Nutritional Support for Postpartum Moms with Jeanne Reilly, RD, from I Am Nurtured

We all know the nutrients baby’s get from breastmilk or baby formula are crucial for the wellbeing of our baby. But what about nutrition for the postpartum mom? Today I am interviewing Jeanne Reilly, a registered dietitian, the mom of two, and the co-founder of I Am Nurtured Prenatal and Postnatal vitamins.

Were you like me in pregnancy? All my plans for a “real food pregnancy” were thrown out the window. I could barely handle my prenatal gummy. I preferred convenience food during my postpartum period and found myself eating lots of noodle packs from Costco because they were super easy. I had big hormonal shifts postpartum and didn’t feel like myself for a long time.

We spend 40 weeks growing a baby. That means our sweet little babies were “sharing” our nutrients. I invited Jeanne on to talk about how to nourish ourselves during the postpartum period and to give tips when we have no energy, but desire to eat a bit healthier. 

This episode is for breastfeeding and formula-feeding moms!

For more information on I Am Nurtured prenatal and postnatal vitamins, click below:

Prenatal vitamin

Postnatal vitamin

Links to I Am Nurtured Prenatal & Postnatal supplements: 

www.iamnurtured.com - our blog has lots of information with sources referenced

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamnurtured/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iamnurtured

Reach me directly - happy to answer any questions: jeanne@iamnurtured.com

Thank you to our show sponsor Pippy Sips. Maia by Pippy Sips is an award winning system for storing, cooling, and monitoring breastmilk so you can rest assured that your pumped milk is safe for your baby. Visit www.pippysips.com for 25% off from May 5th to May 12th.

Books nutritional guidance during pre-conception, pregnancy, and post-partum: 

Real Food For Pregnancy by Lily Nichols RD

Real Food For Fertility by Lily Nichols RD

The Nursing Mother's Companion by Kathleen Huggins - great for troubleshooting breastfeeding issues and knowing when/how to supplement with bottles/formula. Supportive for all feeding methods.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

As new moms, we spend a lot of time focusing on our baby's well-being. Sometimes we spend so much time that we forget to take care of ourselves. Today I am interviewing Jeannie Riley, a mom, a registered dietitian and the co-founder of I Am Nurtured Vitamins. We are digging in how we can nourish ourselves when life feels super busy during that postpartum period and our needs often go to the back burner. Let's dig in. Welcome to the Baby Food for Busy Moms podcast, where you will get the knowledge you need and the support you deserve so you can finally feel good about feeding your baby, whether you're breastfeeding, formula feeding or offering solids. I'm your host, erin Moore, a mom of two boys, a practicing pediatric nurse practitioner and a lactation counselor with years of experience helping moms feed their babies. Tune in each week for bite-sized, judgment-free education you can trust, all with a busy mom in mind.

Speaker 1: 1:01

Before we start, this podcast does not provide medical advice. Information on the podcast is for educational purposes only and no information on the podcast or my website is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. I am a pediatric nurse practitioner and a lactation counselor, but I am not your baby's NP or CLC. Please consult your pediatric provider for any questions. Jeannie, thank you so much for coming on the Baby Food for Busy Moms podcast. So what I would love to start with is just telling me a little bit about yourself and about your family and your passion behind. I Am Nurtured.

Speaker 2: 1:41

Sure, yes, thank you for having me, erin. I Am Nurtured was started as a passion project after I had my first baby and it really was not something that I planned. But I think, as what happens to a lot of us when we have a really transformative experience, you know, you dig in, and so my background was as a registered dietitian and I really had a tough time through the transition from an independent adult to a mother, with this little human dependent on me Right and had my own breastfeeding struggles, and just the adjustment was really hard. And I came together with a former coworker of mine who is now my co-founder, skylar, and he's also a registered dietitian, and we had our first babies that literally our due dates were one day apart, so we were kind of like going through these similar experiences at the same time and we had this idea on a playground date with our kids and we said, you know there's, we struggled so much in figuring out what saturated, so that is not where our mind went first.

