The Postpartum Mindset: Navigating New Parenthood with Dr. Fran

Welcome to The Pulling Curls Podcast, where we untangle the complexities of pregnancy and parenting. In today’s episode, titled “Postpartum Mindset with Dr. Fran,” we dive into the unique experiences and challenges faced during the postpartum period. Our guest, Dr. Fran, who recently had a baby, shares insights into her own journey and offers valuable tips for maintaining a positive mindset during this transformative time. Join us as we navigate the joys and struggles of postpartum life, providing support and understanding for new parents everywhere.

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Big thanks to our sponsor my postpartum checklist: https://birdsend.page/forms/844/aDZzbjpRhJ

Today’s guest is Dr. Franziska Haydanek, an ObGyn attending, former blogger, current TIktok obsessed, and mama of two young children. Find her on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pagingdrfran

Links for you:

Dr Fran’s previous episode (also great — episode 148): https://www.pullingcurls.com/podcast-148-refuse-routine/

Timestamps:

00:02:57 Postpartum is happier than pregnancy for me.
00:04:22 He didn’t have time for sitting around, which was great for him, but not helpful for me in the postpartum state. Children went to daycare to maintain routine.
00:09:23 Physical and mental states after childbirth.
00:13:03 Stay flexible, avoid disappointment and anxiety.
00:15:19 Bay Area normalized us; expect and move on, cry but still manage.
00:19:01 TikTok reveals surprising postpartum sleep struggles.
00:22:43 Doctor Fran thanks for joining, sponsored by Postpartum Checklist. Get free postpartum organization checklist. Last episode of mindset month.

Keypoints:

1. The importance of addressing the postpartum mindset and the challenges it presents.
2. The role of sleep deprivation and its impact on new parents’ well-being.
3. The experiences of both speakers in returning to work after having a baby.
4. The need for flexibility and adaptability in postpartum routines and schedules.
5. The challenges and benefits of having children in daycare during the postpartum period.
6. The importance of having an equal parenting partner and a smooth transition into the postpartum period.
7. The struggles and successes of breastfeeding, including difficulties and support systems.
8. The impact of postpartum anxiety on new parents and strategies for coping with it.
9. The benefits of focusing on the positive aspects of postpartum recovery, such as newfound freedom.
10. The recognition of privilege in postpartum experiences, including support and financial stability.

Producer: Drew Erickson

Transcript

[00:00:00.120] – Hilary Erickson

Hey guys. Welcome back to the Pulling Curls podcast. We are continuing with Mindset Month today with episode 215, Postpartum Mindset, and I have one of my favorite doctors coming on, so let’s untangle it.

[00:00:11.680] – Hilary Erickson

Hi, I’m Hilary, a serial overcomplicator. I’m also a nurse, mom to three, and the curly head behind Pulling Curls and the pregnancy nurse. This podcast aims to help us stop overcomplicating things and remember how much easier it is to keep things simple. Let’s smooth out those snarls with Pregnancy and parenting untangled, The Pulling Curls Podcast.

[00:00:42.350] – Hilary Erickson

Today’s guest, from the minute I saw her on TikTok, I thought, I like her, which is not true for all the OB-GYNs I see on The Tikkity Tok. She actually just had a baby five weeks ago, which puts her in a great area to have this chat with us. I wanted to introduce today’s guest, Paging Doctor Fran.

[00:00:57.770] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, Doctor Fran, welcome back to The Pulling Curls Podcast.

[00:01:00.970] – Dr Fran

Hi. Thank you so much for having me again.

[00:01:02.900] – Hilary Erickson

We have a new…!

[00:01:04.830] – Dr Fran

We do. We got a new little friend to see his baby, Frederick. He’s five weeks old.

[00:01:10.010] – Hilary Erickson

Five weeks. Are you getting much sleep?

[00:01:13.990] – Dr Fran

No. No, he’s doing that newborn every two hours he’s got to wake up and eat situation, but we’re doing okay.

[00:01:22.760] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. Okay. Before we started, I asked you when you go back to work.

