Learn important aspects of maintaining iron stores postpartum in this often-overlooked aspect of perinatal health:
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Birthing the Placenta Blog HERE
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Learn important aspects of maintaining iron stores postpartum in this often-overlooked aspect of perinatal health:
Links to all the extra good stuff:
Click to check out the Beautiful One Membership experience! NOW OPEN!
Birthing the Placenta Blog HERE
Join our email community + get instant access to our awesome Sleep Freebie: HERE
Browse all our favorite women’s supplement recommendations: HERE
Submit your answer-on-the-show questions: HERE
Subscribe to the podcast to catch every episode. Follow us on Instagram for all the extra education and antics in between episodes at @beautifulonemidwifery
You're at home with Kelly and Tiffany watches. Jelly. I saw the hesitation and I jumped on my opportunity. You've been waiting 40 something episodes to be able to do that again. You're welcome. My patients. And perseverance has paid off. And I got to say, it's. Not as fulfilling as I wanted it to be what that'd be a lesson to you. Don't take over. I was distracted because we're sitting in a brand new space. We have a new office space and that's where we're recording right now. Very first episode. Very first, anything. In in the new office space and. I was trying to be extra and do an accent wall in the office space. And Kelly and I spent the entire first. Part of grieving each other today. Talking about is the accent wall too much. You know, in the pictures, I really liked it. Thank you. So it photographs nicely, aesthetically pleasing. Online presence. It's not that it's bad. It's not bad. It's just not as you can see the potential for it to be. For it to have gone a different direction. It is quite pink. It's too pink. Yes. Way too pink. But going for dusty rose. And. It's dusty. It's like dusty, bubblegum or something. Yeah. I'm not into it and we're going to have to paint over it. But anyway, I saw the reflection in the window across from us and I was like, yep, I hate it. And then you introduced a podcast. And here we are. Full circle now I can't stop staring at it and the window across there. It's I really appreciate the effort. Thank you so much. I will close the blinds later. That helps you. Great. So that helps all of us. Great, great. Today we get to talk about trading postpartum anemia. Yeah. And how much it impacts recovery in particular after birth, it is such an overlooked aspect of preparing for birth, preparing for postpartum, recovering postpartum. So many issues stem from being anemic, postpartum, and most women don't even realize that they are. And so I'm excited to share this information in such a specific way or share this specific information. In a, in some kind of way, it's going to be specific. It will be specific before we jump in, I want to share a review. I know we've been sharing reviews every single episode, but it's because we have so many and I am so thankful and I just want to share reviews all day long. We should just have an episode. That's just reviews. I wonder if anyone who listened to that? No. If we have to buy everyone drinks it. And listen to that episode, that'd be a expensive episode for us. That would be, it'd be worth it. High paying episode. Ooh. Actually it would be worth it. Yeah. I'll think about it. Because then everyone has to listen to it that at least. Left a review. And have to listen to the entire thing. Cause maybe there's this last. So we've got 10 to 12 people listening to that episode. And if they were all local, we could just bring them together. For a coffee date or a. Teeny. How about I make coffee, make a pot of coffee at my house. Great. That's great. Come on over. Five or 10 minutes. You can hang out. And then he got to go. Okay. So this one is from I don't know, Kelly, who is this? Okay. So. I'm sure. I'm sure her name is Natalie or something like that. Her handle is NATSA monkey. But the way that it comes across in my brain, when I see it is. Not someone cookie. What are you? What's your favorite topping on your pizza? Pet, but not so much. Okay. We don't want to discourage anyone from leaving reviews since we make fun of the handles all the time. And then this is a fun part of trying to imagine who this wonderful woman is, who left a five star review. She titles the review, my virtual midwives. Oh. That's among game. That's a monkey. You've got virtual midwives. This is crazy. Okay, this is what she says. I have been following you guys on Instagram for over two years now, starting during my last pregnancy. I had a car birth with that baby, which finally convinced my husband to let me have a home birth for my next baby. I'm currently 40 weeks pregnant and anxiously anticipating that home birth. And while I was so sad that you weren't available to hire during my due date, having this podcast has made me feel like I still have Kelly and Tiffany as a part of my birth team. Thank you so much for all the great information you put out and forgiving me. Great things to listen to as a curb, walk myself through these final days. Oh, curb walking yourself. I wonder if she's had her baby. Yeah. This review was left September 25th. So a week ago. Yeah, she probably has. Oh, not some monkey. This is perfect timing for you. Yeah. Congratulations. Not some monkey. Bio postpartum drink. Yeah, we will. Oh, I hope you're listening