Sex, Love, and What Else Matters - The Real Side of Pregnancy: Overcoming Fears, Anxiety, and Finding Yourself Again with Dr. Sterling Part 1

Episode Date: March 22, 2025

Episode 150. This week, Kristen is joined by Dr. Noa Sterling, mom of three and board-certified ObGyn with a mission to transform the pregnancy and postpartum journey. Dr. Sterling is also the founder of Sterling Parents, the first membership designed to truly address the emotional and mental load of pregnancy. In this candid and emotional episode, Kristen and Dr. Sterling dive into the complexities of pregnancy—discussing the real, raw, and often overlooked challenges that many face during this transformative time. From the fears of whether you’ll ever feel like yourself again, to the overwhelming anxiety of googling every symptom, Dr. Sterling opens up about her own experience. She shares the story of her first pregnancy, where at just six weeks in, she was thrust into a world of discomfort and uncertainty. This conversation isn’t just about the physical changes but also the emotional journey, and how important it is to acknowledge and discuss the difficult parts of pregnancy, rather than brushing them aside because a baby is on the way. Dr. Sterling is launching a pregnancy app in Summer 2025!   Sponsors: Marley Spoon: Head to MarleySpoon.com/OFFER/DOUTE and use code DOUTE for up to 27 FREE meals! Follow us: @kristendoute @luke__broderick Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey, guys. Welcome back to another episode of Balancing Act. Oh, what a time. I am officially in my third trimester. I mean, I guess that's according to one of my apps. It's kind of like astrology, you know, where you're like, if my birthday lands on the 21st of this month, I'm technically a blah, blah, blah, but I'm on the cusp. That's how I feel about third trimester because I keep reading like it's 27 weeks, 28 weeks, 29 weeks, 26 weeks. So I fall in there, third trimester, let's fucking go. That's pretty much it. I'm avoiding going out as much as possible. Listen, in theory, I want to, but in practice, I'm in my pajamas and I'm covered in belly oil. And I like it that way. And she's kicking and thriving.

So I think she is really digging our plans as well. And by she I mean the baby, obviously. Am I supposed to say baby all the time? I just say she. And yes, she does have a name. We've told you that before, but I still have this thing. Like when I talk to her, I say her name. But when I talk about her for some reason, I'm still on the train

of like, if Luke's like, oh, you know, and says her name, like she's growing so fast, I feel like he's talking about a houseplant. So I just, I don't know what it is. It's until she's here. I don't know. Oh, speaking of houseplants, we're landscaping like crazy. Is that nesting? I feel like that's part of nesting. We bought the cutest little king palm tree. Is this what adults do? Am I boring you? I mean, I love our little king palm named Penelope. I feel like Tom Schwartz, like if I name them and talk to them, they'll just like grow and thrive. But yeah, we're like landscaping. I am addicted to Pinterest, redoing my entire house pretty much every day. It's super overwhelming, slightly unnecessary.

Some things are necessary. I think what Luke and I are really doing when we started talking about it, like other than the nursery, is that we're actually making the house easier for us right now. Like, what can we do to make the house beautiful, super organized, more functional.

And that way when the baby comes, we have heard and are aware, like, we're going to be here, right, for the first, I would guess, like eight weeks, like we're not moving, six to eight weeks. And I just want, every time I like rest somewhere or look around, I want to feel like, okay, it's clean and it's organized. I know where everything is, make room for baby stuff, cleared out linen closets for diapers, like we made a little coffee station so the baby, all of our little formula maker and all that good stuff can go like on the counter. I don't know. I feel like I thrive nesting. I think

this is like really good for me. Anywho, that's my update. Soup's exciting. Anywho, this week I am having the most amazing guest on, someone I have been dying to have on the podcast. She has like hundreds of thousands of followers. I'm having Dr. Noah Sterling, board certified OB-GYN, and my and your favorite pregnancy content creator. Sterling Parents, her app, is launching a pregnancy app summer of 2025.

