Latest / The Birth Lounge Podcast / Ep. 475: Bringing Back Home: Postpartum Care with Mama Shafia Monroe

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Ep. 475: Bringing Back Home: Postpartum Care with Mama Shafia Monroe · The Birth Lounge Podcast

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shame on America.
It's so disappointing that we are at this point in 2026 that people cannot get help for the most important thing in the world, which is bringing forth life.
Nothing, we should be doing everything possible, and there's so many models in Europe and other places, Cuba, Japan, where these things are not happening.
I feel that there's no value for women um, and for motherhood and for babies really.
We're not a family friendly nation.
That's why there's no paid maternity leave.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Birth Lounge Podcast.
So the other day, I was talking to my friend Ashley, and she said, "You know, HeHe, you are so lucky to have 10 years of wisdom and thousands and millenias, hundreds of thousands of years of wisdom energetically passed down to you."
And she even called me an old soul.
And I said, "What do you mean exactly by that?" And she said, "The way that you have been so confident in your pregnancy and that no matter what each day brings, you find the joy in it.
You find a way to be grateful that you are experiencing aches in your back, or you find gratitude in the heartburn, or you find humor in the burps that slip out mid-sentence."
And I laughed and said, "Yeah, I think that's just my personality."
And she said, "No, it's not.
It is that you are so in tune with your body.
You're so confident in the things that you know, that you have literally been put on this earth, you have been tasked with guiding other women in not only finding their voice, but truly taking control of their pregnancy and birth."
Now, of course, if you know me, you can imagine that I started to tear up at this moment.
And I just felt a great sense of, well, gratitude.
I felt really grateful that...
I get to hold this space for so many of you, and I can tell you that I have learned hundreds, maybe thousands of lessons over the last 10 years.
I have supported more than 2,000 families in bringing their baby into this world.
I have seen hundreds of different types of scenarios.
I have interacted with hundreds of providers.
I have seen straightforward births.
I have seen babies that are born so fast we literally didn't even get a chance to leave the bedroom and get in the car, and this was a planned hospital birth.
I've seen that multiple times.
I've seen babies born on the side of the road because they were born so fast.
I've seen multiple six-day labors.
I have seen low-risk labors that came from low-risk pregnancies turn emergent in a split second.
I have seen the highest of high-risk pregnancies go absolutely smashingly.
I'm talking, like, so smooth and everybody was in awe because when she was in labor, everything was well.
I've seen necessary interventions.
I've seen unnecessary interventions.
I have seen unassisted births.
I have seen home births.
I have seen birth center births.
I have seen hospital births.
I have seen surgical births.
I've seen elective inductions, medically necessary inductions, chosen C-sections, medically necessary C-sections, unmedicated birth, epidural birth, births that use nitrous oxide, but neither unmedicated nor epidural.
I've seen nurses catch babies, OBs catch babies, dads catch babies, midwives catch babies.
I've caught two babies when we were...
Well, one was on the side of the road, and one was the baby that was born in the bedroom before we could even get to the car.
I can tell you that I am so confident in birth because of all the things that I have seen, and in addition to that, I do feel this deep sense of connection to this ancestral wisdom that, I don't know, it just feels like it's part of me In addition to all of that, don't forget I do have a master's degree in human development and family studies.
And so not only do I have the skill to read research, but in true nerd fashion, I actually genuinely enjoy it.
There's nothing more that I enjoy...
Well, maybe some things, like chocolate and being at the beach.
But very few things do I enjoy more than going through a scientific article, and I, I want to know about the methodology.
I want to know how many people participated.
I want to see what your P value is.
I want to see what your confidence interval is.
I love to know how you actually put your study together and then conducted it, and who were the people that when you got to the end of your study, you had to take them out of your study because, well, they didn't, they didn't really meet the criteria of the study at the end of the day.
I want to know the tests that you run.
I want to know how you got to your conclusions, and I want to see how you present those conclusions, and is it honest and transparent? Now, I know this is not everyone's thing.
I know not everybody likes research.
I know that not all articles are easily read.
I know that not everybody feels this confidence and joy or that deep ancestral wisdom.
So here's what I've done for you.
Well, I put it in an app.
I put it all in The Birth Lounge app, and I hit all of those pieces.
I share all of those births that I have attended over the last 10 years.
All the knowledge that I've gained from that, it's all yours.
The data and the science and the evidence-based, backed decisions that you can make in labor, also found in The Birth Lounge.
I'm telling you what those articles say, and then I'm linking it for you, too, so that you can go and read it should you desire.
And I'm also looping in that ancestral wisdom.
I want you to know what did birth used to be like, and how come we've gotten so far from that, that now it's over-medicalized and every single person that walks through the door gets Pitocin, everyone signs up for an unnecessary 39-week induction.
Why are our C-section rates skyrocketed, and why do so many women have birth trauma? Plus, how do you avoid that for yourself? If there's one thing that I've gotten really, really, really good at over the last decade, it is helping you avoid birth trauma so that when you leave your labor experience, you feel empowered, you feel so happy and satisfied with the way that it turned out, and you are proud of yourself You're not crying, you're not traumatized, you're not spiraling, you're not stuck thinking, "What in the world did I just go through?" Instead, you think things like, "Wow, I did that.
Oh my God, look at this baby that I grew and I birthed.
Holy cow, am I, am I a superwoman?" If you're craving deep education that is not only going to prepare you for an amazing birth experience, absent of trauma, where you get to be the decision maker, but you're also craving a community and you're craving the data to help you make those decisions.
Plus, you want to learn how to be this confident in your birth and in your pregnancy and in your parenthood too.
Download The Birth Lounge app.
Head to your respective app stores, whether you're Android or iPhone, and type in The Birth Lounge and it will pop right up and you can get started literally right now.
I hang out in the app.
I'm always updating it with new information and it's way better than scrolling social media that's going to numb out your brain.
Instead, scroll and empower yourself to have a better birth.
Download The Birth Lounge app today and I'll see you in there.
Bye.
I'm so excited to be back with you guys.
Another great episode.
I'm excited to share today's guest, Mama Shafia Monroe, and if you don't know who she is, just get ready to have your mind absolutely blown Mama Shafia is a master of public health and author, a veteran midwife, a doula trainer, a medicine woman, a wife, a mother, and a grandmother.
She answered her call to be a healer as a young girl taking care of elderly and stray animals.
She founded the first national Black midwives organization in 1991, and in 2011 she created Shafia Monroe Consulting Personal Development and Motivational Speaking.
In 2017, she launched SMC Full Circle Doula Birth Companion Training to teach traditional birth and postpartum traditions to improve infant and maternal healthcare and to honor the legacy of 20th century African American midwives Since 2002, she has trained over 5,000 doulas, and her mission is to bring healing and happiness to every new mother and increase the number of doulas and midwives who will care for them.
In her spare time, what is spare time when it comes to Shafia? But when she does find spare time, she grows medicinal herbs and fragrant flowers and fishes with her husband.
Oh my God, you guys are gonna fall in love with her.
On January 27th, 2026, she published a book, Mothering the Mother, which we will also talk about in today's episode.
Her book focuses on African American postpartum traditions, recipes, and healing Mama Shafia is a force to be reckoned with, and it was a deep, deep honor to sit in the same space and share this show with her and learn from her and hear from her and just be able to gather up some of her wisdom so that I can pass it along and create this ripple effect and, and, and just elevate the ripple effect that she has already started.
So you guys buckle up.
Today we're gonna talk about postpartum and what America is lacking, what Mama Shafia has learned from practicing in over 25 other countries.
Plus, how does she see our country addressing the healthcare crisis in front of us and the deplorable stats when it comes to maternal and infant health I can't wait for her to share about her new book with you guys.
This episode is just full of wisdom.
This intro doesn't do it even half of the justice because Mama Shafia is just such a wealth of knowledge.
All right, I'm gonna be quiet because I want you guys to learn from her.
So without further ado, Mama Shafia, welcome to the show Thank you so much, HeHe.
So excited.
Oh my gosh, no.
Look, the, the pleasure is all mine.
I'm super excited for this conversation.
I...
One of my favorite things in life is talking to people who have, like, eons more experience than I do, because I feel like those are always the most fulfilling conversation.
I learn things about myself, I learn things that I can pass on, I learn things that will make birth better, that will help women just, like, overall, and it's just so fulfilling.
And so I'm so excited to have you on.
And I was telling you before we started recording that I actually added you to a list of guests a little bit ago, and by the time that we had invited you on the show, you've published a book.
And so today's podcast is gonna be kind of a, a smush of those two.
I wanna learn about you.
I wanna see about your experience.
I wanna hear about everything that you've learned being a midwife, and you also have seven kids.
So you have so much to teach us.
But then I would love to dive into your book because, listeners, you guys know I'm still kind of freshly postpartum.
That six-month period is weird 'cause it's like, are you freshly postpartum, but you, like, still haven't been doing it that long? You're kind of in this weird place.
But I wanna think back on my postpartum.
I wanna invite you to reflect on your own postpartum.
I want us to think about if you're like me and you're having more babies, I wanna think about what postpartum could be like for us in the future, and if you wanna do anything different next time.
Right.
Okay.
Right.
So before we dive into postpartum, Mama Shafia, tell us who you are.
