Fourth Trimester Podcast Episode 7: Nourishment
Learn strategies for feeding and nourishing the new parent in your life and yourself as you make your way through the first weeks and months with your newborn at home. Nutrition, nurturing and nourishment are critical elements for caring for a new mother who is recovering from a birth experience. She needs sustenance for her physical (food!) and emotional (care!) self. Remember, don’t wait for a new mom to ask for a snack – just set the snack tray next to her and quietly watch her enjoy. You got this!
Eat well! Sarah and Esther xo
“Nourishment. I have this kind of equation that I developed … Nurturing plus Nutrition equals Nourishment. And by that we meant like it’s one thing to put food in front of people. It’s another thing to come in with nurturing. But if you can have the two go together then what you’re really doing is nourishing people. And so I think of that as my overall goal in my work as a postpartum doula, is Nourishment.”
— Esther Gallagher
Selected links
Recipes to Nourish Families We’ve got recipes for you to try and/or tell your helpers to make!
Learn more Eat Like The Rainbow | Top 3 Episodes of the Fourth Trimester Podcast – Start here!
Connect with Fourth Trimester Facebook | Instagram | esthergallagher.com | About & Contact
Episode Transcript
sarah trott: [00:00:05] Hi I’m Sarah Trott and welcome to the fourth trimester podcast. I’m a new mom and this podcast is all about post part and care for the first few months following birth. The time period also known as the fourth trimester. my postpartum doula Esther Gallagher is my co host. She’s a mother, grandmother, perinatal educator, Birth and postpartum care provider. Fourth trimester care, our topic is about the practical emotional and social support parents and baby need. And importantly it helps set the tone for the continuing journey of parenting. hi Esther, it’s so wonderful to be talking with you again.
esther gallagher: [00:00:49] Yes, Sarah, wonderful as always.
sarah trott: [00:00:52] So today we decided to focus our energy on something that’s very important for all new parents when they come home with a new baby which is nourishment. Yes
esther gallagher: [00:01:03] Nourishment. I have this kind of equation that I developed with my friend Mindy who is also somebody who was co owner of a business called the Fourth Trimester when I first came to San Francisco twenty five years ago. She was my first real boss and a wonderful wonderful woman Mindy Zlotnick. A wonderful infant massage instructor and we started working on a project that maybe someday will get finished called Nesting a guide to nourishment in the fourth semester. So it was kind of a cookbook. And postpartum book. And the mathematical equation we came up with was Nurturing plus Nutrition equals Nourishment. And by that we meant like it’s one thing to put food in front of people. It’s another thing to come in with nurturing. But if you can have the two go together then what you’re really doing is nourishing people. And so I think of that as my overall goal in my work as a postpartum doula, is Nourishment. So today I thought we would dive into like what’s good nutrition for postpartum. And how can that be nourishing for new parents. I was curious Sarah if you wanted to talk just for a moment about what that was like for you in the first weeks after you had Evelyn.
sarah trott: [00:02:51] Well as a first time mom I was surprised by how much I actually wanted to eat especially compared to while I was pregnant. So for example people often say oh you know when you’re pregnant you’re eating for two. And that’s when you want so much food and you get stories of the wild cravings of pickles and ice cream and things like that. Which is fun and somewhat true. What I wasn’t anticipating was how hungry I would be as a breastfeeding mother. Because for me I’ve always had a very fast metabolism and so suddenly my appetite just was voracious and I was surprised by how I would eat pretty much anything that was put in front of me as much as was put in front of me at any hour of the day. I would be asked Are you hungry for something. And I would think maybe, I don’t know maybe. And then a tray of food would be put in front of me with celery sticks with peanut butter in it and some cookies that my husband made and some veggie sticks and just various other foods. And I’d look away and then I’d look back and it was empty. The plate was wiped and I thought oh OK, I was hungry.