We talk about so many different things, so this is gonna be a two-parter again. I mean, this week we jump into understanding pregnancy is not all rainbows and sunshine. You know, the fear that some of us experience while being pregnant, and if we will ever feel like ourselves again, because that is something that I definitely battled with,

especially in the first trimester, like, is this gonna be forever? Like David after the dentist. Dr. Sterling talks about her platform, Sterling Parents. It's a platform that provides education, advice, as you move through pregnancy, postpartum. We also talk about the stress of trying to do your own research as first time moms.

Oh my God, don't we all know this? Having Googleitis and the trouble that comes along with that. And there's just so much more you have to listen. So yeah, I hope you guys enjoy and love ya. Hello gorgeous guys and gals. Welcome back to another episode of Balancing Act. I have a very special guest today that I've been dying to have on the podcast ever since I was even trying to conceive.

I have Dr. Sterling here, and if you don't follow her on Instagram, I don't know who you are because she has like a quadrillion followers, but she's a board certified OBGYN and my absolute favorite content creator, like from the second I knew I wanted to have kids. So, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so stoked. Like you truly have made such a difference in my life as far as like just being pregnant, like feeling normal, like normalizing the actual normal. I fell upon you literally just on my algorithm.

Like I started looking at so many pregnancy things and you popped up on my feed like I mean months and months ago right when I was trying to get pregnant. And I'm like, wait, who is this angel gracing me with like, I'm not crazy. It means a lot to me to hear you say that because, you know, I had my first pregnancy back in 2016. And I am saying all of the things that I wish I could have heard when I was pregnant because it wasn't really out there. And to go, I mean, I knew I'm an OB-GYN, so I know that there's like nausea and all of these things, but until it's happening to you, you don't realize how it completely takes over your life and how all-encompassing it is and how difficult that can be. So yeah, I mean, the journey from being the person who was going through it and felt really isolated

and just really alone to now being on the other side, being able to help people through that experience, it's just, I mean, I'm really, really grateful. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just so important what you're doing with, obviously, like, your knowledge and your education and all of that being a doctor. But even before I got pregnant and all of my friends that have babies, toddlers, grown children now, yes, we hear about, like, you said it one time, like you said, like, this period was often romanticized and you wanted to help patients with the stress as well. But it's like, yeah, when you hear about like,

oh my God, how are you feeling? Do you have any cravings? Are you nauseous? Do you have morning sickness? Oh, are you not sleeping? Do you have to pee all the time? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No one told me my mental and emotional state

was going to shift so dramatically, especially in my first, for me personally, my first trimester. 100%. And I've sat on my podcast and people that follow my journey know like we did IUI. So obviously I was pumping myself full of hormones, you know, preconceiving. And then I was on progesterone for my first 12 weeks. So that helped, you know, the crazy a little bit.

But even without that, like even I don't feel like I started feeling quote unquote normal or like good until 20 weeks. And I don't know, I did start taking like, I went back on like an anti-anxiety medication that I was on pre-pregnancy around that time. So I'll give it like a little bit of credit, but I truly think it was something about my body that just became a little more okay. But like my fiance and I were kind of freaking the fuck out the first bit. Like, you know, and he was like, I don't know what to do with you because you're not yourself. And I'm like, I know I'm not myself.

Yeah. Where did myself go? And no one prepares you for that. And it's, I love my doctors, but they didn't tell me any of this. Yeah. It's wild. Yeah. Yeah, it's wild. Yeah, I it is wild. And I think, you know, it's it's not only that we haven't been told about this like darker side to pregnancy or what can be a darker side to pregnancy, but it's almost the opposite. It's just like we're gaslit about what's happening in pregnancy. It's just like, oh, well, it's all worth it.

Oh, cherish this time. This is so special. And like the reluctance of individuals out there in the world to hear a pregnant person complain and not try to immediately silver line it. Immediately, it's a silver lining. Immediately, it's like, well, you chose this. It's unbelievable.

