Active Mom Podcast: Pregnancy, Postpartum, Perimenopause, Menopause & Beyond

Carrie
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Welcome to the Active Mom Podcast — where real motherhood stories meet real science. Hosted by Dr. Carrie Pagliano, double board-certified physical therapist, runner, mom of two, and internationally recognized expert in pregnancy, postpartum, pelvic floor, and perimenopause performance. Whether you’re a mom navigating running with prolapse or leakage, a clinician supporting active women, or a lifelong athlete trying to stay strong through every hormonal season — this show gives you evidence-based guidance and real life mom stories without the fear, confusion, or shame. Each week, Dr. Carrie brings candid conversations with researchers, clinicians, elite athletes, and everyday moms to explore what it actually takes to run, lift, jump, and live confidently through pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, and beyond. We talk about: • Postpartum return to running & lifting • Pelvic floor symptoms (leakage, prolapse, pain) • Pregnancy exercise myths & safety • Strength training at every age • Perimenopause performance & hormone changes • Mental health, identity shifts & motherhood • The realities of being an active mom in a busy life Real talk. Real science. Real moms. Because you deserve to feel strong and supported — at every stage of your active life.

  1. 4d ago

    STILL A RUNNER, NOW A MASTERS HYROX ATHLETE, AND NOT SLOWING DOWN AT 55 | HILARY CAIRNS

    Send us Fan Mail Hilary Cairns races Hyrox at the pro weights, which means the farmer's carry is a pair of 53 pound kettlebells and she is essentially hauling her own body weight down the floor. She is the top ranked American in her age group. She also has three kids in their twenties and has been racing in DC since 1993. Now the part nobody handed her. She nursed all three kids for years and trained hard the whole time. She got a stress fracture after her second. Nobody sat her down and talked to her about how to eat while doing both, because back then almost nobody was having that conversation at all. This is the first in a new series where we sit down with the athletes in our own backyard here in the DMV. Hilary is a very good place to start. 🔹 What running through three pregnancies looked like when there was no information to work with  🔹 The stress fracture after baby two, and what she says she would eat differently now  🔹 The eating disorder she had in high school and college, what doctors offered her instead of answers, and what she wishes she had understood about long term cost  🔹 The commute stacking trick that made training possible when the kids were small  🔹 Going through menopause and having no idea what to attribute anything to  🔹 Raising a 26 year old competitive runner and hoping she gets the longevity without the glitches  🔹 Starting the Aging Athletically podcast with ultrarunner Michael Wardian, and the one question they keep asking older athletes If you are deep in the baby years doing the math on whether you get to keep any of this, Hilary is what the far side can look like. Not because she got lucky. She will tell you she has been fortunate on injuries, and then she will tell you about 30 years of showing up. Come find me after and tell me which part of her week you would steal first!  CHAPTERS  0:00 A new DC series, and meet Hilary Cairns  0:58 Minnesota to DC, tennis to track to triathlon to Hyrox  2:22 Ranking the three sports she is doing right now  4:08 The workout you dread is usually the one you need  5:38 Ten kinds of gel and the old school one she keeps picking  7:36 What she eats after: chocolate milk and salty things  8:29 Running in DC, Rock Creek and the Tilden hill  9:48 Banneker track and the free Wednesday workout  10:57 What she has now that her 30 year old self did not  12:08 Her Cherry Blossom result this year  12:34 Running through three pregnancies with no information  15:39 What changed in 26 years of postpartum advice  19:12 A stress fracture after baby two and the fueling gap  20:37 Strength training before it was standard  22:13 Energy availability, REDs and lactation  23:31 Going through menopause and not knowing what to attribute  25:36 Why peers stop racing, and why she has not  27:23 Eight ten mile races, all within 80 seconds  29:12 Her full training week, including the 100 burpees  32:05 What training looked like when the kids were little  34:04 Commute stacking and being the low maintenance queen  36:05 The eating disorder in high school and college, and what she wishes she had known about REDs  39:17 Raising a competitive 26 year old runner  40:24 The mental piece she works on with her kids  45:13 Starting Aging Athletically with Michael Wardian  49:05 Feeling 30 at 55  50:41 Why Hyrox, and what a first race is like  53:41 Pro weights, world championships and top American times  55:01 Station by station: erg, farmer's carry, sled, burpee broad jump  59:25 Shoes, and why not Alpha Flies  1:02:08 The thing she never could have planned  1:04:51 Where to find Aging Athletically and Track Pack DC  LINKS Pelvic floor assessment, Arlington VA clinic Telehealth PT and virtual consults All free resources and courses Hilary Cairns on Instagram Track Pack DC on Instagram Aging Athletically Podcast This podcast is education, not medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider with medical questions. The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