Speaker 2: 3:08

But you know, we decided to put our heads together and do all of the research to create something that we would be really excited to take. That would be, we would be excited to recommend to like our family, our best friends, because what we saw out there when we dug into the research was that it was not available without taking you know, combining eight different supplements right at astronomical price, right? So, yeah, we decided to create something better, and here we are five years later. Our first product was a postpartum supplement, and we now have a prenatal that we're really proud of and our postnatal and lots more plans to support all the way from preconception through postpartum, for both moms and dads, because men play a part in this too right, right, and I think so many of our stories and so many of her like why's behind, why we started?

Speaker 1: 4:02

this is because maybe we worked in the field and then we had these experiences and we were trying to figure it out for ourselves and our families and then we're like there has to be something better, right?

Speaker 1: 4:15

there has to be there has to be more education. There has to be something that we can support our own need. So I appreciate you sharing your story. So when we're talking about a postpartum journey, most of us are there right now. So most of the people listening are there right now. So this means they grew and birthed a human, which is crazy. When you're thinking about it, it's like you're taking in your nutrients but then also sharing your nutrients. So I would love if you could chat a little bit about postpartum nutritional needs for moms, and this should be for whether they're breastfeeding or whether they're formula feeding, just like what do you see and what do you feel like moms really need?

Speaker 2: 5:02

Yeah, I think I like that you differentiate between whether you're breastfeeding or not, because at the end of the day, you still all of us grew a human in our body. Like our nutrients were transferred to this baby, the baby preferentially took from our nutrient stores what they needed to grow a healthy, fully formed human. And what that looks like is every mom enters postpartum more nutritionally depleted than they were when she entered. Okay, regardless, you know it's just, it is. And especially if you're faced if you faced, you know food aversions or morning sickness or couldn't keep down your prenatal vitamins, whatever it might be you know we all had food cravings. All I wanted for, like the first three months was buttery carbs and couldn't eat vegetables. Like I know that's not what my baby needs but that's what my brain needs right now.

Speaker 2: 5:57

So you know thinking about that as you enter into postpartum, you are depleted and it is beneficial for you, whether you're breastfeeding or not, to give your body the nourishment it needed to recover. So that looks like not only rebuilding your nutrient stores, but giving your body the fuel it needs to repair the connective tissues. You have been stretched, your uterus is now having to contract. Your skin needs more nourishment to come back and regain elasticity and even the mental piece of of the equation.

Speaker 2: 6:25

When you are replete of nutrients, you have far fewer incidences of of nutrient deficiency related mental disruption right so, like choline, is a huge one that a lot of postpartum moms do not know that they are depleted in, and it has an impact on not only baby's brain development but mom's mental health.

Speaker 1: 6:49

Right and. I was wondering about that too. What are the common nutritional? So you talked about choline. What are the other common nutritional deficiencies that you see in postpartum moms? And then, how do you see that manifesting? And then I'm going to share my own kind of journey after, because maybe I'll get your opinions on my conditions and what happened with me.

Speaker 2: 7:15

Yeah, yeah. So yes, choline is a big one and that's often overlooked in a lot of prenatal vitamins because it's a bulky nutrient, so it's either in low amounts or missing. Vitamin D. I mean this is a big one, with the population in general being deficient, but especially so when you're pregnant and your needs are higher and postpartum, with the healing properties Vitamin D has a big part not only mental health, but also immunity recovery. So vitamin D is a big one. Iron is huge. You know.

Speaker 2: 7:45

A lot of us experience a fair amount of blood loss with liver and pregnancy when your blood volume expands by 50% to support pregnancy. Many, many, many moms developed some form of anemia, and so that's something to be aware of. Usually, when we're going to our OB or midwife, they typically do iron checks, but it's doing after pregnancy as well, because a lot of times moms feel this like deep fatigue postpartum and it can really be linked to iron levels. Anemia is extremely fatiguing, yeah, and B12 is another very common one. So is vitamin A. They're just in need at much higher amounts postpartum.

