Cocoa Pods
Podcast - Cocoa Pods Series: A feature of the Birth Center Foundation.
We discuss all things' women, all things' pregnancy, all things' after. Reasons why women fall very sick ( morbidity) or die (mortality) before pregnancy (adolescent girls and young adults),during pregnancy and after are discussed in this maternal morbidity and mortality reduction academy; especially with an emphasis on minority women, all over the world; and ways for all involved in care to work together collaboratively and mitigate and or eliminate risks in women’s health.
Cocoa Pods
Harnessing Nature's Power: Naturopathic Wisdom for Maternal Health and Healing
Discover the transformative power of naturopathic medicine in maternal health with our special guest, Dr. Jessica Patella. Learn the secrets behind managing morning sickness naturally with ginger and peppermint, and find out how Ipecac can be an effective remedy for persistent nausea. Dr. Patella shares how pulsatilla can help reposition a malpositioned baby and introduces various homeopathic remedies tailored to different labor stages. Plus, hear her heartfelt personal stories about home births, offering real-life insights into these natural approaches.
Shift your focus to labor and postpartum healing as we delve into the benefits of hydrotherapy and hands-on techniques like massage for pain management. Explore the advantages of birthing tubs and effective homeopathic remedies such as KALI carbonicum for back labor and Arnica for post-delivery relief. We emphasize the essential support women need after childbirth and how a collaborative approach between naturopathic and conventional doctors ensures comprehensive care. Tune in to understand how this integrative method offers a holistic path to maternal well-being.
Sometimes we say morning sickness, but we know that it does not just last in the morning, that it can last all day long.
Dr Bola Sogade:Hello and welcome to CocoaPods podcast. My name is Dr Bola Sogade. I'm a women's health specialist. We have been talking to Dr Jessica Patella, a naturopathic physician, who has been talking to us about naturopathic medicine with respect to maternal health.
Dr Jessica Patella :Perfect example that ginger would be more of the botanical medicine, right? Or just food as medicine, where you can actually take the ginger because it can be calming to the stomach and you could just slice some fresh ginger and put it in hot water and just make your own ginger tea. So that would be more of like a food as medicine or even a plant medicine that you could use. Peppermint sometimes is helpful too for calming the stomach for some. Yes, so that would be, yeah, great example of the difference between the two. And then another remedy that can be really helpful for women that have a lot of nausea. That kind of lasts all day right. So sometimes we say morning sickness, but we know that it does not just last in the morning, that it can last all day long and sometimes just nothing relieves it, right. You can have kind of the small bits of crackers or little bites of food and just nothing will touch the nausea. So in that case a good remedy is Ipecac, which is I-P-E-C-A-C, and that's a good remedy when you kind of have this like nauseous feeling that just won't go away and is lasting all day long. So those are kind of the top two remedies in pregnancy for women that are dealing with that nausea in the beginning stages and now I'm going to kind of transition us closer to that time period of labor Before we kind of get to that point.
Dr Jessica Patella :One remedy I wanted to share with you is pulsatilla. The homeopathic remedy pulsatilla sometimes can be used if the baby's malpositioned. Now of course you can do physical medicine right with different maneuvers to try to have that baby move into proper position, but that could be supported with taking a homeopathic remedy as well. And typically this mother is pulsatilla. If somebody's in a pulsatilla state they tend to be more emotional, very weepy and kind of better outside in cooler air. So if that kind of fits that picture, that might be something to consider for a mother that's trying to get that baby into the proper position towards the later stages of pregnancy.
Dr Bola Sogade:And that's pulsatilla.
Dr Jessica Patella :Yes, yes. And then when we go, I also have some labor remedies for you and we transition into labor. So you'll see that some of these kind of they change right. So just because there's one remedy right, we have different stages to labor and they kind of progress and become more intense the closer you get to the actual delivery. So, having homeopathic remedies, they likely will change during that time period.
Dr Jessica Patella :I don't I can't remember if I told you this story or not, but I had a home birth.
Dr Jessica Patella :We were at home for our first daughter and I was like, oh, I'll be able to treat myself with homeopathic remedies.
Dr Jessica Patella :You know I had them all lined up on the counter and you know I watched all the things about women that seem to, just, you know, have a baby and it's like they just took another breath and it was no big deal. And then I was, like you know, in the stages of labor and I was like, wow, this is not me, like I cannot treat myself Like you know, I just kind of you go into some like zone or meditative state or whatever. So the second time around I had a whole printed list that I gave my husband and I was like, okay, if I say these things, these are the remedies that you give me, because it's very difficult to treat yourself when you're laboring. So it's good to have that person there to help you. But just know that it can change right, because the beginning stages can be very different than the end stages of labor. So just because you've tried one remedy, you might need another one as you get closer to delivery.
