Welcome to our season one finale! We welcome Kristen Mihaly of Nourish Holistic Health and Nutrition. We had the pleasure of talking with Kristen about postpartum nutrition and how important it is for recovery and healing. You don’t want to miss this one! We will be taking a little break but will be back in August!
Join as we discuss:
Resources Mentioned:
Nourish Holistic Health & Nutrition
Nourish Holistic Health & Nutrition Instagram
Liver Capsules- Use code LABYRINTH for 15% off!
Rice Porridge: #1 Must-Have Recipe After Birth
Healing Your Body Naturally After Childbirth
Fed + Fit | Healthy Recipes, Meal Prep, Wellness, and Beauty
Looking for more? Check us out on Youtube & visit the blog for show notes and transcript
Connect:
Holistic Birth and Beyond, LLC
Into the Labyrinth Birth Services
Brigitte- Instagram & Facebook
Welcome to our season one finale! We welcome Kristen Mihaly of Nourish Holistic Health and Nutrition. We had the pleasure of talking with Kristen about postpartum nutrition and how important it is for recovery and healing. You don’t want to miss this one! We will be taking a little break but will be back in August!
Join as we discuss:
Resources Mentioned:
Nourish Holistic Health & Nutrition
Nourish Holistic Health & Nutrition Instagram
Liver Capsules- Use code LABYRINTH for 15% off!
Rice Porridge: #1 Must-Have Recipe After Birth
Healing Your Body Naturally After Childbirth
Fed + Fit | Healthy Recipes, Meal Prep, Wellness, and Beauty
Looking for more? Check us out on Youtube & visit the blog for show notes and transcript
Connect:
Holistic Birth and Beyond, LLC
Into the Labyrinth Birth Services
Brigitte- Instagram & Facebook
Allison 0:17
Welcome back to the Holistic Birth Podcast. Today, we have Kristen with us. She's our first guest speaker! She is a nutritionist, a holistic nutritionist out of Bradford, New Hampshire. She also sees people virtually and she's gonna chat with us today, on our 10th episode, about postpartum nutrition.
Brigitte 1:10
We're super excited to have you here. Thank you so much.
Kristen 1:13
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. And I think it's such an important topic that can sometimes be overlooked because in that postpartum season, you're just in like, the total frenzy survival mode and if you fuel your body properly, it can really make a big difference.
Brigitte 1:30
Yeah, definitely. We're super excited to have you here. I'd love to know how you became a nutritionist, like what led you down that path? Just tell us more about that.
Kristen 1:40
Thank you. So this was never part of my life's plan. I was a singer songwriter. I'm from Cape Cod, born and raised there. And I was going back and forth between the cape and Nashville and I ate frozen dinners and Oreos, and goldfish like, never thought anything about like, eating and the priority there. And then I got really sick. So I ended up with an autoimmune disease in my spinal cord. Half the team thought it was Lyme disease, half said it was autoimmunity, and was just put on steroids, antibiotics. And from that point, I was in a wheelchair for about eight months.
Brigitte 2:19
Oh my god.
Kristen 2:20
And was told at like 16, 17, we don't know what's wrong, we've checked for all the big, crazy heavy hitters kind of -- good luck. And along that path, someone along the way said why don't you check out functional nutrition or holistic nutrition. And at that point, if you told me to eat tree bark, like I would have. We can really only go up from here. And that addition into my life really made a huge impact and a really big change. I ended up also being diagnosed with endometriosis and they said fertility would be very difficult, there's probably no chance of being able to have children. I started working with this practitioner and then when I shifted careers, I got to do my whole preceptorship with them. So it kind of came full circle, which is nice. And then I opened Nourish in 2012. So it's our 11th year in practice.
Allison 3:22
Happy anniversary!
Kristen 3:24
Thank you. And now we see, like Allison was saying, men, women and children. Our youngest client is three months and our oldest client is 89. In person and across the world. So yeah, it's been an incredible process and one that I'm really grateful for, and it's shifted my health and the health of my family. And I now have two children. And may I say that these two lovely women were my doulas for the birth of my daughter, Charlotte. So this is such an honor and a gift to be here with you today.
Brigitte 4:04
It was an honor being with you in that time too.
Allison 4:06
Yeah, of course.
Brigitte 4:08
Yeah, that's a I feel like a lot of folks get on this path because they've gone through some sort of healing or health crisis sort of thing.
Kristen 4:18
Totally. And the seed was planted younger. I have a brother with severe autism, he's nonverbal. And 33 years ago, autism was pretty rare. And there was no Google for my parents to search, you know, diet support, but someone along the way, at Boston Children's said, Why don't you look at gluten and casein. And my mom was like, if Matt's going gluten free, we all are and it was like eating cardboard. It was horrible. But that's when I started to see the connection, but was still like standard American diet. And then when I got sick was when everything kind of came together.
