Session 459: The Postpartum Conversation You Need to Hear

Summary

Therapy for Black Girls Podcast: Session 459 – The Postpartum Conversation You Need to Hear
Podcast Host: Dr. Joy Harden Bradford
Guest: Dr. Sharon Malone
Date: April 15, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this special episode, timed with Black Maternal Health Week, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford invites Dr. Sharon Malone, an experienced OB-GYN and women's health advocate, to discuss the particular challenges, risks, and advocacy strategies surrounding Black maternal health—with a strong emphasis on the often-overlooked postpartum period. Together, they address the historical biases still present in medical care, the realities behind maternal mortality, and offer both context and practical guidance for Black women planning families, navigating pregnancy, and advocating for themselves at every stage.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Centering Black Women in Maternal Health

• Dr. Malone emphasizes the importance of focusing conversations on Black women, who have historically been left out or marginalized in medicine (04:15).
• Historical analysis reveals deeply ingrained biases: Black women weren’t even considered in early medical conversations or research (04:28).
• The story of J. Marion Sims, "the father of gynecology," illustrates how Black women's bodies were exploited for medical advancement, a fact often excluded from medical education (05:34).

"Black women weren't even considered women... You're at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to issues and things that should concern us."
— Dr. Sharon Malone (04:42)

Continuum of Maternal Care & Postpartum Risks

• Maternal health shouldn’t stop at delivery—50% of maternal deaths occur after leaving the hospital (07:39).
• Outdated or insufficient postnatal care practices (e.g., the commonplace six-week follow-up) leave critical health issues undetected (08:41).
• Dr. Malone notes risks like postpartum depression and preeclampsia may emerge or worsen after birth (09:05).

"It's wholly insufficient... to say, I'll see you in six weeks."
— Dr. Sharon Malone (08:45)

• Modern living means many mothers lack familial/community support post-delivery, increasing vulnerabilities (10:19).

Mental Health, Violence, and Maternal Mortality

• Dr. Malone highlights that beyond medical complications, violence and mental health issues (including postpartum depression and suicide) are leading contributors to maternal mortality, especially for Black women (12:19).
• She calls for broader attention to structural and mental well-being, not only physical health (12:37).

Cardiovascular Risks: Preeclampsia, Hypertension, and Others

• Cardiovascular conditions like preeclampsia and eclampsia are the leading cause of maternal deaths for Black women (13:43).
• Key symptoms and warning signs: high blood pressure, swelling (especially above waist—face, hands), headaches, and vision changes (16:41, 17:33).
• The threshold for high blood pressure has shifted: "High blood pressure now is not 140/90. It's 120/80." (16:19).

Patient Advocacy: Escalating Concerns & Navigating Medical Systems

• Dr. Malone encourages patients to insist on higher-level communication if concerns are not addressed—especially given the often-layered communication in current medical practices (18:38).
• She stresses clarity and persistence: “Can I talk to my doctor? Can my doctor call me back?” (18:43).
• Document symptoms, ask direct questions, and never leave appointments without concrete guidance (52:12).

Gaps in Research & Participation

• Preeclampsia isn’t sufficiently researched; resources, prioritization, and a lack of clinical diversity play roles (21:10).
• Low Black participation in clinical trials is largely due to lack of being asked and logistical barriers, not just historical mistrust (23:16).

Preparing for Pregnancy—Long Before Conception

• The health you bring into pregnancy strongly influences your outcomes (25:18).
• Dr. Malone debunks myths that poor outcomes are due to teen pregnancies, explaining the more relevant concept of "weathering": the cumulative impact of chronic stress and social determinants on Black women's health (27:12).
• Obesity, diabetes, and hypertension are rising, and disparities are exacerbated by inequitable access to new treatments (29:29).
• She advises: manage weight, exercise, healthy diet, multivitamins—start well before pregnancy (30:47).

Advanced Maternal Age & Biological Realities

• “Advanced maternal age” (typically defined as 35+) increases pregnancy risks for everyone, but Black women may experience higher biological age due to chronic stress or "allostatic load" (33:17).
• Dr. Malone shares a personal family story to spotlight complex drivers for reproductive choices (36:10).
• While later pregnancies generally require more attention, "most people do just fine" with proactive management (38:29).

Midwifery, Birthing Centers, and Risk Factors

• Midwives and birthing centers suit only very low-risk pregnancies; pre-existing conditions (hypertension, diabetes) exclude many from such options (39:37).
• Home birth not recommended for most, especially if unprepared for complications (40:00).

Postpartum Health's Impact on Long-Term Wellness

• Conditions like gestational hypertension or diabetes—even if resolved after birth—increase future cardiovascular risks (41:10).
• Any abnormal birth outcomes signal the need for long-term monitoring, not complacency (41:46).

Fertility Planning: Egg Freezing and IVF

• Best outcomes for egg freezing are at younger ages, but younger women are least likely to need them; financial and success rate details provided (44:07, 45:44).
• Embryo freezing is more successful than egg freezing if a partner is in the picture (46:50).
• Only a small percentage of women return to use their frozen eggs—egg freezing is “insurance,” not a guarantee (48:39).

Building Healthy Doctor-Patient Relationships & Self-Advocacy

• With short visits and rotating providers, patients must prepare for appointments: know your goals and articulate your concerns (51:37).
• Never settle for vague reassurance—get specific advice or plans (52:12).

"Don't ever just walk out with the open-ended, 'Oh, it's nothing.' Okay. And then you walk out thinking it's nothing, but it's still going on..."
— Dr. Sharon Malone (52:28)

• Emerging AI in medicine must be built thoughtfully, avoiding encoded historical biases that already disadvantage Black women (53:44).

Reconnecting with the Body: The Case for Interoception

• Many women have lost a sense of what “normal” feels like due to chronic symptoms (e.g., pain, fatigue, heavy periods) that are culturally accepted but not medically normal (55:12).
• Dr. Malone urges recognizing abnormal symptoms and pushing for medical validation and solutions (57:07).

"Too many of us have ignored what our bodies are trying to tell us for too long...We live diminished lives in terms of not feeling like ourselves."
— Dr. Sharon Malone (56:44)

Aging with Intention

• Dr. Malone inspires listeners to aim higher with aging, practicing intentional self-care, managing stressors, and challenging the myth that "Black don't crack" precludes internal health concerns (60:35).

