Ep.18: Why Postpartum Belongs in the First 1000 Days of Life (OBVIOUSLY!)

Let's talk about why the First 1000 Days of Life matter not just for children—but for parents, postpartum care, and the future of families.

In this episode of The Postpartum Wellness Show, Dr Kristal Lau explores the first 1000 days of life concept of early childhood development and explains why postpartum care must be part of this critical window. 

This episode connects science, lived experience, and common sense to challenge the status quo that postpartum is still treated as an afterthought. Dr Lau reframes postpartum care for parents as central to early childhood development.

-----------------------------------------------------------

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

• What the first 1000 days of life actually mean
• How postpartum fits directly into early childhood development
• The intergenerational impact of stress, disadvantage, and biology
• What children truly need to thrive beyond nutrition
• Why supporting parents is essential to supporting children
• How clinicians and caregivers can apply a two-year postpartum lens today

-----------------------------------------------------------

QUOTES

“Children are like sponges. Even before they can speak or really process a bunch of stuff that’s happening, their nervous system can already sense and read the room.”

“If we’re not able to give parents both education support and the confidence to feel like they can do the job, then how are they supposed to provide a stable and responsive and loving type of nervous system output for their children?”

“When we’re not able to love ourselves and care for ourselves as parents, there’s a high chance that kids pick up the message that being a parent must be terrible.”

-----------------------------------------------------------

P.S. The free membership resource hub is still in development. Check back soon for the link!

-----------------------------------------------------------

Episode Links:

• My email: contact@bridgesinhealth.com
• The First 1000 Days of Life RCH Melbourne

-----------------------------------------------------------

CONNECT WITH DR KRISTAL LAU!

• Website: Bridges In Health
• Buy My Book! 'Postpartum 30: Thirty Days To A Nurtured Fourth Trimester'
• YouTube @drkristallau
• Instagram @mamaswingwoman
• LinkedIn @kristallau

Transcript

Welcome back to another episode of The Postpartum Wellness Show. I’m Dr Kristal Lau, your host, and today we will be talking a little bit more about the first 1000 days of life concept, of early childhood development, and how postpartum ties in nicely to that concept.

I first brought up this topic in the previous episode when we talked about needing to redefine the postpartum duration to up to two years after childbirth.

But first, a very quick disclaimer. Please remember that this podcast is purely for educational and informational purposes only. I am not giving you any medical advice here. If you have any medical questions and concerns, please see your healthcare provider.

Okay. So now let’s dive into the first 1000 days of life.

Now, what is this concept and what does it mean?

So the first 1000 days of life, it describes how, you know, in the early days of childhood development, that if we can optimize the environment best for children, then you know they have a very good chance of thriving and doing really well going forward.

But what counts is the first 1000 days of life.

The kind of easy assumption is that, oh, it’s from the day they were born and a thousand days later. But no, the definition is from the day of conception and up to the child’s two-year birthday. So up until the child is two years old. So that is the first 1000 days of life.

So what this implies is that the best chance for a child, or the next generation, to be extremely healthy or as healthy as possible is first to have really good quality sperm and egg, which means that it is in our interests.

When I say “ours,” I mean every single one of us on this planet who is involved in some capacity in the things that we do to influence the health and wellbeing of the sperm donors and egg donors.

Yeah. Because the quality of the DNA is important, and once fertilization and conception happens, of course, you know, we have a lot of work being done to promote and optimize the pregnancy quality for mothers and birthing parents.

So antenatal care, prenatal care, and then perinatal care, which includes postpartum as well.

But what’s not really highlighted or given a lot of emphasis as a whole is postpartum. That’s why this show exists, to encourage all of you and all of us to pay attention to this time.

So on top of, you know, prenatal care, we really need to have a much more robust postpartum care, which is why in the last episode I talked about a dire need for us to ditch the six-to-eight-week clinical timeframe and adopt a new one, which is up to two years.

And this is exactly why I’m proposing the two-year mark as the postpartum, because the first 1000 days of life includes up to the child is two years old.

So that makes a lot of sense, isn’t it, that we should provide good postpartum care for the first two years of the childbirth?

