How can society better support people during life’s most vulnerable moments? After working in justice centered philanthropy, motherhood unexpectedly changed things for Eboni Nash. She’s the director of development at 4th Trimester, an organization helping new moms and growing families find care and community.
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.
“I saw a mom holding a baby and I was like, if anyone understands me, it's going to be this organization.”
“Becoming a mom and losing your mom, you lose a lot of that pass on grace.”
“We really believe postpartum care is essential health care. We believe that providing financial stability is postpartum care. And we believe parenting is essential labor that must be supported.”
“It's really okay to just be you. Every little piece of you is very much okay. And it's okay to just be enough in motherhood. You don't have to strive to be perfect.”
AI-generated transcript with speaker labels — may contain errors, especially names and medical terms. Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC appears in blue; Eboni Nash in orange.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[0:00] My guest today has spent her career asking how institutions and communities can better support people during life's most vulnerable moments. After working in justice-centered philanthropy, motherhood unexpectedly changed the course for her and her own career. Today she's the director of development at Fourth Try, a non-profit helping new moms and growing families find care, resources, and community when they need it most. I'm pregnancy-focused chiropractor Dr. Elia Berlin, and you're listening to the Informed Pregnancy Podcast. Ebony Nash, welcome to the podcast. Hi, thank you. My pleasure. I'm so excited to talk to you and learn more. Before we get into motherhood
[0:55] and your own seismic shift, let's start at the beginning. Where are you from originally? I'm originally from a really small town in Colorado called Eads, Colorado. About 600 people
Eboni Nash[1:07] live there. Are there any institutions? Is there the proverbial red light? Is there a saloon, a gas station? There is a gas station. I think we have two now. There's no red lights. I think there's maybe 14 streets. Very small, small town. What is that like growing up in such a small town? It's cozy. I would say it's slow compared to Los Angeles life. Very slow. You know your neighbor. You know what they drive. You know the house they live in. Your math teacher might also be your softball coach during the summer. I would say it's cozy. It's a really cozy way of growing up. Do people have animals and stuff? That kind of small town? Yeah. Actually, I raised several goats, I think, at a time. Maybe a hundred or so goats
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[1:56] at a time. It's kind of just what people do. FFA, 4-H, farming, just being involved. Sports is big in that community. You obviously flew the coop. Is it something like when you grew up in that size town, you just can't wait to get out to a bigger city? Or did you leave begrudgingly? I think it was really I just couldn't wait to get out and
Eboni Nash[2:19] experience life. I definitely had some learnings to do in a different space. I wanted to learn about different culture. I think diversity was a big one. Not very diverse in a small town. So being a black and indigenous woman growing up in a small town, I wanted to experience what it was like to be around others as well. People more like you. So where did you go? I actually didn't go far. I went to Hastings, Nebraska. I went there for track and field in college. So I did get a full ride scholarship to go do track and field there. What did you study? I did a really interesting track. I started off doing a major in psychology and then I ended up adding on two more majors. So I triple majored. I did psychology, religion
[3:06] and criminology were my three. Yeah. First of all, three is well, but what a powerful combination. What kind of led to that combo? I think it was very organic. I was trying to decide what part of psychology I really liked. I liked the criminology part. I am a child of an incarcerated parent. So I always felt the need to learn more about the system. And then I took religion because I went to a liberal arts school and it was a requirement to kind of double dabble in the degrees. And so I took a religion class and felt very interested in medieval Christianity and just the creation overall of the church. And yeah, I decided to combine them all three and they've worked out really well so far. Well, okay. I'm going to
[3:50] find out later where you go with that. But did all three influence what you're doing now? Did they kind of work as a trio united? Yeah, I think so. I ended up going to get my masters at Harvard Divinity School and there I was able to study a little bit about black liberation theology and institutional structures. So I learned that the church had a hand in the creation of almost everything we experience today. So the creation of the economic system, the prison system, school, taxation, pretty much everything that we experience on a day to day, the church had a hand in it. And I really enjoyed learning how it started and also how it's changed and influenced hardships or benefits for some people today.
[4:36] Right. I mean, does that combination help you see the flaws in the system? Definitely. I think so. I think especially liberation theology, you learn how the system specifically oppressed a certain subset of individuals. So black liberation theology, I studied on the culture of the black and African diaspora, but then also like the women's theology, queer theology, things like that. You learn about how the system shifted to better support one over another body of people. Yeah. I mean, you have a lot of potential tools at your disposal coming out of that type of training and what path did you take it? Yeah. I actually saw that money was less about good and bad, but really it was the
[5:20] mobilizer of morale and value. And so if you have a lot of money, you can do really good things with it. And if you have a lot of money, you can also choose to redo really bad things with it. So I decided to go down the pathway of development and realize that by appealing to people and creating community with individuals, we can start fixing the systems one after another through the reallocation of money. And is that what you were doing work-wise? Yeah. That's actually what I started. I started development honestly in 2015 and I've been part of the development philanthropic track ever since then. So a little over 10 years now. Tell me more about it. What does that mean?
[6:00] I've started working with organizations and supporting very small. My first start, I started in college and I started working with food insecurity organizations, raising money to get food to children in middle schools and high schools that were food insecure. I then moved into the reentry and carceral space. I found that to be a passion of mine since I am a child of an incarcerated parent helping organizations that help currently informally incarcerated people get money. Also talking to people and educating them on why this is a good thing to invest into and how their money would support further correction and stop something that is so cyclical and hurting people day to day. So prison system,
[6:43] food insecurity, I've helped several different organizations do incredible things just through the power of grant writing and appealing to donors. After all of your study and your work in the field, did you have a better understanding of having an incarcerated parent? Absolutely. I think especially going into school, I held like a resentment of just growing up with just my mom as a single parent. And I resented my dad for a lot of things, but I also had a sore spot in my heart with the system. Then after doing a little bit of studies and doing a little bit of deep dive at the history of the system and the many things that can get someone wound up in the position that my dad was, I started to empathize with it a lot more
[7:28] and realized that there is something I can do to help people who might be in the same situation or who aren't there yet, but could see themselves going into the same place. So I dedicated a lot of my time, my studies and my effort in helping create and restructure systems that can better support people who might have found their place like mine.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[7:48] That's powerful, right? So you're helping really the whole family, essentially the whole community when you do that. Up until this point, you've been building a career around helping other people and communities, and then life became a little more personal when you became a mother
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[8:04] yourself. Let's take a little break and we'll be right back. Welcome back. You're listening to the Informed Pregnancy Podcast and we're talking to Ebony Nash. Okay, so you're doing all this incredible work and now you're in Hastings, must be huge compared to where you grew up, but also not a very big town. I wonder because my wife is a psychologist and she did her internship at University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a lot of the issues that students were dealing with on campus is the adaptation to now being in such a big city and we had come from New York City, so it was like such a tiny city to us. Did you have any difficulties getting into bigger and bigger cities? Not so much until I moved to Boston. I had to learn about
[9:06] public transportation and that was scary, but once I did it, I felt like I could
Eboni Nash[9:12] pretty much accomplish anything. Amazing. Okay, so then what happens from where we left off in our story to you becoming a mom? So yeah, I moved back to Colorado during COVID. My mom, my sister and her kids lived with me during that time and then I was teaching in the Colorado prison system with an organization out there and I taught about 140 men over two years and so that was really exciting, but then I found myself in California and that's where my boyfriend's from and I decided that that is where life was leading me and during the move into California, I found out I was pregnant. Not expected, but also not surprised to find out I was pregnant, but I was pretty far along when we found out I was pregnant.
[9:56] Oh wow, how far along? About five and a half months, maybe six months. That is definitely far along for the first notice. Yeah, so pretty far along and I was with a new employer and that was also quite scary. Doing similar type work? Doing similar type work for sure. I moved to California to work with a very large organization
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[10:18] that also worked in the prison carceral space. Okay, so it's scary I think for most people to ever tell, you know, the company you're working for, hey I'm pregnant. It shouldn't be, but it is, but also to be like I'm pregnant and I'm doing three months.
Eboni Nash[10:35] Yeah, definitely. I had a moment and I think my moment was more in the combination of telling my employer, telling my mom, figuring out what to do with a baby in a new space, in a new community and understanding what that means for me in the next 45 months. Right, so did you have a plan for where you wanted to give birth, what you wanted birth to look like? I had a plan that then changed. I thought I really wanted a water birth. I was like that's so beautiful. I see it online and I think I skipped ahead a lot of steps. I started, you know, wanting to do the gender reveal and the baby shower and I wasn't sure about insurance and how much it was going to cost
[11:16] and I think I personally did everything in a very last minute space. I think a lot of it was just making sure my baby was healthy. A lot of it was understanding financially, am I in a space to do this? And then also informing the family that I felt wanted to know and should know. And then understanding that my boyfriend and I are in a new house, a new community, a new position in our relationship and now what does this mean for us? It was very quick. Yeah, just a lot of time to react to everything. So how did you end up doing your birth? So I ended up going to a hospital. My water broke which was beautiful. It was exactly on my due date. So yeah, he's a very punctual
[12:03] little boy. Yeah, so I actually didn't know that my water broke. I ended up calling the nurse one morning because I felt some cramps and then felt like maybe my water broke but it wasn't as dramatic as movies show. So I called to just make sure and she did confirm I should go in. I went into the hospital and everything seemed pretty smoothly in the beginning. I called my mom and my sister and they got on a flight to come out to see me. I was in the hospital. I was about to eat my salad for lunch. Everyone was real calm. They said it would take a while and my family left to go get dinner and then all of a sudden they couldn't get, I think it's the heart rate of my son, they couldn't get a reading on it anymore.
[12:47] Yeah, it was really scary and unfortunately they did end up having, after all this effort, they did have to end up rushing me into an emergency C-section. And at that point, I think they were trying to wait as long as they could for my boyfriend to show up. So I remember just being in the OR waiting and then all of a sudden they got his heart rate back and then they had a few more minutes, so maybe like five to ten minutes, and they were able to rush my boyfriend in and we still proceeded with the C-section. All right, but you both got to be there. So you had support from him. How long ago was that?
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[13:21] That was on, let's see, maybe like a year and two months ago. Okay. Well, congratulations. Thank you. Kind of fresh. How did you think motherhood would be and how is it in comparison to how you thought
Eboni Nash[13:34] it would be? Oh man, I thought motherhood, honestly, I think I had a little bit of experience living with my nieces and nephews. They grew up with me. My niece and nephews lived with me since they were one years old. So I got a little bit of a glimpse of what parenthood would look then, but I think that my experience postpartum shifted a lot of how I thought parenthood would be. I thought it was going to be a lot, maybe easier than what it was, and I guess I didn't realize how much of the in-between I was missing as a mom initially. So it was a lot different, I would say. I wonder on what level is it physical, emotional, spiritual, all of the above? I think it was all of the above. As soon as I became a mom,
[14:22] I felt like something inside me changed completely. I stopped focusing so much on the external, and I was very focused on the internal. I constantly worried for my son, making sure that he was okay, maybe that he was connected to me. I had a really hard time breastfeeding. Unfortunately, my mom passed away as soon as I had my son, not long after. Thank you. And that really, I think that threw me into a hard postpartum experience for me. I spent the first two months of my son's life in a different state. We flew when my son was five days old to Colorado. We slept in a bed that wasn't mine. I didn't have any of his things that I got from a baby shower nearby. I just didn't have what I assumed to be the glorious
[15:08] postpartum experience that I would have thought to have. And I also wasn't afforded a paid maternity leave. So I did have to return to work very quickly after I gave birth, which was quite hard. I went to work nine days later. Oh my goodness. That is extremely, almost like I had a patient who wanted to give birth picking strawberries in the field, and she did. But I can't imagine them just going back to picking strawberries. And I went back to work remotely, which wasn't as bad, but then at the same time handling the death of my mom, packing her house up, moving everything, sleeping on an air mattress. During the recovery of a C-section and trying to feed my baby, I think it just put me in a really hard
[15:59] mental space. Something I didn't address for quite a few months in, about five months in,
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[16:04] I didn't actually address postpartum depression. It's really hard. I think also hard in the moment to realize it's happening. It's a hard transition for everyone. So it's hard to realize when it's crossing a threshold. For sure. What kind of support, now that you can look back at it, would have made those few months better?
Eboni Nash[16:26] Yeah, that's a great question. I think in that time I was in survival. I was suppressing a lot, and I was just getting day by day trying to make sure everyone was taken care of. My son, my boyfriend, the family, my mom's arrangements. And I think support in that moment could have came in a few different ways, but I think immediately back to giving birth. And I felt how rushed I felt as a mom. My legs are numb and I'm holding my son and no one's around me to support. I felt like I could have maybe used a couple more doctor's appointments following up and maybe a little bit more instruction on take your prenatals. I didn't know to take my prenatals after I gave birth. So I felt like I could have used a little
[17:09] bit more nurturing when it came to caring for myself while also caring for everybody. Becoming a mom and losing your mom, you lose a lot of that pass on grace. So I feel like support there could have been used a little bit more for me.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[17:26] Yeah, that makes sense. What a challenging mental transition to go through emotional becoming a mom and losing a mom at the same time. And it's true. They say all the time, it takes a village and there used to actually be a village where you had all your support people. And we've lost a lot of that. We don't live with the family on the family property anymore. And all the other people, like you mentioned in your small town, you know, all your neighbors and what car they drive. I thought they also kind of pitch in when it's time for a baby to kind of help out. I picture the olden days where the grocer was someone who would check in on your kids when they would stop by and other things like that. We don't have
[18:10] that anymore. At work, you went back to work right after having your baby and going through all of these transitions at the same time. You had taken on a new position, an exciting position, kind of like a leadership position. How does all that change after this difficult
Eboni Nash[18:27] postpartum? Yeah, it's a great question. It was difficult. I think I had such an incredible staff. I was the head of my department. My staff was very supportive of me. But then what I realized was because I was suppressing so much of my emotions, my demeanor changed a little bit. And I become very protective. I became a very protective person. I became protective, not just of my family and my son, but of my team, of my space, of my department. And it shifted the way that I positioned myself a little bit at work. And I tried my best to be as transparent as possible, but also I felt like I was building resentment because I didn't get time with my son. I didn't get time at home. I didn't get time
[19:13] to be a mom or to know what that's like to be a mom. And unfortunately, things raveled out to where I actually ended up getting terminated from my job pertaining to things very similar way to being postpartum and a new mom in a workplace that didn't cater to it well. So I ended up losing my job the week of Thanksgiving. Oh my gosh, out of all the
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[19:34] times. That's just so crazy in every sense. And it's something I see every day, women struggling with going back to work and having this, they describe having this animal instinct saying, I want to be around the nest. I want to be taking care of my baby, taking care of me home. And then society sort of is pulling them back to hunting and gathering, getting back to work and oftentimes feeling like they're not able to do either one to the degree that they want to that they feel good about. And that sometimes further adds to feeling sad or depressed. But sometimes the hardest seasons end up pointing us towards something unexpectedly good. And in your case, it eventually led you to fourth try.
[20:21] Let's take a little break and we come back. I really want to learn more about this organization and your role. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Informed Pregnancy podcast. Okay, Ebony, I mean, crazy story. Any one of those things is, you know, moving to a new big city state, finding out that you're pregnant, but also finding out that you're more than halfway through having a birth that at once was envisioned as a water birth and turned into an urgency section, losing your mom and then losing your job. That's a lot for any person. But you've pulled yourself out of all of that and you just have a great energy about you. And seemingly it opened a new door for you, the fourth try.
[21:22] How did you first discover fourth try? Honestly, while I was in my fourth trimester,
Eboni Nash[21:27] so that's fun to say, but I was thinking about what to do. It's the holidays, unemployed with a new baby, first ones without mom. And I knew I had to do something and I knew I needed to get back in the workforce, but I was scared because I'm not the same person I was. I felt like a completely new person. And also I lost a lot of confidence in being able to be an executive worker, like an executive staff member while also being a mom to the best of my abilities. But I decided to get out there and I was searching through jobs and I saw fourth trimester, but really what caught my eye was the logo. I saw a mom holding a baby and I was like, if anyone understands me, it's going to be this organization.
[22:10] And that was before I even knew what they were talking about or their mission. But I knew that mom and the baby and the logo was calling for me. So I clicked it, I applied, I sent it off with such hope and then went into the holidays. Following the holidays, I was able to have my first phone call with the board chair and it unlocked so much excitement for me because talking to somebody who understood what it's like to be a new mom in a new community and to now have this newfound passion that I didn't know entirely too much about, but I knew it was a passion. It was an incredible opportunity to talk to her about it. What was the hiring process like?
