Herlihy Family Law
Alison Herlihy is a dedicated family law attorney with roots in Mobile, Alabama.
Herlihy Family Law
EP #10: Helping Daughters Bloom: Navigating Puberty with Confidence with Guests Dr. Nancy Wood and Dr. Quin Bixler of In Full Bloom, MD
Ever felt that nervous flutter in your stomach when thinking about having "the puberty talk" with your daughter? You're definitely not alone. In this illuminating conversation, host Alison Herlihy is joined by pediatrician Dr. Nancy Wood and OBGYN Dr. Quin Bixler, co-founders of In Full Bloom, MD. They reveal why so many parents struggle with this crucial milestone—and how their innovative approach is changing the game.
Ready to transform your approach to these essential conversations? Visit InFullBloomMD.com to explore their self-paced video course and free resources designed to help you guide your daughter through puberty with confidence, accuracy, and care. Because when knowledge becomes power, our daughters bloom.
Visit HerlihyFamilyLaw.com to learn more.
It's like this one-time conversation that has to be perfect, right, and it's not. It's an ongoing conversation. It doesn't have to be perfect. Anytime you bring it up is okay. Just jumping in and starting that conversation is really important.
Intro/Close:Welcome to the Herlihy Family Law Podcast, your trusted source for expert insights on navigating family law matters with clarity and care. Whether you're tackling tough decisions or seeking guidance for your family's future, we're here to help. Let's get started.
Alison Herlihy:Welcome back to the Herlihy Family Law Podcast. I'm your host, Alison Herlihy, and today we're diving into a topic that's incredibly important for so many families navigating the changes that come with puberty. Whether you're a parent, a guardian or just someone who cares deeply about the well-being of young girls and women in your life, today's episode is for you. I'm thrilled to be joined by Dr Nancy Wood and Dr Quinn Bixler, the co-founders of In Full Bloom MD. These two powerhouse women one a pediatrician, the other an OBGYN have created a thoughtful, accessible resource to help families have honest, empowering conversations about puberty periods and growing up. We'll be talking about their signature course, the common struggles that parents face and how we can help girls grow with confidence, clarity and compassion. Thank y'all for being here today.
Dr. Quinn Bixler:Thanks for having us.
Alison Herlihy:I know how busy you both are. Can you each tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to create In Full Bloom MD.
Dr. Quinn Bixler:Sure, I'll go first. I'm Quinn Bixler. I'm an OBGYN. I take care of women from all ages. I deliver babies, do surgeries you name it, I do. It Feels like it and I always wanted to be a doctor that's what my mom said. And there's college, med school, a residency, and then I married a man from Mobile and met Nancy and she takes care of our three children and yeah, that's me.
Dr. Nancy Wood:I'm Nancy Wood and I'm also from Mobile, like Quinn said, and I'm a pediatrician. I went to the University of Alabama and then I went to South for medical school. I did my residency in Augusta, georgia, and Quinn and I have been friends socially for a long time and we were asked by a mother to give this talk to their daughter and some of her friends and we started giving it and then it just exploded and we gave the talk many times over the past 10 years and we got all this feedback and then all of a sudden, we felt like it was our responsibility to take this talk and make it available to a much wider audience and that's why we started InFullBloomMD.
Alison Herlihy:Yeah, how did your medical background shape the mission and the messaging of the platform?
Dr. Quinn Bixler:It's always been a passion project for me. We don't get to do a lot of outreach in residency, but I always knew it was important because those adolescent visits are just so important. There's so many changes going on and you're starting a really big poignant time in your life and hormones are going crazy and it's not a an easy time for anybody mothers or daughters, people who are actually going through it and then boom, we have children and my daughter is 10 and she needs this information now and I'm like, oh my gosh, like I'm an OBGYN and yet I feel overwhelmed. I can just imagine how other people feel, and so it grew out of that. But we've, like Nancy said, we've been doing this for 10 years, but it really hit home very recently when we filmed the course.
