As a Licensed Midwife for 15+ years and now an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist who focuses on pregnancy and postpartum, I have guided many through the postpartum period. Many women are surprised to find they are unprepared and under-resourced for this time and the demands it brings. There are huge gaps in what we tell women and families to expect. We don’t prepare women in a holistic way. As a way to remedy this gap, I am doing a series of interviews with professionals in the field who focus on pregnancy and postpartum in an integrative way, addressing the mind, body and spirit of this dynamic, wonderful and challenging time. 

Part 1: Support 

I’m here today interviewing  Laurel Brody, L.Ac., an acupuncturist, who specializes in women’s health, pregnancy, postpartum and sexualtiy. She has a practice based in Sebastopol, CA. She also teaches and facilitates training for practitioners and other Chinese Medicine professionals. Laurel has 34+ years of experience specializing in women’s health. She embodies that rare combo of being totally badass and deeply compassionate. She is direct, warm and real. She is also bursting with wisdom which she brings to her clients and beyond. Treatment in Laurel’s clinic is truly holistic, as she is present with all of it and all if you.  You can find out more about her here. 

Me: Thanks for making time, happy to be with you today Laurel. 

Laurel: Thanks for talking with  me.

Me: How did women’s health become your area of expertise?

I was enrolled at Sonoma State, studying holistic health and I met my acupuncture teacher.  After that, I went to my advisor and she let me switch all my classes to SF state where my teacher was teaching chinese medicine. I graduated in May 1981 and in October I got pregnant. 

I saw Don Solomon, MD for OB care and he was working with Nan Koehler. For the first time, I was around a midwife. She was doing a lot of childbirth education classes, midwifery training and attending home births. By the time I had my son, Mengesha, I had signed up for the American College of Traditional Medicine and my teacher had left for Hawaii to start an acupuncture school. I weaned Mengaisha in November to prepare for starting school in January 1984.

It was like Spirit took me and put those two things together at the same time-- acupuncture and motherhood. In acupuncture school, I decided to do doula training so I was working with Doula Services of Alameda County and they were training doulas by putting them at Highland Hospital to attend births. The first 100 births I attended were at Highland and 99 of those mothers were addicted to crack and did not get to take their babies home. I did that for 2 years on Wednesday nights. I also studied midwifery with Elizabeth Davis through her Hearts and Hands training program. And, I had a little boy who was a toddler. 

Me: You know, both of those programs still exist or did when I got my training in 2004-2006. I sat with Elizabeth in Marin and learned my first midwifery skills from her.  I also attended births at Highland Hospital in Oakland, as a volunteer doula as part of my doula training.  

Laurel: I’m so glad those programs still exist. I’m glad Elizabth is still teaching! After I was at Highland, I was hired as an acupuncturist at chiropractic clinics. I was treating mostly pain and tissue trauma. At the same time, personally, I was cultivating a women’s health practice. After 15 years, I stopped the chiropractic practices and went into private practice. Now my practice is 90% women’s health and 10% pain and other conditions. 

It’s how life unfolded. 

Me: In another interview I did with a therapist, we talked about radical self care, what are your favorite self care practices for new mothers and pregnancy.

Laurel:

Nap every day

Stay hydrated

Go for walks even if they are 10 minutes long

Keep sugar down, protein and veggies up

Listen to your body

Don’t assume that 3 months of being home postpartum without working is going to be NEAR enough time.

Make sure you give yourself at least 2 weeks off before your baby is due from work because your baby will come 2 weeks after you stop working, rarely sooner. Not 40 weeks, Unless you want your baby to come at 42 weeks. Ideally, from 34 weeks on, off from work is my favorite. 

Colette: That is so parallel to my experience as a midwife. I would tell moms to stop work at 36-37 weeks. It takes time to get into the right mind set, prepare for the baby and allow the focus to become on the journey ahead instead of work and the outer world with all its heady thinking and demands.

Laurel: Also acupuncture is a very fine modality for pregnancy and postpartum. In addition there is a  that book that is out now called The First 40 Days, by Heng Ou, it’s got a chinese medicine lens and very good recipes. It’s very, very well done.

Colette: Yes, I have seen acupuncture help a lot of problems in pregnancy and postpartum in my years as a midwife. Everything from changing baby’s positions, to pain, to postdates, to postpartum recovery. It’s amazing. 

Laurel: It gives people a chance to check in emotionally too, have some quiet time without their toddlers if they have them and to have another person tracking their health and well-being.

Colette: Do you have moms bring their babies sometimes to treatments?

Laurel: Oh yeah! People bring their babies. When the baby is old enough to know when nap time is, the mothers will  time their appointments during nap time. Before COVID ,people would just hand me the baby. I would carry them around and all the other women in my practice were so happy to see a baby. Or they just chill in the car seat on the floor next to mom or in a nest on the table with them napping. Some mothers are dedicated to making their time with me baby free, so they have a break.

