:34:15] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:15] Jodi Wilson: And these, these centers are so vital because she explained that they really meet mothers where they're at. And she said, if a mother can come in and there's a safe place for her baby to lie down or to play, and I can hand her a cup of tea, [00:34:30] she will start talking.
[00:34:31] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:34:32] Jodi Wilson: And she said, she'll, I'll ask her, do you need, um, shoe laces for your toddler? Do your school, school children have a warm jumper? Like all those kind of conversations.
[00:34:43] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:43] Jodi Wilson: And really normalising what we're all feeling in motherhood alongside those daily kind of everyday challenges.
[00:34:51] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:51] Jodi Wilson: But there's a lot of states that don't have centers and when I was chatting to Dr. Rebecca Moore, who's a psychiatrist, and she heads [00:35:00] Make Birth Better in the UK, she was saying that I know the UK have gone through so many governments in the past 10 years, but she said one government essentially eradicated these family centers that existed in every town. And so she said when they eradicated that, they eradicated that early intervention for mental health for mothers because mothers could no longer come together. They, you know, they might just walk down the street and pop in at any time of day and those safe spaces for us all [00:35:30] to talk about how motherhood feels are so vital.
[00:35:33] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:34] Jodi Wilson: And of course, it's really confronting to meet new, new friends in early motherhood.
[00:35:39] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:35:40] Jodi Wilson: And I liken it because the maternal brain changes aren't dissimilar to the teenage brain changes.
[00:35:46] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:47] Jodi Wilson: And teenagers find it really hard to make, like first year of high school, how hard is it to make friends?
[00:35:52] Dr Renee White: Yeah. I knew two people at my high school. I was like, oh God, this is gonna, this is gonna be interesting.
[00:35:57] Jodi Wilson: Yeah and it's the same for mothers. It's like, well, [00:36:00] like, you know, are they gonna be like me and are we gonna like, have the same, and, and then there's that whole talking about the birth and how you choose to feed your baby and, and how you choose to approach sleep. And I think it's really helpful if we all come to those discussions, understanding that our experience and our beliefs aren't everyone else's.
[00:36:22] Dr Renee White: Yeah agreed.
[00:36:23] Jodi Wilson: Yeah.
[00:36:24] Dr Renee White: On that, on that point. That's a very good segue, Jodi. Um, because. We're talking [00:36:30] offline about the fact that this book is so extensive. Like as I was reading it, I was like, oh, surely this is the end. Nope, nope, she's, she's going, or she's all in on this one. You have dedicated whole chapters to feeding and sleep, which I mean, from a doula perspective, that is definitely the top two concerns that we get questions about from new families. You have already [00:37:00] touched on this. There are so many opinions, and I'm gonna go quote unquote, experts out there with these particular topics. Was it hard to kind of wade through the fluff and work out what the facts were? I'm very curious to know.
[00:37:19] Jodi Wilson: It was so hard.
[00:37:22] Dr Renee White: Mm.
[00:37:22] Jodi Wilson: I've written four books now in five years and nothing was harder than those feeding and sleep [00:37:30] chapters.
[00:37:30] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:37:31] Jodi Wilson: And I felt so overwhelmed.
[00:37:35] Dr Renee White: Mm.
[00:37:35] Jodi Wilson: And so angry and I, I was, I typed sentences just to get it out and then I deleted them.
[00:37:43] Dr Renee White: Yeah okay.
[00:37:43] Jodi Wilson: And I'm coming to this book as someone that breastfed with enormous ease
[00:37:50] Dr Renee White: mm-hmm.
[00:37:50] Jodi Wilson: Four children.
[00:37:52] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:37:53] Jodi Wilson: And who figured out very early on in my mothering journey that I wanted to co-sleep.
[00:37:59] Dr Renee White: [00:38:00] Mm-hmm.
[00:38:00] Jodi Wilson: But I wrote as an objective health journalist.
[00:38:04] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:05] Jodi Wilson: And also was really well aware that there is so much grief for mothers who want to breastfeed and can't.
[00:38:13] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:14] Jodi Wilson: And so much confusion confusion for parents, because the social narrative around baby sleep is that a baby sleeping through the night is success and it's the end goal.
[00:38:26] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:38:27] Jodi Wilson: And it's so misinformed [00:38:30] and again, let's go back to evolutionary biology because there's so many good answers there.
[00:38:39] Dr Renee White: Yep.