"Black don't crack. Okay, all right, well, it's cracking on the inside."
— Dr. Sharon Malone (60:38)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On patient advocacy:
  "The more you know, the better advocate you can be for yourself." (18:15)
• On medical convenience vs. research barriers:
  "The number one reason why Black people don't participate in clinical trials is because they're not asked." (23:16)
• On changing perceptions:
  "We live diminished lives in terms of not feeling like ourselves." (57:05)
• On managing life transitions:
  "You can be aware, but you don't have to be fearful." (40:11)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Historical context and bias: 04:15–07:10
• Maternal mortality and postpartum risks: 07:39–13:36
• Cardiovascular health and preeclampsia: 13:43–17:33
• Escalating health concerns with providers: 18:38–19:50
• Gaps in research and trial participation: 20:59–24:52
• Planning/pre-pregnancy health: 25:16–31:27
• Advanced maternal age & risks: 31:43–34:49
• Egg freezing & fertility options: 43:53–48:58
• Doctor-patient relationship & self-advocacy: 49:08–54:44
• Listening to your body/interoception: 55:12–61:35
• Aging with intention: 60:35–61:58

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Resources & Where to Find Dr. Sharon Malone

• Book: "Grown Woman Talk" — Comprehensive guidance for women's health over 40 (62:22)
• Website: drsharonmalone.com — Resources, contact, feedback
• Podcast: The Second Opinion — Available on major platforms; focus on midlife and women's health (63:09)
• Instagram: @s.malone.md — DMs open for feedback and questions (65:02)

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Closing Encouragement

Above all, Dr. Malone urges Black women to know their bodies, advocate for appropriate postpartum and long-term care, and to challenge both internalized and systemic myths about health. Prevention, knowledge, and assertive communication are key to improved outcomes now and in the future.

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Hashtags & Community

• #TBGInSession — Join the conversation on social media
• Patreon Community: community.therapyforblackgirls.com

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This episode is an essential listen for anyone invested in Black women's health, those planning pregnancy, or those supporting new mothers, blending medical context, actionable advice, and powerful validation.

Transcript

[Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford]

Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our [e-mail] while I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional.

[Elise Ellis]

Hey y', all, thanks so much for joining Me for session 459 of the therapy for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our conversation after a word from our sponsors.

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human

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[Elise Ellis]

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iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Elise Ellis]

This week, I'm once again joined by Dr. Sharon Malone for an important conversation in honor of Black Maternal Health Week. We're digging into the realities of Black maternal health, from the historical roots of medical bias to the ways those patterns still shape our experiences. Today, Dr. Malone and I talk about why Black women are so often left out of the center of maternal health conversations, what we need to know about preeclampsia and other cardiovascular risks, and why half of maternal deaths happen after delivery. She also shares practical guidance for advocating for yourself when something doesn't feel right and what to consider even years before pregnancy. If you're planning for a family, supporting someone who is or simply want to better understand the landscape of Black women's health, this episode offers clarity, validation and tools to help you feel more informed and empowered. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share it with us on social media using the hashtag tbginsession or join us over in our Patreon

to talk more about the episode.

You can join us at community.therapy for black girls.com here's our conversation.

Well, thank you so much for joining us again today, Dr. Malone.

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm very excited to chat with you again.

[Elise Ellis]

Our community loved your first time visiting us and lots of questions, lots of follow up and so we wanted to bring you back. Especially we are observing Black Maternal Health Week as we film this conversation. And we know that there are so many things that happen and don't happen when, when Black women are having babies, going into labor. Why is it important for us to frame this conversation as not just a women's health conversation, but specifically around Black women's health?

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

Well, because I think that we're never

centered in the conversation. I did a deep dive a couple of weeks ago for a talk I was giving and it was just sort

of the origins of our current medical

practices, how they started back in from the time of Aristotle to today. And we women were never centered in

the conversation and black women weren't even considered women. When you think about how we talk

about medicine, how conversations are framed, you're at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to issues and things that should concern us.

So I think that refocusing the conversation,

sort of changing the lens a little bit such that we put black women in the center.

It helps to two things.

It helps them be better advocates for themselves as patients. And it also helps doctors understand where these sort of misconceptions and beliefs came from. And it's historically based. It's not something that we made up. It's something that we've been taught for generation after generation after generation.

[Elise Ellis]

I know you are well studied, but I'm curious, is there anything in that research that like jumped out to you or that you were surprised by? Even as someone who's been in the

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

field for so long, I think that

the thing that surprised me most, and let me just say as an ob

gyn, I find it just incredible that even the story about J. Marion Sims, the man who was considered the father of gynecology.

How he came to be and how

that knowledge was acquired was literally on the backs of black women, enslaved black women that I never knew about. I never knew their names until.

Until about 10 years ago. I went to medical school. 40 years ago. Never heard that story. You hear only the positive things, and

you never hear the negative things.

Everybody kind of knows the story a

little bit about Henrietta Lacks. Everybody kind of knows the Tuskegee experiment. And the reality is that those are not isolated events. You could tell a story about the neglect of the black body every generation,

and the notion that.

That the medical profession was complicit. We weren't just complicit, I should say. We were out there advocating that black women and black people were inferior. And thus their health problems and their

issues were not because of anything we

were doing or any way that they

were treated or not treated.

It was because there was some inherent weakness in the black body, which is interesting to say for black people who toiled in the fields from sun up to sundown, and they're like, wait a minute, and now you're weak.

No, we have to own that. We have to own that history.

We have to make sure that people know it.

And more importantly, like I said, than just patients. We feel it.

But doctors need to know it. Doctors need to be educated about where these myths and misconceptions really came from.

[Elise Ellis]

Yeah.

And often when we're talking about, like, our postpartum kind of prepartum kinds of things, we're only talking about the window between getting pregnant and delivery. What harm does it cause for us to have such a narrow window when we're talking about, like, black women's health there?

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

Well, it's extremely harmful when the fact is that 50% of maternal deaths occur

out of the hospital. So you're home thinking everything is fine.

And I can say this as a

former obstetrician, when I have gotten a

patient through a pregnancy successfully, we've had a wonderful delivery. Everything is good. I'm home.

I'm home in an hour after you've. After you have delivered that baby. And I think everything is fine unless

somebody tells me otherwise. And there is this gap in the

hospital where patients are being monitored not by doctors, but by skilled nursing staff and people who will listen and understand

what patients may be complaining of and not ignoring and dismissing those complaints and passing them on appropriately. That's the first problem area that we have with poor maternal outcomes. But when that patient is discharged from

the hospital, it is wholly insufficient for.

For me to say, I'll see you in six weeks. And that's what we did. We say, see you in six weeks.

