E86: Corporate Calls: Who's Checking On You?

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Making personal connections with new parents is vital, especially in the clinical healthcare environment where postpartum families often feel lost in the system.

• Phone calls to postpartum patients create essential connection points during a vulnerable time
• Initial skepticism from parents receiving hospital calls quickly transforms to appreciation
• These calls serve as a lifeline for those struggling with postpartum recovery or depression
• Checking in weeks after birth is crucial when most visitors have stopped coming
• Postpartum recovery can be lengthy and challenging, especially after difficult births
• Everyone needs a support network they can reach out to during the postpartum period
• Human connection provides critical support within our capitalistic healthcare system
• New parents should identify their inner circle of support before they need help

If nobody's calling to check in on you, please reach out to someone in your support network. And remember to check on your friends, neighbors, and family members who have recently had babies - especially weeks after birth when things can be really hard.

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Show Credits

Host: Angie Rosier
Music: Michael Hicks
Photographer: Toni Walker
Episode Artwork: Nick Greenwood
Producer: Gillian Rosier Frampton
Voiceover: Ryan Parker

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Ordinary Doula Podcast with
Angie Rozier, hosted by BirthLearning, where we help prepare
folks for labor and birth withexpertise coming from 20 years
of experience in a busy doulapractice, helping thousands of
people prepare for labor,providing essential knowledge

(00:40):
and tools for positive andempowering birth experiences.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Hello and welcome to the Ordinary Dealer Podcast.
My name is Angie Rozier.
I'm your host.
I'm a doula, childbirtheducator, doula trainer, ibclc,
postpartum doula.
I get to see kind of a pictureof a lot of people's experiences
surrounding childbirth at thistime of life, which is kind of
cool.
I want to share a little bit ofsomething I've been noticing in

(01:10):
one of my roles.
I work at a couple differenthospitals.
As an IBCLC just do part-timeat a couple hospitals and do
private practice as well.
But in one of the hospitals Iwork in, one of my roles is to
make phone calls to patients whohave been discharged and are,
you know, are now at home with anew baby.

(01:31):
So I get to make these phonecalls to literally hundreds of
people after they have had ababy.
I've kind of noticed somethinginteresting as I have done that
Kind of the point of doing it isto be a connection point right.
In a lot of my podcasts I willtalk about making a human

(01:51):
connection.
I think that's super important.
We need to be more connected toeach other and we need each
other right.
We need human connection.
It's important.
So a lot of the phone calls Imake are I leave a message,
right, a lot of people aren'tgoing to answer.
They're getting a phone callfrom.
I don't know what their phoneis telling them it's from, but

(02:12):
it's a hospital phone, right, ahospital number.
So I probably wouldn't answerthat phone call and a lot of
people don't, so I leave amessage.
But our purposes, the hospital'spurposes, in doing that is to
create a connection point.
So we're looking at apostpartum time, right, we like
to catch these people.
In the first two, three weekspostpartum They've been home

(02:34):
with their baby, whether it'stheir first, second, third,
fourth, twelfth baby, whateverthat is.
They've been home for a littlewhile.
They're recovering fromchildbirth, whether that was a
vaginal birth, a C-section, aninduction, whatever that was.
They're recovering from birthand they have a new baby.
So part of what no, we don'tsay this to you know, to the

(02:55):
people that we're calling butpart of the intention of that is
to have a lifeline.
So, like, all right, how youdoing?
Do you need some help?
Somebody cares and yeah, it isa big hospital, I mean it's a
great hospital, but I love thatthey're making that effort.
So it's while it's not officialor professional postpartum

(03:16):
screening.
We are reaching people at a timewhen and there's other times,
of course, when postpartumdepression can become a
challenge People are susceptibleto that for up to 12 months
after their baby's born.
We're just contacting themwithin two or three weeks, but
we want to offer them a reachout if they need it.
We're also a lot of times wejust ask if they have any

(03:38):
questions or concerns.
People do sometimes like yourtouch points, your contact
points with providers, whetherthat's pediatricians, your own
OB or midwife.
You're not going to be seeingthem a lot of times for a while.
You know you don't get constantaccess to them, so you may have
questions or concerns thatarise.
We want to be a resource forthat.

(03:59):
And then another point of thatis seeing how baby feeding is
going.
We always ask them and we arethe lactation team that does the
calls, so we want to ask themhey, how is baby feeding going?
Can we support you in that inany way?
And a lot of our conversationswill shift to lactation
questions or baby feedingquestions or weight gain or

(04:21):
whatever that might be.
And even if it's not a help Ican give right away on the phone
, we do have resources that wecan provide and offer to people
in their communities that theycan get the help that they're
seeking.
So I absolutely love that roleof talking to a lot of people
and leaving a lot of messages inthat time.
Afterwards.
Some of the phone calls arelong and we have a good chat,

(04:46):
other are pretty short.
But one phenomenon that I thinkis pretty fascinating is the
phenomenon of people's reactionto this phone call, if they
answer the phone.
I should track that sometimeand see how frequently, what the
percentage of leaving a message, you know going straight to
voicemail, and those who answertheir phone.

