August 31, 2024 • 38 mins
HeHe, the founder of Tranquility by HeHe and the Birth Lounge, shares her journey into the birth advocacy space and the importance of informed and confident birth experiences. She emphasizes the need for physical and mental preparation, understanding the benefits and risks of interventions, and practicing grounding techniques. HeHe encourages women to have a birth plan that allows for flexibility and to advocate for their goals in the birth room. She recommends resources such as books, documentaries, and online platforms that provide education and support for navigating the birth process.
CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction and Background of HeHe 04:08 Preparing for a Confident and Informed Birth 06:46 Navigating Interventions: Benefits and Risks 11:30 Flexibility in Birth Planning 15:28 Advocating for Your Birth Goals 21:03 40 Weeks and Placental Health 24:19 Creating a Birth Plan and Being Prepared for Birth Pivots 30:49 Mental Preparation and Accepting Different Birth Outcomes 37:01 Recommended Resources for Birth Education and Support
RESOURCES Labor Progress Handbook Book Quote - “Movement is not only a comfort measure, but also a tool to enhance labor progress by using gravity and changing pelvic dimensions to facilitate the baby’s descent.” Dr. Christopher's Birth Prep Pink Stork Labor Prep Born in the USA Catching Babies Why Not Home
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
It's the Best Birth Podcast, wherewe interview experts that elevate
you as you prepare your heartand mind to have the best birth.
Each episode will interviewprofessionals so you are prepared
for pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.
Our experts will build your confidenceand empower you to trust your
intuition throughout your pregnancy.
This audio is takenfrom videos on YouTube.
(00:27):
Watch the entire episodes onYouTube at Birth Made Mindful.
00:01]
Welcome to the Best Birth Podcast.
We are here to help moms anddads and everyone in between
prepare to have the best birth.
Our first guest on this episode isHehe, the founder of Tranquility
by Hehe and the Birth Lounge.
(00:47):
We're so excited for today's conversationand want to welcome Hehe to the show.
Thank you for being here Hehe.
Hehe has, yes, so good.
HeHe [00:24]
Thanks for having me.
The Best Birth [00:27]
Hehe has a master's degree in humandevelopment and family studies and 10
years in the family life education field.
Hehe helps women prepare for childbirthwith research -backed education and
(01:08):
expert support to have a confident birthexperience while feeling informed and in
control of labor without fear or coercion.
She is a pro with preparing forpostpartum, helping you master
feeding your tiny human andunderstanding newborn sleep.
She and her team serve pregnantpeople and their families across
the U S and internationally withprenatal birth and postpartum care.
(01:33):
which has over 150 ,000listeners in over 28 countries.
The show features leading expertsin pregnancy, women's health
and childhood development.
So parents can understand how tohave an informed and confident birth.
Welcome, Hehe.
We are so excited to talk to you.
HeHe [01:23]
Hi, thanks for having me you guys.
This is so fun.
The Best Birth [01:28]
(01:54):
We are absolutely thrilled thatyou're joining our show today.
And we want to first kind of just ask,how did you get into this space of being
the birth cheerleader and champion?
HeHe [01:43]
I love that.
I absolutely am your cheerleader whenit's time for you to have a baby.
(02:15):
So my career started out inearly childhood education.
Before that, I did advocacy workwithin the public school system.
So I came to do a little work, actuallynot really expecting it to be a
career change, but I thought I mightlike attend births here and there.
I took a weekend trainingand I realized that...
(02:39):
A, this was for me, and B, theweekend training just didn't suffice.
It was kind of shallow and I felt like,wow, I have this master's degree in
human development and family studies.
I have worked in advocacy work inhelping parents navigate a system.
It was a school system, not thehospital system, but a system.
And I also had that really deepknowledge of infant development,
(03:02):
family dynamics, the family unit.
And I thought, OMG, what if?
I could combine all of these thingsand create this concierge practice
where parents, it's a one -stop shop.
And gosh, that just got the ballrolling because then I started to find
out about all of the injustices andabuse that happens in the hospital.
(03:27):
I started to learn more abouthorizontal workplace violence in
the hospital system and how thatimpacts patient care and outcomes.
I started to learn.
about obstetrical violence fromphysician and nurses down to patients.
There was so much to unpack theirhospital policies, legislation,
politics of the hospital system.
(03:50):
And I just was like, holycow, this is so much.
I think this is like my calling.
And so here we are.
That was eight years ago nowand it truly has been a calling.
And I wake up every single day jazzed outof my mind to be able to do this work.
And that doesn't meanI don't have hard days.
Some days really suck.
You see kind of terrible things inthe hospital sometimes and people can
(04:13):
be really nasty in the birth space.
But it does mean that eventhough you have hard days,
I know that it's worth it because of thestories that women come and tell me about
how much our resources helped change theirbirth and truly give them back control
in a system that was kind of designedto take that control away from women.
(04:33):
The Best Birth [04:08]
Well, and thank you forfollowing your calling.
Your work really has transformedthe conversations that people are
having about their options andhow they can have the best birth.
So I want to know just kind of fromthe start, what would you say is
like the number one thing that awoman can do as she is preparing
(04:53):
her body and as she's pregnant sothat she has a really good birth?
HeHe [04:18]
Yeah.
Yeah, so specificallyphysical preparation.
Cool.
So I think two things come to mind.
Understanding that your brain, yourmind will give out way quicker than
your body in labor is huge, right?
(05:16):
So your body was designed for this.
That doesn't mean that we don'tever need medical intervention
or that your body, all bodieseverywhere always will have a...
perfect baby, that's not what that means.
That means that for the most part,women's bodies are designed to give
birth and so for a lot of births, it'sjust a natural event that sometimes
(05:37):
needs some medical intervention.
In the Western world, in the US, wesee us treat it more like a medical
event that sometimes happens naturallyand that's really backwards and we
can see that play out in the stats.
So understanding to prep your mind.
You should be prepping.
for one minute increments.
You should be prepping yourbody for one minute, 60 seconds,
(06:00):
and 90 second increments.
Doing physical exerciseduring pregnancy as well.
So look up what ACOG recommends forphysical exercise compared to what
you're currently doing and thenget on a plan either before or when
you get pregnant to physically prepfor the endurance piece, right?
Okay, and then, wellthose are the two things.
(06:20):
So,
physically prepare your mind tounderstand I can outlast my body, right?
My body is meant for this andthen you want to be preparing that
body piece for those contractions.
