Why Postpartum Care is Crucial for a Mother & Baby with Julia Kim [Epi

Why Postpartum Care is Crucial for a Mother & Baby with Julia Kim [Episode 881]

This week’s topic: Why Postpartum Care is Crucial for a Mother & Baby with Julia Kim

I am so excited for my guest this week to talk about a very important topic, postpartum. We have the lovely Julia Kim, who has over 15 years of experience in lawmaking, policy, communications, political campaigns. She lives outside DC and she is Washington, DC, where I went to college. So I know that area very well. She’s also the founder of Sanu, which is one of the first non clinical postpartum care stay facility in the United States. It’s program is anchored in evidence based care for the mother developed by a physician to help reduce stress and anxiety. Those of us mamas out there, myself included, did not have a lot of information about postpartum care.and the United States sadly has one of the lowest level of postpartum care in the world.

Topics Covered

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Postpartum Care
01:17 Personal Experience and Motivation
04:10 Importance of Postpartum Care
05:09 Journey into Postpartum Care
08:58 Lack of Information and Support
09:50 Lack of Physical Recovery Practices
11:35 South Korean Tradition of Postpartum Care
12:14 Comprehensive Postpartum Support
14:16 Importance of Rest and Nutrition
15:13 Partner Involvement in Postpartum Care
19:23 Long-Term Effects of Postpartum Period
20:45 Support for Birth Trauma
23:50 Comparison with Postpartum Care in Korea
26:51 Focus on Partner Inclusion and Nutrition
28:19 Importance of Physical Touch and Caregiver Support
29:13 Insurance Coverage for Postpartum Care
31:09 Making Postpartum Care More Accessible
32:27 Options for Care Beyond Overnight Stays
35:29 Virtual Support and Online Classes
36:23 Supporting Mothers’ Mental Health
37:13 Taking Shifts for Sleep and Rest
39:18 Building Confidence in Co-Caregivers
41:00 Long-Term Effects of Postpartum Period
44:27 Returning to Work After Postpartum
46:01 Importance of Support and Communication
49:26 Conclusion and Contact Information

About Julia Kim

Julia Kim is the founder of Sanu, the first non-clinical postpartum care stay facility in the country that provides a proprietary, evidence-based and partner-inclusive mother-centered care framework, developed by a physician to maximize a mothers postpartum period, reduce stress and anxiety that often contribute to postpartum depression during the physically and mentally demanding “fourth trimester.”

Julia has over 15 years of experience in lawmaking, policy, communications, and political campaigns. Julia was honored to serve as the national Co-Chair for Korean Americans for the Biden administration.

Julia earned her MBA at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business (MSB). Julia is a second generation Korean American and resides in Virginia with her husband and two sons.

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Julia Kim Website

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Transcript:
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly Snyder (00:01.216)
Hi, loves, welcome back to our Monday interview show. I am so excited for my guest this week to talk about a very important topic, postpartum. We have the lovely Julia Kim, who has over 15 years of experience in lawmaking, policy, communications, political campaigns. She lives outside DC and she is Washington, DC, where I went to college. So I know that area very well. She’s also the founder of Sanu which is the first non -clinical postpartum care stay facility in the US, which is based on evidence -based mother care. And it’s been developed by a physician to help reduce stress and anxiety. Those of us mamas out there, myself included, did not have a lot of information about postpartum care. I had no idea what was, you know, really what was going on rather than a little bit of information from my midwife. So.

This is a very big topic that’s important for all of us. We all know that there is a rising increase in postpartum depression. There is a lot of vulnerability in the mother after she gives birth, which we’ll talk about today. So Julia, thank you so much for being here with us.

Julia Kim (01:17.55)
Thank you. Hey, Kimberly. This is very exciting. I do want to make one correction though. I don’t think we were the first, but we were among the first. Yeah. Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (01:25.216)
Got it amongst the first. Thank you so much for the technicality, which is important these days. And I know that you are also a boy mom, right? You have two sons. My children are actually my one son turned eight. I was gonna say, I’m so used to saying three and seven, three and eight. How old are your children?

Julia Kim (01:29.838)
I’m going to go ahead and close the video.

Julia Kim (01:45.998)
So my oldest is six and my youngest is nine months.

Kimberly Snyder (01:50.112)
Oh my gosh, you are in postpartum care right now in the extended part. This is amazing. So I always felt really creative during my pregnancies. And of course there’s time for rest and rejuvenation and respecting those sacred periods. But it sounds like you’re also creating in these periods in a way that feels good to you because that sacral chakra, everything is.

