Erica Boland 00:00:00 How should I plan for postpartum? And what does that even mean?

Brittany Estrada 00:00:08 No one can really fully prepare you for what it's going to be like to have, especially your first baby, until you're actually in it. So if you've sort of set up at least a loose plan, I think that goes a long way.

Erica Boland 00:00:51 Hey, loves. I'm Erica, and I'm Britt. She's a chiropractor and midwife. And she's a nurse practitioner and womb healer. Inhaler. Together, we are bridging the sacred and the scientific to help you step into deeper alignment with the incredible wisdom of your body. We are mothers, soul sisters, and women who are deeply devoted to serving the feminine collective. There is no topic we aren't open to exploring, and we are so looking forward to navigating this journey with you and our amazing guests.

Erica Boland 00:01:20 So settle in, preferably with a great cup of coffee. Put one hand on your heart and breathe as we dive in. Welcome to our community. Hello everyone! Thank you so much for joining us for another episode on the Womb Women podcast. Let's center in and bring ourselves to presents. So go ahead. Take a nice cleansing breath in through your nose and out through your nose. Think about the resting position of your jaw. Your. Teeth apart. Tongue gently set at the roof of your mouth. Lips together. Softly. Relax your shoulders. And your belly. And your low back. And breathe deep into your bottom. Fill up that full cylinder. And bring warmth and energy. Presence. Something that I like to remind myself is just be here now. There's literally nothing else to do. We bring our mind to the present, Isn't especially dropping into our body. Excellent way to start your day. Or ground yourself in the middle of it. And certainly a good practice for breath before bed.

Erica Boland 00:03:16 Especially with that jaw posture. And letting yourself go to sleep in a relaxed state. Center and right underneath your belly button. And right the back of your sacrum. Breathe light into that space. And two more breaths in. Through your nose. And out. And again in. And out and open your eyes. Or come back to move your shoulders around a little bit if you need to. Today we are going to focus on preparing for postpartum. So postpartum happens whether you plan for it or not. And I think that when we plan for it ourselves and with our significant other, those expectations are out in the open and there's not so much unknown. And we have a little more choice in how we feel. And in the postpartum experience, which just flies by anyway. So Brit, before we hopped on, you mentioned, you know, like what not to do. So let's actually start with that. Do you want to share a little bit about maybe your postpartum experience just in like what not to do and how you learned that.

Erica Boland 00:04:54 Yeah. I mean, so many things come to mind, but I think one of the most consistent things that I see amongst my clients and then also experienced.

Brittany Estrada 00:05:04 Personally, is that we spend so much time planning for birth. And this is not true of everybody, but I am seen, especially in my community, definitely a shift towards people being more aware of how greatly our birth experience impacts, you know, our health, our emotions and really sets us up for lifelong emotional health and physical health. But because we put so much focus on the birth itself, I think we sort of forget that postpartum, that is the rest of your life, like you literally are postpartum forever once your baby is born. And for many women, you're going to go through multiple postpartum experiences. And so this is a really critical piece that often gets missed. And then what we end up seeing I know you see this too is that we see a lot of post-partum depletion syndrome. So like a really hard time for women to recover after pregnancy and birth and potentially breastfeeding.

Brittany Estrada 00:06:05 And then that kind of rolls into perimenopause and menopause and just makes it so much more challenging to navigate those transitions because we never fully healed from our birth experience. So I know with my first son, I've shared about this before. We had an unexpected C-section and a NICU stay, and luckily I had a group of friends who gifted me a postpartum doula, which was just such a lifesaver. But I really hadn't planned for what it would look like to heal from a C-section and what that recovery process would look like, and who was going to be on my support team to really help me rehab from major abdominal surgery. You know, I thought I knew all the things just because of my professional experience. But that was something that I was not prepared for at all. And then I also was in a little bit of denial about going back to work. So I didn't really take a lot of time to plan out, like what that would look like, what that transition would be. I went back to the clinic I was working for at 11 weeks postpartum and really, really struggled with the balance of caring for a very young baby and trying to manage my professional career, while also not really giving myself enough time and space to heal.

Brittany Estrada 00:07:26 You know, I definitely wasn't eating enough. I was still trying to work out intensely, and that ended up leading me to a pretty significant back injury when Nash was like probably 4 or 5 months old. And that's something I'm still having to deal with. You know, almost nine years later. So, yeah, there just wasn't a lot of time and attention and planning really put into the postpartum period.

