I went through a major journey through postpartum depression and anxiety that...
the nature of my work. I went from being a midwife in the traditional sense to becoming more
like a midwife of transformation for mothers and really discovered first hand through my own experience
how important maternal wellness is because ultimately, if moms aren't well, nobody's well. Karina Fitch is a maternal wellness advocate, midwife, and the founder of Motherfly. Drawing from decades of experience supporting women through pregnancy, birth, and motherhood, she empowers mothers to reclaim their identity, embrace personal growth, and thrive beyond the pressures of mother motherhood. One in five women will experience maternal mental illness.
That's 20% of the birthing population. We need to let go of this perfect mother myth where mothers are
held to this never-ending list of superhuman standards. It's a patriarchal construction of
“motherhood. I think we need to redefine motherhood on our own terms and what that looks like”
for me is Motherfly. The Living Your Legacy Podcast for those who live to live a legacy. Welcome to another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. For Inside Success, I am Ray Gutierrez. Joining me today is another powerful woman fresh off the filming conveyor belt. Karina Fitch is joining me today. Karina, welcome to the show.
Thank you. How did your session go? Filming, you literally just finished filming your episode. How did it go? Yeah, it went really well. Despite, you know, I told you I was getting over a cold and so I was nervous about coughing, but sure. It went really well.
“What will we learn about? You kind of give us a preview.”
Well, you had learned about my origins on a hippie commune in Tennessee, who are as born on a bus, and my experience growing up around birth in midwives, and then deciding when I was 12 that I was going to be a midwife myself. And then I did become a midwife and after I had one daughter and then another daughter, after the birth of my third daughter, I went through a major journey through postpartum depression,
an anxiety that completely changed the nature of my work and the direction of my work. And that was when I founded Motherfly. So I went from being a midwife and the traditional sense to becoming more like a midwife of the spirit, a midwife of transformation for mothers and really discovered firsthand through my own experience how much mothers are struggling and how much support they need and how important maternal
wellness is because ultimately, if moms aren't well, nobody's well. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about the wellness. I myself have experience, you know, the different stages of
the experience through family and friends. So I'm always curious about the subject
why does the system kind of just shift? There's like almost like a switch that flips off. And I'm only asking because I'm obviously a male that is still kind of curious about the mysteries of what happens to a woman, the vessel that is carrying the child and the transformations,
“not just psychologically and physically, but spiritually. What is happening?”
Educate me here first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when women get pregnant, they go through massive changes. Their body literally changes form. Their hormones change. Their social role changes. Their spirituality changes. Now they're holding a new life. Yeah. The brain changes. And that's something that often just gets referred to as like baby brain or mommy brain and it gets this bad wrap of just making mom, spacing and forgetful. But it's actually very purposeful. The
changes that happen in the brain make a more capable of reading non-verbal cues, more empathetic, more able to multitask, more tolerant of monotony and more ambitious, which are hugely important when you're caring for a tiny human. What do you tell someone that goes, you've lived your way a certain way. This is your personality. But the moment you are on the journey of bringing you life, you're going to expect some changes. How does how do you tell that to someone that goes,
Well, I have control of my own soul, my own decisions.
Yeah, yeah. And it's not just hormones. They do play a big role. But I think one of the ways that I
help women understand that is by giving them language. So there's a word that describes all of these changes and that is metressants. Okay. So metressants like adolescents is a time of great change and neuroplasticity and changing of roles, changing of expectations, changing of your body, changing of your hormones. Right? So that's the word that most people don't know. I just learned it
“like seven years ago and I just learned it. I've been life for 30 years, right? I think when we”
can give language to a process, then we are much more capable of supporting that process and understanding that process where we are now is that in terms of maternal health and well-being is in crisis. We are the only developed nation with a rising maternal mortality rate. One in five women will experience maternal mental illness. That's 20% of the birthing population.
And suicide remains a leading cause of maternal death in the first year after birth.
And then we have gross racial disparities in maternal health outcomes with black mothers dying at three to four times the rate of white mothers due to systemic racism and provider bias. So we're at a crisis point. For sure. Is this very commonly known or is this kind of just weaponry therag? Like we got bigger fish to fry. Like yes, this is a very diluted world reality that we live in. We're going to have issues. Is this something that's easily remedied? Like what
“is the approach here? Yeah. As far as how well it's known, I don't I think that postpartum depression”
is something that people know about now because thankfully it's more talked about. But it's actually postpartum anxiety is actually more common than postpartum depression. You also have postpartum OCD postpartum bipolar. There's all sorts of ways that mental illness can manifest. The solution I believe is that we mothers need a lot more support. We need to let go of this perfect mother
myth where mothers are held to this never-ending list of superhuman standards. Right? Like we're
supposed to be infinitely patient while functioning on two hours asleep. Or you know, bake everything from scratch with all organic ingredients and take our kids to every extracurricular activity known to man to make them the best person that they can be while at the same time continually sacrificing our own wellness in the process. And ultimately that construction of motherhood comes from patriarchy. It's a patriarchal construction of motherhood. I think we need to redefine
motherhood on our own terms and what that looks like for me is mother fly, which is my name not only for my business but also for a new maternal archetype. So we've been functioning under the martyr and the super mom. Okay. And they're both killing us. The mother fly has learned to include herself in her circle of care and nourish her dreams with the same love and attention that she gives to her own children. And most importantly, she is living inside of a matrix of relational
support. She's not doing it alone. This whole super mom thing to do everything yourself,
“joggle it all. It's very 1940s, we have a lot of it. Yeah, and it's and it's and that's why we live”
in a culture of mom burnout and shame and isolation. Oh gosh there's so many trajectories that we can pick here. I got to rewind a little bit. How does one discover your journey? How does the mid-wife of sorry? Mid-wife? Yes. How does a process work? Do you clients find you or is it just a matter of time? How does this process work? So are we talking about mid-wifery clients or my mother fly? Mother fly for work because I know you started in one way but now you've transitioned into this.
