Podcast: Preparing for the 4th Trimester with host, Megan Rossiter
Preparing for the 4th Trimester with host, Megan Rossiter
MINI SERIES
Modern Maternity Care has a tendency to separate conception, pregnancy, birth, feeding & parenting. But there is a thread that runs from one through to another. The choices you make and experiences you have during and prior to birth have a direct impact on your postnatal experience.
In this episode, we join the dots. What can we do or consider now, ahead of birth, to prepare for the 'fourth trimester' and beyond?
An important aspect of the new Birth-ed Method, start here to get yourself thinking about how you can parent your baby, your way.
TRANSCRIPT
(AI GENERATED)
Hi, everyone, welcome to our mini bonus series of the birth-ed podcast.
I have once again, the most incredible lineup of expert guests joining me for Series 4 to explore a huge breadth of pregnancy, birth, and postnatal topics from cesarean recovery to BMI, to mixed feeding, to positive hospital birth, and pretty much everything in between.
But before we dive into Series 4, and you're listening to this in real time, so April 2024, you'll probably know by now that this week sees a huge support in the shift that I offer here at BirthEd, as we wave goodbye to the old BirthEd Hypnobirthing course, and welcome in the BirthEd method.
So across this week, I'm going to dive in and share a deeper insight into the BirthEd method, what makes it different, and how it can help you to have an empowering and satisfying birth experience.
One of the key shifts that I'm making with the launch of the BirthEd method is the postnatal preparation side of things.
Originally, I had plans to launch a postnatal prep course as a separate offering to the birth prep side of things.
It was a real addition that people had been asking for for a few years.
But I realized that making it separate would basically just perpetuate one of the big issues with our approach to perinatal care in the 21st century.
And this is the complete separation of parenting to pregnancy and birth.
We are really taught to approach things as four separate stages.
So there's conception and our experience trying to conceive.
Then there's pregnancy.
Then there's birth.
And then there's the postnatal feeding, parenting bit, as though they are all completely independent events.
But actually, these are not four separate stages.
There is a thread that runs from one into another.
They are intricately connected in both the physical and emotional level.
Just recently, I've been supporting a family one-to-one who have had a really long and difficult journey to conception.
And to suggest that this journey is irrelevant now that they're pregnant basically just suggests that we're not listening hard enough.
I can see how that journey to conception is impacting her emotions right now at the end of pregnancy, how it's impacted her approach to antenatal care, and how it will very likely impact her postnatally, and the way she goes on to parent this long-fore and long-awaited baby.
Similarly, the choices that we make in pregnancy around things like scans, tests, birthplace, will have a direct impact on the way that we give birth.
The way that we experience birth has a direct impact on things like feeding our babies, our emotional health, our physical health, our identity as parents, and those early experiences of parenting will impact the choices that we make further along the line.
A family I supported whose baby spent a long period of time in NECU, Neonatal Intensive Care, then really struggled with the idea of leaving their baby at nursery, and she decided not to go back to work because that immediate postnatal period impacted her parenting forever.
A mum I supported who really struggled to breastfeed said that because she couldn't breastfeed her child, it impacted the way she then weaned her baby onto food, and she found such joy in cooking and providing home-made food for her child, and in this way filling the gap that she felt was missing from not being able to breastfeed like she had wanted.
Or mums I've supported whose babies have been born with support of an instrumental birth who then seemed really unsettled or uncomfortable and had been told, oh, you know, that's just babies or they've got colic.
And then they found relief and support through things like osteopathy, because actually the baby's experience of birth had left them with body tension or pain that they were trying to communicate.
So these are not isolated events.
We cannot disconnect them.
Conception, pregnancy, birth, feeding, parenting, they're like dominoes, one impacting another impacting another.
When we think about pregnancy or birth as something you've got to enjoy, you've just got to get to the end of it in order to get to a baby, we really lose sight of the intricate ways one experience influences another.
And so now, in the birth-ed method, our preparation has been extended to start considering the fourth trimester and beyond.
And I know it's really hard to think this far ahead, especially if it's your first baby.
When birth prep feels so all-consuming, we tend to get hyper-focused on the birth prep, which is understandable because, as we've just explored, your experience of birth is important from a physical and emotional perspective for you and your baby, and frankly anybody moving through your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum period alongside you.
But I wanted to take the opportunity in this episode to explore some of the preparation you might like to start doing now during pregnancy.
