Beyond the Numbers: Using Wearable Data to Transform Maternal Care

What if the future of maternal care uses technology to tune us into the body?

In this episode, Lynn speaks with Katherine Sylvester, Dr. Kat as she is affectionately known, about her program to use wearable technology and remote monitoring to reshape maternal health by pairing objective physiologic data with relationship-centered clinical care. Instead of relying on population averages, they dive into the power of tracking each mother’s personal baseline – and monitor subtle shifts in trends to reveal early warning signs long before symptoms escalate.

From heart rate variability and sleep quality to blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and stress patterns, Dr. Kat shares how real-time data can inform smarter exercise dosing, recovery pacing, and earlier referrals for concerns like hemorrhage, preeclampsia, cardiac changes, thyroid dysfunction, anemia, and emerging mental health challenges.

This is not a conversation about replacing clinical intuition – it’s about strengthening it. Wearables are framed as tools to deepen trust, validate patient experiences, and support self-advocacy, especially when a mother feels that something is “off” before it shows up in a textbook or in test results.

For PTs and OTs working in maternal health, this episode offers practical insight into blending data-driven monitoring with holistic, interdisciplinary care – helping improve outcomes not just in the postpartum window, but across a mother’s long-term health journey.

✨ Episode Highlights

• Why individualized trend tracking matters more than single data points for early physical and mental health red flags
• Using wearables to guide exercise prescription, recovery pacing, and proactive referral decisions
• How technology can strengthen therapeutic rapport, validate symptoms, and enhance patient engagement
• A whole-person approach to maternal care that includes mental health, lifestyle factors, and social determinants of health

Have a comment or question about today’s episode? Message Lynn on Instagram or Facebook, or Email Lynn.

If you enjoyed today’s podcast and are interested in more topics to support your clinical practice and treating your clients, find us on your favorite podcast app and subscribe so you don’t miss an episode.

About Today’s Guest

Dr. Katherine Sylvester, affectionately known as Dr. Kat, the mommy monitor, is a wife, homebirth mother of two, physical therapist, preeclampsia survivor, clinical assistant professor for women’s health, Georgia Women’s Policy Institute Fellow, and VBAC-certified doula. She is the founder of Operation M.I.S.T. where she and her team teach women to use smart watches and blood pressure cuffs for safer pregnancies and better health.

She and her team also host More than a Period and Lady Parts Power Parties where they teach ladies about their bodies so they can trust, prepare and protect them throughout all phases of womanhood. 

Dr. Kat does not believe in assumptions, protocol-driven care or generalized interventions. She believes that women’s health journeys are as unique as their fingerprints and should be treated as such.

Learn more at: MommyMonitor

Visit Institute for Birth Healing to learn more about how to care for the pregnant and postpartum body: CLICK HERE

Transcript

Lynn Schulte: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome to this episode. I am beyond excited to share this guest with everybody today. Um, I found out what she was doing at one of my courses and I was like, this is amazing, and I wanna talk to you to find out more what's going on. So everybody, this is Catherine Sylvester is here with us today, and Catherine is a physical therapist.

She's also a mom, a um, VBAC doula. She started Mommy Monitor and is also an assistant adjunct professor at a couple universities, and she lives in Macon, Georgia. Welcome to the podcast, Catherine. Thanks for being here.

Katherine Sylvester: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Lynn Schulte: Well, I, so tell us first off, like, tell us your journey, how you got to be where you are today.

Katherine Sylvester: Okay, so it started in honestly the ninth grade. I realized [00:01:00] that I wanted to be part of a profession that focused on quality of life. Um, and physical therapy just rose to the top because my grandmother a few years previous, had had a stroke and we were just told to let her lay in the bed, roll from side to side, make sure she's eating, sitting upright.

And it was just the last six months of her life were not the quality that they should have been or could have been had. She had different, uh, had we had different instructions. And so when I stumbled upon physical therapy, I was like, this, this is it. This is it. And so from then, uh, through college, I never changed my mind and.

After I graduated, I started working with people with neurological injuries, brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, stroke kids, loved being in the hospital. It was the best thing. But at that time, I also realized that I gravitated towards working with women. And so anytime we split the list, it was never half top, half bottom.

It was, give me the girls and you could take everybody else. And so I, I just learned that I [00:02:00] love, love working with women and. It was after my first birth, uh, I had my son at home. It was an incredible journey experience. But a year later, there were four women who reached out to me. One was peeing on herself, one had pain with intercourse, one was having issues with her scar.

I mean, things that, you know, and that we would've been prevented, had a physical therapist been on her journey. So I started a program at that time called Rediscover Your Music. Music is an acronym for Muscle Flexibility, urinary Continent Sexual Fulfillment, internal Confidence and Core Stability. Oh, wow.

And started looking at them through the lens of how they eat, how they move, how they sleep, um, you know, how they manage stress. And realized that a lot of women didn't have to run into these problems. Right. And we also sent them, at that time, a Fitbit and created a program for them, and then was able to see how their body, how they responded.

To the programs that we developed, and then we would course correct along the way. So that started my intro into loving to use technology to enable care, and that [00:03:00] was back in 2014. So flash forward to my second birth, and it was just another wonderful experience. Home birth again. But at the very end of my pregnancy, I started feeling contractions like I did with my first.

But they didn't progress. And although that's not in and of itself a problem, I felt like something might be wrong. So I reached out to my midwife and she said, oh, well come on in. I'll take a look at you. She took my blood pressure, my blood pressure was 1 28 over 78, and she looked shocked. She was like, Catherine, what's going on?

And I said, oh, nothing I, that I know of. Yeah. And she said, well, have you been swelling? And I said, well, yeah, you know, I'm a pt, so we're all wrapping, compressing, making sure I can still wear my heels for the rest of my pregnancy. And so, kind of overriding the swelling, right? Ah, that she would've otherwise been able to see.

And then so she said, are you, do you have any stress? And I said, no, I don't feel stressed. So she went ahead and checked me for preeclampsia because my baseline blood pressure is 100 over 60.

Lynn Schulte: I was gonna say [00:04:00] because one 20 over 78 isn't that big of a deal, right? Like That's

Katherine Sylvester: right. Some

Lynn Schulte: people's normal.

Katherine Sylvester: That is some people's normal. And because it wasn't my normal, she delved deeper. My, apparently I was spilling protein into my urine. My, um, labs were already off. And so because she caught it back early, I was still able to deliver at home after I delivered. She said, you know, Catherine, you should really just relax.

You know your body, you never know what's gonna happen postpartum. And for me that meant not waking up so early, not going to bed so late, but I still had a younger child to take care of. Still had, you know, things to do. My husband's here, but he travels and so. It. I didn't really do what she asked me to do, even though I thought I was, if that makes sense.

I wasn't relaxing enough. And so within the next week, my blood pressure was through the roof and the one 60 over 1 0 5, I was in and out of the emergency room. Oh yeah. It was a nightmare. And oh, she was, I mean, she was just right that I needed to just relax, but I didn't [00:05:00] objectively know, have an objective way to know how to do that.

So Perry Brubaker sent me a watch and she was like, Hey, we're doing, she's also a physical therapist. She's incredible. Sent me a watch and she was like, Hey, we're using wearables to detect COVID. Do you mind putting on this watch? And I said, oh, no problem. And so put the watch on and it just changed my life.

I was able to see. Exactly how much was too much, right? Within two weeks, I was off my blood pressure medication. Within nine months, my kidneys had completely healed 'cause I actually was close to Nephrotic syndrome. By the time yeah, afterwards, after I didn't relax. Um, nine months later, kidneys were healed and I thought every woman needs this.