Colette: I can see both having benefits, depending on the mother’s needs. It can be wonderful to learn to go do things with your baby and have life carry on with the baby in tow. And also good to have a break too. For those who need a break, it’s wonderful for others to hang with the baby and find their way to care for soothe and the baby… and for the baby to get used to getting what they need from others too. 

Laurel: Right.

Colette-- It’s important for babies to learn about other kinds of soothing and relationships.

Laurel: Yes, for sure.

Colette: What are the things you wished you had known going into your own pregnancy and postpartum, if you are comfortable with sharing. 

Laurel: I didn’t have enough support. I had the worst case of postpartum depression of almost anyone I have ever met. And part of that was that I was the first in my circle of friends to be pregnant and have a child. I didn’t have any  moms to hang with. 

I also felt really deceived by the culture and by my midwives… I heard alot about how wonderful, special  and magical this time was going to be. I heard very little about how hard it was going to be. I had a really high needs child who screamed all the time unless he was nursing, outside walking with dad or on me nursing. He had really bad colic and I had bled out during my birth and almost died. I was depleted and didn’t get out of bed for almost a year. I naped every day in pregnancy and postpartum until I stopped nursing.

I stopped nursing my child in one day and I really regret it. I nursed him as much as he wanted on Thanksgiving then left the next day to go out of town. I drank sage tea, which dried up my milk and cried. I felt that I couldn’t  get to school and manage studying acupuncture in January, if I was a nursing mom. I really needed my brain, body and energy back.

I really, really regret that. I wished I had done child led weaning instead of mother led weaning. I didn’t know that this was going to be one of those pieces that I regretted for the rest of my life. Theone day was too hard, too much on everyone. The three of us were all a wreck. I understand that I needed to do it because I was so depleted. I had to take on this huge undertaking of school. I was driven and I didn’t feel I could wait longer… and it was not a good move on my part, for our family. 

That’s part of the reason I have been having these ‘new mothers teas’ to provide support and community for the new moms.

When you are a new mom, everything is new. Every. Single.Thing. Everything. Every decision. Every day. And you get a pattern or routine down, then it changes. Even if you have been around babies, it's not the same. They weren’t yours. It’s totally different. 

I thought my postpartum was going to be like a gerber baby commercial, why didn’t anyone tell me the truth? I felt betrayed.

Now, when I work with new moms, I say them make sure you have A LOT of support. More time, more space and more resources, more friends, more food in the fridge, and family members. If you have people and family close by, make sure to have good relationships with them because you are going to need them. And find a new mom’s support group and connect with friends who have babies. 

Colette: It’s a 24/7 job, you don’t get a break. Support is so crucial. 
Laurel: Yes, for example what happens when you have to go to the bathroom? I remember thinking to myself “ I have to figure out how to navigate, with my husband and baby, how to go to the bathroom?” That moved and touched me so deeply. I was thinking “ you have got to be kidding me? This is horrifying. I didn’t sign up for this…. Except that I did!” I just didn’t know I was signing up for this.. I  just didn't know and I wish I had known more. 

I really encourage my women to talk to other women. I try not to sugar coat the experience. I try to be a little more honest, truthful and grounded and say things like “ this is going to everything… it is going to be the most remarkable, astounding, ecstatic experience you have ever had and it is going to be the absolute, hardest by far.... and everything in between. And it’s okay. And it’s okay to not love it all the time, it's okay to not love your baby all the time and okay to not love yourself in it all the time and try to not be too horribly judgmental of yourself...and don’t worry that the little things you get wrong are going to ruin your child. They just are not.”

I said to a dad today, if you are analyzing every squeak, you don’t have to worry about whether you are getting the analysis right and if you are harming your daughter, the fact that she is in your arms right now and you are watching and listening to her every move, this is all she needs. That is not what damage looks like.

Colette: It’s just about being present with your kid… and responsive… the damage is caused by not paying attention, being there or responding. It has nothing to do with knowing the answer about how to solve every squeak and cry. 

People don’t need to always know the answer to be good parents. Much of emotional wounding is created over the lifetime of a child with patterns that repeat again and again... or a single or string of traumatic events. But it’s not going to be from taking 30 minutes to soothe your crying baby instead of 10, or confusing the need for a diaper change with hunger. It’s okay to relax a little. 

I want to know about the new mother’s tea. I should also give you flyers for the New Mama’s Support group I am doing over Zoom. 

Laurel: I coordinated a group of pregnant and new mothers in my practice to get together for tea. I didn't have a plan for this but at the beginning of the pandemic, I had 12 or so pregnant mothers in my practice, 2 who were new to town. Because of the lack of support I felt in my postpartum, I have a mission and want to provide moms the chance to connect with other moms. I do it because someone needed to do this for me and nobody did. This is reciprocity and service for me. 

Part 2 of this interview will focus more on relationships and couples navigating the postpartum period. Stay tuned for that!