Mom and Mind | Pregnancy and Postpartum Depression & Anxiety

Why Compassion? I'll tell you... I’ve been doing some deep thinking about the podcast, perinatal mental health in general and how to continue the movement forward through our neck of the woods here. I really believe and feel deeply that more information, awareness and support need to get to mothers and families. I believe that we can improve our efforts at prevention too and I’m hopeful to have th...

We have the honor of hearing from Dr. Sheehan Fisher about new fathers, the transitions they may go through when a baby comes along, as well as the challenges and strengths that they may experience. There are quite a few gems in our talk today, one of which is how the role of fatherhood is changing and adapting to the times…AND thoughts about navigating that. Dr. Fisher’s take on these transitions...

Andrea Schneider, LCSW is sharing with us about how our difficult, toxic or traumatic past relationships might affect our journey into motherhood, fatherhood and parenthood. This fascinating discussion digs deeper into how we may respond, behave and interact as new parents...based on our own early experiences with our own caregivers, parents or influential difficult relationships. We chat about: *...

Dr. Diane Sanford is talking with us about coping skills for wellness! Pregnancy and postpartum mental health changes can really take you by surprise and leave you feeling disoriented. When we have skills for coping that we can rely on, it really helps us heal. Our guest, Dr. Dianed, has been supporting perinatal mothers for many years. Shares a bit about how she's seen the landscape change in sup...

Annika O'Melia breaks through stigma to share her story about alcohol use in early motherhood and increase awareness about the impact of substance use for perinatal mothers. Annika is speaking out about her experience and has created a podcast, Mother Recovering, that focuses on supporting these mamas. *She talks about the thought process that happens with substance use and how we sometimes can't...

Caribbean Mothers and Perinatal Mental Health with Dr. Kendra Flores-Carter One of the important pieces of understanding perinatal mental health, is putting it in the context of culture, immigration and other socio-cultural factors. When we use the culture to inform healing, a depth of relief and understanding happens. Today we will learn a bit more… Today we have on Dr. Kendra Flores-Carter to di...

  Just in time to honor Veterans Day, we talk with Dr. Melinda Thiam about what life might be like for some military mamas. In this fascinating and necessary discussion, Dr. Thiam talks with about the unique aspects of perinatal mental health in the military family.  Dr. Thiam highlights: *The stressors for both for the perinatal mother who is in active duty and for the perinatal mother who is the...

Expectful offers guided meditations for all of the transitions through motherhood from fertility, pregnancy, postpartum and motherhood. They heard feedback that many mothers who experienced pregnancy loss, didn't have guided meditation support they needed. So, they teamed up with Dr. Jessica Zucker, who is well known for her strong advocacy through the #ihadamiscarriage campaign. Together, they ma...

When you can really start to understand how stress and trauma affects you on a physiological level and emotional level, you can hold more compassion and understanding for yourself. Nkem Ndefo is on with us today, teaching, informing, shedding light on how to think realistically, holistically about stress. This is totally necessary to understand for pregnancy and postpartum...but also for pretty mu...

Do you identify as a perfectionist? Do you feel like things need to be a certain way and if they aren't, you feel unsettled? How did that affect you when you were trying to conceive, during pregnancy, birthing or postpartum? This is one of those things that really impacts the early stages of motherhood and parenthood (and all stages really). In this episode, I talk about the dynamics that I see wi...

"It is ridiculous that when you are the person in the middle of a crisis, that you are the person who is faced to do the heavy lifting" - Joy Twesigye Lack of social support is a part of what is impacting perinatal and postpartum wellness. Could we start to count on our social supports more if we are giving them some fundamental info? Joy Twesigye has a great perspective on how we can all support...

Pregnancy & Postpartum: Soapbox Edition II Yeah, no. I have some thoughts about how mothers are treated.... I'm hoping back on the soapbox! And this time, I'm shouting out some of the things that the Mom & Mind listeners are upset about too! Thanks for sharing! Let's see..most of the things I discuss are about how other peoples OPINIONS and JUDGMENTS affect mama's and partners. Can we just stop sp...

Bipolar disorder in pregnancy and postpartum is not often discussed. Dyane Harwood is advocating for that to change. In this episode, Dyane shares her personal journey through postpartum bipolar, what she wishes people would understand and how we can all be more supportive to mothers experiencing this difficult and often misunderstood condition. In this rich discussion, we touch on: -Some signs, s...