We know the basics, but how'd you get into midwifery? How long have you been doing it? Where have you practiced? Tell us the ins and outs of Mama Shafia.
Wow, you have some great questions, and, uh, a lot, you know, of course I could go on a lot, has a lot.
Let's see.
Uh, I am a, the daughter of, uh, Yvonne and Thomas Monroe, and I'm so grateful that they raised me to be a, a leader and to be courageous and step out on my faith, and that faith brought me to being, uh, in Boston hearing about infant mortality way back in the day in the '70s.
I may sound...
love to date myself.
So back in the '70s in Boston, Massachusetts, I learned that there's a thing called infant mortality, that babies did not live to be one, and I'm, like, very young, under 20, you know, shocked to hear that, didn't know that.
And then I learned about midwives 'cause that was when the midwifery movement was re- was reawakening, uh, in the country, and I read about these women, these women in the South who were called granny midwives, who were, you know, walking through the woods with a bag to help people, and bringing sheets and bringing food, and always talking nice.
And I said, "I wanna be like them," and that has been my journey ever since.
So I- Decided, you know, to be a midwife in my teens.
I'm trying to find someone.
So I'm a, I'm a traditional midwife.
I did take the masters midwife alliance certification, but I'm not, I didn't go to school.
I learned through apprenticeship model.
So I was fortunate to have two midwives from Alabama, a, a doctor from Morocco, a midwife from Pakistan, and a midwife from Uganda.
So I had this great international training.
And basically, uh, in Boston for over 16 years, I was like the midwife for my area.
So you know, four and five births a month.
Uh, babies on my back, my own babies on my back doing births.
And, um, oh my God, it was so much fun, and that's like my ultimate joy.
Like, the smell of that baby in the air, the smell of that amniotic fluid.
Like, you have to like birth to be a midwife.
It's like, people's like, "Oh, I like working with teens.
I like working with..."
Everybody has their group.
And for me it's just I just love pregnant women and new moms.
I m- that's just my calling.
But before that, really quickly, I did wanna be a vet.
And so I, I tell people that, you know, you kinda, uh, you can look at your life and see how you were born to be because I've always liked things that needed help.
And so any poor little puppy or any sick pigeon, you name it, I had it.
Salamanders, rabbits, guinea pigs, dogs, cats.
I took care of horses giving babies.
I helped my dog.
So the, I'm talking about seven, eight years old, getting up, putting a hot water bottle...
Okay, 10.
Hot water bottle in the, in, on the puppies.
I read the hot water bottle with the cloth would make them live.
Like, the mother and the heap, they still died.
So I learned about death also.
I learned that everything wasn't going to make it, much as I tried to keep them alive.
So I feel like I took that was given to me young to transform that healing, that sensitivity that understanding of life and death, and it, it molded me to become the midwife that, that I am.
And so I, that's my story.
Oh my gosh.
Just...
Okay, I have so many things to say.
Number one, you feel so safe as a midwife.
Like, just everything you said just made me be like, "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh."
I loved hearing that.
Our stories have so many overlaps too.
Um, I'm a doula of course, so not a midwife by any means, but Alabama, Boston, animals.
Mm-hmm.
So I didn't want to be a vet, but I did grow up on a farm.
Same thing.
I, I really learned about, I think just like trusting the birth process, and I saw my dad tend to the animals on the farm when they were having babies and/or not tending to them and trusting them and only stepping in when they need support.
And I think for me it has shaped very much who I am as a doula.
It was a really great model of understanding when medical support is needed, we do it.
Mm-hmm.
And when we don't need it, we don't do anything because the body- Exactly can handle it.
And, um, I'm very grateful for that part of my childhood, like really, really grateful 'cause it has just given me such a good lens to look through when it comes to supporting women in birth.
Okay, you have experience with all of these people from different countries as your mentors and your teachers.
Have you ever practiced in different countries? I wanna know what other countries are like as a midwife, if you have.
Well, I have, uh, worked with the midwives in Colombia, and I did work the midwives in, uh, Sierra Leone, and I did take a amazing postpartum training in Morocco.
Oh my God, that was like a, a resort.
Peacocks in the pool, and the midwives come in.
That was a, so, such a different kind of experience.
And I did not help, but, uh, I did, was able to participate watching mothers.
It's not the midwives.
The mother does the maternal, uh, pregnant massage on their daughters, and that was really interesting.
It's the mother does this amazing massage on the babies.
So it's not so much the midwife, but the mothers are really the ones that care for their daughter initially.
Which is why I wrote the book called Mothering the Mother, because we think about the midwife who's limited.
There's only so many midwives, but everybody has a mother.
So if your mother knows what to do, you can't fail because your mother's right there.
The midwife was like a support.
So being in those different countries, I learned more that the mother, uh, does really a lot of the caring for the, her daughter actually, her daughter-in-law, and that midwives are a household world- word and highly respected in part of the community.
So very different than here.
Like, you can see them.
People know who they are.
They come over, they bring food.
It's just like, you know, it's kinda like chill.
So, um, I love being in other countries, seeing how midwives are just so, you know, respected and loved and, you know, and, and s- and, and supporting.
Not this like, oh, this, this like what's...
Like, we can't find this in America.
Like, what's a midwife? Where are we? We're hidden, you know? And there's not a lot of love for midwives here, unfortunately.
Well, no.
It's- Midwives are so priceless to be, to survive here in this country.
It's tension-filled, right? It's a, it's a- Right hospital system that looks at midwives as more of the enemy at worst, and a teammate that they tolerate at best, right? Mm.
And it's like It doesn't have to be like that.
They're two very different roles and there is, there's room for all of it.
When you were in these other countries, did you have the opportunity to see transfers? How does their hospital system interact with the home birth community? Well, you know, I didn't see transfers, but the midwives I trained in Sierra Leone, uh, I was in a village asking.
They said for them, transfer is very traumatic for them because they have to put a ill mother, whether she's hemorrhaging or whether it's crisis, they have to put her in a sheet and have a man hold each end s- and walk.
By the time they get to office, she's not alive.
They said, "You know, you brought food."
I was embarrassed.
You brought these things, but what we really needed is transportation.
We need to be able to drive our moms t- into the city to get help."
So, their transportation's very easy.
We can't even imagine.
We get an ambulance boom, we're there.
There, they're walking, trying to get...
'Cause, you know, it's rural.
It's, we're seeing the same thing in the United States.
We're seeing with the shutdown of so many hospitals, just hospitals in general, and OBs retiring out, people in the South who just driving for hours, same with the reservations.
They're driving from the reservation trying to get help, birthing on the side of the road.
And shame on America.
It's so disappointing that we are at this point in 2026 that people cannot get help for the most important thing in the world, which is bringing forth life.
Nothing, we should be doing everything possible, and there's so many models in Europe and other places, Cuba, Japan, where these things are not happening.
Like, why is this going on in our country? Why do you think? Well, I hate, I almost hate to say it, but it's disappointing.
I feel that there's no value for women um, and for motherhood and for babies really.
We're not a family friendly nation.
That's why there's no paid maternity leave.
That's why we can't find quality, uh, daycare.
That's why midwives are not easily available, or nor doulas.
And what the World Health Organization said recently, we're short, again, we are short one million midwives worldwide to save lives.
And so I say in my doula training that midwives are the first line of defense.
We're the first line of defense because we have positive outcomes.
We reduce maternal mortality.
Reduce infant mortality.
Reduce premature birth.
We make moms feel happy.
We include the fathers.
We have a better breastfeeding rate.
We take the time to get to know you.
And so the fact that we are aware as a nation what the statistics are and what the option is, and what the solution is, that we're not doing it, I, again it is, I've been doing this for 40 years.
We're having the same conversation.
The same conversation 40 years later.
Where are the midwives? How do we get them on the front line? How do we get them paid? Why are they, you know...
So anyways, I didn't wanna go on.
I'm gonna say, like, on a positive note, we are not giving up.
You know, we're gonna keep on writing and training and, and serving the community.
And really on, on a spiritual perspective, you know, just like, like I said, just like, uh, the, the, the Hebrew midwives who said that, you know, we...
It was actually Egyptian midwives who said to Pharaoh, "You know, we're not gonna kill the firstborn.
We're gonna do the right thing."
And we're still doing that.
We're still following our human compass to support life and to do the right thing in spite of all the challenges.
I just wanna commend you for having the show that has this opportunity to talk about this.
Yeah, of course.
Keep it going.
You know, I, I, I really don't think that, um, I don't think it's negative to talk about the things that are going on in America.
Like, we have to have these conversations.
If we don't have these conversations, then nothing will ever be done about it.
Right, right.
People won't know actually what's going on.
People won't understand why their rights and their options and access is being taken away from them.
And then we definitely won't be able to fix it 'cause we don't know even what we're, what we're trying to fix.
Exactly.
So, you know, we gotta have conversations so that we understand where are the midwives.
I'm a little bit- shaken up to hear that this same conversation was happening when you first became a midwife and nothing has gotten better.
Would you say that things have gotten worse? Well, I'll say things have gotten better.
The fact that we have nurse midwives, now we have certified professional midwife.
We have different educational track.
We did not have that before, and we are seeing, uh, not all 52 states, uh, support the certified professional midwife who's the one that's trained, that is trained to really do and expert in home birth.
