.jpg)
Birth Journeys: Lifting the veil on the birth experience
Did your childbirth experience go as planned? Then The Birth Journeys Podcast® is for you! We share powerful and transformative birth stories that illuminate the realities of childbirth. Hosted by a labor nurse and prenatal coach who specializes in transformational coaching techniques, this podcast goes beyond traditional birth narratives to foster healing, build trust, and create transparency between birthing individuals and healthcare providers.
In each episode, we dive into essential topics like birth preparation, debunking common misconceptions, understanding hospital procedures, and promoting autonomy in the birthing process. We also bring you the wisdom and insights of experienced birth workers and medical professionals.
This is a safe and inclusive space where every birth story is valued, honored, and deserves to be heard. Join us in exploring the diverse and unique experiences of birth givers, and discover how transformational coaching can empower your own birth journey.
Contact Kelly Hof at: birthjourneysRN@gmail.com
Birth Journeys: Lifting the veil on the birth experience
Dr. Shweta Patel: Demystifying Hormones and Empowering Women's Health
Dr. Shweta Patel, a respected and innovative OB-GYN, joins us to unveil her upcoming book, "The Book of Hormones," promising a fresh perspective on the complex role of hormones in women's health. Her journey from wanting to write an all-encompassing guide to a focused exploration of hormones reveals untold stories and overlooked aspects of women's experiences. You'll gain invaluable insights into how hormones like cortisol shape everyday life, often dismissed by healthcare providers, empowering you to better understand your body.
Through engaging conversations, we explore the scope of pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period, tackling societal misconceptions with humor and realism. Our chat touches on everything from the misinterpreted success rates of conception to the humorous yet chaotic experiences of early motherhood. As we discuss the importance of informed health decisions and the role of diet and lifestyle, you'll discover the surprising truths behind pregnancy myths and the essential need for self-awareness.
Dr. Patel also obligingly dives into the significance of folic acid, especially concerning the MTHFR mutation, and the choices surrounding supplementation. The episode features a sneak peek into a book filled with diverse topics spanning sex, nutrition, and exercise, sprinkled with entertaining personal stories. Join us for an enlightening and entertaining journey, ensuring you walk away with both knowledge and a smile.
Pre-order "The Book of Hormones" here: https://amzn.to/4e1ES5G
Connect with Dr. Patel at: https://gayawellness.org/
Join the Bump & Beyond Online Community for moms & moms-to-be!
Coaching offer
Kelly Hof: Labor Nurse + Birth Coach
Basically, I'm your birth bestie! With me as your coach, you will tell fear to take a hike!
Connect with Kelly Hof at kellyhof.com
Medical Disclaimer:
This podcast is intended as a safe space for women to share their birth experiences. It is not intended to provide medical advice. Each woman’s medical course of action is individual and may not appropriately transfer to another similar situation. Please speak to your medical provider before making any medical decisions. Additionally, it is important to keep in mind that evidence based practice evolves as our knowledge of science improves. To the best of my ability I will attempt to present the most current ACOG and AWHONN recommendations at the time the podcast is recorded, but that may not necessarily reflect the best practices at the time the podcast is heard. Additionally, guests sharing their stories have the right to autonomy in their medical decisions, and may share their choice to go against current practice recommendations. I intend to hold space for people to share their decisions. I will attempt to share the current recommendations so that my audience is informed, but it is up to each individual to choose what is best for them.
Hello, today I have with me Dr Shweta Patel. Dr Patel is an OB-GYN and a women's health expert. She created GaiaWellnesscom, where women can meet with their women's health physician online. Dr Patel provides comprehensive women's health care online to women in Florida, north Carolina, virginia, indiana, tennessee, and is expanding to South Carolina, new York and Georgia, with plans to expand nationwide. She also offers the Gaia Wellness Forum on Facebook, which is open to anyone who has ever identified as a woman and who is interested in contributing to women's health concerns. Today we are going to be discussing her new book. Today we are going to be discussing her new book, the Book of Hormones, which is coming out November 1st 2024. It covers women's hormones from puberty to menopause and beyond. Dr Patel, welcome back and thank you for coming on to promote your new book.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, thank you so much for this opportunity. I was just so excited when you said hey, you want to come on back and I'll take every and any opportunity I can to spread the word about this book. I'm not good at that stuff. My strategy is extremely haphazard in marketing and you inviting me was just a godsend. Oh my God. Yes, that's a good idea.
Speaker 1:I should do those things. Okay, so tell me what was the inspiration of this book? This is a complex topic?
