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Take the Postnatal Depletion Assessment- Join The Postpartum Wellness Revolution Membership

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PODCAST INTRO: Hey, I'm Kilah. And since becoming a mom, I struggled with mental illness and just feeling so depleted. That was nine years ago. And then I realized that so many moms are just like I was. I finally recovered my health holistically and I want to teach you how to do the same. Whether you're newly postpartum or a few years in, this podcast is for you. This time to recover your health so that you can show up as the mom that you deeply desire to be. This is “The Healthy Postpartum Mama” podcast. Let's learn and heal together. 

Kilah Lawson: Welcome back to “The Healthy Postpartum Mama” podcast. I'm your host Kilah Lawson. I am a mom of five. I'm the owner of elephant baby where we support moms and their first few years postpartum. I'm also a postpartum doula, and I've been known as your postpartum vitality coach. Because for years, I've been helping moms to reclaim their health holistically, not just when they're newly postpartum, but even years into their postpartum journeys. And welcome to the podcast. I am very excited for this episode. Before we begin, of course, I'm going to encourage you to get comfortable this is your space. This is your time to nourish your soul, nourish your mind truly be encouraged and inspired, so that we can further your healing journey. So get comfortable, grab a warm nourishing beverage. Today I'm drinking a golden latte. And I actually want to share the recipe for this drink because it's so yummy. I love drinking this. It helps me to satisfy my sweet cravings and it's a really just a good nourishing beverage. So before I dive into the podcasts, let me share with you this recipe. So you want to start with, I do really terrible with measurements because when I cook I just eyeball everything. But let's start with a cup of milk, I recommend a plant based milk like Hipp milk or Oat milk. If you're doing dairy milk, then I would really recommend a raw dairy. Conventional dairy is super inflammatory, and there's a bunch of stuff added into conventional dairy that will throw off your hormones. So I do not recommend conventional dairy. So get a cup of raw dairy or plant based milk. And then you're going to add some cinnamon, some nutmeg, some tumeric and then two to four dates, I think I'll probably do a little bit more than a cup, but I usually add four dates because I like my latte to be sweet, but you're gonna add all into a pot, put it on the stovetop, let it warm a little bit and then throw it in a blender. I like to put mine on the whip mode because it makes your life tastes super frothy. And then you strain and put back on the stovetop and let heat a little bit further. I like mine to be very, very hot and then that's that you can add a little nutmeg and cinnamon to the top of your beverage if you want. You can even add a tablespoon of coconut oil because that will provide an extra layer of healthy fat that your body needs to replenish some people add some additional spices and herbs to their golden lattes. But this is a really great start I hope you all enjoy it you'll have to hop in The Healthy Postpartum Mama Facebook group and let me know how you enjoy the golden latte. 

Alright, let's get started. So today we are really going to be honing in on the pillar of wellness that focuses on nourishing your body. If you are not familiar with my seven pillars of wellness, I would recommend you to head over to the YouTube page or maybe you're watching for me too. But I've kind of outlined some short videos that go through my seven pillars of postpartum wellness using my very own nurture methods. So if you're not familiar with the “Seven Pillars of Wellness”, then you need to check out those short videos on the YouTube channel. If you have not watched the previous week's episode, and I would encourage you to do that because I think it's so important that we shift our mindset to heal if we are going to truly make long term sustainable changes that are really going to help us come to optimal health and the previous episode, “Episode One” I talk about just issues that we face with are trying to shift our mindset some things that you can do to practically shift your mindset as you're coming into your healing journey because we don't want this to be just like a short term change. We want to create long term health and mindset is really important if we're going to do that. So around these parts we call ourselves healthy mamas because we just call ourselves what we you aspire to be. You're gonna hear me calling you that a lot because even though you may not feel like you're in your best health, we're going to speak it into existence. So let's go ahead and get started. 