And then now that I'm sayingthis, I have a third thing too.
You want to be practicinggrounding yourself.
So a lot of times laborcan bring on tension.
(06:44):
It can be mental, but wejust talked about kind of...
diving into that and these are allvery shallow guys there's so many
layers to preparing for a baby butthese are just kind of the things
that instantly dumped into my head
The Best Birth [06:28]
let's jump into theseinterventions a little bit.
How can we use interventions tosupport us rather than just the black
and white answer of the standard?
HeHe [06:38]
(07:05):
Sure, so you know, we want to lookat the benefits of routine care.
In a lot of cases, it's notbeneficial for every person.
And so when it comes to routinestandardized care, you really want to
think about, is it individualized to me?
So you may have preferencesaround IVs, right?
(07:28):
You may want to go in, you havean intense fear of needles.
You do not believe that the benefitsof having a preemptively placed IV
outweigh the risk that you may encounter.
They don't outweigh the anxiety.
They don't outweigh thepain and discomfort.
They don't outweigh the disruptions toyour labor that all of that may cause you.
(07:49):
And so you're choosing to have no IV.
On the, you know, opposite end of thatspectrum, someone may choose to utilize
that because the fear of that risk of
Possibly experiencing a postpartumhemorrhage and then kind of on that
time clock that is an emergency So wewant to get things done fast that may
(08:11):
outweigh the risks for them And so forthem getting that IV is the right choice
You want to think about this in everysingle thing when it comes to birth
choices very few times Does it boil downto right and wrong and very few times
is it black and white like that and justvery uber clear for the most part it is
Here are the different options.
(08:32):
With each of those options, here'swhat you're gonna gain, here's your
benefits, here's what we might be risking.
And then also, if you don't likethat, here's an alternative.
And then you wanna think, whereon that spectrum do I fall?
So let's talk aboutepidurals really quick.
Utilizing them.
If you know you really kind of havea preference for unmedicated birth,
(08:57):
but you're open to an epidural,
If you get to a place where you needit, what we teach in Tranquility
by He HeHe and Inside the BirthLounge is that just knowing that
you're open to it is not enough.
You need to have clearly definedboundaries about what is a situation
that you would be okay with it.
I am okay with discussing anepidural if I've labored for four
(09:21):
days and not made any progress.
I'm in prodromal labor.
It comes, it goes, it stops, it is...
The Best Birth [08:42]
Mmm.
HeHe [09:01]
and I can't get any sleep and it'sdisrupting our home, I'm open to that.
I'm open to an epidural if myblood pressure gets to a certain
point and me and my baby become,you know, become, we're in danger.
(09:43):
That's another way thatyou can utilize it.
I am open to an epidural if I beginto be fearful of my contractions and
it's preventing me from being ableto relax or release and therefore
we're running into a problem thatmay present as a stalled labor or...
some sort of like swollen cervix orjust you're dilating but very very very
(10:05):
slowly and you check in with yourselfand go you know what I'm actually pretty
scared of active labor I think I'm justI think I'm too freaked out to like to
relax I think I might need an epiduraland then you make that decision from
there we should be having conversationswith your endocesiologist about what
your expectations for your epidural are.
(10:27):
is right so I would still like to havea lot of mobility so I'm really hoping
to have a very specific placementthat isn't going to numb me up too
much and I would like to start ata really low dose I understand you
can add boluses that would be like
one shot of medication and I alsounderstand I have my PCA, a patient
(10:48):
controlled administration buttonand so it comes in this little
handle that almost looks like aJeopardy button and you can press the
button and you can self administermedication through your epidural.
A lot of people do not know this.
On the flip side of that,
we can numb ourselves up way too muchto be able to feel where our baby is,
(11:08):
it might stall labor, it might createa really long period of pushing, but
gosh, I rambled there, but I feellike that was a really good example
of how you can utilize these tools indifferent scenarios, but knowing you're
open to an epidural is not enough.
You have to know when and how toutilize them, and you have to know
where you fall on the spectrum ofeach, or the system will literally
(11:32):
gobble you up, and that's...
That's the truth.
The Best Birth [11:09]
And if I think about all ofthese interventions, like an
all you can eat buffet, right?
Do I want to go down that lineand take every single one of them?
Or do I want to utilize what works for me?
And just like you said, accordingto my values and how I'm performing,
how my baby is handling thecontractions or handling the pitocin.
(11:55):
And so it's amazing to hear from you,all of this education that can really
empower us as, birthing women to.
make the right choicesin the right moment.
It came to me, your thirdpoint, it was being grounded.
And I, right.
And so that just goes right along withwhat we were talking about is once
(12:16):
you are grounded, you do know yourdesires, you do know your intuition
and how can you get back to thatgrounded space in those moments?
HeHe [11:44]
That is right!
Okay, I, yes, so here was my point onthat is as women, we typically hold
a lot of, if you are kind of likean anxious lady and you have a lot
of tension, I fall in that category,so I'm kind of talking about myself.
(12:39):
We probably hold, women tend tohold a lot of their anxiety in their
pelvic floor, right, in your hips,in your lower back, in your uterus.
We want to be able to relax ourbody and trust in the process.
Social media has this really, reallynasty way of not only polarizing birth,
but really highlighting the terrible,awful, horrible things that happen.
(13:01):
social media does that about everytopic, but in particular, in birth,
it's very sinister because it reallydoes set women up for being really
fearful of birth and not trustingtheir bodies and believing that birth
always goes badly, not recognizingthat most of the time, if left alone,
birth will do its thing and itwill work out good positively
(13:26):
for the most part if left alone.
So yes, being grounded is super important.
That's not going to come natural to alot of people so you have to practice it.
It kind of goes back to thatfirst point of mindfulness.
You have to be able to shut your mindoff so that your body can take over
and that really means being safe withthe people that are in your room.
(13:48):
Being safe with your partner, knowingthat they're going to take care of
you and they're going to protect you.
Being safe in the thoughts andthe education and the confidence
and the information that you haveinside yourself so that you can
truly navigate these conversations.
That safety in your birth spaceis a lot under your control.
Sometimes there are factors thatwe can't control, but in many cases
(14:08):
we could always swap those out.
So if you have a provider that doesn'tmake you feel safe, they're bullying
you, they are dismissing you, they are...
wave it in your face the number ofyears that they've been a physician.
That is not safe behavior.
