Realfoodology - 47: Breast is Best with Emily Wilder

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

This episode is for the mommas, soon to be mommas and hopeful mommas!  Follow Emily Mama Wilder here:https://www.instagram.com/mama_wilder/

On today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. When you want to go over and see that baby, know that that mom was just born too. You know, the baby's not the only new person there. That mom is a totally new person. She wasn't a mom, you know, 48 hours, 72 hours ago. She was a completely different person. Go in there willing to help,

willing to get your hands dirty, willing to do dishes, fold laundry, bring food. Do not ever show up to a new mom's house empty-handed. Hi, welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology podcast. I am your host, Courtney Swan. I'm so happy that you're here. If you're loving this podcast, if you could take just a second to rate and review, it would mean so much to me. It is so helpful for this show. It helps me to get this podcast out to more ears. And ultimately that is the goal

because my hope is to help as many people as I possibly can with hopefully this life-saving information. So if you find this podcast helpful, please help me out. I would really appreciate it. So if you have been following my travels, I am still currently in Austin.

It's really rainy and stormy today. And I'm not gonna lie, I'm really missing LA. I'm kind of oscillating back and forth between really enjoying my time in Austin and having a hard time. If you guys follow me on Instagram, you know that I'm an avid hiker at home with my dog. And if you haven't spent a lot of time in LA, you might be shocked to hear that LA actually has really amazing hikes. And they're pretty close to my neighborhood that I live in, in, in LA. So I was going on hikes daily, you know, hour long hikes that have inclines and are in beautiful nature. Although I will say in the summer, everything's kind of

burnt to a crisp. So it's not as beautiful as, as LA possibly can be. But then I come down to Austin and if you don't get out the door on a hike before 8am, I mean, you're signing up for a walking sauna. It is so hot and humid here. There's mosquitoes. Uh, it's very flat. So I miss my incline hikes, you know, and I'm just not really, I'm not a gym person. I haven't gone to a workout class since COVID actually. If you can hear that noise in the background, that is my dog currently trying to get my attention. Turkey. He wants me to throw the ball for him. Well, anyways, yeah. So I'm, I'm having a bit of a time adjusting here in Austin. I'm going to give it a little bit more time, but you know, I might head back to Colorado. Colorado is, uh, might be calling my name. I love the nature there.

I love the hiking there and I really do miss it. So we'll see. But I will say I've had an amazing time meeting really cool people. I don't know how this keeps happening to me, but I feel like I just keep meeting all these really amazing people that it feels like I was just meant to meet them. It's a little serendipitous. So it's been a really cool experience, and I'm so glad I did it, despite all the struggles and the hardships that I've gone through while being here. I think it's a good thing. So if you guys want to follow more of my journey and all of this and all my travels, please make sure you follow me

at realfoodology on Instagram. So today's episode is for all the mamas out there or mamas to be or hopeful moms. I have been wanting to do an episode like this for a really long time. I talk with Emily, who is also known as Mama Wilder on Instagram. I'm going to link her Instagram so you guys can find her. Definitely give her a follow. I think she's so amazing. She is such a powerful voice and such an advocate for women, which is really why I wanted to bring her on because we, we, I mean, we really dive into, um, how the current medical system is really not great for women. Um, we don't really have advocates for women. Um, we're often gaslit in medical situations. Doctors don't really listen to women.

And we're basically told, you know, it's in our heads or suck up and deal with it, especially when it comes to pregnancy and breastfeeding and postpartum. There is little to no support for women once she gives birth to that child. I mean, you think about how our system is set up in the U.S. I mean, we barely give any sort of time off from work. A woman's basically expected to just bounce back with her body and jump straight back into her work almost immediately afterwards. And it's almost as though we forget that the woman went through a really taxing time. Like it really, um, it's a, it's like a small trauma to the body, you know, and, and our bodies are super resilient and they're made for this, but we also can't ignore the fact that there was a lot that happened there and we need time to heal and we need a community

around us and support. And we really dive into that conversation. I also want to say, um, we go into the topic of breastfeeding and we talk about the phrase fed is best. And I am very candid and honest with my feelings about it. I'm probably going to have some people that are really unhappy with me about it, but I hopefully explained it in a way, in a kind way that makes sense and just know that it comes from a really good place. It is not meant to shame any woman. And we talk about this too. That is the last thing that I ever want to do with any of these podcast episodes. And especially this one as a woman myself, I really believe in supporting women and just arming them with

all the information so that we can make the best decisions for our own bodies. That's all I care about. I just want you as women to be fully informed with all of your options. And then from there, you can make the best informed decision for you and your body and your baby. And if that means that you end up formula feeding more power to you, This is again, not meant to say like, I only think, you know, it's this one way. And if you do it any other way, I'm going to judge you. And I'm going to shame you. That is not at all what this is about. I just really want women to be empowered and informed because knowledge is power. You know, the more, the more informed we are, the more empowered we are, the better decisions that

we're going to be able to make for ourselves and our families. And that's all I care about. And that is the message that I was trying to get across in this podcast. So I hope that that translates in that way. And yeah, I really hope that you guys enjoy this episode. I hope that it gives you a lot of valuable resources and information. If you are a mom, you're a mom to be, you want to be a mom. I'm really hoping that this episode helps you out with that. This is really exciting. Organifi now has kid stuff. They just released two kid products.

One is called Easy Greens, and it's a refreshing green apple juice where kids will never know that it's packed with veggies. And the other one is called Protect. It's a delicious wild berry punch like the Kool-Aid that we used to have as a kid, but without any sugar. This is really exciting. And if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you know that I'm a huge fan of Organifi and most specifically because every single product that they make is glyphosate residue free. So you know that you're going to be able to give these powders to your kids and know that they will be able to consume them safely without any glyphosate in it.