Speaker 1: 9:52

And I think that we hear about these things but it's so hard to tell what's just normal, like I'm so tired because my baby is waking up, or I used to be able to have all this energy, but now I'm dedicating my life toward this human who has a lot of needs, and what is fatigue related to nutrition versus? Oh, this is just my life now. Like do you have any thoughts about that?

Speaker 2: 10:23

Yeah, and I think that's where a lot of us go. You know, I can't sleep through the night because I have a newborn and I can never take a rest because I have a newborn and I can't really make a really nutrient-dense meal or let alone three times a day because I have a newborn Right, and you just kind of go through these motions because, like societally, you know, we just have to do it. You know you do it all.

Speaker 1: 10:47

Right.

Speaker 2: 10:47

You're like going back to work or you're staying home with the baby, and either one is very challenging. And so I think you know my recommendation is always look at, look at your diet and say, like, are you consistently getting-dense diet? For most of us, the answer is going to be no, especially in those early postpartum years, are you? Then the next question is are you taking a really high quality supplement? I have an insurance policy for to fill the gaps, the nutritional gaps, in your diet, and then my, my third line of defense is like, if all of those things, if you can answer yes to the first two or at least one of them, and you're still feeling that fatigue, like always get your labs checked Right. That it is information is power.

Speaker 2: 11:34

And if you know, like, especially B vitamins are so related to energy levels iron, as we mentionedodine, like thyroid issues are so common postpartum because the hormone rollercoaster our body goes on and selenium and iodine are huge in supporting thyroid health, especially in the pregnancy and postpartum period. So getting those levels checked in the postpartum period with your doctor is really good information to have, because the last thing we want moms to do is just suffer in silence. I know it's hard, even, you know, thinking about making a doctor's appointment for yourself when you've got things going on with a new baby. But you know, I know this analogy is used all the time but like we've got to put our oxygen masks on first if we're going to be show up as, like a healthy mom for our babies. You know, in a lot of ways the suffering that we experience is passed on to our family and it's not necessary a lot of the times right.

Speaker 1: 12:34

Yeah, I think that that is really great, to just a reminder that, like, your needs matter too. And and then of course, you we hear about this all the time and then, of course, I think we feel it when we're postpartum that you're seeing your pediatric provider for your baby in the first few weeks a couple times, and then one month, two months, four months, six months, all the time, and then we get one check at six weeks. And then sometimes, like I had a friend who needed some support from her OB and she was 12 months postpartum, and the OB said, oh no, you need to go and find a general practitioner because you're not postpartum anymore. And she's like, well, I'm asking for help, I want to get these labs drawn, but they're like, oh sorry, it's not my, not my job. And and so do you recommend getting lab work done at multiple times in that postpartum period, or or is it like that six weeks should be sufficient?

Speaker 2: 13:40

So it totally depends that six weeks your body is still in like major flux, right, Right you still, it's still very fresh and it again, like a lot of this stuff can be cost restrictive. If insurance doesn't cover it, I would say, you know, go for whatever insurance will cover. Labs change can change significantly in the course of, you know, three to six months.

Speaker 2: 14:01

So, if you have the ability to check multiple times yes, absolutely. And if you have a practitioner who can do it, you know whether it's your OB at six weeks and then you have your primary care doctor do it. You know, maybe at three months out or whatever it looks like. You know, track your symptoms a little bit too. Just be mindful of oh my gosh, I'm crashing. Every day at 1 pm. I cannot keep my eyes open, or, you know even mental symptoms too, like that's a good thing to keep an eye on.

Speaker 1: 14:33

Right and I had this. Just a challenge after I had Max, who was four years old and I feel like I'm not the only one out there is that I had such huge hormonal changes and it was so hard to figure out and navigate. And, granted, I gave birth in January of 2020. So the support was not there. But I started my cycle again at three months postpartum. But I had PMDD and I had never had PMS before. I was very lucky, I didn't know, but I was very lucky that before children I didn't have any kind of symptoms like that.

Speaker 1: 15:16

And then I started symptom tracking and I'm like, okay, one week before I start my period, I am angry, I don't want to leave the house, my anxiety flares up a whole lot.