So I wrote for grant and sent 40 watches all over the nation just to monitor. See, could we in fact help people not only recover better following delivery, like slow down, like I wasn't able to, but also to see could we stop them from running into issues? Could we teach them how to prep for pregnancy? So instead of waiting for pregnancy to happen, can we see where they are at [00:06:00] baseline and then help them show up healthier.

And after the first, after the first one, the answer was yes, but we still went through with the, with the initial 40 for free and just. Monitor them to see what we could do. And so we, here we are, five years later, almost five years later. We started in 2021. So

Lynn Schulte: yeah. Oh my god, this isn't crazy. Okay, so you have to help me out here because I am not a wearable person.

I don't like anything on me. I don't wear a watch. I, you know, like, so tell me what is the data that we're getting on these Fitbits?

Katherine Sylvester: Yeah, so, well now we use Garmins. So I swapped to Garmins and we're getting heart rate, um, oxygen sleep hours, sleep quality, stress. So they use a HRV and do a stress number so that a regular person can understand it.

Yeah. And then we also though send them devices. So blood pressure cuffs, thermometers, pulse, oximeters, because we know, as you know, [00:07:00] technology is not always.

Lynn Schulte: Right.

Katherine Sylvester: You know, reliable or it, it doesn't always catch everything. The battery could die. And so we need to still be able to monitor vital signs even if the watch isn't, isn't there.

And then we also do surveys and make sure that we're not missing anything. So they, they fill out surveys are the mommies that we support.

Lynn Schulte: Yeah.

Katherine Sylvester: So that we can see, you know, technology is good, but knowing exactly what's going on and being able to make better sense of your data makes more sense than just thinking that the watch will pick up on everything.

But yes, those are the things that the watch specifically tracks.

Lynn Schulte: This is blowing my mind.

Katherine Sylvester: Yeah. Oh, one more thing that you'll love. It's called a body battery. So you remember when I said I knew exactly how what I was doing was impacting me?

Lynn Schulte: Yeah.

Katherine Sylvester: The body battery is like a phone battery or like a gas tank.

And so if you're at a hundred percent, then you kind of know, oh, I could do pretty much anything I wanna do today. But if you wake up and you're at a 5%, then you have to make a decision. And that's what we teach our moms. Are we gonna do what's on our to-do list, delegate, delete, or delay? [00:08:00] And so we're making that decision.

Right, using that decision process. Yeah. To to honor what our bodies are asking of us. And so the body battery is my favorite feature. Hands down. Some of the other watches will do like an energy score and things like that, but I kind of like the battery so that throughout the day you can double check.

You might have woken up at a hundred, but if you're at 20 by noon, yeah. You still need to modify the rest of your day.

Lynn Schulte: Oh my gosh. You know. It's so interesting that we need this because actually all of this could be done by our interoception of our body. You know, like if we actually listened to our bodies, right?

Catherine? I'm like, okay, but today's world, we are so disconnected from our bodies and, and so distracted and everybody loves the technology. We love our phones, we love our watches, we love closing those rings on those Apple watches. My sister's huge in that and I'm just like, I'm not gonna be li Yeah.

Anyway, that's my, my resistance to technology a [00:09:00] little bit. Um, but oh my goodness, this is incredible. Thank you. So what, um, so, so many questions and where I wanna go here with this, but what are some of the things that you are monitoring or what? Let's, let's, let's go here first. Sorry. L what are the things that are so important for us as practitioners to be looking for in our postpartum clients?

Okay, let's start there first.

Katherine Sylvester: Yeah. So we're looking for, there are five major causes of maternal death. And the cool thing is that all of them can be picked up on with vital signs, right? So one thing we should be looking for is hemorrhage. So we don't know who's going to hemorrhage, but we know that it's, there's a risk for it, right?

Right. And so if we see heart rate increase, because we know if we're losing blood, blood volume, then the body has to compensate. And the initial compensation will be a heart rate spike. And so what we do is we compare people to their baseline. So we never compare them to anyone else. And so that's where the mommy monitor [00:10:00] comes in, right?

It is making sure that we are not looking and saying, oh, have they reached 110 beats per minute? At rest, we're saying. Are they significantly higher than they have been since we've been watching them either? Whether it's been pre-pregnancy, during pregnancy, or even post-delivery. And are we seeing resting heart rate or average heart rate?

Max heart rate go in the opposite direction than what we would expect, because we know that if someone just finished having a baby. So when we think about what happens during pregnancy, resting heart rate's going to increase over the course of pregnancy, right? Right.

Lynn Schulte: Yep.

Katherine Sylvester: So after they have the baby, the expectation is that.

Resting heart rate will go down and it's a pretty quick decrease. So if we see it continue to climb, that becomes a red flag. So for someone who's not watching someone over time like us Yeah. Um, or like P PTs who don't monitor data all the time.

Lynn Schulte: Right.

Katherine Sylvester: What they're looking for is that increase in heart rate that you would not expect.

So let's say that you, someone goes from sitting down to standing up, you [00:11:00] don't expect that their heart rate will go from 70 to 120, right? Yeah. That's really, it's a significant increase. So then you start to look for the other symptoms that you would see, like someone may be getting dizzy or they're short of breath, or they're having a hard time, you know, um, completing activities and then also asking about bleeding.

So we expect that blood is going to get lighter as. As moms progress. Yeah. But if it continues to increase or they notice that it's bright red for 15 days, you know what I mean? Yeah. You're asking now about what has your history been, because when I used to go into women's homes, it was within the first week following delivery.

So I'm already asking, has your blood gotten lighter? Uh, do you feel tired when you're moving around? Things like that. But heart rate and then oxygen. So we know that if the body's not able to compensate, then oxygen levels are going to drop. So if someone's not 90 or above, just like we would typically expect, yeah.

Or around a hundred percent, then that would be a red flag. And for us, we're [00:12:00] watching SADS overnight and during the day. And so we're looking for does this person decrease significantly than where they were before? Not necessarily waiting until they get really low. To do that. So that's hemorrhage. So then we're also thinking about postpartum preeclampsia like me.

And so we're looking at blood pressure changes that are relative to the person's norm. So we're not looking and waiting for it to get to one 40 over 90. That's what, that's what standards say, or one 60 over one 10 before it's completely an emergency. We're looking to see is their blood pressure significantly higher than it was before?

And then also pairing that with do they have a headache? Is there swelling significantly higher? 'cause we expect that it's going to go down after delivery. Now, one thing that we found, um, is that when people receive a lot of fluids during delivery. Maybe over the course of days, they are definitely going to be at a higher risk for blood pressure issues to [00:13:00] arise.

So we know research tells us that blood pressure is supposed to go up or not supposed to, blood pressure will typically go up between days three and day six, post-delivery. But what we find is that if someone is relaxing, they're taking, now, you know, they're not doing a lot after delivery, they're making sure to continue to hydrate.

Well, they're making healthy eating choices. Their blood pressure may go up a little bit, but then it's going to come back down. But the way the blood pressure management system works for the first two weeks is that if it gets too high up, the body already has a hard time bringing it back down. And that's no matter what, it's just after a birth.

But when we think about the higher risk that someone's at, if they've had a cesarean delivery, if they've received a lot of fluids following or during their delivery, if they were. Um, on bedrest for any period of time, or they had a length of stay within the hospital, so they weren't really moving around as much as they normally would, then we automatically categorize them within our program as high risk, right?

So we don't have to wait for someone to say that they're high risk. We [00:14:00] just need to ask about what was your labor process like? And that way we can be on the lookout for a blood pressure spike. So again, blood pressure spike, increase in swelling, or, um, pain in the upper right quadrant of the torso because that's where the liver sits, right?