Julia Kim (01:52.334)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (02:16.64)
I had all these creative ideas come up while I was pregnant and afterwards.

Julia Kim (02:21.038)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I will tell you postpartum has not been easy. And that’s, you know, part of why I took this journey in the first place. But I totally understand that, you know, creative energy and, you know, especially during my first pregnancy, I felt amazing. And I was happy all the time. And I was blessed not to have, you know, a lot of nausea and some of those other symptoms. Like all of my hardships came after childbirth. So.

Kimberly Snyder (02:39.806)
Mmm.

Julia Kim (02:50.924)
Yeah, it’s been a time.

Kimberly Snyder (02:51.264)
What kind of hardships did you personally experience?

Julia Kim (02:56.91)
Yeah, so after the birth of both of my boys, I had something called Deemer. And I guess a simple explanation is depression slash anxiety that’s related to breastfeeding. Yeah, and it’s not very well known, not talked about really, but it made breastfeeding very difficult. And on top of that, I had

Kimberly Snyder (03:13.6)
Oh.

Julia Kim (03:23.662)
really terrible depression and anxiety after the birth of my second. And, you know, the first of course is always hard. You know, I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have younger siblings to take care of, you know, to learn those things or like an older sister or brother who had children. And, you know, I just, I wasn’t ready in those ways. And so it was difficult.

Kimberly Snyder (03:43.84)
Whoa. So I’m so excited that we’re bringing this topic to the forefront because we did the wellness trends report and one of them was trying to bring more of the postpartum care and just the topic to the forefront, which has largely been ignored as we know. Before we dive deeper, I’m waving at you. I’m waving at Julia right now. If you’re not aware, our podcast is also on video.

You can head over to the YouTube channel if you love to listen, as always, on Apple, Spotify, while you’re walking your dog or driving to your job in the morning. We are still here, of course. But also, we will be linking to Julia’s site, her information, as well as other podcasts I think you would enjoy, articles, meditations, recipes, and more on our website, mysaluna .com. So, Julia, this is how, so besides your, was your personal experience,

sort of your momentum to get to start your wellness center, Sanu, and to get into this. Because I know for me, a lot of people ask, well, why did you get into wellness? And I said, well, for me, first I wanted to heal myself. I had a lot of anxiety. I had a lot of bloating. I didn’t sleep. I had a lot of digestive issues. So that’s sort of the natural pathway in. And then you dive deeper and you see, wow, a lot of people have similar issues. Can you share a little bit about your journey into this particular area?

Julia Kim (05:09.902)
Yeah, so I mean, I’m very type A. So I tried to go around and even interview pediatricians. I mean, they were having none of it, but I did go around and I think I visited like eight different offices. I took the classes, I read all the books. And so, you know, I was like, I’m as prepared as I possibly can be. And I went into the labor and delivery process feeling, you know, pretty good. And

you know, as soon as I had my baby and those nurses left the room and they just leave the baby with you. I’m like, oh my gosh, you know, what is happening? Why are you just leaving? What do I do with the baby? Like I thought there was, you know, some sort of educational piece that, you know, they would say, okay, you know, Wally, honey, you want to do this? You just had your baby do this, do that, you know, do this with him, do this with yourself. There was absolutely nothing. And I just remember.

Being in that room, the recovery room, just shivering, it suddenly got super cold and I thought, oh my gosh, I am in a world of trouble. So that’s what kind of kicked off my thinking about, you know, how can we serve mothers better during this time? And the experience that I had in the postpartum period and beyond with both of my kids really validated that, you know, moving towards a solution.

doing something that’s really mother centered, but partner inclusive, because I have to mention that I have an incredibly supportive partner and they really should be included in a lot of the educational and the healing and just the hands -on training. But what can we do to serve these new parents? And I look towards what we were doing in South Korea, that’s where parents are from. And South Korea, they’re…

Kimberly Snyder (06:58.034)
Mmm.

Julia Kim (07:02.958)
postpartum care is just unparalleled. And in fact, throughout all of East Asia and now into Southeast Asia, Australia, Israel, Dubai, the UAE, I think there’s one in France and Canada. So it’s becoming a global phenomenon of these specialized postpartum care centers that are out of the home. Yeah, and I thought, okay, I don’t wanna be home and entertaining.

Kimberly Snyder (07:25.854)
Mmm!