  2. 6d ago

    REWIND // Pelvic Girdle Pain, Relaxin & Pregnancy Support: What Women Really Need to Know — with DR. SINEAD DUFOUR

    Send us Fan Mail Relaxin is one of the first words you learn when you find out you're pregnant. Somebody hands it to you like a fact. Your joints are loose, your pelvis is unstable, be careful, this is just what pregnancy does. Here's the problem. Everyone has relaxin. Not everyone has pelvic girdle pain. This Summer Rewind is with Dr. Sinead Dufour, a Canadian pelvic health physiotherapist, researcher and co-founder of The Womb, and she has spent years trying to drag the actual state of the science on pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain out of the journals and into somebody's treatment room. The systematic review on relaxin and pain has been sitting there since 2012. The authors of the guideline that made the relaxin story famous have since gone back and said they didn't interpret the data correctly. And moms are still being told their pelvis is coming apart. Sinead also gets into virtual pelvic health care (she was doing it well before 2020, and no, it is not the discount version), the new Canadian guidelines on obstetrical anal sphincter injuries, and the fact that cesarean birth is the number one surgery performed in Canada and was not in the physio curriculum until last year. That one still gets me going. 🔹 Where the relaxin theory came from, and why it will not die  🔹 What the 2017 antepartum guideline said we should assess first (it is not a joint)  🔹 The guideline update Sinead is leading right now  🔹 Virtual care: who it actually serves best, and where it genuinely falls short  🔹 Third and fourth degree tears, and the new Canadian recommendation to refer to pelvic health PT  🔹 Why she thinks women should understand their pelvic floor long before they're pregnant If you've carried pelvic pain through a pregnancy and been told it's just relaxin and it'll go away when the baby comes, trust me, there is more to it than that. And if you're a physio, this one is for you too. If you're pregnant right now and someone blamed relaxin for your pain, what did they tell you to do about it?  CHAPTERS 0:00 Summer Rewind intro 1:19 Meet Dr. Sinead Dufour 1:38 The Womb, and how a twin pregnancy changed her career 4:46 Virtual pelvic health care before the pandemic 9:28 Treating with your hands behind your back 11:39 What patients say after the first virtual visit 14:37 Pattern recognition, distance, and the licensure compact 19:46 Snow days, sick kids, and moms who stop cancelling on themselves 21:43 Pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain 24:21 Why pain science gets dropped the second the patient is pregnant 25:37 The relaxin myth, unpacked 31:35 The antepartum guideline update Sinead is leading 32:11 We underdosed exercise in pregnancy for years 33:51 Symptoms are not damage: FIFA, athletes, and diastasis fear 37:23 Sport, sponsors, and the fear of being pregnant in public 42:17 When postpartum and perimenopause overlap 43:56 OASIS injuries: what third and fourth degree tears mean 45:57 The new Canadian guidelines and the referral recommendation 48:17 What ACOG's fourth trimester guidance left out 52:11 How access to pelvic PT actually works in Canada 56:49 Cesarean is the number one surgery. It wasn't in the curriculum. 59:49 Rapid fire: podcast pick, trail walks, one piece of advice 1:08:13 What it means to be an active mom LINKS Pelvic floor assessment, Arlington VA clinic: https://carriepagliano.com/ Telehealth PT and virtual consults: https://carriepagliano.com/ All free resources and courses: carriepagliano.com Dr. Sinead Dufour on Instagram: dr.sinead This podcast is education, not medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider with medical questions. The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