Dr. Nancy Wood:And, as a pediatrician, I'll have parents come in and it's almost like it's got to be a secret. We don't want to bring up this topic in front of our children. Can you step out in the hall and talk to me about it? All this anxiety around giving the talk and making sure it's just right, and how do I start and when do I start this conversation? And it's moms, it's dad, it's aunts, uncles, grandparents Everybody is just very nervous about this particular talk that they have to give to their child.
Alison Herlihy:Yeah, what kinds of challenges were you seeing among your patients and their families that signaled the need for this type of resource?
Dr. Nancy Wood:So all the different resources that I found as a pediatrician were like on too far of the sterile end of the spectrum or too far on the cheesy end of the spectrum, like nothing was really striking. That perfect chord of we've got this information, we're going to present it to you and it's going to feel normal and natural and real and calm. Everything was just too far medical or too far cheesy, animated, too teenager, cool, and that's not what we're going for within full bloom.
Dr. Quinn Bixler:And a lot of things are written. I had the American Girl Body Book. I'm 40 years old. We can do better and we have, and we've given mothers and daughters the tools to understand the medical knowledge behind what's happening, but in a fun, relaxed way. That's not, like Nancy said, so sterile or so medical that it's boring, as my five-year-old would say.
Alison Herlihy:I remember when I was in fifth grade they took us all aside and had us like watch a video about it that starred like the cast of the Broadway musical Annie. That looked like it was from like the 70s and I'm 45, so obviously that wasn't that far removed from the 70s but even back then all the kids were like what is this? This is so weird and dated.
Dr. Quinn Bixler:Nancy and I have have created this great approach that explains things in a manner that nine and ten-year-old girls can take in and understand, and that's been really fun to see that feedback and 10 year old girls can take in and understand and that's been really fun to see that feedback and to see it click. We've had a lot of joy just from those moments of, oh, I get it. And with preparedness comes confidence and strengthened relationships. So we've been happy with our mission so far.
Alison Herlihy:What do you hope that parents and daughters take away from your work?
Dr. Nancy Wood:We really want them to get the accurate medical information they need. That's of utmost importance. But really, just Quinn just said, the strengthening of the bond between the child and the trusted caregiver is huge. We of course, encourage that throughout the course and then we just want them to feel really empowered. We want them to know their bodies, know what's going to happen, know that it's normal and feel ready for what's to come. And that's for the mom and the child. We want the mom to feel ready for what's to come with the child as well.
Alison Herlihy:I would think this could be so helpful in building trust between the parent and the child, which is so crucial and can become so challenging during teenage years. Teenagers have all kinds of problems and issues and stuff, and a lot of it you can see, I see in my work comes back to. People are afraid to communicate with each other. Other kids are afraid of their parents. Parents don't know what to think of their kids or feel like they can't relate, and I can see that something like this would be so helpful, not only about the subject matter it covers, but just with their relationship in general.
Dr. Quinn Bixler:Right, we want them to come to us, the parents, and you want your child to come to you. And in an age of internet and just typing something, what is AI gonna spit out to them? This is trusted information from an OBGYN and a pediatrician who deals with this puberty day in and day out. And let me clarify we're talking about puberty. Puberty is just the change of, and we're talking about, female puberty. We haven't covered boys yet, but a girl moving into womanhood, reproductive womanhood, and we don't cover sex at all in this topic, and so I know a lot of people are. I don't know where to start and it seems so overwhelming. But you start with puberty and then, a few years later, you have the sex talk with them. So this is our preparing to bloom course is just that you're preparing. You're like a flower. You're preparing to bloom, your body is preparing for womanhood.
Dr. Nancy Wood:Yeah, and, just like you said, we do certainly hope that building that trust, creating that open communication, when we're talking about puberty, when we're just talking about getting breasts and getting a period and having to wear deodorant and all of that, when you get that accurate information from your parents, you know that they're a trusted source. And so then, when the conversation gets really big and it's about sex and it's about all the different things that come after puberty, that you can go to your parents and they'll tell you the truth, because children are constantly sinking answers and if you're not the one to give them the accurate answers, they'll go find it somewhere else.
