Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
17. Lessons in Momistry: Dear Dr. Jen, Am I Losing My Mind?, with Jen & Rachel
120 Plays1 year ago
Class is in session! Don't worry, we'll keep it brief, and there are no rules in Dr. Jen's class. Come as you are, bring your snacks, and leave if you want to.
We all talk about hormones and "mom brain" like we're experts. But today, we're actually going to hear from an expert, our very own Dr. Jen Jordan, MD.
In this episode you’ll learn:
- What hormones are, and why it's important that you understand them and their physical processes in your body.
- What role key hormones play in the perinatal period (estrogen/progesterone, oxytocin, cortisol).
- How these hormones interact with chemical neurotransmitters to influence your mood, emotions, and anxiety.
xoxo + PERMISSION TO DITCH BOUNCE-BACK CULTURE ,
Dr. Jen and Rachel
Dr Jen's Free Guide to Understanding Hormones and Mood in Pregnancy and Postpartum
Key Hormone Overview on our @bloomafterbaby page
Join our email list so we can keep in touch! - no spam and we won't blow up your inbox, we pinky promise.
If you enjoyed this episode and appreciate what we share here, please rate and review the show in your favorite podcast app! And come find us on Instagram @bloomafterbaby!
You can learn more about Rachel's California-based group therapy practice and how you can work with her at www.racheldaggettlmft.com or on instagram @rachelscouch
*Please note that this podcast is intended for educational purposes only, and is not a substitute for seeking individualized care from a mental health or medical professional*
Stay Tuned for more to come from Rachel Daggett and Dr Jen Jordan on all things motherhood and mental health - real mom experiences and insights from a licensed psychotherapist and medical doctor.
Learn more about us and access all of our courses, services, and free resources at bloomafterbaby.com
Pregnancy tips Postpartum wellness Prenatal care New motherhood Postpartum recovery Maternal health Pregnancy journey Expectant mothers Postpartum support Motherhood experience Parenting advice Family dynamics Parenting tips Raising children Family well-being Parenting challenges Family relationships Parenting insights Mental health for mothers Emotional well-being Coping with motherhood Maternal mental health Self-care for moms Stress management Emotional resilience Conversations with experts Interviews with mothers Real-life parenting stories Expert advice for moms Support for new mothers Insights on motherhood Informative parenting discussions Working moms Health at Every Size Intuitive Eating Mindfulness Best Podcast Empowering mothers Couples therapy Psychotherapy Breastfeeding tips Sleep during pregnancy Postpartum nutrition Marriage and Family Marriage after baby Balancing work and motherhood Pregnancy self-care Healthy pregnancy habits Relationships
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Bloom After Baby
00:00:02
Speaker
You're listening to Bloom After Baby, the podcast. We're your hosts, Rachel Daggett and Jen Jordan. We're a therapist and a doctor and both moms of two. We're here to discuss the mental health and wellness needs that are unique to motherhood. From confusing hormone swings to your expanding body to boundaries and tricky relationships, we'll give you the information you need to experience motherhood in a way that feels good to you.
00:00:30
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning in. Let's get to it.
New Podcast Format: 'Dear Dr. Jen'
00:00:34
Speaker
Hello, hello, welcome back to a bit frazzled. This is Rachel starting out this episode today and Jen and I are trying out a new format. As you all know, we are both moms and so we're very busy and we're having a little bit of a tricky time lining up our schedules, as I'm sure you understand, to be able to record all of these episodes together. So as you'll notice, sometimes either of us may be interviewing our guests solo and we had a couple of
00:01:04
Speaker
Purely solo episodes early on and today we're gonna try out this format of a series we're gonna call dear dr. Jen where I'm gonna come on first and talk a bit and introduce a topic and then ask a couple of questions and have Jenny respond and Make it into one episode. So we're gonna see how this goes. We're open to your feedback Let us know if you like it or not, but you know what? We're just learning as we go here. So
00:01:29
Speaker
Thanks for being here.
