Harnessing Technology, Birth Plans, and the Best Resources for your Fourth Trimester with Sarah Trott, Founder of HelloGaia Parenting Copilot

 Kristin Revere and Sarah Trott discuss how technology helps parents simplify and find evidence-based scientific information to better prepare for the postpartum phase. Sarah is also the founder and host of the Fourth Trimester Podcast.  

Subscribe to our newsletter, check out Kristin’s birth and baby book, and see more about our doula services & online courses below:

https://linktr.ee/goldcoastdoulas

Transcript

Kristin talks with Sarah Trott, founder of HelloGaia Parenting Copilot, about how technology helps parents simplify the overwhelming and find evidence-based scientific information to better prepare for the postpartum phase.  Sarah is also the founder and host of the Fourth Trimester Podcast.  

Hello, hello!  This is Kristin with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to chat with Sarah Trott today.  Sarah is the founder of HelloGaia Parenting Copilot and founder and host of the amazing Fourth Trimester podcast.  So I am thrilled to chat about parenting made simple, harnessing technology, birth plans, and the best business resources for your fourth trimester with Sarah. 

Welcome! 

Hi, Kristin!  Thanks for having me. 

So let’s get into a bit about your background before we dive into birth plans and technology.  I would love to hear more about how you decided to found HelloGaia, and of course, then transition to being an amazing podcast host. 

Yeah, thank you!  So the transition into parenthood is an amazing, lifechanging thing.  For those of you who are parents, you know this.  It’s a major transition, mentally, physically, in your identity, in so many ways.  And for me, one of the things that was very profound was that I had a number of conversations with my postpartum doula, who I was very grateful to have with me.  She was with me for my birth and my postpartum experience, giving me all kinds of support.  And while I was at home with my new little baby, I found that I had a number of questions just coming up in the moment.  And a lot of the questions that I had were the same questions that she had when she had her own postpartum experience some 30 years prior. 

So there was just an obvious ah-ha for me in that moment, that some of the information about birth and postpartum is evergreen.  It’s human information that’s relevant across decades, and there was a gap for me in my knowledge, and I’d read a lot of books and I’d done a lot of research.  And I’d heard this story told by others as well, so I know I’m not the only one in this camp.  There’s just a lot I didn't know, and my eyes were opened in lots of new ways. 

And I just wanted to be able to find information quickly in the moment and have it be trustworthy information.  So creating HelloGaia Parenting Copilot, for me, was creating the tool that I had always wanted for myself.  The way that technology is evolving so rapidly today, in combination with the body of content that I’d built and the relationships with perinatal professionals that I’ve built over the years through the Fourth Trimester podcast, I really had this great opportunity to create a solution for exactly that. 

I love it!  And it all comes out of necessity.  If there aren’t the resources, as moms, we get things done and build them.  I find that I did the same thing with my doula agency and then my main reason for starting Ask the Doulas was to create collaboration between other practitioners the way you did, not only with the Fourth Trimester podcast, but also with HelloGaia.  So it’s a beautiful story to, again, see a need and want to make more impact.  And the fact that your virtual – it’s not like you are limited to just a geographic area in the way you run your business. 

Yeah, 100%.  HelloGaia Parenting Copilot works in English and in other languages, too.  The advice and the sources that I reference is somewhat American, I will say, so there is that bias towards the resources I point towards and the sources and the people who have been on the program, the OB-GYNs and nurse midwives and other perinatal professionals, right?  Although we do have a fair number of guests from around the world.  But technology really does level the playing field for folks to get access to information in a way that wasn’t possible before.  

And there are certainly maternity care deserts in Michigan.  We have the upper peninsula that is so spread out, and even Northern Michigan is so rural.  And there aren’t the options for having a comprehensive birth and baby team.  So relying on virtual education sources and consulting and programs like yours are so helpful, whether they’re in the United States or elsewhere. 

Yeah, it’s incredible, the research coming out now.  March of Dimes just released an amazing report that is available online, and it is a report on the maternity care deserts that you’ve just referenced.  It found that over 35% of counties in the United States are considered maternity care deserts, which means no access to an OB-GYN or midwife, someone to support you with your birth, or a place to go.  So no maternity ward in a hospital nearby. 

And a lot of those smaller hospitals are now shutting down, so the drive can be multiple hours. 