[22:54] It was super quick and super intentional is what it was like. I had a phone conversation with the board chair and then I was invited to have coffee with the team. And to be completely honest, in between that, the phone call and my invitation to join for coffee, I ended up emailing the board chair and withdrawing my application. And I think it's a posture syndrome. It came back up. But in this form of motherhood, I had what I thought was solid daycare. And then I had what I thought to be family support around, not to mention also my boyfriend and I care for his grandmother. She has dementia and she lives with us. And in one week, everything kind of crumbled to the point that
[23:42] if I had a job, I would not be a reliable person. And I thought to myself that if one thing is for sure, I want to be respectful of this new employer. And I want them to know that I don't think that I can be the person that they think I can be. So I withdrew my application. And then the response of me withdrawing my application was totally hear you totally see you. We understand we're not pressuring you, but please come meet us for coffee still. Oh, wow. And I did. That's so thoughtful. So you got the job. I did. Now that we've been talking about a little bit, what is fourth try? What do they do and what is your role? Yeah, fourth trimester is a nonprofit organization based in Pasadena,
[24:29] California, that's working to transform the postpartum experience for mothers and birthing people, primarily in California, but they also started in along the US or Mexico border. And they do this by providing practical support, emotional care, economic assistance and advocacy to be sure that no parent navigates the fourth trimester alone.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[24:51] So very relevant to me. Super relevant to you. And like I think super relevant in general. I think that the fourth trimester, which we're saying essentially the 13 weeks after you have a baby, are a time where people need extra support and sometimes they're just not thought of at all and have less support than they even had during the pregnancy. So it sounds like an
Eboni Nash[25:15] incredible goal. What's your role? I serve as the director of development. I'm the very
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[25:21] first director of development. So identifying new funding pathways, donors, establishing fundraisers and helping us grow and scale the organization is what I support with.
Eboni Nash[25:33] Wow. And can you tell us about a person or a family who fourth trimester helped and how your help changed the postpartum trajectory for them, the experience for them? Absolutely. We have so many families that have come to us and shared their experience with us and how our support has transformed their overall parenting experience. But specifically, over the last year and a half, we've been working with families impacted by the wildfire, the Eaton fire that took place in January of 2025. And we've been helping these families support with diapers and formula and just essential hygiene material. We had one specific mom who shared with us that she hasn't had to buy a single diaper since she was getting
[26:23] support for us. So for the over two years, she hasn't had to buy diapers for their children and that has allowed her to financially reinvest in places that are most meaningful for her family. Getting back from the wildfire, finding things that she enjoys like buying a bicycle is more of her mental health support. So specifically providing care in that space. But then we also have families who we've connected with doulas who didn't know what a doula was, much like I didn't, who have really found safety, security and love through the community of doula support that we have here at fourth trimester. I think a lot of our families, they can come from so many different areas of their life where the systems
[27:05] aren't designed to support them in their in their moment. So they could be undocumented families excluded from social safety nets or they suffer from no child care or lack of transportation or lack of access to culturally sensitive care specifically in their language. And these are all things that we help support with at fourth trimester
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[27:23] specifically. Sounds really necessary. And like it can really change any one of those things can really change the experience for somebody in a positive way. As you continue your role of development, what kind of things are on the kind of vision board for fourth trimester for
Eboni Nash[27:42] the future? Absolutely. It's super exciting. Well, I think first off, we really would like to help share education and help share our vision and our pillars of interest with the community. So we really believe postpartum care is essential health care. We believe that providing financial stability is postpartum care. And we believe parenting is essential labor that must be supported. And so through those three pillars, we are launching a new program called RISE, which stands for Resources for Income Shelter and Empowerment. And it's a program where we are focusing on unconditional direct cash assistance for our mothers during pregnancy and then postpartum up to one year. And so we're very excited for this program, not just
[28:27] to be as a form as a pilot to inform us more of the needs, but also to show and display community impact so we can provide system change and provide community based outcomes that then we're hoping flow into government support and funding in the future. Are there ways for me or for people listening to pitch in and help out? Absolutely. There's so many ways to pitch in and help out, whether it's monetarily supporting our mission. You can also provide support. We have monthly care closets where we invite volunteers and families to come in and help us deliver these essential items to our families. And you can find those through by going through our website and filling out the info form where we can get back to you
[29:12] about those opportunities. There's also just understanding and sharing information with our community. I think personally, especially in development, the easiest way to get funding where it needs to be is to share your perspective and to share information with the community that might not have it. So information is the number one way to get our legislators to vote correctly for our community. And I think especially amongst each other, talking and discussing these types of instances and these types of needs helps it become unaware. And something that they're aware of really is the postpartum experience. Now that you've been talking about where can we find 4th Trimester Online? Our website is really easy. So it's 4,
[29:59] the number four. So 4thTri.org. That's our website. And you can easily go on there and check out some of our programs, our impact report, and then also contact us if you'd like to get involved, learn more, or if you have anyone that could be connected to us for
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[30:15] service or support. So interesting. We're randomly, and we've been working on this project for a while, about finishing production on a web series called The Fourth Try, spotlighting different things that people can do after they have a baby for mind, body, and spirit healing. So I'm glad to see that all the different puzzle pieces that make up community are doing their part. And hopefully we'll come together in a way that makes a picture that is much more supportive of postpartum health. If you had one thing that every new parent could take away from your story or this episode, what would you want them to
Eboni Nash[30:55] know? Honestly, the one thing that I felt the most throughout this entire experience was it's really okay to just be you. Every little piece of you is very much okay. And it's okay to just be enough in motherhood. You don't have to strive to be perfect. You don't have to strive to be everything at once for everybody. Being yourself is absolutely the best you can be. And it's the best you can be for your little one, for your community, for your employer. Just being honest and being yourself lowers expectations. So yeah, don't lose yourself, really. Try not to lose yourself. And if you feel like you're losing yourself, find the little pieces that ground you,
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[31:40] and that will help you get through day by day. Ebony and Nash, thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for sharing your powerful story and for the work that you're doing. And at home, thanks for listening to the Informed Pregnancy podcast. For more pregnancy and parenting information just like this, visit us online at InformedPregnancy.com.
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Few men are prepared for the identity shifts when becoming a father. Father of two and executive coach David Arell returns to the podcast to explore mindset shifts, unexpected grief, changing relationships, and lessons that only years of parenting can teach.
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.
“I don't ask you to be the leader of the relationship. I just ask you to be a leader in the relationship.”
“Your working is now adjective and dad is the noun.”
“It says pause and presence, in big black Sharpie letters, that's on my desk as a reminder that in my parenting, in my partnership, in my executive coaching work, often the best thing I can do is slow down.”
“We may have some good answers, but wisdom is knowing if and when to share it, how to share it, at what time and what tone and tenor.”
AI-generated transcript with speaker labels — may contain errors, especially names and medical terms. Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC appears in blue; David Arell in orange.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[0:00] Most men spend months preparing for diapers, strollers, and car seats. Very few prepare for the identity shift that comes with becoming a father. What happens when the biggest surprise isn't the baby, but the person you become? My guest today is executive coach, father of two, and creator of Welcome to Fatherhood, currently streaming on Informed Pregnancy Plus. He's back to explore the mindset shifts, unexpected grief, changing relationships, balancing work and family, and the lessons that only years of parenting can teach. I'm pregnancy-focused chiropractor, Dr. Elliot Berlin, and you are listening to the Informed Pregnancy Podcast. David Arell, welcome back to the podcast.
David Arell[0:58] Good to see you here, Dr. Berlin. Looking forward to covering some fun ground here together.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[1:03] I'm looking forward to it, and we don't do all that much stuff on fatherhood, and it's important to do. And according to our demographics, more and more dads are listening to the podcast. So I'm really excited to learn from you again. Last time you were here, we talked mostly about preparing men for fatherhood. Now we fast forward a few years. Your kids are getting older. How old are they now?
David Arell[1:25] My son is now 10, and my daughter just turned eight. So I have a rough decade of experiences and the wrinkles to prove it.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[1:35] Happy birthday. How has the continued fatherhood continued to change you?
David Arell[1:42] The changes are a little bit more slow-rolling these days. You know, they're both, you know, plenty verbal, plenty of will, plenty of activities. But the persistent challenge of how do I bring my best self forward? Well, how do I discover what that is, and how do I bring that forward? Those challenges persist. As I joke with some of the new dads I see whose toddlers are toddling, I say they only get bigger and faster and stronger. So your challenges persist likewise.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[2:14] Yeah. I mean, if we can go back a little bit towards the beginning. When you first became a dad, what surprised you most about how your own identity would change with fatherhood?
David Arell[2:27] Yeah, I think looking back, the biggest surprise, and then this is coming from somebody like I really thought I was doing all my homework. And I still had plenty of surprises. I had gone to birth classes and hypno birthing and all these different things where I felt I was studying for my new role. However, my idea was that it would be my wife and I, and then my wife and I plus baby as this like third little small, you know, sticker like you see on the back of people's cars, two large parents and one small baby. And it turns out that baby was a massive and the center of our identity at that point. So it wasn't plus baby. It was sort of we were in peripheral relationship with baby at the center in our lives.
[3:12] And that took a long time for me to really kind of get ultimately. And that was surprising. I thought it would just be me plus baby. And turns out that was not at all correct. Sometimes feels like that little sign should say like two big ones, mother and baby and a little one in the background and dad. Yeah, yeah. That's a very common experience. Like, hey, what about me? Am I still cool? Like, how do I fit in here? That's definitely a challenge.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[3:38] The puzzle changes with an extra piece or eventually sometimes even more pieces. I think the mothers experience the transformation in a more obvious way through their pregnancy and through giving birth. And for fathers, we don't have the same visible transition. So I wonder your thoughts on that. And maybe that's why men kind of underestimate how much fatherhood does change them.
David Arell[4:05] Yeah, I think there's two sides to that coin. One, and you spoke to both of them there. The first is that we don't really experience the process of change as that gradual yet increasingly real situation as our partners do. I kind of joke with some of the expectant moms I still connect with occasionally. And I'll say I guarantee he'll be surprised when he's actually holding baby that all of a sudden he's a dad as if he never saw it coming. You know, there's that reality of like, oh, now I'm a dad. So that's sort of a crash course. But then what does that mean and how do we experience that? And for us men, the demand there is for that opportunity to really step up
[4:46] into fatherhood, into partnership. And that requires a lot more willful participation and sort of ownership over that being the challenge. The guys that struggle the most that I see, and I'm sure you see some in your practice as well, are the ones that are still sort of imagining that we're going to get back to normal, the old normal. We're going to bounce back or they're still holding on to that older version of themselves that just much like an older version of an iPhone becomes increasingly irrelevant as the days roll by. So what's that opportunity to bounce forward and take more ownership over that role? And that's some of the territory we'll be getting into here.
[5:26] I'm sure of the course of the conversation, meaning the change is not automatic. It's not automatic, but there's a way for us men to the more we embrace the demands of that change and the more that we take ownership over, oh, this is a good opportunity for me to grow. Then we can participate in that change in a more constructive fashion, both for ourselves and for our partner and ultimately for a baby too. Right. So it's an opportunity for change, but it doesn't just happen. Yes. And the more we sort of I would say for me, for example, when I was a little bit oblivious of the changes that were being asked or those opportunities, the more I sort of was unaware or resistant,
[6:09] the more friction that caused in my relationship with my partner. Like I was as much as I thought I was prepared, like the old Mike Tyson adage, everybody has a plan until they get punched kind of thing. I thought I was prepared and then baby came. And, you know, to your point earlier, I felt myself become less of a part of my partner's experience. And correctly so. She's got a brand new baby. She's nursing and doing the caretaking. And I initially imagined myself as a helper of sorts. Oh, I'm going to help with baby. I'm going to help with diapers. And that framework is really disempowering for me. And it puts a lot more of a burden of responsibility on my partner
[6:48] to like she didn't sign up to like boss me around or like tell me how to do all these things. And I didn't really sign up to be bossed around. But when we have that helper mindset, we're automatically putting ourselves in a secondary wait and see, wait for this, wait for that. And it doesn't really work. And so the big shift I was able to make when I recognized that and like many things, it took me a lot longer than I would like to admit. I could be pretty slow witted at times and hard headed. But I was like, wait a second, like this isn't working. What do I really want here? How do I get into that sort of like creator mindset of what do I want?
[7:23] And what are some steps I can take to invite my partner to have that conversation with me? And so we kind of moved out of this mom primary person, me helper role to being partners. We're able to start to have some of those conversations like, okay, we're doing these cloth diapers, which I'll tell you right away was both a blessing and a curse because imagine me sitting on the side of our toilet, like hosing down all these dirty diapers, but we're kind of hippies a little bit. So we were kind of aiming at that. But all these little challenge of like, I do it my way, she did it her way. We did it these different ways. It just made things unnecessarily complicated.
[7:57] So a big step that I was able to take to really embrace that creator mindset and step up into partnership was like, hey, let's just have a couple of conversations. And how do we wanna do these things? What are the agreements we wanna put in place about the diapers and how we're gonna wash the bottles that we're trying to do some pumping, she was getting ready to go back to work. How are we gonna come up with some plans that we both are on the same page that lets us sort of relax into this partnership role versus one of us not feeling like the other one's doing it right? So that was a big step I was able to make that I like to share that anecdote as a way to say,
[8:30] okay, how can we agree on these things to have that foundation of this new partnership going forward?
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[8:36] I really like how you talked about how she didn't sign up to be a manager. And we don't necessarily love to be managed, but then if you're not proactive, then that's just the relationship that will happen. And nobody likes it.
David Arell[8:52] Exactly, it's such a catch-22. Nobody's happy. And this is where I encourage my guys like, look, I don't ask you to be the leader of the relationship. I just ask you to be a leader in the relationship. Raise your hand, let's have some conversations, let's come up with these, again, these shared agreements or shared understandings. And from that, that's where you have plenty of room to play with your own individuality. I often say fathers don't mother. For example, we had this baby carrier that was like a transformer. You could wear it on the front or back or sideways. And I always liked to wear my son specifically facing out where he could hold my fingers
[9:29] like little motorcycle grips. And he and I were looking at the world together and I'd be pointing out birds or whatever. And my wife liked to hold him facing in so she could look at him and he can look at her. And this was a place where it was like, well, sure, wear the baby however you feel like. As long as he's not screaming, then we're okay. So that allowed us to play with our differences because we had that shared sense of agreement on some of the more fundamentals.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[9:52] So I wanna talk more about partnership in the second segment. But in terms of an individual, someone who becomes a father, I've heard you say that you kind of grieve the old life a little bit. What are you grieving?
David Arell[10:08] I think the grief on some level is the, I wanna say this as delicately as I can, even in a relationship with a partner, with our wife, our girlfriend, our spouse, et cetera, we're still able on some level to sort of imagine ourselves as main character. We hear that sort of phrase these days, main character syndrome. But we still imagine it's our life and we have a partner and there's this sense of it, it's sort of easy to sort of slip into a little bit of a self-centered perspective there. And there's a lot of validity to looking at the world as like we're equal partners and I'm doing my thing, you're doing yours. And when baby comes along, there's a sort of mandatory explosion
[10:52] of all those delusionary beliefs of like, I'm a free agent, I can do whatever I want type of experience. And it really puts baby and the baby's concerns and needs and the relationship, it's a radical re-centering of baby and the relationship at the center of their lives, at least that's the invitation. And there's some grief there. It's like, I don't get to go play golf with my buddies two, three days a week. Well, I could, but at what cost? So those trade-offs that are those opportunities to step up do require a letting go of things that were formerly very important to us or a part of our core identity.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[11:27] I think that's really honest of you because I think a lot of people feel it, but sometimes have a hard time admitting those feelings. And maybe some people don't feel it, but it's not that you don't appreciate the new relationship, the new role, but there were some cool things about the old role and they're just different. And I think it's okay to miss those things and to acknowledge that you miss them. It doesn't mean you want it back. With that in mind, when you think about fatherhood today, do you see it more like a sacrifice or more like an opportunity?
David Arell[12:01] I think both of those words fit to there because there are some necessary sacrifices, but in the deepest definition of sacrifice, if we look back at some of our spiritual traditions where this phrase has its strongest roots, it's an offer made willingly. It's a trade-off that is coming from a place of devotion is a word I bring into a lot of my work, a place of care, a place of sincerity and a place of appreciation. There are trade-offs that need to be made. You can't fit 10 pounds of potatoes in a five pound bag. I'm going to use a PG friendly version of that expression here for your audience, but there's just trade-offs. And when you really ask yourself again,
[12:44] getting into that creator mindset of what do I really want here? I want to be a great dad. I want to be a great partner. I want to really show up for my family. And so I'm able to sort of sacrifice my golf clubs sticking with that one on the altar of reality and do so with both the tear in my eye, but also gratitude in my heart. Like what an opportunity to be able to be more present with my loved ones and continue to invest time and care and attention into the people in my life, as opposed to a hobby that was formerly a more central pillar.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[13:17] That's very well said. We've been talking about the internal transformation of fatherhood. After a little break, we'll talk about the practical reality of balancing family, work, partnership, and maintaining your own identity. We'll be right back.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[13:44] Welcome back. We are talking to David Arell about fatherhood. He's an executive coach and a fatherhood educator, and I'm learning a lot. All right, your path was a little unusual because you plan to become a stay-at-home dad. How did that happen?
