Postpartum Planning

Join me as I have an important conversation with Jane Shomof centered around a discussion of Postpartum Planning. In this episode we dive into all things postpartum planning and support, and why a postpartum plan is more important than a birth plan.

Transcript

Welcome to the Ohmamah's podcast.

I'm your host,

Christine Maglenci-Yap.

In each episode,

I'll cover topics in the area of maternal health and spiritual wellness.

You'll hear from guests who will share their professional and personal experiences as we navigate the journey to and through motherhood together.

This is an intentional space for you to learn and grow.

So sit back and enjoy.

Today,

As our guest,

We have Jane Shomoff.

She's a mother of three,

A doctor of clinical psychology and a licensed psychotherapist specializing in mental,

Maternal health and substance abuse and addiction.

She has a passion for helping others to prevent and treat postpartum mood disorders through education and early intervention.

She's actually in the process of launching a one of a kind insurance-based virtual treatment program for women and their families in the peripartum period,

Providing treatment and support during this transition.

Hi,

Jane.

Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Hi,

I'm so happy to be here and,

You know,

Talk about all the stuff that I love talking about.

Yes.

Postpartum is such an important conversation.

And I think in the recent years,

And you'll probably have more like data or insight on this,

But I think it's become like really an essential process of not only planning for,

But actually like really recognizing and get to be familiar with it.

It was kind of one of those taboo things before and kind of in terms of like postpartum depression,

It was kind of like one of those scary things that women had as like an afterthought to the birth process.

But now I think we're really starting to embrace it and like normalize it and really start to like educate ourselves on like what that could be and how it can feel.

Yeah,

I hope so.

I feel like it's still an afterthought for most of our population and you're a hundred percent right.

You know,

Even the word postpartum.

So it's funny because this is something that I've been noticing a lot recently when somebody is like,

Oh yeah,

I have postpartum,

But postpartum is not a diagnosis.

Postpartum is literally a period of time.

Postpartum is the period of time after you give birth.

Anybody that's had a kid is postpartum.

Yeah.

Right.

Then they come,

Then,

You know,

The diagnoses come,

Like you mentioned,

Postpartum depression,

Which literally was the only diagnosis as a mood disorder after giving birth.

And you know,

When I had my first kid,

Which was about nine and a half years ago,

And I was struggling in my postpartum period just with the adjustment,

Because you know,

It's a crazy adjustment,

Right?

Like probably one of the craziest in our lives.

And I knew that I wasn't depressed.

You know,

I obviously come from a clinical background.

I'm like,

Okay,

I'm not depressed,

But I don't have a diagnosis for what I'm feeling.

Right.

So now there,

There have been more diagnoses.

Now there's postpartum OCD,

Postpartum anxiety,

In addition to postpartum depression,

There's postpartum psychosis,

Which sounds super scary.

I don't want to freak anyone out.

It's really rare.

But it is,

You know,

One of the,

That,

That would probably be like the scary diagnosis.

The other diagnoses,

You know,

They,

They happen for a few reasons.

One of them could be a hormonal imbalance,

Because after a week of birth,

We know that our bodies change and shift so much and our hormone levels drop and increase and,

And are also constantly in flux,

Which can make us feel all sorts of things.

And that could sometimes lead to one of these postpartum mood disorders.

But a lot of times I feel like they can stem from just the lack of knowledge,

The lack of support and the lack of education as to what is going to happen after you have a baby.

Right.

So you mentioned it's an afterthought.

And,

And I think that that's why postpartum mood disorders have been exacerbated over history,

Just not talked about though.

Yeah.

And so I'm really grateful and I feel like we're living in a really special time where we're able to bring this to light and understand that it's part of the human experience,

You know,

Especially for women.

Absolutely.

And,

You know,

My daughter is two years old now,

And I didn't even realize that,

You know,

At the time when you are like dealing with this,

You don't really fully understand like you just had a baby,

You're just like going through all of these motions and like figuring it out and,

You know,

Trying to like get a sense of who you are now and who you're becoming.

And it wasn't until months after that I was reading something about,

You know,

The postpartum period,

Where I saw anxiety was actually one of the mood disorders because I had such crippling,

Like,

Anxiety and like the most random phobias.

Like I was anxious that someone would come like steal the baby and I was anxious about taking her outside.

And I'm not very,

I'm not a very anxious person.

But I was like,

So scared of like leaving the house.

And all of a sudden,

I became like this,

Like ball of anxiety.