  3. Aug 14

    THE POSTPARTUM EXERCISE GUIDELINES MOMS ACTUALLY ASKED FOR | DR. MARGIE DAVENPORT

    Send us Fan Mail This should not be revolutionary in 2026. They asked the women. Went out across Canada, asked postpartum women what they were actually desperate to know, and let the answers drive it. What came back was mental health and sleep. That's the 2025 Canadian postpartum guideline.  Dr. Margie Davenport, PhD, was primary author on it.  She's the director of the Program for Pregnancy and Postpartum Health at the University of Alberta, and this is her fourth time on the show.   (Yes, we're already talking about Green Jacket choices) Quite honestly this one turned into a state of the union on pregnancy and postpartum exercise guidance. What we finally have. What changed. And the part she says nobody ever asks her about. The how. Not "is it safe." We have a LOT of that now. HOW do I use it. On Monday morning. With this patient. At mile two. On the pitch, in the moment, when you've got about four seconds to decide. 🔹 What the 2025 Canadian postpartum guideline actually changed, and how they built it  🔹 Why six weeks was never the right number, for anybody  🔹 The Get Active Questionnaire for Postpartum, and what changed about needing clearance before you move  🔹 The 140 beats per minute rule in PREGNANCY: ACOG put it out in 1985, pulled it in 1994, and women still hear it in 2026. Margie has more heart rate data coming.  🔹 Sleep and mental health, in a guideline instead of a footnote  🔹 Vaginal vs cesarean, and the gap researchers hadn't thought to split out  🔹 Informed risk: how you counsel climbing, soccer, cycling, skiing  🔹 Inside the IOC consensus meeting she chaired this year  🔹 FIFA's Female Health and Performance Project, free, with a pelvic health module in it  🔹 Margie as an athlete on her national team years, and the label she gives herself now (which I did not accept) Dr. Davenport's whole personality is: tell me why. And if you can't give her a good reason, she's doing it anyway. I love that about her. Press play. And then tell me, what's the postpartum question you've been trying to get answered that nobody will answer? TIME STAMPS:  00:00 Fourth time on the show  01:59 Why she left the lab for social media  03:32 The 140 rule that will not die  05:51 The question nobody asks: the how  06:44 Frameworks instead of hard timelines  08:44 Two C-sections, same day, two very different postpartums  10:48 2021: the first heavy lifting in pregnancy study  14:24 What the 2025 Canadian postpartum guideline changed  15:37 Sleep and mental health, because that's what women asked for  16:00 Vaginal vs cesarean, and the gap nobody had split out  18:17 The Get Active Questionnaire for Postpartum  19:54 The six week clearance problem  23:50 Informed risk  27:41 Three points of contact on the wall  33:58 Inside the IOC consensus meeting  38:03 FIFA's Female Health and Performance Project  43:06 Where physios can actually be effective  46:20 Margie on her own athlete journey  55:37 What's coming out of her lab  The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

  4. Aug 12

    REWIND // EP 251: POSTPARTUM RUNNING RESEARCH YOU ACTUALLY NEED: WHAT SCIENCE SAYS ABOUT RETURNING TO SPORT | RITA DEERING