David Arell[14:02] It was just a confluence of circumstances. I met my now wife at a time in my life when I was not at all looking for relationship or love. I was building a business. I use the word empire in quotes because it was at the time three cafes. But my aspirations were to build out the eco-friendly version of Starbucks. I was building up a series of cafes in Philadelphia and that was my vision. There was no room in that vision for dating or girlfriends at the time, but I met my now wife and I heard a voice clearly say in my ear, there she is, when I saw her and I shook off the voice. I was like, I'm busy. I don't have time for this. But the heart has its own truth.
[14:47] And so shortly thereafter, my priorities radically changed and I wanted to partner with her and she was signing up for the Air Force as a pediatric nurse practitioner. And that was moving us out of Philadelphia to Omaha, Nebraska. And I looked at that choice and I was like, well, there's one way to do this and that's all in. So I sold my business and jumped into becoming a, our aspiration, we weren't pregnant at the time, but that was our goal to start a family. And I was excited to be Mr. Mom full time, stay at home dad. So I started again with the clearest of intentions in mind, even if with no idea of what the reality of how that would unfold.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[15:25] Talking about realities, this is 10 years ago. You do have the first baby. How long is your wife home before she goes back to work?
David Arell[15:33] Three months and this day and age, three months still seems generous for maternity leave here in the state. So we had a full three months of all of us being home together.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[15:43] It's funny that that seems generous. I mean, not funny, funny, sad, funny. Now, once she went back to work, I guess that's when reality really sets in. What was that like?
David Arell[15:54] That's exactly right. The first three months, we were kind of figuring things out. As it is, and this is something I can circle back to later, we were establishing routines, watching baby age right out of them, and then reestablishing new routines and trying to. At this point, we had had those conversations about shared baby basics and shared agreements. She goes back to work. I'm loving being my stay at home dad. I'm up with our son and she's nursing him in the morning. We had it set up where I was able to drive down to the base so she could nurse him over lunch. She was pumping both in the morning and afternoon windows. From a family perspective, everything was working great,
[16:32] but internally, by month six, or three months after she'd gotten back to work and we had these new routines, part of me was very enthusiastically thinking, this is great. I'm taking care of my family. I'm being a stay at home dad. We're doing our things, but then frankly, Dr. Berlin, another part of me was like, this sucks. It's like, imagine you have a nice, big four-wheel drive Jeep that has all these off-road capacities and all you're doing is going back and forth to the grocery store. There's a certain sense of, I was feeling deeply fulfilled on one side and completely unfulfilled on another.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[17:07] I hear this a lot from my patients who are mostly moms as well. Some moms, their full fulfillment in life is being around the nest, taking care of the baby, taking care of the house. That gives them tremendous joy and a complete sense of purpose. But then there are other moms who really need more interaction than that, more stimulation than that, a different kind of productivity than that. Crave working at least part-time to be able to be back in the world that they were in before they became a mom and also like being a mom, but that's of course a very, very difficult juggle. And so I would think for stay at home dads, I have this theory that's sometimes unpopular
[17:52] and it is that I think men are generally, it's a generalization, hardwired that after a baby comes, we have this instinct, animal instinct, to go out and hunt and gather more and sustain the growing family and that women generally have this instinct to be around the nest, around the young ones and take care of the nest. And of course not everybody's like that, but I think that sometimes when you reverse the role, then it's even more profound how that instinct is like, I wanna go hunt and gather, wanna go hunt and gather. Did you experience that?
David Arell[18:28] Definitely, especially as I mentioned, my previous role, the previous chapter of my life, I was the visionary entrepreneur making things happen and building new in the world and opening up more cafes and really feeling excited and fulfilled by being a force for good. This was like the early days of like conscious capitalism, B Corp. The company was eco-friendly coffee, organic, fair trade. Like I really felt like I was living out a mission of inherent value. And so I was able to sort of hold onto that side of things with being, my aspirations to be a great dad. I felt that was equally a mission of value. And as I mentioned, I felt radically underutilized
[19:14] under like my skillsets, my temperament was not really being nurtured or being called forth or engaged within the limitations of a six month old and driving to the base every day for nursing and sitting by the toilet, as I mentioned, hosing off the cloth diapers and taking out the recycling and cutting the grass. Like these are all great things, but deeply unfulfilling from that side of things. And again, just to make a quick point here, as relates to what you hear from your patients, I think I would talk about with all of my clients, male and female, is that I'm not here to argue about your purpose or to suggest you have a different one or change it
[19:55] or whatever your purpose is, is misaligned. So if you're perfectly content with where you are, regardless of that's working mostly at home mostly or somewhere in between, great. But when you feel that misalignment, like that's where I think we can approach that with more care and concern and support and try to help each other figure out how do we live a life where we're feeling deeply fulfilled along those dimensions of parenthood and professional engagement. And that's gonna vary differentially for men and women and for individuals. And that's an open conversation I encourage all of your listeners to just sort of sit with for themselves. What's the right dynamic tension here
[20:34] between being a dad or a working dad or a part-time, full-time, all those different dimensions?
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[20:40] That makes a lot of sense. In your case, how did you keep from losing yourself?
David Arell[20:45] It took me a while to accept and sort of be okay with that I wasn't perfectly fulfilled on my very loudly proclaimed aspiration to be stay at home dad. So I had to kind of own the reality of my identity that was different than my goal or my aspiration. And that was a little bit of a challenge because I felt I had to kind of backpedal a little bit on some of the shared agreements my wife and I had put together like I was gonna be a stay home dad. I was able to start by leveraging where do we already have trusted childcare? Because again, I wanna make sure I was keeping baby at the center. And thankfully the gym that I belonged to had two hours of childcare
[21:21] that they would give you each day that you came in. So I cut that back in my workouts and I would work out for like an hour then I would sit in the cafe with my laptop and just start to think like, what are these entrepreneurial ideas? Like, where am I feeling enthused? Where am I feeling called? What am I excited to like pour myself into? And that's where the welcome to fatherhood work was starting to be birthed. All these different places, I was leveraging my experience, what I've learned, where I felt frustrated, where I thought I could contribute to the world around me. And it came out of those initially, one hour a day, Monday through Friday
[21:58] when I had time at the gym already sort of covered when it came to childcare. So really it's finding where you have childcare that's trusted, or even with your partner taking turns. Honey, I'll have baby for two hours on Sunday afternoon, go do whatever you need to do for either self-care or self-development. And then on Saturday, I would like two hours to devote to my self-care, self-development side of things. But the point is making sure that baby is still being primarily centered in that whole dynamic is critical for long-term success.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[22:28] I need to switch gyms. I have no childcare at my gym. That sounds like a brilliant place to start, to just give you a place to clear your head, be free of that obligation for a little while. I think for anybody, like you said, for moms, for dads, for anybody, it's a great place to start. I feel like some people though feel guilty using any childcare. Do you find that?
David Arell[22:54] I think it takes a little bit of experimenting. Like I remember our first date night out after our first baby, we lived in a nice little area of Omaha. It was two blocks away from a little commercial area with like restaurants and shops and whatever. And we had a trusted friend home with our son and we walked around the corner and we sat down. And within 20 minutes, my wife was texting, like, how's he doing? And I was less concerned because in my head I'm like, well, she's right there, she'll call us. But there's a very, but I was still, we were very happy to skip dessert and go back home. So there's a learning phase of like the little progressive,
[23:37] taking some time away again with people you trust, those shared agreements, like this is how we want you to hold them and this is how he prefers to bottle feed. But as you build that trust and you build that comfort with being away from baby for different periods of time, you can grow at your own pace. So like with anything, often those first steps are the hardest ones, which is where I at the gym, I could see the childcare like from the cafe. So I was very present if needed. And then the next step that I took there was after having several conversations with the different workers there, do any of you do babysitting? This is a place where I already have a personal relationship
[24:15] with the different caretakers at the gym. And there were some that clearly liked my son more than others that, you could tell they had a calling for childcare and like, okay, I already kind of trust this person. They already know my son, they've spent time with him. I feel comfortable inviting them into our house for an evening for my wife and I to go out. And that then became two afternoons a week for three hours. So it was a slow but steady progression based on building those trusting relationships where they were available.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[24:45] I think that it's really smart to start slow like that if you're not comfortable. Some people, everybody has different comfort level with these things. And if you're not comfortable with childcare at first, but you need to, you know, everyone recognizes I have needs that aren't being met. And if I can't meet those needs, I'm not gonna be a great parent either or a great partner either. Those are great tips for easing into it and starting slow and building trust and feeling confident so that you could be a great caregiver, a great partner, and also take care of yourself at the same time. Let's take another little break. When we come back, we'll talk about some of the biggest leadership lessons
[25:25] fatherhood has taught David, including why sometimes the strongest thing a dad can do is absolutely nothing. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Informed Pregnancy podcast. We are talking with David Arell. Okay, so at first you realized, okay, stay at home father is not exactly what I thought it was gonna be and wasn't fully fulfilling you in the way you wanted it to be. And you found a way to start carving out time for yourself and also taking care of your child and your partner. You had doubled up and had another kid. As they got older, how did you find the new definition of what working dad means to you?
David Arell[26:14] I think one of the biggest challenges there, Dr. Berlin, that I experienced personally and I see with my clients all the time is how do we embrace this new identity that we're forming, that we're kind of being called into or growing into, and how do we manage owning that in the context of previous relationship dynamics or agreements or roles that we signed up for earlier? How do we balance the need to honor the integrity of our new self and manage the commitments our old self made? So for me, as I alluded to a moment ago, when I got to that place where I needed to be engaged professionally, I had to go back to my wife and be like, hey babe, I know we've talked about me being
[27:01] a stay-at-home dad, and that's not really fulfilling for me. I need to do more. Can we have a conversation of what that might look like? So the challenge there was sort of owning what was true for me and initiating a conversation with my partner to see what kind of changes we can agree to. That was a much better strategy than either simmering in resentment and feeling like, oh, she wants me to do X, Y, or Z, putting the blame on her for why I couldn't do it, or kind of going rogue and saying, this is what I'm doing, take it or leave it. So it's having those conversations, and this applies at work as well. Like for working dads, maybe before baby was born,
[27:41] you were on this career track A, but now you're centering yourself as dad. Your working is now adjective and dad is the noun. Like this is now a modifier. So how are you gonna modify your professional contribution correctly with dad as the center? That's the conversation that you first have to have with your partner, and then perhaps start to have those conversations with your employer or your business relationships, et cetera. So for me, I had to have that with my partner, and then I had to have that with some clients I was working with. I was doing small business consulting, and I had told them I would be more engaged once things settled down after baby,
[28:21] and I had to come back to them and say, I know I told you this six months ago, but from where I am now, this is really important to me and I still wanna support you. Can we have a conversation about how that support's gonna look different if I'm available only this many hours per week versus what we had talked about circling back six months ago when we last had that conversation? So it's a little bit humbling to have to own, hey, I know what I told you, X, but now Y is true, but from that is that honesty is where now you can build something that's more true going forward.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[28:52] Love the self-awareness and the confidence and like you said, honesty that's required in order to be able to change course and say, I know I was promising this, that I was gonna be able to deliver this, but now I realize I can't do that. Is there something else I can deliver that would work for you guys? And that's just life. It's not a flat line, it's a roller coaster. It needs to go up and down, and if you hold on so rigidly that you can't change track ever, then you end up either being miserable or making the people around you miserable. Or both if you're really lucky. So I think it's a great lesson to be able to aim for something, give it a honest, solid shot,
[29:33] and then realize, nope, that's not gonna be the right thing and figure out how to change gears with not leaving anybody abandoned or hanging, taking everybody into the new track with you in a way that works for them as well. I mean, I think that's one of the main characteristics that makes someone a great leader too is your ability to kind of take in stimuli about the things that are happening around you and then be able to make decisions and execute those decisions. Do you feel like this journey through the various stages of fatherhood have given you lessons that make you a better leader?
David Arell[30:09] Oh, absolutely. I will share with a degree of self-deprecation and a little bit of shame about some of my, how I embodied leadership pre-dad, more hard charging, more this is what we're doing, my way, lead follower, get out of the way. There are certain aspects, I was sort of a stereotypical visionary entrepreneur, like me against the world mindset, and I treated people at different times in a way that after becoming a dad, I look back on, I see how I treated some of the people that were important to my success with a degree of shame or like, I wouldn't do that today. I've learned more empathy, more compassion, more appreciation, and all of those skills are things
[30:57] I think have made me a 100% better leader in so many ways, and my children still teach me. This is one of the things you mentioned a moment ago about the sort of like iterative approach to learning and leadership is that we're never there. We're just trying to be a better version of ourselves tomorrow than we are today and better today than we were yesterday, and our children are our best teachers with that. The degree of care and comfort and compassion that they will elicit, but then also, you're gonna recognize moments like I gotta be better in these moments. I need to not allow this disturbance to get me so emotionally frustrated. And like, my daughter's eight.
[31:36] Why am I thinking this is like some sort of like cross-examination? Like, what am I doing? This is not effective here.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[31:41] It does sometimes feel like a courtroom. I know that men, again, I'm gonna generalize, men are problem solvers by nature. We see this in labor a lot. You see your partners in discomfort and you just wanna solve the problem. And sometimes it's not a solution that your partner's looking for, that your child's looking for. Rather, it's just being present, being supportive, being a listening ear, a lending shoulder. Tell me more about your experiences with that.
David Arell[32:12] That's such a great question, Elliot, and it's a front burner question that I still sit with. I know this is audio only, but I'm gonna show you a post-it I have here. It says pause and presence, and big black Sharpie letters that's on my desk as a reminder that in my parenting, in my partnership, in my executive coaching work, my consulting work, often the best thing I can do is slow down. I can still run all my problem solving algorithms in my head, but just slow down and make sure I'm staying in relationship with the person in front of me. I'm staying present. I'm making sure I'm sort of like, I imagine my face is like a little sun, I'm shining my attention on them with care,
[32:55] with warmth, and with connection and trusting that that will ultimately be more helpful from their point of view than any of the shoulds, coulds, woulds, and questions that are formulating sort of automatically in my mind. And I can ask them later if they're still relevant, but in the moment, oftentimes, like you said in labor, it's not about offering ideas. Dads in labor don't offer any ideas, real quick. It's about offering a hand and just a loving presence and just some affirmations. This looks hard. Yeah, that sounds tough. Yeah, I can see why that would be frustrating, just that really that deep, authentic connection is inherently palliative
[33:37] and it feels good to have somebody kind of feel into that space you're in with you. And oftentimes, people know what the solutions are. They're just having a hard time in the moment.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[33:46] Yeah, I find it sometimes hard to fight the instinct or even be aware of the instinct. Oh, you got a problem. I immediately go to, here's five solutions. Which one do you want to do? Yeah, let's line them up, right? And that's irritating to somebody who's not looking for a solution but looking to vent the frustration of the problem. And so there, sometimes it's so much better to do nothing in terms of action and just be a good listener, good supporter, and empathetic. Give me a couple of other ideas. I mean, you do coaching. Tell me about how that works and something based on your coaching that someone who's listening who maybe just is about to become a dad,
[34:27] I feel like there were so many pearls of wisdom in this episode already. But maybe one or two things that you think would be really important for someone who's about to or recently became a dad to know.
David Arell[34:38] Yeah, I think the idea of leadership is one that I would encourage all of your listeners, especially the dads out there, just to sort of sit with and allow the different ideas of what that means and what that might look like. Just sort of come to mind and not feel they need to rush into what does that mean, but sort of sit with it. And my sense of that is as they sort of allow that question to sort of percolate into their mind, there'll be a couple of things that will emerge to be more true. One is that leadership is about creating value. And to your point we just made, sometimes we create value by not acting, which can be kind of tricky. Sometimes we create value by simply being present
[35:20] in a emotionally available manner. Other times there is an opportunity to take action or to start a conversation or to the way we handle a certain topic. There's lots of ways to create value, but that's a great way to frame that. A place I would point is the concept of wisdom. It's a concept that's really lacking in our culture. We hear about artificial intelligence, but nobody's talking about artificial or real wisdom. Like where do we go for wisdom? And sure, some of us rest a little bit more firmly on our great traditions than others, but still there's a real lack of appreciation for the value of wisdom in our culture. And so we may have, especially as problem solving guys,
[36:02] we may have some good answers, but wisdom is knowing if and when to share it, how to share it, at what time and what tone and tenor. So I think wisdom and leadership are two qualities that can start to be linked a little bit more carefully as we're starting to look forward. Like how can I lead and create value and embody some wisdom here? So that would be something that I would throw out here right away to kind of get the audience thinking about those bigger picture questions.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[36:29] How does your coaching work?
