The Reality of Birth, Postpartum and Trauma and How to Help Your Child Thrive with Nina Passero FDN-P

In this episode, Lena has a fascinating discussion with Nina Passero, FDN-P, who shares her background as a speech-language pathologist (SLP) and her transition into the world of holistic wellness. Nina and Lena discuss topics such as the root cause of disease, nutrient deficiencies, preparing your body for pregnancy, postpartum care and traditions bonding with your child, children's emotions and how they play a role in development, generational trauma and parenting and so much more. 

[00:02:13] Leaving the speech pathology profession.

[00:06:39] Root cause of health issues.

[00:10:23] Whole foods and nutrient density.

[00:14:49] Pregnancy and food choices.

[00:17:01] Depleted nutrients during pregnancy.

[00:21:14] Preparation for conception.

[00:26:53] Postpartum care and traditions.

[00:31:23] Gut health and nutrient absorption.

[00:33:52] Postpartum depression.

[00:38:01] Bonding with your child.

[00:42:20] Babies' big emotions.

[00:46:19] Children's emotional expression.

[00:51:04] Generational trauma and parenting.

[00:56:06] Managing the nervous system.

[01:01:18] Impact of sugar on the body

[01:03:39] Veganism 

Transcript

LENA: I'm so happy you're here.

NINA: Thank you for having me.

LENA: I'm so excited.

NINA: Honored.

LENA: So I know you've been a guest on a few podcasts already, and you've shared so graciously about your background and everything else.

LENA: So I kind of just want to get like a quick background about you.

LENA: Because we have so much in common, because first of all, in your past life, you were in SLP, and I'm currently still in SLP, which we'll see in a few years.

LENA: But I wanted to kind of know, like, what made you go into that profession?

LENA: What made you come out of it?

LENA: And what are you doing now?

NINA: So I loved being an SLP.

NINA: But I originally got into it because I knew I wanted to work with children.

NINA: I wanted to help people, but I didn't want to be a teacher.

NINA: So speech was something that was different.

NINA: And it allowed me to kind of like hit all those marks that I was looking for.

NINA: And then as I, you know, had my years as a speech pathologist, I started getting really into health because of my own personal health journey.

NINA: I got really sick and it kind of just opened a can of worms for me, or Pandora's box maybe we'll say, because I wasn't getting answers from doctors and

NINA: I was getting really frustrated.

NINA: So I took it upon myself to figure it out.

NINA: And from there, it sparked this interest that I didn't know that I had.

NINA: And after a few years, I realized, oh, wow, I could really help other people based on my own experience and what I've been through.

NINA: And the gears started to kind of shift until I eventually made the decision to leave speech.

NINA: which I miss it.

NINA: I really do.

NINA: I miss the kitties.

NINA: They just they're just so fun to work with and bring so much lightness and I feel like playfulness to our day or at least to my day when I was working with them.

NINA: And it kept me in that mindset.

NINA: And still today, I feel like I I bring a lot of that into what I do now of like remembering to stay playful.

NINA: Right.

NINA: And like I always tell my clients now,

NINA: make sure you're still engaging in things that are fun for you or that bring you pleasure because it's such an important aspect of healing.

NINA: And that really actually stems from my time as a speech pathologist.

LENA: No, 100%.

LENA: I know what you mean.

LENA: It's like,

LENA: it's such an amazing and fulfilling job and, you know, environment to be in.

LENA: But it's also so easy to get burnt out.

LENA: So it's like, you're burning the candle at both ends.

LENA: It's kind of it's an interesting profession to be in for sure.

NINA: 100% and there's also so many different areas of speech, right?

NINA: Like, you could work with kids, you can work with adults, the type of clients that you're working with and their diagnosis.

NINA: So

NINA: There's a big range there, and that was also something that really called me to be a speech pathologist, was that there was variety.

NINA: But you're absolutely right in saying that.

NINA: It's very easy to get burned out, for sure.

LENA: I felt that.

LENA: So I guess you always kind of knew you wanted to work with kind of diagnostics and helping people in some way, but I guess speech was your first stepping stone.

LENA: So what is it that you do now as an FDMP?

NINA: So as an FDNP, I do diagnostic testing with clients, which looks like urine tests, saliva, stool, blood work, and then I analyze those results in conjunction with whatever symptoms the client is presenting with.

NINA: taking those two together, I am kind of able to put the pieces, what I say, put the pieces of the puzzle together and really create a picture of what is going on with somebody's health.

NINA: Because if we just look at

NINA: somebody's test results.

NINA: It's not always telling us the full story or giving us the full picture, right?

NINA: We really need to have their personal experience and their symptoms be a part of how we're creating this story in order to understand what's really going on with somebody.

NINA: So as an FTMP,

NINA: and looking at those things and then also looking at what does your lifestyle look like, what does your stress levels look like, what does your sleep look like, what does your energy look like, your day-to-day activity, and these all really give us a lot of clues and insight into what can be going on with somebody's health.

LENA: Absolutely, and I love this approach because I work with you personally and you've been so helpful to me.

LENA: It's just been an amazing change that I've

LENA: you know, had in my life, thanks to you.

LENA: And I, and I love that, because it's essentially called like a looking for the root cause of a disease of what's really going on.

LENA: And which is so important to take, I think, personally, this approach to health, because

LENA: I can't even tell you how many times I'm part of so many Facebook groups and so many friends and stuff like that.

LENA: There's always part of conversation where somebody is like, well, I have these symptoms.

LENA: What should I do?

LENA: You should take this.

LENA: You should do that.

LENA: Everybody has all these different pieces of advice, whereas we don't think about getting to the root cause.

LENA: What's really causing this?

LENA: Because in my life, things can be manifesting as core model imbalances, but it can be caused by something completely different than in your life.

LENA: So I love this approach, and I feel like we should talk about this more, and really help women and men, you know, get to the root cause of what's really going on.

NINA: Yeah, and even, you know,

NINA: when we talk about root cause, sometimes we don't even have to necessarily find the last drop of where this started, because sometimes just by actually listening to people alone, you find out so much, right?

NINA: And I think that's something that's really missing from the Western medicine approach, where it's really just based on, okay, what are you presenting with today?

NINA: And there's none of that background information or really trying to be like, well, let me get to know you as a person.

NINA: Because that does influence how your symptoms are going to show up.

NINA: It's not just about what happened, what's happening right now in your life.

NINA: A lot of times, and I know we've discussed this, it can be connected to what happened in childhood or what happened a few years ago.

NINA: And it's now starting to show up in different ways.

LENA: Absolutely.

LENA: Yes.

LENA: And it's, you know, and I wish this was the way we could find out information from going to a doctor, because we're so used to just going to a doctor and asking these questions.