I'm kind of curious how you started here and then the trenches into this. Yeah. Well, I mean that transition happened because of my journey with the mental illness. But a sum of a lot of the people that do my mother fly programs were mid-wifery clients. So I already know and they already trust me. They've been with me through birth, you know. But other people find me through my podcast. I have a podcast called Mother Tongue that is on Spotify and Apple podcast and then through Word of Mouth and
I also in 2021 and 2022 I hosted two global summits which is actually how the podcast started because I realized that I really loved to interview people and yeah and so people have learned about
Me through through those means and social media.
It's still growing. Sure. I have a membership group that started in 2021 and that's called the Matresson Circle. These are great names well. All great names in here. And when you take group they just started as a Facebook group. It was a private walkers study. How's the Facebook group?
That one's called Mother Fly Tribe and that's the first thing I started with the Mother Fly Tribe
“Facebook group. That's how I came out as Mother Fly. And then I did the summits and out of the summits”
a lot of the participants pens said they really wanted community so I created the Matresson Circle and that is for mothers with children of any ages. We have people in it with infants and adult children and then my Mother Fly program is a nine month transformational program that takes mothers through they could be pregnant they could already be mothers doesn't really matter takes them from you know the beginning point of burnout over wrong depletion maybe depression or
anxiety moves them through my Mother Fly matrix to come out the other side
feeling radiant wellness and having found their purpose and living their purpose. What is some of the curriculum you give us a sneak peek of what happens in these nine months?
“Is it zoom sessions in persons? Is it downloads affirmations? Cold showers? What is the”
the curriculum here for these nine months? Yeah well it is a blend of my 30 years of experience as a midway with 18 years of motherhood transformational facilitation, feminine power. I am a certified feminine power facilitator in body movement I am a mover I'm a dancer deep rest practices and ceremony and soulful inquiry. Well so it combines all those things for people that don't live locally then it's all virtual for people that do live locally there's like there are
a couple of ceremonies that are a part of it so they get that live in person. Right on for folks that want to learn more and discover more of your journey whereas these just way to find you. I would say motherflymom.com. Right on motherflymom.com what's a for folks that are watching a listening what's a quick way for them to to feel good right away if you had some feedbacks and tips for folks that are listening for moms are like oh gosh I want to
reach out there but I need to feel good right now what's a a good one two three rub the years woo sa. Well
I'll just say that the the first step in my motherfly matrix in the program is building your
container. So when we think of a container we think of something that holds something else right and as mothers we are containers for our children we create a safe space for them to learn and grow and explore but we have to do that for ourselves so our container is made up of self care which everyone's are about and so that's probably kind of annoying to hear about at that point at this point so the other
“piece that's that's even more important I think that I learned through my own experience is self”
compassion because without the compassion self care just becomes another stick to beat ourselves up so that means giving yourself grace letting go of some of your to do this you can't overachieve your way out of burnout you have to take things off your plate you have to learn to delegate and rest rest is so undervalued in our culture and so necessary for mental health and for just health wellness and general right on yeah um gosh is there any inspirational things you'd like to say before
we wrap up cream or anything you'd like to add or maybe even speaking to your past self or what would you do if you were listening to this podcast what 30 years ago you were in the beginning of this journey what would you say to yourself well I said this in the episode and I think it's appropriate now so I'll say it again this is something that I want every mother to take in and that I needed to hear I wrote it when I was still in my depression you are enough despite the myriad of messages that
you receive daily from the media from society from the voices in your own head you are enough even when there's more to do even when you're weak even when you need support even when you make mistakes you are enough in your wellness matters it deeply matters it is not a reward for good mothering it is your birthright I want you to take that message and let it seep into every muscle and bone let it trickle into every cell of your body your wellness matters
That's great thank you so much for that information and absolutely your welln...
Karina thank you so much for your time and energy this wraps up another episode of the living your legacy podcast this is Karina I'm Raghatira's and we are inside success