Dr Bola Sogade:So you had both home births right.
Dr Jessica Patella :Well, we ended up in the hospital, but our hospital has a beautiful mother-baby and labor and delivery and you can labor in the tub at our hospital, which is really nice. I was able to do that for our second one and oh my gosh what a difference that makes, because I know that you do that at your center, which is oh my goodness.
Dr Bola Sogade:Yeah, we may talk about that next yeah.
Dr Jessica Patella :Yes, yeah, we will. Okay, so in labor. So I'm going to go over some of those labor remedies. The first one that I have to share with you is Aconite A-C-O-N-I-T-E, and this is for more like very intense contractions. It tends to come along with a lot of fear or anxiety from the mother. This one you might have to have a naturopathic doctor as far as getting this remedy. I'm not sure that they always have this one over the counter, but that's kind of in that more intense stages of labor. Another one is Belladonna. So this is another one, right? So this is a nightshade. This is the homeopathic, not the botanical, so very, very different, just to clarify that. So this is also very intense labor pain. A lot of times there's a lot of heat in the face, or that mother might just have like one cheek that's red and the other isn't, so sometimes you can see that occur with belladonna, but the hands and feet tend to be very cold, so it's like all this heat is concentrated in the face, with this like very intense labor pain. So that would indicate belladonna for you to give to that mother.
Dr Jessica Patella :The next remedy is chamomile. So this also is coming from a plant, the chamomile plant, right. So most of us are familiar with that as a tea to take chamomile tea before bed or something to help kind of relax. So that's when you're actually taking the parts of that flower, you're drying them and you're taking it as a tea For the homeopathic. That's again it's been succused and it's put onto those little pellets, so it's a completely different preparation for that chamomile plant. So chamomile is hypersensitive to pain in the point that when you're observing that mother sometimes it's like okay, like goodness, you know, I'm not sure whether you know, we know that this can be painful, but we're not, we're not at that stage yet, right and so, but there's just this oversensitivity to everything. It could even just be being touched to put in an IV and they're like screaming in pain. So everything is kind of again, they're oversensitive to everything that's happening during that stage, even in those very early stages of labor, and they also can be extremely irritable when you are with them.
Dr Jessica Patella :Another remedy is carbo-vegetalibus. For carbo-veg this mother tends to feel very weak in pregnancy, very tired. So I think of like when I have a lot of times I come up with kind of pictures almost to help me remember these remedies. So to me I think of, like the mother that this is, you know, fourth, fifth, sixth child. They've had many children, they're all at home. She's you know, know, she's just tired from her body. Having multiple pregnancies and having to keep up with a lot of little ones um takes a lot of energy. So this could be like this state of like, so weak that you're not seeing the labor progress, and it's almost like her constitution isn't strong enough to get to those stages because she's so tired. So that wouldn't it in that kind of picture. It would make me think of CarboVeg for that mother.
Dr Jessica Patella :Another one is Gelsamium. Gelsamium also tends to be very tired, but the sensation that comes along with that remedy is very different. So in Gelsamium they tend to feel very heavy, almost as if they can't even move their body, they can't support their weight. This can also be labor that stops progressing, right. We know that sometimes you see this progression and all of a sudden it just stops right, there's no more. You know the cervix didn't dilate completely. We're no longer having contractions at regular intervals, so it kind of just stops or it's slowing down. So sometimes that would make you think of the homeopathic remedy Gelsamium as well, to help that mother kind of get back into those stages of having that labor progress.
Dr Bola Sogade:Thank you, Thank you so much. So were you describing the states of the mothers and the state that that mother is presenting right?
Dr Jessica Patella :Because labor can present in so many ways. So you're trying to find the remedy that matches that state to help her through that. Whether that to be to essentially make it so there's less they can have. Help with pain. They can help with making the labor come back to progression, so it's progressing again. Help with that. The labor come back to progression, so it's progressing again. Help with that oversensitivity to pain, depending what that remedy is. So you're just trying to find the remedy that matches the state that that mother is currently in to help her move through that, you know, more efficiently and hopefully more comfortably as well.
Dr Bola Sogade:Thank you. Okay, so we did mention hydrotherapy, and at our birth center in Forsyth we use a lot of hydrotherapy, massage and other hands-on techniques, you know using trigger points and acupressure for pain management in labor. I believe you call this physical medicine. So how do you, as a naturopathic doctor, use these physical modalities to promote healing and to help during labor?
