S01 EP03 - What Is Postpartum? with Host Ariane Audet & Bianca Moskaitis
Faces of Postpartum—The Podcast is a show about the postpartum period and its unique variations, hosted by Ariane Audet.
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S01E03
What Is Postpartum?
In this week’s episode, our founder, Ariane Audet and her dear friend Bianca Moskaitis talk about the various definitions and implications of the word “postpartum”, and what it meant to them before, during, and after going through their own postpartum periods.
Full Transcript
Ariane: [00:00:00] We were saying that we wanted to record because we thought we were funny. We're like super funny. Right. So I'm going to start that little baby.
Hi, Bianca,
So today we are asking ourselves, what is postpartum?
Bianca: [00:00:17] I'm excited about that.
Ariane: [00:00:19] Yeah, me too. Because it sounds like a simple question, but digging a little bit into it I realized it was not. So as with anything and I'm sure you've done that too, that has to do study the layers.
You've studied the layers. Well, good. That's awesome. But what did you do to study the layers? Did you turn to Google?
Bianca: [00:00:39] Absolutely. You know,
Ariane: [00:00:42] it's like
Bianca: [00:00:43] I've studied the layers
Ariane: [00:00:44] our children have a rash Google What is Postpartum Google. What's nice with Google is that it gives you a very clear sample of what people are looking for, which is like a good sociological experiment. And so if you look at the word postpartum of on Google, their results and just the word are by far, mostly related to depression.
Bianca: [00:01:13] Correct.
Ariane: [00:01:13] So if you search, what is postpartum dot.dot? The most search expressions are whispered on depression, postpartum psychosis, sparkling anxiety. Postpartum depression treatment, postpartum hemorrhage, which is very concerning and postpartum period, which I was kind of happy to read that's finally people realize like, Oh, okay.
It's not just, you know, a problem because this is what ended up happening is that you considered postpartum as being either an illness. A complication that's possibly killing you or a medical condition that requires treatment. And all of this is obviously not wrong, but the fact that everything related to this shared period of our lives that is literally experienced by millions.
There are again, Google, 140 million babies born each year in the world and 4 million alone in the US. It just tells us. A lot about the preconceptions we have of what is postpartum. And I remember vividly and ironically, while being admitted in a psych yard, I always do that. Is it psych yard site?
Ward. Backyard. Yeah.
That was none of the burdens. It's like what happened? You suffer from acute postpartum depression. They put you in a garden you're
outside.
You're outside in the wild. Yeah.
So what I want to do to do when I founded faces of postpartum is to reinvest the word postpartum with something else than symptoms or treatment in short to think postpartum not based on what the medical establishment is telling us what it should be. But what is the definition? Because if you type a good again, what is the definition or meaning of the postpartum? The first page, not just the first results. The first page directs you towards the medical website. Web MD.
It's like if doctor literally decided, created and defined the word, and we all know that those who define and those who represent own the perspective and own the representation the general population have. So of course battling with postpartum depression is part of the postpartum experience and it's the most common albeit, not normal complication of giving bird or welcoming a child. And of course, people need to have the resources to be taking care of. But it doesn't mean that there's not something, shall I say, profoundly wrong with the fact that as birthing people and postpartum people, we don't have a lot of choice in what it means to be postpartum. And therefore, we kind of just don't want to talk about it or swipe it under the rug because it's very uncomfortable.
Bianca: [00:04:19] I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah, because we do get it. When we go in. So say for instance, when we go to get medical treatment, they automatically are telling us that it is depression and that they already have the medications to take care of that piece of everything. Right? Yeah.
Ariane: [00:04:43] There's something very passive about when you receive the child. How many times do you hear my doctor delivered? It's like, no, no, honey, you delivered your baby. Your doctor was merely there, to either catch it, if it came out of your vagina, correct. In the position that is comfortable for him or her or it pulled it out of your body, but you delivered your baby. It's not, you know, it's not. These people are doing.
You.
Did the
work.
