Healthier Ever After

Pregnancy and Post-partum Hormones

Support My Weight Loss Season 1 Episode 28

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0:00 | 32:27

Rick and Greg close out their hormones series with one of the most personal episodes yet — a conversation with a guest who's family: Rick's daughter Lindsay, a nurse and soon-to-be nurse practitioner at BYU, who opens up about her own experience with postpartum depression and anxiety.

Lindsay shares what it was like to go through three different postpartum periods — mild anxiety she dismissed with her first baby, a severe depressive episode after her second, and panic attacks she'd never experienced before with her third — and why recognizing the symptoms in herself was far harder than recognizing them in the patients she cares for every day as a nurse.

Rick and Greg unpack the biology behind it: in the hours and days after delivery, estrogen and progesterone fall off a cliff, making the postpartum period the single most dramatic hormonal shift in human biology. While most women experience a short-lived case of the "baby blues," 15–20% go on to experience real postpartum depression — serious, often underdiagnosed, and treatable.

The conversation also covers the stigma around antidepressants, what changed when Lindsay found a provider who actually took the time to listen, the role of a strong support system, and how breastfeeding's hormonal effects can extend the postpartum recovery window to as long as 18 months.

A candid, important listen for anyone who is pregnant, postpartum, or supporting someone who is — and a reminder that struggling after childbirth isn't a personal failure, it's biology.

Rick and Greg are medical providers, but not your medical provider. Please consult your own provider regarding pregnancy, postpartum care, or any medication or treatment decisions.