Alison Herlihy:Yeah, that's a great point, Nancy. So you have a self-paced video course called Preparing to Bloom, right, and it seems like it's a really approachable tool for families. Can you talk a little bit about what all it includes?
Dr. Quinn Bixler:Sure, it's easy to find. It's on our website, infullbloommdcom, under the courses tab. You just click it, pay for it and start watching at your own leisure. It's about 40 minutes total. You could watch it all in one setting. You can break it up into pieces just if you're nervous or life gets busy and you only have 10 minutes one day or one night. But at the end of it, as a caretaker, a mom, a dad, an aunt, uncle, a grandmother even, should feel totally ready to discuss puberty with their daughter. It covers anatomy. So anatomy is just the parts and pieces. Physiology is how those parts and pieces work. And then we also cover product use and hygiene what soaps to use, where to use it, how often do you change your tampon? All of the frequently asked questions that we've gotten over the last 10 years we've included for you.
Dr. Nancy Wood:We did and we tried really hard to include some of those forgotten changes that people don't discuss. About puberty, everyone talks so much about the period itself, but your sleep habits change, your diet changes A lot of times, your exercise habits change, your emotions are huge. So we have to touch on that if we're giving an all-encompassing course about puberty and then body image. We tried to really give a full picture and that's hard to do in 40 minutes and I think we really nailed it.
Alison Herlihy:That's great. What age group is the course best suited for, and what age do you think parents should start talking to their children about this?
Dr. Nancy Wood:So, as a pediatrician, I always coach parents that the right thing to do is give an age appropriate answer to any question you're asked, right? So if a small young child like a two-year-old or three-year-old asked a question, you need to give the two-year-old or three-year-old answer. You don't need to give the full response, and so the beginning of the conversation about puberty can happen at any time. We usually think around eight or nine is a good time to start it, but we'd like to remember that it's really never too late to have that conversation either. This course that we've created is for the caregiver to watch and then it's up to them to go to the child and give the information, but really never too early. Eight or nine is probably perfect for this particular conversation.
Alison Herlihy:And it seems like children are going through puberty earlier and earlier, all the time too. Do you think that's true?
Dr. Quinn Bixler:You hit the nail on the head. I'm seeing that as a gynecologist just earlier and we've given so many talks where the girls are gathered and they're playing ring around the Rosie and we call them in for a puberty talk at 10 years old my 10 year old is still playing on playgrounds and you want them to be prepared because knowledge is power and if they have power and they know their parts and they know what to call them, then no one can take advantage of. That's so important to know. Yeah, and you probably see the bad stuff with on your on your end with some cases.
Alison Herlihy:Yeah, it's known when you deal with sexual abuse situations that it can be problematic if children don't know the anatomical names for things, because when they use funny nicknames that people use and that's one thing when you're two or three years old, like you said, but if that's the only word they know, nobody else knows what they're talking about and it can be challenging. Yeah, what's one piece of feedback y'all have gotten from a parent or a daughter. That's really affirmed for you the impact of this course.
Dr. Nancy Wood:I'd like to mention two. Actually, one was one of my precious little patients. She had been to one of our live puberty presentations and she came in for her checkup, her yearly checkup. And she said Dr Nancy, I've been thinking a lot about what you and Dr Quinn taught me and I'm not afraid to start my period. And that was huge. That was just all the warm fuzzies from that little conversation. And then I had another friend say that and her quote was so meaningful to me it was two generations of women are so thankful for the work that you're doing.
Alison Herlihy:Wow, yeah, that's so impactful. Did you encounter any surprising moments while developing this curriculum?
Dr. Quinn Bixler:I think the shock of explaining that the periods happen monthly. Imagine you're nine years old and you may have heard about periods or blood coming from somewhere, but you don't know exactly where. But we have to hammer home at each live puberty presentation that we give that this is a monthly occurrence. You're going to bleed monthly out of a hole that you may or may not have known existed for five to seven days every month until you go through menopause. That's years and years. Hey, girls, you're going to, you're going to bleed out of this hole for every month for 40 years. That's, that's not cool. And they, their eyes, are like this. It really is shocking.