That is not behavior that tells me, hey,this provider trusts this woman, this
provider trusts the birth process, thisprovider is going to trust that everything
(14:31):
is going well until this body or thisbaby tells us that we should intervene.
And then in that case, I trustthem to know how to respond.
We don't need to react to everything.
We should in birth a lot of times justwait and respond to what is happening.
A lot of times, and I talk aboutthis a lot when I talk with birth
(14:55):
injury lawyers, is the things thatwe preemptively intervene on in birth
most often lead to the bad outcomes andtherefore increases chances of litigation,
which is such a big driver of...
preventing these things, right?
In the OB world, we hear a lot of,well, we're gonna do this so that we
(15:17):
can prevent this, but when we do thatand we preemptively intervene and things
go sideways, that's where we see alot of birth trauma arise and we could
have avoided all that birth traumahad we not preemptively intervened.
The Best Birth [15:03]
Well, and this idea of waiting andresponding, I can see why this would
be so difficult in our day becauseeverything needs to happen now.
(15:39):
I want my fast food through thatwindow in two minutes and I want
my baby to be born in two hours.
So tell us how can we take control overthis feeling how much time is this going
to take and why is everybody rushing meand why isn't my body doing this faster?
HeHe [15:10]
How do we?
Totally.
Yeah.
Well, let me just set the stage for you.
An average first time birth should reallybe expected to be between 24 and 36 hours.
(16:04):
Like we're talking kind of a long time.
That's not all active labor.
People typically think like, my God,24 hours of like, I can't do this.
This hurts so bad.
It's not.
It's not.
You're looking at six, eight, 12, 16,even 18 hours of very manageable labor.
You're talking a f***.
few hours of really active labor,it could be a little longer.
(16:27):
And the good thing about unmedicated,undisturbed birth is that your most
intense part is usually the shortest.
It's usually the quickest part of labor.
It is going to be intense.
But this goes back to kind ofpreparing beforehand of what to
expect, trusting your body, knowinghow to relax into those sensations.
So being rushed in the hospital,your waters are broken and pitocin.
(16:51):
We should talk about all of those in termsof time too because they're very important
for people to realize once you go intothe hospital, you're on a time clock.
Once your water breaks,you're on a time clock.
So let's circle back to that.
40 weeks.
it's an estimate.
Okay, first of all, if you're notstrictly tracking your cycles and you
(17:14):
don't know exactly when you conceived,
That's a guess as well.
We don't know exactly when you conceivedunless you are tracking your cycle.
You must think too that when you geta positive pregnancy test, you are
two weeks pregnant, yet in the worldwe say, I'm one month, no you're not.
So when you get to 40 weeks,your baby is 38 weeks gestation.
That is the earliest they need to be born.
(17:38):
Yet we back our calendar up to 38 weeksand those babies are 36 weeks and we
wonder why a lot of babies that need to bethat are induced need to need a NICU stay.
It makes sense.
It makes sense.
Right.
Like and I do my hands like this becauseI just feel like I've beaten a dead horse
and then I hop on conversations like thisand I'm like I forget that not everybody
(18:00):
can see the correlation there and notnecessarily correlation but possible.
causation.
You know, when we see anincrease in induction, we see
an increase in NICU stays.
40 weeks too can be thrown aroundin terms of placental health.
So, well, your placenta might give out.
That is true.
(18:20):
Yes, placenta sometimes do stop workingat the end of pregnancy for sure.
Couple things to know.
A, your placenta cannot see a calendar sothey have no idea that you're 40 weeks.
B, there are typically other signs.
And C, you can check for these things.
When you have your ultrasound inyour biophysical profile called
BPP, you can have your doctorcheck for these different things.
(18:43):
You can ask for a check -in onyour placental health, and that
will give you really good insightinto whether your placenta is
holding up at the end of pregnancy.
Remember, your placenta, your baby,they grew together and they know each
other, and they are, they're a system.
They are, I mean,
They are a pair, they'rethe yin and the yang, right?
(19:04):
When, if your placenta startsto deteriorate or not give your
baby the things that it needs,your baby will let us know.
They will stop growing.
They will not look great onour BPPs and our ultrasounds.
They will slow down or get reallyerratic in their movements.
If you're not familiar with countingkicks, let me enlighten you.
(19:26):
It is an app that can prevent stillbirth.
Any change in your baby,
Really a lot of movement, like reallyerratic, chaotic, whoa, where's that?
This baby's gone crazy.
All the way to like, hmm, I actuallyshould be feeling my baby about this time.
Where are they?
Any big deviation from what theirnormal is, we need to be calling your
provider and you should not be takingany sort of outdated information
(19:50):
like, well, drink some juice orcold water or, you know, just try
and jiggle them up or take a littlenap, lay down and see if that helps.
We really want to be checking in onyour baby because those deviations
could be messages from your baby saying,hey, I need a little help in here.
My gas can, the placenta,is starting to run low.
(20:11):
And so a BPP and an ultrasound would bewhat you would request from your provider.
The Best Birth [19:51]
I love that.
And I always think about 40 weeks,it should not be our finish line.
It should really be our starting line.
HeHe [19:58]
Totally.
Well, you also have to recognizethat ACOG does say that there are
pregnancies that go beyond that 42 weeks.
(20:33):
And so while 42 weeks is, well,it used to be a very normal, like
30 to 42 weeks, you'd have a baby.
Now it's like, my God, you're 42 weeks.
my God, I can't even believe it.
A lot of pregnancy would probably gointo that 41st, 42nd week if we let them,
if we were hands off, if we kind of...
you know, did that responding versusreally trying to control things.
(20:57):
But I believe that if it was superunsafe or if, well, I guess that's it.
If it was super unsafe, ACOG would notsay that that was a safe alternative.
They recognize that pregnanciesgo that long and they do have
protocols for how to manage those.
(21:18):
those pregnancies and counseling yourpatient and being counseled by your
doctor is a normal part of that process.
You do want to be having conversations.
But you know, a lot of people cometo me and say, I'm pushing that 42
week mark and I actually think it isbecause I think my baby's not here is
because I think my due date was wrong.
I actually think my babyis only X amount of weeks.
(21:40):
And so you can have thatconversation with your doctor.
There are guidelines around yourprovider changing your due date.
So just know that sometimes they willcome back and say like, unfortunately,
I can't change it or, you know,I'm not going to change that.
That's OK.
And in your head, if you know it, letthat let that influence your decision as
(22:01):
much or as little as feels aligned to you.