Georgia's still fighting.
Been 15 years.
Alabama just finally happened.
Uh, there's so many states in the nation where it's still not legal to, have CPMs function that state.
Midwives still get less pay.
They're still hidden.
You know, you call a hospital like, "Oh, I'm pregnant."
"Okay, great.
Let me get you with the OB department."
They don't say, "We have a nurse midwife department and a OB.
Do you know the difference? Which one do you want?" So we'll talk to people like, "Oh my God, there's midwives? I had no idea.
I would have switched over."
Or today, "What's a midwife?" Still.
I...
There's still midwives.
Like, "What do you all do? I thought you were a doula."
So just the lack of education that this country puts out, um, by design.
It is a, a capitalistic society, and you have two people, midwives are competing, but the OB's like every time you don't get a client, I can only use the word patient because you're not sick, there goes some of your dollars.
And so you're gonna just oppress.
And even though there's more women now, it was really a man's profession, and they took the midwives and made them nurses, which were dependent and under the doctor.
Midwives were, were on, uh, independent entrepreneurs, independent practitioners.
They took that away and said, "You have to be a nurse first.
Learn how to serve me," 'cause nurses serve the doctors, "and then become a midwife thereafter."
So there's a lot of politics and sexism involved, and economics involved, and power involved.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
So, but, but we're not going anywhere, you know? I think more and more midwives are...
People are still entering the field, thank God.
It's still their calling.
It's a heart thing.
Like, you cannot not do it But it's difficult.
It's, it's expensive.
It takes a long time.
You know, six years to be a nurse midwife, eight years to be a doctor.
What's the difference? My, you know? So they sh- it shouldn't take that long to support, uh, women.
Or the CPM practice can't find apprentices.
You know, for women of color, even more, more difficult because, you know, being the grand midwife who was the dominant person in the South because of, of, uh, they brought, you know, 65 million Black people, and most, many of them were healers, many of them were midwives.
They're the ones who provided the services on the plantation because there was no service or they would bring a vet and nobody wanted a vet because all, all they did was, you know, amputate and not treat it right.
And even later for white Americans in the South, they depend on the Black midwives because it, you had to be a rich woman to get a doctor, so it was low, less pay, so you used more Black midwives.
So, and they did a great job because they didn't, they believed that the vibe was normal, and therefore they didn't try to make you do like the god forceps and all these things back in the 1800s, those dangerous things.
Like, "No, you got this.
You can do this."
And it was a calling.
It was a spiritual thing.
I read about their books.
Like I said, I wanted to be like them.
When I read that they had dreams as opposed to help people, dreams they'd deliver white cows and it was a spiritual work.
You had to be a God-conscious person, do the work and have humor and be kind, be sensitive, not be judging.
Don't embarrass.
Be, uh, be generous.
Like oh my God, these women are like angels.
It's, I just love to read about them.
I mean, they're human, but still, what sacrifice during that time when we had really nothing.
You know, no running water, people living in, in shacks using that newspaper to, to cover their window, and they still came to every single call.
And back then people were having what? 15, 20 children back then.
People had huge, you know, well, you had big families back then, man.
Oh, you may not remember.
You know, people had large families back in the days.
That's a lot of...
They even said some of the midwives have what they call, um, gift babies.
Mothers like, "You know, I don't want this baby.
Baby's the 12th, I can't do it," and they would take it.
So midwives have like four or five children that, that they just brought home as newborns because there was no adoption or foster care program.
It was like, you know, "Take this baby," and they would take them and raise them So very amazing, and God bless their souls, you know? Yeah, really.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I walk in their footsteps.
I try to be that person, you know, generous and supportive and, you know, just helping.
It's service work.
Yeah.
That's being as a doula.
Yeah.
You know, it i- it is, it's, it is service work.
So I don't know how to go...
Oh, how, why.
So, so yeah.
So we need midwives, we need midwife I, I think, you know, but I think he, years ago, I ran a program, I mean p- I ran a program called Sister Care.
We went to the high schools and high school girls who, you wanna...
It was a school if you wanna be a midwife, obstetrician, or a nurse.
But the high school students who I wanted to attract were working on their graduation or, you know, had boyfriends, prom.
They didn't come, so I moved it down to seventh to ninth grade.
And it was a one-year program.
These girls came once a week, and we, uh, partnered with the nursing program.
They learned how, you know, about hand washing.
We had a simulated lab where they helped deliver the baby.
Uh, dolls come out and we did field trips.
All those girls later, I find them, they finished school.
They had a full-term baby.
Some had, um, had a home birth.
All of them nursed their babies.
One became a naturopath.
It was such a positive program.
I feel, I'm bringing it up because we could get that kind of program across the country, we would know what midwives are.
But we don't allow that in school.
That was a private program that got funded.
In school, you can't talk about breastfeeding.
You really can't talk about, you know, this whole birth process.
It's not a conversation.
Um, I, I think a little bit more people are hearing about college.
You hear about, you know, women, home birth, midwifery.
But in high school where we're most vulnerable and it's easy for them to know early, we don't have that available for them.
And I think the education process is where we need to go if we're gonna shift this, this movement where...
'Cause th- the youth are, are the future.
They know early.
It's like, "Oh, I want a midwife then.
I'm gonna be a midwife.
I'm gonna tell my friend."
And so I think we need to get into the schools nationally.
Oh my gosh, I would love that.
So I've never thought about bringing that to high school students before.
That is Really cool.
Would you think that it would need to be, or that it should be just a girls class, or would it be mixed, boys and girls? You know, young men wanna know too.
They become fathers.
You know, I know some male doulas.
I've met male midwives.
I know that they do.
But for me, I like the rites of passage.
I like to keep girls separate, because when girls are nine- ninth grade, hormones is normal.
They get distracted.
They, it's just normal to want to attract the opposite as a rule.
So I like, uh, a all-girls group.
It was a all-girls group, and I think men need to get all-boys groups.
They can talk about boy stuff in private, and maybe we'll get together so t- many times a year for a collective conversation.
But yeah, I don't wanna merge them, so I kept it a all-girls group.
Hmm.
And they were able to ask the You know, they're still kind of shy, and they wanna ask certain questions that they didn't wanna ask their mom.
Never mind having a boy in the room.
Like, how do you, uh, how do you ask your mother that? I didn't get a permission slip for that kind of conversation.
But they had a lot of questions, like, you know, what to do with their bodies, you know, sexuality.
And it was just, you know, it was for, uh, a whole year, and they were able to earn a high school credit.
And also for moms who work or parents who work, y- you know, it was an after school program.
That's when most girls get pregnant because from 5:00, 3:00 to 6:00, there's nothing to do.
Mm.
And they were so They came all the time.
They loved it.
We cooked from scratch.
We made menstrual beads.
We had to volunteer for Asunji comb-in.
We did double Dutch.
You know, it was just one of the best times.
I just love those young ladies.
We had such a blast, and I had two young nurses.
They were nursing students who I hired to come in, you know, do a lot of the work with me.
So yeah, it was just something that I wish I could do it again.
Haven't done it since, but I tell people about it.
So, you know, I feel like in my life, you know, I'm seasoned now.
I've done so much.
It's time for me to write books now and be more of a, a, a, a, a supporter and, and encourage your generation to pick up the banner.
I know people, you know, are working till their 90s, but I'm still working, but I don't, I don't think I'm gonna do that.
But I hope that you do it and bust it.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Well, you know, thank you.
Thank you for that.
I, I, um, I feel like I'm putting a dent in it in my little corner of the world, and, and I, I just hope that I'm inspiring other people to also start to chip away at it and really- Mm-hmm you know, demand better access and start to vote in a way that supports- Thank you women's rights.
And- Mm-hmm you know, to really think about what kind of world do you wanna la- leave for the girls that come after us? Which are gonna be our- Right our children and our grandkids.
Exactly.
Right? Like- Right you, you wanna be leaving the world in a better spot for women and for children than what we found it, and that's not hard, 'cause we found it in a pretty bad place.
You saying that you wanna write books reminded me of how Oh, my gosh, there's so many dying arts in birth.
But, you know, midwifery is somewhat if we don't start handing down the wisdom that you have- Right that other midwives that have not been through the hospital system indoctrination program yet, if we don't start handing that down, then eventually midwives in the hospital system are gonna be one thing.
'Cause we are kinda- Right losing a lot of that history.
What do you have to say about that? What's on your mind when I say that? What comes up for you? Well, I, I f- I'm glad you brought it up.
I feel like, and you're right, I feel like each generation we lose something.
You know, I remember years ago, I'm young and I'm eating, I'm at my aunt's house who's from Alabama.
She was raised on a farm and she's in Boston and she's eating.
All of a sudden she says, she might have been 60, I might've been 25 or something, she's like, "This is not chicken."
I didn't know what she meant.
"This ain't no chicken."
I'm like, "What is she saying?" Now I'm eating an apple.
"This isn't a apple.
The food is horrible."
So what I ate, my children aren't gonna know what that tastes like because they never had it.
It's all GM food.
So we don't know what good food...
unless you have a lot of money, you actually grow your food, the taste of food is so different now.
I see the difference.
It's very difficult for me to eat food.
So I know what she meant.
She meant what, she could tell the difference between a real chicken from her farm to whatever chicken she had bought from the store.