esther gallagher: [00:04:10] Yes. Yeah. I often have to counsel the Helpers right. The people who are around, whether it’s you know a mom or a dad or a grandparent as it were the mother or father of the parents or the sisters, whoever it is who said i wanna help, that the best way to be helpful is to not ask, are you hungry and what do you want, because your brain isn’t functioning on that level like you just pointed out. I mean you could not have given a better description of how this goes down! It was brilliant and the fact is, that if you have to think about it it’s not helping you right. You just need somebody else to just do that part for you because you are gestating a baby on the outside, trying to heal and recover, trying to establish a milk supply and the relationship of feeding your baby and all of that is 24/7 for weeks. You don’t have the bandwidth nor frankly the energy and certainly not the time to go into the kitchen and do this part of self care that you so desperately need to have attended to. It’s important that those of you out in podcast land listening, who I hope are people who want to help postpartum parents, understand that the best way to help is to nourish the new parents and the best way to do that is not to ask them what they need but to know what they need which is nourishment. And that comes in the form of nourishing foods, beautifully and well prepared in massive quantities like the Coneheads eat, but maybe not so messy, and regularly showing up without having to be asked for. Yeah I think that’s some very very important information that needs to be out in the world. And you know when I say it’s very important, Sarah I think that people don’t understand that when the numbers of parents especially new mothers who are experiencing postpartum depression is so relatively high in our culture, we need to be looking at how is this experience going down and what are the social emotional components of this phenomenon. And one of the elements here is that parents just basically aren’t getting their basic physiological needs met in a socially-emotionally appropriate way. i think that’s very powerful stuff right there. I mean maybe they’re getting fed but it’s at the expense of sleep right.
sarah trott: [00:07:20] Oh absolutely. I know for me personally if I were left to my own devices I would have preferred to stay in bed and recover and relax and move as little as possible at the expense of everything else. And that would include cooking for myself. The only things I wanted to cook and make for myself when I was home alone a month in or so was stuff I could pull out of the fridge and maybe heat up very quickly on the stove top. Or just eat directly out of the fridge or a cold sandwich or something. So I wanted fast food, that was a large quantity that was easy. And so I think that had I not had someone more than one person people helping put food in front of me right at the beginning I don’t think I would have been fully fed. I don’t think I would have eaten enough.
sarah trott: [00:08:08] Yeah. And meanwhile you in your tummy you went right down. You know you didn’t you weren’t languishing around having trouble losing weight which I know in our culture is such a crazy driving force. And you know just to make a little note on that subject I think when moms are forced to grab whatever is available and what so often is so readily available is carbs, moms can’t lose weight. You know, moms need protein and fats and vegetables and they need them showing up often. And it’s the thing that people don’t put in front of new moms often. It’s you know often it’s more like rather than a nourishing stew with all of those elements, it’s pastries from the bakeshop or a cake that they baked or a pasta dish that they threw together instead of the kinds of really truly nourishing dense calories that moms need when they’re doing all this difficult physiological work. And so again like when we come back around to the actual nutrition part what do moms need? Well they need lots of fluids. Right. And it can’t be Water it can’t just be water all day long. It needs to be nourishing fluids with cell salts in them. They need as I just mentioned high quality proteins and fats. They need lots of minerals in the food that they eat and they need things to be salted and well seasoned and they need those carbs that they do get to be nourishing carbs. Carbs that are loaded with vitamins and minerals and healthy fiber. So again I turn to vegetables rather than breads cookies et cetera. I’m not suggesting that moms shouldn’t have some treats in there but let’s hope that those treats really on balance are loaded with good nutrition at the same time and that’s not an impossible task. You can produce a healthy nourishing cookie to go on that snack tray. If you’re gonna bake cookies. so, that snack tray needs to be diverse and have a lot of healthy elements.
sarah trott: [00:10:34] So if women are worried about losing weight right after birth for whatever reason is there a possibility that not having enough calories could effect milk production.