The Best Birth [21:38]
And you were talking aboutlike timing for labor.
Can we get into a little bit about,this first time mom, whose labor
might last from 24 to 36 hours andhow we can really get ourselves in
a place that we can accept that.
HeHe [21:48]
Totally.
I mean guys that's normal, I guesslike why wouldn't we accept that?
(22:26):
What's the hold up in accepting that?
That instant gratification, the, youknow, and I don't say this to scare
you, I say it to put it in perspectiveof like you could choose the 24 to 36
hour route and come away with, you know.
none to minimal birth trauma or youcan choose to speed things up and
(22:46):
unnecessarily intervene and we knowthe likelihood of your birth trauma
is going to significantly increase.
I don't think thatinductions are a bad thing.
I think that they're overused and alot of people say they're overutilized.
That's not if you overuse them,that's not utilizing them.
Utilizing them is using them.
(23:06):
to the best that we can, using themenough to improve results without hurting
our results, without harming people inthe process, without causing additional
C -sections or NICU rates, right?
So yeah, that's it.
The Best Birth [22:59]
Well, how can women determine their goalsfor labor or birth when they're unsure or
(23:33):
uneducated about what is going to happen?
What's a good plan to goabout your birth goals?
HeHe [23:13]
it's never too late toput together a birth plan.
In terms of birth planning, though, wemust recognize we cannot plan out birth,
but we can plan for different situationsand scenarios that might pop up in labor.
(23:55):
And I call these twists and turns orbirth pivots where your birth, you
know, don't forget it's a natural event.
So nature, outside of our control,
does have a large influence onbirth and so we want to leave room
for mother nature to do her work.
Sometimes we're hoping that contractionsstart, we get to labor at home and
(24:17):
everything is groovy and we go into thehospital at eight and a half centimeters,
get into a labor and delivery room, havea baby an hour later, it's blissful.
And then what really happens is yougo to bed one night and your term,
so it's not preterm, but your watersbreak all over the place and...
You're like, okay, now what?
(24:38):
Right?
This is a pivot.
You still are in total control,but what you're not in control
if you're not prepared.
So if you've never thought aboutthis scenario, you are gonna
spiral and be like, my God,this wasn't part of the plan.
We were supposed to, I was supposed tohave contractions first and I was supposed
to be able to be here in my waters.
(24:59):
I never even thought aboutwhen my waters would break.
We wanna think about, okay, whatare you gonna do at this point?
While your GBS status may matterto you, there is an approach where
you get antibiotics throughoutlabor in order to combat that GBS.
And then some people choose not tohave those and to do a wait and see
approach where you monitor yourselfand your baby postpartum to see if
(25:23):
either one of you need antibiotics.
That was a very shallow.
There is much more to those protocols.
So don't just like hear this one time andthink that's everything, but look into it.
You have options.
People have differentfeelings about stuff.
So,
What will you do at that point?
Let's say you're GBS negative, there's nomeconium, your water smells like amniotic
fluid, it's a normal amount, your baby'smoving as normal, you don't have a fever,
(25:44):
you feel great, no contractions are here.
Your options would be to go tothe hospital if you wanted to, go
back to bed if you wanted to, ortry and encourage labor at home,
try and get things stimulated.
You know, you're free to do...
any of those, they're all goingto have different outcomes.
If you go to the hospital, the hospitalis going to want to try and do something.
(26:06):
That's their job.
They want to try and get things going.
So likely that's going to be pitocinafter your waters have broken.
You could have a conversationabout cervical ripeners.
There are guidelines about using cervicalripeners once your waters have broken.
So make sure that you're havingthis conversation, but likely your
(26:26):
option is going to be pitocin or
to go to the hospital and hang out and donothing, but you may run into the problem
where they don't want to admit you becausetheir job is to get things going, right?
If you decide to go to bed and putdown something on your bed and go to
sleep, likely contractions will follow.
At some point, you may wake upin the morning and still not be
(26:46):
in labor, but that next day theymay come or that next evening.
There's different guidelines andapproaches and beliefs around how
long your waters can be broken.
Hospitals typically would liketo see your baby be born around
24 hours of your wires broken.
In terms of true infection risk, thedata suggests more around 48, possibly
(27:08):
even 72 hours, depending on how we'vebeen treating your body in that time.
And what I mean by that is,if you get into a bathtub,
have you cleaned it out first?
Remember your amniotic sac is open.
Don't be having penetrative sex.
Fingers shouldn't be up there,not sexually, but cervical exams.
(27:29):
We want to really minimize and think aboutcervical exams once your waters are open.
Once your waters are open, your baby isexposed to the outside world in a sense.
So is your amniotic fluid inboth layers of your amniotic sac.
There's two layers to the amniotic sac,by the way, is a corian and amnion.
So if you didn't know that...
you can get an infection in anyof those places in either of those
(27:52):
layers and in your amniotic sac.
So yeah, you know, what was the thirdoption was to try and get labor going.
You know, if you try and get labor going,one of the one of the possibilities
is that labor gets going, you know,you sit on the birth ball, you put
it in the tub, you start hand pumpingor nipple stim and labor is going.
The other option is we don't get laborgoing and you kind of exhaust yourself.
(28:16):
You know, you have.
The Best Birth [27:43]
it.
HeHe [27:51]
option of combining those things.
Maybe you decide to go tosleep because it's 1130.
You are going to give yourself untilnoon tomorrow and if labor has not
started on its own, then you are goingto start encouraging things at home.
You're going to lay in the mile circuit.
Once you pick up your toddler fromschool, you're going to go curb walking.
You're going to clean out your tuband get in the tub during bath time or
(28:40):
during dinner time and let your partnerdo the evening routine so that you can
hang out and just relax and then maybe yougive yourself until 24, 36, 48 hours and
if labor hasn't started then then you'regoing to utilize the hospital option.
You can see how it's a spectrumand you can use different options
along each spectrum in thespecific order that you want.
(29:03):
It's almost like an equation.
It's like an ingredients list.
You put together your specificrecipe of the birth that you desire.
and how much of each thing that you want.
Do you want a reallymedically involved pregnancy?
Some people really, that makesthem feel super comfortable.
There's a way to do that.
And then some peoplewant absolutely nothing.
If they can get away with no cervicalexams, no IV, not even maybe going
(29:30):
to the hospital, maybe their homebirth in, that's their ideal, right?