So let's break down each one. The Easy Greens is a nourishing and delicious blend of superfoods and veggies that provides essential nutrients, probiotics, and digestive enzymes to bring balance to kids' growing bodies without fillers, additives, or junk. It helps to fill in nutritional gaps, aids in growth and development, supports digestive health, has a rich micronutrient profile, and includes digestive enzymes. This would be a great way to sneak in greens for your little one without them actually knowing that it's healthy for them. And the second one, which is the wild berry punch similar to Kool-Aid, is called Protect, and it is to support your child's daily

immune health with food-derived nutrients that work to strengthen their body's first line of defense. I know just through girlfriends of mine that have children that when your kids are going to school, going to daycare, they're coming home sick a lot more often just because they're getting exposed to different kids and different viruses when they're out in the world playing with kids. So this would be a great way to help to support your little one's immune health. It's organic and it's also made with real whole food ingredients. It has a delicious berry taste and it's low sugar and it's gentle enough for kids to take every single day. And I really love the ingredients in this one. It's orange and acerol cherry, which is a

powerful source of vitamin C and antioxidants, astragalus, elderberry, and propolis. These are all really great for overall immune health. If you want to try the products that I talked about today or any of the Organifi products, go to Organifi.com slash realfoodology and use code realfoodology for 20% off. Again, that's Organifi. It's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash realfoodology. Did you know that most cookware and appliances are made with forever chemicals? Yes, that means your nonstick pans, your air fryers, your waffle makers, your blender could possibly have PFAS. And yes, even our beloved crockpots and pressure cookers. I have actually been talking about this for so long. Back in 2006, my mom came to my dorm room and made me get rid of all my nonstick pans because she was

concerned about me being exposed to something called Teflon. Teflon is a coating that is used on nonstick pans and a lot of these appliances that I just named. So I've avoided Teflon, nonstick, PFA coated appliances, pots and pans, you name it for a very long time. And the only option for the, for a very long time was just stainless steel pots and pans. So I was really excited when a company like Our Place came out because they started creating really beautiful cookware and appliances that are like pieces of art. Every appliance that I have from Our Place, I legit want to store it on the counter. And I'm the type of person that does not want anything on my

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And recognizing this impact, the EU plans to prohibit PFAS by 2025. Our place has always been PFAS-free, and they offer durable toxin-free ceramic coatings, ensuring a healthy, safe cooking experience. And let me tell you, you guys, they are changing the game with non-toxic appliances. They have a blender, they have an air fryer, they have a crock pot, not to mention their amazing always pan. They have a perfect pot, which is just the perfect size for soups. And they also just came out with a cast iron that I'm loving as well. And I more recently replaced all

of the bowls and plates in my kitchen because I really needed an upgrade. My other ones were so old. So I got some from our place and they are so beautiful. The ceramics are beautiful. The colors are amazing. Like I said, everything is like a piece of art. If you want to try any of the products from our place, go to fromourplace.com and enter my code realfoodology at checkout to receive 10% off site-wide. That's fromourplace.com code realfoodology. Our place offers a 100 day trial with free shipping and returns. Today, I really want to go into just like how to advocate for women, breastfeeding, health benefits of it, and really just anything you have to say that I don't necessarily ask you about to please just like throw it in because they're, you know, as not being a mom myself,

I'm like, Oh, I don't even know all the questions to even ask, you know? Yeah, so something so I just by the way, I love following you on Instagram, by the way, you're just such like an amazing, empowered woman. And I love that you really, um, it's like, you just don't really take shit from people. You know, you're very like, it's cool. Seriously. You, um, cause I, I can only imagine with some of the stuff that you say, you probably get a lot of pushback from people because I, I do similar things in a different realm and I get a lot, a lot of pushback and it's really hard to like stand in that, you know, and just take the brunt of shit from people. But I think what you're saying in your message is really important for people to hear. I think a lot of the pushback

is from people who are wounded. And I, you know, you know, I'm speaking to moms, predominantly women who've already given birth. And so many of them are traumatized from really horrible birth experiences or, you know, the immediate postpartum, which is the part after you have a baby. You know, we use the word postpartum to describe postpartum depression too often when in reality, postpartum just means after birth. So like in the postpartum period or experience, it's like the few months after birth, but well, postpartum is forever, but in the immediate, you know, those first few months, but so many women who, you know, will respond to things negatively and in a defensive way, it's because they're still healing. They're not over what happened to them. And so, and that's always hard to kind of navigate and

tiptoe around people's feelings. But yeah, I think, you know, you can work through that. And that's why I talk a lot about shame. Like if you feel ashamed, or like I'm shaming you, that's because you already feel ashamed of something. I'm not making you feel bad pointing out, you know, the health benefits of breastfeeding or the ingredients of formula. That's never to shame anyone. It's to just inform because knowledge is power. And then we can make different decisions in the future. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel the exact same way coming from the food realm. You know, it's the same kind of thing. I'll just have people coming at me and being like, you're, you know, how dare you say that

to people? You make me feel so bad about it. And I'm like, this is not even directed at you. This is not personal. This is literally just, I want people to be informed so that they can make the best decisions for their own body, for their own health. And then, you know, for their babies, their children. And how are we going to get past this if we don't talk about it? Right. We're never, it's like, and I think about that concept a lot with breastfeeding

and formula, you know, there's this, we can pretend all day long that there's no difference, but it's, it's, you know, breastfeeding formulas on par with each other. But at the end of the day, if we want things like universal maternity leave and, you know, more breastfeeding support in hospitals, especially for low income or, you know, just black indigenous people of color, if we want those support systems, we need to acknowledge that breastfeeding is superior, that breast milk, babies deserve breast milk, that we should work for that always. But we're so, I think there's this coddle culture that we need to protect people's feelings. Like no, no matter what you do, it's, it's, it's good enough. Like, yes, do your best and your best

