Birth

Why You Need A Contract For Your Doula

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Emily Flynn is a birth and postpartum doula and health consultant in the Bay Area. She specializes in connecting folks in various places in their gynecological health cycles with compassionate and evidence-based care providers best suited to their individual needs. Emily’s journey into birth work started through her legal research work with international organizations supporting migrants and refugees, which has informed and inspired her work with other birth care providers in building solid contracts and safe, strong, and satisfying businesses. 

Sleep

Hyperemesis And Being Awake At 3AM

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Suzannah Neufeld, MFT, yoga therapist has dropped by my house to have tea and discuss her new book Awake At 3AM and tell us about how she applies insights both from psychotherapy and yoga/mindfulness practice to help parents through the very challenging perinatal period. Suzannah herself suffered with grueling hyperemesis and was thrown into depression and anxiety as a result.  Hear her story and learn about her approach to helping us with the tough stuff.

Postpartum Support

How To Handle Visitors When You Have A New Baby

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Esther and Sarah return to the subject of visitors. A discussion of why visitors in the first two to six weeks aren’t always the right thing for new parents from a physical, emotional-social and spiritual perspective, as well as why our culture doesn’t foster appropriate support.
This episode of the Fourth Trimester Podcast is a playbook for handling visitors, including: 
setting boundaries for yourself
communicating how you need visitation to work to your loved ones
the difference between visitors who help vs visitors who don’t know how to positively contribute 
how to set up an appropriate ‘meet the baby’ event 
why your birth story is a private experience you may or may not choose to share 

Mental Health , Recovery

Postpartum OCD Is A Thing

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Wait, what is Postpartum OCD
Yep. It’s Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that develops or is magnified as part of the postpartum experience. Women who don’t have OCD can develop it as part of their childbirth experience. Women who already have OCD can see their symptoms intensify during postpartum. 
Most simply defined, OCD is when “intrusive thoughts” become fairly constant, and a person starts acting on those thoughts. 
On episode 67 of Fourth Trimester Podcast we focus on postpartum OCD and speak with Megan Ellow who is a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Delaware.
 
The episode covers: 
Signs of Postpartum Anxiety and Postpartum OCD
How to find help if you think you may have symptoms of Postpartum Anxiety and Postpartum OCD (Hint: start by calling an anonymous helpline 800-944-4773) 
Megan’s true story of postpartum OCD and her recovery 

Mental Health

Afraid Of The Birth? Anxious About Being A Parent?

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We talk with Leah Chalofsky about the New Parents Circle and Cesarean Birth Support Group, anxiety (as it relates to pregnancy and parenting), domestic violence, and teen pregnancy/parenting. Topics covered:
Hormones and their influence
Emotions prior to birth 
Anxiety, Depression and “feeling bad about feeling bad” 
First two years of child’s life – transitions physical and mental 
Benefiting from being around other parents
Ruling out physical issues – how physical and emotional are intertwined