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Meghan Rabbitt has been a health journalist for 25 years. And the thing she said to me about reporting this book was: why don't I know this?

If she didn't know it, what are the rest of us working with?

Meghan writes about women's health for Women's Health, Oprah Daily, Prevention, and Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper. Her book, The New Rules of Women's Health, came out of years of interviews with the people actually doing the research. Her phrase for what she wants for all of us is that we become our own health journalists.

🔹 Your pregnancy history is heart information. Preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, even recurrent miscarriage. Pregnancy is the heart's first stress test, and the results don't expire when the baby arrives.
 🔹 The lifetime breast cancer risk number you can calculate yourself. Meghan ran hers, brought it in, and that is the only reason she got her first MRI.
 🔹 Why joining a research study can mean free care. She got a thousand dollars of genetic testing out of one.
 🔹 Vaginal estrogen, and the applicator that was clearly invented by a dude. Zero instructions in the box. I spend real time counseling people through this.
 🔹 What happened when she finally went to pelvic floor PT, and why "just do your Kegels" was never an assessment

Something I say on air and mean: ask us. We will talk to you for days. Nobody has to pry this out of us.

What questions have YOU been waiting to have answered?

Meghan's book: newrulesofwomenshealth.com · Instagram: @MeghanRabbitt

The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there.

Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now).

Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it.

Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail

Prolapse might be the single most fear-loaded word in postpartum health. Not because of what it is. Because of how little anybody tells you about it.

This week we're rewinding to one of our season one conversations, with Dr. Cheryl Iglesia, MD, urogynecologist here in Washington DC and one of the very first mentors I had in pelvic health. 

My first pelvic health job was at National Rehab Hospital back in 2001, and a couple days a week I was over in her office with absolutely no idea that I was standing next to a LEGEND in the field. (I figured that out later. Much later.)

Here's what I want you to hear in this one. She says out loud that part of being a good surgeon is knowing when NOT to operate. Then she spends the rest of the hour showing you what that actually looks like.

🔹 What prolapse is, and how urogynecologists actually grade it
 🔹 Why "elective" does not mean "cosmetic"
 🔹 How much bigger conservative care is than most people realize: pelvic floor PT, pessaries, local hormones, bulking agents
 🔹 What changed in prolapse surgery over 30 years, and the honest version of the mesh story
 🔹 The average age of a prolapse surgery patient, which is younger than you're picturing
 🔹 Why two women with the same exam can have completely different symptoms, and what muscle tone has to do with that
 🔹 How to tell whether the provider in front of you is actually listening

If you've been handed a diagnosis and a surgery date and not a whole lot in between, this is the conversation I want in your ears. You are not doomed to a life in an armchair. You have options, and you're allowed to ask for all of them.

Which option did nobody explain to you?

ABOUT OUR GUEST
Dr. Cheryl Iglesia, MD, FACOG, FPMRS is Director of the Section of Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery at MedStar Washington Hospital Center and Director of the National Center for Advanced Pelvic Surgery at MedStar Health. She is also Professor of Obstetrics/Gynecology and Urology at Georgetown University School of Medicine, and is double board-certified in Ob/Gyn and female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery with more than 30 years in the field. Find her on X at @cheryliglesia.

Free resources for pregnancy, postpartum and perimenopause are at carriepagliano.com.

Time Stamps

1:00 introduction

3:15 fear surrounding pelvic organ prolapse

10:00 conservative care before surgery

18:14 pelvic floor prolapse or decreased tone

26:45 recommendations for getting additional care

28:45 tissue healing and RED-S

30:10 PTs collaborating with surgeons

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

CONNECT WITH CHERYL

IG: https://www.instagram.com/cbiglesia/

Website: https://www.medstarhealth.org/doctors/cheryl-bernadette-iglesia-md

The Active Mom Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond for active moms & the professionals who help them in their journey.
  
 This show has been a long time in the making! 
  
 You can expect conversation with moms and professionals from all aspects of the industry. 
  
 If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST!
  
 If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 start rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!)

The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there.

Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now).

Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it.

Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail

"It is probably nothing."

The swelling is probably the third trimester. The breathlessness is probably the stairs. The ache in your calf is probably that run you should not have done. And most of the time, all of that is exactly right.

Most of the time is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Dr. Rachel Rosovsky is a hematologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she has spent twenty years on blood clots, and she co-authored the first ever AHA/ACC guideline on acute pulmonary embolism. 

The American Heart Association reached out about this one, and I said yes immediately, because this is the conversation I do not think most of us have ever actually had.

