Ep. 130/ Empowering Expectant & New Parents on a Large Scale with Dr. Noa Sterling
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Dr. Noa Sterling shares her experience as an OB-GYN, working ‘part time’ at 40 hours during her pregnancy changed her career. She shares how intense back-to-back 24 hour shifts while pregnant led her to leave her ob-gyn practice and create a platform helping parents across the country.
This conversation is deeply personal to me, as navigating the complex journey of pregnancy and post-partum while managing the demands of a high-pressure career was a challenge for me, as it is for so many women. Dr. Noa Sterling shares her experience as an OB-GYN and her bold decision to form a platform to help parents and serve the critical need to create better holistic support systems for expectant parents. It was inspiring to hear how she transformed her challenges into Sterling Parents, a platform addressing gaps in traditional reproductive care through detailed, compassionate, and evidence-based resources.
We bonded over balancing the delicate nuances of professional obligations and personal well-being. For me it led me to a pivotal decision: to step away from the corporate world and forge my own path. It was a move driven by the necessity to reclaim my health and prioritize my family, underscoring the importance of self-care during such a transformative phase.
In our conversation, we explored the role of accurate, accessible information and community support in alleviating the often-overwhelming mental load associated with pregnancy and postpartum phases. It was a heartfelt reminder of the profound impact of understanding and empathy in healthcare. As I listened to Dr. Sterling, I was reminded of my own journey towards embracing authenticity and the power of sharing our true experiences. This episode reaffirmed my commitment to honesty and openness, both in my professional endeavors and in supporting others navigating similar paths.
In this episode you will learn:
How to address pregnancy mental load and support needs - 7:46
Tools for preemptive pregnancy education to reduce mental load - 19:04
How she built a huge social media following (it wasn’t the main goal!) - 22:52
From Dr Sterling about the myths surrounding pregnancy - 30:20
How to prioritize wellness over simplistic health guidelines - 32:12
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In our latest episode of "Exit Interview," host Kim Rittberg sits down with Dr. Noa Sterling, the inspiring OB-GYN behind Sterling Parents. Dr. Sterling shares her personal journey of transitioning from a high-stress medical career to founding a revolutionary platform that offers comprehensive educational courses and community support for conception, pregnancy, and postpartum phases. Learn how her innovative use of AI and commitment to mental and physical well-being is reshaping the way parents receive vital information and support. Explore actionable insights on maintaining health during pregnancy and the importance of nuanced education in prenatal care. Listen now and join a community dedicated to easing the parental journey with evidence-based guidance and emotional support. Visit SterlingParents.com and follow @rsterling.obgyn for more.
In this episode you will learn:
How to address pregnancy mental load and support needs - 7:46
Tools for preemptive pregnancy education to reduce mental load - 19:04
How she built a huge social media following (it wasn’t the main goal!) - 22:52
From Dr Sterling about the myths surrounding pregnancy - 30:20
How to prioritize wellness over simplistic health guidelines - 32:12
Quotes from our guest:
"We're not only not really addressing this whole emotional journey of pregnancy and really helping people find support in that way, but then there's this stress and anxiety and mental load that we're not touching on." - 7:46
"I was reading all of this research. I had incredibly stressful pregnancy, you know, working 50 to 60 hours a week, doing 24 hour shifts, having pagers go off, having life threatening situations. I mean, the number of cortisol surges that I had in my daughter's pregnancy is just, you know, it's astronomical." - 13:10
"I felt like I was letting myself down. I was working so hard, and then I was going to expose another pregnancy to this incredible stress. And I think sometimes the universe source hashem has a way of just saying the pain of staying was so much higher than the pain of the unknown. " - 14:10
“I believe in creating content that preemptively addresses the things that people will be worried about, they will be stressed about, because I know when in your pregnancy those things pop up." - 19:04
Dr. Sterling’s Bio:
Dr. Sterling is a mom of three and a board-certified ObGyn with a mission to transform the pregnancy and postpartum journey. She believes that parents deserve more than generalized advice and fragmented care—they deserve dedicated, evidence-based support that minimizes unnecessary stress and anxiety at every stage.
With a deep understanding of the profound impacts of stress during pregnancy, Dr. Sterling recognizes it as a major contributor to the maternal mortality crisis. Frustrated by the limitations of traditional healthcare, she left her practice in 2019 to create a better solution.