And it was a big deal when we said, I'll see you in two weeks. Because we started to understand that things like postpartum depression sets in. Preeclampsia, which is also one of the

conditions that is more prevalent in the

African American community, sometimes it will not show up until after delivery. So you have to know that patients need to be discharged from the hospital

with a specific set of instructions.

If you have this, this, this, this,

call us right away. And to also have the training on the other side when someone calls and said, hey, I have a headache, hey, my legs are swelling, not to say,

oh, well, of course that's normal.

Those are red flags for conditions that can be much more serious and at times fatal.

So that's why we have to look at the continuum. It's not over.

Once you've had a successful delivery, your care should extend for at least six

weeks with touch points in between, not

just I'll see you in six weeks.

[Elise Ellis]

And you said, so it sounds like now the maybe more customary idea is to meet with a patient after two weeks after a delivery. Is this kind of common or are some people still kind of doing six weeks?

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

It depends. It depends on the practice. And it may not be an in person visit in two weeks, but there should be a check in for someone to say, hey, how are you doing?

How you feeling?

How's the nursing going? Because I think that what has happened

for us today, and I can say this, I grew up in the south where everybody was. You had your family around you.

People tended to, to the birthing mother. I had my kids. I'm here in Washington D.C. i'm not around family. There's nobody in the house but me

and my husband and my baby.

So having someone to really tend to you because a postpartum mother needs care, you need rest.

You're not ready to jump up and go back to everything you've been doing.

Even though we think that, that, that

is what's supposed to be normal.

We need community. And if you don't have the luxury

and the good fortune of having family around you, then this is where community is important. This is where, where we need nursing staff.

You know, this is where people to

come in and check on you to see how you're doing. These are touch points that are really important because like I said, people think that, oh, when people die as a result of childbirth, we think that there was some Something that went wrong as far as the delivery is concerned. And sometimes it's not. It's just plain old miscommunication that had that information been known, all of this could have been avoided. It's expected. You know, they say about probably 70 to 80% of maternal deaths could be avoided.

[Elise Ellis]

And then 50%, you mentioned, happen post. Post delivery.

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

Exactly, Exactly. More than 24 hours after you have delivered, when all of the normal complications such as bleeding and those kinds of things that you would see in the hospital, you're done with. You're not. That's not even the issue. It's more sort of the cardiovascular issues. And here's something that also, I think was very troubling for me was when

you sort of look at the statistics

of what are the causes of maternal deaths. And so it depends on where you draw the line. And they say we'll say pregnancy associated deaths. What's disturbing is that pregnancy associated death.

So anytime you're.

Death in a pregnancy, during pregnancy, or after a year after murder is high on that list. Violence to pregnant women and young mothers is way higher on the list than you would think. And this is something that I think that we have gotta. We've gotta address. We've gotta address mental health issues because that's also high on the list for black women. I think the number one cause is cardiovascular issues, but for all women, mental health issues. And that is something that I think that doesn't get enough attention.

[Elise Ellis]

And are you referring specifically to things like postpartum depression and anxiety or other concerns?

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

Postpartum depression, anxiety, suicides. I mean, it, it. All of that, anything that could lead to the.

You ending your life can happen during that time. And that is a big, big factor.

And I think that again, in this country, birthing mothers are really not well supported.

[Elise Ellis]

So you mentioned cardiovascular concerns as kind of one of the primary things. And I don't know that I've heard that before. So what kinds of cardiovascular concerns happen post delivery?

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

Well, for the biggest one is like preeclampsia or eclampsia. And this is the. The condition in pregnancy where it will

typically show up during the pregnancy, but

sometimes, as I said, it will show up after delivery. And that is the combination of high blood pressure. There is a, a function where women have swelling.

They can also have headaches, very severe headaches. And there is also where the severest

part of it is called the help syndrome, where you will get.

Your liver will be affected, your platelets will be affected, so your ability to clot.

That's why bleeding is so much of an issue if you don't get it in time. And so it's blood issues. So it's bleeding, it's hypertension, it's headaches, it's low platelets and liver problems.

That's the most severe form form of it. And if it is not treated, then it can lead to full on eclampsia because notice I said preeclampsia and eclampsia is all of that, that leads to seizures and the seizures in the mom

can lead to strokes and permanent disability or death. And these conditions, preeclampsia and eclampsia are more common in African American women.

[Elise Ellis]

So Dr. Malone, is preeclampsia and eclampsia. You know, sometimes, like you said, there are signs kind of in the pregnanc, but then sometimes it sounds like these conditions will just come up after pregnancy. Is it related to just like the strain that pregnancy and delivery put on so many systems, or what is the rationale for those?

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

Well, you know, here's the thing that we don't really know what causes it.

We know what things sort of increase your risk for it, but what exactly causes it.

And that's a problem because preeclampsia has been around forever. We don't study it enough. You know, we don't talk about, okay, what are the types of things that we can do? Are there earlier indications that we can

sort of intervene at other points?

But here is something that I think

that every person can take home as

a message since high blood pressure is

certainly one of the indicators that you are having preeclampsia. All right, so we've redefined what's considered high blood pressure. High blood pressure now is not 140 over 90.

It's 120 over 80. And if you go into a pregnancy

with hypertension already, your blood pressure really has to be aggressively managed because if

not, we know that that puts you

at higher risk for having preeclampsia.

So monitoring blood pressure is simple. Even when you go home from the

hospital, we can all get a blood pressure cuff, the electronic ones from cvs.

You need to monitor your blood pressure

after you go home, not just during the hospital. And if you have high blood pressure coming into a pregnancy, that needs to be aggressively managed, don't tolerate, oh, okay, well, my blood pressure is usually 110 over 60.

It's only 130 over 80 now.

No, that's high. And if anything, in pregnancy, sometimes your blood pressure will go down. In a normal pregnancy so if it's going up, that's red flag number one for you need to be monitored more carefully. You need to know what the escalating signs are. Oh, I have vision changes. That's a red flag. I have a headache. That won't go away. Red flag. I have swelling.

And not just swelling in your feet.

What we call worrisome swelling is that when you start to swell above the waist, your eyes are puffy, your face is puffy, your hands are puffy, all of that. Those are again, much more worrisome signs that we have to really be on it. And again, as long as you, the

patient, know what the signs and symptoms are such that if you have those things happening, you don't let someone tell

you when you call into a helpline or you call a doctor's office and

they say, well, oh, that's fine, just put your feet up.

No, that's an escalate moment.

And the more you know, the better

advocate you can be for yourself.