David Arell[36:31] So generally speaking, where I find people is they're feeling stuck or frustrated when it comes to some aspect of their professional growth. There's a lot of different ways that can show up, but usually, especially in a professional environment, these days, many companies don't really have a lot of effective programs in place for people who wanna grow and become more effective leaders. And so the clients are coming to me, they're feeling a little bit frustrated, they're stuck, or a leader will come to me and be like, hey, I wanna provide some leadership training for my team, but I wanna do something that's more than just these skill sets, these horizontal skill sets
[37:08] where now they're the same person, but now they know how to use Claude better or some AI better. So same person, but different skills. You talked about the idea of mindset earlier you introduced it. So how do I elevate my team's mindset or back to my individual client? What's in the way of me here? And oftentimes, my questions will be looked into, where are your own beliefs sort of holding you back? Where do you have what I call competing commitments? Getting back to fatherhood, where do you wanna still play golf and be a great dad? Where are those places where your own beliefs or your aspirations are creating the tension, and the more you succeed at one,
[37:47] the more you kind of fail at the other, and then the more you succeed at the other, the more you fail at the one. So a lot of the initial work is just surfacing those old patterns, those old beliefs, those old assumptions, where they realize that every time they try to make a move towards goal A, they're putting goal B at risk, or they move towards goal B and they put goal A at risk. So a lot of it is really just surfacing those places where our own beliefs or limiting beliefs are in the way, and then we try to start to design some real-world experiments, behavior changes, that are now done with awareness of our competing commitments, and we can start to make some more conscious trade-offs
[38:24] between those goals, versus actively thwarting one to succeed at the other. So it's really about surfacing awareness and then deciding on some actions and experiments about changing our behavior, and then seeing what comes as a result, and then we put that right back in the front of the engine of more awareness, leads to more choices, which then lead to different responses from the world around us. And we just sort of iterate to elevate was one of my favorite phrases to use there.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[38:51] You have a bunch of great phrases. They're short and powerful. David, thank you so much for sharing incredible information for dads in general, new dads, about-to-be dads, dads who've been at it for a while. Your insights are helpful, they're sharp, and they're inspiring. I think they're thought-provoking, and once we start to think about it, some of the other things that you said will sink in as solutions for us. So I always learn from you, and I'm grateful for you joining me here, again, on the podcast, for sharing Welcome to Fatherhood on Informed Pregnancy Plus, which people can check out on informedpregnancy.tv. Where else can we find you on?
David Arell[39:32] You can find me over at my coaching websites. Kind of awkward, so I will say it slowly. It's www.catalystforchange, F-O-R, catalystforchange.xyz. That's my primary individual coaching site. And then I do group coaching work over at www.accelerade, like Gatorade plus Accelerate together, Accelerade.net. So individual coaching, group coaching, webinars, and all my Good Dad stuff still is available at www.welcometofatherhood.com as well.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[40:07] Great to see you again at home. Thanks for listening to the Informed Pregnancy podcast. For more pregnancy and parenting information just like this, visit us online at www.informedpregnancy.com.
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Nina Spears is a baby planner, doula, educator, and founder of Baby Chick who works with pregnant and postpartum people. She discusses why preparation matters but control is an illusion, including one of the most important birth skills of all.
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.
“Well, there's two. One, it's education and two is support. That's to me what you need.”
“This is your body and your baby and your birth. You shouldn't just allow someone else to fly this plane. You need to be the pilot.”
“All you need is a healthy baby. No, we need a healthy mom. Yes, we need a healthy baby, but we need a healthy mom.”
“Turn down those lights. Don't use that thinking brain. Let go. Be only surrounded by the people you feel safe and supported and that you will be undisturbed and surrender.”
AI-generated transcript with speaker labels — may contain errors, especially names and medical terms. Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC appears in blue; Nina Spears in orange.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[0:00] Today's guest has spent years helping women prepare for one of the most important transitions of their lives. As a baby planner, doula educator, and founder of Baby Chick, she's guided countless families through pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and early parenthood. But one lesson stands out above all the others. Preparation matters, but control is an illusion. Many expecting parents, especially high-achieving Type A personalities, you know who you are. Who am I kidding? I know who I am. Approach birth the same way they approach everything else in life. Research harder, plan better, prepare more. So what happens when birth has its own plans? Today we're talking
[0:39] about how to prepare deeply without becoming attached to a specific outcome, why flexibility may be one of the most important birth skills of all, and how to find confidence in uncertainty. I'm pregnancy-focused chiropractor Dr. Elliot Berlin, and you're listening to the Informed Pregnancy Podcast. Nina Spears, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much, Dr. Berlin. It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me. I want to find out because you have such a great energy for doula-ship and for everything birth, like supporting, coaching, encouraging, inspiring. And you also are one of the few, I think, who did it before you had your own children. How did you get started in this field? Completely on accident. Mad zero idea. I was
Nina Spears[1:37] going to get into this field whatsoever. I had graduated college, and right after college, I thought, okay, I need a big girl job. So I was in sales and realized that was not my calling. I mean, I did well, but I just felt like I wasn't helping people. I come from a line of helpers. My mom is a nurse. My father is a retired surgeon. So I guess that kind of does run in my blood. And I just thought, well, what do I like? I need to get a job of, you know, something that I'm going to love. And I was like, I love babies. Maybe I'll figure it out. Well, my sales partner, she was pregnant. And so I watched, we shared an office, I watched her prepare for her baby. So I thought there's something to that. And then worked at a boutique
[2:22] at a baby boutique to figure out my life. I was still pretty young and the beginning of baby, pretty much. And then I realized when I was working at that baby boutique, that all of these women that were coming in and I've worked at the front desk, they were asking like, which breast pump, which stroller, all of this stuff. And I was like, man, these women have no idea what they're doing. And I thought, gosh, you know, just like they have wedding planners that help you plan to have like a smooth engagement in a beautiful wedding. Like, why don't we have baby planners? Dr. Billin, I thought I was like a genius. I thought I created like this whole new job. And then I did a Google search and realized, oh, there's
[3:00] certification for this. So then I got certified as a baby planner. And then one of my clients, I started, you know, you build a relationship with these people throughout their pregnancy. And one invited me to her birth and she had a doula. And oh my God, I like cried. I thought it was the most amazing thing. You either think it's the most disgusting thing you've ever seen or like the most beautiful thing. I thought it was the most beautiful thing. And I just never looked back. I was like, I need to be a doula. And that's how it all started. I was 24. Wow. So pretty young. And doula kind of is oftentimes on the more holistic side of totally sounds like from your roots, your parents are more allopathic,
[3:43] more on the medical side. Absolutely. My father thought, I mean, I love you, dad, if you listen to this, I truly do. But he did say like, you're being selfish and you're putting yourself at risk for wanting a home birth. And I was like, you know, you may be really good at knees and hips, but you do not know anything about birth. And I think I do, and I think I know exactly. And so I was like, I know it's best for me and I know it's not best for everybody, but I know what I think is best for me. And I'm going to do what I think is best for me and my child. So, you know, that's the doula in me now advocating for myself and my needs went totally different direction. Yeah. Well, you have a twin brother. I do.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[4:26] And he's got severe autism. And I know you've described yourself as his advocate and his voice growing up. For sure. And now you're advocating for yourself, but you're also advocating for all your clients. Do you think that experience with your brother paved your road for
Nina Spears[4:40] advocacy? Absolutely. Oh my goodness. Yeah, it definitely made me who I am today. I mean, my brother, he's pretty much nonverbal. He's verbal in the sense that he can repeat things. He knows certain words that are appropriate, but he can't really formulate sentences and that sort of thing. So I, as a young child, I had to speak for both of us. We had that twin thing. I just knew what he was thinking and what he wanted and what he was trying to get out. So my parents definitely turned to me sometimes to be like, what is he trying to say? And so yeah, I think that has absolutely made me super empathetic to people and being an advocate
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[5:19] for sure. So yeah, absolutely. Some sort of tiny level. I think every parent wishes they had that for kids who are not verbal yet, like little, you know, six month old, what do you want? Just tell me. This is what they want. Exactly. You're a giver of information as a doula. You're an educator and you're also a childbirth educator. And a big part of that, like you said, I think a lot of people get to pregnancy without much information. And it's not just about which stroller and which gear to buy, but even about options during pregnancy, options for childbirth, options for postpartum, and honestly options throughout parenthood. So part of the role is to give them information, but then sometimes people struggle from having
[6:04] too much information. For sure. Where is the balance? Oh gosh. Where is the balance? Because
Nina Spears[6:11] you're right. When people are like, Nina, what's like the one thing that I really need throughout my pregnancy? I'm like, well, there's two. One, it's education and two is support. That's to me what you need. But you're right. We're in unprecedented times where there's just so much information with social media, with AI. There's just so many opinions, so much information. And I think where we need to get to is finding the resources that resonate with us, with our values and with our goals and what we feel is right for our families and sticking to that. So you find informed pregnancy podcast, you start listening and you say, you know what? This is where I'm going to start getting my information rather than trying to hear from
[6:55] Susie down the street from all this different information. You can listen, sure, but like sometimes can just be too much and then cause more anxiety, more stress, and then more expectations for something. So my kind of boundary is like, find the resources that you know are evidence-based that are supportive of what your goals are and follow that path. So then that way you still are informed, but not so overwhelmed. That's really interesting. I stopped doing doula
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[7:24] work before AI became a thing, but I know I use AI as like my lawyer, my doctor, my everything, my therapist. And I know that people must be using AI as their doula, which probably has some pros and probably has some cons to it. But knowing that birth is so deeply individual and so deeply intimate, it's hard to see AI replacing an actual physical human doula. And also it's sort of weird, even when I use it as my lawyer, sometimes sort of weird where they get their information from or how they hallucinate. And I guess you don't want a machine hallucinating advice to you during such an important time. Well, I was going to say,
Nina Spears[8:08] Dr. Berlin, haven't you seen now there's like definitely AI doulas that you can hire. And you're right though. I mean, it is such an interpersonal relationship. There's just so many different nuances that can happen. I just think there's this new AI doula that they interviewed 5,000 different doulas and got all this information and you can now use this for support. And I'm like, you know what, that doula is not going to be able to do a double hip squeeze or be able to rub your feet or be able to talk you down from certain things or your partner from certain things. While some of that information is super helpful, I mean, a lot of it, it's not just informational, it's the emotional and the physical support
[8:50] that you're missing out on too. And I don't think a robot can really replace that.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[8:54] I'm thinking of a million ways a doula can't be AI. And in one of them is my clients are like, how do I know I have the right doula? And one of the things they generally say to look for is when they walk in the room, you should automatically feel your nervous system downgrade into a sense of feeling calm. And it's hard to do that with chat GPT. So I don't know, some people are getting pretty calm with a little reliant on their AI. It doesn't do comforting touch. There's just so many things. Oftentimes your doula knows all the staff at the hospital, which can be very helpful and things like that.
Nina Spears[9:27] Yes, totally.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[9:27] All right. Let's talk about type A people, people who are very successful, women who really crush it in their fields. And they come to childbirth and sometimes it's a little extra challenging for them. Why? Absolutely. So you are describing my
Nina Spears[9:43] typical client. They are usually just crushing it with their career, their high powered, definitely just achievement oriented, productive type A. And they love a good checklist, they love chatting with me every other week to go over what they need to be doing. But really talking to them about how they are not the only ones that are writing this story, that there is a baby that's involved and has a say to a lot of this and that we have to kind of let go of certain things like we can become informed and understand what the options are because who knows what comes our way. And then that way, if something does happen, you can make the choice that you feel is right for you. But we can't feel like we're dictating
[10:29] how things are going to go. We have to be able to relax in what some people will call their feminine and allow things to flow because when we're so rigid on how things are going to go, gosh, that can lead to a lot of disappointment and frustration and also fear because oh my goodness, all of a sudden it's not panning out the way that
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[10:48] they thought it was going to look like. I think that anybody who's listening now, who is a planner, who loves those checklists, who likes to be in control of everything, me as well, both of us, it's really important to listen to what Nina is saying right now because I really see this humble a lot of people in birth and sometimes as a hard lesson and it doesn't have to be a hard lesson. And sometimes it starts with fertility actually. The instructions for getting pregnant are not that challenging and then you'll sometimes see even someone calculate their cycle down to the second I must be ovulating at this moment. We come home from work now, we have to make this baby,
[11:28] and then it doesn't happen. And it's like, right, there's a lot more going on than the number of things we understand and the number of things we can control. And that happens a lot in the whole reproductive cycle. What's one thing that you think women generally think that they can control but they can't really control when it comes to childbirth? Gosh,
Nina Spears[11:48] all of it? Well, then a couple of things. Yeah, a couple of things. Gosh, the things that they think that they can control. They really think that one thing, they hire me as their doula and sometimes I have to remind them that I am not some magical fairy. I do not just wave my magic wand just because you hired a doula doesn't mean you're going to have a certain experience. And I think that they think, oh, by hiring you, I am taking control and I'm going to have this exact birth. And I'm like, yes, you are definitely increasing your chances to having a more favorable outcome and us achieving those goals and visions that you have for yourself, but I am not magic. And we have
[12:35] to work together. We have to see how things unfold. We don't know if you have a short umbilical cord. We don't know how baby is going to tolerate contractions. We don't know a lot of things. We have to kind of see how things go. So I think something that they think, if I check all of these boxes and do exactly what I'm supposed to do, then I'm going to have one plus one equals two. This is just the outcome that I'm going to get. And realizing that you can still do all that prep work and things can still turn and look a little different. So I think realizing that a good birth experience doesn't necessarily have to look a certain way. It's really about how informed you feel, how supported you feel,
[13:17] how respected and heard. So I think the big thing is like, ah, I did everything I was supposed to do or everything they thought they were supposed to do. And I'm like, okay, well, you said you went to a childbirth class. What type of childbirth class was it? Was it like a two hour class? What did we learn? And also, there's so many different things that people are like, oh, wait, but I ate really, really well. I did all the dates. I did all these things. Dr. William, they really think that certain things will lead to a certain outcome. And I'm like, yes, those things definitely increase your chances, but it doesn't always work out exactly how you plan. And the power in this is recognizing, okay,
[13:59] if something deviates from what I'm hoping will happen, what is plan B, C, D? And how do I feel good about that? How do I want to be supported in those moments? Because that's when we can just not feel so just stuck on one path. We can really let go and see how the path unfolds.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[14:19] It's not fair because you're very knowledgeable. You have a lot of experience, both professionally and personally, and you have great energy and confidence. So it seems like you should have a little fairy stick and could make things go the way your clients wanted to. But you're absolutely right. Everything you said is none of those things are bad things to do. They're all helpful. So it's not like don't do them, but don't expect that just because you do them, things are going to go super smooth and just the way you picture. I always tell my clients a birth plan is a flowchart. And on page one, you put your vision of the most natural birth you might want to try, you might want to experience. But this is page one. There's
[15:00] a whole flowchart. If something happens like the baby's breech before you even start or you get placenta previa or things like that, before you even start birth, you're already down to other pages. And the same thing can happen at any point in labor. And so it's important to be flexible. This is great information. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to talk about what happened when all of Nina's professional experience met her own labor and delivery experiences and why expertise
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[15:26] doesn't exempt anyone from the lessons birth has to teach. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the informed pregnancy podcast. We're talking to Nina Spears and we're going to get personal. Okay. So we talked about the fact that you attended births before having your own children. Sometimes when I am a doula for a doula, that's the hardest client on the planet or for a midwife. Those are challenging clients because they know so much and it's so hard for them to turn off their knowledge brain and sink into the older animalistic part of the brain that controls childbirth in the most magnificent way. So having been a doula, what are some things that that experience that you had prior to
[16:18] having your own childbirth, your own pregnancy and birth, some things that were sort of helpful because you have that knowledge experience and background or maybe that worked against you?
Nina Spears[16:29] Absolutely. So I had two home births and with my first one with my son, I had my two midwives,
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[16:36] my doula, my videographer, my husband and my mom and my two dogs. It was a party.