Erica Boland 00:07:52 Yeah, I like to think about it. So if you're going to think, how should I plan for postpartum and what does that even mean? I like to think about it in the first fews. So the first few hours, the first few days, the first few weeks and the first few months, and who do you want in your circle during that time? Who are you going to tell that you're in labor? Who are you going to tell that the baby's been born? Who are you going to welcome into your space? How are you and your partner or husband going to continue to connect and nourish your own relationship, as that is the foundation of the family? And what does it look like when your significant other returns to work? And what does it look like when you're starting to take more outings? And then if you are also working, then you know, what does it look like when you're back to work and childcare and all of those things.

Erica Boland 00:08:48 So I encourage my clients to get a piece of paper and write, okay. First few hours they say the golden hour, but really those first several hours postpartum are so precious and you never get them again. So planning for that, then those first few days. That's usually the time where people start to welcome in more visitors. And then the first few weeks you're usually venturing out a little bit more, and then the first few months you're largely back to routine. But now you've got a baby or, you know, multiple children. And what does that look like for you? And a lot of that comes back to the family morals and core values and how you want the parent. And I love what you said about people put so much emphasis on planning for the birth and how you mentioned your support team, because we will also touch on preparing for birth in a how to. But one of the things that's actually often overlooked in that is choosing your team. And so I love that you mentioned choosing your postpartum support team from, you know, who are you going to have as friends and family that you really trust and can support you at any time, but also like care providers, a postpartum doula.

Erica Boland 00:10:06 Do you want a postpartum massage? Who are you seeing for chiropractic? Who is baby seeing for chiropractic lactation? And I think that when you can start to gain this information during pregnancy, instead of trying to learn everything and gain resources, when you have a new human that you're trying to learn about, it just goes so much better. In. My favorite part of prenatal education and prenatal appointments is when you and your partner are discussing some of these things. You're practicing communication, like you said, forever, because postpartum is the long haul, and those practices are what you will either thrive or not on as a family. Yeah.

Brittany Estrada 00:10:50 You know, and there's some really interesting research regarding marital satisfaction in that first year of parenthood. I think it declines by it's like 40%. It might even be higher than that. But so much of that is the result of not having these conversations. So like people have these expectations, but they were never communicated appropriately. And then two, like no one can really fully prepare you for what it's going to be like to have especially your first baby.

Brittany Estrada 00:11:18 You know, you can read all the books, and you could talk to all your friends and your family members, but until you're actually in it and you're sleep deprived and potentially, you know, like in our experience, you had a NICU stay or there was just complications with the birth or, you know, one partner is really struggling with a mood disorder, which is very common. All of that can really contribute to significant strain on the relationship. So if you've sort of set up at least a loose plan, kind of similarly to your birth plan, you don't know exactly how births going to go. But if you have at least a loose framework for what you are trying to hold in the postpartum period, I think that goes a long way to really supporting the relationship of, you know, the new parents.

Erica Boland 00:12:02 Absolutely. And on that note, to like you said, we don't always have the outcomes that we want postpartum. There's no promises, there's no guarantees. And it is so important to be surrounded by people that support your choices.

Erica Boland 00:12:20 And if you have a NICU stay or you experience a loss that the people that are in your space, like in that sacred space in those early postpartum days, can honor that and have similar values to you, or at least, you know, fully respect your values and can support you no matter what. Because people come from this place of like they want to help, but also they want to fix. And sometimes words come out that are actually pretty hurtful or, you know, can seem kind of asinine, even though they're from a place of love. So just also considering that nobody wants to plan for a hard postpartum time, or for sure plan for a loss. But the reality is it's a possibility and it could happen. So even looking at different resources in that regard too, and I think like when you have that solid foundation and that practice going into pregnancy, going into labor and then planning for it postpartum, you already know that if something were to happen that was completely unexpected, your people are just going to surround you more than ever.