[00:38:40] Jodi Wilson: Yep. About how babies sleep. They were, they were such hard chapters to write. So many specialists I spoke to said, I'm glad it's you and not me writing these chapters. One GP said it will be like herding cats. So the infant feeding, um, we called milk.
[00:38:57] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:38:58] Jodi Wilson: So reiterating [00:39:00] and like if we look at the statistics, 96% of Australian mothers are initiating breastfeeding at birth. Only about 35% are exclusively breastfeeding by 12 weeks postpartum.
[00:39:12] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:39:13] Jodi Wilson: By six months postpartum in the UK, 1% of mothers are exclusively breastfeeding.
[00:39:19] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:39:20] Jodi Wilson: That just shows that there's a profound lack of support.
[00:39:23] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:39:23] Jodi Wilson: And there's a profound lack of realistic expectations and we are living in a [00:39:30] world that doesn't really support breastfeeding and going back to work.
[00:39:34] Dr Renee White: Yes, that is a great point.
[00:39:36] Jodi Wilson: Yeah. So mothers deserve information and they deserve acknowledgement for how challenging breastfeeding can be and the grief when it doesn't go as planned.
[00:39:49] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:39:50] Jodi Wilson: And the fact that you are allowed to grieve that experience that you really wanted. And I think that's really pertinent for mothers that had birth trauma, because a [00:40:00] lot of them, a lot of that cohort are really desperate to kind of make up.
[00:40:05] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:40:05] Jodi Wilson: With breastfeeding but then the physiology, and this again plays into birth. So we're seeing there's a direct link between cesarean birth, postpartum hemorrhage, birth trauma, separation of mother and baby after birth, and low milk supply.
[00:40:23] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:40:23] Jodi Wilson: And late onset of milk.
[00:40:24] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:40:25] Jodi Wilson: So there's all of these physiological factors that inform that initial [00:40:30] first stage of breastfeeding,
[00:40:31] Dr Renee White: which I don't think a lot of people know. Like I didn't know that
[00:40:34] Jodi Wilson: a lot of people aren't talking about it. No, they're not.
[00:40:36] Dr Renee White: I had a C-section and no one told me and I, I remember like the midwives were getting actually quite concerned.
[00:40:45] Jodi Wilson: Mm.
[00:40:47] Dr Renee White: And it was written in my notes that, you know, things aren't moving along as we anticipate with her feeding.
[00:40:55] Jodi Wilson: Yeah. But no why?
[00:40:57] Dr Renee White: No. Like no one turned around to me and said, [00:41:00] oh, just so you know, things might move a bit slower because you've had a cesarean. Whereas I was just left to myself like panicking, thinking, oh my God, I can't feed my child. This is the one bloody job I've got to do and I can't even do that right.
[00:41:17] Jodi Wilson: And I think that's really, it's so important for mothers who want to breastfeed to understand that the lactation support that you're gonna get on a postnatal ward, especially if you're in a hospital where there's the high cesarean rate.
[00:41:29] Dr Renee White: Yes.
[00:41:29] Jodi Wilson: And one [00:41:30] lactation consultant said this to me, she said, it's really important to remember you're essentially on a surgical ward.
[00:41:36] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:41:37] Jodi Wilson: So a lot of the midwives are spending a lot of time with the mother and the post-surgery, the post birth, cesarean birth.
[00:41:47] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:41:47] Jodi Wilson: Care.
[00:41:47] Dr Renee White: Yes agreed.
[00:41:48] Jodi Wilson: And there's so little time for lactation support.
[00:41:51] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:41:52] Jodi Wilson: And lactation consultants are minimal on those wards as well.
[00:41:56] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:41:56] Jodi Wilson: There's also so much conflicting advice.
[00:41:58] Dr Renee White: Oh, god yeah. [00:42:00]
[00:42:00] Jodi Wilson: Because I think a lot of midwives, if they're not lactation consultants, they have to be quite self-disciplined and go and do their own education.
[00:42:10] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:42:10] Jodi Wilson: And the evidence is changing all the time. We've seen that with how masti mastitis is treated.
[00:42:15] Dr Renee White: Yes.
[00:42:15] Jodi Wilson: Like that changed quite significantly.
[00:42:18] Dr Renee White: Mm.
[00:42:18] Jodi Wilson: Just over the last few years. So I think all the evidence points to the fact that if you want to breastfeed, you connect with a lactation consultant in pregnancy.
[00:42:27] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:42:28] Jodi Wilson: And, and you really [00:42:30] find someone that you trust and that you gel with and you set those appointments up. You know, for a week or two after your estimated due date or a few days after, and you, you don't let, you don't kind of wait and see you kind of get that support early.