Nina Spears[16:43] Big cast of characters. It was. It certainly was. And I actively remember telling myself, relax your jaw, release your shoulders, loosen your hands. You've been in this position for too long. You need to move. And I thought, oh, I'm like one of my love languages is touch. I love a good hug. I love holding someone's hand. That's how I just convey, oh, I love you. And I thought for sure, oh, I'm going to definitely want massage. I also had gotten my license in massage therapy and got certified in prenatal labor, labor induction, postpartum and an infant massage instructor. So I'm very big on touch. So I thought, oh, I'm definitely going to want to be massaged. No. In labor, as soon as someone started
[17:30] rubbing my back, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, too much stimulation. There's so much going on. I could only handle just like counter pressure, not even like firm counter pressure. Just put your hand on me. And that is it. I've heard people say like not enough air traffic controllers for all the sensations going on. A thousand percent. That's exactly how I felt. It was just way too much.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[17:53] Oddly, the United States is having the same problem. Okay, back to you.
Nina Spears[17:59] No worries. Yes. So I thought for sure, I thought I knew exactly what I was going to want and need and how it was going to help me. But then when I realized, okay, I need to stop using my thinking brain and start like doing what I tell my clients to just completely remove my thoughts from it and let myself go and surrender. I was able to really let things move forward and allowing myself to again, because I am such a type A person and I can do it kind of girl, I wasn't letting the people around me do the job that they needed to do. But eventually I was like, okay, I need to let go and accept the help that's around me. And that's when really things started going extremely fast. I'm not saying that works for everybody.
[18:47] So listeners, I'm not saying that that's going to be your experience, but at least for me, that was like, okay, I need to do what I'm telling my clients, but also like let go of the control. Because as soon as I can let go of this control, I can allow my body to
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[19:00] do what it needs to do. That's very interesting, because I'm thinking back to one doula in particular who just could not shut off that part of her brain for a long time. And eventually she just went into the restroom. And she also did have a bunch of people around. She went into the restroom. She's like, I have to pee. And then she didn't come out for like a long time. So I checked on her, are you okay? And she's like, yeah, I'm great. And like that was just, it was the lights were off. She's just sitting on the toilet for probably an hour and a half. That's where her mind was able to zone out everything around her and go deep inside and let the animal part of the brain
[19:39] do its thing. And things picked up very, very quickly and smoothly from there. So that makes sense. The educated part of the mind is really supposed to shut off. You're not supposed to think through things too much. And I think that goes back to what we were talking about before, too much information versus not enough information. There's got to be a happy medium where you have enough to give you an idea of what to expect and confidence on how to get through it, but not so much that you can't shut it
Nina Spears[20:06] off. And I think the problem is, is that whenever you're feeling quote unquote pain and you're uncomfortable, you just are trying to think, how can I solve this problem? But the thing is, this isn't a problem to solve. You have to let it unfold. And we're just so quick. Oh, I'm uncomfortable. This hurts. This is hard. How do I get through this? The way to get through it is to get through it and to let go. That's not our mindset. Generally, I was just walking through the drug store the other day and it's mind blowing how many different drugs we have for how many different discomforts. So our mindset is there's got to be something to make this go away. For sure. That's why 98% of women get epidurals, which I'm not
[20:49] knocking them. If you want one, great. Let's become informed when you're making that decision and what that looks like and all of that. But yeah, absolutely. People are like, wait a second. And it really trips them up because whenever I ask my clients, Dr. Berlin, okay, you want an epidural. Great. What is your plan if it doesn't work? And they're like, wait,
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[21:10] that's a thing that can happen. Right. That's terrifying for most people, that idea. You kind of described after COVID or deep enduring COVID, I was attending a lot more home birth and it wasn't necessarily people who were home birthers. They just didn't want to be at the hospital. They don't want to be where everybody who had COVID was hanging out. They don't want to deal with all the restrictions like who you couldn't bring anybody with you. You have to wear a mask, things like that. But when people give birth at home that aren't really home birthers, they seem to need a lot more support. And so there was always a pretty big cast of characters. And I remember going on the late side to one of these home births
[21:50] with it was a giant house with I think the biggest doormat I had ever seen in my life still to this day. I've not seen a bigger doormat, but there was no room for my shoes on it because there were already so many people there. Like that whole cast, there was her and her sister and her mom and her husband obviously and her midwife and her midwife assistant and her birth photographer and her doula and her big car director guy. And there were other people and it was just like this giant cast. And for her, it worked out great. She wanted all that support. It was a cohesive group. Everybody worked really well to support her in the ways that she really wanted and needed. But it sounds like in your case,
[22:30] you felt like in the end that was overkill for you.
Nina Spears[22:33] It was a bit a bit overkill, but my mom realized that she could skedaddle. She could get out of the room real quick. I think it was too much watching her daughter go through that. So she wasn't really there. So really the only people in the room were my midwife, my doula, my husband and the photographer. So it does sound still like a good amount of people. But I mean, the photographer felt like I couldn't even really tell that she was there. She would just, I don't know, make herself known every now and then. But they have an incredible way of being a fly on the wall. Totally. Yeah. And so use the flash in a way that's not in your face. And yeah, it's an art. It truly is. So I felt like what I had actually was really,
[23:18] really good and helpful. But with my second birth, it was extremely fast. And Dr. Berlin, I don't know what it is, but I had a very fast birth with my first one. I think I labored for only five to six hours, but I pushed for three. That's a long story. But with my daughter, I just knew, okay, if that was my first one, second babies typically come a lot faster. I just am going to limit. I don't think I need as many people because I don't think everyone will make it. And I told myself that, that that's what was going to happen. And I'm not saying, again, that like, oh, meditate on something and it's for sure going to happen. But I really did tell myself that. And I did get that type of experience with my
[24:00] daughter. Let's talk about home birth for a second, because you had been to surely lots of different birth settings before you had your first baby. Why did you choose home birth? Well, I live in Houston, Texas, which we are the largest medical center in the world. And also growing up with a surgeon as a father, I mean, listening to the latest operation at dinner is like normal. So I have been around hospitals forever. And truthfully, 98% of my clients have their babies in hospitals. I have seen so much. And because our doctors, they see so much high risk. I just was like, I want to limit the possibility of getting caught up in the system. I may have an amazing nurse and I
[24:46] picked an awesome doctor if I needed to get transferred. But I just knew that the type of experience that I wanted, I knew that I needed to be at home. And for sure, I can say without a doubt, Dr. Berlin, that if I had given birth to my son in the hospital, my first born, I would have for sure had a C-section, at least at my hospital here in Houston. Maybe if I lived in the Pacific Northwest where they're a little bit more relaxed and I hear such amazing things about different hospitals in different parts of the country and world. But yeah, I know that here I would have had a very different experience. I'm really
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[25:23] grateful that I made that important choice. Is it because of the long pushing? Absolutely. Okay. Was your husband into home birth? No. I wonder for yourself how that worked out. But then also how do you, because I see that oftentimes a woman will want a home birth and her partner's not into it, how did it work for you and what do you recommend in that case? Absolutely. Well,
Nina Spears[25:47] I'm a strong woman. I know what I want and I'm going to go after what I want. It's my body. I understand that you need to feel comfortable, but also this is happening to me and I feel safest here. And also I guess I have an advantage that my husband also at the end of the day is like, you are an expert in this field. I need to listen to the expert if that is what you feel is best. I will respect it. I mean, I still remember sitting in the car with him when we were engaged or maybe we were dating. We weren't even engaged yet, but I said, if we decide to get married and have kids, I'm just letting you know, I will be having our babies at home. And he turned to me, we were sitting in the car.
[26:26] He turned to me and he goes, why do you have to be so weird? And I immediately came back with, I'm not weird, you're weird. You're the one that's brainwashed by media and blah, blah, blah. I completely went off. And he was just like, okay, we'll deal with that when we have to cross that bridge. So when we crossed that bridge, I was like, by the way, we are having these babies at home. And he was like, okay, I trust you. You are the expert and this is your body at the end of the day. And what I did for people who don't have that unfair advantage of studying all this and working with women in labor, I just think that if that's what you want, you need to, again,
[27:08] advocate for yourself. You need to show them why this is a good option for you, why you're a good candidate and the benefits to it. Now, oh my gosh, Dr. Berlin, if we had another baby, my husband is like, oh, home birth all the way. I don't have to drive you to the hospital. I don't have to sleep on that uncomfortable couch. I don't have to deal with beeping stuff. I can just go to the kitchen and make myself whatever I want. I can sleep in my bed. He thinks it's the greatest thing. He's like, this is great. I don't have to worry
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[27:36] about any of that. That's funny. I remember Jim Gaffigan, my comic idol there. They had their babies at home and he said, people always think there's some sort of laziness involved. Like, oh, I didn't want to put on pants. I was going to say, my husband thinks that's, no, I know, but I think that laziness is actually a big selling point. It's a selling point. Save money on gas. Okay. So once we're talking about husbands, before we take one more break, partners in general, what do you see their role? I think a lot of time partners are like, what am I supposed to be doing here? Like, it wasn't very long ago where husbands and partners weren't even allowed into labor and delivery and now all of a sudden we're
[28:19] like the coach. It's a big responsibility and I think, you know, men especially tend to be problem solvers. If you see your loved one experiencing pain, we want to jump in with some sort of solution and remedy. For sure. But there's not always a solution or a remedy. So what would you say the ideal support role could be for a partner? I think that the ideal
Nina Spears[28:43] support person, if you want to have an active job of fixing something, then you need to be almost like the gatekeeper and the communicator because she shouldn't have to be using her thinking brain during this laboring time. So you're also having your own experience. You're becoming a dad or a mom, whatever you identify as. I just am saying that, golly, you're also having a moment watching someone that you love dearly go through something so life-changing and then also having to all of a sudden be this expert on how to advocate and know which positions to go into and knowing what the different alternatives, the benefits and risks for each one, that is a heavy load to carry. And if you're up for that, let's do it. Let's get you prepared.
[29:27] Let's go through the classes. I have met some amazing partners who have done a fantastic job, but you're right. A lot of dads, it's like when women, we go to our husbands and start complaining about something, we're not complaining for you to fix it. We're just complaining so you can just listen and give us a hug and say, it's going to be okay. You're doing a great job. Literally, that fixes everything. It's really a strong lesson for us. It is. So in labor, it's the same thing. You do not need to fix it. It's just holding her hand, being there, being constant support and making sure that you are not far away from her, letting her know that you're in this together, that you're saying what she needs to
[30:09] hear, that she just feels like she's not going through it alone. I think that's the biggest thing. And then like I just said before, being the advocate for her, if you guys have worked through your birth plan together, if you know what's really important to her, speaking up so she doesn't have to, be her voice, because those are the biggest things
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[30:26] I think that partners can do. That's really good advice. Thank you. We talked earlier about my vision of the birth plan as being a flow chart and sometimes even when you have that vision and you know that you could end up moving down the flow chart to a plan that's different than your ideal vision, page one, it can become pretty stressful during and even afterwards processing that birth can be a challenge. So when we come back, I want to talk about I think what's sometimes one of the hardest realities in childbirth and parenthood, which is what happens when the plan changes and how you can move forward without feeling like you've failed. We'll be right back.
[31:15] Welcome back. We're talking to Nina Spears from Baby Chick. And yeah, oftentimes you hear a lot of people say I did all this planning or I did all this prep work, and I wanted a certain birth and it didn't go that way. And I think sometimes you end up left feeling really shaken by the experience, sometimes sad about the experience you didn't have. And it's hard to process. How do you prepare for that? I think that's a really tough thing to
Nina Spears[31:41] prepare for because yes, morning your birth plan is a real thing. That's something that some women do have to go through. And especially if you ended up needing a surgical birth, I've had a lot of women say, I felt like then birth happened to me rather than I was the active participant in that. And that can be really hard to go from, oh, I thought I was going to be giving birth to this happened to me. And that's why I think having these conversations during pregnancy, I know that people are like, oh, but if I start talking about it, it gets into my subconscious and then that could potentially happen. And I'm like, yeah, but what if it does happen and you don't have the tools, physically, emotionally,
[32:22] and the information to really feel like I did give birth, I did the best that I could in these under whatever circumstances that were presented to me. And, you know, I still had a beautiful birth. It just didn't look the way that I thought it would. And I will say I don't want to like minimize. Yes, I understand that there's obstetrical violence. I understand that there's a lot of things that can happen that are beyond our control. But the things that you can control are making sure that, gosh, like I said, the two things that I tell people, information and support, getting your information from the trusted resource that you want, but also the support,
[33:01] making sure that the people who are around you, including your medical team, are all on the same page, that they understand what you want, how you want to be cared for, and realizing, oh, if someone in that moment doesn't feel like they are the right person for my team, maybe it's not the right nurse, whatever, speaking up and saying, okay, I need different support. Maybe I need a different person to step in. So I think that when something, if you do have a birth that didn't unfold the way that you wanted to, one, I really hope that you're then getting the support afterwards that maybe you didn't receive during your birth. Because again, gosh, I feel that not enough people plan for their postpartum than they do
[33:43] for their birth. And I am so big on, birth plans are really good and important, but golly, a postpartum plan is something that I also require every single one of my dual clients to make, because understanding what kind of support that is available to you and what you could need for your recovery, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, whatever that looks like, I think that's just as essential. My son's 22 and I'm still not sure I got the
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[34:08] postpartum down, Pat. You're not wrong, that is a very underserved area for preparation and care. We're working at Informed Pregnancy on a web series called The Fourth Try, all about things you can do to support yourself mentally, physically, and spiritually during that 12 weeks after the baby comes. And we can probably do a whole other episode of the podcast just on postpartum. I think you sometimes get into this other side of the coin where it's like, when someone realizes that they can't control birth, it's sort of like, why should I prepare or do all these things anyway? It's just going to go how it wants to go.
Nina Spears[34:49] Yes, it's kind of like that. Oh, I see on social media, Dr. Rowland, and it drives me crazy. Here's my birth plan. It's like, don't die and get an epidural, don't die and have a healthy baby. And I'm like, cool, that's the bar. That is the bar that we are setting. That's really sad. That's really sad. No, we need to have a higher expectation for that, for ourselves, for the people around us. You deserve more than that. And while I understand that, yes, we cannot completely control everything that's going to happen in birth, I will say that I know for a fact that if I had had my baby in a hospital with a different care provider, I would have had a very different birthing experience. But because I made sure to get the medical team
[35:36] that I felt comfortable with and the doula that I wanted and all of that, I know I had a different experience because of it for the better. So not always can we lead to a better outcome. And I hate to say better, but like a different outcome, because at the end of the day, there isn't just one thing that's a perfect outcome. We can have a beautiful birth experience if we are also making sure that we are listening and taking care of and respecting the mother throughout the whole process, that this is collaborative care, that she is feeling informed in her choices. She's giving informed consent throughout the whole process that things aren't just happening to you. This is your body and your baby and your birth. You shouldn't just
[36:19] allow someone else to fly this plane. You need to be the pilot. So that's something that, you know, this is a huge moment that you are now becoming a mother. You are no longer this maiden. You are now a mother to this child. Like, don't you want to take power in that and make the choices and feel like I did what I could to bring my baby into the world the best that I could? You know, I think that that's really powerful work and we need to
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[36:44] start raising that bar for moms. Do you think, because we talk a lot about Instagram and what the algorithm serves you, and then somehow the algorithm knows the second you conceive and starts serving you things all about pregnancy, birth, and postpartum, like if there's one thing you could erase from social media, that message that people are getting about their birth, is there anything in particular that you think is a toxic message
Nina Spears[37:11] that would be great to get rid of? Oh gosh, yeah. I think what I just said that, oh, all you need is a healthy baby. No, we need a healthy mom. Yes, we need a healthy baby, but we need a healthy mom. And what does that actually look like? And having the bar so low of just don't die, like, come on, women deserve better than that. Oh, absolutely. So whenever I see that and then women are like, yeah, like, okay, I get it. Yes, we do want you to live and we do want you to have a healthy baby, but you deserve more than that. And that's okay to admit and that's okay to push for. And don't you want better for the next generation? We need to do the work now to improve things. That would be the messaging for sure.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[37:55] I think that it's really cool that you are a home birther and 98% of your patients or your clients are hospital birthers and you give them so much positivity, love, and support, even though it's different than how you would do it. And one of the things I see on the internet and social media is people are so diehard in their way. There's only one right way to give birth. And if you're a home birther, it's like, it has to be home birth, has to be without drugs, or on the opposite, you must get an epidural. You don't have to be a hero who you're trying to impress, or maybe c-section is the best way to go. It's so easy and you don't have to do anything and think about it. And I think the truth is there's a right way for every person
[38:40] and there's no wrong way to give birth. So it's our message at Informed Pregnancy is to explore the options as if they're all good options and then you'll start to feel which is the right option for you or the right series of options for you and then you can start formulating that flow chart birth plan. I wonder if you could sit down with every pregnant woman 60 seconds before their labor begins. Is there something that you would say to them to get that journey started on a good path? To get that started on a good path I would say
Nina Spears[39:13] turn down those lights. Don't use that thinking brain. Let go. Be only surrounded by the people you feel safe and supported and that you will be undisturbed and surrender. Let go of what you think is going to happen. Listen to your body. Allow yourself to accept help and support and you can do it. Whatever that looks like, you can do it. That's so powerful. I think if
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[39:38] you listen to that message once or twice and really take it in, that's so powerful for setting the journey and start to finish no matter which options you chose or what birth is ahead of you that is really sound advice. Tell me a little bit about your company Baby Chick. Absolutely. So
Nina Spears[39:56] maybe you know but a lot of people are like Baby Chick. What is this farm animal that she's referring to? Well actually my client her husband way in the beginning of my career he was like oh you're that chick that Baby Chick that works with all these parents around here and I'm like ah yes I'm the Baby Chick. So our company is named after my moniker the Baby Chick and we are a resource for expecting in new parents mainly moms to help them through their pregnancy birth postpartum and parenting journeys. So we have our website, our social media, our podcast. I now have a new book the Baby Chick Guide to Positive Pregnancy that is out June 30th. We have our course that really helps women prepare for birth. It's called my pregnancy
[40:43] and birth prep challenge and it helps you with nutrition, exercise, education, partner support because I believe in a holistic look at taking care of the woman and preparing her for birth and postpartum. So yes and you can find all that information on baby-chick.com.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[40:59] Baby-chick.com. I will definitely go check it out because you are a wealth of wonderful information and positivity. Nina thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. Oh thank you so much Dr. Berlin. I hope we'll have you back again to talk about postpartum. I would love. At home thanks for listening to the informed pregnancy podcast. For more pregnancy and parenting information just like this visit us online at informedpregnancy.com.