Not only that, recall that the WHO recommendation is at least 18 months in between pregnancies, so that the mother and the birthing parent has enough time not just to recover physically from the previous pregnancy and birthing experience, but also for space to grow socially, emotionally, and to get more mental health support as well during this time with all of the changes that are happening.

So it’s a no-brainer, and I could just end the episode right here, right now. But no, I’m gonna have you along with me for the ride a little bit more, because I want to explore more with you on what is included or what is deemed important for the children in the first 1000 days of life.

There is an illustration that I want to share with you. It is downloadable from the free membership that I have. The link is in the show notes, and this picture comes from the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, and I have the link as well. So you can check it out from the show notes.

And also within the free membership, you can go and check out any additional things that I have that relate to this episode.

Now, I love this picture because it paints a very nice summary on what kids need in these early days so that they have the best chance for lifelong health.

And it’s not just health, but opportunities.

Because it’s very interesting that what they found during the study and development of this concept is—and I’m reading this from a little part of the Royal Children’s Hospital website—that disadvantage can be passed down through the generations.

At a cellular level, our biology changes in response to stress, poverty, and other prolonged adverse experiences, and these changes can be passed on to children from their parents and grandparents.

And we’ve heard this before, especially in the context of girls and the maternal DNA, how the ovaries in girls—the quality of the eggs—is already determined when we are growing in the bellies of our mothers.

So essentially our grandmother’s health and wellbeing is affecting our children’s health, especially when they’re girls as well.

So this is so fascinating to me. But that’s science, and this is the human experience, isn’t it? This is our biology.

So it makes sense that we want to optimize things as best as possible for children so that they can then have the best chance to thrive themselves and to provide the best for their children and the future generation.

So what does the 1000 days of life say that children need?

So from this illustration, I’m gonna read it out to you.

Children need opportunities to learn through play, green spaces, nutritious food, safe communities, toxin-free environments, loving, responsive relationships, and secure housing.

I know that a big part of when I first started searching more about this concept, there was a lot of nutrition programs related to the first 1000 days, and absolutely, because when the kids go through their growth spurts and all that, they just want to eat.

But we also wanna make sure they get the best so that their bodies have all the essential nutrients and more for them to grow and to thrive.

But when we look at the other aspects of what they need, it is the responsibility of authorities and leaders as well, because they need to ensure their policies are in place and town planning programs are in place, that they can build green spaces or preserve green spaces while we expand and build.

To provide safe communities and to build safe communities, that takes a collective effort, as well as the involvement of leadership and authorities.

Toxin-free environments—we know that’s a heck of a problem these days, pardon my language there, with all the pollution and climate change going on.

Secure housing as well. That is an employment thing. It’s also how our leaders tackle trade economies.

There are a lot of things here that the parents themselves can’t fully control. But at the same time, without the parents being involved, then the kids are not going to get these opportunities to learn, to play, green spaces, and nutritious food.

At the end of the day, we gotta be realistic. Who is directly involved with the wellbeing of the child from the get-go? It’s the parents.

And especially for first-time parents, it’s even more important to help them navigate the postpartum period. Or for parents who didn’t get the support before, perhaps with the next few children they have, if they choose to have more children, they can then have a better postpartum experience and better support.

Which flows through to the kids. Absolutely.

Because remember this: children are like sponges. And this is something I’ve been told many times by pediatric nurses and pediatric psychologists as well.

Our children, even before they can speak or really process a bunch of stuff that’s happening, their nervous system can already sense and read the room.

They rely on the grownups around them to regulate, to learn what’s safe and what’s not.

And so if we’re not able to give parents both education support and the confidence to feel like they can do the job and that they can do it to their best ability, or to get help to do it, then how are they supposed to provide a stable and responsive and loving type of nervous system output, so to speak, for the babies and the young kids to pick up?

So again, I like to say it’s kind of common sense once you look at these things.

And I like to always ask my audience, even when I give the lectures, just think about yourself when you were a child.

