Wise Birth Radio

#18 Basic Principles of Postpartum Cooking

Feeling inspired by my recent launch of a postpartum cooking service for local mamas, I wanted to share a bit today about the underlying principles of postpartum cooking. There are some basic tenants across the world to help women ground and heal in this time, and food can be such a beautiful medicine for this period. It can set the tone for the start of a nourished motherhood, and give the body all the nutrients it needs to heal.
 
You'll hear about:
The concept of convalescence - how this idea of rest and specific foods for a certain amount of time after an illness has so many commonalities with postpartum practices world wide. 
You need even more calories when breastfeeding than pregnant. This can seem quite daunting, but it’s so important to be nourishing your body with nutrient dense foods while you’re both healing, and making milk! Breastfeeding burns about as many calories as a 45 minute run EVERY SINGLE DAY! (And night…)
My background is in postpartum care from an Ayurvedic perspective, but these principles of postpartum food are universal. Comparing the way traditional cultures cares for pregnant women around the world leads to certain universal truths. 
Eat enough food! It’s way more than you might expect. This is NOT the time to be thinking about dieting or “losing your baby weight.”
A bit about the qualities of the Vata dosha - it’s the dosha of air and ether, and has qualities of being cold, rough, mobile, etc. It can be easy for vata be become unbalanced in the postpartum time: there is literally empty space in your body, that needs to be guarded and kept warm. 
After birth, your digestive fire, or ‘Agni’ is low and needs to be carefully tended and built back up for proper absorption and digestion of birth food, and experiences. 
Some universal postpartum food principles - food should be:Warming
Easy to Digest
Well Spiced
Grounding
Keep yourself warm! I don’t usually love heat, but keeping your body and your food warm saves up that energy to be put to heal.
While frozen food is convenient, and sometimes the only option, fresh cooked food is optimal for digestion and has the most life force. I totally get that that is not always possible, and frozen food is 100% better than no food, but how can you create systems and call in support to support this?
What are we deciding is worth investing in? I would argue that gathering resources around the postpartum time is one of the most vital events to invest in in your life!
Thinking a bit about the energetics of food - for example, the carrot root grows in a stable, dark, slow environment, as opposed to the carrot tops which are constantly being stimulated and moved around in the wind. The root therefor will help you feel more grounded, where as the tops may increase the wind aspect on your body.
The energies that are put into your food are equally (if not more) important than what you are actually eating. Being so open and vulnerable in the postpartum time means it can be easier to sense these things and be more easily influenced by other people’s energies. 
The importance of the medicine of beauty and color! A little gesture can go a long way, having aesthetic beauty in your food and your space can go so far to uplift your mood. And adding a little artistic touch to food, or finding beauty and comfort in your dishwater for example can be its own kind of healing. This can apply to your room (especially if you are going to be there for 2 weeks straight!), you linens, and your whole space.
Remember, this is all FOR you! How can you make it simple, comforting, and familiar? It doesn't have to be complicated.
 
--------------------------
 
Mentioned in the show:
 
Tony(a) Lemos at Blazing Star Herbal School
Our Episode on Receiving in the Postpartum Time
Seven Sisters Plan
Sacred Window Center Website and Instagram
The Fourth Trimester by Kimberly Ann Johnson
Innate Tradition’s free class with Carly Rae Beaudry - MOTHERFOODS: Maternal Nutrition and Humanity's Health
My new Postpartum Cooking offering
 
Postpartum Cookbooks:
The First Forty Days
Nourishing Newborn Mothers
Mama’s Menu: Ayurvedic Recipes for Postpartum Healing
The Seed of Joy - Nourished Postpartum Cookbook
 
------------------------
 
Thanks for listening!
If you’re enjoying our show, please leave us a rating and review!
If you have anything you want to hear more about, or any questions you'd like us to address, please reach out at catskillsbirthcollective@gmail.com. We welcome your feedback. 
 
Make sure you are following us on Instagram @catskillsbirthcollective for more musings and information on wholistic pregnancy, physiological birth, and intuitive motherhood.
 
If you’re local, we’d love to see you at our monthly prenatal and mother circles!

#17 The Wise Woman Tradition and the Universal Mother Principles

Welcome to the second season of the Wise Birth Radio! I wanted to talk a bit today about some of the philosophical underpinnings of our work and philosophy here at Catskills Birth Collective. Sara and I feel really resonant with the Wise Woman model of care, as outlined by Susun Weed. I feel that wholly embodying it will be a lifelong process, but I am already grateful for the words that Susun Weed has put to this invisible, ancient tradition, to my teachers at Indie Birth and Sacred Window Studies who put this tradition in action through their work, and to the women I walk beside who are also practicing and stepping into this tradition. 
 