You did the work and there's again, you know, there's a lot to say about that passive posture the delivering person or the postpartum person, or even the pregnant person, it's like you are being told what you're supposed to do, which, you know, it, wasn't phased with most things that happen with the rise of The medicalization of, of everything related to childbirth. And it's, it sucks. You know, ultimately it really sucks because it's not empowering and, and listen to this. You know, I'm a woman of word. This is what I used to do by trade to analyze discourse for more than a decade. I know words matter I know how we perceive them matters. I know how we represent document things will interfere with the way we experience that very thing, you know, language is powerful. And so I dug in like dictionaries for etymological meanings. And I got very excited that obviously etymologically, can you believe what postpartum means? Yeah, the period just after the delivery post - from after and partum - from the verb parire, I'm not quite sure how to pronounce it in English to produce, to bring forth . Or to bear and listen to that shit, the root of parire or path, his père, which is father in French which means to grant, to a lot, to procure.
It's incredibly different than the meaning we associated it when the word was the expression postpartum depression was attested in 1929 by a doctor. Ultimately the postpartum period is just that it's a time after we bear, produce, create accomplish something in this case, a child or in cases like adoption, the arrival, the period after the arrival of a child.
So it's a work that speaks of temporality and accomplishment. It has nothing to do with mental illness. Yes. This is depression is the adjective that defines postpartum, but postpartum itself does not mean any of that on the contrary, it's an incredibly empowering and soothing term. And so my question to you, because now I'm going to shut up is I got very excited.
Now I'm going to ask you a question. Is that okay? Before even going in, had you ever heard of the word postpartum? If so, what perception did you have? What understanding did you have of the word?
Bianca: [00:08:11] So before I went in for Fiona I was aware did I understand what it meant? No. I. Tried my hardest to not read too much while I was pregnant with my first child, because I didn't want everything that I read to feel true to me, if that makes sense.
Right. You know how you're supposed to read all these mommy books, these baby books prepare, prepare, prepare. And sometimes I feel like that's just too many people telling me what to do. And that's awkward for me to say, cause I do read things. So
Ariane: [00:08:49] don't think
I hear that a lot in interviews, most, a lot of people will be like either they feel it's it's paternalistic. Is it harder to say that like, it's, there's something like I'm going to tell you what to do or to my advice. There's not a lot of welcoming spaces.
Bianca: [00:09:07] Yes. You know, there's not a lot of dialogue, more than someone talking at you to tell you what you should be doing for your experience. I wanted to create my own experience and enjoy it. Because once you start reading things, you start to overanalyze everything. At least for myself. And I start to really think hard, like, Oh, is this true? Is this not true? What am I doing wrong? What am I doing? Right. The book says this ? So I've stopped. And you know, of course, that first book that you get as a mom is like on the front of the book,
Ariane: [00:09:43] That fucking pastel books. What to expect when you're expecting this book, this book needs to be burned, burned that book. I'm not for burning books, but burn that book.
Bianca: [00:09:55] Yeah. That book I got through probably the first couple of parts of it. And I was like, Hmm I'm okay, let me go ahead and put that back over here. And I just decided probably around month seven that I was going to just wing it. I wanted to see what my whole birth journey would be an afterward. And I was just aware of postpartum, but I didn't know what it meant. And I definitely wasn't explained that in my checkups or anything. They don't want to probably scare you into anything. But afterward my doctor was like, Hey So you're going through this.
Yeah.
Ariane: [00:10:39] But again, it was brought to you. It was but it was brought to you under the lens of depression again. Yeah, no, it's funny because we don't want to scare women or birthing people. And yet by not about it, we make it worse. And the depression might be, you know, an aspect of it, but by not talking about it as a whole, which is strange because we love control and the postpartum period it's is so much under our control than our birth or even pregnancy, you know, of course you cannot plan for if your baby's in the NICU and all those things, but you can absolutely plan, in all circumstances, who's going to take care of your other toddler. Who's going to deliver your food. Who's caring. All of those things can be planned and we'll apply whether or not you have complications, you know, like all of these things can be put in place and be put under control. And yet we're just like, no, we're just not going to talk about it.
Bianca: [00:11:49] You know, what also is interesting too, is. For myself, I had a doctor's office full of women. All women doctors and surprising enough, all of them have children, but don't talk about postpartum. Because you know that they've probably experienced it too, but don't want to probably make you feel uncomfortable about their own story too.