Speaker 2:Yes, it is. Honestly, I actually started with a book about everything about a woman and then I realized how undigestible that was all at once. Yes, In fact, I think I was talking to somebody who has written a book before. I just was like I'm coming up with this book. It's just going to be about everything a woman needs to know about herself, her health. And they looked at the outline and then they were like you realize, this is like 13 books, right? And I was like that's not a bad idea. Actually, I'll just take one each chapter and turn it into a book because they're that big. So that's how I settled on starting with the book of hormones, because if there's one thing I think that all of us are constantly you know it's a perpetual question in the back of our heads, Is it my hormones? Isn't the answer? 99 is the answer is yes, and yet the answer that's received is usually no, it's not. It's just stress, or oh, it's the fact that you're not sleeping well, or it's the fact that you-.
Speaker 2:Isn't stress also hormonal? Oh my God, it's like we planned this conversation or something. You're an excellent person to have this. It's like you're on cue man. Whoa, I don't know. I think there's something called cortisol, it's that one.
Speaker 1:Whoa. Doesn't that mess up all the other hormones?
Speaker 2:Right, yes, it totally is such a little shit starter. In fact, in the book I refer to it affectionately as the hold my beer hormone.
Speaker 2:I love it, because it's literally that it's that friend you can't take anywhere, because initially you think it's got your back and it's like standing up for you, but then you realize no, it's just literally waiting for some shit to go down and then sticks around too long, doesn't know when to leave that kind of a thing you wake up in the morning they're on your cat, your couch, covered in vomit yeah, and they ate like your parfait. Yeah, and they found out that the milk was bad and they put it back in there rude.
Speaker 1:That's cortisol. Yeah, that's cortisol.
Speaker 2:Cortisol is yeah, and I think that again, of course, a lot of where these experiences come from. As a woman, I obviously have them myself, but, like, my bigger arena for this experience fund is my patients and hearing what they experience and then realizing that oftentimes they'll have come from a different provider and they'll recant their experience with that provider. And, of course, when somebody tells you like oh my God, I hated that provider, they didn't hear a single thing, I said Now I'm listening even harder, right, I want to be part of that list of people who they talk about later. So I'm like tell me everything, which, by the way, if you are ever a patient and wonder if why, I sometimes run over it. That's exactly why. So, going into the book, I wanted it to be almost like a validation for women that have experienced that sense of dismissal, and I say this with a great of salt.
Speaker 2:I don't think any of my physician colleagues ever went to med school with the agenda to grow up one day and become the press for time quick to dismiss, quick to presume physician. That wasn't the class that we signed up for, but at some point, and part of the reason why a small part of the reason why I started Gaia Wellness is that we become this version of ourselves as physicians that even we don't really enjoy anymore, which is we don't have time to listen. We don't have time to connect the dots that the patient themselves aren't connecting in their lives and to really give them a more personalized answer, rather than their knee-jerk reflex response which is oh no, it's probably not that, or no, this is probably what you need, or, sorry, we don't have time for that. That's all for today.
Speaker 1:Till next time.
Speaker 2:And I think every time that happens, a little small part of the physician's work joy just dies and goes to heaven somewhere. You know like it's like oh no, there goes my reason for being a physician. At least I'll get home an hour late this time and not two, yay. So there's so much that goes into hormones that I think both women are right about and also women aren't fully aware about. That I think this book will help with, because when a woman says I think it's my hormones, she's right and she's not right. And the reason why she's right is because it is like you said, wait, cortisol, that's sleep. And she's not right sometimes.
Speaker 2:Also because, most often, when a woman tells me that she's referring to her reproductive hormones, like her estrogen and her testosterone, and we've latched onto those players because those are the only ones that we really had any kind of familiarity with, and so whenever anything goes wrong or changes in our life, we think it's probably because of the fact that we're a woman and we don't necessarily have the resources or the know-how about all the others that are also contributing. It is your estrogen, it is your testosterone, but it's also the 70 others that are playing with estrogen and testosterone and that beautiful symphony of a dance is what creates that sense of well-being and a single one of them being out of cahoots with another and it's like a run in your stocking from hell. Right, you're still functioning, those stockings are still on and they're supposedly still doing their job, but you see that run and you see it expanding. That's their hormonal health Like it's delicate, it's extremely fundamental to your wellbeing. We literally would not be able to function without our hormones. They're not something that's on the side, like our nails. Yeah, we need our nails, we like them, it's nice to have them, but we'd still live without them, right? Not without our hormones.
Speaker 2:I think that having a book that sort of breaks it down as to these are all the things you've gotten right, these are all the things you didn't even know, that you didn't know, and this is how we can get you feeling better in a easy to read, digestible, finite book that takes a spin on something like reading like column in a newspaper or a sex magazine or something. It's not serious, it's not intense and one might even argue when that one person would be me that it's intended to be funny. Actually, this is just my way of testing the waters to see how funny people think I am, so that I can quit my job and then become a comedian.