So today we're focusing on “Nourishing Your Body”. This is a very important pillar of postpartum wellness. And the specific topic I want to touch on today is post natal depletion. Have you ever heard of postnatal depletion? Are you familiar with this term? Most women are not familiar with this term. But this book, I must share with you all a book that totally rocked my world when it came to how I approached my health after having kids. And not only that, how I just radically changed the way that I care for moms as a postpartum doula, and now as a wellness coach. So the name of the book is “The Postnatal Depletion Cure” by Oscar Serrallach. Oh my goodness, he's an Australian doctor. And he kind of changed his area of focus, after his wife started having children and noticing the things that she experienced. And now he helps women to recover their health after childbirth. And the book is full of a lot of just golden nuggets. But a lot of what I'm going to be chatting about really the basis is found in this book. So grab a copy of “The Postnatal Depletion Cure”, it's a really good just got some really good information. So let's talk about postnatal depletion. What is postnatal depletion postnatal depletion can be described? We can describe this in a visual way. So I want you to imagine this bag, this bag just full of water, so the water represents your vitality, your livelihood, your wellness, your well-being, it and tail it encompasses just how great you feel your energy levels. So the more water that you have in your bag, the better you feel, the more healthy that you are. 

Now, I want you to picture every time that you have a sleepless night, or you feel unsupported or you feel isolated, or you feel a sense of hopelessness, every time that you feel any of those feelings I want you to, we're going to imagine like there's little holes being pricked into your bag. Every day of pregnancy, every time that you breastfeed, when you gave birth to your baby, your bag, we got low holes poking in your bag. So the thing about it, this is a great way to describe postnatal depletion because the thing about some of the stuff is inevitable. We're going to talk about all the time, just how so much of our vital nutrients are stripped during pregnancy, and the labor and delivery processes. And if you're breastfeeding, you're automatically giving up some of your energy, some of your livelihood to your baby. So some of this stuff is inevitable. But the problem with so many women is that we often have so many holes picking out our bags to the point where it's happening, there's too many holes that are being picked too quickly. And we're not giving ourselves enough time to patch them up, or to fill our bags with water again. So what happens is all of these experiences that we deal with everything that we're going through, it just causes drainage, and it literally sucks the life out of us. And this is just the best way that we can describe postnatal depletion, you don't have any more water left in your bag. We can describe it or in a few different ways we can, it's a syndrome so we can kind of scale it from mild to moderate to severe. So if you're experiencing mild symptoms or depletion, then you might have a fuller back than someone who is experiencing very severe symptoms of postnatal depletion. So postnatal depletion can really be described and defined as a constellation of symptoms that really impact every sphere of a mother's life. And this can be contributed to physiological changes that happen within the postpartum body. So the symptoms can be contributed also to the changes in our sleep wake cycle. And then when we layer that with the psychological, the emotional and the mental components that a lot of mothers experience in their postpartum journeys, it can actually be very intricate thing to really observe and to acknowledge. And there are really three main factors that contribute to our really play into mothers having postnatal depletion. And I've touched on this before, but the very first thing is that we talk about when we acknowledge the factors that contribute to postnatal depletion. 

Number one is the “Nutrient Deficiency”. The problem lies where when we experience nutrient robbery, and we don't replenish, we just live our lives like we were living, pre pregnancy or during pregnancy. Postpartum is really a time to hone in and we should actually even start this actually, the first thought that you have of I'm going to have a baby, you should be nourishing your body and preparing your body for the postpartum time. But nutrient robbery is a huge factor that contributes to symptoms of postnatal depletion. Another factor that really contributes to the symptoms of postnatal depletion is “Bone Nine Exhaustion”. It's not even a tired, it's just the level of tired where if you get a nap, or if you get a six hour stretch to sleep, you might still wake up just exhausted. And some of you guys are listening, and you're like, Kilah, I get it. I'm exhausted. Now as I'm listening to your podcast and I don't even know how I'm gonna move forward to make change because I'm so tired. But “Bone Nine Exhaustion” is another factor that plays into postnatal depletion. And then lastly, another factor that really contributes to mothers experiencing postnatal depletion are just the social factors. A lot of times mothers find themselves doing motherhood alone, we have no support. There's high expectations, snap that culture is real. We are really just kind of pressured to get back to how we were. And mothers in Western cultures experienced postnatal depletion at a much higher rate than in what we would find in some Eastern cultures who really acknowledge and embrace traditional postpartum practices and other cultures, we see common themes of true healing. There's a real emphasis on lying in and that really just is the concept of the new mom going nowhere, doing nothing really just lying in and focusing on her rest and focusing on bonding with her baby. Those are the two most important things. And I shouldn't say two most, because also nourishing the body is a common theme amongst these cultures who really honor the postpartum time and high regard. You guys hear me talk about this all the time that Western culture is so different, we don't have this in our culture. So we find so many mothers experiencing postnatal depletion without even probably even recognizing what they're dealing with. Depression is very prevalent. And I feel as though that the when the years as the years go by, we're hearing more and more of mental ailments such as postnatal depression and postnatal anxiety, things like that. But we don't really talk about acknowledge postnatal depletion and some of the symptoms really overlap. So let's talk about the physical symptoms that a lot of moms experience when they are experiencing postnatal depletion. 