Speaker 1: 15:30

I am just feeling like, you know, things are getting really bad the week before, and then I start my period and then everything gets a little bit better. So I did a virtual visit with, and then with diagnosed with, pmdd. But then when I would talk to my OB, I'm like I never had this before. There has to be some kind of hormonal drive. And and then they're like, well, antidepressants, you should get an antidepressants and birth control. And and I'm like, oh, but I feel like there's some other cause, right, I just feel like there has to be something that changed because there was this huge shift before and after. So I've talked about it and I'm on Zoloft and definitely needed that, aside from the PMDD. But also I just felt very like I don't know. I know that there's something wrong, but I feel like nobody's listening to me and instead they're like here's a loft in birth control.

Speaker 2: 16:29

Yeah, you know, unfortunately I think that's more common than not in the traditional medical model and it takes a lot of work to find practitioners who are willing to look outside of these prescribed tracks that they will put women on, and so I mean my message to women everywhere is find a practitioner that listens and believes and if you can do that before becoming pregnant, awesome so that you have someone reliable that you can trust and confide in after baby comes.

Speaker 1: 17:01

I agree and I think we're moving toward this and hopefully I guess this is my hope is that we're moving toward finding the support that we feel like we deserve and when we feel dismissed especially as women, because we've been dismissed forever and just finding people that are compassionate and listen and don't just give you a minute and then they're like oh well, here are your labs and there you go. I think that's so important. So I have a question about just when we're talking about prenatal vitamins or postnatal vitamins. Do the ingredients matter? Tell me about sourcing. What is it like to source quality ingredients? And tell me about what it means.

Speaker 2: 17:57

Yeah. So I started getting curious about this industry when I became pregnant and I asked my OBGYN for a recommendation of a great prenatal and response was, oh, anything on the shelf at Target or CVS is fine. And I was like I don't believe you. But you know, no, that's only because I I have a background as RD and, like I know that the forms of nutrients matter, I know that the amounts of nutrients matter and I know that the supplement industry is unregulated. That means anyone can put anything on the shelves as long as their label is FDA compliant and they won't get taken off the shelves until there are a certain amount of complaints against them, consumers. So you know, as we were going into developing our products, I know that A the most current research is what matters most. Because if you even think about RDAs the recommended daily allowances that you see on labels that tell you like, oh, this is 100% of your daily RDA of vitamin C those RDA amounts were they came up with them in the 50s based on a population of men. Okay, yep, on the pregnant women, surprise, surprise, right? So you know, current research matters and there's more and more coming out, but research on pregnant women is not very available because it's not a population that most people feel safe studying. You know, if you're studying the safety of certain levels of a nutrient, you don't want to deprive a mother of a certain nutrient and then have them deal with the consequences of having a deficiency. So you know we are looking at the most current research and looking at the most active forms of nutrients. So active forms of nutrients are the methylated form.

Speaker 2: 19:47

So folic acid is a big topic. It's what everybody hears is recommended in prenatals from their OBGYN and it's just been common knowledge. You need folic acid. Well, folic acid is not the methylated form of folate. Methylated meaning it is the form that your body can use intact. It doesn't require any conversions in your body to reach the form that your body can use. So folic acid you have to go through a certain number of conversions in your body before it reaches folate, which is the active form that your body can use and the baby can use to prevent spinal cord defects. I'm not going to remember the certain percentage. Over 40% of the female population has a genetic mutation called MTHFR, which many of us have heard of at this point, where they cannot metabolize folic acid. So if you're taking 100 milligrams of folic acid, for example, you may get 10 milligrams active of that. So you want to take the active forms of these nutrients to get the most bang for your buck, essentially because if you're not taking the active forms, you end up literally peeing most of it out.

Speaker 2: 20:58

Your body will avalize it and it's not actually useful. So, yes, quality matters. The form of the ingredients, you know. The form of iron that you take can be either really constipating and cause a lot of GI distress or not. Magnesium can cause also GI distress or not. So there are a lot of things to consider about, you know, the form of the nutrient and also the quantity. Like.

