Combining Exercise With Holistic Postpartum Care
Interview with Anna Cusack
I chat with exercise physiologist, author and Newborn Mothers graduate, Anna Cusack. Together we discuss the importance of supporting your physical health after the significant impact of pregnancy and birth. At the core of this conversation is an insight into how we can bring together our unique experience and combine that with postpartum care to create new offerings for parents.
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Anna Cusack is a postpartum doula and motherhood support mentor, guiding new and experienced parents through pregnancy, the fourth trimester and beyond. Anna combines her knowledge in areas such as traditional postpartum care, breastfeeding support, motherhood studies and exercise physiology to support mothers through the highs, lows and sticking points of their child-raising journeys. Anna is the author of the book "Mama, You're Not Broken" and has her own podcast 'Ask Anna'.
We Explore the following Questions:
What is your background as an exercise physiologist and how did you come to study postpartum?
What can an exercise physiologist help a new mom or a pregnant woman with?
What are your concerns with taking the research that is around regarding exercise and postpartum at face value?
Why are the roles of exercise physios, pelvic floor and women’s health physios so important postpartum?
Why do so many women end up with chronic pain / pelvic floor / chronic health problems from their postpartum?
Why are you so passionate about advocacy for women’s physical health postpartum?
How did you end up launching your business during a global pandemic? How did you bring together your experience of exercise physiology and postpartum care?
What elements did you include in your course to cover the postpartum education gap parents experience?
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Transcript
What is your background as an exercise physiologist and how did you come to study postpartum? (00:32)
Julia Jones:
Hello and welcome to the Newborn Mothers Podcast. And today, we have Anna. Anna is a graduate of Newborn Mothers Collective and an exercise physiologist. We've had an exercise physiologist on the podcast before. I'm a big fan of exercise physiology. A lot of people probably don't know what it is. So maybe, Anna, you can tell us a little bit about your background and also how you came to study postpartum.
Anna Cusack:
Yeah. Thank you for having me on your podcast, Julia. So yes, as you said, I started my working career as an exercise physiologist, and actually, I started my university study as an exercise scientist, and I worked in two kinds of high-performance training avenues. I got a really high-level international certification on with working with elite athletes and periodizing their training across four-year Olympic cycles and things.
When I started working and going into different placements, I really figured out that it was the people who exercise that could make a difference in their lives rather than their personal best times. That was the thing that gave me the buzz and the drive. So I transitioned into exercise physiology, which is more looking at rehabilitation and managing long-term health conditions across the lifespan to improve quality of life using movement and lifestyle interventions.
So interestingly, pregnancy is a chronic health condition because it goes on for longer than six months. And as we and all mothers know, postpartum goes for more than six months as well. So both of these are long-term health conditions and those paths kind of intercepted with postpartum care when I became a mother myself early last year, 2019. I went and did a lot of work in preparing for my own postpartum. Lots of reading and researching and filling my freezer and organizing a helper roster and all sorts of things to make me feel that warm, loved-up postpartum bliss bubble as much as possible. And yeah, it was wonderful. So I really felt the drive for other people and other women to be able to experience the peace and joy that I did and hence found your training, Julia.
What can an exercise physiologist help a new mom or a pregnant woman with? (03:08)
Julia Jones:
Oh, and I'm so glad you did, Anna because you have such gifts for new moms. I think so many moms, we listened to this going, "Oh my gosh, yes, pregnancy and postpartum is really difficult physically." It's physically a really hard thing and I feel like we don't have enough support around that, enough ideas of what is normal and women's pain in general is always... It's generally underestimated and undertreated.
So knowing that there are people out there who you can talk to and get some support from is so valuable. So maybe can we start a little bit with that and then we'll go onto some more of the broadly postpartum stuff that you're doing. But what are some of the reasons that a new mom or a pregnant woman might see an exercise physiologist and what can you do? What do you help with?
Anna Cusack:
Yeah, okay. So I suppose the most common reason that people present to an exercise physiologist during pregnancy is because of pain, unfortunately. So particularly around the hips and we call it the pelvic girdle, the whole pelvic area, back pain, shoulder pain. Sometimes people will be referred for some support around things like gestational diabetes or if they have an arthritic kind of condition that flares up due to their pregnancy hormonal profile. And in those cases, we're looking at what areas can we stabilize and strengthen to help this mum be as comfortable as possible during her pregnancy.
So we look at prescribing specific corrective movement exercises that can work on those things to help her feel strength in her body as that body changes and adapts to the load of the baby and her changing center of gravity and things as well. We change our walking pattern while we're pregnant because the belly is right in front of us.