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What if back pain, pelvic pain, disconnection from your body, exhaustion, and anxiety aren’t things you just have to live with? Jessica Jennings of MaYoga discusses her philosophy and how therapeutic movement and rehabilitation science can help new and expectant mothers prepare for birth, recovery, and beyond.
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.
“The idea is that the pose that you're in really doesn't matter. It's really about what we're doing inside the pose.”
“When we're pregnant, we're looking at this huge mountain that's labor and we're like, if I can just get through that, everything will be fine. And what we don't realize is what we thought was like sky behind that is another mountain that's, you know, a thousand times bigger, that is motherhood.”
“When we learn to turn inward and listen and mother ourselves, we begin to step into that highest, most powerful and wise ma self.”
“Instead of thinking I need to stretch here, think about I need to give myself a hug with my muscles.”
AI-generated transcript with speaker labels — may contain errors, especially names and medical terms. Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC appears in blue; Jessica Jennings in orange.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[0:00] Many expectant and new mothers are told that back pain, pelvic pain, exhaustion, anxiety, and feeling disconnected from their bodies are simply part of the journey. But what if some of those struggles aren't things you just have to live with? My guest today has spent decades exploring why some movement helps people heal while other movement seems to reinforce the very patterns causing pain. Her work combines rehabilitation science, therapeutic movement, and a philosophy that has helped countless pregnant and postpartum women feel stronger, calmer, and more prepared for birth and recovery. Today we'll talk about why slowing down can sometimes be more powerful than pushing
[0:42] harder, and how everyday movement patterns shape the way you feel during pregnancy, and why learning to mother yourself may be one of the most important skills you'll ever bring into parenthood. I'm pregnancy-focused chiropractor Dr. Elliott Berlin, and you are listening to the Informed Pregnancy Podcast. Jessica Jennings, welcome to the podcast.
Jessica Jennings[1:18] Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[1:20] I'm so happy you're here. We don't do enough on yoga and practical therapeutic tools that people can use to help them feel better in mind, body, and spirit, and you are a master of those things. But before we talk about your company, MyYoga, and your work with pregnancy and postpartum, let's start at the beginning. You grew up in New Jersey. What was that like?
Jessica Jennings[1:42] Well, I was kind of a spiritual kid, and I kind of, well, my dad had back pain all his life, and I think this was kind of formative. I remember I was nine years old, and he was driving me to school, and he was putting his briefcase in the car, and all of a sudden he was flat on his back on the ground. I had to help him in, and, you know, this wasn't unusual. He just had, you know, a bad back, they said. And, you know, even as young as I was, it didn't make sense to me. The doctor said he just had to live with it and try to ignore it. I just felt like our bodies were trying to tell us something when we have discomfort and pain. And I think even back then I just was determined to try and figure out what
[2:30] that language was so I could help people out of pain.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[2:33] It's hard to watch your parents struggle in that way, become really almost disabled for that time period in that way. And, you know, back pain is a struggle. It's like can be so all-encompassing and really limit what you can do and so painful. And that must have been hard to watch. Do you think that planted the seeds for the work that you're doing now?
Jessica Jennings[2:57] I think it did. I felt really helpless. And, you know, I kind of decided I wanted to do something to help people who had pain, but my life took me in different directions. And in my 20s, I decided I was going to be a filmmaker and uplift people in that way. And I had my own pain. So I had an undiagnosed scoliosis, but I had, you know, all the pains and back pain, sacral pain, neck pain. I remember standing on a Seattle street corner with a friend. And she was like, Jessica, turn your head. And I could like turn my head maybe an inch. And she said, go to yoga. And at the time, I thought yoga sounded really boring. And I like to get stuff done. But I went begrudgingly and it was truly amazing.
[3:51] Even just that first session, you know, the teacher basically conveyed through just super simple guiding cues for breathing and moving that I was enough as I was. And I just let go of this pressure. And I walked out and I just felt like taller and lighter. And the pain was gone. And even like really early, I knew that I wanted to share this with others. I knew this was going to be my path. But I also knew that I didn't want to be the kind of teacher that if someone was in a pose and they said, oh, my back hurts, like, I didn't want to be like, oh, well, maybe don't do that pose or, you know, try to breathe through it. Right. Again, I just felt like I wanted to understand why yoga works so well
[4:38] and how healing happens.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[4:41] How old were you at the time that you were having all this pain
Jessica Jennings[4:45] or at the time that you had that first yoga experience? I was in my late 20s, kind of starting artist, filmmaker.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[4:52] I was a heavy smoker and it was probably 27 that I found yoga. So any idea why you had all that pain as such a young person? It sounds like by 27, you had had it for a while. And it seems to me that would be scary considering your father's experiences with back pain. But was there any trauma that led up to it? Was there any reason that you would have known, oh, this is the cause of my pain?
Jessica Jennings[5:21] No, there was no sense of why my body constantly hurt. Looking back, I just had a pattern that was very deep. We all have little patterns. We might lean one way or another. I actually used one eye more than another, and I think that was part of it. But it caused what they call a functional scoliosis. So this was not something I was born with, but there was like this twist in my spine. And this is probably why going to yoga helped me so much, because the teacher would say something simple, like stand on both feet. And that was like a journey for me. But when I got there, it felt great.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[6:00] I think like chiropractors, there's a lot of diversity in yoga and different forms of yoga. And many times you go to five different classes and five very, very different experiences. And I think that once you realize that yoga wasn't just something you wanted to practice for yourself, but that you wanted to bring to others, you really took it down a unique path. And we're going to take a commercial, but your journey started with a search for relief for yourself, and then you became determined to understand why yoga worked, why it sometimes didn't work, and what was actually happening inside the body when healing occurred. When we come back, we'll talk about how that curiosity
[6:40] led into Jessica learning kinesiology and rehabilitation science and the development of something called therapeutic yoga. We'll be right back.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[7:01] Welcome back to the Informed Pregnancy Podcast. I'm talking with Jessica Jennings, founder of MaYoga. We're going to talk about MaYoga soon, but once you started teaching yoga, what kind of questions were you trying to answer and where did you look for answers?
Jessica Jennings[7:17] Well, it's funny because I started teaching at a community college and I basically just mimicked my teacher. So I would say exactly what she said, but it really wasn't sustainable. And one day I saw a flyer for a kind of yoga that was alignment-based. I didn't quite know what that meant, but they said anybody who has shoulder pain, wrist pain, come to this workshop. So I came and watched the teacher do the slightest little adjustments for people. Sometimes it was verbal, you know, telling them just where to breathe and gently draw their shoulder blades together. Sometimes they actually use their hands, and it was like a miracle. People could be in poses
[7:59] that they'd never been able to be in without pain. We joked around about, you know, people throwing their crutches and saying hallelujah, but I knew that this is what I wanted to learn. And the idea is that the pose that you're in really doesn't matter. It's really about what we're doing inside the pose. And we can be hurting ourselves on the mat and we can be healing ourselves while we're driving. So it's really about learning, again, the language of the body, these basic principles that the body uses to find its balance of stability and freedom. So I dove deep into biomechanics. I got my master's in kinesiology and studied cadavers and stuff.
[8:43] But honestly, it wasn't until I was asked to teach yoga to pregnant women that I really began understanding what the body is trying to say.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[8:53] Okay, you glossed over working with cadavers. It seems to me most yoga instructors don't work with cadavers. Chiropractors do. We have to do gross dissection. And I only bring that up because I volunteered for dissection to spend time preparing the cadavers and helping out other students because I was so fascinated by it when it comes to the musculoskeletal system in areas where you have overlapping soft tissues, even just muscle, there are some areas where you let's say have five layers of muscle. And to know that and to see it on a picture or to see it on a model is way different than to see it on a human body and where the origins and insertions are
[9:37] and why it is that when they contract those muscles, certain movements happen or where dysfunction can take place on a group of muscles or scar tissue, things like that. I was in massage school and chiropractic at the same time. And I had wished for my massage classmates that they were able to do gross dissection because it gave such an intense understanding of how the body works and how the musculoskeletal system works in particular. So I don't know how you got involved with cadavers. I'm curious about that, but also that I think would give you so much depth and understanding that's hard to get without working with cadavers.
Jessica Jennings[10:17] Yeah, I learned so much from that period. One of the things I learned was that it is the fascia, the covering of it all that can kind of hold a pattern. I wanted to understand which muscles help us stabilize and which ones allow us to move. And of course, every muscle has both jobs. So I think the other thing that I really learned from that is there's more than what the eye can see. So in Chinese medicine, we have these kind of meridians. In yoga, these channels carry what's called prana. Whatever you want to name it, it's basically how your body is communicating with itself, how the brain is talking to the muscles, the nerves, and even just the flow of the blood throughout the body.
[11:09] So you're not gonna be able to see these, but what I came to understand is that we can support that flow with alignment. When we move, for instance, toward the natural curves of the spine, everything's gonna flow better in the body. And when we move away from it, our bodies are gonna tell us, hey, this isn't the right direction, and it's gonna give us discomfort.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[11:36] That's really a great perspective. Now, you said when it came to pregnancy, everything changed for you.
Jessica Jennings[11:42] Yeah, so after my first really long teacher training, I was asked to teach pregnant people, and I knew very little about it except the basics. I walked in and I thought, okay, well, I learned a lot about the goddess and stuff in my yoga teacher training, so I'll just try that on them. And I talked about how feminine they were and how they had everything within them, and they just kind of looked at me like I was nuts. I mean, they were just like, okay, I have a new ache and pain every single moment, it seems like. I have to pee all the time, I'm not sleeping. It feels like some being has taken over my body, and I'm looking down the road at the most intense physical experience in my life,
[12:26] so maybe you could be a little more helpful. So I moved on and I started saying, okay, well, there's so much instability in pregnancy, mentally and emotionally, but also just physically, because of all the changes in the hormones. So how about I just do some alignment-based therapeutics? So I said, hey, you know, who has wrist pain, who has back pain, people would raise their hand, and we would spend the class getting them out of pain, and it was great. I mean, I thought that it was very helpful. But honestly, I really did feel that I was missing something still, and it wasn't until I started just asking myself this one question that I kind of fell in love
[13:08] with teaching pregnant people and moms, and that was, what is the opportunity that pregnancy brings? For me, it just couldn't be just all limitations and do's and don'ts. It's natural, right, that there had to be something that was a gift for us, and I wanted to find it.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[13:27] I think you definitely just related to 90% of our audience with the description of things that people feel during pregnancy, certainly at our office, that's what people come in saying all the time. So where were you able to pursue a deeper understanding?
Jessica Jennings[13:43] I kind of witnessed what transformation was happening with my students in class. They would start out pretty isolated and anxious, having a bunch of aches and pains. And by the end, there was just different energy about them. They felt grounded. They felt connected to their own inner resources, their bodies, intelligence, and power. It was like when we sent them off, we just knew that they were ready. And I realized that what was happening, although, of course, the poses are great and helpful and the community is just a beautiful thing, it started from a choice to slow down, to turn inward in a loving way and to really begin to honor what our bodies are asking for.
[14:32] And I think pregnancy is this beautiful opportunity for that, for a lot of people. A lot of people do this maybe even for the first time, really start to have this motivation to take care of themselves. But we don't have to be pregnant to do that, right? It taught me that we can all slow down and begin to listen. And unless we're listening lovingly to our body, right? Unless we're letting go of the frustration we often feel or beating ourselves up for somehow not doing things right, we're not gonna hear it, right? And so this is the opportunity that I realized is this part of us, right? In yoga, we have Shiva Shakti in Chinese medicine, it's yin and yang,
[15:17] but it's like this more feminine part of us. It's less achievement oriented and making it happen. And I got this kind of mindset and more allowing things to unfold and kind of feeling our way forward as if someone turned the lights out using our intuition and sensing. This is the gift, I think, of pregnancy.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[15:39] Did you start teaching pregnancy
Jessica Jennings[15:42] before you experienced pregnancy? I did, I was teaching for six years and learning from them, just really kind of coming to understand what it's like to have everything change, physically, mentally, we're dealing with, how is this gonna affect all my relationships, my work, everything, and emotionally, some people are having these waves of love, some people are not really feeling connected yet, right? And then spiritually, for me, there's like three births, right? So we're dealing with the birth of the baby and even the birth of the mom to this baby, right? Because every baby is different and so we're a different mom to each one. But then there's this idea of the birth
[16:29] of our ability to mother ourselves, right? This sort of when we turn inward lovingly, who's turning in, right? It's the birth of that person, just this kind of higher and nurturing self.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[16:43] How did that play out for your own pregnancy?
Jessica Jennings[16:47] Well, it was a beautiful thing, honestly, to be able to just be fully pregnant several times a week with my new pregnant friends. Of course, I had the aches and pains, but it just helped keep them all at bay and it really helped me feel ready for labor. I was very focused on labor. I wanted to have a beautiful labor. It did not go quite as I had imagined it would, but I feel like the yoga helped me be okay with the different directions that it took and find the beauty in it all, which I do. I look back on it, even though it was an epic four-day event and I'm very grateful for every part of it. Honestly, the yoga did not quite prepare me for motherhood.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[17:39] In what ways would you have expected it
Jessica Jennings[17:41] to prepare you for motherhood that it didn't? You know, I'm not sure I was thinking very much about motherhood at all. I have this image of like, when we're pregnant, we're looking at this huge mountain that's labor and we're like, if I can just, you know, get through that, everything will be fine. And what we don't realize is what we thought was like sky behind that is another mountain that's, you know, a thousand times bigger that is motherhood. And I guess, you know, I just hadn't quite learned how to take care of myself. I knew how to go to class. I knew how to stop at Whole Foods and get healthy food, but with very little time feeling completely depleted,
[18:27] you know, having had a cesarean and trying to heal from that and then being 45 minutes away from where I had taught yoga. So I didn't even have an easy way to connect to, you know, the mom friends that I had made. It was really hard.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[18:45] I'm sorry, that is a transition that I think you're echoing what I hear all the time is that people spend a lot of time preparing for birth and a lot less time preparing for motherhood and birth may be 24 hours, motherhood or lifetime in a very big transition. I wanna talk more about your work for pregnancy, birth and postpartum after the break and also very practical take-home tips that listeners can use immediately. But before we go to that break, we kind of threw out the term therapeutic yoga. The kind of work that you do in yoga is unique to what I generally see. And I would love for you to sort of describe in a nutshell what that means, therapeutic yoga.
Jessica Jennings[19:31] Yeah, for me, therapeutic yoga means using the yoga to support healing. And so there's gonna be a lot of different takes on that and some might say yoga always supports healing. And I do think every kind of yoga you do has some benefit. But for me, what becomes really therapeutic is when we address our patterns and make the shifts on every level of embodiment. So what does that mean? Like physical, right? So a lot of times, especially in my yoga teacher world, there's this idea that we can make pain go away with intention or like that it's just stress, you know? And it's true, stress can cause us to move into some patterns that then cause pain.
