One of the first messages we get when we become pregnant is to focus on the baby, but often, that comes across as confusing, because we are trained to think of babies as both separate and unaware of their surroundings. Neither are true. It’s critical to understand that in the beginning, there really is no such thing as a baby. What I mean by that is, mother and baby are one. What’s best for a newborn baby is, happily, the same thing as what’s best for a newborn mama (because the mother is a newborn, too).The motherbaby is a dyad, and this “4th trimester” extends at least 6 weeks after birth - or the first 40 days in many cultures.