Grow with us on IP+! Informed Pregnancy Media presents two all new intimate short-form video series following Garrett and HeHe’s real-time pregnancy journeys as they prepare for an empowered birth and postpartum experience. Each episode features weekly updates with personal photos and videos to help bring these raw stories to life, a visually dynamic guide through each mother’s emotional and physical experiences.
“mothering you is also mothering me. And because of you, I have found healing that I never thought was possible.”
“It was like a heat seeking missile.”
“It's like asking for help is so key.”
“And to learn how to live with your heart running around outside of your body.”
“just had this kind of like faith or assuredness that like, she's going to be okay, this doesn't make sense and it doesn't look good, but she's going to be okay, she's going to be okay.”
AI-generated transcript with speaker labels — may contain errors, especially names and medical terms. Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC appears in blue; Amanda Nordelius & John Russell in orange.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[0:00] My returning guests today are an international songwriting duo splitting their time between Los Angeles and Stockholm. Together, they've built a creative partnership, a family, and a life that blends two cultures. In their previous episode, they shared their pregnancy and birth story, including a powerful unplanned home breech birth. As it turns out, the birth was only the beginning. I'm pregnancy-focused chiropractor Dr. Elliott Berlin, and you're listening to the Informed Pregnancy Podcast. Amanda Nordelius and John Russell, welcome back to the podcast.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[0:46] Thank you. Thanks. Thanks for having us back.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[0:49] My pleasure. Okay. So birth was not exactly what you had expected. Things changed a lot from the very beginning to the very end. One might say they turned upside down. And then the baby comes and I think for a lot of us, we do whatever it is that we do for pregnancy and birth. We put in a lot of time, effort, thought, and planning, and then the baby comes with no user manual instruction guide. It's a little life that needs a lot of input from us. And there are various stages of just hard learning curve from minute one, day one, week one, month one, year one. What was the afterbirth like for you?
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[1:35] I remember when we did all the pregnancy prep and John was like, I do kind of want to do a class on after when a baby is here. Yeah. And I was like, ah, no. Yeah. Who do I talk to to get one of those manuals?
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[1:47] Yeah. By the way, I could tell you not about the baby so much, but about the relationship. My wife, Dr. Alyssa, has a course called the After Birth Plan that streams on informed pregnancy plus.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[2:00] Oh, incredible. Is it too late for us to?
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[2:03] It's never too late. No, I even know people do it before their second baby. The ideal, obviously, is to do it while you're in that blissful state before the first baby comes and you have more time. But it's a little hard to sell a solution to a problem that you don't feel yet.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[2:20] Definitely.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[2:21] Yeah. And I think the people who do it while they're pregnant always afterwards they write back, oh, thank goodness I had that preparation. But it's hard for all of us to invest time and effort into something that's not in front of us right now. So there is that course, but okay, so I guess you didn't do one.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[2:39] Well, no. No, we didn't. And I think we were as prepared as we could be for seeing our baby's butt be the first thing that comes out, the pushing but not ever pushing out a baby before, so not knowing what that actually feels like. So there are those aspects. But I think the thing that we were kind of most caught off guard by was just like when Freya was born, she was unresponsive and she was limp. It didn't look like she was breathing. And then the midwives started giving her mouth-to-mouth. And we were like, wait, where was this in our classes or our, you know, books that we were reading or whatever, like we didn't hear about this. So that was really, I think a really shocking moment for both of us.
[3:25] Because I think you, you know, Amanda can definitely attest to this, but you hear all the stories of, you know, you're going to practice it. You're going to lift your baby up to your chest. You're going to, baby's going to come out and you're going to lift the baby up to your chest. And it's going to be this magical moment of oxytocin and everything flowing. And that moment didn't really happen right away. That wasn't what we were created with. And I think it was also like, ironically, you know, like a part of the birth mantra that we learned is like, have no expectations and, you know, I'll take whatever twist and turn this birth is taking. I'm sure that's not the verbatim.
[4:02] So I think none of us had any expectations like during birth, but without knowing it, I had kind of planned this little expectations on when the baby is born. We will have this moment. Like that will be, you know, like all the hard work. Like this will be the moment. But what we had, I guess, forgot or missed to be, to like, to research was that when it is a breech baby and a C-section baby, very often this happens because their lungs are not compressed. So it's very common that they have to do the mouth-to-mouth and that they have to rub them to like get the circulation going. Once again, I'm not, you know, I'm not a doctor, so I'm sure this is just my expressions.
[4:42] So it was kind of expected in a way, but we just didn't know. So we thought the baby will not, you know, like to have all the little, what do you call it, like the keeping the baby's little, you know, the goo on and stuff. So I think that's the correct medical term. When they start to like rub her and like, you know, give us the circulation and mouth-to-mouth, like it was just like, we thought it wasn't according to protocol, but obviously it probably was, or it was. So then.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[5:13] I can only imagine, right. The expectation is that you have this intense labor, you have pregnancy, then an intense labor and finally birth. And that moment is supposed to be like the shiniest moment ever. Like where all the feelings feel, the oxytocin hits its peak and you're just in bliss with your new baby. And if it doesn't happen exactly like that, like somebody accidentally wipes off the Bernix or something like that. It's already, you know, a blow to that blissful expectation. But when it's the exact opposite, when your baby comes out limp, not breathing and needs like resuscitation breath, rescue breathing, I can't imagine the panic, the exact opposite, going from a oxytocin high to an adrenaline high.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[6:02] Yeah. I think it just was such a shocking moment for both of us, which I think once she started to breathe, which, I mean, it felt like forever to us. I'm sure it was 30 seconds in real life. Once she started to breathe and cry, they handed her over to me. And at that point, I think I had just kind of gone into some kind of like freeze state, I think it was so scared to lose her those 30 seconds that I had a hard time, like when they finally gave her to me, I had a hard time like accepting that everything was fine. Just like that. Now she's just here. And I'm sure everything was fine the whole time. It just looked so scary to us. And then John was, I feel like you were really good at coming back
[6:44] to the moment and realizing everything was fine. Yeah. It's a weird thing. I don't really know how to explain or quantify, but I think part of me just had this kind of like faith or assuredness that like, she's going to be okay, this doesn't make sense and it doesn't look good, but she's going to be okay, she's going to be okay. And I just kept telling myself like that, she's going to be okay, she's going to be okay, it's okay, she's going to be okay. And then I think as soon as her eyes cracked open, just a smidge, as soon as I just saw like the tiniest sign of life, I was like, oh, okay. She looked so cool too, I remember. Like she looked so badass when she opened her eyes, it was like,
[7:22] oh my God, there you are. Like she just looked like such a cool baby. And then we waited for that glorious cry to come. And thank God for our midwives, because they kind of, one midwife tried and didn't seem to be working and then like they kind of passed her around. And then finally the last midwife that was there and was able to get her coughing and breathing and crying. And yeah, it's very intense.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[7:48] Can't imagine being in that situation, like not having them there, you know, can't imagine that at all. You know, as a doula, I've been in this situation and I sometimes feel like maybe a terrible analogy, but bad turbulence on the plane. Or what feels like bad turbulence to me on the plane, but the flight attendants are still handing out snacks, so I'm like, oh, okay, we're going to be okay, you know, sometimes as a doula, you see this, you know, this little rescue breath that's needed. You see a baby come out a little bit limp or blue and the midwives don't panic, they just do what they're trained to do and they take care of it. And then they're like, oh, okay, here's your baby.
[8:33] And you know, like I'm still green and want that little bag to throw up in. And she's like, oh, you don't want this biscuit?
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[8:42] Exactly.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[8:44] I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that biscuit just yet.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[8:47] Right. Yeah. So it was, needless to say, it was a bit of a rocky start to postpartum from the first moment we met her. It took me a while to understand. I think because of that, like it took me a while to understand and fully accept that she was like here. Right. But we, I had to like, I mean, I was just going to say it was almost like, it feels like there was almost like an amount of dissociation from the moment because of like your body just preparing itself for something, you know, that it couldn't like handle. Are we allowed to celebrate? Like, are we allowed to like go on with our lives? Is everything good now? Like it took a while to come down from that turbulence on the plane.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[9:30] But totally makes sense. Especially if you weren't prepped for it, you know, I've definitely heard people prepare couples in the past to say, Hey, this could happen. Don't panic.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[9:41] Right.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[9:42] And maybe that would have gone a long way for you.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[9:44] Yeah.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[9:45] All right. I want to take a little break because that's intense. So let me just sit on that for a minute and come back and find out how the next few minutes evolved. We'll be right back.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[10:07] Welcome back. We're talking to Amanda and John and okay. So your first moments as parents, uh, not exactly what you expected, but it seems like that whole episode was probably just a couple of minutes. And then you do get the baby, maybe a little numb and a little detached. How does the rest of that first day unfold?
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[10:29] She basically crawled, like we put her on my chest. I laid down and she basically just found her way to the breast and started to breastfeed. It was like a heat seeking missile. It was incredible. She was just knew exactly where to look. It was wild because we thought like, Oh, babies don't know how to latch. Like this is going to be a whole thing with a lactation consultant. Like we were so prepared. And then she just kind of honestly, like she did all the work. I didn't have to do anything. Yeah, she just had the instinct. It was crazy.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[11:03] What a contrast from coming out to like needing, you know, a human to help her survive. And then all of a sudden just knowing exactly, I got to go get that food right now. Right. You know, already like just minutes old already on a mission. You know, already trained and programmed.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[11:21] Exactly. No, her dad is very motivated by food as well. So I think it may be a apple tree situation. Exactly. Yeah. But yeah, I remember we did all the, you know, weights and all of that. Yeah. Like weight checking and had a little cranial sacral therapy moment. Yeah. And then everyone left and then everyone left. So it was just us calling family and we had the privilege to do the like 15 day, you know, five days on bed, five, five days in bed. No, yeah. In bed, five days on bed and then five days close to bed. Right. Yeah, I think so. Sounds like a dream by the way. Yeah. No, we would actually, we're like, if we ever have a second child, this won't happen.
[12:06] So we were like, I really enjoy this because this might be the once in a lifetime and I mean, I had needed it, like my body recovered very quickly and I feel like it's all thanks to this. Resting. Yeah. Can't be. Rested so much and we were watching, we had the projector up and John was, you know, he got me this little medical table. Like it's like medical grade. It's like the little tables in the hospital have wheels on them and you can put them over the bed, you know, for meals. Yeah. It's amazing. You can just buy it on Amazon for like 50 bucks. It was like, it was amazing.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[12:43] Oh, good to know. I don't have to have a heart attack to get that kind of service. You get one.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[12:51] So nice. Yeah. Also, instead of having, you know, like a fixed table when you're nursing, like just being able to like roll it on around, like on bed and off bed when you needed to. Or not trying to balance a tray while you're like, you know, right on your bed, you know, it was the best. All the Lord of the Rings movies. Extended editions. Yes. On very quiet volume. Cause we were like, this cannot be the soundtrack that she's entering the world to. Right. She was born into middle earth.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[13:21] Those movies are so long. Now I get it. You need five days for the first movie. Five days for the second one.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[13:27] He was basically it. Exactly. Yeah.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[13:31] Was it hard when everyone left after that traumatic beginning? Did you have like nerves about now there's no professionals here?
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[13:39] No. Weirdly, it felt wonderful. Yeah. I was like, I cannot wait to be alone. Yeah. It was really nice. And it didn't feel like, I don't know, a lot of dads that I've met or men that I've met a lot of times are kind of like, Ooh, I don't know how to touch this, you know, small seven pound, six pound baby. It feels a little fragile, but it just felt like something in me. And I'm sure you felt the same thing was just like, Oh, this is mine. I know what to do with this. So John just, I mean, the oxytocin that maybe went over my head, like crashed right into John. He was like, uh, I've never seen him like this. Like he was like smiling. He was like moving like phonetically.
