Episode Details

In this powerful episode, we hear the story of Alice, who shares her brave journey through two contrasting pregnancies and the impact of intimate partner violence on her mental health. Co-host Sarah joins as one of our VBAC Link certified doulas to discuss the importance of mental health awareness, especially during pregnancy and postpartum. 

This episode dives into the significance of having a strong support system and the need for open conversations about postpartum mood disorders and trauma-informed care. Alice is a beautiful example of resilience, healing, and the strength that women possess.

National Domestic Violence Hotline

Needed Website

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

Full Transcript under Episode Details 

Meagan: Women of Strength. Hello. How are you doing? I hope you are having an amazing week. We have another story coming your way today, and we actually have a co-host today, my friend Sarah. Hello, Sarah.

Sarah: Hi.

Meagan: Thank you so much for being here today.

Sarah: Yeah, I'm super excited to be here.

Meagan: I love having our VBAC Link doulas on the podcast here and there. It's fun to not only share you with the world and let people know who you are and where you are, but really just to hear from you guys and hear your educational pieces and just have you guys in the story and giving your input, and I just love it. So thank you so much for being here.

Sarah: Absolutely.

Meagan: Guys, today, like I said, we have an HBAC coming your way. But I did want to let you know that today's episode may have mention of partner abuse and suicide. I really, really, really think it is so important to really not mask stories and share the rawness of people's stories because I think the rawness and the real story is what makes us who we are today and really creates the story to be true. I just wanted to give you guys a heads-up. But I'm going to turn the time over to Sarah. She is in replace of our review today doing an educational piece and actually talking about mental health.

Sarah: Yeah. Hi. So again, I'm super excited to be here. I'm Sarah Marie Bilder. I'm located in the upstate South Carolina area and I do birth and postpartum doula work. I really just wanted to cover the topic of mental health because in the story that we're gonna hear today, it's pretty relevant and it's one of those things that aren't often talked about. I don't wanna say that that's not talked about because when we say that it kind of, I feel, diminishes the people that are talking about it. It's important to really highlight when we are talking about it. 

But a lot of the times when we're preparing for pregnancy, we're focused on the physical aspects or maybe mindfulness or something along those lines, but we don't really dig deep into postpartum mood disorders or when there are mood disorders that are still occurring in pregnancy or even that might exist before we're pregnant that will still continue throughout pregnancy. So it's really important to make sure that we're having these conversations and that we're being open and honest with the people around us. 

Maybe if you aren't in therapy or have somebody sort of set up along those lines, you still have a close friend or a support person that you can be sharing this information with or really opening up about the feelings that you're having because they are