November 11, 2022 • 39 mins
The Healthy Baby Show returns with a very special live episode recorded at the Healthybaby Development and Play Space in Manhattan featuring Tamron Hall and Shazi in a conversation moderated by Abby Cuffey from Women’s Health. In this episode, Tamron and Shazi discuss their own parenting journeys and explore what a healthier, happier, and realistic future looks like for all families and babies.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Healthy Baby Show is a production of My Heart
podcast network and healthy baby dot Com. High listeners. It's Chazzi,
your host. Today's episode of the show is a special
(00:21):
live episode recorded at our Healthy Baby Parenting in play
space in Manhattan. I was joined by Tammin Hall of
The termin Hall Show and Abby Cuffey of Women's Health
to talk about what a healthier, happier and realistic future
looks like for all families and babies. I hope you enjoy.
(00:46):
Thanks for coming, all right, We're ready to get started.
Thank you everyone for coming tonight. So this lovely space.
This is my first time here and I want to
live here now. So I'm Abby Bee. I'm the executive
editor at Women's Health. UM. This evening, we are going
to have a conversation titled the Future of Baby UM,
(01:08):
which feels like a huge, awesome topic and we're going
to get into so many different avenues under that umbrella.
So we're gonna be chatting with two incredible moms, both
respective pioneers in their fields. UM. I'm going to let
them introduce themselves here in a few minutes. UM. But
we're not only going to discuss the future as well
as Shauzi's mission to disrupt the diaper industry, which I
(01:30):
cannot wait to hear more about. UM. But we're also
going to take a look back at both of their
early days of pregnancy and motherhood, UM and talk a
little bit more about that, because, as anyone who's a
mom knows, that is such a pivotal and emotional time
and one that isn't talked about enough. So we're gonna
get into a lot tonight. UM. So first of all,
(01:51):
I want to turn it over to Tamaran and SHAWSI
to introduce themselves. So Tamara and you want to kick
us off. Yes, hi everyone, I'm so happy to be here.
My name is Tamarin Hall. I'm the host of the
Tamarin Hall Show. You might know her Tamarin Hall, and
I'm here now. I'm the mom of a three year
old three and a half year old. His name is Moses.
He's my only child. He will be my only child
(02:11):
because I'm fifty two and I had him at forty eight.
I'm not sure what I was thinking, but it worked
out very well. So far, so good. UM. I am
you know, learning like the rest of you. This is
a mission. It's a journey. It is the hardest job,
as they say that you can have. And I underestimated that.
I was a morning TV for boys thirty years and
(02:34):
before I left to start my own show, I would
have been the only non mom on the show, and
which was incredible. How to copy my friend it just
um become a mom and I would have been the
only non mom. And now seeing life through this prison
has been so eye opening as a journalist, as a human,
um as a contributor. I hope to a better planet
(02:56):
for all of us. So that's me just want to
hang out. So it's also just don't put us in
the same time. It's really it's hard to unlay everything
about you. But she's very I love that. It's very,
(03:16):
very great affrobation. I love that. But my daughter told
me the other day that we moved to this town.
She said, but she's like, I don't think most of
my friends. I think you're pretty. But I don't think
most of my friends would think you're pretty. And I
was like, are you crazy, I'm like the best looking
person I do that. I just this is actually um,
(03:38):
so I'm chassis. Thank you guys for coming to our space.
Very proud of it. UM summarize quickly. I am the
founder of Healthy Baby, but before that, I started in
the baby space. When I was twenty five, I had
an idea to change the world with organic baby food. UM.
It took me about fifteen years and now Happy Baby,
(04:01):
my first company, is the is the largest organic baby
brand in the country, if not the world. And um,
I would still own it and it's worth two billion dollars.
But I sold it because my son was diagnosed with autism.
But I had after I started Happy which is interesting
because I thought I knew everything about toxins and organic food,
(04:25):
only to realize there's just so much more and um
and so I left thinking, you know, I'm gonna take
a break, I and but I couldn't because I learned
so much and what I learned it was so important
because now autism is one in forty four, d h
D is one in ten, and the stats don't stop
(04:46):
climbing and so sorry. UM. So I realized that I
had to start another company. And I thought that the
most important thing to do, because that's what I know
how to do, is to get product in the hands
of people, because if you change of parents behavior, you
do change the world, and it's cool that happy is
in one in eight households with a baby, including wick
(05:08):
families and with healthy. What I really want to do
is change the conversation and focus on the time of
babies and diapers. But in order to do that, we
really have to disrupt the diaper industry, and it actually
does require disruption. Um, there are a lot of chemicals
and things that you wouldn't think should be in a
baby's diaper for the three years that they're sitting in seven.
(05:30):
So that's like the first place to disrupt. And I'm
just grateful to have you guys here and and talk
about it, but awesome, I have we have more questions
against you on the specific disruption because I think it's
so fascinating and um, I'm I'm so intrigued that you
started or an organic baby food company before even having kids.
(05:52):
I think I when I was twenty five, I don't
think that would be top of mind. So that's that's
pretty incredible. Um. So I want to go back to
Tamar and you mentioned it being the hardest job you've
ever had and not really knowing sort of what it
was all about. So what do you wish you knew
about motherhood. I would you wish someone had told you
include you in about Oh my gosh. You know, I
(06:14):
think they could have told me all day. Until you
experience it, it's not real. As I said, I did
thirty years of morning television. I've interviewed every major baby author.
I've interviewed every person to tell you how to hide
a vegetable inside of something. I have twenty. I mean,
you think about every segment three ways to do this.
And I've been that prior to even um um, coming
(06:35):
here to New York. I was in Chicago, I was
in Dallas, and morning TV has been my life. And
the number one staple of morning TV is what parenting.
I can't tell you one segment. It went out the window. Um,
I like so many of you, read books all night
long and fell asleep with books on my tummy. And
then the minute my son had Skeeter syndrome, which is
a real thing, is alertic to mosquitoes. I'm like, that
(06:56):
wasn't in that funk? They lie, They lie, you know,
so I think, Um, it's it's endless because it is
the It's one of those things in life until you
experience it, until you're in a pediatric office, and you're
worried about what the diagnosis might be until you're actually
(07:16):
getting your child's first vaccine and they're screaming and you're
and you're being told to double your leg over this,
and no one can describe what that m No one,
nothing in life can prepare you for it until you
experience it. So I'm cautious about answering questions about, you know,
what I wish I knew or or even like the
things that I think every parent needs. Every child is different,
(07:40):
every parent is different. Parenting is different now than it
was seventy two months ago, you know. And so for me,
how boy, it's just been a surreal out of body experience.
And the best of what I've been able to pull
off is because I'm talking to other moms in real time.
I'm I have friends I call all night long and
(08:02):
they say, stopped calling me. My husband said, you know
what's going on is four? I am one of my
mom friends is here? Who I called? I need help
with childcare? What do I do? How do I interview
to have someone come into my home? And that was
our mini miny emails. So the best of this experience
has been for me being vulnerable enough to send an
(08:23):
email to the mom across the street and say, can
you please help me with childcare? I don't know even
how to start um. So that's you know, that's a
very long answer, but that's what it knows that I
sound very political, but it's true. I I wasn't prepared
for it. I'm still not prepared for it. I just
left my son a few minutes ago, and I'm now
like I read something that says you shouldn't sneak out
(08:44):
the door, you should say bye. And there I am
sneaking out the door and he's looking at me like
where are you going to that lady? You got a date?
And his dad are like where are you going? And
you know, I'm like, go eat your chicken. Dug it,
you know, but it's it's it's a head trip. I
wait at tables for eleven days and I said it
was the hardest job I've ever had. And that's why
(09:06):
I'm like the overtipper. I'm like, extend my credit card
to everybody. Just it's hard because it is very is
the expectation, and I think with parenting, your child doesn't
tell you the expectations, but you know, the expectations because
the world tells us all day and it's hard too.