And I'm not talking painting the nursery, buying cute baby grows, picking out baby names.
Whilst those things are such joys of pregnancy, and I would thoroughly recommend that anything that feels like nesting go for it, anything that, you know, I would definitely recommend creating a short list of baby names, lest you end up with a child called cute baby for eight weeks like we did.
Yeah, my youngest son is genuinely on the 2021 census as cute baby.
But what I'm really talking about here is getting to grips with what to expect from a newborn baby, and how to support yourself through it, how to shut out the noise of advertising, Instagram, unsolicited parenting advice from the 80s, and tune back into your instinct to trust yourself as parents and parent your baby in the way that feels right for you.
So I'm going to kick us off with what is frankly the biggest spoiler of the lot.
And I don't know why this is not plastered of the front page of your maternity notes.
Are you ready?
Babies are not clone robots.
Personality is not something that we develop.
It is something that we are born with.
Babies have personalities.
Babies have personalities.
Go to a bookshop, head to the like parenting bit, and there will be literally hundreds of books that make out as if babies are all the same.
And if we just parent them right, then we will complete the game, and your cute baby will evolve like some kind of level one Pokemon into a compliant toddler, and then again into a calm, kind, and considered child, and then an insightful teenager, and then the end game, happy adult.
Now, I really hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but it's just not that simple.
I do have good news though.
Because babies are not clone robots, that also means that there is not one correct way to parent them.
Even sibling babies are going to be different people.
I know, sorry, you thought you knew babies, and then you meet your second baby or your third baby, and you realize you only knew your baby.
And the decisions that you're making as parents, the decisions that you're making now during pregnancy and birth, are just the start of a lifetime of making decisions for or with your child.
It goes on forever.
But those decisions are going to be influenced by so much.
They're going to be influenced by your baby or your child's temperament and their personality, their health, your health, your family setup, your finances, where in the world you are, your access to support, your culture, your religion, the layout of your house, your jobs, parental leave.
And whilst it's really reassuring to know that everything you're feeling and experiencing postnatally, many, many other families will be facing the same thing, no one really has an identical family setup to you.
So no one's really going to know what's best for your baby and your family than you do.
So building this self-trust and confidence during pregnancy is going to continue serving you well beyond the birth.
And I talk about in Labour how your only real job is to feel and respond, to feel and respond.
And this translates really well into the postnatal period and right throughout parenting our kids.
Our only job here now is to connect and respond, connect and respond, connect to our baby or our child, to listen to what they are communicating and to respond to it.
And in the very early days with a newborn, this is just a really helpful place to come back to, this connect, listen and respond, which can often be translated to stick them naked on your chest for a cuddle and feed them and change them and repeat.
That tends to be the kind of connection and response that they're after, 90% of the time as a newborn baby.
And in order for us to be able to perform what sounds like a very simple job of connect and response, there's a few things that we can do in preparation.
So whilst it sounds very simple, connecting, listening and responding to a newborn baby, it's frankly a 24-7 job and can make doing anything else a little tricky.
So step one here is just understanding normal newborn baby behaviour.
So we talk in detail about this in the postnatal section of the birth-ed method, but newborns are simply driven by an instinct to survive.
They want us to protect them, so they probably want to be held almost all of the time.
They wake frequently, they feed frequently.
I sort of sold this idea that babies should be sleeping in their crib.
There's a real drive in most parenting literature or apps or online that the end game and the ultimate goal of parenting is separation, that our success as parents is based on how well our baby or our child copes without us.
And some babies will lay in a cot or be happy being passed from person to person, but this is more likely down to their individual temperament than your excellent or poor parenting skills.
The vast majority of babies will want to be close most of the time.
And I'm not for a moment suggesting that this is going to be easy, but understanding that it is biologically normal can make it feel more acceptable to us when it might not be exactly what we are expecting.
The other behaviour that it helps to get to grips with goes hand in hand with this need to be held and this kind of being driven by survival before your baby is born is that of feeding, especially if you are hoping to breastfeed.
Now, the vast majority of families I support have never actually seen a baby breastfeed.
And I don't mean like been in the same room as a baby that's breastfeeding, but literally seen that baby come to the breast, attached to the breast, feed from the breast.
How are they positioned?
What does their mouth look like?
And this is why it's so important to me that in the birth-ed method, it includes videos of an actual baby feeding at the breast.
You know, is it any wonder we find breastfeeding so difficult when the first time we ever see a baby latch is when it's our own baby and our own boob?
