Why 88% of Moms Experience Mom Rage, and What Your Body Is Trying to Tell You with Postpartum Care USA | Ep. 146

22:31Stacia Scott:And it is now one of my favorite parenting books. If you struggle with anxiety as a parent, highly recommend this book. Another book that I would highly recommend is the anxious generation. It is obviously like such a hot, it's everyone talks about it right now. It's like in the media, it's really popular. And we also read it for book club and it was so awesome. And it was nothing like revolutionary for me. I did learn he had stats after stats after stats. And I really did learn like a lot, but it was just really helpful to have like all of this research and data around screens and even like my own screen time and stuff like that in one place.

23:19Stacia Scott:It was just like really convicting, kind of reading it all in one place rather than just hearing bits and pieces throughout different resources. And then the fourth book, Hannah's Children. Absolutely, absolutely am obsessed with this book. I recommend it to absolutely every single person. Oh my gosh, it's so good. Basically the first like 25 % of the book is all these stats about why America specifically is in what's called a birth dearth, meaning we are not reproducing at a high enough rate for sustainability. And it is a political issue. It is an economical issue. It is, it is a lot of issues.

24:05Stacia Scott:Um, but that was just really fascinating to like learn these stats and then hear other stats of like, who's more likely to have more kids and all this stuff. And the author then, and the rest of the other 75 % of the book interviews these women that are college educated and have five or more children. And it was basically just like explaining in a world where one or two is the average child. Why are you choosing to have five? You're smart. You've gone, you are college educated and you have five or more kids. And just hearing, like as someone who wants a larger family, hearing these women share their stories and what has inspired them and what has helped them.

24:53Stacia Scott:And even like some tangible advice of just like how in the world do you function with five kids? I laughed. I cried. It was so beautiful. I just like really enjoyed that read. I absolutely loved Hannah's children. And the guest actually was on the podcast. I invited her on because that book just meant so much to me. Then I have two honorable mentions for you. One is Raising Securely Attached Kids by Eli Harwood. And Eli has been on the podcast and she's coming back on next season. She's a good friend of mine. I really love her and her work is just phenomenal. She's a therapist and Raising Securely Attached Kids.

25:31Stacia Scott:It was so good. And then the other honorable mention I have is called How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen. I just have learned. I learned a lot, a lot of tangible advice of yeah, talking. So your little kid will listen or talking in a way so that your little kid will listen to you and follow through and follow your directions. And I will have linked. Will I? Yeah. I can put in the episode show notes because I actually have an Amazon folder with those books. And then also some pregnancy books and natural birth books and a book that I really like on postpartum care. And they're all linked in this like Amazon folder that I have that's titled like book recs for first time moms or something.

26:15Stacia Scott:So I'll just put the link there and you can check them out. So thanks so much for writing in. And I love that you're a big reader and those are just some of my favorites. So I hope you love them as well. Now, if you're looking for advice, email me at learningtomompodcast.mommail at gmail.com with the subject line, mom mail, and then keep your ears open because we might just answer it in an upcoming episode. Right, right. Okay. So labs is number one. Labs is number two. Nutrition. Nutrition. I cannot stress enough. This is why we have registered dietitians on our team. Nutrition is so important.

26:57Cortisol loves an imbalanced blood sugar. It loves it. Cortisol loves it, meaning that it'll thrive on that and that'll keep your cortisol really high. What balances cortisol is protein, making sure that you're eating enough throughout the day. You're not skipping meals. But it's not just what you eat, it's how, right? Are you eating in front of a screen? Are you eating like a mom that takes a bite and walks away and doesn't finish breakfast until 1 p.m.? You know, little things like that. And when, you know, are you eating, you know, four hours after you wake up? Are you eating right when you wake up?

27:33Are you only eating dinner? I mean, like all of that matters, right? And then your thyroid, your thyroid hates to be starved, hates it. So we have this really big thing right now about intermittent fasting, right? No, no, for postpartum. Absolutely not. You intermittent fast at night when you go to bed, okay? Your thyroid hates to guess its next meal. It hates to not have sunlight, vitamin D. It hates it. So over time, if you think about it, that's all postpartum. We're hunkered down. You know, we're not moving our body. We're not, because we have no direction. So of course, 98 % of our patients that we have seen have both a thyroid and an underlying cortisol issue.