Brittany Estrada 00:13:29 Yeah. So something I really want to presence is, you know, we have a really high rate of postpartum mood disorders. I think it's like up to 25%. But we think that's like a gross underestimation in this country. But this is not consistent across the world. So I was really blown away by connecting with Valerie Lynn, who is the author of The Mommy Plan. She has really just this brilliant postpartum support routine that she has created based on her experience in living in Malaysia and studying Malaysian culture and how they support women in the postpartum period. So she shared that their rate of postpartum mood disorders is like the lowest in the world. It's under 3%, and so much of it is because all women get this really beautiful postpartum support plan. So they're getting, you know, within a few days of birth, they are getting body work and massage, and they have a baby nurse that comes to check on, you know, mom and baby and see how things are going in those first few days.

Brittany Estrada 00:14:28 And the community and really it's government sponsored, comes in to really uplift the family and fill that need. Because the truth is, we were never supposed to do this alone. You know, pregnant and postpartum women were supposed to focus on their own healing and then nourishing their new baby. And then there were people who were going to come in and take over the household chores and cook the meals and care for the other children. And because we are just we're not as communal as we are designed to be. You know, we're very individualistic and many of us live far away from, you know, our family support system. That's a real challenge in postpartum. So we have to be so intentional about, to your point, really building up our team, hiring people if we need to, or setting the expectation with family members like, hey, I'm going to need you to come in and really take over these responsibilities so I can focus on, you know, my healing and taking care of the baby and, you know, whatever that looks like for you.

Brittany Estrada 00:15:24 Yes.

Erica Boland 00:15:25 And I, as a midwifery student, really appreciated how the Amish community supports their women postpartum. They have got it down. A family member, usually a sister of either the mom or the husband, comes and stays with them for weeks, and they do all of the household chores while mom rests with baby and feeds baby. And of course, there may be some differences in practices outside of that, but it was really neat to be able to have conversations with some of the Amish moms about that, and just them looking at what they say, the English community and how we do postpartum, and it just blows them away because they think like, why is there this rush? There's such a rush and there's not very much support. And they live that. They live family support in that community. And it does take a lot of advocacy, self-advocacy and then building that community with a community that is open to advocacy and self-responsibility to make that change in your lifestyle. When society moves at warp speed and there is no space for slowing down postpartum.

Erica Boland 00:16:43 There is no space for being nurturing and a career driven woman. It's like, yeah, we have to take responsibility and create that on our own and control our Controllables circling back, even simply having this conversation with your significant others so that those expectations start to mesh and meet instead of, this is what I want and this is what he wants. And we never even really talked about it. And now things are stressful. Plus we have a newborn and that just usually compounds on itself. And it's like a good example of that is think about when if you have two parents in the home. Think about when either mom or dad or whatever is gone for a little bit and it's like, wait, why are the first days a little easier because there's one set of expectations in one person's head. So the kids just start going with it because that's what we're doing. But then I'm not trying to undermine single parenthood because long term that is a heavy weight to bear, too. But you can notice some of that in your day to day when it's like, oh, when I have the expectations and I'm just going along with it.

Erica Boland 00:17:53 But that's also good feedback to communicate with your children on what the plan is for the day or what the plan is for the week. And there is no specific age where all of a sudden they deserve to know what's going on. So just developing that language and informing them early on in postpartum. And obviously kids feel the energy in the home and they typically start to practice what is happening in their environment. So if they're seeing this communication and this collaboration and compromise, then they're going to be able to carry that out into the world. And I think that we would have such a more peaceful society if we had more people that are seeing that within their own home.

Brittany Estrada 00:18:41 And for all of our listeners who maybe are just beginning their motherhood journey or are thinking about that in the near future. Eric and I are seasoned moms, so I will at least speak for myself. Like this was not the case for me when I started having children. It's actually only been within the last couple of years that my husband and I have really developed effective communication, where we have a meeting every Sunday evening pretty consistently, and we talk about what's happening for the week, who's doing school pickups, like things that are frustrating to us, things we want to work on so that there are clear expectations.

Brittany Estrada 00:19:15 And then from there we can relay that information to the kids. So we're coming at it from this united front. So it's never too early or too late to implement this. But just so you all know, like we didn't get this right. At least I did it for many years of motherhood.

Erica Boland 00:19:31 I mean, I was 20 when I had my first baby, so I was still trying to figure out who the heck I was. We weren't married yet. Oh my gosh. Yeah. We laugh now at how much we've grown. I mean, yeah, even over the past year or the past couple of years and life seasons you and life, it puts things into perspective and you realize some of those little battles just aren't worth it. And you either choose to get better at communication. And we have episodes we've talked about before, like being true to who you are and being able to center on like how you want to live your life and self-love and loving yourself first. And that really, truly is important.