🔹 What a blood clot actually is, explained the way a former math and science teacher explains it
 🔹 Why the symptoms of a clot and the symptoms of a normal pregnancy look almost identical
 🔹 The risk factors worth raising before you are pregnant, not after
 🔹 Why the postpartum window is the highest risk stretch, and also the one with the fewest appointments
 🔹 Why the standard D dimer cutoff does not work in pregnancy, and what the guideline uses instead
 🔹 Whether imaging is actually off limits when you are pregnant, and the honest answer
 🔹 Blood clot history and hormones later on, including what the evidence says about the patch
 🔹 Dr. Rachel Rosovsky's rule: take it out of your hands and put it in mine

This is not an episode about being afraid of your body. It is an episode about being allowed to ask a question without needing a good enough reason first.

Most of the women in the largest survey we have on this were never told what to watch for. That part is fixable. That is the whole reason this conversation exists.

Guest: Dr. Rachel Rosovsky, MD, MPH, hematologist, Massachusetts General Hospital. With thanks to @american_heart.

Time Stamps

0:00 introduction

3:10 from math teacher to hematologist

6:13 having a baby during med school

10:10 choosing hematology

12:31 explaining blog clots

17:11 addressing the guidelines for pregnancy

20: are you at higher risk if you’re pregnant? 

24:41 potential problematic symptoms

31:47 seeing a rise in risk postpartum

35:53 where to seek care

40:23 what care can look like

47:12 looking ahead to perimenopause and menopause

52:50 follow your intuition

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

Course waitlist: https://course.carriepagliano.com/RSAWL

R2R Screen: https://course.carriepagliano.com/R2Rreadyscreen

CONNECT WITH RACHEL:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-rosovsky

Website: https://www.massgeneral.org/doctors/17898/rachel-rosovsky

Guidelines: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41712898/

The Active Mom Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond for active moms & the professionals who help them in their journey.
  
 This show has been a long time in the making! 
  
 You can expect conversation with moms and professionals from all aspects of the industry. 
  
 If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST!
  
 If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 start rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!)

The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there.

Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now).

Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it.

Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail

You leave the hospital with a healthy baby, a folder of paperwork, and zero mention of the fact that your estrogen just went from about 3,000 to almost nothing.

That is where this conversation starts. In 2022, I sat down with Dr. Rachel Rubin, urologist and sexual medicine specialist, back in season one, long before she became the person everyone quotes about hormones. I've known her since she walked into the PT department at Georgetown as a resident and asked if she could shadow somebody and learn about Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy. This is her before the rest of the world caught up.

We're rewinding it now because almost everything she predicted in this episode has since happened.

🔹 The estrogen arc, in actual numbers: baby, teenager, cycling, pregnant, postpartum
 🔹 Why breastfeeding puts you in a menopause-like state, and what that does to tissue
 🔹 Why the bladder and urethra are full of hormone receptors nobody talks about
 🔹 What to say when you're told to use more lubricant and wait until you're done nursing
 🔹 Birth control, IUDs and local hormones: what actually interacts with what
 🔹 The 2000s study that scared a generation off hormones, and how badly it was reported
 🔹 The postpartum visit she wishes every woman got, mirror included

Since we recorded, the FDA moved on the estrogen warning label and the AUA published its first guideline on genitourinary syndrome of menopause. Rachel was already saying all of it into my microphone. Come hear where it started.

A correction on my intro: I say "FDA approval" for local vaginal estrogen in the open, and I want the record straight. Vaginal estrogen was already approved. What changed, in November 2025, is that the FDA moved to remove the black box warning from estrogen products, the warning that scared a generation of women and their doctors off it. The approval was never the problem. The label was.

This episode is education, not medical advice. If you want a clinician who actually knows this material, The Menopause Society keeps a practitioner finder at menopause.org.

Time Stamps

1:00 introduction

4:01 hormone health and changes

11:10 advocating for yourself

17:30 hormones and the urinary tract

21:30 HRT misconceptions 

27:45 testing and perimenopause

29:30 advice for moms

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

CONNECT WITH RACHEL

IG: https://www.instagram.com/drrachelrubin/

Website: https://www.rachelrubinmd.com/

The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there.

Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now).

Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it.

Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail

There's a thought a lot of moms have had and almost none of them have said out loud. Maybe it was an image of dropping the baby. Maybe it was something worse. And the second it showed up, the next thought was: what is wrong with me?

Dr. Vanessa Komarek is a psychologist who specializes in trauma and PTSD recovery, a powerlifter, and a mom of two under two. She came on to talk about mental load and we ended up somewhere much more honest: birth trauma, intrusive thoughts, and why so much well-meaning postpartum advice lands flat.

