Newcastle North PCN

Understanding Your Gut

Understanding Your Gut is a patient-education podcast series for people experiencing common digestive symptoms, including:

• bloating 
• abdominal discomfort 
• constipation 
• diarrhoea 
• food-related gut symptoms 
• IBS and functional bowel symptoms 

The series is designed to explain gut symptoms in a simple, reassuring and evidence-based way.

Each episode is approximately 10 minutes long and focuses on helping patients understand:

• How the gut works 
• why symptoms happen 
• How food, stress, routine and gut sensitivity interact 
• When symptoms are common and manageable 
• and when medical review is important 

Topics Covered in this episode: -

👉 What IBS is (and isn’t) 

👉 Why scans/tests are often normal 

👉 The gut is working differently, not damaged 

About the Calm Your Baby Series

Calm Your Baby is a short podcast series for parents of young babies experiencing common feeding and digestive symptoms, including reflux, colic, crying, feeding difficulties, and suspected CMPA.

The series is designed to:

Reduce anxiety and confusion about normal infant development

Support practical, evidence-based feeding approaches

Reduce unnecessary medicalisation and medication use where appropriate

Help parents understand when symptoms are normal and when further review is needed

Topics Covered in this episode: -

👉 What is dyschezia?
👉 Why it looks like pain
👉 Dyschezia vs constipation

👉 Why intervening can make it worse

👉 What actually helps

👉 When to check it

About the Calm Your Baby Series

Calm Your Baby is a short podcast series for parents of young babies experiencing common feeding and digestive symptoms, including reflux, colic, crying, feeding difficulties, and suspected CMPA.

The series is designed to:

Reduce anxiety and confusion about normal infant development

Support practical, evidence-based feeding approaches

Reduce unnecessary medicalisation and medication use where appropriate

Help parents understand when symptoms are normal and when further review is needed

Topics Covered in this episode: -

👉 Traffic light model
👉 Red flags clearly explained
👉 Reassurance without dismissing

About the Calm Your Baby Series

Calm Your Baby is a short podcast series for parents of young babies experiencing common feeding and digestive symptoms, including reflux, colic, crying, feeding difficulties, and suspected CMPA.

The series is designed to:

Reduce anxiety and confusion about normal infant development

Support practical, evidence-based feeding approaches

Reduce unnecessary medicalisation and medication use where appropriate

Help parents understand when symptoms are normal and when further review is needed

Topics Covered in this episode: -

👉 Hunger vs comfort
👉 Overfeeding and reflux
👉 Paced feeding
👉 Practical calm feeding

About the Calm Your Baby Series

Calm Your Baby is a short podcast series for parents of young babies experiencing common feeding and digestive symptoms, including reflux, colic, crying, feeding difficulties, and suspected CMPA.

The series is designed to:

Reduce anxiety and confusion about normal infant development

Support practical, evidence-based feeding approaches

Reduce unnecessary medicalisation and medication use where appropriate

Help parents understand when symptoms are normal and when further review is needed

Topics Covered in this episode: -

👉 When to think CMPA
👉 The “multi-system” pattern
👉 Why it’s often over-suspected
👉 What to do if you’re unsure

About the Calm Your Baby Series

Calm Your Baby is a short podcast series for parents of young babies experiencing common feeding and digestive symptoms, including reflux, colic, crying, feeding difficulties, and suspected CMPA.

The series is designed to:

Reduce anxiety and confusion about normal infant development

Support practical, evidence-based feeding approaches

Reduce unnecessary medicalisation and medication use where appropriate

Help parents understand when symptoms are normal and when further review is needed

Topics Covered in this episode: -

👉 What’s actually normal
👉 Why babies spit up and cry
👉 What reflux and colic really are
👉 Why it looks worse than it is

This episode explains what Social Prescribing is all about.

In the episode, various members of the Social Prescribing Team talk about:- 

- What Social Prescribing is.

- How Social Prescribing can help you.

- Their role as Social Prescribers.

-  How to access the service.

These are the links referenced in the podcast:

The link to the Social Prescribers page with a Self-referral form - https://www.newcastlenorthpcn.nhs.uk/services/social-prescribers/

Link to the Newcastle North Primary Care Network homepage - https://www.newcastlenorthpcn.nhs.uk/

In this special edition podcast, we are joined by Adam Brunt (Community Engagement Officer) and Danielle Coleman (Station Manager at Sanyford Community Fire Station), who share practical tips and advice on home fire safety and discuss winter vehicle safety.

You can complete an online home fire safety check by visiting https://www.safelincs.co.uk/hfsc/, but if you don’t have online access, don’t worry, you can call 0800 0241 999.

Here are the links to the website pages and support materials mentioned in the podacst:

Safety at Home - https://www.staffordshirefire.gov.uk/your-safety/safety-at-home/

Road Safety - https://www.staffordshirefire.gov.uk/your-safety/road-safety/

National Highways Safe T.R.I.P. information - https://nationalhighways.co.uk/road-safety/trip/

On-call Firefighter Recruitment - https://www.staffordshirefire.gov.uk/careers/on-call-firefighters/

Fire Safety in the Home Information Leaflet - http://mountroadpracticeppg.nhs.uk/fire-safety-in-the-home

This episode is for you if you’ve ever started losing weight and felt motivated — only to hit a point where nothing seems to work anymore, and the scales won’t budge — you’re not alone.

That’s called a plateau — and it’s completely normal. 

I’ll talk about the following topics: -

• What is a weight loss plateau?
• What is your metabolism? 
• The body’s thermostat — your set point 
• Whether you can you change your set point
• What can help during a plateau?

Here are the links to the weight loss resources, as mentioned at the end of the episode: -

NN-PCN Weight Management page - https://www.newcastlenorthpcn.nhs.uk/clinical-topics/weight-management/

Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care System (ICS) Weight Management information and practical resources - https://staffsstokeics.org.uk/local-weight-management-services/

We finish this series with a really important reminder:

You are more than just a number 

I’ll talk about: -

• Why we use numbers — and why they’re not everything  
• What really matters
• If you’ve felt judged before 

Here are the links to the weight loss resources, as mentioned at the end of the episode: -

NN-PCN Weight Management page - https://www.newcastlenorthpcn.nhs.uk/clinical-topics/weight-management/

Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care System (ICS) Weight Management information and practical resources - https://staffsstokeics.org.uk/local-weight-management-services/