You gotta find your flavor.
The Best Birth [29:09]
And I love that you're talking aboutthese ingredients because the more
that we know about the ingredientsthat can be added, the more
beautiful we can make our end result.
HeHe [29:19]
Yeah, absolutely.
It's as individual as your fingerprint.
(29:51):
The Best Birth [29:25]
And then what happens if you plan for acertain birth, maybe you want to a VBAC
or maybe you had planned for your firstvaginal birth and then it's a C -section.
How do we work through the mentalcomponents there if we were attached
to one outcome or the other?
HeHe [29:42]
Yeah, you know, this is deep.
(30:13):
So, birth trauma rarelylooks like physical injury.
It just doesn't.
A lot of birth traumais mental and emotional.
And so, I know, right?
Like, it's deep.
It hurts our heart.
It hurts our soul.
It hurts our confidence.
It hurts like us as a human.
(30:34):
It just hurts, right?
Birth trauma is very painful.
And
being attached to a certainoutcome, I think, can sometimes...
exacerbate that.
I think instead of attaching yourhappiness or your outlook of your birth
on a specific outcome, I try and insteadinstill in you a confidence that says
(31:00):
no matter what happens in my birth,I know I'm going to stay in control
and I know that I will figure it out.
Everything is figure outable.
And I truly do believe that in birth.
I think that a lot of times thatcan be fairly difficult to achieve
(31:21):
in the hospital system because thesystem is not set up like that.
But if you either get really luckywith who's on call when you go
into labor or you know you do thework to find a provider that's
going to come to your birth afterthey have given you your prenatal
care and you're not being seen by.
kind of a Rolodex of providers oryou've done the work to seek out a
(31:42):
home birth midwife that you feel reallyconfident in and they are going to
be the ones that are at your birth.
I think you can have that butsometimes it's hard to get
it in the hospital system.
So just think about that and againthese things are not said to scare you.
It is to say here's what you canexpect in the hospital system.
Take the nine months that you're pregnantor the 10 months and do the work.
(32:03):
to protect yourself against it.
You know, like if you knew a floodwas coming, are you just hanging
out in your living room watching TV?
No, you're not.
You are getting a higher ground.
You're packing your stuffup in waterproof bags.
You're getting sandbags.
Prepare for birth.
You know, we have the time to do it.
(32:26):
It's really, really important that wetake the time to prepare the right way.
And you know,
Your nursery is really fun andyour registry is really fun and I'm
not trying to take those things.
I'm not a practitioner that feelslike you shouldn't do those things.
I think you should do them.
I just think they should eitherbe the first or the last things
(32:46):
you do or they're peppered in,but they should not be your focus.
Your focus should be really learning.
What is your goal in birth?
How do you want to feel in your birth?
How do you cultivate thatfeeling in your birth space?
Where do you find aprovider to support that?
And then how are you actuallygoing to advocate for yourself
(33:07):
in the birth room to make sureyour goals are met and respected?
The Best Birth [32:46]
This is incredible.
It's so inspiring.
And the word that comes to mind whenyou say like, how do you want to feel
the word is energized, like your passionand your fire and your education and
all the knowledge that you bring tous, I think just really gives us that
(33:28):
energy and that hope in our births.
can you tell us, do you have anyresources, authors, books, like things
that you love personally that wecan share with our listeners today?
HeHe [32:54]
Ummm...
my gosh, you bet.
boy.
So can I share a list of books with youlater for you to put in your show notes?
(33:49):
There's a list of just like really,really awesome books for people who are
trying to to learn about birth, right?
If you are someone who is trying tolearn about the medical system and
how it influences birth in America,born in the USA is a wonderful.
book.
(34:11):
And I think another book iscalled maybe Catching Babies.
It's written by a midwife andit's another really great book.
I'll get you a list of it.
Badass
Mother -Birther is anotherwonderful person to follow.
She really does a great job of depictingwhat undisturbed birth can look like.
(34:37):
If you want to follow me, Iteach all of your traditional
childbirth education stuff.
So everything that you get with all otherchildbirth education positions and, you
know, pain relief and partner support andall that jazz, everything that you get.
But what I do a little bit differentlyis I teach you the advocacy skills.
So it's not only what are your goals andwhat are your options, but it's how do you
actually get those met in the birth space.
(35:00):
I think the documentary, Why Not Home?
is another really powerful one.
It can be kind of tricky tofind online and often times it's
behind a paywall but I don't know.
I'm pretty biased that Ithink it's worth the money.
It's really interesting to seewhat the plot line is that.
(35:23):
medical professionals that workinside the hospital are choosing
to birth outside of the hospital.
And it's very, very interestingto see their perspectives and why
they choose to birth outside of thehospital when they've dedicated their
lives to working inside the hospital.
The perspective is really wild.
And then there are a coupleof really great OBGYNs online
(35:44):
that are really showcasing whatpatient -centered care looks like.
Dr.
K is a high -risk MFM.
Dr.
Lexi Hill is another one and Dr.
Nicole Rankins.
They all do awesome work.
Obviously all women, duh.
And you know, they really, again,they just, they showcase what patient
(36:07):
-centered care looks like so that ifyou're not getting that, you know how
to spot that and then you know how tochange to somebody who can give you
the appropriate care that you deserve.
The Best Birth [35:53]
and the care that we deserve isexactly what you're talking about.
Just having the options.
What are my risks?
What are my benefits?
How can I, eat from this allyou can eat buffet, but also not
(36:30):
feel gross at the end of dinner.
So this has been suchan amazing conversation.
HeHe . Thank you so much for your time.
Do you have anything elsethat you'd like to add?
HeHe [36:14]
Hmm.
Yeah, I will say if you haven't lookedinto home birth you you should if if
you are even like a little interestedjust check it out It doesn't have to
(36:52):
be for you, and you definitely don'thave to choose it I understand that the
hospital can sometimes feel safer thanhome birth but for a lot of people Home
birth is just as safe if you decide thatthe home is not for you make sure you're
doing the work to have a good hospitalbirth because it is possible you can
definitely have a good hospital birth and
they exist all the time, but thosepeople are working hard for them.
(37:14):
They're getting the right provider.
They're doing out of hospitalchildbirth education.
They're preparing their partner.
They're hiring a doula.
They're doing the work to get those.
So I think that's where I'll leave you.
Positive hospital birthcan absolutely exist.
The Best Birth [37:02]
Thank you, that is awesome.