So understanding normal feeding behaviour and getting to grips with what to look for, signs a baby is feeding well, literally how to get them on, and recognising when something's maybe not right, are definitely steps that you can be taking now during pregnancy to get your feeding journey off to a good start.
Of course, the same as birth, there's no guarantees that preparation always equals an easy journey, or that we are even all making the same choices for feeding our babies, and we cover mixed feeding and formula feeding in the course too.
But in terms of stacking the odds in our favour to get breastfeeding off to a good start, if you want to breastfeed, the prep starts now during pregnancy.
Another real consideration to make now during pregnancy is how you can start to build a village of support around yourself in these early days so that you can really prioritise recovery, bonding with your baby, establishing feeding and rest.
And you can even sit now after this episode and brainstorm what steps you can take and who you can ask to help you and in what way.
And this village of support might be friends and family who come and bring you dinner, empty your dishwasher, or hold the baby whilst you nap or shower.
It might be gathering a list of local feeding support groups with dates and times and locations so you're not scrabbling for it when you've got a newborn.
It might be working out if there's anything that you can kind of afford to outsource, like childcare for your elder children or a cleaner.
It might be working out if you can budget for a postnatal doula to come and support you in those early days.
The more you can get in place now, the better you can set other people's expectations, the more supported you are going to feel, and the more easily you'll be able to prioritise rest, recovery, and getting to know your baby.
Okay, and the final thing that I would urge you to consider now during pregnancy, ahead of the birth of your baby, if you are entering parenthood with a partner, is to think about your values and priorities as parents and how you hope to enter parenthood as a team.
I think in general, we massively underestimate the impact that welcoming a new baby has on a relationship.
It's almost as if we have to completely get to know each other again and completely reinvent the way that we communicate, the way that we interact.
And often having a baby or becoming parents brings up completely new conversations and feelings, and possibly in ways that aren't always completely aligned with one another.
Now, as you'll know through listening to the podcast episode so far or any interactions you've had with me or my work at Birth-Ed, the Birth-Ed method isn't here to tell you what to do.
There isn't a step by step, unfortunately, set of instructions to show you how you should be parenting.
It's more about giving you opportunities to work this out for yourself.
So conversation starters to open up conversations that maybe before weren't getting much deeper than what colour should we paint the nursery or how many Muslims do you think a baby actually needs?
So within the course, you'll find some activities, journal prompts, conversation starters that really get you thinking and talking and going into this as a team.
And I thought I would share a couple with you now to get you started.
So together with your partner, or you can absolutely work through this on your own if you are solo parenting, I would invite you to consider what currently feels most important to me when thinking about parenting our baby.
What am I most excited about experiencing as a parent?
What am I most worried about?
What do I think I might find hard?
Describe the way that you were parented.
What aspects of the way that you were parented do you most hope to replicate?
Which aspects of the way that you were parented would you choose to do differently?
Definitely thinking about what do I need in order to feel supported?
That might be emotional things, that might be physical things, practical things.
What do I most hope for from my partner or co-parent as a parent?
I've shared these prompts in the show notes, so grab yourself a cuppa, get cosy on the sofa, really kind of set the scene for a positive conversation, and see where these conversation prompts lead you.
And you can come back to these in the early postnatal days, and you might find that your answers have shifted now that your baby is here.
It's certainly a difficult thing to prepare for the fourth trimester, and I'm not convinced we can ever get a real feel for what it's like until we're in it.
But you can certainly begin to challenge some of the subconscious ideas that you have already taken on whilst browsing baby kit websites, watching movies, scrolling social media, and just start to adjust your expectations so that you can really feel trusting in yourselves, confident in your choices, and able to prioritize that special connection time with your new baby in those first few months.
The postnatal aspect of the birth-ed method does all of this, giving you a real in-depth understanding of the evolutionary biologically normal behaviors of a newborn baby with an empowering and understanding approach to navigating these in a modern world.
You also get all the practical information you need on safe sleep, baby care, your own physical and emotional recovery, relationships.
And again, this approach of putting you guys in the driving seat so you can confidently work out what feels right for you within the nuance and intricacies that each individual experience brings.
Because as we now know, babies are not clone robots.
If you are listening to this on the day it's released, then the birth-ed method launches on Friday the 26th of April, 2024, less than 48 hours until you have all of this at your fingertips.
So I really, really hope you can join us and allow me to help you prepare for birth at the early parenting phase.