is good enough. But when we know better, we do better. That's all. Yes. Okay. So I want to hear what you would say to someone that says that fed is best because I have to tell you, and I can only imagine how you feel about this. That phrase really upsets me because I feel like it's almost like, yeah, it's just not, it's not telling the whole picture. It's not providing women with valuable information. Of course we want the child to be fed, of course, but it's negating the fact that there are superior ways to feed the baby. And then we're not even having a conversation about it. And you saying that is going to be so dismissed because you've never had children. And even me

saying that because I breastfed my two children, people hear that and like, oh, shut up. You don't, you didn't struggle. You breastfed. It was easy for you. Actually, it was not. And my second child, she had a physical barrier to breastfeeding and I struggled with her. And what didn't help me with my second baby was people saying fed is best. Would you say fed is best to someone who is in a supermarket and is an adult? Anything you eat is better than nothing. Well, yes, fed is not best. It's the minimum. We want a fed baby because the opposite of a fed baby is a dead baby. We want a baby to be fed. There is a hierarchy of infant feeding. Obviously breast milk at the breast is the best, is best for the baby. The mechanism with the areola taking in baby's bacteria and, you know, reading the baby's saliva to determine what to produce in that milk, what antibodies to produce.

It's designed so perfectly that women need to know that and they need to be supported in that because it's all linked, postpartum health, postpartum mood disorders. I mean, and the support that we're experiencing in our own homes during this time is so crucial. I mean, I would be lying if I said that the support I had at my house or lack thereof played no role in my ultimate divorce when it did. Like I've, I even wrote about it in my divorce paperwork, that the way I was not supported as a new mom led me to leave because that's something that shapes a woman and how she becomes a mom. We never forget that. It is imprinted on us

forever. So we need the proper support. We need education. And if I didn't know what I knew, my baby would be on formula and she's two and a half and she's still nursing. Never stop. She will be that kid will be like driving in car, mom, where's your boob? But see, I love that we need to normalize that because like you said I mean breast milk is nature's perfect food you know I mean it and there's you can never and you know this we cannot create in a lab what the human bodies can create themselves and if you can't produce your own milk at your breast or you need to pump, that's great. If that doesn't work, donor milk. And I think, you know, anytime I mentioned donor milk, people are like, that's so dangerous. You have no idea what's in it.

I use donor milk. If women didn't share breast milk historically, humans would not exist today. I mean, donating milk, milk sharing, wet nursing. That is how this country was built. I mean, we look at the history, but that, and that's what my baby did. If she would not, I would not have continued to breastfeed her. And so many other women wouldn't have been able to continue breastfeeding if their babies didn't get donor milk. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, and that's a really important component because like you said, you know, if we really go back to, um, you know, before like modern living, like women would pass their babies around and they would all help. And whoever had more milk would obviously feed all the babies. And we've completely lost touch of that. And now it's just like, you know, you have a baby and then I, it almost feels like they're just like, Oh, you're having just the most minor struggle. Just put them on formula. And then let's not even talk about the fact that there's an incentive for them to put them on formula. Do you want to hear the biggest discovery of our time for promoting healthy aging? Of course you do, because all of us are

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real foodology at checkout for a hundred dollars off. Thank you so much to Lumen for sponsoring this episode. I had a, um, I work at a chiropractic office, so I, we see a lot of families. We are at a membership based clinic. So we have a lot of large families come in and we hear all the stories about, um, moms who have their babies and they struggle. And the first person they go to is the based clinic. So we have a lot of large families come in and we hear all the stories about moms who have their babies and they struggle. And the first person they go to is the pediatrician. Well, the pediatrician, your pediatrician is not educated in lactation. They have maybe a couple hours of training, maybe not like a lactation counselor who has thousands of hours of training and clinical experience. So these women go to the pediatrician and pediatrician says, oh,

they don't mention lip ties. They don't mention mention tongue ties they don't mention food intolerances they just say here's some formula i've got it for you and god forbid she be a low-income woman who qualifies for wick because then you get formula and it's the bottom of the barrel stuff you know i mean i'm you know what goes on in wick clinics and the recommendations they're handing out to people it's atrocious yeah it's really sad and there's no there's no education, you know, pediatricians offices, pediatric offices don't usually have a lactation counselor on staff and they should, I think they should just like every hospital. But the problem is these people go to these two unqualified professionals looking for help. And the help just says here's some

powdered corn syrup solids and milk protein good luck and then we're like why do we have an obesity epidemic I don't know and then they try 75 different formulas because you know one formula doesn't vibe with the babies they try a different one I mean I had someone today asked me my co-worker said you know she knows a young 16 year old mom and baby was in the NICU because the cascade of interventions and we could go into that a different time, but it's all, it's all related. And so she was asking me formula recommendations. And I said, honestly, my, the formula that I was about ready to put in my baby's belly was not from America. I would not, it's from Germany. Yeah. Yeah. That's the only one that I've heard that people

are like, if you are just like at your wits end, this is the one to do, but it's $35 a box. And how many people can really afford that? It's so unfair. It's awful. It's so unfair. So what's the solution to this? Like, let's say someone's listening and they're really struggling. I mean, what kind of resources or what kind of people or professionals can they reach out to for help? So what I tell people is to just Google IBCLC near me, and that's going to be a board certified lactation counselor who's gone through training. Many have degrees, either bachelor'sors or masters in lactation um and ibclc saved my breastfeeding

relationship with my daughter when she was eight weeks old they can assess tongue tie lip ties so many issues that people run into breastfeeding baby spinning up milk baby not creating a latch or a seal around the nipple or the areola um throwing up a lot reflux crying all the time gagging all of these things can be attributed to a lip tie and it's it's just where the you know we can go into midline defects it's all relative you know relative but it's just where the lip is fused to the gum or the tongue won't open up enough and push milk back from the the n. So it's the lactation counselor can stick their finger in the baby's mouth and feel for this and say, okay, maybe a revision is necessary. Maybe not. Maybe just chiropractic is necessary in my case. And in many other cases, revision is