I have loved this conversation.
Before we go, we're goingto share a mom squad secret.
(37:35):
We're going to do this every week.
And this is from a woman in ourcommunity and her name is Dawn.
She said, start taking prenatalvitamins a few months before you
start trying to get pregnant.
Always a great reminder tobegin that nutrition early
as you prepare to conceive.
Hehe he, it has been a completehonor to interview you today.
(37:56):
We hope that all of our listenerswill also follow you at the Birth
Lounge and we thank you for your time.
HeHe [37:35]
Thank you very much for having me.
Thanks y 'all.
The Best Birth [37:37]
Thank you.
Thanks for joining us on today's episode.
We hope you've been elevated andinspired by this week's expert.
Subscribe today so you never missan episode and please share our
podcast or post on your socialmedia so that other moms and dads
(38:20):
to be can also have the best birth.
Please note that the informationprovided is based on the expert's
insights and personal experience.
It is not intended as medical guidance.
Please seek the advice of yourmedical provider as it applies
to your specific condition.
It's the Best Birth Podcast, wherewe interview experts that elevate
you as you prepare your heartand mind to have the best birth.
Each episode will interviewprofessionals so you are prepared
for pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.
Our experts will build your confidenceand empower you to trust your
intuition throughout your pregnancy.
This audio is takenfrom videos on YouTube.
(00:27):
Watch the entire episodes onYouTube at Birth Made Mindful.
00:01]
Welcome to the Best Birth Podcast.
We are here to help moms anddads and everyone in between
prepare to have the best birth.
Our first guest on this episode isHehe, the founder of Tranquility
by Hehe and the Birth Lounge.
(00:47):
We're so excited for today's conversationand want to welcome Hehe to the show.
Thank you for being here Hehe.
Hehe has, yes, so good.
HeHe [00:24]
Thanks for having me.
The Best Birth [00:27]
Hehe has a master's degree in humandevelopment and family studies and 10
years in the family life education field.
Hehe helps women prepare for childbirthwith research -backed education and
(01:08):
expert support to have a confident birthexperience while feeling informed and in
control of labor without fear or coercion.
She is a pro with preparing forpostpartum, helping you master
feeding your tiny human andunderstanding newborn sleep.
She and her team serve pregnantpeople and their families across
the U S and internationally withprenatal birth and postpartum care.
(01:33):
which has over 150 ,000listeners in over 28 countries.
The show features leading expertsin pregnancy, women's health
and childhood development.
So parents can understand how tohave an informed and confident birth.
Welcome, Hehe.
We are so excited to talk to you.
HeHe [01:23]
Hi, thanks for having me you guys.
This is so fun.
The Best Birth [01:28]
(01:54):
We are absolutely thrilled thatyou're joining our show today.
And we want to first kind of just ask,how did you get into this space of being
the birth cheerleader and champion?
HeHe [01:43]
I love that.
I absolutely am your cheerleader whenit's time for you to have a baby.
(02:15):
So my career started out inearly childhood education.
Before that, I did advocacy workwithin the public school system.
So I came to do a little work, actuallynot really expecting it to be a
career change, but I thought I mightlike attend births here and there.
I took a weekend trainingand I realized that...
(02:39):
A, this was for me, and B, theweekend training just didn't suffice.
It was kind of shallow and I felt like,wow, I have this master's degree in
human development and family studies.
I have worked in advocacy work inhelping parents navigate a system.
It was a school system, not thehospital system, but a system.
And I also had that really deepknowledge of infant development,
(03:02):
family dynamics, the family unit.
And I thought, OMG, what if?
I could combine all of these thingsand create this concierge practice
where parents, it's a one -stop shop.
And gosh, that just got the ballrolling because then I started to find
out about all of the injustices andabuse that happens in the hospital.
(03:27):
I started to learn more abouthorizontal workplace violence in
the hospital system and how thatimpacts patient care and outcomes.
I started to learn.
about obstetrical violence fromphysician and nurses down to patients.
There was so much to unpack theirhospital policies, legislation,
politics of the hospital system.
(03:50):
And I just was like, holycow, this is so much.
I think this is like my calling.
And so here we are.
That was eight years ago nowand it truly has been a calling.
And I wake up every single day jazzed outof my mind to be able to do this work.
And that doesn't meanI don't have hard days.
Some days really suck.
You see kind of terrible things inthe hospital sometimes and people can
(04:13):
be really nasty in the birth space.
But it does mean that eventhough you have hard days,
I know that it's worth it because of thestories that women come and tell me about
how much our resources helped change theirbirth and truly give them back control
in a system that was kind of designedto take that control away from women.
(04:33):
The Best Birth [04:08]
Well, and thank you forfollowing your calling.
Your work really has transformedthe conversations that people are
having about their options andhow they can have the best birth.
So I want to know just kind of fromthe start, what would you say is
like the number one thing that awoman can do as she is preparing
(04:53):
her body and as she's pregnant sothat she has a really good birth?
HeHe [04:18]
Yeah.
Yeah, so specificallyphysical preparation.
Cool.
So I think two things come to mind.
Understanding that your brain, yourmind will give out way quicker than
your body in labor is huge, right?
(05:16):
So your body was designed for this.
That doesn't mean that we don'tever need medical intervention
or that your body, all bodieseverywhere always will have a...
perfect baby, that's not what that means.
That means that for the most part,women's bodies are designed to give
birth and so for a lot of births, it'sjust a natural event that sometimes
(05:37):
needs some medical intervention.
In the Western world, in the US, wesee us treat it more like a medical
event that sometimes happens naturallyand that's really backwards and we
can see that play out in the stats.
So understanding to prep your mind.
You should be prepping.
for one minute increments.
You should be prepping yourbody for one minute, 60 seconds,
(06:00):
and 90 second increments.
Doing physical exerciseduring pregnancy as well.
So look up what ACOG recommends forphysical exercise compared to what
you're currently doing and thenget on a plan either before or when
you get pregnant to physically prepfor the endurance piece, right?
Okay, and then, wellthose are the two things.
(06:20):
So,
physically prepare your mind tounderstand I can outlast my body, right?
My body is meant for this andthen you want to be preparing that
body piece for those contractions.
And then now that I'm sayingthis, I have a third thing too.
You want to be practicinggrounding yourself.
So a lot of times laborcan bring on tension.