It's hard. It's hard to know what to do. It's
how to reactive. There's so much information out there. Um
(09:27):
on that topic, Shazi, you you mentioned the diaper industry
disrupting it um and creating healthy baby was inspired by
your children, your son, um. So on this topic of
disruption and how you you know, how you know what
to disrupt or what needs to change and this idea
(09:48):
of information and there's so much information out there, right,
so how did you how did you educate yourself and
um learn what you felt needed to change and sort
of the next steps for happening. Yeah, I'm like a
bit of a freak, so um, you know when I
need to figure something and I don't stop until I'm
(10:09):
a fixer. So I'm always thinking, here's a problem, I
need to figure it out. And so interesting because like
I grew up in a motel room in Alabama, like
literally and um, I don't I mean, I no matter.
It was fun. It sounds terrible, but it was fun. Um.
But I've always like figured my way out of things
and or into something that I envisioned being great. And
(10:33):
it's so crazy because I sold my company and all
of a sudden, it's like money is not an object.
And then I had a problem like money can't fix
and so for me, I started doing the research trying
to understand, like how how do I help my son?
How do I get him back? Because he was typically
developing the first two years of life and then really
started losing so many milestones, and it was it was
(10:56):
really scary and unusual. We had celebrated how like can
acted and great he was, and then to see that
happening was shocking. I mean I literally sold my company
just to have money to do stuff for him, like
buy a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, which is crazy, I know.
But the answer is I've actually like just focus on
the science. And I learned that, you know, in our world,
(11:21):
and the EWG was just like a really near and
dear organization to my heart. They've been the pioneer in
showing us what we need to focus on for thirty years.
So it was just in their offices last week. And
the last study they did is about it was two
thousand five, and it's their first study was pesticides and
baby food and it was ten years before I started
a Happy Baby and their last studies two thousand and five,
(11:42):
and it was cord blood of unborn babies and they
found two six industrial chemicals in the cord blood of
an unborn baby and many of them are neurotoxins. So
if you look at the world, you say, why is
autism so crazy? Is it really overdiagnosed or is it
it's like in my if it's I mean it's very
severe and real. And I have this daughter who's quite
(12:06):
brilliantly connected, and um, I feel like I learned so
much about nutrition and iron and you know, we created
a prenatal with the Neurological Health Foundation to create optimal
health from the inception of life. I learned about how
you know, how you can actually avoid a lot of
these chemicals and exposures. And then I started thinking, like,
(12:26):
how do you But it sounds it sounds heavy and
dark when we talk about it, but like Happy Baby,
you know that we accomplished the same thing, but by
being bright and joyful and finding creating a brand and
products around to kind of infuse the knowledge without feeling
like it's pushed on you. So, um, I forgot what
(12:48):
the original question, But the answer is that if we
focus on the time of babies and diapers, it's the
first three years that they're becoming who they are. And
to me, early intervention is like, uh, it's like God's
most It's God's biggest gift to Americans and it's America's
best kept secret. What do you mean by that? I
(13:08):
mean that like like if you're worried that if you're
worried that your child has a speech issue, um, because
there's no shame or harm and you pick up the
phone and they will send someone to your house and evaluate.
And with Asha, my daughter, you know, I was very
concerned because they experienced we haven't saying so I was
like calling them all the time. And it's a free
(13:30):
service and you get this support. And what I realized
is people don't use things that are free. But if
you give it to them and it's paired with your
monthly diaper delivery, and you're sharing developmental concepts like object permanence,
which is why you're not supposed to leave, because the
object permanence is like this concept, right, And the first
(13:50):
time you learn it is peekaboo. You learn that you
like you come back after you go in. It's a
game and it's fun and it teaches your baby ultimately
how to relax and self regulate. And it's cool to
now know these concepts in a painful way that I've
learned it throughoutism and apply them to Asha proactively because
she's like a scary little genius. And so a lot
(14:11):
of our products are inspired by That's like, we have
an oral motor toothbrush and it's just it's a great toothbrush,
but it's a tool to do ten different speech exercises
that just if you have an issue or not. Isn't
it great to be able to articulate? You know? So
to me, it's like getting proactive but finding a way
to do it with products and brand because otherwise it
(14:32):
sounds pretchy and scary, and I don't know, we don't
need more stress. We need like easy solutions that you
can trust and feel like, oh that's really special. I
love them and I believe it and I do that
and I love that, and I feel like it's a
nice thread from what you said that your fixer, right,
You're going to find a solution and research your way
out of it. And now those solutions are coming through
(14:55):
in products and services. UM that's pretty incredible. Um, when
you said that with your diaper delivery you'll get you'll
also get education and the service. Can you just give
a little more details about what what that is. Yeah,
it's actually it's super cool. So luckily I've had access
to great resources and a lot of them have come
(15:16):
together to help support the brand and develop really meaningful content.
So but every month you can basically kind of guess
the agent stage of babies and based on their diaper,
and you can give tips on how to create deeper connections,
deeper neural connections. They're making a million neural connections a
second that they're sitting in diverse and there are so
many different things that I didn't know the first time.
(15:38):
And so our developmental pediatrician and a team of like
eight people have written there they're my experts best in
the world content for every single month of understanding what
the concept is and how to nurture it. And also
like if you need support and you're questioning, you can
reach out and then we connect to with health. So
(16:01):
it's it's like a it's supposed to be not just
the divers It's meant to be like diapers and development
and love heal. That's that's incredible. UM. It's also great
that she's almost at a diapers believe. Yes, we're happy
about that. Mart. We'll be back after a quick break.
(16:26):
Welcome back to the Healthy Baby Show. So and I
want to we talked about, you know, zero to three.
I want to take it back to pregnancy, UM and
tamarin U talking a little bit about your pregnancy and UM,
you know, thinking about education, information and all of this
around how we stay healthy. Um, for yourself as well
(16:47):
as for the baby. UM, how did you achieve a
healthy pregnancy where they specific things you did or focused
on anything in that realm Um. I was a high
risk pregnancy because I was forty years old, so is
my aunt all had children over the age of so
we knew that there was a chance that I would
be able to conceive. I had no idea that it
(17:08):
would happen. Are you hoping pray like anyone else? Um?
But because I was a high risk pregnancy clearly changed
the way I eat. But more than that, I did
a purge of even people around me because I'm a
very mind, body, soul person and if people came to
me and the first thing they said was, oh, how
hard their pregnancy was or how awful it was. I
(17:30):
didn't want to receive it. It's it's um. For example,
when you get married and someone says good luck, it's
like you know. And so I would do purchase and
people suddenly realized I wasn't calling them back, and I
made sure to surround myself with people who were going
to not They didn't have to celebrate, but I just
didn't need a misery party. I was already scared enough,
(17:52):
right and so UM. I kept my pregnancy private for
thirty two weeks, and it was only because someone leaked
it to US Weekly, and US Weekly call and said,
we know she's pregnant. And then my husband rushed and
I had that baby Shark song in mine and I
got this dress and we shot this video. We called
the publicist and we're like, okay, I said, I don't
know everybody to take my joy in. We put this
(18:13):
being out the next thing. I know, it was all
over the world that this woman of my age had
had this baby. Um, but you know I was. I'm
a pretty decent eater. I'm from Texas. I still eat
a burger every day, So I'm not gonna sorry. I'm
not gonna come well, not every day but every other day,
and I go to bed with ice cream and my husband.
But I do both and at least where you can
(18:34):
understand that. But I'm I'm pretty you know, I grew
up on a farm. I grew up my you know,
your childhood was very reminiscent of my. My grandfather was
born in nineteen o one. He couldn't read, but I
make my living with words. My mom was a nineteen
year old single mom. I came home to what is
referred to in the South as a shotgun house, and
that's when you look at the house and it goes
straight back. My grandfather was a pit master, but before
(18:56):
that he picked cotton. Um. So I grew up in
a very you know, people talk about organic. You know,
we were very very, very very poor, but we lived
in organic life. So I you know, I'm I love cooking.
If I cooked four days in a week, that's uh,
that's the minimum. I try to come home and cook
as much as possible, so I would the pregnancy, um
for that part was easy. It was you know, the
(19:19):
unknown of being a forty eight year old pregnant woman
and how that would impact my child, to your point,
and so I was reading a lot of articles and
being mindful of our environment as best we can, because
I do appreciate your openness about your son. My son
has speech issues. And to your point about early intervention, um,
I forget when I started to notice this, and I
(19:40):
was like, what's going on? And all right? And luckily
I was able to make some calls, including that free
service that you mentioned that people don't know about, and
I did the exact same things. I'm being here transparent
here I thought. I was like free, what you know?