necessary. And it's a simple lip tie procedure where they just laser, you know, numb the baby's lip and then laser it and voila, you're on your way. Yeah. See, and I feel like, you know, numb the baby's lip and then laser it and voila. Amazing. Yeah. See, and I feel like, I mean, I've never even heard that before. And of course, I mean, I haven't had children yet, but I wonder how many women listening have never heard that before either, because it feels like we're really not educated on this. No. And the thing is I had to bring it up to my kids, care providers. And I said, here's the situation. And I interviewed our physician's assistant before I even gave birth. So I knew this is someone who's going to agree with me and recognize that I'm the number one caretaker of my children. And my decision is the final decision. And so I came to her and I said, hey, she's got a lip tie. I know what the

solution is. What do you think? And she's like, I agree with you. I think this is something to try. Let's try it out. And sure enough, it worked. If I hadn't just taken the bull by the horns and gotten her in there to have that revised, she would have, she would have been on formula, honestly, because I couldn't afford donor milk. I mean, I couldn't afford driving all over town. It's something that women, it is a lot of work. And I think back how lucky I was to be a stay-at-home mom. Because women who are working and who have to go back into the office, they can't drive all over town looking for donor milk. I mean, I was driving an hour each way just to get a former client's breast milk. Like it was just so difficult for me.

And I was educated and informed and I had resources. What about women who don't? That's just not, it's not fair. It's really not fair. And it makes me so sad. I mean, the, the disparity in that, I mean, how, how do we fix that? I want to see a lactation counselor in every pediatrician's office. I want to have them have a bulletin board of resources, my occasion counselors, pediatric dentists who will do Thai revisions, postpartum doula support, like a board,

a bulletin board in every office in the front. So people can look and get, you know, those rip off numbers and stuff of resources, support, and not just assume all the information they're ever going to get is from their doctor because doctors are so far behind on the time in the times you know with all the information coming out and studies and science if we're going to

believe in science let's believe in the science that says that breast milk can't be replicated and we need to do everything we can to help babies get breast milk i like to say that a baby has a right to breast milk and that trumps anyone's right to anything else free time work whatever that baby has that right for to have the milk that was designed for that baby. Well, exactly. I mean, that's what's so cool about breast milk is that it's intuitive, right? It contains exactly the right nutrients and the exact right amounts that the baby needs, which is so cool.

And there's no way that we could ever replicate that in a lab. I mean, our bodies literally hormonally know what to do. And it's just a matter of, yeah, I mean, getting the right resources and the right help for this mom in order for her to be able to provide that for her baby. And so much of it too, I think it's tuning out the negative talk from other people because so much parenting advice passed on to us from older relatives or friends or neighbors or whoever else is so much of it is like cautionary. And it's based on their own shortcomings and perceived failures. So, so often a mom will say, I want to breastfeed. And people around her will say, yeah, good luck with that.

It didn't work out for me. I couldn't do it. Or I had small breasts and I couldn't do it. And you have to turn, tune that out. If you want to, if you want anything in life, you need to tune out the voices from the people who tried also and failed. Yeah. And go in, you just have to go within and figure it out, which is a lot easier said than done, you know? So I want to give women credit, especially like, I mean, I can't even imagine having just given birth, having, you know, a brand new child that I'm trying to take care of all the social pressures that come along with it. You're just expected to

like bounce back and then not having any support around you, having your doctor basically say like, oh, it's fine. Just go on formula. There's like no support given for women whatsoever around this. Yeah, we focus too much, I think, in the pregnancy period on baby gadgets and gear and stuff. And what we really need to focus on is support and meal trains and postpartum doula. You know, postpartum doula is someone who will come into the home and help with baby care and talk about breastfeeding and, you know, have numbers of lactation counselors that can come in and do house calls. And I think the pandemic really changed the, the playing field for virtual support and in-home support because it forced people to, to find resources and connect with people, not necessarily face-to-face. And that's, you know, I think about all the babies that suffered because of that, but also how many women who are in my position who offer this as a service expanded their services. I mean, I had more people reach out to me for birth planning support when the pandemic started

than I ever have. And it was like, Oh my God, this is amazing. So many women were like, I'm not going to give birth in a hospital in a pandemic and they were going home and that's kind of my, my specialty. So silver lining there. I mean, that's amazing. You know, any way to get women, um, I guess like more in tune with this and educated on it. Um, just because I want to make this as accessible as possible for people. So if someone's listening and they really don't have the means or the resources to like, you know, hire a doula or hire a lactation specialist. Are there like books they could read, resources they can Google? Like, are there free ways to help them as well? Yep. So evidence-based birth is a great resource for

when you're pregnant and you want to know how to, I would, and it all goes back to preparing. So if your end goal is a successful breastfeeding relationship, what you want to do is you want to avoid an emergency C-section, truthfully. You want to avoid an epidural if you can, not because it's... I want to talk about all of that, by the way, but yeah, continue. It's all linked. So interventions in birth will, can, I don't want to say harm. Harm's not the right word, but can. Maybe the hinder. Hinder the physiological birth process and how that relates to breastfeeding. So oxytocin, I mean, all these, all your hormones, everything's related. So if we're going to go back and you want to prepare during pregnancy, how to have a successful breastfeeding relationship,

you want to prepare to have a physiological, physiologically normal birth, and that's a vaginal birth, vaginal delivery, you know, maybe birth upright, talk about bonding, skin to skin, evidence-based birth is a really great resource. Type it into Google. The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding is a great book to read. It's, it's just, it's a great resource for women. It's a lot of lactation counselors have it in their lending library. So that's something that you can actually just order on Amazon, get a used copy. No big deal at all. Have that in your arsenal. Ina May Gaskin is a

