Kelly Meehan grew up as a highly sensitive child in a household shaped by caregiving and uncertainty. After surviving one traumatic birth, she found healing through a second birth and now works to help people connect deeply with their babies on an intuitional and spiritual level.
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; Kelly Meehan in orange.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[0:00] My guest today grew up as a highly sensitive child in a household shaped by illness, uncertainty and caregiving, experiences that left her both deeply compassionate and quietly terrified of becoming a mother herself. After surviving one traumatic birth and postpartum experience, she eventually found healing through a completely different second birth that transformed not only her motherhood journey, but also her life's work. Today she helps hopeful, pregnant and new parents connect more deeply with their babies through intuition, emotional support and what she calls spirit baby communication. I'm Pregnancy Focus chiropractor Dr. Elliott Berlin and you are listening to the Informed
[0:41] Pregnancy Podcast. Kelly Meehan, welcome to the podcast.
Kelly Meehan[1:00] Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited. I was just even saying this.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[1:04] There's not very many people like you. You're very unique and your approach is very interesting and I think more than ever very necessary. Before we get into the meat of what that means, let's go back to the beginning. Can you start by telling us where you grew up and what your childhood was like?
Kelly Meehan[1:21] I could do that in 20,000 hours now. That's a lot of commercial breaks. I know, right? A lot of quick clip back in New Jersey, central New Jersey grew up with, actually my father came from Italy, which is interesting, but they're Jersey people. And I always wondered about that connecting with my family like I'm being born into this family. And you talked about my sensitivity. Yeah, so sensitivity. I was a quiet, shy child, mostly. I think I was observing a lot of the world. And when I became a teenager, I started to discover that I had extra sensory perceptions. I actually feel like it was puberty that opened that window for me. My parents were very self-involved because that's how they were.
[2:07] So I was able to explore what that meant to feel and sense the world so differently.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[2:12] Your mom was sick.
Kelly Meehan[2:14] My mom was always sick. She had mental illness and multiple physical issues. And especially the last 20 years of her life, I took care of her in many different ways, physically, emotionally, spiritually. And it did really bring a deeper level of healing and resentment and love and anger. Yeah. All those things.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[2:34] Yeah. Yeah.
Kelly Meehan[2:35] A potpourri of feelings.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[2:36] But it turned you sort of into a caregiver, whether you really wanted to be or not.
Kelly Meehan[2:42] I was definitely a caregiver most of all my life and even caring for my brothers the best I could. And yeah, that was the journey for sure.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[2:50] Now, is that where you started to have hesitation about motherhood for yourself?
Kelly Meehan[2:57] I think that what happens is like I remember friends, you know, coming into the twenties, like everybody wants to have children. They're ready to become a mother. And I was felt opposite. I actually never wanted children. I never thought I would have children. And I didn't realize till later there was so much fear because I had to care for my mom. She needed so much for me that she really was taking up that space a lot. Plus I was sick in my twenties. And I thought, you know, maybe motherhood's not here.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[3:25] What did you picture the future looking like if not family?
Kelly Meehan[3:30] I didn't really I didn't go that far ahead. I was literally living moment to moment of like, what is my yeah. And I actually went back to school and studied clinical psychology with somatic psychology. And after that, I learned a bit of pre-perinatal psychology. And I think that's where I realized that I had a lot of my own traumas. Actually, they were suppressed deep will say they were deep in here and they started to kind of move out of me throughout the years. And then I came to a place where I was like, you know what? Maybe I could be a mom. Actually, I was 35. I thought maybe 34. I was thinking 34 is like maybe. And then I was so scared, though.
[4:06] I had I think I had pregnancy phobia, but I didn't know it. And I didn't see itself or becoming a mother. The idea of birthing was really viscerally and, you know, intensified inside me. And I also had a pelvic floor injury as a child. And I think that played a big role into the medical piece of it. And just becoming a mom in general. I'm looking at my mom, watching her deteriorate and watching how my family like wasn't very helpful and how my brothers became estranged. And I'm going, is this motherhood? Like, wow. Like it was a lot to witness, you know.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[4:43] You said you went back to school for psychology. When was that and what were you doing before that?
Kelly Meehan[4:49] Well, before that, I was doing a lot of different things. And when I went back to school, I had it's interesting. I worked a lot in customer service, which I almost feel like is caretaking. I was always destined for caretaking. And when I went back to school, I was 30. And I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do, to be honest. But I actually worked in attachment parenting as my practicum and intern. And I worked as an infant development therapist before I moved deeper into this work.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[5:14] So you're working with other families having babies?
Kelly Meehan[5:17] Well, no, I'm working in the infant development therapy. Babies and toddlers that had issues, special needs, sometimes behavioral issues. And going into homes, going literally from Bel Air Mansions to South Central, like really in the homes, really working with the parents to just connect with their baby, play with their baby in different ways that could be facilitating. But I brought in a little bit of that birth psychology piece, to be honest.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[5:42] I mean, it's interesting because it sounds like up until 30, motherhood was a phobia for you or birth was a phobia for you. You didn't really picture that being your future. And then somehow over the five-year period of going through the training and starting to work with families, kind of a switch went on where you're like, wait, maybe this is a path for me. Do you know what changed?
Kelly Meehan[6:06] I think I got healthy and I didn't feel so trapped by my body and being unwell for so long. And then honestly, I had a moment where I felt like, you know, I had a husband I loved. We were together for a long time and we were experiencing really fun things in life. And I thought, hey, maybe we should have a child. Am I being a disservice to humanity and to my heart that maybe a child wants to be born to us? I actually felt like my fear was very selfish. And I thought, let me be open.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[6:35] How old were you when you got together?
Kelly Meehan[6:39] 18.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[6:40] Oh, wow, really young. Yeah. And at that earlier part of the relationship, he was cool with the no kids approach?
Kelly Meehan[6:48] You know, he was. He's a good dude. He thought about it. He wanted a bunch of kids initially.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[6:53] Oh, he did. He wanted to do more. Yeah. There you go. I like that. Well, after a 180 of not wanting kids and then both of you being on board for children, it sounds like you're ready. It also sounds like, you know, there could be challenges. It seems to me like the phobias don't just go away overnight. Let's take a little break and when we come back, we'll find out what pregnancy and childbirth was like for you.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[7:29] Welcome back. We're talking to Kelly Meehan. So you have the shift and you're open to motherhood. You're more comfortable with your body and not feeling trapped by your body. What was the first pregnancy like for you?
Kelly Meehan[7:45] Oh, boy. Ready? Everybody get your popcorn out. Now, it's a good story, right? We all have a story. It was actually very traumatic and it wasn't positive. It was very life altering, changing. I literally felt like my life got so restructured and shattered in a way where it was like the beauty of life. But the trauma that I felt that was kind of, you know, showed up was like, what am I doing? Is this really happening? It felt very surreal. But I found pregnancy to be super challenging. I also didn't have a very good community. I didn't have parents that were there and people that like nobody really showed up. And I had all trimester nausea, which was so difficult.
[8:27] All trimester, all three trimesters.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[8:30] The whole time? With vomiting or just-
Kelly Meehan[8:33] Not vomiting, just I couldn't feel not nauseous. And I swear this kid lived on like lentils and like crackers. Like I'm like, is this kid going to be okay? But I think it was more emotional, to be honest, because of the support and the way I was cared for. And I felt like I didn't know how to find my internal instructions to be pregnant. I just was lost.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[8:55] Was the baby healthy?
Kelly Meehan[8:58] Yeah, he was fine.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[8:59] Was that comforting for you?
Kelly Meehan[9:01] It wasn't because I was very self-absorbed in just the hardness of it. I was like, what is happening? My body was changing. I felt like out of my body, in a sense, I didn't feel into it. And I think I just felt too much, to be honest. Like probably a little way too much. And which can be hard for sensitivity is like a little extreme. People talk about heightened intuition. I was like, I didn't get heightened intuition. It was already there. It just felt like, yeah, I knew he was healthy because I felt he was healthy. I don't do a lot of interventions. I had midwives and I trusted. There wasn't a lot of dabbling or a lot of looking around. You know what I mean?
[9:41] I was just more of listening to my body and connecting with him. Not the watch pot.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[9:48] What was your plan for birth?
Kelly Meehan[9:50] I really wanted a home birth. And I had really great midwives, a team come in. But then things shifted in directions where midwives don't always make the best decisions. But in that time, it worked, I guess, because I got transferred to a hospital that wasn't very kind to me.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[10:09] Transferred in the middle of the birth?
Kelly Meehan[10:11] Yes, in the middle of the birth.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[10:14] Okay, for what?
Kelly Meehan[10:16] At the time, the assumption was possibly, now I forgot what it's called, where they think the placenta and the baby are coming out together. What's that word again?
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[10:29] The cord prolapse?
Kelly Meehan[10:31] No, no, no. Now I'm just forgetting it right now because it wasn't. So there was just a miscommunication and interpretation because I had too much blood before and that made everybody nervous and I had the water tub. I have low blood platelets, so I'm a bleeder. Apparently, I'm a bleeder after. That's the thing I've discovered. I think it's a common thing that happens, but it wasn't that. So I get transferred. And they're literally trying to prep me for cesarean birth, by the way. And I'm going to try to shorten the story a little.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[11:01] The midwives or the medical team?
Kelly Meehan[11:03] No, the medical people. And I said, I'm allergic to anesthesia, blah, blah, blah, whatever it went. It didn't need to happen. So the baby was there. One doctor came in and said, well, the baby's right there. Let's get her up to deliver baby. He's born. I'm just second degree vaginal tearing. Not feeling super happy. I'm signing myself out of the hospital after a few hours. I cannot be there. That was taken very interestingly. And then the healing began more deeper at home and I did go into postpartum depression for sure.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[11:37] What did that feel like to you?