[00:01:27.750] – Hilary Erickson

When I first had my baby, I went back to work, but honestly, none of my friends did. My oldest was born in 2000, but really, I didn’t have friends. If they had a baby, you stopped working.

[00:01:38.030] – Dr Fran

Yeah, for sure. Which is amazing for the people who that works for them and their families. I did the stay at home mom thing for six months after my second child, and I realized maybe that wasn’t best for me either. We’re doing good since I will get 14 weeks off. I think that’s a nice amount of time for my family.

[00:01:56.270] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. I went back at five weeks part-time. I had a fourth-degree tear. I thought my uterus was going to fall on the floor.

[00:02:04.120] – Dr Fran

Don’t mind me.

[00:02:05.380] – Hilary Erickson

I was going to have to ask the old people to pick it up for me because I worked in the nursing home.

[00:02:09.260] – Dr Fran

You weren’t a labor and delivery nurse then?

[00:02:11.620] – Hilary Erickson

No, I didn’t start that till after our first baby. You got to put your time in the trenches as a nurse to the ugly. Oh, yeah.

[00:02:20.910] – Dr Fran

That’s true. That’s true. I hear you.

[00:02:23.140] – Hilary Erickson

All right. We have a whole Mindset Month here at Pulling Curls. And today we’re talking about the postpartum Mindset. I thought it would be really fun to have because I think a lot of people look at me and they’re like, I’m sure you handled having a baby with no problem. That’s just what you did. And that was a lie. That’s not how it worked out for me personally, but I thought it would be fun to have you on and talk about… Because you’re in it, whereas I just have memories.

[00:02:47.040] – Dr Fran

Yes. Your children are in a different awesome phase that’s different than my awesome phase.

[00:02:52.020] – Hilary Erickson

Yes. What are some tips for postpartum mindset you think for you?

[00:02:57.860] – Dr Fran

For me, I think a couple of things that helped… So postpartum is my happy time compared to pregnancy, which is my not happy time. I think part of that is just like physically feel better than I do during pregnancy. But part of it is also that I have time now to be mindful and do the things that make me feel better compared to when I am not in a postpartum leave and I’m like working and being a mom and try to do 7,000 things at once. I’m just trying to be mindful of the things that make me happy during this time period and ways that that can benefit my mental and emotional and physical state.

[00:03:34.650] – Hilary Erickson

That’s awesome. You really look to help yourself. How off is your husband?

[00:03:40.880] – Dr Fran

How long was he off from work?

[00:03:42.130] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:03:42.470] – Dr Fran

He was home for two weeks. Okay. My husband’s a family medicine doctor, and so he could have had time off technically because of New York State. We have a lot of nice paid family leave time, but it’s not compensated very well. So both of us out for a long period of time just didn’t work for our families. He took two weeks of vacation.

[00:04:01.890] – Hilary Erickson

Personally, my husband’s a teacher and teachers don’t get anything. Obviously, we all know that stupid. But he would take maybe five days on the last baby because he had had a bunch of vacation accrued.

[00:04:14.460] – Hilary Erickson

I don’t… And then I would have my mom come when he was done. I don’t know how helpful. I don’t know. Would you wish he was home longer?

[00:04:21.910] – Dr Fran

No, because he also does not love just sitting around. He was just doing things, which is great for him. I’m happy he got the time to, for him, mentally and emotionally and physically do things that he wanted to do. But it wasn’t so helpful to me and the postpartum state.

[00:04:37.100] – Dr Fran

Part of that also is that because our children go to daycare and we couldn’t pause their daycare time, we chose that for the first week we were home together as a family, but after that they would go back to daycare less hours than when I’m working full-time, but just to keep them in their routine, keep them seeing their friends, keep them stimulated, which I think was helpful for us as a family. I would have kept them home if they could have held our spots, but we have to pay for it anyway. We’re trying to utilize it, balance it for us.

[00:05:05.910] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. Plus, you want to keep things as normal for them as you can instead of just everything.

[00:05:11.660] – Dr Fran

Yes. Right now, everything is revolving on the baby. I would hate to be sitting around a lot and be like, No, sorry, we can’t go do this. No, sorry. We can’t go do that. They have fun with their friends. We come home and we have family time and that really works for us. I don’t think it would have been too helpful for my husband to be home a lot because he would have been doing stuff around the house anyway, which I would prefer. I don’t need him to like, I was doing just fine just holding the baby all by myself.

