Active Mom Podcast: Pregnancy, Postpartum, Perimenopause, Menopause & Beyond
Welcome to the Active Mom Podcast — where real motherhood stories meet real science.
Hosted by Dr. Carrie Pagliano, double board-certified physical therapist, runner, mom of two, and internationally recognized expert in pregnancy, postpartum, pelvic floor, and perimenopause performance.
Whether you’re a mom navigating running with prolapse or leakage, a clinician supporting active women, or a lifelong athlete trying to stay strong through every hormonal season — this show gives you evidence-based guidance and real life mom stories without the fear, confusion, or shame.
Each week, Dr. Carrie brings candid conversations with researchers, clinicians, elite athletes, and everyday moms to explore what it actually takes to run, lift, jump, and live confidently through pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, and beyond.
We talk about:
• Postpartum return to running & lifting
• Pelvic floor symptoms (leakage, prolapse, pain)
• Pregnancy exercise myths & safety
• Strength training at every age
• Perimenopause performance & hormone changes
• Mental health, identity shifts & motherhood
• The realities of being an active mom in a busy life
Real talk. Real science. Real moms.
Because you deserve to feel strong and supported — at every stage of your active life.
Episodes
256 episodes
REWIND // You're Not Running Wrong: Running Myths Debunked | RICH WILLY, PT, PhD
Okay, so this one is a Summer Rewind, and I'll be honest with you, I went back and forth on which episodes to bring back. This one wasn't a hard call.The original aired in September 2022. I re-listened before we re-ran it and quite hones...
STILL A RUNNER, NOW A MASTERS HYROX ATHLETE, AND NOT SLOWING DOWN AT 55 | HILARY CAIRNS
Hilary Cairns races Hyrox at the pro weights, which means the farmer's carry is a pair of 53 pound kettlebells and she is essentially hauling her own body weight down the floor. She is the top ranked American in her age group. She also has thre...
REWIND // Pelvic Girdle Pain, Relaxin & Pregnancy Support: What Women Really Need to Know — with DR. SINEAD DUFOUR
Relaxin is one of the first words you learn when you find out you're pregnant. Somebody hands it to you like a fact. Your joints are loose, your pelvis is unstable, be careful, this is just what pregnancy does.Here's the problem. Everyon...
THE POSTPARTUM EXERCISE GUIDELINES MOMS ACTUALLY ASKED FOR | DR. MARGIE DAVENPORT
This should not be revolutionary in 2026.They asked the women. Went out across Canada, asked postpartum women what they were actually desperate to know, and let the answers drive it. What came back was mental health and sleep....
REWIND // EP 251: POSTPARTUM RUNNING RESEARCH YOU ACTUALLY NEED: WHAT SCIENCE SAYS ABOUT RETURNING TO SPORT | RITA DEERING
Not everybody has time to sit down and read the whole paper. Not everybody wants to. I get it. But you do need to read beyond the abstract, so let's do it together.For this summer rewind episode, I'm bringing back my 2024 conversation wi...
Everything We Now Know About Women's Health. Nobody Told the Women. | MEGHAN RABBITT
Meghan Rabbitt has been a health journalist for 25 years. And the thing she said to me about reporting this book was: why don't I know this?If she didn't know it, what are the rest of us working with?Meghan writes about women's he...
REWIND // Everything you've been afraid to ask about prolapse — answered by a urogynecologist — DR. CHERYL IGLESIA, MD
Prolapse might be the single most fear-loaded word in postpartum health. Not because of what it is. Because of how little anybody tells you about it.This week we're rewinding to one of our season one conversations, with Dr. Cheryl Iglesi...
Pulmonary Embolism in Pregnancy: Symptoms You Shouldn’t Ignore — with RACHEL ROSOVSKY, MD
"It is probably nothing."The swelling is probably the third trimester. The breathlessness is probably the stairs. The ache in your calf is probably that run you should not have done. And most of the time, all of that is exactly right.
REWIND // YOUR ESTROGEN TANKED AND NOBODY TOLD YOU WHY POSTPARTUM & PERIMENOPAUSE DR. RACHEL RUBIN
You leave the hospital with a healthy baby, a folder of paperwork, and zero mention of the fact that your estrogen just went from about 3,000 to almost nothing.That is where this conversation starts. In 2022, I sat down with Dr. Rachel R...
The Thoughts You're Too Scared to Say Out Loud — Birth Trauma, Intrusive Thoughts & Postpartum Mental Health with DR. VANESSA KOMAREK (@heavy_lifting_psychologist)
There's a thought a lot of moms have had and almost none of them have said out loud. Maybe it was an image of dropping the baby. Maybe it was something worse. And the second it showed up, the next thought was: what is wrong with me?Dr. V...