Brigitte 4:56
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah,
Allison 4:59
Thank you so much for sharing. We were honored to be with you during Charlotte's birth. I'm so glad that you've found a path to healing and better balancing and figuring out what the heck you needed.
Kristen 5:15
Yes. Thank you. And I think it's important too that we keep that balance that you're talking about Allison. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, like we don't have to go live in a year in the Swiss Alps to have this holistic minded view. We really strive with clients and myself personally in the 80-20 rule of balance. We still want you to enjoy birthday cake on your birthday and a hot dog at a barbecue. But finding the equilibrium can be where the magic happens.
Brigitte 5:48
Yeah, yeah. Cool. So you live on a farm, right? You have your own farm chickens and stuff. Cool.
Kristen 5:54
Chickens and ducks and bees. And we had a bunny. She's on vacation, we think. And my husband says he won't do anything he has to milk. But I'm wishing for like a goat or a cow.
Brigitte 6:12
Yeah, that's super cool. I have chickens and goats and bees. Well, I did have bees. They they didn't make it. It was a rough winter. So I can totally relate with that. And I feel like a lot of people that have are on the health journey end up having like their own sourced food and everything. Super cool. Awesome.
Allison 6:33
Well, we are thrilled to have you. There are so many layers to postpartum and nutrition is clearly something that could not only help with overall healing, but also the recovery, lactation support, your mental health. Could you share with us, Kristen, what is the important link between postpartum nutrition and mental health?
Kristen 6:56
Yes, absolutely. So about 80% of our happy hormones live within our gut. And the gut is known as the second brain. And I sometimes joke in our practice that it's really like the first because as children, we really honor those like butterfly feelings you have or that intuition, and then that kind of can stretch or change as we age. But your gut really knows what's going on. And when we fuel that system properly, we see a nice balance in those hormones, things like estrogen, testosterone, but also melatonin, serotonin, dopamine, cholesterol is a hormone. So the big importance there is to make sure with postpartum health that we're replenishing those babies, though incredible, do suck the life out of us. And they're stealing your stores. So prenatal nutrition is so important. And I feel like we're starting to discuss that more and more, but postpartum, it's like we have to rebuild from the last 10 months. And then if mom does decide to breastfeed, we have to continue those stores as well. And even if mom doesn't go on that journey, it's still important to make sure that everything is back in alignment with nutrition, because we want to set their hormones up for balance. As women we go through three large hormonal events, or we have the ability to: period, pregnancy and perimenopause, going into menopause. Because the way the body is set up prior to entering those events is a really good insight into how that next event will go. So if we can help repair post partum we're also setting the body up to have a much easier perimenopause and menopausal journey.
Allison 8:54
Fantastic. Big stuff!
Kristen 8:59
Absolutely. The other big thing that I think is important is we see a lot of postpartum hypothyroidism, Hashimotos thyroiditis, autoimmunity coming on. Autoimmunity tends to be silently brewing, if you will, in the system for about seven years prior to a diagnosis. And it can take a really large hormonal event to turn that on. So an event like a pregnancy can then kind of speed up that process and we start to see this hormonal cascade. So we see a big link with postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety when there is postpartum hypothyroidism, or Hashimotos as well. So that's another important factor with nutrition, how we can balance the thyroid gland and hormone and then also we want to support the pituitary gland. So that's a gland in the brain and that gland does shift when there's trauma. The birth process, as beautiful as it is, it is a shock to the system. It is very common for that gland to almost fold in on itself, if you will. Think of the pituitary as like the consistency of a poached egg, and about the size of a walnut, and it's your inventory tracker for your hormones. So you wake up during the day, and your pituitary says, Hey, ovaries make more estrogen, or we're good. If there's a bruising there, that communication pathway can be off. So when we use really specific nutrient dense foods postpartum, we can start to reshape that gland so that the signals are working properly.
Brigitte 10:38
Wow. Oh, my head is exploding. Tt's great. It's awesome information.
Kristen 10:45
Then also, you know, the things like milk production and overall, well-being and fuel and not feeling super depleted. But those are some of the really big important pieces.
Brigitte 10:55
Yeah, I feel like, you know, breastfeeding part is like a whole nother separate thing we could definitely go into at some point.
Allison 11:00
We'll have her back. If you'd like to come back!
Kristen 11:03
I'd be honored!
