Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, Hey, what's up? And welcome the Let's Red
Speaker 1: Table that I'm Tracy t Row and I'm called Pressley.
Speaker 1: How are you feeling the day, Tracy? Every day amazing
Speaker 1: and oh my goodness for this episode, that's what I'm feeling, like,
Speaker 1: how are you feeling? I'm feeling pretty successful. As you
Speaker 1: can see, my voice is kind of gone, but that's
Speaker 1: all right. We are. You can be successful in a
Speaker 1: little raspy at the same time, it's all right with me.
Speaker 1: And you know what, you can be a fantastic mother
Speaker 1: and have postpartum depression at the same time. To hello
Speaker 1: this episode, listen. This episode was heavy, heavy, but necessary.
Speaker 1: Today's episode, we're gonna talk about postpartum co morbidity, meaning
Speaker 1: that after giving birth, mothers can suffer from different types
Speaker 1: of mental illness at the same time. So more than
Speaker 1: one co morbidity means more than one. So having postpartum
Speaker 1: depression and anxiety simultaneously would be an example of having
Speaker 1: a co morbidity. So I just want to say that
Speaker 1: because we use the word, we try to educate ourselves
Speaker 1: here at Let's Red Table that and we want to
Speaker 1: help the listeners also be educated. Right now. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: we want to help people change the language as well
Speaker 1: as their perspective, or just be reintroduced to a perspective
Speaker 1: you hadn't truly considered. One of the things like listening
Speaker 1: to Hayden. In this episode, she shared that having gone
Speaker 1: through so many emotions in that way led her to
Speaker 1: just do something easy, right, kind of relying on that
Speaker 1: substance of alcohol when she got home because she just
Speaker 1: didn't have the energy to do anything else. And I
Speaker 1: think there's so many people who relate to that, especially women.
Speaker 1: We get home and we have a glass of wine
Speaker 1: and we just say we're relaxing. But I need some
Speaker 1: people to know that that one glass can turn into
Speaker 1: some other things for some other people. Well, if you're
Speaker 1: already suffering with some other comorbidities, come on, let's use this.
Speaker 1: You have some co morbidities. You know that self diagnosing,
Speaker 1: self medicating oftentimes go hand in hand. I thought Hayden
Speaker 1: was brave. I just want you to know that Carl
Speaker 1: Bravery is so underrated because people don't understand you're not
Speaker 1: just gonna show up at somebody's house first of all,
Speaker 1: sit at their table and then be recorded sharing your
Speaker 1: most intimate, like most, painful, vulnerable, I don't know what
Speaker 1: other word to you, lowest of the low, lowest point.
Speaker 1: She even said that she was like in the fetal
Speaker 1: position when she finally even herself acknowledged it. Not everyone
Speaker 1: wants to relive that. We've all had our lowest point,
Speaker 1: but not many people come back to relive it again.
Speaker 1: So again, thank you for sharing, Gammy, thank you for
Speaker 1: being so willing to talk about this. And then can
Speaker 1: we talk about Kelly Osborne and her baby love, her
Speaker 1: best wishes to you. I was so excited to see
Speaker 1: her Willow. We know you're on tour rock it out
Speaker 1: well right, but we love to see the guests come
Speaker 1: to the table again. It just shows how universal the
Speaker 1: show is. This transcends across just the Smith family, so
Speaker 1: I love that that we can continue to share. Now
Speaker 1: it's time to share what our online Red Tabletop community
Speaker 1: has to say about this episode. I really, Brooks says,
Speaker 1: I feel so sad for her. That little girl needs
Speaker 1: her mom in her life. I appreciate that Jada and
Speaker 1: gam gave her a safe, open and compassionate space to
Speaker 1: tell her story. Yes, I agree, mm hmm. That's so important.
Speaker 1: Tracy Turner great first name there. Tracy said, what if
Speaker 1: instead of assuming the worst, we gave each other the
Speaker 1: grace and assume we're all doing our best every day.
Speaker 1: That's important. It's important. Another comment says, so glad that
Speaker 1: she spoke out about this. So many people go through this,
Speaker 1: and it's so good to know that you are not alone.
Speaker 1: So thank you for your avery. Hayden. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Dana Norman for that comment. Yes, and rosallyn Nixon said,
Speaker 1: I got some therapy just watching this episode. Wow, Okay.
Speaker 1: Prayers for Hayden's complete healing and a heart emoji, Roslynn,
Speaker 1: thank you for that. That's absolutely one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why we do what we do because we know it's
Speaker 1: healing every day. We are healing every day and last
Speaker 1: but not least, Kristin Bellow says, I love the feeling.
Speaker 1: Will It's hanging in my office out work in mental health, right,
Speaker 1: we all need a feeling. Will It really changes how
Speaker 1: you communicate and understand your emotions. Yes, everybody get a feeling?
Speaker 1: Will or say some affirmations? Yes? Speak, come on now
Speaker 1: you speak in my language? Car, Yes? Do you know
Speaker 1: why I'm so grateful? Cal we have already received communications
Speaker 1: from listeners in our let's community. They are emailing us
Speaker 1: at our email address. What is our email address? Car
Speaker 1: Let's Red Table that at red table talk dot com. Yes,
Speaker 1: and Shannon Cox and Katie Yates, we are so grateful
Speaker 1: to you and want to acknowledge that we have received
Speaker 1: your email messages in response to our parental alienation episode.
Speaker 1: We are grateful to you for taking time to communicate
Speaker 1: with us, and we are sending you lots of light
Speaker 1: and love and hope that you will be reunited with
Speaker 1: your own children soon. Yes, thank you so much. We
Speaker 1: have to heal together, so sharing your stories and allowing
Speaker 1: us to communicate with you just helps us all to
Speaker 1: share and learn and heal together. We're going to take
Speaker 1: a quick break, but when we get back, we'll be
Speaker 1: joined by one incredible guest. Today we're bringing a fellow
Speaker 1: URTC community member to our virtual red table. We're excited
Speaker 1: about having Jade here, so let me just get right
Speaker 1: into this. Ja Kearney is joining Let's Red Table that
Speaker 1: from New York City, where she runs she Matters, a
Speaker 1: digital health platform designed to support black mothers who experienced
Speaker 1: postpartum co morbidity such as postpartum depression. Jade co founded
Speaker 1: She Matters after enduring months of postpartum o c D,
Speaker 1: also known as obsessive compulsive disorder, after the birth of
Speaker 1: her first daughter. Jade is here to shed some light
Speaker 1: on postpartum experiences many mothers navigate, often without the proper
Speaker 1: resources or knowledge, and hopefully we can help bring some
Speaker 1: education and eliminate some stigmas today. Yes, indeed, Jade, thank
Speaker 1: you for coming to the Virtual Red Table. We are
Speaker 1: so happy you're here. We need to get rid of
Speaker 1: some of these stigmas. A sad right, No, I totally agree.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me and for caring
Speaker 1: about what's going on out here for everyone, and especially
Speaker 1: for black mothers, because what we experience in the postpartum
Speaker 1: world is different from what others experienced. So I'm appreciative
Speaker 1: of being here. Well, let's get into it. This is
Speaker 1: the part of the show where we reveal which moments
Speaker 1: made us pause, rewind, and listen again. I mean made
Speaker 1: us all just say, wait, what happened right there? Wait,
Speaker 1: let's kick it off. When Hayden revealed that she was
Speaker 1: acting out her real life traumas on the TV show
Speaker 1: Nashville when I was on Nashville, they really wrote my
Speaker 1: life into it. So on the show, one of the
Speaker 1: storylines was that I was playing an alcoholic. Another storyline
Speaker 1: was that I was pregnant on the show, and then
Speaker 1: I got postpartum depression, and then you know, they had
Speaker 1: to relive everything I had to. Yeah, I had to
Speaker 1: go to work every day and be acting out what
Speaker 1: I was truly going through. Can you imagine reenacting that
Speaker 1: just the trauma is not even like a good part
Speaker 1: of your life, right, but the traumas of your life
Speaker 1: on TV as entertainment for thousands of people. Can you
Speaker 1: guys imagine that. I can't imagine it would be different
Speaker 1: if she was reenacting winning the lottery over and over again.
