Nodejs self signed certificate error postgres

1

I have a POSTGRES and web service (using nodejs, express, and pg) instance hosted on Render. I have a db pool set up on my web service:

const pool = new Pool({
    user: process.env.DB_USER,
    password: process.env.DB_PASSWORD,
    host: process.env.DB_HOST,
    port: process.env.DB_PORT || 5432,
    database: process.env.DB_NAME,
    ssl: true
})

When I run the nodejs app locally, I am able to hit my dev postgres instance successfully. However, when I deploy me web service to dev and use the dev webservice url it starts failing.
This is an example health check error that I get:

Health check failed: Error: self-signed certificate
    at /opt/render/project/src/node_modules/pg-pool/index.js:45:11
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:105:5)
    at async file:///opt/render/project/src/routes/index.js:15:24 {
  code: 'DEPTH_ZERO_SELF_SIGNED_CERT'

Now, when I remove ssl:true from the pool creation, dev works but local stops working. Any ideas of why this is happening? Also, after looking at other forum posts I do want to clarify that I am using the external credentials for my local envs and the internal credentials for my dev envs