Right, and that’s significant.  I mean, it’s enough to go through becoming a parent, but on top of it, the real struggle of a lack of access to resources and real world support.  So what does that mean?  You’re either driving potentially a significant amount of time to get the care you need, or people are going without.  

And it’s so important to have consistent care throughout pregnancy for better birth outcomes.  So certainly having programs like your own or virtual models that are aligned with centering for pregnancy where there can be community but also an understanding of what your body is doing, for example. 

Yeah.  I would say parenting doesn’t really come with a manual.  I wish it did!  And so HelloGaia is really the next best thing for me because I can access trustworthy information.  Now, when we talk about access to support and maternity care deserts, the other piece there is just having internet access, right?  So you can also be without that, and I know that’s another thing March of Dimes and others are advocating for, to help get access to at least even online resources. 

And when it comes to using technology for parenting purposes, I would say technology can be your best friend, if you know how to use it and if you know where to go.  But if you don’t, pretty overwhelming and potentially even risky in the context of parenting.  

Absolutely.  And the mom groups are certainly overwhelming, and there can be a lot of misinformation given.  So finding evidence based resources on everything from immunization to newborn care and safe sleep, for example – it’s some of the anecdotal information given by other moms in those groups that can be not only confusing but can also be filled with judgment.  And so going to experts and relying on information that is properly sourced is so important. 

100%.  Yeah, I have sort of three points of context in relation to this conversation about how technology complements traditional postpartum support when it comes to helping parents as they navigate new parenthood.  My first is just as you said, parenting information on the internet can be really overwhelming.  It can be like driving down the Las Vegas strip with bright lights flashing and lots of competition for your attention.  It’s just really a lot.  It’s like this deluge of information.  On top of that, you’ve got all kinds of parenting books.  I’ve read a ton.  I have some favorites I’m happy to recommend.  If you find a book that says one thing, I think you can easily find another one that has competing information on a particular topic.  I mean, sleep – newborn sleep is a really good example for that.  There are lots of philosophies.  Thankfully, a lot of the more modern books and instructions I’ve seen are a lot more baby-friendly and has evolved from some of the older, outdated approaches. 

There’s a woman who I’ve worked with personally who has also been on my program on Fourth Trimester a few times, Dr. Angelique Millette.  She’s got her PhD.  She’s spent her life researching safe, happy family sleep and has developed her own developmentally appropriate methodologies around that.  So finding the resources and the people who really are credentialed and know what they’re talking about is a big deal.  Apologies, I digressed there for a moment. 

This first point I’m making about the overwhelm – I mean, you mentioned mom groups.  By the way, I encourage everyone who’s a new parent to find their tribe.  I have nothing against mom groups.  I think they’re wonderful.  I know you are a big advocate of them, as well.  Join them, because it helps fight isolation, it creates social support that is required for new parents.  We know that feeling isolated, on top of being sleep deprived, which is often the case for new parents, increases risk factors around postpartum anxiety and depression, so it’s really important to have that social connection.  And the caveat here is that when you’re joining some of these mom apps that are not facilitated, that have these not-moderated discussion boards, as you were highlighting, Kristin – it’s important to take them with a grain of salt.  Think of them as being sources of potentially just entertainment or social support and social connection, like a way to meet moms or meet other parents like you and be able to vent or listen.  And hopefully, you find people who are supportive and not there for judgment or toxic purposes.  But some of those message boards and discussion boards, you’ll hear advice that is not the best and potentially risky or dangerous when it comes to the information being provided.  You don’t want to just listen to what someone posts on Reddit.  You want to be finding trustworthy advice.  

And that extends to other places, right?  You might have very well-meaning friends or family who are giving you advice.  The first point in context here is that you really want to find the sites and apps that you know are trustworthy and safe so that you can make sure that the advice you’re hearing is really worth listening to. 

Very good tips!  So where to begin?  I mean, technology is vast.  You have an excellent program.  What are your other recommendations for getting the information, not only to plan for the labor but also for early parenting? 

Yeah, that’s a great question.  I have a lot of specific resources, and even before I list some of those, some additional context I would share is that you also want to keep in mind that technology is a complement to traditional care and not a replacement.  And the best is some sort of combination of support from both technology and real-world help.  Technology is never going to replace a warm hug or a foot rub or someone holding your hand while you’re having a cry. 