esther gallagher: [00:10:44] Not only can it affect milk production but it can have a negative effect on weight loss because the body will hold onto fluids and fats by way of storing energy for itself for the long term. So if you’re not signaling the body hey this is a rich environment there’s plenty of abundance you can be well nourished, the body will go into protection mode right. It’ll have an excellent insulin response and tell itself OK we need to hold on to everything we can because if we’re going into starvation mode we have to survive and we have to help this baby survive. So not only will you have a tendency to kind of go into a diabetic response and hold onto the weight but you may in fact also have the response of just not being able to make enough milk. Now most humans will make milk in order to have their baby survive even at their own expense. We were kind of built once we give birth to if possible in any way make milk even if it means melting our own bones and teeth to make enough milk for our baby to survive if we’re actually actually starving. This isn’t the healthy way to do things and cultures all over the world acknowledge that if you want to protect babies what you first do is you nourish mothers. You take care of the mother so that the baby will survive. That means during pregnancy and that means during the postpartum recovery period. All over the world they acknowledge that there is this long period of 100 days give or take a few which, by the way is more than three months, where mothers need special support and nutrition and protection. That’s intended to help that mother survive and help that baby survive well into that child’s own adulthood and childbearing years. It is important to recognize that women can’t really have a healthy adulthood post children if they don’t have a healthy pregnancy and postpartum. And that is well documented in other cultures. Right. There’s a phrase in Asian culture “40 Days for 40 years” meaning that you take really good nourishing care of that mother in the first 40 days while she’s recovering, so that in 40 years from now she’s still a healthy woman, so that she can be a healthy grandmother and great grandmother.
sarah trott: [00:13:43] Wow I love that.
esther gallagher: [00:13:45] Yeah. Isn’t that like such wonderful… I mean to think that you could be living in a culture that understood your needs in that fundamental way throughout your life. I don’t think we really have anything like that in America. And it’s really sad to me. But it’s one of the things that I studied in college in my anthropology years. Gosh, do other cultures acknowledge postpartum period? and it turns out that not only they acknowledge it they have well documented literature on this subject about nutrition. For instance the eating of black chicken stew. Every day! Blackbone chicken is a little bantam chicken that gets stewed and a mom is offered this nourishing stew that has the chicken and vegetables and seaweed and all these blood building, nourishing, well cooked, easily digested nutrients in them. And this is offered to mom every day– like you just have to have it you know. And I think, wow you know I could have used that! I really could have used that — I would have felt so much better if somebody had been bringing me that. And that’s only one element, but it’s really important element– it has all those things that I just pointed to.
sarah trott: [00:15:14] I love that and it almost seems like one end of a spectrum where on the one hand we have this offering of the right nutritious food. So it’s just presented it’s there it’s expected. And on the other side there is some of the sort of on the extreme would be the lack of that type of food being offered. And the lack of knowing that that food is needed. But then also the added pressure I think that some people will put on themselves when they look at photographs of these moms who are back to work so quickly or already running with perfectly flat stomachs through the park with their jogging stroller three weeks out of the gate which means some people are amazing and they bounce back like that. But that’s not for everyone and I love the idea of new moms giving themselves a bit of a hall pass for the first three months after they give birth and say OK well this is about recovery. This is about my body and my baby and being healthy and I can do those things when I’m ready. Just take a bit of a break from that and just release oneself from the pressures that they might feel.
esther gallagher: [00:16:19] And there is this cultural messaging right. Like it’s very strong in our culture that moms should be able to do everything without a net. Right without support and without nurturing. They are the nurturers; everybody else gets the nurturing; moms go without; They don’t need it. And of course I think that the perfect indicator of how deeply deeply untrue that is is the degree to which women suffer from postpartum depression in our culture. I think if people started looking into that and wondering like you know why is this happening. Well it’s happening because moms are malnourished. It’s happening because everyone who is maybe the likely candidates for helping and supporting a mom are only available on a very limited basis and have to be back at work themselves within two weeks of when that baby comes home or six weeks which is still way too early or three months which in my opinion is still too early and all of these you know the two week, six week, three months, these are major developmental shifts for mother and baby and the family, frankly. And so you imagine taking away support at the very moment when a developmental spurt is about to happen or it’s in the midst of happening. And I think that that’s kind of a recipe for potential disaster. And these are often times when women express deep sorrow and grief or physical lack of wellbeing or whatever. And what do we tell us go out and join the baby group. Now I have nothing against joining the baby group. I have nothing against going to mommy-baby yoga. I think these are wonderful wonderful things. They are just not a substitute for appropriate nourishment and support. And by the way look what we’re doing we’re asking the mom to get out of her nest and go out and seek these things and she may be ready.