In 2021, she launched Sterling Parents, the first and only membership program specifically designed to address the emotional and mental load of pregnancy and postpartum.
As both a mother and an experienced ObGyn, Dr. Sterling combines personal insight with professional expertise to ensure parents and their babies receive the best possible support.
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DR. NOA’S LINKS:
Kim (00:02):
Dr. Noa Sterling was working 40 hours, which was considered part-time in her world of OB GYN, and she was faced with doing back to back 24 hour shifts all while she was pregnant. That experience led her to create a whole new thing, a membership designed to relieve the anxiety and stress of pregnancy and postpartum. She joins us to tell her story of how she built it, why she decided to start that, and she myth busts about pregnancy. Plus she talks about how she grew a huge social media following in the hundreds of thousands. Welcome to the Exit interview with Kim Rittberg. Do you work for yourself and want to supercharge your business while still having fun? Well, this is your go-to podcast part MBA Part Cheer Squad. Every week I'll be joined by top business owners who share the secrets to their success. After I found myself working during childbirth true story, I quit my executive media job to bet on myself fighting the fear and imposter syndrome to eventually earn six awards, an in-demand speaking career and features in Fast Company and Business Insider. Now, I'm here to celebrate all you rock stars betting on yourself, and I want to help you win. Tune in every Wednesday to hear from remarkable founders and don't miss our Solo Friday episodes, a treasure trove of video and podcasting mini masterclasses with me. Exit the Grind, enter success on your own terms. Don't forget to subscribe today and grab my free video tips at my website, kimritnberg.com.
(01:36):
I am really excited for everyone to hear from Dr. Noa Sterling. She and I met through mutual friends and I started following her on social media and learning more about what she does and how she helps people. And I find her offering like what she actually provides for women who are pregnant and postpartum to be incredible. You know how we all kind of want to phone a friend when we're pregnant or in other areas of our life for medical stuff? She's that person basically. She's your phone a friend for your pregnancy and your postpartum experience, which I just think is brilliant. It's called Sterling Parents. And in addition to that, I really wanted to hear about what made her go from being an OB GYN, to building out this membership platform. It's not easy to leave a career, right, a career as a doctor. And so we talk about what led her to do that.
(02:22):
And for her it's kind of a mixture of that epiphany and being asked the same things by patients over and over again and realizing that the healthcare system is not serving them. So you're going to hear all about her incredible epiphany, her experience working part-time, 40 hour week. That's crazy. And then she also myth busts for pregnancy. She talks about how she grew a social media following in the hundreds of thousands. And in general, she's just awesome and she's so open and candid with her story and her experience. So without further ado, here's Dr. Noa Sterling. Alright, friends, we have an amazing guest today. This is Dr. Noa Sterling. She is a board certified OB, GYN, mom of three, and founder of Sterling Parents, a membership designed to relieve the anxiety and stress of pregnancy and postpartum. I'm so excited to have you here. Should I call you Noa or Dr. Sterling?
Noa (03:13):
Whatever you're more comfortable with. I go by both.
Kim (03:17):
Well, I always like to make sure I'm giving people respect. You should call me Dr. Rutberg. Just kidding.
Noa (03:22):
No, no, no. I mean, in my normal life, nobody calls me Dr. Sterling. Yeah. So I'm not one of those people where I walk around requesting
Kim (03:32):
That. Amazing. There's so many things I want to talk to you about. Noa and I met in person this past summer and I had already been following her online. We'd been friends online through friends, and I was like, oh my God, what a wealth of knowledge. And I'm so inspired by your big shift. So I want to get right into it. Talk to me about your exit. What were you exiting that you entered and really have launched this amazing community called Sterling Parents?
Noa (03:54):
So the seed was planted for me to exit when I got pregnant with my first, it was 2016 when I got pregnant. I was in my first year out of residency. I was in a pretty high stress, very demand. I mean job. I'm an OB GYN. I was working about 50, 60 hours a week, and I had a very difficult pregnancy. It was debilitating for me. I could barely get out of bed, but I had to work. So I went through it. So the pregnancy was really difficult, and then the birth and postpartum experience was also very difficult, traumatizing, and all of that. And that personal experience really just opened my eyes to a lot of the problems that we have in our standard prenatal care and postpartum care and preparation for birth. The problems were revealed to me and I wanted to do more.