It changes how far we can step through with our feet. And because our thighs hit onto that restriction point at the front. So our feet turn out a little bit, the arches flatten a bit because the ligaments are weakened during pregnancy and we start to use some different muscles. So it's quite common for the muscles around the glutes, particularly the ones on the side of the hip to weaken, for example. And we end up doing a bit more of a shuffle sway kind of catwalk walk or a bit of a waddle walk, which are quite good adaptations for pregnancy.
It means that we can keep propelling ourselves forward with our steps, but it also means that once that baby is delivered, that strength doesn't magically come back. So we are left with a situation where some muscles around our hips and legs and back are firing or a little differently to usual or are weaker than usual. And obviously we know our abdominal area and pelvic floor are going to be affected by pregnancy too.
So we've got various areas of weakness that need to be addressed so that we can feel physically functional again. And I think the trouble comes because there's not much guidance, not any guidance really given between being told to do our pelvic floor exercises once the baby is born to a six-week check, where a doctor may or may not do an internal examination and say, "Yeah. Okay, you are fine to go back to the gym now."
But if you just go back to the gym or to exercise or to your sport or to jogging or whatever it is, and you haven't strengthened up those muscles that have changed just because of the anatomical changes of pregnancy, then you run the risk of other injuries. And unfortunately that's where people might see exercise physiologists in postpartum, unless they've known before that something needs to be done to fill that gap in between.
Julia Jones:
Which is what I was going to say, anyone listening at home, if you're pregnant, go and get help now.
Anna Cusack:
Yeah. It's so much easier.
Julia Jones:
It's so much better to prevent than cure. So much easier.
Anna Cusack:
Yeah, exactly. We can't change the fact that our abdominal wall is going to stretch during pregnancy, so we know we're going to have to do abdominal rehab one way or another afterwards. But the muscles around your legs and hips that provide a stable base for your back to be propped on top of, don't need to get weaker if we are doing the proper exercises during our pregnancy. So at least then you're only rehabbing one area, not everything. At the same time, it's also learning to breastfeed and trying to relax in that postpartum period.
What are your concerns with taking the research that is around regarding exercise and postpartum at face value? (08:15)
Julia Jones:
Yeah. Thinking of it as rehab, I think, could be quite comforting for people because it can feel quite depressing and debilitating when you have a baby and you didn't realize that there would be so much involved in getting yourself back to being strong again. So thinking of it as a rehab period I think could be a useful concept for people.
Anna Cusack:
Yeah, I think it is too. Although, it's a little worrying for me when considering the physiology of postpartum and exercise rehab models simultaneously because there are studies that look at what kind of interventions help the most in reducing abdominal separation, that start the woman doing exercises on day two postpartum. That doesn't seem particularly respectful to the journey that, that woman's body has gone through or that she's been energetically, spiritually, and maternally on in that early period.
So a lot of the time, the interventions that are looking at what exercises improve quality of life and strength and whatever else for postpartum women are not necessarily done with the control and intervention groups the right way around from my point of view. We'll find research findings that say about the amount of walking that can be done postpartum, for example, for restoring fitness and how this correlates to the women's mood or quality of life scores.
But we're looking at those women in a western framework of undersupported postpartum where their quality of life or depression scores or whatever it is are being weighed against women who are at home inside undersupported, and being outside and undersupported is much nicer than being inside and undersupported because you've got that level of escapism.
So I don't think that we can really take at face value all of the research that is around regarding exercise and postpartum, and also the idea that exercise works on progressive overload principle, which means use it or lose it, gradually build up and then your body gets used to that and then build up a little bit more, get used to that, build up a little bit more.
There's a concern among rehab professionals that extended rest will decrease that the person's physical strength and capacities. However, I don't believe that traditional cultures have got this wrong for thousands of years by enforcing extended rest at this period of time. I think pregnancy is a marathon physical effort that needs extended rest to then get all of your hormones and nourishment and everything else to be able to springboard your rehab on top of that. We shouldn't be trying to ask women to rehabilitate at a time when we are geared to be only resting and breastfeeding.
Julia Jones:
I love it.
Anna Cusack:
That's my opinion.
Why are the roles of exercise physios, pelvic floor and women’s health physios so important postpartum? (11:50)
Julia Jones:
And that's why your work is so important, Anna, and combining your understanding of exercise physiology, but also with your training as a postpartum doula so that you've got this perspective that's a bit of a bigger picture perspective of postpartum than most people who are studying exercise physiology would understand.