    Send us Fan Mail Not everybody has time to sit down and read the whole paper. Not everybody wants to. I get it. But you do need to read beyond the abstract, so let's do it together. For this summer rewind episode, I'm bringing back my 2024 conversation with Dr. Rita Deering, PT, DPT, PhD, one of the authors on the two international Delphi studies and consensus statements on postpartum return to running. This is the one where we take the research apart. Rita walks through what a Delphi study actually is and how this one ran. Over 100 clinicians and coaches from around the world, three rounds, anonymous voting so nobody gets swayed by a name they respect, and a 75% bar for consensus. Then the piece that made these two papers different: once the panel agreed, the authors went and checked those recommendations against the published literature. Sometimes the literature did not cooperate. (Her explanation for why they couldn't just put everybody in one room together is one of my favorite things anybody has said on this show. You'll know it when you hear it.) 🔹 What a Delphi study is, and why that literature check after the vote matters so much  🔹 What everyone agreed on: a period of relative rest, gradual increases in duration and intensity, starting with a walk-run, strength training all the way through  🔹 The variables that have nothing to do with mileage: sleep, fatigue, lactation, fueling, hydration, mental health, social support  🔹 Where it got contentious: support belts, back extensors, lower extremity strengthening, and the honest problem that for some of it there just isn't literature yet  🔹 The hardest line in the whole paper. Somebody can be ready to return before 12 weeks AND still deserve protected parental leave. Both are true.  🔹 Why so many people getting this care are self-referred and paying out of pocket, and who that leaves out  🔹 Screening for REDs in a lactating athlete, when a missing period may be completely normal  🔹 The question that lives in my DMs: does running early postpartum increase your risk of prolapse? Both consensus statements were selected as editor's choice and are open access, so when we're done you can go read them yourself. No paywall, no institutional login, no favors required. Rita's on Instagram at @ritadeeringphd. If you could get one research question answered tomorrow, funding no object, what would you ask? The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

  5. Aug 7

    Everything We Now Know About Women's Health. Nobody Told the Women. | MEGHAN RABBITT

    Send us Fan Mail Meghan Rabbitt has been a health journalist for 25 years. And the thing she said to me about reporting this book was: why don't I know this? If she didn't know it, what are the rest of us working with? Meghan writes about women's health for Women's Health, Oprah Daily, Prevention, and Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper. Her book, The New Rules of Women's Health, came out of years of interviews with the people actually doing the research. Her phrase for what she wants for all of us is that we become our own health journalists. 🔹 Your pregnancy history is heart information. Preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, even recurrent miscarriage. Pregnancy is the heart's first stress test, and the results don't expire when the baby arrives.  🔹 The lifetime breast cancer risk number you can calculate yourself. Meghan ran hers, brought it in, and that is the only reason she got her first MRI.  🔹 Why joining a research study can mean free care. She got a thousand dollars of genetic testing out of one.  🔹 Vaginal estrogen, and the applicator that was clearly invented by a dude. Zero instructions in the box. I spend real time counseling people through this.  🔹 What happened when she finally went to pelvic floor PT, and why "just do your Kegels" was never an assessment Something I say on air and mean: ask us. We will talk to you for days. Nobody has to pry this out of us. What questions have YOU been waiting to have answered? Meghan's book: newrulesofwomenshealth.com · Instagram: @MeghanRabbitt The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

  6. Aug 5

    REWIND // Everything you've been afraid to ask about prolapse — answered by a urogynecologist — DR. CHERYL IGLESIA, MD

    Send us Fan Mail Prolapse might be the single most fear-loaded word in postpartum health. Not because of what it is. Because of how little anybody tells you about it. This week we're rewinding to one of our season one conversations, with Dr. Cheryl Iglesia, MD, urogynecologist here in Washington DC and one of the very first mentors I had in pelvic health.  My first pelvic health job was at National Rehab Hospital back in 2001, and a couple days a week I was over in her office with absolutely no idea that I was standing next to a LEGEND in the field. (I figured that out later. Much later.) Here's what I want you to hear in this one. She says out loud that part of being a good surgeon is knowing when NOT to operate. Then she spends the rest of the hour showing you what that actually looks like. 🔹 What prolapse is, and how urogynecologists actually grade it  🔹 Why "elective" does not mean "cosmetic"  🔹 How much bigger conservative care is than most people realize: pelvic floor PT, pessaries, local hormones, bulking agents  🔹 What changed in prolapse surgery over 30 years, and the honest version of the mesh story  🔹 The average age of a prolapse surgery patient, which is younger than you're picturing  🔹 Why two women with the same exam can have completely different symptoms, and what muscle tone has to do with that  🔹 How to tell whether the provider in front of you is actually listening If you've been handed a diagnosis and a surgery date and not a whole lot in between, this is the conversation I want in your ears. You are not doomed to a life in an armchair. You have options, and you're allowed to ask for all of them. Which option did nobody explain to you? ABOUT OUR GUEST Dr. Cheryl Iglesia, MD, FACOG, FPMRS is Director of the Section of Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery at MedStar Washington Hospital Center and Director of the National Center for Advanced Pelvic Surgery at MedStar Health. She is also Professor of Obstetrics/Gynecology and Urology at Georgetown University School of Medicine, and is double board-certified in Ob/Gyn and female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery with more than 30 years in the field. Find her on X at @cheryliglesia. Free resources for pregnancy, postpartum and perimenopause are at carriepagliano.com. Time Stamps 1:00 introduction 3:15 fear surrounding pelvic organ prolapse 10:00 conservative care before surgery 18:14 pelvic floor prolapse or decreased tone 26:45 recommendations for getting additional care 28:45 tissue healing and RED-S 30:10 PTs collaborating with surgeons CONNECT WITH CARRIE IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/ Website: https://carriepagliano.com CONNECT WITH CHERYL IG: https://www.instagram.com/cbiglesia/ Website: https://www.medstarhealth.org/doctors/cheryl-bernadette-iglesia-md The Active Mom Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond for active moms & the professionals who help them in their journey.     This show has been a long time in the making!      You can expect conversation with moms and professionals from all aspects of the industry.      If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST!     If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 start rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!) The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