[Elise Ellis]

I'm glad you said that, because I do think that that is something. I mean, it definitely is something. When I had my kids, right? Like there was go, just put your feet up if there's a little swelling, right? Like, I think that's common advice that you're given. What does it look like to escalate? Like, if you've been in a practice with your ob GYN and the nursing staff and you call and say, hey, this is happening, and they give you that feedback, what does it look like to escalate?

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

Then you say, can I talk to my doctor? Can my doctor call me back?

Here's the problem.

Here's the logistical problem, is that it's

hard to get your doctor on the phone. The way we communicate now is very

different than the way we communicated when I was doing this 30 years ago. If a patient called, I call them back. Unless it was something extraordinarily simple. But the reality is, is that now

we got a lot of layers in between.

You're now maybe messaging through a portal,

and it's really hard to.

To get a full picture through a text message. You know how it is just how

it's hard to imply tone and severity

of something through text.

Sometimes you just need to have someone tell me if you're not concerned.

Please tell me why I shouldn't be concerned.

Then if it's not, maybe it's nothing.

That is a conversation that needs to be had. And like I said, don't be afraid to take it to the next level. If you are not getting the response or the.

The level of concern that you may have.

And I think that's. That's a simple thing that we don't do enough of.

[Elise Ellis]

More from our conversation after the break.

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[Elise Ellis]

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[Elise Ellis]

Doctor Malone, you mentioned that preeclampsia has not been studied as much kind of as it relates to pregnancy. And I feel like I heard a lot around preeclampsia, like, when I was giving birth. And I also know that there has been a lot of studies, it seems, like, around, like, diabetes. Right. Like, there are all these glucose tests you got to take and got to drink this stuff. And so it feels like there's a lot of energy around, like, certain things and like, early intervention and recognition, but not for preeclampsia. Do you have an understanding of why that is?

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

We don't really have a better understanding

of what causes preeclampsia now than we did years ago. You know, yeah, we know what to do about it when we get it.

But the evolution of medicine usually is

we have a better understanding. We have better medications, we come up

with new therapeutics for it.

There's nothing new in the preeclampsia world. Let me put you that way. And I think that we've just accepted that as a. Well, you know, that's a complication of pregnancy. What are you going to do? That's the attitude that we have about most things that affect women.

You know, it's like, well, you know, what are you going to do? Fibroids, cramps, whatever.

And we let that go.

But I think that it matters who's doing the research. It matters who's funding the research. Because you can have all the great ideas in the world, and if you're

a researcher and you can't get funding

for your study or a lot of the research that is done in this

country, we only have really two sources. You got nih, which has its own

issues, but then it's also the pharmaceutical

industry, because their impetus is really to. To get more therapeutics, not because they're concerned yet. I shouldn't say this, but I'm going to say it.

They're concerned about something else that.

A new drug that they can sell and make money on.

And sometimes the two can go together.

All right, well, yeah, we want somebody to find something new for this.

But this is why diversity is so

important, because it matters which questions are asked. It matters whether or not you're able to get engagement in a community. Because if you're going to do a study, you've got to be able to

recruit people who trust you, who believe

that this is something I'm contributing to medical knowledge, that kind of thing. And so it matters. Who asks you? But I have to say that one of the big problems is that we have low participation in clinical trials for. For a lot of things in the African American community. And that's just. That's across all studies.

But you would think the excuse for

why there's such low participation is because they say, well, black people don't like to participate in studies. And, oh, and it's Henrietta Lacks, and, oh, it's the Tuskegee experiment. Okay, well, no, the number one reason why black people don't participate in clinical trials is because they're not asked. You're not asked. And when you may qualify for a trial, you have to make the trial and the clinical trial accessible to that patient. If I've got to get in the car and drive to the University center, that's an hour and a half. Wait a minute. I got to come in and get blood and do all that kind of stuff.

You have to bring it to the

patients where the patients are, that you want to participate. So don't make it hard for them. So that's sort of been the standard excuse for why we tolerate low participation in clinical trials. But we know that when you have

the right people out there who are

recruiting, we do fine. There are a lot of people that haven't even heard of Tuskegee, so we can't blame Tuskegee. I think that the mistrust that comes from the medical profession is historic, just generally. And it has nothing to do with any particular trial. It has to do with how we have been treated in that medical interaction. And that goes for it. If you feel respected and seen and heard, you're far more likely to be receptive than if that has not been your experience.

[Elise Ellis]

Dr. Malone. You know, our audience is full of young women who may just be starting to think about if kids are a part of their picture. And we know that conversations often start like at the moment of you finding out your pregnancy. But we know it's important to think about, like, there's a lot leading up to even becoming pregnant that can impact, like, the health of the pregnancy and those kinds of things. What kinds of things should be on the radar for people thinking about having babies in the next five to 10 years?

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

Well, I don't think that it's a

stretch to say that your health coming

into a pregnancy is going to influence greatly how you do during that pregnancy. So the healthier you are, the lifestyle things that everybody should do, you know, exercise, eat right, manage your weight, all the things that people tell you to do, you should. Because here's the other alarming statistic about young women. We are having babies later, we used to think, and again, this was the conventional knowledge. When we get back to preeclampsia, we

thought, oh, preeclampsia, it's highest in young mothers, like teens, and it's higher in

older women sort of in their, you know, having their babies in their 30s and 40s. So those are the extremes.

But we thought that all the poor

outcomes were being driven because, say, two, three generations ago there was a higher rate of teen pregnancy. So the thought was, if we can

reduce the rate of teen pregnancy, we're going to reduce the preeclampsia.

We're going to reduce the rate of preterm births because preterm deliveries are also higher in African American community.

If we could just get this teen

pregnancy rates down because they were pretty high. So guess what? We got the teen pregnancy down and it's still not fixed.

Here's the rub. There's a constant, what should I say? Explanation for when outcomes are poor. And again, this is historically based on whenever black people do worse at any particular medical outcome, you try to find a reason for what black people are

doing wrong that's causing it. Because that's the notion.

Well, you brought this on yourself. If you had only. If you would only stop doing this, stop doing that, stop perming your hair,

stop in name any list of things.