But I'd love to hear a doctor's postpartum story.
Ariane: [00:12:19] Yeah, absolutely.
Bianca: [00:12:22] It would make them feel normal or make you feel connected to them.
Ariane: [00:12:27] Sometimes, and it's funny because my sister is a doctor. So Coco, please, don't be mad at me. I feel that they are, and it's not just the feeling I've heard actual physicians talk about that. There's some brainwash, you know, they, they teach them that they are godly, so they are kind of above emotions to a certain extent, and it helps to squeeze them so much with crazy hours and, you know To be detached from your emotion that much and to rationalize everything is very useful when you have that kind of job under a system that will just drain every bit of energy you have.
So to come and be like, Hey, be vulnerable in, goes against their training. The absolute foundation of who they are as professionals and professionals who have been told you are the best thing that the world has to offer. So enjoy it. Also, they have more means usually, and it means support might already be in place.
And again, it's not, it's not everything, but there's definitely something with the structure of healthcare itself that does not permit vulnerability and flexibility. And, you know, one-on-one heartfelt chat about how messy is going to be. Because there is changing. And I feel it also speaks of that is that we, as you know, in an industrialized society, we have an arrogance in thinking that things don't change.
You know, we're in a fricking pandemic and corporations haven't asked their employees to slow their workload or to reduce their workload. They're still expecting the same level of productivity.
Bianca: [00:14:14] Or more.
Ariane: [00:14:15] Or more because now you're at home, you don't have to commute. You don't, it makes no sense.
And it's always like progress, progress, expecting it to give it to your productivity. And then you find yourself welcoming a child that will. It literally arrives with an ax. Is that how you say that? Is it like that thing that you chop wood with? And it's just going to chop the shit out of the wood of your life, and it's just gonna make it explodes.
And it's fine, it's changed and it will pass and you will readjust and, you know, with help, if you go through something deeper, but fundamentally it's a huge change.
Bianca: [00:14:56] It's a, it's a major change. It's something that you have to work at getting comfortable with yourself again. You know, I had, my oldest is turning four, February 23rd.
And for me I'm like, whew, I still go through things, you know? Like I told you in the beginning I have a letter anxiety issue. And so just thinking about what I could have known beforehand to try to work on it, would have made me feel, or started my process of healing after birth, probably a lot quicker. They wait until afterward or don't tell you anything and you just kinda gotta figure it out.
Right? Yeah.
Ariane: [00:15:42] And it sucks because. You know that the house smoke again with my metaphor of chopping wood, you know, there will be smoke, but usually when we get to the point of the house is on fire. Now we consult and now they're like, yes, let me save you. And you're like, no, I just wanted to be aware that the house might catch on fire and that there would be smoke.
And I think this is the problem with all those books and stuff is that it provides advice. When in fact, you just need to know there's a space for you afterward. like, Hey, whatever, you're going through, I'm here. Like I'm going to be here for a one-on-one heartfelt discussion. I'm really stuck with that one-on-one heartfelt, not checking boxes on a piece of paper, just like. There's there are communities out there, and there are things you can do to make this transition, not so painful because it will be painful as everything that has to do with change.
Bianca: [00:16:45] Yeah, a comment or response to a lot of things that moms say after birth is I wish I would have known. I wish someone would've just told me that this is going to happen. I wish that another mom would have told me. At the same time, sometimes we're not prepared to hear and it's fine. And it's totally fine. And it's a part of the process.
Ariane: [00:17:13] Absolutely. It is part of the process. And as the person who, that's the thing we shouldn't give advice. You can, if you trust a person you can ask, how was your postpartum period?
As people who have gone through it, our job is not to give advice, but to offer a safe space, like, Hey, I'm here. I'm just going to be here. And the question I hate most is what can I do for you? Like, and I'm like,
Bianca: [00:17:43] man,
Ariane: [00:17:44] pick up this. Yes. And at the same time, I don't want you to hold my newborn. I don't trust anybody with my newborn, but you can have food delivered!