(06:44):
It can be mental, but wejust talked about kind of...
diving into that and these are allvery shallow guys there's so many
layers to preparing for a baby butthese are just kind of the things
that instantly dumped into my head
The Best Birth [06:28]
let's jump into theseinterventions a little bit.
How can we use interventions tosupport us rather than just the black
and white answer of the standard?
HeHe [06:38]
(07:05):
Sure, so you know, we want to lookat the benefits of routine care.
In a lot of cases, it's notbeneficial for every person.
And so when it comes to routinestandardized care, you really want to
think about, is it individualized to me?
So you may have preferencesaround IVs, right?
(07:28):
You may want to go in, you havean intense fear of needles.
You do not believe that the benefitsof having a preemptively placed IV
outweigh the risk that you may encounter.
They don't outweigh the anxiety.
They don't outweigh thepain and discomfort.
They don't outweigh the disruptions toyour labor that all of that may cause you.
(07:49):
And so you're choosing to have no IV.
On the, you know, opposite end of thatspectrum, someone may choose to utilize
that because the fear of that risk of
Possibly experiencing a postpartumhemorrhage and then kind of on that
time clock that is an emergency So wewant to get things done fast that may
(08:11):
outweigh the risks for them And so forthem getting that IV is the right choice
You want to think about this in everysingle thing when it comes to birth
choices very few times Does it boil downto right and wrong and very few times
is it black and white like that and justvery uber clear for the most part it is
Here are the different options.
(08:32):
With each of those options, here'swhat you're gonna gain, here's your
benefits, here's what we might be risking.
And then also, if you don't likethat, here's an alternative.
And then you wanna think, whereon that spectrum do I fall?
So let's talk aboutepidurals really quick.
Utilizing them.
If you know you really kind of havea preference for unmedicated birth,
(08:57):
but you're open to an epidural,
If you get to a place where you needit, what we teach in Tranquility
by He HeHe and Inside the BirthLounge is that just knowing that
you're open to it is not enough.
You need to have clearly definedboundaries about what is a situation
that you would be okay with it.
I am okay with discussing anepidural if I've labored for four
(09:21):
days and not made any progress.
I'm in prodromal labor.
It comes, it goes, it stops, it is...
The Best Birth [08:42]
Mmm.
HeHe [09:01]
and I can't get any sleep and it'sdisrupting our home, I'm open to that.
I'm open to an epidural if myblood pressure gets to a certain
point and me and my baby become,you know, become, we're in danger.
(09:43):
That's another way thatyou can utilize it.
I am open to an epidural if I beginto be fearful of my contractions and
it's preventing me from being ableto relax or release and therefore
we're running into a problem thatmay present as a stalled labor or...
some sort of like swollen cervix orjust you're dilating but very very very
(10:05):
slowly and you check in with yourselfand go you know what I'm actually pretty
scared of active labor I think I'm justI think I'm too freaked out to like to
relax I think I might need an epiduraland then you make that decision from
there we should be having conversationswith your endocesiologist about what
your expectations for your epidural are.
(10:27):
is right so I would still like to havea lot of mobility so I'm really hoping
to have a very specific placementthat isn't going to numb me up too
much and I would like to start ata really low dose I understand you
can add boluses that would be like
one shot of medication and I alsounderstand I have my PCA, a patient
(10:48):
controlled administration buttonand so it comes in this little
handle that almost looks like aJeopardy button and you can press the
button and you can self administermedication through your epidural.
A lot of people do not know this.
On the flip side of that,
we can numb ourselves up way too muchto be able to feel where our baby is,
(11:08):
it might stall labor, it might createa really long period of pushing, but
gosh, I rambled there, but I feellike that was a really good example
of how you can utilize these tools indifferent scenarios, but knowing you're
open to an epidural is not enough.
You have to know when and how toutilize them, and you have to know
where you fall on the spectrum ofeach, or the system will literally
(11:32):
gobble you up, and that's...
That's the truth.
The Best Birth [11:09]
And if I think about all ofthese interventions, like an
all you can eat buffet, right?
Do I want to go down that lineand take every single one of them?
Or do I want to utilize what works for me?
And just like you said, accordingto my values and how I'm performing,
how my baby is handling thecontractions or handling the pitocin.
(11:55):
And so it's amazing to hear from you,all of this education that can really
empower us as, birthing women to.
make the right choicesin the right moment.
It came to me, your thirdpoint, it was being grounded.
And I, right.
And so that just goes right along withwhat we were talking about is once
(12:16):
you are grounded, you do know yourdesires, you do know your intuition
and how can you get back to thatgrounded space in those moments?
HeHe [11:44]
That is right!
Okay, I, yes, so here was my point onthat is as women, we typically hold
a lot of, if you are kind of likean anxious lady and you have a lot
of tension, I fall in that category,so I'm kind of talking about myself.
(12:39):
We probably hold, women tend tohold a lot of their anxiety in their
pelvic floor, right, in your hips,in your lower back, in your uterus.
We want to be able to relax ourbody and trust in the process.
Social media has this really, reallynasty way of not only polarizing birth,
but really highlighting the terrible,awful, horrible things that happen.
(13:01):
social media does that about everytopic, but in particular, in birth,
it's very sinister because it reallydoes set women up for being really
fearful of birth and not trustingtheir bodies and believing that birth
always goes badly, not recognizingthat most of the time, if left alone,
birth will do its thing and itwill work out good positively
(13:26):
for the most part if left alone.
So yes, being grounded is super important.
That's not going to come natural to alot of people so you have to practice it.
It kind of goes back to thatfirst point of mindfulness.
You have to be able to shut your mindoff so that your body can take over
and that really means being safe withthe people that are in your room.
(13:48):
Being safe with your partner, knowingthat they're going to take care of
you and they're going to protect you.
Being safe in the thoughts andthe education and the confidence
and the information that you haveinside yourself so that you can
truly navigate these conversations.
That safety in your birth spaceis a lot under your control.
Sometimes there are factors thatwe can't control, but in many cases
(14:08):
we could always swap those out.
So if you have a provider that doesn'tmake you feel safe, they're bullying
you, they are dismissing you, they are...
wave it in your face the number ofyears that they've been a physician.
That is not safe behavior.
That is not behavior that tells me, hey,this provider trusts this woman, this
provider trusts the birth process, thisprovider is going to trust that everything
(14:31):
is going well until this body or thisbaby tells us that we should intervene.
And then in that case, I trustthem to know how to respond.
We don't need to react to everything.