REWIND // Will working out hurt your milk supply? — KELLY KENDALL, RN, IBCLC aka @thebalancedboob
"I don't have enough milk." It's the first place a new mom's brain goes when the baby fusses, wakes early, or pops off the breast. And when you add workouts back into the mix? The doubt gets louder.This week's Summer Rewind brings back o...
Everyone's calling it a 'tight pelvic floor'… but can we actually feel it? — with Gosia Starzec-Proserpio, PhD
You've heard it. Maybe you've said it. "Your pelvic floor is too tight." It's everywhere right now — on the socials, in the clinic, out of the mouths of people who've never assessed a pelvic floor in their life. But here's the question...
REWIND // Why Moms Leak When They Run: What Urinary Incontinence Research Gets Right (and Wrong) with — DR. LINDA MCLEAN
If you've ever accepted leaking as the toll you pay to keep running, this one's going to reframe it.Dr. Linda McLean (@mfm_lab) is one of the foremost researchers on the pelvic floor and urinary incontinence — a professor and Chair in Wo...
You don't have to look like a runner to be one — with Melanie Cote (@the.curvy.runner)
Melanie Cote spent years believing runners were a certain kind of person — thin, disciplined, elite — and she wasn't it. So when a coworker organized a 5K, she showed up to cheer instead of run, too embarrassed to try. A year later, sh...
REWIND The strength work that actually returns you to running — and what's just wasting your time — CHRIS JOHNSON, PT
Bringing this back because the "what exercises should I actually be doing?" question never gets old. Johnson cuts through the noise on rehab and strength work for runners — the movements that move the needle versus the filler. Practical, specif...
Can I Run with Prolapse? Solo Episode — with Dr. Carrie Pagliano, PT
Can you run with pelvic organ prolapse? In this solo episode, Dr. Carrie Pagliano takes on one of the most feared pelvic floor diagnoses… and why prolapse doesn't have to mean hanging up your running shoes.Carrie introduces your "prolaps...
REWIND // Doing all the pelvic floor work & still symptomatic? Your hips might be the missing piece — DR. ALISON GRIMALDI
This is the single most-downloaded episode in Active Mom Podcast history… and if you joined in the last two years, you've probably never heard it.Dr. Alison Grimaldi connects hip strength and stability to the pelvic floor symptoms so man...
What Load Actually Reaches Your Pelvis When You Run? The Data & a Guide Built for Postpartum Moms — with DR. MEGAN JAMES
What load actually reaches your pelvis when you run? For years we couldn't really answer that — we just said "wait twelve weeks, then go." Babe, we've come a long way.Dr. Megan James is back — and this time it's Dr. James. She f...
REWIND // Turns out Atomic Habits is a parenting book — Routines, mindset & making change stick in parenthood— JAMES CLEAR
Becoming a mom can take your lifelong habits, chew them up, and spit them out. So how do you build new ones when there's no such thing as a typical day in parenthood?In this Summer Rewind — our season one finale — Dr. Carrie Pagliano sit...
High-Altitude Climbing in Pregnancy… Thin Evidence, Loud Opinions, and Trusting Her Own Risk Tolerance — with LOTTA HINTSA
Thin evidence. Loud opinions. And a body that still wanted to climb. That's where professional high-altitude climber Lotta Hintsa found herself when she got pregnant — wanting to stay active and keep doing her job, in an area where ...
REWIND // How Swim Moms Make Time to Work Out: Real-Life Strategies from Busy Moms from Postpartum to Perimenopause
This one's for every mom whose week is built around practices, meets, and the pool-deck waiting game. It's honest, real-talk strategy for squeezing your own training into a life that runs on everyone else's schedule — across postpartum all the ...
Sports Medicine & the Pelvic Floor: We Don't Know Everything — But Here's Where the Science Actually Is — with GRÁINNE DONNELLY
Gráinne Donnelly is back — and this time she's the editor and primary author of a brand-new Elsevier textbook, Sports Medicine and the Pelvic Floor: Science to Practice. It's the book this field has been waiting for... and the honest t...
Is It Ever Too Late to Start Running? From Couch Potato to Grandma Athlete at 57 — with author HILDEE WEISS
Hildee Weiss didn't run her first full mile until she was 46. And honestly? She was convinced she'd look ridiculous doing it… like Phoebe from Friends, flailing around while everyone stared. (If you're Gen X, you already get it.)Fast for...
Running Injuries in Perimenopause: Recovery, Hormones & Real Mom Life — with WHITNEY HEINS
What happens when the body that carried you through marathons suddenly starts changing the rules on you mid-stride…?In this episode, I sit down with Whitney Heins — founder of The Mother Runners run community, host of the Mother Runners ...
Hormones, Bone Loss & Injury Risk: What Every Active Woman Needs to Know — with DR. JOCELYN WITTSTEIN
Your bones started changing before you noticed. Most women don't find out until something breaks.Dr. Jocelyn Wittstein — orthopedic surgeon at Duke and co-author of The Complete Bone and Joint Health Plan — is here to change tha...