  7. Jul 31

    Pulmonary Embolism in Pregnancy: Symptoms You Shouldn’t Ignore — with RACHEL ROSOVSKY, MD

    Send us Fan Mail "It is probably nothing." The swelling is probably the third trimester. The breathlessness is probably the stairs. The ache in your calf is probably that run you should not have done. And most of the time, all of that is exactly right. Most of the time is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Dr. Rachel Rosovsky is a hematologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she has spent twenty years on blood clots, and she co-authored the first ever AHA/ACC guideline on acute pulmonary embolism.  The American Heart Association reached out about this one, and I said yes immediately, because this is the conversation I do not think most of us have ever actually had. 🔹 What a blood clot actually is, explained the way a former math and science teacher explains it  🔹 Why the symptoms of a clot and the symptoms of a normal pregnancy look almost identical  🔹 The risk factors worth raising before you are pregnant, not after  🔹 Why the postpartum window is the highest risk stretch, and also the one with the fewest appointments  🔹 Why the standard D dimer cutoff does not work in pregnancy, and what the guideline uses instead  🔹 Whether imaging is actually off limits when you are pregnant, and the honest answer  🔹 Blood clot history and hormones later on, including what the evidence says about the patch  🔹 Dr. Rachel Rosovsky's rule: take it out of your hands and put it in mine This is not an episode about being afraid of your body. It is an episode about being allowed to ask a question without needing a good enough reason first. Most of the women in the largest survey we have on this were never told what to watch for. That part is fixable. That is the whole reason this conversation exists. Guest: Dr. Rachel Rosovsky, MD, MPH, hematologist, Massachusetts General Hospital. With thanks to @american_heart. Time Stamps 0:00 introduction 3:10 from math teacher to hematologist 6:13 having a baby during med school 10:10 choosing hematology 12:31 explaining blog clots 17:11 addressing the guidelines for pregnancy 20: are you at higher risk if you’re pregnant?  24:41 potential problematic symptoms 31:47 seeing a rise in risk postpartum 35:53 where to seek care 40:23 what care can look like 47:12 looking ahead to perimenopause and menopause 52:50 follow your intuition CONNECT WITH CARRIE IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/ Website: https://carriepagliano.com Course waitlist: https://course.carriepagliano.com/RSAWL R2R Screen: https://course.carriepagliano.com/R2Rreadyscreen CONNECT WITH RACHEL: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-rosovsky Website: https://www.massgeneral.org/doctors/17898/rachel-rosovsky Guidelines: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41712898/ The Active Mom Podcast is A Real Moms' Guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond for active moms & the professionals who help them in their journey.     This show has been a long time in the making!      You can expect conversation with moms and professionals from all aspects of the industry.      If you're like me, you don't have a lot of free time (heck, you're probably listening at 1.5x speed), so theses interviews will be quick hits to get your the pertinent information FAST!     If you love what you hear, share the podcast with a friend and leave us a 5 start rating and review. It helps us become more visible in the search algorithm! (Helps us get seen by more moms that need to hear these stories!!!!) The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