to this episode. Yes. You have some postpartum anemia to treat. Yes, absolutely. This is the perfect one for you to not be curb walking to anymore. Be laying in your bed, resting and recovering and cuddling your baby. There will be no curb walking postpartum. Nope. Okay. So for anyone who's listening, who doesn't know what curb walking is. Yeah, it's literally a walking on a curb. You put one foot up on the curb, one foot down, like on the actual street, right? So you are. Asymmetrical in your walk. And the idea is that you'll walk for awhile. One way on that. With that foot up higher and then kind of turn around. Go the opposite direction. With the other leg up higher and the hope is to help encourage baby and engage and get them into a good position and just kind of get ready for birth. Yeah, it just kind of jiggles things around tickles, baby and jiggles soft tissue jiggles pelvis, give some angles. Jiggle jiggle, jiggle, jiggle, not a monkey. All right. And for your listening pleasure ladies, we have a brand new resource available in our shop. It is perfect timing in my opinion. It is called our immune health bundle and it is available for purchase. Kelly tell everybody what is inside of the immune health bundle? Well, Tiffany. Tell everybody what they've won. For a price. Usually when you pay a little money. You win something, you, you win a product you purchased. Wonderful. Okay. So within this bundle, as we enter into this season where we see so many people just get these cyclical illnesses, kids are sick, parents are sick all of that stuff. So we're trying to fight against that, right? We have force, but very specific recipes that are going to stimulate your immune system. All of those can be made ahead of time, right? In stash for the future. So these recipes can all be kind of prophylactically made and just there for you when you need them. So you don't even need to think about them when illness. Strikes your house. Supplement protocol for fighting any type of bug, any type of intruder. Not actual intruders like into your home, but like, you know, viruses trying to intrude your body. In that way, unless your home intruder is acting in psychosis because of their actual physical illness, in which case you are going to want to dose them. Immediately with our immune boosting protocol. Well, there are very, they're very specific supplement six supplements in particular in specific dosing. To kick that particular psychotic intruder as quickly as possible. There's a homemade juice elixir recipe that is clinically effective as ibuprofen for pain and inflammation. You know, those feelings that you get when you are just run down your body's aching. So we have the perfect juice for that. A sinus infection protocol that brings super rapid relief. I can attest to it. My husband can as well. And helps you avoid antibiotics when you're dealing with sinus stuff. For herbal preparations to stock your natural medicine cabinet with a DIY fire cider and elderberry syrup recipes. You can make those on demand for super cheap at home. You do not need to buy those things, a super straightforward to make. And then 27. 27 natural remedies for cough, sore throat fever, nausea, all with the product links that you need, that you can just click on purchase, probably be on their way to you. You know, the next day. So. All of that is available within this immune health bundle. Only$10 in our store. And we want you to have it. Yeah, we do. We want that in your back pocket, we want your natural medicine cabinet stocked for the season. Yeah. I actually went through and pulled some things so that I was, and that I'm prepared. Good for you.'cause I don't, I hate when I'm like, oh, now we're all sick or somebody is sick and I'm like, oh, Oh, that stuff ran out or my one thing like, oh, that's actually about that. Like a years ago, I probably should buy a new one whenever you want to have it prepared. Absolutely. Thank you, Kelly. Yep. Okay. So fill in the blank. If more women did blank, they would instantly have in a better postpartum. Oh, my what my blank would be. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of blanks. Pick one, blink. If, if more women did blink. Like laying in I'm grade, resting, like actually taking that. Particular time of postpartum seriously in terms of front-loading rest as much as possible and embracing it like endeavoring to enjoy it and see the value in it. Yes. It's just like find him resting. I'll do it, but I don't like it. Oh, sometimes you might get to that place, but it's still worthy as you understand the reasoning behind it. Agreed. All right. Eight signs of iron deficiency. We are going to get these in your guys' brain. Before we jump into how to treat postpartum anemia. Anemia and iron deficiency. Hand-in-hand I mean the same thing. Here's eight signs of it. Extreme fatigue. Weakness pale skin. Chest pain, fast heartbeat or shortness of breath. Headache dizziness or lightheadedness, cold hands and feet. Brittle kneels, unusual cravings for non-nutritive substances, like ice dirt or starch. Quite the list. Have you been iron deficient or anemic at any point in your life? A hundred percent because I hemorrhaged in both of my births. So I absolutely was, I don't know if I identified with the symptoms of iron deficiency, but looking back. I had a lot of postpartum issues that were a hundred percent traceable back to the events in my birth. Yeah, for sure. What about you? Yeah, I, I, throughout my life, I