28:18So it's really, really in depth, but it's not hard. That's what I want moms to understand. A lot of moms are like, oh my gosh, I have so much work to do. You really don't. Like you just need to learn how your thyroid functions. You need to learn the symptoms. And then you won't be sitting here saying, oh, why am I so fatigued? What is, why am I fatigued? You're going to know why you're fatigued because you're going to have the tools to go and do it yourself.

28:44Stacia Scott:Yeah. So can you walk us through like an ideal what to do? Yes, absolutely. So number one, nutrition. Nutrition for thyroid and cortisol support. But my registered dietitians put this together for each mom based on their labs, right? So healthy protein, healthy fat. It does not need to be crazy. Like you should really be eating the same things every day. It's not hard, right? Avoid long fasting or skipping meals. Like you just can't do that. Obviously limit processed sugar. That's a huge one. Sleep. Okay. A lot of moms are going to be like, okay. Okay, aim for seven to nine hours of sleep, even if there are short naps in the day.

29:26Okay, try to keep like a consistent wake up and sleep time, even on the weekends. That's huge. Morning sunlight is probably the number one thing everybody can do. It helps cue that your cortisol needs to start like trending down a little bit. It cues that it's time to wake up. It cues that like even at night, like getting outside during like that, um, like the pre sunset hours. Yeah. That is wonderful too. Red light therapy is great. I mean, circadian rhythm is huge. Okay. And it's not the amount of sleep as much as it is the quality of sleep. Right. Cause my husband can get like four hours of sleep and he's great.

30:08You know, but they are very different than we are. They are. They are very, very, very, very, I was just about to say, I can't do that. I know that I have to get at least seven to eight hours of sleep a night or I'm like, I just can't function. Right now, that's minus the very infant stage. OK, so take take that out. And just for moms that, you know, co-sleep, we have other things that we can do. But the biggest things is nutrition, stress management and movement. Right. So how when how do you handle stress? How do you move your body? How do you rest? How do you eat? Right. So stress management, breathing.

30:46My husband taught me this and we're starting to implement it with our health coaches, with our patients. But diaphragmatic breathing is huge. Just like it is an instant, instant anxiety relief. Instantly. Can you explain what that means? Yeah. So you want to fill up like your entire belly full of air slowly. Like it's a balloon. Yeah. It's like a balloon. hold it and then release. So I always say five, five, five. Some people might say in for five, out for eight and for five, like whatever, hold for eight that I just do five, five, five. So I in for five, hold for five out for five in for five, hold for five out for five.

31:28I do that over and over. And it is like, okay, you know, so breathing, gentle movement, walking. If everyone would walk 30 minutes a day, five days a week, 90 % of our diseases would be eradicated. It's insane what walking 30 minutes a day does. Insane. And it doesn't have to be brisk and fast. Just walk. And boundaries. Saying no to unnecessary tasks. That will protect your energy for sure. And then exercising. Exercising smartly. Okay, we don't want to do excessive cardio and HIIT workouts because that's going to spike your cortisol. You're already high. You don't want to spike it even more, right?

32:08So we want to really focus on resistance training walking, like slow, steady movements. This builds metabolism and it doesn't, it's not over taxing the adrenals. Okay. And so we keep it, we say, keep it moderate, like 20 to 40 minutes is good. Like you don't need to go crazy. In fact, that can have the opposite. And then obviously we do targeted support with supplements, but supplements, I'm going to say this nicely. I love the crunchy holistic space, but if you're put on 12 different supplements for a year, it's no different than being put on medication, right? There has to be an end game. Okay.

32:46You can't just put a patient on supplements and then be like, okay, this is your supplement plan at the very beginning with no changes or adaptation to it. Right. So that's why we get exit labs so we can adjust.

32:59Stacia Scott:Okay. So we're spending a entire episode talking about your hormones, right? right? Cortisol, thyroid, depletion, all of it. So can I just point out something kind of insane? So many conventional makeup and skincare products contain hormone and endocrine disrupting ingredients, which means you could be doing all the things, the protein, the morning sunlight walks, right? And then every single morning, putting something on your face that's working against the exact hormones that you're trying to heal. And remember your skin absorbs what you put on it in under 30 seconds. That's why everything in my makeup bag is from Crunchy.

33:35Stacia Scott:Their ingredients are completely clean and toxin-free. No endocrine disruptors. Nothing I have to think twice about. And it actually performs. I mean, I have worn it as my bridesmaid makeup in multiple weddings it performs. I'm not choosing between looking good and protecting my hormones. And you shouldn't have to either. So if you don't know where to start, go to learning to mom podcast.com slash makeup, where I've linked everything in my makeup bag, plus a discount code for you, or you can head straight to their website. Both are linked in the show notes below for you. You can thank me later.