great resource. I'm not really fond of her politics and her personal views, but she's put out some really great literature about what normal birth looks like and how to facilitate bonding and breastfeeding immediately after birth. And that's just a cursory, cursory glance. And right now, I think, especially because of the pandemic too, so many lactation counselors have revamped their websites and their social media presence. And there are so many pages that talk about breastfeeding and lactation and how to promote bonding and how to have a successful breastfeeding relationship. I mean, I can think of like 10 CLCs and IBCLCs off the top of my head who have really great, a great presence on social media for free and it's all free information. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. I just like to provide

as many free resources as I can, you know, cause I really want people to, yeah, want it to be accessible for everyone, you know, and it's, I mean, it thing that I've moved around so much. I'm a mom friends, health food stores usually have bulletin boards for like yoga studios and, you know, hippie dippy children's stores. Those places, just meeting people. When I moved to Colorado five years ago, I had a nine month old baby. I was a single mom. And I Googled, I think the first time I got there was I Googled like holistic moms or something. I saw something on Facebook. It was an event put on by the holistic moms network. And I pulled into the parking lot at this church and I had just arrived from New York. I just moved from New York the day before.

And I pull in and I see this Honda Pilot like mine that had Michigan stickers all over it where I grew up. And I walked into the church in this meeting and I said, who's from Michigan? And this mom named Brittany came over and she goes me. And I'm like, oh my God. And she hooked me up with the children's store here in Junction where I live now where I ended up working and I was you

know my OG influencer who taught me and put me on to unassisted birth I mean like it's just you have to push yourself out there and just network and as a, don't be afraid to just ask for help. Hey, I see you breastfeeding your child. I have a question. I have a baby due in a couple of weeks, or I'm having trouble with my baby. I mean, moms are so desperate to meet other moms anyway. If someone came up to me and said, Hey, where'd you get your baby care? I'd be like, Oh my God, I'm going to spend an hour talking to you about it. Like, like just love it. Like the bullet. And just, I mean, don't be afraid to ask for help. And, you know, yoga studios, health food stores, parenting resources, like natural parenting

stores, they usually have hookups with doulas, postpartum support, lactation support. I mean, that's, I think about where a doula would find clients and that would be those places. I love this. This is so helpful. And all I kept thinking about was when you're like in a bar bathroom, like a women's bar bathroom, and everyone's just like your best friend, like helping each other. I'm like, I feel like that's like the mom community, you know? It is. It is. And I like, I just, I think about how grateful I am that I grew up a military brat, because it really did force me to, you know, believe in that philosophy.

You bloom where you're planted. And I like I don't have issues making friends anywhere. I go now because I was forced to so many times as a kid that as a mom, it's really benefited me because now I can go into anywhere and walk out with three different friends as moms. That's so awesome. And that's so important. You know, it goes back to what we were saying earlier, where women used to really gather around each other when they would have kids and all like help each other. And I feel like in a way that we've kind of lost that, you know, we don't live as close together anymore. People are so busy with their own lives. And so it's nice to kind of have that community of women around you. Absolutely. And we're also, yeah,

like you said, we're also isolated. I mean, I started a mom's group here in town through the store where I was working called the village. And it was more for women who are not from here. Cause we have a lot of people on the Western slope who are moving here for work and don't have family. And so we kind of created this community, this monthly mom sign out for women who aren't from here. And it, I mean, the friendships that like branched out from that, it makes me so happy to see them all put pictures together. I'm like, they all met at my event because I wanted friends. And now like how many people, I don't know. Someone asked me

recently, like, what do I do? I just moved to this town. I don't know anyone. I'm like, start a mom's group, start a Facebook event, host something, do it. Like put, if someone else isn't going to do it, you have to do it. Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool. I love that so much. Um, so I realized that we haven't even gone over this yet for, for some women listening. Um, they may not know what the nutritional benefits are, uh, for breast milk over formula. Can we talk about that a little bit and why it is best? So have you ever Googled or seen a formula can have you, do you know what's in infant formula? Yeah. Yeah. But we should talk about it because I feel like a lot of people don't. So for anyone listening, it's usually the first couple of ingredients are dehydrated corn syrup solids. Now you and I both know that that

corn syrup, not only is it corn syrup, it's sugar. It's from genetically modified corn sprayed with Roundup, which is glyphosate, which is a carcinogen. First ingredient, right? Then it goes into cow's milk protein, which they're going to be conventionally fed, raised cows, which are going to be in factory farms and just continuously impregnated to produce milk. Their babies are, you know, we can go into the whole dairy industry injected with growth hormones and antibiotics and all the pharmaceuticals. Yeah. They're fed, you know,

feed that's just going to fatten them up. And then a bunch of synthetic vitamins that are not going to be methylated. So they're not going to be easily absorbed. And so many babies have health issues responding to that and are allergic. And so doctors will prescribe hypoallergenic formulas or different kinds and the stress with finding a formula that's going to fit with the baby. It's like, I hear from so many moms will say, I just can't wait for them to be done having formula because I'm so stressed. Like

that stress of trying to feed your baby is so it's crisis. It is a crisis. And when you can't feed your baby, I mean, like you can't feed your baby. What are you supposed to do? So for women to long for, and to not be able to, I mean, to just think, I can't wait for this baby to grow up and not need formula. That is so sad to me that women are wishing that away when it should be such a beautiful year. So formula, formula is obviously made in the factory and we hear of formula recals all the time. And we hear about arsenic and lead and all these different things. I mean, it's, it's not a perfect product. It's still a mass produced product, which means there's going to be room for error.