I like to quote Dr. Amanda P. William, who has been on my show a number of times.  Three things that are critical for your birth registry: you need a blood pressure cuff; you need a breast pump; and you need your doula.  That’s the thing.  At 2:00 in the morning, if you don’t have someone who’s there, technology can be the next best thing and get you that trustworthy information that you need.  Technology can really  help fill that gap between your visits with professionals such as yourself, Kristin, a doula, or when you’re going to see your pediatrician or lactation consultant.  But it really is helping as a stopgap.  And we’ve all been there with those late night searches on the internet – Google searches or whatnot.  I mean, the good news is, with all the right caveats and resources, if you know where to go, technology can really help parents feel more confident, more informed, and really just more supported.  Especially those early periods of parenthood where a lot of questions tend to come up. 

What I’ve noticed as far as inquiries, it’s much different with our classes and birth support, but most of the postpartum doula inquiries come in the middle of the night.  Or sleep consulting.  You talked about that scrolling late at night, and it’s sleep deprivation; I need help.  So I’ll see these emails come in from very late night or early morning versus the middle of the day. 

You need help in the moment, and it’s not going to be according to a typical 9:00 to 5:00 working business.  So like you were talking about how technology is helping parents – I would say there are sort of five big buckets that we can talk about of how technology is really helping parents to thrive. 

The first one is really information and education.  We’ve talked about this a little bit.  It’s like that knowledge at your fingertips where you can get online courses from professionals.  You can search white papers and articles from researchers and doctors.  You can listen to podcasts like this one.  It’s a perfect example.  I love Ask the Doulas.  You have such a great show here.  And for specifics, I would say the AAP has a lot of free recorded parent webinars that are great.  PubMed has a great searchable database of published scientific studies.  I already mentioned March of Dimes; they have a wealth of resources.  There have a PeriStats tool where you can go and research information down to your zip code, which is pretty neat. 

Lactation resources: I would mention Kelly Mom.  I would mention Le Leche League.  And you can go really deep into a specific area, depending on what it is you’re looking for, but those are some quick resources I would mention. 

Right, especially with medications, Kelly Mom is the place to go if you want to know what’s safe with breastfeeding or pumping. 

Yes, I agree.  There’s a really great set of downloadable fact sheets you can find on the website.  And the other thing I would mention: really do talk to your doctor or your therapist about starting or stopping drugs around the time of your pregnancy or when you’re breastfeeding.  What I’ve heard from psychiatrists who I’ve talked to is really that most of the drugs are okay, and it’s really about dosage and risk tradeoff.  So you want to really be careful, and don’t just stop something because you think, oh, I’m pregnant.  Really do talk to the professionals about it. 

The next bucket is emotional and mental health support.  This is about caring for the caregiver.  There are a lot of neat apps and services out there that are really geared towards women and parents in particular.  Ideally, you do have that real world therapist, somebody you’re seeing, and you have an established relationship with or who you’re putting in place anticipating the need as part of your pregnancy and birth.  But if you don’t, you can also check out apps like Prospera or Mavida.  These apps really are able to give you technology support that is geared towards maternal mental health.  Those are neat opportunities for using technology for mental health support. 

The next category – I don’t know how people in past generations did it.  I think there was a lot of pencil and paper.  But we have at our fingertips a lot of timesaving and organizational tools.  I really like the app called Wonder Week.  It’s a baby milestone tracking app.  But it’s really geared toward tracking mental development stages and regression.  Like, little babies, they don’t have the ability to communicate that I’m being a little extra fussy today because I’m having a major spurt in my brain development.  That’s why it’s so nice.  It doesn’t change anything, but it’s nice to see the calendar week by week and read medical information that’s legitimate and to understand what’s really happening with your baby behind the scenes.  That was a really helpful app that I enjoyed. 

Another one is Baby Center.  That’s a classic one.  I enjoyed that a lot.  They do stuff like today your baby is the size of a peanut.  After your baby is born, they have helpful information, and they’re pretty good about that.  Also, I’m not sponsored to mention any of these things; I’m just telling you some examples and the categories. 

Also, Meal Train type sites and apps are really good or groceries, food delivery apps and services are really helpful. 