Speaker 1:Yeah I love that for you not really.
Speaker 2:I'd be such a sad comedian because I'd be like, oh no, I don't get to see women and take care of their problems but you could just have people up on stage and do it in a funny way.
Speaker 1:Truth, let's start doing that.
Speaker 2:Let's start just having patient visits on stage. Uh-huh, it would be so comedic. We wouldn't even have to be trying, we'd just be like talking and people would realize how hilarious women can be when we realize the shit that we have to go through. Yeah, we're onto something. I think so too. Throw in a couple of stirrups and golden. Our first volunteer.
Speaker 1:Come on, volvatrons, we know you're out there, okay, so I know, did I see right that it's also on Audible? It will be on Audible, yes, okay, when does that come?
Speaker 2:out. Audible usually takes a little bit longer. They're very specific about their recording requirements and so it is thoroughly dependent. I can't do it myself. I can I'm going to not screw drive my eyeball in an attempt to do so so I have to have a professional do it, and the timing is right now dependent on when they will be done. That's part of the reason why it's a little bit of a moving target. It will be the last version that comes out, and the only version that can be on pre-sale or pre-order right now is the Kindle. The paperback will be out November 1st and the Audible version will be out, hopefully no later than this year. I love it. Yeah, that needs to happen.
Speaker 1:I'm an Audible, I do everything.
Speaker 2:Me too. I I literally audible everything and it's. It was actually cumbersome for me to edit my own book because that required reading it look at hey I know and I was like can. How do I do things with?
Speaker 1:your hand. Yeah, how do I do 12 things when I'm at?
Speaker 2:no, yeah, I totally feel you I figured out how you can have your phone read text to you. Yeah, siri will read stuff to you. Did you know? You didn't know, huh, you don't even need to download an app. It's a function built into your iPhone if you're an iPhone-er which I hope you are, because I don't know what to do with you if you're not. But it used to be a dating criteria until I started dating somebody who has an Android. And now I'm like oh man, I can't even say that anymore. Oh, I need the bubble. I need my bubble.
Speaker 1:OK, so theoretically I could download the Kindle and tell Siri to read it to me.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:OK, I'm going to do that.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's a function that was designed by Apple so that you can have safe driving. If somebody texts you, you can have the phone read it to you. I'm now using it as a way to have my chapters edited. The only thing is and I actually think this is adding to it than taking away is that it's Siri reading it in Siri's monotone, clear eyes, dry eyes, guy kind of voice, and so you can really tell when something's funny, because even when it's said to you in this completely lifeless voice, it still makes you crack up a little, and so then I know like when it's delivered with actual emphasis, it'll hopefully deliver more laughs. I love it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so my primary audience is the pregnant folks and the postpartum folks. Yes, you have an audience. Tell me what you want them to know.
Speaker 2:Here's where the book becomes full scope. Like you said in the intro, it's from puberty to menopause and beyond, but it includes pregnancy, it includes postpartum and it also includes that period of your life where you're not sure if you are going to have kids, or that period where you just think of course you are and you're not even worried or thinking about if it's going to be a possibility, and that period where you have started to try and maybe experiencing challenges, as well as those times where a few of us experience success with pregnancy but not with having a baby, and over and over again.
Speaker 2:And so I wanted to make sure that I included the full breadth of the experience of pregnancy, and that doesn't just happen with the positive pregnancy test or the nausea and the weight gain, which all too has to do with hormones, but also the part of hey. Did you know, when you were trying to have sex every day because you thought that was going to help you get pregnant, that those are great exercises you're engaging in, but it's only going to really matter when it's one out of three days of the month? And then the other part of it is hey. Did you know that you were on birth control for 30 days out of a month, so that you can stop one day out of a month from happening? Mm-hmm, right, life is so great holding back the floodgates, right.
Speaker 2:So it was flexing hard, and now that they're off, it should be like poof, god help you. You turn around and you should be pregnant just instantaneously. And so many women feel discouraged when it takes longer than a few months, or even a month sometimes, because of that culture that we've created, where it's, if you don't use some form of protection, you're going to get pregnant, and I think that creates a sense of then like almost like a feeling of failure because you didn't just instantaneously get pregnant, and a lot of women don't realize it. No, actually the conception success rate is like anywhere from 20 to 30 percent a year for each couple which is like not a lot, really, you got to try.