Number one, is “Baby Brain, Brain Fog”. Have you ever had we joke around about this? Well, I have baby brain like I can barely remember anything, because I'm a mom now. And I have all of this stuff on my plate. And some of that really is normally a rewiring of the brain, when you become a mom is it's actually scientifically factual that that happens, there's some changes that happen within our mind in order so that we can slow down and really tend to the needs of the baby. But the brain fog and the baby brain and becomes very extreme, with mothers who experienced postnatal depression to the point of this is not normal. And that again, the result is because of the nutrient robbery, the exhaustion and the changes in the sleep wake cycle and not really getting good restorative sleep. And then also again, we talked about the psychological or the social factors that contribute to symptoms of depletion and this is very true for what we would call baby brain. 

Another symptom of postnatal depletion is just you “Truly Feeling Fatigue” to the point where it is interrupting your daily life. Maybe you're experiencing insomnia and you can't even fall asleep if you tried like you're tired and your baby's sleep You're just experiencing insomnia to where you can even fall asleep and you're struggling to fall asleep. This is a common visible symptom that's associated with postnatal depletion. Some other physical symptoms are loss of skin elasticity that was a hard word to say. But your skin is just not as elastic is, there's a word that I'm thinking of, it's starting with a ‘P’ not pliable, but it's just you notice a different difference in your skin. Your skin is dry, there's just no vitality really in your skin. This is also a symptom of postnatal depletion along with thinning hair, maybe soft brittle nails, you notice a difference in your teeth, maybe your teeth are starting to become a little bit more transparent, or maybe your teeth are even chipping. These are also symptoms of postnatal depletion. And then lastly, something that we don't really talk about a ton is sensitivity to light and sound. Have you found yourself becoming a little bit more startled recently, or since having a baby you're just hypersensitive to light and to sound? This all correlates with your hormone levels. So when our cortisol levels are off, when other hormones that help us to combat stress are not imbalance that it makes us really hyper alert. And all of these symptoms are contribute to our common symptoms of postnatal depletion. 

Alright, now let's really touch on the emotional symptoms that are associated with postnatal depletion. And this honestly might be a difficult conversation for many of us, and the spirit of being transparent and real and raw on this podcast and the spirit of really talking about what so many women are experiencing after they become mothers, this is it. We're gonna get down to the nitty gritty of what a lot of us are experiencing, and motherhood. I also want to acknowledge the fact that we don't even realize that the emotional symptoms are connected to postnatal depletion, and some of those symptoms overlap with depression. So when we talk about these things, and we can feel empowered and understand, this is happening to me because of X, Y and Z. So let's get down to it. So the first emotion that I want to cover is the “Emotion of Fear”. A lot of times this manifests as anxiety, or really just the inability to cope. Have you ever had the thought that you're going to drop your baby or something's going to happen your baby, you don't even want to take your baby anywhere, or you think you're going to do something to your baby, you're just experiencing all this anxiety around your baby, being well and protecting your baby, maybe you don't want people to be around your baby, because you're kind of fearful of what might happen. This is the reality of what so many moms who are experiencing depletion are dealing with. Next is the “Emotion of Anger”. And we've started to acknowledge recently that anger postpartum rage that these are emotions associated with depression, which I am grateful for, because I experienced postpartum rage without even realizing why is this happening? I was literally flying off the handle at my kids or my husband and just snapping with out and I did not have the ability. It was very, very hard for me to rein it in, and to truly control my rage. And then on top of that, you get the sense of guilt and shame that you feel after the anger manifests after you snack on your kids you look back it may be minutes or hours or at the end of the day when every everything is kind of settled the dust is settle, your kids are sleeping and they look so peaceful and then you wonder why was I a monster all day today and rage often? For me, it wasn't necessarily I was angry all day, but it was like a yoyo effect of just anything kind of setting me off. Anything could set me off. 