Like, nobody can just sit with the fact that two things can be true about pregnancy. Pregnancy can be miraculous, and you can feel so incredibly grateful to be pregnant and to be having a baby. And also at the same time, you can actually hate it, not recognize yourself. I don't think people understand unless you have

like a chronic medical illness or something, what it does to you when you literally do not feel like yourself. You know, that's the reason why we didn't have a fourth kid is I was like, you know what? I just am not willing to accept another 10 months of my life in which I am cut off from my spark from my like the thing that makes me excited to get up. I don't know what it is, but I'm cut off from that. And that's a long period

of time. So it's both saying like, Oh, hey, it's not all rainbows and sunshine. And also, can we actually talk about how it's hard without people trying to butt in and, and, hey, it's not all rainbows and sunshine. And also, can we actually talk about how it's hard without people trying to butt in and immediately tell us, we'll just brush that under the rug because a baby is coming? It's so frustrating. Oh, I mean, from God's mouth to your mouth to my ears, like, seriously, like that. I couldn't have said it all better myself and things I wish I knew that I feel so much better about knowing now not that I'm like oh I'm all healed and great and everything's perfect but just knowing that it's normal and I totally agree with you because it's even my friends

that have children now who have been through it they do want to like give you that silver lining like everyone wants to just like, oh, I know, but it's so worth it in the end, blah, blah, blah. And I remember not long after I found your page on social media, I was following Kylie Kelsey. And once she got her podcast a bit later, I remember her saying something that really resonated with me that she's pregnant with her fourth kid. And she's like, I hate being pregnant. I absolutely hate it. It's a means to an end. The end is glorious. It is the most wonderful thing. She wouldn't

be doing it otherwise, obviously, but the journey for her, it sucks every time. And I'm like, okay, back to feeling a little more normal now. Because it really hasn't been the greatest for me. I'd say for me personally, once I started truly feeling her kick, which came a lot later for me, like only in the last few weeks, do I feel connected to her as well. So my baby, I mean, obviously not Kylie, Kelsey. But I feel more connected to my daughter because now I'm like, okay, so you're like in there. But prior to that, it was just really tough trying to figure the me out and like, will I ever come back?

Is this who I am now forever? Everything feels like a forever thing. 100 percent. That's the thing about the first pregnancy. I recently did a post that talked about the hardest thing about the first pregnancy, right? And I recently did like a post that talked about that like the hardest thing that I ever did was be pregnant for the first time. And it's not that my subsequent pregnancies were so much easier.

All it was is like, hey, you know you're coming back. You know this is temporary. And when you don't know that it's temporary, the fear that you have irreparably changed yourself and that there's no going back, yeah, I mean, to a certain degree, life is very, very different once you have a child, for sure. But I still felt a, even though my life was very different,

like right after giving birth, it was like, okay, there's a me. And you hear that about postpartum all the time, right? You hear that people feel depressed and they don't feel like themselves postpartum. And so part of the fear too, for people who are going through it the first time, even if it's not their pregnancy but it's their first difficult pregnancy where they've struggled, is that all you hear is postpartum is so hard. And then you're like, oh my God, it's just going to get worse. And I can't speak for everybody. But for me, postpartum was hard, but it was hard, but I felt like myself.

So it was like, you know what? This is, I am a, especially as a new parent, I am a beginner, I do not know what I'm doing, this is, this is hard, but at least I feel like I'm me. So it can be, for me, pregnancy has always been way more difficult than postpartum, the sleep was more difficult, I got better sleep with a newborn than I was getting in pregnancy. So a lot of the things that people say, the thing is, is that when you're not in a position like mine where you're an OBGYN

with a large following who's giving you feedback, you really think that your experience of pregnancy of postpartum is like the experience. But there's just so much experience. And I think in general, we are really uncomfortable with letting pregnant individuals vent and share their experience without trying to fix. And I think all of the silver lining

and all of the like, we'll just wait until, like it all kind of comes from a good place, but I think we're just, we haven't heard, pregnant people have always just been like this like voiceless entity, you look at the pictures and it's like half of them have their heads cut off, it's all belly. So it's almost like there's this just dehumanization

of the pregnant individual. And so like all of a sudden you're like, wait, pregnant women are like speaking up about their experiences and they don't like it. Like we haven't heard that before, that's different. We don't like it. This literally, it was just like following upon your page

and following you so incessantly and listening is like, like I said a million times, like it just brought the normal to me. And I felt so much more calm because of it because no one really does talk about it, like at all. And if you would, I would love for you to talk about, because obviously I've read and listened to like everything you've done, but if you didn't tell my listeners kind of your story behind Sterling Parents, because I liked some of the things that you said that really

resonated with me about being a doctor and knowing like you couldn't give every piece of advice or I don't know if advice is the right word, but things you wanted to talk about like in this 10-minute appointment. Yeah. Oh man. Which that was the second you said a 10-minute appointment. I've seen a million memes and things where it's like, and again, I love my doctors, but you walk into that appointment, I drive 45 minutes to get there.