[14:23] Like, like, what can I do? Like he was just like, it was just wild to see him like.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[14:29] Because it's an audio podcast, people can't see Amanda mimicking that guy on top of the car dealership that blows around in the wind.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[14:41] But you know, John is pretty calm and composed, like, you know, usually, but you were so just happy. You were beaming and you know, it was just so cool to see. I was also not sure for some reason I went into a weird mind space after birth of like some weird performance anxiety. Like, did I do well? Like, it was really strange. So I was like, I don't know if I did that well, like, like you can give birth to a baby in a different, it was like a weird, really weird thing. Who's scoring this and she is born. So it went well.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[15:16] But that's interesting because you are a performer, right?
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[15:20] Oh my gosh.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[15:21] Do you critique your performances historically like that as well?
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[15:24] I mean, yeah, I guess you're right. I am, but this would not be a performance. I thought I would ever critique. Oh, of course. But I mean, just sometimes it's the training. Like, how could I have done better? No, it's probably right. Yeah. It's like part of you felt like you did something wrong or something. Could have done it better. Yeah. It was all of those thoughts. And then John was like, no, that was the coolest thing I've ever seen. Like I'm going to write the story about birth. And like, he was like, he gave me so many compliments. It made me feel like the most loved and seen. He was like, he literally made me feel like the coolest woman alive.
[16:00] Yeah, it was the most beautiful thing. And you are the coolest woman alive. I honestly think that moment rewired something in me. Like if he wouldn't have given me all of that, like all the reassurance and like just lifting me up like that, I don't know how my postpartum journey would have looked like. I feel like there could have been like, that could have been a little dork, like cracked into going into some kind of depression of feeling bad about myself, but John was there to like, just kind of like, you know, just feed into like, just give me a lot of love. And I remember I was like, oh my gosh, thank you for telling me this. Like, this is so important.
[16:35] And I asked him to write it down and he did. He wrote down basically how he viewed me through birth. Just, yeah, what it looked like from, from my eyes, from my perspective. And reading that was just like, I think extremely healing. I'm so grateful that you like for doing that.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[16:52] Yeah, I'm getting a little period here. I love for you to write one about me at some point. My first credit. Oh, my second. I have that Showtime credit, but, um, okay.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[17:08] Oh my gosh. Wait, sorry. Just because you mentioned it. I love Nathan Fielder and I don't know how we saw, but you were on an episode of the curse. Yeah, episode 10 of an hour.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[17:23] Incredible. I love it.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[17:24] Very random.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[17:26] Yeah, I have yet to see this. I do have to see it now, but it's once in a while I'll get a weird text. It could even be 2 a.m. And someone's like coughing up their midnight ice cream because they're just randomly watching the curse on Showtime and I show up and I'm like, wait a second, is that, is that my car? Ask yourself too.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[17:46] I mean, that's sort of Moses, the male doula. Oh, okay. I haven't seen this. I don't.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[17:54] All right. No more spoilers. You're going to have to want it. So I get a three cent royalty check. There you go.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[18:00] Um, but yeah, that was just an incredible moment. It's nice to know that it counts, you know, because you can feel helpless a lot of times as like the one who's not actively birthing the baby and able to feed the baby and I think just having that feedback between each other is just really helpful that like I was able to really help and make a difference in that, like the partnership that we had through that, like my, whatever role I took on and whatever weight I carried was really worth something and really meant something through the birthing process and even the postpartum process, you know, I think it would be a mistake to just like check out and just be like, oh, you know, she's the one
[18:42] equipped to deal with all of this. So, you know, I'll leave that to her. Um, yeah. Or just being like all about the baby, which obviously you were too, but you were also able to kind of see me and know what I just, like what I just went through and coming down from something big like that, like, it was really nice to feel still very seen like in that process. And the first 15 days, you know, John just like, I had to recover. I couldn't hold her all the time. Cause I felt so much pressure on my pelvic floor. So John would spend a lot of time with Freya the first 14 days, which was also very beautiful for your bonding. That's nice. I was her mattress.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[19:22] You know, you guys, honestly, from the first time I met you, I remember the sofa you were sitting on when we talked and we talk about how challenging it is in our community. We just talk about how challenging it is to take two totally independent people and merge them together, you know, through a relationship, through marriage and make a new whole. That's almost literally like what happens with this coming together and make a human being, but taking two independent people making a whole that's a new whole that you can't picture, you know, either part of that whole not being there because it's one entity now. And that's the image I got of you guys from day one and it's
[20:03] still all the way through. And it just sort of feels like you have this great teamwork situation where like the ideal business partnership, I always tell people, if my kids even ask me, should I go into like this with somebody? And I'm like, if you're making a peanut butter sandwich and both of you are peanut butter, then you shouldn't take on a partner because you don't need a partner for who's doing more stickiness. But if you want to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and you're a peanut butter, you might need to take on jelly as a partner. And it just sort of feels like wherever one has a strength or a weakness or a need, then the other one's able to fill that gap,
[20:39] you know, like a perfect Tetris. So it sounds like that was super helpful and impactful in the first days and weeks after the baby came. And in ways, John, that I definitely was not able to do when my kids came. I was that guy like, what is this little squishy thing? It's like, I'm like 300 times its size and I'm nervous about it. And I think at our first birth, which was a long birth, 42 hours, totally unmedicated except for the Advil, which I kept taking for my terrible headache. I was like, baby, you have no idea how painful this is. The doula was almost more for me than for my wife. I mean, she was mostly for my wife, but yeah, just even just making
[21:28] me comfortable with birth and this is long before I became a doula and just like useful ideas, like maybe you could do this to comfort her. Maybe you could do that. I'm like, well, that's a great idea, but I don't know if it would have come to me intuitively. And it sounds like you guys have this chemistry where you can talk to each other without even talking to each other.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[21:46] Yeah. I mean, honestly, when we initially hired a doula, that was also, it was for John too. Like it was like, we need someone to like look over, like make sure that John is okay, because if John is okay, I'm okay, you know, like it's like, we're connected and I feel like that is maybe not talked enough about like the dad's role in it and how much it, I mean, it is talked about, but I feel like the more support the dad gets, the more support the mom gets. At least I feel like that's how it was in our situation.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[22:15] Well, in your case, especially because I think it's a whole. So anything that goes into the unit, it goes into both of you. I would love to take one more break. And when we come back, I want to find out the ups and downs and the things that you couldn't have known without going through it. So we can share with the group. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Amanda and John. So far I got listening in my eyes two or three times in this episode. It's just a lot of emotion coming through here. So I'm hoping I can reach out to Kleenex as a sponsor. Um, you've now had months of parenthood through the evolution. Tell me some of the things that you learned that either were surprising
[23:06] to you in a positive way, surprising to you in a way that you didn't expect that was more of a struggle. What's the trajectory been like?
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[23:15] So I'm surprised on how little sleep I can live off. Like I feel like I sleep, you know, my, I have sleep very interrupted, but I feel great. And it's five months and I still feel great. So I'm just in awe of, I think when you're not a parent and people say, oh, the sleep, you don't sleep a lot. You think how that would look like without having a child, which would be so hard. But then once you have a child, at least for me, like, I think there's just so many hormones and other things supporting me. So it's not at all as hard as I thought it would be, which is really cool. I don't know what you're talking about. Doesn't she sleep through the whole night?
[23:56] Yeah. John is not hit the same way by that. Or you, I mean, you are. I don't have to, no, I don't have to nurse, uh, when she's No, but you're also more tired. Like, ironically, John is, he's sleeping. I have a vitamin. I have some sort of genetic, uh, oh yeah, that's what it is. Yeah. I don't synthesize B vitamin or something like that. So it makes me think it might be the Y gene. Yeah.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[24:22] Yeah, that's true.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[24:27] Can do crazy things that we can't do. That's right. That's very true. But yeah, is there anything you can think about? Oh, yeah. Tons of things. We didn't know how far a baby could poop. Or pee. The first couple of weeks. Very talented.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[24:47] Incredible. Like six feet from the diaper changing table. You guys should have competitions with the other babies. Exactly.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[24:56] No more big cough. Exactly. Exactly. Um, I think we, neither one of us were prepared to like fall in love again. I think that was something that was really wonderful of a surprise is everyone says like this love is different and it's something you've never felt before, you know, it's the most wonderful thing, but like, I don't know. It's like, when you find the love of your life, it's like people could explain it to you, but you don't know it till you know it till you feel it. And just like getting to fall in love with this little person again was such a beautiful thing and brought so much energy and joy and to our lives. It's a really beautiful thing.
[25:38] All her little noises. Yeah. Like I feel like to me now I just view kids different. Like now they're so advanced from the start and they have so much personality from the start. Like she's so much her already. I can't even explain it. I just know her and that is wild to me how advanced they are right from the start, like when you don't know a baby, I feel like you just see them as like a baby, but I just see so much in her. So even when she just like lifts a finger, you know, everything just feels so complex and I'm just so in awe of every moment she does. It's like so cool to see it. Right. And now she's, it's almost like she's communicating something all the time.
[26:20] Like if you are really listening, she's saying something like whether it's like, I'm happy, I'm content here. I'm having fun playing, or it's like, I'm a little uncomfortable. I have poop in my diaper right now. You know, it's like, she has little ways of communicating all of these things and it's like, honestly so impressive. I think we both thought it would be like impossible to like understand a baby, but it is really. I mean, not that we always get it right, but it is easier than we thought. It would be definitely guilty of like bouncing her for 30 minutes. Why won't this baby go to sleep? We smell her. She's got a full diaper. Like, ah, we feel bad.
[26:59] We feel real bad. But a lot of times at least, yeah, she's very communicative. Yeah.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[27:03] I remember my oldest, um, when I would take him for walks in the stroller and it was just a few months old, probably five months, like Freya is now. And I don't know, like a fire truck would go by and his expression, it was just literally light up and be so excited and taking it like, what is that, you know? And for me, like how many times does a fire truck go by? I don't even notice it with all the lights and sirens and everything and the big horns, you know? And it definitely opened up something in me to be more aware, more perceptive and just taking in the things around me, like being more present, being more mindful. And they're mindful of everything.
[27:44] Cause everything's just like a brand new experience. I thought it was pretty cool.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[27:48] It's beautiful. And speaking about strollers, but that is some strollers are a scam, right? We're like, oh, babies are not, they don't lay in them. Babies don't lay in strollers. Oh, really? You're having that problem. She does not like to lay in it. I don't have ever used it for anything else but groceries. Yeah, it's, it is good for the groceries in the stroller. People come up to me and they're like, oh, what a cute baby. And they look down and then there's like vegetables there. What a cute gourd. But no, we've been very much more present. And I think another big thing for both of us is all the reflection we're doing, like, I don't think we've ever reflected this much about our
[28:31] own childhoods and how we were raised, where we're coming from, you know, what we want to pass on, what we don't want to pass on. And there's a lot of healing in that, that none of us could ever prepare for. I did pull up a little poem here that I feel like represents how I feel about it. And it's a poem by someone called Jessica Jocelyn, and it says, mothering you is also mothering me. And because of you, I have found healing that I never thought was possible. And that I feel like explains in a way, postpartum, I think to me, at least. That's beautiful.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[29:10] What's, um, these are all pretty joyous things. Has there been any part of the experience that was a surprise struggle that you've had to adapt to?