sarah trott: [00:18:33] I remember something that you mentioned to me early on when I was recovering at home with a new baby. You told me so many little tricks like make sure you pee before you sit down to breastfeed which aren’t obvious but so crucial. But one of them was about making sure that you’re full enough to lay down and rest when you’re trying to take advantage of a baby sleeping next to you or in their crib or wherever they may be. Because when a person is hungry they’re on alert and it’s difficult to rest.
esther gallagher: [00:19:08] Yes your mind knows that the body needs nourishment– the brain– I should say maybe not of the mind but brain certainly knows and it’s going to be in seeker mode right. And when you’re in seeker mode you cannot rest and relax. That’s why you know you need to get up and pee while that baby’s having a diaper change and so that you’re ready when your baby’s hungry and you need to be eating while that baby eats so that when they’re ready to sleep then you too can sleep. So right you beautifully circled us right back to the three things that get reiterated every time we talk. Right. Eat when the baby eats. Why? so that you can sleep when the baby sleeps. And then after the baby breastfeeds on the first side you can get up while they’re getting burped and diaper changed and you can go pee and that way you can get back in bed, breastfeed the baby when the baby falls asleep you fall asleep. It’s kind of simple right. But it’s only simple if you have people around you who are nourishing: people who will make sure that that food shows up when that baby’s ready to nurse in the form of snack trays, in the form of nourishing soups and stews. Not only that, but they’re nourishing because you know these people are nourishing to you because they’re willing to sit by the bed while you breastfeed and spoon that stew into you if your hands are full as baby. Which in the first two weeks they often are– you don’t necessarily feel competent to try to feed yourself and a baby at the same time. Right. Like it took a while for me to figure out how to do things one handed.
sarah trott: [00:21:06] So let’s talk about the snack tray. What is on the snack tray? What is that.
esther gallagher: [00:21:11] Ok let’s paint the picture. Imagine a nice sized dinner plate. To start with. OK. We’ll start out with a vegetarian options because of course it’s not that difficult to add slices of salami or you know roasted poultry or whatever. But we want to be sure that there are proteins and fats on this tray. So you mentioned earlier the peanut butter in the celery. Now some if these other injected peanuts but not tree nuts, then Of course it could be cashew butter, almond butter, walnut butter. All of these are excellent options and in fact if you’re making snack trays twice a day for somebody every day you should be mixing it up it shouldn’t be peanut butter all the time. But those are some really great healthy protein fat combinations. Cheese is another great protein fat combination if you’re feeding a mom animal meats then you know don’t go for the turkey breast or the turkey the chicken breast go for that thigh. It has iron in it. It has fat in it. That’s going to be way more digestible. And mom’s going to get a whole lot more minerals especially if she’s anemic she’s going to need iron. And there’s virtually very little in a breast and there’s lots in a thigh. So thigh meat people. And then, of course you could imagine sliced carrots. Now most people think of carrot sticks and that’s perfectly great. But one of the things I like to do is slice a carrot at an angle right and make a chip a nice big chip of those carrots and then when she dips it in her little bowl of hummus which is loaded with protein and healthy fats she can get a nice dollop of that hummus into her mouth. Right. And it’s not just chips, corn chips, potato chips whatever. A carrots is really good vitamin A and other really important minerals and vitamins that mom’s going to need. Not to mention the fiber. We would always put a little dark chocolate on your tray as a little snack or or a chocolate chip walnut cookie made with oatmeal on your snack tray.
sarah trott: [00:24:00] We also did a couple of things pretty regularly. We had dried fruit. Yes which I loved. All kinds of dried fruit apricot plums and nectarines. And then I remember eating a lot of garlic toast.