Speaker 2: 21:25

The most current research on choline is showing that women can take up to double the current RDA, which is 450 milligrams during pregnancy. Studies are showing over 950 milligrams are really beneficial for baby sprain, hives and moms. So it's just a matter of like looking at the most up-to-date research and looking at the forms and the comprehensiveness of the vitamins. Like we I talked about, a lot of vitamins will leave out really essential nutrients like choline and magnesium, because they're bulky. A lot of minerals are minimal or completely missing, and so these are just really important things that the lay person doesn't know or they don't even know what to look for, and I didn't at the beginning of this. I know the nutrition professional. I didn't know what I needed to look for and it took me years of research to get there.

Speaker 1: 22:13

So it's a very confusing space, Right, and I think about it as similar, similar but different than choosing a baby formula. Right? Because, though baby formulas are far, far, far more regulated than any kind of supplements or vitamins, it's still like we still often get the recommendation just like choose one. They're all the same and but it's like that's not necessarily true. Yes, maybe they're fundamentally like, they're considered all infant formula, but there are a lot of reasons why a family might want to choose this versus this. Or now we know that you know, some babies do really well on cow milk formula, while other babies do better on goat milk formula, and while other babies need that partially hydrolyzed thing.

Speaker 1: 23:03

So it's like I always feel like being an educated consumer, or doing as much as we can to educate ourselves, because, yes, maybe you'll get all the things that you need from any prenatal vitamin or postnatal vitamin, whatever you're on. But but there's this we want to make sure we're being educated consumers, right.

Speaker 2: 23:26

Yeah, yeah, it can be very overwhelming with the amount of information that is out there right now. I mean, I have never felt so overwhelmed since becoming a parent and you're considering not only what you need but what your baby needs, and all of the baby products and all of the things that they're consuming, and how to feed your baby, and products to put on your baby's skin you know it is overwhelming and products to put on your baby skin. You know it is overwhelming. So you know I feel good about lending our credentials and our credibility as a trusted resource in this space. You know there are not a lot of brands out there that are actually formulated by experts in the field, Right, so it makes a difference.

Speaker 1: 24:03

I appreciate having a registered dietitian. Tell me or provide the education, somebody who has that experience and that knowledge base, that you were doing this and are doing this as your career and you've worked with moms, you've had these issues yourself, all of these things. I think that's just really important. So when we're talking about kind of nourishing our bodies and putting our babies first sometimes before our own needs, like I can tell you I'm like I'm going to eat so healthy postpartum, I'm going to get back to it and I made soup. Like who made soup? I made soup and put it in my freezer. Like, oh, I'm going to have so much time to defrost soup and be able to eat it one-handed while I'm trying to feed my baby and I'm sleep deprived and I haven't showered in three days. So, okay, our baby's needs come before ours a whole lot. But do you have any tips to help moms remember that their needs matter? Nutrient ways that they can get more nutrient-dense food in?

Speaker 2: 25:12

Yeah, and I, you know this is. This is a challenge that we all face, right and and knowledge, again, is power, and I wish I had known so much more before my first baby. But you know it, it's. It's interesting. You know the second baby comes around and you kind of know what to expect and what you are going to need. So one of my favorite tips to give people is, if you're having a baby shower, ask for people to sign up for a meal train for you and ask, like, if anyone asks that they can come and do, do you favors or come see the baby. You know, blatantly ask like, yes, like can you pick up some groceries for me or can you bring me a meal? You know it is. That was the best gift that I have received and I set it up for every pregnant mom I know, moving forward, because having home cooked meals that I literally just had to put on a plate and eat and usually provided leftovers for days and fed my family, like that was the best.

Speaker 2: 26:13

There are other meal delivery services that you know. Again, these are. These all come at a cost, so it is something to be considerate of. There are meal delivery options like. Kayo is one that is specifically designed for postpartum. Oh nice, there's a lot of warming broths and soups and they have a lot of beautiful products for postpartum, but food products and you know, daily Harvest has like little cups, and I think of E's because you know there are other meal delivery systems that you still have to cook everything and do all of the prep and it's not realistic a lot of times.