[00:42:45] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:42:46] Jodi Wilson: But that is dependent on money to pay these people.
[00:42:50] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:42:51] Jodi Wilson: Awareness, information like accessibility, all of these things are barriers to new mothers accessing that support.
[00:42:58] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:42:58] Jodi Wilson: So of course we can [00:43:00] understand why when it is incredibly painful when milk supply doesn't establish, and again, there's just so little awareness of the importance of skin to skin and maternal nutrition. To make milk. Um, and I think one of the most beautiful pieces of information I came across, which again is linguistically based, but uh, the linguist Roman Jakobson said that the origin of the word mama is from the sound a baby [00:43:30] makes when they attach to the bottle or the breast.
[00:43:32] Dr Renee White: Oh.
[00:43:33] Jodi Wilson: And I think it's really important to reiterate that the connection and the attachment that you have with your baby is not dependent on how you feed them.
[00:43:41] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:43:42] Jodi Wilson: But new parents need so much support with infant feeding and again, that's just doesn't exist for a lot of mothers.
[00:43:50] Dr Renee White: No.
[00:43:50] Jodi Wilson: And it's a confusing, debilitating, often painful experience that can last for six to eight weeks, that pain even [00:44:00] longer.
[00:44:00] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:44:01] Jodi Wilson: And again, that's not a realistic kind of conversation that we're having with a lot of mothers.
[00:44:05] Dr Renee White: Yep.
[00:44:06] Jodi Wilson: And because it is the next natural stage after birth, so many mothers feel like they really should be. Able to do it.
[00:44:14] Dr Renee White: Mm, absolutely.
[00:44:16] Jodi Wilson: And I've just really wanted to shout out to my editor a Andrea O'Connor, who is a beautiful mother, and she has breast hyperplasia, which means that she doesn't have enough breast tissue to store [00:44:30] milk.
[00:44:30] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:44:31] Jodi Wilson: And she couldn't breastfeed her, her two babies, and she still carries the grief of that. And she was such a brilliant person to be editing me
[00:44:40] Dr Renee White: mm-hmm.
[00:44:40] Jodi Wilson: And to be picking up on my judgements that I wasn't even aware of as a woman that could breastfeed with, you know, relative ease. And I did wonder like, am am I the right person to be writing this chapter?
[00:44:51] Dr Renee White: Mm.
[00:44:51] Jodi Wilson: Because I did have that immensely positive experience. But it really, you know, we've really outlined what your options are [00:45:00] when you, when you do have any of the challenges that exist in, in the breastfeeding experience and then and then what your options are when you are using alternative feeding methods. And it's really, it's really hard because the whole time I was writing, I knew exactly who my reader was.
[00:45:18] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:45:19] Jodi Wilson: You don't always get that privilege as a writer, but I knew that my reader would be sleep deprived.
[00:45:24] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:45:25] Jodi Wilson: Very emotional and so from a sentence level, every single [00:45:30] sentence had to be read over so many times to make sure that there was no judgment.
[00:45:35] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:45:35] Jodi Wilson: That there was no incorrect assumptions and that I was acknowledging every mother's experience. I'm not sure if I've done that. I'm sure there will be some women that do feel judged and that feel unacknowledged, but that was my intention. Especially with feeding, because it can be such a grueling experience.
[00:45:55] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:45:55] Jodi Wilson: And it can, but also on the flip side, it can be so beautiful [00:46:00] and so joyful and you know, I I, I still have a visceral reaction when like, I see a video of a, a baby sucking at the breast and that sound
[00:46:10] Dr Renee White: Mm.
[00:46:11] Jodi Wilson: It's almost like I can feel the letdown again.
[00:46:13] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:46:15] Jodi Wilson: But I think so much so important to the whole breastfeeding discussion is an understanding of hormones because it's a hormonally driven process at the, in the very beginning.
[00:46:27] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:46:27] Jodi Wilson: And you know, we hear so much [00:46:30] on social media about cortisol.
[00:46:31] Dr Renee White: Yes.
[00:46:32] Jodi Wilson: But we need to be talking about oxytocin.
[00:46:34] Dr Renee White: Oh my god. Yes.
[00:46:35] Jodi Wilson: Oxytocin.
[00:46:35] Dr Renee White: Let's flip it. Let's flip it.
[00:46:38] Jodi Wilson: Oxytocin is so powerful and we can all experience the warm, gooey sense of oxytocin and we do that when we are snuggling with our baby and I think, you know, by the time I had my third and fourth babies, I knew exactly how fleeting that newborn stage was.
