{"id":471489,"date":"2026-09-22T02:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T02:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/471489\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T02:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T02:40:14","slug":"chs-alum-sarah-matney-returns-from-mumbai-with-new-insights-on-postpartum-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/471489\/","title":{"rendered":"CHS alum Sarah Matney returns from Mumbai with new insights on postpartum care"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sarah<\/a>Courtesy photo, Sarah Matney<\/p>\n

\u201cPostpartum [the time period following childbirth] is really up to nine months, if not arguably a year,\u201d says doula Sarah Matney. While Matney started her education in Coronado, her career and research have taken her across the world. After graduating from Coronado High School in 2017, she attended Washington University in St. Louis, where she graduated in 2021 with a BA in Cognitive Neuroscience. Her undergraduate track was pre-med as she planned to become a doctor to help people. <\/p>\n

As her classmates discussed rigorous plans for summer classes and the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test), Matney and her mom had a serious talk about med school, if she really wanted to go, and if she wanted to go right away. Another conversation with her college advisor reminded her that there are many different ways to help people. With her degree in cognitive neuroscience, she had a foundation in chemistry, physics, and biological sciences, but also a real heavy dose of neuroscience and psychology too. She decided it felt really good to lean into the psychological side.<\/p>\n

Study abroad<\/p>\n

The niche of helping women during their birth journeys came to Matney during her junior year while studying abroad in Copenhagen. She took a class called \u2018Pregnancy, Birth, and Infancy in Denmark,\u2019 which was taught by a midwife, and that class greatly influenced her.<\/p>\n

While her studies in Denmark were short \u2014 the COVID pandemic hit two months into her time abroad \u2014 they were impactful. \u201cI learned what a doula was in that class and became familiar with pregnancy and birth. It fit all of the anatomical and physiological changes that interested me in pre-med. Birth and postpartum are such rich life transitions, and it\u2019s a body and mind, life restructuring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matney calls it a \u201ccareer that marries these two parts of my interests together in the most beautiful way.\u201d While the world was shut down, Matney focused all of her efforts on becoming a doula. \u201cIt took me a year out of undergrad to bet on myself. The rest has been history in a very lovely way, and I feel so grateful for it. Never in my wildest dreams could I have anticipated where this path would take me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sarah<\/a>Courtesy photo, Sarah MatneySarah Rose Doula & Wellness\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2023, Matney opened Sarah Rose Doula & Wellness in Seattle. \u201cIt felt really big and really lovely.\u201d Matney explains, \u201cThe way the birth community works here in Seattle is that most individuals operate as a business. I don\u2019t have any employees at this point, but it\u2019s a great system to build into a birth collective.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Matney says her favorite part of being a doula is the connection she makes with mothers. \u201cI\u2019ve always really valued my personal relationships, being upfront, being honest, and being authentic. I\u2019m dropping in if I feel comfortable with you. Somehow I found my way into a career where people are giving that back to me, and they\u2019re saying, \u2018Yes, based on your energy and based on your personality, we want you at this very rich time in our lives to provide us with support because you know we feel drawn to you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of her clients are first-time moms. \u201cIt\u2019s such a beautiful time, and I get to provide love and care and encouragement as well as information and decision-making support. I really get to love up on people at a really transformative time in people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fulbright Program in Mumbai<\/p>\n

Ever since her study abroad program was cut short in 2020, Matney knew she wanted to go abroad again someday. After three years in the doula field, that opportunity arose through the Fulbright Program<\/a>, and she had a clear idea of what she wanted. \u201cI was seeing some institutional gaps. When I was supporting clients in the hospital, I saw where guidance is given and where it is absolutely not given.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of time, energy, and thought are being put into how we are managing labor and the immediate postpartum in the hospital. I realized there is hardly any time, guidance, support, or encouragement given to people on how to set up their longer postpartum time. That\u2019s even more important in a place like the U.S. because we don\u2019t have any standardized support from the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Courtesy photo, Sarah Matney<\/p>\n