Speaker 2: 26:51

So my best advice is lean on your community, ask for food as a gift. Lean on your partner, if you have the foresight to prepare postpartum meals, great meals, great. I've also seen little nesting parties that moms will do in a baby shower where, like, people will come over and help you prepare a bunch of your postpartum meals, fun meals. So it's a challenge, especially, you know, after the meal train drives up and after the postpartum meals have been run through. You know reality sets in, so relying on little conveniences like instac through you know reality sets in so relying on little conveniences like Instacart. Or you know finding a couple of good restaurants in your area that you know you can get a good, healthy meal from is a game changer. And just using this time postpartum to rely on all of the little extra conveniences that we have today of day and age. Ask for the help, rely on it. It's not worth stressing over.

Speaker 1: 27:53

I love this because I feel the same way. And my first child is like, oh no, I don't need a meal train, I don't need that, I can do it myself, it's just a baby, right. And then the second time around I'm like, no, I'm going to accept the help. This time I am going to accept it. And then Elliot, my second, he had just a whole bunch of feeding issues and we were feeding. I was basically like passively giving my breast milk because he couldn't take bottles. He was choking on breast milk and on bottles and I was feeding him most of the day.

Speaker 1: 28:27

So when it came to like meal train, the meal train and having somebody deliver food that had vegetables in it, like thank you so much. I literally think I survived on that for like three, four months and it made our lives so, so much better. And then also I still use the convenience things that now, 14 months postpartum, but the curbside, the prepared salads or prepared foods, because I need a little bit more convenience in my life in this phase where it's really busy and I know I need to nourish myself, but I also am like I need to be realistic with my time and what I can put my effort and energy into Right Right.

Speaker 2: 29:10

It's a lot easier to you know, while you're sitting there feeding baby, sit up and like, add your items to the grocery cart and then drive by and pick it up, rather than wrestling two kids in a shopping cart and dealing with tantrums, and you know all of the stress that comes with those incidents Right right, when you're just out of the produce section and then your older one is like I want to go home and I'm like, oh, we still have a whole lot of store to get through and oh yeah, that I've been there sounds like you've been there too, yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:41

So do you have any recommendations for moms if they're in this postpartum period but their desire is to have another child, maybe soon or, I guess, in the near future?

Speaker 2: 30:07

at an older age now, so spacing they might feel more time pressure. There is a lot of research that supports waiting at least 18 months to give your body the chance to really recover and replete the nutrient stores. But even like 15 months is beneficial, especially if you've had a history of pregnancy loss. So if you are able to wait that amount of time after you've had baby, that's ideal. But in the meantime, if you're not even not even considering the time period, it's important, as I mentioned, to check your nutrient stores that do play out in complications with pregnancy. We're thinking like preeclampsia or developmental or any other sort of disorders that we end up seeing in really deficient moms are oftentimes avoidable. Good nutrition, folate we all are aware of that. We recommend extending your prenatal through the postpartum period and also, if you're planning on conceiving, starting it at least six months before. I mean, okay, I still, I still take it because it's a great multivitamin, just always, but making sure that your body is really ready for whenever you conceive. So getting the labs checked, knowing if you are deficient in anything, eating a really just as much as you can, a nutrient dense, whole food diet, just focusing in on getting as much as you can from your foods first, and then making sure you're taking a really great prenatal supplement as that insurance policy and getting the help you need.

Speaker 2: 31:43

Mom's stress also plays a lot in fertility and pregnancy, and so you know we want to make sure that you are taking care of yourself, that your body is ready to conceive again, and thinking about anything you can do to just make things a little bit easier on yourself. So self-care goes a long way. So maybe that is finding a really wonderful therapist, calling in family or friends to help you a couple days a week, getting a mother's helper, whatever your budget allows, you know, leaning on your community, finding other mom friends that you can trade care with. It's not nutrition is a big piece of the puzzle, but lifestyle in general also has an impact. Stress is a huge impact on fertility, and so are environmental toxins.