[00:46:56] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:46:57] Jodi Wilson: And I was not going to let anything get in the way of [00:47:00] me, like really just soaking in the slowness of it and the skin to skin.
[00:47:05] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:47:05] Jodi Wilson: And the, my house was an absolute mess, but I didn't care.
[00:47:09] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:47:10] Jodi Wilson: You know, but there are all the things that you kind of have to, you can learn from other people, but you do have to learn for yourself, I think.
[00:47:17] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
[00:47:19] Jodi Wilson: Um, and yeah, then the sleep chapter was
[00:47:21] Dr Renee White: a minefield. would it?
[00:47:23] Jodi Wilson: It was a minefield. It was a minefield. And I think it's really baffling to me, and I think it goes back to what I said at the [00:47:30] beginning, that postpartum healthcare can be the wild west of medicine medicine because there's a lot of not evidence-based practice being taught in the infant sleep space.
[00:47:42] Dr Renee White: Well, it's not a regulated industry. Whereas,
[00:47:45] Jodi Wilson: and I think, well, I think you've, you've hit on it there, it's an industry.
[00:47:49] Dr Renee White: Yes.
[00:47:50] Jodi Wilson: People are making money off it.
[00:47:51] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:47:52] Jodi Wilson: There's a product to fix every issue when the issue doesn't really exist in the first place. [00:48:00]
[00:48:00] Dr Renee White: I was gonna talk about that.
[00:48:02] Jodi Wilson: So we've gotta kind of, if we're going to come to it objectively, we're going to say that, uh, that it, it's a multimillion dollar industry, global industry.
[00:48:14] Dr Renee White: Yes.
[00:48:14] Jodi Wilson: And it was really alarming to me that baby monitor companies can often send parents information about sleep training.
[00:48:24] Dr Renee White: Really?
[00:48:26] Jodi Wilson: Yes.
[00:48:28] Dr Renee White: Wow.
[00:48:28] Jodi Wilson: Quite alarming. But [00:48:30] then I got to speak to Dr. Uh, sorry, Professor Helen Ball from the
[00:48:34] Dr Renee White: Yes. I have not had her on the podcast. Actually, you know what her name is on my whiteboard to like, she's on my list.
[00:48:40] Jodi Wilson: Well, she's got a new book coming out I read it, it's called How Baby Sleep. It's amazing.
[00:48:45] Dr Renee White: I'm gonna contact her about that.
[00:48:47] Jodi Wilson: Yeah and she's done a lot of research. She's an anthropologist and she has done a lot of research on breastfeeding and sleep, and she's got studies to show that when a baby is separated from the, from the mother, even when they're in the same room, [00:49:00] so if the baby's in the bassinet beside the bed
[00:49:03] Dr Renee White: mm-hmm.
[00:49:03] Jodi Wilson: The baby will come to the breast half as much as when a baby is right next to the mother co-sleeping.
[00:49:10] Dr Renee White: Wow.
[00:49:10] Jodi Wilson: Yeah.
[00:49:12] Dr Renee White: That's very interesting.
[00:49:13] Jodi Wilson: She's done a lot of studies and they were done, they were studies that were done in hospital and she really reiterated to UK sleep industry and experts, how important or how vital it was that all parents understand how to co-sleep safely.[00:49:30]
[00:49:30] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:49:30] Jodi Wilson: Because it's between 80 to 85% of parents will do it even though they thought they never would.
[00:49:36] Dr Renee White: Absolutely.
[00:49:37] Jodi Wilson: And we, and again, if we're gonna talk about, honestly, about how motherhood feels, we need to talk honestly about infant sleep.
[00:49:44] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:49:44] Jodi Wilson: And the fact that it is a continuum and that you are gonna move up and down that continuum as your baby grows and you, and as your lifestyle changes.
[00:49:53] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:49:54] Jodi Wilson: And you're gonna make decisions based on your family values, but it comes down to the fact that you're the only [00:50:00] one that can decide where your baby sleeps.
[00:50:02] Dr Renee White: Yeah, absolutely. We always talk about it in our prenatal sessions, and I know, like, I could see the look on the people's faces sometimes where it's kind of like, oh, we would no that's, that's not really for us and I do say to them. That's fine, but let's just go over it because I would much rather us all be on the same page and be properly prepared, because when we're really sleep deprived and we're having a rough night, you might [00:50:30] just reach for that tool in the toolkit and you already know the steps that you need to make sure that that's safe. So like, you know, let's just talk about it and they, and what, you know, what, it speaks to that statistic more often than not. Like, I'll turn up to their house, you know, four, five weeks into our doula'ing and they'll be like, yeah, we co-slept last night. And I'm like, excellent. Great. How did you go? And they're like, actually it was really easy because we'd spoken about it.