Yeah. And so just looking for those signs as well. So we're pairing the numbers with the signs that were, with the signs and symptoms that we're seeing just as we normally would.

Lynn Schulte: Yeah.

Katherine Sylvester: A third, oh, go ahead. I'm

Lynn Schulte: sorry. Go ahead. No, no, continue.

Katherine Sylvester: Continue. Okay. So I was gonna say that's hemorrhage, preeclampsia, and then, uh, heart failure.

So the third thing that we're looking for is, is the body responding the way that it should? Following delivery Or does or does it seem like the heart is having a hard time doing its job and so that can either, so initially what we find is that it manifests itself as someone's heart rate goes up really, really high, like we talked about before with hemorrhage.

But then after that, [00:15:00] what we most recently found is that once the body, I mean, it just gets tired. The heart gets tired, then the heart rate does what we would expect it to do, which is start to slow down. And that is scary, right? Because we would expect that if someone loses a lot of blood, or in the case of fluid overload before it turns into heart failure, someone has a lot of fluids and the body just can't get rid of it, then the heart eventually gets tired of trying, and then we start to see resting heart rate go super low.

So it's not back down to what their baseline was, but it's significantly lower. So we're looking for someone's heart rate to be slower, and for them to really exhibit signs of just fatigue. That doesn't make sense. So for this last mom recently, she walked out across the street and came back. It's four minutes.

She was completely exhausted. Now, the interesting thing about her presentation was that normally with heart failure, we would notice, we would think that the blood pressure might go down, right? So initially the body's gonna try, try, try to pump blood. Um, [00:16:00] but the, what we're looking for typically is a decrease in blood pressure.

And so it might be, uh, less than 90 over 60, which is what research says, less than, um, 85 over 45 for hemorrhage. I wanna make sure I put that, put that in there. Yeah. But we're not waiting for it to get that low, right? Yeah. We're, we're looking to make sure that the person is seen and they're proactively treated, not that it is reactive, and now you're, it's a life.

It, it could potentially be a life threatening complication. And so we're looking for, typically with heart failure, a blood pressure drop, but that's not always what we see. And so we always wanna pair what we see with the symptoms because for this particular mom, she's also having chest pain while laying on her back.

Right. With, uh, trying to take her blood pressure. So we typically, you know, when we go to the doctor's office, we're sitting taking our blood pressure, but what I asked this mom to do was take it laying down because if your blood pressure is high and then you lay down, the expectation is that your blood pressure will probably go down.

Right?

Lynn Schulte: Yeah. With

Katherine Sylvester: her, not only did her blood pressure not go down, it went [00:17:00] higher and she had a feeling like there's an elephant sitting on her chest, so that's an automatic, let's go get this checked out. Right. Automatic. And so I think a part of it too is just being in constant communication. I know as PTs we're used to, some PTs are used to just like seeing the moms in the office and then we see them again at the next office visit.

Right. But when you're doing remote monitoring, it doesn't have to be a pt. It's anybody who can really read data and interpret it. But for us, we, um, have PTs, OTs and labor and delivery nurses really doing the monitoring. And so we're reaching out. Just to check on them because we can see their data every day.

Yeah. And so if they deviate from something that is normal for them, we go ahead and reach out proactively, try to get the number back to the baseline or to a healthy status. And then that way they're not in an emergency situation. So those are the three of the things that I think rise to the surface of things that we should be on the lookout for and just how we can use data.

And I mean, you could take a heart rate with your fingertips. Right? Someone does not have [00:18:00] to have a wearable. The benefit that we have is that we know the person's baseline. So then we can say, okay, let's not wait till one 40 over 90 for you is probably 1 28 over 78 like it was for me. Yeah.

Lynn Schulte: Right. Wow. Oh my gosh, this is so cool.

But is there, um, is there a way for people to do this on their own?

Katherine Sylvester: Yes, yes, yes, yes. So that's actually what we want, right? Yeah. We want to, what we do is we teach people what their vital signs mean. So we start there. What is heart rate? What is blood pressure? What is oxygen? What is it looking for? What is temperature?

'cause we didn't talk about temperature, but infection. That's another thing that we can, and very important, right? Because it's, and it's easy. If heart rate is up and temperature is up, you might as well go and be seen by somebody. And that's, again, we like people to check their resting heart rate because resting heart rate is very consistent.

I know for me it's between 50 and 55. And if it ever goes [00:19:00] above that, I'm like, oh, boy, am I getting sick? I need to quarantine, drink water, make sure I'm eating well, make sure my immune system is right, is functioning optimally because going in the wrong direction and I haven't changed anything about my lifestyle.

And so that's what we do. We teach them what are vital signs and then why are we tracking them? What can they tell us? And then we give them summaries and we give them feedback. And so they're day to day figuring out. Yeah, what does my body need? What am I doing when my split sleep quality is really high?

We tell them, reflect, what did yesterday look like? How many steps did you get in? How much water did you drink? When did you stop eating your last meal? And so they're able to see this helps. Or for one of our mom's, most recently, it was a progressive muscle relaxation. It really helps with her sleep quality, but.

She is going for a sleep study because she continues to dip into the seventies, like, uh, for oxygen overnight. And that's not normal. Right. And [00:20:00] for the last mom where that happened, she actually had 60 apneic episodes. When she had her sleep apnea test done, they gave her a BiPAP and all the, or CPAP and all of a sudden all of her sleep quality was like through the roof.

Her body was charging. Well, her stress levels were down because if we can't get sleep right, nothing else is going to be Right. And we even think about the hormonal control. And so, so we teach people, it's not just important to get good sleep because someone's telling you to get good sleep. Yeah. Is because sleep impacts everything.

Thank, and then we think about, sometimes we'll have moms in. It's really nice to have objective data because they may be told have seven to nine hours of sleep. Seven, nine hours of sleep, and they're consistently only getting five, let's say. But then one day they're off of work for three days and now they're sleeping for 8, 9, 10 hours and they notice, oh my gosh, I charge my, you know, it is feedback to them.

Mm-hmm. To make better health and lifestyle [00:21:00] decisions because I believe that the a part of the maternal mortality crisis. Part of the reason that moms are dying is because their data is simply not tracked, because their symptoms sometimes are simply not investigated. Yeah. But what this does for moms is it helps them take the part of their health into their control that they can control into their hands that they can control.

Lynn Schulte: Yeah.

Katherine Sylvester: And so they are really waking up every day. And we always say, when you open your eyes, open your app after you pee, check your bp. And so it's just every day like clockwork. Right. And so what is, what we'd love to see, and this normally happens a few months into their watch wear or maybe six months after they deliver their baby.

So like they're, they're done only thinking about the baby. And they start to really think about themselves. And, and what hap starts to happen is they say, don't text me. I'm going on vacation. Uh, I know my stress is going to be high. I will be drinking and I know, so don't even bother me. [00:22:00] And so, but then when they come back.

They text again and they say, I'm going to recover and this is what I'm going to do. And so that, those are the moments that we live for because that means that they have learned and beyond our program. They are going to be able to make data-driven health decisions for their lifetime. And to your point, not everyone will choose to use a watch, but they'll remember, like I do, if I get in at least 7,000 steps a day, which means that's about a 30 to hour long walk, I have to commit to that a day.

If I sleep seven to nine hours at night, if I drink half my body weight and ounces in water, if I, um, eliminate unnecessary stress, then that is the setup that my body needs for success, whether I have a watch or not. Yeah. The beautiful thing about the watch is that sometimes it will alert us that something could go wrong in terms of, um, let's say getting sick.