Alison Herlihy:Wow, I noticed y'all offer several free resources. Can you share a bit about those and how they complement the course?
Dr. Nancy Wood:Absolutely. The free resources are a little bit of reflection, so that when the trusted caregiver goes in to give the conversation, they've been very proactive about what they're going to say, how they're going to say it, instead of reactive. We prepare for babies for nine months. People just read all the books and do all this preparation and look at their baby pictures and all these things. And then the time comes for puberty and it feels they didn't know it was coming and it just kind of pops up on them. But our free resources help with the preparation that comes behind the conversation.
Dr. Quinn Bixler:Totally. I feel like I read every single book about child rearing and then I look up and I have a 10 year old and I'm like, ah, where are the resources?
Alison Herlihy:I understand that y'all are also working on a course about sex and reproduction. What can listeners expect from that, and how does that build on what you've already created?
Dr. Quinn Bixler:Yes, in the next logical talk, after explaining puberty and girls going through their period and having a few years to deal with that, obviously there's attraction to the opposite sex or same sex that comes up and we want them to also be prepared and have all the medical, factual information about intercourse and a frank conversation. We also touch on the morality of intimacy and definitely hammer home consent, because consent is of the utmost importance.
Alison Herlihy:That's so important. A lot of adults don't even get it. It seems like True. Are you planning to expand your curriculum further beyond puberty education in the future?
Dr. Quinn Bixler:I just took care of a patient a few minutes ago who is 67 and she's just. She's outraged that no one ever told her about menopause and what it would do her to her body. And I said you know what? We are working on that and we're going to call it withering because it's the end of our lives. But no, knowledge is power and we all know that women's health, the studies, the resources, everything's underfunded. I think there's a huge outpouring of more funding and more research and that will be to come. I don't know if it'll benefit me personally, but hopefully my daughters and your nieces and Nancy's daughter and just the next generations, because, hey, we want it and we're going to find it.
Alison Herlihy:What are some of the most common fears or misconceptions that parents have about talking to their children about puberty?
Dr. Nancy Wood:I would say that it's like this one time conversation that has to be perfect, right, and it's not. It's an ongoing conversation. It doesn't have to be perfect. Anytime you bring it up is OK. Just jumping in and starting that conversation is really important and it's not a one and done, it's an over and over again. There are going to be questions that pop up that weren't answered the first time. Go around and you can change what you've said. You can go back and say I said it this way, but I really think you might understand it better if I say it this way, or this is a much more clear presentation of what I was trying to say earlier.
Alison Herlihy:So it doesn't have to be perfect, it's not one time, just start the conversation, yeah, yeah. What are some other practical tips for parents who want to start these conversations but they don't. They're not sure how.
Dr. Nancy Wood:I think a really good place to start is asking questions. Sometimes your children know way more than you think they do about a certain topic, and so if you just start it with hey, so what do you know about the changes your body's going to go through? They may be really wide-eyed and say I don't know what you mean. Or they may be like oh, I heard that my older, my friend's older sister is doing this. Then the other and she told me all this and you can be like oh yeah, that's right, that's wrong.
Dr. Quinn Bixler:Yeah, and I think, creating a special one-on-one time and get the other children out of the way. I have a 10-year-old, an eight-year-old and a five-year-old. The eight-year-old and the five-year-old who suck all the air out of the room and are just bouncing around, need to be away and out of the picture. And this needs to be a special one-on-one time with my older daughter and just say hey, you're my most precious resource. I love you so much. I want you to be prepared for X, y, z. I don't want you to be embarrassed if you start bleeding at school. I want you to be totally prepared. What questions do you have for me?
Alison Herlihy:How do you help parents shift from a fear-based mindset to one of openness and support?
Dr. Nancy Wood:So that's really what the course is all about. It's when you feel prepared, you're confident, and then you're ready to support others when you really understand the topic well. And so preparing to bloom isn't just referring to preparing the child to bloom, it's preparing the parent for the child to bloom and to help the child bloom.