Anna Cusack:
And I would just add the role of an exercise physiologist doesn't replace the role of a pelvic floor or women's health physiotherapist, so it's still recommended for postpartum women to see a pelvic floor physiotherapist within six to 12 weeks post-birth to check that that area is coming back online and functioning well before then integrating that with other rehab modes.
However, that's something that if you see your exercise physiologist and they have any concerns or flags or whatever, they'll be able to redirect you back to the women's health physio in your area. Whereas if you just skip that step and go straight to the gym, that's not going to be on the radar of the majority of personal trainers. So that's why it's better to have this cohesive allied health view in those early days because we've only got one body to live in.
Why do so many women end up with chronic pain / pelvic floor / chronic health problems from their postpartum? (13:06)
Julia Jones:
Yeah. And so many people do end up with chronic pain and chronic health problems, chronic pelvic floor problems, literally for the rest of their lives. I mean, a lot of women really never do rehabilitate properly.
Anna Cusack:
Yeah. You've possibly seen the brochures from the Continence Foundation of Australia that are titled one in three women who have ever had a baby wet themselves. However, Lori Forner who's one of the top pelvic floor physiotherapists in Australia, and I agree with her, suggests that the number is actually far higher than that. It's just possibly another one-third of women don't do the activities that may stress them to notice that they have an issue or we have quite high rates of sedentary lifestyle, or they might be taking other precautions and precluding themselves from doing certain activities, so they don't.
Then when they're asked on the questionnaire, "Do you ever leak?" They say no. Yeah, I think it is far higher and it's particularly concerning. Even if you are not leaking, it is worth having that pelvic floor examination anyhow because uterine prolapses are reasonably common. And in the early stages, stage one and two, they can be completely asymptomatic. And they can be managed. But if we don't know about them, we can't manage them.
Julia Jones:
And this is where I feel so grateful for having my own really good team of allied health professionals in my own postpartum care because I've experienced a lot of the things you're talking about and my youngest is four, and I still... My glutes still aren't strong. I still have to switch them on before I join in regular exercise classes and things like that.
I just have this level of body awareness. I remember in the early days, actually, my exercise physiologist asking me exactly that question, "Do I leak?" And I said, "No." And then as we discussed it more, it was because I hadn't really returned to exercise yet. I wasn't really testing it out. And she was like, "Well, why don't we give it a little try before you just say, no, it's fine?"
Anna Cusack:
That's it. The majority of the day, you might think, "No, I don't have any urge or whatever, but sometimes I feel like everything's under control, and then I pick up a heavy bag on one side and my 11 kilo child on the other side, and with that extra weight on my body, suddenly my pelvic floor is going, "Actually, you probably can't hold this for too long, or you will need to go to the loo." So I know there's still work for me to do as well.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, absolutely. How old is your little one.
Anna Cusack:
She's 16 months old.
Julia Jones:
Yeah.
Anna Cusack:
And I've had this body awareness throughout. I did a lot of prenatal Pilates, a lot of breath work, all the things that help me be in tune with my body. And it still doesn't mean that everything is perfect because you're still juggling mum life and work and looking after yourself and all those things. So I certainly don't begrudge any women who reach out to support later. When I was working in the hospital system, I had women who worked for the first time talking about their pelvic floor issues and their children were in their 20s.
I worked with a mom who's good friend of mine a few months ago, and she's known what I do for this whole time. Her youngest is four years old. And it's taken that long for her needs to come to the top of the list. So it's not anything to be ashamed about. I can't remember off the top of my head, but I think seven years is the average length of time that it takes a woman to get the help that she needs for pelvic floor.
Why are you so passionate about advocacy for women’s physical health postpartum? (17:20)
Julia Jones:
Wow. That's just too long. I mean this is just the gender data gap that we are experiencing in all aspects of our life, isn't it? This is just one of those examples of daily difficulties.
Anna Cusack:
I think it's one of those things, and this is where I get really passionate about, advocacy for women and mothers across the whole spectrum of life, is that the key window for us to get help on this stuff is a time when we are generally not earning. So not only is it hard to put ourselves in a position to make the appointment, organize the childcare, but it's also kind of a like, "Oh, well, I'm not really having any issues that are affecting my life, so I'm not going to sort that out."
Julia Jones:
Yes, it's not the highest priority when you've got so many other expenses.
