hello and happy sunday morning this week is our very first week of the sit down sundays sunday q
and a's um i think we are so we're still working on the name yeah yeah if you have any suggestions
for what we should call this please feel free to leave them in the comment below we're like
sunday q a sit down sunday anyway we're working on it the point is we are answering a couple
of questions that you guys ask us um in our community tab and i we were pretty blown away
by all the questions this week so we are going to get to a couple of them right after this yeah and
just in case it's your first time meeting us i'm kurt i'm sarah and we are the doctors bjorkman
welcome back as we mentioned this episode is actually our first weekly episode of
answering your questions and we were kind of blown away by how many questions there were
and that we're going to try to take the next couple weeks to go through in a weekly episode
in addition to our other content that we try to put out regularly for you yeah um
but so with that let's go ahead and start with an ob question yes all right so there were some
kind of about exercise um maureen g says hello dr bees i just found out yesterday i'm pregnant like
four weeks and two days congratulations i'm sure you're so excited and nervous at least i was um
and we are hoping everything goes smoothly for you um anyway my question relates to exercise
i do ballet five days a week and teach it to two-year-olds so sweet i'd want cease
to come i know a lot of guidelines recommend no jumping skipping or lifting more than 10 pounds
is that really true though or outdated risk of falling seems obvious but light
jumps like skipping or holding a toddler seems less so thank you um
yeah so those guidelines definitely kind of would be outdated um the american college of
ob gyn recommends 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise every week during pregnancy
um and and moderate intensity is heart rate's up to 140 beats a minute kind of something that you
can carry on a conversation with but definitely you're like feeling that you're exercising you're
working a little bit with that totally um and so obviously as you said things where you might fall
on your belly you know you don't want to do mma or maybe skiing um you know although there's the mama
who's skied every day during her pregnancy because she's good at it and whatever but
generally speaking things where you might fall onto your belly you don't want to do
hiking biking running weight lifting swimming ballet all wonderful wonderful things definitely
exercise in pregnancy is really the number one thing that you can do for fetal
and maternal physical and mental health there are so many benefits for exercise and pregnancy
that we really talk all about in a whole episode on exercise and pregnancy we go into
the i think six big recommendations um for exercise and pregnancy what all the different
current evidence-based guidelines say and so check that out for sure the other thing just to share
because it's amazing if you are kind of an athlete or you've been doing some kind of workout routine
generally speaking there are of course some contraindications where your doc might say hey
you need to slow down but generally speaking it's okay to continue at the same level of intensity
that you have been doing before pregnancy so if you're running you know you're a long distance
runner that's fine you're a weightlifter that's fine um there we got to show the clip of the the
gal who ran a 525 mile when she was nine months pregnant and there have been multiple olympic
athletes competing at 18 weeks pregnant in the last few years and meg squats is this amazing
youtuber former power lifter she documented her whole pregnancy weightlifting how to protect
your core and modifications for pregnancy she has this great um prenatal pregnancy and postpartum
program called plus one that you helped her with i did i helped her with some of the educational
content on that so if you're looking for something like that you can check it out but keep moving
work on that 150 minutes of exercise every week and working up to it and check out that episode
um yeah we took some time to go into some of those contraindications reasons you should be careful
with exercise and pregnancy yeah but by and large if you're exercising you can continue it through
pregnancy and if you aren't you should start some sort of regular exercise routine all right next
question hit us okay what do we got this one's a ped specific question comes from kerry j mack hey
yeah so i'm curious did you all sleep train baby cecilia i know it can be a taboo topic but this
is actually especially frustrating because it's one of those things that is very hard to find
professional advice on and so this is something that i feel like as a pediatrician i don't think
is that taboo so i want to say that there are many people that have many different feelings about how
do you help your baby sleep how do you encourage them to get good sleep habits while also feeling
loved and supported by their parents yeah and so if you have strong feelings about that please
there are many ways that can be the right way to help your baby sleep and that's true of so many
things there are so many parenting philosophies and it's there are certainly it is charged around
sleep training um yes yes um having said that there are definitely issues with sleep throughout
pediatrics especially in our adolescent population with screen time things like that sleep is an
issue for older children and like there are some ways to help build positive sleep hygiene and good
sleep habits even starting in infancy that i think are important and there's some data and literature
that supports that is not harmful to do some sort of sleep training for your baby yes learning to
sleep is a skill it is a skill and a lot of it actually revolves around having good sleep hygiene
and but what i mean by that is having good sleep habits in terms of having a routine that leads
up to bed having a set bedtime set wait times and that really helps build some some healthy habits
we got actually quite a few questions about sleep what about middle of the night wakings
and things like that so we're actually going to work really hard to get a full episode on
