Keep Diet Culture Out Of Postpartum with Jaren Soloff, RD, IBCLC Artwork

The Postpartum Revolution

Welcome to The Postpartum Revolution! This podcast was born because, as a pelvic health physical therapist, I’ve heard and seen the ways our system has failed postpartum people in America. Newly postpartum people have repeated the same questions to me, with fear in their eyes and fatigue written all over their bodies, and I’ve grown tired of soothing them with the reassurance that it’s “all a part of the process, it’s normal to feel like this”. I began to wonder - what the hell kind of “normal process” is this, that produces tired and scared mothers? While not everyone has a negative experience with childbirth and postpartum, many people do. A lot of factors influence our postpartum experience: understanding how your body recovers, how much community and financial support you have, and how well our society helps to support a new family. My goal is to provide education about the postpartum recovery process, so you can set yourself up for a successful return to the things that bring you joy. I also want to bring awareness to the larger, systemic challenges that pregnant and postpartum people face, so that collectively we can start to turn the tide of our culture, and our children won't be trapped in an unhealthy and unsupported birth and postpartum culture. We have lost our power in the birth and postpartum world, and our loss is directly linked to other people's gain. It's time to take back the power over our bodies, our births, and our postpartum health. We are the change we have been waiting for. Let's go.

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The Postpartum Revolution

Keep Diet Culture Out Of Postpartum with Jaren Soloff, RD, IBCLC

March 05, 2021 • Annie Hopkins, Jaren Soloff • Season 2 • Episode 39

*Gains weight during pregnancy*

People: Oh cute, you're eating for two!

*Gains weight postpartum*

People: Ew, you need to start losing the baby fat ASAP.

Why do people think that our bodies are ready to start bouncing back to an intense exercise routine and restricted diet IMMEDIATELY after giving birth? Postpartum is the time that you need to rest, replenish, and recover! Childbirth and infant feeding demand a lot from our body, and when we deny those demands, our health can suffer.

Here's why:
- 20 million women in America have an eating disorder.
- Approximately 91% of women are unhappy with their bodies and resort to dieting to achieve their ideal body shape.
- Only 5% of women naturally possess the body type often portrayed by Americans in the media.
- 93% of individuals who identified disordered eating during their pregnancy are not identified by their providers.

Jaren Soloff, a Registered Dietitian, an Internal Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), and I discuss her experience with recovering from an eating disorder, how motherhood challenged her relationship with food and her body in ways she couldn't imagine, the importance of practicing intuitive eating, especially around your children, and the dangers of restricting your diet while recovering from childbirth.

Jaren is the founder of FULL CRCL, which provides nutrition counseling and lactation consultations to help both mom and baby thrive in motherhood. Informed by her own journey and the hundreds of women she has counseled, Jaren’s experience comes full circle to support women in navigating pregnancy, birth, and postpartum from a simple and intuitive framework.

You can receive Jaren’s pre and post birth nutrition counseling or lactation counseling at her website: https://www.fullcrcl.co/about

Or follow her on Instagram: @Fullcrcl_

Check out her new cookbook: The Postnatal Cookbook

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Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Want to be a guest on the show? Email me at thepostpartumrevolutionpodcast@gmail.com

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