Anna Cusack:
That's it. And you might have an underactive or under strength pelvic floor where you are leaking, and that can be an obvious sign. But for an overactive pelvic floor, for example, the only symptom that you might have is pain having sex. So when a breastfeeding mother or a tired mother is already probably not got the biggest libido of her life, how is that going to entice her to have a fulfilling sexual relationship with her partner if she knows that there's going to be pain?
Julia Jones:
Yeah. It's just easier to avoid solving the problem.
Anna Cusack:
Yeah, absolutely. And also that they might not know that that's something that could be helped with. It could just be like, "Oh, well, that's just how my body's healed after the baby." We don't know.
Julia Jones:
That's right. And because so many people do say, "Oh, you'll never have sex again." They might just go, "Well, it's normal. I don't want to anymore."
Anna Cusack:
Oh, well, that's part of why. Exactly. And there can be misconceptions about a lot of the trouble with pelvic floor happens because of the extra weight of the baby during pregnancy as well. So for example, women who have had one C-section have only five to 10% less risk of incontinence than women who have had a vaginal birth. And by the time they have their third child by cesarean, there's no difference in terms of rates of pelvic floor dysfunction.
So I think people go like, "Oh, well, I didn't push this baby out, so that's not it." Or they might have had the double whammy of attempted vaginal and instrumental intervention and then an emergency C-section anyway. So then they've got weakening across the abdominal wall and abdominal fascia that's healing in various layers of stitching as well as the injury to the pelvic floor.
And it becomes quite a convoluted issue to address if you're not getting professional support. And I think the professional support is not promoted as much as it should be because there's no Medicare rebate at this point for that women's health physio pelvic floor check, post-birth. And there is a movement that's come around. Again, I think one of the W... You might know what's going on there, actually, Julia. I think there's a bit more action happening around the WA-MPs at the moment to try and take that further.
Julia Jones:
No, I don't know. Now, I'm going to look into it.
Anna Cusack:
Time get that added to the Medicare schedule. It's only in the last couple of weeks I've met with one or two of the MPs over there to drive the cause again.
Julia Jones:
Oh, fantastic. Maybe you can hook me up afterwards. Yeah.
Anna Cusack:
Yeah. I'll try and find you the link.
How did you end up launching your business during a global pandemic? How did you bring together your experience of exercise physiology and postpartum care? (20:59)
Julia Jones:
So let's transition into what you then did with that, because I think you've just got this real magic mix of both having that understanding of the exercise physiology, but then moving more into a postpartum doula framework. So you've got this much more holistic understanding of postpartum care, but you were starting your business right at the beginning of the craziest year of our lifetime. How did you feel about that to launch your business during a global pandemic?
Anna Cusack:
Positives and negatives. So in March, I was due to go back to my pre-baby job exercise physiology at a private hospital, and I had two shifts back at that job. And then in New South Wales, the private system started standing down employees because there were no... What's the word? The type of operations that are the non-essential operations, like elective.
Julia Jones:
Oh, I see. Yeah, they closed down elective-
Anna Cusack:
Elective operations weren't happening, so they only had sort of half the patient base. And my manager came around and said, "Instead of standing down, would you like to take an extension of your unpaid maternity leave?" And I said, "Yes, absolutely please. Where do I sign? How long can I take it for?"
As leaving your 10, 11-month-old baby to go back to a hospital in the middle of a pandemic didn't feel overly safe. And I think I did my two shifts, and then within a week I registered my business and decided that I was sure that there was a way that I could help more people doing postpartum and exercise physiology work than by going inside, back inside the rules and regulations of a private employee system.
I felt I had much more to offer. So I would just step back from that a little bit, because before I was doing that work, I actually did a number of community health programs where I connected patients or clients of different groups with exercise and lifestyle advice and guest presenters.
So for example, I would do a 10-week program with a dietician, with families around childhood obesity, or I would do a six-week program, commissioned by Leukemia Foundation, something like that for patients and carers. And I felt like that kind of a program could work really well in an online context rather than everybody operating in little piecemeal sections.
So I did set up my online business with remote support offerings, doula and mama mentoring. So video calls and voice message check-in support and sending resources and all those things. I set up my provider information to be able to offer telehealth exercise services as well, so by video call to do some women's health work. And then I set about creating an online course. And the thing that really stuck out to me during my pregnancy and postpartum was the phrase, nothing can prepare you for life with a baby.
I did my preparation and I felt prepared, and my baby came. And I had the most loved up six weeks of my life. I thought, "No, you are telling me nothing can prepare you for it because either you had a poor experience or you can't be bothered taking the time to give me some advice that would be actually useful, or perhaps you don't have the resources or the knowhow where to look for some of these things.
