035 Annalies Corse – The 4th Trimester

Naturopath and medical scientist, Annalies Corse, joins me to chat about "the 4th trimester". This is a term that we don't often hear but refers to a period of time after having a child when a woman is going through a number of hormonal changes but also the larger family. Annalies explains that period and also gives us some insights on how best to prepare and support a family entering into the 4th trimester.

Selected Links from the Episode

Annalies Corse website
Unstress episode with Dr. Anup Desai on sleep
Unstress episode with Dr. W. Chris Winter on sleep 

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Dr. Ron Ehrlich:                   Hello and welcome to Unstress. I'm Dr. Ron Ehrlich. Now, when you decide to have a family and have kids, it can get a little stressful and I remember when my wife was pregnant with our first daughter, we were so preoccupied with the pregnancy. And to be honest, there weren't all that many of our friends around us with kids, so we kind of thought, "Okay. Once we have the child, life can just get back to normal." Yeah, that was a good one. Incidentally, at the same time, a pediatrician gave us one amazing piece of advice. "In the first year of life, teach your child to sleep," she said. "That means routine, routine, routine. Get a good routine going." Well, yes, well, we ignored that and felt our child would just fit in with our lifestyle.

And in retrospect, that piece of advice was the best piece of advice any health practitioner could give anyone of any age. And if you haven't been listening ... Well, if you have been listening to these podcasts, you'll know that sleep is a recurring theme with good reason. Now my guest today is Annalies Corses, and Annalies is a medical scientist, a senior lecturer in anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology, and she's also a naturopath. So while we know pregnancy takes 40 weeks and is roughly divided up into three trimesters of about 13 weeks each, it's actually, and in retrospect, obviously when the baby is born that the fun really starts.

Today we're going to discuss the fourth trimester, and I'll leave you to work out how long that fourth trimester goes on for. Now, there are many challenges, both individually and as a family, and that's when things just proceed along relatively normally and that doesn't always happen. I think this is a very interesting conversation. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Annalies Corses.
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Welcome to the show, Annalies.

Annalies Corse:                    Hi Ron, thank you so much for having me today.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich:                   Ah, it's a pleasure. I've been looking forward to our chat. Now listen, having a baby, we know, takes 40 weeks or that gets divided up into three trimesters.

But once the baby is born, particularly the first baby, life doesn't really get back to normal, does it? I remember when we had our first child, we thought, "Well, once we get over this pregnancy, life can get back to normal." How silly were we?

Annalies Corse:                    Exactly, yes.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich:                   We're on a very steep learning curve.

Annalies Corse:                    Yeah.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich:                   And you've coined this phrase "the fourth trimester," which I loved. I love this idea. Tell our listener what the fourth trimester is. How do we define it?

Annalies Corse:                    Look, it's probably ... To just backtrack slightly, I can't take the credit for the term because it is a term that's out there that you do hear about, but it's definitely not a mainstream term. But, it's definitely a term that encompasses that time in the family's life. Often it's just applied to the woman, but that way I view it is it's the time in the family's life, the new family or the current growing family, after the birth of a new child. It may be the first child of the family or it could be the second, third,