Pregnancy and Birth

Pregnancy and Birth Jeremiah Gardner Developmental Psychology 11/3/2024 Title: What Your Momma Never Told You About Childbirth Presenter: Marianne Ryan Event: TEDxWilmingtonSalon Link: [TEDx Talk]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zyv5Inj_lE In her TEDx talk entitled ‘What Your Momma Never Told You About Childbirth,’ physical therapist Marianne Ryan analyzes the impact of childbirth for women and their bodies 30 years later. Ryan also focuses on female healing and rebirth after the birth process and criticizes cultural biases regarding the ability of women’s body to snap back into shape immediately following the delivery of a baby. Laying out what she learned clinically and from women in her postpartum, Ryan shares insights on the reality that many new moms struggle with such physical pains as back, pelvic, incontinence, diastasis recti and many more. She insists that women also deserve postpartum physical therapy so that they can recover their strength without ending up with a host of complications. Ryan also urges women to stop accepting physical pains and discomforts as part and parcel of child birth and new motherhood since she affirms that such discomforts are treatable. This is particularly helpful for lifespan development, because it discusses the permanent physical consequences that women may suffer from the birth process, calling into question popular misconceptions of the postpartum period as short, or as an era during which any complications are self-resolving. Those ideas enrich current knowledge about postpartum period, pointing out that somatic consequences of childbirth can influence woman’s further physiological and psychological ontogenesis. This talk emphasizes on the importance of adopting a preventive postpartum care that is not a brief period of rest from child bearing but a positive and sustaining long term process. I was much struck by the information that Ryan mentioned that a woman is always postpartum once she becomes such. This phrase captures the essence of her message: recovery from childbirth is not a short-term event but can continue to play a role in the lives of many women. I also noted that she talked about French healthcare system which is different from US and French women are supposed to undergo the postnatal physical therapy everyday. Such comparison sheds light between the health care management and the gaps that exist in how women can be attended to in postnatal periods. Ryan used data to back up her assertions that the prevalence of chronic health disorders among women during the postpartum period remains high as 77% complained of back pain, 48% incontinence, and others exhibited symptoms of diastasis recti among other complaints, up to 18 months after childbirth. Her data is also credible since she is a physical therapist and a patient, and when referring to other studies touching on postpartum physical therapy to counteract or lessen the aforementioned conditions. In psychology, Ryan closely relates to adhere to the health psychology, notably under the framework of the biopsychosocial model. This view focuses on how the organism, behavior, and environment shape health and disease, lest fitted for his practice of attending to postpartum physical concerns and the lifelong consequences they have. She discusses how culture, the medical profession, and individual routines of health affecting the wellbeing of a mother after giving birth. Further questions that I would like to ask Ryan includes; According to him, what are the challenges that stop the healthcare sector from embracing postpartum physical therapy as a practice? In addition, I would like to know whether she has any special quidelines concerning popularization of the issue regarding women postpartum reconsidering her options towards baby’s care without access to physical therapy. Another interesting focus would be to learn how the female’s families and partners can become more helpful in the process of postpartum period.