Speaker 1:Nobody tells you that. Yeah, very intentional.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's as intentional as eyeliner. Yes, very small, delicate thing, yeah, can go wrong. It's not as easy as it looks and then, when it's done, you forget how hard it was. You're like okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pretty much so for anyone who is wanting to, whether it's starting from the basics of understanding the process that your body goes through to even be able to become pregnant. To anyone wanting to understand the process that your body goes through while being pregnant and maybe make some more informed decisions about things like what to eat, what not to eat, more informed decisions about things like what to eat, what not to eat what can you use for your skin when you are having acne during pregnancy, or is that thing going to actually affect your pregnancy as crazily harmfully as they make it sound like it will?
Speaker 1:Oh no, don't use hair color and it's okay, great.
Speaker 2:So now that I'm knocked up, it's okay to look completely with grays and acne and just rough because who cares?
Speaker 1:You're already pregnant. Let it all go.
Speaker 2:It's only just to get to that point in life, you know, check. And then, of course, the phase of postpartum that is so neglected because neglected by moms themselves, because they're instantly moms now and they're automatically not thinking about themselves anymore.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So it's okay. I get why you're not taking a shower, but I think, even as physicians and as women, that are the friends, the sisters, the moms of other women we really don't. Postpartum is not about the mom, it's about the baby right. And so that is another thing I draw attention to in the book, which is yo go take some time for yourself, woman, like you need help out the other moms that are doing this for the first time.
Speaker 2:Yes, there's that episode in Sex and the City where, like Miranda is just like she's struggling man you can see the greasiness in her hair from TV and she has not slept well and she has not had any kind of a social life and she's finally out with the girls doing their weekly brekkie thing and nobody gets her Like. Nobody even understands what she's going through, but just, of course, understandable. They're not going through it. But at the same time I think that we're already prone to becoming an island of our own emotions and our own struggles and we're so attached to looking like we've got it together that I think it takes people actively engaging with the mom in postpartum to have that mom maybe even ask for help. Don't wait for somebody to ask you that they need your help and this would be the most probably applicable time for that. And it doesn't have to be postpartum depression for it to still suck.
Speaker 2:Let's maybe not let it get to postpartum depression or postpartum blues. Usually, when I'm seeing patients at the hospital rounding on them before they go home, I'll talk to the partners and I'll be like, hey, this is your job, right, she's not going to notice. She may, but we're not going to bank on her noticing and having that insight that she's not herself.
Speaker 1:Or maybe she will, and she's just feeling shame about it.
Speaker 2:Or, yes, exactly this is going to be a village job, right To make sure that everything is going okay or as best as it can be, and that there isn't room for improvement or for helping her out in ways that she might not even necessarily realize it yet, and I think that the book will addressing that. There's not enough room to address it in the level and depth that I want it to, but it definitely still is a pretty well-rounded chapter on all things pregnancy related, but that's why I'm like, hey, maybe I should write a book on it, then you should Wait a second. Uh-oh, yes, I think one of the 13 books is the book of pregnancy and then postpartum and then infertility?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, what else? And labor, yes, yeah, well, let's do that.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, Can you imagine You're going to be on my podcast so much?
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I can't wait. We're going to be new Women being like excuse me, but I don't think my baby's variability is okay. What?
Speaker 1:I know, oh, we shouldn't tell them about that. Why not? Because then they possibly will be informed Whoa, oh my goodness.
Speaker 2:Empowerment is only good when we can control it.
Speaker 1:But knowledge is a powerful tool that we don't like to give to everybody. Right, all right. People may not be picking up on all our sarcasm here.
Speaker 2:I know, I know, by the way, that was sarcasm, probably the past 30 seconds.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, thanks. Yeah, I have so many things I want to ask you. Let's just throw something out there that every woman hates the nausea, the morning sickness, hormones, right?
Speaker 2:So then, why are? We treating it non-hormonally Because the hormones that trigger the nausea are very important to be had. It's like saying it's important to be able to get to work, which is why you're driving your car, but the side effect of driving your car is that you're not walking as much as you could have been. But unfortunately we still need to get to work in a reasonable amount of time, so we can't just X-nay. The car Does that kind of yeah.
Speaker 1:So then when treating it, my question would be is it better to treat it in like a nutritional supplement way or is it better to treat it in the druggy way?
Speaker 2:That sounds like a leading question, I'm going to bite. That sounds like a leading question, I'm going to bite. I'm going to bite on nausea. The first and foremost way to treat nausea in pregnancy is nutritionally hands down, and I feel like sometimes we forget that medications evolved from nutrition. Right, all of the stuff that we get in medications from is edible, and that's how somebody figured out that they should or should not eat it.