(05:08):
But for those who do answer thephone, always, almost always, I
guess it is a pretty skepticalanswer.
So I get it's and I it's thepatient's phone number.
So it's usually a woman,sometimes it's a man, but
usually it's a woman who answersthe phone and right away,
because they see what number iscalling.
You know, whatever hospital itsays on there, I don't know what

(05:28):
it says, but they're kind ofskeptical and so they were like
Hello, who is this?
And I kind of explain.
And it's fascinating to me tosee how quickly they soften up
when I call to just say how areyou doing?
We wanted to check in on you.
We want to see how you're doing, how you're feeling in recovery
.
We want to see how your baby'sdoing.

(05:49):
How's your baby eating?
Do you have any questions?
Is there anything we can helpyou with?
And people soften up almostinstantly, almost immediately.
So it's hilarious to see thatskepticism with the first hello
and then to see them soften,some of them laugh even a little
bit about it.
Some of them will say, oh, okay.
Some of them will say, are youcalling about my bill?

(06:10):
They think I'm like frombilling or something which is
sad, right, like that.
They are skeptical right awayof somebody checking in on us
from from an organization orfrom a corporation.
But after we, we break that icefor the first little bit and
they're like, oh, just acheck-in, okay, cool, and then
we can have a great conversation.
I've only had, honestly, of thehundreds of calls I've done,

(06:31):
probably one where she was justkind of rude the entire time.
And I get it, people, maybe Ijust you know, you just got your
baby to sleep or you just laiddown for a nap, whatever that is
, and so maybe the timing's notright, so don't answer it if it
isn't, of course Often, ofcourse, we're going to hear a
little baby crying in thebackground and that's kind of
fun, or if they're hey, yeah,the baby's eating right now, or

(07:01):
anyway, that's kind of a funlittle part of my job that I
appreciate being able to reachout and make that human
connection, because that againdemonstrates to me in the
corporate world and corporateAmerica where medicine is so
incredibly um, capitalized, likeit's a huge part of capitalism,
right, and the medicalcommunity.
We're in this massive medicalsystem and people come into it.
They have their, whatever theirexperience is, and oftentimes
it's intimate, right, like withchildbirth, and whether it's an

(07:23):
illness or an injury, likeyou're feeling vulnerable, you
need support in every wayphysical, emotional, mental and
sometimes these massive medicalsystems aren't providing all of
that.
So it's kind of fun to reachout to people and connect that
way.
So that's all I got for today.
It's just kind of interesting,as I've noticed, what happens
with these phone callsSkepticism, people usually warm

(07:44):
up, but it's kind of fun tocheck in on people.
So I guess my message to you ishuman connection is important.
If nobody's calling to check inon you, they're probably not.
Please have people you can calland reach out to whether that's
family members, your innercircle.
In those weeks after labor anddelivery, right Like when the

(08:07):
baby's young and new and you'refiguring things out, you're
still recovering.
That's a lot going on.
You're probably not sleepingamazing, Taking care of yourself
.
You know that gets set to theside pretty instantly as you're
focusing on baby needs and babycare, which kind of consume
everything.
So if nobody's calling you tocheck in, who can you reach out
to?
Know who your inner circle is,know people you can call about

(08:29):
anything.
Know who your best support isgoing to come from.
And please feel free.
If you're struggling, if youneed help on things, reach out
for support.
Almost everyone I would say liketo say everyone can find some
source of support near them,although it might be from
interesting sources.

(08:50):
Please reach out for support ifyou need it and make that human
connection.
Hope you have a great day.
Thanks for being with me andthanks for answering the phone.
Those who do and check on yourfriends, check on your neighbors
, check on your family members,see how they're doing.
Everybody wants to come see thebaby in the first couple days
and then they forget about thecouple weeks, a couple months
that come after that.
That are hard right.
That are really hard,especially if somebody has

(09:12):
multiples or a difficult birthsituation that they're healing
from.
That can take a while.
So please check in on yourfriends and family.
Thanks for being here today.
Hope you have a good one andplease make a human connection
as always.
See you next time and be goodto those around you.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Thank you for listening to the Ordinary Doula
podcast with Angie Rozier,hosted by Birth Learning.
Episode credits will be in theshow notes Tune in next time as
we continue to explore the manyaspects of giving birth.