In the Wash

What does it mean to nourish yourself in a season that's already asking everything of you? This episode explores the cultural pressure to eat perfectly during pregnancy and postpartum, why the optimization list keeps growing, and what a quiet, sustainable relationship with food might actually look like. Join us as we explore what's possible and I share what I do to manage the overwhelm.

Episode Notes:

• Environmental Working Group Tap Water Database
• Dirty Dozen reference: EWG Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce (ewg.org/foodnews)
• Prenatal DHA guidance
• Prenatal Folic Acid guidelines: https://www.cdc.gov/folic-acid/about/index.html

In this episode, I'm a guest on the Fourth Trimester Podcast. I had a great time speaking with Sarah Trott and hope you enjoy listening.

Here's what the episode is about:

When you’re preparing for birth, it’s easy to focus on what you need to do. The classes, the plan, the logistics. But what often gets missed is how you’ll feel in the moment and how your mind and body will respond.

In this episode, we talk about how to reduce birth anxiety and feel calmer about birth.

In this conversation, you’ll hear about:
• why traditional birth prep often doesn’t address anxiety
• how fear impacts the body and the birth process
• simple tools to regulate your nervous system during pregnancy and labor
• the NOW method for working with anxiety in real time
• how to build trust in yourself instead of relying on outside noise

I also share how my own postpartum experience and journey through anxiety has shaped my work and why mental preparation is not optional. It’s foundational.

Understanding how to work with your mind and body can change how you experience birth. Instead of feeling overwhelmed or out of control, you can feel present, capable, and grounded in what matters most.

Code: FOURTHTRIMESTER for 10% OFF on courses at birthevolved.com

There is a growing movement toward analog living — unplugging, going back to basics, reclaiming the tactile and the slow. Most of the conversation focuses on children: screen time limits, phone-free schools, play-based childhoods. But in this episode, we back up. Because the story doesn't start in childhood. It starts in pregnancy.

From the moment the test turns positive, the cultural message is clear: download the app, join the forum, follow the expert, research everything. A good pregnant person is a prepared pregnant person — and preparation means research. But for a generation of expecting parents who grew up online, who felt in their own bodies what living on screens can do to a nervous system, something about this script doesn't feel right.

In this episode, we explore:

• The cultural message that equates information with care — and why putting the phone down can feel irresponsible
• What the research says about smartphone use during pregnancy, including a 2025 study linking 4+ hours of daily use to three times the odds of prenatal anxiety
• The pregnancy app paradox: tools designed to inform that can end up increasing hypervigilance
• How negative birth stories circulating online are directly associated with higher anxiety about childbirth
• The scroll-fear loop: why we reach for the phone to manage anxiety, and why it makes the anxiety worse
• What an analog pregnancy might look like — not perfectly unplugged, but more intentional, more spacious, more yours

We close with a NOW practice for building a different relationship with the spaces you fill and the ones you leave open.

Research:

• Frontiers in Medicine (2025): Study on smartphone overuse, nighttime use, social networking, and prenatal anxiety
• Frontiers in Psychology (January 2026): Study on the emotional tone of birth stories and pregnancy-related anxiety
• Systematic analysis of pregnancy apps: scientific guidance, commercialization, and user perception (PMC, 2024)

Books:

• Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation — the book catalyzing the analog living movement

Organizations:

• Wait Until 8th: waituntil8th.org — pledge for parents to delay smartphones for kids

Birth Evolved:

• Birth Prep Course, Calm + Confident Birth: birthevolved.com
• Newsletter, Wash & Wonder: subscribe at birthevolved.com

What would a more analog pregnancy look like for you? Not perfectly unplugged. Not performatively offline. Just more intentional. I'd love to hear — reply to the Wash & Wonder newsletter or reach out at birthevolved.com.

If the anxiety feels like more than you can manage on your own — whether it's related to your phone use, your pregnancy, or your experience as a new parent — please reach out for support:

• Postpartum Support International (PSI): postpartum.net — helpline and provider directory
• Your OB/midwife or care provider — they want to hear about this

You don't have to navigate this alone.