And I'm like hell, and I'm like, hi, this is Sharon.
Sharon's online one Sharon. And they're like, you're Sharon. Mall
wants to know. And I did that same thing because
(20:01):
with our children were trained the best is expensive or
this or that, and and I went through the process
and at the time someone said to me, listen, it
can't hurt. We're in a global pandemic. We don't know
how this is affecting kids. I remember our very first
appointment with the speech there, but she had one of
the clear, you know things that I'm thinking, this is
that he can't see, you know, we can't do And
(20:21):
then the Peekaboo, which I've read about that, and I
started to consume the very same um. Not to the
level obviously, but I did the pedestrian version of learning
about the environment. We live in New York City. I mean,
I I have a patio and I clean off my
Patti on his black three days later, his black with
soot that's going in all of our bodies. And so
(20:42):
I was very mindful of those things. But at the
same time, you feel helpless because then what you do
move out of New York and then you move into
the next thing. So I tried to control what I control,
and that was the environment, the company that I was keeping,
keeping myself calm. I was touring selling this show, so
I was on a lot of flights, and so that
was terrifying too. You think about, oh wow, And so
(21:02):
now with my son's speech, like again, I'm going to
be completely honest with you, I have stayed up at
nice thing. Did I do something wrong? Should have taken
that flight? But you know, I know I didn't. But
it's natural right to worry and to wonder, you know.
And I I remember before the shutdown of our show,
I brought about so proud you know it's Halloween, right,
(21:23):
and I'm bringing my son out for his first debut,
and I'm the mom of Moses. I can't think of
your name, but the mom of Moses. And he's dressed
like but Rachel, well somebody, and so she's not here
to defend her name, So the mom of Moses. Our
dog was dressed like a sheep, and my husband was
a burning bush. Crazy crazy Anyway, I remember holding my
son and the crowd applauded so loud, and I felt
(21:46):
his little body tense up. And so this moment that
I thought I was sharing his I felt it. And
when I tell you three years later, I can still
feel it. And if I think about it too long,
it will make me cry. Um, but you don't know.
So you're putting yourself an environmental situations. You're putting your
baby throughout the pregnancy. But my pregnancy went well. I
had a c C section, I went into labor, I
(22:08):
had a schedule C section, and then um, I went
into labor. I was at home, my husband was out,
and I was like lying in bed, and I'm like,
that's weird because in TV knew it's so dramatical, like oh,
and I knew what. I was like, wait, it's not Friday,
and we have an appointment on Friday. And I a
week before I did a heart monitor because I had
that my son wasn't very active, and I thought the worst,
(22:28):
and I kept seeing articles about the worst, and I
just said the worst. The worst was, so I kept
going in for different testing. Anyway, I went to labor
at home. I was by myself, and I kept ignoring
it because I was like, there's no way. And I
culearly have a high paint tolerance because my husband came,
he sick, Are you okay? Like, yeah, I'm fining you
don't look your sweating. I'm like, I'm just hot at here.
I'm talking about hot. And then um, because I'm gonna
(22:50):
call your mom, said I don't call my mom. I'm
not going to the hospital to sit there all day.
I stood up and I hit the floor to my
knees and my husband's like, we're going to the HOSPITAL'M like, no,
that find the slippery floor. What are you talking about?
And then I got up again and I went down again.
He's like, let's go. So a guy the uber gets
the thing. But even up intil that moment, you know,
You're terrified. What have I exposed myself to? What is
(23:12):
this going to be? Like? What is his child? Um?
Everything like it is a flood of emotions. Even when
I got the ivy, I'm like, what is that and
how is that going to impact me? And what this baby?
But I had to c section. I went in like
ten minutes later he was out, and I was like,
I know it was crazy, and uh, that's pretty good.
It was, but but but as soon as he came out,
(23:33):
it was like game on. Well God spared me. He's
like this old lady, come on, um, so I'm not
gonna I was always like it was like ten minutes
I was in and out. Um, my doctor said the
car was going to be this big. It's it's line
this wall, and like every day I'm like a lie
to me, but I live with it. Uh it is
not my badge of honor, but it isn't badge and
(23:53):
I carry and it's fine. I thought it was gonna breastfeed,
and then two days later I kind of realized that
was not gonna be possible, not just because of my body. Um,
I had to tour and promote the show. So the
pregnancy for the most part I was going in for
IVF UM. You know, I had to do progest your
own um every night because of my age, and I
did the oil and that was very very very very
(24:15):
very difficult. I have pictures of my husband crying his
eyes out. He still refuses. We still to this so
first had bio has mad. Needles are still in my
home because my husband was like, we can't, we can't,
and I'm like, I need room for shoes. He's like that,
he can't let it go because he saw what I
went through. But I did progest own. I had to
go in I think once a week to get blood
(24:37):
work done every morning, and I'd go in about five
in the morning, nobody was there and sneak out and
kind of go back and forth. But it was uh,
I'm very fortunate that it wasn't. I won't say easy,
because you can never take that for granted, especially when
you know the number of black women who still die
in childbirth. And there was just an article to two
(24:58):
days ago about UM the number of black and brown
children who die um as who were conceived through IVF
and they still don't know exactly why that is UM.
So it was scary, but I maintained in this here
and I think I'm healthy. It did delay my menopause.
I did not know that I VF can delay menopause
(25:19):
and some women. So when I go into the doctor
like when was your last period, I'm like last WEEKAR
like no, like yes, it is so yeah, I can
delay and it delayed my I still um, I mean
we're amongst friends. I still have that regular thing because
the IVF treatments delated IVF too, and I want menopause.
(25:39):
I didn't know that YE delays it. So you know, um,
thank you for sharing. And I should say to you
also the diaper front um. I So I'm so happy
that you're having this conversation. I remember this summer, a
friend's child came over. We forgot that she kept her
diaper on. I'll never forget, and it changed the way
(26:01):
I saw diapers. She was in the pool, we got
out and it was this gelatinous jelly and I was like,
what is that? And and she's standing there and it
was so frightening to think that it's concealed in this
diaper and it looked like the blob. And again I
(26:24):
don't know the science, but I have common sense. And
I knew, and I said, this is this is bad
and it only it only took water, and it was
it never happened. It was unbelievable. And so to your
point about this knowledge basis, it relates to the diaper
change and all that we know in our exposure. What
you're doing is is you are saving the world because
(26:47):
we have to start thinking about what we do every
step of the way. And I've never in my years
have I've never heard anyone have such a pointed conversation
about something all of us as parents do and that's
changed our child to thank you. I mean, that stuff
is called super absorbent, it's called SAP super absorbent polymer,
(27:08):
but it's a polyacrolide, and that stuff is made of
petroleum and there's a clean way to make it in
a dirty way to make it. And I was saying
earlier like if you if you want to change the world,
you have to like hold the tip of the spear
and figure out how to break a supply chain, because
if we don't, you're just gonna buy the same stuff
(27:28):
that's made from a multinational corporation that owns the oil
and gas, that owns the forestry, that owns the paper manufacturing,
and then they have this little diaper manufacturer at the end,
and they're using on these by products, so they probably
don't care about changing the world and making something more
sustainable because they're just using all their byproducts and selling it.
While like if you start here and say, okay, let's
(27:50):
make the best version of this and let's start looking
at bio based like you can have a it doesn't
work as well yet. So the key is to make
one change at a time. But like you make one
change of time, it changes like shift the Titanic, And
so thank you for saying that, because it's it's like
so worth it if I don't. That's the things, all
(28:13):
these things that I've learned, it's hard to un learn them.
And there are things I learned from my first pregnancy
hat to know the second time, and you learn it.
And it's like I didn't know if you take if
you're taking full like acid the day, you can see
if you have a decreased chance of having a childhood
a neurological disorder. I didn't know that the first time.