LENA: But as I have experienced, as you have experienced, and so many other people have experienced, you know, we don't typically ask questions, which is such a shame.

LENA: But I wanted to talk to you a little bit more about pregnancy and postpartum, because I found you when I was struggling with after, you know, when I was in my postpartum, and all of a sudden, I had all these issues come up for me, which were just kind of my body was screaming at me for help, because I was depleted of so many minerals and everything else.

LENA: And I just didn't really know what to do.

LENA: So luckily, I found you and I've been able to kind of like,

LENA: rebuild my system and start to understand more about food and macros and what I really need to eat to really nourish myself.

LENA: And you're currently pregnant.

LENA: So I know you.

LENA: Congratulations again.

LENA: Thank you.

LENA: But I kind of want to talk to you about how you change your approach to eating and your supplementation, everything else that you've done during your pregnancy that's a little bit different than what you've been doing before.

NINA: So

NINA: To be honest with you, I got a little, I don't want to say lucky, because I do believe that this is actually part of the work that I had put in before I got pregnant.

NINA: So my food has pretty much looked very similar, if not the same, to what I was eating prior.

NINA: And I'll get into what does that actually look like.

NINA: An increase in protein for sure.

NINA: because we need those building blocks and the amino acids.

NINA: But for the most part, it still really looks like

NINA: a good amount of protein, carbohydrates, and some healthy fats, right?

NINA: So increasing the amount of protein based on where you're at in your pregnancy.

NINA: I've definitely noticed that as my pregnancy has progressed, I've been craving more and more protein, right?

NINA: Like my portion sizes are a little bit bigger.

NINA: And makes sense, right, because now towards the end, especially babies really growing and putting on those last, you know, pounds before before they're ready to to come into the world.

NINA: So in terms of diet and food, it looks very similar to what it did before.

NINA: And that is whole foods, nutrient dense foods.

NINA: Right.

NINA: So grass fed meats,

NINA: I don't personally love organ meats, so it's hard for me to eat them on their own.

NINA: But Force of Nature is a brand that actually will incorporate some organ meats into their ground beef that they have, which is really great.

NINA: So they have different blends that have heart in it, that have liver.

NINA: That's really, really lovely, whether you're pregnant or not.

NINA: It's just great to get those extra nutrients.

NINA: especially if you don't really love the taste of organ meats, and lots of eggs.

NINA: I do runny yolks.

NINA: I have soft-boiled eggs every day.

NINA: That is the most nutrient-dense part of the egg, and especially during pregnancy, we want all the nutrients we can get.

NINA: A lot of dairy as well, raw dairy.

NINA: I do consume raw milk and raw cheeses.

NINA: And I know that there's a lot of controversy about that.

NINA: And I really believe it depends on how you are feeling as a person, right?

NINA: Like it could be, of course, a little bit scary and nerve wracking.

NINA: Because you're newly pregnant, there's so much information that's coming at you of what you should do, what you shouldn't do.

NINA: And you want to, of course, do what's best for your child, right?

NINA: Like you don't want to harm your baby in any way.

NINA: So for me, I was even a little bit apprehensive at first.

NINA: So I would just take really small amounts, let's say, of the raw milk.

NINA: I would just start with that.

NINA: And then as I felt more comfortable and really tuned into my body and asking, OK, how do I feel?

NINA: Do I notice any changes?

NINA: I then started to just drink it regularly.

NINA: But those, I want to say that group of food, which is essentially proteins, right?

NINA: Looking at the dairy and the meats.

NINA: is so important to have that nutrient density so that you're getting the vitamins, the minerals, the amino acids, which really are essentially the building blocks that we need during pregnancy.

NINA: And then as for carbohydrates,

NINA: looking at our fruits, our root veggies, those are kind of what I tend to lean towards instead of greens, even before pregnancy.

NINA: And that reason being they are typically very easy to digest, right?

NINA: So root vegetables, anything that's really growing under the ground, they're also very warming foods in terms of Chinese medicine.

NINA: And

NINA: When you're pregnant, you do actually have a lot of yang energy, which is a lot of heat.

NINA: But we want to also maintain that because that is what we're using when we give birth.

NINA: When we give birth, we're using our yang energy, the heat in our body to actually push baby out.

NINA: So we do want to support that throughout our pregnancy, not trying to drink too many cold drinks or ice beverages or

NINA: like raw foods in terms of salads or raw veggies.

NINA: So I've been very mindful of that as well throughout my pregnancy, like really trying to avoid cold drinks, even though sometimes I'm just like, I just want like a big cold glass of water.

NINA: Um, but I know it'll benefit me in the long run, right?

NINA: So, um, fruits can be cooling as well.

NINA: But

NINA: When we have like ripened fruits, they are also very easy to digest.

NINA: So I've been, you know, okay with incorporating fruits, especially in the summertime when it is just hotter so you can tolerate those more cooling fruits.

NINA: But then as we've shifted to the fall and now going into winter, I've switched up to more of like stewed apples, stewed pears, which can be really nice for the digestive system as well, because they're very healing to the gut.

NINA: And yeah, that's kind of where I've been at with my food in terms of pregnancy.

NINA: I've been very lucky to not have

NINA: any food aversions.

NINA: I did have a little nausea in the beginning.

NINA: And I'm kind of creating these different hypotheses on where could the nausea, like morning sickness, you know, be really stemming from and I find it so

NINA: so fascinating that like nobody has really pinned it down yet.

NINA: Like Chinese medicine hasn't really pinned it down.

NINA: Western hasn't really pinned it down.

NINA: There's a lot of ideas out there like, oh, magnesium deficiency or some B vitamin deficiencies, blood sugar regulation.

NINA: I think it's a combination maybe.

NINA: But I'm still working on my

NINA: my theories.

NINA: And I think it could also be different for every person.

NINA: Right?

NINA: Like, I think for some people, it could be the state of their nervous system, which is something else I think is really important and has come up a lot, especially during pregnancy is how are we regulating our nervous system?

NINA: Because there's so many changes happening in our body at one time.

NINA: And it can be a lot.

NINA: It is a lot, especially in conjunction with the hormones.

NINA: So so

NINA: my theories are currently like nervous system, blood sugar regulation, and, and potentially then some vitamin and minerals.

NINA: Absolutely.

LENA: Sorry, I feel like it's not.

LENA: I told my husband to like, take my toddler and my dog outside as we're recording and he's screaming at them.

LENA: I'm like,

LENA: You should be quiet too.

LENA: Anyway, but yes, and it's so interesting you say that because I Feel like I wasn't doing the same things as you Going into my pregnancy and I found like the first trimester after the sixth week.