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine that because I don't want to live
Speaker 1: the nightmare of postpartum o c D again in the
Speaker 1: same way that I did the first time. So that
Speaker 1: has to be terrible, terrible to endure. Yeah, and something
Speaker 1: as so enduring his birth in the labor and then
Speaker 1: like literally the entire things she was going through, and
Speaker 1: then already from mothers right, like when you're going through
Speaker 1: postpartum or just just being a mom in general. Every
Speaker 1: day is kind of like ground all day. So Jade,
Speaker 1: I'm sure if you had O c D, every time
Speaker 1: somebody moved something or whatever your thing was that you
Speaker 1: were doing, you probably saw it over and over and
Speaker 1: it probably bothered you just as much over and over.
Speaker 1: So at least you didn't have to relive it at work.
Speaker 1: It definitely did like that groundholl day, that phrase like that,
Speaker 1: That's what it was like. Every single day. I was
Speaker 1: being tormented by my own thoughts. And that's crazy because
Speaker 1: we're our worst enemy, in our biggest healer, right, So
Speaker 1: to know that the answer is within yourself, but you
Speaker 1: can't pull it out because you're experiencing this groundhog thing,
Speaker 1: it really shows you the diversity of your mind, right,
Speaker 1: Like you can really give yourself medicine, or you can
Speaker 1: give yourself poison. And in that O c D space,
Speaker 1: I was giving myself poison. Every day. I was worried
Speaker 1: when I went to sleep about what the next day
Speaker 1: was going to be like. So I can imagine having
Speaker 1: to go to work and thinking about there's no escape
Speaker 1: for me, there's no escape in my personal or professional life.
Speaker 1: That's really really difficult because I had a bit of
Speaker 1: an escape At the time, I was a teacher, so
Speaker 1: I could go and kind of get out of this space.
Speaker 1: But as soon as I was done, I was worried
Speaker 1: about that same thing too. I know that like my
Speaker 1: steps were like divinely favored, but at the time I
Speaker 1: was in hell. So I just have empathy for her
Speaker 1: and going somewhere and not want to be there, and
Speaker 1: going home and not want to be there either. But
Speaker 1: it's literally sometimes it's moment to moment, day to day,
Speaker 1: just trying to get through you the next living hall
Speaker 1: to some degree living haill j you for you saying
Speaker 1: living hill and made me think back to the one
Speaker 1: of the other way. What moments in the episode that
Speaker 1: was a living hell for Hayden her sharing that she
Speaker 1: didn't know that her ex was planning to keep her
Speaker 1: daughter in Ukraine. Hermit, Lee, how old was your daughter
Speaker 1: when you made that decision for her to go and
Speaker 1: live with her her dad? Her dad? She was almost
Speaker 1: three and it wasn't fully my decision. In fact, I
Speaker 1: didn't even know what was happening until she was already
Speaker 1: over there. She was thinking that this was just temporary
Speaker 1: for her to get herself together, get in a at
Speaker 1: her place, emotionally and physically and be you know, away
Speaker 1: from the substance abuse and her husband or her ex
Speaker 1: husband pulled the okey doke. Yeah, that was the wait
Speaker 1: what for me? For real? I don't know about y'all,
Speaker 1: but when this drama showed up in the tabloids a
Speaker 1: while back, I didn't know what to make of it.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad that Hayden was able to clear some things.
Speaker 1: So y'all remember this when this happened, because we're talking
Speaker 1: not like about the show. Okay, Jay, tell me from
Speaker 1: your experience, what were you thinking when this happened? To me?
Speaker 1: That just shows you how the laws are set up
Speaker 1: in the States, Like he wouldn't have been ever do
Speaker 1: that here. So I feel like it was premeditated. And
Speaker 1: the thing about co parenting life is if you don't
Speaker 1: have a good relationship, you have a terrible one. I
Speaker 1: feel like sometimes there's no there's no middle lane, and
Speaker 1: so I just have empathy for her in terms of,
Speaker 1: like you're sharing all of your fears, the rawness, the
Speaker 1: realness of what postpartum is like, and what you're experiencing
Speaker 1: with somebody, and then they take your baby. See. I
Speaker 1: think that's Okay, being a mother is so important. When
Speaker 1: you become a mother, it's like you're always trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to make sure this human it's going
Speaker 1: to be a better human than you are, right, Like,
Speaker 1: how can I give your life something that I didn't have?
Speaker 1: Or improve your life just a little bit? And so
Speaker 1: I could see even in her progressing and getting healthy
Speaker 1: and finding her wellness equation whatever that was for her
Speaker 1: rehab whatever, Right to have somebody take out the thing
Speaker 1: that's really encouraging you to get better? Right, what that
Speaker 1: must have felt like stripped? My mom had her own
Speaker 1: issues with substance abuse, and I know that like really
Speaker 1: getting to the point where I'm doing this for my
Speaker 1: kids and then somebody taking your kids like you're not
Speaker 1: a good mom? Right? What effect does that have on
Speaker 1: a person? Right? Right? You know? And like you said,
Speaker 1: like you're already trying to be a great mom, and
Speaker 1: then you don't have any control on top of it
Speaker 1: when that person plays that chest move on top of
Speaker 1: everything you're already dealing with mentally, it's it's difficult. This
Speaker 1: kind of transitions directly into our last what moment? And
Speaker 1: I love that you said earlier your wellness equation, right,
Speaker 1: because what does that look like? Sometimes we don't even
Speaker 1: know we need help, right, And you would hope that
Speaker 1: you can go to your doctor. So learning that none
Speaker 1: of Hayden's doctors brought up the possibility of what she
Speaker 1: was experiencing was possibly postpartum depression seems like such a
Speaker 1: huge disconnect. Did your physician talk to you about what
Speaker 1: postpartum depression was? Not at all? Not at all? And
Speaker 1: I wish like they had given me whatever, any even
Speaker 1: just one, or told me what the signs were. I
Speaker 1: know that, Jade, you specifically help black women, but we're
Speaker 1: talking about a white woman. You know, we're talking about
Speaker 1: someone who also should have some additional something at her hand, right,
Speaker 1: But it just shows how disparaged women in general are.
Speaker 1: Did you experience that as well, Jade? So I don't
Speaker 1: I don't say this a lot of times that maybe
Speaker 1: in print somewhere. I went to the emergency room twenty
Speaker 1: one times and my daughter's first year of life, and
Speaker 1: they kept saying assuming something was wrong with her, because
Speaker 1: I know something was wrong with me. I knew something.
Speaker 1: I was going to the emergency room and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I know something the hell is wrong with me, y'all know,
Speaker 1: can't send me back home? And no answers again because
Speaker 1: something was wrong. And I remember one nurse actually said
Speaker 1: to me, do you think you're having postpartment anxiety? That
Speaker 1: if I am, I would know it. Nobody's helping me,
Speaker 1: nobody's doing anything. And it was to the point where
Speaker 1: I was watching my toes twitch. I've never said this anywhere,
Speaker 1: I promise you. I kept saying, my toes are twitching
Speaker 1: because in my mind I was becoming sick, like my
Speaker 1: toes were twitching, because I thought, oh my God, like
Speaker 1: I'm having some type of nervous system problem. I really
Speaker 1: had a depletion and electrolytes, but in my mind I
Speaker 1: was dying right, and nobody nobody said anything. I think
Speaker 1: they were like your mine, it's it's been a few hours.
Speaker 1: Here's some volume, so let's talk about that. Here's some volume.
Speaker 1: I'm breastfeeding. Don't breastfeed your baby for two days. Here's
Speaker 1: some volume. You will be okay. Nobody said, here's a
Speaker 1: referral to a therapist. Here's a referral to a psychologist
Speaker 1: or a psychiatrist. Jane, I need to ask you twenty
Speaker 1: one times in the first year of your daughter's life.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned that there was one nurse who said,
Speaker 1: do you think it's possible that you could have postpartum anxiety?
Speaker 1: Where in the visit cycle did that statement occur? This
Speaker 1: was probably like visit like seventeen to a different emergency room.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget it because I'm like, my toes are twitching.