 
You'll hear about:
 
A brief overview of the Wise Women model of care. Super important: This model of care is not specific to a certain practitioner, method, or tool. It is a philosophy, a way of thinking, that anyone can tap into at any moment.
Commonalities between this model of care and the Tao te Ching
“Deficiencies, not disease” - What I’ve been delving into recently with Morley Robbins and the RCP
How this will impact the way I show up/will show up as a midwife in the future:
Not having a formula, or a checklist for the women I work with but instead laying out the options for women to allow them to choose what they know they need.
The way we offer consultations from a foundation of holding space for transformation and personal responsibility. We don’t offer consultations necessary to guide or inform, but to allow you to step into your own leadership.
This foundational principle of nourishment - this is what we need more of in the postpartum time! (Well, in all of life.) This is why offering postpartum cooking services for our local community feels so important to me.
The Universal Mother Principles
Simplicity
Flexibility
Compassion
Listening
Intuition
Grounding
Non Judgement
A bit of discussion of what it ACTUALLY means to listen to your intuition. It can be so frustrating to hear “oh, just listen to your intuition”, when sometimes it can be so quiet and hard to hear! I encourage you to practice turning that dial to tune inwards and temporarily remove the outside noise.
What it truly looks like to truly feel yourself at the center of your own spiral, and everyone else at the center of theirs. The spiral is the symbol for the Wise Woman Tradition, and locating yourself there is such a deep practice. It takes both radical responsibility, and radical acceptance.
--------------------------
 
Mentioned in the show:
 
Spirit and Practice of the Wise Woman Tradition by Susun Weed
Tao Te Ching (I love the audio book)
Morley Robbins and the RCP
Our Episode on Receiving in the Postpartum Time
Sacred Window Studies Website and Instagram
 My new Postpartum Cooking offering
 
------------------------
 
Thanks for listening!
If you’re enjoying our show, please leave us a rating and review!
If you have anything you want to hear more about, or any questions you'd like us to address, please reach out at catskillsbirthcollective@gmail.com. We welcome your feedback. 
 
Make sure you are following us on Instagram @catskillsbirthcollective for more musings and information on wholistic pregnancy, physiological birth, and intuitive motherhood.
 
If you’re local, we’d love to see you at our monthly prenatal and mother circles!

#16 The Best Laid Plans - How My Postpartum Looked as a First Time Mom and Student of Postpartum Care

We recorded this episode back in late summer of 2022, when I was around 8 months postpartum. It took me a loooong time to get to editing, but here it is! It was so yummy and juicy to listen through this again! I loved my postpartum time, and I love teaching women about how healing and blissful it can be. In this episode we talk through what my support looked like, what I ate (it was a lot!), and just talking though the story of this transition to motherhood. We go over some helpful tips and suggestions for your own postpartum, and some of the deeper currents running though this sacred period. 
 
**We were still figuring out how the mics worked while we walk in this episode, so you will hear some funny clicks.**
 
 
You'll hear about:
What I ate postpartum for the first 40 days (ish). Yes, I followed an “Ayurvedic” protocol, but that doesn’t mean Indian food! Ayurvedic principles can be applied to any type of food that you feel most comfortable with to make it the most supportive for your postpartum time.
Bringing color therapy into the postpartum time through food and beautifying the space. 
Receiving massage beyond just the physical. Postpartum warm oil massage is so important, but it’s not your average “trying to get the knots out” massage. It’s a chance for integration of the birth experience into your body, to soothe the energies on all levels, to move the lymph (super important because you’re hopefully not moving your body that much otherwise), and to receive love and care from a sister. I had a particularly transcendental massage from my friend Xan (@alexandramunoz.phd on Instagram) where I could feel the energetic overlap between my body and my son’s.
The necessity of sacred sisterhood in this time. More than cleaning, making tea, or helping me with anything, I wanted someone to just SIT with me. I didn’t need to talk, just the presence of another woman to hold the space for the huge process that is postpartum felt so valuable and hard to ask for. 
How Patrick stepped it up! He became the rice pudding master! And at the same time, there were things I would ask for differently next time. He did a great job taking care of the house, when sometimes I just wanted him to lie with us and do nothing. It can be equally challenging (if not more) for a partner to get into the energy of doing less postpartum and just being present with the new family energy. Especially because it feels like there’s s much ore to do. This is why we emphasize the importance of the partner not being the sole care provider in the postpartum time. They also need the time and space to integrate this new family, bond with this tiny little being, and bask in the energy of this sacred window.
Working through feelings of shame for not “recovering perfectly” or being as strong as I want to in relation to feeling prolapse postpartum.
How we dealt with super painful nursing and Olin’s tongue and lip ties. Certainly not sure I would do this the sam next time, but we decided to get his ties revised around 2 weeks old. I would definitely suggest finding a baby competent chiropractor, getting him adjusted was the only thing that I noticed a huge difference in the comfort in his latch.
 