LENA: I was so nauseous the whole time I feel like just maybe because I was depleted of a lot of things And maybe I wasn't as strong and I didn't have the knowledge I have now going into it of how to like prepare

LENA: my body for the pregnancy.

LENA: I wonder if that affected it because I, for maybe like six or seven weeks, I had such severe aversion to stuff that I used to love and essentially I could only eat like really little amount of things and I definitely couldn't eat much protein, which should have been a big, you know, the biggest thing that I was eating and I couldn't.

LENA: The meat just like repulsed me for some reason.

LENA: Um, and I wonder how that affected everything else, you know, because coming out of the pregnancy, I was just so depleted of everything.

LENA: Because whatever storages I had of, you know, my protein blocks and everything else, I kind of I feel like I gave to my son and after and then I'm just I feel like it took me a year and a half to recover after I gave birth.

NINA: Well, you make such a great point, right?

NINA: Because we do give so many minerals, we give four pounds of minerals to our babies when we're pregnant.

NINA: That's a lot of minerals, about 10% of our minerals.

NINA: 10% doesn't sound like much, but then when you think about four pounds, that's a lot, right?

NINA: And so what I have seen happening is one,

NINA: There's not a lot of education available.

NINA: Well, there is education available, but there's not a lot of education given to women provided to women by their doctors, which really should be the people who are doing it about, hey, how should you be preparing your body going into pregnancy?

NINA: I feel like that's almost never, ever discussed.

NINA: Like, what should you be doing two years before you decide to get pregnant?

NINA: Because ideally, that's a minimum of when we want to start preparing our body.

NINA: So ideally, it would be at least two years beforehand.

NINA: And that's not just for the woman.

NINA: That's also for the man.

NINA: That also gets left out often, too, is the men, their preparation in their body.

NINA: Because while we are the ones that are carrying the baby, and obviously,

NINA: the baby's taking a lot more from us, there are still some things that come from the man as well.

LENA: I'm starting to lose you a little bit.

LENA: I don't know why I can't hear you right now.

LENA: Hold on.

NINA: Can you hear me?

LENA: This should be higher quality than the actual recording anyways, once I like

LENA: after production but still.

LENA: Let me see.

LENA: You started to break up and like now I can't hear you.

LENA: Sorry about that.

NINA: Can you hear me now?

NINA: Still can't hear me?

NINA: Maybe it's these.

NINA: Hold on.

NINA: Should be these though.

LENA: Can you say, can you say something else?

LENA: I can hear you now.

LENA: Okay.

LENA: Okay.

LENA: I'm sorry about that.

NINA: So what was that?

NINA: No, it's fine.

NINA: What was the last part that you heard?

LENA: And you kind of kind of like.

LENA: Heard in and out as you were talking, and so maybe if you can start again about like, yeah, preparation of your body.

NINA: OK, so we really should be preparing our body at least two years before we plan to get pregnant.

NINA: And this is something that is

NINA: I feel never talked about.

NINA: I don't ever hear anybody say that, especially like an OBGYN.

NINA: If you're going, you know, to your regular doctor and you say, hey, you know, I'm thinking about getting pregnant.

NINA: They just are like, OK, yeah, start trying and we'll see what happens.

NINA: And it also makes me sad because so many women then will try for a year or try for months

NINA: And they have no idea that they could be potentially doing something to help, right, with conception.

NINA: Or for those women who then make it to the year mark and then their doctor says, OK, well, we have to go to IUI or IVF or we have to do this testing.

NINA: And and nobody ever then takes a look at, well, what is going on?

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: You know, with your your diet, what's going on with your lifestyle?

NINA: What's going on with your stress levels?

NINA: Right.

NINA: Those are things that are all going to impact conception.

NINA: I mean, how often is it that a woman will be stressed and her period's a couple days late, right?

NINA: Or maybe she didn't ovulate that month.

NINA: So there's a lot that goes into it.

NINA: But just circling back to the preparation aspect, prepping, you know, your body as a woman at least two years beforehand, but also that of your partner.

NINA: And that's something that I feel like it's talked about even less because it's just like, nobody talks about, okay, the men's part in all of this.

NINA: And, and it does matter.

NINA: It really does.

NINA: So even, you know, the quality of the food that they're eating, the supplements that they're on, um, how they're taking care of their, their body that does make a difference.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: And so I believe it's so important to really focus on preparation.

NINA: And even in the cases where, let's say, you got pregnant and you didn't prepare, that's OK, right?

NINA: Then it comes down to, OK, now I'm pregnant.

NINA: What can I do to really support my body now?

NINA: 100%.

NINA: I don't want to make people feel like, Oh, no, like I messed up or, you know, it's, it's, I didn't do the right thing.

NINA: It's fine.

NINA: Like, you didn't have two years to prepare.

NINA: Okay, let's just start where we're at.

NINA: Right?

NINA: You can always start wherever you're at.

NINA: And I'm a big believer in that.

NINA: And from there, you just then create the building blocks that you need.

LENA: I agree with you 100%.

LENA: Because I feel like, you know, I had this fear that maybe I didn't prepare once I started to become more aware.

LENA: And then thinking, well, how will this affect my baby?

LENA: And he's perfectly healthy.

LENA: He's so smart.

LENA: And luckily, it, you know, it didn't affect him that way.

LENA: And maybe it could have, maybe things would have been different.

LENA: But I feel like

LENA: Nature is just so perfect in itself that, you know, we've been doing this for thousands of years, just giving birth to babies.

LENA: And we're just prepared as a woman, we're prepared to do it.

LENA: But it's just so, you know, incredible having this knowledge now that you can actually prepare for it.

LENA: so that maybe your postpartum period isn't as severe, or maybe you have more strength coming out of your pregnancy, or maybe the delivery itself is a little bit easier because you've prepared.

LENA: And preparation can be many different things, like you said.

LENA: It could be diet, it could be exercise as well, right?

LENA: Just being strong and having this strong muscle health, which is so important.

LENA: But it can look so different for so many different women.

LENA: Which is incredible to just kind of show how resilient we still are.

NINA: Oh, absolutely.

NINA: I mean, there's people out there who are, you know, drinking soda every day and eating Chick-fil-A during their whole pregnancy.

NINA: And they're just fine.

NINA: Right.

NINA: But in terms of what you mentioned about, you know, going into that postpartum period and what we can potentially do, I think another really important thing that doesn't get discussed so much is

NINA: After you have given birth, the way that you are supported both nutritionally and emotionally and mentally, I think that is a huge aspect to how your body is going to heal postpartum.

NINA: So giving ourselves really nutrient-dense foods postpartum, right?

NINA: Because this is something that can be really, really difficult, right?

NINA: Because you're a new mom, you just gave birth, huge stress on the body, right?