Speaker 1: And she looked at me like girl, what And I
Speaker 1: was like, no, something's going on. And I was crying
Speaker 1: and I was like, I don't know because I don't
Speaker 1: know what that looks like. I don't know any of this.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to get back to this baby, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking I'm a die. That's all of us thinking,
Speaker 1: just thinking of the that she mentioned it and you said,
Speaker 1: I don't know. That would have been a perfect opportunity
Speaker 1: for that same person that was a healthcare professional to
Speaker 1: have said, Okay, let's put this in your triage right
Speaker 1: so that we can explore this more. And that would
Speaker 1: have been much more helpful for you than them trying
Speaker 1: to tell you that there was nothing wrong with you frustrating.
Speaker 1: That would have been so much more helpful. That's why
Speaker 1: we she matters like we really pressed being culturally competent.
Speaker 1: I'm calling on everybody in the moment, like she couldn't
Speaker 1: see my struggle because she couldn't see me. She wasn't black,
Speaker 1: she wasn't understanding what I was going through. She just
Speaker 1: saw me as a woman struggling, which was helpful, but
Speaker 1: there was no follow up. How do you help the
Speaker 1: strong ones? You know, black woman, there's a stigma and
Speaker 1: you hate to say there's a negative stigma. That sounds positive, right,
Speaker 1: She's so strong. I'm so tired of that. I agree
Speaker 1: with you wholeheartedly because in our society now, from my perspective,
Speaker 1: being a strong black woman is a mantel piece. We
Speaker 1: were just told we have to be strong because we're
Speaker 1: black women. Conversely, our counterparts, they are not taught that.
Speaker 1: They literally are raised in many cases, I won't use
Speaker 1: all this language to be submissive, to be passive, to
Speaker 1: be the damsel in distress. And it's okay. That's why
Speaker 1: we have so many people now that are the quote
Speaker 1: unquote careens. Don't get me on a whole another episode,
Speaker 1: that can do crazy off the wall stuff and then
Speaker 1: cry because they're taken care of and there's a sense
Speaker 1: of protection even when they can and do cry experience
Speaker 1: there they're covered. Meanwhile, here Jade is at the hospital
Speaker 1: literally going through prices and isn't being helped. But that's
Speaker 1: because people are comfortable with black women suffering. People are
Speaker 1: comfortable with our pain, people are comfortable with our devaluation.
Speaker 1: People are comfortable with it all. So why helped me?
Speaker 1: You look like what I think a black woman should
Speaker 1: be experiencing, right, and that that's what I experienced. Why
Speaker 1: should you feel at ease? Isn't this what you guys
Speaker 1: go through? And I didn't realize that. I never said
Speaker 1: that until after I had my daughter. This is what
Speaker 1: it's like for me. I don't want it to be
Speaker 1: like that for her. But when I was suffering with
Speaker 1: my black child as a black woman, no one's alarms
Speaker 1: went off. But in the worst part about it is
Speaker 1: our alarms don't even go off because we're comfortable with
Speaker 1: our own suffering. That's the worst piece. Or we just
Speaker 1: don't know if we deserve healing, you know, conditioned. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for platforms like this and really bring me awareness.
Speaker 1: And I think it's so powerful. Like even with red
Speaker 1: table talk, it has to start with a small conversation
Speaker 1: that grows into a bigger one you realize. And a
Speaker 1: lot of the episodes Willow, Jada and gam and generally
Speaker 1: the guest hosts whoever they have one, they're all going
Speaker 1: through the same thing. And it's until it's discussed, we
Speaker 1: don't even know postpartum is normal and should be normalized
Speaker 1: as a series of things that the woman needs help with.
Speaker 1: And I think previously when I thought about postpartum until
Speaker 1: I had my own son and went through my own drama,
Speaker 1: I only thought about it as or I only saw
Speaker 1: it in in life as the woman being like jealous
Speaker 1: of the baby or not having attention. Does that make sense.
Speaker 1: That's the only time it was kind of referenced, and
Speaker 1: it's all she wants some attention now everybody coming to
Speaker 1: see the baby. And the reality is that is that
Speaker 1: is the thing that that definitely adds to it as
Speaker 1: far as the concern being only with the baby's health,
Speaker 1: only with what the baby needs next, and the mother
Speaker 1: as well being overwhelmed. We're not educated about stuff like this,
Speaker 1: so it makes sense. And I thought postpartum depression just
Speaker 1: meant you've had the being you're tired and you don't
Speaker 1: want to have anything to do with anybody that part, Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just like nothing. Yeah, I'm glad that we are defining
Speaker 1: this together and acknowledging what we all thought it was
Speaker 1: until we realize what it truly is. So I feel
Speaker 1: like there are other women going through this same thing. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And always say in every struggle, there's a healing story
Speaker 1: for somebody else, So we have to have the conversation
Speaker 1: so that other people say, Hey, I don't have to
Speaker 1: be shamed for this. Somebody else experienced this. Okay, this
Speaker 1: is similar to what I'm going through. Maybe I should
Speaker 1: reach out to my health care provider because this is
Speaker 1: not normal. Suffering is not normal. Suffering is not normal,
Speaker 1: not at all. Oh, that is the perfect statement, Jade.
Speaker 1: You are regularly hearing stories from women about the challenges
Speaker 1: they faced through their journey to motherhood or in motherhood.
Speaker 1: Was Hayden's story similar to what you've come across in
Speaker 1: your work. There's so much you can pull from her
Speaker 1: story that a lot of people have experienced. So yeah,
Speaker 1: especially about the parents or alienation and reaching for substance
Speaker 1: to heal what you're going through, and especially the late diagnosis.
Speaker 1: I've heard all of those things, So yes, if you've
Speaker 1: never experienced it before, you don't know what you're experiencing
Speaker 1: when you're experiencing it. That's what we've learned from your
Speaker 1: women in our community. My Honor is fifty five years
Speaker 1: old and set in on one of our events. She
Speaker 1: started crying and she said, I always thought it was
Speaker 1: like the devil trying to talk to me talking about
Speaker 1: o c D and those thoughts around o c D.
Speaker 1: She has five kids, and no one ever spoke to
Speaker 1: her about that. Was that the first time she had
Speaker 1: ever verbalized that. Yes, yes, I never knew what to
Speaker 1: call it. And so many women will say, what if
Speaker 1: I harm my baby? This is part of o c D.
Speaker 1: It's terrible thoughts. Some people see themselves harming their baby,
Speaker 1: and it's like the shame you go through. So imagine
Speaker 1: you have to get up and go to work as
Speaker 1: a single mother every day you're having these thoughts about
Speaker 1: one of your kids. But you gotta get up and
Speaker 1: you gotta go to work. So where's the healing. There's
Speaker 1: no healing in that. There is no healing. Like the
Speaker 1: only thing I can even akin this to right is
Speaker 1: I remember when I got my period, right, Like when
Speaker 1: I was twelve or whatever age it was. I had
Speaker 1: this one thought of like, every woman in the world
Speaker 1: goes through this, and that's something more physical, right, Like
Speaker 1: you have your psycho and then you have the tools
Speaker 1: you need for you. Everyone has to do this thing
Speaker 1: once a month or whatever. But that's the only time
Speaker 1: I kind of stopped and just was like, Wow, this
Speaker 1: happens to every woman and you kind of look around.
Speaker 1: She could be going through this at any time, like
Speaker 1: no one, but no one talks about it. Does that
Speaker 1: make sense? No, it makes you know what's happening. We
Speaker 1: see the commercials, the commercials, but you don't see yourself definitely,
Speaker 1: and everyone's it is different monthly, Like it's the same
Speaker 1: kind of scenario where we're still not talking about it.
Speaker 1: But until someone said is it out loud? That's when
Speaker 1: you start to see the different products and things on
Speaker 1: this show. Do you understand what I'm saying? So, just
Speaker 1: as much as the hope, services like yours, Jade are
Speaker 1: normalized more and stories are told more because we just
Speaker 1: don't know what we don't know. We don't know what
Speaker 1: we don't know. That's the best way to look at it.
Speaker 1: And there were things that I saw as I was
Speaker 1: going through my own postpartum experience. I didn't see us.