Erica Boland 00:20:10 Listen, most of us don't make change until shit hits the fan. We make change after we're burnt out, exhausted, we have some sort of disease or our family member does, or we lose someone extremely close to us and it puts things into perspective. And so we're calling you to be more present in listening to what's working for me right now and what isn't, and what do I want to carry forward with me into the postpartum period? And what do I not? Because when you become a mother for the first time or the fifth time or beyond, it changes you, and you start to get even more honest about what is important to you and what isn't. So making sure that you're really having a practice of centering in on that and evolving and changing as your life changes and as you go through different stages of your life.

Brittany Estrada 00:21:03 Yeah. And we talk about how motherhood is the ultimate expression of the feminine. So it really calls us to this state of receiving, of nurturing, of really being more outward and community focused.

Brittany Estrada 00:21:20 And it's a lot about going with the flow and allowing things to be cyclical, which I have shared before in my experience, was really hard because I was so used to living in my masculine. I love schedules, I love routines, I love a checklist. That's why I thought my birth was going to go exactly as planned, because I had my checklist of all the things I was going to do, and I was going to win at birth and just have the most amazing home birth. And, you know, that's not what happened. But I believe that was a really important lesson for me in actually. You've got to release control and really surrender to this process, surrender to the feminine. And now being a little further removed, my youngest is four, a little further removed from like new postpartum. I can start to get a little bit back into the masculine, because the beauty of the masculine is it really provides structure and holding, which is so important for our nervous system. There's something so comforting about knowing what's going to going to happen and having like somewhat of a routine.

Brittany Estrada 00:22:24 And I think that is one of the biggest challenges of postpartum is you don't actually know what it's going to look like day to day. In a lot of cases. You know, your baby might be sleeping really well for several months, and then they go through, you know, a new developmental stage, or they start teething and then sleeping goes out the window. And you have to adjust kind of on the fly. And I think that can be one of the most challenging parts, especially of new motherhood. But I hate to tell you, it kind of like continues.

Erica Boland 00:22:53 Yeah, something's.

Brittany Estrada 00:22:54 Always happening, especially if you choose to have multiple children. Yes.

Erica Boland 00:22:58 It just changes in nature, I guess. Yeah. Yeah.

Brittany Estrada 00:23:04 The other thing I wanted to share is that, you know, the way that I really even evolved into the type of practice that I have now where I do a lot of work with couples who are struggling with fertility challenges, is that when I was early in practice, in my first, like, integrative medicine setting, I was seeing a lot of women coming to me postpartum who were struggling with mood disorders, and they had gone to their regular, maybe primary care or ob gyn and were basically offered counseling, which is amazing.

Brittany Estrada 00:23:35 I think having a therapist is such an important resource. And, you know, medication, those were kind of like the options given to them. And many of them, just like it didn't feel aligned for them to start medication now. I prescribe antidepressant medication like not regularly, but I absolutely will do it because I think there's a time and a place for everything. And also that's not really getting us to the underlying drivers. So of course we talked about it. The postpartum period is very stressful. It's very common for there to be a lot of marital distress, particularly in this time, just because it is such a huge change in transition and we don't support it. Well. And also like I mentioned, postpartum depletion is a real thing. And so typically with that first pregnancy, moms have like a decent amount of nutrient stores on board. Now, we know a lot of women go into even their primary pregnancy pretty depleted of some key nutrients just because of the nature of our soil and our farming practices and all that.

Brittany Estrada 00:24:32 But what I see is that with each subsequent pregnancy, we get more and more depleted because we never fully recovered from that first one. And then breastfeeding. And especially now with women having babies relatively close together, because some women are waiting until later on in life, so they feel like they've got to get all their babies, like, have them all in the short period of time. But all that is to say is, so these women are coming in to me, they're saying like, I just feel like there's something else going on. Can we dig a little bit deeper? And I run like a basic nutrient panel. And all of these women are anemic, so they, you know, don't have enough iron because probably all the blood loss from birth, they have low vitamin D, they have low B vitamins. So all of these nutrients are highly tied to mood disorders. And what do you know when we start replenishing these nutrient stores? Like, most of their symptoms disappear. And because I had the time to just sit there and listen to them, let them process their birth story, all of that, like so much healing happens there, too.