Postpartum rages is a difficult one. Because you have this thought of how you want to show up as a mom, like for me. I have transitioned very early into trying to be a conscious mom. And conscious parenting tells you too, first of all, one of the first one rules of thumb is really we have to show our children what it is that we're teaching them to be. So the ability to rein in your emotions and to emotionally regulate that that is a very important aspect of the things that I value as a mother, and not being able to rein in my emotions and flying off the handle and snapping and yelling at my kids. And just saying some really mean and hurtful things and that was hard. It played into the thoughts that I had about how my kids didn't deserve a mom like me, and is another aspect of postnatal depletion, the self-loathing and the self-hate. I literally hated who I had become, I did not recognize myself, and this was not the Kilah that I knew before I started having kids. And that was very hard for me. I often had conversations with my husband saying, how I felt my kids deserve better. They didn't deserve a mom like me. Like, they're young, and they're doing normal childhood, they were doing normal kid things, their behavior was normal for their age group. And I was just angry all the time. So the anger, the guilt, the shame, the self-loathing, the self-hate, those were things that I personally experienced. These are things that a lot of moms are experiencing, and it's all correlated with depletion. 

The last two emotional symptoms that I'll touch on are just “Overwhelming Sadness”. And this again, overlaps with depression, when you're experiencing sadness and depletion. It's almost like tinged with a sense of grief, like you're grieving who you are, or you're grieving the process. It's a very interesting thing, it's hard for me to describe it, may be some of you are really like resonating. You really understand what I'm saying and it's resonating with you. Just the grief that is sometimes associated with mother work grieving who you were. There's a lot of things that we sacrifice and that we give up. And then when we don't understand biologically what's happening with us. We just don't know what's going on with us, we just know that we're experiencing these things and we have no clue how it correlates with our hormones and our nutrient deficiency. And the lack of restorative sleep and the lack of support all of these things contribute to the emotional symptoms that manifest when you have depletion. And then lastly, this one might surprise you, but “Joy” is also an emotional symptom of depletion. What really makes it fall into the umbrella of depletion is when the joy comes like as a yoyo effect. You might be in rage one moment, and then in another moment, you might just be experiencing these feelings of joy and satisfaction of motherhood. And I would almost compare it to like being manic and having almost like a manic phase, if you're familiar with mania, and how that correlates with depression, that's kind of what it's similar to when we're speaking on depletion. It's just this yoyo of emotions is that necessarily you're experiencing joy consistently. It's the yoyo of sadness and rage and then joy. Hopefully you guys understand I'm making that clear when I'm chatting about just all the emotional symptoms that are prevalent when you're experiencing postnatal depletion. 

Now, a lot of times people wonder what's the difference between I'm experiencing all of that, and my doctor said that, I had depression. And really in his book, Dr. Cerelac, he differentiates depletion, the emotional symptoms that are associated with depletion and depression. He differentiates them by acknowledging that depression truly, those who experienced depression find no joy and anything. The things where you once like, you could go to the movies or you could go hang out with friends or you could be around people and in those times you experienced joy. Most people who are experiencing depression really have no sense of joy and happiness. And there's a true daunting hopelessness that kind of covers them. So if you want more clarification on that, I truly encourage you to grab the book, read the book, and find more understanding through your own study of postnatal depletion versus depression there. Maybe you're wondering, am I experiencing postnatal depletion? If you're wondering this, then you would definitely want to take my assessment that I have put in the postpartum wellness revolution membership. So you'll answer some questions. And then you'll find out whether or not the symptoms that you're experiencing are related to postnatal depletion. And if you do have posted depletion, you'll learn whether or not it's a mild, moderate or severe case of postnatal depletion. So I'm going to drop the link to the membership in the show notes. And be sure to join, it's really a great resource for moms who are within their first few years postpartum and are looking to recover their health. So make sure you check out the membership. 