Because if you blame the people rather

than the conditions that those people are in, you're off the hook for trying to figure out because you're like, you go fix that. So I say that to say that's an example about preeclampsia. We thought it was due to teen pregnancy, not because teen pregnancies is at its lowest point ever. But this is what we do know. There's a social scientist at the University of Michigan, Dr. Arlene Geronimus and she talks about this concept of weathering and that the experience of being a black person in America, just from the chronic stress, from the poor conditions, the things which we call the social determinants of health, where you live, whether or not you've got clean water and air, whether you have access to quality health care,

whether you have health insurance, all of

those things are societal issues, they're not personal failure issues. All of that to say, and we can't leave this conversation without talking about obesity in the African American community. Obesity is one of those things that, yes, it increases your risk of diabetes, it increases your risk of hypertension, which also, as I said, going into a pregnancy, increase your risk for having complications during that pregnancy. But we need to back it up because when we talk about why are African American more prone to be overweight or obese. And see, and again, that's a complicated issue.

We didn't used to be.

So it's not like we got new

genes in 50 years.

And it's funny, I talk about this in my book.

I said, look at some pictures of your grandparents. Just look at a view of the

march on Washington and you've got250,000 people out there and look at what a black person looked like in the 50s, in the 40s, versus what we look like now. What happened? Again, we didn't get new jeans. It's the food source.

You know, we've sort of gone from

making food in the house to fast food to more processed food, all of that. And when you couple that with making that food cheaper and more convenient than

the way your grandparents ate, then that's what people do.

That's not, that's not rocket science.

But it's also the notion that it's

not now just happening to black people. Everybody in America is overweight. The numbers have gone up tremendously. And so what happens, and I'm going to say I'm irate, I'm not going to sound like conspiracy theorists here, but

when everybody gained weight, then, now we've got solutions for it. You can be on a GLP1, you can do this, you can control your weight. All wonderful. Guess who can't get GLP1s if you don't have insurance, if you can't afford to pay out of pocket, if on and on and on. The interesting thing is as the therapies get better, sometimes the disparities will get worse. Because now all of these obesity related chronic illnesses that we know are improving on people who have access to GLP1s.

Well you can't afford it, or you can't get it, or it's denied by your insurance. Those are, again, policy issues. These aren't biological differences in how we are, but you have to recognize that

and you have to be willing to

do something about it because it's a much bigger issue than person, just your personal behavior. But that being said, we get back to before pregnancy, what can you do? Manage your weight, exercise, eat a healthy diet, start taking a multivitamin before you get pregnant. Those are things that are going to be important that will minimize your risks, not eliminate them, but it will certainly minimize it because you're still going to be walking around in a world that may stress you out from time to time, as we all are.

[Elise Ellis]

You mentioned that, you know, women are also having babies later, kind of historically, correctly. And we know that there's this thing called advanced maternal age. I think the age was 35, but I feel like. Was there some conversation recently around changing that and where do we stand with that and what does it mean to be advanced maternal age?

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

Well, advanced maternal age, because again, we're going to take race completely out of it. The maternal mortality rate does go up with age.

Okay, so an 18 year old has far less chance of dying as a result of pregnancy than a 42 year old does. Okay, just because a 42 year old

has lived longer, you're more likely to

have those chronic diseases that we talked about going into a pregnancy than someone who's younger. Okay, so there's that.

But this is how we live now. In my practice, I can count on one hand the number of patients that I had who were pregnant voluntarily at 20 or 19. We are doing things. We are busy.

We are going to graduate school, we're going to med school.

We're doing a lot of things and getting our careers and sometimes just being economically at a point. We get to choose when we have our children, which our grandparents did not. You had what you had, right? Well, and we're choosing, we're doing this later. And that's happening for everybody. And when you start late, this is

the double tax by being a black woman in the sense that, as I

told you, pregnancy complications go up with age for everybody.

Maternal mortality rates are higher in your 40s than there you are in their 20s.

Here's the problem with black women. We accumulate stress.

Our biologic age is older than we really are.

So if you're choosing to have a

baby in your 30, black women generally will have a biologic age that's much older than that. Because again, you're coming into it with more pre existing conditions. So that's why it's doubly problematic for

black women as they age.

And some of us are not getting pregnant until our 40s.

And. And that's why we say advanced maternal age, which we. Again, which was a.

Something that came up before it was. We were even talking about the. The racial disparity. It was because for women, the older you are, the more likely you are to have complications. And it was certainly an uncommon thing a couple of generations ago for someone to be having their first child at 35, 36, 40. That wasn't a thing by the time most women had had, you know, had started having their babies in their 20s.

And so when you start trying to

compare black women to majority population, just know that that biologic aging, that what's. It's also called an allostatic load, which is just the wear and tear on your body is higher. And that's why we do worse later ages.

But the ama.

Yeah, the advanced maternal age, we used to call it.

Thank goodness you would be surprised.

But back when I started, if someone

had their first baby at 35 years

old or older, they used to call them an elderly prima gravita, which means an elderly first pregnant. Okay. So we don't say that anymore. So advanced maternal age, believe it or not, is an upgrade from what we used to call them.

[Elise Ellis]

Yeah, I feel like geriatric pregnancy was like probably the middle term. I think that's what it was called when I had my second. Like a geriatric pregnancy. Yeah. So, you know, with the advances in medicine, we know that it is kind of biologically and physically possible for women to have babies later. But in your opinion, is there an age at which a woman should be concerned like, this might not be like the best decision? Like, is that a conversation? Like somebody thinking at a certain age, okay, I might be too old?

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

Well, let me say this, and I

say this as someone. My mother was almost 45 when I was born, okay. But I was not baby number one. I was baby number eight. And I'm sure she was appalled with the prospect. Like, what?

Because the next sibling to me was

seven years before I was born. So I don't think she was exactly saying, oh, eight's a good round number. I don't think that was her thought process. But lo and behold, I'm here and I was born at home.

And again, I was born at home by choice, not because it was just

baby number eight and she couldn't get to the hospital. We lived a block away from the hospital.

And I don't have my mother here to ask her, but you know how

sometimes you put together, you're like, well,

what could she have been thinking? Because my sister, who's seven years older than me, my mother had that baby

at the hospital, was the Mobile General

Hospital, the city hospital, and it was segregated.

She was born in 1953, so segregated, I'm sure it was awful.

And it was an experience that she did not wish to repeat.

So when she had me, I was born at home. I was delivered by a midwife. So that's why I said the personal experiences that you have drive your behavior and how you seek care or choose not to seek care.

But all right.

All that to say, all right. Can you have a successful pregnancy in your 40s? Yes, you can. And again.

But the healthier you are, the better you will do.

But remember, by the time you get

to your 40s, a lot of us

have accumulated a lot of other things which increase our risk.

And it can be done. And we had many patients in our practice. As I said, most of the patients

in our practice were in their 30s and mid, mid-30s, late-30s. Having children, it just requires a little bit more attention. Got to have a little bit more touch spots on women just to make sure that if they are venturing in any area that we should be concerned about, if you get high blood pressure,

you need to treat that high blood pressure.