The second time I knew. And now we have a
(28:35):
prenatal that has methyl foliate and we encourage people to
take it early so there it's in their system. Or
like I didn't know, Um, I learned such a big
deal for brain development, and I learned that it is
like the vehicle that carries oxygen to your brain, and
your brain is the organ in your body that takes
that needs the most oxygen. And most women go into
(28:58):
pregnancy if ship half and so like when I with Usha,
I was a freak. I was like, I want you
to give me iron infusions. And I actually had my
my o B on my podcast about um, all the
things you can think about that should to me be
standard of care, and she said, you know that was
six years ago. What's funny is now at Yale, in
(29:20):
our high risk group, it's the standard of care. And
so it's like, you know, you've got to look at
the science. Sometimes the medical community takes a little while
to catch up with the science. But then it's like,
so nice to be there at the moment where you
can make a difference. Yeah, that's why it's okay to
have a worker every day. Yeah, that's why it's okay.
But you know, how interesting though, would it be if
(29:42):
we talked more about this than the sleepless nights, right,
And I know they're real, and trust me, my son
was up and I'm like, I'm trying to change a diaper,
and thankfully I care. But we know that we're bringing
home this lovely person who likely won't sleep more than
two hours. And that's the first people talk to you
about in most cases is how or ask you how
(30:03):
are you getting any sleep? I am not minimizing in
it anyway, but I would much rather have had this
type of information, this type of knowledge with iron and
all of that. You know, we we go to the
lowest common denominator sometimes because it's the easiest, right, So
it's the easiest to talk about sleep. And I am
not minimizing it, and I know that closed sleep study,
(30:24):
and trust me, I'm not it is, but but I mean,
how nice would it have been um to have this
information at the forefront of the conversation about parenting. And
I'm not a conspiratorial person, but I do obviously know
that industries direct the conversation, and they can direct the
(30:45):
conversations away from things we should be talking about, which
is exactly what you're doing. And I think it's critical,
and I think this sleep question too it always puts
it on the woman. It always puts it on the woman.
Are you secturing them? What are you doing rather than
a larger conversation around things that are affecting the baby's
(31:06):
the baby's health and development. And again, this is a
new creature in the world. They're probably not going to sleep.
So we got that part. But how do I help
the brain development? How do I know about the local
and free things available? How do I learn what's the
difference in OT and pet and speech therapy and all
of those things? Um, because that that is what will
(31:27):
allow your little bird to fly. They're going to eventually sleep,
you know they will. And I only have one, but
I know they will because we don't have nine year
olds still sleep with their parents. At some point you
get out of the bed. So some of those things
I mean truly, I mean itself, well you have some
nine year olds, but whatever, that's episode their fears. But
what I'm saying, you know eventually certain things with time
(31:50):
will take care of itself. Brain development doesn't take care
of itself. You have to know the knowledge to make
it happen. And so how nice would it be if
we were the catalyst to this forward thinking conversation. That's
that's no, it's true. It's true because I wish I
(32:11):
knew these things. Of course I'm sitting here going how
many times I take full like us, all right, you
know what you know? You know, you just don't know
these things, and we're sometimes shepherded into the easier conversation
versus the most complex. That's true. See, that's the future
of parenting is just raising the bar for the standard
of care because if the lowest common denominator was a
(32:33):
lot higher. So that's what we're going to. We're going
for exactly. We'll be back after a quick break. Welcome
back to the Healthy Baby Show. So I wanted to
(32:54):
touch on something that I think is also a very
common question for women from others, which is, um, the
whole work life balanced thing, which is a myth. I
think probably everyone here can agree. We're not going to
debate that it's it's a myth um. But I'm still
curious how both of you still find moments to have
(33:15):
quality time with your kids, with your son, you know,
while still you know, giving yourself some moments to write, Like,
how do you do that? Out of the work life
balance conversation? What does that look like for you, well,
I win some of my loose. M. You know, there
are days that I come home from my show and
(33:35):
then I cooked inder and then my kid is like
so cute on the stuff, and I'm like, oh yes
when and everybody goes to bed and then their other days.
I've crying and I'm yelling at my husband because I'm like,
if there's one more Amazon box that's not broken down,
I don't know what I'm going to do to you,
you know, Um, But I think that for me, you understand. Um,
(33:59):
you know, yes to a point. I'm so have you said, aby,
work life balance isn't real, um, But what's real is
you will lose some of your wins. Some some days
you will feel like the victor and some days you
will feel like not the loser because you've never lost
because you're getting in the game, but you won't feel triumphant.
And so that's been for me. I I've learned to say, no, Um,
(34:20):
I am to a fixer. I'm a virgo. If you
look at anything on virgos, you know what that means.
I'm hyper analytical. I'm in my head a lot. But um,
when I'm feeling like this, and that there's a chaos
in my life. I made myself stop and I say,
what do you want this kid to remember about you?
(34:41):
And I want him to know I was happy. I
want him to say my mom smiled and oh gosh,
I remember my mom's smile. And so that's what I do.
When you know people are pulling me in different directions.
I've learned to say I'm sorry, I'm with my son,
and then I stopped saying I'm sorry with my son
by But when I feel it ticking up my my
(35:03):
mood regulator is to say, one day I will be
a picture and I want him to know that I
wasn't just smiling in that picture, that I smile, and
it helps me. It gives me confidence to say no,
I can't go to something. It makes me confidence that
I've got this much time because I want him to
know his mom had a hell of a laugh and
(35:23):
he can still hear it wherever I am. It's so beautiful, Yeah,
thank you. Fine. Smiling is like it really encourages happy
brain development, like just from being together together, what about
your um? Well not, it's I think my son is
(35:50):
the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life,
So I try to like see him for what he
is in the moment and not and then I try
what I tried to do, and I don't know if
you this, so this one, I just try to keep
one or two dates with them separate, where like I
have to show up and I don't let them down
(36:12):
because I also just don't want to be the Yeah,
my parents were like immigrant parents, and I just watched
them work all day long. And the thing my parents
didn't teach me how to do is have fun. I
don't know that's still have fun, but like they didn't
teach me how to They just taught me how to
like work to the bone um, and that you're always
never going to have enough no matter how much you have.
It's just this constant. But I I think like just
(36:37):
keeping those little those moments to make those deeper connections
and even if they're short, like holding yourself to it um,
that like brings me a sense of consistency. And then
then I feel like that's like the it's just like
there's a couple of moments in the routine and even
if it's five minutes or ten minutes, if I told USh,
(36:58):
I'm gonna take a bath with her. I'm gonna take
a bath with her, and you know, I'm gonna play
with Zane and jump on the trampoline. And if he's
naked and doing crazy, god knows what. I'm just celebrating
the moment, just like he looks like a naked, crazy
movie star jumping on a massive trampoline and that might
be weird, but I love it. It's my life, and
(37:18):
so I just think, like it's hard sometimes because you
have these expectations and like I said, like there's just
some thing's money can't fix. There's also there's also like
a perfection in the way it is, and I just
try to remember that. Um, and I drink a lot
of wine. That works. That works whenever I'm here. I
(37:40):
stayed at the Greenwich Hotel, and I like that'spad like,
but but yeah, there's no I think that is a
myth on balance because when you're building something, when you're
creating a platform, reaching people and impacting your lives with
your message, like, how could you pass? That's hard? That's amazing,
(38:01):
It's unbelievable that you're you know, how could you possibly
have balance? I mean, like the mythic, Yeah, I think
it's a total total myth. So thank you for sharing
those beautiful answers. Both of those were incredibly I know
everyone is like goose bumps staring up same. I feel
very reinvigorated, re inspired as a mother myself. UM. So, Tamaron,
(38:23):
thank you for sharing your story and everything um that
you've shared here tonight and Chazy, what's happening here is
incredible and what you've built and what you continue to
focus on. So thank you both. Yeah, a special thanks
(38:48):
again to Tamine Hall and Abby Coffee for being so
open and sharing so much we don't always get to
talk about. Check out the other episodes of The Healthy
Baby Show to learn about what you can do to
promote health, happiness, and nection from the inception of life.