Brigitte 11:07
My question would be: I know it's individualized for each person, but what would be what are the basics on balancing hormones? Like nutritionally? What would you say for that?
Kristen 11:19
So the big things we want to keep in mind is your hormones are sort of set up like a pyramid. And this is very common in traditional Chinese medicine. So the base is that pituitary gland, which we talked about, then we look at your adrenals. Those sit on top of your kidneys, and they secrete cortisol and adrenaline anytime our bodies are perceiving stress. And then we move to the thyroid, and then ovaries and uterus reproductive hormones. So we may be seeing symptoms of, let's say, breast tenderness, or a woman getting her period back like very quickly or taking years to get back after postpartum. But we actually want to heal and repair those deeper layers. We can use targeted nutrients, macro and micronutrients to do that. So the first thing I always look at as minerals, the more minerals the better. And we can get a ton of great minerals from salt, believe it or not, so pink Himalayan salt, has about 72 trace minerals. And when we salt our foods, that absorption is only going to stay within the gut. But when we apply those minerals into our water, it'll hit every cell within the body. So adding just a sprinkle like an eighth or a 16th of a teaspoon into your water like it should not be as if you're drinking the ocean. You should barely taste it. That is a great postpartum nutrition support. And I think the sort of functional medicine and holistic nutrition field, which is the umbrella that I fall under, has become so all into supplements, supplements, supplements, and they're incredible. But they truly are designed to supplement what's lacking in the diet. So if we can have this strong dietary foundation for fuel, then you may not need to be on like a laundry list of things. So I always say starting with the salt in your water. I like pink Himalayan salt, I find that to be the most diverse in minerals, and then also looking at selenium. That's found very much in Brazil nuts and if mom ate like two or three Brazil nuts a day, that's a great addition. Also, now that you know baby is out and we can have sushi. The seaweed has a ton of iodine which also really helps strengthen the thyroid's ability to communicate properly. If you don't want to go around eating seaweed salad, there are things called dulse flakes and you can sprinkle that on avocado toast, on salads, and really keeping optimal healthy fats. Fats can be very much feared in our society. But when we use proper fats, omega 3s and 6s, we can actually balance inflammation and keep hormones nice and in check. So examples here are going to be things like chia seeds, coconut oil, if you're open to doing like sardines, or like any small fish, that can be a great option to add in. Nut and seed butters, pumpkin seeds, poppy seeds, so like everything, but the bagel seasoning on like anything you want would be great. And flaxseed oil. I love grass fed butter. It's loaded with vitamin K2. And then I also really have seen great results clinically with using some Brain Octane or MCT oil for moms as well postpartum.
Allison 14:57
Awesome, fantastic. Speaking of all the specific foods and things, are there other foods that you recommend for the postpartum chapter or obviously just in general?
Kristen 15:12
Absolutely. So if mom is looking to breastfeed, oats are incredible. So oatmeal would be great. We are starting to see, especially and I know we'll get into lactation at another point, but one thing to keep in mind are going to be kind of the heavy hitters like dairy, gluten, onions, garlic, chocolate, all the fun ones right? Corn, soy, peppers. So a couple of new studies are coming out that show perhaps avoiding some of those things about like three weeks prior to delivery, just to let it all flush out. So there's no you know, issue with baby and things like colic or reflux, excess mucus. I highly recommend, like I said, the fats, avocados. I would probably go more gluten free if there's any history of autoimmunity. Gluten can contribute to leaky gut, and it can actually like break open the villi in the gut. So pulling that out, it will take about 12 to 14 days to get fully out of the system. And just see how you feel. It's gonna keep your inflammation down and postpartum moms are more inflamed, so that can be very beneficial. I love brown and black rice, quinoa, millet. For fruits and veggies, you're going to want to really lean into things like figs dates, apricots, papayas for constipation support, so I know like that first bowel movement postpartum is a build up. So papaya seeds are incredible for constipation. If you take a papaya, pull out the seeds, rinse them and let them air dry till they're like totally dry. Start with 2-4 seeds a day. They're small and mighty. You can work up to what you need, but those can be great for constipation support. Also looking at beets for the liver, carrots, sweet potato squashes. And choline. Choline is an incredible support postpartum for neurological health for mom and baby, and you get a ton of choline in eggs. So eat the yolks. And some of my other ones are a little out there. But should we share them?
Allison 17:31
Yeah, bring them on!
Brigitte 17:31
Please, yeah.