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[29:21] Yeah, I mean, the sleep has been like, that has been hard, like feeling really tired. Although once again, like she's been quite merciful to us, honestly, with how much she's sleeping. Like, I don't know why or how, but she just kind of gets it that like nighttime is when you sleep for longer stretches. And so we have a lot of friends or people who have babies and they're like, I'm up every hour and I have to, you know, bounce her back to sleep. And we don't have that necessarily, you know, it's more like she wakes mom up to feed and then she falls asleep while she's eating. Yeah. Even the jet lag, she took pretty well coming to Sweden. Yeah. I think for me, it's been like the whole postpartum journey.
[30:04] I think I've been just giving me a lot of chance to reflect. I think the initial shock left some, you know, what do you say? Marks, some early wounds that I had to work through. I did have some really weird thoughts that I definitely just felt like these are not mine. And that's also when I decided to seek help. Like I had early weeks, I had some thoughts of like, it was weird. It was like, I just felt like maybe they will be fine without me. Like not that I wouldn't want to be here, but I just thought like John can do this on his own. Maybe I shouldn't be a part of it. Like almost like I would be, how do you say it? Like they would be better off if I wasn't a part of it, like if I wasn't there.
[30:44] And then when I had those thoughts, I was like, Whoa, this is things that I feel like I've read about that can happen even postpartum. And that's when I decided to like seek some help, get into some therapy. Cause I felt like it was weird, but I was like, these are not my thoughts. Like, this is not how I think about things.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[30:59] So at what point did you start to feel that?
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[31:03] It was pretty early. I think it was like that kind of feeling of the performance anxiety just lingered and I felt like I had failed and I didn't feel like I just did a bad job. Like it was just that feel negative feeling about myself, not being good enough, almost like, you know, like loving her so much and loving John so much and not feeling good enough for them. And then also we did like Encapsule and my placenta and I do not know. I'm not telling anyone to do it. And I don't know the science behind it, but I got told to take it when I had these like anxious thoughts and I swear, I don't know if it's placebo, but every time I did, I felt completely normal again.
[31:45] So it was weird. Like how much it helped it's placebo. I don't know, but then, you know, so be it, but I noticed a difference. Yeah, John would be like, I would, I would turn to him and be like, now I have these thoughts again. Like, I feel like, you know, you would better off without me. And he's like, have you taken your supplement? Like I was like, no, I haven't. So that was intense, but I did feel like, okay, like I'm going to get so much stronger because of it and I'm going to learn to like love harder because I'm starting off here in the woods. And I don't wish it to be different. Like the therapy I've done since have been so healing. And I feel like the bond I have with Freya today is, you know, so strong
[32:29] that I wouldn't want any part of it to change, but I do think it's good and nice to know that like these things can happen and you just feel like alienated because everyone else is like, how are you feeling? Like, are you the happiest ever? You're like, I am the happiest ever, but I'm also like two things can be true at once, you know, like.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[32:48] That's an important message. That's very true. First of all, all this, you know, because I do a lot of postpartum care, a lot of people open up about how they're feeling. And I think what's sort of great in your experience is that you recognized that early on and not just recognized it, but talked about it and addressed it and got support around it. A lot of people either don't want to recognize it consciously. They feel it, but don't want to put it into words or accept it. Or think, you know, oh, it's just baby blows. It'll pass. Sometimes it's true. Sometimes it isn't, but if you talk about it and if you seek support and there's so many avenues for support today, then it can make the whole
[33:30] experience not only better, but in your case, it sounds like positive. Like you learned a lot from having that experience.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[33:37] And I honestly think I do love very, very like deeply and hard. And I think I just got so scared to lose her. So I think I was just really scared to open up, to open up all of me and be vulnerable. And I mean, that is parenthood. Like you have to love, like you have to be vulnerable every day. And to learn how to live with your heart running around outside of your body. And I think I was scared of doing that. So I maybe kept myself safe in that way. Obviously not consciously, but sure.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[34:09] So you guys had that super scary moment right after birth, but this happens even when things go picture perfect, even when there's nothing that you could look back and critique. Right.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[34:20] Yeah. It's a wild experience, but it was, I think overall, it's been a very, very like special fall for both of us learning and reflecting and growing a lot.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[34:32] Yeah. I feel like there's going to be a lot of songs that come out of this child.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[34:38] So many.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[34:39] Yeah. Prey of the album. Yeah. Yeah. Prey of the musical.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[34:44] Prey of the musical. She's very musical. She's already, already trying to sing. And this is a funny thing we just discovered. So she loves like Disney jazz piano, you know, music. And we found that it like helps her sleep sometimes, but at some point in the past month, she kind of shifted and she was just decided she didn't like music anymore. But we kept playing it for her when it was bedtime. And then one day we just put her to sleep without it. And she was just out like a light and she was so happy. She cried so much and we realized maybe it was the music that pissed her off. What if she hates this Disney music? You have to try a different genre.
[35:28] Right. Yeah, exactly. We do have a different genre, but now it's quiet and she loves that. Yeah. Yeah. You have a routine and then, you know, suddenly they changed their preference. Right. That was, that's the thing is loving it too. Hating. She does. Every day is my, my parenting tip.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[35:45] Wait, what was that?
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[35:46] Get used to that.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[35:47] They, with everything. Sometimes they love mommy and then don't care about daddy. Sometimes they want to come to me and I don't get, you know, just with everything I love red. Now I hate red. I want this and, you know, and just as I get more expressive and, and want to make their own decisions, it's just, you don't let go and let them, let them be them. All right. As we're wrapping up any final thoughts you'd like to share?
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[36:12] I want to say I have a deep respect for parents. Yeah. Now, like the hard work that we are doing and they are doing, I mean, we as parents and how strong you have to be and how much you have to love there to be vulnerable. Like, Oh, it's a baby crying.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[36:29] I know we have Amanda, John and Freya. Yes. Freya wanted the last word. She did.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[36:35] She's like, you talking about me? No, but yeah, I'm just in awe of all the hard work and how vulnerable you have to be. I think it's really cool. I feel like more connected to society as a whole and other parents. You just see them on the street and you nod. You know, you know what, you know, we're sharing the same experience and I think that's very connecting. Yeah.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[36:54] You're part of a community now, a group. Yeah. Exactly.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[36:58] Yeah. It feels really connecting. Or comparing the cuteness of our babies. It's amazing how everyone has the cutest baby. They all have. But we do actually have. But we, yeah, really though. I wanted to say just, you know, we mentioned it earlier and you mentioned it, but I think just like one, asking for help is like, so, so important if, you know, even as the dad or the husband, like asking for help when you're having relational problems, because it's like the craziest hormone changes, you know, that will probably happen in your relationship and you're misunderstanding each other. It's hard, you know, just reaching out and asking someone else who's
[37:44] a dad or, you know, for help, or if you're a mom and, you know, you just need help with doing intrusive thoughts or doing the dishes or, you know, eating meals. It's like asking for help is so key. Or you feel like, maybe, I don't know, possibly I had a traumatic event happen during this time, like reaching out for help as soon as possible. It feels like so, so important. I'm not feeling ashamed. Understanding and accepting is just a part of it. She's smiling at it. Are the best smiles right now. She's like, yeah, reach out for help guys. Yeah. It's just all a part of a human, of your human experience. And it just makes it more beautiful to have a rich human experience.
[38:25] And it comes with all of these different sides to it. And highly recommend writing down, uh, writing it down when it's fresh. That's also really cool. Cause it is honestly, it's the most beautiful experience I've had in my life. Yeah. We both wrote it down within the first week knowing we will sure forget this. And we have, no, we haven't yet, but
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[38:45] this is great advice. Actually people sometimes record even closer to the birth, uh, either the birth story or the postpartum story and then listen to it a year later. And there's so many details they forgot already by then. So I think writing it down, recording it somehow is a great idea. Well, I take back what I said before about the two of you being a whole. Now that you're holding Freya, it appears to me it's the three of you are a whole. Really, really beautiful. I want to thank you guys again for sharing so openly your unique and interesting pregnancy and birth experience and also your postpartum experience and your highlights. So fresh, raw and real and impactful and helpful for other people.
[39:25] So thank you. Tell us again where we can find you online.
Amanda Nordelius & John Russell[39:29] Yeah, gluten-freemusic.com. You can find us on Instagram is probably the best place at amanda.nordelius or at John Shy Russell with two L's. Two L's.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[39:44] Amazing. Thank you again at home. Thanks for listening to the informed pregnancy podcast for more pregnancy and parenting information, just like this. Visit us online at informedpregnancy.com.
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Intense meltdowns are part of the parenthood experience. As toddlers test our limits, our nervous systems activate and we begin wondering if we’re terrible parents. Child development and child behavior specialist Devon Kuntzman discusses how parents can better navigate and understand those moments, reframe their child’s behavior, and work toward helping them build long term emotional resilience.
Grow with us on IP+! Informed Pregnancy Media presents two all new intimate short-form video series following Garrett and HeHe’s real-time pregnancy journeys as they prepare for an empowered birth and postpartum experience. Each episode features weekly updates with personal photos and videos to help bring these raw stories to life, a visually dynamic guide through each mother’s emotional and physical experiences.
AI-generated transcript with speaker labels — may contain errors, especially names and medical terms. Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC appears in blue; Devon Kuntzman in orange.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[0:00] This episode is made possible in part by support from our guest, helping us to bring you quality content that is both entertaining and informative. If you have a toddler, you know this moment. You're trying to get out the door, get through the grocery store, or make it to bedtime, and suddenly your child melts down loud, intense, maybe very public. And no matter how patient you want to be, you can feel your nervous system building up into fight-or-flight mode. We all struggle at times to keep our cool as our toddlers test our limits, and when that happens, sometimes it leaves us wondering, is this normal? Am I doing something wrong? Why does this feel so personal? Am I a horrible
[0:44] parent, and am I screwing up my child for life? Today's conversation is for those moments. My guest is a child development and toddler behavior specialist who helps parents understand what their toddlers are really communicating during big emotional moments, those tantrums, the power struggles, the emotional explosions that so often get labeled as bad behavior. With a background in psychology, child development, and professional coaching, and years of hand-on experience supporting families both professionally and as a parent herself, she helps parents reframe toddler behavior, stay grounded during meltdowns, and build long-term emotional resilience in those young children. And if you've ever walked away
[1:26] from a toddler meltdown feeling guilty, ashamed, or like you failed, this conversation is for you and for me. I'm pregnancy-focused chiropractor Dr. Elliot Berlin, and you're listening to the Informed Pregnancy and Parenting podcast. Devin Kunzman, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm mad at you. My kids are currently teenagers and older, and I needed you when they were little toddlers, but better late than never. I still feel like some of the things I'm going to learn today probably still apply to parenting older kids. Let's get into the background and foundation. Before we get to the work that you do now, let's start with where you came from originally. You spent a lot of years
[2:22] working with toddlers professionally as a nanny. Tell me about that.
Devon Kuntzman[2:27] Yes. So some people say that I've lived many lives. I spent a long time as a nanny for high-profile families all over the world. And in the middle of that, I took a little hiatus, and I was the executive director of a foundation that had a farm and an orphanage on a hillside in Rwanda. So I've had the pleasure of working with kids and toddlers from all walks of life all over the world. And one thing that I found to be universally true, which took a while for me to truly understand, and once I figured it out, I felt like I needed to sing it from the rooftops, was that toddlerhood is not terrible, and kids are not terrible, and all behavior is communication. And when we start to understand what a kid's behavior is
[3:16] trying to tell us, then a whole new world opens up, and we can shift from a place of thinking this child is being bad to how can we help this child who's having a hard time right
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[3:27] now. It's been said that toddlers are like cave people with a very primitive language, and I think that it's a clarifying point, because if you actually encountered cave people today that didn't have language like we do, and they were trying to communicate things, a lot of that communication would be frustrating for them, and a lot of that communication would seem aggressive to us in response. So I love the fact that you see the behavior as communication. I think that is probably fundamentally, if we can see it like that as parents, that's already a ginormous shift into how we receive it and how we respond to it.