NINA: Even if it's a good stress, even if you had a great experience, your body still worked really, really hard to birth this baby.

NINA: So making sure that you can have

NINA: as much nutrient density in your food as possible is a really a big key.

NINA: Yeah so soups, broths, um if you can if you don't have help you know during your postpartum period if you could make it beforehand and freeze it you know that's better than nothing or they have some services now that will you know deliver make things for you.

NINA: I actually came off a

NINA: came across a company that is specifically for postpartum food and meals.

NINA: I have to try and remember, and I'll send it to you.

NINA: But I thought that that was really cool.

NINA: And I'm like, wow, that's what we all need.

NINA: Because not everybody has help.

NINA: I'm very fortunate to have my mom, but not everybody has that available to them.

NINA: somebody to cook for them, more meals, etc.

NINA: So trying to set that up for yourself as much as possible is, I think, a really big key.

NINA: And then also how we're taking care and treating our body.

NINA: So in Chinese medicine, they actually do a 40-day confinement period.

NINA: And they don't wash their hair.

NINA: They don't take a shower.

NINA: They'll do a ginger tea sponge bath.

NINA: And this is not just with Chinese medicine.

NINA: This can be found in many different cultures, that they have this kind of quarantine period.

NINA: And I think there's so much value to it.

NINA: because you're giving the body time to come back to itself, not only in a physical way, but also in a mental, emotional, spiritual way, because we're very, very open postpartum.

NINA: I mean, energetically, emotionally, physically, right?

NINA: Like, there's so much that goes into labor,

NINA: And it's not just like, okay, yeah, I'm gonna get back up and go start taking my walks, you know, two days postpartum.

NINA: And those people who do that, I do believe will see it down the line.

NINA: They might not see it immediately.

NINA: But I think down the line, they will see the repercussions on their health.

LENA: Yeah.

LENA: I believe that.

LENA: I mean, I honestly didn't know much about postpartum until I experienced it myself.

LENA: And I couldn't believe how different I felt because not only was my health different, because all of a sudden they give birth to a baby and you know, there's repercussions of or maybe not even repercussions, but it's just the aftermath of birth, which can be very difficult depending on what birth experience you've had.

LENA: And I was lucky enough because I had a home birth and it was very, you know, caring and

LENA: calming and the experience wasn't traumatic.

LENA: And many women had a traumatic experience during that.

LENA: But I just feel like that period is not only that, but it's also like you're rebirthing as a new person.

LENA: And so many people tell you this, right?

LENA: Like, oh, no, like, you're no longer you, you're just a mom.

LENA: And

LENA: Everybody's experience with that is so different.

LENA: You know, because all of a sudden you have this baby who needs you 24 seven, especially when they're this little, it's literally you guys were one.

LENA: And you know, that baby comes out of you.

LENA: And all of a sudden, it's not like, Oh, here, dad, you can take care of the baby.

LENA: No, you're all that baby knows, they still need you.

LENA: And it doesn't matter.

LENA: how hard birth was or how you're feeling, you're still need to be there for this baby.

LENA: And luckily, if you have the opportunity to do so, but it is such an incredible but also difficult period.

LENA: For me, honestly, I didn't start feeling like myself until recently.

LENA: And there were many different reasons for that.

LENA: And part of it was just my not sleeping experience with my son because he was just a really difficult sleeper.

LENA: He's starting to sleep now, but

LENA: All of these things, they kind of like come together and make this like experience for you that you don't even realize how many factors affect it.

LENA: And I feel like as women, we're just not ready for it.

LENA: And I'm so happy you're so fortunate to have all this knowledge beforehand, so you can prepare on so many different levels.

LENA: But, you know, I really hope that that experience is easier for you than for than it was for many women.

NINA: You know, I hope

NINA: that some of the knowledge I have, you know, gets channeled into my postpartum experience.

NINA: But I honestly don't know.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: Right?

NINA: Like, I could develop postpartum depression.

NINA: I don't know.

NINA: And I, you know, why could I, right?

NINA: There could be reasons related to mental emotional, right?

NINA: Like, my brother died last year.

NINA: And that has been very, very hard on me.

NINA: So I don't know how that might show up in my postpartum period.

NINA: The other aspect is, as much as you can prepare yourself, eat all the best foods, you still just don't know.

NINA: Because there is also this component of

NINA: How much am I absorbing from my food, right?

NINA: Like the state of our gut health and our lining.

NINA: Yeah, I take care of my body, of course.

NINA: But pregnancy is a major stressor on the body.

NINA: So your gut health could still be being affected and you're not really sure about it.

NINA: So that can be a component.

NINA: Also like the quality of our food.

NINA: Yeah, I can get grass-fed, organic, all the things.

NINA: But we have an issue with the quality of our soil here.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: And that foods just aren't as nutrient dense as they should be.

NINA: Right.

NINA: And that's why you can go to another country, you eat a tomato and you're like, oh, my God, this is delicious.

NINA: And then you come back here, you eat the same tomato and you're like, yeah.

NINA: This doesn't really taste like anything.

NINA: Third of my life, yes.

NINA: Right?

NINA: Yeah, we both understand that very well.

NINA: So yeah, you know, I think that's part of motherhood is the ultimate surrender, right?

NINA: And life in general, I guess, because you can prepare as much as you want for anything.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: And you just won't know until you actually get there.

NINA: Yeah.

LENA: 100%, 100%.

NINA: We'll see.

NINA: I hope.

NINA: I'm doing my best to prepare.

NINA: And I think that's what's important, right?

NINA: And throughout my pregnancy journey, I've said to myself, I know I have done everything I can possibly do for where I'm at right now.

NINA: And the rest, I just need to surrender.

LENA: That's one lucky baby to have you doing all these beautiful things for him right, you know, from the get go.

LENA: But no, I agree with you.

LENA: And there's so many things we can think of mentally to prepare as well.

LENA: And then once you're in the experience, you just never know.

LENA: But

LENA: But I just wanted to talk about it a little bit because I feel like postpartum is just oftentimes just a minute.

LENA: We talk about the six week period of when you have, you know, the postpartum period, when you're allowed to feel down or like, you know, you still need the help.

LENA: But once that six weeks passes, like,

LENA: People just expect you to bounce back oftentimes, and that's just not the case, you know?

LENA: I struggled with postpartum depression for a long time.

LENA: Like, I didn't even realize it.

LENA: Like, I knew I wasn't myself.

LENA: I knew I had the baby blues and everything else, but it took me a while to grasp the gravity of it and how I really felt.

LENA: And it took me a while to I feel like come out of it.

LENA: And I perhaps didn't have the right support for it, because I wasn't aware of it as much either.

LENA: Because you don't really know, like, is it the postpartum depression?

LENA: Is it the baby blues?