[00:05:36.570] – Hilary Erickson

You don’t need him to run you a bath, although you can’t be in the bath anyway. No.

[00:05:40.770] – Dr Fran

I mean, my husband, I will say I am very lucky. I have a very, very equal parenting partner, very helpful. We’re very equal and everything. I find that the transition into the state was just the same as before.

[00:05:54.570] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. I will say I was the opposite of you. I was like, I still need to keep everything going because my husband wasn’t off very long, my mom is not helpful as far as around the house. She’s very helpful with other children, like once I had other children, but was not helpful. I was like, I still need to keep cleaning. I still need to check the coupons and clip the coupons because we can’t go over on our grocery budget. I need to, you know. I did not take that time for myself. I think that is such good advice because, I mean, I think some of mine was postpartum anxiety where that was like some action I was doing to try and have some control over things I didn’t have any control over.

[00:06:29.620] – Dr Fran

Do you feel that that’s better with each child? I felt I had with my first child, I can recognize it now as like postpartum anxiety. I had a lot of intrusive thoughts and like, Oh, my God, would I get run off the road and die and all these horrible things? I feel like with each child, it has lessened, do you find that that happened to you or not so much?

[00:06:49.120] – Hilary Erickson

It was the worst on number three. Well, number one was just such a mess. I’m not really… I think I blacked out a lot of that. I learned that breastfeeding didn’t work for me. I had that fourth-degree tear. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn’t get the car seat in the car, so I just didn’t go anywhere. We lived on the third floor, the tear, trying to get the car seat in the car. I would just stay at home.

[00:07:10.830] – Hilary Erickson

Second baby, though, we moved 10 days after we bought a house and moved 10 days after I had him. It was the best, I think, because I had action I needed to actually do instead of cleaning my bathrooms and cutting coupons, which really don’t actually need to be done.

[00:07:26.710] – Dr Fran

Yes and no.

[00:07:27.710] – Hilary Erickson

I had to get my stuff to the other place. That was probably my best one. And who knows? He was also an amazing sleeper from minute one. So, plus his little…

[00:07:37.210] – Dr Fran

I’ve never had that. I will never understand having an amazing sleeper.

[00:07:40.920] – Hilary Erickson

He was nine pounds, and I think maybe that’s why? He was a bigger baby. I don’t know.

[00:07:46.460] – Dr Fran

I don’t know. All my babies just… they’re okay sleepers, they just don’t like sleep long periods of time.

[00:07:52.540] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. I went overdue on all my babies, and there wasn’t an arrived trial. I was just like, We’re just going to keep going. We’re just going to be in pregnant. Part of me wonders if they slept better because I was overdue. I don’t know. My last one was 12 days overdue. I’m not joking around here. Imagine the labor nurses calling me being like, Why are you not getting induced? Or me being like, Well, it’s a higher risk of a C-section at this point.

[00:08:19.510] – Dr Fran

No, with your third baby, girl, you know that.

[00:08:21.980] – Hilary Erickson

So many issues. So many issues. Okay, what other tips do you have for mindset?

[00:08:27.040] – Dr Fran

I think one of the things that was helpful for me was communicating my wishes and desires before the baby came with my family, husband, the children, so that there was a precedent set about what I wanted. I know a lot of people are like, I don’t want anyone in the hospital.

[00:08:44.820] – Dr Fran

So sharing those things with your family ahead of time will save you the angst of it while it’s happening. I was the opposite because I never got that experience living in a different state than my family. I wanted family to visit us in the hospital.

[00:08:59.980] – Dr Fran

So I was able to communicate that ahead of time and that made me happy at that time. Same with our plan about our day-to-day with my husband, our kids going daycare, communicating that ahead of time puts our whole family in that mindset like, This is what’s going to happen, this is what mom needs and that’s what we’re going to do as a family.

[00:09:19.530] – Dr Fran

I think having communicated that at a time was really helpful. I think about postpartum and the emotional, the mental, and the physical states and how you can help yourself in all of those.