We talk about feeling bad about our bad feelings in postpartum & pregnancy. How many of us have had feelings in pregnancy or postpartum that we didn't understand, but then also felt guilt or failure for having them at all? Melissa Divaris Thompson, LMFT shares with us some of her personal experience and a great discussion on the roller coaster of feelings that we may have related to anger, rage, f...

To those of you who are living through the natural disasters all over the world right now, the Mom & Mind Podcast is with you. Especially the pregnant and postpartum mothers and new families. In this episode, i'm adding my support and a couple of thoughts and ideas of how we can support you. This episode is proudly supported by Maternal Mental Health Now and their online, self-paced, Perinatal Men...

Stefani Reinold, MD shares some about her personal experience through pregnancy and postpartum and how she is helping other moms cope and manage with eating disorders in the perinatal time. This episode's super supporter: Maternal Mental Health NOW- Online maternal mental health training! In this episode, we touch on: -Pressures that mothers feel to keep weight down in pregnancy and lose weight po...

Bebo Mia's Bianca and Natasha talk about what mothers deal with who are labeled as overweight. Have you ever been labeled as being overweight, plus size or obese during pregnancy? Has that lead to providers telling you what you are or are not able to do in pregnancy and birth? Has that lead you to feel badly about yourself or "less than"? How does that impact your mental wellness? Here's what we t...

Postpartum Psychosis, while rare, is very serious. 1-2 in 1,000 new mothers experience this and most have no idea what is going on. Kristina Dulaney shares her story and her journey through recovery. The recovery process can be long. Kristina tells us about the length of her recovery and what she did to get back to herself. This is another important highlight of why we HAVE to educate mothers, fam...

Julie Andrews, LCSW is sharing a glimpse of the Native or Indigenous mothers pregnancy, birth and postpartum experience. This is such a valuable discussion and even though we just scratch the surface of cultural and societal understanding, it is a deeply needed start on our podcast to understanding Native mothers experience. Julie discusses some of the mental health impacts affecting Native mother...

Encore! Dr. Diana Lynn Barnes We are re-airing some episodes while I take a break and regroup for a moment! This is one of the popular episodes of the podcast. This one is #7, The Good Mother, and I think it's a great reminder for us to understand some of the myths of motherhood that we are all quietly fighting against.  Dr. Barnes shares some of her own experience, as well as her thoughts about t...

My Postpartum Story - Redux We are taking a short break from new episodes, 'cause well, this mama's taking a vacation! We won't leave you with no episodes though! We've picked a couple of the most popular episodes to Re-air over the break. Here is an Encore of Episode #1, where I share my story of Postpartum Depression, Postpartum Anxiety, Postpartum ODC and well, Postpartum Rage. So many things w...

Tanya Newbould - Producer of When The Bough Breaks and Personal Story of Postpartum Depression  *sensitive content at 7:00 & 20:50* Tanya shares her personal journey with Postpartum Depression and how her experience sparked the beginning of the When The Bough Breaks - A Documentary about Postpartum Depression. Narrated and Executive Produced by Brook Shields, this documentary takes a close look at...

Coretta Rae Daniel – Postpartum Depression & Anxiety, Personal Story and helping women of color *Sensitive Content, 17:45-20:45* Coretta shares her personal story of postpartum depression, how it impacted her first months of motherhood. As she was coming out of the heaviness of PPD, she realized that the women of color in her community in Ohio did not have enough resources. So, she went to work. Y...

Ingrid Esparza - Personal story of Postpartum Anxiety   Ingrid tells us about her experience after birth and in the early months of life with her new son. Again, we get to hear the powerful ways in which a mother copes and fights to get through medical complications, breastfeeding challenges and the anxiety that came with it all. She tells us about:   - How a postpartum hemorrhage affected her and...

Lindsay Marie Gibson We discuss some topics that may be sensitive for some listeners. Many mothers experience a trauma in life prior to having children. More specifically a sexual trauma. These experiences can sometimes come up and affect us in a way that we did not expect when we have kids. Lindsay discusses her journey to find Joy after trauma. We talk about her inspirational path to healing and...