(04:49):
And then I spent a few years within my job trying to those wrongs and to fill those gaps from inside the system and really was unable to find a way to do that consistently for all of my patients. And I was working. By the end, I had gone to part-time, which is 40 hours a week. I'd gone to part-time and I was still driving home a lot of days from work crying and tearing up because I felt like I was working so hard and I was still not meeting my expectations of what I think people deserve. Through this really overwhelming, challenging, transformative period of our lives. We are not getting the support that we really need to not just emotionally be okay, but also I think for the health of our pregnancy, so our pregnancies and our births and our postpartum. So I, after trying for a few years to fix these gaps and to make things better from within the system, it became really apparent to me that I needed to exit the system to create a solution for this. That I wasn't trying to fit this all into these 10 minute prenatal appointments in this one or two postpartum visits, which is just, I believe, woefully inadequate.
Kim (06:08):
Well, first of all, I was laughing when you're like, I went part-time and I worked 40 hours. That's all part time, but okay. My question was what were the specific things that you said you felt that the system was not providing for you and then you were trying to help your patients to fill those gaps, but you felt like you couldn't. What were those specific things that you thought, this is not working?
Noa (06:32):
So when I went through the experience myself, I realized how many of the normal pregnancy symptoms that we tell people when they say, oh, I'm feeling really nauseous, and we say, oh, it's normal. I realized just because something is normal and common doesn't mean that that experience feels normal to that person. I truly felt like I was dying. I felt very, very ill. And the response of that's normal was so invalidating, and it was an emotionally painful experience to have nobody validating how difficult what I was going through. Everybody was just like, yeah, it's normal. You're gaining weight and everything's okay. So by numbers I was okay, but really internally I was struggling and I was depressed, and it was a very dark and difficult time. And so I realized, wow, people need way more than the, it's normal. Your numbers look great. There's so much more to that emotional journey.
(07:27):
So that opened my eyes and then I had a traumatic birth, and my postpartum experience was very difficult, and I saw that, okay, we need to be doing more to prepare people for birth and postpartum. We need to be doing more support for postpartum. So that's what I learned from my personal experience. But I'm an OB GYN, so one that was very eyeopening to me. If I'm having a difficult time myself, I can't expect other people to be doing better because there were so many things that I didn't have to worry about. So then I started talking to my patients about what their actual experience was, not just asking them about their symptoms, but what is that like for you? What's really bothering you? What are you worried about? So I started gathering a lot more just anecdotal information from my patients, from my friends about what this experience was like for them.
(08:16):
What I learned from them that wasn't something that I had necessarily experienced was the mental load of all of the pregnancy questions and concerns, the stress, the anxiety that people have during pregnancy because they don't have my brain with my four years of medical school and my four years of OB, GYN residency, they don't have that. And so I realized, okay, we're not only really addressing this whole emotional journey of pregnancy and really helping people find support in that way, but then there's this stress and anxiety and mental load that we're not touching on. And the problem with that is that we data that stress and anxiety and pregnancy specific anxiety is associated with the increased risk of complications. And the fact that we only have 10 minute visits and then we just aren't able to fully and robustly answer people's questions and educate them means that they're going onto the internet, they're going onto social media onto Reddit to try to get those robust, nuanced answers that we desire these days, but they don't have the expertise themselves to filter out what's trustworthy, what's not trustworthy. And so we're creating a generation of babies and going through this experience as a generation of millennials and Gen Z and Gen X having babies where we are really having a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress, and we need to be proactively addressing this. I think that this is part of why we see maternal mortality being such an issue in this country. We just have very high levels of stress and anxiety that need to be addressed.
Kim (09:54):
And because the healthcare system doesn't support us, we're like, Ooh, Dr. TikTok told me, and you're like, that's not
Noa (10:00):
Right. And that's the thing is, yes, some people will believe things online that they shouldn't, but also there's a lot of people who desire the information but can't find it. So it's this constant second guessing, constant worrying that they're missing something. And so it leaves people with this huge mental load that they're carrying through trying to conceive through pregnancy, and then it doesn't go away in parenting either. So we're just drowning people in this mental
Kim (10:27):
Load. So talk to me about how you started Sterling Parents, and I feel like you're years into it now and it's going really well. Talk to me about when you first decided to launch it. Were you scared even though you weren't happy and you're working a ton of hours, it's hard to walk away from a full-time job with benefits, with a path. So talk to me about the beginning of starting Sterling parents.
