Today we’d like to introduce you to Melinda Delisle.
Hi Melinda, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
When I was young, I never would have thought that I would end up on a mission to prevent pregnancy complications. As a child, I went through a number of different phases of “things I wanted to be when I grew up,” including being a teacher, but the primary one beginning in 7th or 8th grade was a musician. I played the French horn and thought that I wanted to be a professional musician. By the end of my junior year of college, I realized that I was not cut out to be a performer. I finished my degree in French horn performance but switched to focusing on musicology (music history and theory) and began a master’s degree in musicology at UGA.
After a year of graduate school and working as a graduate assistant, I realized that I did not like musicology either. I had been introduced to natural (now called functional) health by Shawn, who is now my husband, and it had made a big difference in my health. This got me interested in possibly becoming a naturopath. So I took a couple of science and nutrition classes while they were still covered under my assistantship.
Transitioning from music to naturopathy was going to be challenging, especially without much money. Around that time, I also discovered that I was pregnant with our first son. As a result, I put my education on hold and worked for a temp agency. My “education” at this point amounted to taking a Bradley Method® childbirth class to support me in giving birth naturally, without medication.
A few months after our first baby was born, I got a postcard about Bradley Method® teacher training. I had never considered teaching childbirth education before but decided to take the training. I started teaching my first Bradley® class in 2000, shortly before our second son was born.
One of the things that had appealed to me about the Bradley Method® was their emphasis on nutrition and exercise. The way they emphasized the importance and benefits of these topics made me believe that the number of pregnancy complications among people who took the classes would be lower. The percentage of my students who had common pregnancy complications was lower than the average, but I thought that was still too much. I became frustrated and upset every time one of the mothers in my class experienced a complication. Mothers put on bedrest for threatened preterm labor. Women having really big babies that resulted in c-section births because they had trouble fitting through the pelvis. Super-long labors, or labors that never started. Babies are born weeks early when there were no other apparent problems. Women who had “morning sickness” for their entire pregnancies (hyperemesis). Women who developed pre-eclampsia even though they did “everything right.” I was driven to learn more about how to prevent these situations. I started reading whatever I could about prenatal nutrition, exercise, and pregnancy health – mostly research abstracts and articles – to learn more and brought that knowledge back to my classes. I developed a series of booklets that I used to supplement my class information and changed how I taught certain topics. This was the first iteration of Pocket Pregnancy® (now Confident Pregnancy™) Adding all of this information changed my classes enough that I eventually certified as a Lamaze® childbirth educator instead.
Adding the Pocket Pregnancy® guides and information to my classes had an amazing result. The impact I am most proud of was a drop in preterm births (babies being born too early) from 7.5% to less than 1%. It is only anecdotal evidence because I did not follow a good research methodology, but I believe it is encouraging. It is this shift that has kept me going and brought me back to working in prenatal health.
And then I paused. Due to family situations with our children and needing to help my husband’s growing company, I had to stop teaching classes. During this break from teaching, I continued to research and write more in the booklets, at least occasionally. I presented posters and 90-minute sessions at some Lamaze conferences. I self-published one of the Pocket Pregnancy® booklets on Kindle (now out of print because it needs updates) and developed plans to create an app. I taught some short childbirth series here and there, but my heart wasn’t in it – my passion was improving the health of mothers and babies. So I finally went back and completed my master’s degree in Human Nutrition, graduating in 2020.
Most of my focus during my “break” from pregnancy education was working with my husband’s company. Through that work, I learned everything I need to know about managing and growing an organization – internet marketing, website design, bookkeeping/financial management, technology management, payroll/employee management, and more. It was a big benefit to his business and helped me gain a lot of knowledge that I will be able to use to scale my business effectively.
I am thrilled to finally be really focused on helping improve health outcomes for pregnancy (and some other adults) as much as I can. Currently, I am finishing my supervision hours to earn my CNS (Certified Nutrition Specialist) certification. I’m working with individual clients and offer small group programs. I’m starting to work with Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Georgia on the nutrition portion of their free Pickles and Ice Cream classes. I advocate for mothers and babies with lawmakers at least occasionally. Also, I’m seeing the final stages of my Confident Pregnancy™ digital program come together, which is thrilling! I believe that it will revolutionize how we approach prenatal health care.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road has definitely had its challenges, such as digging out of debt and balancing family, my husband’s business, and building my own business. By far the most challenging, however has been my mental health. Yes – I want to talk about this still generally taboo topic. It impacts so many of us, and we need to bring it out of the shadows. By far, the biggest obstacle to getting my business going, building it into what I envision, and creating the impact on pregnancy complication rates that I believe is possible has been my own mental health.