--------------------------
 
Mentioned in the show:
 
Panchakola Ghee
Conscious Caregiver Program
Contact us to set up a postpartum planning consultation! https://www.catskillsbirth.org/contact-us
Mayte the Womb Doula on Tongue Ties
 
 
Postpartum Cookbooks we love:
First Forty Days Book by Heng Ou
Mama's Menu: Ayurvedic Recipes for Postpartum Healing by Ameya Duprey
Nourished Postpartum Cookbook
 
Postpartum Resources!
First Forty Days Book by Heng Ou
Healing after Birth by Jennifer Summerfeltd
Newborn Mothers by Julia Jones
The Fourth Trimester by Kimberly Ann Johnson
------------------------
 
Thanks for listening!
If you’re enjoying our show, please leave us a rating and review!
If you have anything you want to hear more about, or any questions you'd like us to address, please reach out at catskillsbirthcollective@gmail.com. We welcome your feedback. 
 
Make sure you are following us on Instagram @catskillsbirthcollective for more musings and information on wholistic pregnancy, physiological birth, and intuitive motherhood.
 
If you’re local, we’d love to see you at our monthly prenatal and mother circles!

#15 Poetry Series - Rage

I'm starting a mini series here in the podcast of poetry! For now I think it will be things I have written, but I might expand it to other people's writing as well.
This is a poem I wrote to process/unravel an emotional process. Continually working with this rage has been a powerful meditation for my this past year.
 
 For more on female/mother rage, definitely read this blog post by Rachelle Garcia Seliga.
 
Stacey Ramsower is also an amazing resource.
 
And Stacey and Rachelle did a podcast episode together! It contains a super potent moment in relation to this topic.
 
--------------------------
 
Mentioned in the show:
Antonio Sanchez's The Bucket
 
------------------------
 
Thanks for listening!
If you’re enjoying our show, please leave us a rating and review!
If you have anything you want to hear more about, or any questions you'd like us to address, please reach out at catskillsbirthcollective@gmail.com. We welcome your feedback. 
 
Make sure you are following us on Instagram @catskillsbirthcollective for more musings and information on wholistic pregnancy, physiological birth, and intuitive motherhood
 
If you’re local, we’d love to see you at our monthly prenatal and mother circles!

#14 The Vital Energies of Receiving in the Postpartum Time

Reflecting today as I walk about the energies and practice of receiving, particularly in the postpartum.  We have seen it come up again and again with women we have worked with 1:1 and classes or workshops we have taught on the postpartum time: women feel reluctant to ask for help. Creating a nourishing, expansive, blissful, supported postpartum is totally possible, AND it requires asking for help! Laundry, dishes, childcare, cooking, healing touch, or just a sister to sit with you are not luxuries! Creating a magical postpartum time is completely attainable, and for most women it requires working through their internal blockages around receiving, particularly around receiving from other women.
 
You'll hear about:
- The four things that keep women from being open to receiving:
We’re so scared of being seen by other women! Being open and receptive inherently involves a level of openness and vulnerability, and many of us are conditioned to see other women as unsafe. (Hello, sister wound!)
So many women feel like they are not “worthy” of, or haven’t “given enough” to be able to receive. 
We don’t practice asking for help! Plus a great practice for pregnancy (and all times) to do with your partner to become more comfortable with asking for exactly what you need.
You may think you don’t know what you need until you are in the this of it! I argue that if women really take the time to meditate on what they will need in this time they know exactly what will be required, and education is really helpful for this.
- Moving from being victim of the lack of community to calling in, creating, and embodying the supportive community you need to mother.
- The danger of the conditioned mentality of being a strong woman. How can we be strong in our softness and vulnerability? 
- The difference between passively being open to something vs actively calling it in (this is huge!)
- The dance between my partner and I of our own patterns of the divine feminine and masculine. How we’ve worked to balance and complement each other in terms of these archetypes. Pregnancy and postpartum was such a huge humbling for me and taught me so much about asking for help and stepping deeper into my own feminine element.
- I put these words are out there as a prayer, in hopes that these seeds of receptivity, openness, and vulnerability amongst our sisters are planted in the minds and hearts of anyone who is ready to deepen into relationship with their own feminine.
 
--------------------------
 
Mentioned in the show:
 
Our first Mother Circle on March 8th!
Nicole’s Instagram - embodied motherhood and nourished postpartum - @theseedofjoy_ 
Contact us to set up a postpartum planning consultation! 
 