[00:09:31.240] – Dr Fran

For me, the physical stuff has been the most beneficial because I was so miserable in pregnancy between my nausea for 39 weeks. I was just very uncomfortable that in the postpartum state, I’ve just been so happy to feel back to normal again and getting out. I am thankful that I always had my children in the warm weather. My baby’s birthdays are April, June, and July. I make it a point to be outside every day.

[00:09:58.900] – Dr Fran

I go on a walk almost every single day because I’m just happy to be walking again and not feeling like dying. It’s just like, I’m happy I’m walking again. I’m outside getting fresh air. I’m in a different space because otherwise, I’m sitting in my bedroom or downstairs a lot of the time. It just puts me in a mindset where I’m focusing on myself. I’m regaining my physical strength back. I’m doing this for the benefit of my body. That has both helped the physical state, but also obviously the mental and emotional state as well.

[00:10:29.900] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. I mean, focusing on the positive, because that’s true of a lot of pregnancy. What is better than it was five weeks ago? You’re not puking your guts out. You can eat whatever the heck you want.

[00:10:39.590] – Dr Fran

Yes. I don’t have to get up to pee every 30 minutes. I can go all night. I don’t have to get up to pee. I have to get up for the baby, but… I find like, yeah, just focusing on the positives. I don’t know if I’m at baseline a super positive person, I have to work on that. But it does… It makes me grateful because…

[00:11:00.190] – Dr Fran

Again, I’m very privileged in this, and I think about this a lot and my privilege in this situation, I did not have a traumatic birth. I did not have a fourth degree. I have a lot of support in my family. Financially, my family is fine. Breastfeeding has come fairly easy to me. My children have care that they go to, and that lets me focus on myself. I have a lot of privilege in those things. I tried to acknowledge it, but trying to keep a positive mindset has helped me in that regards as well.

[00:11:27.500] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. I mean, that helps a lot. I think some people get lost in the fact that there are a lot of things that are a lot better post-baby. But all you focus on is that you don’t have any sleep. That the baby cries a lot.

[00:11:42.450] – Hilary Erickson

Or breastfeeding is not working. Okay. Do you think breastfeeding comes easier because you’re an OB?

[00:11:46.840] – Dr Fran

No, I have no. I did not have any breastfeeding experience, like education prior to having my own children. We were not trained about residency. I saw my patient breastfeeding, but I didn’t know anything about it.

[00:12:00.840] – Dr Fran

It just… Some people it works and some people it doesn’t. It has worked for me. I’m very grateful for that. I’ve educated myself a lot on it on the medicine side, but that hasn’t really done anything for me on my personal breastfeeding. You know what I mean?

[00:12:16.490] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:12:16.900] – Dr Fran

I just have been more interested and therefore educated myself. And now I do more of the educating on the topic. But I don’t think being an OB had any difference.

[00:12:25.650] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. I will say it’s so different trying to latch a baby on from where I have both hands and I’m not laying there.

[00:12:32.710] – Hilary Erickson

Versus when you’re in the bed and it’s your boob and you’re at such a weird angle to be able to watch the baby from people are, Oh, breastfeeding must come really easily for you, or latching on, at least, because I don’t get any milk.

[00:12:43.980] – Hilary Erickson

But I’m like, Well, I mean, there are things that I do know to make it easier, but also when the nurse comes in, it’s so much easier for the nurse than it is for the human.

[00:12:53.550] – Dr Fran

Yeah, because you just go in there… In your mouth.

[00:12:56.250] – Hilary Erickson

There you go. Make your sandwich, stick it in.

[00:12:59.180] – Dr Fran

Yeah. Seehold. Let’s go.

[00:13:01.160] – Hilary Erickson

All right. Any more tips for us?

[00:13:02.870] – Dr Fran

I think the biggest one is trying to remain flexible. The mindset of being flexible is going to benefit you. Because if you have it in your mind, at 9:00 AM, I’m going to go on a walk. At 10:00 AM, I’m taking a shower. At 11 o’clock, I’m going to go out for lunch. At 12 o’clock, the baby’s gonna take a nap. None of that’s going to work out. Then you’re going to be upset and you’re going to be anxious that your plan isn’t working, and then you’re going to not do any of it, and that you spiral.