[20:20] But stress is natural and shouldn't cause us pain, right? And if we take ourselves out of a stressful situation and we take a vacation, if we go back into that stressful situation, it's probably gonna come back, right? So really making these shifts on a physical level means understanding what are my patterns. And it might be as simple as breathing into a slightly different part of our lungs or rooting down a little more through one side. And then mentally, emotionally, right? That understanding of, you know, not just our story, but just what those patterns are and even the ways we think energetically, how that energy, that prana or whatever you call it,
[21:04] chi is moving through the body and supporting it to flow in its optimal way. And then spiritually, remembering that there is always support for us. There is this bigger intelligence and when we reach out or end, when we turn in, we're gonna get guidance. And for me, that's what therapeutic is. Yoga is all about.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[21:25] Has a lot of depth to it. I think oftentimes people think about yoga as a good stretch and this is so much more than that. Healing doesn't just happen during a workout or yoga class. It happens in the way we sit and stand and breathe and work and rest and move throughout every minute of every day of our lives. When we come back, we'll talk about how those ideas evolved into my yoga and what Jessica has learned and now teachers and can offer to people locally and worldwide from her years of supporting pregnant and postpartum clients. We'll be right back. Welcome back. We are talking to Jessica Jennings, founder of my yoga. Okay, so you've got years and years
[22:23] and years of experience teaching prenatal, postpartum. What patterns did you begin to notice and how did that transform into this platform, my yoga?
Jessica Jennings[22:36] Well, it really came from my own experience of becoming a mom and of course I loved yoga and I loved meditation, but it fell away. And honestly, there was this sense that like, if I'm not gonna do a full hour of sweaty practice or literally my meditation teacher had said, if you don't do 20 minutes twice a day, then don't even bother. And at some point I started getting a little bit annoyed that there were these people and honestly, mostly men who created yoga, mostly four men who weren't responsible for this little life. And I started to think, well, if I only have two minutes, what would I do? What could I do, right? Whether it's to relieve this back pain
[23:24] or my neck tension, or to just get rid of this feeling of complete overwhelm and negativity to be able to show up as my best self for my family or just to feel that I'm on my path. So I started paring things down to their essence. I used this framework of the five natural elements of space, earth, water, fire and air. And basically it's just like, we can start with just space. Forget about meditation, forget about all the complexity, but can you just take one minute and become as spacious as you can? I started holding onto the edge of my kitchen counter and stretching back and just doing one pose while my baby was distracted with a toy, I had five minutes left of their nap.
[24:15] And so everyone says sleep while baby sleeps, but I wasn't a big napper. But what I could do is lie there still. And what I felt was that I would kind of drop into this really deep relaxation that revitalized me on a really deep level, maybe even more than sleeping. I wasn't even calling it meditation at the time. So there are these little practices that we can do that can really make a huge difference.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[24:44] I love that because in today's very, very busy world in general and the extra busyness that comes once babies arrive, it's just so daunting to say, I'm gonna go do an exercise class or a yoga class. And I know with our clients that you work with, you give them little tips and tricks and things that they can do, just even the way they describe little tiny adjustments that they make in the way that they sit or stand or pick up their child, that can be making therapeutic improvements throughout the regular day without committing to going to a class, taking a class, coming back from a class, getting all the sweat off of you from the class. And that's super powerful.
[25:26] And I think that sometimes people actually will go overdo a class, especially if they haven't done much yoga before and sometimes actually get injured from doing a full class without modifications or jumping in too deeply. And sometimes yoga doesn't have to be a class. It could literally just be little things that you do throughout your day that don't take up a lot of time and don't take up a lot of resources. So I guess the name ma yoga, what does that represent to you?
Jessica Jennings[25:57] Yeah, so I chose the name ma yoga because the syllable ma in every language pretty much means mother. And in the language of yoga, Sanskrit, it also means the highest, most powerful and wise. Like ma kali is the mother of all goddesses. So I love this idea that, and this really is aligned with what I saw with my pregnant students, when we learn to turn inward and listen and mother ourselves, right? We begin to step into that highest, most powerful and wise ma self. So whenever I start working with someone, that's always the beginning is just a nice restorative pose. I've had people come in. One woman said, I don't really like getting on the floor.
[26:45] And I was like, that's fine. So we just sat on the couch and she wanted to learn, I think what we all wanna learn. Just like, why do I have this discomfort, this pain? And what can I do to make it go away? So we worked on just really simple little shifts in how she was sitting, the muscles she was using. We moved to standing and we don't just start from a place of loving ourselves, of listening to our body. And there's an exercise we can do where it's like you're literally, if you think of a toddler learning to walk, you're literally, you can take some of those words that you'd say and say them to yourself right now. Like the toddler falls, you wouldn't say, oh, there you go again.
[27:34] It's just gonna be like this forever. There's just something missing. There's just something wrong with you. And you might as well just give up, right? We would never say that to a little one, yet a lot of times we say that to ourselves. So our subconscious understands language. So if we just say, it's okay, of course you're gonna fall. And don't worry, I am here for you. We're gonna figure this out together and you're doing beautifully and you have everything within you that you need to do this. I try to keep that running through all the practice, not just the beginning, but as we're working, we never let that effort take over. It's always listening lovingly.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[28:15] Is this along the lines of mothering yourself?
Jessica Jennings[28:19] Exactly. It is this idea of learning to mother yourself and to step into that ma-self for ourselves. You know, it's something that I wish I did more with my daughter. I mean, she's amazing. She's 19. But at the time, she came first in every way, you know? If she even like made a sound, I would wanna make sure that that was a positive experience. And honestly, I think kids benefit from seeing that their moms take care of themselves and from having a little bit of that boundary where, oh, mom's meditating right now. She has that shawl on. So I know I'm allowed to just sit on her lap right now, but I have to wait until she takes it off before I can talk to her.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[29:05] I know that a lot of the people listening right now are pregnant. They have the aches and pains and discomfort, the neck pain, the rib pain, the sciatica, the hip discomfort. Is there something simple that anyone can do to sort of address some of that discomfort?
Jessica Jennings[29:27] Well, I could give you something for a specific discomfort. I think first I'll just say that it doesn't take much to learn the language of the body. So a neck pain is gonna need something different from a back pain. And we can use these elements to say, do I need space here? A lot of times when we have an ache or a pain, we think we need to stretch. But actually, pregnancy hormones, relaxin and progesterone, they actually create instability in the body. This is also baby's head can get out of the pelvis, right? So we need that to open up, but it also creates instability in every joint. Instead of thinking I need to stretch here, think about I need to give myself a hug with my muscles.
[30:16] So what does that mean? When we're sitting, driving, we can even put like a big water bottle between our legs and just very gently hug in. If we are on the mat, we can roll up a towel, or if you have a block, put it between the thighs, gently squeeze it. And I'm not talking 100% effort, just like 30%, just to feel that gentle hug that stabilizes our joints and can make a huge difference with those little aches and pains that we get.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[30:45] Yeah, another thing I noticed is that when you do your assessment with our clients, you are looking for things, not just that are too tight, but also things that are weak or unstable, things that are out of balance from front to back, right to left, and then use your methods to address all of those things, strengthening the things that are too weak or stabilizing the things that are unstable, balancing the things that are out of balance and loosening the things that are too tight. If somebody came to work with you, let's say during pregnancy, since you have so much expertise there, what might a session look like?
Jessica Jennings[31:23] Well, we would start by just chatting on the couch and I'd just hear what's arising for the person. And I would put that person into what's called a restorative pose, which uses props, maybe it's a rolled blanket or a bolster, to make someone really comfortable while they're moving toward optimal alignment. So for instance, if someone says, yeah, my low back's been hurting, I would make sure that we are supporting the curve of their low back and right away they're gonna feel ah, that ah feeling. And I would probably have some music on and be just talking them through just a relaxing meditation to have them start to connect with their body in a new way.
[32:10] And from there, we would just explore. So the first session is just always a discovery, what feels good, what doesn't, we're moving slowly, we're doing simple poses. Some people come in and they're like, I've been working it, I've been working out and I really want the strength and so we'll lean more toward that. Some people have never done yoga before, so it just really depends on the person. After that first session, one of the priorities is to end a little bit early and make sure that we record a short five minute practice that will be therapeutic and something that will help the person feel better right away and over time to make this the new normal.
[32:53] So I'm not there to try to get people addicted to coming to me, I'm there to really help people have a practice that you can do even just five minutes a day that reconnects you to your center and makes you feel grounded and free.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[33:09] And at the moment you're seeing people live in person here in Los Angeles at our clinic, Berlin Wellness Group, we're so grateful to have you. But the great news is you don't have to be local to work with you. Tell me how that would work.
Jessica Jennings[33:23] This is true. So on myyoga.com you can go to our offerings and I offer Zoom sessions and I've been teaching on Zoom since 2012. I actually have a prenatal certification program so I'm on Zoom a lot. And it's so easy to click in and I get to connect with people from all over. So it's really nice plus it's kind of nice to be able to have that video of what happened. So yeah, I love connecting with people wherever.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[33:57] You mentioned meditation and I think meditation is one of the most powerful and underused tools for helping regulate the nervous system, the autonomic nervous system in particular and can have really profound effects on how we feel, mind, body and spirit, but also on birth. And I'd love for you to share a little bit more about your thoughts on meditation, the effect that just meditation alone can have on the body and in particular on our birth.
Jessica Jennings[34:31] Yeah, that's great. So yeah, I see meditation and I kind of call it ma meditation. I see it as connected to this mother love and that when we do it, we connect to the body's intelligence and power. Our cells know how to give birth. Our cells even know our next step, right? I think of it as like, if you think of an acorn, it has the map to becoming that oak tree. It knows how to do it. And so in a lot of ways, pregnancy is one of these things where we just wanna get out of our body's way and see what we can do to support it. So the meditation, you know, for me as someone who had this scoliosis before, I was kind of stuck. So I recommend if somebody has had a really long pattern
[35:26] in their body, you know, definitely go to a chiropractor. Sometimes your muscles, your bones, they're stuck and they need some help to be moved. And then we can do the yoga and the meditation and kind of keep moving in that optimal direction. So eventually I was able to use meditation to just allow my body to move literally to I would feel it untwisting. And as a prep for labor, you know, we're gonna have to breathe through intense sensation. We're gonna have to know how to calm our nervous system because the moment we start getting stressed and resisting those contractions, it can hurt a little more, it can take a little longer. So all of the breathing and the awareness,
[36:13] you know, just turning in. And again, like turning our inner eyes and our inner ears in, especially if we have some understanding of the language of the body, of the optimal ways energy flows in the body, you know, we can just be in a really good space. No matter where we're giving birth, hospital, birth center, home, we can have a beautiful experience. It's really about what's happening inside.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[36:38] And I always feel like we come to this question with just a minute or two left and then need to do another whole episode on it. But you mentioned that in your own pregnancy, yoga didn't prepare you for motherhood. The beginning of motherhood is oftentimes a bumpy transition than postpartum. Maybe the first 12 weeks or so, a lot of people listening recently had a baby, probably feel also kind of that bumpiness of that period or maybe being unprepared for that period. Is there a tip or suggestion you can give? I know you have a lot of online resources for this as well, but for someone in the newly postpartum period?
Jessica Jennings[37:21] Yeah, thank you for asking this. So a lot of people say, well, when can I start? And, you know, I haven't gotten the okay from the doctor yet. Now, obviously for, you know, intense, sweaty yoga practice, you want the okay to exercise. But there are things, unless you're on bed rest and this applies for pregnancy and postpartum, there are always poses you can get into to help your body align optimally and postpartum to really help it begin to heal. So according to yoga, when we give birth, whether it's, you know, vaginal, cesarean, it doesn't matter. All of our energetic channels have exploded and your body is recreating it from scratch. So when we support that healing
[38:11] with just really simple poses and breath work, we can be moving in that optimal direction. I believe we have about a window of a year to make sure that our organs are back to where they belong, that we're not creating adhesions where things are sticking. So my recommendation is always, you know, do some therapeutic yoga, get a practice that works for you. You know, find a physical therapist who is a pelvic floor specialist, have them check you out and, you know, use this time to be very gentle with yourself, but to support healing.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[38:50] I have learned so much from you today and I know that the audience has as well. If we wanna learn more, where can we find you online?
Jessica Jennings[38:58] Well, it has been a pleasure and I am at MaYoga.com, Amazon Mary A as in AppleYoga.com. I train teachers in therapeutic yoga. So we have, you know, classes all week long and you can actually try a week for free on Zoom. They're mostly for prenatal, postpartum and busy moms, but everybody's welcome. You can also work with me one-on-one and yeah, there's a community blog and lots of info, hopefully useful stuff for everybody.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[39:32] Thank you again for sharing your personal story and such great tips and advice for our listeners. And at home, thanks for joining in. If you liked what you heard and want more pregnancy and parenting information just like this, visit us online at informedpregnancy.com.
Want more pregnancy + parenting? Start your FREE TRIAL of Informed Pregnancy+ and get access to all our curated pregnancy and parenting content — original series, iconic birth films like The Business of Being Born, prenatal workouts and more.
LA based dentist and father of four Dr. Bernard Baseri explains the links between oral care and pregnancy and why dental care before, during, and after pregnancy is important.
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; Dr. Bernard Baseri in orange.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[0:00] My guest today is a Los Angeles-based dentist and father of four. He's passionate about the often overlooked connection between oral health and pregnancy, and today he'll explain why dental care before, during, and after pregnancy matters more than most people realize and give us simple steps expectant parents can take to protect their health and their baby's health. I'm pregnancy-focused chiropractor Dr. Elliott Berlin, and you're listening to the Informed Pregnancy podcast. Dr. Bernard Basiri, welcome to the podcast.
Dr. Bernard Baseri[0:45] Hi, everyone. I'm Dr. Bernard Basiri. Nice meeting you all.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[0:49] Nice to meet you, and I know that you're passionate about oral health in general, and I'm always hearing about importance of oral health during pregnancy and beyond in ways that we don't necessarily think about, and I'm really interested about talking about it and learning some tips our listeners can take home, practical tips, things that they can act upon. But first, let's start at the beginning. Where are you from originally?
Dr. Bernard Baseri[1:11] I was born in Iran. I came here when I was 14 years old. I was fortunate enough. My parents really pushed for education, and I have gone to local universities here, USC and UCLA. I earned my dental degree from USC School of Dentistry. Prior to me becoming a dentist, I was a dental ceramist. I was sort of creating beautiful smiles for all the other patients, and I became more curious about what can I do more, and that led me to go to dental school and really become more passionate about the field of dentistry. As I started practicing a little bit more, I really understood from others that how often pregnancy and oral health is overlooked. The connection between the two is so significant and
[2:03] so important that I really dedicated part of my practice to oral health and pregnancy and the
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[2:10] mumps. So we're going to get into the night. I wonder, well, first of all, welcome to America. Thank you. Age 14. I mean, you grew up in Iran. What was that like?
Dr. Bernard Baseri[2:22] Well, I remember going through the Iran and Iraq war. It was very traumatic for me as I look back, but I really thank my parents to really instill in me a really strong character, and they built me to be resilient. Through hard work, I have seen how my parents really wanted us to succeed, and it's honestly a dream coming true because I'm able to pass those experiences to my kids. I show them what hard work means. Be persistent. Really be true and passionate about what you do, and I truly enjoy every day of my work with my colleagues, my patients. I put a smile on my patients' face. I make them healthy, and it's not really work. For me, it's a playground. I'm having fun. When you left Iran, could you just leave or
[3:20] did you have to kind of sneak out? No. My parents, they had to really bribe so many different people, and it wasn't easy. They wanted to leave after they got married, but unfortunately, it wasn't possible. They had to wait at least, I guess, 14 years, and my dad left everything behind. He left his business behind, his very successful civil engineer, but unfortunately, the situation presented itself that he had to put family first and come here, and that's basically what I really admire about my dad is he put his family on top of everything else. Nothing was more important than his kids. He wanted us to be successful. He wanted us to do well, and more importantly, he wanted us to really help the
[4:12] next generation. He always says, do your best and let that be an example to others.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[4:19] It's hard. You only get one chance to get that right.
Dr. Bernard Baseri[4:22] That's true. Look, I always say I wish I had another brother. At the time, he wasn't really feasible for my parents to have another child, so it's only me and my sister. She's five years younger than me, but now I have my kids. They're sort of like my brother, my younger brother, so I try to teach them what I really truly believe to be number one, which is first, do your best and let everything else follow.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[4:52] How did you get into dental ceramics?