  8. Jul 29

    REWIND // YOUR ESTROGEN TANKED AND NOBODY TOLD YOU WHY POSTPARTUM & PERIMENOPAUSE DR. RACHEL RUBIN

    Send us Fan Mail You leave the hospital with a healthy baby, a folder of paperwork, and zero mention of the fact that your estrogen just went from about 3,000 to almost nothing. That is where this conversation starts. In 2022, I sat down with Dr. Rachel Rubin, urologist and sexual medicine specialist, back in season one, long before she became the person everyone quotes about hormones. I've known her since she walked into the PT department at Georgetown as a resident and asked if she could shadow somebody and learn about Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy. This is her before the rest of the world caught up. We're rewinding it now because almost everything she predicted in this episode has since happened. 🔹 The estrogen arc, in actual numbers: baby, teenager, cycling, pregnant, postpartum  🔹 Why breastfeeding puts you in a menopause-like state, and what that does to tissue  🔹 Why the bladder and urethra are full of hormone receptors nobody talks about  🔹 What to say when you're told to use more lubricant and wait until you're done nursing  🔹 Birth control, IUDs and local hormones: what actually interacts with what  🔹 The 2000s study that scared a generation off hormones, and how badly it was reported  🔹 The postpartum visit she wishes every woman got, mirror included Since we recorded, the FDA moved on the estrogen warning label and the AUA published its first guideline on genitourinary syndrome of menopause. Rachel was already saying all of it into my microphone. Come hear where it started. A correction on my intro: I say "FDA approval" for local vaginal estrogen in the open, and I want the record straight. Vaginal estrogen was already approved. What changed, in November 2025, is that the FDA moved to remove the black box warning from estrogen products, the warning that scared a generation of women and their doctors off it. The approval was never the problem. The label was. This episode is education, not medical advice. If you want a clinician who actually knows this material, The Menopause Society keeps a practitioner finder at menopause.org. Time Stamps 1:00 introduction 4:01 hormone health and changes 11:10 advocating for yourself 17:30 hormones and the urinary tract 21:30 HRT misconceptions  27:45 testing and perimenopause 29:30 advice for moms CONNECT WITH CARRIE IG: https://www.instagram.com/carriepagliano/ Website: https://carriepagliano.com CONNECT WITH RACHEL IG: https://www.instagram.com/drrachelrubin/ Website: https://www.rachelrubinmd.com/ The Active Mom Podcast — a real mom's guide to pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause & beyond, for active moms and the professionals who help them get there. Quick-hit conversations with moms, providers, and researchers... because you don't have a lot of free time (you're probably listening at 1.5x right now). Follow so you don't miss an episode. Rate & review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — it's how the next mom searching for these answers actually finds them. Share it with the friend who needs it. Questions or topic requests? DM me 💌

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Welcome to the Active Mom Podcast — where real motherhood stories meet real science. Hosted by Dr. Carrie Pagliano, double board-certified physical therapist, runner, mom of two, and internationally recognized expert in pregnancy, postpartum, pelvic floor, and perimenopause performance. Whether you’re a mom navigating running with prolapse or leakage, a clinician supporting active women, or a lifelong athlete trying to stay strong through every hormonal season — this show gives you evidence-based guidance and real life mom stories without the fear, confusion, or shame. Each week, Dr. Carrie brings candid conversations with researchers, clinicians, elite athletes, and everyday moms to explore what it actually takes to run, lift, jump, and live confidently through pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, and beyond. We talk about: • Postpartum return to running & lifting • Pelvic floor symptoms (leakage, prolapse, pain) • Pregnancy exercise myths & safety • Strength training at every age • Perimenopause performance & hormone changes • Mental health, identity shifts & motherhood • The realities of being an active mom in a busy life Real talk. Real science. Real moms. Because you deserve to feel strong and supported — at every stage of your active life.

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