LENA: Is it just my new lifestyle, which is so hard, and so, you know, so hard on my body.

LENA: And

LENA: It's so hard to kind of find it to distinguish it.

LENA: But I just wanted to say it's okay to feel this way.

LENA: You don't, you don't have to have it figured out from the get go.

LENA: Because everybody says like, Oh, your mother, your mother and things will just kick in right away.

LENA: For me, they didn't.

LENA: For me, they really didn't.

LENA: I remember birth, like, so many people tell you, you're going to have this incredible experience once you've birthed the baby and you're just going to fall in love the first second you see him.

LENA: And that wasn't my experience.

LENA: Clearly, I love my son to death.

LENA: He's the most important person in my life.

LENA: But I remember the experience of like him being born, like kind of like a movie, just playing

LENA: in front of me in my head, I was so detached from that moment.

LENA: I feel like I wasn't even there.

LENA: Like I just remember it just kind of like playing in front of me.

LENA: And, you know, my my husband was crying.

LENA: My mom was there.

LENA: She was crying.

LENA: And I was just there like kind of like empty.

LENA: And it's and it's such a it can be such a hard experience for some women.

LENA: That's that's what I experienced.

LENA: And it doesn't make me a bad mother.

LENA: It's just how he came into this world.

LENA: And you know what, and it took me a little while, but now I finally have these feelings, I finally feel like, you know, like a real mom, which whatever that means, but it didn't come to me right away.

LENA: And that's okay.

NINA: You know, I've heard that from so many women.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: So, so many women who they just

NINA: didn't feel like they bonded with their child right away.

NINA: It took them time.

NINA: It took some effort.

NINA: And I, I agree with you.

NINA: I think it's totally okay.

NINA: Because when you look at it from like a nervous system perspective, your body just went through something really serious.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: Whether your birth was super easy or

NINA: It was a harder birth.

NINA: I don't want to say the word trauma necessarily.

NINA: On some level, the amount of energy and work and everything your body just went through in labor, it is kind of a trauma.

NINA: But then we have people who had actually traumatic births.

NINA: So I don't want to diminish that in any way.

NINA: But one, you just went

NINA: through this major, major, you know, experience, right, with your physical body, also mentally and emotionally, like, you're completely changed, right?

NINA: Like we said, because the mother is also being birthed while she's giving birth to her child.

NINA: So you're getting to know a new part of yourself, a new part of your own identity, right?

NINA: Because we're not just one thing.

NINA: We're not just mom, right?

NINA: You're still

NINA: you as an individual, but mom is a part of that now.

NINA: And then now you're getting to know a whole new human.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: Like you guys got to get to know each other.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: You know, I mean, how many times?

NINA: You know, we meet somebody on the street.

NINA: And it's just like, Oh, yeah, love it for a sake.

NINA: Um, and some people do have those experiences, which is amazing.

NINA: But

NINA: Some people don't and that's totally okay, too.

NINA: You're getting to know each other.

LENA: Absolutely.

LENA: Absolutely.

LENA: And that's why I brought up because I feel like it's sometimes it's not spoken about because it's kind of shameful in a way, kind of like, hey, I didn't bond with my child right away.

LENA: But you know what?

LENA: That's an experience of so many people, so many mothers and.

LENA: And it doesn't mean you love them any less.

LENA: It's just your experience.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: And another thing I want to add to that as well is

NINA: during pregnancy.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: I mean, everybody, I felt like, before, you know, before I got pregnant, it was the idea of, oh, it's so lovely.

NINA: And you're so happy.

NINA: And you're so in love.

NINA: You know, you got this little baby growing in you.

NINA: I didn't feel that way.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: Not that I like hate being pregnant.

NINA: But I'm just like,

NINA: this picture that everybody paints of pregnancy is not it.

NINA: Or at least it's not my experience, right?

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: And I think that kind of goes hand in hand with what you're sharing now, too, of like, it's okay, too, if you're not like, oh, my God, this is the best time of my life.

NINA: Some people it is, and that's amazing for them.

NINA: And some people I'm just like, okay, you're just going on with your life or you have stuff happening, right?

NINA: Like, I'm grieving.

NINA: And people were constantly telling me, oh, but you have to be happy for the baby.

NINA: Or, you know, they feel everything you feel.

NINA: And that really got to me in the beginning.

NINA: Because I was like, oh my gosh, I'm crying all the time because I miss my brother.

NINA: What is that doing to my baby?

NINA: But

NINA: The perspective shift I've taken on it is by allowing myself to feel the range of emotions that I feel so deeply, it's showing my child how to move through and navigate life.

NINA: Because life is not just rainbows and butterflies, right?

NINA: We need to learn, everybody needs to know, how to navigate through darker times or heavier emotions.

NINA: Those are part of life too, right?

NINA: It's not just, like I said, rainbows and butterflies.

NINA: So I've really taken that perspective of when I'm feeling really sad or down because I miss my brother or something else super stressful is happening in my life.

NINA: I look at it as, okay, this is an opportunity for me to show my child how you can move through an emotion fluidly, instead of just shoving it down and pretending it's not there.

LENA: Oh my gosh.

LENA: I feel like that takes so much courage and strength at the same time, too, because it's so easy to be shamed by the society we're in, right?

LENA: Because there are so many of these ideas that are kind of thrown at us that we're supposed to be this and we're supposed to do that.

LENA: And sometimes we can't.

LENA: And and that's just life.

LENA: And the fact that, you know, you you've taken that perspective from the beginning when you're pregnant to teach your child this, I think that's that's incredible.

LENA: And, and I couldn't agree with you more.

LENA: You know, life is not all butterflies and rainbows.

LENA: And these little, little kiddos, yes, they're going to be an infant and a newborn for a little bit, but they're going to start to get their personality.

LENA: They're going to start to get, you know, they're going to learn about life and they're going to learn about the world.

LENA: And we need to prepare them of how to deal with these things.

LENA: And to me, watching my son grow, it's incredible to me how quickly he's grasping these things, how quickly he's learning about the world, and how quickly he starts to understand like, you know, I'm not always going to get what I want.

LENA: I'm not always going to be happy.

LENA: I have all these different emotions, you know, and preparing them from the beginning and teaching them about boundaries and things like that.

LENA: I think it's so important.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: And even just going back to the newborn phase, right, and bringing in a little of our speech therapy here.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: Babies are still expressing themselves, right?

NINA: Like even in that newborn and infant stage, we might not understand it as well, but they're still experiencing, in my opinion, big emotions.

NINA: It's a big change for them to go from being warm and protected and safe in mom's belly to coming out into the world.

NINA: There's temperature changes, there's loud noises now, there's lights, there's a lot of stimulation.