Speaker 1: So they're white. Women would share their stories amongst each
Speaker 1: other on the internet, like in chat rooms or whatever,
Speaker 1: and I would not share because I don't know, y'all,
Speaker 1: you know how we do hold up. I'm about to
Speaker 1: see here and give my personal thoughts that somebody could
Speaker 1: come in d CEUs or whoever they are and take
Speaker 1: my baby. I'm gonna read that's how I found out
Speaker 1: it was O c D. But I never shared my
Speaker 1: story because I didn't see anybody that looked like me.
Speaker 1: And that's what made me say, oh, I have to
Speaker 1: do something about this. What's interesting to me about that, too,
Speaker 1: is that that's still true. That's so prevalent for marketing
Speaker 1: and advertising now right, and we can even talk about
Speaker 1: some of the things that we see. The little girls
Speaker 1: of color now have the opportunity to look at even
Speaker 1: with the Little Mermaidaid, they representation matters so much that
Speaker 1: they can look at themselves and see, she looks like me,
Speaker 1: and it is absolutely necessary. I cannot wait to learn
Speaker 1: more about she matters and how you've been able to
Speaker 1: help support black mothers through your organization. But I think
Speaker 1: to really understand that work, we need to understand what
Speaker 1: your experience was like becoming a mom. So Jay, tell
Speaker 1: us about the months after you had your daughter and
Speaker 1: what postpartum O c D looked like for you. It's
Speaker 1: interesting because I had my daughter and I was so planned,
Speaker 1: like I knew all the statistics around black maternal morbidity.
Speaker 1: And I changed doctors at these seven weeks because I
Speaker 1: didn't like the first doctor that I was working with.
Speaker 1: She made me feel like a statistic and she was
Speaker 1: black and said, just because you're black, that don't mean
Speaker 1: new coach competent. I said, that's not gonna work. So
Speaker 1: I went to Dr Garfinkle and I said, hey, I
Speaker 1: don't want to die when I have my kid. And
Speaker 1: I know that the chances of me having proclumps here
Speaker 1: are high, but I don't want to be treated like that.
Speaker 1: And he said, I got you, and he really did.
Speaker 1: He really did have me such a great doctor. So
Speaker 1: I only worried about the during delivery. I was so
Speaker 1: scared I was gonna die because we hear all of
Speaker 1: these things and like the anxiety and depression for black
Speaker 1: women happens the moment you learned that you're going to
Speaker 1: have a baby because you're like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: don't want to die on the table. I heard all
Speaker 1: these statistics, but when nobody talks about is the postpartum period.
Speaker 1: I had no idea what was going to happen postpartum.
Speaker 1: I made it through the delivery and I thought, who
Speaker 1: this is over? No, My postpartum started three months into
Speaker 1: being a mom. And I think what really shook me was,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, my mom her own journey with
Speaker 1: substance abuse, and so there were parts of me before
Speaker 1: mommy hood that felt like an abandoned child. So I
Speaker 1: had these thoughts of like what if I abandoned my child?
Speaker 1: What if I leave her? What if I forget about her?
Speaker 1: And that manifested into its own O C D. Right.
Speaker 1: It was like I knew something was wrong when I
Speaker 1: wouldn't walk past the kitchen. I was scared to walk
Speaker 1: past the kitchen because I thought I would stab my daughter.
Speaker 1: And I had to walk past my kitchen to get
Speaker 1: in my house. So leaving the house or coming home,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, what if I see
Speaker 1: a knife? What if I stab her? And I never
Speaker 1: wanted to. That's the thing. It was like something tormenting me.
Speaker 1: And now I realized I have a great therapist. And
Speaker 1: now I realized that that was my brain playing with
Speaker 1: me because she was the thing I wanted to protect
Speaker 1: the most. So what if you couldn't protect her. I
Speaker 1: didn't even give her her first bath. I was so
Speaker 1: afraid that what if I let her go and she drowns?
Speaker 1: Like there was this like I can't protect her happening
Speaker 1: with me, and I didn't have the words I needed
Speaker 1: to communicate what I was experiencing. My first call was
Speaker 1: to my mom. And I'm the oldest of eight and
Speaker 1: my mom is a MoMA during a different it is
Speaker 1: a different type of mama. And so I said, Mom,
Speaker 1: I'm going through something. I think it's postpartum depression. Like
Speaker 1: I said, I didn't have the language. And she said, look,
Speaker 1: when your brother was born, he was number four. I
Speaker 1: think I had something like that. I couldn't even look
Speaker 1: at him. I didn't even really look at him till
Speaker 1: he was six months. But I had to do what
Speaker 1: I have to do. I had to do, and you
Speaker 1: have to do what you have to do. You need
Speaker 1: to go back to work because you need your health assurance.
Speaker 1: And at that moment, I was like, I'm a failure.
Speaker 1: I'm failing cultural norms of suffering in silence. I should
Speaker 1: shut up about this. I shouldn't be complaining. And then
Speaker 1: I reached out to the doctor's office and I think
Speaker 1: my doctor said something like, plenty of women go through this.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna send you zolof. You can pick it up.
Speaker 1: I'll check in with you in six weeks. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: hold on, I'm black. We don't we don't uh antidepressants.
Speaker 1: I need to be talked into that you can't just
Speaker 1: give it to me. And I remember I got it
Speaker 1: in my aunt threw it away controlling your mind. Yo,
Speaker 1: you'll be just went through it, and it was like
Speaker 1: you were going to suffer. This is your life. Here.
Speaker 1: I am trying to figure out do I go to
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist, do I go to a therapist? What do
Speaker 1: I do? And I just had to try so much
Speaker 1: to get a little bit of relief from someone who
Speaker 1: said you're not a terrible person. It was like I
Speaker 1: needed to know that I wasn't a monster. And you
Speaker 1: had no internal resources. Yeah, your mom and your aunt
Speaker 1: were from a generation where they suffered in silence. We
Speaker 1: go back to the shame, and so you didn't have
Speaker 1: that support as your internal familial support, and then externally
Speaker 1: they were just popping pills at you, and so you
Speaker 1: just said, what do I do with this? And then
Speaker 1: you got them and still couldn't take them because you
Speaker 1: had intervention with that. Wow, unpacked a lot. I don't
Speaker 1: know whatever everybody's from, but I was born in eighty
Speaker 1: four and so like my mom was from the era
Speaker 1: of the crack era, and it was like, well, I
Speaker 1: don't want anythink control in my mind. I don't want
Speaker 1: to think controlling me. I don't want it to be
Speaker 1: like I'm on drugs and that's not what antidepressants are.
Speaker 1: In the black culture, we stigmatize any medicine for mental health.
Speaker 1: Do you know the person that made that s s
Speaker 1: R I, which is an antidepressant major blood pressure medication.
Speaker 1: So why are you shaming me? Yeah? If you want
Speaker 1: to share, what were the specific intrusive thoughts you had
Speaker 1: and how did they manifest day today? It usually would
Speaker 1: start around sleep time, like when I was going to bed,
Speaker 1: I would have the thought of and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of moms have this, what did she stop breathing
Speaker 1: at night? So I wasn't sleeping. Not sleeping doesn't help anxiety.
Speaker 1: I would have thoughts like what if I let go
Speaker 1: of the stroller when I'm walking her down the street.
Speaker 1: I know my exp and saying he must have thought
Speaker 1: I was insane because I was like, I can't be
Speaker 1: too close to the sidewalk, I can't stand next to
Speaker 1: the window. I thought, what if I throw her out
Speaker 1: the window. I don't even know if I've ever shared
Speaker 1: this publicly. One thought that I had what if I
Speaker 1: smothered my baby with the pillow? And it was really
Speaker 1: because I was afraid of the pillows smothering her. I
Speaker 1: never wanted to do that, but that was the thought,
Speaker 1: what if you do that? So they were just so
Speaker 1: much shame around. You have this blessing and your thoughts.
Speaker 1: You're a monster. You should be a shame. And every
Speaker 1: day when I'm telling you, I would cry at work.
Speaker 1: I would cry in the bathroom like why am I
Speaker 1: going through this? What did I do? It really felt
Speaker 1: like a punishment, like into any any woman experience in this.
Speaker 1: I please know that you are not a monster. Please
Speaker 1: know that it happen with hormones. Has to do with hormones,
Speaker 1: It has to do with a lot of things going
Speaker 1: on in easide your body, and a lot of women
Speaker 1: have these thoughts. One teacher told me she had this thought.