You don't watch it. You don't say, go home and lay in the bed. No, you treat the high blood pressure aggressively.

If you develop type 2 diabetes, which

there is also a condition called gestational diabetes, which means you were not diabetic coming into the pregnancy, but now you've developed diabetes in pregnancy. Again, needs to be aggressively managed in getting those blood sugars down because you end up with babies that are too big. That increases your risk for C sections, all of that.

So it's just a matter of knowing

what the things are that you're looking for and being aggressive about managing them throughout the pregnancy. And yes, most people do just fine.

Because the one thing that I don't

want women to have is a fear.

Because I think that all of the

discussion about maternal mortality is good. We should have it. People should be aware. But I also want young women to know that it's still rare. It's still rare. The overwhelming majority of women who go in to have babies do fine. And that's another stress during a pregnancy that you probably don't need.

So you do the things that you're supposed to do, know what's supposed to be managed. But don't walk into that thinking that,

oh my God, they're going to kill

me, because this leads to some other

things which are problematic. And that is, I have no problems with midwives.

But if you were going to be

taken care of by a midwife, no problem. There are midwives who are affiliated with hospitals such that God forbid, should something go wrong, you're there, they can act on that. And another thing that as we're sort

of turning to midwifery and home births

and birthing centers, just know this.

If you have any sort of pre

existing condition, high blood pressure, diabetes or any other health problem, you don't even qualify to deliver in a birthing center.

So it is the lowest of the

low risk patients that can deliver that way. And home birth, let's just say I have three children, I wouldn't try it at home and I know what I'm doing. I like to know that if it doesn't go well, I don't have to call 91 1. I'm already there. But that's how I look at it.

You can be aware, but you don't

have to be fearful because I think that the feeling out of control is where the fear comes from.

But if you say, you look at

these things and you say, oh, I have high blood pressure, okay, I know that can be managed. I have these things that can be managed. Here's another thing that I think a lot of women don't realize that even

if you have, we call pregnancy induced

hypertension, which is like the first stage before you get to preeclampsia. That means your blood pressure just goes up during pregnancy. We treat that, hopefully to ward off preeclampsia.

If you have pregnancy induced diabetes, we

treat that, make sure that's done and managed well, even if those conditions resolve after pregnancy. Because usually we do say, monitor your blood pressure, make sure if your blood pressure goes back to normal after pregnancy, if your blood sugars go back to normal after pregnancy, it's not over.

Having had those things during pregnancy increases

your risk for getting hypertension or diabetes later in life. So you're not done.

You should always take that as a red flag to say, okay, now I know this is something I'm at risk

for and I need to manage this more aggressively. Don't act like I don't need to go to the doctor again or I'll see you in two years. You need to be monitored to make sure that those things don't happen because they do put you at risk. Another thing that puts you at risk for developing these cardiovascular issues is that

if you've had a low birth weight baby, you know, so you've gotten to term.

And our problem today is that babies are too big. They're not too small.

And if they're too small, then that

says something too about a vascular problem that you may be having. So again, these are people that need to be managed aggressively as you get outside the pregnancy, not just while you're pregnant, because this puts you at higher risk. And I think a lot of people don't realize that. And so they go on and realize that the next thing shouldn't be you're in heart failure or you've had a stroke or something like that. You just need to know again, knowledge is power and you know how to manage. Even when your doctor or whoever you're seeing, your nurse practitioner may not be suggesting these things. These are just things I want you to think about more from our conversation after the break.

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[Elise Ellis]

So another layer that has been added to this conversation around having babies later in life is that people are also having conversations around, like freezing eggs and ivf. When are you introducing conversations around? Like, maybe freezing your eggs is a good idea if you don't think maybe you want to have babies until later. Like, is that something we should be thinking about at around age 25? Like, when do we start thinking about that?

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

Okay, well, here's the rub. The younger you are, the better yield

you're going to get from your eggs.

But the younger you are when you freeze your eggs, the less likely you

are to need them.

Because the other part of it is

that we haven't been doing egg freezing for that long. There are a lot of eggs that

are still in the freezer because people

never came back for them because they didn't need them, you know, because I

would still say if you froze your eggs when you were 28 years old and now you're 36, I wouldn't say, go get your eggs, let's go unfreeze those.

I'd say try to get pregnant. And if you get pregnant once, you

get pregnant twice, you will never go

back for those eggs.

Okay, so that's one. The decision to freeze eggs or not freeze eggs. I would say I probably wouldn't freeze freeze eggs for somebody in their mid to early 20s. There's just too much life. And you don't want to wait and freeze them till you're 40 either, because now your fertility does go down with age. So I would say, sweet spot, if you were going to freeze eggs if you were 30 years old and you're saying, oh my God, I'm getting ready to start my residency or I'm getting ready to start graduate school or law

school, and I'm not going to be done. I know I don't want to have a baby until I'm 38. Let's just say then that might be

the time to consider it. But I think of freezing eggs the

same way I should. I think you should think of having fire insurance for your house or flood insurance. Well, let's say we don't live in a floodplain. Let's just say we just fire insurance.

Most people never need it, but if your house burns down, you need it. And how are you going to know

until you get to that point?

So it's a big expense. Each egg freezing costs maybe anywhere from about 15 to $20,000 because you have to go through the same process as if you were going through ivf and then they harvest the eggs. If you're younger, you're likely to get your number of eggs, maybe in one go. Sometimes you need to do two.

So now instead of 15 to 20

is 30 to $40,000. Then you gotta freeze them. Then you have to pay storage on those free frozen eggs for every year they're in storage. Maybe 500 to a thousand dollars a year for storage. So I say it adds up. There are some people that have this

as a benefit of their job. So a lot of tech companies are now offering this for young women.

If that's the case, wouldn't hurt. But here's the other thing. If you are 30 years old and

you're thinking about, oh my God, I got to do. I'm getting ready to do neurosurgery and I'M not going to be able to have a baby.

If you have a partner, it is far easier.

And we have more data and success with frozen embryos than frozen eggs.

So if you already know who your

partner is and you're gonna know gonna have a baby with this person, we have more of experience with that. You can come back and unfreeze those

embryos because remember, you freeze eggs, they still have to be fertilized.

So there's another step that has you got to unfreeze and fertilize all that kind of stuff.