Over the years, I have struggled with perfectionism, self-worth issues, high-functioning anxiety, and various levels of depression. There were even a few years where I periodically felt like giving up on life entirely. This had a major impact on every part of my life – relationships, family, fun, and especially building my business. If you don’t know what I mean, imagine trying to reach out to talk with doctors, midwives or potential clients when you feel worthless, or creating content when you are afraid of saying something wrong (which, by the way, is more or less guaranteed in health because there will always be someone who disagrees with you no matter how much research there is). Through a TON of trial and error and hard work, I have overcome most of that. But it still comes up here and there. I greatly appreciate the perspective that it gives me, though. I feel so much more prepared to support my clients who also have stress or mental health challenges because of my own experience. It has really helped me to be more supportive, encouraging, and accepting of wherever someone else is in their journey of life.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Confident Pregnancy™ helps pregnant people who experience pregnancy as a sea of confusion and are desperately seeking clarity or are afraid that they will be plagued by unpleasant pregnancy discomforts. Through group programs and 1-1 nutrition consulting and health coaching, we guide them in understanding their options and customizing their health approach to have the pregnancy and birth experience that is right for them – all while feeling more energetic and confident. No mommy-shaming on my watch! Pregnancy has become much riskier and more uncomfortable than it needs to be. Over 80% of pregnant people experience some kind of nausea and vomiting (morning sickness), almost 1 in 4 develop some kind of pregnancy-related mood disorder, and more than 1 in 10 babies in the US are born too early (the rate is even higher in Georgia!). Rates of gestational diabetes, preterm birth, pre-eclampsia, postpartum depression, and more are trending higher. What most people don’t realize is that there is a lot they can do to reduce their risk of complications and feel better during pregnancy overall. I use the acronym R.O.A.D.S. to describe the five essential elements of a healthy pregnancy: Relaxation, Options, Activity, Diet, and Support (though I have thought about changing the acronym to NERDS because I am such a nerd!).
I would have to say that what makes me different is that I combine insatiable curiosity and a lot of knowledge about how to improve pregnancy with compassion and unconditional support, and combine them with systems to help make the big, confusing world of pregnancy – and what to DO when pregnant! – understandable for the average person. The compassion is a really important piece. Many pregnancy resources feel like they are trying to make people afraid or tell them what to do. I want to support pregnant people in understanding their options and making choices that feel best for *them,* even if it disagrees with what other people think they should do. We each have our own journey, and making our own choices is one of the most important aspects of that.
The Confident Pregnancy™ approach has evolved from the generic tips in my original Pocket Pregnancy® booklets to focus on custom recommendations for each pregnancy. With one-on-one clients and small groups, I personally do the detective work of examining each person’s body signs, symptoms, and any available lab results to come up with targeted recommendations to improve their health. We then collaborate to create a personalized health plan that fits their lifestyle. Group or individual sessions provide support and help everyone see better results.
To make personalized recommendations available for more people at a lower cost, I am currently working on a system for making this customization process somewhat automated. This will be the core element of the Confident Pregnancy™ Program – a comprehensive, 3-month virtual program to guide pregnant parents through all parts of the ROADS and help them make the decisions that are right for them in their pregnancy. As I learn about new research, we will bring it into the program as quickly as possible, and program participants will have the option of helping with new research studies to measure the impact of healthy habits on pregnancy as well. My goal is to change the way prenatal care is done in the United States and dramatically reduce the overall rates of all pregnancy complications and discomforts. The Confident Pregnancy™ program is due to launch in late summer/early fall 2022.
Pregnant people wanting support for pregnancy discomforts can join my free Facebook Group, Dealing with Morning Sickness, Fatigue, & Other Pregnancy Complaints by going to https://confidentpregnancy.com/freegroup
Anyone interested in learning more about whether or not working with me in a group or individually would be a good fit can reach out to me to set up a time for a brief consultation.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Well, I am not all science and research-focused. I like to be active outdoors with hiking and kayaking and am into parts of geek culture as well. I really enjoy some fantasy series and like to play many types of board games. I mean games like Settlers of Catan, Codenames, and Blood on the Clocktower, not so much games like Monopoly, though that can be fun sometimes. I also enjoy cosplay. You may have even seen my husband and I in one of our cosplays at the DragonCon or Little 5 Points parades if you attended in the 5-6 years before CoVid, or at the Georgia Renaissance Festival in the last couple of years.
Contact Info:
- Email: askus@confidentpregnancy.com
- Website: https://confidentpregnancy.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melindadelisle/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PocketPregnancy
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/pocketpregnancy
- Other: Morning Sickness Facebook Group: https://confidentpregnancy.com/freegroup
Image Credits
Melinda Delisle and Pocket Pregnancy & Parenting, LLC, DBA Confident Pregnancy™