Speaker 2: 32:32

This is again not specifically nutritionally related, but doing things to consider the toxic burden in your environment. So nonstick pans, plastic bottles all these things that produce oxidative stress in our bodies do impact egg quality, especially as we age. So focusing on really foods that are rich in antioxidants, so vitamin C, e, a things that are going to reduce the oxidative stress in your body and maintain your egg health and egg quality, and these are all things like. There's a whole slew of things to consider while you have a newborn, right, right, but at the end of the day, big picture is whole foods, nutrient-dense meals, supplement with a high-quality prenatal to support your nutrient stores and repair and recovery from postpartum, and then just get help while you can Make sure that you're taking care of your mental health.

Speaker 1: 33:29

Good and I love that. And I laughed when you were talking about your eating like buttered carbs at the beginning of your pregnancy, because before and I did it for both of my pregnancies and I'm like, oh my gosh, I bought twice, I bought the. What is it? Is it true food pregnancy or whole food pregnancy?

Speaker 1: 33:49

Oh, real food for pregnant, real yeah, yeah, yeah, real food, okay, yeah, real food for pregnancy. So I bought that both time and then I'm like I had like a whole cookie pregnancy my first time, because I worked in clinic and we get a bunch of snacks and and I ate a whole lot of cookies. I think I did better than better the first time around than my second time around, but I was so nauseated that I literally survived on preggy, preggy pops or preggy the little like sugary things and jolly ranchers then, then, anyway, I ended up having gestational diabetes and couldn't have any more. But I'm like that's, that's literally what got me through and my like terrible nod yeah, with the, with the um, b vitamin, unisome, so I don't even have I didn't even have.

Speaker 2: 34:31

I didn't, you know, luckily did not have nausea throughout my pregnancies, but first trimester, when all that intense growth is happening, there was this little bakery around the corner from our house and they had these chocolate chip cookies like the size of your face, and I sometimes split them with my husband and sometimes did not, because that's just what my baby needed, yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:52

Have you ever been to Tiny Boxwoods in Austin? Have you ever?

Speaker 2: 34:55

been there no.

Speaker 1: 34:56

Tiny Boxwoods has a cookie place called Tiny's Milk and Cookies and they have just the absolute best chocolate chip cookies and there were days when I would eat them, like somebody would bring them into work and I would eat them and I'm like this cookie gave me life. I can get through my day because I had this cookie. And then I'm like, and I know I should be, like, I know I need these nutrients, I know my body needs it, but maybe that's why I had such a rough postpartum period, because I, like, I did what I needed to do to survive and and my body was like, hey, you need to actually give me some real nutrients?

Speaker 2: 35:36

Yeah, I think you know, I think about that too. I had a similar experience and you know I also think today, like we've said societally, moms just have to. There's not much of a maternity leave. You know, if you're lucky you have a company that will pay for maternity leave, or like you can stay home with your kids and actually rest. But you know what we had in the past did, this tradition of of communities taking care of mothers so that they can rest. You know there's this concept of the first 40 days and allowing the mothers to heal and lay and rest with baby and sort of come out of this cocoon when they're ready. It's really rare now, and so it's even more important that you know in our busy lives we do get in the nutrients we need and take the time that we need to get in these little bits of care and nutrition while we can little bits of care and nutrition.

Speaker 1: 36:35

While we can Love it, I love it. So, as we're wrapping up, I asked the same questions.

Speaker 2: 36:41

So how are you fed as a baby? Do you know I do. I was the second child and my mom said she lasted about six months breastfeeding me and then I started biting, so you know, to food formula it was.

Speaker 1: 36:52

Ooh, yes, yes, yes, I've been in that situation, though, though Elliot had bottle refusal, so I had to just make it through the biting and like staring off into the distance being like, oh man, my poor body, my poor body, that had to go through that. But yeah, I, I had I had the options to just bottle feed. I most definitely would have. After the second week of seven times a day of being bitten. It's really terrible, yeah, horrible, horrible. So I know we talked about this a lot. Most of what we talked about is advice, or what is one piece of advice that you'd give to moms when things are feeling just really hard in the first year or two of life.