Kristen 17:31
So liver and liver pate is just an incredibly nourishing postpartum food. I know, in our society, it's not common to eat organ meats anymore. But those organ meats really help prepare the hormonal glands that we spoke about earlier. So chicken liver, beef liver. There's the whole discussion of consuming the placenta. And Allison, you know, I did do that with both of my births. Allison actually prepared the placenta after Charlotte and then I used a different provider after Henry's birth. But that is something that I would recommend women keep an eye on. Sometimes the placenta can, when we consume it, actually cause some postpartum depression. I don't know if you ladies have noticed that as well. But just keeping an eye on it, like you can cut the dose down. But there's a therapy that we use very commonly in holistic and functional nutrition called proto morphogen therapy. And it's the belief that like heals and repairs like. So back in the day, like you'd go see the medicine man, right or medicine woman, and let's say you had liver dysfunction, they would recommend you consume liver. It's going to help repair. But like I said, nowadays, we don't really do a lot of like liver and onions anymore. So if you are not open to the placenta consumption, you could also look at like a beef liver capsule. Some of my clients will also get a grass fed beef liver, freeze it and cut it into like small tiny bites and consume that postpartum. And then there are some great teas too, that we can use nutritionally so we could look at mother's milk by Traditional Medicinals. Nettle tea for depletion is awesome. And milky oats. That's another great addition. And really, we want to keep protein balanced. That's going to help with any stores of minerals that are being depleted from the bones postpartum. So if you have a great protein powder without any added junk, that's really nice. I like Mt. Capra's Mineral Whey if you can tolerate if you and baby can tolerate whey, but a good protein powder in Ayurvedic medicine, you'd want to do a lot of warming foods. So not like a cold smoothie, but there's actually a ton of recipes for warm smoothies. I know that sounds different, but you could even do like an unflavored protein powder or collagen peptides mixed into soup or oats. Mixing it into even like a pancake mix so we can get that protein up.
Brigitte 20:15
Yeah, that's right. There's a recipe that I love to make for my clients. It's like a rice porridge. It's an Ayurvedic recipe. It's got all the warming spices and everything in it. You just turn it into like mush, basically, but it's delicious.
Kristen 20:31
Yeah, awesome. Brewers yeast is one too that I think we hear a lot about, and nutritional yeast. Nutritional yeast, if you get the unfortified, actually provides your daily dose of vitamin B6, and B6 is like our chill calm B. Some of the other Bs are super revving, which mom might be like, "don't need that." Or she may! That like chill B is vitamin B6, and you would do about a tablespoon a day. You can mix it into soups, the rice porridge. You can heat it, so it doesn't need to stay cool. And that's a great addition as well.
Brigitte 21:06
Yeah, I've done that with lactation cookies.
Kristen 21:11
I mixed it the other day into a mac and cheese. So I did like chickpea pasta and some raw cheddar. And I put it in and my husband's like, he said, "Kris, why is this so vibrant? Like what did you sneak in here?" Nothing? He's like "no, this is not the normal color because it is very bright." Okay, there's a little yeast and a little tumeric.
Allison 21:35
He found out!
Brigitte 21:36
So another question is, what would be the best way for someone to like prepare postpartum? As far as like what recipes? Would you recommend like someone do ahead of time, just so they don't have to think about it?
Kristen 21:52
I would definitely, while pregnant, utilize your freezer and stock that as much as you can. And this is a great delegation thing you could do as well. You could help by making a batch of lactation cookies and popping them in my freezer or dropping them off. So lactation bars or cookies would be great, overnight oats that you could pre make and some mason jars. If you leave about a half an inch or an inch off the top, They freeze really well. So you can do that and you can mix your protein or collagen into that as well. Collagen peptides by the way, ladies are great because they're going to help heal and seal the gut lining, but they're also wonderful for ligament elasticity, helping with joints and muscles, you know, everything's learning to go back in its place and collagen and can be great for that. Freezing some egg cake bites. So I don't know if you've seen them at Starbucks, or I think Dunkin does them too now, but they're like these egg cakes and you can make those in muffin tins and freeze those. Also some energy bites think like easy snacks you can have you can eat with one hand. Because you're holding baby, you're doing 14,000 other things. So just like a quick bite. And then I really would recommend preparing a good or finding a good electrolyte powder that you love. Electrolytes are going to keep milk supply up but they're also great for depletion. And the salt is wonderful, but this is going to add a little flavor. You ladies might remember during labor I kept having Dean fill my water with this stuff called Goodonya.
Allison 23:37
Yeah!
Brigitte 23:38
Oh, I haven't heard of that.
Kristen 23:39
Yeah, it's great. It's it has like a light lemon flavor. But some other good brands are Nuun, Goodonya, and Needed which is an incredible prenatal and postpartum supplement company. And they have some hydration sticks that are wonderful. And I would just leave a water bottle in every room. Room temperature water is going to be great. Leave some of those electrolyte powders nearby and drink.