Shared spreadsheets.  Man, it does not have to be anything fancy.  You can create a free Google Sheet and put a list of things that you would like health and support with during your postpartum, and put the dates or weeks along the top and share it with some friends and family and neighbors who said they’d like to help.  And people can just go in and sign up.  It could be walking your dog or helping watch your older kid or making you a meal or cleaning your house for you or your bathroom, holding your baby while you take a shower.  That can go a really long way, and it's super simple. 

Agreed, and I love the recent trend of nesting parties and friends and family gathering to have the sense of community but also get tasks off the list.  The meal prep and helping with the nursery and getting a plan for the needs.  Again, as you mentioned, everything from holding the baby to emptying the dishwasher, if there’s not a postpartum doula or other help in the home. 

Yes.  I’ve talked extensively on my show – I can send you a link to this episode if you’d like or the show notes – it’s a whole overview of how a friend or family can help you if you don’t have access to or if you can’t afford a doula.  There’s so much that you can accomplish outside of the professional help, although ideally, you do have that professional help in addition to these other layers of your village and your support network around you. 

Okay, the next bucket is really thinking about technology in terms of health and wellness monitoring between your visits with healthcare providers.  So there’s a lot of neat stuff.  

Apps and sites that track feeding or growth – there’s a lot of that.  I would say it sort of depends on your personality.  If you want to write down every time you nurse and which breast it is, different kinds of measurements, if that’s helpful for you, or maybe you have a specific reason that you’ve talked to your doctor about for making sure you’re meticulous with making sure certain things get done – those can be really helpful, so long as they’re helpful and not distracting. 

And then continuous glucose monitors.  I’ve heard some very good feedback from midwives around using those for gestational diabetes and diabetes in general around perinatal periods as ways to just monitor that.  That’s for the parents.  It’s a wearable device. 

And then I have not tried these, but they seem kind of neat and I can understand the use.  It’s these little sock-like wearable baby monitors that will do things like track oxygen and heart levels, heart rate.  One of those is called Owlet.  That can be something neat if you want to check that out. 

And again, it depends on the personality because it can be something that you focus too much on.  But otherwise, some of those tools can be very useful. 

There might be a good reason for doing it, so that’s a discussion with your healthcare provider.  And then I think these tools like virtual physical therapy that are on demand so that if you don’t see a physical therapist in person and you just want to have an on-demand regiment at home – I actually am an affiliate for this one.  It’s called Every Mother.  But that’s only because I really love their product and I believe in them.  And then I was talking to someone about this concept of virtual visits and telehealth.  We are just in a great place with technology now, which means that we have the ability to marry the best of both worlds together with real-life support but from the comfort of your own home. 

Beautiful, especially in flu and RSV season, you don’t want to go in if you can accomplish what you need virtually. 

And sometimes it’s worth asking when you’re making appointments.  Like, does this really need to be in person?  Can this be a virtual visit?  And I’ve been surprised sometimes by like, oh, yeah, sure, this can be virtual.  It doesn’t need to be a hands-on exam of some kind or someone doesn’t really need to look at the whites of your eyeballs.  Who wants to go to another doctor appointment, particularly if you have an infant that you’re carrying around with you who’s going to be more comfortable at home?  Or if you’re recovering; say you’ve got a stitch or you’re still in physical recovery of some kind.  You just don’t want to get in the car.  I think that can be a great solution. 

And you mentioned physical therapy, so pelvic floor is right there with ways to not only have in person support with recovery but also some virtual options can be very helpful. 

Yeah, exactly.  And then the last big bucket is community and connection.  So we talked about the mom apps a little bit and the caveats around those.  I’m a pretty big fan of Marco Polo.  I think they have a great tool.  Kind of like leaving voice memos for one another that are asynchronous because we’re all busy as parents and you still want to have that connection.  So it’s a way to have ongoing conversations with your friends and your contacts in a way that doesn’t have to be like a scheduled meeting since it’s always hard to find that time that lines up perfectly.  So I love that tool. 

And then I have to mention Postpartum Support International because they are really fantastic for so many reasons, but their website actually has a list of online parenting groups that have themes.  So you can find one that’s specific, like dude groups for the dads, or if you do have postpartum anxiety or depression, or if you are a NICU family.  So there are different flavors of the parent groups, and I appreciate that they have those niches available.  And then Parents Helping Parents is also a really good one for finding online parent social groups, and those are facilitated, which I do recommend. 