Breast milk, on the other hand, is tailored to the baby's nutritional needs. So what's happening anytime a baby latches on the breast, the mom's body, the breast will read the baby's saliva and know what the baby needs, what viruses the baby's been exposed to. It takes 20 minutes for the breast to create antibodies in that milk after exposure from baby saliva. Yeah. I didn't know that. That's so crazy. Isn't that amazing? So there are moms who myself included will pump milk when their kids are sick

and save that milk. Because if you look at it, it's oftentimes more rich. It's like a yellow, like almost like grass fed butter. You save it, keep it in your freezer so that when anyone else is sick in the future, that milk is loaded with antibodies. That is cool. I've never heard that before. Wow. I mean, this is just, I say, I feel like I say this on this podcast all the time. Our bodies are so amazing. It took me 10 years to finish my bachelor's degree because I was, I got married and I moved around, moved to California. I mean, like I was just, I had my kids. And so the last three years ago, before I finished, obviously, I started out as like a

political science major and I graduated with a BA in gender studies. And the reason for that is because I was so fascinated with the way that women are treated in our healthcare system, that there is a serious dichotomy between the way that men are treated and the way that women are treated. And I wanted, I took one class as an elective on women's health history in the U S and I asked my advisor, what else I want to take more of these classes. And they said, if you want to take more of these classes, you need to change your major. And I'm like, okay. And he's like, you've been doing this eight years. What do you mean you want to change your major? I'm like, no, no, no. I need this. I need this degree. I want to study this. And it was the most eye-opening. I mean, just the history of how women are treated historically in this country, not alone, but when

it comes to our healthcare system, I mean, the history with Kotex and tampons and periods and marketing, and it's all linked. It's all related. And it all goes back to trying to disconnect women from their bodies and to make us fear our bodies and think that we need saving from the outside. That's all it is. I actually don't even know what the Kotex thing is. What is that? What happened? So, so Kotex got involved in a marketing campaign with a bunch of doctors and they really marketed periods and period products as like dirty. And you need it. You need all these different, because if you think about it, the period conversation and sex and birth, it was all conversation ongoing between doctors and their patients. And women were not teaching their daughters things anymore. They were just encouraged to get outside help. So it made periods dirty. It made it this thing where we need doctors to talk about sanitary napkins. It's just like,

and it was all kind of like, it was kind of shrouded in like shame and secrets. I remember, yeah, like I remember I had a male pediatrician growing up and he was wonderful. I don't want to say that I think he was doing his best, but still it was like, you know, I had this male doctor that would talk to me alone, like, you know, excuse my mom out of the room and be like, have you had sex yet? Have you had your period yet? Exactly. And it was all like secret and like hush hush. And so then of course, like I took that on as like, Ooh, this is like weird and dirty. And like, we don't talk about it except for behind closed doors. And yeah, it's really sad that we do that. Hopefully now I feel like our generation is changing that with our children because we're so, I mean, at least I feel this way

and all my friends were so like open about it. And we're like, I mean, this is crazy. We need to do it differently. But yeah, I mean, and then you see it, obviously, I feel like women experience this the most in their like childbearing years, right? Because, you know, going to see the doctor for birth and then having no support afterwards for that. And you kind of like what we've been saying this entire episode is that not really having any sort of conversation around anything or any real support. And it all goes back to that disconnect that, you know, our healthcare industry has spent a lot of money on

and trying to disconnect us from our bodies and our natural healing abilities. I mean, I could talk your ear off about all the different things women are told about birth and giving birth and phrases like incompetent cervix or failure to progress. Or it's just the way that we describe women's bodies

when they're doing the most amazing thing they could ever do. And it's so misogynistic. And in our health care industry i mean we have the united states has the highest maternal mortality rate of any first world country i mean you go to europe and you're more likely to survive giving birth in europe than you are here in the states and that of course has to do with systemic racism in our health care system but the fact is women here you know we're the most advanced country on earth. Why are women still dying, giving birth? And it all goes back to the

over-medicalization of childbirth. I mean, it's a natural process. We're discouraged from understanding it from the very beginning. I mean, like you said, as a kid growing up, you're, you know, what your body does, your reproductive system is shameful. We don't talk about it. And that is something that myself and many other parents are just, we're breaking that cycle for our kids. My five-year-old knows what a period cup is. She's like, I'm aware of what a period is. I completely know. She got mad at me one time. She goes, you can't go swimming with me. Cause you have your pad in seriously, mom. I'm like, you're at the pool. You are five. I am mortified, but yes. That's so funny. Oh, it's so cute. I love that. Oh yeah. I mean, it just, it needs to be normalized.

So, I mean, I don't know. I feel like I keep saying this, but like, how do we change this for women? You know? I mean, I guess it starts with finding doctors that will work with you. I tell people this all the time on Instagram. If you're working with a doctor that says like, oh no, we don't do that. Or it's all in your head. Or I saw the labs, you're fine. It's just anxiety. You know, any list of that, or like, this is a perfect example. I have a lot of people that will write me and say, um, you know, I'm experiencing X, Y, and Z. And I say, you know, why don't you ask your doctor for blood work or go get your hormones tested? And they'll come back to me and they're like, Oh, my doctor said no. And I say, find a new doctor. Yeah. I'm like,

find a new doctor. Your doctor works for you. And I treat my, I see midwives for my feminine care, um, which is my, probably my, it's probably my first recommendation to anyone who wants to, who sees what we're seeing. And it's like, I want to avoid all that bad stuff. Find a midwife. Um, you don't have to give birth with a surgeon and OBGYN is a surgeon. They are trained to a spot problems and B perform surgery. There is a financial incentive for them to have your birth end up in surgery. If you want to avoid that, find someone who's not going to make more money off your birth ending in surgery. For people listening, what's the difference between a midwife and a doula and what are they? So a doula, they're not trained medical providers. So a doula is someone who is there to support the mom and the dad emotionally and