Julia Kim (07:31.822)
my mom and mother -in -law and everybody who wants to come and sip and see the baby and touch the baby and kiss the baby. And I’m like cutting fruit up, you know, it’s like very Asian, like cutting fruit up and hosting my in -laws and friends. And I’m like, I want none of that. And it’s not conducive for recovery. And so there’s a lot of brainstorming, looking towards other countries and what’s already being done and really adapting those things to.

fit an American audience.

Kimberly Snyder (08:02.304)
Wow, you know that whole entertaining thing. So I’m half Filipina, so I have Asian blood in me as well. And it’s really interesting because my second son was born during COVID. And so in a way, it simplified things because there wasn’t a lot of that activity. But in another way, there was more of that isolation where I didn’t have the mom circles and the things that I had with my first son. So let’s get a little bit.

Julia Kim (08:07.854)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (08:28.896)
more specific when we’re talking about postpartum care, Julia, right? Because first it’s pregnancy, it’s like what’s mom eating, prenatal yoga, like all these things. And then the baby comes out and then there’s a lot of shift of focus to the baby. How much is, you know, baby, you know, soiling the diapers and how’s baby sleeping and how much, you know, this and that with baby. And then it really gets pulled away from the mother. Here in our community, we talk about four cornerstones, food,

body, emotional well -being, and spiritual growth. So first of all, which of these do you think is, I mean, probably all of them, but which are the ones that you see in the United States versus other countries are the most lacking in terms of postpartum care where there isn’t as much information, like you said, the education piece, or maybe it’s all of them in a way, just sort of what I believe.

Julia Kim (09:22.222)
Yeah. Yeah, I think, yes, you hit the nail on the head. It really is all of them in particular, the emotional, mental, and also the physical. I mean, I think we tend to forget that, you know, childbirth is not easy. And when you come out of labor and delivery, women are in a lot of pain. And so there’s that just physical recovery aspect that we don’t really talk about that much.

Kimberly Snyder (09:44.042)
Yes.

Julia Kim (09:50.318)
And, you there’s anxiety, exhaustion, apprehension and stress about breastfeeding and hormonal changes as well, body dysmorphia. And so there’s just a lot that we are not tackling well enough that other countries are kind of leading the way in the form of better support. And, you know, research really suggests that the more that we do for the child,

I’m sorry, the more that we do for the mother, the more we do for the child and the entire family. And so I think, you know, just from all aspects, we have to do better. And I will tell you that I think a lot of people are surprised to know that suicide is the number one cause of death for postpartum women. I mean, can you even believe it? I mean, I know you’re familiar with this. Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (10:39.008)
Oh my God, it’s got goosebumps. Yes, that was something that I was reading about and it’s not as uncommon as we think, right? It’s, you know, a statistic that’s out there. And so, you know, as a mom, my heart just, oh, that’s a big one to take in, right? So us as a society, as a collective, has to really consider what is going on in our process here. So as a student of Arju Veda,

I had always learned because RU -Veda goes into so much around postpartum, how vulnerable our bodies are, right? They say that if we don’t take care of our bodies in those first 40 days, we can be more susceptible for two years to, you know, immune, compromised immunity, our bones, osteoporosis, many things. And I was reading that you talk about this, the South Korean tradition. I don’t know if I’m saying this right. Chimchili, how do you say that? Chimchili.

Julia Kim (11:35.182)
So that literally translates to three seven days meaning basically 21 days. Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (11:36.992)
I’m very off.

Kimberly Snyder (11:44.48)
And so when we’re talking about support, what does that look like exactly, right? Is it, we’re taking classes, is that we have someone helping us to cook meals or teach us what to eat, or we’re in a partnership with other women. Like what, in your opinion, as an expert on this Julia, what is it that’s really lacking here? Because if you know, our mamas who’s listening to this and saying, well, I had a meal train and I read a couple of books and my mother -in helped me clean, was my postpartum care?

good, right? Because sometimes we’re confused about what is it, what does it really mean when we’re getting the support? What does it look like? Which is a range, of course, but.

Julia Kim (12:15.534)
Yeah.

Julia Kim (12:21.262)
Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, all of those things are great and, you know, we have a lot of postpartum care deserts across the country. So really take hold of whatever you can and do those things. You know, meal trains, all of those things are really great. However, it’s my opinion that in order to have a really full, comprehensive postpartum care experience, you really need to have mother at the center. And, you know, like I said before,

We want to be mother -centered but partner -inclusive. But around the mother, we really want evidence -based physical recovery practices. And I only say that because there is a lot of science out there that says, hey, you know, these things work and these things are nice to have for comfort, but let’s really focus on, you know, the sit spabs that have been shown to work. Let’s really focus on…

Kimberly Snyder (13:12.992)
Hmm.