What if the scariest part of new parenthood isn't the sleepless nights — it's what happens inside your own mind?

Research shows that 70–100% of new mothers and over two-thirds of new fathers experience intrusive, unwanted thoughts about their baby being harmed. Yet almost no one talks about it. In this episode, we explore the cultural message that tells parents to suppress anything that doesn't look like bliss, why that silence makes scary thoughts worse, and what the science actually says about why your brain does this. Spoiler: it's not broken. It might just be working too hard.

We also discuss when intrusive thoughts cross into perinatal OCD — and what to do if that sounds familiar.

Then we practice, using our NOW framework to begin building a different relationship with our own minds.

If your thoughts have become a problem for you, please do not hesitate to reach out for help!

Suggested Resources:

• Postpartum Support International (PSI): — helpline and provider directory
• Maternal OCD: — perinatal OCD information and support
• International OCD Foundation — Perinatal OCD page:
• Schweizer, S. (2025). "Perinatal intrusions: A window into perinatal anxiety disorders." Science Advances.
• UNSW Sydney coverage: "Dark thoughts before and after giving birth are almost universal"
• Birth Evolved: Birth Prep Course, Calm + Confident Birth, and individual sessions
• Newsletter: Wash & Wonder

Do you ever freeze in those parenting moments when you're not sure whether to step in or step back? When your child is struggling and you can't tell if helping means you're hovering or if not helping means you're neglecting them?

The labels are everywhere: helicopter parent, permissive parent, free-range parent, authoritative parent. We're told to find the "goldilocks zone" - involved but not too involved, protective but not overprotective. And underneath all the advice is a quieter message: if your child is struggling, it means you've gotten the balance wrong.

In this episode, we explore how these parenting style categories might actually be part of the problem. What if the question isn't "Am I doing too much or too little?" but rather "What does this specific child need from me in this specific moment?"

We examine:• Why trying to calibrate the "right amount" of involvement creates constant anxiety• How these labels turn parenting into a performance rather than a relationship• What responsive parenting actually looks like when we let go of categories• A real-world example from a parenting group struggling with when to let kids quit versus pushing them to persevere

This isn't about finding a new framework or better balance. It's about reconnecting with what you actually see in front of you - your child, in this moment, with their specific needs.

Through gentle inquiry and our NOW practice, we create space to move from fear-based decisions to values-connected presence. Because responsive parenting isn't about hitting some theoretical middle point - it's about staying attuned to your actual child.

If you're exhausted from trying to parent "correctly," this episode offers something different: permission to trust what you see, release the categories, and respond to what's actually happening.

Resources mentioned: "The Wrong Way to Motivate Your Kid" (The Atlantic, May 2024)

Find more at birthevolved.com or subscribe to the Wash & Wonder newsletter for continued reflection between episodes.

If you're exhausted and overwhelmed by conflicting sleep advice, this episode is for you.

We examine the cultural belief that good parents have babies who sleep through the night by a certain age—and that if your baby doesn't sleep well, you're doing something wrong. This message keeps us searching for the "right" method, buying the latest solution, and carrying unnecessary guilt.

But what if there isn't a problem to solve? Sometimes, the only thing that needs adjusting is our expectations. Then, working with this new understanding to find out what's right for our family.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why babies aren't biologically designed to sleep through the night early on.
• How to navigate sleep without guilt—whether you choose to sleep train or not.
• Using your gut as your compass when making decisions for your family.
• Why we become what we pay attention to (and why grace matters when you're sleep-deprived).

This isn't about finding the perfect answer. It's about trusting what your baby is showing you and choosing what actually works for your family.

Join the conversation and receive gentle reflections in your inbox by signing up for our Wash & Wonder newsletter.

In the Wash is a space for gentle inquiry into the cultural messages that shape who we're becoming as parents. Each episode examines beliefs that create anxiety, offers compassionate reframes, and includes a guided practice to help you find more peace.