A whole host of reasons, a number of extra thoughts could be added in there. But I felt that it really did a disservice to parents having that throwaway line. I felt that with my lived experience and my background and my love for being a connector, that it was a gap that I could fill and fill well. So I developed a program which is called Prepared for parents to explore postpartum and feel as prepared for postpartum as they do from a birth education course.
So basically, I did up the website, I did up the sales page, I sorted out some dates, and I cold contacted six different presenters and asked them to join me on my course across various topics of their expertise, and just about fell off my chair or fainted as each and every one of them said yes, like an international lineup. People that have best-selling books and PhDs, and podcasts, and big businesses just all said yes.
Julia Jones:
How did you overcome your fear of reaching out to these people? I mean, it sounds like the pandemic has thrown us all into a bit of a... Forced us into these positions where we have to just act quickly, make quick decisions, and just get on with some stuff, which we maybe otherwise would procrastinate on. But yeah, what was it for you that made you have the courage to go, "You know what, I'm just going to call this person up and ask them to help me."
Anna Cusack:
Well, I think it was actually a lot of the things that the presenters have as their area of expertise. I actually felt reasonably confident talking about their areas. I'm used to doing a lot of health presentations across a lot of different areas. So once I read and integrate some of that research into my brain, it's not overly hard for me to synthesize and formulate a way to present that back to somebody.
So I just thought, I have nothing to lose here. All I'm going to ask is, "Hi, I've read your book. I love your work. I watched you on this. I listened to this episode and I was just wondering if you would be interested in presenting a similar session in my program. If not, totally fine. I'm more than happy to summarize your key findings from this and direct them back to your main work. But just seeing, because it's great to have it straight from the horse's mouth." Pretty much that's what I said.
Julia Jones:
I love it.
Anna Cusack:
And they all said yes.
Julia Jones:
And the fact that you said you've got nothing to lose, I think people forget that, don't they? Because the worst that could happen is they don't reply or they say, "No, I'm really busy right now." It's not that bad really, is it?
Anna Cusack:
No. And there was somebody that I know... And it's a different program as well. It feels a bit weird to say groundbreaking or trailblazing because it's something that to a doula, a postpartum doula sounds like it should be so obvious to have in a program, but it's not. So I think when I just laid out like, "These are the sessions that I'm going to be doing on what I'm going to be talking about, and I would love to have your input." Yeah, I think people just went, "Okay, that is a bit different."
So the first key difference is that it's a program where both parents have access to it because I'm sick to death of the assumed inferiority of the non-birth parent when it comes to childcare. They don't get the maternity leave beforehand. They don't get 10 million books that they could read. There's no direct podcasts that I've found around fatherhood.
There's now some really good episodes, but there weren't even 16 months ago when my baby was born. You've done a few since then, Julia. Amy Taylor-Kabbaz has done one recently. Sophie Brock has done one. But there really weren't resources for him. And I don't want mothers not... And birth parents have to be the educator of the other parent anymore. So I created a course that they could both access and had it geared in terms of evidence based and scientific information that was going to appeal to the more structured masculine sort of thing, and also some more flowy topics, transition to motherhood, blah, blah, blah.
Julia Jones:
I love it. I love it. And it's obviously a winning combination because you've had 12 enrollments?
Anna Cusack:
I've had seven in this first course, and I think I've had a couple already inquire as to when the next round is coming, which I plan to be in October. I'd like to do one course for each school term.
Julia Jones:
Which for listeners might not sound like that many, but just for comparison, the first e-course that I ever ran, I think I had one or two enrollment.
Anna Cusack:
Yeah. I was stoked with seven, let me tell you.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, seven is amazing. Amazing. So it definitely looks like you're on to a winner and I'm really, really impressed with how you've managed to innovate and find some really creative solutions for supporting moms during the pandemic, during what's been a really difficult year. I'm sure a lot of the families participating in your course have felt like that too, because at the moment, there might not be a lot of other resources for them to access, so being able to do this online is great.
Anna Cusack:
I think having something that they can do together is good too, because it's still the situation here where... Or it might have just changed actually, but I know that when most of the participants in this group were going to their 12 and 20-week ultrasound scans that only the mother was allowed to go. So dad didn't even get to do the watching on the screen sort of thing.
Julia Jones:
Oh, so sad.