And so then we make those choices, oh, I'm not gonna go to the movies tonight. Let's, let's swap date night to another day this week. And so it's [00:23:00] almost like a hint. So you notice that your stress is creeping and it's like, I didn't do anything different, so let me do something different so that I don't get sick.

So that's what I think the benefit is of continuing to use the watch even after you are out of the woods in terms of safety.

Lynn Schulte: What, how, what is that period? When is someone out of the woods postpartum?

Katherine Sylvester: So I have to tell you the truth. And there's, if you always say like, it depends. You know how speak teases, we say it.

Absolutely.

Lynn Schulte: Yep, yep.

Katherine Sylvester: Great answer. Great. Um, but according to the CDC, it's a year. So a year post delivery is when, because 33% of the deaths apparently take place during pregnancy and delivery. And then another third, and then the largest amount takes place in the first year following delivery, believe it or not.

So let's say 30% during pregnancy, 30 some odd percent during delivery, and then the rest of it postpartum. And so during, up through that first postpartum year, and I believe just in what we've seen, uh, the other thing I want to say is, you know how we talked about the [00:24:00] spiking of blood pressure day three to day six?

Yeah. What I'm seeing is because we've detected it as late as day 19, is that women who have cesareans, again, they're, it's almost like the normal fluid shift that happens after delivery will happen, and the kidneys are trying to get rid of all of that fluid and things like that. But if the swelling sticks around, then we start to see that that blood pressure spike a little bit later.

So I did wanna make sure I said that. Yeah. So research says day three to six, we've seen it as late as day 19. And so I, I think as, as PTs two, and I know we don't, a lot of this is not what we do, but. In, in being in this space. It's what we learn and it's that there are things that can be done if, if caught early.

Right? If the blood pressure spikes are caught early. Yeah. I was listening to this, to this, um, this was a podcast, it was an educational webinar and the cardiologists were on there just talking about the different ways to manage severe blood pressure [00:25:00] spikes early. And that way we don't have problems down the line.

And so a part of what we do too is just really educating people about the urgency of going in, not sitting at home and waiting, not I'm gonna go to bed and see what happens in the morning. It is that there are things that can be done early if we go in early. Yeah. Things, complications that can be avoided because we've seen too many cases now where women were ignored for 12 hours and they hemorrhage to death or their blood pressure was ignored and they tried to go to another er and on the way they passed away, and so.

Oh, we don't want that happening when as PTs we're involved in their care. Yeah. And so we can just educate about the urgency. You know, just going in as soon as something is wrong. Even if you don't wear a watch, if something feels off, reach out to your team because nine times outta 10, they are going to want to help you.

They're gonna ask you to come in, they're gonna ask you to take certain vitals. We've, we just, last night there was a mom and her stress was much higher than normal, so just shot her a quick message and [00:26:00] she said, you know, my breasts have been feeling tender, but I've been back and forth to the hospital and because one of my twins is in the nicu, the other one's at home.

And so, turns out. When we checked her, her, um, temperature was also going up at 99.5, so she went ahead and reached out. Do we know that it's mastitis? No, but it's good to check, right? Yeah. It just doesn't hurt to check. And so moms get so busy sometimes that they forget to check, but over time, because we, we tell them so much, Hey, we're just checking on you.

What's going on? Then they start to do it for themselves.

Lynn Schulte: That's awesome. Oh my gosh. So tell us, tell us more about Mommy Monitor and what, what, what start, what caused you to start this other than your own experience, but

Katherine Sylvester: Yes. Well, it was really the need for more detailed information. So we are, we use another system as well to display data.

It's the, this data display system, but it was really the need to track trends that [00:27:00] other data display systems aren't tracking yet. And so we wanted to see what's happening, what can we, can we do averages to compare moms to themselves? Can we have notification systems that are more, more. Individualized because everything that's being built right now is based on standards and protocols that are out there.

And it makes sense, right? Because the research is, is getting you in the general direction of what's going on. But we need to know what's happening with us. And a lot of times, you know, what you'll hear is what's really hard to individualize everything. But it is actually not, it's not hard to individualize everything.

You just have to come up with the formulas, know the percentages, and then you can really compare peoples to themselves. And so that was the impetus for it. And, and of course once it got started, it's like, okay, well we can know more, we can find out more, we can do more. Because you think about it, if someone's resting heart rate, so with one of our moms, her resting heart rate is 49.[00:28:00]

And so we, if people are like, well, if, if 60 to a hundred is normal, then what are the norms for her? Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so we had to figure out what are the norms for the people who don't fall under the bell curve of research. Right. Who, yeah. Yeah. They seem like anomalies. And so there are no protocols for them.

So we wanted to make protocols for them. And that way we can say, you know, even when other PTs, so a lot of times a PT will reach out, get their moms on our monitor, and they'll say, okay, so we're trying to look and see what's a high stress level for them. Because the Garmin will tell you that fif that 75 to a hundred is high and the 50 to 75 is medium, and the 25 to 50 is low, and then zero to 25 is rest or parasympathetic.

So, so as a PT, we're thinking parasympathetic activity is less than 25, sympathetic activity is above 25. But when you think about it, it's like, well, what if this person never gets to 50? [00:29:00] What if they never get to 40? So then theirs has to be, rest is maybe zero to 10. Low is 10 to 20, right? And so it's just we had to build something, create something that could really look at people as individuals so that they're making better health decisions for themselves.

Like you said. How do we get them to do it? It's by getting them to stop looking at everybody else. And just look at themselves. Yeah. And what that also does is it helps us to ask for help, I think as women, do you have children?

Lynn Schulte: I do. My boys

Katherine Sylvester: are in their

Lynn Schulte: twenties. Yeah.

Katherine Sylvester: Yes. And so as women, it's like we are always thinking about everybody else.

We're always putting ourselves on the back burner. And then sometimes it's hard for us to ask for help, whether it's because we can't explain what we need, so we say, oh, it's just easier for us to do it ourselves. When I tell you these moms, they're not like that at all. They are like, I don't care how it gets done, as long as you do it and take it off my plate.

Yeah. It's the most beautiful thing. And then we also teach their community to do the same. So some husbands partners are just very involved and they'll actually [00:30:00] check their mom's app before they wake up their, their spouse's app or their, their partner's app. And so we had a guy, he was noticing that every time, um, his wife went to her doctor's appointment, stress was high.

And it was just almost like we tried to control everything that we could control, but the distance was really far. So he surprised her. With a new house that was five minutes from the doctor's office, and it ended up being perfect because it was also really close to where her family lived. And so they were able to have help with the older two.

And when I tell you her date, she was going for a VBAC and she got it, she got her VBAC because they were like, whatever could stand in the way we think about, we know the trend of stress too, and our body's ability to, um, go back to homeostasis during pregnancy, it's a little bit harder. And so if we notice that, you know, stress is trending higher and we can identify what that is and partners able to step in and say, Hey, I'll remove that as a stressor for you.

It, it's so neat to just [00:31:00] see that feedback in the data and I think that's what makes the data very, um, addictive for some moms.

Lynn Schulte: Yeah.

Katherine Sylvester: The other thing I wanted to tell you, so, so suicide, um, mental health concerns.

Lynn Schulte: Yeah. Yeah. You

Katherine Sylvester: are able to, to pick up on some of those things as well. And so things that you're not even thinking that you're looking for.

Right. But there is a. Pattern that most women have when they wear their watch. And so we look at their pattern and if they deviate from that pattern, that's also a reason to reach out. So it's not necessarily that your data is off, it's that you are off. Right? Ah. So we had a mom and she used to think every day by 11:00 AM every day.