Kelly Meehan[11:39] I felt like I wanted to die. I knew that wasn't normal.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[11:42] How soon after you got home?
Kelly Meehan[11:44] If I can recall it, probably, I don't know. Actually, that's a good question. Now it's been so long. I remember feeling, I'll never forget this, two weeks after I've had my beautiful little being boy. Perfect. Two weeks, I got this very strong feeling of love and connection that now I realized later was supposed to happen when you give birth. Like you see your baby and you feel that connection. I didn't feel very connected to him until two weeks in.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[12:09] Did you feel connected to him during the pregnancy?
Kelly Meehan[12:12] I did.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[12:14] So then there was a loss of, like the power went out. And I know you mentioned you didn't have much of a village during the pregnancy. Was there any support after the baby arrived?
Kelly Meehan[12:27] No, there wasn't. We had a few meal trains and then I just felt like alone and then husband had to go back to work and it was just me and baby and friends. I talked to on the phone and I was just really weepy and I just felt like high dysregulation and just getting by every day to just get through the pain. I had a lot of pelvic floor pain.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[12:48] How did you get over the postpartum depression? How did you manage your way through it?
Kelly Meehan[12:53] That's a good question. I don't even remember. I don't know. A lot of my friends are MFTs at the time. So I'm talking to all my friends, working with my friend who also is an MFT and a healer and just talking it out. And it was like the hardest moment after of like, I was like, this is what that's like, because I knew something was up. I was like sitting in the rocking chair like, maybe I should die. And I'm like, that doesn't feel like you're supposed to feel that way. And I just took it really slow. Literally the first year was like rebuilding who I was as a mother now. I was never mother before. And then knowing like, where's that support come?
[13:29] And I'm really fortunate to be able to have space to sit under the oak trees of Topanga at the time where it was just kind of like learning about each other, growing with each other and nursing too much. I feel like all that kid wanted was nursing all the time.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[13:45] Well, Topanga sounds beautiful. Somehow you decided to do it again.
Kelly Meehan[13:51] I know, right? So wait a minute. Did I tell you there's a five and a half year age gap on purpose? So it didn't happen right away. No, I didn't want it to because I needed to do the work. I couldn't.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[14:03] So up until then, did you think one and done?
Kelly Meehan[14:06] Yep, absolutely.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[14:07] But then what changed?
Kelly Meehan[14:10] I heard a different energy saying they wanted to be born and I tried to ignore it. Didn't go well. No. And I felt like, no, no, this is probably maybe I'll get a puppy or cat or something. I don't know, right?
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[14:24] Well, how was the second pregnancy?
Kelly Meehan[14:27] It was way better because after the first errors in that experience, which I think is pretty common for mothers, right? I decided that it wasn't going to be the same. I needed to do the work and the energy, whatever. You know, I had amazing midwives this time. I had, you know, really schooled them. I wanted to make sure they saw everything possible in a home birth. I cried a lot in my midwife sessions all the time. I just cried and they said, it's okay, Kelly. We were just clearing it for the birth. Yeah.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[14:56] Do you know what you were letting go of?
Kelly Meehan[14:59] There were a lot of things coming up. I was never cared for by my parents. In my own pregnancies, like I cried about my dad and I had no idea I had that feeling. And I realized that when we're having babies and you have family, it's such a beautiful thing, right? And if you don't have that, you think it's okay. But then you don't have that and you realize, oh, this hurts, this feels. So yeah, there was a lot of feelings and I'm sure more pieces in that. But pregnancy was different than the first by far and that was great.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[15:29] So a different team of midwives was the plan home birth again?
Kelly Meehan[15:34] Yes, absolutely.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[15:36] How old were you?
Kelly Meehan[15:37] 41 when I birthed him. So 40.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[15:41] And how did the birth go?
Kelly Meehan[15:43] The birth was great, actually. I couldn't believe it. It was like night and day from the birth experience. I couldn't get into that tub though. I saw it and I'm like, I'm a land birther. I am not water.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[15:55] You see that a lot though. People set up the whole water option.
Kelly Meehan[15:58] Yeah, I can get, I didn't even go in it. Didn't even touch it.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[16:01] Or the opposite. People think they're never gonna want it. I'm not a bath person and then they crave it.
Kelly Meehan[16:06] Yeah, it was good. It's there as an option. So the most incredible thing in this, and I actually have videos of me, I'm so calm. And I actually appreciated the contractions when I literally felt like I was high. My body was shaking with euphoria in between the contractions. And I was bouncing on that ball, man. I said to my midwife, can I birth on this ball? She's like, no. My body loved that movement. And I did do the birthing stool, which I know has a lot of controversy, but I had to sit with this birth. Let this being come. Let's work together. And I remember a moment where I'm sitting there. It's dark in the room and I'm so cared for. And I look in the midwives and my friends there
[16:49] and they're all closing their eyes. And one, I was like, are they meditating or are they sleeping? I really was like, but either way, it felt really good. And my five and a half year old son wanted to be at the birth. They got him at the last minute to come and see everything. And looking at him and pulling up my son was just extraordinary. And I'm not saying orgasmic births don't exist, but they do exist because I had a shocking moment where I was like, what's happening here? This is like pride. And I guess it pushed or whatever was happening. Before the pushing though, I felt that feeling in my body. Well, I was not expecting that at all. Like, yeah.
[17:29] There's a total opposite from your first birth. And I was scared it was going to be this like, I was like, what if, what if, what if, right? And that was the fear too in the birth. What if it's like the first one, right? But I knew it was different because as soon as I sat down and I was dealing with my other sons, going to school for the first time and then going, I sat there and I went, I'm not hungry, but I can't go to sleep right now. And then all of a sudden, like 30 minutes later, the contraction started and I knew in that moment it was different. It felt completely different.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[18:00] I'm so happy for you. What was postpartum like second time?
Kelly Meehan[18:03] Perfect, fine, no, anything because I told myself I called in community. So people came to like clean the house. People came to cook us all kinds of meals and I wasn't, but I had a moment where I was nursing and I was crying and I couldn't nurse them. I was, you know, I was like, I thought you just nurse forever each kid, but who knows? They're so different, right? And she took the baby, took him out, walked outside and I was like, that's what I need. Somebody to like nurture and love me in that experience and I got a lot of that. So no postpartum depression, no dark thoughts, nothing. I was like, wow. But I also feel like the birth was so cared for, so different,
[18:42] still super intense, but my husband got to hold him. He was the first contact as we, you know, pulled him up with such a beautiful moment to do that. And I wish like that connection for all mothers and fathers and just lifting him up. There's a video of me just like this, like probably praying, you know, being thankful like, and it was so beautiful because I had joy on my face and my five-year-old at the time said that looked like a rocket ship shot right out of you and his face was in disbelief. Like there's a baby, we talked about it, but like you can see was like, wait, this is a real person that came out and later on, he was crying and he said, I don't know why I'm crying
[19:22] holding his brother. And I said, yeah, there's a lot, you know, feelings happening. And I remember the umbilical cord was so beautiful, you know, it was just this iridescent connection to my body and yeah, and I definitely encourage people to do video because I watched the video after and I was in shock. Because I was making noises. I don't remember doing that.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[19:49] It's kind of interesting. I sometimes interview people about their birth right after they have their baby and they'll listen to it six months later and it's like they're hearing their birth story for the first time. They don't remember a lot of the finer details and sounds like you think that's safety. Why do you think that is? I'm not totally sure. I've had thoughts about this. I think pregnancy brain is real and I think you could see it on imaging. Actually, the brain physically shrinks and I think part of that is because childbirth is such a big event that it may be too big for the regular consciousness and you kind of have to go into another level.
[20:26] You know, we had Hilary Duff on the podcast talking about her first home birth and she just said as it was getting closer and closer and she was progressing more and more that her brain was just saying like, I don't know. It's going to be too much. We're not going to be able to handle. It's going to be too much. It's going to be too much and then right before it felt like too much that part of her brain just shut off. And it wasn't too much. It was perfect and I think maybe that needs to happen to a degree and so you're not fully present on the consciousness the way the people around you are. Let's take a little break because when I come back I teased at the beginning
[21:03] that you're like this very unique provider and caregiver now and obviously we see where a lot of that foundation comes from but I want to get a little bit deeper into the type of work that you do. Don't go anywhere. We will be right back. Welcome back. We're talking to Kelly Meehan a very unique individual. I'm just honored to be talking to you and I want to learn more about the unique type of work that you do. So how did your experiences that we've just talked about kind of evolve into the work that you do now?
Kelly Meehan[21:43] Well, my ongoing joke is that my first born broke my second chakra right open and blasted me into this work. I'm serious because it was such a physical emotional spiritual like reality a shift of lineage a change of my consciousness a change of who I become so that knowing of spirit baby connections is always there. It just got to the next level.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[22:05] I frequently when we started in foreign pregnancy actually part of my mission if we were going to have a tagline was how to have your second birth experience the first time around and you know I guess for you it's more relevant than most like how nice it would have been for you to be able to do that but I guess all the experiences you have shape you. Tell me more about spirit baby.