So the same with the midwifery.
We're losing skillsets because you just lose it if you don't work a way to keep it.
If you're forced to not...
O- o- good example, um, a medicine midwife, Jessica McKenna, they do breeches.
Midwives can't do breeches.
They do external version.
They can turn a baby from the, you know, from the outside from butt to head first.
Um, they do twins.
There's so many things that other midwives around the world do that we have been stopped.
Now we don't know how.
The same with obstetricians.
They don't know how to do a vaginal birth.
They've been doing so much cesarean sections now, that's normal to them if one out of three is a cesarean section.
So doctors even don't know what's considered normal 'cause they haven't seen it, and you only know what you see.
You know, you have to be exposed to it.
So the exposure is getting less and less with each generation.
So I think us having to find those midwives...
what I'm seeing, people are actually going to other countries where these things are still being done, but everybody can't do that.
And there is things called, I think it's called, um, Doctors of Breech.
They do, people are now going around teaching breech, but it's not even legal for a midwife to do a breech in the hospital or at home, and doctors don't know either.
It's automatic cesarean section.
So my point is that we're losing it and we need books and classes, and we need, um- families to demand that I want the option to have my breech vaginally.
It should not be an automatic cesarean section.
Cesarean sections are very much needed.
They save lives when you need them, but not one in three.
We know that 90% of births are problem-free, and we're at a, you know, 60% cesarean section rate in this country, then something's wrong.
We're not going with the numbers right.
So yeah, uh, we are losing, but again, that's why I wrote my book.
My book is, you know, African American Postpartum Traditions, Recipes and Healing to bring back traditions that we, that were normal that, you know, we have forgotten over time.
We took the mother from home to the hospital, and there she was not allowed for her mother to come.
She was put to sleep.
She was tied down.
She was given a shot not to breastfeed.
So even things like that, most of them not breastfeeding.
Some of you have never seen anyone breastfeed.
You're not having babies.
Some of you have never held a baby.
I grew up with, with niece and nephew.
I grew up holding babies when I was, you know, 14 and 10 years old.
And so, but some are, "Oh my God, I'm so afraid to hold my ba- I've never held a baby."
Because when I having the, that, you know, I'm not saying have 15 kids, which would be fun actually, but, uh, we're not seeing these large families anymore.
You know, s- one child.
We're, you know, it was just, it's just a different world.
So I am sympathetic to the next, the upcoming generation.
And there's also a lot of fear now because of hearing all this poor press about, you know, maternal and child, everyone's dying is all we're hearing.
People are petrified to give birth because they think they're gonna die or have a bad experience.
And women didn't think, I never thought, I had seven kids, I never thought about dying.
That was not part, I just never thought about it.
We, d- 'cause it wasn't talked about.
Hmm.
I never thought that I couldn't breastfeed.
I never thought that I couldn't have my baby.
I never thought that I would fail, see, 'cause it wasn't the conversation.
All my friends were pregnant with me.
So much fun being pregnant with five of your friends.
Like, everyone's gonna get pregnant the same time.
Like, if you have women and you have good friends, what do you do? You have your period at the same time, right? You call your friend, "You had your period?" "No."
"Oh my God, I'm pregnant too."
And you look, sure enough, I'm pregnant.
I would call up, "Have you had your period?" I'm like, "Yes.
Okay, mine's is coming."
Or, "No," I'm like, "Oh my God, let me check.
So I'm preg- I'm pregnant."
So you get a chance to talk to each other and, you know, share baby clothes and you're not the only person holding a baby having to go to a, a, a playgroup because you have no friends who are pregnant.
So it's like a whole different thing.
Yeah, I had so much fun having my babies with my girlfriends, you know, sitting around, everyone's breastfeeding, everyone's babies walking together.
You know, can I drop my baby at your house? You know, my toddler.
And now it's like I can't find anyone to watch my child.
And so anyways it's different and that makes it difficult to wanna have a family because the society's not really set up anymore that way.
Yeah.
So.
You know, I was just having that conversation with my mother-in-law about that our generation has, like, moved away from family.
And so- Mm-hmm um, our children's grandparents and great-grandparents are far away, sometimes across the country.
Right.
My parents are across the country.
They live in Alabama.
And, um, my husband's family is closer, but still a state away.
And so- Right you know, a lot of our generation and it, it's tricky because you don't wanna tell people not to go and live their life, not to move away- Right and experience things.
Right.
But then you also don't wanna lose that communal feel of having family close by.
Right, right, right.
Um, what other type of traditions do you write about in your book where you just have kinda witnessed things dissolving in postpartum? Well, I think that's when I just addressed the thing.
Yes, we should move away and what I have done, but I, I did move away.
We do have to create exte- extended family.
So even though I'm not related, you know, we find our friends, we find our tribe where we are and we create this community of, you know, having people come over and becoming friends so that you do have that, that auntie, you know, that we call the, the fake auntie or the godmother or the, or the uncle so that our children can be around other people.
That's where those naming ceremonies come in, you know, the baptism.
You would go to church and the church people would know or our community we have what we call the naming ceremony.
Call like close friends over on the seventh day, they meet the baby.
You say the name and they make that commitment, "I'm gonna be there to help the baby."
But I would say the biggest thing is that I get calls right with the mother, the mother, a mother saying, "Hey, you know, I want to take a doula training because my daughter's having a baby and I don't know what to do."
And that's new because of course mothers knew in the '20s what to do because they had their own, you know, four to seven children and their sister had children, so everybody knew what to do.
We knew that you're supposed to lay down and rest.
You're supposed to stay warm.
You're supposed to have soup.
You shouldn't be lifting anything heavier than the baby.
You know, uh, they would keep the baby in, in the dark room.
You might notice when your baby was born that when the lights are bright, they kept their eyes shut, and when it's less light, they open their eyes up.
When they were inside the water, they don't like bright light in the first couple of weeks.
Um, you know, the beautification.
You know, keeping you pretty after the baby's born.
You know, changing your sheets, giving you a nice nightgown to keep on from the, from maybe the milk has leaked, which it should, and so it's a dry, cracky thing and they give you something to feel nice.
You know, helping you shower, rubbing your feet all the time.
When I did the book, I did so many interviews and it was so nice to hear people, mainly from the South, um- Who remembered their grandmother was maybe the grandma, you know, rubbing their back every day after they came home or rubbing their leg.
A lot of them rubbing the legs and rubbing the feet and staying t- and saying, you know, "Take it easy.
Sit down."
They didn't expect them to get up and start doing things right away.
That was the custom.
Like, "Why are you up? Go back with that baby and sit down and relax."
And we're thinking like, "I have to go right back and get right back at it, get right back to work in six weeks."
And you know, and by the way, you still are in your postpartum period.
It takes physically 12 months for the body to go back to everything.
The heart has to change.
It's not just the uterus.
There's so many things happening.
Your blood volume, you know, your hormones.
As long as you're breastfeeding, by the way, your relaxing hormone is still in place, mean that your ligaments are still loose, which is why we say don't exercise, but don't do hard demanding things so later in li- later on in life.
But so yeah, those kind of things or keeping plants in the room, but mainly just keeping the energy of always saying that you're doing a good job as a mom.
Constantly reassuring their daughters or daughter in law, "You're doing great.
This is normal."
And we need to remember that being a new mom, it takes a good really five years to be acting, but definitely the first year to things to kind of settle in and to th- and to, and to realize that we should keep getting help.
So I would say I would go to my aunt's house.
My mother passed when I was young, so my aunt was like my mom.
So, you know, you can't tell, but I would go there with a six or seven-month-old baby and I would see the post- the postpartum care came this way.
I walk in the door and my aunt would say right away to someone, "Get that bag out of her hand.
You go sit down.
Someone get her a plate of food."
Just that conversation meant sit down, take care of her, let's feed her.
So that was still extended postpartum.
There, there's not a word for it, but when I look back, I say, "That's what she was doing.
She was still taking care of me."
She could've just let me walk with my bag and, you know, just But no.
It was like, you know, you say, "Hey, someone get that bag and help her.
Get that baby so I can sit down for a minute."
So that's the extended postpartum care that we don't see.
We see mothers struggling to get to the door, and people even hold the door for you sometimes.
You know, you get that big heavy car seat, which weighs 35 pounds, and you're like, we have the dad carrying it.
The mom should be carrying.
Another thing is I tell people, "Quit carrying the car seat.
Carry your baby.
Leave that car seat in the car."
We're talking about skin to skin.
That car seat is a barrier.
I see babies crying in the crib, uh, in the, in the stroller.
They just keep pushing the stroller.
They won't pick the baby up.
So we don't hold our babies that much.
Our baby's in a lot of contraption, and being a older woman now, I go to people's house, like I had no idea.
It's like a bouncy thing and thing, like, "What is all this stuff at your house?" I Oh my God, what is like eight I'm exaggerating.
You know, three things.
Why don't you just pick your baby up? And they're bouncing, you know.
So, um, so that's different.
And we're seeing the baby, now the flat heads, which means that our baby's not being picked up enough.
They're laying on the back too much.
And so, and that's b- and that's a health problem.
So in the book, we talk about keeping the baby close.
We talk about postpartum as a sacred time for the mom to have a chance and them just to get to know each other on the outside world.
She's protected from noise and outside because she can just You've had a baby.
