The Binti Podcast
Puberty w/Dr. Safiyya Shabazz, MD
- Welcome to the Binti Podcast, where we discuss the journey of being a daughter. I'm G. - And I know me. And we look forward to going on this journey with you. Today's episode is puberty again. - Oh, puberty again. But today we have a guest. - Dr. Shabaz. - Dr. Shabaz, our guest today is Dr. Safiya Shabaz. She is a diplomat of the American Board of Family Medicine. She's a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. She got her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. She's done internships at Morehouse School of Medicine. If you haven't already picked up, she is a boss. And she also is the president of the Medical Society of Eastern Pennsylvania, which is the affiliate of the National Medical Association, which is the nation's oldest and largest association of black physicians. I feel like we should invite Dr. Shabaz to the conversation because what else can we say at this point? So Dr. Shabaz, welcome. Thank you for joining us. - Thank you so much for having me and for the invitation. - Aw, thank you for accepting the invitation. We know you're really busy. So we're gonna ask you a couple of questions so we can get a little bit more information about puberty. No need, do you have any questions? - Yes. So Dr. Shabaz. - Yes, ma'am. - How do you define puberty? - Well, puberty is a process of rapid maturation and development. It primarily is when your sexual development is matured. It has a range of ages when it usually starts. But the framework that I generally have on my mind is for girls, it usually starts with breast development and ends with or rounds off and with the menstrual period. So it's when your body becomes ready to reproduce. - So you say that it's when your body is ready to reproduce. Is that like the whole entire process? - No, that's not the whole entire process but that I guess will be the essence of it or the angle or the primary angle for your physical body. But there's also a lot of things that happen with the brain and I have honestly always found that to be the most fascinating part that your brain is undergoing rapid reconstruction during the time of puberty which presents a lot of opportunities and also a lot of challenges both as the person going through puberty and the parent, which is why we're here. So do you mind sharing with us some of those things that you find fascinating that are happening in the brain? - So there are like a lot of connections that are being pruned back. There are new connections being made. I remember reading once that the part of your brain that tells you you have it all figured out which works a little faster than the part that helps you figure it all out. So it's like as when you're going through puberty your brain is like, I got this, I got this but you don't only hear of it. And so that's where the challenge comes in as a parent where you like think about decisions that you might have made when you were going through that process where you really felt like you had it all thought out and then you look back like, oh my gosh, what was I thinking? But then being the parent of a person in the middle of that process was like, okay, I have to step in so that you don't like ruin your life but then I'll have to give you one, two, you know, practice being an adult and, you know, making important decisions and, you know, using all of those judgment skills, so. - Okay, so Dr. Shabaz, if you look back on your childhood and yourself as a young benti, but look back on your childhood with your physician eyes, what's something you would tell yourself or something you wish you knew? - For one, I mean, I wish that I guess like with my mother, you know, was much more like a authority and underling kind of rapport, which is important, but I think for that reason, there wasn't necessarily like the level of openness that I think I would have benefited from if there was like a little bit more like in between there and unfortunately for me, I never got the opportunity to experience my mother as an adult, like as me being an adult, my mother, I was only 17 when my mother passed away. She had leukemia and I think that, you know, the relatively brief time that I had a chance to experience being my father's daughter as I was coming into adulthood is so different than when you're a child and, you know, I guess I, yeah, I don't know. I guess I'm thinking back about knowing that that will be the only time that I had. I wish that I had more of a little piece of that same experience where it is not like the pure authority over like the one that is under her charge type of thing and have an experience of like, I mean, your children aren't your friends, but you know what I mean. - Yeah, yeah, but I think that's actually instructive for me at least as a mama to really think about this period because in some cases, you want to become more of an authority during this period because there is so much fluctuation, but to think if we could maximize the possibility in this time, what would we do as mamas? And I think that's really instructive because if she transitioned at 17, you were still in puberty really. I mean, you were still going through those transitions. So when you talk about puberty with your