Anna Cusack:
Drop her off and just circle the car park. It's been quite a difficult time for them. And a lot of the face-to-face birth classes, which I take issue a little bit with the straight-up hospital birth classes, but some of those were cancelled as well, and all those sorts of things. Am I allowed to name-drop who's on this course at the moment?
What elements did you include in your course to cover the postpartum education gap parents experience? (34:00)
Julia Jones:
Yeah. We can close with that. I always close by saying where can people find out more? So why don't you do that? Tell me about the course and where people can find you.
Anna Cusack:
Yeah, brilliant. Thank you. So yes, as I said, the next round will be in October. I think we're going to start around the sixth. So our lineup this time included Dr. Oscar Serrallach who is a bestselling author of the Postnatal Depletion Cure and he's looking at maternal health and avoiding depletion postpartum. I had Dr. Greer Kirshenbaum from Nurture Neuroscience who phoned in from Canada, and she's a powerhouse in this space.
So she was, I think an associate professor of neuroscience and working specifically in infant brain development. She just felt that the research was crying out to... The research was crying out for... I'm getting a bit tongue-tied here, crying out at us in the ways that we can promote infant brain development and long-term lifelong stress resilience and health. And the research lag between when the research is published and when health professionals and parents are actually implementing and know about this information is about 15 to 17 years.
So there's been a lot learned in that time that we live in a social media age where we can access information at our fingertips, yet this stuff is still not being filtered down to us. So Dr. Greer is actually also a doula and is particularly interested in infant sleep. And so she joined us to talk about parenting practices to support baby's brain development.
We had breastfeeding education with an international board certified lactation consultant, Emma Maher. We have had a motherhood studies expert researcher, Dr. Sophie Brock talk about empowered mothering and parenting practices and look at mom guilt and all the ways that we can set our own values and course for parenting as we want to. And this week we've got another one of your graduates, Katie Parker is coming on to talk about infant sleep and what is biologically normal infant sleep and supporting it.
We're finishing off with Tara Whitewood, who's a relationship and sex coach to talk about... Sometimes we get taught in hospital classes how to swaddle a baby, but not actually how to check in with each other and not hate each other when we have a screaming child for a long time. And yeah, it's like long-term checking in and long-term relationships. I've just been in talks actually with a birth educator, and she'll be coming on board for our next program as well to look at completing that whole parcel of-
Julia Jones:
Well, you didn't include yourself because that completes the parcel actually, the end of exercise for pregnancy birth and beyond.
Anna Cusack:
Yes, that's me. Actually there is one more. I do a session with a dad talking about transition to motherhood and fatherhood, and the dad that's joining us for this program is the kind of awesome dad that takes his kids camping in the backyard overnight so mom can sleep in the bed by herself and things like that.
Julia Jones:
That's awesome.
Anna Cusack:
It's quite thorough. There's various other trainings and resources and things that I give around parent mental health and baby wearing, and I do a workshop on postpartum, food preparation and setting up your meal train and all that sort of stuff's included in it. So it's a very thorough package, this course.
Julia Jones:
I love it.
Anna Cusack:
So it'll be a four-week course for $555, and if people join in by the end of September, then they'll be able to have a free one-on-one call with me to either plan their postpartum or have a post-birth debrief.
Julia Jones:
That's great. We might not get this podcast published in time for that round. I'll have to check the schedule, but we'll make sure, that the listeners we've got the... Whatever the latest dates are up in the show notes as well as the link to join.
Anna Cusack:
Yep, absolutely.
Julia Jones:
People can find you at annacusack.com.au? Is that right?
Anna Cusack:
Yep. Yep. Anna Cusack, C-U-S-A-C-K. And my Instagram and Facebook handles are both Anna Cusack postpartum.
Julia Jones:
Excellent. And we'll make sure we update all of that in the show notes. Anna, it's been really, really lovely talking to you. I think you've got some really important things to say. And like I said, I just think you've done such a fabulous job of making sure that you can continue to support new families as well as your own family in what's been a very difficult year. So thank you so much for sharing with us.
Anna Cusack:
Yeah, it's actually been lovely to have a positive project when everything's been a bit topsy-turvy. It's really I think centered me because I think that parenting is a really... It is a social and a political act, and being able to feel like you're contributing is a wonderful thing too.
Julia Jones:
I totally agree. I think becoming a mother often makes us more ambitious and more determined than ever to make the world a better place.
Anna Cusack:
A hundred percent.
Julia Jones:
You’re doing a great job. Thank you so much, Anna.
Anna Cusack:
All right. Thanks, Julia. Bye.