NINA: they're moving through and navigating that as well.

NINA: And that's going to produce emotions in their own way, right?

NINA: They can't communicate it to us verbally, but they can communicate it in their cries, right?

NINA: Or just their body language, even the tension that they hold in their body.

NINA: That's a really big one, I think, that we're not as aware of, right?

NINA: baby's holding a lot of tension in the neck and the shoulders, in the body.

NINA: And people often misinterpreting that as baby being like really strong, right?

NINA: So a lot of times we'll have a newborn that starts rolling over and parents think, oh my God, they're rolling over already.

NINA: This is amazing.

NINA: No, they shouldn't be rolling over yet.

NINA: That's because there's tension in the body.

NINA: yeah right so i think looking at those non-verbal communication um i don't know what you yeah that that the babies are giving us but again not something that we're not not something that we're taught no no what i mean i feel like

LENA: Depends on how you grew up.

LENA: But I feel like the old school way of thinking has always been like, you know, kids don't understand kids don't know, they don't really feel it that much yet.

LENA: So we're just going to put them in the corner telling what to do.

LENA: And

LENA: If they're not behaving the way we want them to, they're being bad, right?

LENA: And if, you know, and these are kind of like, I feel like the lessons I grew up with, because it used to be all very traditional and thinking, you know, kids are just not as important.

LENA: They're not part of the conversation.

LENA: But they are.

LENA: They have so much to offer.

LENA: They're so incredible and so resilient and so smart, like you said, from the beginning.

LENA: I mean, the amount of they're hearing in utero as well, right?

LENA: When they're in your belly, they're communicating with us.

LENA: It's quite incredible.

LENA: I mean, the human brain, it's just to me, it's just, we don't know much about it.

LENA: But it's such an incredible, I don't want to say organ or body part, but I feel like there's so much we just don't know.

LENA: And these little kids can benefit from having these conversations.

LENA: you know, kind of learning more about how they're developing so that we can help them along the way.

NINA: Absolutely.

NINA: And I also think us as adults can actually just learn by watching them.

NINA: Yes.

NINA: Right.

NINA: Because we often stop ourselves because we feel shame or we feel like we're going to be judged or just whatever programming conditioning that we have as an adult.

NINA: Right.

NINA: And we think, oh, this is not what you do in society.

NINA: The kids, they're just gonna let it all out, right?

NINA: Like having a temper tantrum, they're literally releasing the really big emotions and feelings that they have in their body.

NINA: We don't like to see it as adults because it's hard when you're in the supermarket and your two-year-old's having a temper tantrum.

NINA: It really can be such a learning experience for us to see how children move their bodies because that's their way of moving through an emotion, right?

NINA: Where we would normally suppress it because it's like, oh, I can't start crying.

NINA: I'm in public.

NINA: I'm here.

NINA: I'm there.

NINA: Or I can't start yelling or getting angry because I'm in public.

NINA: So we just suppress it and then that ends up showing up in our health years later.

NINA: But children, they're just so fluid with it.

NINA: They don't give it a second thought.

NINA: They're just doing what they need to do to feel better.

LENA: Absolutely.

LENA: Absolutely.

LENA: And I love that you brought up that shame piece.

LENA: because it's incredible how the thought or like the thought pattern behind that has changed I feel like over the years because I grew up in that environment where if I wasn't behaving or if I was doing like had a tantrum or had something to say that was against what the adults were saying, you know, that was shameful.

LENA: And I still hear those words in my house, like, you know, from my mom or something, and she doesn't even realize it.

LENA: They say things like that, or my mother-in-law comes and she spends time with my son and it's like, oh, you're not being a good boy right now because you're crying.

LENA: And I'm just like, inside of me, I'm burning because I'm just like, yes, he is.

LENA: The fact that we're having these conversations is just, to me, it's so disturbing.

LENA: because his prefrontal cortex has not even formed yet.

LENA: He doesn't realize, he doesn't know how to express his emotions or what he wants.

LENA: He's just acting on how he feels.

LENA: And I feel like, like you said, like we suppress these emotions and it manifests in different ways in our health.

LENA: And I think it's so important to talk about because it is so important to express it and kind of learn from our kids.

LENA: They're supposed to learn from us, so we need to learn from them.

NINA: Oh, I think children are some of our greatest teachers.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: And to go back to your point about the shame, I mean,

NINA: Yeah, our parents and grandparents before us, they did things a certain way.

NINA: And I want to truly believe that they just didn't know any better.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: Right.

NINA: Like that was just what they were taught.

NINA: They definitely, in my opinion, didn't have the awareness that we have now.

NINA: Right.

NINA: Like spanking your child was just totally normal.

NINA: I got hit all the time because I was like, definitely not.

NINA: doing what every other kid was doing, right?

NINA: Like, I was somebody who really expressed my emotions.

NINA: I would just let you know how I was feeling, even if I was five years old.

NINA: And that was not okay with the elders in my family.

NINA: So I got in a lot of trouble for that.

NINA: And as a result, I can see how that has affected me over the years and all of the healing and work I had to do to let go of that, because it really repressed a lot of parts of who I was.

NINA: And getting that back was was definitely a lot of work.

LENA: So the undoing of how I

LENA: you know, how I grew up.

LENA: And like I said, like, our families, I feel like they love us so much.

LENA: And they mean the best 100% when we're, if we're lucky enough to have these families, right.

LENA: But, but for me, I come from Poland.

LENA: So my grandparents went through World War Two.

LENA: And there's so much generational trauma from that, that was manifested or passed down to my parents.

LENA: And then those, you know, my parents, they, there was no such thing going growing up, I feel like in their times, talking about like emotional intelligence, or if you wanted to go to a therapist or anything and talk about anything, you're crazy, right?

LENA: That sounds crazy.

LENA: Like you shouldn't, there's such a big stigma for that generation of like getting mental health help, that it's rare that it gets done, at least from the part of the world where I come from, from like, from

LENA: this part of Europe.

LENA: I'm not sure how Italy looks like or other parts of the world.

LENA: Yeah, same, right?

LENA: And those things get passed down to us.

LENA: And now we have this generational trauma that we're trying to figure out and trying to break so that we don't pass it down to our children.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: And I think for them, too, what I've seen and observed from my grandparents and my parents is they want to instill resiliency.

NINA: because they did have it hard.

NINA: They did have to go through a lot.

NINA: So I can understand to a degree, like, the deeper intention is like, oh, I want to make you strong.

NINA: I want to make sure that you're resilient, that you're okay when I'm not here.

NINA: I've definitely gotten that a lot.

NINA: I feel like seeing, read through the lines with my grandmother.

NINA: And so

NINA: the way that I kind of internalize it now, as I'm about to be a mom, is how do I still bring that sense of resiliency and strength to my child while respecting who he is as an individual and his emotions, right?