Yeah. And it's like, go pee in the cup, we do your vitals, I drive 45 minutes to get there. Yeah. And it's like, go pee in the cup. We do your vitals. I get in ultrasound. Everything looks great. See you in four weeks. I'm like, what? Exactly. Like what even just happened? And like, I didn't even get a picture to take home. What the hell? Hey guys. So with this pregnancy, meal planning has been, well, a challenge between the cravings, feeling tired all the time, juggling work. I just couldn't keep up and I found myself ordering takeout a little too often, like every single day.

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backslash doti for up to 27 free meals and make sure you use my promo code, Dodie, so they know I sent you. But yeah, if you could just tell everyone since you're a doctor and now you have sterile parents, that'd be great. Thank you. So my journey began really when I got pregnant for the first time. And I got pregnant right before I started my first job out of

residency. So I literally had the positive pregnancy test, which I was trying to conceive, but we had stopped for a bit because we had some wedding coming up. So we're like, we'll just like put it to the side. We'll go to these weddings. We'll have fun. I'm at a three day wedding in Napa and I get a positive pregnancy test. And was like damn I was like well I guess I'll put this glass of wine down. Literally such a crazy story but the full story is that then you know I was going to be the best pregnant woman ever because I'm an OBGYN I'm like the achiever right I've got to get the 4.0 I've got to do all the things I'm gonna do yoga I'm an OBGYN. I'm like the achiever, right? I've got to get the 4.0. I've got to do all the things. I'm going to do yoga. I'm going to meditate every day.

I'm going to be amazing. I signed up for a gym when I was five weeks pregnant, right? And I was going to be so healthy. Six weeks hit me like a ton of bricks out of nowhere. I was so, I was so nauseous and so fatigued that it was like, you know, I was, I was starting a new job. I had just graduated residency. This is like the thing I've been looking forward to since I was like an 18 year old of like finally being done with my training.

I'm finally gonna make money and all of this. And it was like, my candle was just doused and I was literally thrown into this dark pit. My mental health was abysmal. Literally it felt like the world had no color. Like music, I got no pleasure out of music. Food was literally disgusting. There was no cravings.

It was only like I don't want anything. I was adverse to my house. I was adverse to my dogs. I was adverse to the smell of my work. And so I was quite literally just plunged into a world in which there was no pleasure. There was only like kind of this ickiness that I felt about everything. And then I'm like seeing patients and you know, all of a sudden they're saying like, oh, I'm feeling really nauseous. And rather than doing what I did before, which, okay,

are you have, you know, assessing their, their kind of their ability to tolerate oral intake and like, do I need to start this person on medication or is it like, do they just need some tips? I started looking at them being like, oh my gosh, are you okay? And I was having this experience with my patients where all of the sudden it wasn't just nausea,

I knew what they were going through. And then going through the whole, I'm gonna start crying, going through the whole pregnancy and like the nausea was just one of the difficult things for me, I swear, like I, you know, the universe gave me like every different symptom of pregnancy for a period of time so that I could truly understand. Going through the whole pregnancy, having birth trauma after that and having, you know,

a difficult postpartum period because I was, I thought we were going to be fine because we're both physicians and we've done hard stuff and saved lives and whatever. I thought that a bit, what could a baby do to us? That was literally my thinking. And the whole thing was so hard. And I was like, I have so many advantages. Like I can't even, the number of advantages and privileges I have up is overwhelming. And this was still the most difficult experience of my life. I had very... I can remember on so many occasions,

trigger warning, like, thinking about, if I didn't know that this might get better, like, I wouldn't want to live. Like, I really, you know, it was so overwhelming that I then looked at my job in a very different light. And I was like, we are leaving people out here to go through one of the most difficult experiences of our life. And we're like, they're bleeding out, like, you know, figuratively.