[00:13:29.610] – Dr Fran

Having flexibility on your mindset. If you just have a day to day with your baby and there’s three goals you want to get done, great. Work around the baby’s naps or when you’re feeling up to it, really being rigid about things, I think, sets yourself up for failure in a time that really is about being flexible and learning about each other, learning the baby’s habits, learning how you react. I fall into that too because I get up and I want to go on my walk and then have breakfast. But then if it’s raining and I’m like, Oh, I guess I can’t go on a walk.

[00:13:59.150] – Dr Fran

I’m like, Well, it’s going to stop raining at 11:00. You can go on a walk then. It’s okay. Reminding yourself that in this time where a lot of people aren’t as scheduled as we normally are in our non-postpartum lives, that having some flexibility will benefit you emotionally, physically, mentally. Yes.

[00:14:17.780] – Hilary Erickson

I mean, forever. When you were saying during this time, and I was like, When does that time end? Because we just sent one to college. And then yesterday, we had to be very flexible because he ended up having bed bugs in his apartment. So he’s back home. He’s right by us. So it wasn’t a huge deal. But I feel like I always talk about flexibility in birth. And I’m like, it’s just getting you going because you’re going to have to be so much more flexible than you were without little people forever, apparently forever.

[00:14:45.340] – Dr Fran

Forever. They’re going to college, and you’re still like, Damn, I got to be flexible.

[00:14:49.260] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. Okay. The one tip I thought, I have a friend who has had 10 babies and she says that now she just- 10 babies. Yeah. Now she just knows. I mean, Dr. Fran, I’m Mormon. So, okay.

[00:15:01.290] – Dr Fran

That’s a lot. I just think about myself having 10 babies. I’m like, No. Good for you, girl, not for me. Right. 10 babies. Okay, good. Mormon friends, 10 babies.

[00:15:09.340] – Hilary Erickson

I thought eight was a normal family growing up, so take that for what it is.

[00:15:14.310] – Dr Fran

Are you from Utah?

[00:15:14.990] – Hilary Erickson

I sure am.

[00:15:16.250] – Dr Fran

Okay.

[00:15:17.000] – Hilary Erickson

Yes.

[00:15:18.310] – Dr Fran

That’s a lot of babies.

[00:15:19.530] – Hilary Erickson

But then we moved to the Bay Area and lived there for 10 years, so we normalized a lot there. Anyway, but she said she knows that on night three, four, it’s just going to be horrible.

[00:15:31.170] – Hilary Erickson

She knows to just expect it and move on. I think that helped me because when my husband went back to work or my mom wasn’t able to come over on the first baby, I just burst into tears and I cried for two hours. I can’t do this on my own. By the time the third came, the one thing that I was better at was I’m going to cry when people leave me, and that’s okay. I’m still going to be able to get the kids to school on time. I had a lot of… I don’t know how I’m going to do it in the mornings, trying to get people off. Then the third baby, I was just like, It’s going to happen. I just need to accept it and move on and know that it’s going to get better. Because you get so caught up in like, The baby is never going to sleep again. I am never going to sleep again.

[00:16:10.510] – Hilary Erickson

I’m never going to sleep. How am I going to raise 16-year-olds with no sleep?

[00:16:15.000] – Dr Fran

Why aren’t you sleeping? Why are you awake every two hours?

[00:16:19.250] – Hilary Erickson

Right. It’s so easy to get caught up in like, It’s happened five nights in a row. This is my new forever.

[00:16:25.420] – Dr Fran

Yeah. And then they sleep four hours and you’re like, Never mind. Right. We’re going to be just fine.

[00:16:30.250] – Hilary Erickson

It’s amazing what four hours will do for a person.

[00:16:34.200] – Dr Fran

Yeah. I’ll let you know when that happens. How I’m doing. It hasn’t happened yet. That’s okay.

[00:16:40.280] – Hilary Erickson

It will happen soon, right?