34:14Yeah, no, such a good point.

34:16Stacia Scott:I do want to rewind actually something that you said at the beginning when we started this conversation and when we're talking about what's causing mom rage. And you mentioned unmet needs. Can we just quickly discuss how we can encourage our husbands to step up to the plate, if you will, in postpartum or in motherhood rather? That's what I don't think men understand is that it doesn't need to be this like grand gesture. It's literally all the little tiny things that add up. And then like the emotional needs, just feeling like unseen, unheard. I think that because moms don't have like, like when you have a baby, what if everyone had like a little like wound on their face, right?

35:03And then as postpartum got worse for them, it just got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And then like you could see like, oh man, that mom's really struggling with postpartum, right? We don't have that because everything is happening on the inside. You can't see bloating. I mean, you can, but like, you can't see anxiety. You can't see, like, you can't physically see it on them. And so it's hard for them to understand. They're like, what do you mean you're having anxiety? Like, okay, just breathe and get over it. You know what I mean? They just don't understand. They don't understand the hormone fluctuations.

35:30They don't get it. So it's hard, right? And just the constant mental load. I mean, just planning, remembering, organizing, always being on, you know, it's like you don't get a break.

35:45Stacia Scott:Yeah. What strategies do you give your patients then for helping that? Because I think we always have this conversation, right? And like fair play always gets mentioned my book club, um, on my mom club on Patreon, we just read, um, how not to hate your husband after having kids. And like, you know, like I feel like all these books kind of come up, but it's just so like sometimes it's like, OK, what are real people doing? Yeah, it's almost too much. Like, you don't again, it's like walking. You don't need to make it complicated. Meet your basic needs first. Meet your put your oxygen mask on first.

36:20OK, so sleep even 20 to 30 minute naps helps. It really does. Food, eat balanced meals with protein, healthy fats and complex carbs. Okay, hydration, movement, gentle walking, literally, that's all they would need to do all day, every day. And then if you're like, okay, that's not working, calm your nervous system. Breathing exercises, like I mentioned, grounding, again, walking, walking barefoot, stretching, notice your surroundings, point out your surroundings. Are you safe? You are safe. Like constantly reminding yourself that what your thoughts are isn't actual reality, right? A lot of moms are like have intrusive thoughts and those types of things that can also get into mom rage because they get so overwhelmed and then they explode.

37:06Emotional needs. Ask for help. My mom gave me the best advice at postpartum. She was like, say yes to everything. If someone wants to bring a meal, yes, thank you. Leave it at the door. Even if someone just brought one, yes, thank you. You know, set boundaries. That's huge. You have to protect your energy. It is okay if you don't go to a girl's dinner because you're tired and you want to be home with your baby. Like share your feelings with a friend, right? We get so many feelings poured on us during our sessions and it's amazing because they're like, oh my gosh, I never said that out loud. And I'm like, yeah, say it.

37:39And then we also sometimes will have moms like track their triggers. We call it. Oh, I like that. Yeah. So like what's triggering to you? Like what, what is so triggering about dishes in the dishwasher or you see little dust putneys in the corner or all of the toys, right? what's triggering about that and how do we get over that our health coaches are really good

38:00Stacia Scott:about doing that but it's also so much more helpful like because you know i mean your husbands they want to be needed they do they truly like but sometimes it's like how can you just not see this and it's not that they don't it's that they truly can't they're just their brain is not wired that way and so if we actually are like you can be in charge of this and if we can figure out what our triggers are and we give that to them, that's like a whole game changers. Track your triggers. I actually have this really cool. Um, this is the four. I did like a thing on this. I don't know if you guys, if you can see it, like my mom club members get video.

38:36Stacia Scott:So this is okay. Okay. So these are the, no matter how far postpartum you are, these are the four root causes. Cause again, we've studied all of our moms, right? So we have inflammation, high cortisol, okay, gut health issues, and nutrient depletion. And these are right here, rage right here. So it could be one of these things, but most of the time it's high cortisol and nutrient depletion. But gut issues can also cause rage because your gut and your mental health are hand in hand. They're connected, right? So these are the four main things that we can say every single one of our patients that have walked through our clinic that we've gotten labs on causes these symptoms of anxiety, depression, fatigue, brain fog, rage, and mood swings.