Noa (10:49):
Yeah, the interesting thing is that I had known for a while that I needed to make some on-demand form of all of the things that I was talking about in the office with my patients because I had spiels that I would be giving to my patients, but I didn't have enough time to do it for everybody. So I'd have to, for example, in a day, I'd really only be able to talk to the first time parents about a lot of the things I wanted to prepare people for birth and postpartum. I found that that was really important, and I could only do that for the first time parents. I couldn't do it for second and third time parents, even though they need that talk as well, because I didn't have enough time. So I was like, okay, I got the idea that this needs to be recorded and available.
(11:32):
So I did start, I was thinking about writing a book. I started a social media. I knew what I needed to do, but I didn't have the vehicle the exact way to do it yet. And there's something that we use as physicians, a lot of us use a resource called UpToDate. It's basically Google for physicians. We can look up conditions, we can see the most evidence-based information, and I thought, wouldn't that be cool, but to do that for pregnancy and have people have access to this really robust library. So that's where it started. And my actual decision to leave was a combination. It was a perfect kind of storm of knowing that I wanted to create this thing and feeling like I didn't have enough time in my part-time work schedule that was 40 hours a week, part-time, 40 hours, and then I was pregnant with my second.
(12:22):
And part of my journey was when I started hearing from all of my patients and friends about the stress and anxiety of pregnancy, I started looking into the research on, so what do we know about the impact of stress and anxiety in pregnancy? And what I found really, I don't want to sugarcoat. It really scared me because at that same time that I was doing all of that research, my daughter was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition. So obviously that was top of mind. I was reading all of this research. I had incredibly stressful pregnancy working 50 to 60 hours a week, doing 24 hour shifts, having pagers go off, having life-threatening situations. I mean, the number of cortisol surges that I had in my daughter's pregnancy is just, it's astronomical. And OB-GYNs do have higher risk of pregnancy complications, even though we know all the things right,
Kim (13:11):
Because your body, but just because your brain knows all the things doesn't mean your body can naturally lower cortisol if you are involved in medical practice.
Noa (13:19):
So we don't have some of the pregnancy stresses, but we have a lot of the stress of being an OB GYN physician and working in the hospital, et cetera. So it was feeling this need to do something about this stress and anxiety because I had done all this research and realized how much this plays a role in fetal development, how much it plays a role in our pregnancy outcomes, and then also being pregnant myself and realizing, well, this job, I'm working so hard, I'm crying on my way home. I am not living up to my standards. I want to help people. I had to walk out of rooms being like I didn't have time to really talk to that person about what I wanted to talk to them about. So I felt like I was letting myself down. I was working so hard, and then I was going to expose another pregnancy to this incredible stress. And I think sometimes the universe source hashem has a way of just saying the pain of staying was so much higher than the pain of the unknown. So I made the decision very quickly. I had been thinking about it for a while, and then I got an email from my employer that they wanted me to work back to back 24 hour shifts to cover for a holiday, like a three day weekend. So
Kim (14:38):
Literally not sleep for 48 or 72 hours.
Noa (14:41):
What you do is you do a 24 hour shift. So you go home at seven or 8:00 AM in the morning, you go to sleep, and then you wake up the next day and you go back to the hospital and you do another 24 hour shift. And I was pregnant. That was the moment where I was like, this isn't something I'm thinking anymore. I had to give a 90 days notice, which is not unusual for physicians because it's a big deal to try to fill a gap. So I had a 90 day notice that I had to give my job and no joke, I had to send out the email that I was quitting the next day in order to not have to do that back to back 24. So it really, again, the universe hashem comes in is like, you have to make this call tomorrow, otherwise you're going to be locked into this back to back 20 fours, which I was like, this is not something that I want to do while I'm pregnant.