Speaker 1: Her daughter was screaming, and she said, what if I
Speaker 1: just threw her across the And I remember looking at her, like,
Speaker 1: how are you just telling me that? But she had
Speaker 1: already made peace with when she experienced she was out
Speaker 1: of the postpartum period, and she said, I had that
Speaker 1: thought over and over again. But I had to just
Speaker 1: get over it. And that's that whole thing I'm suffering.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say anything. I had to just get
Speaker 1: over it. Yeah, you don't need to get over it.
Speaker 1: You need to work through it, and sometimes in a
Speaker 1: in an assisted way. Yeah, I had my own anxiety
Speaker 1: prior to being a mom. So if you have anxiety
Speaker 1: or depression prior to being pregnant, you have a higher
Speaker 1: chance of having postpartum anxiety and depression. So there were
Speaker 1: things that hadn't worked out before that all manifested. Because
Speaker 1: birth is beautiful as it is, it's also traumatic. And
Speaker 1: even what you're saying, birth as beautiful as it is,
Speaker 1: is it because mine was not? Like that's only because
Speaker 1: I'm a whole, hopeless romantic, and I thought me and
Speaker 1: my son's father would be together forever and this would
Speaker 1: be this love story, and it was not. I had
Speaker 1: a whole. I had to fall in love with my son.
Speaker 1: And I probably have not said this publicly. There's people
Speaker 1: who know. But I had to fall in love with
Speaker 1: my son and went through postpartum and didn't have time
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that's what I was going through because I
Speaker 1: had to raise this sun and not be a statistic.
Speaker 1: Now you look up and it might be social media,
Speaker 1: and I just still pray for these moms. But you
Speaker 1: see all the gender reveals and the pregnancy photo, maternity photos.
Speaker 1: I didn't do all that. I didn't have time to
Speaker 1: do all that. I was in the middle of shame.
Speaker 1: And I can't believe she didn't got pregnant at twenty
Speaker 1: and so I had my own piece of it too.
Speaker 1: When you say you had to fall in love with
Speaker 1: your son, what do you mean fall in love with him?
Speaker 1: And you know, some people are just madly in love
Speaker 1: with their child while they are pregnant, and I just
Speaker 1: I was not. I was in a relationship that was
Speaker 1: just not going the way I wanted it to. And
Speaker 1: again I was cloaked in shame of we can't believe
Speaker 1: our daughters pregnant young. I just had to work. It
Speaker 1: was more of a task, and then chilly of I
Speaker 1: gotta raise my son now. Instead of enjoying what motherhood
Speaker 1: was for me and doing it with help, when you
Speaker 1: do it alone, that's also a part of it. It
Speaker 1: wasn't the traditional for me, But once I got into it,
Speaker 1: then you start to love the process and you enjoy
Speaker 1: what's happening. But it was not out like that initially
Speaker 1: out the gate. So many of our moms come to
Speaker 1: us single parenthood. I am a single mother right now.
Speaker 1: We have a good coparentto relationship, but my kids live
Speaker 1: with me. But so many of our mothers in our
Speaker 1: community go through postpartum alone. I didn't have to write
Speaker 1: my kid's father was there, but I know so many
Speaker 1: that experience it alone. And that's a whole part of
Speaker 1: our community. Whenever we have any events around single motherhood
Speaker 1: and postpartum, we sell out because that's a different type
Speaker 1: of loneliness. Right You're seeing the baby that looks like
Speaker 1: somebody that you love, and y'all are not together, and
Speaker 1: that's that's difficult. So I just wanted to say kudos
Speaker 1: to you for sharing that, because there's somebody right now
Speaker 1: who's who's in that space. My intrusive thoughts weren't like
Speaker 1: yours as far as I'm gonna hurt the baby specifically.
Speaker 1: It was more so anxiety of dying for you dying
Speaker 1: or the baby dying. Car. Yeah, I was afraid I
Speaker 1: was gonna die and just leave my son with no
Speaker 1: one help, no one take care of him. What did
Speaker 1: I call that? I know there's a word. I called
Speaker 1: it the Fred Sanford syn John. I'm like the Fred said,
Speaker 1: you know, coming to join you. Like, I just assumed
Speaker 1: something tragic, whether it was a heart attack or car accident,
Speaker 1: it's gonna happen. That he wouldn't have anyone because his
Speaker 1: father's incarcerated. So that was the other part. It's one
Speaker 1: thing if you have a child's father that's here and
Speaker 1: can get to him and or help whether y'all get
Speaker 1: along or not. But when they're just not available at
Speaker 1: all and it's kind of all on your shoulders, it's
Speaker 1: a different type of pressure. It is a lot of pressures.
Speaker 1: I hope someone's listening is getting freed by all of
Speaker 1: these conversations right now, because you are not alone. Truly,
Speaker 1: you're not alone. Before you knew what postpartum o c
Speaker 1: D was, Jade, how did you try to heal yourself
Speaker 1: the way I tried to heal myself. I did everything
Speaker 1: I did are evading solutions, girl, I was at I
Speaker 1: was in the r evaded practitioner's office, like I'm dying
Speaker 1: and I did yoga. I did, I was ing. I did.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, I tried everything anything that was
Speaker 1: on the market postpartum T. I tried Mommy and Me yoga.
Speaker 1: I tried a Chinese herbal acupuncture. I mean when I'm
Speaker 1: taking I was trying to heal myself, and I knew
Speaker 1: I needed to take an antidepressant right. I knew I
Speaker 1: needed to take an antidepression. I had an amazing psychiatrist
Speaker 1: who was like, if you don't feel better by the
Speaker 1: time your daughter is one, I don't want to hear it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna try it, and I'm right here to go
Speaker 1: through this with you each step of the way. She
Speaker 1: was black, and she understood the culture. My therapist is
Speaker 1: a Jewish Man, so I had a Jewish man having
Speaker 1: my back and my black psychiatrist, and they helped me
Speaker 1: get to the point where I took the antidepressants so
Speaker 1: I could really start to heal because I was doing
Speaker 1: all these other things. But the truth is I was
Speaker 1: hormonally imbalanced the process of things correctly, so nothing else
Speaker 1: was working for me. And I got on something called
Speaker 1: move box, which is helpful for O c D. And
Speaker 1: I think my family around me until this day because
Speaker 1: I have two daughters. With my second daughter, I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stay on the antidepressant and everyone was like,
Speaker 1: why would you do that? Why would you You're gonna
Speaker 1: harm your baby in the statistics that I said, Now,
Speaker 1: I made this decision with my partner and my doctor. Y'all, chill,
Speaker 1: y'all have not experienced what I experienced. Yeah, you just
Speaker 1: needed some empathy. You just wanted some empathy. One of
Speaker 1: the things I think it's interesting and I want to
Speaker 1: make sure we talk about this. You mentioned that you
Speaker 1: had a Jewish doctor and a black female doctor. Was
Speaker 1: the Jewish doctor your first doctor or did you find him? Finally,
Speaker 1: how did that tell me about the experience with that?
Speaker 1: Because we know we talked about your journey. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you how to find doctor SNAr I went through
Speaker 1: several other therapists who were terrible. One was a white
Speaker 1: woman who asked if she could record me for her
Speaker 1: Excuse me, lady, do you know what it took for
Speaker 1: me to get in here? And you want to record
Speaker 1: my black thoughts? Ultimately not, that's what listen. She asked
Speaker 1: us she can record me for her class. It's really
Speaker 1: interesting how shamed you are. And I just want you
Speaker 1: to know you're okay. I'm crying, she crying. We can't
Speaker 1: both be here crying. What is siping right now? Let
Speaker 1: me tell you everything happens for a reason. I saw
Speaker 1: an episode of Doctor Oz and Dr Sarner was like,
Speaker 1: he's like an expert in O c D. Do you
Speaker 1: know I found this man in New York and he
Speaker 1: is still my therapist. He's an amazing therapist. Yes, And
Speaker 1: I was like, he has been one of my biggest
Speaker 1: supporters because he was like, you can get through this.