And we're like, here's this band-aid, you know? And I also come from, you know, I studied, I have a degree in neuroscience, I've been a lifelong meditator. So I've always come to medicine from an approach of like the whole individual really matters. And the data is there. This is like, this is we have evidence that this is the case, like your mental health impacts your, your physical health, your the health of your relationships impacts your physical health. So I'm looking at this and I'm like,

listen, we are not supporting people through this journey at all. We're not, and I tried to fix that hole from within the system. But again, this is the story you hear of these 10 minute visits. I'm like, I'm literally feeling like I have to put myself on double speed to get through all the things that I want to tell people

There's only so much you can do in these 10 minute visits and truthfully People aren't necessarily expecting to hear like all of the like the advice that I have to give them in those appointments They're like, why are we talking about? How difficult postpartum can be I'm like 20 weeks. I'm like it's because I have to I have so much information I have to get into you's because I have so much information I have to get into you. So I have to start talking about it earlier. So anyway, that's where the idea of like,

can I somehow disseminate this information in a way that isn't so dependent on the time I have in the office. And that's where the idea of Sterling Parents, like a platform that provides this education advice as you move through your pregnancy where it started. And we've been a website since 2021. And now we're doing the thing that, you know,

we're launching a pregnancy app, a trying to conceive pregnancy and postpartum app. Girl, it is, it's, we just went through the designs yesterday, like the final designs before they send it off to development. And me and my team were, like, we had goosebumps. We were on the verge of tears multiple times because we're like, this is a game changer. Like, we know it's a game changer.

Yeah. On so many different levels, like, and we can't, I mean, it's really exciting, but it's finally like, this is the piece that I feel like our company for the last four years has really done deep listening and deep learning of like what people need and how we can provide it. And now we're finally able, I mean, this has been something

that essentially has been like almost a decade in the making for me. And it's finally coming to fruition this summer. I'm so excited for you, of course. almost a decade in the making for me. And it's finally coming to fruition this summer. I'm so excited for you, of course. I'm so excited for me to be able to have something like this accessible. I'm so excited for everyone out there for the same reasons. I have Google-itis. Girl, we got to get you on OB. I think it's the best. So OB is our AI. Which is awful because the shit that I read on Google, like depending on what's popping

up first is where I'm going first, you know, which could be from... Or either it's totally fine or you're gonna die. You know, and I actually use Google a lot to see, like, I will compare, you know, OB is an AI that answers pregnancy postpartum and trying to conceive questions. It is its brain is all of the articles and videos that I've created. You know, people think about AI as being like, you know, the training that has gone into this AI, I'm having conversations with the AI training every day. And so I'm going over like I go over every, our members are using it right now. And I'm going over every response I am. And I'm seeing like, oh, we need more content on this.

Like I am feeding this thing so deeply. So cool. And so I'm doing, I do like comparisons of like, okay, what comes up with Google? What comes up when we put in OBI? And every day I'm like, oh my, I cannot believe the information that's out there. And, you know, OB is just, it's one of the best uses. And if I could toot my own horn,

it's like one of the best uses of AI you can think of because unfortunately there's, there's people dumb things down way too much for pregnancy content. So you're like, this doesn't feel like the full picture. This is not enough information. It's way over digested. And then you've got like PubMed, where you're trying to pull studies and figure it out. There's not like a reasonable middle ground where you're like, let's talk about what the studies show

because people care. They want to understand. They want to know the why. They want to, you know, but we have to do so in a way that people can actually understand it and not have to do so in a way that people can actually understand it and not have to read 15 papers to come to a conclusion. So that's OB is this like middle ground of like, it has the data, the research, the understanding,

but it's digested for you by me. Yeah, I love that. Like I became such a data person when I became pregnant. It was so important to me because I… So I'm going to backtrack a little bit. It was something I love that you said amongst many things, but that you talked about as a doctor it being this whole thing with science and you love to meditate and whatever. I think that's one of my favorite things about my fertility doctor was she was very like, let's manifest this and then here's the science. And I think it's really important, at least to me,

like having both of those things throughout this pregnancy, for sure. But yeah, the data just became so important to me rather than just the opinions or the like, what to expect when you're expecting from like 19, God knows what year that was, 80, 90 something. You know what I mean? And it was like, well, what does the data say now? And I think that's something I personally, as a pregnant person, would love for everyone out there trying to conceive pregnant postpartum

to like kind of grab onto that. Yes, yes. And you know, there's this middle ground with data, so data is really important. It's really important for us to practice evidence-based medicine, meaning that just because something sounds like a good idea and in theory works,

doesn't mean it's gonna pan out in the literature, okay? And also you need context for data. You need context for data and you need to know, because you need to know how it applies and in what situations it applies and in which situations it doesn't. So that's the thing that I think is really crucial to know what the data says, but also to have somebody with the expertise to be able to say, and this is what this means.