[00:16:42.790] – Dr Fran

Maybe soon.

[00:16:44.190] – Hilary Erickson

Right? I think the other tip would be run your own race because I am a scheduler. And back in the day, Babywise was like the thing. So I did use Babywise in some ways, more like how we use it in the NICU where we feed them and then we put them the same.

[00:16:59.050] – Hilary Erickson

But that is my thing. I like a schedule. When I hear other moms who are like, Well, that’s just not the way to raise a baby. I had to run my own race. I’m just like, I need to be on a schedule. Also, my kid goes to daycare. They put him on it. It’s just nice for all of us to have like, This is what she basically does.

[00:17:17.100] – Dr Fran

Yes, exactly.

[00:17:18.540] – Hilary Erickson

Run your own race, nobody else. Even though somebody else says, Oh, I pick my baby up every time they cry, I can’t believe you’re not doing that. They probably aren’t.

[00:17:27.840] – Dr Fran

Yeah. If you are, good for you. Not for me. That’s what I found out. Good for you, not for me. I’m glad it works for you. Or maybe I tried it and it actually didn’t work for my baby. Between my first and second baby, I was like, Okay, I’m going to really work on the sleeping thing. I read all these books and I did all the things that they said to do, and guess what? My second baby slept exactly like my first baby, even though I did all the things. Just going to whatever happened, try it out. But it may not work for you.

[00:17:55.650] – Hilary Erickson

Or it may not work with that baby. That was the other annoying thing is every baby was different. Also every kid is different. Why is that okay?

[00:18:02.610] – Dr Fran

Why are you individuals? Come on, just be the same.

[00:18:06.210] – Hilary Erickson

Right. I want to set a policy and it is a standard that we follow.

[00:18:09.710] – Dr Fran

Yes. This is how you will be as a person. Thank you.

[00:18:12.800] – Hilary Erickson

That’s why I’m always like, Oh, my gosh, why are they individual? Yeah, that’s annoying to me. Thank you for coming on. I just want you guys to know, when I took my prenatal class, did you ever take a prenatal class, Dr. Fran?

[00:18:26.850] – Dr Fran

No, I did not.

[00:18:28.110] – Hilary Erickson

They were just like, You have baby. And that’s where it ended. And they briefly talked about breastfeeding, and I think they maybe showed us how to diaper, but they never talk about your bottom being sore. They never talked about any postpartum hormones. Now this was 2000, so people were still like, if you have… If you don’t feel happy after you have a baby, something’s wrong with you, right?

[00:18:48.230] – Dr Fran

Oh, God, yeah. Do you feel like nowadays with the social media, the positive of social media is that we talk about all this more? That we have more resources and insights and see other people’s experiences?

[00:19:01.320] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, but then you get on TikTok and people are like, I had no idea. I wasn’t going to sleep this much after I have a baby. I’m just like, well.

[00:19:09.150] – Dr Fran

First off…

[00:19:09.870] – Hilary Erickson

I’m like, take a prenatal class, my friends. But I ended up putting two chapters about postpartum, taking care of your bottom, taking care of your C-section. Because I think so many people get prepared for pregnancy and birth. And birth is really short in the whole scheme of things. The first part is very small. Postpartum lasts forever, apparently, because I’m still working on my pelvic floor over here.

[00:19:32.430] – Dr Fran

You need a referral to a good pelvic floor physical therapist.

[00:19:36.520] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. Just prepare for what it’s going to be. Prepare, have the tucks at home. You’re not like, Oh, crap. I’m out of whatever they gave me in the hospital. Now I did something. Then you forget about yourself and you’re like, Oh, my bottom’s fine. When in reality, you need tucks just as much as you need diapers if you have a tear.

[00:19:55.530] – Dr Fran

It’s true. It’s true. Absolutely. Especially those fourth degrees, man.

[00:19:58.950] – Hilary Erickson

I will say if you had a fourth degree friends, I only had second degrees on the other two, and it was like sunshine and rainbows compared to a fourth degree. I was like, I don’t know what people complain about. This is a dream. All my other tips, take your stool softeners and eat so much fiber. You are full of fiber.