Speaker 1:And hopefully live to say. I just ate this don't try it.
Speaker 2:My nausea is better. I'm at the shits now, though the fundamental treatment for nausea in pregnancy is vitamin B6. If there are some women maybe that are like experiencing a smooth ride through nausea in pregnancy and some that are experiencing it horribly, I wish we had a way of now going back in time and seeing what their diets were like, and if one woman had a more predominant diet with high volumes of vitamin B6, or not so much high, but the other woman who was having it really wretchedly, whether they were just like excluding B6 unknowingly in their diet. And I think that maybe that could shed light on how often we do limit our own success by our natural habits and how we just eat and how we don't eat, and et cetera. But since we're a culture of fast, quicker yesterday more, and patience is not our virtue, it's so much easier to just take pills for vitamin B6 and then say, hey, but at least they're vitamins, right, so that's still better than taking something like pharmaceutical, which vitamins are also technically, we just don't like. It's like coming up with a name for it to make it sound better, but rather than realizing like, oh, we could possibly just be eating more food that is nutrient dense with B vitamins from the get go, and maybe that might improve the nausea effect.
Speaker 2:The other thing is the amount of vitamin B6 that you need to alleviate nausea, because nausea in pregnancy doesn't happen from a vitamin B6 deficiency, and that's an important distinction to make. So it's not. Eating foods that are high in vitamin B6 will act immediately to alleviate the nausea, but when you're experiencing intense nausea in pregnancy, vitamin B6 in high amounts does improve that symptom. However, sometimes even that's not enough, and so typically what we're supposed to do as physicians is try out the B6 first and then, if that's not effective, then work our way up to anti-medics and anti-nausea medications, because ultimately, we want the woman to stay hydrated and nourished and also emotionally not able to get out of bed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's an emotional toll, and I think that's another thing that gets overlooked is like it's not just about the fact that it sucks to not be able to eat or keep anything down, but because we need nutrition and energy or whatever. But it also sucks because you feel miserable at a time where you're supposed to be so happy and excited and joyous. Supposedly, that's what I'm told. I don't really know.
Speaker 1:That's what they told me too, and I don't really know if I had that experience.
Speaker 2:Apparently, you have a parasite in you that's supposed to be cute and you're supposed to be happy and joyous.
Speaker 1:They're adorable now, but I was really not loving it when they were inside.
Speaker 2:By the way, audience just know that I have no actual human children so I can get away with stuff like this. Actually, I think everyone can. There you go, my children I just dated Dash and Mimi for six weeks each. And it was smooth sailing. It is so much easier to have puppy babies there's no nausea, you don't gain weight and they look really cute.
Speaker 1:You actually lose weight because they have more energy than you and you have to walk them.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, it's pretty awesome. I will have as many puppy litters as I can, as my body allows, yeah, so there is light at the end of the tunnel for most people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there wasn't for me, but that's all right.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm sorry, but you're so pretty now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I puked every morning the entire pregnancy and I wish I had that problem sometime.
Speaker 2:No, it wasn't like even like food, Not the fun kind. You're just yakking up air and you're still like oh, there's something inside me.
Speaker 1:It was all just bile.
Speaker 2:Oh, lovely.
Speaker 1:Cute.
Speaker 2:I loved it so much. It was great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I just, I love my children.
Speaker 2:Yes, how often do you find yourself saying that out loud, aggressively, very aggressively. I love my children, I love my children.
Speaker 1:Okay, so after pregnancy, what is all that craziness? There's so much. I got one word for you Hormones. There's so much going on. Okay, you're lactating, whether or not you intend to, you're lactating. Squirt squirt, squirt squirt. Yes, it's out of control. Sometimes it goes across the room. You have, I had hot cold. All these different emotions, temperature, hot cold Also combine that with like sleep cortisol.
Speaker 2:It's a hot mess. And the H-O-T not the H-A-W-T.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dumpster fire is what it is, and yet it's so beautiful. So, what we just mentioned, fire is what it is.
Speaker 2:And yet it's so beautiful. So what we just mentioned, the change in hormones. So in the initial phase of becoming pregnant, that's one big uptick. And then the immediate time after you have the placenta come out like it is that specific of a moment.
Speaker 1:Right, let's pause, right there Talk about the shakes. Okay, we always blame it on anesthesia. Is it anesthesia?
Speaker 2:It is not anesthesia. I mean, you've just been in there like for hours, right? Where did I come?
Speaker 1:from yes, even with a C-section. Okay, there See every anesthesiologist I've ever worked with.
Speaker 2:I did it. It's out there in the ether now. I mean it might be, I'm sure, like some level.