[00:50:58] Dr Renee White: We knew what to do or what [00:51:00] not to do and yeah, absolutely. I wanna talk about. One of the things that I really loved about the book was the like, question and answer sections on the first six weeks.
[00:51:13] Jodi Wilson: Mm.
[00:51:14] Dr Renee White: I loved how like, informative it was and the fact that like you explained the why I'm always about the why I am like, if people understand the why, everything just falls into place. And the other thing that I loved is that you didn't just [00:51:30] like throw a quick fix or like, um, you know, a million dollar gadget at the answer. How did you collate those? Like how, how did that all pan out for you?
[00:51:41] Jodi Wilson: So I think I really like the why is very interesting because I think there's an undercurrent of understanding that you, you never really know why your baby is doing something.
[00:51:55] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:51:56] Jodi Wilson: You know, perhaps a few years down the track.
[00:51:58] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:51:58] Jodi Wilson: But at the beginning you [00:52:00] don't really know why, but there often is a why.
[00:52:02] Dr Renee White: Mm.
[00:52:02] Jodi Wilson: I mean, and again, it comes back to that evolutionary biology,
[00:52:05] Dr Renee White: that old chestnut I feel like we're gonna have to do like a little webinar on the evolutionary biology of human beings.
[00:52:12] Jodi Wilson: Yeah. Or just read the book. You know, it's all in there. But I also knew that those first six weeks are so overwhelming.
[00:52:19] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:52:20] Jodi Wilson: Like they are just such a blur. And I also knew that there is a strong connection and a similarity in the questions that mothers are asking.
[00:52:28] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:52:29] Jodi Wilson: So [00:52:30] I kind of put on that hat and thought, well, if these are the questions they want in the answer, information reassurance, acknowledgement that it's actually really hard and that it's okay that it's hard and just a conversational tone.
[00:52:46] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:52:47] Jodi Wilson: And so I kind of brought all those to that section. I'm glad you picked up on that. That's nice.
[00:52:51] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I was, yeah, I was reading through those. I just, I find, like, I read a lot of books, like people send me a lot of books [00:53:00] to read.
[00:53:00] Jodi Wilson: Mm.
[00:53:00] Dr Renee White: And I, I think I just really appreciate, I can see the time and effort that has been put into this book. It is immense and yeah, little sections like that, like as you were saying, like you really know your reader. Like that to me is like a section where people would be like, hold on minute. I saw that the other day. Like, that's exactly where we're at and you know, they might not have time to like digest a complete chapter, but that Q [00:53:30] and A section I think is a really good, quick go to like a, not a prompter, but almost like as you were saying, it's that reassurance of like what you're feeling is okay.
[00:53:42] Jodi Wilson: Yeah.
[00:53:42] Dr Renee White: And this is, as you're saying, normal and expected.
[00:53:46] Jodi Wilson: Yeah.
[00:53:46] Dr Renee White: And, and like this is just the phase that we're currently in at the moment.
[00:53:50] Jodi Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. I really hope this book is read in the third trimester of pregnancy.
[00:53:54] Dr Renee White: Yes oh my god.
[00:53:55] Jodi Wilson: That massive section on at the start, on how to prepare for a positive postpartum, which [00:54:00] really gets to the root of what postpartum is.
[00:54:03] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:54:04] Jodi Wilson: Why we don't know much about it.
[00:54:07] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:54:08] Jodi Wilson: Like five years ago, my publisher would not have published a book with postpartum in the title because so many people think it's synonymous with depression.
[00:54:15] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:54:16] Jodi Wilson: Or hemorrhage.
[00:54:16] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:54:17] Jodi Wilson: So, and, and I think we really, in having this discussion, we need to be so realistic and admit that we exist in a bubble where everyone that is in our social media feeds and everyone that we're talking [00:54:30] to knows exactly what postpartum is. But the truth of the matter is that most people do not know what it is.
[00:54:36] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Agreed.
[00:54:37] Jodi Wilson: Um, and they're entering this season with so little information and understanding and awareness.
[00:54:44] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:54:44] Jodi Wilson: But we can only change that if we keep talking about it and if we keep bringing out resources
[00:54:49] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:54:49] Jodi Wilson: About it. So, but yeah, I, I imagine that that third trimester is when you'll buy this book and then actively prepare and you might read all the way through it, but it will carry you [00:55:00] throughout that first year.