Bianca: [00:17:52] But you can sit next to me. Sit next to me. Just sit here. That's what I wanted sometimes. Cause you know, I, I love my husband dearly, but he can't do what another female could do for me. If that makes sense. You know, you need that companionship to know that you have somebody who is like you, who can just sit there right next to you.
And maybe not say one word, right? You can just feel their comfort.
Ariane: [00:18:27] What else would you have needed?
Bianca: [00:18:30] I would have... I think I would have made it more me time. We are very selfish after we have our children, because we want to keep them to ourselves. There are so many people who are around you, who could help you.
Even just hold the baby for a second, but we get so wrapped up in , "I'm supposed to be the one taking care of it. I'm supposed to be the one holding it." It's my responsibility when you can share it. But I just wish I would have shared a lot more than I did and I did, but going out of town for a night or two hours To myself to take a walk, you know eating something by yourself.
Just a moment. Yeah.
Ariane: [00:19:20] To normalize that too. And it's okay to do it. And also it's okay not to want to give away your newborn if you don't want to.
Bianca: [00:19:30] Yeah, but, but self care is very important and we lose that. Once we give birth, because all we can think about is the person who we just brought into the world.
Ariane: [00:19:41] Which I guess there's a biological component to it, you know?
So we don't end up leaving that thing on the side of the road. That's right. We think about
Bianca: [00:19:48] it. Sometimes we might think about it. Right. But at the same time, you're like, I have a responsibility and I'm going to do it to the fullest, but I do suggest taking a moment.
Ariane: [00:20:01] You said to the fullest and this idea of sacrifice.
Yeah, so ingrained motherhood and it's so unhealthy.
Bianca: [00:20:15] Yep. We we're told to give our all to our children and I'm all for it, but I also need to give my all to myself too, in order to give my all to my children.
Ariane: [00:20:30] Yeah. And everybody, it's funny because again, you, sometimes you will show up the houses on fire and then that fucking doctor is going to be like my child, you gotta put your oxygen mask first.
And you're like, fuck you, man. That house is on fire. There's no more time for that. Like I needed to know that before I needed to have a society that that will support that, not just then put the responsibility on the individual. Yeah to save her own skin. It's like, yeah.
I'm medicalized, but there's still a side of me who's like if thing had been built differently in the world we live in a, might not have needed it. Because I would not have gone so far into the distress and the loneliness and that I would not have needed to be medicated to handle that pressure and endless sacrifice that was demanded both embody or integrated by myself and also from the outside world. It's easier to say, self-care go take a walk, do yoga. When every single day of your life, since you were like five, you understand that specifically as a woman, you have to be kind, sacrifice yourself, give your all, give your everything you're going to have to work harder.
And then, so he would tell you, take care of yourself. It's your responsibility. You're like, "
Since when?"
Where do you find that time? Correct. Exactly. Yeah. It's, it's a, it's a journey and you, you have to figure out how you're going to maneuver through it yourself to get out of that shell, right?
Absolutely. You know, you've, you've spent so much of your life. That's so weird to say you've spent so much of your life doing for yourself. That all of a sudden you're told: here, do this and do your best with this infant that you have no idea what to do with. Yeah. And it's, it's a beautiful thing, but it could also be very very sad and hard to work through if you don't have the right tools. I also was thinking to myself, remember that class in high school that we all took called family life.
I didn't have that. I had a very creepy man who taught me how to put a condom on a banana. And he was obviously very uncomfortable.
Bianca: [00:22:54] Okay. So I would be too
Ariane: [00:22:56] I think it was related to religious education. So it was very messy.
Bianca: [00:23:02] Yeah. Ours was family life in a sense of. Here. You're a woman here is what you have on your body. All right here, you're a man. Here's what you have with you. You go through a period, you have wet dreams you go, you know, you grow up, you grow up then you two connect and then you have sex and then you have a baby.
Right? And in my head, I'm like, how come we don't have classes that talk about depression. We don't have things that are talking about what we are experiencing, even as we grow up to help us. Exactly. We don't have any mental health, anything in our teenage years to help us prepare for adulthood.