Kelly Meehan[22:28] Yeah spirit baby spirit baby is not a term I created it's been around for a long time but nobody knows the origin. I actually wrote about that in my book I don't know where the origin is of it but there's been people that have been talking about it even in indigenous cultures there's one actually over in Australia that talks about the calling of the spirit the calling of baby and so I hear spirit baby energies I hear souls I hear things that defy science and this connection that I've made a long time ago I thought it was all my imagination to be honest
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[23:00] so you connect with them before they're here before they're even in the womb you do fertility work
Kelly Meehan[23:06] yes that's actually a lot right now a lot of infertility and miscarriage has been become my accidental expertise I jokingly say
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[23:14] what does it look like when somebody comes to work with you?
Kelly Meehan[23:18] There's a lot of connection sometimes it's called I'm calling it just as a joke spirit baby communication counseling because I do do some somatic work in spaces but it's more of me you know kind of connecting with the body of the person what's been their journey and I'm not actually getting very many details it really depends on the person some people have a long big story especially with infertility and some that come in pregnancy it's a little different the pregnancy vibes because it's more lighthearted to me it's like just having mother's energy father's energy just connecting with their body and I do certain things like little body kind of meditation energy
[23:59] kind of set for them and then listen and then really bring connections with their child and sometimes they know if they're having a boy or a girl or sometimes they don't know I use the word baby being if it's a surprise and I just bring connections like how do you connect what does that feel like for you and because it's their connection their relationship and so I get little tidbits of information and insight and then you know off you know as the parent prepares for the next weeks months trimesters and I really promote that their connection with their child and that soul level that energy level is always changing too it's never going to be the same
[24:35] so keep meeting where you are in your energy and if you're tired you know watch your tired energy if you're deficient and this is your expertise but I feel like pregnancy super deficient and it's hard like but baby energy is still there it's still in communication because it doesn't need that much biology but again that form of energy that consciousness in the field is very different
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[24:56] we have a film on informed pregnancy plus that is called prenatal memory it's a Japanese film with subtitles but Dr Ikagawa was an OBGYN who always felt like the babies were a lot more conscious and present than anybody would give them credit for and so he originally just started talking both to mom and to baby and just like asking for permission before touching the belly and he just felt this very strong presence then he found out from someone he knows that does transcendental meditation that when you bring people back in regressive therapy you could bring them back to before they were born and just blew his mind like everything made sense and he sort of
[25:39] dedicated a part of his career to finding out how much do babies remember from their time in the womb or before they were even in the womb and it's a fascinating film and our viewers that watch it some of the feedback that we get is that they're really able to bond more closely with the baby and be more present at the birth and that the birth is a more enjoyable experience because they're doing it together instead of trying to push something out of you it's a dance that you do together so it seems to me like the work that you do the connections that you talk about and helping people to connect to their baby during the pregnancy have a lot of benefit
[26:18] for both mother and baby
Kelly Meehan[26:20] Yeah I love that what you're sharing it's so true because yeah let's say even there's a struggle in pregnancy or birth and I feel like that bonding before life is so incredible because you're recognizing there's this other energy form this connection with this being is a part of you and then so you're having that communication in the before in preconception or even in pregnancy and to me it's an instinct too and then you're birthing your baby together here and then now they're here and I do feel like it does bring a different bonded connection and so even just a moment looking like you know I had this traumatic birth I had to work really hard with the birth field
[26:56] and the energy of healing with my first born whereas like my second one was completely different because I was doing this work by the way already so it brought a different frequency of who I was forward and then his birth was just you know I mean yeah night and day but also it's kind of like you know I communicate with both children and bringing them wherever they need to you know show up in this world with.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[27:20] Yeah it's pretty cool that as a clinician you have both this sort of western science training background and experience but then you also have the intuition and more of a holistic approach and that you're able to combine them together.
Kelly Meehan[27:37] Absolutely I used to hang out when I remember my internship with the psychoanalysts they wanted to hmm they were good they were good they knew what they were doing but they wanted to know why I was able to get to certain children that nobody else could because I couldn't say well I'm just being telepathic and energy sensitive because that's how children are and I think I'm just naming what that is I knew that and yet you know this is the you know there's so much involved in the energy of children and you know something I didn't say was so I'm working in conception pregnancy and you know healing through birth loss but also I can talk to newborns
[28:14] when they're nonverbal I can hear them in their energy and they have conversations and this is what parents do this is what mothers and fathers do they're literally telepathically connected to their energy. I don't know
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[28:26] I would look in their eyes forever and just be like what are you thinking if I could only tell I didn't have that gift. Wow what a powerful story first of all you're an excellent storyteller thank you and boy you've lived a lot and I appreciate you coming on and sharing your story from childhood through motherhood and the work that you do again being so powerful Kelly where can we find you online?
Kelly Meehan[28:52] Yeah thank you again for having me newearthchildren.com
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[28:56] newearthchildren.com I'm going to go check it out myself and I recommend everybody else do the same. At home thanks for listening to the informed pregnancy podcast if you like our program be sure to share us with your friends and leave us a five-star review in your podcast app. For more pregnancy and parenting related media just like this visit us online at informedpregnancy.com
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With an elite education and a high powered career, careful planner Parul Somani discusses pregnancy, motherhood, and what happens when control slips out of reach.
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; Parul Somani in orange.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[0:00] My guest today is someone who built her life on careful planning, elite education, high-powered career, and even timing motherhood with intention. But when reality didn't follow the plan, first with a difficult postpartum experience, then with a newborn in the ICU, and finally with a quiet discovery just before delivery, everything changed. This is part one of a two-part story about motherhood, identity, and what happens when control slips away. I'm Pregnancy Focus Chiropractor Dr. Elliott Berlin, and you're listening to the Informed Pregnancy Podcast. Harul Somani, welcome to the podcast.
Parul Somani[0:52] Thank you for having me.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[0:53] My pleasure. There's a lot of story here, so let's start at the beginning. Where are you from originally?
Parul Somani[1:01] I was born in northern India in the state of Rajasthan, but I was only three years old when we moved to the U.S. at first to Portland, Oregon, which is where I grew up. And then my high school years were in Seattle, and so Pacific Northwest for most of my life.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[1:19] Welcome to America.
Parul Somani[1:20] Yes, it's been a bit now. And definitely had a traditional immigrant upbringing, seeing your parents work hard and being inspired and motivated by their work ethic. And then I spent about 10 years between Boston and New York, and now I'm in the Bay Area.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[1:38] Okay. That gets us caught up. You've lived a very intentional, sort of high-achieving life. Can you walk us through how you approached major life decisions early on?
Parul Somani[1:51] In a sense, major life decisions early on were seemingly made for me, right? In the way that they're not necessarily thought through, you're just kind of doing what you think you're supposed to be doing. So work hard in high school, you know, apply for a good college, work hard in college, try to get the prestigious internships and the prestigious jobs. It was just somewhat of a hamster wheel cycle that myself and my peers were on.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[2:19] Is that cultural? Because I feel like in America, that's not maybe the norm. Like we like to find the path of least resistance.
Parul Somani[2:29] Well, perhaps this is that nod back to what I was saying about an immigrant upbringing is just seeing my parents leave their home country, their family, everything that they knew in India to bring my sister and I to the U.S. for a better education, for the opportunities here. It was somewhat implicit that we are meant to work hard. We are meant to study well and do the best that we can. And that translated into try to get good grades, try to get into a good college. And some of it may have also just been intrinsically motivated as well, where I wanted to achieve. I have this achievement cup that I wanted filled. And so, you know, working hard to be good at something,
[3:24] to have an impact is something that I was wired to pretty early on. And it just manifested itself through schooling as, you know, trying to get good grades and trying to get the good job. But over time, I realized that when like really hard decisions came along, we were never actually taught how to make decisions like none of us are. There's never this explicit force around decision making. And how do you make the choices that matter most in your life? And so the way I had approached decisions in the past were influenced by the schooling and the careers that I had led, which were very analytical and logical and structured in nature. And so when it came to anything that had to be a decision made,
[4:14] it was applying that same approach is collect the data, do the research and try to find the answer within the analysis. That's going to give me the most guaranteed outcome on the other side.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[4:26] What was the first career?
Parul Somani[4:29] My first career out of college was in management consulting. So my internships were on Wall Street during college. And then my first full time job was as a management consultant for Bain and Company, where I was working in teams and advising the senior executives of very large companies. So I worked there for over the course of nine years, including business school in the middle, and worked for Fortune 500 tech companies to private equity firms. And a lot of the work was soft skills and the sense of relationship building and advising. But a lot of quantitative skills, analysis, research, data collection and all of that.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[5:17] Where did you go to college and business school?
Parul Somani[5:20] I went to MIT, where I majored in electrical engineering and computer science. And I went to business school at Harvard Business School for my MBA.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[5:28] It sounds like you did not go for the path of least resistance. So where does being ready for motherhood at that time? What would being ready look like to you?
Parul Somani[5:44] Being ready looked like realizing I was not at all ready. So where I was in my life at that time, when I was pregnant with my first daughter, is I was 29 years old. I was a consultant, a post MBA consultant at Bain. I was working very, very hard over, you know, 60, 70 hours per week. And I was in a promotion window trying to get promoted to manager. And I actually thought that I was ready, you know, so I actually got married very young. I was young for this day and age. I was 23 when I got married. And so I was very clear in my mind that, like, OK, at least for five years, nobody talked to me about having kids because I have, you know, various things I want to pursue in my career.
