Julie advises giving women information at the appropriate times, when they can absorb it.

Written testimony

The one actually really concrete piece of advice I would have that I think is very easy to fix is, you know, upon discharge we were given, like, pages and pages and pages and pages of material to take home to read. Like, why wasn’t that given to us prior to our [baby] being born? Like, I just – and, you know, within that there was, you know, probably 15 pages deep, there was stuff about from a physiotherapy perspective about doing, like, Kegels and stuff, which I missed. I completely missed all of that. Like, you know, I had no idea of what I was or wasn’t supposed to be doing from a physical perspective. And I was actually told by the discharge nurse to walk as much as I possibly could. Well, if you tell a walker to walk as much as possibly could and that was the way I processed stress, I walked and walked and walked and walked and walked a ton, and that actually I think contributed further to my physical harm and not resting. “So my point to all of this is that, you know, when we think about best practices for educating people, it’s not during their time when they’re completely overwhelmed and sleep deprived and, like, dealing with trying to keep a little human alive and breastfeeding and doing all this stuff. Like, there should be – material and that kind of education it should be done, like, way in advance of someone actually going, like, you know, at the same time.

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More content

• Advice for Policymakers – Julie
  Julie offered this perspective:
• Advice for Health Care Providers – Julie (clip 2)
  Julie advocates for less medicalized approaches to birth.
• Advice for Health Care Providers – Julie
  Julie advises giving women information at the appropriate times, when they can absorb it.
• Coping with Perinatal Mental Health – Julie
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  Julie advocates a whole-person approach to the pregnancy journey.
• Seeking Help and Getting Diagnosis – Julie
  Despite having clearly stated that she was not feeling well, Julie still had to wait weeks before getting support.
• Relationships – Julie
  Julie's husband did not know what to do or how to navigate the health care system to get help.
• Support from Family and Friends – Julie
  A friend of Julie recognized the red flags and helped to get the support she needed.
• Managing Personal Challenges with Sleeping and Eating – Julie
  Looking back, Julie realizes how a chronic lack of sleep spiraled into heightened anxiety.
• Managing New Routines – Julie
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