Right. Isn't that something else. And you have teenagers who were having children who still have no resources as to what it feels like to go through postpartum.
Ariane: [00:24:00] Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting because. I read books with my four year old with colors and here's sadness, here's joy, here's anger, his here's serenity, here's anxiety.
And then there's a huge gap between that. How are we supposed to handle our emotion through changes? We talk about postpartum, but the postpartum period is just that it's a change. It's a period in your life where change. Sorry. It's like a scratch over
there.
And, and yeah. How do you handle change? How do you have like a community? Do you have a village around you that will help you go through that? And if we want to talk about that, how is that represented? In movies or in the media? I vividly remember watching and it was a series, a TV show about an OB, like working in a hospital and there's this woman she gives birth.
And the next scene is her and her perfectly quiet newborn and the little, you know, plastic bassinet and she's sitting in an immaculate room, wearing an immaculate robe, and she's reading a fucking magazine.
I am
Bianca: [00:25:16] so proud of her to the fact that she was able to do any of that. As, I mean, like I barely was able to freaking take a shower. I was barely able to make a plate of food, like a bowl of soup, just water out of
Ariane: [00:25:32] was at the hospital. Like she's just, there's nothing around. And I'm like, We're talking like 2014, I mean, dude like make an effort. This is not what it looks like after you just gave birth. This is not it.
Bianca: [00:25:47] We have to talk about that as well, because vanity is a thing, we got to do an episode about it too. Yeah, because if you think about all of the social influencers who post their beautiful backgrounds, this is what my life looks like. Right. I have a beautiful nursery. I have a beautiful setup here. I have people who are going to support me, but those same individuals are still going through postpartum as well.
Yes, they're just going through it a different way, right? The way that they present it on social media might be helping them through the process. But to us, on the outside looking at them, we look at it like, this is what you're supposed to be looking like. My daily life doesn't look like that. How do we get that?
And I think that is a good topic to talk about because it can be deceiving.
Ariane: [00:26:45] It's very deceiving and it's also, I will never attack an individual in particular, but I can absolutely attack the idea as a whole and that idea of portraying or taking what's on social media as the truth. More and more influencers will actually talk about that still. You know, they capitalize on that. They make money out of it. So they're just so like a capitalistic component to it that is very difficult to it.
Pushes away
buy to consume what they're,
Bianca: [00:27:19] Presenting. Exactly. Yeah. It's, it's it's wild. I was one of those individuals that signed up for all of the mamma influencers on Instagram before.
You know, when I was pregnant with Fiona and I was like, Oh, this is fine. This is what I'm supposed to look like. Oh my goodness, let me do my room like this and that. And then afterwards, I was like, mm,
Ariane: [00:27:44] yeah.
Appealing. But people I think, need to understand this is a business. This is a, as you said, it's a representation. It's a performance is it's not reality. It's a show. It's a show and it's fine if you're making money out of it. But we need to be honest about what it is, and it's not reality. Again, where did we get this idea that social media was supposed to be reality? The way it was marketed. And again, in order to get our data and get money from us, which you know, is the world we live in.
And again, we, we can just, Complain about it, which is
Bianca: [00:28:22] exactly what we're doing.
That's exactly what we're doing, but we won't be the only ones as we think about it.
Ariane: [00:28:28] No, absolutely not.
What did I want to ask you... resource about the fourth trimester? I liked the term for trimester because, in essence, it's a beautiful thing to think that once your baby is out, you still have to go through a fourth trimester in order to really kind of get your shift together. But it was branded again as something you need shit for, you know, by a dockatot you need to put it. Yeah. And granted, some of these things have my life.
But.
Bianca: [00:29:02] I was right there with you.
Ariane: [00:29:03] What would you have wanted now that you have the experience? Not in term of things, but if you had to make a post-partum plan or a wishlist right now, what would that be?
Bianca: [00:29:17] That's a very good question. Because you're presented with so many things throughout the process of while you're pregnant til, after birth. I'm still presented with things I'm like, Ooh, could that have been something very useful. And awkwardly all I can think about is having more fruits, is that weird? That is such a weird response. I know. Right. So for me, when I was going through the whole process, I ate terribly.