The Healthy Baby Show is a production of I Heart
(39:08):
podcast Network and healthy baby dot Com, where you can
find a new line of the safest baby essentials. The
Healthy Baby Show is hosted by me Shazivas Fram. Our
lead producer is Jennifer Bassett. Executive producers are Nikki Etre,
Anna Stump, Shahs, Vas Fraum, and James Violette. Mastering and
sound designed by Carl Catle and Dan Bowsa additional writing
(39:29):
and research by Julia Weaver. Our theme music is by
Anna Stump and Hamilton's Lighthouser. Additional music from Blue Dot
sessions
The Healthy Baby Show is a production of My Heart
podcast network and healthy baby dot Com. High listeners. It's Chazzi,
your host. Today's episode of the show is a special
(00:21):
live episode recorded at our Healthy Baby Parenting in play
space in Manhattan. I was joined by Tammin Hall of
The termin Hall Show and Abby Cuffey of Women's Health
to talk about what a healthier, happier and realistic future
looks like for all families and babies. I hope you enjoy.
(00:46):
Thanks for coming, all right, We're ready to get started.
Thank you everyone for coming tonight. So this lovely space.
This is my first time here and I want to
live here now. So I'm Abby Bee. I'm the executive
editor at Women's Health. UM. This evening, we are going
to have a conversation titled the Future of Baby UM,
(01:08):
which feels like a huge, awesome topic and we're going
to get into so many different avenues under that umbrella.
So we're gonna be chatting with two incredible moms, both
respective pioneers in their fields. UM. I'm going to let
them introduce themselves here in a few minutes. UM. But
we're not only going to discuss the future as well
as Shauzi's mission to disrupt the diaper industry, which I
(01:30):
cannot wait to hear more about. UM. But we're also
going to take a look back at both of their
early days of pregnancy and motherhood, UM and talk a
little bit more about that, because, as anyone who's a
mom knows, that is such a pivotal and emotional time
and one that isn't talked about enough. So we're gonna
get into a lot tonight. UM. So first of all,
(01:51):
I want to turn it over to Tamaran and SHAWSI
to introduce themselves. So Tamara and you want to kick
us off. Yes, hi everyone, I'm so happy to be here.
My name is Tamarin Hall. I'm the host of the
Tamarin Hall Show. You might know her Tamarin Hall, and
I'm here now. I'm the mom of a three year
old three and a half year old. His name is Moses.
He's my only child. He will be my only child
(02:11):
because I'm fifty two and I had him at forty eight.
I'm not sure what I was thinking, but it worked
out very well. So far, so good. UM. I am
you know, learning like the rest of you. This is
a mission. It's a journey. It is the hardest job,
as they say that you can have. And I underestimated that.
I was a morning TV for boys thirty years and
(02:34):
before I left to start my own show, I would
have been the only non mom on the show, and
which was incredible. How to copy my friend it just
um become a mom and I would have been the
only non mom. And now seeing life through this prison
has been so eye opening as a journalist, as a human,
um as a contributor. I hope to a better planet
(02:56):
for all of us. So that's me just want to
hang out. So it's also just don't put us in
the same time. It's really it's hard to unlay everything
about you. But she's very I love that. It's very,
(03:16):
very great affrobation. I love that. But my daughter told
me the other day that we moved to this town.
She said, but she's like, I don't think most of
my friends. I think you're pretty. But I don't think
most of my friends would think you're pretty. And I
was like, are you crazy, I'm like the best looking
person I do that. I just this is actually um,
(03:38):
so I'm chassis. Thank you guys for coming to our space.
Very proud of it. UM summarize quickly. I am the
founder of Healthy Baby, but before that, I started in
the baby space. When I was twenty five, I had
an idea to change the world with organic baby food. UM.
It took me about fifteen years and now Happy Baby,
(04:01):
my first company, is the is the largest organic baby
brand in the country, if not the world. And um,
I would still own it and it's worth two billion dollars.
But I sold it because my son was diagnosed with autism.
But I had after I started Happy which is interesting
because I thought I knew everything about toxins and organic food,
(04:25):
only to realize there's just so much more and um
and so I left thinking, you know, I'm gonna take
a break, I and but I couldn't because I learned
so much and what I learned it was so important
because now autism is one in forty four, d h
D is one in ten, and the stats don't stop
(04:46):
climbing and so sorry. UM. So I realized that I
had to start another company. And I thought that the
most important thing to do, because that's what I know
how to do, is to get product in the hands
of people, because if you change of parents behavior, you
do change the world, and it's cool that happy is
in one in eight households with a baby, including wick
(05:08):
families and with healthy. What I really want to do
is change the conversation and focus on the time of
babies and diapers. But in order to do that, we
really have to disrupt the diaper industry, and it actually
does require disruption. Um, there are a lot of chemicals
and things that you wouldn't think should be in a
baby's diaper for the three years that they're sitting in seven.
(05:30):
So that's like the first place to disrupt. And I'm
just grateful to have you guys here and and talk
about it, but awesome, I have we have more questions
against you on the specific disruption because I think it's
so fascinating and um, I'm I'm so intrigued that you
started or an organic baby food company before even having kids.
(05:52):
I think I when I was twenty five, I don't
think that would be top of mind. So that's that's
pretty incredible. Um. So I want to go back to
Tamar and you mentioned it being the hardest job you've
ever had and not really knowing sort of what it
was all about. So what do you wish you knew
about motherhood. I would you wish someone had told you
include you in about Oh my gosh. You know, I
(06:14):
think they could have told me all day. Until you
experience it, it's not real. As I said, I did
thirty years of morning television. I've interviewed every major baby author.
I've interviewed every person to tell you how to hide
a vegetable inside of something. I have twenty. I mean,
you think about every segment three ways to do this.
And I've been that prior to even um um, coming
(06:35):
here to New York. I was in Chicago, I was
in Dallas, and morning TV has been my life. And
the number one staple of morning TV is what parenting.
I can't tell you one segment. It went out the window. Um,
I like so many of you, read books all night
long and fell asleep with books on my tummy. And
then the minute my son had Skeeter syndrome, which is
a real thing, is alertic to mosquitoes. I'm like, that
(06:56):
wasn't in that funk? They lie, They lie, you know,
so I think, Um, it's it's endless because it is
the It's one of those things in life until you
experience it, until you're in a pediatric office, and you're
worried about what the diagnosis might be until you're actually
(07:16):
getting your child's first vaccine and they're screaming and you're
and you're being told to double your leg over this,
and no one can describe what that m No one,
nothing in life can prepare you for it until you
experience it. So I'm cautious about answering questions about, you know,
what I wish I knew or or even like the
things that I think every parent needs. Every child is different,
(07:40):
every parent is different. Parenting is different now than it
was seventy two months ago, you know. And so for me,
how boy, it's just been a surreal out of body experience.
And the best of what I've been able to pull
off is because I'm talking to other moms in real time.
I'm I have friends I call all night long and
(08:02):
they say, stopped calling me. My husband said, you know
what's going on is four? I am one of my
mom friends is here? Who I called? I need help
with childcare? What do I do? How do I interview
to have someone come into my home? And that was
our mini miny emails. So the best of this experience
has been for me being vulnerable enough to send an
(08:23):
email to the mom across the street and say, can
you please help me with childcare? I don't know even
how to start um. So that's you know, that's a
very long answer, but that's what it knows that I
sound very political, but it's true. I I wasn't prepared
for it. I'm still not prepared for it. I just
left my son a few minutes ago, and I'm now
like I read something that says you shouldn't sneak out
(08:44):
the door, you should say bye. And there I am
sneaking out the door and he's looking at me like
where are you going to that lady? You got a date?
And his dad are like where are you going? And
you know, I'm like, go eat your chicken. Dug it,
you know, but it's it's it's a head trip. I
wait at tables for eleven days and I said it
was the hardest job I've ever had. And that's why
(09:06):
I'm like the overtipper. I'm like, extend my credit card
to everybody. Just it's hard because it is very is
the expectation, and I think with parenting, your child doesn't
tell you the expectations, but you know, the expectations because
the world tells us all day and it's hard too.
It's hard. It's hard to know what to do. It's
how to reactive. There's so much information out there. Um
(09:27):
on that topic, Shazi, you you mentioned the diaper industry
disrupting it um and creating healthy baby was inspired by
your children, your son, um. So on this topic of
disruption and how you you know, how you know what
to disrupt or what needs to change and this idea
(09:48):
of information and there's so much information out there, right,
so how did you how did you educate yourself and
um learn what you felt needed to change and sort
of the next steps for happening. Yeah, I'm like a
bit of a freak, so um, you know when I
need to figure something and I don't stop until I'm
(10:09):
a fixer. So I'm always thinking, here's a problem, I
need to figure it out. And so interesting because like
I grew up in a motel room in Alabama, like
literally and um, I don't I mean, I no matter.