Speaker 2: 37:37

Yeah, I mean my best advice is always to ask for the help and receive the help, because I mean that was my biggest experience, learning lesson from my first and my second, you know, after I learned to receive the help. And what I see from so many moms that I interact with is we think we have to do it all on our own and we have to figure it out and all of these natural processes that should just happen because we're women, like breastfeeding should just come naturally. No, it doesn't always happen that way. You might see the lucky unicorn where you know everything just comes easy.

Speaker 2: 38:09

But had I known ahead of time that I needed a lactation consultant, that my baby would benefit from a little chiropractic adjustment, that you know my pelvic floor and my abdominals would really benefit from having a PT and all of these things that that I think I was just not aware of are so beneficial. And you know, when we seek out out community of other moms and we hear their stories and what they've been through and what helped them, the light bulbs all go off. So my advice is ask for help, seek for help and talk to other moms. With your filters on right. You have to know what is going to serve you and what is not. Listen to, listen to your intuition and if you know somebody's like guilting you about not breastfeeding, don't listen to that. I had so much guilt about not being able to produce a mass milk for my baby because I was stressed out in my head.

Speaker 2: 39:02

So you know we supplemented with formulas Tom and then got donor milk.

Speaker 1: 39:06

So it's a whole mental game of accepting help right and knowing that, no matter what you can or cannot do physically, there is community available to support you and there are resources available to help you right and I think what you said before, which is just finding the support that is going to be judgment-free, that's not going to push your own agenda that will kind of offer some explanation and education but not say this is what you have to do. And then you get to decide for yourself and if you know that something is wrong, advocate for yourself because nobody cares about you or your baby like you do, right.

Speaker 1: 39:52

So, I always say that when it comes to your baby, it's like, even if everybody has your baby's best interest in mind, nobody has your baby's interest in mind like you do, and so you grew that baby and you are nourishing the baby, whether it's bottle feeding or breastfeeding, and so it's like asking for help finding the people that you feel that you jive with, and then, if not, then you need to find somebody different, and I think the lived experience of other mothers can help you kind of narrow that down and find the right people.

Speaker 2: 40:28

Exactly, yeah. And if you can seek out those resources and have a list of like, okay, if I have breastfeeding issues while you're pregnant, make up a resource list so that if you have issues come up postpartum, you just have to pick up the phone and call somebody. Right, that's so great.

Speaker 1: 40:44

So, Jeannie, how can people connect with you if they're looking to learn more about you and more about? I Am Nurtured.

Speaker 2: 40:51

Yeah, our story is on our website. It's I Am Nurtured. Yeah, our story is on our website. It's Iamnurturedcom. Same on Instagram and Facebook, just at I Am Nurtured. We have a really good resource in our blog. I've written all of the articles on different really common topics and questions related to pregnancy and postpartum. You can also just reach out to me directly. I love talking with moms and answering questions and you know it's all. You know. I don't charge for any of this. It's good information for me to have related to our products and knowing that we're serving our community the right way. My email is genie at IamNurturedcom and you know it's. I love this community. We are we're trying to expand and you can find us in some local Austin spots now and Austin practitioners. So we're at Alive and Well and Bee Cave and some practitioners around here. So yeah, just if you have questions, I'm always happy to talk.

Speaker 1: 41:46

Perfect. Well, thank you so much for coming on, and then I am going to link just a bunch of stuff in the show notes. If you want to hear more from Jeannie or want to connect, perfect. Thank you so much, erin. Yeah, thank you for coming. Nice chatting you too. Hey, mama, I hope you loved this bite-sized episode. This podcast is powered by your reviews, ratings and shares. It helps other mamas find the show so they can finally feel good about feeding their baby, just like you do. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Need personalized feeding? Help for your baby's unique situation? Let's work together with a one-on-one consult. I can't wait to meet you. Until then, happy eating.