Speaker 1: But he made me feel the fields. He didn't just
Speaker 1: let me the way I was crying with her and
Speaker 1: she was crying. He was like, no, you're gonna get
Speaker 1: through this, You'll be okay. But Dr I told him
Speaker 1: that story. He wasn't black, but he's culturally competent. If
Speaker 1: he didn't know something, he asked me before he says something.
Speaker 1: He said, let me let me just say, this is
Speaker 1: what I think is happening. We had conversations, and that's
Speaker 1: why I say, your doctor doesn't have to be black,
Speaker 1: but they need to be culturally competent. There aren't enough
Speaker 1: black doctors in this country to serve all of us,
Speaker 1: so we need culturally competent healthcare professionals. How did your
Speaker 1: experience seeking help alter your view of the post natal
Speaker 1: healthcare system overall? I realized that the system needs to
Speaker 1: be revamped. I realized that women struggling is not something
Speaker 1: that's top of mind for help, but a man being impotent.
Speaker 1: They got all the pills for that postpartum anything. It's
Speaker 1: really difficult to get the help you need, black, white,
Speaker 1: or other. But if you are a black woman, this
Speaker 1: health care system does not serve you. Right here in
Speaker 1: New York, I'm twelve times more likely to die during childbirth.
Speaker 1: You would think it would be somewhere down south and rest,
Speaker 1: say in the rural area. Right here in Brooklyn, I'm
Speaker 1: twelve times more likely to die. It just reminded me
Speaker 1: of how devalued we are in this country and how
Speaker 1: forgotten we are. And here we are. We have our babies,
Speaker 1: and our babies come out healthy, and then we just
Speaker 1: there's the ability to fall apart because no one is
Speaker 1: taking care of us, whether it's family and friends because
Speaker 1: mental health and postpartum cormabilities is stigmatized in general, or
Speaker 1: whether it's the health care system who's like, I don't
Speaker 1: have any time for you. So it just really showed
Speaker 1: me that something had to be done, even just the conversation.
Speaker 1: A lot of matters we started with conversation. You know
Speaker 1: how many women cry at our events, and like I
Speaker 1: felt this way. We have people who have kids that
Speaker 1: are fourteen who come on and talk about what they experience,
Speaker 1: and I feel like a big piece of what we've
Speaker 1: done is give black mothers the ability to be vulnerable
Speaker 1: and say I need help. We're not allowed to do
Speaker 1: that in medicine. There's documentation that black women don't experience
Speaker 1: pain the same as other people. It's insane, and there's
Speaker 1: studies done. There have been anybody can look this up
Speaker 1: and I say this all the time, look it up,
Speaker 1: Look it up. There have been studies done where a
Speaker 1: black woman is in pain, she'll get tail and all,
Speaker 1: but a white woman will get a percoset or something,
Speaker 1: and it's like, why is our pain different? That was
Speaker 1: so powerful. I sitting here rethinking, you know, you gotta
Speaker 1: go back through your life and you're like, wow, we
Speaker 1: sure are treated different. I mean you started to just
Speaker 1: have like revelations of all the things that have happened.
Speaker 1: That's a whole another episode that it really is, because
Speaker 1: we could be here all day with it. What actually
Speaker 1: helped your postpartum O c D overall? And what was
Speaker 1: it like to finally mother your daughter without the burden
Speaker 1: of these other intrusive thoughts, and how is your relationship
Speaker 1: with her now? When I got through my postpartum, I
Speaker 1: just felt like such a better human. I felt like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I like really deep breath. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't just the postpartum part. I was like, man like,
Speaker 1: there was so much that I was dealing with that
Speaker 1: were like walls to me being the mother that I
Speaker 1: wanted to be. I feel like some of the worst
Speaker 1: things that happened to us end up being the biggest
Speaker 1: blessings because I was able to get the help that
Speaker 1: I needed as a black woman who kept herself busy
Speaker 1: instead of dealing with her anxiety. And when you have
Speaker 1: a baby, you can't just keep yourself busy. You can't
Speaker 1: just go to Puerto Rico for the weekend. You can't
Speaker 1: just pick up and go. You have to deal with it.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, and so I feel like my daughter
Speaker 1: is the reason why I started. She matters and she's everything.
Speaker 1: Both of my daughters are everything to me. She was
Speaker 1: playing the other day with her friends and she had
Speaker 1: posteds and somebody was like, oh, do you want to
Speaker 1: play getting married? And she said, no, I want to play.
Speaker 1: These are my companies. And I was like, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: these are my companies. And I was like, she sees me.
Speaker 1: And I feel so blessed that she came here to
Speaker 1: teach me this lesson that is hopefully helping so many
Speaker 1: other black women. Like the daughter mother relationship is so
Speaker 1: healing in itself. I needed her to be this person
Speaker 1: to help other women. That's crazy to me. Wow, it's
Speaker 1: amazing how things will come back full circle. Right. I'm
Speaker 1: so happy that you're able to help others. That's profound. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's your message to mothers experiencing postpartum code morbidities. Your
Speaker 1: feelings are valid, your experiences are valid. You have the
Speaker 1: right to explore what works for you. And if you
Speaker 1: don't feel right, you don't feel right, don't let anybody
Speaker 1: else tell you different. Go to somebody you trust. It
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be somebody in family. You'll talk to
Speaker 1: somebody at work, someone you don't know how well. Someone
Speaker 1: someone who can give their opinion and you don't really
Speaker 1: care what they say back. The person that you're not
Speaker 1: close to may have an answer for you. And a
Speaker 1: lot of times is the person that's closest to us
Speaker 1: that can hurt us the most. Family is hard. We're
Speaker 1: hard on each other. That's so true. What about the
Speaker 1: partners we talked about this. What about the partners of
Speaker 1: these mothers? How can they best provide support? What would
Speaker 1: you say to them? Look for the signs. Look for
Speaker 1: I don't want to take a shower. Your partner is
Speaker 1: not sleeping, your partner is more irritable than normal, and
Speaker 1: it's been past six weeks, which can be the baby blues.
Speaker 1: Look for your partner sobbing, like crying all the time.
Speaker 1: That's not normal either, right, And if you feel like
Speaker 1: something's wrong. Ask them what are you experiencing? Not are
Speaker 1: you okay? Because we've been conditioned to say I'm fine,
Speaker 1: But what are you experiencing? That part can change an
Speaker 1: answer right right, don't make it close end, Give an
Speaker 1: open ending question, open ended question. I love that, I
Speaker 1: love that. I love that. How is she Matters overall
Speaker 1: making an impact in the lives of Black mothers? Tell
Speaker 1: us about your organization before we get out of here.
Speaker 1: I would like to think that we are a safe
Speaker 1: space for black mothers who don't see themselves anywhere else,
Speaker 1: that they can come here and know that they can
Speaker 1: have a conversation with other black mothers. That you can
Speaker 1: get culturally competent healthcare providers, information, you can get culturally
Speaker 1: relevant resources. We have a symptom tracker for proclemsia, clemsia
Speaker 1: and help syndrome. You can come here and you are safe.
Speaker 1: You can take your makeup off. Right. I sound so
Speaker 1: jersey when I said that you take your makeup off,
Speaker 1: let your hair down, because I see you, I am you,
Speaker 1: and I created this platform for black women. Right like this,
Speaker 1: black women aren't confused about who She Matters is for,
Speaker 1: and that was done purposely. We're opening up to different
Speaker 1: to different cultures, different ethnicities later. But for me, I
Speaker 1: had to take care of home first because we have
Speaker 1: the worst statistics in the country, right, we have the
Speaker 1: worst statistics. And I wanted to make sure that as
Speaker 1: a black woman, I would saying, listen, something is going
Speaker 1: to be done about this. We're not just here for
Speaker 1: black women, black mothers, but we make sure that we
Speaker 1: have a training a certification program for health care providers
Speaker 1: because it's a conversation. The problem is miscommunication, right, So
Speaker 1: we have a culturally competent certification for health care providers
Speaker 1: to train them on how to better meet the needs
Speaker 1: of black mothers. And so I'm not just talking to
Speaker 1: you black mom and how to communicate with the health
Speaker 1: care system, but health care system, this is how you
Speaker 1: communicate with me, and you should be meeting me here too.