It was fun. It sounds terrible, but it was fun. Um.
But I've always like figured my way out of things
and or into something that I envisioned being great. And
(10:33):
it's so crazy because I sold my company and all
of a sudden, it's like money is not an object.
And then I had a problem like money can't fix
and so for me, I started doing the research trying
to understand, like how how do I help my son?
How do I get him back? Because he was typically
developing the first two years of life and then really
started losing so many milestones, and it was it was
(10:56):
really scary and unusual. We had celebrated how like can
acted and great he was, and then to see that
happening was shocking. I mean I literally sold my company
just to have money to do stuff for him, like
buy a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, which is crazy, I know.
But the answer is I've actually like just focus on
the science. And I learned that, you know, in our world,
(11:21):
and the EWG was just like a really near and
dear organization to my heart. They've been the pioneer in
showing us what we need to focus on for thirty years.
So it was just in their offices last week. And
the last study they did is about it was two
thousand five, and it's their first study was pesticides and
baby food and it was ten years before I started
a Happy Baby and their last studies two thousand and five,
(11:42):
and it was cord blood of unborn babies and they
found two six industrial chemicals in the cord blood of
an unborn baby and many of them are neurotoxins. So
if you look at the world, you say, why is
autism so crazy? Is it really overdiagnosed or is it
it's like in my if it's I mean it's very
severe and real. And I have this daughter who's quite
(12:06):
brilliantly connected, and um, I feel like I learned so
much about nutrition and iron and you know, we created
a prenatal with the Neurological Health Foundation to create optimal
health from the inception of life. I learned about how
you know, how you can actually avoid a lot of
these chemicals and exposures. And then I started thinking, like,
(12:26):
how do you But it sounds it sounds heavy and
dark when we talk about it, but like Happy Baby,
you know that we accomplished the same thing, but by
being bright and joyful and finding creating a brand and
products around to kind of infuse the knowledge without feeling
like it's pushed on you. So, um, I forgot what
(12:48):
the original question, But the answer is that if we
focus on the time of babies and diapers, it's the
first three years that they're becoming who they are. And
to me, early intervention is like, uh, it's like God's
most It's God's biggest gift to Americans and it's America's
best kept secret. What do you mean by that? I
(13:08):
mean that like like if you're worried that if you're
worried that your child has a speech issue, um, because
there's no shame or harm and you pick up the
phone and they will send someone to your house and evaluate.
And with Asha, my daughter, you know, I was very
concerned because they experienced we haven't saying so I was
like calling them all the time. And it's a free
(13:30):
service and you get this support. And what I realized
is people don't use things that are free. But if
you give it to them and it's paired with your
monthly diaper delivery, and you're sharing developmental concepts like object permanence,
which is why you're not supposed to leave, because the
object permanence is like this concept, right, And the first
(13:50):
time you learn it is peekaboo. You learn that you
like you come back after you go in. It's a
game and it's fun and it teaches your baby ultimately
how to relax and self regulate. And it's cool to
now know these concepts in a painful way that I've
learned it throughoutism and apply them to Asha proactively because
she's like a scary little genius. And so a lot
(14:11):
of our products are inspired by That's like, we have
an oral motor toothbrush and it's just it's a great toothbrush,
but it's a tool to do ten different speech exercises
that just if you have an issue or not. Isn't
it great to be able to articulate? You know? So
to me, it's like getting proactive but finding a way
to do it with products and brand because otherwise it
(14:32):
sounds pretchy and scary, and I don't know, we don't
need more stress. We need like easy solutions that you
can trust and feel like, oh that's really special. I
love them and I believe it and I do that
and I love that, and I feel like it's a
nice thread from what you said that your fixer, right,
You're going to find a solution and research your way
out of it. And now those solutions are coming through
(14:55):
in products and services. UM that's pretty incredible. Um, when
you said that with your diaper delivery you'll get you'll
also get education and the service. Can you just give
a little more details about what what that is. Yeah,
it's actually it's super cool. So luckily I've had access
to great resources and a lot of them have come
(15:16):
together to help support the brand and develop really meaningful content.
So but every month you can basically kind of guess
the agent stage of babies and based on their diaper,
and you can give tips on how to create deeper connections,
deeper neural connections. They're making a million neural connections a
second that they're sitting in diverse and there are so
many different things that I didn't know the first time.
(15:38):
And so our developmental pediatrician and a team of like
eight people have written there they're my experts best in
the world content for every single month of understanding what
the concept is and how to nurture it. And also
like if you need support and you're questioning, you can
reach out and then we connect to with health. So
(16:01):
it's it's like a it's supposed to be not just
the divers It's meant to be like diapers and development
and love heal. That's that's incredible. UM. It's also great
that she's almost at a diapers believe. Yes, we're happy
about that. Mart. We'll be back after a quick break.
(16:26):
Welcome back to the Healthy Baby Show. So and I
want to we talked about, you know, zero to three.
I want to take it back to pregnancy, UM and
tamarin U talking a little bit about your pregnancy and UM,
you know, thinking about education, information and all of this
around how we stay healthy. Um, for yourself as well
(16:47):
as for the baby. UM, how did you achieve a
healthy pregnancy where they specific things you did or focused
on anything in that realm Um. I was a high
risk pregnancy because I was forty years old, so is
my aunt all had children over the age of so
we knew that there was a chance that I would
be able to conceive. I had no idea that it
(17:08):
would happen. Are you hoping pray like anyone else? Um?
But because I was a high risk pregnancy clearly changed
the way I eat. But more than that, I did
a purge of even people around me because I'm a
very mind, body, soul person and if people came to
me and the first thing they said was, oh, how
hard their pregnancy was or how awful it was. I
(17:30):
didn't want to receive it. It's it's um. For example,
when you get married and someone says good luck, it's
like you know. And so I would do purchase and
people suddenly realized I wasn't calling them back, and I
made sure to surround myself with people who were going
to not They didn't have to celebrate, but I just
didn't need a misery party. I was already scared enough,
(17:52):
right and so UM. I kept my pregnancy private for
thirty two weeks, and it was only because someone leaked
it to US Weekly, and US Weekly call and said,
we know she's pregnant. And then my husband rushed and
I had that baby Shark song in mine and I
got this dress and we shot this video. We called
the publicist and we're like, okay, I said, I don't
know everybody to take my joy in. We put this
(18:13):
being out the next thing. I know, it was all
over the world that this woman of my age had
had this baby. Um, but you know I was. I'm
a pretty decent eater. I'm from Texas. I still eat
a burger every day, So I'm not gonna sorry. I'm
not gonna come well, not every day but every other day,
and I go to bed with ice cream and my husband.
But I do both and at least where you can
(18:34):
understand that. But I'm I'm pretty you know, I grew
up on a farm. I grew up my you know,
your childhood was very reminiscent of my. My grandfather was
born in nineteen o one. He couldn't read, but I
make my living with words. My mom was a nineteen
year old single mom. I came home to what is
referred to in the South as a shotgun house, and
that's when you look at the house and it goes
straight back. My grandfather was a pit master, but before
(18:56):
that he picked cotton. Um. So I grew up in
a very you know, people talk about organic. You know,
we were very very, very very poor, but we lived
in organic life. So I you know, I'm I love cooking.
If I cooked four days in a week, that's uh,
that's the minimum. I try to come home and cook
as much as possible, so I would the pregnancy, um
for that part was easy. It was you know, the
(19:19):
unknown of being a forty eight year old pregnant woman
and how that would impact my child, to your point,
and so I was reading a lot of articles and
being mindful of our environment as best we can, because
I do appreciate your openness about your son. My son
has speech issues. And to your point about early intervention, um,
I forget when I started to notice this, and I
(19:40):
was like, what's going on? And all right? And luckily
I was able to make some calls, including that free
service that you mentioned that people don't know about, and
I did the exact same things. I'm being here transparent
here I thought. I was like free, what you know?
And I'm like hell, and I'm like, hi, this is Sharon.