Postpartum Resources:
First Forty Days Book by Heng Ou
Healing after Birth by Jennifer Summerfeltd
Newborn Mothers by Julia Jones
The Fourth Trimester by Kimberly Ann Johnson
------------------------
 
Thanks for listening!
If you’re enjoying our show, please leave us a rating and review!
If you have anything you want to hear more about, or any questions you'd like us to address, please reach out at catskillsbirthcollective@gmail.com. We welcome your feedback. 
 
Make sure you are following us on Instagram @catskillsbirthcollective for more musings and information on wholistic pregnancy, physiological birth, and intuitive motherhood.
 
If you’re local, we’d love to see you at our monthly prenatal and mother circles!

#13 Olin’s Birth’s Lessons - One Year Later.

Today is Olin's first birthday! In honor of the event, I talk today about a word that came up persistently throughout my pregnancy with him, and took on more subtle shades of deeper importance as I was integrating his birth story this past year:
AUTONOMY
I know this is a big word out there in the collective consciousness at the moment, and this episode is a short reflection on what it means to me.
You'll hear about:
- How his birth challenged my own perception on my ability to say no and stand in my truth in my pregnancy
- How my lack of practice in autonomy led to not being able to create the undisturbed birth setting I was imagining.
- How this all ties in with mothering (This is huge! Something I imagine I will continue to work with for many years.
- The difference between true autonomy and trauma based fixation on independence.
 
--------------------------
 
Mentioned in the show:
Watch Olin's Birth Video
https://indiebirth.org/im-a-self-proclaimed-midwife/
 
--------
 
Thanks for listening!
If you’re enjoying our show, please leave us a rating and review!
If you have anything you want to hear more about, or any questions you'd like us to address, please reach out at catskillsbirthcollective@gmail.com. We welcome your feedback. 
 
Make sure you are following us on Instagram @catskillsbirthcollective for more musings and information on wholistic pregnancy, physiological birth, and intuitive motherhood
 
If you’re local, we’d love to see you at our monthly prenatal and mother circles!

#12 Reflections on a Year of Big Transitions

Wrapping up this year before the solstice, it's a solo-cast today with just me, Maible. I share some reflections on this past year, my transition to motherhood thus far and other changes it has cataylsed in my life. (Spoiler alert: I'm not a vegetarian any more!) This is a pretty personal and vulnerable episode, but it feels good to be sharing my story through this medium.
You'll hear about:
- My lifelong journey of coming home to my body
- How breastfeeding made my new dietary requirements very clear
- My months long decision process to start eating meat after being a life long vegetarian
- How these choices have impacted my relationship with the cycles of the divine feminine/earth goddess/life-death-life
- And how my transition to motherhood has felt much like a home-coming, or a stepping into the next level of my being.
 
--------
Thanks for listening!
If you’re enjoying our show, please leave us a rating and review!
If you have anything you want to hear more about, or any questions you'd like us to address, please reach out at catskillsbirthcollective@gmail.com. We welcome your feedback. 
 
Make sure you are following us on Instagram @catskillsbirthcollective for more musings and information on wholistic pregnancy, physiological birth, and intuitive motherhood
 
If you’re local and pregnant, we’d love to see you at our monthly prenatal circles!
 

#11 Birth with a Student Midwife Brain (Part 2)

This is part 2 of the story of the birth of my (Maible’s) son, Olin Wren Gillespie. Attended by Sara, a midwife, a photographer, my partner, and my mother, this birth was very straight forward, down to earth, and rather humorous. He was born at home on January 11, 2022 after a 12 hour labor. In integrating the story after, I learned so much about the subtle dynamics of persuasion and experience, and why it is so important to speak your “no”, even if it doesn’t seem like a big deal.

#10 Birth with a Student Midwife Brain (Part1)

This is part 1 of the story of the birth of my (Maible’s) son, Olin Wren Gillespie. Attended by Sara, a midwife, a photographer, my partner, and my mother, this birth was very straight forward, down to earth, and rather humorous. He was born at home on January 11, 2022 after a 12 hour labor. In integrating the story after, I learned so much about the subtle dynamics of persuasion and experience, and why it is so important to speak your “no”, even if it doesn’t seem like a big deal.
Some things we mentioned:
My favorite herbal vinegars - Subluna Botanicals
Article on low fluid - Evidence for Induction for Low Amniotic Fluid in a Healthy Pregnancy

#9 Birth Story of Cielo Silver

Here's part three of Sara's birth stories!
A straight forward, self directed pregnancy and birth with a surprise twist at the end! We talk about her relationship with the midwives she was working with, her preference and orientation towards free birth, and the lessons this adorable babe brought with his birth.