[6:34] And so I thought that by the time I'm 28, 29, that I would be ready to start a family. And my husband and I thought that we were. And I remember, you know, before we started trying, it was about 10 p.m. one night. And I was on the phone with my sister who was working as a lawyer at a law firm at that time. And she was just talking about how, you know, she had just gotten home. It's past 10 p.m. And then there's like the baby for this and like just, you know, all of the chaos that comes with being a young working mother. And I'm just, you know, listening to her and trying to support her. But then when I get off the phone, I just remember thinking,
[7:11] maybe I'm not ready to just start having a family because I'm just coming back from work at 10 p.m. Like, where in my life and schedule is this baby going to fit in? And I actually pushed off, like, put a pause on thinking that we're ready to have a child. And, you know, thankfully, it was only a couple of months later where I realized, actually, there's never going to be the right time. There's never going to be a place in my career where it's like, yes, this is the time to make it all work. And that what I needed to do was just if wanting to start a family is what I want, I needed to try for that and then have everything else work itself out around it.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[7:50] OK, well, soon after that, you decided to go for it.
Parul Somani[7:55] Yes. So I was 29 when I then had my first daughter. And I had not necessarily the pregnancy I had expected to have.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[8:07] You said we were going to start trying. Did fertility come easy to you?
Parul Somani[8:12] Fertility did, thankfully, come pretty easily.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[8:15] And perhaps this check one box.
Parul Somani[8:18] Yes. So that that part had gone smoothly enough. I mean, it wasn't necessarily right away, but it wasn't with the challenges that many of my friends have since experienced. And so I was very thankful for that. It was early on in the pregnancy where we learned that there is some chemical that's elevated through some blood tests that we had done where we learned that there could be a risk in how the baby grows later on in pregnancy. And that did end up being a challenge that we faced. My daughter in the third trimester was not getting as many nutrients through the placenta as expected and therefore was not growing as well or as fast as one hopes
[9:09] in the third trimester.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[9:10] Did you have up until that point a vision or a plan for how you'd like to deliver her?
Parul Somani[9:17] Yes. You know, my husband and I had taken those child birth classes. And one of the assignments was to put together your birth plan. And so I had all of these visions, you know, outlined of what my birth plan is going to include, that it's going to be with medication, but not like an otherwise sort of normal delivery. You know, C-section was nowhere on my radar as a possibility. And the birth plan included no formula feeding, you know, upon birth. I wanted to prioritize breastfeeding and everything went out the window.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[9:53] A pretty natural mindset. A pretty natural mindset.
Parul Somani[9:56] I mean, I was definitely on board with epidural and any sort of pain release. But otherwise, you know, just in my mind, what would be a complication free delivery? And nothing went that way.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[10:10] Well, let's take a little break. I mean, when the baby is not getting enough nutrition and growing slowly, the priority becomes getting them out. And so sometimes the birth plan changes. We'll take a little break and we'll be right back.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[10:36] Welcome back. We're talking about Paro Somani. OK, so you want a planal kind of hospital vaginal birth with meds, breastfeeding, relatively typical birth plan. And then the baby's measuring small. What happens with your birth?
Parul Somani[10:53] So at one of the third trimester ultrasounds, there is a sense that she's not growing nearly as well as she should. And we realized that we might need to move to a C-section and sooner than expected. The hope was that she would get to 38 weeks full term so that she is, you know, as fully baked in there before the C-section. But I need to start doing these going in for daily non-stress tests to make sure that the heart is still beating. And any one of those appointments could have resulted in an emergency C-section. Thankfully, each of those daily appointments went smoothly and we were able to reach the 38 week mark. And the C-section went smoothly.
[11:43] It was incredibly nerve racking the night before. I remember my husband and I couldn't get any sleep. It's a common surgery and yet still a very invasive one.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[11:54] Have you had any surgeries before that?
Parul Somani[11:57] Prior to that, no, not in any sort of meaningful way. Like wisdom teeth removal, right? I mean, afterwards, many other surgeries have come.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[12:07] But it's also your first surgery, so that's kind of nerve racking also.
Parul Somani[12:11] Yes. And, you know, we had asked someone to describe what is getting a C-section is like, and it was described to me as you're lying there and someone has put a handbag on your belly and they are rummaging through the handbag.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[12:28] That's descriptive.
Parul Somani[12:29] Yes. And, you know, is not a painful feeling, but there is the feeling of the rummaging, right?
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[12:39] Of the sounds creepy.
Parul Somani[12:41] Sounds creepy. And so now I had this narrative in my mind that this is what it's going to be like. And so very hard to get any sleep the night before. Thankfully, the surgery itself went smoothly. Even that actually ended up somewhat not going to birth plan, but in the entertaining way, because once I knew I was going to be having a C-section, I actually put a playlist together of music that would be able to play in the background, since I would be awake, you know, during the surgery. And I thought I had put all instrumental music on that playlist. But one super high energy Indian song, you know, Bhangra song, ended up making it on the playlist.
[13:26] And when that came on, my anesthesiologist actually started like dancing a bit to it. So it was not like birth plan, but in a in a little very joyful way. But the surgery itself went smoothly. And my daughter was born at four pounds, ten ounces.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[13:46] Oh, wow. Very little.
Parul Somani[13:48] And that was the crazy thing is that even though she was the pregnancy where there were concerns during pregnancy and there was such a low birthrate after delivery, she actually did not need to be admitted to the NICU. They did need to formula feed her right away. So there was one other part of the birth plan that just went out the window. But, you know, of course, whatever is needed for her health is what was priority.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[14:15] Was that formula plus breastfeeding or just formula?
Parul Somani[14:19] So at that time, it was plus breastfeeding. But, you know, there was delay in the milk actually coming in. And I don't know if this was more of a protocol that the hospital had versus what other doctors would also have recommended. But they moved to formula feeding right away. And then they had me start pumping right away. And even though breastfeeding and latching had initially gone OK with the pumping, with the pressure of breastfeeding a child who was so small and the guilt that I carried of being responsible for all of that kind of put me on a spiral where breastfeeding then actually became very difficult. And I cried more in those first 10 days after delivery
[15:16] than maybe the past 10 years combined. You know, there's many things that happen with having to pump right away, including then the sensitivity that I had on my skin so that when she would latch or try to latch, I would then cringe at the pain. And so breastfeeding was just like spiraled downwards pretty badly. I was very close to quitting. And after a hard journey of keeping at it, we eventually got to a rhythm where breastfeeding worked. And I was ultimately able to breastfeed her for just over a year, which felt really rewarding, but a very hard earned journey.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[15:57] Yeah, seriously. Now, where is the career during this postpartum phase in that first year?
Parul Somani[16:05] Yes. So like I mentioned, I was in a post MBA consultant role and in the window for an early promotion to manager while I was on maternity leave. And my company offered a great maternity leave, a four month paid leave. And I had thought I would potentially extend it to take an additional two months of unpaid. So just in my mind, having this option value of potentially six months home during my maternity leave, I actually got that early promotion to manager, which was very exciting. And I felt really honored that my company was the type that would, you know, recognize a woman who's worked hard and has earned a promotion even while they're on maternity leave.
[16:57] And that gave me the opportunity to return to work as a manager. And that's a big difference in the extent I have a bit more autonomy. Over my own schedule, over my own, you know, kind of working norms on how I structure my team. And I felt like at about the four month mark, I felt like I actually was excited to go back to work. I wanted that adult interaction and intellectual stimulation. And after a four month leave, I returned back as a manager and management consulting.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[17:34] How did it go?
Parul Somani[17:35] So it had its ups and downs, for sure. Management consulting is a client services industry. And so even as a manager, even if I had been a partner, there is a nature to the work that is just client driven and out of your control. So I actually, you know, didn't return full time. I returned in a part time role. But when you're part time in a corporate role like that, that's client services. It's still easily over 60 hours a week. You know, if I was like 80 hours at full time, I was like 60 hours part time. I was leading the team for a private equity firm and unclear if they even knew that I was part time. Right. So there's challenges in an industry where it's client driven
[18:29] and you're given a full time versus part time role. But it's unclear if the work itself is truly scoped for that. And to layer on another challenge, my daughter ended up having some complications after birth, not related to pregnancy or delivery, but something that happened that required her to be on a medication for a year, which had a risk of low blood sugar. And so she needed to be fed like every three hours, even throughout the night, because if she was sleeping, it would be unclear because she's just sleeping well, or is it because she's suffering from low blood sugar due to the medication. So even though I had returned to work in what was, you know,
[19:20] effectively a full time role, even though it was considered part time, I was also throughout the night having to wake up every three hours to breastfeed her, even if it was like a dream sleep for her just to make sure that she's not suffering from any low blood sugar. And so it was definitely a very hard time personally and professionally. I kept at it for a couple of years, but definitely experienced a lot of burnout and increasingly began to question why I'm working so hard at something. I don't necessarily feel that passionate about and had a desire for something different. I just didn't yet know what exactly that would be.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[20:08] So did you start looking for something different?
Parul Somani[20:12] So I went through a multi-month journey where I thought I wanted to start my own company. And I think I was approaching it with trying to like keep a toe in each, you know, kind of in and out of the pool where I wanted to start my own thing, but I didn't want to fully leave behind this career at Bain. And so I had negotiated with them to take a sabbatical that I would take a six-month sabbatical and that I would, you know, work on recovering from my burnout. I would work on this idea and that I would then come back to work.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[20:50] Yeah. Is that what you did?
Parul Somani[20:52] No. So what ended up happening is it was going to take some time for me to be able to start this sabbatical because they would need to backfill me and, you know, make sure that the team is prepared to continue serving the client. And in the meantime, there was a summer off-site that I attended. And while it's meant to be an opportunity for, you know, bonding and re-energizing about the company, I ended up having to work that entire off-site and missed most of the fun parts. One of the fun parts I did get to join, I remember feeling like, who are these people? Like all of these friends, like I have so many friends that are lifelong friends at Bain, no longer work there.