And there are multiples groups.  As you mentioned, if you’re going through something that is unique, again, the NICU journey or having twins or triplets, it’s nice to connect with other families who are going through the same thing and also have professional resources. 

Yeah, that’s right.  And some of those, I think the big difference, too, is the mediated or facilitated versus not.  So if you have someone there who’s trained on creating productive conversations, talking with someone who spent their career with a Master’s in early childhood education and they do a lot of mom group facilitation themselves in real life and virtually.  Sometimes you can create your own mom group, but if there isn’t a real proactive effort and some thoughtfulness and structure put around it, it can just turn into a half- hour conversation about, like, did your baby sleep last night; what kind of onesie is that; like, very high level.  A lot of the richness and deeper connection comes from different kinds of questions and different kinds of exercises.  

Evidence based is a big topic.  I think sometimes people will ask, like, well, if you want the alternative to Dr. Google, you just want actual resources that are trustworthy.  I want to mention just some of the major societies.  I think they’re great to go and look at.  Some of the best free resources are probably ones that you’ve heard of.  American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists.  AAP, the American Academy of Pediatrics.  The CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  The Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine.  American Urogynecologic Society.  I also really like the American College of Nurse Midwives.  

These kinds of major societies are going to be legitimate in terms of sources, and some of them have varying degrees of recorded webinars or parent resources or PDFs or fact sheets that you can go and reference.  So between those, you’re going to find a lot.  WIC, Women, Infant, and Children, is a group that if you participate and if you qualify for it, there’s a lot of online education on that site, as well, especially around nutrition, which is need.  

There’s a lot.  It’s kind of back to the point of overwhelm.  I don’t want anyone listening to this thinking like, oh, my gosh, I have to go and bookmark all these sites and research it.  Again, it can feel like this big maze.  And there are also major nonprofits that are so good.  And then if you want to go on the deeper side of online databases of scientific studies, I think I mentioned PubMed, but there’s APA PsycNet.  There’s the National Library of Medicine.  There’s Child Trends.  There’s a number of really good places to go, so again, if you’re reading a discussion board and you’re like, I’m not sure that’s the right advice, you can go and look at their sources and just cross check it.  Or talk to your doctor.  Talk to your pediatrician.  Talk to your doula.  And if they don’t know, they will help you find out.  I would say if you don’t know, ask one of your healthcare providers.  If you don’t have access to one of those, you can look at one of these trusted organizations online.  Or if it’s the middle of the night, you can go there.  You can use a service like the one I built, which is going to summarize that for you and kind of shortcut some of that research.  HelloGaia can give you more curated answers from these kinds of sources and perinatal professionals.  There are ways to go deeper and go more direct or find faster summaries if that’s what you want. 

So how can our listeners connect with you? 

So you can go to hellogaia.ai and use the tool there and download the app.  You can also go to the Fourth Trimester Podcast website.  There are contact options on both of those.  You can also follow us on Instagram.  I’m @fourthtrimesterpodcast on most socials, and you can find links to those on our website.  

And I always love to hear from people.  I’d love to hear your feedback and your thoughts and ideas, and I’m excited to answer any questions that might come up. 

Thanks, Sarah!  Any final thoughts or tips for our listeners? 

After having the Fourth Trimester Podcast for nearly ten years and speaking to hundreds of perinatal professionals, it doesn’t really matter what kind of background they have, there’s some very consistent themes that come across.  Themes that I’ve experienced.  But the big phrase I would leave you with is just give yourself grace.  The postpartum journey is a time of immense change, and you really need to surround yourself with support.  Asking for help is not a weakness; it’s a strength.  Do trust your instincts.  For all this talk of data and resources that we’ve just had in this conversation, don’t forget to listen to yourself, because every parent’s journey is unique.  So when you do need answers or reassurance, do go to trusted resources, and know that you’re not alone.  You’ve got this. 

Excellent.  Well, we’ll have to have you on again.  You have so much to share.  It’s hard to condense it to 30 minutes! 

Yeah, I would love to!  Thank you so much, Kristin!  

IMPORTANT LINKS

HelloGaia Parenting Copilot

Fourth Trimester Podcast

Free Download: Customizable Fourth Trimester Plan

Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas

Becoming A Mother course

Buy our book, Supported