And so we do give grace because after you deliver, you might not remember. Right, of course. But it was day three. So day one, we just shot her a nice reminder text. Day two, we gave her another nice text. Day three we called like, Hey, what's going on? And we could hear it in her voice that something was wrong and she was just like.[00:32:00]

I feel like I just wanna disappear or make my baby disappear. Like she just, and it was because we, we love them. We trust, they trust us, we, yeah, build rapport with them. They say things like that. And so we were able to immediately connect them to an organization called Postpartum Support International. I love them.

And they give free therapy sessions for moms. And so typically you have to go through like an application process and things like that, but they sped up the intake and able to take care of her. And it was just it. It was a light bulb that the watch. The watch is cool. I love the watch.

Lynn Schulte: Yeah.

Katherine Sylvester: The watch connects us though, in a way that we wouldn't otherwise be connected.

And that is really. What sets it apart from traditional remote monitoring? I hear some moms and, and they say, oh yeah, if I don't take my blood pressure, they, I just keep getting this automated text that says, take your blood pressure, check your blood pressure, protect your blood pressure. And nobody's asking me, why are you not checking your blood pressure?

They don't call me to see what's going on. It's like they [00:33:00] just want my data. And for us, they understand that it's, this is a sisterhood and yeah, we need your data to help you make better decisions, but we don't use your data for anything else. And so of course we're able to pick up on trends. We're able to see where things are going, but we're not.

Like reminding them to take their, to, to sink or to take their blood pressure, to check their temperature because we want something from them. It's so that we can do something for them, right? Yeah. And help them do for themselves. Yeah. So I think that's a really big, big thing to bring up too. And as PTs, of course, we intuitively get it.

We love our patients, we connect with our patients. Yeah. Um, but it means that much more to someone if they are being quote unquote monitored or they feel like they're being quote unquote monitored, they won't sink. Right. Why would that?

Lynn Schulte: Yeah. Yeah. Um, when do you recommend people join Mommy monitor? Like,

Katherine Sylvester: yeah, so operations during

Lynn Schulte: pregnancy, right?

And,

Katherine Sylvester: yeah. Yeah. So some people, to [00:34:00] be honest, if they've had a loss in the past and it, they feel like it was related to their health, they typically will hop on sooner if they want to know when they get pregnant. So, one cool thing about the model, you know, is that, right? So you think about it, it's like, oh, my stress is higher for no good reason.

My resting heart rate is higher for no good reason. Ends up being really good. Reason. One time I went to see a mom, it was so awesome. She, she took a pregnancy test and she thought she wasn't pregnant. And she was like, I know I'm not pregnant. And I said, no, you're, you're pregnant. And she was like, I'm not.

I took the test. And so I, it was really beautiful because I went to her house and just pulled up the, the computer or we were on the way anyway, and showed her what was going on. And I said, so maybe in a couple days you might see it, not sure because not like our, we just detect pregnancies all the time.

But, um, but I said, but you didn't do anything different. Your steps are about the same. You slept for about the same period of time. Your resting heart rate is creeping up. And so about two days later, she messages me and she's like, I'm pregnant. I'm pregnant. Pregnant. And so [00:35:00] some people get on me because they wanna detect as soon as possible, especially if they've had a loss.

Yeah. And so we had moms, you know how sometimes people are told, well, you need to wait six weeks. You need to wait for your appointment. What we've been able to do is tell people super early and then they're able to choose the provider that will take them in early. It gives them a sense of is this person going to be there?

Lynn Schulte: Yeah.

Katherine Sylvester: When I, when I need them, when I need a peace of mind. Um, and so it really helps with that. The other thing that we've noticed, and this is interesting, is that sometimes when someone gets pregnant, let's say with IVF or they, they're trying to get pregnant with IVF, um, we, we typically see an increase in stress like you would if they were getting pregnant without Yeah.

So if we don't see that increase in stress, sometimes that has been because their progesterone levels are low, and so we learned that with them. And so we've also now been able to help people who have had miscarriages and things like that, but they're not pregnant with IVF. It's just we're not seeing that stress [00:36:00] increase that we would expect.

And so they go back, they get their progesterone levels checked, they get progesterone, you know, given to them and. They have a great pregnancy and so,

Lynn Schulte: so awesome.

Katherine Sylvester: It's really the combo of data change and questioning, like, why is this happening? Yeah. Because the watches are not built to, for pregnancy, they're not built to diagnose or treat or anything.

Yeah. It is that our numbers tell a story, and so if we don't notice a pattern that we're used to seeing, then we reach out and see is something off. We had a mom where we caught thyroid dysfunction. She was nine months postpartum and she was at work and she's a pharmacist, so like she sits at Work Main mainly, you know, unless she's going back and forth to get medications.

But, uh, her heart rate was up and it was like three hours. So initially we reached out and we're like, Hey, are you exercising? Did you take off today? You know, just what's going on? And she was like, no, but I've been hot, like I've [00:37:00] been really, really hot. And one of my coworkers told me that it was probably perimenopause and I was like.

Or it could be postpartum thyroiditis, so you know what I mean? But we don't know what it is. Yeah. And we shouldn't assume that it's perimenopause. Right. And so she went in and asked to specifically see an, to get her thyroid levels checked and, um, and then if possible, go see an endocrinologist. And that's what ended up happening.

That was the pattern of which, and it was just heart rate increased.

Lynn Schulte: So. Cool. Thank you. So, so cool. You know, I always teach Catherine that the body tells a story.

Katherine Sylvester: Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Lynn Schulte: And, and you're like, the numbers tell a story. The numbers are telling the story of the body.

Katherine Sylvester: Of the body a hundred percent.

Right. And numbers don't lie. Right.

Lynn Schulte: Well, the body can't lie.

Katherine Sylvester: The body

Lynn Schulte: can't lie. The

Katherine Sylvester: can't lie. Amen. Oh, I love that.

Lynn Schulte: Yeah. No, it's, it's, um, it's, it's being held in the tissues, right? It's the heart response. It's. [00:38:00] Everything.

Katherine Sylvester: Yes,

Lynn Schulte: it. Yeah. So I love this. Oh

Katherine Sylvester: my. Yes. And can you imagine the increased trust now that women have in their bodies in themselves?

Lynn Schulte: Well,

Katherine Sylvester: they refuse to be ignored, I promise you. Like if you don't listen, I'm going to six other people. Yes. Until they do.

Lynn Schulte: Oh, I love it. No more gaslighting, right?

Katherine Sylvester: That's right. No more

Lynn Schulte: gaslighting. Damnit.

Katherine Sylvester: That's right.

Lynn Schulte: Oh, well, and what I also appreciate about this is helping, like the numbers can help the moms tune to what they're actually feeling in their body.

Katherine Sylvester: Yes.

Lynn Schulte: Right? Like,

Katherine Sylvester: yes.

Lynn Schulte: Making that connection, which is so huge.

Katherine Sylvester: Oh, it's so validating too. Yes. When someone wakes up and says, I'm just exhausted, and then they see that they're at a five, they're like, oh, I have a reason to be like it. It's almost like you didn't need validation. If you're exhausted, go to sleep.[00:39:00]

Right. If you're exhausted, work from home. If you're exhausted, ask for help. But the numbers help them feel better about doing it.

Lynn Schulte: Yeah. Yeah. They're, oh my goodness.

Katherine Sylvester: And then on the other hand, championing their great lifestyle choices when they choose to drink more water and they notice their stress goes down and their blood pressure improves.

