We need to talk about postpartum care. We collectively, as a society, spend so much time focused on pregnancy and birth, and the postpartum period gets completely lost in the shuffle. We’ve realized that’s happended too here on the podcast!
Ray Rachlin of Refuge Midwifery joined Pansay of Sacred Butterfly Births & Maggie to lay out some of the ways we are failing to provide adequate care to postpartum families, and some of the steps we can take to change that.
Ray Rachlin, CPM, CLC 
Pansay Tayo, CD 
Maggie Runyon, MSN, RNC-OB
The postpartum time frame spans anywhere from 6 weeks, to the full year after birth depending on what dictionary you check, and for those who’ve lived it, the “postpartum period” may never truly close. Despite this, many people feel inadequately supported through this transition from pregnant to parent. We see this in how postpartum is treated through the medical lens following a hospital birth, we see it in the way attention focuses so squarely on the new baby that the person who *just* gave birth is left in the dust, we see it in how so many of us have been conditioned to treat ourselves after birth as we “snap back.”
Join Ray, Pansay, & Maggie this week as we explore:
~how to prepare clients for the realities of postpartum during pregnancy
~navigating the shift between pregnant & parent to rediscover one’s self
~home-based & community-based models of postpartum support
~the missing links in creating comprehensive postpartum care for physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health
Want to deepen your understanding of healthcare legislation on insurance reimbursement? You can read up on: The Momnibus Bill (several facets impact postpartum care), understand your state’s position on expanding medicaid coverage, and if you’d like to continue learning more about the power of legislation in affecting birth outcomes, check out Movement to Birth Liberation.
Here is more information comparing US postpartum care with other countries around the world. Better Postpartum is an educational & support program that unites individual birthing people with resources they need, and provides opportunities for the institutions who serve them to incorporate this care into their standard program.
Some recommended reading on the postpartum period and how to support it: The Fourth Trimester, Nurture, Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts, A Taste of Our Own Medicine, The First Forty Days
Check out this episode’s full transcript or tune in wherever you enjoy podcasts.
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Music from https://filmmusic.io
“Gonna Start” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)