Devon Kuntzman[4:10] It absolutely is. I have videos go viral all the time on Facebook and Instagram, and I have people who say, well, why would a toddler think that hitting is communication, or why would a young child think that biting is communication? And I think that we just forget as adults with our fully mature brains, and we're just looking at everything through a logical lens, we don't remember what it was like to be one, two, three years old, not have the words to really express what we're thinking and feeling, not having the life experience and the skills that we need to cope. Then when we start to try to put ourselves in a child's shoes, we start to realize, oh, yeah, that must be really hard to have a lot of
[4:56] thoughts and feelings and feel like no one around you can understand you.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[5:01] I think my brain would naturally go the other way and say, wait a second, I crave the life of the one-year-old. Whenever I make noise or I'm hungry, somebody feeds me. Whenever I'm tired, somebody puts me down for a nap. There's always somebody there to entertain me. That's the life. What do you have to complain about? But it's actually much, much more complex and difficult than that. When people say, well, I guess we should start at the beginning. When do these toddler things start to show up?
Devon Kuntzman[5:34] Yes. Everyone is very surprised and caught off guard sometimes when toddler behaviors start anywhere between nine months and 15 months. I generally say toddlerhood is ages one to five. One and two-year-olds are young toddlers, three and four-year-olds are older toddlers, and five-year-olds are transitioning from toddlerhood into the school age years. But people are always surprised when their nine-month-old might start refusing diaper changes. Their 11-month-old might start experimenting with hitting. Maybe they have a 12-month-old that just learned to walk and you say something and they run the opposite direction laughing. These moments we all have. What I find time and time again is that
[6:19] toddlerhood happens much faster than parents anticipate. Then they're left wondering, wait, how do I handle these behaviors that are popping up right now? What do I do in these moments? How much in advance of that do you think it's important for a new parent to start planning for it? Well, it depends. Absolutely, we need to know how to care for babies and know how to meet babies' emotional needs and developmental needs because babies aren't just like a little blob just sitting there. They have a whole rich internal world that they rely on us to meet all of their needs beyond just their physical and emotional needs but also their developmental needs
[7:03] and having conversations with your partner before you get to toddlerhood and starting to read a book. When you're starting to get out of that fourth trimester, when you're maybe hitting the five, six-month range with your baby, that's a good time to start thinking about, okay, how do we want to parent together when we're faced with challenges and behaviors? What do we think is our parenting philosophy? What is our discipline philosophy? What are the education gaps? Where are the gaps in being on the same page? This is a great time to pick up a book like Transforming Toddlerhood to start understanding the basics of toddler development and behavior and how to navigate those behaviors in a developmentally
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[7:51] smart way. Yes, and I think the book is brilliant. You're a book, Transforming Toddlerhood, and I will want to get into the structure of it and the best way to read it and consume it and apply it. Well, if the toddler behaviors start at nine months already and then all of a sudden you have a one-year-old and the challenges that come with that, but then it feels like all the years left to toddlerhood get these names, like terrible twos and tyrannical threes and whatnot. What do you think we're getting wrong when we refer to it that way?
Devon Kuntzman[8:27] Yeah, and I want to tell everyone, don't get me wrong, I'm a toddler mom too, and I have a three-and-a-half-year-old, and about a month before he turned three-and-a-half, like a switch flipped, and I'm like, oh, this is where the word three-nager comes from. Yes, we're in that three-nager phase, I get it. However, when we use these words in a serious way to describe a child, what we're missing is the fact that a lot of the behaviors that drive us nuts or that we don't understand or that we feel frustrated about because they challenge our sense of control and get in the way of our agenda are actually developmentally appropriate behavior, and toddlerhood is a very critical developmental
[9:09] period because the majority of brain development happens. The foundation of your child's brain is being built between ages zero and five, and so this period is critical for laying the groundwork for emotional resilience and just resilience in general, and so if we are constantly telling ourselves that this is a terrible period of time and our child is terrible, then we are missing out on opportunities for learning growth and connection that will carry
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[9:42] our children through developmentally for many years to come. I remember somebody saying,
Devon Kuntzman[9:48] what's the difference between a three-year-old and a two-year-old, and they said it's the terrible two with one year of experience. But that's the thing. I really love this, though, because what this does get right is the fact that toddlers have very little life experience, so for us, we know what to expect when we go to the store, when we go to a family member's house, or just what to expect when we're feeling down or frustrated, but toddlers have very little life experience, and of course at three, they have one more year of life experience than at two, but I love this because it's great to remember kids have very, very little life experience, and as a result,
[10:32] are lacking a lot of skills and brain maturation to be able to deal with the things that just
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[10:37] seem like nothing to us as adults. It's fascinating to me the spectrum of work that you did as sort of a nanny for high-profile clients off to an orphanage, and I wonder how that already must be a huge complement of foundation for the work that you're doing, and I wonder in my mind, you must see similarities across the spectrum that you can draw from, whereas there are also differences across the spectrum, but also how that all changed when you became a parent yourself and it became very real and practical for you.
Devon Kuntzman[11:12] Yeah, you know, I started this work at Transforming Childhood in 2018 before I was a parent myself, and it took me a long time to become a parent, and there were challenges along the way, right? Supporting so many parents while struggling to start a family myself, and one thing that I have learned through all of the experiences, including my own journey to becoming a mom and being a mom myself, is that when we have empathy for what other people are going through, it can just open the door to making life so much richer and so much easier because we stop fighting against the things that are frustrating to us. We stop pushing against the things that we don't understand, and we start embracing them,
[11:59] and when we accept the reality of what's happening in front of us, whether it's our toddler melting down, whether a child is yelling at us or something like this, then when we can start to be like, okay, this is what's happening, get curious about it, and think about where do we go from here to move forward, it makes everything easier, and I really believe that the beginning stages of that happen with empathy because it allows us to soften, and instead of fighting against what's happening and trying to shut it down, it allows us to accept it. Now, I don't mean to say that we're condoning, you know, whatever, like an unsafe behavior or something like that, but it helps us say, okay, here we are,
[12:43] and becoming a mom myself, there are times, right, where my child is crying and no one wants to hear their child cry. It's so hard, right? We just want our kids to be happy, and at the same time, it's not our job to make kids happy because we can't control another person's feelings and emotions. It's our job to support our child's feelings and emotions to set boundaries that keep them safe and keep them healthy, and to teach them the skills that they need to be successful in life. And so, you know, I'm a human being too, and there's moments where I'm like, gosh, it'd be easy just to threaten my kid that they're not going to have X, Y, and Z, or to bribe my kid with X, Y, and Z to get
[13:31] this, you know, tantrum to stop. But in the end, we have to think about, okay, what are we creating long term, and how can we be consistent in that path? But we're all human beings, and, you know, we're all going to have moments where we're like, oh, this is so challenging, how do we make it stop?
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[13:49] I think that when you buy an electronic, let's say a big flat-screen TV, it often comes with a very thick book of how to take care of it, how to keep it healthy, how to give it longevity. And then you have a kid, and it doesn't come with a manual, and it's just like, here, good luck, you know? And thankfully, there are people who spend their life studying, learning, and giving resources to the rest of us, and I think that transforming toddlerhood is an incredible resource that can help fill in the gap for that missing manual that didn't come with our children. We're going to take a little break. When we come back, we're going to look at some of the most common misunderstandings about toddler behavior. We'll be right back.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[14:48] Welcome back. We're talking with Devon Kunzman, author of Transforming Toddlerhood. In this segment, I want to explore some of the biggest misunderstandings parents have about toddler behavior, the ones that tend to make these moments harder than they need to be. So Devon, when parents first come to you for support, what's something they're often assuming about their toddler's behavior that you find yourself gently helping them
Devon Kuntzman[15:11] rethink? Yes. There's a lot of things that people are thinking about their behavior. I think the biggest thing is that their toddler is being bad. And when we think a toddler is being bad, that leads us to like the next logical thing is we need to stop the bad behavior. What punishment or consequence does my toddler need to make this behavior stop? It's kind of like a long train of thought there. And so when I'm talking to parents, what I'm trying to help parents understand is that your toddler's behavior is not good or bad. It is. So for example, we could say like, stop being so bad. But really what happened was your toddler threw a toy. So calling behavior good or bad is a judgment that we place on the behavior and
[16:01] interpretation, which makes sense because our brains want to categorize things to make sense of them. However, whenever we are labeling behavior, then we start to really relate to our child and that behavior as something to fix or a problem. When really what's happening beneath the behavior, the feelings, emotions, the needs, the brain development, all the things, the developmental needs, the sensory needs, the basic needs, those are the things that need the attention to truly transform the behavior. So I want parents to know that your child's behavior is communication. It's telling us that your child is having a hard time in that moment. And when
[16:46] we get curious about what the root of that behavior is, what it's trying to tell us, then we can truly transform it. Another common myth is, or what parents think about behavior is that their child is doing it to them on purpose, right? Or maybe your child hits you and then they laugh, or they're having a tantrum and then you give in and then they immediately stop. What we have to understand is that toddler behavior is strategic. Toddlers are reliant on us to meet their needs, their physical and emotional needs. And so most of their behavior is looking to how they can get those needs met. And toddlers learn very quickly what the path of least resistance is and the easiest way to get their needs and desires
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[17:35] met. I love organization. I love how in the first segment you're like, okay, let's define it. Toddlerhood is zero to five years and then we sub-define it and break it down into the first and second year, the next category and the third category. And so it makes a lot of sense that, you know, when an activity is happening and I have no training, nobody said, here's how you be a parent. I want to categorize it to even just to understand it and know how to deal with it and react to it. And sometimes those categorizations actually set us back instead of forward. But I think that even parents who are thoughtful, even parents who are well-informed and even with these ideas in mind, these moments can become so triggering
[18:16] for us. What's happening inside the parent when these things happen?
Devon Kuntzman[18:21] Yes, they can become so triggering because, you know, we can't help it, but we're human beings. Some days we'd love to just be robots, right? Just to be able to turn off all of our own feelings and emotions and needs and just program ourselves to act and be and feel a certain way. But that's really just not possible. We're human beings just like our kids and we have our own feelings, emotions and needs. And oftentimes we have also our own experiences, our own childhoods. And when we are parenting our kids, it brings up a lot of stuff from our own childhoods. And either we end up kind of repeating the same things that we experienced and how our parents parented us, or we tend to say, oh, I don't want to do that.
[19:09] So then we're like, okay, I'm going to do it differently. But then we kind of just end up doing the opposite, which may kind of look like a lack of boundaries and more on the permissive side. But in the end, when we get triggered, we are going into the stress response into this automatic way of reacting. And that doesn't make you a bad parent. It makes you a human parent. And it's also an opportunity to start looking at how can I disrupt my stress response? How can I calm and soothe my nervous system? How can I ground myself in the heat of the moment so I can stay steady at my emotional equilibrium and not tip over the edge?
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[19:56] You know, the stress response is an animalistic survival response, right? You know, I don't know. It seems to me like some animals out there just like eat their baby when they can't handle it anymore. It was not recommended, highly inappropriate for humans. But it does sort of sometimes feel like that inside, like there's a survival element. I need this to stop right now for my own survival. And there's a second piece. I sometimes think my favorite comedians are the ones who talk about the things that we all observe but don't talk about. And I think that there's an element of when these meltdowns happen in public, the fact that you sometimes feel like there's a spotlight on you and everybody around you is
[20:42] judging you. And that kind of adds fuel to that animalistic survival response.