esther gallagher: [00:24:15] Yes you had wonderful homemade bread. You in particular were courting little kinds of infections that we were concerned about. And so I made sure to feed you garlic because garlic is a wonderful. Not only does it stimulate your appetite if you’re not allergic to it which few people actually are. But babies love the taste of garlic in the milk –Stanford did a study and showed that babies will actually suck more and more vigorously if there is some garlic in their milk which is exactly the opposite of what people say about garlic and onions that they make babies gassy and they don’t like the milk. And it turns out to be wrong. They actually do like it. But it’s also wonderful systemic antibiotic and so it helps the whole body clear infections mild infections so it doesn’t hurt to have a little garlic in your diet. We didn’t scrimp on the butter. Remembe?. We weren’t trying to imagine that somehow you wouldn’t flourish if you had some butter on your toast. And I’m also remembering that we did things like nicely lightly steamed broccoli and cauliflower florets. Again you know it’s the sort of thing that people say well you’re going to make your baby gassy. But in fact you know there’s no evidence that somehow the elements of broccoli and cauliflower that make you and me gassy actually get through your bloodstream into your lymph and into your milk and make babies gassy. And the nutrition in kale and cauliflower and broccoli is so wonderful and rich that it’s a shame to start eating nothing but rice porridge when you so need these nutrients to help you heal and recover. Sometimes we have the hummus sometimes we would do like a nice yogurt based dip. So with some nice herbs and the addition of a little extra oil and maybe some other flavorings maybe some vinegar or something of that nature that you could dip so that we were adding to that protein and fat content of your snack tray. Yeah. Now along the lines of dried fruits which are of course delicious we don’t want to go overboard on things that are sweet. And so when we’re putting dried fruit on this snack tray we’re making sure that mom also has the full complement of fluids to go along with that because it takes a little extra to digest dried fruits. Sometimes what I do for moms is make a fruit compote especially if her digestion is still slow if she feels constipated or you know was wondering when she’s going to be able to have a bowel movement and is a little reluctant to eat a whole lot of colase which has no nutritional value. It’s only job is to help you have a bowel movement. So I think that there are nutritional nurturing ways to help moms experience good digestion. And so I like to stew those dried fruits and then mom can have them with a bowl of yogurt or on her oatmeal for breakfast or something of that nature. I really enjoyed having that breakfast in particular my standard breakfast every morning with typically a bowl of scrambled eggs not to many a small bowl of scrambled eggs both very buttery and delicious and. Oatmeal with fruit compote on it and then a cup of tea. It was usually either mother’s milk which is at the fenugreek I believe or a peppermint tea or chamomile tea. Yeah wonderful.
esther gallagher: [00:28:19] I mean who wouldn’t thrive on a breakfast like that. I think it would be good for everybody. Right. And especially for breastfeeding mom. Right. And then you know you’re at some point you probably have a snack. You had a nice lunch like a real meal for lunch and some snacks and then a real dinner and then a snack tray through the night. And people wonder like how much food is that. Well it’s a lot of food. But you’re producing a lot of milk. I mean Evelyn was gaining beautifully and that was because you were feeding her. So Yeah I think people are sometimes astounded if they just look at it from a quantity standpoint. But I think it’s important that we reiterate the quality standpoint. Right. You weren’t just wolfing down doughnuts.
sarah trott: [00:29:13] No I wasn’t. I was eating healthy snacks like yogurt with granola and fresh fruit and nuts on it. Yeah Which was delicious as well. Yes I did check in on my weight. And I remember losing a ton of weight initially just because that was the natural cycle. But that happened regardless of what I was eating. And then I just I could eat a ton and my weight was steady. Yeah. So this kind of eating regimen certainly didn’t make me gain weight but it felt very good. And I I did feel nourished
esther gallagher: [00:29:49] And I should mention that you know there is a plateau in weight loss which is very natural and normal and healthy. And the plateau is about minimum of about five and often as much as 10 pounds over whatever your prebirth weight a normal birth weight would be. Think about it like how much do you think your breasts weigh Sarah, compared to when you’re not lactating. Right. That’s probably a minimum of three pounds right there. So you think like you lift those things up and they are heavy. So a lot of times people don’t take into account like you’ve grown some tissue here. The other thing is that women naturally store some extra weight in their thighs and hips and that is for milk production. It’s there for a reason. Right. It’s glycogen based. It’s good healthy fat. And it’s there so that you can make milk for your baby. It’s not a lot of weight. It’s enough so that you have a ready a store of energy to burn and nutrition to make milk. So I think it’s very important that women understand like your body knows what to do. Yeah. So fighting it tooth and nail to try to lose that extra inch thigh or whatever it is and that little extra hip that you’ve got and certainly those breasts. That is not only probably a losing battle but an unhealthy one.