🔹 What mental load actually is (the cognitive part and the emotional part nobody names)
🔹 What "birth trauma" includes, and why it's broader than most people think
🔹 What's a normal reaction after a hard delivery, and the signals that it's worth reaching out
🔹 Intrusive thoughts: what they are, why fighting them backfires, and what actually helps
🔹 Why "sleep when the baby sleeps" and "take time for yourself" fall flat for so many women
🔹 The trade-offs nobody admits are baked into "balance"
🔹 All-or-nothing thinking, exercise snacks, and Vanessa's phrase for it: embracing messy action
🔹 The pelvic health parallel: what happens when the brain decides the body is fragile

This one is worth your time whether you're in it right now or 15 years past it. And if any of it lands a little too close, that's information, not a verdict.

Resources mentioned:
Postpartum Support International: postpartum.net · HelpLine 1-800-944-4773 (call or text) · free online support groups and a provider directory
If you are in crisis in the US, call or text 988.
 

Find Vanessa on Instagram: @heavy_lifting_psychologist

This podcast is for education and is not medical advice. Please loop in your own provider.

Time Stamps

0:00 introduction

6:07 talking about mental load

9:48 what got Vanessa into psychology

12:55 helping moms deal with trauma and expectations

19:55 ignoring the bad advice

23:48 the athlete identity

28:17 balance is a myth

35:58 helping moms overcome perfectionism

37:41 what she has learned in her journey

45:19 being an active mom

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

Course waitlist: https://course.carriepagliano.com/RSAWL

R2R Screen: https://course.carriepagliano.com/R2Rreadyscreen

CONNECT WITH VANESSA:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/heavy_lifting_psychologist/

Website: www.adaptpsych.org

The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there.

Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now).

Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it.

Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail

"I don't have enough milk." It's the first place a new mom's brain goes when the baby fusses, wakes early, or pops off the breast. And when you add workouts back into the mix? The doubt gets louder.

This week's Summer Rewind brings back one of my favorite conversations, with my longtime friend (and former neighbor!) Kelly Kendall, RN, IBCLC, aka @thebalancedboob. Kelly was an L&D nurse who thought she had breastfeeding figured out. Then she became a mom. Tongue ties, mastitis, postpartum anxiety, all of it. That story is exactly why she does what she does now.

We get into:

🔹 Why "I must not have enough milk" is usually the wrong conclusion (and what's actually normal)
 🔹 The real answer to "will exercise mess with my supply?"
 🔹 Fueling for lactation AND training: calories, protein, and why this is NOT the season for a deficit
 🔹 The logistics nobody warns you about (pumping in the car counts as a win)
 🔹 The hardest part of all: believing you deserve time to move your body

If you're trying to nurse a baby and get back to the workouts you love, this one will take a weight off your shoulders. Press play.

Find Kelly on Instagram @thebalancedboob or at thebalancedboob.com

Time Stamps

1:00 introduction

4:19 common issues and struggles

9:15 where moms struggle when starting to add in workouts

11:50 nutrition advice for breastfeeding moms

14:15 additional advice for moms

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

CONNECT WITH KELLY

IG: https://www.instagram.com/thebalancedboob/

The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there.

Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now).

Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it.

Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail

You've heard it. Maybe you've said it. "Your pelvic floor is too tight." It's everywhere right now — on the socials, in the clinic, out of the mouths of people who've never assessed a pelvic floor in their life. But here's the question almost nobody stopped to ask: can we actually feel the thing we keep confidently naming?

Researcher Gosia Starzec-Proserpio, PT, PhD, just did the work to find out — across 528 women. And her answer is more interesting (and more freeing) than either side of the internet fight wants it to be.

I got to sit down with Gosia — 12 weeks postpartum, "just coming out of the darkness into the light," her words — to talk about the study that went a little viral, and what it actually means for the person on your table.

🔹 What "tone" even means (and why it meant nothing to her as a new clinician) 🔹 The single biggest mistake we make: treating "pain" and "tight" as the same word 

🔹 Palpation vs. ultrasound vs. dynamometry — three tools, three answers, and why that's a feature, not a flaw 

🔹 Where our fingers are genuinely good — and where they quietly aren't 

🔹 Why you can't get "fixed on the number," even when we love a good number 🔹 The pregnancy nobody warns you about being harder than postpartum

This one's for the clinicians who want to sharpen how they assess and explain tone — and for anyone who's been handed a label they've been carrying ever since. 

Come nerd out with us.

Education, not individualized medical advice — loop in your own pelvic floor PT for what's true for your body.