[00:55:01] Dr Renee White: Mm.
[00:55:01] Jodi Wilson: And it's a companion, as we've said in the subtitle for Life After Birth and I, you know, there's an index. Use the index, like if you've got, it's a very comprehensive index. But yeah, I think, you know, there's the whole section on the fourth trimester as well.
[00:55:17] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:55:17] Jodi Wilson: And there's parts that I really believe is actually more important for a partner to read.
[00:55:22] Dr Renee White: Yes, I was
[00:55:22] Jodi Wilson: than a mother.
[00:55:23] Dr Renee White: That was gonna be my question. Like, this is not just like, in an ideal world, like I would be handing this [00:55:30] book to everyone in your inner circle. Um, because I think, and this is the other thing, we, I actually have a lot of, um, grandparents who listen to this podcast and who are part of our, um, you know, community. And I see them, you know, they send me an email or a direct message on Instagram and they're just like, oh my God, thank you so much for talking about this particular topic on the podcast, because now I understand what my daughter is going through, and now I'm gonna be able to action, you know, [00:56:00] X, Y, Z or whatever it is.
[00:56:01] Jodi Wilson: And do you know why that's important? So when we, when we're talking about maternal mental health. Family and friends. Those closest to the mother are the ones that are gonna pick up when something's not right.
[00:56:13] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:56:13] Jodi Wilson: And that is absolutely vital when it comes to postpartum psychosis.
[00:56:18] Dr Renee White: Mm.
[00:56:19] Jodi Wilson: But the problem is that we're looking for the baby blues.
[00:56:25] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:56:25] Jodi Wilson: Whereas postpartum psychosis presents very differently and they [00:56:30] call it now the baby pinks.
[00:56:32] Dr Renee White: Okay.
[00:56:33] Jodi Wilson: So this is where a new mother and, and one psychiatrist I spoke to, said we all need a little bit of baby pink like she said, if we could bottle it. She heads the parent and baby unit at RPA in Sydney, Dr. So Dr. Sylvia Lim-Gibson. She said if we could bottle the baby pinks and give it to all mothers, that would be amazing. But some mothers stay in that hyper-focused, [00:57:00] elated, really high sense of just being almost frantic with energy.
[00:57:08] Dr Renee White: Yep.
[00:57:09] Jodi Wilson: So it displays quite, it's just, and you think, oh my gosh, she's just on top, on top of the world. We always hear that. Like that oxytocin high being on top of the world, but it persists and it gets to the point where she can't sleep. Where she might be online shopping all day every day.
[00:57:25] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:57:25] Jodi Wilson: Googling for 10 hours straight.
[00:57:28] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:57:28] Jodi Wilson: And a lot of [00:57:30] people wouldn't really question it so much because it looks so positive.
[00:57:35] Dr Renee White: Right.
[00:57:36] Jodi Wilson: And so happy. But it's actually a precursor to postpartum psychosis.
[00:57:41] Dr Renee White: Wow. I did not know that.
[00:57:44] Jodi Wilson: Yeah,
[00:57:44] Dr Renee White: that's very interesting.
[00:57:46] Jodi Wilson: It's very interesting. It's very rare.
[00:57:48] Dr Renee White: Mm.
[00:57:49] Jodi Wilson: It's a lot more rare than the baby blues. So the baby blues will affect kind of 80% of mothers, the baby pinks. I think it's about, I'm not entirely, sure of this [00:58:00] statistic, but it's kind of 10 to 15%.
[00:58:02] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:58:02] Jodi Wilson: And for many of those mothers, it will just slowly fade.
[00:58:05] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:58:06] Jodi Wilson: But we really have to educate, support people and to really see that as an, a massive alarm bell.
[00:58:16] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[00:58:16] Jodi Wilson: And there's a lot of research that supports the fact that postpartum psychosis hits the cohort of very intelligent, educated women who are more likely to know that it's not right and therefore to hide [00:58:30]
[00:58:30] Dr Renee White: Mm.
[00:58:30] Jodi Wilson: Their symptoms.
[00:58:31] Dr Renee White: Yes. Yeah. We've had, um, um, on the podcast before, talk about her experience, um, with psychosis.
[00:58:39] Jodi Wilson: Mm-hmm.
[00:58:39] Dr Renee White: And she's actually, you know, her role is in the mental health kind of, or uh, no, it was Siobhan. Oh God. What her, she's got a double barrel name Kennedy-Costantini and it was, it was fascinating to hear like her, her account of it.