And I thought it was just,

You know,

Oh,

This,

This is normal becoming a new mom.

And,

You know,

So I was working through like a lot of like feelings like that,

Like,

I would even find myself being anxious,

If someone else was like holding her and it wasn't me.

And you know,

These are like,

Also the signs of just like becoming that like mama bear,

I guess,

Like also our natural instincts,

But I just remember having like so much anxiety about like everything like I was really scared.

Yeah,

Well,

Rolling over her in her sleep or something like I would just be so scared and anxious about like,

Everything that I was gonna like break her.

And the world was a scary place to like introduce her in.

So absolutely.

I mean,

Interesting.

It is and in your experience is such a common experience.

But in hearing you kind of talking about it,

I see how alone you felt in your,

You know,

Suffering and your anxiety.

And most women feel really alone in that.

Yeah,

But it's so universal.

Can you imagine if when you were seeing your OB and if you were in your third trimester,

And your doctor says to you,

You know what,

You're getting ready to become a mom.

Now,

It's the time that you need to reach out to,

You know,

For example,

Bloom,

Like my company to reach out to bloom,

And they're going to talk to you about actually preparing for postpartum and emotions and what to expect so that you are mentally ready.

So I'm here to get you physically ready.

But they're going to be here to just consult with you and make sure that you feel mentally ready for the shift.

Yeah.

And imagine if,

You know,

Your bloom specialist said to you,

You guys sat down and you plan you talk about what are your fears and becoming a mom?

Like,

Have you thought about it?

What's going to happen with this?

What do you how are we going to plan for this?

Like,

Let's do that together.

And then also going through the emotions like feeling anxiety.

Right when you become a mom feeling the fear and the terror.

That's so normal.

And it's scary to say that that's normal.

But you know what it is?

Because what happens is you're now faced with this monumental task of raising a person that you are responsible for.

And I don't know about you,

But me,

I had no experience with babies.

Yeah,

I never babysat.

Nobody even thought to ask me and honestly probably would have declined politely decline.

I hadn't even changed a diaper.

I never had a diaper before.

And so when I became a mom,

And I realized that like,

It's,

It's on me now.

You know,

It was really scary for me too.

I wanted to do everything right.

And I didn't have the experience and I didn't have the confidence and I didn't have the education in this realm.

And so I too experienced so much anxiety and I had some weird OCD symptoms.

Like,

I had to make sure that my son's bottle was finished the last drop,

Or somehow in my head,

I would think that he's going to wake up earlier,

Which would cause me so much anxiety because it's not on schedule and just all these random things.

I also really relate to having other people hold him.

I really struggled with that.

And what really helped me is,

You know,

First of all,

Luckily I have the tools.

So when I got myself together and I was a kapejian,

Like,

You are not yourself.

Like we need to,

You need to talk to yourself or like talk to somebody because,

You know,

And I kind of came to this realization.

I'm like,

You know what?

I'm not even going to look internally to understand how my kid is feeling because my internally situation is a little bit out of whack.

I'm going to look at my child.

If my child is being held by somebody else and he looks happy and at peace and not stressed,

Then you know what?

I have no reason to not be happy at peace and not and stressed.

Yeah.

Right.

I have no reason to not be at peace.

Right.

And so that's what I started doing.

I started looking at my kid to indicate to me how they were feeling.

Yeah.

That's a great tip.

That's a great piece of advice because so much like we're like,

Oh no,

Like,

You know,

The mom knows best,

But sometimes we really do have to kind of release and let go.

And then know that,

You know,

Our children will show us cues.

Like they'll let us know when they're ready.

They'll let us know if they like being held by a person or not.

And that's such a great piece of advice of like calling yourself back and being like,

Oh no,

This is okay.

Yeah.

And it's something that's not really advocated for talked about.

Right.

Because we want to trust our instincts and we do in a lot of ways it is important to really trust our instincts,

But when our instincts are kind of misfiring at the moment,

Because we're not feeling confident within our instincts,

You can always look to your child.

Your child absolutely tell you if they're at any sort of discomfort,

Right.

Then that's a very clear indication.

Yeah.

That's a really beautiful tip.

So when do you find like,

When should moms seek help when they're not you know,

Maybe they may not be recognizing that they're not themselves,

Or maybe they are recognizing that they are themselves.

Like when should we really start seeking help?

That's a really great question.

And my answer is the,

Well,

I guess my answer is a little complicated.

My instinct to answer the question was anytime.

