What I wish I knew when I was pregnant...

Motherhood is one of the greatest and hardest experiences of my life. I think it's amazing what our bodies are capable of, especially when making a whole nother human! Sadly, I feel like there is a culture of isolation around pregnancy and that it's treated more like a procedure rather than a natural process. It's really disempowering to women and it doesn't have to be.  It's such a special and vulnerable time and moms are already under SO much pressure. As a mom I felt it (and still feel it) and as a practitioner, I know we need to do better for our moms. That's why I choose to continue education in perinatal and pediatric chiropractic techniques. I took my first ICPA course in 2011 and became Webster Certified in 2013. This made me think that I knew all that I needed to in order to have the birth of my dreams for when I first got pregnant in 2020 (pandemic or not)! I did the home birth, without an epidural or medical intervention, etc... but it was by no means smooth or easy. Second time around in 2023, I had more knowledge, went with home birth again and all, but again... didn't go totally to plan, and wasn't the picture perfect birth or recovery (I think I'm STILL working on my postpartum healing). Overall I have 2 beautiful children, loved my midwife, and am grateful I was able to safely deliver at home... BUT there are several things that I wish I knew/did that I would love all moms to know.

1. Find and lean on your community; it takes a village. As I mentioned before, pregnancy is really isolating. I felt that when I first was pregnant. I always had envisioned a chemical-free birth, and it was not what the cultural norm is. I can't count how many side-eyes I got when I first said I wasn't doing a hospital birth... from my parents to my friends! All out of loving concern, of course, but it made it hard and I constantly doubted if I was making the right decision. I luckily revisited my ICPA notes, and read a few books to build up my confidence, and went to meeting midwives. If it wasn't for my chiropractic community and my wonderful supportive midwife (Thanks to Hope Willems!), I don't know if my resolve alone would have been enough.

2. Labor and birth are scary, pinpoint your fears and try to address them as early as you can. We know that every pregnancy is different and doesn't go according to plan, and that's okay. TMI warning-- But for example, with both my kids, what I was most afraid of was tearing and... I tore with both of them. I feel like I was so caught up in trying to make the birth environment as ideal as possible that I didn't really allow myself to say the deep fear I had out loud. I don't even think I even knew that was my fear at the time, because I just didn't want to dwell on things like that. I just jumped into meditative exercises, and read a lot to prepare myself as much as I could, thinking that was enough. I did the whole water birth with my first, with this image of like easily breathing him out and having it all be beautiful and easy... NOPE. My labor stalled in the tub where I pushed for like 4 hours. I was fatiguing and getting cold so we got out and changing positions made his pulse drop which was scary, and we were almost going to transfer me to hospital. Luckily we found a position his heart stayed strong when I pushed and my doula gave me words of encouragement and I finally was able to get him out... with a 2nd degree tear. With my 2nd, she came 10 days earlier than expected, and fast which made me panic because I wanted to try the water birth again but didn't have time to even start that, I wanted my first to be there periodically to like... know that things were ok and his sister was coming and to anticipate meeting her and that also didn't happen (she came in the middle of the night, so family wanted to get him to sleep instead which I found out he didn't anyway and was just scared and sad without anyone explaining anything to him) and yeah... tore again. Stress, fear, panic creep in even when you try your best. In my case, I think if I dug a little deeper to actually allow myself to pinpoint fear of tearing, then it might have helped me better deal with the fear and reduced panic. It's easier to address your fears when you know where it's actually coming from.

   *Also, I now know a few more soft tissue techniques to help relax the perineal area that pair with chiropractic adjustments that I wish upon wishes that I knew about and had someone to do that for me... bc then maybe I wouldn't have torn with one or both of them. This leads me to my next one...

3. Be open about your needs and get care consistently as early as possible during your pregnancy! Luckily I regularly get adjusted as a personal lifestyle choice once every 2 weeks, bc that's when I feel my best. Because of that, I did stay consistent with getting regular chiropractic care all throughout my pregnancy, although I didn't have anyone I knew who did the perineal techniques. And even if they did, they didn't offer, and I was too sheepish to bring it up. It's a tough thing to talk to your colleagues about your fear of down-there-tears when they are used to providing adjustments alone. I am very grateful that during both pregnancies, because I was getting adjusted regularly before during and after, I had zero aches and pains while I was growing a human... no sciatic, no back pain, as my body was rapidly changing to make these humans. I attribute that 100% to consistent chiropractic care from first Trimester on. What I would do different is become more vocal for my particular soft tissue needs to be addressed.

4. Take baby to see a cranial fascial specialist early on for head shape, especially if it's your first! I'm kind of embarrassed to say that my first had to wear a helmet for head shape (plagiocephaly) when he was 6-10 mo. old. I worked so hard to do things the "right" way, natural birth, adjusted regularly, breast feed exclusively, etc. WHY is his head shape not perfect??? It may be a surprise, but birth trauma, although natural, is still a trauma, and I found out that plagiocephaly (abnormal head shape) is most common in first-borns and males. My first born was a boy! They don't know why statistically boys are more likely, but they do attribute firstborns to being more susceptible because new moms tend to have more tension from things stretching for the first time with first baby. C-sections also tend to have a higher incident of needing helmets and head shape from the lack of compression during birth. In my case, pushing for 4+ hours probably didn't do his head shape any favors. But at the time, my knowledge was limited to the spine for babies.

   *Because of this though, I took the time to learn gentle cranial techniques and ways to help ease general tension and asymmetries that affect head shape in early infancy.

5. Have a postpartum recovery plan for YOUR healing. Right after birth, we have a huge cavity where the internal pressures of our bodies changes in an instant. At the same time, we have a giant wound that needs healing, our hormones are depleted, and on top of all of that, this new little human is IMMEDIATELY training our bodies to make milk for them. It's a lot, and I feel like a lot of the information out there focuses on pregnancy TO the WEEK, but once delivery happens, it's all about baby. Which is important... AND we need to focus on mom's healing and recovery as well. I mean, we have to focus on wound healing, replenish our hormones, rebalance our internal pressure with our organs and muscles, AND sustain and care for a very vulnerable newborn! In my prep, I only found one book on postpartum which was great, called "The Fourth Trimester." It's a great gateway to get thinking about the recovery period that focuses on mom. Asian culture has healing foods to have postpartum that helps to support mom while also aiding in nutrients that help milk production. I didn't really understand body wrapping and thought kegels were the focus on rehabilitation, but boy was I off. Now, I know that deep core and breathing is where to start, and you can do that from day 1, and save yourself a few weeks of atrophy/weakness. Then safe and comfortable ways to build off that that involve the whole body, and 6 pack ab workouts are NOT it.

I'm sure there are more things that I'm missing, but really, all pregnancies and birth stories are different. There's SO much information out there, it can be overwhelming... All we can do is make the best decisions for us, with the information that we have. Sometimes we are presented with few options and feel like our choices are limited. If our decisions are based off of the information we have, I just want to make the information available so that you have more options to choose from.  I think a good place to start is your philosophy on health and how you want your pregnancy and birth to be in line with that. I believe that if you are given all your options, whatever you choose will be the right one for you and your baby. I just want to make sure the choice is yours, and not someone else's.