Community Partner Spotlight: Mal Brown, Mom Strong OT
Mal Brown is a mom of three, occupational therapist, and owner of Mom Strong OT. Through her business, which is based in Catonsville, Maryland, she supports moms in their healing and recovery after c-section. Mal also hosts the Catonsville motherhood support circle of After Baby Club. This article was written by Mal and edited and formatted by the Rooted Willow Community team.
Rewriting What it Means to Be a Working Mom
Before having children, I thought I would be working at my pediatric OT job for the rest of my career.
But after having my first child, I started to think differently. Working 9-5, Monday through Friday didn’t give me enough time to spend at home with my baby. Then I had a second baby. I really wanted to go down to working three days a week, but financially our household needed me to have a full-time income. Then came my third baby. That’s when I took a hard look at my life – and societal norms in general.
My third little man was not the easiest of babies, and returning to work after only 12 short weeks was just not doable. I wanted to be home with my children. I knew that after a full day at work, I’d be exhausted from giving my time, energy, and patience to other kiddos. What I really craved was time to be present with my own. Because – let’s face it – at work we are expendable, and at home we are absolutely irreplaceable.
No mom should have to return to work that early unless it is her choice. We, as mothers, are the most integral part of our baby’s life in the first year. That doesn’t mean that dads aren’t important. But we mothers were literally connected to our babies for the past 9 months. We have a deep connection to that baby that no one else has. Plus, mothers are more often the ones up at night with the baby. It doesn’t help that many babies experience the 4-month sleep progression right around the time that most moms’ maternity leave is ending.
The typical 9-5 job was clearly not created for women.
We need different options through different seasons of our lives. Mothers should have the ability to contribute a significant income to our family while also having the time to care for our children, spend quality time being present, and enjoying each season of life and motherhood. Ultimately, having options for change and flexibility are integral when it comes to sustainable ways to work, especially for moms.
The way I see it, our work life and home life are deeply intertwined and do not exist in silos. As mothers we absolutely cannot and should not separate the two. Once I made these realizations, it became clear that I needed to make some changes to the way I interfaced with work.
My private coaching practice, Mom Strong OT, was founded to fulfill my need and desire to spend more quality time at home with my children.
Operating my own business while also parenting small children is very hard work. But I have a vision of the way I know my life can be, and that’s why I do this. In my vision, I am able to be home and spend quality time with my children through every season of life. I get to see them taking their first steps and scoring their first goal in soccer. I have and space to simply enjoy a beautiful sunny day, to get outside and soak up the warm sunshine.
Burnout in the healthcare industry is so real. Working 40+ hours per week in a caregiving profession takes a lot of you and doesn’t leave much time to replenish. If I’m going to be the best version of myself, I need to show up for them in my full capacity. I can only do that if I’m able to fill my own cup first. Mom Strong OT — specifically, working for myself — allows me to balance my own needs and my clients’ needs.
A Passion for Supporting C-Section Moms
I had always envisioned having a natural birth.
My first baby, however, was breech. Hearing the news that I would need a c-section was devastating, and my OB wasn’t able to validate the grief and disappointment I felt. At the time, I didn’t have much knowledge about birth or postpartum. I simply placed all of my trust in my OBs. There was little education provided to me about how to care for my baby while simultaneously recovering from major abdominal surgery. There was particularly little guidance in regard to returning to exercise, which had previously been a huge part of my life. I believe my care team truly wanted good outcomes for my baby and I, but the experience left me feeling let down and under-supported.
Our modern medical system views a c-section as just another surgery. Currently in the United States, 1 in 3 babies are born via c-section, and the care these moms receive postpartum is subpar at best. A c-section is a major abdominal surgery that cuts through seven layers of tissue. Most often, moms leave the hospital with nothing more than a long list of “don’ts” and a teeny, tiny human who needs care around the clock.
With any other major surgery, the patient would be told to go home and rest. They would be given a prescription for rehabilitation.
Sadly, this is not the case for surgery patients whose surgery happens to have also included a birth. Moms typically have only one follow-up appointment around 6 weeks post-op. This time period is just about when the incision site has healed…and most often, they are “cleared” to return to previous activity, no questions asked. Six weeks is not nearly enough time for the underlying tissues to heal and regain their strength. Nor is it enough for the mother’s body to heal overall after growing and carrying a baby for nine months.
I don’t want other moms to experience the lack of support like I did. We deserve better. Through Mom Strong OT, I am bridging the gap between the support provided by maternity care providers and the needs of a new mom, when it comes to physically healing from her c-section. Specifically, I provide guidance to those moms who want to get back to moving and exercising at higher levels of intensity in a way that protects their body. My introductory program, Thrive After C-Section: Get Back to Exercise, is designed to help moms in their late 20s to early 30s who have had a c-section in the last 9 months safely and confidently return to higher level sports and exercise.
A Thriving Family Begins with a Thriving Mother
I'd wanted to be a mother all my life.
However, before having children I believed that motherhood was essentially martyrdom. That’s not what I would have termed it at the time, but now that definition seems fitting. I believed you lived and breathed for your children. Your whole world revolved around your children and their needs, and their needs came before anyone else’s. Especially your own. I believed this because it’s what was modeled to me as a child. Even though I had (and still have!) the most loving and caring mother, I realized that she overworked herself caring for my brother and I. She lost herself.
It has taken me having three children to realize that I lost myself in motherhood as well. I realize now that in order for our families to thrive, we need to thrive. We need to take time to care for ourselves. We need to engage in things that fill our cups. Rediscover ourselves. Forge new identities in the context of our new roles as mothers. And THIS is precisely why I left my old job to focus on building a business around moms. I know in my heart that when we are happy, healthy, and thriving our families are, too.
It was my experience birthing via c-section that ultimately led me to entrepreneurship.
I struggled to accept my c-section birth and held a great deal of regret and anger surrounding it. I held on to that trauma for a long time. But, through engaging in work to address the trauma, I realized that I could be grateful that my baby was born safely AND be disappointed with my birth story at the same time. It was a difficult healing process, but accepting that it happened and overcoming those feelings allowed me to move forward into change. My experience motivated me to create Mom Strong OT to provide better care and guidance to postpartum moms. Being able to serve other moms in ways that I missed myself is deeply healing.
My advice to my pre-child self: you are enough.
Take care of yourself. Treat yourself with the grace and compassion that you bestow upon others. And remember – change is growth.