We don’t have to go so far as to say, “Put yourself in the shoes of your patients or your clients or the parent.” Just think of yourself as a child.

How were things like when you were around your family?

And unfortunately, I wanna say that I think a lot of us come from dysfunctional families.

Very good if you did not, and that you had good role models to model for you what a loving relationship looks like, and your parents could provide you safe housing, a safe community, and nutritious food. That is fantastic.

But those of us who can resonate with that, even till today as a grownup, how are you like when you’re around your parents or the grownups in your life?

Because that tells you a lot about what your nervous system picked up, processed, and normalized for you since you were a child.

So I’m just gonna leave you with that, and we’ll go back to the first 1000 days of life here.

Okay.

So for me, it makes a lot of sense that we expand—or rather, bring a spotlight to—parents and the postpartum experience alongside the child when we talk about the first 1000 days.

And this is where I also encourage those of you listening who are in positions of being able to push out strong white papers through organizations or publication journals, or who are part of organizations that influence clinical guidelines, to please think about really pushing for redefining the postpartum period to up to two years after childbirth.

If you wanna reach out to me, we’ll work together. I would be so happy if you would do that. My email is in the show notes as well.

But until that can be changed, what can we do for the rest of us—the mere mortals in this world—where we can’t control what’s being done at the higher levels with policies and guidelines?

You can still apply this in your practice.

When a patient or client comes to see you and tells you, “I just had a child a year ago,” you can already think to yourself, okay, there’s a chance that they could still be experiencing some after-effects of childbirth—both for the man and the woman, the birthing parent and the non-birthing parent.

You can already start applying this postpartum duration of two years after childbirth.

And you can also start thinking about the first 1000 days of life. For example, if your patient has a one-year-old at home, how can you help ensure that both the parents and the child have access to green spaces and nutritious food?

What can you do to help them achieve that?

I think this is a great start to providing better care—those of us on the ground doing the field work.

Sometimes it’s not prudent to just wait for guidelines to change.

And to my fellow physicians listening, I feel like a lot of us have gotten caught up in following guidelines, along with the fear of malpractice or making mistakes, because we’re all human at the end of the day.

Even AI can’t get everything right—I gotta put that plug in there.

I think sometimes we forget that a lot of innovations and advocacy for patients have come from people on the ground pushing for change and standing alongside their patients to push for better outcomes.

So yeah, if any of y’all are feeling brave and wanna do more of that, feel free to contact me.

As always, my Postpartum Wellness Show exists to challenge the status quo.

Many of the ways we are tackling postpartum health and wellbeing are outdated.

We’re in 2026. We’re in the era of AI, and we’re still stuck looking at postpartum as six to eight weeks.

You’re gonna hear me harping on this in the first few episodes of this year because it just feels ridiculous to me at this point that we’re still doing that.

That’s the crux of today’s episode: explaining how I’m developing the view—and the need—for us to change our perception of postpartum.

Eventually, I’ll also talk to you about why I decided to call my show The Postpartum Wellness Show and to put postpartum under the wellness umbrella.

I know that’s a bit contentious, but have a dig at me in the next episode when I go into this. I’m always happy to have a little banter.

But yes—first 1000 days of life. Important for children, and important for parents.

I would even go as far as to say it’s important for fertility planning and optimizing the health of folks who want to be parents, because that sets you up not just for a healthier future generation, but for yourselves as parents as well.

I do want to leave you on one last note.

Earlier, when I mentioned that children are sponges, it’s because a lot of the time, the things we do at home—our kids are always watching.

Again, think back to yourself as a child. How did you know what was happening between your parents or the grownups at home? Because you were watching, learning, and observing.

The way we talk to ourselves, the way we treat ourselves—our kids are watching and learning, especially if you are the same sex or gender as your child.

They’re watching.

And when we’re not able to love ourselves and care for ourselves as parents, there’s a high chance that kids pick up the message that being a parent must be terrible.

So why would they want to be one when they grow up?

So imagine what we can do for parents if we start this even earlier, and parents already feel love and amazement for what they do.

I think that would be amazing.

On that note, you guys take care, and I’ll see you in the next episode.