sort of ran low, I suppose. Like every time I would ever get blood work done, but I didn't really understand some of these. Things I like definitely dealt with. Brittle nails. My hands were always cold. My hands and feet, I grew up and it was kind of like a joke. And I didn't realize that that was like a part of. Until I was a lot older. And then in my third pregnancy, I started out the low, I started out my pregnancy, the lowest I have ever been. So I've I spoken before that, that pregnancy was like, threw me for a loop because I just was, I was not, I was not treating myself well, when I was in midwifery school, I was just so stressed. But I started out very, very low in that and had to work very hard to. Come back up and be stable. It stable and all the ways. And so many ways. Yeah. But 30% of women at some point in their lives are iron deficient. I know that's crazy. I mean, we know that like general nutrient deficiency affects up to 80% of adults. Or just deficient in something eight out of 10 of us. My word. But 30% of women, that's a huge number. Yeah, for sure. And I'd like venture to say. Potentially even higher, like women who are just sort of like flirting with the line, but maybe aren't clinically. Told. Yeah, because we always talk about functional value versus lab value versus conventional medicine value. And there's some discrepancy in some of those things, for sure. So we measure iron in the blood, primarily with hemoglobin in a blood test. Our bodies need iron to make hemoglobin hemoglobin is an iron rich protein that gives the red color to our blood and it carries oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. It's kind of important. Yeah. A little bit. A little bit. So when we are dealing with a lack of that, right, when we're dealing with a lack of iron dealing with anemia, There's usually these three main causes, one being blood loss, like great. Tiffany just mentioned hemorrhaging to my births, right. Dealing with sort of the consequences of that. The second being lack of red blood cell production, and that can stem from a few things, but usually right. Poor diet, not enough iron protein a vitamin B deficiency, those types of things where there's just sort of a lack of deficiency there. And then the third being high rates of red blood cell destruction. I feel like we need like a. Yeah, there's a bomb. There's a bomb sound effect needed here. Yes, for sure. And that happens more so with like auto-immune stuff, other types of diseases, infections, and even some medications can actually cause that too. We call it homolysis. That's a cell destruction that doesn't sound like it needs the sound effect. No. Homolysis. Destruction. Yeah, we are a licensed medical care providers. Yep. Okay. So being iron deficient before you enter your pregnancy is a risk factor. And how that might happen could be, could be blood loss. It could be that you have really heavy periods and you're not getting enough iron boosted in between each cycle. And so you're just chronically low, which could have been a part of your history. Kelly. Or you're just not blood building. Your body has just doesn't have the nutrients it needs in order to be an efficient blood builder. But that's an important thing to pay attention to. If you are someone who kind of runs low. On iron in general, you are probably going to have a problem with it in pregnancy. And if you have a problem with your iron level in pregnancy, we're probably going to have a problem with your iron level in postpartum, unless it's addressed. In pregnancy. So when you're pregnant, you're brilliant and body. Actually produces 50% more blood volume for you, but blood volume comes in the form of plasma. It's the clear. Volume part of your blood that expands, which means that all your red blood cells get diluted in that and your body has to work really hard in order to. Try to get your blood stocked back up again with red blood cells. And pregnancy. So it's a really normal physiological process for us to see a dip in hemoglobin with that blood volume expansion. We expect that to peak around 28 weeks, which is why we usually do. A blood tests. We do, we run a CBC or sometimes an iron panel, or sometimes a whole bunch of other things, but around 28 weeks, as you enter into that third trimester is a good time to see. Did your human globin have a drastic dip with that blood volume expansion. And then we want to, we want to watch that we want to keep an eye on it. Yeah. And we even checked, you know, like, as we're doing blood work at the beginning of pregnancy, we kind of assess those numbers and be like, okay, well, if there's sort of this normal dilution that happens. Let's be thinking proactively here, if you are sort of on the cusp there of, if you lose a couple of points in that, what would that look like for you and how hard are we going to have to work to bring that back up? So definitely we, I mean, as midwives, especially, we just like to be proactive in. In all of those things. So the best way that you are going to kind of defend against postpartum anemia is going into birth with good stores. So again like Tim was saying, addressing it in pregnancy is what is really going to be the biggest piece. There being anemic in pregnancy can actually double your risk of hemorrhage at birth. So doubling your risk 6% to 11%, it's similar to how like heavy. We might have heavy periods normally and be anemic. And you think, oh, it's heavy, it's heavy because I'm anemic. But