Rachel and Jen's Journey and Collaboration
00:01:31
Speaker
And I'm going to brag about my friend for a second. Many of you may not know Jen and I have been friends for a long time, probably, let's say it's 2024, close to 10 years now. And we met when I was in graduate school getting my master's in psychology and she was in med school. And if you have a friend who is a provider of any kind, you may find yourself texting and calling them, constantly asking them random
00:01:55
Speaker
medical questions or legal questions or finance or whatever industry they may be in. And Dr. Jenny has just been so patient with me and our group of friends with asking her solicited annoying medical questions.
00:02:11
Speaker
We embarked upon becoming engaged together, not together, but around the same time to our respective partners and getting married within a year of each other and going through wedding planning process and all of that. And then moving, we both moved away from the place where we really built a lot of bonds in the South Bay of Los Angeles, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach.
00:02:33
Speaker
And just starting this whole new phase of life together of then becoming parents, pregnancy and infertility issues and postpartum and all of this stuff. And so it's been really cool to go through these personal phases of life together with Jen. And also I've reaped benefits of her being a doctor.
00:02:50
Speaker
being able to text her a couple weeks ago what is this weird rash Blake is having is this an allergic reaction do i need to take her in and there was a time also Jen you will probably remember this we have it on video somewhere where Shawn and i helped you guys and Freddie and Caitlin we all our little group we helped you and Eric move to a new apartment in Manhattan Beach and i think somehow
00:03:12
Speaker
Let me correct myself. Sean helped you guys move. I bet me and Caitlin were probably having mimosas somewhere, not being the slightest bit useful. But somehow your huge Z gallery bed got dropped on Sean's toe and he lost his toenail and it just blew up. I'm sure it was broken or something serious. And I remember being in your new apartment weeks later and you drained it and did this whole procedure in your living room.
00:03:38
Speaker
And it was so disgusting. It was just ridiculous. We were ridiculous. But thank you for all the medical help and advice and love and just ultimately the compassion and desire to help and to heal. And you genuinely care about the people you work with and know and their health and wellness.
00:03:56
Speaker
Jenny went to med school in her home state of Washington at the University of Washington. She graduated with her MD in 2013, completed all of her rounds of residency. I know the major one was in Los Angeles at UCLA and that was when we met. And she went on to practice family medicine and various different roles and ultimately working her way up to a medical director role. And one of the things that I love and admire most about Jen is that she truly cares about the work that she does.
00:04:26
Speaker
Something that I've heard her speak about from the beginning, Jen, when you were first starting out in your residency doing patient care was how hard it was for you to disconnect from your patients at the end of the day. And I know that was something that you and I both struggled with and both still do in our work one-on-one with clients and patients.
00:04:47
Speaker
was just this level of empathy and compassion and connection that we felt with the people that we were helping or interacting with on a day-to-day basis and how hard it was to not take all that on. We both have shared sometimes feeling limited within the limits of our licenses and obviously we both have practiced
00:05:07
Speaker
legally and ethically, but joking about wanting to adopt certain clients because we just have so much love for them. And that is a true feeling, really feeling love for the people that we interact with and work with. And that's something that I've always loved about Jenny and we've bonded over is wanting, truly wanting to help people connect with people, be useful and be drivers of cultural change in medical care and in mental health care, really the underlying driver that brought us
00:05:35
Speaker
both respectively into our fields. And I think why we felt like it was such a beautiful fit for us to ultimately build Bloom After Baby together and join forces and become business partners. But all that to say, Jenny is amazing.
Integrating Psychological and Medical Insights
00:05:49
Speaker
I'm so grateful to be in business with her and to be doing all this with her. Jenny, thank you. We're really
00:05:55
Speaker
Working to marry the psychological counseling perspective of mental health that I have with the medical perspective that Jen has and it's really a cool combination. So that was part of my inspiration of doing this format because she's such a wealth of knowledge and she's so willing.
00:06:14
Speaker
to help and I often oftentimes find myself referring on my therapy clients to their MD or their OBGYN for health and medical questions that they may come to me with in session. So today we're going to start it out. Just I want to ask Jenny if she will define some of the key medical terms that we're going to be talking a lot about in our posts, our episodes and our future courses that we're working on.