Kim (15:31):
Wow. So I'm seeing, it's funny, I was playing with a new thing that I haven't started doing, but I was going to tell people I was going to have my guests say their exit in five words. And I had for you, doctor, high stress, pregnancy and work, meaning you were having high stress in pregnancy and work. Those five words is pretty good. What I found really interesting about your story that you just shared is I feel like it's a really fascinating mix of your own personal epiphany, but also there's two aspects I think that really push people's changes. And I decided to work for myself because I was working in the hospital when I gave birth to my second child, and I was like, peak media executive. I've made it. Look at me. This is so great. I'm finally getting the respect I deserve whatever, working for 15 years.
(16:19):
And then I was like, oh, that's it. I can't even have this one day to get an iv. I was getting induced. I'm like, I can't even get induced alone with a cookie and my husband and my mom. I have to be on my iPhone filling jobs of people who have quit because my company's being acquired. This feels off. And I had that thing where I was like, I don't want to do this. And it took me longer than it sounds like it took you to figure out what I would be doing next. It took me two years. That's okay. But I do think there's those two aspects of what I've heard in your story, which is number one, necessity is the mother of invention.
Noa (16:54):
So
Kim (16:54):
When you need something, that's when you create this new business. But what I also hear is my dad used to say this, he had a small business, is what does the market need? Your patients are asking you when you're saying the same thing over and over again every day, every week, every month. It means that lots of people want it and lots of people need it. And I feel like everybody knows. I have a friend who's a child psychiatrist. She gets a lot of texts from me. We all have friends who are doctors, they get a lot of texts from us.
Noa (17:24):
Everybody
Kim (17:24):
Knows that friend who's super valuable. So I think what I love about you starting Sterling Parents is really a mix of your own personal epiphany, figuring out I got to do something else. And also really listening to a lot of the people with the most successful companies are like, I didn't pitch myself to people. People were already coming to me needing this thing, and so I crafted this thing to answer those questions. So I love that. I think that's so great. And so talk to me now the structure of your business now and when it started, was it always a community? How is it structured when people join it? What is it like?
Noa (17:54):
The concept has stayed the same though. We have gone through many different iterations and are in the middle of going through a big, big overhaul and new iteration, which I am really excited about. So I think you're kind of catching us right before we really burst onto the scene and really change the game and disrupt everything. The thing that I want your listeners to understand is that sometimes you can't have the perfect idea at first. What we launched with versus where we're going to be right now is our goals are the same, but how we're doing it, how we're meeting that need is different. So I always knew that I wanted a on-demand course that could guide people through trying to conceive pregnancy and postpartum. And my whole thing is I'm able to predict a lot of the mental load of the reproductive journey. Yes, I've been through it three times, but mostly because I've walked through it with so many people and now I have so many followers who are asking me questions and sending me dms and commenting on my stuff that I really understand the mental load of the entire reproductive journey.
(19:04):
So I believe in creating content that preemptively addresses the things that people will be worried about, they will be stressed about because I know when in your pregnancy those things pop up. So if I can educate you about it just a little bit before then I can really prevent a lot of the mental load, which is my goal is to not just relieve it and answer your questions once they get there, but can I prevent you from ever feeling like you have to go look up the answer because you've already been prophylac, preventatively educated. So we've been doing that from the beginning, but we're getting better at how we deliver that education to people. So the course that we have up now, which is on our website, these videos, there's like a 10 minute video, a 15 minute video, a 20 minute video that kind of goes through a bunch of the different things that happen in a pregnancy.
(19:55):
But now we're building an app and we're using ai. And so we're thinking, okay, we can do more bite-sized things so that when somebody just has a free moment, they don't have to sit down and watch a 20 minute video. None of us have time anymore. So anyway, that concept has stayed the same. We need something that guides people through pregnancy and postpartum. We need to educate preemptively. And then the idea of the database, which was actually the first idea that I had. I didn't think about the pregnancy course until a little bit after that. But the database, we've had that from the beginning and before it was a lot more PDFs and really longer articles and more in depth. And now we're making the in-depth stuff still available, but also having shorter content where now we've created an AI of all of the content that I've created over the years, all of the video transcripts, everything.