Oh my gosh.
You wanna look at him all, you just keep looking at them.
When was it cooked? Like, oh my God, what is this gorgeous thing? And the soft skin and just like, you just wanna hold it and smell it and breastfeed and look at and fall asleep.
And that's the first, that's the first three month that you deserve that just to connect.
And that's gonna give that mom all those hormones that prevent hemorrhaging.
It's gonna help her uterus go down, makes her, the milk come out.
And then even that, you know, people don't know that when the baby is close to the mother, not the dad, the skin-to-skin to dad allows the baby to warm up.
But skin-to-skin with the mom allows baby to warm and to cool down.
The, your body or female body has the ability to do both.
So a child with a fever on the mom is gonna Her body's gonna change to make that baby get cool or, or a hot day.
So skin-to-skin for mother, child is more important than dad and baby.
We know that dads wanna bond and they should, but in the beginning, the baby's like medicine for that mother's body.
It makes her body get well and her mind.
And as a rule, most mothers feel anxiety when their baby's far from them.
It's act like, "Okay, bring my baby back."
That's natural.
So I believe in equity, but at the same time, the book talks about the mother being the center of attention, you know, and being elevated and actually honoring motherhood as this amazing position in society where he is like, "What do you do?" "Be a mother."
"Oh, okay."
As opposed to, "Congratulations."
"Oh, I'm a doctor."
"Oh, that's wonderful.
What do you do?" "Oh, I had a, I had a baby."
Like, "Oh, okay.
What'd you have?" Some people might say congratulations, but it's not like, "No big deal."
It is a big deal.
You brought life in the world for crying out loud.
Nothing surpasses that.
Without life there is no world.
Mm.
If you don't have baby, there's no world.
Mm.
So, yeah.
Oh my gosh.
Having my son made me feel so powerful, but not in like an aggressive girl boss power.
It was like a very gentle, soft, like- I'm powerful.
That's all it was.
I mean, it just- You are.
You're right, you're right it is so, it was such a cool transformation.
I, I did have a lot of anxiety when people...
So my son was born in November, and Thanksgiving was shortly after he was born, and obviously we had Thanksgiving, but it was a, a much smaller crowd.
But even those- Mm immediate people wanted to hold the baby and, and love on the baby- Right and do all the things.
And I was totally not expecting the anxiety that that was going to give me, and I mean, he was just a few feet from me.
He was not physically far.
We weren't...
I could see him.
We were all sitting at the same table.
I mean, it, we, he was not even ever out of the room that I was in, and it gave me massive anxiety, and I was super unprepared for that.
I did not think that was gonna be my experience at all.
Um, and when I shared about it, I had thousands of women say, like, "Oh my God, me too."
So it's very- Right validating for you to say that's normal, right? That- Right I, I think a lot of times we live in this society that a lot of times we're getting the message to separate from our baby.
Put them in a different room, you know? Uh-huh.
Let somebody else feed them.
Put them into daycare.
Um- Right.
Get your life back.
This is my life.
Yes.
I'm a mother.
I want this.
Yes, yes.
And the thing, and the thing he had told people, you know, we're mammals, and no mammal will let you take their young from them.
They will die to, to defend their young.
We're the only mammal that allows them to take our baby, and that's why we primally know that our baby should be close.
We're taught by society that you're being weird.
You're being too protective.
You're being...
So let your baby go into the other room.
But in our primal body, it's not normal.
Lion's not gonna separate.
Dog, no animal separates from their child, right? They keep their babies next to them.
No, if you take that puppy, that dog's gonna try to bite you as a rule because we're not supposed to separate.
You're, you're a protector.
You're protecting your baby, and we don't know why we feel this way, and that's why we're not supposed to separate, but no one told us that.
We're taught the opposite.
Let the baby go into the nursery.
But I don't want to, and she's crying.
It's like, "Oh, you're just being silly.
I know.
I'm so sorry."
No, you're being normal.
Give her her baby back.
Mm.
She's not supposed to separate.
We're no one to separate.
We don't say, "Take this baby."
When we say it's time, but don't do it before we say it's time.
And to tell our friend, "You know what?" And I'm telling people in my course now that when you go to someone's house, don't ask to hold their baby.
Mm-hmm.
Let them, let the...
Don't say, "I wanna hold the baby," 'cause we're, we're taught to be polite.
We wanna say no.
Like, okay.
But, like, we need to not ask that question unless it's your biological mom.
That's different, you know? Mm-hmm.
But strangers or just friends, like, let the mom...
That was what? Five-week-old baby? Couple weeks, yeah, yeah, couple weeks old, yeah Yeah, for sure.
God, you're totally in protective mode, like you're nowhere.
You're just not even down yet.
You know, your cervix just closed at 10 days, so j- so, so, you know, physiologically, your body and your mind's like, "I need to protect my baby.
I know you're safe, but this doesn't feel right."
Yeah.
And so we you didn't permission to, to respond to that, which should've been...
So we have, so society doesn't know.
So the book talks about that.
H- you know, how do we mother the mother? Give her her space.
Give her her baby.
I have mother-in-laws, you know, like, "Go to my daughter's house.
She's so upset.
She won't let me hold the baby."
I say, "You know what? Don't hold the baby.
She just had it.
Go to and feed her food, and she'll, she'll ask you in a minute to hold the baby.
Give her a couple months."
She'll be like, "Can you babysit again?" You'll be just like, "Oh, my God."
So give her a chance.
Let her first mom her baby.
Let her get through her, her hormonal mammalian protection where she knows that her baby's okay now to go further.
So yeah.
And what about people who...
So another thing that I was really unexpecting or, or I didn't expect, I found unexpected, was that I felt bad for having people take care of me.
Mm-hmm.
But I also couldn't physically do it because I was caring for this baby and I was recovering.
Right.
So it was like I was fighting this, this like multilayered feeling of like, oh my gosh, I hate asking them to like fill up my water bottle again.
I hate asking them to make me food.
Like that feels- Aw it just doesn't feel great.
I, I would never ask them otherwise to be like, "Would you make me a plate while I sit here in bed?" But while I was sitting there, I was healing.
I was bleeding.
I was breastfeeding a baby.
I was recovering from birth, right? And so what advice do you have for women out there who are like, "Oh my gosh, it just feels like such a burden to be taken care of"? It's really hard to fight that.
Every single day I was having to tell myself like, "These people love you.
They want to take care of you.
You are feeding a baby, and they are feeding you.
This is the way it's supposed to happen.
These people love you."
Right.
"They want to take care of you," I mean, just all day.
Like, what would you say to people out there? I would say to know that this is a, this is a short window of time.
The postpartum period is a short window of time.
You know, we say the first, the first six weeks for sure.
You know, we know that the postpartum really takes, the postpartum period could be 12 months, but for sure the first six weeks where your uterus is still shrinking, your cervix is closing, your breasts are regulating, the baby and all that, you deserve to be taken care of, and it's only temporary.
And it's part of our culture that we lost.
That, you know, we're, we're, you are pulling back the culture because women never took care of themselves anywhere in society.
Not in Europe, not in China.
You know, I like to say I'm a, I'm an anthropologist, cultural historian.
I read all the world, so it doesn't matter by race.
Women always took care of the new mother.
It is part of our, it was part of our world.
It was only changed when we were forced to go from home to the hospital.
We, and we lost that.
It was only during World War I when we started having to go back to work, 'cause I remember at work and this whole thinking about, yeah, your, that's why it's called, your mother would come and take care of you.
Your auntie would come.
It was expected.
Like, "Where's my mother? Where's my sister?" So it's just reclaiming our human right, reclaiming our culture, uh, allowing people to get their blessings by taking care of you.
You know, it's service work, too.
They're being blessed by taking care of the new mom, and you're being blessed to let, to, to keep your energy.
You can just, you know, love your baby and help your baby thrive and acclimate to the world.
So it is a mind shift, and the book talks about that, particularly for Black women, where we were taught to work around the clock through enslavement.
We have a hard thing about resting and not...
We were taught to be independent, you know, get back up, get back in that cotton field.
You know, Jim Crow, there was no break for us, and so we really have to work as Black women to know that we deserve to be taken care of.
That's not part of our history here.
In Africa, you don't go out the house for three months.
They're feeding you.
I love talking from Africa.
They sit around.
We got the, the Asian c- society, where you got, you know, the book is called, um, it's a postpartum book.
I bought it.
I can't think of the name of it.
But you know, same thing.
Your aunt comes in.
She's cooking bladders and this and that.
You, you don't even put on your, you know, you wear these special clothes and stay home.
So it's just America.
Europe, Sweden, Denmark, best outcome.
They have the nurses come to your house every single day, and you get paid, and they just come and help you.
So it's expected.
It's just that we have been so disconnected from our maternity and maternal feelings that we've learned to be independent, don't ask for help.
Generation X, get direction, use Google.
Ask a question, go to AI, like can't even ask anymore.
Like I- we're being more and more taught to be self-sufficient, and so it is a, it is a mindset.
So I'm glad that you had your mantra.
They love me.
It's, you know, I deserve this.
I'm feeding my baby.
So yeah, yeah, talk yourself through it.
And I think with the book, you know, this book here, I'm gonna hold it up, to get it early, because I think we have to...
If you had read this before you had your baby, you would have a chance to work through it.