Discussion on Hormones and Neurochemicals
00:06:42
Speaker
and groups and workshops because there's a lot of things that I know I talk about and language that I use that if I were to be asked to describe and define what those things actually mean in scientific terms, I would probably find myself being tongue tied and probably asking Jen to help me do that. What I want to jump into is this whole topic of hormones. And I talk about hormones a lot. We all use that term just so offhand.
00:07:10
Speaker
I could name some of the major hormones that play part in specifically in perinatal health and mental health. And Jen has made a freebie that's on our website and I will link it in the show notes here that is hormones and mood in pregnancy and postpartum. So you don't have to guess.
00:07:30
Speaker
And it's so helpful. And so, but for those of us who are more like audible listeners or who just like to learn by hearing and listening and hearing Jen's voice, I'm wondering, Jenny, if you can help us actually understand and know what our hormones actually, what is the scientific definition of what a hormone is? And then is there a difference? What's the difference between a hormone and a neurochemical?
00:07:53
Speaker
Are those the same thing the main hormones that we talk about and that i definitely work with my clients on more in terms of like behavioral and mood and how they impact us and then how to cope with the changes that occur due to the massive shifts in hormones in pregnancy postpartum beyond.
00:08:12
Speaker
Jen actually does know the mechanics or the science and chemistry of what hormones actually are. So for example, estrogen slash progesterone, which I didn't even know were the same thing. I will admit that until a couple of years ago. What are those? And estrogen, obviously I feel like in my, gosh, my
00:08:35
Speaker
hormone for dummies brain kind of just sees estrogen as like the female quote unquote hormone versus testosterone which is more of the male dominant hormone hormone that's my very general understanding of it but how does it play a part in pregnancy birth and postpartum and then oxytocin is the other major hormone that we talk about a lot which is also known as the love and
00:08:58
Speaker
and lactation hormone. You may think of oxytocin really starting to peak around the time that you notice nesting behaviors or when our bodies are starting to produce milk for our babies. Oxytocin plays a part in both of those things. I often talk about oxytocin as a feel-good hormone and a lot of times I suggest with moms who are experiencing postpartum mood or anxiety disorders or baby blues
00:09:26
Speaker
I often recommend things like doing a lot of skin to skin, really getting some help with lactation support because breastfeeding can really help with oxytocin production, which can help lift your mood and help you feel those warm and fuzzy bonding feelings with your baby. Fed is best. We talk about a lot of the benefits of breastfeeding and we certainly encourage it, but we are not anti-bottle feeding or pumping or formula fed babies. Fed is best.
00:09:55
Speaker
And there are many other ways that you can boost oxytocin naturally other than breastfeeding. Like I said, skin to skin, just feeding your baby with a bottle and having that closeness. Whether you're breastfeeding or not, all of these shifts in our bodies that occur, the very few weeks of postpartum, and then all the ups and downs of milk production or weaning can cause a lot of mood swings related to those changes in oxytocin.
00:10:22
Speaker
The other hormone that I want to speak to that I talk about a lot in my practice with all kinds of clients.
00:10:29
Speaker
is cortisol. So cortisol is the stress hormone. It's crucial for regulating our stress responses, specifically the fight or flight response and coping with physical stressors. So during labor, during delivery, during birth, if you have chronic stress or you're dealing with a big stressor or life change, your cortisol levels are going to be higher. And so Jenny, will you break that down for us? How does cortisol play a part in pregnancy and postpartum? And what's the trend there?
00:10:59
Speaker
So for today, dear Dr. Jen, am I losing my goddamn mind? Why do I feel crazy? People usually respond, me included, because your hormones are all over the place. But what does that actually mean? What are hormones? Can you explain in your really smart science language, but in a way we will understand what you are really good at?
00:11:20
Speaker
What is estrogen and progesterone? What is cortisol? And what is oxytocin? And how do those three major hormones play a role in the many mood swings on the roller coaster that is pregnancy, postpartum, and beyond? Help us, Dr. Jen.