sarah trott: [00:31:35] Particularly if it makes someone feel bad that suddenly they’re not making enough milk and have to move to formula. If their goal is to breastfeed. People need to choose what’s best for their family. And there are a lot of different ways that work for families and that’s all wonderful. Yeah but if someone has the goal of breast feeding then they probably don’t want to try to be too hard on their bodies early on. Yeah
esther gallagher: [00:32:00] Absolutely. And you know there is a physiological shift at around three months that women often find like those of us who are otherwise not paying much attention. They find that that little bit of extra kind of melts away at three months because the way we make milk, the demand supply relationship changes around three months. Women often worry that they don’t they aren’t making as much milk at three months when in fact the way they’re making milk is much more spontaneous to the baby’s needs. It’s almost magical how we stop having to store quite copious quantities of milk and we just make it in a very immediate fashion. And so you know the breasts relax a little bit. And we also around three months just naturally feel energetic enough have to be doing more. We have a three month old baby who needs to be out in the world more and more developmentally they’re just no longer a fetus on the outside. They are a baby. They’re somebody who wants to get out there and socialize and have new experience. And so you know if you think of it in those terms it’s not like you haven’t done anything or gone outside for three months but your capacity to do more just really expands around the three month mark. And so if you can build that kind of imaginary nest that has a three month warranty around it and feel comfortable and comforted in it and follow your baby’s developmental cues, I think all of this is very natural to you know having our bodies in the way that is very normalized and normal.
sarah trott: [00:33:58] Absolutely. I’m so proud of every woman who has gone through the birth process because our bodies are amazing and I love my post birth body and I really hope that all other mothers out there also love their post birth bodies. Yeah
esther gallagher: [00:34:15] That’s wonderful Yeah. And you know, speaking of culture, I think that we have forgotten in this culture that the pregnant and lactating body was actually the cultural ideal for many many many many many many centuries all over the world. You know that that a fertile body was a healthy and beloved body in culture. And we really lost that somewhere along the line they really don’t understand it anymore and have a bit of a lack of appreciation for it. Therefore I mean I think it’s my experience that women want to look good while they’re pregnant and even maybe you look sexy when they’re pregnant. And while I have no objection to that I don’t think that it needs to be the goal.
sarah trott: [00:35:12] And so lunch to just go back to lunch for a moment because it’s so good. Yes I love it.
esther gallagher: [00:35:24] Lunch is LOVE!
sarah trott: [00:35:25] And one thing that you introduced to us was I mean something that a lot of people already know how to do and probably do, too, if they cook at home very often which just make a really big meal that can be saved in the fridge. I can’t tell you how nice it was when I was home alone with the baby to be able to pull something out of the fridge in a little container. That all I had to do was heat it up and I knew I had five or six or more of these in the fridge or the freezer. That was fantastic.
esther gallagher: [00:35:54] Yeah. And I think mothers to be and families to be are are kind of setting up their help. It doesn’t hurt to actually be really descriptive and tell people, “We’re not going to need visitors so much as we’re going to need nourishment and a really delicious pot of rich stew that we can eat for lunches and dinners and put away portions in the freezer is going to really really take us far.” That’s a little hint to you listeners out there. Yeah I think that is a really intelligent way to cook. I think oftentimes when one of the parents has gone back to work and really only gets a chance to be with the family on weekends. Right. You know often the pressure is to go out and do something and go have an adventure and go have some fun and I always wonder why the adventure isn’t, “Let’s go to a grocery store and let’s pick out all the really good foods that we’re going to eat for the week and let’s prepare them together knowing that one of the partner’s probably breastfeeding half the time. But you know they’re doing their part by doing that of course. And preparing meals and snacks for the week. So again, that’s a little hint for when you start to transition back to work. Put nutrition first. It’s going to make your week go a lot better. There’s still time to have a nice adventure.
sarah trott: [00:37:30] Yes. And grocery shopping. You had said something about doubling up.