Speaker 1: And that's that's the difference. That part. So there's duality
Speaker 1: and in ownership and awareness. That's because we cannot do
Speaker 1: it all alone. We are into America together. So let's
Speaker 1: let's get together. This is an American and have the
Speaker 1: health care system take some ownership for the people that
Speaker 1: they provide service and take hyppocratic oaths to help people,
Speaker 1: So you need to be in tune with the people
Speaker 1: that you help, right. I want to make sure I
Speaker 1: say this, this is an American problem. Black women are Americans,
Speaker 1: so this is not a Black problem. This is an
Speaker 1: American problem. That part. That part um so grateful with
Speaker 1: the time to be a lot that we are here
Speaker 1: now because I don't know if you guys saw it
Speaker 1: online not long ago, they actually just put like a
Speaker 1: pregnant woman like in all the doctor's images, but she
Speaker 1: was black. It's the first time I've ever seen it
Speaker 1: that that shows you right there, like we are so
Speaker 1: far behind, even even in the small superficial thing. So
Speaker 1: as we start to be seen in that way from
Speaker 1: the outside, I pray they start to see us on
Speaker 1: the inside as well, because we're all truly going through
Speaker 1: the same thing. So yes, I'm glad She Matters exists,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that you are helping us all, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you joined us today at the Virtual
Speaker 1: Red Table. Thank you so much for sharing Jake, continue
Speaker 1: your phenomenal work with She Matters, and thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming to the Virtual Red Table. I appreciate
Speaker 1: youall for having me. For everyone listening If you want
Speaker 1: more information, please visit she Matters dot health. We're gonna
Speaker 1: take a short break right now, and when we returned
Speaker 1: Will and By a mental health expert to the Virtual
Speaker 1: Red Table, our episode continues to be all about Mama's
Speaker 1: with a very special mental health moment, we get to
Speaker 1: welcome another amazing guest who is transforming the birthing process
Speaker 1: for mama's all around the world. Latham Thomas is a
Speaker 1: maternity lifestyle maybe and founder of Mama Glow, a global
Speaker 1: dola training program and maternity lifestyle brand that supports women
Speaker 1: throughout their motherhood journeys. Thank you so much. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: Late Thumb, I'm so excited, so thank you for being
Speaker 1: here at our virtual Red table. Oh my god, Tracy,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be here with you today. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for having me. Okay, we have so
Speaker 1: much that we can cover. So now here's my first question.
Speaker 1: The Lathan tell me what is Mama Glow. So, Mama
Speaker 1: Glow is a global maternal health platform that offers education
Speaker 1: for folks who on the path to become birth workers
Speaker 1: and dulas. We have a cohort of overlas globally apartment
Speaker 1: community that we've trained and we matched doulas with families,
Speaker 1: and we do that across the country and even really
Speaker 1: across the globe too. What I'm most proud of about
Speaker 1: the work that we do is that we're really educating
Speaker 1: the next generation of birth workers who will transform our
Speaker 1: medical model absally farm these spaces, and so we have
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are in medical school that
Speaker 1: are doing the training. We have a lot of people
Speaker 1: who come to the program and have established doula clubs
Speaker 1: on their college campuses, and so we're so proud of
Speaker 1: the work that we do there, and also on the
Speaker 1: Movelo Foundation, which is really also committed to advancing reproductive
Speaker 1: justice and birth equity primarily through education advocacy, and the
Speaker 1: arts and education and advocacy are really big areas of
Speaker 1: the work. How did Mama Glow come to be? I
Speaker 1: love that question because the or gens of Mama Glow
Speaker 1: really start with my pregnancy with my son, who's nineteen
Speaker 1: years old, and in the time that I was navigating
Speaker 1: pregnancy and living in New York City trying to find
Speaker 1: the best resources and product, services and practitioners. If you
Speaker 1: could think back to like twenty years ago, Okay, when
Speaker 1: I was pregnant, the internet is not what it is today,
Speaker 1: and I had to find a practitioner in a telephone book,
Speaker 1: which is a relic, okay. And I was like the
Speaker 1: first one in my friend group to have a baby,
Speaker 1: and like, think about how challenging that is and not
Speaker 1: having peer references and people to kind of coach me through.
Speaker 1: What I came to learn from myself was that I
Speaker 1: knew that I wanted to deliver with a midwife. I
Speaker 1: knew that I wanted to liver in a birth center,
Speaker 1: and I found one. I was living seven blocks away
Speaker 1: from this birth center, so I go to this place.
Speaker 1: They took our insurance. It was incredible. I worked with
Speaker 1: midwife throughout the pregnancy. It was super empowering. There was
Speaker 1: a sense of this respect of your body, bodily autonomy,
Speaker 1: sovereign tea over your experience, and really a trust that
Speaker 1: you could do this right. There was a belief in
Speaker 1: our bodies. And so the Midway free model of care
Speaker 1: I think was sort of the impetus for my falling
Speaker 1: in love really with maternal health. And I would say,
Speaker 1: if I had to reach back even further, I was
Speaker 1: privileged to be four years old my mother was pregnant,
Speaker 1: and my aunt and my great aunt were pregnant the
Speaker 1: same time. So imagine being four years old and you're
Speaker 1: seeing these bellies everywhere. You know. My mom's really deep
Speaker 1: in body literacy, so she has me using coloring books
Speaker 1: that teach anatomy. And so we're at the grocery store
Speaker 1: and I'm like four and a half and someone comes
Speaker 1: up to her and he says, oh, this is so sweet.
Speaker 1: Your mother has a baby in her tummy. I said, no,
Speaker 1: my mother has a baby in her uterus and it's
Speaker 1: gonna her vagina. Okay, that person feign it, a little
Speaker 1: grocery store person feign it, right, but then says, this
Speaker 1: is what I was sort of immersed in culturely fast
Speaker 1: forward to my pregnancy, and I just felt really empowered, right,
Speaker 1: and so coming on the other side of that experience
Speaker 1: delivering with midwives walking out of there six hours later
Speaker 1: after the deliving my son, I felt so empowered, and
Speaker 1: I knew that I wanted to help other people to
Speaker 1: have empowered birth experiences as well. We're going to have
Speaker 1: a side by conversation about your great being pregnant at
Speaker 1: the same time as your mom and your unts that's
Speaker 1: amazing all on its own. I love that though doulas
Speaker 1: have been supporting mothers for decades, but many people don't
Speaker 1: understand they're very real and measurable impact. How do doulas
Speaker 1: improve outcomes for mama's and babies? This is such a
Speaker 1: powerful question. Doulas matter, Doulas are important. Doula's help to
Speaker 1: shift culture, doula's help to protect families. What I'm concerned
Speaker 1: about as we think about the maternal health landscape is
Speaker 1: how to shore up or support for people in our communities.
Speaker 1: As we look at the maternal health crisis that exists
Speaker 1: in this country, where we have black women being four
Speaker 1: to five times more likely than white women to die
Speaker 1: during childbirth or due to the childbirth related causes. When
Speaker 1: we think about the fact that one in four women
Speaker 1: head back to work ten to fourteen days after having
Speaker 1: a baby in the United States, unreal. Unreal. When we
Speaker 1: think about the lack of social services and safety nets
Speaker 1: for families in this country, duellists really kind of fit
Speaker 1: these policy gaps right where we do not have structural
Speaker 1: supports and help people navigate the most challenging, the most vulnerable,
Speaker 1: and the most powerful time in their lives. The impact
Speaker 1: it is tangible and measurable, and we think about the
Speaker 1: presence of a doulah inside of a birth space. We're
Speaker 1: talking about a reduction in cincerian sections and increase of
Speaker 1: vaginal deliveries. We're talking about a reduction in pharmaceuticals like
Speaker 1: potos and augment ation. We're talking about an increase in
Speaker 1: maternal satisfaction, a decrease in postpartum depression and anxiety, and
Speaker 1: a better assimilation into new parenthood if it does occur.
Speaker 1: We're talking about helping a family really coalesce and smoothly
Speaker 1: transition into new parenthood. It is so important to have
Speaker 1: people who witness you in your vulnerability, who support you
Speaker 1: and provide the basic supports that we all need, which
Speaker 1: are to be seen, to be heard, to feel uSens
Speaker 1: of belonging, because they're also helpful if someone experiences miscarriage
Speaker 1: or loss right with someone's navigating abortion like we are
Speaker 1: here for the entirety of the reproductive continuum to support people.