[00:20:14.820] – Dr Fran

Muralax should be every patron’s best friend.

[00:20:18.680] – Hilary Erickson

Do you give patients Miralax in the hospital?

[00:20:20.830] – Dr Fran

I do, yeah. I don’t believe in polys. I believe in Muralax. Oh, yeah. In Muralax, we trust.

[00:20:26.320] – Hilary Erickson

So much more sense. Okay, that’s a good tip for everybody.

[00:20:29.520] – Dr Fran

The second you get pregnant, start your Muralax. You can taper off. Then right before you have a baby, ramp it back up daily, every morning have a glass and then put lots of water.

[00:20:40.850] – Hilary Erickson

Muralax is basically just fiber, right?

[00:20:43.500] – Dr Fran

Muralax is like a very mild laxative. Just pools water into your colon, basically.

[00:20:51.550] – Hilary Erickson

Just flushes that baby out.

[00:20:53.490] – Dr Fran

It’s not even bad. It just makes it a little better to go.

[00:20:56.730] – Hilary Erickson

Whereas, Colase would have cramps and stuff on them sometimes. So that’s a good tip.

[00:21:00.770] – Dr Fran

I find it does nothing. A lot of other doctors like my GI doctors all agree are like, boo, Colase, like Yay, Miralax.

[00:21:08.120] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, our doctors only give Senicots or colase and then Miralax PRN, but they haven’t pushed us to do it at the hospital, so we’ve just been ignoring that.

[00:21:17.210] – Dr Fran

So Miralax is the way to go.

[00:21:19.310] – Hilary Erickson

You can ask for this stuff at the hospital. We have Miralax. I have given it to patients. If your doctor hasn’t prescribed it, say, Hey, could I get a prescription for Miralax? I bet your nurse will write it. Yeah. It might be in the Peter-ads already.

[00:21:33.030] – Dr Fran

Yeah. If you’re pregnant, you can just buy it over the counter at the grocery store. Great tip. That’s friends.

[00:21:39.410] – Hilary Erickson

Poop is so important. Why?

[00:21:41.670] – Dr Fran

So important. In the postpartum pregnant period all the time.

[00:21:45.660] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. Thanks for coming on. If you guys don’t already follow Dr. Fran, follow her on TikTok. Is that mostly where you think you are?

[00:21:52.360] – Dr Fran

Tiktok? Tiktok and Instagram. I’m Paging Dr. Fran on both of them. So both of the avenues get a little different content. You get a lot more personal stuff on Instagram, but yeah, both are very similar.

[00:22:04.050] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on. I think this is really going to help a lot of moms realize that even the pros—and I’m using quotation marks pros—still struggle with this precarious time. Absolutely.

[00:22:14.840] – Dr Fran

Thank you so much for having me.

[00:22:16.320] – Hilary Erickson

All right. We’ll see you.

[00:22:17.750] – Dr Fran

All right. Bye.

[00:22:18.690] – Hilary Erickson

Okay. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I think that the last settlement is the most important one. I think a lot of people think, Oh, you know how to do this whole postpartum thing because you’re a nurse or you’re a doctor. In reality, no amount of training or experience really can help you.

[00:22:35.900] – Hilary Erickson

A lot of it is life situations, having parents that can help, being off of work, things like that, having the proper mindset. But no one’s really an expert at this. You just go with the flow and do it as you can. Thanks to Dr. Fran for coming on.

[00:22:48.980] – Hilary Erickson

Today’s episode is sponsored by The Postpartum Checklist. I think it is so easy to get lost in all of the baby supplies because there’s a billion of them, and not pay attention to all things that you need for you after baby, so come grab my totally free postpartum organization checklist. You can find it in the show notes or at PregnancyNurse under Resources.

[00:23:09.680] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, guys, this is our last episode of Mindset Month. We will be back at the beginning of the year. We’re going to talk a little bit about how I do New Year’s resolutions, which is a little bit different than how other people do them. We will see you in 2024!

[00:23:22.500] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks for joining us on The Pulling Curls Podcast today. If you like today’s episode, please consider reviewing, sharing, subscribing. It really helps our podcast grow. Thank you.

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