So it's more complicated than you think. But I don't want anyone to leave

this conversation, think, well, oh, okay, I'm

just gonna go freeze my eggs and then I'll have a baby at 40 maybe. Because you still have all those other

steps to go through. And even the best places will say,

oh, we have a 40%, 50% pregnancy

rate, successful pregnancy, but that's a lot of conditions on that. 30 to 40%. You have to have frozen your eggs before age 38.

You have to have at least 20 eggs.

Okay? So if you only harvested five, then your chances are not in the high range. So this is why I said a

little bit of homework and understanding where the place is.

If you're going to a place where they're giving you cut rate, egg freezing and all this kind of stuff, do your homework. What is their success rate now?

What they tell you, they usually have

to report what their pregnancy success rate is on that. So again, long answer to a short question. It depends. It depends on what you can afford. It depends on where you are in life. And remember that at this point, when I wrote my book, I did a section on this in talking about perimenopause and when to freeze eggs. And at that time, I think less

than, less than 10% of the people who had frozen eggs, of the women

who had frozen eggs had actually come back for them. So just know that those numbers are based on a very small subset because again, and it's not because it necessarily didn't work, it's just that people didn't need them.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Right, Right.

[Elise Ellis]

You have framed a lot of this conversation around. It's important for us as patients to know this, but also really important for providers to know this so that it informs their practice.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

What kinds of tips or things can

[Elise Ellis]

you offer in terms of what it looks like to have like a healthy, trusting relationship with your provider and how can we better advocate for ourselves?

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

That is entirely why I wrote my

book, because I spent a lot of time in menopause world. I do a lot of menopause, I

do perimenopause because it's the same sort

of disparity issues that happen for black women in perimenopause and menopause. We have symptoms that start earlier, last

longer, they're more severe, and yet we are least likely to complain of those

issues and to go to our doctors because you think, oh well, that's just, you know, how it's supposed to be, or you don't recognize the symptoms as being menopause and we just sort of accept not feeling well for a decade or more.

So it's. That is having you understand. It's also the other piece of it

is trying to get doctors to understand because remember we got a generation of doctors that don't know how to treat menopause. They don't know how to do a lot of these things.

And, and here's the rub. All of the things that I want

you to do to kind of advocate for yourself and to explain to you what's changed in our medical relationships.

Now it's even more important that you

really advocate for yourself because it would be great to have a wonderful relationship

with a doctor where you can go in, they know you.

That's not likely to happen in today's world.

I practiced in one place for almost 30 years. I've been practicing in D.C. for 35 years. So one place generations.

I had patients, I took care of

their mothers, I've delivered your children.

I had a lot of context around who you are.

That's not going to be the lived

experience for most people entering medicine now. So it's hard to form a relationship if you enter in an insurance based practice because your doctor's got 15 minutes. I don't know your doctor's not likely

to stay in the same place.

They might. You might see somebody this time, somebody else the next time. So it's hard.

And I say that because now it changes the locus of power. Now the power is yours because nobody's

going to know you better than you. So this is why I said preparing

for a doctor's visit, having really clear

objectives about why you there.

Am I just there for.

Because I need a checkup and I need to make sure you know, these

things are done or am I there

because I have a problem? And these. And articulate very clearly what your problem is.

Because remember, you may have to explain this to three different people. So when you are clear before you

walk out of that doctor's office, this is sort of how I craft conversations. I said, look,

all right, you don't

leave there with it's nothing or you're fine.

Okay, if it's not fine, what do I escalate for? Or you say, if I'm not better

in X amount of time, when do I come back?

Don't ever just walk out with the

open ended, oh, it's nothing. Okay.

And then you walk out thinking it's nothing, but it's still going on and you still got that in your mind.

Well, my doctor said it was nothing, but your symptoms are still there.

You see what I mean? It's sort of being very intentional about the limited amount of time that you're

going to have with this person in front of you.

Now, good news and bad news. The good news is that AI is

going to be a big part of our interactions going forward because we don't have enough doctors and the doctors don't have enough time. That's the reality. You may live in an area where you may have access to different kind of doctors.

So AI can be a really important tool, but the AI is only going to be as good as the people

who create that large language model for

you if we continue. This is why I said I also,

in addition to trying to educate patients,

I want to educate doctors because I want them to understand what the limitations

were and our misconceptions and misperceptions about black people. And don't build that into your AI model.

If you take those things out, you take those. All the things that we take as

normal, like this is what I was told. Black women don't have menopausal symptoms as much as white women do.

Black women don't really get endometriosis.

Black women don't get a name, blah, blah, blah, whatever.

Those kind of things, just know that they aren't based on fact. Somebody just said it and it gets repeated over and over again. And regardless of the race of your doctor, we're all taught the same thing. And so this is a huge opportunity. If the people who are building these models moving forward, it can make doctors efficient. It can make patients be able to interact a little bit better. It'll make a lot of things more understandable for you.

But you've got to make sure that those models, and that's my job, is

to make sure that doctors are aware

so you don't recreate the same biases that we've lived with for the past 150 years.

[Elise Ellis]

You know, so much of what you've shared really is about, like, Listening to our bodies, knowing our symptoms, being very aware. But I think that there are a lot of people who really struggle feeling connected to their bodies, right? And like, like, don't necessarily trust what they're feeling. What would you say to someone who does have that disconnect about how to rebuild trust with their own bodies?

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

And I do talk about this in my book. We all know about our five senses.

Sight, hearing, taste, whatever.

You have another sense called interoception. And interoception. We all know what it is, even

if you don't know what to call it.

And that sense is knowing what your body feels like when you feel normal. I'm not aware of what's going on with my ankle.

I'm not aware of what's going on in my head.

You feel completely normal, balanced, walking around in your life. Let me tell you what happens when you are in pain, when you accept things. Pain is a very potent indicator that something is amiss somewhere.

You may not know what it is,

but what happens is, for so many of us, we accept not feeling normal as normal. So when you live with chronic pain, when you live with chronic fatigue, when you live with all of these things and you sort of. It dampens that sense of what you have. You don't even know what to complain of because you think that that's normal. And what I try to tell women is like, chronic pain is not normal. Being fatigued is not normal. If you can't get out of bed in the morning and you're moving around and you're slow and you're sluggish, not normal, not normal. So I think that too many of

us have ignored what our bodies are trying to tell us for too long. And so we really don't have a sense of when to go with this.

And that is what I'd say women do, and black women do times, too,

is that we live diminished lives in

terms of not feeling like ourselves.

And I can give you an example. I would see patients, I would say

to women, I was like, people accept cramps. Okay?