Sharon's online one Sharon. And they're like, you're Sharon. Mall
wants to know. And I did that same thing because
(20:01):
with our children were trained the best is expensive or
this or that, and and I went through the process
and at the time someone said to me, listen, it
can't hurt. We're in a global pandemic. We don't know
how this is affecting kids. I remember our very first
appointment with the speech there, but she had one of
the clear, you know things that I'm thinking, this is
that he can't see, you know, we can't do And
(20:21):
then the Peekaboo, which I've read about that, and I
started to consume the very same um. Not to the
level obviously, but I did the pedestrian version of learning
about the environment. We live in New York City. I mean,
I I have a patio and I clean off my
Patti on his black three days later, his black with
soot that's going in all of our bodies. And so
(20:42):
I was very mindful of those things. But at the
same time, you feel helpless because then what you do
move out of New York and then you move into
the next thing. So I tried to control what I control,
and that was the environment, the company that I was keeping,
keeping myself calm. I was touring selling this show, so
I was on a lot of flights, and so that
was terrifying too. You think about, oh wow, And so
(21:02):
now with my son's speech, like again, I'm going to
be completely honest with you, I have stayed up at
nice thing. Did I do something wrong? Should have taken
that flight? But you know, I know I didn't. But
it's natural right to worry and to wonder, you know.
And I I remember before the shutdown of our show,
I brought about so proud you know it's Halloween, right,
(21:23):
and I'm bringing my son out for his first debut,
and I'm the mom of Moses. I can't think of
your name, but the mom of Moses. And he's dressed
like but Rachel, well somebody, and so she's not here
to defend her name, So the mom of Moses. Our
dog was dressed like a sheep, and my husband was
a burning bush. Crazy crazy Anyway, I remember holding my
son and the crowd applauded so loud, and I felt
(21:46):
his little body tense up. And so this moment that
I thought I was sharing his I felt it. And
when I tell you three years later, I can still
feel it. And if I think about it too long,
it will make me cry. Um, but you don't know.
So you're putting yourself an environmental situations. You're putting your
baby throughout the pregnancy. But my pregnancy went well. I
had a c C section, I went into labor, I
(22:08):
had a schedule C section, and then um, I went
into labor. I was at home, my husband was out,
and I was like lying in bed, and I'm like,
that's weird because in TV knew it's so dramatical, like oh,
and I knew what. I was like, wait, it's not Friday,
and we have an appointment on Friday. And I a
week before I did a heart monitor because I had
that my son wasn't very active, and I thought the worst,
(22:28):
and I kept seeing articles about the worst, and I
just said the worst. The worst was, so I kept
going in for different testing. Anyway, I went to labor
at home. I was by myself, and I kept ignoring
it because I was like, there's no way. And I
culearly have a high paint tolerance because my husband came,
he sick, Are you okay? Like, yeah, I'm fining you
don't look your sweating. I'm like, I'm just hot at here.
I'm talking about hot. And then um, because I'm gonna
(22:50):
call your mom, said I don't call my mom. I'm
not going to the hospital to sit there all day.
I stood up and I hit the floor to my
knees and my husband's like, we're going to the HOSPITAL'M like, no,
that find the slippery floor. What are you talking about?
And then I got up again and I went down again.
He's like, let's go. So a guy the uber gets
the thing. But even up intil that moment, you know,
You're terrified. What have I exposed myself to? What is
(23:12):
this going to be? Like? What is his child? Um?
Everything like it is a flood of emotions. Even when
I got the ivy, I'm like, what is that and
how is that going to impact me? And what this baby?
But I had to c section. I went in like
ten minutes later he was out, and I was like,
I know it was crazy, and uh, that's pretty good.
It was, but but but as soon as he came out,
(23:33):
it was like game on. Well God spared me. He's
like this old lady, come on, um, so I'm not
gonna I was always like it was like ten minutes
I was in and out. Um, my doctor said the
car was going to be this big. It's it's line
this wall, and like every day I'm like a lie
to me, but I live with it. Uh it is
not my badge of honor, but it isn't badge and
(23:53):
I carry and it's fine. I thought it was gonna breastfeed,
and then two days later I kind of realized that
was not gonna be possible, not just because of my body. Um,
I had to tour and promote the show. So the
pregnancy for the most part I was going in for
IVF UM. You know, I had to do progest your
own um every night because of my age, and I
did the oil and that was very very very very
(24:15):
very difficult. I have pictures of my husband crying his
eyes out. He still refuses. We still to this so
first had bio has mad. Needles are still in my
home because my husband was like, we can't, we can't,
and I'm like, I need room for shoes. He's like that,
he can't let it go because he saw what I
went through. But I did progest own. I had to
go in I think once a week to get blood
(24:37):
work done every morning, and I'd go in about five
in the morning, nobody was there and sneak out and
kind of go back and forth. But it was uh,
I'm very fortunate that it wasn't. I won't say easy,
because you can never take that for granted, especially when
you know the number of black women who still die
in childbirth. And there was just an article to two
(24:58):
days ago about UM the number of black and brown
children who die um as who were conceived through IVF
and they still don't know exactly why that is UM.
So it was scary, but I maintained in this here
and I think I'm healthy. It did delay my menopause.
I did not know that I VF can delay menopause
(25:19):
and some women. So when I go into the doctor
like when was your last period, I'm like last WEEKAR
like no, like yes, it is so yeah, I can
delay and it delayed my I still um, I mean
we're amongst friends. I still have that regular thing because
the IVF treatments delated IVF too, and I want menopause.
(25:39):
I didn't know that YE delays it. So you know, um,
thank you for sharing. And I should say to you
also the diaper front um. I So I'm so happy
that you're having this conversation. I remember this summer, a
friend's child came over. We forgot that she kept her
diaper on. I'll never forget, and it changed the way
(26:01):
I saw diapers. She was in the pool, we got
out and it was this gelatinous jelly and I was like,
what is that? And and she's standing there and it
was so frightening to think that it's concealed in this
diaper and it looked like the blob. And again I
(26:24):
don't know the science, but I have common sense. And
I knew, and I said, this is this is bad
and it only it only took water, and it was
it never happened. It was unbelievable. And so to your
point about this knowledge basis, it relates to the diaper
change and all that we know in our exposure. What
you're doing is is you are saving the world because
(26:47):
we have to start thinking about what we do every
step of the way. And I've never in my years
have I've never heard anyone have such a pointed conversation
about something all of us as parents do and that's
changed our child to thank you. I mean, that stuff
is called super absorbent, it's called SAP super absorbent polymer,
(27:08):
but it's a polyacrolide, and that stuff is made of
petroleum and there's a clean way to make it in
a dirty way to make it. And I was saying
earlier like if you if you want to change the world,
you have to like hold the tip of the spear
and figure out how to break a supply chain, because
if we don't, you're just gonna buy the same stuff
(27:28):
that's made from a multinational corporation that owns the oil
and gas, that owns the forestry, that owns the paper manufacturing,
and then they have this little diaper manufacturer at the end,
and they're using on these by products, so they probably
don't care about changing the world and making something more
sustainable because they're just using all their byproducts and selling it.
While like if you start here and say, okay, let's
(27:50):
make the best version of this and let's start looking
at bio based like you can have a it doesn't
work as well yet. So the key is to make
one change at a time. But like you make one
change of time, it changes like shift the Titanic, And
so thank you for saying that, because it's it's like
so worth it if I don't. That's the things, all
(28:13):
these things that I've learned, it's hard to un learn them.
And there are things I learned from my first pregnancy
hat to know the second time, and you learn it.
And it's like I didn't know if you take if
you're taking full like acid the day, you can see
if you have a decreased chance of having a childhood
a neurological disorder. I didn't know that the first time.
The second time I knew. And now we have a
(28:35):
prenatal that has methyl foliate and we encourage people to
take it early so there it's in their system. Or
like I didn't know, Um, I learned such a big
deal for brain development, and I learned that it is
like the vehicle that carries oxygen to your brain, and
your brain is the organ in your body that takes
that needs the most oxygen. And most women go into
(28:58):
pregnancy if ship half and so like when I with Usha,
I was a freak. I was like, I want you
to give me iron infusions. And I actually had my
my o B on my podcast about um, all the
things you can think about that should to me be
standard of care, and she said, you know that was
six years ago. What's funny is now at Yale, in
(29:20):
our high risk group, it's the standard of care. And
so it's like, you know, you've got to look at
the science. Sometimes the medical community takes a little while
to catch up with the science. But then it's like,
so nice to be there at the moment where you
can make a difference. Yeah, that's why it's okay to
have a worker every day. Yeah, that's why it's okay.