Brittany Estrada 00:25:34 But it's just amazing to me that we don't really talk about how taxing pregnancy and postpartum are on the body, and how we have this huge requirement for nutrients during that time, and if we don't replenish them. Of course, we're going to have symptoms. Symptoms are just your body's way of communicating in need. And so I think this is the piece that is super, super important.

Erica Boland 00:25:58 Absolutely. And to your point, Brit, there are so many different tests and supplements and recommendations. And this and you go on the internet and you've got seven seconds of this and three seconds of this and you're just like inundated with all of this different information. Nation. And at the end of the day, so much of it comes back to our nervous system. And truly healing at a somatic, just nervous system level that is almost never addressed in Western medicine. So we're trying to pin these leaks, I guess, like plug them when the reality is it's just still building up on the inside. And I think it would be great for us to do another how to and how to go down which rabbit hole like where to start because there's so much information.

Erica Boland 00:26:48 And honestly, that alone can cause so much undue stress. When you feel like, oh my gosh, I have to do all of these things, I have to do this, and I have to do this cleanse, and I should be exercising here, but my baby needs this. And which light and which it's so overwhelming. Yeah. And the reality is, the answer to all of that is whatever works best for you and your family. And back to who do you trust? To help you start with that information. And acknowledging that you still have choice even if your most trusted person. You're like, you know, I don't know that. That's really for me right now. Listen to your instincts. But we have to be in stillness in order to be in touch with our instincts and looking into different avenues. But the healing that can come from even 5 to 10 minutes of stillness per day is incredible. And I really think you and I have had so many conversations about this, but I really think that, like at the end of the day, that is the ultimate healing is slowing down, is listening.

Erica Boland 00:27:52 Okay, wait, am I living in alignment with my own values or like my own heart and soul? And most of us get very quickly out of that. So yeah, I would love to do another episode on like, how do you go down the rabbit holes without making yourself crazy?

Brittany Estrada 00:28:12 Yeah, I feel like I've had this conversation several times this week. So we will definitely do that. I do want to touch on some basics of pelvic floor health for postpartum, since this is woven into your practice so beautifully. And again, there's just not a lot of support for it. So maybe you can talk a little bit about just like kind of basic things that you are educating your clients about. And then also maybe just a couple things on like what you do if you end up having a C-section, how that looks different from a rehab perspective.

Erica Boland 00:28:42 Perfect. So actually, if you go back and listen to the beginning of the episode and just listen to the different breath cues, the position of the jaw affects the pelvic floor, the early start to pelvic floor healing or core and pelvic floor healing.

Erica Boland 00:28:57 Postpartum is really, truly breath. And I love if that can happen that education can happen during pregnancy. So for my clients, that's always happening during pregnancy. But the reality is a lot of people are coming in again years postpartum or more with pelvic floor dysfunction already. So same though we start with the breath and then we start into those gentle foundational movements. I take women through the functional progression. If you're newly postpartum, usually that starts around four weeks, or if you had a C-section, sometimes six weeks, and that's more dependent on your symptoms. How are you feeling? How is your energy? How is your pelvic floor? Or how is your abdomen after an incision and utilizing the breath? If it's a C-section, to mobilize the scar tissue from the inside because it isn't just about the external scar, it's the layers of tissue that have been disrupted and can form adhesions. But what's really cool is breath alone can mobilize that, as can pregnancy. Pregnancy does a lot of help for scar tissue mobilization in and of itself, but it's always really frustrating to me how underdressed rehab is in regards to scar tissue for any surgery, but especially a C-section where it's a major abdominal surgery and people think like, oh, I didn't have a vaginal birth, so I don't have to worry about pelvic floor problems was absolutely not true.

Erica Boland 00:30:26 There's no difference long term in pelvic floor outcomes between cesarean and vaginal births, which tells us how much demand is put on the pelvic floor just due to pregnancy alone, but then also the effect that a major abdominal surgery has on core and pelvic floor function. So always starting with the breath again, go back and listen to any of the beginning of our episodes where we check in. Those will be really good practices for you to feel where you should feel your breath. I cue people to breathe into their back, because if I cue them to breathe into their front, they tend to still cheat and only send breath out the front instead of accessing that full core and the goal is for full pelvic floor function, not for pelvic floor strength. We need the pelvic floor to be able to be both strong and soft, relax and activate, and our brain to start to learn to perceive what motion is coming in our pelvic floor. Do that automatically. So lately what I've been doing, you know, if I have someone with any incontinence or prolapse symptoms, I'll start them with functional progression for first, and then we'll move into FP2.