(20:52):
And so we're in beta testing for that now. So now you can have a conversation with our AI and it will pull resources for you, we'll answer your questions. And then we have the community aspect of it too, which is having places for people to speak openly about what they're going through in a really safe contained place that is not social media. You don't have to go onto social media and be exposed to all of that craziness. You can have this soft supportive place as you navigate your reproductive journey. And I'm depending on the level of the membership we have every other week I'm on Zoom with my members answering their questions. I really, really value that ability to have conversations and to be able to provide nuance. And then some of our members have direct one-on-one messaging access with me. And so I check out those messages probably four or five times a day, and I'm talking to my members all of the time.
(21:53):
And the really cool thing is that we're going to be able to use the responses that I give to people in my one-on-one messages. We'll then be able to feed that back into the ai. So we'll be able to, somebody asks a general question. If it's super specific, then we don't super helpful for the ai, but when somebody asks a general question, if we're like, oh, we don't have a resource that already answers that question, so we've just created this really robust place to receive support and get all of your questions answered. And I think the other thing that we do really well is we are a small team, so it's myself and it's three other moms, and we really care about our members and we really care about giving answers that have heart to them. So we want to use the evidence, we want to draw on expertise, but also we're all moms who've been there and been through how difficult it is we're understanding, and I think that's missing from a lot of the Google searches.
Kim (22:52):
Yeah, so true. I was thinking about before we chatted, you have a huge social following, which I'm sure helps. Obviously people are interested in what you have to say and really helping them through that period. I want to shift into social media. How did you end up growing? You have such a massive following. How did you end up growing? How did it start all of that?
Noa (23:13):
Yeah, so it started, because again, I was trying to figure out how I could disseminate this information. So the first thing I was thinking was that I was going to write a book. And when I googled, how does one do that? What do you do for nonfiction? It said, okay, you write a book proposal and you need, they're looking for people with platforms. So first I had to figure out what a platform was because as a physician, that's not something that we talk about. And the idea that if you have social media followers, then your people will take you seriously about allowing you to write this book. So I started my social media as a means to get a book deal. And at the same time, and again, this is how the universe kind of works. At the same time, I went to a charity event for the Postpartum Health Alliance here in San Diego.
(24:04):
I met this lovely woman who's a therapist, and we connected, she was friends with some people who were social media influencers themselves. And I hadn't been friends with anybody, an influencer. Again, this is back in 2016, so it wasn't, there weren't as many influencers as there are now. And so I started talking to them about, well, how do you do this? And if you scroll back on my social, but it will take forever, so I'll save you the scrolling. I was like, okay, I'll post pictures of myself as a mom and I'll talk about what it's like to be a mom and a doctor. And I started posting things about how difficult my postpartum experience was and those things to me, now looking back, they probably had like 300 likes, but at the time I was like, oh, wow, this is really resonating. And that got me thinking more about what social media could be not just a place to build a following so I could get a book deal, but to actually disseminate the information. I didn't see it as a place to educate at first.
Kim (25:08):
And then, so I follow you on social, so you drop a lot of value, but I think what I find interesting is a lot of people drop value and some people's followings really balloon. What do you think it is that helped you really grow into hundreds of thousands of followers versus a lot of people put on educational content out there, but they won't necessarily hit those huge numbers. So if you were to kind of analyze why do I think there's such a large, obviously you're providing a ton of values, it, that's not my question, but a lot of people put out educational content, and so is there something that you think has really kind of been the secret to building such a strong following?
Noa (25:43):
So I think that it comes down to the intangibles. It comes down to really leaning to why I think I'm here in this life and the message that I want people to hear. And because I had such difficult experiences, I really think that they happened to me so that I would be able to speak into the experiences that people were having. I am saying things to people daily on social media that I wish somebody had said to me when I was in the depths of my pregnancy misery. I really felt isolated and lonely because everything I saw out there about the pregnancy experience was, isn't it wonderful? Isn't it beautiful? Aren't you grateful? Aren't you so excited? I'm speaking to a truth that there's a lot of shame around your birth not being the best day of your life. I really expected when I gave birth that I was going to immediately fall so head over heels in love with my daughter that the heavens were going to part and this most radiant love was going to shine down on me, and then I had a traumatic birth, and that didn't happen.