Speaker 1: You mentioned postpartum depression and other issues that may come
Speaker 1: up postpartum. How do do list support moms with postpartum
Speaker 1: depression O c D or other postpartumental illnesses. When I
Speaker 1: think about what's necessary on the postpartum continuum, when we
Speaker 1: find people who are dealing with depressive sentomology, This doesn't
Speaker 1: just show up at the time of birth. I would
Speaker 1: love to dispel one thing, which is that it's not
Speaker 1: just in the postpartum period that depression shows up, right,
Speaker 1: it's in fact, along the pregnancy continuum we see depressive
Speaker 1: sentomology surface. And so when we talk about perinatal mood disorders,
Speaker 1: we're talking about the entire continuum. And doula is working
Speaker 1: with clients during pregnancy can start to see, right, see
Speaker 1: aspects of where, oh, this person has anxiety, this person
Speaker 1: is really suffering, like we sometimes see it where somebody
Speaker 1: who came to pregnancy through challenge, right, like maybe through
Speaker 1: many miscarriages, losses, and they get to a place who
Speaker 1: are now the anxieties around if it's even possible, right,
Speaker 1: can I even do this fear that, like you know,
Speaker 1: the baby is not going to stay? I don't know,
Speaker 1: Like every day I'm like, you know, on edge about
Speaker 1: testing and results and all these things. We have to
Speaker 1: work on getting into a place where are using mindfulness
Speaker 1: techniques and emotional self regulation techniques to navigate that challenge.
Speaker 1: We have people who are in situations domestically that are challenging.
Speaker 1: But the biggest thing when we think about depression and
Speaker 1: in the postpartum period and and just this continue in general,
Speaker 1: is that the only way that we can address it
Speaker 1: is by meeting the needs of the individual, understanding what
Speaker 1: their unique needs are, and mostly it is creating supports. Right.
Speaker 1: So where some people they may come to a decision
Speaker 1: where pharmaceuticals are the pathway for them, but most of
Speaker 1: the time, when we get a handle on it early,
Speaker 1: we can actually mitigate symptoms with support and so that Yes,
Speaker 1: So what that means is when you think about what
Speaker 1: you do for an infant, right, you make sure that
Speaker 1: an infintish change. They're fed, they've picked up constantly, They're like,
Speaker 1: you would never leave them alone own, right. These are
Speaker 1: the same things we need to do with a postpartum person.
Speaker 1: We're feeding them, we're hugging them, we're attending to them.
Speaker 1: We're not leaving them alone. Right. They have a separate
Speaker 1: but equal swaddling. They have to be swaddled. Yes, the
Speaker 1: nurturing right that we really focus on giving for infants,
Speaker 1: we need to really think about this person who is
Speaker 1: born into motherhood or parenthood as somebody who is really
Speaker 1: also deeply vulnerable. So you find out you're pregnant, at
Speaker 1: what point does expectant mother connect with and bring a
Speaker 1: doula in. Yeah, that's a great question. So I would
Speaker 1: say that it really depends on the person and their needs.
Speaker 1: The great thing about doula work is that, depending on
Speaker 1: what someone needs, you can design care for them that
Speaker 1: really supports where they are in their life journey. So
Speaker 1: if you're someone like I mentioned before, who has navigated
Speaker 1: difficult terrain in finding your pathway to pregnancy, you might
Speaker 1: want to work with a doula earlier, right early, right right.
Speaker 1: If you're someone who moved to a new place, doesn't
Speaker 1: have friends and community, you might want to get someone
Speaker 1: earlier on so you can tap into their resources and
Speaker 1: some of the supports that they have for you. Generally, though,
Speaker 1: people will come around sixteen weeks at the earliest, I
Speaker 1: would say, but weeks is around when folks start to
Speaker 1: book their duelists, and then you have those people working
Speaker 1: with you through the early postpartum period as well. How
Speaker 1: can the mama's inner circle best support her after she
Speaker 1: gives birth. From your perspective as a duo Tracy, I
Speaker 1: love this question because it's an area where we need
Speaker 1: people to be more educated, where folks need to start
Speaker 1: having conversations with their sister circle. Because we celebrate the pregnancy. Yes,
Speaker 1: we'll shower you with gifts and give you what we
Speaker 1: think you needed supplies. But then after you have the baby,
Speaker 1: you better preach Hello, that's exactly right. And after the
Speaker 1: baby comes, it's like where my friends go, like the
Speaker 1: phone isn't ringing and nobody coming by. Right after the
Speaker 1: first week, it's like you're isolated. Hello, I need you
Speaker 1: to come and help me. That's exactly right. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Most people haven't practiced asking for help. If
Speaker 1: you think about culturally, right, most of us have been
Speaker 1: in positions of servitude inside of our families, right, We've
Speaker 1: been service leaders in our families, and so it's not
Speaker 1: even within our purview to be able to ask, right,
Speaker 1: because everybody's asking us. And so now we're in a
Speaker 1: position where we're vulnerable and we don't have the tools.
Speaker 1: We haven't exercised that muscle. So what I love about
Speaker 1: the pregnancy opportunity is that there are many junctures along
Speaker 1: your pregnancy where there is something that you cannot do right,
Speaker 1: that you cannot do alone. And so the invitation is
Speaker 1: to learn how to practice asking in those smaller moments.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, can you help me tie my shoe? Right? Oh?
Speaker 1: I don't feel well? Can you make me some tea?
Speaker 1: Can you grab me that sandwich? I'm craving? Feel like
Speaker 1: we need a checklist, We need an inner circle checklist, yes,
Speaker 1: and doing a postpartum care checklist ahead a postpartum right,
Speaker 1: So think about just like can you do a birth plan,
Speaker 1: you do postpartum plan? Right? So this is like the
Speaker 1: people that I want in my inner circle, who I
Speaker 1: want around? These should be people who I know can
Speaker 1: contribute to my support system right tangibly contribute. So this
Speaker 1: is somebody who can cook, This is somebody who can
Speaker 1: help clean and keep them organized. Somebody can run and
Speaker 1: get the diapers. Somebody who can watch a baby while
Speaker 1: take a shower. Who we're gonna be These people who
Speaker 1: I know we're gonna be, um, really in overtentive about cleanliness,
Speaker 1: and we'll be checking everybody and dressing it down until
Speaker 1: I feel comfortable for them to come through that threshold
Speaker 1: into my okay, because we're not bringing no germs into
Speaker 1: the baby. No, you know have a barrier. You have
Speaker 1: to that's a barrier. Thank you. Right, but right we
Speaker 1: can talk. I'm telling you you and I can talk
Speaker 1: about this until the cows come home because there's so
Speaker 1: much to cover. There's just a wealth of information that
Speaker 1: you shared already. I can't tell you how much I
Speaker 1: appreciate you joining us and being here at the virtual
Speaker 1: Red Table. And you know your expertise is just invaluable.
Speaker 1: It really is, it really is. And I want to
Speaker 1: let everyone know that you can learn more about Mama
Speaker 1: Glow by visiting Mama Glow dot com. Sathan, thank you.
Speaker 1: We want to know how you're feeling about this new
Speaker 1: season of Red Table Talk and we are open to
Speaker 1: talk about anything with you. So send in your questions
Speaker 1: at Let's red Table that at red table talk dot com,
Speaker 1: or leave us a voicemail and speak pipe dot com
Speaker 1: slash Let's red Table that bring them all. We want
Speaker 1: to know what you're thinking. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: We are just so grateful to have you as our
Speaker 1: listeners and be a part of our community. Make sure
Speaker 1: you subscribe on I Heart Radio app and please rate
Speaker 1: this podcast on Apple Podcasts of five. We'll be back
Speaker 1: next week for another episode of Let's read Table That Men.
Speaker 1: Thank you to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Ellen Rockinton,
Speaker 1: and Fallon Jethrow. And thank you to our producer Kyla
Speaker 1: Knew and our associate producer Yorlanda Chow. And finally, thank
Speaker 1: you to our sound engineers Calvin Bailiff and Devin Donaghey.
Speaker 1: Let's let's table that