Brigitte 24:08
Drink lots of fluids! Yeah, super important.
Allison 24:13
So tell us. You shared some fantastic food options, ingredients recipes. Where do we get these foods, like good sources for food?
Kristen 24:25
Because that can be so frustrating. You're like, "Where the heck do I find brewers yeast?" Yeah, I really love the Dirty Dozen in the clean 15 starting there for your produce your fruits and veggies. It's released every year by the Environmental Working Group and they test the amount of pesticides and chemicals sprayed on the most common fruits and veggies. So the Clean 15 are going to be the 15th veggies and fruits that you can purchase conventionally. So you don't need to worry about organic or local there and this is also going to be great for keeping things affordable especially with the cost of groceries these days, and then the Dirty Dozen are the 12 most heavily sprayed so you would want to shoot for more organic or local for those. Now, there's some great websites as well. So ButcherBox, is a wonderful option for clean pastured meats, grass fed meats, locally sourced when available. And they also do a lot of wild caught fish. Thrive Market is wonderful. I love using this. And I'll gift this sometimes to friends of mine postpartum. Think like Costco meets Whole Foods. So it's a subscription, if you will. But you get great deals on all of these wonderful foods and bars. And you can filter out dietary restrictions, like if you are gluten free or dairy free. They're awesome for bars, you can just have those on hand. Coconut oil, flowers, brewers yeast, all of that. The farmers market can be tough, like we may have in our mind, I'm gonna like waltz through a farmers market with my newborn, and it doesn't really happen. So Whole Foods, pick up a hand, you know, groceries to go can be great. There's another website called a real milkfinder.com, which is an awesome one. If you do raw milk, which I know is controversial, we can maybe chat about that at another time. But they also provide local farms where you can pick up some of these foods. So I'd really start there, for sure.
Allison 26:39
Thank you. We have probably so many more questions. We should just have you live with us.
Brigitte 26:48
I wish we could have anothoer two hours.
Kristen 26:51
Sure!
Allison 26:52
But we will have Kristin back. So definitely tune back in. How do people find you in the meantime? What are the ways to work with you? How can someone find you?
Kristen 27:03
Yes. Okay. So, we are found online; my practice is Nourished Holistic Health and Nutrition. And also @nhhnutrition is our handle for Instagram and Facebook. And you can find us there we offer like I said services in person and across the country. We have clients in Europe and Canada, as well. A final note on some resources that can be very beneficial postpartum. Definitely staying on your prenatal. I recommend clinically that mom stays on her prenatal for about 6-12 months postpartum
Allison 27:42
Woah.
Kristen 27:43
So really helping to replenish those stores, and then testing your thyroid. So trying to encourage your provider just to get this panel checked and get a complete panel. So that would be TSH, T4, T3. And then there are two thyroid antibodies that we like to look for Tgb and TPO. And that'll give us a really nice picture of what's going on hormonally. And that testing can be done around month three or four postpartum. Acupuncture can be an incredible adjunct postpartum, also some recipes and cookbooks and like I said, like, buy the cookbook and give it to someone, be like "make me some of these please." So I love Healing Your Body Naturally After Childbirth, Eat to Feed, which is by Eliza Larson and Christy Kohler. That's an incredible book, like I have it highlighted. I'm always working on that. And Lily Nichols, she has a few excellent books for pregnancy. And she had offers on her website, like 50+ freezer meals for postpartum. So crockpot is great, make those ahead and freeze them. And then Cassie Joy Garcia, she is a colleague of mine, and her company is Fed & Fit. And she has two awesome cookbooks. One is called Cook Once Eat All Week, and one is called Cook Once Dinner Fix. So those are great, easy, like batch meal prepping. And then if you still feel like you're struggling, always reach out and work with a practitioner or provider so that you do get that one on one, bio individual care.
Allison 29:26
Thank you!
Kristen 29:28
Thank you, ladies!
Brigitte 29:29
Thank you so much for being here. And you have a podcast too, right?
Kristen 29:33
Fiercely Holistic Podcast with my co host, Ciara. We have had some discussions about prenatal health, postpartum health pregnancy, doulas, midwives.
Brigitte 29:48
Yeah, it's an awesome podcast, so definitely check it out. And we'll link all your info in the show notes too.
Kristen 30:31
I'm so happy we got to do this. Thank you again for helping bring my kids into the world.
Allison 30:35
Our pleasure! It's an honor.
Brigitte 30:36
Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here, Kristen. Thanks for listening everybody and watching and we'll catch you next time. See you later. Bye.
Allison 30:52
Bye