esther gallagher: [00:37:36] Yes. Oh yeah. You know if you prenatally or pre prenatally people are used to you know stopping off at the restaurant and stopping off at the grocery store on a three times weekly basis and getting just enough for the meal that they want to cook for that one meal. You won’t have time for that when you have the baby. Not only that it means your refrigerator is going to be awfully empty most of the time. So so double up. Yeah. If you can buy one sausage you can buy five. That’s more than double I know. But you know if you could buy enough for lamb stew for two servings you can make the same lamb stew have it made 10 servings. Right. The pots big enough. You don’t have the pot, go get the pot right. Have enough nourishment in your pantry and in your refrigerator for a week. It’ll get eaten if you have a postpartum mom in the house. Especially if it’s nicely prepared. I remember chatting with your husband when he was getting ready to work and sitting down and strategizing. “What’s going to be like if you have to be gone work all day. When do you leave when do you come home. You know what is the week like. If you’re making breakfast for yourself when you’re going to be leaving the house can you prepare enough as well for Sarah and put it by the bed before you leave the house. When you make dinner at night can you make enough so that there’s lunch for tomorrow?” You know we have that kind of strategizing session. And of course your husband loves to cook that it wasn’t a hard sell. I’m happy to say yeah. And it appealed to him too as I remember like oh yeah this is how we can all feel good. You know at the end of the day when it often is kind of rough for families.
sarah trott: [00:39:43] Fantastic. Do you have any last words of advice when it comes to food and nourishment.
esther gallagher: [00:39:48] Part of Nourishment in my estimation is enjoyment. Invest in making those foods that you know are nourishing and that you love. like you know a lot of times people want what they call comfort food so they want their mom to show up and they want to make their favorite mac and cheese. And I don’t have any problem with mac and cheese. I just don’t want to be to be the one thing that you eat all week. Oh Sarah, you know what we forgot to mention? It’s deviled eggs.
sarah trott: [00:40:20] Let’s talk about deviled eggs.
esther gallagher: [00:40:21] Deviled eggs– man they pack a punch and on a snack tray along with that celery and peanut butter and hummus and carrots and broccoli and everything else. You can devil a dozen, put them in the fridge. Mom can make drive- by of the fridge pull out two deviled eggs and get through the day. Right. Get through to the next meal. When she just needs that hit of protein and fats and deliciousness a deviled egg really takes you far. So.
sarah trott: [00:40:56] Yeah especially when hunger hits at 6 a.m. 10:00 a.m. 1:00 p.m. 3:00 p.m. dinner.
[00:41:04] YES!! Beautifully put! yeah. My clients who liked deviled eggs, love deviled eggs. They feel like they’ve just gone to heaven if they can have a deviled egg they know. Again it doesn’t take a whole lot more time to devil a dozen eggs than it would take to devil four. So there’s no reason why a friend can’t bring over a whole big plate. And get through a couple of days right. That’s another little hint for you out there. But I think of the deviled egg as that classic thing that’s like such a treat and simultaneously so nourishing, so good for you. So helpful, you know, to that mom who’s come home from the hospital anemic. She needs the iron and the protein, the omega fatty acids and the wonderful flavor and comfort of a devilled egg.
sarah trott: [00:42:03] I love it. If I remember one thing remember deviled eggs please.
esther gallagher: [00:42:09] And if you don’t love deviled eggs think of the thing that would be just like a devil egg. Can’t think of what would be. But maybe you have your favorite thing at home. That is the facsimile of a deviled egg. Well we covered a lot of ground. Yeah thanks Sarah. Your questions are always spot on and your descriptions of your experience also are just so wonderful for that soon to be parent to have to kind of really put things in context. I think it’s very difficult for people to imagine what it’s going to be like. You do a great job of remembering and describing what it is like.
sarah trott: [00:42:53] Well thank you.
esther gallagher: [00:42:54] All right everybody. Well we’ll see you next time. We’ve got irons in the fire that we’re looking forward to.
sarah trott: [00:43:01] You can find out more about Esther Gallagher on esthergallagher.com . You can also subscribe to this podcast in order to hear more from us. thank you for listening everyone and I hope you’ll join us next time on the fourth trimester. The theme music on this podcast was created by Sean Trott. hear more at soundcloud.com/seantrott . Special thanks to my true loves my husband and daughter Penelope and baby girl Evelyn. Don’t forget to share the fourth trimester podcast with any new and expecting parents.