Erica Boland 00:31:41 And then a really good down regulating exercise though just to start, if you're not having symptoms yet, is functional progression one. Even just laying in that position and holding it is so, so powerful. And here's a cue to if you lay on your back, knees bent, feet on the ground and scoot your heels close to your butt and then lift your butt up in the air like you're going to do a glute bridge. So you're doing a glute bridge, and then you actually tuck your pelvis back. Like if you're going to tuck your tail between your legs and lay your spine back down on the floor. It seems like you'd be like in posterior pelvic tilt or like jumping. But what happens when you lay your body back down on the floor is it brings your spine to neutral. So try to just lay down and start breathing into your pelvic floor and see what you feel. And then do that and straighten your legs back out and breathe into your back, body and bottom and feel the difference, because that exercise will help bring your brain connection to your pelvic floor.

Erica Boland 00:32:48 So then your pelvic floor is more activated into the system and it's better able to relax. We often think to I mean, I could you know, we have different podcasts about this that we can link, but I think it's important to recognize that we usually start to have pelvic floor tension pretty quickly postpartum because of the trauma of birth. The intensity of birth, whether C-section or vaginal. So it really is starting with that activation. And then over the course of the first like 3 to 6 months, moving into bodyweight strength and then adding strength training in in the biggest difference for C-section is really, truly finding a provider near you that knows what they're doing with scar tissue, a C-section mobilization, and has the ability to walk you through looking at your own scar, touching your own scar. And that goes for pelvic floor, too. If you had any sort of tear or laceration. Being able to look at that, being able to touch that, and really bringing that energy and breath back into that area is always step number one.

Brittany Estrada 00:33:59 Yeah. Oh so good. Okay. So let's just walk through, like if we were going to plan out our ideal postpartum period, now what would we share the topic. Because I often share it took me until my third baby to get postpartum. Right. And a lot of that was because Erica ended up being my postpartum was so amazing. But I would say like step one, we start planning for postpartum. I say, like in the third trimester is when we really start having those conversations about what we want the plan to be likely. Before that, you're at least getting an idea of like, what is your maternity leave look like? How much time are you actually going to be able to take off? Of course, we don't have universal parental leave. Like that's not something that my husband and I had. I don't think you guys had either, because you're a business owner. Yeah, like we're actually planning for it. But knowing like your company's policies, if that's something that you know, is a benefit that you have.

Brittany Estrada 00:34:53 So really understanding, okay, how much time do I have. And then starting to have the conversation like what is that going to look like? What are the expectations? Because postpartum is also not a vacation like when you're home caring for a newborn, it is really challenging to then keep up with the housework and do all the things. And I think there's this unrealistic expectation that's put on women that they should be able to, like, do all the things while they're home with this baby, and that's just not realistic. So what would you say then, like after that? Like, what would be the next step that you would plan for.

Erica Boland 00:35:25 A postpartum doula? Yeah, 100%. And it's you might be listening and hear that and think like, oh, that's only for people that are extremely wealthy. You will be surprised how affordable a postpartum doula is and put that on your registry 100%.

Brittany Estrada 00:35:40 Ask for that instead of all the baby gear that you're not going to use.

Erica Boland 00:35:44 Great. And that is increasing their dysfunction.

Erica Boland 00:35:46 But that's a different topic. Yeah, I would say postpartum doula. And you know, what came to mind for me first is I do think all of our boys were at the subsequent births of their siblings. And I do think that outside of the people that I chose to have at my birth, I would give us a full day of just being together. And then I would probably invite family in, knowing that they would be willing. I know my support system, our support system would be willing to bring like a warm soup or a meal and just helping them integrate into our new family and helping our family integrate into, like, our closest community. Yeah.

Brittany Estrada 00:36:28 Yeah, definitely. I would then say, like, appoint a person who can be the responsible party for like communication with everybody, like Erica mentioned, but also someone who's willing to coordinate meals for you. Yeah. That is so amazing. And my tip is that definitely have meals for the first two weeks. But what is really challenging is when you go back to work and you're having to juggle planning meals, making meals, working, and then coming home and taking care of your family.

