In this week's episode Louise chats with pre and postnatal doula Tracey Louis Fernand. They discuss the importance of postnatal planning where Tracey actually goes into more detail on how she creates a postnatal plan with her clients, which is really useful if you're expecting a baby soon!  She also shares her advice for anyone struggling with the transition to motherhood and their mental health.  You can find Tracey here; https://motheringthemother.co.uk/ @tracey.doula If you're looking for mental health support, here's some other organisations that can help; NHS - IAPT Pandas Foun ..read more

In this weeks episode Louise chats with Dr Cait Van Damm, who’s a pelvic Health specialist and twin mum based in Boston about  painful sex after birth Please don’t be alarmed, we’re not talking about straight after birth we’re talking about at months or evens years after but Dr Cait discusses what causes painful sex and things we can do to help.  This leads to a wider discussion around our pelvic health and how everything is connected and that we should be approaching our pelvic health with a completely holistic approach You can find Dr Cait here http://ritualpelvichealth.com/ @ritu ..read more

In this weeks episode Louise chats with Tatiana Martinez who’s a mother of four and  postnatal Midwife and Founder of Mamba Mammas which is a Private Postnatal Care Midwifery business supporting mothers with one to one, 24/7 postnatal care.  This is a really great episode to listen to if you’re thinking you might want some extra support postnatally as Tatiana goes into detail about what a postnatal midwife actually does and how they differ from someone like a doula. You can find Tatiana here; https://www.mambamammas.com/ @mambamammas   ..read more

In this weeks episode Louise chats with Zoe Gardiner who’s Mother of two, postnatal activist and founder of Postpartum Matters.  Zoe had pretty awful and traumatic experience postnatally following the birth of her second child.  She very bravely shares how she’s been facing an ongoing battle to receive proper care and support in order to recover from a labial tear that never fully healed. Her experience led her to starting Postpartum Matters in order to radically change how we are supported postnatally.  TW: postnatal trauma, birth trauma - Zoe does go into detail about her exp ..read more

In this week's episode Louise speaks with Dr Sarah Murphy who is an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist working in Dublin, Ireland.  We had a chat about how to care for stitches after birth, whether you delivered vaginally or you had a caesarean birth.  We start off chatting about stitches for a vaginal delivery and then move onto  caesarean stitches (14.28) but there's a lot of cross over in the way we care for both, so we'd recommend listening to the full episode however you birthed your baby.  This is also really useful to listen to if you're just about to give birth as it’s ..read more

In this week's episode Louise is joined by Yolande Diver who is a pre and postnatal yoga specialist, a pre and postnatal doula and an active birth teacher. This episode is also really useful to listen to if you’re pregnant as it will help you prepare for the postnatal period. We also chat about what exactly a doula does — so if you’re not sure what they do or if you are thinking of having a doula at your birth and postnatally then definitely listen. You can find Yolande here; @yolandeyogaandbirthhttp://www.yolandeyogaandbirth.co.uk ..read more

In this weeks episode Louise chats with nutritional therapist Jodie Abrahams about the ways we can support our own postnatal recovery through nutrition. Jodie specialises in women’s hormonal health from adolescence to menopause, supporting menstrual cycle health, fertility, pregnancy, post-natal health, and perimenopause. Much of her work centres on the interplay between stress, mood and hormones.   You can find Jodie here; www.jodieabrahams.com@_jodieabrahams ..read more

Welcome to this weeks episode where Louise chats with postnatal fitness specialist Zahra Khimji about how to safely return to higher impact exercise after giving birth, whether that’s lifting weights, running or HIIT classes. She also talks about her own postnatal recovery including her experience of postnatal depression and how exercise helped her through this. You can find Zahra here @zahra.khimjipt https://www.firebirdfitness.uk/ If you're looking for mental health support here's some other organisations that can help; NHS - IAPT Pandas Foundation Birth Trauma AssociationMaternal Mental ..read more

In this weeks episode, Louise is joined by pre and postnatal fitness specialist Caroline Bragg.  We chatted about getting back to exercise with diastasis recti which as Caroline explains in more detail is the thinning and widening of the connective tissue in between your abdominal muscles which allows space for your baby to grow when you’re pregnant.   Like many things in the pre and postnatal world, there can be a lot of scaremongering around diastasis recti and what you can and can’t do in terms of exercise.  Caroline explains what it is, how to check for it on yourself and p ..read more

In this weeks episode Louise chats with leading pelvic health physiotherapist Clare Bourne about how to get back to exercising when you have a pelvic organ prolapse.  There can be a lot of stigma and negativity around prolapse and knowing what exercise you should and shouldn't be doing can be very confusing. Not only is Clare a fountain of knowledge when it comes to the pelvic floor but she also discusses her own experience of living with a prolapse and how she's even started weightlifting!  You can find Clare here; https://www.clare-bourne.com @clarebournephysio ..read more