(26:55):
And it was like, wow, we're not talking about all of these other experiences. I don't necessarily know if what I'm doing is easily generalize. You can't necessarily generalize it to everybody other than I'm saying the things that other people might feel uncomfortable saying, I'm sharing education, but I'm also sharing myself. I think that's why people find it. I was just getting my Botox done yesterday, and one of the nurses who was helping my provider said, oh my gosh, I was sent your video and your video made such a big difference to me. And the video that she was talking about is a video of me talking about my personal experience. It's not just the expertise, it's also somebody saying, oh, okay, this ob, GYN, she had an experience like I did too. There's not something wrong with me.
Kim (27:52):
I love that perspective. I feel like I always feel like when I'm talking with someone who's had, you have such an incredible career, you help people. It's such an important part of your life, and I don't think what I do is not important. I'm like, now I'm comparing it to my own path and it's not the same. And I think stress and pregnancy is way more important. But I do think that some of the things that I teach my clients, I really think are deeply personal mindset and confidence things that are more than just for, here's how you show up on a video with confidence. I actually think that the things that I teach people to your point of are things I wish someone told me when I was 20.
(28:27):
And it took me way too long to realize, to own my own voice and to own my own presence in corporate meetings, and then in networking and then talking to people. I believed in myself inside my head, but I wasn't always presenting in that way outwardly. And that matters a lot, both for who you are and where you're going. And I've had people cry in sessions with me and I'm like, I'm just teaching you how to show up with confidence and make strategy, but it's so much under that. And I think being real about the fact that I had these struggles. I have a person who literally trained people to be on camera, interviewed celebrities, interviewed congresspeople. I know what I'm doing, I know how to be on camera, but I didn't get on camera because I was so insecure about people judging me and thinking I was silly.
(29:10):
But it took a while for me to be like, oh, I'm going to teach you about how to be on camera, but also I'm going to let you know that I didn't even do this. That's the truth. So yeah, I have all these awards and my trophy and my shelf has all these awards from my video marketing, but I also was not following my own advice. So don't worry, we're all in this together. It's a growth. I love what you're saying about really being open in addition to the value and the education, being open about who we are in our own process, 2024 has been amazing for my business, and I have the best clients and they're appreciative of me. I'm like, I'm so lucky and appreciative that I have a business that I love and I'm helping people, and I can pick up my kids from school is like the dream. So to your point, I did this so I could have some more control, and it's turned into this whole other thing where I'm really appreciative that I get to actually impact other people's confidence, their lives, their money, their financial support, their flexibility. So I love that aspect of it. And then to your point about really the shame around postpartum, I cried every other day with my first baby. We had a very hard breastfeeding journey.
Noa (30:20):
My and I was
Kim (30:20):
In pain and all the hormones, and I cried every other day. I have this vivid memory of walking around a playground talking to my dad who's now passed, but I remember he's like, how are things going? I was like, oh, it's okay. He was like, you sound kind of down. And I was so hard. I remember, and I was like in the middle of Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York crying. And I think to your point, I look back now, I'm like, oh, my babies, they were easy. They were great. But when I was in it every other day crying for six weeks, it was not easy. And so I love your point about really bringing truth, bringing that education. Okay, now I want to shift before we wrap up, I want to shift it to rapid fire expertise stuff. Alright. I want to know, myth busting, a couple of myth busting. So what are the biggest myths people come to you with about pregnancy and postpartum that they should know? Totally wrong.
Noa (31:13):
Okay. Totally wrong.
Kim (31:15):
I don't think partially wrong, partially,
Noa (31:17):
Wrongly wrong. Okay. So I think that there's this general, people are very worried in pregnancy about the things that they consume causing harm, food, beverages, toxins and products, et cetera. Okay, yes, we need to think about those things. And our internal state is oftentimes more important than the exact foods and drinks we're having. Right? As long as you're not doing cocaine and drinking alcohol, put that aside.
Kim (31:47):
Don't do cocaine and don't drink alcohol. Great. Got it. No.