[21:42] And I was just looking around and being like, I don't even know a lot of these people anymore. Especially after having my daughter and theoretically being part-time, I became much more disciplined with how much time I spent at work versus getting back to home. And as a result, I was socially less involved in the company. And so two things happened with that off-site. One, I just realized how emotionally detached I felt in terms of camaraderie and affiliation and affinity with the team, the broader company as a whole. And two, not only was I working through the entire off-site, but I also had to take client calls and I missed the company bus back home.
[22:28] And so I needed to take a taxi from Napa and then two hours south to my birthday dinner, which I ended up having to work that entire car ride. I felt completely sick and just nauseous by the time I got to the dinner. And I just started bawling to my husband and realized that I need to quit.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[22:53] Happy birthday.
Parul Somani[22:54] Yes, exactly. Well, I mean, one anecdote that I forgot to even mention is that during this off-site, one part that I did get to attend was the keynote speaker. And something he said deeply resonated with me, which was that he thought of the seven days of the week as each day being about a decade of your working life. And how for him, it was now Saturday of his week. And he was trying to figure out what to do with this next chapter of his life and the impact he wants to leave behind. And I'm sitting there literally on my birthday weekend hearing this talk and trying to figure out, is it Tuesday? Is it Wednesday? Like what day of the week am I on?
[23:37] And am I spending my quote unquote week in a way that fulfills me, in a way that is aligned with what I want. And I think that combined with these other realizations I was having over the off-site led me to go into my birthday dinner feeling not just burnt out, but finally reaching that tipping point that I need something different. And that I don't want to take a sabbatical and have to return back. I actually need to just quit.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[24:08] And so that's what you did.
Parul Somani[24:10] And so that's what I did. I actually ended up quitting with no clarity of what would be next from a career standpoint, which was pretty unnerving because I had been a management consultant now for nine years. And it was not just a job or a role, but it had become an identity. And to figure out what was next felt like starting from scratch.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[24:38] With all that buildup. But then I heard it wasn't long until you got pregnant again.
Parul Somani[24:43] Yes. So that was the other curve ball is that just two weeks after I left this very stable job with great maternity leave benefits I learned I was pregnant with my second daughter.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[24:57] That's a great place to take a break. When we come back we'll find out how that pregnancy went. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Welcome back. We're talking to Parul Somani. Okay. So whatever day of the week it is, you decided it's time to take your exit from the company and the promotion that you'd worked so hard for. And then a little curve ball pregnancy, another baby. I mean, it sounds like you were surprised by it.
Parul Somani[25:34] You know, I probably shouldn't have been because we were trying. It was not a surprise pregnancy. But to learn just two weeks after that I had left was a surprise. And, you know, I think there's some questioning of like, oh, we were trying for a second. Should I have stayed? And yet I think it was time. It had been time to leave the company. It had been time to look for a next chapter of my career. When I left Bain, I thought I would be starting my own company. And yet began to realize that I am actually stronger at taking something that exists and improving it. And so had already shifted to the frame of mind of actually wanting to join a startup.
[26:19] And yet finding out that I'm now pregnant, the idea of recruiting for a startup became a bit challenging because I felt like I don't have all the time in the world to figure it out. I didn't want to have to put everything on pause, wait till the baby's born, and then start this next chapter of my career. But I also didn't want to be in my second trimester trying to recruit for a startup at Silicon Valley. And so I expedited my job search. I got introduced to an early stage startup that wasn't necessarily working in an industry that I was passionate about. But I knew that what I was solving for at that time was a team that I would enjoy working with,
[27:05] a role that would let me shift from being consultant and advisor to actual operator. And I met with this team of women, leadership team, but nobody was a mother. Nobody was a parent that was working at this company. And I remember thinking, I think I want to accept this offer, but I also want to be transparent that I'm just finishing my first trimester. And if that is a problem or if there's any reaction that doesn't feel like full support, then I'll know that this offer is not right for me either. And when I did share the news with the CEO that I'm actually just finishing my first trimester, I remember her response was just this huge smile on her face.
[27:51] And the very first thing she said was, how can we most support you?
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[27:55] Oh, wow, that's nice.
Parul Somani[27:57] Okay. Right away then that, yes, this is the place for me at the stage in my life. And I accepted on the spot.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[28:04] What was your second pregnancy like the other two trimesters?
Parul Somani[28:09] That pregnancy was actually very smooth sailing. There was no concern in terms of needs for non-stress tests or concerns around growth. And it was the pregnancy that we thought would be the smooth experience upon delivery.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[28:32] Was there, I mean, after a C-section, I guess you have two choices to plan for a repeat C or a vaginal birth after cesarean. Did you have one in mind?
Parul Somani[28:43] I did choose to have a repeat C-section. I felt like there's no right answer. It's such a personal decision, but that for the baby, it should be like being served on a silver platter and should be potentially safer for the baby. I don't know, but possibly more dangerous for me. And yet repeat, or not repeat, but a V-back, vaginal birth after C-section carries its own risks. I personally didn't feel so drawn to wanting to try to experience a vaginal birth at that point that I chose to go with a C-section. But we actually never made it to that C-section date.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[29:33] Meaning what happened?
Parul Somani[29:35] Two weeks early, my water broke and I didn't go into labor in terms of contractions, but with the water breaking, did need to go to the hospital and they then had to do the C-section earlier than expected the next morning. But thankfully she was also at 38 weeks by that point and was full term.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[30:01] How did the cesarean go?
Parul Somani[30:04] So that C-section, the surgery itself actually went smoothly. I remember the night before just feeling so calm, which was such a contrast to my first delivery. My motor had broken and so there was the excitement and anxiety around that part. But once I got admitted to the hospital, it was about 10 p.m. at night. They said there's no rush and that they want to wait till morning for the C-section. And so that evening was actually very peaceful. I didn't have that same fear going into it as I had had with my first. And it was calm in the way that I was able to tell all my family members, this is when the surgery is, this is when to come. My now toddler daughter was excited
[30:52] for what was meant to be a birthday party that she was going to throw her little sister. And there was just a lot of excitement about my second daughter's arrival and how we were going to celebrate as a family together. The surgery itself went smoothly. They put her on skin to skin just like they had my first. I sang the same songs to her as she was on skin to skin like I had my first. And later they took me to the, I don't know if it was the recovery room or they took me to the room where I would be able to attempt my first breastfeeding with her. And she latched immediately. And it was beautiful because I felt like after what had been so hard
[31:40] of a breastfeeding journey with my first, I was now delivering at a different hospital one with much bigger recovery rooms, one with no pressure to pump right away. And the breastfeeding had worked right away. And I just felt like everything had come together the way I had hoped.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[31:58] Sounds dreamy.
Parul Somani[32:01] It sounds dreamy. But then right after I finished breastfeeding and I gave her back to the nurse, the nurse was swaddling her back and seemed to notice something in terms of how my baby was breathing. And she didn't seem panicked about it at all. She actually very calmly just said, I'm going to take her back to the nursery and we will let you go back to your main recovery room and we'll bring her there soon. And so we didn't have any particular reason to be concerned. We were like, sounds great. We go back, my whole family's waiting and time just keeps passing and she hasn't been brought back. And about 15, 20 minutes later, my husband goes to the nursery to check in.
[32:55] And when he returns, I'll never forget that expression on his face. He's just so pale and distraught. And it turns out that when she had been taken back to the nursery, she had actually been having trouble breathing and she had stopped breathing and they had to intubate her. They had to intubate her with a breathing tube and my husband witnessed his newborn daughter have a breathing tube put down her mouth and she was being put into a little incubator and the doctor said, we don't know what's going on. It could be something neurological or it could be something cardiac related and that she needs to be taken to a NICU so we can run a bunch of tests.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[33:49] Wow, that's so scary.
Parul Somani[33:51] It was incredibly scary because we had no idea what was going on and it seemed like the doctors didn't even know what was going on either. And unfortunately, this particular hospital had no acute NICU. And so they were saying that they were going to need to ambulance transport her to another hospital up in the city which just turned out to be the exact same hospital that my first daughter had been born in which I had specifically been trying to avoid.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[34:25] Do you go together with the baby or do you get separated?
Parul Somani[34:30] So that was the crazy thing initially is that they said I couldn't go because I had just had a C-section that I would need to stay here and that my husband and newborn would be taken to that hospital. And I said over my dead body, am I not going as well? So upon some insistence, they then arranged for a second ambulance. So my mother came with me in one ambulance and my husband went with my newborn.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[34:59] Wow.
Parul Somani[35:00] We were transported an hour away to this acute NICU. My husband shared with me later how his mind was spiraling during that entire ambulance ride wondering what might be possibly-
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[35:14] Even my mind is spiraling right now.
Parul Somani[35:16] 100%, right? Because you have now just been essentially told by the doctor that there could be something neurologically wrong or otherwise. And his entire thought process is wondering should he leave his job? Are we going to have a child with needs that require more attention? There's just lots of questions and no answers. And even that ambulance ride was a debacle because my ambulance took us to the wrong place twice.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[35:46] Oh my goodness.
Parul Somani[35:47] And I remember being like- Well, first they took us to the wrong- The hospital has multiple locations and they took us to one of the wrong locations. So then we're just like totally in the wrong part of the city literally the hospital and building. And then they finally get us to the right building but then to the wrong entrance. And so they have to get back in the ambulance and drive us to another part. And I just remember thinking oh my God, if I was dying right now I don't think I would even meet it to getting the treatment that I needed because that was just so unacceptable.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[36:22] Right, so I guess at the same time this mystery is happening with your baby you're also having your own health concern at the same time. And that also, you know it seems like an impossible juggle. Let's take a break. We're going to do a whole other episode to find out what happened with your baby and what happened with you. You know, we're going to have episode two with Paolo Soleimani. Join us.