Speaker 1:I can't say Baby tanking after anesthesia, that's anesthesia, that's anesthesia, that's it. Full show, that's it.
Speaker 2:Yes, the rest of it is not anesthesia. The shakes that make you makes everyone ask you, are you cold? And you're like, no, I can't stop shaking, though it about to do something dramatic. It's feeling all of this change in a very small period of time and that's how it's coping with it. It's almost like we don't have the resources left to not shake, like to be stable, to look cool and like we're chilling because all of our resources are going towards what's about to happen next. And in the labor and delivery world, we see the shakes. We're like oh, here we go About damn time. I'm waiting for this baby to come out, because that's usually a tip off that like suddenly the body is bracing itself and, sure enough, maybe nine out of 10 times when that happens, I'm like let's check this patient and see what's going on.
Speaker 2:And they're usually like completely dilated and the baby's head's right there and it's like your body's hurry up, it can't hold on anymore. We're like, yeah, great, let's do this. That's the shakes in pregnancy. I do not believe they're related to the anesthesia. I think the same thing happens when you have a C-section because, again, like you are suddenly creating a. It's not a gradual shift, it's a sudden change in your hormone levels and in C-sections we're doing the same thing. We're taking the baby out.
Speaker 2:But it's not the baby, obviously, it's the placenta that leads to sudden change in hormones. The placenta is the source for so much of the hormonal production in pregnancy and if not like almost 95% I would say. And so when that placenta releases and comes out, you've essentially pulled the plug on that hormone production. It's a beautiful analogy right there. So when that happens, it's like short-stopping on that hormone production. It's a beautiful analogy right there. So when that happens, it's like short-stopping on the hormone highway.
Speaker 2:And most women will notice that impact immediately as well as gradually. I think we would probably not have a gradual effect with the placenta were it not for the fact that we're so busy with the baby in the immediate phase that we don't notice it until things slowed down. You also have the adrenaline or the cortisol that kicked in right after I got you the poise of having the baby. And then you have the baby in your hand and you're not really paying attention to how the placenta leaving your body is making you feel. Usually a day or two later, when things have simmered down, then you start to notice like, wow, it's a good thing I have all this oxytocin circulating in my body right now. Every time I see the baby, which is not there for me. It's there for the baby's milk production.
Speaker 1:But still, it feels great.
Speaker 2:I think, yay, that you realize.
Speaker 2:Without that you'd be pretty darn depressed because your progesterone levels just taint in comparison right, because you don't need progesterone on that level to be you, but in pregnancy you do and now you've gotten used to that high level of progesterone and it does have a significant impact on the brain for women and your sleep and your overall. One of the effects progesterone has on the entire body is it's a relaxant. You take that away and you're also low on sleep. You're essentially functioning as a milk producer and for most of the moms it could be like a first time experience and you're a pretty unstable ticking time bomb emotion. I don't even know how the heck women do it.
Speaker 1:Why are my eyes?
Speaker 2:leaking all the time. I do one night of call and if it's busy I go home the next day and I am just like a tantrumic two-year-old. Somebody calls me and says hey, I've been trying to get a hold of you. I'll be like DJ, I know how it's going to go. That's one night of intermittent or interrupted sleep, no hormone cray-cray, right, yeah. So now you're a milk geezer. You're a progesterone-depleted, sleep-diminished woman with body fluids coming out of every orifice, and you're supposed to still feel glowy and warm and fuzzy on the inside. Okay, Good luck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's when women need help. Somebody come clean the house, somebody come make her meals. You need the pit crew to just take care of everything.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then tires rotated yeah. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Did your laundry, took out the trash Checklist. Yes, that's what you need. Okay, so I've noticed a trend among women of a certain age. We start to have a career, right, we put off pregnancy until like mid to late 30s, early 40s. Then we have small children and suddenly the hormones are doing crazy things again. What's that all about?
Speaker 2:Because our ovaries are just they're so punctual and sometimes they're not, but most of the times they're pretty like efficient in doing things the way they're always going to do them. They're pretty like efficient in doing things the way they're always going to do them. And so if you have babies now or you have babies later, those ovaries are still going out of commission. When they're going out of commission and all you've done by having pregnancies or being on birth control which is another one, like people think, oh, was it because I was on birth control for all these years that I am having a hard time having babies? And it's no, it's because you were on birth control for all these years that I am having a hard time having babies. And it's no, it's because you were on birth control for all these years. And now you're trying to have babies all these years later, and that's what's the issue.