This is what this means for you because when you do research yourself and when you're engaged with numbers, you know that the way you talk about the data really matters. So like if you say to somebody, oh, by the way, this is a perfect example. If you Google like SSRI, which is like Prozac, et cetera, Zoloft, if you Google Zoloft or Lexapro, in pregnancy, you might see something that comes up and it says, oh, SSRIs increase the risk of preterm birth.

Oh, yes. Okay, I would want to know about that, right? But if you actually drill into the data, what you see is the studies in which we're comparing somebody who's taking an SSRI, has a mental health condition taking an SSRI, when we compare them to healthy controls, people who aren't taking an SSRI

and also don't have a reason to take an SSRI. Guess what? Yes, there's an increased risk of preterm birth in that group that's taking the SSRI. But that's not a reasonable comparison to make because obviously all of us who are on SSRIs would just say, well, I'll just not, okay, I will not have mental health issues and I won't need it. Great, I elect to be in that, not an option, right? Our option is you have the mental health condition,

you take the SSRIs and you treat it or you go untreated, okay? Now, when we compare the numbers appropriately, we compare people on SSRIs with a mental health condition to people who are not on SSRIs with a mental health condition to people who are not on SSRIs. We see a decrease in preterm birth in the group who's taking the SSRIs. So, guess what? That's why it's so crucial to have to pair data and understanding with the expertise of, this is how we understand this data. And that's what I feel like is really lacking

in the trying to conceive pregnancy and postpartum space. It's out there, but it's not sent, you know, you have to look for it. And that's something that we, like, let's be real. Who has time to do that? Like, you don't want to spend your entire pregnancy being a fricking researcher? Like, it's not fair.

Trying to become some like data scientist. Like, I need somewhere to go for this information. You have a full life, you're busy, you're not feeling great. You don't need to be spending hours online trying to find your answers. It's not good for your brain, it's not good for you to be doing that. And then not knowing what the right answers even are based on this stuff I'm looking up. There's so much information out there that then you get into the

overwhelmed situation where you're like, wait, this source says this and this source says this. You're worse than you were when you started for me. I was worse than I was when I started because now I have this abundance of information and I don't even know what to do with because I don't know what even applies to me. Exactly. And then there's this cycle that happens. So when you have a concern when you're pregnant, especially if you're

someone who tends toward the anxious side, you what do you want? Do you this matters to you, right? Like this is your baby. It matters. And so you have this concern. And you add the concern. On top of that, It's not like what ice cream flavor I'm gonna choose like this decision really matters to me. So you have concern and then you have a deep a deep Like it matters like a deep desire to make the right decision because the stakes are high And so what do you do is you you're searching for? certainty And so what do you do is you you're searching for? certainty Reassurance you just want to know and when you go to the internet when you go to Google or reddit or you know

social media and you You're trying to get that reassurance Unfortunately, you never get you don't get that release of like oh, okay now I know right now you just open the can of worms of possibilities, and then you start second guessing yourself and you second guess all of the decisions. You never feel like you've digged deep enough to get to the answer.

And so what I tell people, if you're in that, if you're finding yourself in that cycle a lot, before you ever go look for an answer, even if you're using a fantastic tool like OB, like my tool, even if you're using a fantastic tool like obi like my tool Even if you're using a fantastic tool like that first address the feeling of stress and overwhelm and concern that's in your body because The anxiety that you're feeling in your body of like what what choice do I make? Hug your partner go outside take a walk. Just let your nervous system cool down a little bit

and then engage in the education and the learning because you'll be coming at it from a little bit more of a grounded place because sometimes- Then it would rather be like a panic state of- Exactly. I need the answer now. And sometimes, you know, sometimes there are very clear answers.