the nitty of of sleep training and sleep and how to help you do that as well because it certainly
changed our life yeah um and something that we'll share in that is that like when cecilia
was three and a half four months old um we made a concerted effort to say hey like we're gonna
work to help her learn to sleep through the night and that when she sleeps and
wakes in the middle of the night she can put herself back to sleep without parental
intervention but try to do that in a loving way and supportively as best as possible
we'll share more of that in the weeks to come and i know those i hear the breastfeeding mamas
and people saying four months is so early and absolutely we will talk about all of that and
what physiologic needs are for babies in terms of feeding and all of that i promise um it can be
done in a loving and supportive and safe way so we look forward to digging into that with all of you
and quick plug if you aren't subscribed make sure you're subscribed so you check to catch
that episode when it comes out definitely okay last question what do we have that we should do
today this fine sunday so this is from karen one two five one what hurdles have you had to overcome
after a baby how has your relationship slash marriage changed after baby okay
um initial hurdle was like trying to figure out how to keep a baby alive yeah and i talked a
lot about that in a like a postpartum blog that is the learning curve with that first
baby that newborn baby is really steep yeah um and i feel like since then the big hurdles are
learning like how do we continue to be productive at work and with their careers and trying to find
some balance i don't know if balance is the right word but wanting to be productive in our careers
that are still full-time but also wanting to be incredibly present for the life of our child
yeah and hopefully children as they're growing so because we both really love our jobs i love
what i do you love taking care of sick kiddos um and so it's it is it's hard to fee but we also
want to be there we're obsessed with our kid and really waited a long time to have a kiddo
because we didn't feel like we had the time that we wanted to be able to be home with her and so
it's a it's it's a it's a ever-evolving process um and she's just our priority all the time
and then the other part of that question is like how has our marriage and relationship
changed um so we had been married actually eight years and a half before yeah eight plus
years before cecilia was born um and it's i don't know how how have things changed
so there are so many things i love i've loved watching kurt be a dad i knew he was gonna be
a great dad and it's it is watching them together is just magical she's also his little twin um so
they're quite the little dynamic duo um having dance parties and doing all the different things
so that's been really fun we always worked pretty well as a team before and so that
you know we had eight years of doing life together before she came along and so things
are not perfect either i think it's interesting like we never really bickered much before baby
came along and it's funny like especially like lately we've been catching ourselves like just
like nitpicking about like everything why did you do this thing that really doesn't matter that much
like today kurt was didn't want her to like spill her water bottle on her in the car because then
her shirt would be wet and i was like who cares she's happy playing with it if she's her shirt is
wet i don't care we're going to be out in public for two hours and she feels unhappy so just like
stupid stupid listen to you so there's it's just it's just and it's this added layer that you have
to think about constantly it's not like we can be like oh it's saturday i want to watch the entire
season of ozark today and like we have to get up once to let the dogs out you have this tiny
needy human constantly and it's so wonderful and there's so much joy but it is just this
added thing that you have to do all the time and it just you just got to think about it and there's
a lot more things and you got a feeder and you got to do all the things and but it is hopefully
pushing us to be a little bit more organized and thoughtful about what we do with our time
what our life trajectory is things like that and so there's definitely this benefit but if
it's one of those things that just requires more attention and more intentionality but like if your
kid is stressing you out or stressing out your marriage it's normal yes they are stressful um
i like acknowledge that be aware of it your spouse relationship with your spouse or your partner
or your co-parent whatever you're doing is really important um for your sanity um for
this kiddo that you are raising um and so figure out coping mechanisms and working through that
um because kids are stressful and you're going to have them for a long time yes and hopefully
you have your partner for a long time too and so the goal is then like we're able to raise a family
and we can be happy to be stronger yeah together after it too and so i still like
you a lot we like each other we like doing life together she's so fun and it's so great
um but it there's times it's tough but also like times like i couldn't imagine not having
you with it and like what as sarah already said like watching sarah be mom
like is just the most wonderful magical thing so she is still cecilia's favorite and so like
when i can set my jealousy aside it is incredibly beautiful i can't imagine that will last forever
uh aka teenage girls but i am soaking it up while i can so that's our episode for this week
hope you enjoy it um we've got a bunch more questions that you guys shared with us if you have
other questions um and we're gonna post another um community page posts and get more questions in
the upcoming weeks too as we try to sit down on sundays to answer your questions make sure make
sure you're subscribed and check out our episode on wednesday we'll see you next week bye guys
we're doctors but not your doctors anything we've said in this video
is for education or entertainment purposes only it is not medical advice
any specific medical questions you have should be directed to your provider