Brittany Estrada 00:36:59 So if you can set it up where people sign up for those first two weeks, and then maybe there's like another round of meals that come when you're three months postpartum, like I find like that is a really beautiful gift. Like, I actually I hired someone to do meal delivery for me that would bring meals to my office, drop them off to me, and then I would have these wonderful, nourishing meals to bring home, and we would eat off those for the next several days. And that just removing the mental load of me having to feed myself and then three children was such a game changer. So like really being intentional about those meals and then also really being mindful of your nutrition because again, it's this time of your digestion has kind of shifted like things kind of slow down. Your body's having to detox a lot. So you don't want to fill it with, you know, fried foods and heavy foods and, you know, things that are not going to support your healing. So really whole nutrient dense foods, things that are really well cooked to your point, like stews and soups and teas, all those kinds of things that are just easy on the digestion.

Erica Boland 00:38:04 And even in that. So if we're talking about like third trimester planning for postpartum, get a group of girlfriends together, do a blessing way, do a meal prep and like a nesting, you know, do a nesting party where everybody's doing something in the house. Yeah. And then you make a bunch of really handy snacks to when you're breastfeeding to have on hand and little snack station and just I mean, the emphasis on food in the postpartum period is big because it's so important. And I was having a conversation about this with one of our coaches has her own business. It's called Notion to Nourish. And she does meals for postpartum women here locally. And I am almost nine years postpartum with my youngest on Monday. And I she just said her and I just said what it would take off of your mental load to hire someone to make three meals a week?

Brittany Estrada 00:38:59 Yep, absolutely.

Erica Boland 00:39:00 Because like Britt said earlier, it changes. But that, like, there's so much going on doesn't go away. So now instead of these little kids running around in the newborn, it's like we're going at sports so much.

Erica Boland 00:39:13 Plus I travel to teach or I'm gone out of birth or whatever, you know? So still, there's so much emphasis on nourishment and taking that mental load off. I totally agree. So yeah, that would I mean, a lot of stress can be taken off by planning for snacks postpartum, but I think you can get into that like freezer meal planning, which feels overwhelming for a lot of people. And again, it's pretty. If you can find a local person that does meal delivery, it's pretty cost effective.

Brittany Estrada 00:39:45 Seriously? Yeah, it is especially truly the time that you would be taking to like actually, you know, prepare all that. So like the cost as well. Yeah. I would also say like I'm a big advocate one, if you are not feeling good, like you are dealing with persistent fatigue, you're gaining weight. You are dealing with mood issues that lasts beyond like those first several weeks postpartum, because there is a huge hormonal shift and things don't always feel great right after you've had a baby.

Brittany Estrada 00:40:15 Advocate for yourself. And so often I find issues with not only nutrient deficiencies, but sometimes it's a postpartum autoimmune issue or a thyroid issue. That may be temporary, but at least if we can identify it, we can come in and support. So always be checking in with how you're feeling and don't settle for oh, this is normal. You know, it's not normal to be gaining weight, to have low milk supply, to feel like crap. Fill it crap. Even if you're not sleeping well, if you're dealing with like fatigue where you like can hardly get off the couch, like we need to address What's that? And then I would say for everybody, like, I'm actually a big advocate of having everyone do a set of labs around the six month mark so that we can supplement and replenish accordingly. So, you know, maybe the multivitamin or the prenatal vitamin that you're taking isn't getting you the proper amount of magnesium or, you know, vitamin D or whatever. Let's see what your body is asking for and then adjust.

Brittany Estrada 00:41:13 And then I also will repeat labs at one year postpartum. And I mean, I'm a big advocate of having labs like at least annually. So we know what your body needs in this season because it's so dynamic.

Erica Boland 00:41:24 And good labs, good labs. And I want to mention it too, because I think we skipped over it. So Valerie Lynne is the author of the book The Mommy Plan. And I loved what you had established for postpartum when I was there with the wrapping and the like. Mask is the word that's coming to my mind. But yeah, it's like a mask that you do on the abdomen with different herbs and things, and you deserve to be treated that way. You deserve that level of care. You're not too much for thinking that you deserve to be treated like a queen after you've had a baby. So find the people that will treat you that well. And I would absolutely recommend ordering that book because yeah, I hadn't even read it before that, I don't think. And it was just like, what a cool experience to be able to just like bring some energy and like energy exchange from someone that you trust is in your personal space, sacred space to bring you warmth and just kind of like, dote on you a little bit.