Alright, so I'm not leaving all hanging today. I do want to give you some practical insights on how you can start to combat postnatal depression or prevent it if you're newly postpartum, or planning for your postpartum time. And the first two things that I want to cover in this episode are “What it looks like to change nutritional practices that are going to help you to combat depletion?” So the first thing that I feel like it's very important to say is that nutrition really is the foundation of your health. What you're putting in your mouth to eat, is changing your body on a cellular level. What you put in your mouth to eat is impacting your brain, it's impacting your mood, it's impacting your energy level, and it's impacting your hormones. It's impacting every single aspect of your health. And so when we talk about nourishing body, nourishing your body, obviously, we're going to be talking about food, in this instance, and your nutrition practices. So what does it look like to rebuild your nutrition, in order to combat postnatal depletion? The first thing that you want to focus on is rebuilding essential micronutrients. So there are “10 micronutrients” that every person who is experiencing postnatal depletion, they should really hone in on and I'm going to give you that list in order of importance. So the very first micronutrient that we're going to discuss is going to be the most important nutrient that you should eat. So that's the one that you should really tune into and pay attention to, and I'm going to give you nine other ones to follow. So are you guys ready? 

1. The number one micronutrient that you need to make sure is replenished as you're working to combat your depletion is “Iron”. And in my membership, if y'all are not in the membership, I'm telling you, you're missing out. So in the membership, I break down each and every one of these vital micronutrients, I explain to you why they're important to your postpartum health. And I also give you a list of foods that will help you to rebuild key the specific nutrients that's being discussed. So for like iron something, most of us know like your leafy greens are full of iron. There's a lot of good I love. One of the practices that I always recommend I recommend moms to implement is just sipping on Nettle Leaf infusions. Nettle Leaf is packed with iron. I think I shared with you guys earlier when I was sharing the recipe for the golden latte, dates have good source of iron. So in the membership, I actually give you a guide to where you can look to see what nutrients are we talking about? Which one are we talking about here? What kind of foods do I need to focus on in order to rebuild my nutrients? It's also before I get into the other micronutrients that are necessary. It's also necessary and relevant to point out the fact that depending on your level of depletion, you may look into additional supplements outside of food. Unfortunately, the food that we're grabbing from the grocery stores is not as nutrient dense as it once was. So depending on how depleted you are, you may look into supplementing outs you No supplementing and adding supplements into your daily routine I also give recommendations for supplements to in my membership. But the thing about it is, iron is a big one. Obviously, you've lost a lot of blood after having your baby and that blood loss kind of equals iron loss. So that's one of the first micronutrients that you want to focus on. If you do not have a pen and a piece of paper, then you want to be sure to pause this, grab a pen and a piece of paper, because I'm not going to focus on each and every one of these micronutrients in depth right now, that's something again that I do in my membership. I might do it in a future episode, but you want to make sure that you jot down these essential micronutrients. So we got iron number one.

2. Number two is going to be your, “Zinc”. 
3. Number three is going to be “Vitamin-B12”. 
4. Number four is “Vitamin-D”. 
5. Number five is “Copper”. 
6. Number six is “Magnesium”. 
7. Number seven, we're going to do a group of vitamins, your “Trace Minerals”. So your Selenium, your manganese, your iodine those trace minerals.
8. And then after that we have we're grouping together other B-Vitamins, so other B-Vitamins outside of your Vitamin-B12. 
9. And then we have Vitamin-C. 
10. And then lastly, we're grouping together fat soluble vitamins, such as Vitamins-A, Vitamins-E, and Vitamins-K. 

So those are the key micronutrients that you want to focus on rebuilding when it comes to recovering from postnatal depletion. And it's also worth noting that copper is a micronutrient that we not necessarily worry about levels of deficiency, but we worry about excess copper. And the reason is that if your copper levels are too high, then it affects to chemicals within your brain, your noradrenaline and also your dopamine. Your noradrenaline is correlated with that hyper vigilance and your anxiety and your dopamine levels can contribute to symptoms of depression if they are too low. Copper excess can also deplete other vital nutrients that your body needs and create inflammation in your body. 

