About Lilivy Postpartum
Lilivy Postpartum is about you. You 100% deserve care and support.
The medical care and support I offer through Lilivy is an investment in your health and well-being. Your baby and your family need you to be healthy.
But most of all, YOU need you to be healthy.
It's so easy to invest energy, time, and money into decorating your nursery and making sure you have all the perfect things for your baby.
But investing in yourself is the most important investment you can make.
I'm Stephanie.
I know what it's like to be overwhelmed and not have the postpartum care you need. If you're like me, the challenges of mental, physical, and emotional overwhelm after childbirth can make you feel vulnerable.
You've likely wondered if convenient and accessible postpartum care tailored to your needs even exists. Surely there has to be something better than a standard 6-week checkup.
We all want to be healthy, thriving, and confident. It truly shouldn’t be so hard to access postpartum care in this country and moms shouldn't be left to figure everything out on their own without support.
I understand what it’s like to be a new mom during the immediate postpartum period.
It's scary. You feel alone. You're overwhelmed and exhausted. You spend hours on Google looking up what's normal or not - I’m an Ob/Gyn and even I felt like this! I ordered books on Amazon in an attempt to figure things out because I was blindsided by postpartum - I wasn’t prepared for what it would actually be like.
I'm a mom of three and I founded Lilivy Postpartum to revolutionize your postpartum care.
I’m also a physician trained in Ob/Gyn, a Postpartum and Breastfeeding Medicine Specialist, and Perinatal Mental Health Specialist who’s got your back and will never judge you and wants to support you and give you the attention and care you deserve.
The mentality that moms should just bounce back and have it all together is bullshit.
When I became a mother,
I'd just moved to rural Wisconsin. RURAL, like, in the woods. The middle of nowhere, Wisconsin.
I had no family nearby. No friends. It was November so basically winter for the next six months.
I struggled. I felt so isolated. I felt so alone.
I was shocked at how difficult it was. I'd been delivering babies, but I'd never taken one home with me. My mind was blown by trying to even figure out how to get my baby to latch. As far as people's difficulties go, my experience with breastfeeding was pretty normal. But I didn't have anyone to support me or reassure me so I didn't know what I didn't know.
I couldn't admit I wasn't doing amazing because I felt like I had to have it all together. (Can we please do away with this expectation once and for all?)
I was sooooo tired. And other than my husband supporting me, I didn't have a lot of support.
I definitely think I was suffering from depression and anxiety.
Then I had another baby a couple of years later.
And that's when the wheels started to fall off a little bit because I just couldn't keep going.
I wasn't experiencing a lot of complications or anything "abnormal."
But I was going through all the emotions and the demands mothers face in this country when we go back to work and try to do all the things. IT WAS TOO MUCH.
Eventually, I couldn't do it anymore. I quit, went on disability, and started seeing a therapist. I was diagnosed with postpartum anxiety.
There was a lot going on. I had a nine-month-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old. There was the pandemic. Stress.
We don't birth in isolation. Life doesn't just conveniently pause.
All of a sudden you have a newborn and this adds another layer to your life.
I saw a therapist who helped me so much and normalized a lot of what I was feeling. She also saw how passionate I was about moms who need support and was spot on when she predicted I'd start my own postpartum practice.
There's a HUGE lack of perinatal mental health support.
It's alarming, but true. The number one cause of maternal mortality postpartum is due to suicide and drug overdose.
It's a crisis. There are not enough providers trained to fill in the gaps with breastfeeding medicine and perinatal mental health. So many moms have needs that are going unmet, and they have nowhere to turn. I was educated and doing well but I still wasn't immune.
It's just plain wrong to expect you to magically bounce back and have it all together after you have a baby.
I started Lilivy Postpartum to support moms like you and give you the attention and care you deserve.
Here for you,
Stephanie