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“And I think that lack of a personalized approach is what's getting women into trouble and why so many are really slipping through the cracks because what's normal for one is certainly not for another.”
“you have a billion sensors I don't have.”
“I like to say as soon as she got out of my toxic womb, she thrived.”
“And if something doesn't seem right, listen to your instincts, talk to your provider about it.”
“It's okay to push back because this is your health, this is your life, this is your baby's life and nobody has the right to tell you that your question doesn't matter or that it's not important.”
AI-generated transcript with speaker labels — may contain errors, especially names and medical terms. Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC appears in blue; Lia Butler in orange.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[0:00] My guest today spent years caring for mothers and babies, first as a nurse, then in NICU and maternal health spaces, but during her own pregnancy she found herself in the unexpected position of having to fight to be heard. What started as a feeling that something wasn't quite right turned into a powerful lesson about trusting your instincts, understanding your body, and advocating for your care during pregnancy. Now she's using that experience to help improve maternal health and educate women everywhere about recognizing warning signs and asking better questions. I'm pregnancy-focused chiropractor Dr. Elliott Berlin, and you're listening to the
[0:36] Informed Pregnancy podcast. Leah Butler, welcome to the podcast.
Lia Butler[0:56] Thank you for having me.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[0:57] My pleasure. I mean, your mission and mine are the same. Education is information, is power, and we need to take the power into our own in today's health care system in general and for the perinatal time in particular. You've had quite a journey, so let's start at the beginning. Where are you from and what first drew you to babies and health care?
Lia Butler[1:18] Yeah, so I'm from Princeton, New Jersey. I live there now with my two children and my husband. And I've sort of always had a special interest in babies and birth and motherhood. And so I very naturally, I think, focused on building a family, but also building a career that centered in that space. So that's really where it began. And shortly after I got married, I had my first baby. And that was right after graduating from Drexel University. I have a degree in health administration from there. And yeah, I just started my journey into motherhood and my career sort of simultaneously.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[1:58] What was the plan with that degree?
Lia Butler[2:01] Well, in working within the hospital and the health care system in general, I very quickly noticed that there were some holes in the infrastructure. There was a lack of innovation and there's a lot of issues within the health care system that were really a detriment to patients. And I thought, you know, if I can get involved on the administrative side and later, you know, on the innovation side, I can help to sort of fill some of the gaps that impact patient care and ultimately patient outcomes.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[2:30] Up until that point, had you had a personal experience where you felt the deficit of the system or you're just aware of it as somebody who's curious and doing research?
Lia Butler[2:40] You know, in retrospect, I think that I experienced some deficits of the health system, both myself and family and friends, but I wasn't really aware of them at the time. And I think that's because as patients and people, you know, we have this implicit trust in the health care system and our health care providers. And so I didn't really ask a lot of questions when decisions were made around my health care and, you know, my path that I would take as far as my health care was concerned. But looking back, I realized that there were mistakes made, there were things missed, and that's not, you know, to fault anybody in particular. But I think the system itself is really setting both clinicians and
[3:18] patients up for failure at times.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[3:20] I agree. And, you know, I remember grandparents and even parents to a degree saying, just do whatever your doctor tells you. But it's not quite that simple. Certainly not today. There's everybody in the health care system is pulled in a lot of direction. Some of them are directions that would benefit you, and some of them are directions that won't benefit you. Unless you're an active participant, it's a little bit hard to know which choices are being made because of your benefit and which choices are being made for somebody else's benefit. So I agree with you a lot. While you were in college, you met your husband pretty young, huh?
Lia Butler[3:54] Yeah, yeah. I was 20 when I met him. And yeah, we met and we were married within about two and a half years of meeting. We both wanted to rush to the altar and start our family. That was a priority for both of us.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[4:07] Wow. Not the way you see it generally these days.
Lia Butler[4:11] Yeah. It's an old school.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[4:13] How was the first attempt at childbirth?
Lia Butler[4:17] Well, my pregnancy was great up until when I gave birth. My water broke and I was in labor. I chose a natural birth. So I was in natural labor for 24 hours. And then my son started to have some decelerations. And unfortunately, I ended up in an emergency C-section. So everything was OK until the end. But he is healthy and he's now 13. All's well that ends well, I guess, too.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[4:42] Exactly. How was postpartum from that pregnancy?
Lia Butler[4:46] Postpartum was OK. I think, again, in retrospect, I definitely experienced a lot of postpartum anxiety and intrusive thoughts. And maybe even some of the baby blues. I was very happy to be a new mom. I wasn't as overwhelmed as I had expected. I kind of just fell into it nicely. Breastfeeding went OK. And in general, it was a great experience. But the intrusive thoughts and the anxiety that I experienced really took over a lot of my days. And I was ashamed of it. I didn't talk to a lot of family and friends about it. I thought I kind of just had these crazy thoughts. And as I've gotten older and just talking to friends about their experiences post-birth,
[5:25] I realize it's incredibly common to have these things happen. And so I think it's important that we do everything that we can to make it part of the conversation so women don't feel alone in that postpartum period, especially when they're not feeling like themselves.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[5:38] Yeah. In my office, I see a lot more support for things that come up pregnancy-related and not so much for postpartum. And so I think very often women feel alone or like it's just them. And like you said, sort of embarrassed or ashamed to talk about it so they don't get support. And it's unfortunate because a little bit of support goes a long way.
Lia Butler[5:59] Yeah, I agree.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[6:00] You're already advocating in a way that I think is super important. And we are, too, we're working on a new series called The Fourth Try, all about shining the spotlight on the fourth trimester, the first 12 weeks or 13 weeks after the baby comes. For you, during that time, you started to work a little bit more in a maternal and neonatal setting. Tell me about that.
Lia Butler[6:22] Yeah, so I started working with a med tech startup focused on feeding predictions or personalized feeding plans for neonates. So it wasn't a prediction, but what they did was they took all of the disparate data that was in the EMR. And with that, it helped informed a very personalized feeding plan for neonates and very low birth weight infants. So to help maximize their growth and things like that. Company was very progressive for its time in that it really processed the data well and helped with this personalized approach to medicine. And that was really my first experience with personalized medicine. And I saw very quickly what an impact that could have.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[7:03] You're working in personalized medicine around babies
Lia Butler[7:06] around the same time you're having a baby. Yeah, actually, I started with that company
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[7:12] just after I had my second baby. After your second baby. Okay, well, let's talk about that second pregnancy. Something there didn't feel right to you at some point, what happened?
Lia Butler[7:26] Yeah, again, I had a fairly normal pregnancy. Looking back, there were some signs that there could be some trouble looming ahead. For example, at my 20 week anatomy scan, the baby was measuring small and I was seen a few times by maternal fetal medicine just to make sure that the baby was growing okay. And my daughter, her name is Ray, she was growing, but slowly. And so they just kept a closer eye on me. Now we know that that can lead to preeclampsia, but I digress.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[7:57] How far apart are the kids?
Lia Butler[7:59] They are five years.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[8:01] Okay, so you have a five year old.
Lia Butler[8:03] Yeah, I do at that time.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[8:05] Yeah. And do you feel like the health providers around you were giving you reassuring responses to why the baby was small?
Lia Butler[8:16] You know, at the time I did, I felt like I was being managed well. What I was not receiving was education on why that could be happening and what it could mean. So just throughout my pregnancy, I noticed that there was just a lack of patient education in general about what I should be looking out for, signs and symptoms. And I think it was almost an inconvenience. The more I knew or the more questions I asked because that created, I think, more of a burden on the doctor's office. Having to manage my questions and spend time answering them, they were overrun with patients. And so I feel like that was really lacking.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[8:53] I mean, that's an observation that the system's just not set up for spending time with you. Like we have a very short amount of time. We need you to pee in this cup, measure your belly. Very little time for chit chat, so to speak. But you have concerns and the baby's not growing the way your first one was growing. And it sounds like your questions were not really being answered or you weren't just given a lot of information. And then your story takes a turn. We're gonna take a quick commercial break and we come back. We'll talk about how Leah's instincts during that pregnancy ultimately changed the course of her life. We'll be right back.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[9:45] Welcome back. We are talking to Leah Butler. Okay, so we're talking about your second pregnancy of a five-year-old at home. The baby's measuring on the smaller side, which has you concerned and doing research and asking questions. Nobody really has time for your questions and you're not getting a ton of information. Aside from the baby being small, were there any other signs that something might be up?
Lia Butler[10:10] Well, towards the end of my pregnancy, I would say after 30 weeks, I noticed that my weight gain was increasing. I mean, more so than the first. I carry a lot of weight when I'm pregnant, so it didn't cause too much concern for me, but I felt very swollen and I felt like my body was struggling. And I thought, hey, maybe it's just cause I'm approaching 30, whatever it may be. And then on the other side, my baseline blood pressure when I began pregnancy and throughout my first pregnancy after and before the second was about 110 over 70, give or take. And I noticed that my blood pressure, I know it's a good ball. I don't have that blood pressure anymore.