The Concept of Matrescence
00:11:40
Speaker
Rachel, thank you so much for the kind and overly generous introduction. Such great questions. And I think a lot of your questions are questions that we get a lot in our messages and our DMs. And they're important questions because I think that really understanding some of these underlying physical processes really provides a lot of, one, comfort and
00:12:03
Speaker
reassurance, just having some understanding and awareness of what's going on. And then also really helps guide some of our treatment and management options. And we'll get more into that in a subsequent episode, but really understanding what treatment or even just techniques and strategies make sense based on
00:12:21
Speaker
what is actually going on in your body. So really, really important questions. First, I want to just take a quick kind of zoom out and talk about this transition into motherhood. In some of our social media posts, we've talked about the term matrescence, and it's a new term to most people. Matrescence is the all-encompassing transition into motherhood. So it's likened to adolescence, and research shows that a woman's brain can change more quickly and more drastically during pregnancy and postpartum.
00:12:50
Speaker
any other point in her life including a lesson in these changes are intentional they're designed to support our new mom role that this two point o body and brain has built in parenting instincts.
00:13:03
Speaker
helping you learn new baby-related tasks and to bond with your baby, making you more vigilant and protective. But these changes in the brain with shifting hormones are also related to mood swings and irritability, anxiety, some of the more distressing emotions that you
00:13:21
Speaker
could be experiencing during that time. And like I mentioned, you can't fully understand your emotions and mood without understanding what's really happening in your brain and body that's causing these experiences. So let's start with hormones. When we talk about hormones and mood, we might think of mood swings, common phrases like you're PMSing or you're acting hormonal. And sometimes those are even used
00:13:43
Speaker
as an insult to suggest you're being like irrational or overreacting but hormones are actually a big deal. They're chemical messengers in your body that serve so many critical functions and have so much to do with how you're feeling during this this perinatal time. So let's talk about which ones are at play, what they do. So you can think of hormones as little messengers that travel through your body telling organs and glands
00:14:08
Speaker
what functions need to be performed. And let's talk about four of the key hormones during your pregnancy and postpartum period and how they can impact your mood and mental state. First of all, there's estrogen and progesterone. So during pregnancy, your body produces very high amounts of estrogen and progesterone. And to put it in perspective, by the time of delivery, estrogen levels are a thousand times higher than before pregnancy.
00:14:32
Speaker
And a woman will produce more estrogen during one pregnancy than throughout her entire life when not pregnant. But immediately after delivery, levels of both of these hormones drop off a cliff. So when you think of mood swings with PMS, think of that times a thousand. We'll talk about the impacts.
00:14:50
Speaker
mood with how they do that in a minute but just know those are major shifts in those hormone levels during that time and then oxytocin is your love and lactation hormone and it's related to nesting behaviors and baby bliss so feelings towards the end of pregnancy and then in postpartum it's related to maternal infant bonding and
00:15:11
Speaker
And then lastly cortisol. So cortisol is essential for regulating stress response like the fight or flight response but it's actually involved in a lot of different types of stress responses in your body including normal physical stressors like rigorous exercise including labor. It peaks at the end of pregnancy to help with labor related stress. So it's appropriate for levels to be elevated at that time but it can also have some down downsides when it comes to emotions and mood.
00:15:39
Speaker
So that's an overview of some of the key players.
Hormonal Impact on Neurotransmitters and Mood
00:15:42
Speaker
And I want to emphasize too that it's the rapid fluctuation or rapid changes in these hormone levels that can be most impactful in terms of mood and emotions. So now let's talk a little bit about the way they actually impact mood. Hormones interact with chemical messengers in the brain called neurotransmitters. These include like dopamine and serotonin. And we generally associate dopamine and serotonin with positive emotions, happiness, reduced anxiety.
00:16:10
Speaker
So essentially hormone changes directly impact that communication network, those communication molecules in your brain. So for example, when estrogen and progesterone are at an all time high at the end of pregnancy, you get a nice little bump in dopamine and serotonin related to those elevated estrogen and progesterone hormones. So this is the baby bliss that some people experience in the third trimester.
00:16:36
Speaker
But then just within the first 24 hours after delivery, estrogen and progesterone plummet to near pre-pregnancy levels. And so that rapid drop can cause fluctuations in dopamine and serotonin that can make you feel horrible.