[00:58:59] Jodi Wilson: Mm-hmm.
[00:58:59] Dr Renee White: As [00:59:00] well. Like she wa it, she was just like, it was such an out of body experience for me. She's like, I could see myself, you know, making decisions and thinking about things and doing things and she was just like, it was e extraordinary. Never been through anything like that before in their lives.
[00:59:18] Jodi Wilson: And there's so many more scientists studying it now.
[00:59:22] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:59:22] Jodi Wilson: And there's, and I think that's kind of come off the back of what we've learn about the maternal brain circuitry. That there's so many more [00:59:30] scientists looking at maternal mental illness and we know hormones inform that, but there's also new research to say that inflammation may be a contributing factor, but it's really in its infancy. And I think there's so much of this research is in its infancy when it comes to, to maternal health. But what we do know is that any challenge that that arises in postpartum is the antidote, is support.
[00:59:55] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[00:59:56] Jodi Wilson: Whether that's practical, financial, [01:00:00] social, informational.
[01:00:01] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[01:00:02] Jodi Wilson: It's what all new mothers need, and it's what all new mothers lack really.
[01:00:07] Dr Renee White: I knew we were gonna run out of time before topics, Jodi, but I do wanna dive in quickly to our rapid fire, if you will indulge me in that.
[01:00:14] Jodi Wilson: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[01:00:15] Dr Renee White: Okay. Are you ready?
[01:00:16] Jodi Wilson: Yeah.
[01:00:16] Dr Renee White: First question, what is your top tip for mums?
[01:00:20] Jodi Wilson: Oh, that's a really hard one actually.
[01:00:22] Dr Renee White: I know everyone's just like, Renee, why? Why would you do this to me?
[01:00:28] Jodi Wilson: I think it would be one day at a [01:00:30] time, and I think that's really my tip for all humans.
[01:00:33] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[01:00:33] Jodi Wilson: No matter what stage of life of life they're in, just all you can control is today and sometimes you can't even control that.
[01:00:40] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[01:00:40] Jodi Wilson: And I think it really, I think at the end of the introduction, I said it's really hour by hour. In the fourth trimester.
[01:00:48] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[01:00:49] Jodi Wilson: It's not even one day at a time. It's hour by hour.
[01:00:52] Dr Renee White: Agreed. A hundred percent. What's your o, obviously apart from this book, and I always like to like maybe step back [01:01:00] into your own personal experience, did you have a go-to resource, you know, throughout your motherhood and it could be like a book or a poem or you know, a piece of art or a workshop it could be anything. Was there something that you kind of really gravitated to?
[01:01:18] Jodi Wilson: Yeah, I gravitated towards established mothers.
[01:01:21] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[01:01:22] Jodi Wilson: And I'm one of those now. So I actually send a weekly substack called Dear New Mum, which is reassurance when you need it most [01:01:30] and it's a newsletter just to reassure new mothers with information and advice. But there's also a beautiful book called Creativity and Motherhood by Rachel Power and it was released when I was a young mum. I think it's out of print now, but you should be able to get it from your library.
[01:01:47] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[01:01:48] Jodi Wilson: And she interviewed lots of well-known Australian creatives who were also mothers.
[01:01:52] Jodi Wilson: So Clare Bowditch was in there and Holly Throsby and they just spoke about the challenge of being a [01:02:00] creative person and a mother.
[01:02:01] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[01:02:02] Jodi Wilson: And it's something that I've lived with my whole motherhood life because I am a writer and, and trying to etch out my own writer self while also mothering has been a journey in itself, I think and often very challenging. And I think, you know, postpartum is an innately creative season of life.
[01:02:22] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[01:02:22] Jodi Wilson: And yet you do not have the time or the capacity to really delve into that. But I would say to mothers, don't [01:02:30] underestimate the notes that you can take in a five minute period or the beautiful foundations of projects that are just being planted and are kind of growing in your mind as your mother.
[01:02:44] Dr Renee White: I think that's really beautiful. I, I see a lot as I doula mums leaning into their real creativity kind of mindset.
[01:02:56] Jodi Wilson: Mm-hmm.
[01:02:56] Dr Renee White: Like, I remember, um, I had one particular mum I was looking [01:03:00] after and she would, she would just color, she had like a beautiful mindfulness kind of coloring book and she would just color while I was there cooking in a kitchen. And I, I don't, I haven't actually delved into this, and actually I should ask you, this might be a thing. But I find so many mums, and I think I, I'm the poster child for it. You become a mum and you pivot in your career, and it can be just like complete [01:03:30] 180. I see this so, so often, and I, I wonder, you know, is that
[01:03:35] Jodi Wilson: it's because your values change.