NINA: So I think that it's a really interesting

NINA: path that I have ahead.

NINA: And how do we navigate that?

NINA: Yeah.

LENA: And it's so hard because we want to be the quote, unquote, perfect parent and instill these beautiful lessons and just help our children in so many different ways.

LENA: And then life gets in a way.

LENA: And then one night you're not sleeping or a year and a half.

LENA: You're not sleeping.

LENA: And, you know, and you push your boundaries so far as well.

LENA: And sometimes it's so hard to just do everything.

LENA: That's what I found myself.

LENA: And, you know, I've learned, I'm learning as I'm going that I'm not going to be a perfect mom.

LENA: I'm not going to be able to teach my son everything I want to teach him and teach him in a way that I would like to teach him because sometimes emotions get in the way and different things get in the way.

LENA: and it's okay because we're just move on from there and it doesn't matter if you have a one bad night or one bad day that doesn't mean you're going to cause all this trauma because I feel like with all this knowledge that we have which is so beautiful and so helpful

LENA: I feel like there is also this opportunity to overthink.

LENA: And as you're going through this, you're like, that's going to cause trauma.

LENA: Literally, I do that sometimes.

LENA: Like, that was a traumatic experience for him.

LENA: This is going to impact him forever.

LENA: And I'm just like, no, no, you can't think that way.

LENA: Because you'll drive yourself crazy.

LENA: Oh, absolutely.

NINA: I've been there.

NINA: And who knows how things will show up when I become a mom.

NINA: I say all the time, oh, you can be your own worst enemy when you have so much knowledge, right?

NINA: And the other thing I want to bring up is our perception of what might be traumatic to our child is based on our experiences, right?

NINA: To them, could be nothing, right?

NINA: But it's based on, you know, we're viewing it through the lens of

NINA: whatever trauma we've had and whatever we've been through, when their experience is completely different.

LENA: Yeah, that's a really good point.

LENA: Yeah, very good point.

LENA: Okay, wow.

LENA: Yeah, so much to unpack here.

LENA: I know, right?

LENA: So I wanted to ask you two, now, changing the topic a little tiny bit, I mean, going back to what we were talking about,

LENA: So in today's world, you know, this this world is very different than the world we grew up in, and things are changing so rapidly.

LENA: Now that you're becoming a mom, like what steps are you going to take to help your son thrive in this kind of environment that we're in right now?

NINA: So I think one of the greatest gifts you can give your children.

NINA: Is.

NINA: how you show up for yourself.

NINA: And for me, managing, I don't know if managing is the right word, but continuing to be very aware of the state of my nervous system, I think is one of the greatest gifts that I can give my child.

NINA: Because

NINA: His nervous system is developing based on what he's feeling from me, right?

NINA: Of course, the people around him, but I think the parents are the biggest aspect, especially mom, in those first few months, first year, because they're not realizing that they're not still in you anymore, right?

NINA: They think they're a part of you, and especially those first few months.

NINA: So something that I plan on continuing to do, because it's something I do already and I feel very passionate about, is really being aware of the state of my nervous system and where I'm at, right?

NINA: Because even when he gets older, how I respond and react to a situation is going to also impact the way he's responding.

NINA: Right?

NINA: So our child does something that we don't like, maybe.

NINA: And maybe they're having a meltdown or a temper tantrum or whatever.

NINA: And the way that we show up in those moments,

NINA: are actually gonna be what starts to shape their nervous system and the way that they view the world, right?

NINA: So if it's that you do something bad, I start yelling at you or tell you that you're bad or whatever it is, that's now building that foundation and the storyline for what's to come later.

NINA: Instead of you do something that maybe is not right,

NINA: But I maintain my cool, and I just hold the space for you to journey through whatever you need to go through in that moment.

NINA: That's going to feel completely different to the nervous system.

NINA: It doesn't mean that it's OK what you're doing, but that's something we talk about later on.

NINA: Because like you said earlier,

NINA: babies don't have and young children don't have the ability yet to consciously understand what's going on or why what they're doing is bad, even if we know they know that it's not right.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: And I see that or I saw that a lot with parents or even in the school system, teachers getting upset with with some of the kids because they're like, oh, but they know better.

NINA: And I'm like, they might know, but they don't have the impulse control yet.

NINA: So that's definitely one of the things I'm gonna do.

NINA: Am I gonna be perfect at it?

NINA: Absolutely not.

NINA: But it's something that I really feel passionate about and want to work towards.

NINA: And then the other thing I think is physically,

NINA: arming your child with nutrients and minerals and really creating a very strong foundation for their health in childhood.

NINA: You know, will my son grow up and probably eat McDonald's at some point or whatever, go out with his friends?

NINA: And, you know, I can't control that, right?

NINA: But I believe that if we give them a good foundation as

NINA: you know, from infancy into.

NINA: When they're like seven, eight, right, because then they're going to start to want to explore, they're going to go with their friends or, you know, they go to somebody else's house.

NINA: What do you do?

NINA: You can't control everything.

NINA: Right.

NINA: So but I think if you can give them a good, strong foundation in the beginning, that when they do get introduced to some of the foods that we personally would maybe never feed our child.

NINA: they're gonna be able to be aware that like, that didn't make me feel good.

NINA: And they have the wherewithal to then make the decision.

NINA: I don't have to tell you, oh, that's gonna make your belly hurt.

NINA: Right?

NINA: If you have, I believe, if you have that strong foundation, nutritionally, then they can make those decisions for themselves.

LENA: And like you said, the first few

LENA: years or even, I feel like, especially in that like the first, up until they're like 18 months, they're just so receptive to different flavors, right, developmentally.

LENA: Typically, kids by then can try anything, you can give them something bitter, you can give them something sour, anything like that.

LENA: And if you expose them to these different flavors, you know, chances are they're going to continue.

LENA: eating a variety of foods, right?

LENA: And there's so much to be said about because you have this beautiful knowledge about what's really healthy, which is incredible.

LENA: And I now do too.

LENA: But I feel like in the society today, you know, you have all these different things packaged for kids or

LENA: kind of made specially for them, which are so colorful and fun.

LENA: And you have all these pouches, you go into a store, and you see like all these beautiful fruits and vegetables, right in a pouch that you can feed your child.

LENA: And you mean well, but without the knowledge of knowing that, you know, if you read the nutritional label, you know, on average, these pouches have like nine grams of sugar in them.

LENA: And that doesn't seem like too much to us.

LENA: It's not great, but like we can handle it, right?

LENA: But if you look at a 20 pound baby or a toddler who's eating this much sugar a few times a day, you're really setting them up to have a really, maybe make poor choices with food later and maybe prefer these types of, you know, sugary flavors and stuff like that going on so they can become very picky.