And when there are, it's lovely to provide them. But sometimes it's that the answer's more nuanced. And so you're not going to get that, it's not gonna necessarily address the anxiety you feel in your body, because we try to cure anxiety a lot of times by thinking, by gathering information. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. to cure anxiety a lot of times by thinking, by gathering information.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And really your brain was interpreting, like you felt anxious and then your brain's looking for the reason why you're anxious and it lands on a question. And then you're like, oh, I can answer this question. But then you're like, wait a second, I answered the question, it's still there. It's like, yeah, your brain was trying to make sense of something that's just happening in your body. Our brains do that all the time, by the way. So it's just, you know, it's understanding the,

and that's one of the things that we hope to do with this app too, is really educate people about the mind-body connection and how they can address stress, anxiety in a more holistic way and not just like looking for the answer, if that makes sense. Yeah, oh my God, one million percent. And another thing like, oh my God,

I have a trillion questions, but like I remember you posted this meme once, it was like Beyoncé, I forget which award show or whatever, and it's like her surprise face, and it was like, when you get a positive test, but the OB says, I'll see you in 10 weeks. I mean, I will say like, I, so I was pregnant a year ago. We had a loss.

And during that time, I was like going to my OB every week. And my doctor was like, listen, you can, you want to come in for an ultrasound every week? Go for it. You know what I mean? Unnecessary, but go for it. And with this pregnancy, because we did IEY, I was seeing a fertility specialist every single week.

So lucky me, but like after that, I was so used to seeing her every week when it was like, okay, now we're shifting to my doctor. It was like, oh, no, no, like, I'll see you in four weeks. I'll see you in six weeks. I'm like, what do you mean? What am I supposed to do? Like, how do I you in four weeks. I'll see you in six weeks. I'm like, what do you mean? What am I supposed to do? Like, how do I know everything's okay? And what do I...

I mean, like, even when I first became pregnant last year, I didn't know... I mean, I knew like, oh, you're supposed to take prenatals. But like, I had to Google, ask my friends. Like there was no... These are the important vitamins in the first trimester. You could take a little bit of extra of this. Like I'm a vegetarian. Yeah.

I, because I researched and Googled and looked so hard, I'm like, oh, I should probably take iron. Like more than, you know, I was kind of taking it, but I'm like, now it's like pretty important. Because another thing that I saw you say where you're like, this baby is literally everything you're taking in, the baby gets it first, you get what's left over. Yes, you get what's left over. From your nutrients, whatever you're eating, the vitamins you're taking, you get the leftovers.

And these are all things I don't, I'm glad that I'm such a resourceful person, but had I not been, I feel like I would have just been hung out to dry. Like what do I do? Like, oh, I didn't know I was supposed to, like these prenatals are actually really important. I would have never known that in a million years. I mean, I get questions all the times, like, do I really need to take prenatal vitamins? And I'm like, okay, you know?

And that's the thing is that, and there's no regulations about, like, I think people are surprised. Like they're like, well, there's no regulation about what needs, people can call anything a prenatal vitamin if they want to. Like there's no regulations that has to have X, Y, and Z at all. And so it's, there's a lot of, and there's a lot of issues with prenatals that are like,

there's controversy around it. And that really where like experts from different fields are arguing over what the best type is and that really stresses people out. Yeah, like well it's because we're looking for like a one-stop shop or like you know as as someone who's like unknowing especially first pregnancy is what I'm speaking of because like you were saying earlier like second one you're like, not saying it's super easy, but I've been through it, therefore I'm more aware, right? But first pregnancy, it's just like a, what the hell do I do? Someone tell me which adventure to choose in this choose my own adventure game. Exactly. The decision fatigue, like there's so many decisions.

And I think too that it's really helpful. One of the things I think is really that I see my role as is really helping people to understand kind of how to make those decisions for themselves with the information that's available, you know. And the thing to think about that big gap, you know, between appointments for prenatal care, you have to understand that the way that prenatal care and postpartum care is structured is not necessarily, like we didn't do a bunch of studies to figure out how to do it, right?