Devon Kuntzman[20:48] Oh, absolutely. When we feel like we're under a microscope, it puts even more pressure on us and ups our feelings of, you know, embarrassment, of fear that just drives that stress response and staying in survival mode. And so that's the challenge. You know, parents are like, gosh, I wish I was more calm. I said I wasn't going to lose my temper today. And then look, an hour into parenting, being awake this morning, I lost it. But we're up against biology. We're up against like the innate biological response inside of us. And so what we need to know is that it takes a lot of practice and practice. I always say here at Transforming Childhood practice makes progress, not perfection. So we have to practice
[21:35] new responses. We have to practice calming ourselves down. We have to practice creating new habits and new neural pathways and connections to create that change. And that's also why the first five years is so beautiful because our brains are so malleable then. And we know that we can always change our brains. There's this thing called neuroplasticity. Our brains can always change. But the older we are, the harder it gets. And so we are just up against our own biology as we go to make these changes. So if it feels hard to stop yelling and it feels hard to make these changes, you're not alone and you're not a bad person. Like you're just a human being with this innate biology that you're up against.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[22:19] I think that talking about comedy, but I do do stand up comedy. Something you said that resonates with me a lot is practice makes progress. I thought for sure you're going to say practice makes perfect. But Stephen Wright once said they say practice makes perfect, but then they told me nobody's perfect. So I stopped practicing.
Devon Kuntzman[22:37] Oh, see, we don't want to stop practicing. But that's what happens because we get into this mindset of like all or nothing, this dichotomous mindset. And it's normal because we live in such a fast paced world full of instant gratification. So if we can't jump from A to Z in one big leap, we get frustrated because we just want to get at the end result. But really, what we have to do is we have to hit all the stepping stones along the way, go from A to B, B to C, C to D. And that's how we eventually get to the outcome we're looking for with just about everything in life. And so we have to remind ourselves that that happens through practice. But it's very easy to feel discouraged when we practice once or twice.
[23:18] We don't get all the way to Z and then we stop practicing because we think we failed. But you didn't fail. You're in the process of learning.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[23:26] Sometimes comedians are my philosophers in life. I love it. Um, so, you know, you mentioned that the idea we label is the behavior as bad and wanting it to end as soon as possible. It sounds like there's a reframe here and the goal is not necessarily to make it end immediately. Like that shouldn't be necessarily the number one goal.
Devon Kuntzman[23:48] Yeah. What we want to do is teach kids skills, teach kids skills of self-control. And this comes down to defining what discipline is. Oftentimes discipline is kind of mixed up with punishments. But punishment and discipline are different things. Punishments are something we do to someone to teach them a lesson. Whereas discipline is teaching skills that we need for self-control. So then we have to start thinking about, okay, we have a kid. Do we want to teach our child to look outside of them every time things, they start getting like revved up and wait for them to run into a boundary. Now, of course, as parents and caregivers, we have to set boundaries and
[24:33] the younger your child is, the more repetition they need with boundaries and learning skills for them to get it. Right. But at the same time, if you are always the one going out of punishment when your child's behavior goes sideways, then we're not teaching kids this internal compass that they need to notice their dysregulation, notice these behaviors and make better choices. Or oftentimes some kids will, quote unquote, make better choices, but really they're doing it out of fear, fear of punishment. So now we're creating this anxiety inside versus teaching kids to make better choices by learning that self-regulation and self-control. So here at Transforming Childhood, when we think about
[25:20] healthy, developmentally smart discipline, we're talking about creating connection, setting limits and following through and teaching skills. Having all three of these elements is what helps us as parents be successful in guiding our children in a way that helps them learn and grow through all of the challenges. That's an element that seems to come up again
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[25:43] and again in your work, the long-term lens, thinking about the long-term outcomes of the actions that we take now. I want to take another little break. When we come back, we're going to get really practical throughout some of those real-life moments and kind of discuss strategies for how to deal with them. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Okay. Welcome back. We're about to get real with Devin Kunzman. I mean, we all have these situations with our kids. I even have them with older kids. We all do. My mom probably still has it with me. And it starts with the very little kids. So let's get practical with real-life scenarios. We talked a little bit about the public meltdown and it happens.
[26:33] It happens at the grocery store while you're in the parking lot at the airport, the dreaded airport. Everything feels amplified. Like you said, you're under a microscope. When a kid melts down in public, where do you want parents to focus first? Yes. I'm sitting here
Devon Kuntzman[26:48] laughing because I'm just, you keep mentioning airport. I'm thinking, gosh, I could do a whole episode on airports and all of my toddler trials at airports. There are so many of them, but where do I want parents to start? What we want to do whenever we're faced with any type of challenging behavior is start by establishing safety. And that is physical safety that leads to the emotional safety. And this is really relevant during a tantrum, because if your child's having a tantrum, you want to make sure that they're safe, right? That they're not going to fall out of like a shopping cart, that they're not going to roll into something and have it come crashing down on them, that they're not banging their head on
[27:29] the floor. If they are, we're putting a pillow there or a hand or we're picking them up. We want to create that physical safety or if they're hitting us, we're taking a step back because whenever our physical safety or our child's physical safety is threatened, that's going to send us deeper into survival mode and amp us up even more. So once we've established that physical safety, we can say, this is not an emergency. I am safe. My child is safe. Yes, they might still be screaming and you're fighting against that perceived threat where your brain saying, wait, wait, wait, this is still an emergency. I hear crying, but you're telling yourself in an effort to disrupt that stress response.
[28:07] This is not an emergency. I am safe. My child is safe. And then you focus on grounding yourself, taking some deep breaths, doing something that you know will help you, whether it's taking like out of your bag, some essential oil and smelling it, counting, closing your eyes and taking a deep breath, whatever you need to do to ground yourself. Because when it comes to a tantrum, less is more. Making sure our child's safe, keeping ourselves calm so we can share our calm with our child because emotions are contagious and our nervous system is kind of like the hub for the family. And then from there, we want to uphold any limits that we set. Because remember,
[28:48] if we backpedal on the limit that we set just to make the crying stop, which will happen sometimes because we're all human. But if that becomes predictable, we're going to be reinforcing the tantrums and then tantrums will become a preferred way of communicating, which we don't want to do. And then really, we want to help our child move forward. And when you're out and about, sometimes that might look like having to maybe leave and abandon your cart, go outside, help your child have its change of scenery and calm down. It might be going to a dressing room if you're somewhere like Target, where you can just have a moment where eyes aren't on you to help your child calm down if you're feeling
[29:23] that pressure. If it's at home, it might be turning on some music, but you could even turn on some music on your phone at the store. Just something to help your child move forward. It might be getting out a box of magnetic tiles and starting to build a tower. And then your child realizing that once that they're not going to get another cookie from the pantry because you've set that limit and moved on, then they're going to come start playing with you. So really in a tantrum, it's more about our actions. It's not so much about talking and so much. Less is more in these moments as our child is kind of coming to the top of their tantrum and then coming down the other side. And the biggest thing to remember
[30:04] to help yourself stay calm in these moments, my child is having an emotional release. It's an emotional poop. They're getting rid of all the things that they don't need, all the feelings and emotions that are bottled up. They're letting that go so they can come back to their
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[30:22] emotional equilibrium. I appreciate the connection and brings it into real life, but also the poop blowout at the airport and the grocery store. No fun either. What you just said is like, I think orange juice concentrate. I'm going to have to listen to what you just said probably three or four times. If I was the kind of host that made little clips for Instagram, I would probably cut everything you just said into three or four things that I myself and that our audience can listen to again and again and again. Number one, the meltdown. Just because it doesn't feel safe inside because your fight or flight system kicks in, which feels like danger, just reminding yourself that I am safe
[31:06] and my child is safe can seemingly disarm that fight or flight response and take you away from sort of an animalistic response into a more thoughtful cognitive neocortex type response that other animals don't have the capability of doing. Then that opens up the door for you to do something to get grounded. The essential oil, the deep breath, the taking a second because you know your child is safe, to bring yourself down even further into a more thoughtful place. Also, giving in as a just understanding that giving in is going to reinforce that as the new means of negotiation and that if you support that idea, if you keep loosening your boundaries because you want the meltdown to end, you're just encouraging more meltdown.
[31:56] Those I think three points that you made there are incredible and powerful and can be game changers. And then one other thing you said is, you know, maybe at some point you just leave Target, you know, and whoever wants to leave Target. But I think that to me that might have felt like I failed if I have to leave Target. I was just thinking that whenever
Devon Kuntzman[32:18] you said it and I was listening to you say it, I was like, Gosh, parents might think that they failed if they had to leave Target. But really what's happening here is that you are taking care of yourself and your family. And sometimes something is too much and it's okay for something to be too much at that moment. That doesn't mean that you fail. It means that you're listening to yourself and your limits, you're listening to your children and their limits, and you decide what's best for your family. And it might be that you leave Target for five minutes, you go to the car, everyone calms down, you come back in, or it means that you come back an hour later or the next day. But it's never a failure to
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[32:57] listen to your needs and your child's needs. I think that also, you know, sometimes I talk a lot with my clients about the birth plan being a flowchart. You know, it's not just page one. Page one is pick the most natural birth I want to have, whatever that means for me. Maybe it's squatting in a strawberry field and just having my baby with nobody around me. Maybe it's having a C-section or anything in between. But wherever you start, that's just page one. Sometimes practical things come up that you can't control the baby's breach, you know, or the placenta sitting on top of the cervix or other things like that. Then you move down your flowchart
[33:32] and it doesn't mean you failed. In fact, sometimes I think it's a sign of strength to be able to make that decision to leave your preferred plan behind in light of the new data that you have and go with the one that makes more sense now. So like that's what it feels like to me, leaving Target might be, I had a plan today, this wasn't it, but this is a conscious choice because with the information I have now, the situation on the ground has changed a bit and
Devon Kuntzman[33:58] I'm reacting to it in a very appropriate way. Yeah, and that analogy really makes sense to me because I was that parent who had a plan and had a pregnancy that had another plan, right? And then you have to readjust. And that's what you learn from parenting. And that's what's so amazing is that we can even start learning those parenting lessons before a baby has even arrived, right? Of where we need to surrender, where we have opportunities to be flexible, to, you know, still keep our larger goals, but understand that there's more than one way to get to the same outcome. And I think that's a big thing in parenting right now is like, oh, there's a right way and then everything else is wrong
[34:39] and I'm failing. But no, there's so many ways that are developmentally smart and healthy and effective to get to the same outcome. There isn't just one right way. That makes
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[34:49] sense. I love one of the reframes that you teach. My child is having a hard time, not giving me a hard time. It totally changes the paradigm. And instead of, I remember Stephen Covey talks about the paradigm shift all the time. You know, a kid, if you're on the subway train and a guy gets on and two kids are running up and down the subway train screaming and knocking over someone's coffee and someone's newspaper and you're not doing anything. And as a passenger, I might get really upset and frustrated. What kind of parent are you? And, you know, then you might say something and then he says, you know, I'm so sorry. You know, my wife just passed away and I don't really know how to handle it. Neither do the kids. All of
[35:28] a sudden it switches from, I'm angry at you to, oh my goodness, what can I do to help you? How can I support you? It's just a paradigm shift. And that one thing, my child is having a hard time, not giving me a hard time, at least in my mind, helps create a powerful
Devon Kuntzman[35:43] paradigm shift. Yeah, it really does. And also it's a powerful paradigm shift for being out in public and seeing that parent at the airport or on an airplane with a toddler melting down or a baby that's screaming or seeing the parent at the grocery store that just gets their child, you know, maybe like a candy bar from the checkout section, you know, we and we're like, oh, or why I can't believe they're just giving them a screen at the restaurant and they're just completely, you know, just not even present, something like this. And you know, it just shows us that we are seeing everyone else just a glimpse of their lives. And so talking about my Instagram, like, okay, let's normalize supporting parents instead of
[36:32] judging parents and tearing them down because we don't agree with their decisions. We are only seeing a glimpse, one little snapshot of other people's lives, yet we're passing judgment on them. We don't know how their day's going, what's happening in their family. And if we did, we probably would have a lot more empathy for them. Devin, I'm curious what you think
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[36:52] about Dr. B's airplane travel kit with babies and maybe even toddlers. I always tell parents this one thing when they get really nervous about traveling with their baby for the first time. I'm like, here's my suggestion on the kit. Number one, you bring yourself, if you're breastfeeding, or bring milk. Number two, bring Hershey's miniature chocolate bars. And number three, bring earplugs. So when you're traveling, you get on the plane with the baby and usually they don't really care where they are as long as they can get milk. So either from you or from a bottle. Number two, right when you get on the plane, you give everybody Hershey's miniature chocolates, all the people around you.