Yeah. We had a mom, she came off her blood pressure medication when we first met her. It was an interesting presentation and it's only happened twice, um, that we've, in the monitoring that we've been doing. But her blood pressure at the top was low and at the bottom was high.

Lynn Schulte: Okay.

Katherine Sylvester: And she was saying, wait,

Lynn Schulte: wait, are top and low?

Are you talking

Katherine Sylvester: systolic?

Lynn Schulte: Yeah.

Katherine Sylvester: Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Wanna clarify? So let's say one 10 over 90.

Lynn Schulte: Okay.

Katherine Sylvester: Yeah. It's constantly that weird combination. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it was just day three. I said, well, what. What, how long have you been, you know, having this issue? And she said, well, it's been quite some time. I had preeclampsia with my first, and you know, she had gotten taken [00:40:00] off of medication.

She had never been put on medication, I don't think. But that ended up being her pattern. And so she was just told, you know, exercise and eat right. That's, that was the general advice. Yes. That was given. So she's on the treadmill every day for like an hour. And then she was eating well and I think her diet was, was pretty good.

Um, just based off of what she told me. But you know, we're not experts so if someone needs extra, we're just kind looking and seeing, oh, you're eating out a lot. So we tell our moms, avoid fast, frozen and packaged foods. If you do that, then you're really on a good path. Right. And, you know, eat veggies with every meal.

Don't just think of it as something that you do. You know, just general advice. But plenty of times we've had to refer people to dieticians, nutritionists, just so that they can really get into the weeds about what's going on. But for her, she said it sounded her, like her diet was pretty good. Um, and so anyway, I asked her, I said, instead of doing the treadmill for an hour, could you try circuit training?

So maybe just where you're doing a little bit and then backing off doing a little bit. So [00:41:00] we did. Three minutes, uh, two minutes of running, three minutes of walking, two minutes of running, three minutes of walking. So we tried that and her numbers looked better, and I said, have you seen a cardiologist before?

And she was like, no, never been to a cardiologist. And I always recommend if someone has had preeclampsia or they run into hemorrhage or they have any issue with their kidneys or anything that could potentially impact their heart, it doesn't hurt to just go see a cardiologist. Yeah. And so just ask, and typically the answer is Sure.

I mean, they're not, it's not on the, your doctor's radar necessarily, but if you ask, then the answer is typically yes. And so she goes and sees a cardiologist. Turns out that she had a mitral valve regurgitation. And so it made perfect sense why her diastolic would be high and her top number would be low.

And so it was like, now that it makes sense, what do we do? He was like, it looks like you've already figured it out. Change your exercise pattern. Nothing for me to do. And so that she's had, her blood pressure's been fine ever since. And so it's just thinking about people who come to us. They're given general [00:42:00] advice, we are able to give them targeted advice.

Yeah. And so never again, when I tell you when we started doing the wearables back in 2014 when moms were like, well, how often are you gonna come and see me? And I'm like, I'll let you know based on your data. I mean, it's like, yeah, if it's, it's not gonna be Monday, Wednesday, Friday, it's going to be, are you recharged on Wednesday from our Monday session?

And if you're not, then maybe we'll try Thursday or Friday. But it's like, let's, and then also as a pt, it's a reflection. Well, was that too much after she worked out with you, her stress was still elevated for two hours. And so maybe we back off of the intensity because she's not responding in the way that you would expect that she responded.

And I had to do that with myself after, um, after, even though my kidney's healed eventually. Yeah. You know, it was okay, now I'm getting back to exercise and I'm running for 30 minutes and I'm, my body is stressed for the next seven hours. It's too much. And so [00:43:00] let me try and see how do I back off of this and then get to where my body's coming back down blood pressure wise and stress wise within a reasonable period of time.

And once you look at like the World Health Organization and they say, you know, your blood pressure after activities should drop back down, but within six or seven minutes, right? So you like you sit down five minutes you retake. But they also say, well wait 30 minutes till after you exercise to retake and after you eat and after you drink alcohol.

So like there is some period of time that, that you should expect that your blood pressure returns to normal, that your stress will return to normal. Yeah. But the question is, are there days when your stress returns to normal really quickly and you've gotten in a good workout? What did that workout look like?

Yeah. So we reflect on those things so that we're not in state of fight or flight for a long period of time if we don't have to be. Yeah. So I think it's PTs, it just, it's exciting because helps us to really just. Be even more specific about how we treat and love the people who come to us.

Lynn Schulte: Okay. [00:44:00] So my question about when should we start monitoring?

Oh,

Katherine Sylvester: I'm

Lynn Schulte: earlier. I'm sorry. No, I, I, I just like so early on if we've had a loss or something, but say someone's healthy first pregnancy, when would you want someone to, to join the program?

Katherine Sylvester: So we like, at least before 20 weeks. Okay. And the reason is that at 20 weeks, our heart will start to work 50% harder.

Kidneys start to work 50%. Right. It's like when we start moving to that shift of our body is going to start working harder. So it's nice to know, what was it pre 20 weeks, and then what does it shift to after 20 weeks? The other thing that we've noticed is when people come on between 30, so between 20 and 30 weeks is a toss up.

I'll say that in terms of like people's willingness to advocate for themselves after 30 weeks. If they've already been told, Hey, you're gonna have to have a C-section, you're probably gonna have to induce your, you know, induce your labor and stuff like that. Yeah. They've pretty much already said, okay, I'll just do that.

And we're pretty much monitoring so that if [00:45:00] anything goes wrong, we're able to help them catch it re you know, to, to really recover. Well, if you hemorrhage, or let's say you go from, this happened with one of my mom. She went from a 12 to a eight. A 12 to eight of what? A hemoglobin, sorry. Got it. Hemoglobin.

I'm so happy you said that. You asked that. So, 12 to eight hemoglobin, because she wasn't under seven, she wasn't transfused because it's like their absolute cutoff is under a seven in, in a lot of hospital systems. And I know it was that way where I worked. And so even though she's operating with a lot less blood available, oxygen available to her, she wasn't given a boost.

Right. And so in that case, we're watching really, really closely. That was another time when we caught fluid overload. This mom just could not, her heart rate was one 60, making a baby bottle. Yeah. So it was like we are not trending in the right direction. And she had, she ended up going back in, um, she got, went for an EKG, she got transferred to the hospital.

'cause she went to the med stop for that. [00:46:00] It was close by. I got transferred to the hospital. Cardiologist put her on some medication to help her heart slow down and then she went back home. And so it was a quick, it was quick, but he told her if you had been stayed home for two weeks, you would not have made it.

Not with the amount of work that you Right. And so when you say when to come on, it's like, so if someone comes on, let's say postpartum, they haven't really gotten into the habit of advocating for themselves. They don't really know their body that well. Yeah. But we can still, then it becomes more incumbent on the monitor that is assigned to them to reach out and make sure that they're good when you're, when you come on at, um, but when you come on right at 20 weeks or right before 20 weeks, it's like you get that practice.

Lynn Schulte: Yeah,

Katherine Sylvester: asking, advocating, you get to see, how am I doing? If someone says, your body's really tired, you need to go ahead and have an induction. You can look and say, actually here are my monthly summaries and this is what a lot of our moms have done. Here are our monthly summaries. I'm feeling pretty good.

I'm looking pretty good. Is it okay if I just stay pregnant? Like I don't want to be induced if [00:47:00] I'm actually doing okay. And so we have half of our pregnancies that we've monitored, they have declined an induction because they're healthy and they're able to prove that they're healthy. Right. Because sometimes I try to explain to people, not every doctor wants to intervene, but if they see your stress going up, your blood pressure going up, your heart rate going up, your everything, your resting heart rate is 105, they wanna get this baby out.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. And so we have to put ourselves in good position to make really good health decisions so that when we show up to the end of pregnancy, we are ready for the marathon of delivery. 'cause we're just, I tell them we're going from one marathon to another marathon, and then postpartum is another marathon.

