Advice About Life After Baby From My Ob/gyn

She’s delivered more than 1500 babies, but until recently she never had one to call her own. It only takes a moment to see that mommyhood agrees with this San Diego OB/GYN, Dr. Kim Goodwin. She describes life before baby like living in black and white. When her daughter came on the scene, life became Technicolor.

Dr. Goodwin is very special to me because she delivered my first son and helped me travel down the road of infertility and treatment to have children of my own. I talked with her on my Losing Weight After Baby podcast about life as a mom and doctor, along with what advice she’d have for patients if she had more time to talk.

Arlene: What was your pregnancy like?

Dr. Goodwin: I remember the first trimester I was so fatigued. It was all I could do to drive home, much less get up and go to the gym and work out. I had more sympathy for my patients who said, "I’m too tired to work out." Particularly in the first trimester, you’re in a survival mode to get through the nausea and fatigue. Then in the third trimester I was having pre-term contractions, so I was not able to work out. That was very frustrating for me. No more going to the gym, no more taking the dog for a walk.

Arlene: Let’s say you have a patient who is 20 pounds overweight, living a sedentary lifestyle. Maybe she takes a walk or two each week. What would you say to her?

Dr. Goodwin: If she continues down that path, she’ll have hypertension and diabetes and even an early death in her future. I hate to say it like that, but it’s the truth. Our country as a whole is terribly overweight. We have an epidemic of heart disease, high cholesterol, diabetes and hypertension. The main problem is weight, but you don’t want to offend people by talking about it. Weight is such an emotional issue with a lot of baggage. If we can take the emotion out of it and talk about the medical condition, it would be much easier to discuss. If you look at it simply as a health risk, it is the biggest modifiable risk factor that people have. Their weight impacts everything.

According to Dr. Goodwin, if women can positively tweak their eating and exercise habits in their 20s and 30s, they will do themselves and their families a huge favor.

For more about losing weight and reducing your risk of disease, listen to podcast titled "The Doctor is In" with Dr. Kim Goodwin at my website Losing Weight After Baby.