Alright, so next we're going to move on to rebuilding your macronutrients. And I want to kind of give you some information on what that looks like and in relation to postnatal depletion. So your macronutrients, a lot of times we think of our macros and in Western society, we've been taught that your carbohydrates are the source of all your energy, and we just need all these carbohydrates. Well, when talking about postnatal depletion, we want to kind of shift our mindset a little bit. The first thing that we want to shift in our mindset is the fact that it's not only about how much macros you're taking in, it's about the quality of the macronutrients that you're consuming. So let's discuss that first. Because most women who are experiencing postnatal depletion are going to need healthy fats and healthy fats are the source of energy versus what we've been taught like carbohydrates. I always tell my clients healthy fats cert into everything incorporated into every meal. So even something as simple as putting a tablespoon of coconut oil in a hot cup of water. Doing that multiple times a day can really benefit your health during this time. You want to be sure to eliminate any unhealthy fats that have been oxidized from your diet. Any unhealthy fats are found in packaged and processed foods will want to be eliminated. You'll want to eliminate unhealthy fats found in oils such as canola oil, vegetable oil, sunflower oil, you can instead replace those fats with like I said, coconut oil, flaxseed oil. Ghee is a really nourishing healthy fat that you can incorporate into your diet. Other forms of healthy fat can include nuts and seeds, and a really important healthy fat that you'll want to incorporate as your Omega-3 DHA. This is especially important for mothers who are experiencing postpartum anxiety or something that's connected to their brain health. And we can find great sources of Omega-3 DHA and fish, egg yolks and other sources as well. If you have a DHA deficiency, you'll not only want to incorporate foods that are going to help you replenish DHA, but you're also going to want to incorporate a supplement. And most times this comes with taking a fish oil daily and alternative to fish oil that the vegetarian option is algae oil. So again, if you're interested in learning, what foods should I eat in order to get this specific nutrient then I definitely encourage you to join the membership so that you can gain access to that guide. 

So let's talk about “Proteins” next. Proteins are essential because proteins helped to create enzymes in your body and enzymes help to cleanse and detoxify your body and also to help with the rebuilding process of tissues and cells. And really just overall upkeep of your body. You need proteins your body needs enzymes and not all of that stuff. Your complete proteins have all of the nine essential amino acids and roughly the same amounts. These are things like meats, poultry, eggs, seafood. Now you're incomplete proteins have a few of the essential amino acids and significant amounts. Now, we would consider things like whole grains, nuts, seeds, those will be considered incomplete proteins, or sometimes we consider them complimentary proteins. Because when we pair them together, then you get all of the essential amino acids that your body needs. This is why we often seen plant proteins such as rice and beans, or quinoa and soy or hummus and whole grain bread paired together. So there's a couple of things that we want to keep in mind when we're discussing protein and personal depletion. And one of those things is that protein sources that are rich and collagen can help to speed up recovery. And so that's why when we see moms who implement things like bone broth, slow cooked meats, those foods that are really rich and collagen, a lot of times they have an expedited healing process. Another thing that we want to keep in mind is that high quality protein matters. So when you are sourcing your fist, your meat or your plant face foods, you want to keep in mind the quality of food that you're eating. Now, when you're eating red meat, we could actually be limited because red meats are harder to digest. And that can sometimes if there's an overconsumption, it can actually increase inflammation within the body. So keep that in mind when you're putting together your personalized plan for your recovery. And also know that supplementation sometimes is necessary as well. If you're wanting to supplement add, maybe a protein powder into a smoothie or a drink, then what I wouldn't recommend are quality based powders that are made of things like hemp seeds, versus like a whey protein powder. We've covered what it takes to rebuild your micronutrients and your macronutrients. Just a reminder that if you are not a part of the postpartum wellness revolution membership, you definitely want to be in there because it's going to give you further insight on certain foods that you can incorporate into your diet in order to replenish these key nutrients. 

So we've discussed what it looks like to rebuild your micronutrients and also your macronutrients. And next week's podcast episode, I really want to dive a little deeper into gut health because you could be eating all of the right things, but if your body is unable to absorb the nutrients, that's a problem. So next week's episode, we're gonna dive into gut health and also what it looks like to rebuild your hormones and your energy levels. Because all of these things kind of interconnect and help you to combat postnatal depletion. Make sure that you're subscribed to the YouTube channel and the podcast so that you can be the first notified when our new episode goes live. I'm so excited about this community that we're building together, where we could just come together as moms to learn and heal our bodies so that we can show up to be the moms that we deeply desire to be. Thanks so much for tuning in, and I'll see you on the next episode.