Dr Jessica Patella :Yes, I just love that you have the birthing tub right, so it just helps, because then the muscles, like that mother, is fully supported right by that water. There's the ability for those muscles to completely relax because they're working in massage and things. That's just beautiful. I think what you're offering makes that birthing process so much, so much more. You know, this picture of of beauty and support that you're giving to these women is really wonderful. So it's naturopathic doctors that there's many that also become midwives and support women in the birthing process, and a lot of them will do the same things that you are doing.
Dr Jessica Patella :As far as hydrotherapy, one of the biggest things for naturopathic doctors with hydrotherapy this we use more for kids, but I use it as an adult is what we call wet sock treatment. I use it as an adult is what we call wet sock treatment, and so wet sock treatment is where, when somebody has a fever obviously there's so many you have to know the threshold of what you're comfortable with, with how high you would let a fever get. But there's benefits, right, our body is innately wise and it has all these things there to protect us. So when you get a fever, it helps to fight off that infection right. It makes your body release more of your white blood cells. It makes it so that way, the, you know, the bacteria virus cannot survive as well in your body by raising that temperature. So in naturopathic medicine we try not to stop that process right, because it does help it helps in healing so.
Dr Jessica Patella :But one of the things that we do if it's starting to get to that point we're like it's getting a little bit high for what somebody is comfortable with is to use wet socks. So you take a thin pair of socks and you get them wet with really really cold water. So here in the South we have to add some ice cubes to it usually because we don't get very cold here and then you wring out those socks really really well. So they're cold and wet but they're not dripping wet. You wring them out really well and then you put those socks on and then put either a pair of wool socks or just a pair of thicker socks over it and kind of go to bed and you will be amazed at your body will. That heat essentially will dry out those socks and that fever will come down.
Dr Jessica Patella :So that's, I feel like that's the major naturopathic use of hydrotherapy kind of across the board. Now of course there's doctors that specialize in that and their whole practice is just constitutional hydrotherapy of different kind of hot and cold applications to the body, usually with some electrical stimulation on the liver and gallbladder. But that's a wet socks. I feel like any almost any naturopathic doctor, if not all will know that treatment.
Dr Bola Sogade:Thank you, thank you for that. So you've given us some things for labor and do you have more? And is there anything for after the baby comes?
Dr Jessica Patella :you know, because you know women still need support, you know, during those times are especially helpful for back labor, because I feel like that's so hard when that mother gets a lot of pain in the back as she's laboring. So KALI, which is K-A-L-I carbonicum, c-a-r-b-o-n-i-c-u-m this is one of the main remedies for back labor and back pain while laboring. So this can just be really helpful to support a mom if she has that while she's laboring. Also, I just wanted to share with you as far as after and whether there is a tear or an episiotomy, there can be some support with using homeopathic remedies. So, as far as if you had to do either if you had to rush to the hospital and do a cesarean, or if that was planned, or if you had to do an episiotomy, so if you had to make a cut, those are all clean cuts, right. Those are surgical cuts that have been planned and so they're essentially clean, so those can. Staphysagria, the homeopathic remedy Staphysagria can be helpful for any type of medical cut that's been made. And then the sutures that can be applied afterwards, so that homeopathic remedy Staphysagus can help with the healing from a cutting wound. Now, if the mother happens to tear while laboring, bellus perineus is a remedy that is very helpful for that. So now we're looking at a tear, so that's not a clean cut right Like that's just torn.
Dr Jessica Patella :So two different remedies, homeopathic remedies that can help with that, and then, across the board, I feel, like most people, the one remedy that almost everybody knows as far as homeopathy goes is Arnica. So Arnica is used a lot for bruising, swelling. So you can go to, you know, your Walgreens, your CVS, whichever that's kind of on every corner, and you can find homeopathic Arnica cream for sure. And then everything I'm talking about today is to take in the pellet form. But that's one that can be used because there can be a lot of swelling or even bruising that occurs from delivery, and so Arnica is a good one to kind of help women across the board with healing after they've given birth. So that would be one that would be helpful, kind of almost for anybody afterwards.
Dr Bola Sogade:Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for that. Thank you so much. Now we want to move to. We want to look at evidence-based practices and some latest research in naturopathic medicine, topics for more discussion in our upcoming episode. Does the naturopathic doctor integrate evidence-based practices into their treatments?
Dr Jessica Patella :I'm just curious evidence-based practices into their treatments. I'm just curious. Yes, absolutely, and I'm so glad you brought this up, because I think there just needs to be so much more knowledge around this topic. And so, as naturopathic doctors, we're trained not only to reach out to our medical colleagues, so reaching out to the medical doctor, so that way we can work together. I think the best patient medicine comes when you have somebody that's well-educated in the natural and holistic sense, that also can work with the medical doctor, and it can almost become a team for that patient. So, you know, I feel like that is a great resource.