patients, what do you tell them? - You know, a lot of what I focus on is really trying to facilitate the parent taking the lead role because, and maybe that's part of like for me, I didn't really get a lot of conversation about that at home. And you know, frankly, like my family wasn't, I don't know, I don't remember going to the doctor that much. So I don't even know if I'm with the doctor during that time. I don't honestly don't remember going to the doctor very much at all. - But I think it's really important for the parent to be like the place that a binti would look first, to go for information about puberty, about her body. I think sometimes there's references that are really helpful. Like books, they're two of my colleagues, physician colleagues wrote some really helpful books. This has got to growing up. And then there is, I was just looking 'cause there's another doctor, Fatu Forna. And she has designed these like puberty parties for girls, which is like a really cool idea and sort of, I guess like taking the shame away from it 'cause you know, there are certain aspects that can be embarrassing for a girl. And you know, now you're hearing more conversation about period poverty and things like that where you have some girls that don't even have like just the supplies that you might need in order to comfortably experience having a menstrual cycle and for it to be something that is like so much secrecy and embarrassment around it. I think that it's helpful to kind of take that away. - Wow, what's period poverty? - So that is a term that I'm only recently becoming familiar with there was recently a drive for you know, menstrual cycle supplies. So like sanitary napkins and tampons and things like that because they can be pretty expensive. And there are, you know, people having a menstrual period that don't even don't have those basic supplies so that they can go about their day in a way that's comfortable. The supplies, the sanitary napkins or others, supplies you might use can be quite expensive. And so that's an example of period poverty where you don't even have the extra money to get those supplies. - Well, Dr. Shabaz, we have two more questions for you and I'm gonna let Noni ask anything you're thinking of. You have a doctor on call. So what do you want to ask Dr. Shabaz? - How is P-Ray for you? - For me, it was, there was so much going on in my life. There's school is like their major activity and I really feel like I kind of figured it out a lot myself. I think I've always been a reader. So, you know, like I think that's one thing my mom like provided me with lots of information. It was like pretty medical. - Shaka Shabaz, you became a doctor. - Exactly, like this big fat book. And, you know, I always would do that. Like my family was a kind of, it's psychopedias, like the world book. Like we had like three different psychopedias sets. And I remember we used to just, I used to read them, like the especially children's one 'cause it had lots of pictures and things like that, where I think I had a pretty good understanding of what was going on, but just the practical aspects of it. In some ways, I was, I did have a lot of stuff figured out, but then the part you don't have figured out. I can mainly see in retrospect. So like, yeah, I was pretty smart. As far as schooling and things like that, I was only 16 when I went to college. So like, hey, I'm like figuring out. Life out, I really thought I had it all figured out. (laughing) But, you know, I had school figured out, but I didn't have life figured out. (laughing) And, so, yeah. - That was deep. - Yeah. - That was strong, you know? And I'm still figuring life out. - Of course, I think we all are. - I think that you and Nia's children are sure of the same. My family also has like a lot and a lot of books. And sometimes I'll just like find the book and then just start for you and get, you know? - I love that. - Even if I don't think I was opposed to I, I'll just find some book. - It's true, I had to start hiding books because I realized she's going to find them and reading, they're like, oh, that's not exactly age appropriate, like, right? Or like my mom would get on me like, it was a form of laziness to me. Like, if you don't clean this up, (laughing) does that sound familiar? - Yeah. - Something that I always thought was pretty interesting about puberty and about girls in particular because I think sometimes we don't think about just how connected, like the generations are. And we think about how when you're born, right? As a girl, like you have all of your reproductive or your potential progeny or children, they're already like there and reserved. Like all of the eggs you will ever have are already waiting and suspended animation for this process of puberty to start. And then, you know, for it to one by one or set by set, you know, as you, obviously, like this is something that is like potential that's been stirred up that had a lot to do with your mother's health and the fuck she thought and the food she ate and that became you, but then, you know, so it's like we're always reaching back a couple of generations in terms of like who we are, even now as, you know, a someone who's only in the single digits, right, of development. Like your bloodline is still like connected to you. It's like there and the things that you're doing now are part of that if you decide to, you know, continue your bloodline. And I find that really fascinating 'cause I don't think we think about that a lot. Like, yeah, no, it's all there now. And in fact, it's been there since before you were born. And yeah. - Wow. That's fascinating. - Yeah, that's so cool, so like, my mom was inside of my grandmother when she was still inside of her mom's womb and then same for me. And then my children were inside of me when I was born. And now. - Yup. - And inside of you when you were still inside. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So you were inside of Grandmami. - Yeah, essentially. Because when I was born, when I was in her, I already had all of my eggs. - Yeah. - Is that correct? Dr. Shabak? - Exactly, yeah. - I mean, that is fascinating. - It really is. And I don't know if you're like a religious person, but I know that I'm a Muslim in the Holy Quran when it kind of is talking about the story of Esau or Jesus, peace be upon him. It's like, like the story of Jesus begins with his grandmother, you know? - Wow. - This woman of Amran. And you know, she was a special person. And so then when she had a girl, it's like, look, this, I had a girl. Like, that's not how society was set up. Like, I had a girl. This isn't gonna be like the one, but it took a couple of generations to prepare the one. So, yeah. - Dr. Shabak is laying it down on the Vincey pie. - Why was not the girl the one? - She was the vessel that the one was going to come through. So, I think their society at the time was more male dominated. So what would be strange, you know? Like, if she's receiving guidance that she is going to give birth to a very special or important child, you might all, you might think that's gonna be a male child, but no, it was that child's mother. - That's so cool 'cause it's like, it's like technically Jesus' mom was the one. - Yes. - Because, yeah. - She brought forth the one. - Yeah. And, you know, when the grandmother, when his mother was born, he was there somewhere in a way. - Wow, Dr. Shabak. See, we had no idea where this was going, but it went to a beautiful place. And shout out to Dr. Shabak, you're just so kind. - Well, thank you. And I wanna make sure you know. I'm really proud of you. I think you need more knownies in the world. - Oh my, I love what you guys are doing. (laughing) - Dr. Shabak, I just have one last question. If you have any information about, if you know anything about any research that is specific to benty bodies, right? And in this context, I'm thinking more along the lines of black girls. Is there any research that says that black girls are experiencing puberty differently or in unique ways? - Yes. And that's part of what I was alluding to in terms of like our overall health, because we know that there is a shift, population-wide, probably especially in America, where puberty is shifting younger and we especially see that in black girls. And some of it is, you know, could be explained as simply as like nutritional factors and the fact that, you know, many of us are carrying more weight than what's healthy for our body. And it's hormoneally active, you know, that tissue produces estrogen, which could explain it. But I think, I don't think we're as aware as we should be about other environmental exposures that can be playing a role, whether that's stress or BPA or other toxins in the food supply that we're exposed to, where I think these are important questions that we need to be asking about and researching and, you know, maybe finding subgroups of people who, you know, maybe have different amounts of those exposures and comparing and seeing is there something there so we can all pay more attention to it. - Thank you so much for that. One of the things we wanna do on the podcast is think through some of those things with our guests and even doing our own research. So that's helpful just to think about what some of the differences are. They don't necessarily have to be bad or good, but they don't necessarily know that information. - And I personally believe, I said this before, that like, mostly everything starts with the environment. And I feel like you have a good environment, you have good and healthy people and you have good attitudes 'cause it's just like, you're happier when the world's happier 'cause you're living inside of the world. And when you're living inside of it's not happy, it just makes you not happy. - Yeah. - Well, there's the mic drop for the show. (laughing) Dr. Shabaz is driving the mic, knowing that he's dropping the mic. And I'm just here to facilitate this conversation. - I love it. - Dr. Shabaz, thank you so much. How can people get in touch with you if you want people to get in touch with you? If not, that's okay. - Well, my website is Fountamet online.com. And I'm not that social media active, but you can find me at Dr. Sophia on Instagram, S-A-F-I-Y-Y-A. I always say one F-2-Y is no H. (laughing) That's probably the best way to find me. I think I'm the only Dr. Shabaz in Pennsylvania, I think. - Okay, that's perfect. Well, I'm G. - I'm Noni. - I'm Dr. Shabaz. - And this is the Vinty Podcast.