Jenn Taylor #rerouting

Even as a pediatrician, I was completely overwhelmed when my daughter was born. I struggled with both the everyday chaos of being an exhausted new parent and some of the deeper pains of physical recovery and postpartum depression and anxiety. At each turn, with each new challenge, I found myself unable to find a source of guidance and support that didn’t seem to make things more complicated or give me more anxiety. The official rules from my own pediatric organizations were scientific but often rigid and unrealistic. The online, unofficial guidance was easier to follow and designed to lessen new mom guilt, but as a pediatrician, I knew there was unsafe advice being doled out with the healthy dose of big-picture perspective. I needed a one-stop-shop source to give me realistic, scientific, safe, and pediatrician-approved information, and it didn’t exist. So I decided to write it! IN HER WORDS: Dr. Rebekah Diamond is a pediatric hospitalist in New York City and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Columbia U