And so we're, we're learning in the postpartum period what to do, but it's pre-conceptual information.
We should know how to...
We should expect and know what we want and how we're gonna feel before we have the baby.
That way we know, oh, I'm not being weird and have anxiety.
You'll say it early.
I, you know, husband, friend, you know what? Tell people I want you to hold my baby if you don't feel comfortable saying it, you know? Or you...
So we just need to teach our daughters and our sons, uh, 'cause you mentioned boys in the class.
I have three sons and They are amazing.
They're, they're raised by a midwife, so you're like, they tell their friends, "Isn't, isn't your wife or girlfriend gonna breastfeed? Oh, you don't need all those ultrasound.
And they have a home birth."
You know, this, that, this, they just grew up with it.
So it's just like they're all they do.
They're like, "You know, man, she don't need no ultrasound.
That's whack."
Like, "Tell them.
I'm not gonna tell them that.
That's their choice."
Like, "Mom, tell them."
So this, they're in their 20s talking all this kind of stuff.
So yeah.
So they know.
When my son had his baby, he flew me in from California to help him have the baby with his girlfriend, and I got there, 'cause just a hour flight from, um, from Oregon to California, hour and a half.
But, um, it was such so nice to see, you know, him being raised as a son of a midwife, just him, just I didn't tell him anything.
He just knew what to do 'cause he was raised.
And then what's really nice, her mother flew in.
And so for the first time I had, you know, here's two grandmothers in the same house, both sleeping there.
It was, like, such a mm-hmm.
And it's, it, you know, postpartum is a, it's a job.
It's not a one person job.
And I think a lot of the fathers are burnt out because we expect the dad to do what, uh, four aunts and, uh, mothers did for us, and it's just one person.
I talk to a lot of men, it's like, "You know what?" It's like, I don't wanna have any more kids."
I'm like, "Why?" It's like, I, and they was like, "Because they're tired."
Mm.
They're getting up, they're forced to do things that it's not a one person job.
And so go to work, answer my call, get the baby, where the baby, change diaper, night feeding.
And they might say it's okay, but later it's like, "Hmm, I don't think I want anymore kids.
It's a lot of work.
Hadn't, I didn't expect this."
So I always tell the family that s- the postpartum is a community responsibility.
We all owe the mother and the father support because they're that special light right now.
And it's only temporary.
You know, come help out.
So dad can- I was also telling the dad, this is my son and I brought, he's in the bed with the mother with the new baby, and I brought them both this huge plate of food.
He's like, "I'm gonna be treated like a king.
We're having more babies."
He got so much love and so much care.
He didn't do anything and we got two grandmas.
And we're like, we're the bomb.
Like, we're elder.
We know how to do it.
We don't need you.
We're cooking like this, bringing food, blah, blah, blah.
You know, "Hey, go sit down."
So he's like, "Man, we're gonna have some more.
This is great."
He's eating, laying around like So yeah, the father should, the, the, you know, the father deserves the love, too.
And- Yeah deserve to be appreciated because he also wants to spend time with his new baby, not just be running to the store and, you know, getting more diapers or get the breast pump.
Yeah.
Which by the way, I believe in no breast pump until six months, but that's another story.
Oh.
Oh my gosh.
Okay, I don't know that we have time to go into that- but that's a really interesting...
you just want moms and babies to feed with one another and, and really build that deep relationship.
Is that it? Yeah.
Yeah.
Good breast pump, like where's this breast pump come? The breast pump's new.
What are people doing- Mm-hmm before there's a breast pump? They breastfed their baby.
Mm-hmm.
It makes mother feel inadequate.
If I don't see the milk, then I don't have milk.
We have to still depend on the visual.
When the baby's getting fat, it's wetting diapers.
I want us to go back into our mother wit, our internal comfort.
We know when our baby's sick, and you don't know when your baby's sick if you're always looking for external things to verify what you know.
You gotta first build your own mother wit.
And really quick, my daughter at three months had, uh, pneumonia, but I didn't know it.
But I knew that something was wrong 'cause I'm breastfeeding.
Like, she's not acting right.
I brought her three times to the clinic.
Like she finally said, "No, she's not fine."
I kept going back.
I knew something's wrong without the thermometer, without their whatever.
They finally found she had pneumonia at three months, but the point was that I knew that something's wrong.
So you have to know your baby.
And you have a lot of outside influence, like pumps, this, that.
It just says that I'm not adequate.
I need to do this to get more milk.
Just breastfeed baby more, hold your baby, drink a lot of water and food.
Forget the breastfeeding cookie.
You know, eat some grits, some collard greens, and some brown rice, and if you're, eat meat, the meat.
If not, eat a bunch of beans, and you're gonna produce milk, and we're not hearing more about that.
It's always like you need to buy something.
Mm.
You know, buy something else to be a good mother.
Buy the bouncer.
Buy the, get the four breast pumps.
Get this, get that, when having a baby is so inexpensive.
A breast, a cloth, cloth di- I use cloth diapers, so it wasn't expensive for me to have a child.
I didn't buy a lot of stuff.
I was it.
Just needed me.
On the breast, on my back, cloth diaper.
What am I buying for the first year? Oh my gosh.
What, what a different world we would live in if we could really get back there, right? If we could really help women see- Oh my God.
Simplicity.
Yeah, just like what mom, motherhood could be like.
Like, it doesn't have to be this horrible treacherous thing- Thank you so normal.
Like, ugh, I genuinely love nothing more than being a mom.
I love being a mom so much.
Um, and I just want other people to love it, you know- Exactly as much as I do.
I do have one final question as we wrap up, and, and this may be in your book, but you've talked a, a lot of times about your own mother coming to help you.
Mm-hmm.
Now, I'm very lucky that I married into a family who believes in that really community feel.
They drive to help us.
Uh, we...
I mean, they are always offering to support us.
When I had my baby, a lot of people were very supportive.
What about people where their own mother is not in their life, or they have a fractured relationship, or maybe your mother is just not the person you want to be with you at that point? W- what are we doing with those women? Are those women finding someone to be that, to be, fill that role? For sure.
You know, the, it, it says mother to mother, but anybody can act like a mom.
You know, like I said, my mother died when I was young, so I was 15, so I didn't have a mom.
Mm-hmm.
So it's like my auntie, it was, it was my good friends who were my age.
You know, they came over as my sister.
I think we have to be prepared for that.
I think as a doula, your question to your client is like, "Who's gonna help you after the baby's born?" "I don't have a mom.
I'm from foster care.
I don't talk to my mom."
Okay, let's establish your community now, and helping them figure out, 'cause again, like you said, we don't wanna ask anybody.
I had one client say, "You know, I asked her.
I haven't talked to him, she has to call her."
Doesn't matter.
Call and see if you have a baby, can she help? And sure enough, I would love to help.
I hadn't talked in years.
Talk to your, um, your boyfriend's ex-girlfriend.
That's tough, but you know.
But he- help them, uh, help them learn how to ask, you know.
Can we set on a little...
Uh, we have a thing called the mother shower that we do really quick.
You know, you, the, it's not a baby shower.
We, we honor the mother with gifts for her, you know, nightgowns, oils, just for her the ninth month to get her oxytocin up.
We invite all the friends, and then we tie a string on our arm, and we cut it, and we keep the string on to say that we are committing to coming at least once when you have your baby.
You get 10 people, that's one person coming a week, and we rotate the six weeks, so no one's getting burnt out.
But when it comes down to it, we have to learn how to re- rebuild community, 'cause like I said, we've been fractured for, because we moved, our parents died.
It was, our mother has mental, I've heard mother has mental health problems, she was incarcerated, she was mean to me.
It's all the kind of things that we had tried with, no judgment, but we can establish other people to fill that role.
And I think as doulas and midwives, that is our professional role to know that need is there and to help people establish that early.
When I help a client, I say right away on the first visit, "Congratulations, that's great.
Where's your mom?" But that's the question I need to know.
Well, if I, I need to know where your mom is.
Do you And then I'll go to find out.
If she goes, "My mom is great.
She's here, blah, blah, she's another," I'm like, "Okay, she has the support."
Right here, there is no mom, okay.
I'm gonna have to be her mom temporarily, mom-like, and help her ex- establish the community if we can.
And it even says in the book, sometimes finding a midwife school that needs to get their hours in to, to, to, uh, to volunteer, or doulas who need to do four, uh, postpartum visits to get their certification.
There's all type of things.
You know, going to our faith community.
And sometimes they say they can't get anybody to get a Crockpot, throw some onions and corn and carrots in there and whatever protein you like, put that thing on, because it's not gonna burn alone.
Go back and sit with your baby, and you just eat out that bowl.
Eat out that pot.
Like, make it still.
Don't worry about the house.
Just eat and lay in the bed and throw the Pampers into a bag.
Mm-hmm.
And just have to, you know, meet them where they're at.
Because sometimes we can't find anybody.
This is their reality.
Gosh, isn't that so sad in a country where, you know, I just, I don't believe the lie that the money is not there.
I just know it is.
Hmm.
It's just deep in someone's pocket, and we just have to reallocate it.
I just know so deeply that we could fix this if we wanted to.
Absolutely.
You know? We're paying for a war.
We have the money.
The other countries are providing paid leave up to a year.
Mm.