Erica Boland 00:42:27 That's so important.

Brittany Estrada 00:42:29 Yeah, we can link that. So Valerie curated this box of it's a beautiful belly wrap that has there's like an herbal paste that you apply to the belly that's warming herbs. So just because once you've had the baby, it is this sensation of like coldness in the center of your body. So we're trying to bring warmth back into the body, which is why it's recommended that we don't do a lot of cold foods. We do these soups and stews and teas and all that. So her box has the wrap. It's got this like beautiful tea blend that you can drink. There's also a tea that you can put in your bathtub that's very soothing to the vaginal tissues. You can do a sitz bath, or you can just sit in an actual bathtub and soak in that. There's this incredible, like herbal soap bar. So like I would get up every morning, hand the baby off and take like 15 minutes to go shower, use that soap, do my belly wrap. And just like carving out 15 minutes to just really nourish myself with those products like made such a difference for me physically and mentally.

Brittany Estrada 00:43:29 So yes, that's like a wonderful resource and there are a lot of great resources now I'm finding for like postpartum boxes. So that's another thing. Much more. Yeah, you could add to that to your registry too. But her book is great and it gives recipes and so many great tips for postpartum. And then also we should mention like the first 40 days, that's such a great recipes, you know, especially if you're wanting some inspiration for like, well, how do I actually nourish myself for postpartum? That's an amazing resource.

Erica Boland 00:43:56 Right? And you know, with Valerie's Book two, I think that in a time of if there were loss or if it was a hardship and a NICU stay, those are times when it's really, really hard for moms to come back into their bodies. And so it's still an amazing gift to just nourish them. And again, the meal planning. And then one more thing that I want to emphasize to do as soon as possible, because it took us years of marriage to start this, but a weekly date.

Erica Boland 00:44:30 So in addition to the check in that Britt said for planning, make it a priority to have a weekly date sometimes. Still, our weekly date looks like driving to the grocery store, getting a kombucha and a snack or a treat driving back home and watching a movie in bed. Other times it looks like going out for dinner and I would get, like, so bummed out that Kyle wouldn't ask me to go on dates or this or this or this, and I was working with a coach at the time and she's like, listen, you're the one that wants that. So start it and do it and make sure it happens. And now both of us really look forward to that. And we can. I mean, we've been doing it for almost five years now, which is wild, but also we've been together for 20. If that tells you anything. So it's like in June, for example, when we moved our practice, we didn't do that regularly. And we feel it in our whole house, feels it because we start to become disconnected from like, hey, there's more to talk about than the kids in the business or whatever.

Erica Boland 00:45:35 Like, we're people. Remember when we were, like, madly in love with one another? And how are you and listening to each other. So I would say as your kids get older, that gets a little bit easier, especially once one of them can watch the others, but I cannot advocate for that enough to start that. Just like time for each other as soon as possible. Because we work so much on our health and our mindset and our business and this and this and this, and then we expect our marriage to just be good when it also needs attention and intention.

Brittany Estrada 00:46:08 Especially in the face of huge stressors like welcoming in a new baby. Yeah for sure. So yeah, that for sure. And then, you know, all of Erica's amazing wisdom about connecting to the pelvic floor with your breath. If you do like three of those things, I feel like you'll have a really robust postpartum plan and be much better off than, like, 90% of Americans.

Erica Boland 00:46:28 Yeah, much better off than we were with our first, for sure, 100%.

Erica Boland 00:46:33 Yeah. I hope you all.

Brittany Estrada 00:46:34 Enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in and we will see you in the next one. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Womb Women podcast. We are thrilled you joined us today and hope you found the conversation as inspiring as we did to connect with us further. Follow me Brit on Instagram at the Brit Estrada and Erika at the Movement Midwife. For more information on how to work with us, check out our websites linked in the show notes. We can't wait to have you join us for the next episode. But until then, we invite you to step into your power and embrace the wisdom of your body. Bye for now.

Brittany Estrada 00:47:26 Just as a reminder of the information shared here is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult your health care provider for any medical questions or concerns.