[37:33] And then they think you're great. And then number three, if your kid is melting down and crying and screaming, you just take out your canister of earplugs and start giving them to the people around you. And it's a paradigm shift. Instead of hating you and your child, now they feel bad for you and they want to help and they, you know, take out their phone and try to entertain your kid or other things like that. Yeah, I think what's so interesting
Devon Kuntzman[37:54] is that when parents do something like this, they start to realize that people actually do want to help. And that's probably the biggest thing to think about when it comes to these big meltdowns in public moments where we're feeling like embarrassed or bad or shameful because of, you know, what's happening with our child is that we are typically our own worst enemy, our own worst like judgment that humans are curious by nature. So humans are almost always going to look, but oftentimes we're projecting what we're telling ourselves about our parenting on to those people and thinking that's what they're thinking of us. When you might say something to this person on the plane, they may be like, oh, I didn't even
[38:37] hear anything. I'm using my noise, canceling headphones, watching a movie, you know, or there might be someone else that's like, oh gosh, I remember those days. Do you need any help? Right. And so it's just important to keep in mind that people can surprise us. And we typically are harder on ourselves than anyone else's.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[38:56] It's great to think about. As we're wrapping up here, I know that many of our listeners
Devon Kuntzman[39:01] are pregnant and already have a toddler at home. It's a difficult transition. Help us out. Yes. So I think that what you want to remember is that there's going to be ups and downs. There's going to be moments when your toddler is super stoked about the baby. And there's going to be moments that your toddler says, I want the baby to go back to the hospital or put the baby back in your belly or something like this. That does not mean that your toddler does not love the baby. It means your toddler is wondering where their place is in the family. Now that things have changed, they're wondering, do you still see me? Do you still love me? What is my role here? And it's common for toddlers to have these big feelings and emotions.
[39:42] So if your toddler starts, you know, maybe using baby talk or wanting a bottle to be more like the baby, don't be alarmed. This is just them trying to figure out how do I share my parents with this new sibling? Because we have to remember that toddlerhood is a very egocentric developmental period where toddlers are thinking about themselves because they're becoming their own individual for the first time. And so it can be challenging to share a parent's attention with a new baby, but that doesn't mean that it's not possible and that there isn't love there. So the one thing that I recommend is to not blame the baby for, you know, X, Y, and Z, why you can't do X, Y, and Z. So instead of saying,
[40:31] I can't play with you right now, I have to feed the baby. What you might say is, I love playing with you. I can play with you in 10 minutes. Let's set this timer. Okay, here's some books to read or here. What are you going to do? I'm feeding the baby. And then we're going to play magnet tiles or build a train together, something like this, right? And so just that simple reframe, what I call this turning a no into a not yet can make a huge difference and really have a positive impact on the sibling relationship and sibling
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[41:07] bonding. I love how impactful your taglines are. They're really not just the tagline, there's a lot of depth behind them. Yeah, I just remember, I guess two points of view. Number one, I think I'm the younger of two siblings and we're in our 50s. I think my brother is still getting used to the fact that he has to share me with the parents. And then also, I remember my little angel, my little teary hole just turning into a little devil when we brought home a new baby. And it took a while to get into his perspective and understand what was going on for him. So those are powerful tools. Devin, I've learned a lot from you today and there's more to learn from you. You have, first of all, the book,
[41:48] tell me about transforming toddlerhood, how it's structured, what we can expect to get out of
Devon Kuntzman[41:53] the book. Yes. Well, this book I wrote because I know there's a huge problem with parenting books for kids ages one to five, or basically after you get out of pregnancy and infancy, is that all of the parenting books had very long chapters that you had to read a long chapter to be able to get to a concept or to figure out what your question to your answer, not knowing if you're really going to get that answer or not. So I basically wrote the what to expect for toddlerhood, where it's 45 short chapters divided into five sections, the toddler parent, and then the toddler explained the physical toddler, the emotional toddler and the social toddler. And inside you're going to find challenges like what to do when you feel like
[42:38] your parenting partner is not on the same page, how to know your role in parenting, how to set limits effectively, what to do with crying, what to do with a new sibling, conflict, tantrums, potting, sleep. I have a chapter on every single challenge that you might face in toddlerhood with scripts, tips and FAQs to help you get the tools you need fast and implement it. So you could read it cover to cover, but you can also use it as a quick reference guide to get the help you need when you need it. Amazing. What other tools are there at Transforming Toddlerhood? So at Transforming Toddlerhood, you can find me on Instagram. And with my website, I have a membership that's opening very soon that's going to have
[43:24] all of the parenting tools that you need in one place to really overcome any challenge that you have with your toddler. What's the website? Transforming Toddlerhood.com. Perfect. Devin,
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[43:38] thank you so much for joining me and for sharing. I'm no longer mad at you. I learned a lot. And hopefully in the not too distant future, I'll be able to apply these things to grand toddlers. And I know our audience at home has learned a lot. So thank you again at home. Thanks for listening to Informed Pregnancy. For more pregnancy and parenting information just like this, visit us online at InformedPregnancy.com.
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AI-generated transcript with speaker labels — may contain errors, especially names and medical terms. Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC appears in blue; Esther Friedman Schwartz in orange.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[0:00] My guest today grew up in Brooklyn, New York and went on to build an adventurous, independent life as a globetrotting physician assistant. She launched a health tech company and, more recently, set out on a journey of starting a family. At times, it feels like someone, somewhere has it out for her. Based on her experience so far, she could easily write the Zagat Guide to Uncomfortable Pregnancy Symptoms. And yet, through all of it, she maintains an incredibly positive attitude and a genuinely fun, grounded demeanor. She's a true open book, so we're going to talk about everything. I'm Pregnancy Focus Chiropractor, Dr. Elliot Perlin, and you're listening to the
[0:39] Informed Pregnancy Podcast. Esther Friedman-Schwarz, welcome to the podcast.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[0:59] Thank you for having me. Hi.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[1:01] My pleasure. How many weeks are you now?
Esther Friedman Schwartz[1:03] A little over 32 weeks.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[1:05] Oh, right. Counting. Not too much more to go. So, Esther, you grew up in Brooklyn, New York, an Orthodox Jewish home and community, and then eventually you left your home and sort of left Orthodoxy behind. Tell me more about that.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[1:20] Yeah. So, you know, growing up Orthodox obviously shaped who I am today. So, you know, I love the experiences with my best friend since I was six years old. I'm still best friends with her today. So I think Orthodoxy led me to a place of questioning things. I'm a middle child that led to a lot of independents, that led to a lot of, you know, doing my own thing. And then Orthodoxy kind of creates this structure. So I've always been trying to test the limits and go outside the boundaries of that structure. And then I recognized probably sometime in middle of high school that it wasn't for me. I have nothing against it and I have a lot of respect and appreciation for the way I
[2:05] grew up and for the people around me. But it definitely shaped who I am today because having that structure, I think, was really important growing up and then recognizing that I can push those boundaries and figure out who I am. You know, that shaped who I am. So I'm grateful for that experience.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[2:22] So what did you do after high school?
Esther Friedman Schwartz[2:24] Yeah, so I think, you know, growing up Orthodox, it's kind of a given that women are going to go to Israel, to seminary, where they're going to study Torah learnings. And for me, I knew right away that I just wanted to get to college. I wanted to get to college. I wanted to figure it out. I knew I wanted to go into health care. So I just wanted to explore what's outside of this wall that was created for me in the Orthodox environment.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[2:53] Yeah. So go into college. I'll tell you something interesting. I grew up in an Orthodox household, too, in Staten Island, New York. And I think it was probably because I lived in such an umbrella, like all the people I knew were from my school, which was an Orthodox Jewish school, and from my synagogue, which was an Orthodox Jewish synagogue. And growing up, those are the only people I really interacted with. And I think it was probably I was 10 years old when it hit me like a ton of bricks that not almost everybody in the whole world is an Orthodox Jew. And in fact, Jews in general only make up one quarter of one percent of world population. It was a big shock.
[3:33] So you grew up in this umbrella, for better or for worse. And then I think at some point, there's like a, whoa, there's a whole other world out there. And that maybe hits different people in different ways. And so a very common thing to do after in our circles, we go to school that's kind of a dual curriculum from kindergarten through the end of high school. And then the assumption is at some point, you're going to go out into the real world. And so there's a year of study oftentimes in Israel to just sort of concretize that Jewish education, upbringing philosophy, like all of it, before you go out into the real world. And you're like, I'm ready for the real world now.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[4:11] Pretty much. And like I said, I think being a middle child and having that independence and really wanting to do my own thing has been there for a while. So college to me was like an out. It was like, now's your chance. Like you're on your own kid. Like figure it out. This is what you want.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[4:28] And did you know you wanted to get into health care early on?
Esther Friedman Schwartz[4:31] So what's interesting is I've always been very left brain, very logical numbers, one plus one equals two. So I actually thought I was going to go into mathematics. I thought I was going to be a CPA. And I remember in high school, this, my accounting professor looked at me and she laughed and she's like, you, a CPA, you have way too much to say to be a CPA and sit behind a computer. So, you know, she also, you know, orthodox. She's like, why don't you go into health care? And I said, you know, going into health care sounds tough because right away I'm thinking not just doctor, but surgeon. That's where my brain goes. And it's just a lot of years.
[5:13] And it's a lot of, you know, when am I going to start a family? When am I going to get married? Because when I'm in on something, I'm all in. It's hard for me to do anything other than like, if I'm in school, I'm in school. If I'm studying, I'm studying. So she mentioned, why don't you be a PA? She's like, I think that's a good middle ground. You know, you could potentially go into the surgical field as a PA. And it intrigued me and I didn't know any PAs at the time. So I did a lot of research, me being who I am and recognize that I should go on the health care route. And I'm glad I did.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[5:47] And you also just going back a teeny bit, have one other thing in common with me, which is you started working really young.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[5:53] Yeah. Yeah, I did. Doing a lot of different jobs. Yeah, it goes back to the independence. I wanted my own money. I wanted to do my own thing. And I think I struggled as a kid with being told what to do. And I think, you know, going back to why I left orthodoxy, you know, you're you're given a set of guidelines and rules. And I struggled with that because there's not always answers as to why we do certain things in orthodoxy. So when it came to me taking on all these jobs, it was because I was like, I need my own money. I need to figure it out. I don't want to be told what to do or what to buy or where to go. And my parents were very accepting of that.