Alison Herlihy:Yeah, that's a great. That's a great point. If there's one thing you hope parents take away from your work, what would it be?
Dr. Quinn Bixler:Empowerment. I want them to be ready to step into that role and not keep putting it off, because that's what we've heard, just I don't know when to start. I don't know what to say. You watch the course, you're ready.
Dr. Nancy Wood:Definitely confidence yeah.
Alison Herlihy:What else would you say to a parent who feels uncomfortable or unsure about how to approach this subject?
Dr. Nancy Wood:I really love the analogy of the hardest part of the run is putting on your shoes for the run. So the hardest part of this conversation is actually just starting the conversation, just like Quinn said, like getting the other children out of the way sitting down with your child. Just do it, just jump in, just prepare and then do it.
Alison Herlihy:Where's the best place for our listeners to start, whether they're interested in your course or just learning more about this in general?
Dr. Quinn Bixler:Yes, we'd love for them to visit our website infullbloommdcom. We're also on Instagram at infullbloommd and Facebook as well. We've recently added TikTok and YouTube, but those don't have anything just yet, but we're hoping to do more outreach through those channels as well.
Alison Herlihy:That's great, so y'all have lots of options out there. Okay, we're going to do a couple of rapid fire questions, so y'all just say the first thing that comes to your mind. What's one myth about puberty that you wish would disappear?
Dr. Quinn Bixler:That tampons get stuck and they can go all over your abdomen and you'll never get it out.
Dr. Nancy Wood:That is gross. It's not gross, it's normal. It's natural, yeah.
Alison Herlihy:What's your favorite way to open the conversation with a child about growing up?
Dr. Nancy Wood:I like to say this is your body going from a little kid body to an adult body, and it's normal and it's exactly what your body was created to do.
Dr. Quinn Bixler:Yeah, my five-year-old is very open and we're open with bras and they've seen my breast before and that kind of thing, and she just cannot wait to get her breasts. I don't even have to bring it up, she's. I want breasts, like you, mom, and I'm like you're going to have to wait a while.
Alison Herlihy:What's one thing that you wish your younger self had known about puberty?
Dr. Quinn Bixler:I wish I wish I knew that all bodies are different and it's okay to look different and at different times. I think as women, we put so much pressure on maybe how we look and not what our bodies can do how much weight I can lift or how far I can run, and it's all about image, and I just don't think that should be, and I wish that was a stronger message, because throughout your life you're going to look different. You're going to be just more lean when you're younger and then, after you have a baby, for about a year you're just very soft. It doesn't matter how many times you go to the gym and then, as we get older, skin turgor decreases and we get wrinkles and we sag, and that's just a beautiful, well-lived life.
Dr. Nancy Wood:I wish I had known how much women discuss their bodies and periods and all of this when I was younger. I was an oldest girl child and I had a bunch of oldest girl child friends and none of us talked about it. And now that we're older women talk about this kind of stuff all the time and I wish I had known that when I was younger. That would have been very helpful.
Alison Herlihy:Women talk about this kind of stuff all the time, and I wish I had known that when I was younger. That would have been very helpful, yeah.
Dr. Quinn Bixler:Are there any last thoughts that y'all want to add about anything before we wrap up? We're just so excited about the course. If you're local in Mobile, we also do live puberty presentations for that nine and ten year old crowd, which are always a hit. But the course is just easy to press and obviously available on the internet and available to anybody.
Alison Herlihy:So that's great.
Dr. Quinn Bixler:Thank you all again.
Alison Herlihy:Dr Wood and Dr Bixler, thank you so much for sharing your insights and your mission with us today. It's clear that In Full Bloom is filling a critical gap for families who want to approach puberty if I can say it, with more confidence and connection For our listeners. If you have a daughter approaching puberty or already going through it, I encourage you to explore their resources at infullbloommd. com for their self-paced video course to their free printable guides and live events. There's something there for every parent who wants to show up better for their child. Thanks again for tuning in and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.
Dr. Quinn Bixler:Thanks, Allison, thank you, thank you.
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