Noa (31:50):
Yes, we will prioritize the input into our system over our overall wellbeing and lowering our stress and addressing our mental health, our bodies, it's all connected. We're an ecosystem in our body, so what's going on with us mentally impacts us physically. Our physical wellbeing is going to impact us mentally and emotionally. So making sure that you're prioritizing your wellness is something that I don't think that we're talking about enough. We're talking about, okay, is it okay to eat a deli sandwich where, yes, let's talk about this. But I think the bigger issue is, okay, how does that deli sandwich play into everything that's going on with you? You know what I mean? And there's nuance here, and health education for the most part is pretty black and white, and it makes sense when the CDC is educating people. When the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is educating people, they need to be very black and white because they're these large bodies that are educating millions of people. When I educate people, I'm able to do so in a more nuanced way and talk about risk benefits in the whole picture. So we're different. I'm going to give slightly more nuanced advice than the CDC or than acog, but it's not a right or wrong thing, it's just adding more to it.
Kim (33:16):
What's the most common question you get asked?
Noa (33:19):
Oh my gosh. I mean, people ask me all the time what prenatal I recommend, and I have such a hard time with that one because I don't have a prenatal vitamin that I recommend, and I'm like, I'm sorry, I haven't found one that I love. But yeah, people ask me about, oh, is this symptom normal? I think the most common question I get is X, Y, and Z normal in pregnancy. And what I always say is, there's a lot of pregnancy symptoms, and every single normal pregnancy symptom can also be the sign of something more serious going on. There's no such thing as a symptom that's always normal. Headaches can be just normal. Pregnancy can be a sign of something more serious, cramping, all of it. And so the question is not, is it normal? What happening to me? Does this fit into something that is just common, typical, usual pregnancy stuff, or is this something that signals something more serious? And so I think we need to be educating people about those signs and symptoms, and that's what Sterling parents sets out to do to really lay out for people. This is what it oftentimes looks like when it's just pregnancy, and these are the things that aren't usually part of that picture.
Kim (34:28):
Sure. Drinking during pregnancy,
Noa (34:30):
Alcohol.
(34:32):
Yeah. So this is one of those situations in which people desire more nuance because they know that in the United States we say no alcohol. And then there's other countries where some alcohol is accepted and they're curious, well, why is it okay? Why are people in France having wine? And people in the United States, they say that they're not allowed to. This is one where there's the amount of alcohol you drink, and then there's the time period during the pregnancy in which you drink it. Okay, so we have, there's no known safe amount of alcohol in pregnancy, so we don't know is a drink per week, is that okay? We don't know. One of the reasons we don't know this is because it may not be that it's just about the amount of alcohol, but it might also be the timing of the alcohol, right? So a drink at 35 weeks might be something that, Hey, if we did the study, which will never happen, if we did the study, it might come out to say, Hey, there's no increased risk of pregnancy complications with that.
(35:31):
But if the drink is at 17 weeks specifically, there's something going on with the neural development of the baby's brain's development at that time, even a drink could potentially have an impact. We will never have the type of information and research to be able to answer that question and say, yes, it's safe to have. And so the C, D, C, all of these big government organizations, we have a very safety conscious approach to things like this. And so we say, Hey, we don't know if any amount is safe and when it's safe, so we're just going to say no. That aligns with me personally. I personally, I find that reassuring, but it's also if people are informed of the risks. I also don't believe in telling people that they are bad or wrong, even people who have substance abuse issues in pregnancy, I've had patients with that. It's about educating and not shaming.
Kim (36:33):
Great. Wow. This is such an amazing interview. My need for you in pregnancy is over These done. My two kids are done, but I do wish that I had had Dr. Sterling when I was pregnant in postpartum. This is such a great chat, and people can go to sterling parents.com to learn more if they wanted to join the membership.
Noa (36:51):
Yes, yes. It's sterling parents.com, and then I'm at Dr. Sterling OBGYN on the social medias.
Kim (36:58):
Amazing. Thank you so much.
Noa (36:59):
Thank you for having me.
Kim (37:05):
Thank you for joining us. Don't forget to exit the grind and enter success on your own terms. This is the exit interview with Kim Rittberg. Don't forget to grab my free download, how to Grow Your Business with Amazing video at kimrittberg.com and linked out in the show notes. I love to hear your feedback. Make sure to submit to me what you learned from the show and how you are crushing it on your own terms. Connect with me on Instagram or LinkedIn at Kim Rittberg, R-I-T-T-B-E-R-G. And this show is edited by Jillian Grover and produced by Henry Street Media. I'm your host and executive producer, Kim Rittberg.