Time Stamps

0:00 introduction

3:56 quick fire questions

9:43 troubles breastfeeding

18:55 muscle tone explained

21:54 explaining the research

25:35 communicating with patients

33:51 comparing different measurement modalities

45:53 addressing personal biases

49:11 changes in clinical practice

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

Course waitlist: https://course.carriepagliano.com/RSAWL

CONNECT WITH GOSIA:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/starzecproserpio_phd/

Linked In: www.linkedin.com/in/mstarzec

Research: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Malgorzata-Starzec-Proserpio?ev=hdr_xprf 

The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there.

Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now).

Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it.

Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail

If you've ever accepted leaking as the toll you pay to keep running, this one's going to reframe it.

Dr. Linda McLean (@mfm_lab) is one of the foremost researchers on the pelvic floor and urinary incontinence — a professor and Chair in Women's Health Research at the University of Ottawa. In this Summer Rewind, we cut through what the science actually shows about why running-induced urinary incontinence happens… and where popular advice for active moms gets it wrong.

We get into pelvic floor morphology, how running may load and change those structures, and what the evidence says about interventions — including pessaries and other intravaginal support devices for runners who leak. Linda also unpacks the difference between evidence-based and evidence-informed, and how to break down the barriers keeping women from exercise.

Leaking when you run is common… but common doesn't have to mean permanent.

Always work with your own pelvic floor PT and maternity provider — this conversation is education, not individual care.

Time Stamps

1:00 Introduction

3:58 bio feedback in pelvic PT

6:46 morphology paper

16:41 the roll strength plays

21:15 connecting clinical findings to research

32:10 intra-abdominal pressure

34:50 different causes of urinary incontinence

40:20 supportive devices

44:29 elongation of the pelvic floor

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

CONNECT WITH LINDA

IG: https://www.instagram.com/mfm_lab/

Website: www.mfmlab.ca

X: @mfmlab

Facebook: @mfmlabuottawa

The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there.

Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now).

Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it.

Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail

Melanie Cote spent years believing runners were a certain kind of person — thin, disciplined, elite — and she wasn't it. So when a coworker organized a 5K, she showed up to cheer instead of run, too embarrassed to try. A year later, she crossed that same start line. Today she's a half-marathoner who runs as @the.curvy.runner, and her story is for every mom who's ever thought "I'm not a runner."

Carrie and Melanie get into starting couch-to-5K in your late 40s, why consistency beats performance, the gear struggles nobody warns curvy runners about, running through perimenopause, and letting go of the diet-culture rules we grew up with. It's a conversation about giving yourself permission — to take up space, to take the trip, to be the mom you're proud of.

Time Stamps

0:00 introduction

5:08 how our relationship with running has changed

8:43 separating running from weight loss

11:29 becoming more active as kids get older

14:56 being flexible to be consistent

19:55 being creative with winter running

25:32 finding community in running

29:30 deciding to do a Disney half marathon

34:02 running as a curvy woman

43:13 dealing with hormonal changes

48:40 quick hit questions

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

Course waitlist: https://course.carriepagliano.com/RSAWL

CONNECT WITH MELANIE:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/the.curvy.runner/

Website: www.thecurvyrunners.com

The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there.

Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now).

Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it.

Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

Send us Fan Mail

Bringing this back because the "what exercises should I actually be doing?" question never gets old. Johnson cuts through the noise on rehab and strength work for runners — the movements that move the needle versus the filler. Practical, specific, and easy to act on this week.

Today I speak with Chris Johnson, physical therapist, coach, author, teacher, consultant, and multiple-time Kona qualifier. He is also the creator of The Run Well, an online membership platform and community with a mission to fast-track clinicians, coaches, and trainers, who are looking to specialize in working with runners. 

We  talk about:

-the love of running

-exercises for runners

-utilizing the power of walking

-slowing down movements to evaluate

-altered movement patterns from injuries

-figuring out what’s heavy enough

-using fundamental movements

-hitting benchmarks before returning to running 

-similarities in returning to run after injury and postpartum

Time Stamps

1:00 introduction

3:55 mistakes everyday runners make

7:40 providing exercises to runners

13:30 moving past the fear of old injuries

17:34 demystifying injury recovery

20:30 figuring out the right weight

27:40 top exercise recommendations

37:00 differences between working with men and women 

44:35 Run Well Program 

CONNECT WITH CARRIE

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/

Website: https://carriepagliano.com

CONNECT WITH CHRIS

IG: https://www.instagram.com/chrisjohnsonthept/

Website: https://chrisjohnsonpt.com/

The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there.

Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now).

Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it.

Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