So cramps are one thing. Okay? Oh, yeah. Cramps, yeah.

I can take a Tylenol.

I'm Motrin, and I'm going on with my day.

If you're debilitated by cramps, if you can't leave your house because you are

bleeding so heavily that you can't be

more than 10ft away from a bathroom, not normal. Do you know how many people walk around like that every single month? And I always go and I look at them like, Girl, that is not. That's not normal. But we don't talk about it. See, normal is what's normal for you. And if you say, well, that's how my periods have always been, I'm like,

well, they shouldn't have been, or somebody.

We have things, we have a lot

of things that we can do to fix that.

Because if you are going along your day and you're bleeding 10 days out

of the month, or soaking through pads, or you can't travel during your period,

you eventually get anemic. I mean, anemic to sometimes needing the

point of a transfusion.

And I would see patients sometime and I'd say, so what? Because I get all in your business. I'll say, well, okay, you can't say, hi, period's fine, it's regular.

Well, we gonna get into that. And I'll say, well, how often and

how many times do you believe do you have any of these things? And then you get a blood count and their blood. They will be walking around every day with half their normal blood volume. Do you know what you feel like when you walk around with half your blood volume? You don't feel good. And people have felt this way for years. And I have had women, and let me just say this is not a. Oh, uneducated women.

I've had smart women who are out

there doing everything, you know, that they're supposed to be doing, going to work every day and come home and can't take their head off the pillow. This is what I'm talking about. Reconnect. Know what your body feels like when

you feel good and normal.

And that should be the goal that

we're all trying to get to.

Anything less than that, we need some answers and you need to bring it up and stop thinking that that's just the way you're supposed to feel. And particularly as we get older, because as we get older, we just think

that those are things that just part of, you know, well, you know, that's getting old. I see my mother and she's moving slow about the house.

We are trying to create a different path forward.

I don't want women to think that

just getting old, being 50, being 60,

is something that means that you're leading a diminished life.

I'm.

I don't, I don't mind telling me I'm 67 years old and I have a brother who's 90.

And I think of it this way. I was like, I'm gonna be the

best 67 year old I can be. I'm not 27.

I know that too.

But there is a standard that I want to be at, and this is where I want people to aim a little bit higher about how you want to age when we can't stop the clock. Nobody's trying to do that, but we

at least want to make the best

of how we navigate lives. And I think that as women, that's where we give up sometimes. And here's the other little misconception. I want black women from getting away from saying stuff like this, you know, because we like to say, oh, black women, Black don't crack. Okay, all right, well, it's cracking on the inside. You may not look a certain way, but trust me, you're aging faster than someone else and a different ethnicity because of the lives that you lead. And so you've got to really be intentional and take steps to make sure that you are constantly restoring that balance. And yes, it does involve some self care. It does involve so trying to figure out how to eliminate the stress in your life that you can control. Can't control all of it, but it's a lot of it that you can keep that mindset.

And if you go into aging that way, if you go into pregnancy that way, if you go into any phase

of your life where there's a major

change and you think of it that way and actually take the concrete steps,

because thinking about it is not enough. You actually got to do something.

But if you do it, then I think that we can feel better about aging.

It's not all decrepitude.

That'll get there soon enough, but not early.

[Elise Ellis]

So in addition to your book, Dr. Malone, you have your amazing podcast. Let us know where we can find all of the resources that you have created it for people, your website, and where we can stay connected with you on social media.

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

Yes, you can go to my website, Dr. Sharon malone.com and I have my

book Grown Woman Talk, which really is everything. It's like soup to nuts. What are the kinds of things that

you should prepare and know what is

coming if you plan to live beyond 40?

So it's all of that. It's not just perimenopause and menopause. It's like all the things that you need to do to how to show up, how to advocate for yourself and

even the things at the end, there will be things that may not be

relevant to you right now, but there are things that you can use for your parents. Because many of us, if you are so fortunate to have parents, you will end up being caregivers for those parents. So you need to know, again, not necessarily just how to advocate for yourself, but how to advocate for your parents as well. That's the book.

My podcast is called the Second Opinion.

As a matter of fact, we just finished, I think, the last episode of this season comes out today. And they've got, you know, lots of topics. You know, if anybody wants to, wants

to listen to any of them, you

can go to the Second Opinion. You can get them wherever you can get. YouTube, Spotify, Apple, podcast. And I do a lot of stuff about things in midlife, so I talk about that. And I am really at a crossroads right now because I'm trying to decide whether or not I'm going to retool the podcast and come back and I tell you what I want to do. And, you know, sometimes you're trying to find your voice and your footing.

And I really do want to do

something that is specifically for black women in the health and menopause and midlife phase, not just all menopause.

But I really would like to hear from your listeners and from other people just to tell me, what do you want to hear? Because like I said, if I'm, if I'm out here and I'm helpful, I'm all for it.

But if you're like, I don't need

to know that, then that's okay, too. But I am very interested in moving forward with what you and your listeners would like to hear and the kinds of things that, particularly in the health and the medical field that you feel

are not being addressed. And those are the kinds of things I want to talk about.

[Elise Ellis]

Is there a place for the community to offer you that feedback on your website or somewhere?

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

Yes, you can go to my website, Dr.sharon malone.com and you can put in comments and you can also just go, if you listen to the podcast, put in feedback. Tell me you liked it, you didn't like it. What do you want to see or hear more of? Absolutely. And I'm on Instagram. S. Malone MD on Instagram.

And you can leave me messages DM

me because I again, my point is I want to be helpful and useful.

[Elise Ellis]

Got it. We will be sure to include all of that in our show notes. Thank you so much for spending some time with us again today, Dr. Malone.

[Dr. Sharon Malone]

You are so welcome.

[Elise Ellis]

Thank you. I'm so glad Dr. Malone was able to join us again today to share her expertise, to learn more about her and to check out her work. Be sure to visit the show notes at therapy for black girls.com session549 and don't forget to text this episode to two of your girls right now and tell them to check it out. Did you know that you could leave us a voicemail with your questions and suggestions for the podcast? Drop us a message at Memo FM Therapy for Black Girls and let us know what's on your mind. We just might feature it on the podcast. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, visit our therapist [e-mail] directory don't forget to follow us over on Instagram at Therapy for Black Girls and join us in our Patreon community for exclusive updates, behind the scenes content and much more. You can join us at community.therapy for black girls.com this episode was produced by Elise Ellis, Inde Chubu and Tyree Rush. Editing was done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank y' all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon.

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[Elise Ellis]

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[Dr. Sharon Malone]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.