Ariane: [00:29:54] Okay. I understand that.
Bianca: [00:29:56] You know, the whole thought of having this baby. I was like, Oh my goodness, I'm going to stress eat. You know, just kind of like that's the mindset behind why I said more fruits and vegetables. I think I was just in a mindset of, I want to do whatever I want. I want to eat whatever I want. I want to enjoy my pregnancy and at the same time, if I would have eaten better, I wouldn't have felt so horrible post-birth. As to getting myself back to a healthier state. I understand a lot of sandwiches
sandwiches are great,
Ariane: [00:30:30] Bread... I'd like I would eat that every day.
Bianca: [00:30:34] I mean, bread. I was like, Ooh, but if I would have eaten better and taking the time to look that stuff up, I think I would've felt a lot better post pregnancy. because I started to do that afterwards. I was like, Oh, I got to get myself.
Ariane: [00:30:53] But again, that was from a place of, kind of, I didn't know, guilds, but it's like you to take back your body as if your body isn't yours anymore and did something wrong.
But I do agree that being fed like you are feeding your baby, it would be so nice to be fed during our pregnancy. And postpartum period. For my second birth, I had a home birth and my neighbor Jessica would send over and it was a long home birth and it was 31 hours.
She would send bowls of mangoes, cut mangoes and cut peaches. And I remember that because I was in the tub and my husband would just put those delicious peaches.
Bianca: [00:31:35] See, I love that.
Ariane: [00:31:36] Yeah, it was the most. You know, I remember my birth, but this specifically was a beautiful view. That's Brian feed the mom when she's laboring.
Bianca: [00:31:47] That's right. That is where I was getting at is I love everything you just explained because if that would've happened, I just feel like that would have helped me start the process of healing. Yeah.
You know, your shirts that's right. Yeah.
Ariane: [00:32:06] Yeah. I think that that's a good, that's a good final words to this episode to nurture. And this is something that is out there. Luckily, and I, I know a lot of other postpartum blogs or pages who are trying to normalize that conversation like us are using that and like nurtured the mother you know, mother, the mother and it's it's I think this, ultimately, you know, we can attach a lot of definition to that or a lot of advice.
Yeah. The idea is that it's like, it's not hippy shit to say nurture, the mother and feed the mother. That's right. You know, it's just basic human care. We just...
Bianca: [00:32:47] correct. Right. Like we should be taken care of during the pregnancy as well. We're carrying something that is beautiful.
Ariane: [00:32:56] Yeah, and not have to do at all. I went to visit my cousin and my aunt when I was back in Canada. And at some point my cousin, she, she just had a baby and she said, her husband is a farmer. He has a dairy farm. And she said, I wish I would have another baby, but he's working so much. It's very hard.
When she was postpartum her house was being built. So she went to live with her mother and she was like, that was the best four months of my life. She was with her mom every day. And I know it's not possible for everybody, but she was like, I'm not in the relationship with my mom.
And it stuck with me. And I wrote to her the other day and I was like, no, but this village, this filiation this transmission, this mother who is feeding you as you're feeding your own child is so beautiful. If you're not having another baby, just because you don't want it to be nurtured by your mom, you're making a mistake, make another baby and just being nurtured by your own mother, if you can, this is okay.
There's nothing wrong with asking for help and not even asking for help thinking that it's normal to receive help and being nurtured.
Bianca: [00:34:08] That's the key right there.
Ariane: [00:34:10] Yeah. It's okay. It should be like that. So Emily, make another baby.
This has been fun. I love.
That it has. Well, thank you so much for listening to faces of postpartum. We are your host Ariane Audet,
Bianca: [00:34:25] and Bianca Moskaitis,
Ariane: [00:34:27] if you like to show, be sure to rate it in register on Apple or anywhere you get your podcasts. If you have any idea for shows or anything else at all, you can reach us at podcast@facesofpostpartum.com. We also have an Instagram @facesofpostpartum, and you can find Bianca,
Bianca: [00:34:46] Bianca Moskaitis on Facebook as well as at @lifeofBiancam on Instagram.
Wonderful. So I will see you in two weeks.
That's right.
Take care.