There are some studies that have looked into that more recently, but at the end of the day, it's not based on the needs of the pregnant individual. It's based on what we think is more crucial for the fetus and like what we need to catch for the fetus. And the nice thing is that for the most part, like our desires, the desire of the pregnant person and desire for a healthy fetus, we want that too.

But it's not built around the needs of the individual who's going through it. It's very much if we look at somebody as a set of data points, when do we need to catch the data point? Not like what does Kristin need in terms of support. We need to make sure that we're going to screen for gestational diabetes. We want to see them and we need to talk about those results. We need to order that test. When you're a physician and you're going through it, it all makes sense because you're like, yes, this is an appropriate interval based on what we need to look for in the labs, we need to order, etc. For pregnancy, like it makes sense. But then when you go through it as an individual, if you're like, if we're centering the human

being, then this doesn't really make sense. But nobody, you know, the insurance doesn't care about it. The big corporations that are taking over medicine don't care about it. So that's where I came to the realization. I'm like, this is not something I can solve within the system because the system does not care. It doesn't care. It doesn't want to make it better. And postpartum isn't even evidence-based. The way we do visits postpartum isn't evidence-based because a lot of the maternal mortality is occurring in the postpartum period. And so where is this like you have birth and then six weeks later? I'm sorry, what? That doesn't make sense. That doesn't sound like a dumb question, but like, I don't even know. Do I see my OB after

I give birth? Like, do people do that? Like, I literally, that's a crazy thing I never even thought about. I'm like, I'm going to give birth and then it's like, now what? I go to a pediatrician for the baby, what about me? The sad thing is that back, I think it was 2017 that HCOG changed, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists changed the recommendations for postpartum care. They acknowledged that like, you know, what we have is probably not enough.

And so they recommended like a touch point with your OB within the first three weeks. And so that can be a phone call, a video call or an appointment in the office. And I was hoping that we would see more kind of not just you need an OB, but you also need a lactation consultant, you need a therapist, like you need it all, right? But we don't have that kind of approach for postpartum, unfortunately. So yeah, the, the kind of the, the standard is now a touch point within the first three weeks and then an appointment six weeks. And I don't think that, I don't think that's nearly enough, but you're going to be like,

what? It's, it's peace out and we'll see you in six weeks. And when you're in it, I mean, when I was in it, I was like, this is insanity that we have people who are, you know, they're trying to figure out their milk is coming in, they're bleeding, their emotions are all over the place. They're still at risk for blood clots.

They're still at risk for preeclampsia. Like your risk of something negative happening to your health doesn't decline after you give birth. And, you know, based on some of our data, your risk of something happening to you goes up. The difference is, is there's no, your health is no longer directly connected to babies. And so suddenly we don't quite care as much.

Right, it's not that important because the baby's fine. It's not that important, it's just the woman. It's just the woman, the vessel to carry the child. Oh, she might be at higher risk, but the baby's okay, so we're good. Like, we care a lot about fetuses, right? Yes, absolutely. We care a lot about fetuses and we care less about babies.

And we definitely care less about postpartum women. Not individuals, I'm just saying the way that the health care system... The way the structure is, right. No, absolutely. I mean, that individuals. I'm just saying the way that the health person is gonna talk about it. The way the structure is right. No, absolutely. I mean, that's something I think about a lot. I'm like, God, I'm such an anxious person as it is and trying to get all this information

and have this knowledge before I have the baby. So when after I have the baby, I'm like a little more okay. But then I'm like, yeah, I think about this stuff all the time, like, well, what if something happens? Or like, what do I know is normal? Like what's normal, quote unquote, what's not? Even as I'm making like my registry and there's like, oh, these frozen MaxiPad things,

I'm like, wait, do I need that? Like, wait, I need this thing? Like what happens in up there? Go Googling again, like, I might tear or they might cut me. And like, oh my my god no one's telling me about any of this. That wraps up part one of this week's episode. Don't forget to tune in next week to hear the rest.

Love ya. Make sure to follow us on social media. You can follow me on all platforms at Kristen Doty and follow Luke on Instagram at luke__broderick. Be sure to click the subscribe button so you can stay up to date with new episodes. Thanks for listening. See you next week. Okay, so growing up, I didn't get a lot of guidance

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