Read time: 2.5 mins

Hi Friends! Happy Tuesday and welcome to the first email is the series on simple health tips. Today we're exploring Pregnancy, Birth, & Postpartum.

From the hundreds of clients I've worked with, all my certifications, years of clinical experience, and collaborations with other professionals in the field, I'm going to give you the four most simple and most helpful tips for health and wellness from pre-conception to postpartum. You can take them at face value or dive deeper into each concept by listening to the linked episodes of The Resource Doula Podcast or by simply scrolling through the blog that has show notes for each episode and additional articles that aren't podcast episodes....yet.

1. Nourish your body well: eat enough protein and get enough electrolytes. This is especially important for growing a healthy baby AND making sure your body recovers well. Listen or watch my most recent podcast with Lily Nichols here and my interview with Amanda Montalvo here.
2. Move your body well: lift heavy things and prioritize strength over cardio. The old "don't lift more than 25#" in pregnancy is outdated and does women a disservice, because motherhood is the ultimate strength workout. If you just did squats, farmer carries, deadlifts, and overhead press you'd be setting yourself up for success for a lifetime. Listen or watch my episode with Christina Prevett on heavy lifting during pregnancy & postpartum here, discover how an exercise community could be the thing you need in my episode with Laura Sasala here, and plan your return to exercise after having a baby by listening to this episode with Julia Di Paulo here.
3. Take good care of your mental health: arguably way more important than preparing the most aesthetic of nurseries. Know how your brain works, see a counselor, and learn tools that will help! Preparing for birth with a "Mental Push Plan" is a great idea - listen to Carolyn & Lauren talk about how this idea works here and here. Listen to my interview with Morgan Turner about how we can do our part to improve maternal mental health here, and how to be a model and not a martyr with Calisa and Holly here.
4. Listen to your intuition and trust it: if you've been paying attention, almost every single one of my podcast guests (and many of my clients) echoes this very piece of advice. It's incredibly important to realize that it's your body, your pregnancy, your birth, and your postpartum, and you get to call the shots. If you need encouragement to trust yourself, listen to this episode with Laura Nance, and if you need to understand how you can take full responsibility for your birth experience, listen to this episode with Kelly & Tiffany of Beautiful One Midwifery where they talk about true informed consent.

How's that for fairly simple? Hit reply and tell me which of the four tips you resonated with most.

We'll be back next week for the second email in this series on simple health tips where we'll talk about movement & exercise! Thanks so much for reading!

Warmly,

Natalie