[6:35] So I think, you know, they kind of let me go on my journey. And I was like 11 years old babysitting. I then moved on to tutoring. And back then, I was making bank. I was like 13 years old. You know, you're in New York. You have those exams. Well, what are they called again? I'm blanking on it. Oh, Regents? No, no. It's specific to New York State. But in any case, you have these exams and you have to pass all of them. And I would tutor kids. And back then, I would charge twenty five dollars an hour per child. And I was at this family's home and they had three kids. So I was raking it in and I had that job for a while. And then, yeah, I pretty much worked since I was 11 years old.
[7:23] It became like who I was like, and I'm even working now. You know, like I plan to work after this baby. Like I work is a part of who I am. It brings me purpose.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[7:35] First of all, I agree with your professor. I can't picture you sitting behind a computer all the time, talking to people. And also, you know, with your upcoming birth, I don't even know how you're going to stop working long enough to push and pick back up the telephone and keep going. But before we get to your company, which I think is a pretty interesting company as a P.A., what was the training like and what did you do at the end of it?
Esther Friedman Schwartz[7:59] Yeah, the training was very intense. Happens to be undergrad. So pre-med, pre-med was a breeze. And I think Ishiva set me up for that. You know, Orthodox Jewish schools, especially for girls. You're in class from seven thirty to five. You're you're grinding. So undergrad was pretty smooth P.A. school. I was one of the youngest when I got accepted. I was 21. And that first year, that academic year was absolute hell. I mean, I was living on my own because I wanted to focus on school and focus on training. And I disappeared for that year. It was books, school books for hours and hours on end. And then the second year was a lot better because that's like your clinical year.
[8:45] So it was like going to work. So that year was a great year because I felt like I could, you know, put into practice what I've learned in that first year. But it was brutal. I mean, I did an expedited program, two years of P.A. school. It's pretty quick. Well, you know, there's like three year programs out there. So, yeah, and then you graduate with a lot of responsibility, too.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[9:06] Totally. Yeah. So what did you do out of P.A. school?
Esther Friedman Schwartz[9:11] So out of P.A. school, I actually recognized that I did not want to be in New York anymore. And I actually moved down to Miami. I thought I wanted to go into aesthetics. So I get down to Miami and I'm doing Botox, fill or, you know, dealing with that whole clientele. And then I realized that this is not what I went to school for. I went to school to practice medicine, to actually diagnose and treat, not just stick needles in people's faces, which I'm all for. But, you know, straight out of school, you really want to put what you learn to use. So I ended up pivoting into neurology. I actually scored the highest on my medical boards in neurology,
[9:53] which was pretty shocking because it's one of the hardest areas of medicine to go into. And I loved it. I started in adult neurology. I pivoted into pediatric neurology. And then Esther being Esther, I got bored. And I realized that, you know, there's so much more to medicine and to health care. And I should pivot into a new area. And at the same time that I was making that pivot, I ended up with my own autoimmune issues, which completely challenged me. And I recognize that, you know, all the learning and everything that I did in school from a Western medicine standpoint was failing me. And I wanted to figure out a way to help patients get back to themselves, figure out a root cause.
[10:46] Like I said, I'm left brain, I'm logical, I'm a thinker. I problem solve. I'm not just going to sit there. And if a doctor hands me a prescription and says, this is what you're on for the rest of your life, I'm just going to take it and say, OK, this is what it is. Absolutely not. I mean, I was not going to take that route. So I actually packed everything up, put it all into storage and spent years traveling as a locum's PA. And what that means is I would take on a gig for, you know, three months. Someone's on maternity leave. They need coverage. I would cover and then for the other six months I would travel. And I was very into Eastern medicine.
[11:22] I would go to Southeast Asia. I'd live in Bali for a couple of weeks. I'd meet with shamans. I would try to understand, you know, root cause illness. And how do we treat it? Mind body connection, all things that you never really learn in PA school. And I think that really molded a lot of things for me because I recognize that, yes, you're in school. Western medicine, super important. Someone breaks their arm. Western medicine. I'm not going to put herbs and start, you know, singing a song. But you do need the Eastern medicine portion to really heal the whole body.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[12:00] I feel like I'm a parallel path again, because I started in ambulances and emergency rooms as a medic and I ended up in chiropractic and holistic care in general. And I frequently say, like, if you fall on a spike and it pierces your lung, bad time for acupuncture. But everything has its place. And sometimes we jump into drugs and surgery much quicker than we need to, without giving the body a chance to diagnose and heal itself.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[12:28] Yeah, and I feel lucky that I was given that autoimmune issue, as crazy as that sounds, because it does sound crazy. Yeah, because it gave me more purpose. And we're always searching in life. What's my purpose? What's my purpose? And I told myself that if I can find a way to heal my body and heal myself, you know, then I want to bring it to the world. And I was told by physicians back then that I would have trouble getting pregnant, miscarriages, all this stuff that I just didn't want to listen to. And I knew that there would have to be an out. And that's kind of how I handle life in general, where I'm not going to take things at face value. I'm going to do my own research.
[13:10] And obviously, we'll get into my pregnancy later on. But yeah, I think we're given challenges in life. So not only we can learn from them, but we can also teach others. And I think that's really key.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[13:22] So you had a lot of life experience during that time.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[13:26] Most definitely.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[13:27] And then you took a pivot away from traditional PA practice into something entirely different. Let's take a little break. Can we come back? We'll find out what you're up to.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[13:49] Welcome back. We're talking to Esther. So after all that travel and practice and learning a lot about yourself and nature, giving you a little push into the more holistic world, where did that take you professionally?
Esther Friedman Schwartz[14:04] Yeah, so I think recognizing two key areas in health care that we're struggling was, one, staffing shortages, which is somewhere across the board. But two, we had this growing population, but chronic disease was rising. So I recognize that there were these gaps and I just wanted to fill them. Right. And if I were to take on another PA job or if I were to work at another hospital, I feel like I was being a part of the problem in a way. So the idea for my company called Happy Vitals, it really came from being in health care for over 16 years at this point. And I would watch patients leave the hospital, go into, let's say, a facility, skilled nursing, assisted living, or they would go home.
[14:54] And there was this big care gap and they were constantly getting readmitted. And then there was issues where they were on all these medications. So we call that polypharmacy. And I wanted to figure out a way to bridge that gap. So when I started the company, I use simple connected devices with real time data. And what that means is I leverage AI and machine learning within this technology to keep an eye on patients remotely. So it could be someone's mom who's at home, someone's aunt who's at a facility. How do we better support the patient with where they are while they're surrounded by their care team? Because, like I said in the beginning, we have these staffing shortages.
[15:37] So there's a lot of missed information about the patient. So with this technology, I'm able to bridge those gaps and really help the patient, help the team, avoid these emergencies and optimize the patient's care. The patient's getting better monitoring, even though there sometimes is not even sufficient staff to do the monitoring.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[16:02] Correct. Yes.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[16:04] And as a result of better monitoring, fewer things fall through the cracks. Exactly. And we watch mostly trends. So, you know, where is this patient's health in the last week? Two days, three days. How are their vital signs looking? Is their blood pressure slowly increasing over the last three, four days? What can we do as a second set of eyes to their care team to kind of guide the next step? And we've been able to reduce re-hospitalizations because of this. Keep patients home, their families informed. Sometimes, you know, you have a patient who's living out by themselves, you know, in the middle of nowhere. And their family member has an eye on them because they have this tech
[16:46] that we've been able to create where we bridge that gap. Like I said, they can't always get to a doctor. A lot of patients are, you know, bedbound in their home. They're on hospice. There are so many intricacies with every patient that we're able to cater to the entire population and really create change.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[17:03] That's really cool. Good news to you. Great innovation. And I'm even just thinking to myself, even in the hospital, several cases that I'm aware of where just in the hospital, the staff fell short, you know, even it could happen anywhere. But they would just see something, chart it and move on, see something, chart it. And they didn't pick up on the trend. Like this blood pressure is getting lower and lower and lower. They just chart it and move on. And then all of a sudden, there's a crash. But it sounds like with technology, it could be that even if the human missed that trend, that the technology could pick up on it and alert before it becomes a major issue.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[17:40] Correct. And speaking of pregnancy, I mean, a lot of this is covered by insurance. But what a lot of the carriers have noticed is that preeclampsia is a big problem. Right. Like you have patients who have high blood pressure and it leads to, you know, induction or emergencies. So they're starting to leverage this type of tech to keep an eye on their pregnant patients. We optimize them from home. Right. So, yeah, it's pretty cool. It's a very innovative area within health care.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[18:10] Sounds like lots of room to grow into different gaps. Feeling different gaps. Yeah. Speaking of growing. So you're 32 weeks pregnant and somewhere along the way you met Daniel. How did that happen?
Esther Friedman Schwartz[18:21] So my best friend, actually, who I mentioned in the beginning since I was six years old, she's orthodox. She was set up with her husband and her brother-in-law works very closely with my husband. They're partners in a business. So she knew Daniel for years. She would host him for Shabbat dinners. And I was off trotting the world. And back in 2020, I came home from Southeast Asia after being on medical. And when he's 20, 20, 20, yes. And she calls me because, you know, the world is shutting down. And she says, Esther, if you don't go out with Daniel, I swear you're going to die alone.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[19:03] Oh, my. OK.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[19:06] And I was away with words. Yeah, she does. Most definitely. Honestly, that's the way to get through to me. Right. Tough luck. So she set us up and the rest is history. So, yeah.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[19:18] And yeah, you guys are a great match in so many different ways. It's sort of like one would think, who could you set Esther up with? Because you're such an interesting person. But the answer is Daniel. And you guys are a great couple. And now you're making a little apple. And pregnancy, you know, I mentioned at the beginning, you could probably write the Zagat guide to pregnancy symptoms. I've been doing this for 20 years and you sometimes see somebody struggle with a difficult challenge during pregnancy. I feel like you've had many difficult challenges during pregnancy. So let's start at the beginning. How was the early part of pregnancy the first few weeks?
Esther Friedman Schwartz[19:59] Yeah. So you find out you're pregnant in four weeks, right? Not you, me. I found out I'm pregnant in four weeks. There's this like excitement. You're in this bubble. It's this bliss. Daniel and I happen to have been an Airbnb in Manhattan Beach here in California, just taking time for, you know, a week or two spending it there. And that's when I found out I was pregnant. And I remember looking at him and saying, I'm going to stay active and we're going to walk the strand every night and I'm going to make sure to eat so healthy. And then our plan was actually to go to Miami for the rest of the summer before we, you know, scooted back to L.A. And at five and a half weeks pregnant, it was like a plague hit me.
[20:46] It was just out of the blue. I woke up one morning and it was like a 180. I was vomiting eight, nine times a day. I had extreme fatigue. I had brain fog. Like, you name a symptom for first trimester. It was like the book was thrown at me. It was like, here's everything and good luck.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[21:11] So for a lot of people, when they get hit hard with morning sickness, nausea and vomiting and pregnancy, they don't know that it's not that intense for the average person. Do you realize right away? I mean, because your health care background could go either way. But did you realize right away? Wait a second. This is more intense than usual.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[21:31] So it was kind of like a 50-50 split. I thought to myself, either these people are lying to me because everyone's going through this. They just forget. Or, yeah, this is not normal. And I think for the first week, I was surrounded by family. And my cousin was in Miami with me and she kept saying, she's like, yeah, I have friends who go through this. You know, it just seems like you're just, you know, on a sicker end. And have some ginger, right? That's always the advice. That ginger chew will solve everything. Which, by the way, made everything a lot worse. Yeah. But, you know, as the weeks continued and as, you know, being the person that I am, I also run a company.