also it's like the sort of cyclical pattern that happens. Oh, they're heavy because you're anemic and you're anemic because they're heavy. Right. So that's a similar idea happening there about that. Hemorrhaging at birth. So hemorrhage is more likely with induction or some kind of augmentation in labor. The most common augmentation piece of labor in a hospital would be the use of Pitocin. And so that long-term use of Pitocin, right? You've been there for hours. They continue to kind of increase the dosage. That's going to exhaust your uterus. It's going to shut down lots of natural hormone production. That's meant to really clamp down here, uterus at the end of all of this. And so. You know, that kind of increases your risk there and that always isn't discussed necessarily. And it's definitely more likely with rough. Like, you know, when you're, you've had your baby and you're waiting for the placenta, if that it's called the third stage of labor, meaning it has its own stage. So it's incredibly important how it is managed, but when that's a bit more rough pulling the placenta out before it's ready, all of that kind of stuff. That definitely increases the risk of hemorrhage as well. We have a great blog post up on our website that speaks all about third stage management and hemorrhaging and. Placenta delivery, all kinds of stuff. Yeah. And how midwives respond to it versus like how an obstetrician would respond to it? And so mostly just reviewing this information for you ladies, because the birth circumstances of that event, they actually matter. It impacts your postpartum impacts your iron stores and impacts your healing. And it needs to be considered. Yeah, absolutely. So iron deficiency in the postpartum that can actually lead to increased, increased risks of a bunch of different things. Right. Which is why, again, we're like, this really does matter because it's not just, oh, I lost a lot of blood or, oh, maybe I'm more fatigued or something. Right. There's a lot of different things that can be impacted including. Just your physical healing in general, how long that takes, how that feeling for you? Increased risk of infection. Additional just physical stress on your body as your body is trying to recover from this big thing that it just did. Brain fog and just general reduced cognition. If your brain isn't good, if your body and your brain are not getting what they need, you absolutely will start to feel that even more. So just. Then just like the like, oh, mom brain. I kind of forgot that. Right. It is like very tough to cognitively function in that state. And it's actually very highly risk. Linked with a risk of depression. And so that is another piece that we often talk about as we prepare moms for postpartum, especially with women who have had a history of. Anemia for sure. So, any of these symptoms that you're dealing with of those types of like, you know, risk factors that you might have there. Absolutely ask your care provider for a lab test just to get sort of a baseline of what's going on and how you can support yourself. Yeah. And especially if you're preparing ahead of time. And you know, that there was a more than average blood loss, then you're going to want to continue to monitor it with blood tests as you treat. So it's an important thing to. Just have a pulse on every few weeks or so. So that, you know, what you're doing is. Effectual. So you know where your baseline is, so that, you know, you're just keeping an eye on some of those pieces so that you can avoid any of those increased risks that Kelly just talked about. And you know, here because we're midwives and because we're out of hospital midwives, and because we're midwives who believe in the process that your body goes through. We're going to talk about preventing anemia in the first place. And you've got, you can probably guess it. You need to support your body in a way that allows it to be a blood building system. And we talked about kind of the things that prevent that from happening. So we're going to do the opposite. Of those things. Eating iron rich foods like red meat, green leafy vegetables, a lot of seeds and nuts are iron rich and high vitamin C plants because those help iron to be better absorbed and utilized in your body like citrus and peppers, broccoli. Those are all high in vitamin C. You can potentially cook more in a cast iron skillet on your stove. You can be taking trace minerals in order to just aid in general, absorption of electrolytes and minerals in your whole body, you can be focused on gut health so that your nutrient absorption. In your entire body, you're able to actually uptake and absorb and utilize the iron that you are. Eating. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's, it just encourages me so much to have these tangible things that you're like, okay, I can do this. I can do that from home. If that just means adding a little bit more red meat in, and then focusing on these other things or even cooking in cast iron. I remember when I learned that in my second pregnancy, like how much is actually absorbed from that? I was like, oh, that's. That's an easy step that I can take towards this like lifestyle of encouraging my body to be just kind of firing on all cylinders in that way. For sure. At least for me. And then, so right. We're trying to prevent, but if you're in that space where you're needing to actually treat what is going on, for sure, you're going to want to do blood tests. I know maybe that's a little invasive for some people, but it's so incredibly helpful to get a baseline of what is going on and then continue to kind of monitor progress. From there as well. So every couple of weeks you can even, you know, get some lab work done, whether that's through your care provider or you can actually just go order yourself a complete blood count or an iron panel through walk-in lab or another. I don't know if there's other places that you can kind of order your own blood tests online. Which is pretty awesome. So that's sort of the baseline, just to understand what's really going on inside of your body. We mentioned rest being so vital at the beginning of the episode. And just thinking that that could really change a lot of people's postpartum and that is true. So we have a. I mean, we didn't create it. It is a well-known kind of quote, rule to live by but a 5, 5, 5 rule. So five days in the bed, five days on the bed, five days around the bed. The idea is. A couple of weeks of really leaning into and front-loading rest postpartum. That is going to give you the best chance. For your body to recover for you, to bond with your baby, for you to really focus on. What really needs to be focused on, right? So those are sort of like those baseline pieces. And then obviously there are iron building suggestion. So obviously supplemental iron can be super helpful. Beef liver. We love because you get a ton of extra Vitamins minerals within that and super bioavailable and sometimes easier on the body, depending on what is going on. And then like Tim mentioned earlier as well, vitamin C. So that's going to help the iron actually absorb. And do its thing within your body. A vitamin B complex methylated would be wonderful. And then the earth yellow dock is really a wonderful herbal support for your body as you're taking these and you're, or you're thinking about them. If you are taking calcium. Supplement or just looking at the foods that you're eating that are higher in calcium, trying to take those types of things away from that. Because the inhibits absorption. So it's important to kind of keep those two things separate and also some evidences growing that turmeric can also inhibit iron absorption. So that's an important thing to keep in mind. Also, if you've got a big. Turmeric. Habit. I can't get away from this stuff. One really cool thing. And I know you guys have heard us talk about it before, but we have an iron building protocol that outlines all this information in directions step by step. And this is what you do to get your iron levels up. That's in our shop for only five bucks. And one really cool thing is that the last client of ours. Who was anemic and used our iron building protocol to bring her iron levels up. She was normal again from like a borderline like, oh, if you go much lower, you're not going to be all to have a home birth. So she jumped right on it. And in less than two weeks, she brought her hemoglobin up to a normal level, which was incredibly encouraging. And so nice that an a. An issue that could be really serious and have tons of, you know, implications for missing it. There are some solutions that are going to just bring you right back into normal, which is what midwifery care is all about. Yeah. It's great to have options that are like tried and tested and true, but also are so supportive of the body and nourishing of the body in so many different ways. I feel like this is something that, you know, can put people in like a much higher risk. Category and to have tools to help keep you out of that or bring you out of that. Is in the bowl. So like we were mentioning generally speaking prevention. Awareness. That's going to be the best approach and that's our favorite kind of approach, but certainly being proactive. Right. And taking care of yourself, advocating for yourself. To keep iron stores up at intact, through the whole pregnancy and postpartum timeline. Don't sleep on all the things that you're doing. In your pregnancy. Bring those into postpartum, for sure. Yeah. And so we've listed two products that are available in our shop.$10,$5, but. For only$32 a month. Right now, there are over 24 postpartum resources in our membership. So that's postpartum planning. That is natural recovery. That is meal planning and recipes that is rest guidelines, natural remedies, all of the natural tools and holistic tools that you want to implement to make your postpartum and beyond time feel as holistic and supported and just. Just give yourself some merging for peace in a time. That can be really difficult in chaotic. That is all available to you through our membership. Plus we have built in ongoing support. It's not just about the library. It's not just about access to the products and the information it's access to us to ask us questions, access to the community for encouragement and accountability. And so we would be remiss if we did not say while we're offering you these other. Options and resources. If we didn't share the very best resource that we have in our arsenal. Yeah. I mean, two of those products, right? Or like half the cost of the entire membership for a month. Right. But like iron building protocol, the holistic health bundle thing. Right. And like you, those are included in there. And for not that much more, you get ever rethink. So we're hopeful that we see you in there. All of the links to all of the things are in our show notes. And. We'll catch you next time. Alright. Bye ladies.