LENA: And perhaps that can really impact their brain development and their gut health, because we're really not giving them the right beginning or, you know, kind of not teaching them from the beginning or exposing them to the right things.

LENA: Yeah, right.

NINA: Like when we think about, when I think about how I work with my adult clients right now, and how important it is to always have a carb protein fat, I mean, I should just have it tattooed across my forehead.

NINA: Yes.

NINA: Um

NINA: But when we think about babies, why are we not thinking the same, right?

NINA: And some of the first foods that we give our children are like, what is it, like rice cereal or like cream of wheat or whatever.

NINA: They don't even have the enzymes to properly break down those foods, right?

NINA: So their first foods should really be like a bone broth, a meat stock, something like that.

NINA: more nutrient dense foods, egg yolks.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: Rather than some type of starchy grain.

LENA: Yeah.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: And I do think that that has long term effects in the sense that let's say, like blood sugar regulation.

NINA: And then why they might be craving more of those sugary sweet foods or even more carbs as children and then that grows with them.

LENA: 100%.

LENA: And it's a true epidemic right now because one in four kids is a picky eater and obesity

LENA: right now, the most prevalent from what I know from statistics in children, like it's becoming a really big issue.

LENA: Just because we lack this knowledge, we kind of moved away from what our grandparents and our parents used to feed us, right?

LENA: Because when you grow up, and you kind of want to rebel and think about, hey, no, mom wasn't right, I should be eating kale at every like meal or whatever.

LENA: I used to think that way.

LENA: I went vegan for three years because thinking that was the best thing for my health.

LENA: Same.

LENA: It might be for somebody else, but for me, I feel like it literally destroyed my body.

LENA: Honestly, because I wasn't eating the good vegan food.

LENA: I was eating the substitutes because that's what I was craving.

LENA: This is what I wanted.

LENA: Yes, I was eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, but still, it wasn't the right thing for my body.

LENA: But when you think about these things, they really impact you.

LENA: And especially when you're little, when you're little, you want to give them the good, um, the good chance of developing these right type of flavor profiles and really the gut health, the gut brain connection.

LENA: It's so strong up until they're three years old, three years old, you know, there's so much growth happening.

LENA: I think 80% of the brain develops in that time.

LENA: So it's so important to give them this, this really strong,

LENA: I'm lacking the word in my head right now.

LENA: Foundation.

LENA: Foundation, thank you.

LENA: I could not think of it.

NINA: Yeah, and you know, I want to just acknowledge also, a lot of this stems from convenience, right?

NINA: And I don't want any moms or parents to feel bad if, you know, they've been giving their kid whatever.

NINA: Some of these packaged items, but like I said before, it's never too late to start where you are.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: And maybe it's going to take a little bit of time because you're going to get a little bit of pushback from your kid because they want, you know, their whatever it is that they like.

NINA: But I do think that it's possible to create change and shift.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: And it's our responsibility as a parent.

NINA: You know, I think that's a big conversation as well.

NINA: Is your responsibility, I believe, as a parent.

NINA: starts from the moment that you conceive that baby.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: If not before, right?

NINA: I mean, I felt very strongly before I got pregnant about, like, how I wanted to do things for my child.

NINA: But even still, the moment of conception, right, or when you're pregnant, like, that responsibility is now on you.

LENA: Yeah.

LENA: Yeah.

LENA: And everything starts when you get pregnant because

LENA: you know, that foundational piece starts right there.

LENA: And I love that you brought up like the

LENA: We do live in a culture of convenience here, and it's so incredible that we have all these amazing choices to give our children, and not all of them are bad.

LENA: There are some companies that offer meat pouches.

LENA: There are some companies that offer these amazing products.

LENA: It's just about educating yourself.

LENA: You can still have the convenience of these foods, but just picking the right ones is really what you want to do.

LENA: Not falling into that, like you said, the rice cereal myth,

LENA: um that we kind of like hurt so much and oftentimes you'll get this advice from pediatrician because they mean well but they just don't know they do not have the nutritional background and the developmental background of how these foods impact our children um and they tell you hey yeah let's start four months around four months like

LENA: you should just give them rice cereal.

LENA: And it kills me when I hear this advice, because not only can we not that the babies can't digest it, but first of all, four months, they might not be ready for food yet, right?

LENA: There's so many different signs of readiness you need to look for when you are

LENA: looking to see if your child's ready to eat.

LENA: First of all, can they sit up?

LENA: Can they hold their head up?

LENA: Are they interested in the food?

LENA: Do they have a grasp where they can hold something in their hand and bring it to their mouth?

LENA: There's so many different things to look at.

LENA: And I feel like that's not talked about either.

LENA: And all these different foundational pieces, prerequisites, are so important to set them up for success when they're older.

LENA: So we're not starting too early and we're not starting with the wrong things.

NINA: 100%.

NINA: And yeah, again, it goes back to our knowledge as speech therapists too, right?

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: And unfortunately, it's just not taught to people.

LENA: Yeah, absolutely.

LENA: And we're lucky to have this background for sure, in so many different ways.

LENA: But also feeding, I feel like not every therapist knows that.

LENA: I just feel like we're lucky to have this information.

LENA: True.

LENA: But yeah, OK.

LENA: So much to unpack here.

LENA: Thank you.

LENA: Thank you so much.

LENA: Is there anything else you want to say to leave our audience with?

NINA: Any advice?

NINA: Any advice?

NINA: Hmm.

NINA: I guess my advice would be to just keep coming back to yourself.

NINA: As a mom, as a parent,

NINA: as an individual.

NINA: Right.

NINA: And I think that will serve your child in the long run.

LENA: I couldn't agree more.

LENA: Beautiful.

LENA: Thank you so much for thank you for this.

LENA: And I know you

LENA: You know, your life is going to change a lot.

LENA: So I don't know if you're going to continue offering coaching because that's what I did with you.

LENA: You coached me through so much.

LENA: Are you still offering that for clients?

LENA: I am.

NINA: I still work one-on-one with people.

NINA: Great.

NINA: Not doing like your traditional maternity leave.

NINA: Yeah.

NINA: So yeah, I'm still seeing clients and gonna continue down this path and hopefully continue to help people.

LENA: Oh, yes.

LENA: Everybody's so lucky to have you.

LENA: So if somebody wanted to work with you, where can they find you?

NINA: On Instagram, Nina.Pissarro is my profile, or my website is just ninapissarro.com and you can apply there.

LENA: Okay.

LENA: Perfect.

LENA: Thank you so much for coming on.

LENA: I appreciate it so much.

LENA: Thank you for having me.

NINA: It was a pleasure.