But you know, how interesting though, would it be if
(29:42):
we talked more about this than the sleepless nights, right,
And I know they're real, and trust me, my son
was up and I'm like, I'm trying to change a diaper,
and thankfully I care. But we know that we're bringing
home this lovely person who likely won't sleep more than
two hours. And that's the first people talk to you
about in most cases is how or ask you how
(30:03):
are you getting any sleep? I am not minimizing in
it anyway, but I would much rather have had this
type of information, this type of knowledge with iron and
all of that. You know, we we go to the
lowest common denominator sometimes because it's the easiest, right, So
it's the easiest to talk about sleep. And I am
not minimizing it, and I know that closed sleep study,
(30:24):
and trust me, I'm not it is, but but I mean,
how nice would it have been um to have this
information at the forefront of the conversation about parenting. And
I'm not a conspiratorial person, but I do obviously know
that industries direct the conversation, and they can direct the
(30:45):
conversations away from things we should be talking about, which
is exactly what you're doing. And I think it's critical,
and I think this sleep question too it always puts
it on the woman. It always puts it on the woman.
Are you secturing them? What are you doing rather than
a larger conversation around things that are affecting the baby's
(31:06):
the baby's health and development. And again, this is a
new creature in the world. They're probably not going to sleep.
So we got that part. But how do I help
the brain development? How do I know about the local
and free things available? How do I learn what's the
difference in OT and pet and speech therapy and all
of those things? Um, because that that is what will
(31:27):
allow your little bird to fly. They're going to eventually sleep,
you know they will. And I only have one, but
I know they will because we don't have nine year
olds still sleep with their parents. At some point you
get out of the bed. So some of those things
I mean truly, I mean itself, well you have some
nine year olds, but whatever, that's episode their fears. But
what I'm saying, you know eventually certain things with time
(31:50):
will take care of itself. Brain development doesn't take care
of itself. You have to know the knowledge to make
it happen. And so how nice would it be if
we were the catalyst to this forward thinking conversation. That's
that's no, it's true. It's true because I wish I
(32:11):
knew these things. Of course I'm sitting here going how
many times I take full like us, all right, you
know what you know? You know, you just don't know
these things, and we're sometimes shepherded into the easier conversation
versus the most complex. That's true. See, that's the future
of parenting is just raising the bar for the standard
of care because if the lowest common denominator was a
(32:33):
lot higher. So that's what we're going to. We're going
for exactly. We'll be back after a quick break. Welcome
back to the Healthy Baby Show. So I wanted to
(32:54):
touch on something that I think is also a very
common question for women from others, which is, um, the
whole work life balanced thing, which is a myth. I
think probably everyone here can agree. We're not going to
debate that it's it's a myth um. But I'm still
curious how both of you still find moments to have
(33:15):
quality time with your kids, with your son, you know,
while still you know, giving yourself some moments to write, Like,
how do you do that? Out of the work life
balance conversation? What does that look like for you, well,
I win some of my loose. M. You know, there
are days that I come home from my show and
(33:35):
then I cooked inder and then my kid is like
so cute on the stuff, and I'm like, oh yes
when and everybody goes to bed and then their other days.
I've crying and I'm yelling at my husband because I'm like,
if there's one more Amazon box that's not broken down,
I don't know what I'm going to do to you,
you know, Um, But I think that for me, you understand. Um,
(33:59):
you know, yes to a point. I'm so have you said, aby,
work life balance isn't real, um, But what's real is
you will lose some of your wins. Some some days
you will feel like the victor and some days you
will feel like not the loser because you've never lost
because you're getting in the game, but you won't feel triumphant.
And so that's been for me. I I've learned to say, no, Um,
(34:20):
I am to a fixer. I'm a virgo. If you
look at anything on virgos, you know what that means.
I'm hyper analytical. I'm in my head a lot. But um,
when I'm feeling like this, and that there's a chaos
in my life. I made myself stop and I say,
what do you want this kid to remember about you?
(34:41):
And I want him to know I was happy. I
want him to say my mom smiled and oh gosh,
I remember my mom's smile. And so that's what I do.
When you know people are pulling me in different directions.
I've learned to say I'm sorry, I'm with my son,
and then I stopped saying I'm sorry with my son
by But when I feel it ticking up my my
(35:03):
mood regulator is to say, one day I will be
a picture and I want him to know that I
wasn't just smiling in that picture, that I smile, and
it helps me. It gives me confidence to say no,
I can't go to something. It makes me confidence that
I've got this much time because I want him to
know his mom had a hell of a laugh and
(35:23):
he can still hear it wherever I am. It's so beautiful, Yeah,
thank you. Fine. Smiling is like it really encourages happy
brain development, like just from being together together, what about
your um? Well not, it's I think my son is
(35:50):
the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life,
So I try to like see him for what he
is in the moment and not and then I try
what I tried to do, and I don't know if
you this, so this one, I just try to keep
one or two dates with them separate, where like I
have to show up and I don't let them down
(36:12):
because I also just don't want to be the Yeah,
my parents were like immigrant parents, and I just watched
them work all day long. And the thing my parents
didn't teach me how to do is have fun. I
don't know that's still have fun, but like they didn't
teach me how to They just taught me how to
like work to the bone um, and that you're always
never going to have enough no matter how much you have.
It's just this constant. But I I think like just
(36:37):
keeping those little those moments to make those deeper connections
and even if they're short, like holding yourself to it um,
that like brings me a sense of consistency. And then
then I feel like that's like the it's just like
there's a couple of moments in the routine and even
if it's five minutes or ten minutes, if I told USh,
(36:58):
I'm gonna take a bath with her. I'm gonna take
a bath with her, and you know, I'm gonna play
with Zane and jump on the trampoline. And if he's
naked and doing crazy, god knows what. I'm just celebrating
the moment, just like he looks like a naked, crazy
movie star jumping on a massive trampoline and that might
be weird, but I love it. It's my life, and
(37:18):
so I just think, like it's hard sometimes because you
have these expectations and like I said, like there's just
some thing's money can't fix. There's also there's also like
a perfection in the way it is, and I just
try to remember that. Um, and I drink a lot
of wine. That works. That works whenever I'm here. I
(37:40):
stayed at the Greenwich Hotel, and I like that'spad like,
but but yeah, there's no I think that is a
myth on balance because when you're building something, when you're
creating a platform, reaching people and impacting your lives with
your message, like, how could you pass? That's hard? That's amazing,
(38:01):
It's unbelievable that you're you know, how could you possibly
have balance? I mean, like the mythic, Yeah, I think
it's a total total myth. So thank you for sharing
those beautiful answers. Both of those were incredibly I know
everyone is like goose bumps staring up same. I feel
very reinvigorated, re inspired as a mother myself. UM. So, Tamaron,
(38:23):
thank you for sharing your story and everything um that
you've shared here tonight and Chazy, what's happening here is
incredible and what you've built and what you continue to
focus on. So thank you both. Yeah, a special thanks
(38:48):
again to Tamine Hall and Abby Coffee for being so
open and sharing so much we don't always get to
talk about. Check out the other episodes of The Healthy
Baby Show to learn about what you can do to
promote health, happiness, and nection from the inception of life.
The Healthy Baby Show is a production of I Heart
(39:08):
podcast Network and healthy baby dot Com, where you can
find a new line of the safest baby essentials. The
Healthy Baby Show is hosted by me Shazivas Fram. Our
lead producer is Jennifer Bassett. Executive producers are Nikki Etre,
Anna Stump, Shahs, Vas Fraum, and James Violette. Mastering and
sound designed by Carl Catle and Dan Bowsa additional writing
(39:29):
and research by Julia Weaver. Our theme music is by
Anna Stump and Hamilton's Lighthouser. Additional music from Blue Dot
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