Julia Kim (13:13.848)
the foot baths and the massages and the rest that are seen to work. Whereas sometimes what’s funny is my mom, she’s like, don’t drink cold water when you’re postpartum. And that’s not really as rooted in evidence of today. So there are some things that we stripped out of our care, but we really wanna focus on the evidence -based physical recovery practices. We also really wanna focus on the mental health.

and emotional support that we’re so lacking. We were just talking about that. We want to go beyond just a simple emotional assessment like, hey, are you feeling sad or blue today? You know, that’s not what I mean. We need to go deeper and we need to go deeper earlier than the six week visit. And then we want to get into mother and baby care. So what does that look like? Well, what do we know from evidence is that rest is so important. And so we want to make sure that you’re being cared for by professional caregivers.

who are allowing you to rest. So that may mean taking care of the baby for you. That means getting you out of the home so you don’t have those kinds of responsibilities, like picking up after your kids or your dog or doing the laundry or cutting up the fruit, getting you out of the home, getting sleep during the night and during the day. And as you mentioned as well, the nutrition piece.

Kimberly Snyder (14:16.606)
Mmm.

Julia Kim (14:36.654)
so important, like for example, let’s have you eating iron rich foods to really get you to address the depletion of iron that you go through during childbirth. Let’s get you the hands on training so that we can really build and internalize routine self care and baby care habits. And then the partner piece to get them involved because really.

your partner should be your biggest champion and your main caregiver during that time. Not everyone has family and friends around who will fulfill that role, so let’s get your partner involved.

Kimberly Snyder (15:13.92)
And also many people don’t have partners, right? So I think about, I have two friends that live locally and they’re single moms by choice. So these centers would also be very powerful because they’re able to focus on their care and have support, you know, with or without a partner. We all need as much support as we can get in that information. And I love Julia. You know, some of the practices are ancient. They’re also evidence -based like the massage you mentioned, which is a key part of our Uveda, the post –

Julia Kim (15:22.528)
Mm -hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (15:43.52)
part of the Abhyanga massage, which feels really good, right? So intuitively we know it’s soothing to the nervous system. And then it’s also something that’s easy to skip. We could say, oh, well, you know, I should just focus on baby. But when there’s evidence, sometimes it helps the discerning mind to see, no, this is actually really important. This is part of my emotional wellbeing. This is part of my relaxation. This is part of a deep rest and rejuvenation, which is essential for recovery.

Julia Kim (16:12.018)
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, when I say partner, you know, it could be anybody, but we really encourage you to try to have a support person. So, you know, a friend, a postpartum care center like ours, somebody who can, you know, be with you and help you through this time. And it could be virtually just somebody to…

provide some support in any way. It could be emotional, it could be physical, it could be a number of things. Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (16:41.936)
Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (16:47.264)
Yes, thank you for clarifying that. So you said something earlier about how important it is to nourish the mother and nurture the mother in all these ways, because then you nourish the child. And one of the things is that early on, this can really affect babies emotional well -being and babies health, right? Because they’re absorbing so much energy from the mother. So let’s say the mother is distraught, she’s worn down, she’s just not in her fullness. It has a direct effect on babies well -being.

Right? So it’s take this approach of always here versus this balance, like the holistic of, you know, connection between the mother and the baby. Can you speak a little bit of how you’ve seen that shift change in your, you know, at your center in your work, how when we start to fill the mother back up, baby thrives.

Julia Kim (17:33.342)
Yeah, that is such a good point. And, you know, I think, well, there’s research out there that really indicates that, you know, untreated maternal postpartum issues, or, you know, when the mother isn’t well, that can really have long term effects on children, whether that be, you know, like behavioral problems, developmental delays, and

Kimberly Snyder (17:57.694)
Mmm.

Julia Kim (17:59.598)
it can affect bonding early on. So, you know, one of the very first things that we really say is so crucial after childbirth is the mother -child bonding process. It’s critical for emotional development to even help to regulate the hormones and body temperature. So, you know, physical, physiological, emotional, like it’s so important. And when the mother is not cared for, if there’s or if there’s something just not right,

it can have really devastating effects. And, you know, I’m always brought back to the fact that the body remembers trauma, you know, as, yeah, as we age, it’s not like, oh, that’s a distant memory. We can kind of move past it, but, you know, we hold on to things even without our knowing. And it can have, you know, traumatic events or, you know, just not being cared for in the right way can have long lasting effects on us and our children.

