Postpartum nutrition & health
A lot of focus is on health in pregnancy, but not enough on the postpartum health of a new mom. After birth, a woman not only has to contend with recovering from the labour and delivery (and possibly abdominal surgery, or vaginal suturing), but she also has to manage an often fussy baby, learn to breastfeed, and do all of this without much sleep. It’s an incredibly challenging time, and it’s mind-boggling how powerfully women can just push through.
I aspire to have my patients do more than power through though. I want my patients to be well nourished, as well rested as possible, and supported in a way that they can get the most out of this tricky situation.
Prepping for the postpartum period in pregnancy
Women are excellent at taking their vitamins and focusing on nutrition in pregnancy, but often as soon as the baby is out they are focused on babe and their own health can decline. So it’s best to load up on nutrients in the pregnancy, not only to set yourself up for a strong labour, but also so fill your tanks for the first few weeks postpartum.
Important nutrients here are:
- Iron
- Vitamin D
- Minerals
Postpartum lab testing
Once the dust has settled, it’s advisable to do a comprehensive set of blood work at the 3 month postpartum mark to make sure there are no values that need to be corrected for. Two of the most important labs are thyroid and iron.
Thyroid
In pregnancy the immune system is suppressed to allow for the out-of-the-ordinary biological situation of having another creature living inside of you for 9 months. Once the baby is born, the immune system ramps back up, and if something goes wrong, can sometimes attack our own tissues in an autoimmune scenario.
The thyroid is the most likely victim of this errant immune response, so testing your full thyroid panel (TSH, fT4, fT3) as well as thyroid antibodies (TPO) is indicated.
Iron
Ferritin (stored iron) and hemoglobin often drop in pregnancy, and to make matters worse, there is always some degree of blood loss in pregnancy (the area in the uterus where the placenta detaches is essentially a wound). And as we know, iron is SO important for energy, so having decent levels is vital for helping a postpartum mom have the stamina they need to just do the day-to-day mom-ing.
Depleted new moms in the animal kingdom
Female flamingos lose much of their pink colour (derived from their beta-carotene-rich diets) in the process of creating an egg and milk the nourish their newborn.
This is a great representation of the depletion that ALL moms experience with growing, delivering and feeding a baby.
Overtime, the mom will rebuild her pink plumage once she’s built back up her nutritional status. Our goal is to have our moms not fade and not wash out in the postpartum period. We want to keep them strong, robust and healthy as much as possible through the baby-making process.
Photo by Ingrid Dietrich from Pexels
Going back to work after having a baby
Growing, birthing and nursing a baby is a biologically demanding process, but usually women can navigate through that process pretty well. What we see in practice is that women (and their bodies) really struggle once they go back to work.
They are normally still the primary parent, so doing all of the parenting things including nighttime wake-ups, AND they also have to juggle their day job. So essentially they have two separate full-time jobs, both of which require very different skillsets and parts of the mind.
This can easily lead to overwhelm and stress. When the body is undernourished, or if there is a hormonal imbalance, it makes the situation much more difficult.
Most women in Canada are going back to work at a year postpartum, so I ask my patients to book with me when their baby is around 10 months old so that we can start to get things organized for return to work. At this time we will re-test iron, B12, vitamin D, and hormones (estrogen, progesterone, cortisol). We also re-assess the diet and sleep. If baby is not sleeping through the night, it makes mom’s capacity to juggle two jobs much diminished, so doing anything possible to make this happen becomes a family priority.
Schedule of naturopathic doctor appointments after having a baby
- An email whenever you have the time to fill us in on how the birth went, and to get any support needed in the first few weeks (perineal healing, hemorrhoids, breastfeeding, etc)
- An appointment at 3 months postpartum to test for iron, thyroid function, sleep assessment
- An appointment at 6 months if you have questions about baby food introduction
- An appointment 2 months prior to returning to work
Having a baby is hard work, and it’s a marathon. I see the postpartum period as 5 years. It can often take that long for women to fully recover and get back to their pre-pregnancy sleep, energy, exercise and health status. Working with a naturopath can increase your odds of bouncing back more quickly and maintaining vitality during the process.