Yeah.

And to elaborate on that is,

You know,

The reason why I founded this business is really because I wanted to help work on prevention.

Our society focuses a lot on who needs to go to your annual appointment with your primary care physician.

You need to go to the dentist every six months.

You need to go to your OB once a year for your,

You know,

PAP and all of your annual exams.

And you do all of that in order to prevent a bigger problem.

Yeah.

Right.

So my ideal answer to that question is it's really,

Really important for women who are pregnant to reach out in their third trimester.

And,

And we're really working hard to get kind of our system implemented in within the hospital system and within the different pediatricians and OBGYNs so that there's this like very like clear and soft handoff to your next care provider,

As opposed to like this big gap that we're left with.

Yeah.

So that would be ideal because in that way we're able to educate,

Discuss,

And really plan because what's worse for a new mom,

You know,

Is you're already feeling so out of control.

That's why we try to get so rigorous with our scheduling and our timing and our all this stuff is because we're,

We're desperately trying to regain some sort of control because we don't know what's going to happen from minute to minute,

Let alone from day to day or week to week.

Right.

So if you sit down with somebody who's an expert in this,

Who is a mom,

And you actually plan for these things,

I like to kind of say it in a way,

You know,

When you go to your doctor,

And let's say you have an ear infection,

Your doctor prescribes the antibiotics,

They say,

Okay,

Here are your antibiotics,

Go pick them up,

You go to the pharmacist,

The pharmacist consults with you and says,

Okay,

You're taking these antibiotics,

These are the possible side effects of taking these antibiotics,

You could have a stomach ache,

You could have trouble sleeping,

Or you could be overly tired or whatever it is.

Right.

So when you go home,

You start taking your antibiotics,

And you realize you can't go to sleep at night,

You're not stressing yourself out over it,

You're like,

Okay,

Well,

This is normal,

Because I'm expecting this because it's a side effect of the medication I'm taking.

True.

So if you go over all the potential not so pleasant emotions that are incredibly normal to feel postpartum.

And when you're experiencing those,

Like you mentioned rolling over over on your baby,

Literally,

Every mom thinks that they're going to roll over on their baby walking up the stairs with their baby.

Yeah.

And like,

You look down,

You're like,

Oh,

My God,

I could just drop my baby.

And that's it.

It's over.

And then you're like,

Oh,

Why did I think that I'm so horrible?

No,

You're not.

In fact,

It's actually,

Like instinctually ingrained in us that when we have a newborn,

And we're doing something dangerous,

Or possibly dangerous,

Like walking up the stairs,

It's our kind of flight or fight response that goes into play so that we hold on to our baby tighter.

Yeah.

So it's actually you being a protective,

Amazing mom,

Not having something wrong with you for having that scary thought.

Scary thoughts are very common.

When you are,

When you have some someone or something so special and so dear to you that the scariest thing would be to lose that.

And that's why we go there,

Because we don't want that to happen.

Right?

Yeah.

But if you know that that's all normal,

And you could experience that,

And it's so normal,

And it's common,

And you're fine,

Then rather than go to your bed and be like,

Oh,

My God,

I can't believe I had that thought and you start to ruminate on it.

And that's how you start to dig yourself that hole.

Right.

Right.

So that's why we want to reach out to the,

To the moms before they give birth.

Yeah.

Now,

Unfortunately,

It doesn't happen so often,

As awful as it happens,

But doesn't happen as often as I'd like,

Like,

I want all the moms to reach out when they're pregnant,

Right.

But what often happens is they have the baby and then they,

They realize and they start to dig themselves into that hole.

And then we just have to work a little bit harder to get them out.

So we call it like the fourth trimester,

Which is like the first few months postpartum.

Yeah.

And then,

And then that's still like,

It's still within three months.

So it's a little bit easier to work through.

But then I have women contacting me who are nine months postpartum a year,

Two years that are still battling these demons that they've created for themselves,

Really in a lot of ways and just can't get themselves out of it.

Wow.

So it can really extend way beyond like just that.

Yeah.

So that's incredible.

And like you said,

There is really a gap between seeking professional help between your pregnancy and motherhood,

Because it's like,

You have the baby and they're like,

Okay,

You know,

You leave the birth center,

You leave the hospital and they're like,

All right,

You're a mom,

See you next year for your annual.

And then after that,

You're going to the pediatrician,

But it's all about the baby.

Your pediatrician never like,

Well,

Mine doesn't ask,

Well,

How's mom doing?