[10:45] I'm jealous of that girl too. I mean, I noticed it started to creep up, 120 over 80, then 124 over 86. And I was-
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[10:55] Is this at the doctor's office
Lia Butler[10:56] or are you taking it at home? I was not monitoring my blood pressure at home yet at that point. I began to once it started to creep up a bit and I wasn't really diligent about doing it every day, but just once in a while, if I wouldn't feel well, I would check it. And it wasn't super high, but it was starting to creep up. And I knew that that was getting to the point where it was a good amount over my baseline. And when I would inquire about it at the doctor, they would just tell me that is a normal blood pressure. They did not take into consideration what my baseline was. And so what was hypertension developing for me, they just called it a normal blood pressure.
[11:35] So yeah.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[11:36] It makes a big difference just to explain at home. Like if your normal is let's say 100 over 60, that may be low for the average, but that's your normal. If all of a sudden it's 120 over 80, that's high for you. And that makes a difference.
Lia Butler[11:52] Yep. And I think that lack of a personalized approach is what's getting women into trouble and why so many are really slipping through the cracks because what's normal for one is certainly not for another.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[12:03] Yeah. So did they recommend that you monitor at home or this is your own initiative?
Lia Butler[12:07] I actually asked if I should be monitoring my blood pressure at home. And they told me, no, that's just gonna make me anxious. More questions that we don't have time for.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[12:17] Exactly, yeah, exactly.
Lia Butler[12:19] Don't do it.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[12:20] Right.
Lia Butler[12:21] But I didn't listen, so.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[12:23] You're monitoring, you see it going up, you're swelling, you're gaining weight, even though the baby's smaller.
Lia Butler[12:29] Yep.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[12:30] And to you these mean something, but for your doctor they're within the realm of normal until at some point they aren't. When do things change?
Lia Butler[12:39] Yeah, so I went to my doctor's appointment, my 34 week appointment, I believe, and my blood pressure was very high for me. I think it was mid 140s over 90 something. I also had significant weight gain since the previous couple of weeks and they dipped my urine, they put the urine dipstick on the counter and there I sat waiting for my OBGYN to come in. And when she came in, she assessed me, we chatted for a minute, she was rushing and she said, okay, you're good to come back for next week. And I said, wait, what about my high blood pressure? And she said, well, it's normal that your blood pressure creeps up at the end of pregnancy. And while I had been waiting,
[13:17] I checked my dipstick and I noticed there was protein in my urine.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[13:20] You looked at your own?
Lia Butler[13:21] I looked at my own, yeah.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[13:23] Okay.
Lia Butler[13:24] Now, we know that high blood pressure plus protein in the urine equals preeclampsia. I didn't know that at the time, otherwise I would have pushed a little bit harder. I was a little bit less informed about preeclampsia. So then I said to the doctor, hey, did anybody have a look at my dipstick? And she said, yeah, and everything's fine. I said, well, I don't think it is. There's protein in my urine. And she got really defensive and almost upset with me that I had looked at it myself. And I will never forget it. She said, well, those aren't the only indicators of preeclampsia. So you're fine, I'll see you next week. And she sent me home and I felt teeny tiny.
[14:01] I felt like I had zero control over my health and I felt stupid. And I think that's where just a lot of women go home. They accept what they're told. And again, that's where the danger is like.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[14:12] So. I'm sorry. Something I always tell my patients is you have a billion sensors I don't have. Like even, it looks like the dashboard warning lights were going off anyway.
Lia Butler[14:22] Yeah.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[14:23] Preeclampsia in this pregnancy and nobody was looking at the dashboard. But even outside of that, like you felt it on the inside. You had a pregnancy that felt different and that was healthy and normal pregnancy. Now you have another pregnancy that's feeling different to you. We can never discount those sensors that are going off inside that we don't have access to that only you do. I'm sorry that, not just that you were sort of brushed aside, but that it made you feel so, like you said, stupid or inadequate. I'm sorry.
Lia Butler[14:51] Well, thank you. And yeah. And I also honestly, looking back, I feel bad for the clinicians that are sort of put into the position where they're maybe a bit short-tempered and overworked and overrun, because I think it puts them in a position where they're almost negligent sometimes and that's really unfortunate. So I feel for them as well.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[15:10] Do, I mean, I'm in the healthcare system and I know it's broken. And I know that the model, insurance is always trying to pay for as little as possible. Everybody wants to go, myself included, two practitioners who take my insurance, but then I get frustrated when they don't have time for me. But in order to pay all the bills and make a living, they have to see a lot of people in a short period of time. So it's not a great system. And so you are sent home with dashboard signs of preeclampsia going off that we're not paying attention to. What happens after that?
Lia Butler[15:44] So I went home. I had a hair appointment, actually. I had my hair done in my friend's kitchen and she was looking at me going, are you okay? You don't look good. And I just really did not feel good. And I was experiencing abdominal pain and I really can't explain the feeling, but I almost felt like I was dying. And I thought, man, pregnancy as you approach 30 is not as fun as when you're 25.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[16:04] Oh my gosh. Most people are thinking about pregnancy for the first time at 30. So you're still young.
Lia Butler[16:10] Yeah, for today's standards, for sure. So I went home and I thought, okay, I need to check my blood pressure, obviously. So I checked it and it was scary high. I don't remember exactly what the number was, but it was over 200, over 90 something. So it was scary.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[16:27] It's amazing that your friend was able to see it without any of the indicators, just to see it on your face and in your movements and your personality change.
Lia Butler[16:38] Yeah, and my face was about as big as the moon. I had just this classic swelling in my face that I think is a telltale sign that preeclampsia could be developing in some cases.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[16:49] So what did you do?
Lia Butler[16:51] So I woke up my husband who had just taken some melatonin to sleep with. And I said, hey, we gotta go to the hospital. I don't think I'm okay. I called my OBGYN's office. They were very dismissive. They said to wait, take my blood pressure again in a little while. They didn't think I needed to come in. And I insisted that I come in and be evaluated. So, I mean, they didn't have a choice at that point. So I went in and as soon as the nurses put their eyes on me and started taking my blood pressure and assessing me, they sent some blood work out, stat. And it was very clear that I was very unwell. I was presenting with severe features of preeclampsia
[17:34] and they immediately put me on a magnesium drip to prevent seizures. And my baby was out within an hour of arriving. C-section.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[17:43] Yeah, it's the emergency C-section. So at this like 35 or 36 weeks?
Lia Butler[17:48] I was about 35 weeks at that point
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[17:50] towards the end of my 35th week, yeah. Wow, that's really intense.
Lia Butler[17:56] Yeah, and because she was growth restricted anyway, she was super tiny when she came out. So, and she was, yeah, she was just four pounds but then she lost some weight. So she was three something, I think, at one point.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[18:13] I'm trying to think of all the things
Lia Butler[18:14] in my life that are three pounds.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[18:16] Not many.
Lia Butler[18:18] Yeah, yeah, she fit in the palm of my hand. She was very, very tiny. But, you know, as soon as she came out, she did cry and she was struggling to breathe a bit. So they whisked her away to the NICU. They did show her to me very briefly and away she went when I was separated from her for about eight hours or so, which was absolutely brutal.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[18:41] A hard transition for both of you.
Lia Butler[18:43] Yeah, very, very hard. And, you know, just not the way you want your birth to go. But like you said, all's well that ends well. I mean, I like to say as soon as she got out of my toxic womb, she thrived. I must have a sense of humor about it.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[18:57] I mean, how long was she in the NICU for?
Lia Butler[18:59] She was there for a couple of weeks, maybe a little bit less than a couple of weeks until they got her to, you know, be eating and breathing and just growing a bit, passing her car seat tests and all those things. I was in the hospital for a bit too, I think a little over a week. They were having…
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[19:16] What was your recovery like?
Lia Butler[19:19] It was terrible. They had a really hard time controlling my blood pressure post-birth. And I was on a… Yeah, I was on a magnesium drip multiple times during my stay. And there was one point where I, you know, had shortness of breath, I couldn't breathe. And it was scary. They had the crunch card outside of my room. And having worked at that hospital and knowing what all the bells and alarms and announcements mean, the codes, it was terrifying. But you know, they did release me after some time. And when I went home, they put me on some blood pressure meds and I could not manage my own blood pressure at home. It was brutal. I would either be bottoming out
[20:00] or I would be super, super high. And when I would call my OB-GYN office, they told me I no longer had… They were basically done managing me. And this was now chronic hypertension and to talk to my primary. My primary would tell me, we don't really know what to do with you. Here's some… I think they put me on like Lasix to try to get some of the water weight gone. That didn't help. So I went to a cardiologist, they put me on meds and they just could never figure out, what my issue was. And I just felt alone. And it was a really scary time. I was afraid that something was gonna happen to me. And I'm glad I didn't know then what I know now, which is that maternal mortality often happens
[20:41] in the six week postpartum period. That's when it's most common, not during birth. So I think I would have been more terrified.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[20:48] This is with a five-year-old at home, Angel Horn in the NICU at the hospital and recovering from surgery.
Lia Butler[20:56] Luckily she was home with me at that point, but yeah, it was horrible. This went on for weeks and weeks. And-
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[21:03] Super high blood pressure and super low are both scary. And you expect that you have a doctor who's like, don't worry, this is, we're gonna take care of this. But it sounds like everybody's passing you off or doesn't know what to do with you.
Lia Butler[21:17] Yeah, they were, I would say annoyed with me that I was experiencing this, which felt like it was my fault. Like I had done something wrong. But with my baby thriving, despite what was happening with me, that helped me get through that time. And then luckily I found a hypertensive nephrologist who was able to help me determine that my kidneys had experienced some damage from the preeclampsia, my kidney tubules. So they were a bit narrowed, which sometimes makes my blood pressure go up really, really high. So he found the right meds for me. And over time with diet and a lot of cardio, a lot of exercise, it's fairly managed now. But sometimes when my kidneys are under stress,
[22:00] it does go up and there's not much I could do about it. So.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[22:03] Yeah, several years later.