39:25And it can lead to chronic cortisol issues. It can lead to thyroid issues. So this is just a really nice little, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So glad you brought that out.

39:37Stacia Scott:Okay. I mean, we are quickly running out of time and I could keep you here forever. So I want to make sure we'll do a part two. So was there anything that we talked about today or that we didn't talk about today that you want moms to walk away with knowing about mom rage? Yeah. So mom rage is not normal. It is a signal. And I can't stress that enough. I had it. I call myself a rage survivor. I had it after my third. And it was because I was so depleted after my first. And then I carried it over into my second. And then finally, after my third, I was like, OK, I can't do this anymore. And that's why I opened up my clinic.

40:11That's why we get labs on all of our moms. And as soon as I figured out what it was, it was my thyroid. I was able to combat it. And then I was like, oh, my gosh, if it could just be that simple, which we've made it that simple. It's just moms do not prioritize postpartum health. They don't. They don't budget for it. They don't even think it's a thing until you're in it. And then you're like and then you're told it's normal from all your trusted providers. Right. It's not. there is there is healing i mean we've done it thousands of times right and we also wonder why

40:47Stacia Scott:women are struggling to find joy in motherhood why we have so much resentment in motherhood and why we're like yeah i'm one and done because this sucks really like maybe if you were in a healthy standpoint you would actually love to have more children like what not like pro more kids or whatever but like 100 i think a lot of us are making that choice because we're just in survival mode and that's not how it should be. It's not. And I have moms that come to me and say that. And I'm like, do you want another baby? They're like, oh my gosh, no, no, no, no. And I'm like, okay, why? And they're like, because I don't want to feel like this ever again.

41:17I go, okay, don't make a drastic permanent decision based on a temporary emotion because this emotion that you are feeling is going to go away. And guess how many end up getting pregnant after our program and thrive? Probably 90 % of people who say that of moms who come into our clinic who say that end up getting pregnant and they're completely thriving. I actually just ran into one last night at a little moment that I went to with our kids. And she obviously was wonderful. And she's like, I'm just so thankful that you, that you healed me because I don't think I would ever have my, my other baby that she just had.

41:50And it was just like, yeah, I mean, it's so true though. I didn't, when I found out I was pregnant with baby number two, I was like, oh my gosh,

41:57Stacia Scott:I have to go through that all again, you know? And it was terrifying. Um, I was excited, but I was also terrified. Yeah. Very real. Yeah. Okay. Dang. Stacia, this has been so lovely. I want to make sure that people know where they can find you. And of course, like where they can work with you. Yes. So we are on Instagram at postpartum care underscore USA. You can put it in the bio and, um, and then at PP care USA.com. And of course, like we are here, you know, we are growing, growing, growing. We're actually almost full for the entire year. So definitely, you know, we're, we're even booking into next summer right now with moms that are currently pregnant.

42:37They're getting smart. Moms are smart and they're waking up to say, um, I'm not going to take that. This is normal anymore. I want to thrive. I don't want to survive. I want my marriage to thrive. And here's where I will, where I will leave it. There is nothing more profitable in our healthcare system than a sick mother. Nothing. Because sick moms breed sick families. You cannot have a healthy family without mom being healthy. That's just how it is. So there is nothing more profitable. We don't want you to be in our clinic longer than six months. In fact, no one's ever been in our clinic longer than six months.

43:13We want to teach you and treat you so you can go do this on your own and be advocates for yourself.

43:18Stacia Scott:Oh, I literally have chills, Stacia. And we got to drop the mic. That's it. So, so good. Truly, I could keep you forever. I know you got to run. Thank you so, so much. This was so valuable. I'm so glad you listened to this week's episode, mom friend, because you're listening to this podcast. I know how much you value different perspectives and ideas. And that's exactly what the mom club book club is for. We read a parenting book together each month and then chat about it over Zoom, you'll hear a variety of approaches, celebrate wins, and get ideas to try in real life. In one book club meeting, a mom told us all via Zoom, you guys are my people.

43:55Stacia Scott:And I felt that to my core. Some moms come without even reading the book because they just want the conversation and the connection, and they still add so much to the conversation. And it's where I truly get to connect with you and become mom friends with you, which is why it's my favorite part. So come find your people and join the best book club at learningtomompodcast.com slash join. As always, the links in the show notes below for you.