Dr. Bernard Baseri[4:55] Well, the story behind me becoming a dental ceramist and a lab technician is very interesting. At the age of 14, I really wanted to really carve my path for the future. I came here, and I knew that I had to work hard because coming to a new country, everything is new to you. Language is new. Culture is new. When I went to actually get my wisdom teeth removed, I was laying down in a dentist's chair at the time. I have seen him have all his instruments laid out. It was very fascinating to me because I remember going to work with my dad. As a civil engineer, he had so many different tools that he was showing me sometimes how to use. I got to play
[5:39] with them. I felt that was really cool and interesting. That kind of started getting me interested into dentistry. I spoke with my dentist and said, you know what? One should come here and work if you want. Help me serialize instruments over the summer. See if you're interested. That's how my path to dentistry started.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[6:01] Wow, right away.
Dr. Bernard Baseri[6:03] I wanted to become a dentist at the age of 14. I'm really happy that I chose this profession because I'm really and truly passionate about my field. Not only I get to play with all the tools, all the fancy tools that I have, but also I get to help people. I get people to have self-confidence. A lot of people, they unfortunately are embarrassed about their smile, embarrassed about their oral health. I have patients who say COVID was the best thing that ever happened to them. I said, how come? They said, we started wearing masks because I didn't want to show my teeth. That really hits hard when you are not able to go to a job interview or you feel that you can't go on a date or you can't really socialize because
[6:52] you're embarrassed to smile. Even in your pictures, I have patients I said, I never smile in my photos, but after what you have done for me, I feel I'm a free person. I can smile. I can laugh. People always tell me, my gosh, you are a different person. You're more lively. Having a healthy smile, number one, but also having an attractive smile really affects self-confidence. More importantly, it helps the hormones, happy hormones, the endorphins to get secreted. Eventually, it affects your health overall as well. It's just not your mouth. Our mouth is the gateway to the rest of our body.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[7:32] Yeah. It sounds like also not just the body, but also the mind being mentally healthy because you're proud of the way you look. Also, it's the gateway to health and the rest of the body in other medically significant ways. In general and during pregnancy, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll learn more about that.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[7:51] Don't go anywhere. Welcome back. We're talking to Dr. Bernard Basseri. Okay, very interesting story coming here at age 14 and immediately falling into dental oral health and becoming a ceramist and then eventually a dentist. We were talking before the break about something probably a lot of people don't think about, that when you don't have a smile that you're comfortable with or proud of, it really kind of shatters your whole self-confidence, which can affect your life in many different ways. But also there's a lot of connections between oral health and medical health. Tell me more about that.
Dr. Bernard Baseri[8:36] Well, bacteria by itself, it's really harmful and it depends where it's growing. Specifically, in our oral cavity, when we have an extreme load of the bacteria, it not only can affect our gums and our teeth, but also it affects the rest of the body. So it is systemic. So when our mouth is not healthy, when the gums are inflamed, those bacteria, they don't stay in our mouth. They travel throughout our body through the bloodstream. So during pregnancy specifically, hormones are constantly fluctuating, progesterone and estrogen is constantly fluctuating and the gums specifically becomes very sensitive. So as the level of the progesterone starts to fluctuate, the gums become more permeable and bacteria can really
[9:28] get into the bloodstream. And we have found, believe it or not, it's very interesting. Once I got more into this, we have found bacteria in our mouth that can travel to the bloodstream and get into placenta and amniotic fluid. Those bacteria we have found to be similar to the mom's oral cavity. So this is something really alarming and that really took my interest to the next level to really understand how the oral health really affects moms and their fetus, knowing and not knowing. We all think everything needs to be beautiful, but when you go deep down and try to find out, okay, what's going on with certain situations that can present itself such as preterm, such as low birth weight, preeclampsia, these are important
[10:22] factors that is completely related to the bacteria and the level of the bacteria that
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[10:30] we have in our mouth. I think we have two things in common. First of all, we both have four children and also our wives are both doulas. That's correct. And I think that when you're going through a practice and you have a developing practice and you're at the same time growing a family and your loved one is pregnant and then postpartum and then pregnant and then postpartum again and again, you learn a lot more and you sort of focus a lot more on your modality during that time of life. Just to even take care of our own wives and then you realize how much you could do for other people who are pregnant or postpartum. So it's really interesting the things that you're saying about how the bacteria could
[11:14] not just root in your mouth and more so during pregnancy because of hormonal changes, but then spread to the body for anybody, but during pregnancy even into the amniotic fluid sitting around the baby. That's something I hadn't really thought of before. So with that in mind, if someone's planning to become pregnant, what would they do to prepare for
Dr. Bernard Baseri[11:34] the pregnancy? I will tell my patients, obviously before they want to become pregnant, make sure that you have a comprehensive oral evaluation, check the gums, check the teeth. With the help of now digital x-rays that we have, we are able to really scan the entire oral cavity and make sure that there are no pre-existing conditions such as small cavities or any infections. Sometimes these infections or sometimes cavities may not necessarily cause pain, but as the level of the estrogen and the progesterone specifically fluctuating, that is going to trigger the bacteria to really go on a different level and start affecting soft tissues such as gum and our bone and really exceeding the level of the cavities
[12:29] to a different level that in a normal setting, it's not the same. So when we look at our pregnant moms, obviously morning sickness is one factor that we have seen. The oral cavity becomes very acidic. That pH level really affects the enamels. The enamels, they become more permeable to the bacteria and causes cavities. So if there's a cavity that's been that hasn't gone diagnosed prior to becoming pregnant, that can really go into the next level and those bacteria, they find themselves really fast going into the nerve and we have all heard the term root canal. Everyone is terrified about it. They say it's painful. Obviously, it is painful if it's not treated, but obviously we want to make sure that our patients
[13:19] always screen before they take on this important journey which is pregnancy. So with the help of our digital x-rays, now we have AI in our practice that is going to scan the x-rays. So there are close to 250 shades of grays and our eyes are only trained to peak anywhere between 20 to 50 if you're really good, if you have 20-20 vision. But AI really helps us to see if there has been any cavities that we haven't detected it. So I really take that into great consideration when it comes to the health of my patients. We put the x-rays through the AI. We verify everything and we make sure nothing goes missing. So if somebody knows that they're planning a pregnancy, you would recommend doing that kind of evaluation before they get
[14:14] pregnant? Absolutely. Evaluation. Make sure your gums and your teeth are sound. There is no active infection or bacteria or pre-existing conditions, you know, basically there. And highly recommend getting dental cleaning prior to conceiving. Even after you conceive and you know that you're pregnant, we want to make sure that throughout your pregnancy your gums and your teeth are clean. It is completely safe because we want to make sure those bacteria are not getting into your bloodstream and finding themselves in the amniotic fluid and your fetus. So just
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[14:50] want to make sure I get that straight because I hear sometimes people are nervous to do dental cleanings during pregnancy. I'm not sure what that's based on but you're saying it's good to do dental cleanings even during the pregnancy, during all stages of pregnancy? Yes,
Dr. Bernard Baseri[15:03] according to CDC it's important to make sure that the load of the bacteria is low. So what we want to do is that obviously we don't want to do any elective treatments such as you know veneers or teeth whitening. Anything that we can sort of put away until the pregnancy is complete. We want to do that but during pregnancy we want to make sure that the teeth are clean and we don't want those bacteria to find themselves in the area that we don't want them to be. So for example one specific bacteria that can cause you know cavities we have found specifically in the pregnant women that if the load of that bacteria is high your fetus and eventually your baby can start having cavities at the very stages. This is
[15:55] my point when we found out. So crazy they don't even have teeth yet. They don't even have teeth and you know even going further you know we all have you know we have done it you know in the past we try to you know sort of taste the food and give it you know to our baby we put in our mouth we make sure it's not hot and it tastes good we transfer that bacteria from our mouth to our baby. So guess what now we have given our baby a lifetime cavity bacteria. So it's it goes beyond say of really understanding how this works. Everything starts at the very early stages even prior to becoming pregnant you want to make sure that your mouth is clean there is no active infection the gums are not inflamed and really keep that you know throughout
[16:43] your pregnancy and even after pregnancy you want to keep that up. So just before we go
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[16:48] to break sometimes people listening to this podcast will be pregnant and sometimes they listen to us say oh before you get pregnant it would be great to do x y and z but now it's already too late they're already pregnant. So somebody who's pregnant and listening and didn't know that it would be great to do a full exam and to handle any cavities and bacteria before pregnancy what's the best thing they can do right now? Well it's not too late anytime
Dr. Bernard Baseri[17:14] you can bring the load of the bacteria down it is a plus. So even if you're in your first trimester or even if you're in the second trimester or even the third trimester it's very safe we have created a safe environment for our pregnant patients to really take their oral health to the next level. Sometimes it is hard to have a dental cleaning done in the first trimester because of nausea and vomiting. So what I recommend you know to my patients make sure that you brush and floss daily if it's too hard for you to use an adult size toothbrush just use kid size toothbrush put a piece of you know pea size toothpaste on the toothbrush and then gently you know clean your teeth obviously you want
[18:04] to save it from your gums rinse your mouth and really keep the bacteria at a low level. During morning time obviously when there's acid reflux you want to avoid brushing your teeth right away you want to rinse your mouth sometimes you know baking soda helps to stabilize the pH of the mouth 30 minutes later you can go ahead it is safe to brush your teeth and the reason behind that is if there was an acid reflux in the mouth we want to avoid brushing right away because you're going to abrate the enamels the enamels have been sitting environment for a little bit so when you're brushing you can actually take away your enamel and you can actually introduce those bacteria to penetrate deep inside the
[18:48] enamel so some hygiene you know oral health care is is still you know better than nothing you still can have a healthy gums if you take this into consideration obviously second trimester is easier for many trimesters it's kind of hard because you could deal with heavy laying back is difficult although we have committed our patients to adjust you know the dental chair to their comfort level we have you know pillows and blankets and you know all the amenities necessary to help our pregnant patients be comfortable during the bell settings
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[19:23] sounds great let's take a quick break and when we come back we have one more segment we'll talk about some common conditions that come up during pregnancy we'll be right back welcome back we're talking to dr bernard vaseri and i think you've given some really helpful information and things that people can do before pregnancy knowing that they're planning a pregnancy in terms of their oral health and also for the various stages of pregnancy but there are certain conditions that come up specifically during pregnancy one of them is
Dr. Bernard Baseri[20:05] pregnancy gingivitis what is that all right so pregnancy gingivitis is a very well known term for those that they read on you know certain things that can happen during pregnancy that's typically when the gums starts bleeding more right so if your gum starts bleeding more during pregnancy that's a term that we use as a pregnancy gingivitis and that actually has to do with the hormones that we talked about the estrogen and the progesterone that's constantly fluctuating so if there are bacteria plaque build up sitting around the gum lines under the gum lines around the teeth those bacteria are very much easy to permeate through the blood vessels and the capillaries and really cause bleeding so you may find yourself that when
[20:53] you're flossing or brushing your gums are typically bleeding more than usual nothing to really be worried about what you want to do is to make sure that after your meal you floss and you brush i know it's kind of challenging you know to do that after every meal but really once or twice a day at the minimum is really going to help to keep the load of the bacteria at low level specifically you don't want to have plaque build up on your gums many times you know around 55 to 70 percent of the pregnant patients they find themselves you know having inflamed and pregnancy gingivitis you may also find some overgrown gums in front of your teeth this is normal nothing to really be worried about really normal cleaning can help
[21:45] to bring down the load of the bacteria and the inflammation down and obviously that's going to help your baby not to have those bacteria that is going to affect their life so this is sort of very important to make sure that you don't stress too much make sure that you are really having your gums and your teeth clean during the pregnancy brush at least you know a few times and that's going to help to bring the load of the bacteria and inflammation
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[22:15] at its minimum level okay so i hear all the time patients tell me my gums bleed during pregnancy more than usual or sometimes they just never have bleeding gums and all of a sudden they do during pregnancy so are you saying that's not something to worry about just to brush more or is that something that needs to be evaluated well obviously if the
Dr. Bernard Baseri[22:36] mouth has been cleaned up prior to pregnancy the bacteria and the plaque is at minimum level but during the pregnancy it's also important to keep that oral hygiene up so visiting your dentist making sure you're getting the cleaning done at least once or twice during the pregnancy is an important factor not to let the bacteria build up because once you start seeing more than normal then that's going to be a problem so you want to keep the bleeding at its low level it is normal to have bleeding gums during pregnancy but not really excessively so if you're brushing with it and you find your mouth full of blood that's going to be alarming there may have been you know area that the gum is infected or there is food that has
[23:21] aggregated in that area you want to make sure that your gums and your teeth stays clean but if you see more than normal your gums are bleeding definitely contact your dentist have them take a look at it it is safe in certain situations to even take dental x-rays we basically double shield our patients with apron lead making sure that they're completely safe but if it's necessary to go in that route yes it is important to contact your dentist and have
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[23:52] them take a look at your gum so just a little blood when i spit out that's nothing to panic about but if there's a significant amount of blood important to get that checked out absolutely yes what about infections or oral dental infections more common during pregnancy
Dr. Bernard Baseri[24:07] absolutely our mouth specifically our teeth are very much prone to developing infection not necessarily can sometimes it can hurt sometimes it could be not really painful but it is very common for our environment specifically when it comes you know to our gums to develop infection and why do i say that because the blood supply in our mouth basically are very prone to get infected by the bacteria that is sitting around the gums the estrogen and progesterone specifically makes the capillaries very much permeable so as soon as there is bacteria present those bacteria they want to find themselves and get into the bloodstream they can find themselves not only the bloodstream but it can penetrate
[24:56] right under the gum line get into the nervous system of the tooth and in some cases causes an infection of the nervous system of the tooth something that we all familiar with caused
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[25:08] root canal treatment root canal the dreaded root canal okay so a couple of things the capillaries the smallest of the blood vessels they become more permeable during pregnancy so bacteria have an easier time getting in and then traveling through the bloodstream creating problems creating infections and you said you don't always feel pain with an infection what would the other
Dr. Bernard Baseri[25:32] signs be well the other side is would be you may have some excessive swelling you can have sort of you know bone loss you can develop bone loss during pregnancy and you may actually be prone more to cavities like i said the ph of the mouth drops to as low as two that's a great environment for the bacteria to penetrate inside the teeth and causes a cavity that by itself can also cause deep decay and eventually causing root canal treatment in some cases you may find your teeth a little bit loose that's not necessarily very alarming but if you have a good oral hygiene if you're flossing if you're trying to make sure you're not leaving any food on a plaque build up between your teeth that is going to help you to really go through the
[26:25] pregnancy without any issues but if you start having severe pain if you start having throbbing pain definitely contact your dentist have them take a look because it is important not to neglect your teeth and the oral cavities as we know that's directly correlated to the health of
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[26:42] your fetus my listeners know i was recently in the icu in the cardiac care unit and one thing my doctor said to me he goes well at least you have good oral health and he implied that there's a connection between poor oral health and heart conditions can you tell me more about that
Dr. Bernard Baseri[27:00] absolutely so we talked a lot about bacteria that are sitting in our mouth and we said that this bacteria they just don't stay in our mouth it basically travels to our body so once they get into the bloodstream the bacteria with the blood starts traveling obviously they find themselves in the heart and the heart starts pumping this blood that is infected with this bacteria from your brain to your toe so you may not find yourself having pain but these bacteria are constantly getting all over the place so we want to make sure that we keep the mouth clean it can cause cardiovascular disease it can cause Alzheimer's it can cause you know really infecting the heart valves of the heart that's also very important you know to make sure we
[27:50] really keep our mouth clean not only that also kissing when we kiss in our partners right or we kiss our baby we can transfer those bacteria to our partners to our babies that's also important you know to really keep in mind to make sure you visit your dentist at least twice a year to not only keep yourself healthy but also your partner as well that's good advice and
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[28:18] then as you said during pregnancy it can travel to all parts of the pregnant body including into the amniotic fluid surrounding the baby so the take-home message is if you know you're going to be getting pregnant go ahead and take care of your oral health beforehand if not it's not too late to get cleanings during the pregnancy at any trimester and then again after the baby comes is a great time to see the dentist make sure you keep bacterial load low and keep yourself healthy and not spread unfriendly bacteria to your baby and your loved ones dr baseri thank you so much for sharing this really important information with us
Dr. Bernard Baseri[28:56] where can we find you online it's very simple you can find me on instagram at dr baseri dr dot baseri you can go on our website smile recreation dot com or if you come to visit dr berlin i'm next to dr berlin literally right next door so you cannot miss it you have no excuse easily open our door we welcome you and we look forward to helping moms not only go through the pregnancy with ease but also making sure your baby is safe as well as a mom with a
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC[29:29] great smile yes thank you again at home thanks for listening to the informed pregnancy podcast for more pregnancy and parenting information just like this visit us online at informedpregnancy.com
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