Lia Butler[22:04] Several years later, yeah. And we know now that women who experience preeclampsia have faced earlier mortality, have a much higher possibility of cardiovascular disease, stroke, heart attack. So that's sort of a scary looming thing. But I do everything that I can to manage my health. And take matters into my own hands and make sure that I'm as healthy as possible. So that way that doesn't happen. But there's just a lot of unknowns there.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[22:32] Well, you're here today because the experience has sort of turned you into an advocate and someone who wants to help empower other people to not end up in the same situation and to find their voice and to speak up and to use the tools that are available to diagnose and respond as quickly as possible when things come up. We're gonna take another quick commercial break. And when we come back, we'll talk about how Leah transformed this experience into both advocacy and innovation in maternal health. We'll be right back. Welcome back. We are talking to Leah Butler. What a scary story. And also I think probably not terribly uncommon partially because of the cracks in the system.
[23:28] You were able to fall through one of those cracks and not be treated in a timely fashion. And perhaps as a result have sort of lifelong deficits because of it. Although thankfully you and your kids are relatively healthy, it could have gone better. So how did that experience lead you into the work that you're doing now?
Lia Butler[23:49] Well, I knew that I loved really working in med tech specifically in the perinatal space, whether it be neonatal or maternal applications. And I was looking for what was gonna be next for me. And I knew I wanted to work and do something around advancing innovation around preeclampsia and to help protect women and children. And I came across a company called Neo Predics and I met them at several industry events. And I knew that they were in the beginning stages of creating a preeclampsia prediction. So immediately I reached out, I let them know that I was in the market to work with a company like them. And serendipitously they were in the market
[24:31] for somebody like me. And we began our journey of working together.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[24:36] What excites you most about healthcare technology
Lia Butler[24:39] and where it's heading? Well, I think we're in the middle of a healthcare technology boom in a lot of ways. I think for a long time when we said the word AI it scared people because it was almost like this robot that was gonna be making decisions and you weren't gonna have a lot of control. But as we've seen technology be applied to every other area of our life in very big ways in healthcare it's still very much lacking. And so I think now that within the healthcare space the term AI and predictive medicine and personalized medicine, as we are getting used to those terms and clinicians are more open to the idea and the healthcare system, regulators,
[25:20] insurance companies, it's something that they're more open to. We're gonna be seeing lots of these prediction and personalized tools impacting outcomes for all populations. But what excites me the most is of course the application for women and children.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[25:34] Yeah, for sure. And it does seem like it would be kind of a tragedy not to apply AI to healthcare. Like when you see how much faster we can get results in all the other areas of life, why wouldn't we do that with healthcare? Can you tell me more about the company that you're with and what tools they have and what they're working on?
Lia Butler[25:55] Yeah, so the company I'm working with is called Neopredix. They're a Swiss German company spin off from the University of Basel in Switzerland. And we have a subsidiaries in German and the United States in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. So it's a predictive analytics company. We forecast the risk of various health conditions under the maternal neonatal perinatal umbrella. And our first sort of go-to-market solution was a jaundice predictor. So we're able to forecast what we call dynamic bilirubin progression up to 60 hours into the future. And this was sort of our proof of concept which helped us to understand if these types of predictions were helpful.
[26:33] And what we found was that in fact they are because jaundice, although it's thought of as a fairly benign condition, which at times it's not and it's very common and there are ways to treat it and blood tests to know that it's happening. It creates a lot of burden, especially in the United States where there's traditionally 24 hour discharge practices after birth. So we're able to determine which babies will become jaundice later to help reduce unnecessary treatment testing procedures, get good candidates for early discharge out of the hospital and prevent readmissions. So yeah, that's how we- It makes a difference.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[27:10] Makes a big difference. And what other tests do you have?
Lia Butler[27:14] Our latest algorithm that we've hit the market with is called pre-free. Obviously this is the one I'm very, very excited about because it's our preeclampsia predictor. And we're not just predicting preeclampsia but we're predicting severe features of preeclampsia. So say if you have 10 women who are deemed high risk, we can determine which two out of those 10 women will go on to develop severe features. And in a system where there's a bit of a crisis around maternal health deserts, for example and clinicians are overrun with patients like what happened with me, if we know who to focus our time, attention and resources on, then women will not slip
[27:53] through the cracks. So we are now live in Europe with that solution. We're working on our FDA approval which we will have by the end of this year. We're also working on our launch in the UK. And pretty soon I truly believe that we will be making a real impact on the maternal mortality crisis.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[28:10] That's really exciting. I'm curious about the test. Is it a blood test and when do you do it?
Lia Butler[28:18] So we look at various factors. So things like blood pressure, weight, routinely collected clinical data along with a biomarker test that a split PLG1 ratio it's called. And so that's looking at two placental derived proteins and looking at the ratio when the ratio becomes too great then it can indicate preeclampsia could be developing. So all of those factors we take into consideration when we make our predictions. I'm sorry, what was your second question?
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[28:44] Oh, when can it be done?
Lia Butler[28:46] Yep, so it's usually done late second trimester and beyond in pregnancy and really when preeclampsia is most common to be developing. And then there's also this remote patient monitoring component. So for example, if we say, okay, this woman appears to be fairly safe. She's not gonna be developing any severe features of the disease. We're also monitoring her from home. So there's this warning system that gets sent to her doctor should things start to change because she'll be inputting blood pressures and things like that while at home.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[29:16] Have doctors been receptive?
Lia Butler[29:18] Yes. So originally when we were building our prediction we wanted to do a first trimester predictor. And what we found was that clinicians they didn't like that too much because although it's obviously beneficial to have the information there's not a lot that they could do with the information. So when they have it as it's closer to the time that they can be developing it's easier to manage it. And it also puts some safeguards in place for them because they're not having to see as many patients in the hospital or manage a lot of inpatients. Hospitals don't have women taking up beds for just observation. And so in general, the response that we're getting is very positive
[29:57] because we're truly solving a problem and making their life easier while ensuring that women get to stay home and manage their pregnancy from home unless there's a true issue.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[30:07] One thing I really like about your message is it's more about partnership, not really about fear.
Lia Butler[30:13] Yeah, exactly. And I mean, preeclampsia is scary and we don't want to be fear-mongering in any way of course, but having the knowledge, education and the direct communication with your provider is the most important thing as far as protecting yourself from getting into a scary situation.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[30:31] What would you want someone who's pregnant
Lia Butler[30:34] and listening right now to take away from your message? I think simple education, educating yourself, reading, really understanding how to protect yourself throughout your pregnancy, buying a blood pressure cuff, which is incredibly cheap and just monitoring it once a day, twice a day at home and be really aware of what your body is doing. And if something doesn't seem right, listen to your instincts, talk to your provider about it. And if they're not giving you the answer that you deserve or that you feel like is satisfying your question, then keep asking and keep asking other doctors. It's okay to push back because this is your health, this is your life, this is your baby's life
[31:14] and nobody has the right to tell you that your question doesn't matter or that it's not important. So I think self-advocacy is the number one message that I'd like all women to really keep with them throughout their pregnancy journey.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[31:26] Yeah, I wonder if you agree, but I always encourage partners to be, to listen to the podcast as well and to watch our content on informedpregnancy.tv as well because I think a lot of times we are around you and we can see changes that happen and be among the first to recognize that something's different and pointed out and then also become an advocate for you or somebody that if you feel changes and you tell us, your partner, that we also then can become an advocate for you, but we also need information to empower us to advocate better. So I wonder if you feel that way too.
Lia Butler[32:07] I agree with that. Absolutely, I think educating your partner and having them just have a general understanding of what to look for is a great safeguard to have in place and it helps them to be involved and support their partner throughout their pregnancy journey and then also be a support in the event that they feel like they're not getting the care that they deserve.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[32:28] Do you at the company have new products in development? You must.
Lia Butler[32:33] Yeah, so we're definitely working on our next set of predictive algorithms. Obviously right now we're focusing on our pre-free launch and developing our postpartum preeclampsia predictor, so that will be our next focus and then some other neonatal applications are in the works, but we haven't released any of that information yet, so I'll hold that back for now.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[32:52] I guess we're gonna have to have you back when it's not top secret anymore. Leah, thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your story. I'm sorry that it happened to you the way it did. I'm glad that you and your kids are okay.
Lia Butler[33:07] Thank you.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[33:08] You know, it's always awesome to see somebody go through that and then stand up and brush yourself off and say, I'm not gonna let this happen to other people. So it's really a joy to host you on the podcast. Before we go, where can our listeners find you online?
Lia Butler[33:25] A few places. So you can find me always on LinkedIn, Leah Butler, L-I-A-B-U-T-L-E-R, and I'm often sharing information about preeclampsia, about neopredics and what our company is doing. So feel free to reach out to me there. And also I have a TikTok and the handle is, Hey, it's Leah Butler. And there I share information about preeclampsia and about pregnancy, how to advocate for yourself, how to keep yourself safe throughout your pregnancy. And I interact with women every day where they kind of share concerns and I help them navigate, you know, their advocacy journey within their pregnancy. So please reach out and I'd love to connect with you.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[34:03] Amazing. Thank you again and at home. Thanks for listening to the Informed Pregnancy podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends. It's really important content. And leave us a five-star review wherever you listen to your podcasts. For more pregnancy and parenting information just like this, visit us online at informedpregnancy.com.
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