[22:20] And I recognized that I was not functioning. And that was a problem for me because through all my autoimmune challenges and all the health care stuff, I still was able to function. And this seemed a little aggressive. So me being who I am, I went down deep, dark rabbit holes of calling friends. And mind you, I was maybe six, seven weeks pregnant. Right. And it's like taboo. And most people don't want to tell anyone you're pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. And for me, it was just like this hit me in the face. And I was like, I got to figure this out. Right. It was the logical part of my brain, which this doesn't make sense. Right. Because I would have heard about this.
[22:59] I would have heard how hard pregnancy can be where I'm not functioning. And I remember calling some friends and they would tell me, you know, like I said, like have some ginger, like it's just first trimester. It's going to pass. And then once again, my best friend comes in. I call her and I tell her that what's going on. And she says, you know what, I actually have a friend who was like this. She's the only one I know. You need to call her. And I called her and she told me that, you know, she was diagnosed with HG, which is hyperemesis grabitum, which eventually I was diagnosed with. And she sat on the phone with me for almost two hours as I vomited on the phone with her, telling me what helped her
[23:49] and the whole journey. And that, I think, was the first time I ever connected with someone who was just honest about the process of what they call it morning sickness. It's not morning sickness. It's all day sickness. It's like real debilitating HG. I don't I don't even know where to go with that.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[24:05] But I think even even normal nausea and vomiting or pregnancy is not necessarily morning sickness. People feel sick all day. Maybe they throw up in the morning or throw up once or twice throughout the day. But with HG, you're throwing up so much that you're losing body weight. Yeah. And, you know, you really can't keep anything down. And for some people, even throwing up doesn't make you feel better.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[24:26] Yeah. And that's exactly how it was. And I tell all my single girlfriends, marry someone like your life depends on it, because it really does. If I didn't have Daniel, I don't know what I would have done. I mean, there were points where he was literally showering me, starting a bath for me, sitting on the floor next to me as I was in the bath because he was afraid I was going to pass out. It was a really intense period where you just feel so alone. And, you know, as I did research and as I started talking to more people, it became very obvious that, you know, I have HG and being in Miami and not being surrounded by, you know, the comfort of my own home
[25:09] and recognizing that I didn't have an OB at the time that I felt comfortable with. And I had this entire care team that I needed to start curating for myself because I realized that this was going to be a long path of, you know, feeling really ill and I wanted to feel supported. And looking back at it, I for sure had perinatal depression. There were days that, you know, Daniel would come to me and he's like, you don't look OK, like something's like, it's not right. And yet that was really hard. One person in particular that really helped me get through it was actually my mother-in-law. She would check in on me almost daily. She told me that she had, you know, a similar experience.
[25:49] And something that really helped me was she told me to start journaling. So I started journaling every day. What was going on, how I felt, how many times I was vomiting. And it kind of gave me like an idea of, you know, every day was different. So I didn't feel like I was doomed, like, you know, maybe tomorrow would be better or maybe an hour or two would be better. So that was extremely helpful.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[26:15] Unlikely source of relief for the mother-in-law. But it makes sense. Like when it's such a miserable thing is like, how can I get advance myself one tiny unit forward? And now you're 32 weeks. It's still not gone.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[26:31] No, it's not. I've been on Diclegious, which is for, you know, HG or whatever you want to call it since seven weeks pregnant. And the other day I tried to get off of it. And I will say I've tried to get off of it numerous times. And any time I stop it, the next morning is a flashback to first trimester where the vomiting just starts increasing. The fatigue is there. And I physically cannot get out of bed. It's debilitating completely.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[27:01] And honestly, still running a startup company. I am a baby that takes huge amounts of effort and momentum. And I said at the beginning, it's true. I've seen you through all the stages. I'm going to talk about some of the other things that you got played with through all the different stages. And it's just incredible to me how you always seem to have energy and positivity and make me feel bad about myself. OK, so I would say a couple of things before we go to break and come back and talk about some of the other things in pregnancy and what you're planning for birth. Just as a note, we have a few resources for hyperemesis. Number one, we have a few episodes of the podcast.
[27:41] Episode 154, we'll put it in the show notes, is Amy Schumer sharing her very terrible hyperemesis pregnancy story. I promised her that I would get some doctors on the podcast to talk about what we know, which is still not that much about the causes of hyperemesis and how to manage it. And so episode 168, I talked to doctors from the Hyperemesis Research Foundation, the Her Foundation, and they do share a lot of information. All of them had their own hyperemesis experiences, so it's kind of an interesting episode. Then we brought on to our streaming platform, Informed Pregnancy Plus, a documentary called Sick! The Battle Against Hyperemesis. And I had the filmmaker on in episode 384.
[28:24] And then in 447, much more recently, we brought back one of the OBs who had hyperemesis herself and had a hard time getting support for it, even though she was OB-GYN. So hopefully these resources will be helpful to anyone who is struggling with hyperemesis. Esther, I'm going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll find out what other kind of crap you're dealing with. Don't go anywhere. Welcome back. We're talking to Esther. And as we said, the book was thrown at you. And if hyperemesis wasn't enough of a way to torture someone during pregnancy, you got lots of other interesting things going on. So somewhere along the way, you noticed that you had
[29:14] uncomfortable pain and pressure vaginally.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[29:17] Yes, which no one talks about. So that's right. Open book, Esther. That's right. Yeah. Um, it kind of just came out of nowhere. I'll say that. Um, I don't know when exactly it started, but it's just, it's like a fullness that you feel. And then there are bouts of like sharp shooting pain, which not everybody experiences. But I remember this one time I was like, I think something's going on. And I stood in my bathroom, like on one foot on the top of the toilet, one foot on the sink. Cause you know, I have this pregnant belly and I had a light up mirror so I could see what's going on. Right. Daniel walks into the room. He goes, what are you doing?
[30:08] And me being a clinician, I'm like, just a physical exam. I was curious. I wanted to see if it was something physically there. Right. Cause like, there are these changes that happen to the body as we, you know, get bigger and there's more pressure and all that fun stuff. So yeah, that was an interesting symptom. I'll say that. That was first trimester. I would say that started in the second trimester. The first trimester, I was blessed with HG. The second trimester, I was blessed with this vaginal pain and pressure amongst, you know, acid reflux, which we could talk about. Daniel and I decided to do a big Euro trip for our baby moon, which was very, very adventurous because I am a big traveler,
[30:58] but going through what I went through, I was like, I don't know. And we kind of went back and forth. And I remember we were in London and it was 3 AM and like an idiot, I had a tomato bisque soup at dinner. And I woke up and felt like a fire breathing dragon and immediately just vomited. And I vomited for three, four hours straight on and off, of course. And there were no pharmacies open and I needed Tums or something for relief. And, um, eventually we got it and I got the relief and that was a fun symptom, the fun night, I should say. Oh, and we had a flight at 6 AM. So that was, yeah.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[31:39] Goodness. Yeah. By the way, adventurous to even go to Europe with the amount of nausea and vomiting you had. Yeah.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[31:47] You know what? I'm a real one. Let's just say that when I commit, I commit. So, so yeah. Um, and I'll be honest, we were in Europe for two weeks and there were days that I did not leave a hotel room, right? Like, you know, Instagram versus reality. I was in bed. Um, I would order room service. I was very nauseous. But I told Daniel, it was better to throw up in Europe than it was to throw up in my bed in LA.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[32:15] I like it. Yeah. Although, I mean, personally, I just can't get on an airplane if I don't feel a hundred percent. So you're feeling 11%. I think it's very gutsy. No pun intended. I mean, then there's business lie flat. So, yeah, there's that too. By the way, I should point out to you this company that I work with sometimes called Nisa, NYSSA that makes all these cool postpartum products, has a product called the V mirror for inspecting yourself the way you were.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[32:43] I should get on that. You should be their spokesperson. I'd love to. Um, I will say talking about a V mirror, I did a hospital tour recently and in the brochure, it asks if part of the birth plan is you wanting a mirror upon delivery. I didn't know that was a thing.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[33:06] I mean, I, as a doula have seen many times where someone looks to see the baby's head starting to emerge and it really gives them a second wind of energy if they're falling flat and also somehow helps them connect the neurons into pushing more effectively.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[33:24] I'm all for it. I will say, I mean, it gave me an idea, so I really might get on that V mirror. All right.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[33:31] I might send you one as a gift.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[33:33] That would be very nice. Thank you.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[33:36] I will say thank us for our present. And my wife says, what did you get her? I love it. Fun times.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[33:47] Yes. I will say the peak symptom that I've been dealing with is asthma, which I have never suffered with in my life. Brand new. Yeah. Brand new. So what happened was I hit third trimester Thanksgiving day a week before that, I noticed a little bit of wheezing and me being who I am took my own stethoscope, had Daniel stand behind me, put the piece to my lung so I can breathe for myself. And of course there was a spot of wheezing. I texted my OB, Dr. Fabby, shout out, love her. And we collaborate a lot. Let's just say that. And I told her I needed an inhaler. I was like, you know what? It's probably just me being five foot two, my husband being six foot two and this child
[34:38] measuring in his direction. And she's probably compressing my lungs a little bit and you know, weather changes, it's cold, who knows. Then about three weeks ago, I ended up at urgent care with extreme shortness of breath. And if anyone knows me, I don't go anywhere unless I'm on my death bed. And Dr. Fabby was like, you need to get a chest x-ray and I don't do imaging. You know, I don't want to do imaging. I'm pregnant. So I want to try to reduce risk as much as possible. And we decided that chest x-ray was the way to go. Sure enough diagnosed with restrictive airway disease, AKA asthma. Yeah. So that's been a really hard symptom to deal with because I'll go into
[35:25] coughing fits and what happens with coughing fits, you vomit.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[35:29] Oh, right. And you're already vomiting. I mean, it's compounded one thing on top of another thing. Again, just to hear you have so much energy and so much positivity is incredible. Look, I have the fortune of working with you and also, I don't know if it's the acid or the coughing fits or the asthma, but you also have a particularly gnarly case of intercostal pain, neuritis. The nerves of your ribs getting compressed now and just causing really sharp shooting pain. And that's just one more thing, like a little cherry on top of everything else.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[36:06] Yeah, 100%. But I will say people have asked me if I'm nervous to deliver and I'm not because they just don't want these symptoms anymore. And when I talk to friends who've gone through similar things, they say the second that baby and placenta are out of you, it's like night and day.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[36:24] Everyone with hyperemesis says that. Yeah. Like literally it doesn't matter. Vaginal versus area, but the second the placenta comes out. And then that's where some of the research is pointing to also that the placenta overproduces a satiety hormone that just makes you feel like there's nothing else you can put in. Yeah.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[36:42] And I will say because of that, I will not be encapsulating my placenta.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[36:47] Yeah, the evil thing, you'll beat it with a pass. Take it to one of those smash rooms. That's right. Esther, you're amazing. I really appreciate you in a million different ways, but especially if we're coming in and sharing. Cause I think a lot of people silently suffer with one or more of the things that you suffer with, but many of them are not talked about enough and your open book policy has made it possible for people to listen and resonate and at least know that you can kind of get through it and in your case, hopefully just a couple more months and these all be in the rear view mirror.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[37:23] Yes. Amen. And thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[37:27] My pleasure. I'm going to send you a mirror. There's my little present on the podcast, but I'm also going to go explore more about happy vitals. Cause I think that's a brilliant point you're doing.
Esther Friedman Schwartz[37:38] Yeah. Go visit us happy vitals.com super easy. And, um, if anyone wants to reach out to me personally and have questions about this, they can email me at Esther at happy vitals.com. And I'd be happy to help and listen.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[37:53] You're the best. At home. Thanks for listening to the informed pregnancy podcast for more parenting and pregnancy information, just like this. So visit us online at informed pregnancy.com.
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