[01:03:37] Dr Renee White: Your values change. I think your brain's completely remodeled. Like there's so much that goes on. But I also feel like, and I've had this discussion with many mums, it's frightening as well because you're like, oh, what the, like there's my self-identity over there. That's who I thought I was for the first 20, 30 years of [01:04:00] my life, and now something has changed in my body and my soul. And you're just like, that job over there does not ignite my fire anymore.
[01:04:11] Jodi Wilson: Mm.
[01:04:12] Dr Renee White: I find that fascinating. I want someone else to do research on that. Maybe we'll put that in the funding pile for, Fill Your Cup.
[01:04:21] Jodi Wilson: Wait for the philanthropist to come along.
[01:04:23] Dr Renee White: Yeah, exactly. Um, we've got one last question, which we ask all of our guests. We borrow this one from the lovely Brene [01:04:30] Brown. What do you keep on your bedside table?
[01:04:33] Jodi Wilson: I keep a lot of books, so I'm a big reader. I have a alarm clock that's just, just a cheap one that does not require my phone. So my phone does not come into the bedroom.
[01:04:48] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm. Okay.
[01:04:48] Jodi Wilson: I sleep much better as a result.
[01:04:50] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[01:04:51] Jodi Wilson: And I've got an oil that I rub into my neck at night, which is rose and frankincense.
[01:04:57] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.
[01:04:57] Jodi Wilson: Um, just for calming and [01:05:00] moisturiser and a bit of jewelry.
[01:05:03] Dr Renee White: Love. I love that. Thank you so much for having a chat with me today. As I said, the book is glorious. Like it is so, so comprehensive and I absolutely loved reading it and I, you know, as I said, you've put so much time and energy into this book. Thank you so much. I just wanna really thank you because it, it's gonna be like, I'm [01:05:30] not religious, but the Bible, you know, like
[01:05:33] Jodi Wilson: you can call it that. That's fine. That's a great sales technique.
[01:05:36] Dr Renee White: It's the go-to, like,
[01:05:38] Jodi Wilson: I hope it is. I hope it, I hope that when a new parent opens it up, they feel really seen.
[01:05:44] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[01:05:44] Jodi Wilson: And um, and I think that's what all new parents need is just someone to reassure them with information and that's kind and gentle and says, I see you and here are your [01:06:00] options.
[01:06:00] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[01:06:01] Jodi Wilson: And I know it's hard that you have to make a decision about this, but this is your family and that's part of Parenthood.
[01:06:07] Dr Renee White: Yeah.
[01:06:07] Jodi Wilson: Um, and yeah, I, I hope that, I hope that it reaches the parents that need it most.
[01:06:14] Dr Renee White: Absolutely. And tell us when is the book gonna be released? Where can everyone get it? I've already got, well, I've got the e-copy thank you very much. But I, as soon as you put it up on social media that you could get pre-order, I was like, bang got it.
[01:06:29] Jodi Wilson: It's [01:06:30] publishing July 1st in Australia, July 3rd in the uk, July 6th in the US
[01:06:36] Dr Renee White: mm-hmm.
[01:06:36] Jodi Wilson: And you can get it from all good bookstores, but, um, I'll share a link with you so you can share that with your listeners. But yeah,
[01:06:43] Dr Renee White: that'd be amazing.
[01:06:44] Jodi Wilson: I'm proud of it and I, I do hope it, it fills the massive gap that does exist for New Parenthood.
[01:06:51] Dr Renee White: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Jodi. I really appreciate your time.
[01:06:54] Jodi Wilson: Thanks, Renee.
[01:06:55] Dr Renee White: All right, everyone, until next week, see you later. If you [01:07:00] loved this episode, please hit the subscribe button and leave a review. If you know someone out there who would also love to listen to this episode, please hit the share button so they can benefit from it as well.
[01:07:14] Dr Renee White: You've just listened to another episode of The Science of Motherhood proudly presented by Fill Your Cup, Australia's first doula village. Head to our website, ifillyourcup.com to learn more about our birth and postpartum [01:07:30] doula offerings, where every mother we pledge to be the steady hand that guides you back to yourself, ensuring you feel nurtured, informed, and empowered, so you can fully embrace the joy of motherhood with confidence. Until next time, bye.