And the fathers get six months in Sweden or Norway.
One year you get to stay home with your baby and get, and, and be paid.
Yeah.
And that's a, a less violence, better outcome, so you're right.
There is a solution, and they should be paying mothers.
They're saying right now that they want to offer $5,000, I think it was Biden, to get pregnant, that we don't have enough babies anymore.
$5,000, that's a joke.
That, that can't help anybody.
We need $5,000 a day or at least a month, you know, minimum- Yeah so we can stay home for that year.
But yeah, we gotta keep, like I said, I think it's an important thing.
I always say to my doula students when training them, or learners and not students, "Please make sure the families you serve are voting, that they're registered to vote.
Bring that into the conversation," because you're right, we have to vote to say we want paid maternity leave.
We want the right to breastfeed where we wanna breast.
We want all, we want access to midwives and, and doulas and, you know, birth suites.
And we want a, we want a better world.
We want a better world because we, we want a better world.
We want our children to be able to come out and play and have fun and be safe and laugh and love, and then be happy.
'Cause that's, we're not asking for much, just normalcy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For sure.
You guys, I mean, I think making sure that our representatives know that these issues are important to us because there's so many times that we have people running, and these aren't issues they've even ever thought about, much less- Exactly do, do we have to...
You know, it, it's like a- all the candidates, they hardly- Right ever talk about this stuff.
So make sure that they know it's important to you, and we'll start seeing it on ballots.
We will start seeing candidates start to have opinions and legislation around these things so that we can actually make a change.
Oh, man.
We have a lot of work to do here in America, but I'm excited to do it and, and I do think that hopefully we can make some progress.
Although, oh, Mama Shafia, hearing that you have been having this conversation for 40 years makes me want to, like, bang my head against the wall.
But look, but we're making great progress.
Doulas are being paid now.
Yeah.
Through insurances.
Before, they weren't.
Mm-hmm.
So now everyone...
And so that's a big deal though.
We have more, we have the Momma's Bill out.
That's a federal bill that's supposed to bring money into places where there's shortage of midwives.
Uh, doulas are really being high-rise.
Like I said, more midwives are- Fighting their state for CPM.
So we do see, we do, I wanna, I don't wanna be all, "Woe is me."
We do see some movement.
You know, there are some, but it's, but it's not enough.
It should, we should be further along.
Yeah.
But, you know, but we're getting there.
And I'm- Slow but surely though Yeah.
So slowly but surely we will tick away at things until- Yeah it's a world that we're proud of and that we can leave for the little girls that come behind us.
Oh my gosh.
And the little boys, because the boys- Yeah need to know.
Yeah.
It's, it's- Yeah both need to know.
And I wanna say too, you don't have to have children to be involved.
Yeah.
People, "I don't want kids."
You don't have to want kids.
You have to just know that children make the world.
They're our future.
So whether you wanna be a mom or a father or not, this is still your re- responsibility to make sure the children come to the world, and those who are birthing them are giving the best option of having a good outcome.
That is all of our responsibility, and the book talks about that.
It's not, it's the community was responsible for the new mom.
Just nothing, the community as a whole would come over and bring food and help clean up and chop wood because they understood this is a gift.
Some, a baby just came into our community.
We're so happy.
Let's help out.
And so we gotta get back to that- Well, I don't care about daycare.
I don't have any kids.
Doesn't matter, we still deserve good- we need good schools for our children, you know? Mm.
They need to be able to go someplace and, and not have, uh, big classrooms and be able to go outside and play and not be just stuck on the computer, you know, being forced to learn, not...
I sent my daughter t- t- to the, uh, Waldorf School where no computer.
They had to play every day and do plays and sing.
Like, oh my God, it was the best.
She's loved it.
You know, she got to be a child.
Yeah.
And not just- Yeah some type of little, you know, robot.
And she did great.
She's has a great career now and da, da, da, da, da.
So, so yeah.
Mm.
And, and safe schools where we don't have to worry about our children- Thank you being shot while they're at school.
And why is that happening? Like, why are young people- Yeah shooting up schools? That's the other thing.
Yeah.
What's happening with this? What are we doing that's making this happen? Other parts of the world aren't going through this.
Yeah.
I'm not hearing this in other parts of the world, so we need to...
I love looking at geography and history and anthropology to see what other people do, 'cause we can replicate good things.
You know? We- Totally.
Yeah yeah, we can replicate what's working, so.
Do you think that if we changed the way we did postpartum here in America, it would change those things that we just talked about, mental health, relationships with mothers? Like, maybe if people started having re- good relationships with their moms, they might even have a lower divorce rate.
Like, w- do you think we would have longer life expectancy? Would we see this big ripple effect of kind of course-correcting a couple of things if we could just fix postpartum? You know, I did hear that, uh, someone told me that all their clients divorced by a year after they had the baby.
Oh, gosh.
That was frightening to hear that.
Yeah.
So I think you're I think what you're talking about is important.
I think where I mentioned how the father is not burnt out, where the father's taught what to expect, you know, that don't have...
You know, she can't have, she can't take care of you right now.
She's taking care of the baby.
I think in America we're trying to take care of the baby and take care of our husband so he won't leave us.
So that's the other thing.
Like, if I don't do this right now, he might get somebody else.
Where to teaching this man that, you know, this is a gift right now.
She just need you to be patient and work with her.
We wanna celebrate you, too.
And I think if they know what the expectations are, they'll be more inclined to- be, uh, to be there a year later.
Mm-hmm.
So like, you know, "Why are you leaving? What happened?" So I think we d- we don't know.
We don't know that, we don't know what to expect.
The mom didn't know what to expect, the dad didn't know what to expect, and no one's telling them.
And I don't think the medical establishment really talks about relationships when you make that six-week.
You know, "How are you and your, how are you and your mate doing?" They don't ask that question.
It's like, "How's the baby doing? Are you bleeding? Did you tear in section? Heal up.
Okay, you're good.
Here's your birth control.
See you in three weeks."
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I think, you know, that's where the elders came in.
You know, midwives are older people who had husbands, were divorced, but where they were able to come in and look at a situation and just say, "You know what?" to the dad, "You know, I see you've been up all day.
Why don't you go," I tell him, "Why don't you go lay down for a minute and chill out and I'll do this?" "Like, okay, thank you."
You know, so I just think having those conversations, uh, with young couples, you know, their first baby, to what to expect if they do stay together.
And if you are with your baby and you're having a lot of anxiety, you can go, you know, we s- we do know statistically postpartum depression's also hormone, but most is situational they say.
So when a mother feels supported, she's not tired because someone's helping her, she has less postpartum depression.
If you're the depressed, your mate can't even relate to you.
You're just too depressed.
So he's gonna, she's gonna check out.
You're no longer the person he married.
You're, you're sad, you're crying.
You have no interest in him.
You have no interest in your baby.
That is depression.
And so therefore, it, a lot of them, not all they clock out.
They don't want to be a part of it.
So if we give the mom the support, less depression.
If she is depressed, we come and tell the dad, "You didn't do it.
It's temporary.
Hang in there.
Let's get you both some counseling."
So, you know, so I think these are conversations I don't see really happening all the time.
Are you noticing those conversations as a doula? No, not really.
Um, I mean, you know, these are things that we talk about with our clients, but on, on- Mm-hmm a whole, I would rather it be a whole conversation, like a whole nation conversation.
We could use- Oh, for sure these sort of like educational campaign across America- Right, right, right at this point, you know? Exactly.
I would love for OBGYNs to be having this.
Our midwife- Mm-hmm talked to us about this, but again- Oh, good it's like, you know- Isolated uh, yeah.
A- and, and I don't know.
I kind of expect that from midwives.
I feel like they do much more of a whole person care approach.
Right.
But you know, I would love to see it in the hospital system.
I would love to see it in all childbirth educations.
I would love to see all doulas talking about it.
I would love to see- Right an educational campaign nationwide.
I mean, we have so much I would love the faith community to have a conversation.
You know, people are going to church and mosques and temples and synagogues and, you know, I tell people there's no conversation on this.
They'll talk about, uh, you know, prostate cancer or breast cancer at the, in the faith community, but they won't talk about how to be a good father, what postpartum is, how to support your partner during their pregnancy.
And people, you got these, you know, you got these people here.
Again, back in the schools, we're learning too late, you know, how to care for each other.
So, um I mean, we could into the elderly.
People are like, "Oh, okay, I'm taking care of my mother now," you know? And, uh, they were not prepared what it was like to have to take care of their mom or their dad who can no longer care for themselves.
They're also burnt out.
We don't talk about that preparation, you know, that might look like, and why you need help.
You know, I had to quit my job just so I could take my Use, I used up all my savings so I could care for my mother because her insurance wasn't okay, and I didn't want to put her in a home.
That's a conversation this country should be doing.
You know, we should have a system for people who, you know, everyone's gonna get older.
Mm-hmm.
Either you die young or you live to be old.
That's the option.
It's one or the other.
So if you didn't die young, you're gonna live to be old.
So there's no system for that, too.
So that is also what the midwives did.
They didn't just catch babies.
They really supported the foundation of the community, the family.
They were pillars in their community, and they talked about these kind of conversations because these are all life situations, you know? Mm.
You know, teaching a five-year-old that, you know, "Yes, Grandma, Granddaddy, or grandpas, go get them a cup of water."