And so. Um, I think 20 weeks is ideal if they could come on a little bit before 20 weeks.

Lynn Schulte: Okay, great. Um, so tell us, how do we as practitioners get a mo, you know, someone hooked up to mommy monitor, get them involved with you guys?

Katherine Sylvester: Yeah, so we, we have an interest form on our WE website, um, of course PTs and OTs, all the other, uh, midwives, [00:48:00] whatever.

They just text me and they're like, Hey, we have someone who's gonna reach out to you. There's an OB, GYN here, um, who just loves us. And she always will shoot me a text and she's like, you need, you'll be hearing from such and such today. Primary care doctors, they refer to us. Mental health therapists are our biggest, like a big referral source as well.

And so I make it easy for them. But in terms of, and then in terms of the mom, of course, then we end up just reaching out to her, setting up a time for us to chat. We do an hour and a half long, an hour long consultation, excuse me. Um, just to make sure that it's a good fit. There are some people that I don't think it's a good fit for someone's really, um, high anxiety.

We've noticed there are two people that over the last four years just weren't a good, it just wasn't a good fit. And the biggest thing was, um, they would rather, and this is just a personal decision, but this is the way that they described it, they would rather run into an issue than to feel like they're constantly like worried about an issue occurring, if that makes sense.

So it's like high [00:49:00] anxiety profile, um, may not work. The cool thing is with these watches is that you can turn off alerts. Um, we can make it to where we only reach out if something is actually going on. But at the end of the day, for some people it's just. Not a good fit. Yeah. And so we do talk to everyone for at least an hour, make sure they're a good fit.

And then one thing just as PTs that I think we should all do is have bombs check their prenatal vitamins. Um, my prenatal, I didn't talk to you about this, but my prenatal didn't have iron and I didn't know that that gummies don't contain iron or they're not able to hold iron and it's not on the bottle.

So it talks about folic acid and DHA and all the other things. Yeah. But it doesn't say anything about lacking iron. And so for me, my hemoglobin was low, but they didn't know until week 28. And that also made me start thinking, why do you check hemoglobin at week 12 and week 28? I'm sure there is some basis for it, but a lot happens between weeks 12 and week 28.

And what we have found with anemia when we've [00:50:00] detected it is that, um, heart rate is typically a little, a tad higher and then, um, body battery just doesn't charge. And so mom may not say she's tired or. You know, feeling fatigued, but we notice that nothing she does helps her charge and then when she goes in, her hemoglobin is lower.

The cool thing is that she's not waiting until week 28 to ask for another hemoglobin check. Right? And so, um, the research shows, there's a little bit of research about it, but shows that anemia in the first trimester is linked to preeclampsia in the third. And so it made sense to me why I went into preeclampsia.

I had no other risk factors, and that anemia wasn't caught until week 28. And so. And then of course I was like, well, let me try to do it naturally, so I'm gonna eat more iron. I'm gonna do this. Yeah,

Lynn Schulte: yeah.

Katherine Sylvester: And um, and I never checked my prenatals. I didn't know, but she told me, she said, if you're not above 11, you won't be able to have a home birth.

So I paid someone. And this is, we, we direct primary care doctors are the best. [00:51:00] I promise you. I paid someone to recheck my labs before I saw my midwife. 'cause I was like, I need to know, are my numbers trending in the right direction? Yeah. And so I just paid and they checked it for me and the lady said, your numbers are, but they're moving slower than we would expect with you being on and, you know, having iron, you know, and taking it every day, she said, so please continue to take your prenatals with iron.

And I was like, in my head, I was like, why would anybody make prenatals without iron? So I checked mine, and that's how I found out. So it wasn't until like week 32 that I actually was on. Do you know what I'm saying? Wow. Yes. So right now, everyone who's pregnant, I ask them, are you on a prenatal with iron?

Are you on a prenatal with iron? Because as PTs what we hear when moms would come to me before I started doing all of this, was I don't take my iron pills because they make me constipated.

Lynn Schulte: Yes. Yeah.

Katherine Sylvester: Oh, we can fix constipation. Let's increase your fiber. Let's increase the amount that you're moving. Let's hydrate better.

Let's do, let's think about what can we do to address the [00:52:00] constipation, not come off of the thing that you're gonna need the most during the pregnancy. Yeah.

Lynn Schulte: Oh my. Goodness. That's crazy. And you know what comes to mind as you're saying that is the vitamin D, there's not enough vitamin D level in prenatals that you need to be taking more.

And I have lots of, uh, podcasts and we've talked about it in summits a couple of times about the importance of vitamin D. Yes. So, um, please, you know, and, and you know, everybody says check with your doctor, but, um, uh, grassroots Health has done, and, um, we had Dr. Um, oh, uh, Bruce Hollis on the, um, and he was like 5,000 during pregnancy, 6,000 for breastfeeding.

And so, you know, like that's the numbers that they promote yet, you know, you should check with your provider, have your clients, check with your providers. But that is the, the minimum. For that. So yes, all these major supplementations that are not in [00:53:00] prenatals, like, yes, that's so important to make sure we're asking our clients about what prenatals and what's in their prenatals and all that stuff.

Um, Dr. Bill Chen on Instagram, just how a, uh, um, yeah, he's great. He just had a post on the prenatals and how it's missing some of the most, um, important aspects of supplements in Yes. So

Katherine Sylvester: yes. Our biggest role is education. And that's what I always say. Yeah. 'cause we can educate, we can connect people to the resources.

Even the ones that I know we're talking a lot about providers who could be helpful, but when I initially got started, there was this woman whose sleep quality was only good when she was at her mom's house, but when she slept at her boyfriend's house, it was terrible. And so I was like, where do you sleep?

At his house? And she, she FaceTimed me and like showed me the mattress and I was like, oh Lord, Lord, help us. Uh, you need to stay at your mom's for a while until y'all can get the, a better [00:54:00] mattress. Yeah. And I started to think. As a pt, when people ran into needs, I would just pay for it. It's like, oh, they need that.

I'll buy that for them. But when you have an organization like this and social determinant of health needs arise all the time. Yeah. You can't pay for everything. So we actually partner with nonprofit organizations who help us with diapers, wipes, food. So if someone's blood pressure is high, but they can only fit stuff in their lap because they're dependent on transportation on a bus and they say, you can only get with, so then of course you're gonna buy cereal, milk, bread.

Right, right. You're not buying things that are going to not last until you can get back to the grocery store. So mobile markets, we partner with people who help with transportation, housing, safe housing. So sometimes the cts will say, oh, can you just get out and do a nice walk? And if the person doesn't know you, they're like, sure.

But if they know you, they'll say, the person in the apartment next to me got shot last week. I'm really afraid going outside. And so now we're able to connect them with someone who gets them into [00:55:00] safer housing and so then they can move. Because if we think about movement and the importance of it, right?

Yeah. It's so important to move. It's important to move well, um, to move appropriately. Because sometimes what we find is that, okay, research may save seven to 11,000 steps, right? Under 4,000 steps is all cause mortality is associated with it. However, this person has been diagnosed with preeclampsia, so how much can they move and it still be safe.

And so that person may be at 1500 steps for a couple of weeks, but we know that it's a temporary adjustment. On the other hand, if someone is only staying in their one bedroom apartment with their four kids, that's number one a mental health, like we're thinking something might occur. You're a single mom, four kids, right?

