Postpartum Support: A Guided Listening Path

Postpartum support often extends beyond what is discussed in prenatal care or routine checkups. This guide offers conversations that help make support more visible, understandable, and accessible during the postpartum period. There is no required path through these episodes.

Who This Guide Is For

This listening guide may be helpful if you are:

  • Purple lotus flower logo on a lavender circular background.

    Currently pregnant and thinking ahead about postpartum support

  • Minimalist purple lotus flower logo on a light purple circular background.

    Newly postpartum and wondering if what you’re experiencing is typical

  • A purple lotus flower symbol with a person meditating in the center, on a light purple circular background.

    Adjusting to identity, relationship, or bodily changes after birth

  • Purple lotus flower with a central abstract human figure inside a light purple circle.

    Curious about postpartum doulas, community care, or support roles

  • Supporting a partner or loved one through postpartum

  • Purple lotus flower logo with a stylized human figure in the center, on a light purple circular background.

    Looking for grounded, non-alarmist conversations about adjustment and care

This guide is not intended to replace clinical care or therapy.

How to Use This Guide

This is not a linear playlist.

You can:

✴︎ Start wherever feels most relevant

✴︎ Listen to one episode or several

✴︎ Pause, skip, or return later

✴︎ Share episodes selectively with partners or support people

Some listeners begin while pregnant.

Others arrive weeks, months, or even years postpartum.

There is no “too early” or “too late” way to use this guide.

Listening Paths

Episodes in this guide are grouped by theme, not by importance or progression.

You are not expected to listen to every section.

  • Thinking Ahead: Planning for Postpartum Support Before Birth

    For people who are pregnant or planning that focus on building support infrastructure, aligning expectations, and reducing overwhelm before the postpartum period begins.

    Episode 10 — The Motherhood Survival Manual: Preventing PMADs
    Dr. Jill Zechowy

    Episode 2 — Comprehensively Supporting Parents Beyond Six Weeks
    Ashli Daley

    Episode 7 — The Motherhood Village: The Power of Community, Empathy, and Self-Advocacy
    Nicole Cumberbatch

  • Early Postpartum Adjustment

    Episodes that help normalize early postpartum experiences and offer reassurance.

    Episode 3 — A Complex Perinatal Journey: Beyond Postpartum
    Celeste Brinkerhoff

  • Emotional Adjustment & Matrescence

    Conversations that explore identity shifts, emotional complexity, and the ongoing process of becoming a parent.

    Episode 5 — Beyond Postpartum Depression: Meaning-Making Amidst Colic, Gestational Diabetes, and Pubis Symphysis Dysfunction
    Courtney Ginder

    Episode 24 — The Lie of Perfection: Reaching Maternal Wisdom‍ ‍
    Margo Lowy

  • Body, Recovery & Physical Reality

    Episodes focused on postpartum physical recovery, bodily change, and non-linear healing timelines.

    Episode 6 — Subtle Shifts in Healing from Vaginal and Rectal Prolapse
    Colleen Avis

    Episode 17 — The Pelvic Floor Files: Restoring Balance with a Urogynecologist
    Dr. Maria Canter

  • Support Beyond the Self: Partners, Peers, and Systems

    Expanding postpartum support beyond the individual to include partners, community, and care systems.

    Episode 16 — Leading with Lived Experience: Peer Support, Systems, and Hope
    Wendy Davis

    Episode 22 — Inclusive Beginnings: Mental Health Advocacy
    Sheehan Fisher

  • When to Reach for More

    Episodes that help listeners recognize personal limits and understand when additional support may be helpful.

    Episode 30 — Perinatal Mental Health Screening as a Public Health Imperative
    Lynn Ingram McFarland

Listen: Postpartum Support Podcast Playlist

Additional Note

Some postpartum experiences involve distress that may benefit from more focused support. If you’re navigating mood or anxiety changes, you may want to explore our PMADs Listening Guide.

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