You know, teaching our children how to give back at a young age.
People say, "How do you just work with seven kids?" 'Cause my kids worked.
They, you know, they were taught, like, you know, my kids are ironing clothes at nine years.
"Go iron your shirt."
You know, um, and they're all normal.
We don't have to get burnt out by waiting on our children hand and foot.
It's not designed for that.
Our job is to teach our children to be universal citizens, find their purpose, and make a difference.
And if you're doing everything for your child, I tell these people, you know, "Your son i, is not gonna be a candidate for my daughter because he is He, you're doing everything for him.
He's dysfunctional.
You know, you cook for him.
He's like 22 years old.
Get up and go get your own cup of water.
And while you're at it, get me a cup of water."
Yeah.
It says in the book that the five-year-old can help out.
If you have more than one, they can bring a cup of water to their mother.
They can take away a dirty plate.
It's not like, "Oh, I feel so bad because I'm making..."
No, teach our children how to serve so that they get their blessings.
And so don't feel guilty when your child gets older telling them to sweep the floor.
Kids like to be involved, you know? And there's a new study now.
Do not give our children's telephones to them all.
Our children need to see the mother's face to learn.
You know, you walk down the street and the poor little two-year-old's there and the mother's at her phone not even looking at her two-year-old, and the child's just standing there.
Mm.
Because we're no longer giving our We're so You know, it's an addiction.
It is an addiction.
Mm.
Yeah.
I have a phone too, by the way.
Yeah.
I understand.
I'm on my phone also.
Yeah.
So It's hard not to be.
Um, but, but, you know, with some intentionality you can definitely- You can definitely curb that a little bit.
I, I think just making sure that you have spaces where you are phone-free around your child and time- Right it's just you and your child.
Right.
Um, I think it's impossible not to have phones around our children.
When I had my son, I was like, "No screens."
Right.
That is so silly.
I have to answer a text message.
Right.
And the way that we talk to both sets of grandparents and his aunts are, is FaceTime, right? So that's a screen.
Right.
Well, that's different.
At least it's FaceTime.
Yeah, and it's skin-to-skin interaction You're face-to-face together.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
But it's like, you know, no screens is impossible, but do having spaces and time where you don't have screens- Exactly and it's just you and your baby is really, really, really important.
Oh my gosh, okay.
Mama Shafia, we are out of time, but you are- Okay a wealth of knowledge, and I feel like we did not even tap into a sliver of it.
So I want people to get your book, because I know that you just dumped everything, your heart and your soul and all of your brain into this book so that people could have good postpartum experiences.
So where can people grab your book, and where can people learn from you? How can they connect with you? If they're even in the South at all, where can people find you? Okay, well I'm Northwest Oregon Oh, you're in Oregon now.
Okay.
Yeah.
I thought you lived in Alabama.
But I travel all over.
I just came back from Michigan.
I'm headed to Virginia.
I travel.
My book, by the way, is called Mothering the Mother.
This beautiful pink copy with the whole family around the mom.
It's for everybody, this book, Mothering the Mother.
It's on Amazon or any place where books are sold.
You can also go to shafiamonroe.com.
As a courtesy, I have the links there, three different links.
Just wanna click on the link you'll still get the book from whatever place it's, it's gonna come from.
And, um, you can find me again at shafiamonroe.com.
That is my website.
I'm happy to have you take my doula training.
I offer a postpartum one-day course with CEUs.
I come do motivational speaking.
I come inspire you.
I do coaching for small female businesses in birth work.
So whatever I can do to help you get to the next level, that's what I love to do.
I love t- I love people.
You said I love to talk and share, and I want what I have to be given before I leave this world, you know? That's why I wrote the book.
No one's gonna be here forever.
I wanna make sure...
People like, "Well, how do I find information?" 'Cause I would do it in the class.
I'm like, "You know what? If you don't come to my class, you don't know, and that's not fair."
Everybody can't make my class.
Let me put this into a book so everybody can access it.
Whether you take my class or not, you're gonna get a large majority of what I teach in the book.
So the book is great.
Recipes, like how to eat.
Women's so anemic, we talk about anemia in the book.
We talk the point of having placenta for oxygen.
We talk about how to get people to help.
We talk about your right to rest and, like you said, HeHe, how to feel comfortable resting, not feeling guilty.
We talk about the dad, a section on thanking the dad for his work and tell the mom to thank the dad for helping out.
Don't, you know, be polite to each other.
We talk about why you should stay warm, you know, what that does.
Putting a blanket on or staying warm, it increases oxygen.
Oxygen brings, uh, blood flow to the, to the, the wounded area to help it to heal.
They did the study in the senior citizens home by putting blankets on older people.
They felt less pain.
So my book is definitely research and evidence-based.
I had a great time writing this book.
Took me three years of reading and researching.
Oh my God, it's just, like, so much.
I couldn't put everything into the book.
I, I learned so much just by writing the book.
So how to stay warm, importance of water, uh, what kind of bath to take after the baby's born, how do you prevent that burning and that episi- or the small tear.
These are things that we've hear- learned for years that really do work.
You know, sitting on certain things at a certain time to...
So you don't have to have a lot of pain There should not be pain after you have your baby.
There could be a little bit, but the things that would make it be shorter.
And so we don't know how to take care of ourselves.
You know, how to wrap the stomach and why to wrap the stomach.
What does that do? You know, you know, how to, what do I do when my breasts are heavy with milk and, you know, it's hurting.
What do I put on my nipples when they're cracked? You know, um, how do I bathe my baby who keeps crying, you know, has colic? What do we do to calm him down? There are things that we can do so Mom doesn't lose it.
So all those things are in the book.
And wh- and why you're so special and how you need, you deserve the best.
As a mother, after God, you're next.
You are elevated.
You're at a higher state, and we want women to own that.
Motherhood has been, uh, pushed down, but no, it's, it's like to be a mother, to bring forth life in the world, nobody can do that but you.
That is, like, so that is powerful.
You deserve to be cared for, you sacrificed your life to bring life into the world.
You may- maybe you didn't make it, and that's why we take care of you.
You passed over from birth back into the physical world, and now you're, uh, very sensitive.
You need to be warm and be fed and be hugged and be kissed.
And oh, you look so pretty.
Let me do your hair.
Let me put your earrings on for you.
Let's put this pretty nightgown on you.
Just keeping your vibrations high.
When you feel pretty and you look good and you're being rubbed and hugged, what can you but produce abundant milk? I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm a queen.
I, I love this."
I feel like I don't want my postpartum to end, Mama Shaffia.
When, uh, this is great.
Don't stop.
I mean, who doesn't want to be cared for? Like, I have one of my Was my last day again? Oh, no.
You know, coming over and getting all that attention.
And sometimes just sitting, letting them sleep.
We don't have to talk, just go to sleep.
I'll sit in the front room 'cause no one's home and they just want someone in the house.
Yeah.
A lot of moms don't want to be by themselves with a brand-new baby.
You know, it's too quiet.
So I'll just sit in the front room and get on my phone, by the way, or get on my laptop, but I'm in the home so she feels like someone's there.
Like, like you would feel if your grandmom was there.
There's someone in the house doing something.
You just feel like, okay, she feels safe.
Just little things that we do, little things that are inexpensive, that are just normal family, human behavior.
I love the dolphins, how they all surround the mother giving birth, and they stay with her for a year, or the whale.
These high-level mammals, monkeys, this, these great communities where their baby's on the back and everyone's all picking the bugs off the ba- everyone's helping.
I just love that animal world, and that's what we should be doing, and it's what we used to do.
And even with the change in society, we still can create our families, even if it's just two or three other good friends that are gonna help out.
So, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Oh my gosh.
They can buy my book, at.
Shaffiamurad.com
And I'm on Instagram at shafiamonroe.
I dream of a world that is like that.
Like, I really do dream of this world where we just support moms and babies in this whole entire process from- Right fertility, uh, actually all the way from, like, menstruation through fertility and pregnancy and postpartum, just like all of the whole spectrum.
Ugh, what a dream world that would be.
All right, you guys, grab a copy of Mothering the Mother.
I cannot wait to get my hands on the book.
Mama Shafia, thank you so much for being here with us today.
It is such a joy and such an honor to have you on the show.
And listeners, you guys know I love hanging out with you guys as well.
This was an incredible, incredible episode.
I feel like we got so many nuggets of wisdom, as well as just, like, I don't know, do you guys just feel, like, warm and safe? I just feel like- ha, I feel like I just got a great big hug.
Like, I, I just do.
You did.
Oh my gosh.
Thank you.
You are the best.
No, thank you.
Thank you, seriously.
All right, you guys, I will see you in the next episode.
Be sure to follow Mama Shafia on social media, and you can find me at tranquilitybyhehe and at the.birth.lounge.
Until next time, head to your app store and download the Birth Lounge app for evidence-based childbirth education and data-driven postpartum support delivered straight to your phone.
Bye.
Thank you so much for tuning in today.
I love hanging out with you, and it is an honor to be your go-to gal when it comes to preparing for your baby.
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You deserve to have a birth that you love with a provider that values your autonomy and respects informed consent without all the trauma that you so commonly hear about on social media.
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I'm HeHe, and this is the Birth Lounge Podcast.