No,

The pediatrician wants to know is baby gaining weight?

What percentile like that they're getting,

You know,

The boosters that they need to that baby's healthy and happy,

But you know,

There is that lapse of coverage between the mental health check-in and like that,

That touch point.

So I think the work that you're doing is so important in the space because really any mom can benefit from it.

And I guess a lot of people,

So a lot of people focus so heavily on the birth planning side of it maybe,

And not on the postpartum plan.

So your emphasis is really on,

Well,

Let's,

Let's focus on the postpartum plan because that's the one that,

That you don't expect.

That's the one that you can't as much for.

And you equip women with the knowledge and like the confidence to be able to recognize some of these symptoms or disorders.

Exactly.

And,

And,

You know,

Really what you're saying is exactly why I created this company because of that gap,

That gap,

Everything happens in that gap because just like you're saying,

You give birth,

You're OBGYN,

Who you've been seeing at this point every single week throughout your whole pregnancy,

You have the baby,

They come in,

They like push on your uterus.

They check if you had stitches,

They check your stitches there.

They look at you.

They're like,

Okay,

You look great.

You can be discharged.

I'll see you in six weeks.

If you had vaginal four weeks,

If you had a C-section and I don't know if it's different where you are,

That's how it is here in Los Angeles.

And,

And that's it.

But do you know how much happens in those first few weeks?

Yeah.

You're like a mess.

You're a ball.

You're like,

What's your like,

Why am I half naked all the time?

Why am I leaking?

Like what's happening?

I remember I couldn't laugh after I had my first,

I would get really mad at whoever tried to make me laugh.

Cause every time I laughed,

I felt like my organs would fall out.

I'm like,

Don't make me laugh.

It's not funny.

But,

And then also the pediatrician.

So the pediatrician,

I'm glad that you mentioned that it's the first doctor you really see after you have a baby.

Cause you go to the two week checkup.

Yeah.

So these poor pediatricians who it is not in their scope of care to deal with a mother's mental health.

Right.

They're the ones that have the moms breaking down in their offices at the two week mark for the babies.

We're like,

Who cares about the baby.

I'm just like losing my mind.

And then they're like,

You should see a therapist.

You should go talk to somebody,

But like who,

Where and how.

Then you leave feeling almost worse than before because now somebody told you you need to talk to somebody,

But now you have to do the work to find someone,

Which with everything going on,

It's so daunting and overwhelming.

You don't even know where to start.

Right.

So I actually have,

We,

We now have a lot of amazing relationships with pediatricians and a bulk of our clientele come from pediatrician referrals at those two week visits.

That's amazing.

And then,

And so the goal again is to be able to have that gentle handoff somewhere within your third trimester so that you have that other doctor that's visiting you in the hospital or the other professionals visiting you in the hospital after you give birth that comes to you and says,

Hey,

How are you doing?

How are you feeling?

That was a really intense experience.

Are you okay?

Yeah.

Right.

Cause nobody asks you that.

The only thing,

I don't know if you guys have that over there,

But we always have our newborn photographer that rolls in and I'm like,

I do not want to see you right now.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Even having that touch point,

Like you said,

In the hospital or the birthing center of like,

Oh,

You know,

How are you doing?

And even then it might be too soon,

But sometimes it feels nice because you know,

Right after you have the baby,

It's like all about the baby.

Well,

Oh,

We want to see the baby.

Like,

Oh yeah.

You know,

You're tired.

That's expected.

Okay.

Like it's kind of like,

All right,

Mom,

You did your job.

Here's the baby.

And like all of the love and the support goes into the baby,

Which is beautiful.

And it's great,

But it's kind of like,

You know,

But mom needs a lot of help too,

Right now.

Forgotten mom.

You know,

Like you just went from being like me to being mom,

Which is a big,

Big shift.

And it adds all these layers to who you already were.

And you're trying to navigate that.

And you're expected to just like,

Not even bounce back physically,

But bounce back emotionally,

Which is,

Is even harder.

And,

You know,

Everybody comes from also,

You know,

In our,

In the United States,

So beautiful that we have so many different cultures and we have such diversity,

But also what these cultures come,

The cultural components.

So I'm,

I'm an immigrant actually into the United States.

And,

You know,

In my family,

Like we didn't really talk about emotions.

Like I was the only,

I somehow was always really into emotions.

Clearly it's my profession,

But I was like the only one in my whole family.