You have no place to just take a little bit of a break, and then the, the only activity you're getting is inside of your home. We have to fix that so we can get you who doesn't have a physical limitation to seven to 11,000 steps a day.

Lynn Schulte: Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. What is, [00:56:00] um, how do you guys work with payment and what does that all entail for your clients

Katherine Sylvester: doing monitoring?

It is a couple of things. Okay. So, um, for people that we know would not be able to afford it, we always are partnering with organizations that write grants. Okay. And so they write grants and then they're able to pay for the moms who are in specific areas. Uh, we've specifically been contracted for people who have low birth weight risk.

Lynn Schulte: Hmm. Um,

Katherine Sylvester: so areas like that, rural areas, and then teen moms. And so typically we write, uh, we partner with people for those, and then for people who just want to be monitored, who we know could afford it. So their healthcare providers are a big part of our, the people that we monitor. Yeah. Um, and people that they refer, they pay cash.

Um, and they, it's two. Sorry. It's 300 for the first month. So it's the watch plus the monitoring. Okay. And then one 50 for every month thereafter. And they just pay that and it's like on a [00:57:00] subscription, very easy sign up for PayPal. It just continues to pull. But there are no contracts. And I like people to know that we only want you to stay with us if you want to be with us.

So there is not a contract this month to month after six months postpartum. It goes down to a hundred a month and then it just stays there as long as people want to continue to be monitored.

Lynn Schulte: Got it. Okay. Oh, that is awesome. Catherine, this is incredible. Just so eye-opening of what we can do. Oh, I know.

Another question was popping in. Why did you move from the Fitbit to the Garmin?

Katherine Sylvester: So the Garmin, it was really the body battery. I, I just like, like the body battery function. The Fitbit is great. Um, for what it was great for, for people to have that constant feedback throughout the day for body battery. I feel like that's the biggest.

Differentiator.

Lynn Schulte: Yeah. Okay. Um, and, and do you know about, a lot of people have the Apple Watch, so does that have similar, uh,

Katherine Sylvester: functionalities?

Lynn Schulte: [00:58:00] Functionalities, yeah. Thank you.

Katherine Sylvester: Yeah. In terms of our technology, we're not doing the Apple right now. The biggest limitation we've seen with it is that is the charge.

So people will try to charge their Apple Watch overnight.

Lynn Schulte: Oh.

Katherine Sylvester: And we need sleep data. And so we, so, and, and people have, they've worn both. They're like, I just love my apple, so I'm gonna put one on one hand, one on the other. But that's why, it's just, it, the battery life is not the same.

Lynn Schulte: Got it. Okay.

Interesting. Oh my goodness. I know this is, this is probably a really long podcast episode everybody, but I just think it's so important that, um, you know, we get this information out there. As soon as I heard about it, I'm like, oh, I want. You're, I want my audience to know about this 'cause I think more PTs need to be referring moms and, and you know, are there, I'm sure the answer to this is, it depends, but I mean, what are you finding with your results of like the people who are get, [00:59:00] are having issues showing up for them.

What percentage of your population are you having to interfere or help support better?

Katherine Sylvester: This is such a good question. So we've had. Support better. I would tell you of the 178 mommies that we've had so far,

Lynn Schulte: okay. Uhhuh, we

Katherine Sylvester: caught 64 major comp like complications between office visits. But the cool thing is that because of response time,

Lynn Schulte: yeah.

Katherine Sylvester: They have not had negative outcomes. And so that's one thing. Negative outcomes in terms of like complications going missed. Um, in terms of the additional support, it's most, I mean, um, it's everybody in, in terms of like learning more about their bodies, is that what you're asking? And just making

Lynn Schulte: No, no, no.

I, you just answered it right there. The ones needing additional support, [01:00:00] needing the, the, the medical intervention.

Katherine Sylvester: Yes. Yes. Right.

Lynn Schulte: But everybody that goes apart goes into this program is getting educated about their own body, which is priceless. You know? Yeah. So, yeah, I really think that I, I really hope for you that Catherine, this, this takes off and explodes for you guys because it's needed and it's necessary and, you know, um, yeah.

So thank you. Thank you for Of course, you welcome being on this podcast and sharing this and for doing what you're doing. It's incredible.

Katherine Sylvester: Well, thank you. And like I said, if Perry hadn't sent me the watch, I love her so much. And, um, she really helped me because data can be scary.

Lynn Schulte: Yeah.

Katherine Sylvester: When you're going through it and as a pt, knowing how to control your body, like we know if something is, we know how to control it, so to be out of control of it.

Um, but to have someone like her when she wasn't, that wasn't even why she was monitoring me, but [01:01:00] she would see it. Um, my data. She would say, Catherine, are you okay? Are you relaxing today? Or I would take my blood pressure and it was higher than I wanted it to be. And she would say, don't worry about it.

Just check your day. Just check your blood pressure like you're brushing your teeth. It's just, you know, you gotta do it. It's giving you good information and then you just keep going. And it made the difference. And I decided I'm gonna make that difference for other people. Um, and just lock arms with people who wanna do the same thing.

Because while data does give you information, it can also scare you. And if you don't have someone to say it's okay, there's a solution for that, there's a medication for that. It won't last always. Uh, and to cheer you on when your data improves it, it was, she changed my life. Um, saved my life. Well, a midwife who looked at my, at my individual data.

Yeah. And so I'll do this forever for other people.

Lynn Schulte: Oh, you're making me tear up too. I love this because, you know, you've also [01:02:00] helped, like how many of the clients that you've had, have you saved as well. So thank you for the work that you're doing and I'm, I'm very honored to put this out there and to my audience and share this with you, with them so that we can get the word out about this, because this is huge and I hope it explodes.

Um, I was just thinking for myself and for my clients, I'm like, do you have any cards or, you know, postcards or, you know, like, can you send those to me? 'cause I want them on my table. So that, you know, and, and where can people learn more about you and for practitioners? Where can we get information so that we can help?

Our clients find out more about you.

Katherine Sylvester: I'm so happy you asked that. So I do, I send flyers to different providers who ask and they put 'em up in their offices. So thank you for that.

Lynn Schulte: Perfect. I want

Katherine Sylvester: one. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Um, on Instagram, I'm at Operation Mist on LinkedIn. Catherine, Denise Sylvester, that's my [01:03:00] name.

But I always will ship whatever is needed or wanted. And my email is info@operationmiss.org.

Lynn Schulte: What,

Katherine Sylvester: what does that website is? Oh, did you say what? Operation?

Lynn Schulte: Yeah.

Katherine Sylvester: Monitor, intervene, survive. Thrive. So that's the name of the company. Mommy Monitor is more the program.

Lynn Schulte: Oh my gosh. I love it.

Katherine Sylvester: Thank you so much. So,

Lynn Schulte: so cool you guys.

So please, everybody listening in, check out Operation mist mommy monitor.com. We'll have it all on the show notes. You can, um, check it out and learn more. And please, let's share this with pregnant clients and get them supported and helping them to learn more about their body and their reactions. And let's help save some lives, everybody.

That's what this is really all about. So thank you. Thank you, thank you Catherine. So appreciate your time and sharing your knowledge with us and for everything that you're doing in the world. Keep it up. Keep it up.

Katherine Sylvester: Thank you so much for having me honored.

Lynn Schulte: You're [01:04:00] so welcome. Alright everybody, thanks so much for listening into this episode and let's keep more moms safe and healthy throughout pregnancy, throughout that postpartum period and help them know more about Mommy Monitor.

Alright, take care, everybody here's to smoother birth happy, faster recoveries and healthier moms. Take care everybody. Bye-bye

bye.