Speaker 2:So a woman in her 40s I'll preface this with I firmly believe that a woman's health during pregnancy is not age dependent. I think that if you were to take two women of the same exact health status, maybe the 25-year-old will be less risk-prone or healthier than a 45-year-old, but in that perfectly ideal comparison. Otherwise, I think that I have had more healthier 40-year-olds than I've had 25-year-olds and their pregnancies follow that trend and their pregnancies follow that trend.
Speaker 2:So that's my little plug for all of you women to just get into great shape at any age, before you consider pregnancy, because it is the marathon of your life.
Speaker 1:Lots of vitamin B6 rich foods, yes.
Speaker 2:So that you don't yak everything else up. Yeah, so I think that coming back to age is going to determine how you feel when it comes to your ovarian function, and we do follow. The average. Age of when our mom's, sister's, grandmother's became menopausal is typically when we will as well. Otherwise, the national average is anywhere from 50 to 55. So you do the math. If you're 45 years old and you are nursing a newborn or dealing with your two-year-old toddler, and then suddenly you notice that your menstrual cycle never went back to normal after the baby, well, that's because you happen to have a baby when you were going to have irregular cycles anyways, because you're in your 40s and your body's like oh, we're almost there, we're going to almost have to not do this ever again. This is great, let's start practicing. Yep, yeah, but otherwise it would have been different if you were younger, but then again, so would have the pregnancy and so would have been having a three year old, you're poison.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's this. I cannot turn on Instagram without hearing the folate folic acid debate, which drives me crazy. I'm totally changing the subject, by the way, on this. Yeah, you are. First of all, is there a difference between folate and folic acid? Yeah, okay, because folate is folic acid. It's just a different way of saying it. The debate is about methylated versus unmethylated, but why are we calling it folate versus folic acid? Help me wrap my head around all of this.
Speaker 2:Okay, Folate is what I believe is the element found in our foods, and folic acid is what we usually are breaking it down to or metamorphosing, changing. Thank you, you're so sexy when you be simple, oh my God. Folic acid, and that is the version that we need in order to ensure the growing neural tube does not have any T's that need to be crossed? That don't, or I's, that don't get dotted Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so then what happens? First of all, there's this mutation that everybody talks about, the MTHFR mutation. How many women is this affected? Are we testing for it, and should everybody take methylated folate?
Speaker 2:So you don't need methylated folate unless you have a deficiency in the enzyme that methylates folate for you. Yeah, some people have it, and if that's the case, then you probably will have other kinds of signs or symptoms. They may not be obvious, because it's not like we all have a dictionary that we can just refer to when we need. Oh wait, we do. It's called Google. But point is not every woman and the majority of women do not have MTHFR mutation. For those who do, yes, methylated folate might be more effective, because that's the form that we need to utilize to ensure the proper development of the neural tube or the nervous system. Most of us don't. Most of us can just eat folate, and it'll be taken in and turned into whatever it needs to be taken into. Here's the crazy part, though. If you don't know, and you feel better taking methylated folate because you don't know if you are or are not capable of transforming it, there you go.
Speaker 2:I can learn it's not going to harm you to take methylated folate. Maybe somebody might charge you more. That's your problem to deal with, and nothing else is going to happen other than you or your body might become internally a little lazy because it's like, yeah, this fish just gives us everything we need. We don't even got to work for it. Like chewing the food for you, yeah, why am I going to do that? I'm going to just have a smoothie. But yeah, ultimately there's always such a thing about what's the right answer and the wrong answer. I think really there's so many different answers. As long as there's not an answer that's causing harm, you do you?
Speaker 1:boo Can make their own decisions on whether they want methylated versus unmethylated folate. People don't need to get mad about it. People don't need to get mad about it Really.
Speaker 2:There's so many other things there are. Like when you get a lipstick color that you finally felt really good about it discontinued. Go ahead, Be mad. Hold my beer. Hold my beer.
Speaker 1:Okay, I got off topic. Was there anything else that we needed to talk about that you wanted?
Speaker 2:to share, sure, like all the other 19 chapters of the book, but you know there is stuff about sex. Okay, wait for it. You're going to feel redeemed, I am. It's going to be good. I'm not going to go into it too much beyond that, but let me just say that the sex chapter is not going to be the typical stuff that most women are used to hearing about their sex drive. I love that. Look at that. There is also a chapter oh my God, shut up, a chapter on nutrition.
Speaker 1:So maybe I wasn't so far off with the methylated versus unmethylated.