Feeling guilty no matter what choice you've made about work and parenting? You're not imagining it—and you're not alone.

If you work outside the home, there's a voice whispering that you're failing your children. If you stay home, a different voice insists you're losing yourself. And for most of us, both voices speak at once: be fully present at home AND fully committed to your career. Prioritize your children above all else AND pursue your own fulfillment.

This isn't just anxiety. It's an impossible bind created by a culture that's never quite decided what it wants from parents—especially mothers.

In this episode, we explore why this "choice" between working and staying home creates such persistent guilt, and why the question itself might be the problem. We'll examine how this binary framing is relatively new in human history, how economic realities have eliminated real choice for many families, and why parents often direct judgment at each other instead of at the systems that make parenting so unnecessarily hard.

What you'll discover:

• Why this guilt persists even when you know logically you're doing your best
• How to distinguish between productive reflection ("Is this still working?") and cultural guilt ("Whatever I'm doing isn't enough")
• What research actually shows about children thriving in different family arrangements
• A gentle reframe that shifts from "Am I making the right choice?" to "How do I make peace with what my family needs right now?"

The Practice:Using the NOW technique (Notice, Open, Wonder), we'll explore where guilt lives in your body and create space for self-compassion. This isn't about fixing or changing your choice—it's about releasing the weight of impossible expectations.

Whether you work full-time, stay home, or navigate something in between, this episode offers permission to trust that your choice is enough.

Continue the conversation: Join the Wash & Wonder newsletter for deeper reflections on parenting with less anxiety and more intention.

Did you experience birth trauma? Or have you ever judged someone as "unprepared" if they did? There's a quiet belief many of us carry: that trauma means we, or others, didn't prepare well enough. That if we'd just taken one more class or made better choices, we could have prevented what happened.

In this episode, we gently untangle two things that were never actually connected - preparation and trauma. Discover why preparation matters (it builds presence, agency, and adaptability) but doesn't give us control over outcomes. Through compassionate inquiry and embodied practice, you'll explore the difference between feeling capable and feeling in control.

This conversation offers something precious: permission to release shame you were never meant to carry, and space to recognize that trauma can happen regardless of how well-prepared you were.

Perfect for anyone processing a difficult birth, parents preparing for birth who feel overwhelmed by pressure to "do it right," or those supporting someone through birth trauma.

Learn more at birthevolved.com - offering online birth prep classes designed for anxious minds, so you can feel calm and confident, not just informed. Join the newsletter Wash & Wonder to keep the conversation going.

Does true partnership mean splitting everything 50/50? In this episode, we explore the gap between idealized feminist partnership and the messy reality of conscious delegation, emotional labor, and shared caring.

Discover why equity isn't about identical task distribution, but about mutual agency and ongoing dialogue. We'll examine the difference between trusting your partner's expertise and one person opting out of caring entirely, and explore what it means to keep showing up for conversations about shared values even when responsibilities are divided.

Through reflective practice, you'll clarify your family values and find common ground to begin authentic partnership conversations - whether you're renegotiating a long-term relationship or just starting to notice whose voice gets heard.

Perfect for parents feeling alone in their responsibilities, anyone navigating partnership tensions, or those ready to move beyond scorekeeping toward genuine equity.

Exhausted from trying to optimize every moment of your child's development? In this episode, we explore how the pressure to be a "perfect" parent creates anxiety, damages confidence, and ironically harms the parent-child relationship.

Discover why "good enough" isn't settling - it's recognizing that children need authentic, present parents rather than perfect ones. Through gentle inquiry and a grounding practice, you'll learn to shift from optimization to connection, trusting that your regulated attention is often exactly what your child needs most.

Perfect for parents feeling overwhelmed by endless choices, anyone struggling with parenting perfectionism, or those ready to trust their instincts over expert advice.

Please keep the conversation going by joining our newsletter and following us on Spotify. Have questions? Send me a message - I’m happy to help!