Asked by her advisor if she had considered India, it clicked. \u201cIndia was the perfect place,\u201d said Matney. \u201cThe culture is different than the U.S. in terms of its intergenerational support. They have consistent postpartum rituals and a consistent confinement period for the mother to really recover and receive support from her female relatives and aunties. Everyone in that space helps her move through this new transition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI chose Mumbai because I wanted there to be some sense of translatability back to the U.S. It\u2019s a large urban city, and I wanted to have the aspects of a modernized city to be able to compare in my research and in my data. India is pushing towards modernization as a whole, and I wanted to see if these practices were relevant in the urban city, or if these are only practiced in rural parts of India.\u201d<\/p>\n

Research in Mumbai<\/p>\n

Matney was careful with how she approached the interview process. \u201cThe culture is not as mental health-accepting there as it is here. If I were, as a foreigner, coming into people\u2019s homes and asking them about a pretty taboo time, and then saying, \u2018Do you think you had postpartum depression?\u2019 that would have been way too much.\u201d Instead, Matney focused more on the postpartum period itself. She learned it\u2019s just as important in a city as in a village. \u201cEvery woman who I talked to said, \u2018Of course we do this still. It doesn\u2019t matter that we\u2019re in Mumbai. This is what you do. This is part of having a baby.’\u201d<\/p>\n

What she found was that support is helpful, but it needs to be the right support. \u201cPostpartum is such a nuanced time with emotions, body changes, and taking care of the baby. If you\u2019re getting support from someone you don\u2019t feel comfortable with, you\u2019re not going to feel like you can really drop into all of the emotions. There\u2019s going to be some repercussions in little ways because of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s cool to see that different cultures have different practices, and giving the mother time in the postpartum to recover and heal, mentally, emotionally, and physically is positive. But we\u2019re all still humans at the end of the day. It doesn\u2019t matter what culture we live in. We still need to feel safe and cared for by someone who makes it feel meaningful. That is really the biggest key.\u201d<\/p>\n

Growth and change\"\"<\/a>Courtesy photo, Sarah Matney<\/p>\n

During her first three years as a doula, Matney was focused on doing birth work. Coming back from Mumbai, she shifted into more postpartum work. \u201cI would go over some postpartum info in one of my appointments with the couples during pregnancy, but I\u2019ve started to revamp my content and the advice I give. I\u2019m excited for when I step into doing births again, but I emphasize even more how important it is to take care of yourself postpartum and try to get creative with families on the support they have. I really workshop \u2018Hey, how can we make this work? How can we actually set you up?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

She shares that, while she previously gave similar advice, she is now following up in a very different way. \u201cI ask if they\u2019ve created a plan. Who\u2019s doing the meal train? When is family coming? It was more informational questions from the birth side, but now I explain why it is really important for them to get a plan set up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our culture emphasizes the labor itself, and the labor is definitely an event. But then the focus drops off. I emphasize postpartum much more at this time.American culture and postpartum care<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s world of social media, comparison, and the pressure to \u2018bounce back,\u2019 Matney provides insight into the reality of the postpartum period. \u201cWe don\u2019t have the correct view, as a society, on how much we need to give our bodies a break and time to heal in the postpartum time. Six weeks only means the uterus doesn\u2019t have an open wound where the placenta was. That\u2019s literally all it means. There are other changes in the body. Other organs have shifted. It\u2019s amazing what the body had to do across nine months to grow the baby.\u201d She continues, \u201cThere\u2019s a phrase in the birth community that postpartum is forever because you have a baby. You\u2019re always going to have had a baby. But, purely in physiological and anatomical terms, it should be nine months to a year with the body changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou really come into this new identity, and it\u2019s a transformation. It\u2019s a shedding of certain parts. There are parts that leave so other parts can come in. Parents deserve to marinate in the in-between adjustment. That depends on a lot of factors and on how you structure that time. But however you can within the confines, don\u2019t feel guilty about taking it day by day and hour by hour. It\u2019s such a rich time, and we don\u2019t give it the credit it deserves.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou deserve to move slowly through this time,\u201d is Matney\u2019s advice to moms. \u201cYou deserve to step into all the realms of body, mind, and soul.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Courtesy photo, Sarah Matney \u201cPostpartum [the time period following childbirth] is really up to nine months, if not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":["post-471489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}