And,

And so we're just like,

Okay,

You really get it together.

Just you'll be fine.

Just keep going.

Right.

And I know there's lots of other immigrant cultures whose,

Whose families also emphasize just like not really tuning into how you're feeling and supporting those people,

But more like,

Stop crying.

You're going to be fine.

Just move on.

Right.

And it's,

It's not so easy to do that.

So tell us more about your virtual treatment program that you are working on.

Yeah,

It's very exciting.

So basically traditionally Bloom has been,

A,

It's been a self-pay company where if you take a look at our website,

We have lots of really great packages,

Anything from a simple postpartum planning session to having a prevention plan,

Which gives you more than one session and some check-ins,

Which honestly,

Like sometimes that's all you need.

I'm not,

I'm not saying that you,

You,

You're going to therapy and you're going to be going therapy for a year and you start when you're,

Before you have a baby.

That's not what this is.

Right.

Sometimes all you need is one session with a professional to just plan it out and you're done.

Yeah.

Right.

If you feel like,

You know,

A little bit more,

Like I think the prevention package has like two sessions and a few check-ins.

So you just have that,

That buffer that like cushion over the next,

The first couple of weeks postpartum.

Right.

And that's it.

That may be all you need because you just needed somebody to normalize this experience for you.

Exactly.

And then,

And then we have like a few other plans for the fourth trimester and then beyond that as well.

So that I've had that for a while.

So now the new thing that we're doing is,

As you mentioned,

I have a really strong background in substance abuse and addiction,

And I've worked in treatment centers for years and years and all different facets of it.

And obviously my other specialty is the peripartum mental health,

The,

So the pregnancy through postpartum.

And I'm basically combining those two and we're,

We're launching a virtual treatment center specifically tailored to this population.

So women who are pregnant and women who are postpartum different levels of care from a simple,

You know,

One day a week,

One individual session,

One group all the way up to higher levels of care for women who are needing extra support,

Where we're able to provide five days of group programming and individual sessions all from the core of your own home.

So you can be taking care of your baby.

You can be breastfeeding.

You can change diapers.

You can stay within your home.

You don't need to figure out childcare while receiving the support that you need in real time and in your real life.

That's because I found women who come into treatment after they've had kids,

Their mom guilt,

Which we know that real well,

Their mom felt is so high that it makes it really hard for them to focus on getting better because they've left their kids.

Right.

So if we're able to take that factor out,

So now they don't have to leave the kids.

Now the money factor we're going to be accepting most insurance plans,

If not all.

Wow.

So it can be covered by insurance.

People don't have to come out of pocket,

But unless they want to,

Which is also an option if they want to self pay.

And we're also going to be extending these insurance rates and insurance rates,

But being able to be covered by insurance through our other packages as well that have traditionally been only self pay.

So really anybody who's interested in any of the packages or any of the services that we have on our website we're able to run their insurance and see if we can get that covered.

That's amazing.

That's amazing.

And it's like normalizing this as a part of the system and the ecosystem that,

You know,

Health insurance gets to cover it.

It makes it really an important part of the whole motherhood experience from pregnancy beyond.

And that's really the period that women need the most support.

We need the more access.

We're more vulnerable during these stages.

So it's just amazing to see companies like yours really stepping up and normalizing that and making this,

Hopefully like every household,

Every woman can receive access and free coverage.

You know?

Amen.

Seriously.

Absolutely.

That is the goal.

Our goal is to be fully national,

To be able to provide services in every state.

And,

You know,

It's for all women to be able to have access to this.

So we're not just going to be taking the private insurance companies,

But we're also going to be open to medical,

Medicare,

Medicaid,

All of those as well,

So that we really are able to kind of have that balance and not turn people away.

And then,

You know,

We also sometimes have slots in for scholarships,

Some clients as well.

That's beautiful.

Insurance coverage,

Or they for some reason are not able to get in otherwise.

So we really want to be there because honestly,

This should be part of the normal scope of care.

Totally.

And so many,

So many postpartum mood disorder diagnoses and worse can be avoided.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

What an important part of the motherhood journey,

The postpartum period and you know,

All of the integration that happens there.

So just so thankful and grateful for your company and for your work.

And thank you so much for joining us on the podcast to talk about it all.

It is my pleasure.

Thank you for having me.

All right,

Jane,

Thank you so much.

And we'll be dropping links to visit Bloom and everything that Jane and her team are doing in the show notes.

And thank you all for joining us.

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