physically too in labor and birth in the immediate postpartum. She's not checking a cervix. She's not putting her hands inside anybody. She is, you know, holding up Temple and she is um speaking words of wisdom and she is uh advocating for mom in birth especially up against a you know provider that maybe is a little bit bullish um but a midwife is going to perform cervical checks if she if the mom wants them she's going to actually catch the baby when the baby comes out she's there to oversee the medical side. So thank you. Yeah. You want to do that again? Have a baby? Okay. You're like, she loves birth. This is Iris. She's two and a half. She was born in this room, unassisted by the way wow that's really cool that's impressive yeah with the highlight of her life i do um but a doula is someone that you hire to go with you

in any sort of birth setting i recommend a doula whether you're having a c-section or an unassisted home birth i mean a doula is someone who has a she has a library of resources most likely she has connections with lactation counselors she is someone who has a, she has a library of resources. Most likely she has connections with lactation counselors. She is someone who is a invaluable source of support. A midwife usually works either. She's a private midwife or she works, you know, she goes to home births and she just has her own space. There's midwives in birth centers. There's midwives in hospital.

Just trying to nurse right now. No boundaries. This is like the wrong side of nursing. This is when you wear too long. Hi, Iris. I mean, I couldn't have planned this better for this recording right now. You see the hands? Yeah.

Anyway, so midwives are more. That's who I would recommend giving birth with, unless you know, you have a medical problem going into it, that you need a C-section. If you, you know, if you want to have your vaginal birth and have the foundation for a successful breastfeeding relationship versus the midwife. Amazing. So this is something I'm super curious about for women that maybe want to avoid this. Are C-sections preventable? I mean, is that like, or is it really just? Yeah. So most emergency C-sections happen because a care provider got, became too impatient and wanted to speed up the birth process. So the best way to, the best way

to A, find out your likelihood of a C-section is to ask what the C-section rate is of the provider you plan to deliver with. That is your, that's going to be the risk you have in ending up in the C-section. Most emergency C-sections, like I said, happen because providers become impatient and they don't want to wait for birth to unfold as it naturally would. That's what it is. All these interventions to speed up labor, to augment labor, to get mom's contractions to be stronger, to move things along faster, to break water, to dilate the cervix? Well, the reason that I ask that is because I don't know if a lot of women know this. This was news to me when I was going

through school for nutrition. I had never heard this before, but you know, it's better for a woman to give birth naturally because when the baby goes through the birth canal, this is where they get some of their immunity from the women's bacteria, vaginal bacteria. So yes. So now that we've known, we state that it's important to note that if you do end up in an emergency C-section scenario, you can still have what's called vaginal seeding. And that's where a Q-tip is taken, swab the mother's vaginal canal and rubbed on the face of the baby. And yes, I know it sounds disgusting, but if you think about it, that's the bacteria that the baby would be exposed to should the baby be born vaginally. When you cut through the abdomen, they're not getting any of that. And the bacteria on the baby, the vernix, the bacteria on mom's chest, all of that

helps lay the foundation for baby's immune system. And baby needs to be exposed to that. They've done studies. Kids who are born by a C-section have higher rates of childhood illnesses than kids born vaginally. And the reason for that is they're not exposed to the good bacteria. They need that. Exactly. And that's why kids are screaming. I love it. And that's why and again, you know, for anyone listening, I, the last thing I want is for any woman to come from this episode feeling shamed or anything like that. I just want, again, like I said, in the beginning for women to be empowered and to just know all the information, because I didn't know that. And I feel like a lot of women wouldn't know that if we didn't tell them.

And so it's just important information to have and to know, but yeah. And to not expect that your doctor's going to give you the full picture and to know that, you know, you are up against the whole machine. It's you, one woman in the most vulnerable time of her life up against a whole system. So, you know, women who come out of this against a whole system. So the, you know, women who come out of this traumatized and reeling and just, you know, they'd experienced the birth that they didn't want. It's not their fault. I mean, you, it's the, the, the system is designed to be exactly what it is. And the system is designed to be profit-based, profit-focused, and it's designed to disconnect women from their bodies.

And so you, so often, you want to trust your doctor has your best interests at heart. You want to trust that they are, you know, they really care about you. They do not. I mean, for the most part, I mean, the system, the system doesn't care about you as a person. Your individual doctor probably does, but the system as a whole, you're just someone on a conveyor belt and, you know, you have to kind of get, so many people have to get off that conveyor belt and look at it from a different perspective and think, wow, that happened to me. That was not my choosing. This is I'm up against an entire, you know, like David and Goliath. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that was so well put. It's, you know,

one woman against the system, which is really sad. It's really sad. And for me, I was 22 when I had my first child and I was on Medicaid. I was a single parent in upstate New York and I had a hospital birth and I had a non-medicated vaginal delivery breastfed. I mean, it was as good as it could get. And so it actually, it wasn't until I had my unassisted home birth a few years later in Colorado that I realized, wow, I got really lucky with my hospital birth. The fact that I had a good hospital birth and I didn't end up in surgery as a young single mom, I was really surprised. That's not normal to go into that at such a disadvantage economically and socially. And to come out of it having a birth that I wanted, I realized I got really lucky. And so

that's why I threw myself into birth education and birth work and helping women have better birth experiences. Because I know, I got through this and I did okay, I want to make sure other women come out of this okay, too. Yeah, that was actually going to be my next question. So what, what can women do in order to set them up for the best success that they can have through this whole process? If your goal is to breastfeed, if your goal is to have a vaginal delivery, I would say seek out a midwife. A, you know, I, I'm a proponent for home birth, but I totally understand why people seek out hospitals.