Kimberly Snyder (18:35.218)
Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (18:56.)
It’s so true. I love that the book, The Body Keeps the Score. I don’t know if you read that book, but also how drama is stored literally in our nervous system, right? It goes into the amygdala. And so we get more, we live a more triggered, reactive life and then things can come up. And we’re not in our full radiance, free and flowing and flexible through life. So we really do need to address that and process things and let things come up.

there’s so much in here and it makes me, I can’t help but think about my own postpartum periods. And so this is not for anyone to feel badly and say, oh, well, I didn’t do a lot of that when I was, you know, when I was in my postpartum period, because I think everything evolves and we can share with others and we can share experiences and we can create healing. You know, my first son is now eight, even now I think about it, or my younger son is three, right? So the postpartum period isn’t just

the few days afterwards. This is something we can continue to heal and shed light on for the long term.

Julia Kim (19:59.566)
Right. Yeah. I mean, we talk a lot about the fourth trimester, which is, you the first three months after childbirth, but really that first year is critical. And I think I recently read something that said, um, you know, women are still feeling the effects of childbirth and, and, you know, the postpartum period up to six or seven years after childbirth. So, I mean, that is a long period of time. Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (20:16.352)
Yes. Well, what about, can we talk about birth trauma for a moment? Because I didn’t have the language to really call that out. But my first birth was, I would say now quite traumatic. I had a birth tub, I tried to have a home birth, I had a midwife and my water broke first, which happens in, I think a third of women or whatever. And then I labored at home for a day and then baby wasn’t coming out.

Julia Kim (20:43.342)
Hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (20:45.088)
Turns out baby’s head was huge, but then we went to the hospital and somehow this decision got made to give me pitocin, but no epidural. So now it was starting to move into these really strong contractions, pushed for four hours. I was exhausted. And then it was like, well, our last resort is C -section. So it was like 50 hours of exhaustion and not the plan. And there wasn’t great communication along the way. And then my midwife was still saying things, well, you could have a natural birth in the hospital.

Julia Kim (21:12.334)
Mm -hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (21:14.336)
take the pitocin. So I was very confused about everything that was going on. So what about support? Because the birth can be in and of itself a big thing for a woman to process. Can you share a little bit about some of the support that we need to kind of emotionally, physically, just the actual birth itself before we even get into, hey, I’m not feeling good, you know, besides that, which also happens.

Julia Kim (21:42.962)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah, I mean, first of all, I’m so sorry to hear that you have that sort of experience. You know, and I think a lot of the language around childbirth is that, yes, it’s hard, but by and large, it’s this beautiful process. But the thing is, you know, anything can happen during childbirth, and it’s really scary. And to have proper support is so important. And I will tell you that there are mental health therapists out there who specialize in…

Um, birth trauma. Um, I think there are techniques out there. Um, one of them, um, one of our partners uses, it’s called EMDR and I’m not an expert in this. Um, she’s an expert, but you know, there, there is help out there. Um, we just also had a client who unfortunately, um, is experiencing a loss of, of life for her child. Um, yes. No, um,

Kimberly Snyder (22:34.528)
Oh, was it like SIDS?

Julia Kim (22:39.98)
Baby was born stillborn. It was, you know, stillborn. And so, yeah. And so, you know, we are helping this parenting team. It’s a mother and her partner. We’re helping this parenting team get the resources they need to kind of deal with this. And so this is something that’s really top of mind for me. And I think, yeah, I mean, I know.

Kimberly Snyder (22:43.52)
Oh my god.

Kimberly Snyder (23:01.152)
Oh my gosh, I’m getting goosebumps. How common is that? How common is that? Because that’s something we also don’t hear about very much.

Julia Kim (23:11.522)
You know, to lose a child during pregnancy is actually pretty common, especially during the first trimester. And I think that’s why a lot of women will say, you know, I’m not, I’m going to hold off on telling everybody because really during the first three months of pregnancy, anything can happen. But, you know, I don’t know the specific statistics on how common it is for stillbirths. But I, what I do know is that among women of color, we are seeing really.

Kimberly Snyder (23:18.322)
Yes.

Julia Kim (23:38.104)
high rates, disproportionate rates of maternal mortality and morbidity here in the US. And so I think it’s more common than any of us even realize.

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