00:16:52
Speaker
This can be part of the cause of mood swings and depressive symptoms that we refer to as baby blues in those first few weeks. And actually 80% of birthing mothers experience those type of emotions, sadness, irritability, insomnia, fatigue that go along with the baby blues. So again, I want to emphasize that those feelings in the weeks after delivery, there's an organic cause. And I think this is the part that's kind of comforting about understanding the physiology is that, you know, it's not just the
00:17:22
Speaker
craziness of life with the newborn, there's actually a biological cause for feeling sensitive and moody that it's a normal part of your hormone shifts. And I think this is especially reassuring for people who might be experiencing more severe mood changes or depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, because your body is actually in a state similar to the chemical state of someone with depression or anxiety. So
00:17:49
Speaker
you're feeling some of those feelings organically. And so there is some comfort in kind of understanding that your body is in that state and that it's not something that you're doing or just related to your environment.
00:18:03
Speaker
And then let's talk about oxytocin a little more. So you know, the feeling you get when you hold your little one and you'll get that tingling sensation in your breasts or feel the milk flushes and oxytocin is responsible for that. We think of it usually as the bonding hormone and the initial quick drop after birth is actually also thought to play a role in baby blues. But then during the first few days after delivery, your body kind of adjusts to the up and down.
00:18:29
Speaker
that you'll get with breastfeeding or pumping in. Then it will kind of hang around fluctuating with milk production until you reduce the number of feedings and start weaning baby completely.
Understanding Postpartum Mood Swings
00:18:39
Speaker
And then cortisol, cortisol has a lot of functions. We mentioned how it's involved in ways of appropriate internal stress responses, but too much cortisol can also be associated with a constant high alert kind of anxiety, irritability, state, and other mood changes.
00:18:58
Speaker
And we said how cortisol rises at the end of pregnancy to help with labor and other things, but researchers have also found an interesting phenomenon where it seems
00:19:07
Speaker
hormones of pregnancy like estrogen and progesterone will actually buffer some of those negative emotional side effects and that the high levels of cortisol actually seem to help birthing mothers become more tolerant to stress and kind of a desensitizing or tuning out lower stressors, making them less reactive to stressful situations while at the same time making moms more vigilant and responsive to infants needs.
00:19:34
Speaker
But it is a hormone that can have a lot of different effects depending on what else is going on in the body at a given time. So it definitely can continue to play a role in mood throughout postpartum, including moods like anxiety, irritability, and some of those negative mood disruptions. So we covered a lot of information there. Let's take a step back for a second. Now we have an understanding about which hormones are at play in the perinatal period and how they can affect your mood.
00:20:04
Speaker
But what I really want you to take away from all of this is that when you're going through those mood changes, just recognizing that it's not just about being overwhelmed with a newborn exhaustion, stressors in your environment, triggering people in your environment, that all those things could be factors, but that it's also that you are functioning with this new brain and body that is going through changes that make you
00:20:32
Speaker
vulnerable and susceptible to these mood changes. And again, hopefully that awareness and understanding the cause and also kind of knowing what emotions and feelings you might experience knowing that that's likely during that period of time so that you can better anticipate and prepare and protect your mental state as much as possible during those times that you are more vulnerable.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:20:57
Speaker
So I know that's a lot of dense information. I hope it is helpful.
00:21:01
Speaker
Again, Rachel, thank you so much for the insightful questions and definitely follow along with us on Instagram. We'll be continuing to post about these topics. Sometimes having a visual is helpful too. So we're creating some graphs and visuals that can help kind of break it down too. And we'll definitely include links to those in the show notes as well.
00:21:22
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning in with us today. If you enjoyed this episode and feel like it brought you value, don't forget to rate the show and leave a review. Your feedback means the world to us and helps us know which conversations you are needing the most. And we'll keep bringing you new episodes every week, so hit subscribe so you don't miss a thing.
00:21:41
Speaker
Also, be sure to check out the show notes for any links or resources that we mentioned. We're on this journey with you, so be sure to find us on the Gram and TikTok. Plus, go to bloomafterbaby.com and grab our free guides on all things motherhood created just for you. Breathe, be well, and keep growing, Mama.