I had a hospital birth too. I'm not, you know, I'm not just the only, I don't just deliver on the side of the road because I want to, like, I I've seen it. I've done both. Call up a midwife, hire a doula, talk to, you know, find your resources before you need them. Really start from the beginning. And if money is a factor, instead of having a baby shower or people bring a bunch of gifts, you're going to use once or get rid of in six months. Number one, you can buy all that stuff used from other people or get donated to you. Everyone loves to get rid of baby crap.

I have three black garbage bags full of baby stuff I need to give away. There's always baby stuff coming down the pipeline, but I'm crowdfund for a doula or a home birth midwife, or even, you know, there's midwifery groups in hospitals. It's just a different, the midwifery model of care is different from the obstetric model of care. It's just, they look at women differently. You want to know how a doctor feels about women and about women's bodies. Ask your OB how they feel about midwifery and what they say will tell you everything you need to know if they disparage it or if they say, oh, that's just dangerous. I would fire them yesterday. Wow. I mean, that's really good advice, I think. So my next question is for people listening who

have maybe friends or family having kids, how can they support the mother? Excellent. I'm glad you asked that. Yeah. So the best thing you can do is your time. When you want to go over and see that baby, know that that mom was just born too. You know, the baby is not the only new person there. That mom is a totally new person. She wasn't a mom, you know, 48 hours, 72 hours ago, she was a completely different person. Go in there willing to help, willing to get your hands dirty, willing to do dishes, hold laundry, bring food. Do not ever show up to a new mom's house empty handed, whether it's coffee, whether it's groceries, whether it's toilet paper, paper towels, you know, plastic wear dishes, whatever, never show up empty handed

and don't expect to hold the baby and just say, you know, I'm here, whatever, never show up empty handed. And don't expect to hold the baby. And just say, you know, I'm here if you want me to hold the baby. But what do you need to get done? When I go visit a new mom, I bring over a meal I bring usually bring like a big pan of food for that night, maybe lunch the next day, baked goods, salad, fruit, juice, something that's caloric, and will sustain them. And it's one less thing for them to worry about. And I don't worry about bringing flowers or baby gifts. And some people like that stuff personally, for me, what I like and what I do for other moms is I show up with something they need. I'm willing to do, I'm like, what do you need to get done? All those dishes in the sink, I'll do them. You want to go take a

shower, right? If you, if you want the baby to be held, I'll put the baby in a carrier and don't show up wearing perfume. That's like my number one thing. Oh yeah yeah. When you go visit a new baby, don't wear perfume. Don't wear glitter. Don't wear anything super smelly because nothing irritates a new mom more than getting her baby back from someone and smelling her newborn's head. And it smells like Estee Lauder. It's the worst. Not only are those endocrine disruptors, but nobody just wants to smell her baby's head and smell their grandmother. And the mom's probably extra sensitive with all her hormones and stuff to sense anyways,

as I can probably imagine, you know? And it's all, you know, breast milk and everything. All that breast milk production is linked to touching your baby and smelling your baby. You want to smell your baby's head. That's how you will create more milk. Yeah. Amazing. So is there anything that we haven't covered that you think is really important for people to know? Just know

that there's people that are going to infiltrate the system and do something about it. I was, I was, I was hesitant to go to grad school and I was accepted into my number one, actually my dream school for my MPH. And so that's something that I'm really excited to pursue. So I'm, I, you know, done the doula thing. I've done the birth coach stuff. And I, I'm like, you know what? I, I think I have the guts to go in and just full steam ahead and see how I can mess shit up. I love it. I love it. This is why I love you so much. Cause I believe that you're going to do it. You're going to go in and wreak havoc on the system and we need that. So yeah,

we so need it. And we, you know, I think there's certain, there's certain personalities that are really great doulas and really great midwives and first support people and doctors who are super caring and patient. And then there's other people who are ball busters and, you know, Enneagram type eight and Virgo, Virgo sun, Aries moons who are like, no, we're going to go in there and we're going to just like, we're going to take over. I love it. Well, I'm a Virgo, but I'm a Taurus rising. So, but yeah. So you got it. You've got it too. You're good. Yeah. I got a lot of earth. So this will probably be helpful for other mothers listening, but this is more of a personal question for you that I ask everyone. Um, what are your health non-negotiables? So I know you're

super busy with your kids. Um, you probably don't have a lot of time to yourself, but what are things that no matter what you do in order to stay sane, take care of your health, take care of yourself. Something that keeps me really sane is, um, I, we go outside all the time. So we live in a condo. I don't have a yard. He's living a farm before my divorce, but I take my kids out hiking all the time and it's, it's good for them. It gives us physical space because they can go roam and do their own thing. But I can just walk and trek and, you know, we get our vitamin D, we get our fresh air we get our fresh air it's just it's freedom and it's being outside in nature is super grounding for me and you know my adaptogens and i i my non-negotiables would be like outside time and um you know i don't i don't try to use stimulants like coffee i really

don't rely on that and that changed my health i had fertility issues and hormonal issues that i healed myself so coffee is one of the things that really i learned, like I can't, I can't do it. And I think moms are marketed coffee. So in wine so much that those are two things that for a lot of us really don't help us, but we don't, we don't want to admit it or even like deal with it. We're like, I don't care what it does to my skin. I need my coffee. Right. I mean, it's true. Wow. Well, this has been so amazing for people listening. Where can they find you? Instagram mama Wilder. That's me underscore Wilder. Thank you so much for coming on today. This was amazing. I'm so excited for people to hear this.

Thank you for having me. This has been so awesome. And Iris says bye too. Bye Iris. Thanks for listening to today's episode of the Real Foodology podcast. If you liked this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know. This is a resident media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Chris McCone. The theme song is called Heaven by the amazing singer Georgie spelled with a J. Love you guys so much. See you next week. so