Speaker 2:And there's going to be so much more other things than just folate that we talk about and all the ways you can wholistically get in your diet. Whoa Love it. There's going to be a whole chapter on how exercise affects your body and some major myths busted about things like cardio and weightlifting. There's an entire homage to cholesterol. Wait, guys, stop, hold back. I know it's going to be really hard not to run to the store to get this book. You're probably like I can't wait to see how cholesterol is redeemed, but it is. And there's also this is actually one of my personal favorite parts of the book it's just all the things I think women should have chapter. Is it your Amazon list? It's like almost right there. It's just did you know you didn't? Now you do, and good Like that. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:So compiled by only me and my personal opinions, so it has really no relevance or bearing on you unless you wanted to, but hey, listen, you blow my mind with things like lashes and you still have your youtube where you're like and this is how you put on your lash remember you like you're at the nursing station, be like, I found something amazing I'm still doing that.
Speaker 2:I the other day I convinced everybody on Wonder Water by L'Oreal. Okay, what's Wonder Water I don't know why I do that, but it always happens to me at the nurses. I get my most inspired there. It's hormones, you're right. Yeah, it's aerosolized hormones as farts. I'm just kidding, that's not technically, but so, unless you're in your period, right all bets are off. No, so the l'oreal is it? What is it called?
Speaker 2:it starts wonder water, yeah, wonder water, but like the evolve or something. It's in a brown bottle and it's supposed to be for frizz and the thing I don't know. One day we might all realize it causes cancer, but for the time being it causes silky hair, is what it is. Okay it is. I love it so hard and I don't know why. But, like that night when I was telling my nurses about it, it almost a personal thing that if every single woman don't get convinced about the wonderness of this wonder water, I don't know. I wasn't gonna be able to sleep, so I think most of them are probably going to be testing it out, but I'll have to look at the yeah, you're like another episode, is it?
Speaker 2:silicone. It might be. Don't tell me if it got cancer doesn't cause cancer which is going to cause your hair to break, ultimately because you won't get any nutrients, at least the hair on the floor will be shiny and I will be like blinded by it. Yeah, no, you're right, I probably shouldn't look at immediate gains for but yeah, so there's an entire chapter dedicated to things like that. That may or may not be good for you, but you will really like the way you look.
Speaker 1:I guarantee it.
Speaker 2:So Dr Patel's warehouse of things that are probably going to cause cancer.
Speaker 1:I'll make sure it all meets European standards. Thanks, appreciate it.
Speaker 2:We can add, like a updated or revised Kelly's caveat to all of this oh, my goodness, okay, I could do this all day.
Speaker 1:However, yeah, at some point I got to go pick up. My goodness, okay, I could do this all day. However, yeah, at some point I got to go pick up my kids. Anything else you want to talk about before?
Speaker 2:No, I think this was really fun. I think that you know I love what you do and I love that you make it so easy to be real about women's health. From my understanding of what you do, you are open to learning the opposite opinion, and that is so. It's not common, right? Like in our field, we are so used to just thinking of things the way we're used to thinking of them, and I don't know where we lose our creativity or our ability to entertain differences, but like it gets lost. And I think that having the ability to listen to someone's point of view and or their reasons behind what they're doing with their health is important, because that's how we learn new things, Right, and so I really value that in you. And, for instance, I could say I'm putting cancerous stuff in my hair and you'll be like I'll take a look.
Speaker 1:You're not going to be like, oh my God, burn the bitch If you want to put cancerous stuff in your hair, I'm not going to tell you. No See, ultimately, I just want you to know and make the right decision. Or not the right decision, the best decision for you, right, if you want silky hair and later on you want to deal with cancer. That's your life choice.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you. I'm the same way about pregnancy If you want to have children at 45, and then you're going to be potentially dealing with things like staying up late at night when you're 45, but then also you lived your best life when you're in your 20s because you didn't have kids and you were like traveling with your partner or by yourself and enjoyed that. Everything was high and up and tight when you wanted it to be Good. Yeah, do you? Meeting people where they are Precisely, and hopefully that's in Paris.
Speaker 1:Yes, let's go, all right.
Speaker 2:Okay, yes, let's go All right. Okay, next podcast episode there, yes, please.
Speaker 1:All right, before we drive our audience crazy with all of our silliness, I'm going to go. Yes, too late. Yeah, exactly, all right, stay tuned for the next episode when the next book comes out. But in the meantime, please go out and buy the book of hormones, which is available right now on pre-order in Kindle and will be available November 1st, probably sometime around when this episode airs. Yeah, so go get it.
Speaker 2:Yes, and don't worry if you don't have a Kindle. You don't need a Kindle to read on Kindle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't have one. People don't realize you just download the app't need a Kindle to read on Kindle. Yeah, this is apparently a big. I don't have one. People don't realize you just download the app. Yeah, you can even do it on your computer. Yeah, I love it. Okay, dr Patel, thank you so much for joining me, as always. Thank you, keri.