We should in birth a lot of times justwait and respond to what is happening.
A lot of times, and I talk aboutthis a lot when I talk with birth
(14:55):
injury lawyers, is the things thatwe preemptively intervene on in birth
most often lead to the bad outcomes andtherefore increases chances of litigation,
which is such a big driver of...
preventing these things, right?
In the OB world, we hear a lot of,well, we're gonna do this so that we
(15:17):
can prevent this, but when we do thatand we preemptively intervene and things
go sideways, that's where we see alot of birth trauma arise and we could
have avoided all that birth traumahad we not preemptively intervened.
The Best Birth [15:03]
Well, and this idea of waiting andresponding, I can see why this would
be so difficult in our day becauseeverything needs to happen now.
(15:39):
I want my fast food through thatwindow in two minutes and I want
my baby to be born in two hours.
So tell us how can we take control overthis feeling how much time is this going
to take and why is everybody rushing meand why isn't my body doing this faster?
HeHe [15:10]
How do we?
Totally.
Yeah.
Well, let me just set the stage for you.
An average first time birth should reallybe expected to be between 24 and 36 hours.
(16:04):
Like we're talking kind of a long time.
That's not all active labor.
People typically think like, my God,24 hours of like, I can't do this.
This hurts so bad.
It's not.
It's not.
You're looking at six, eight, 12, 16,even 18 hours of very manageable labor.
You're talking a f***.
few hours of really active labor,it could be a little longer.
(16:27):
And the good thing about unmedicated,undisturbed birth is that your most
intense part is usually the shortest.
It's usually the quickest part of labor.
It is going to be intense.
But this goes back to kind ofpreparing beforehand of what to
expect, trusting your body, knowinghow to relax into those sensations.
So being rushed in the hospital,your waters are broken and pitocin.
(16:51):
We should talk about all of those in termsof time too because they're very important
for people to realize once you go intothe hospital, you're on a time clock.
Once your water breaks,you're on a time clock.
So let's circle back to that.
40 weeks.
it's an estimate.
Okay, first of all, if you're notstrictly tracking your cycles and you
(17:14):
don't know exactly when you conceived,
That's a guess as well.
We don't know exactly when you conceivedunless you are tracking your cycle.
You must think too that when you geta positive pregnancy test, you are
two weeks pregnant, yet in the worldwe say, I'm one month, no you're not.
So when you get to 40 weeks,your baby is 38 weeks gestation.
That is the earliest they need to be born.
(17:38):
Yet we back our calendar up to 38 weeksand those babies are 36 weeks and we
wonder why a lot of babies that need to bethat are induced need to need a NICU stay.
It makes sense.
It makes sense.
Right.
Like and I do my hands like this becauseI just feel like I've beaten a dead horse
and then I hop on conversations like thisand I'm like I forget that not everybody
(18:00):
can see the correlation there and notnecessarily correlation but possible.
causation.
You know, when we see anincrease in induction, we see
an increase in NICU stays.
40 weeks too can be thrown aroundin terms of placental health.
So, well, your placenta might give out.
That is true.
(18:20):
Yes, placenta sometimes do stop workingat the end of pregnancy for sure.
Couple things to know.
A, your placenta cannot see a calendar sothey have no idea that you're 40 weeks.
B, there are typically other signs.
And C, you can check for these things.
When you have your ultrasound inyour biophysical profile called
BPP, you can have your doctorcheck for these different things.
(18:43):
You can ask for a check -in onyour placental health, and that
will give you really good insightinto whether your placenta is
holding up at the end of pregnancy.
Remember, your placenta, your baby,they grew together and they know each
other, and they are, they're a system.
They are, I mean,
They are a pair, they'rethe yin and the yang, right?
(19:04):
When, if your placenta startsto deteriorate or not give your
baby the things that it needs,your baby will let us know.
They will stop growing.
They will not look great onour BPPs and our ultrasounds.
They will slow down or get reallyerratic in their movements.
If you're not familiar with countingkicks, let me enlighten you.
(19:26):
It is an app that can prevent stillbirth.
Any change in your baby,
Really a lot of movement, like reallyerratic, chaotic, whoa, where's that?
This baby's gone crazy.
All the way to like, hmm, I actuallyshould be feeling my baby about this time.
Where are they?
Any big deviation from what theirnormal is, we need to be calling your
provider and you should not be takingany sort of outdated information
(19:50):
like, well, drink some juice orcold water or, you know, just try
and jiggle them up or take a littlenap, lay down and see if that helps.
We really want to be checking in onyour baby because those deviations
could be messages from your baby saying,hey, I need a little help in here.
My gas can, the placenta,is starting to run low.
(20:11):
And so a BPP and an ultrasound would bewhat you would request from your provider.
The Best Birth [19:51]
I love that.
And I always think about 40 weeks,it should not be our finish line.
It should really be our starting line.
HeHe [19:58]
Totally.
Well, you also have to recognizethat ACOG does say that there are
pregnancies that go beyond that 42 weeks.
(20:33):
And so while 42 weeks is, well,it used to be a very normal, like
30 to 42 weeks, you'd have a baby.
Now it's like, my God, you're 42 weeks.
my God, I can't even believe it.
A lot of pregnancy would probably gointo that 41st, 42nd week if we let them,
if we were hands off, if we kind of...
you know, did that responding versusreally trying to control things.
(20:57):
But I believe that if it was superunsafe or if, well, I guess that's it.
If it was super unsafe, ACOG would notsay that that was a safe alternative.
They recognize that pregnanciesgo that long and they do have
protocols for how to manage those.
(21:18):
those pregnancies and counseling yourpatient and being counseled by your
doctor is a normal part of that process.
You do want to be having conversations.
But you know, a lot of people cometo me and say, I'm pushing that 42
week mark and I actually think it isbecause I think my baby's not here is
because I think my due date was wrong.
I actually think my babyis only X amount of weeks.
(21:40):
And so you can have thatconversation with your doctor.
There are guidelines around yourprovider changing your due date.
So just know that sometimes they willcome back and say like, unfortunately,
I can't change it or, you know,I'm not going to change that.
That's OK.
And in your head, if you know it, letthat let that influence your decision as
(22:01):
much or as little as feels aligned to you.
The Best Birth [21:38]
And you were talking aboutlike timing for labor.
Can we get into a little bit about,this first time mom, whose labor
might last from 24 to 36 hours andhow we can really get ourselves in
a place that we can accept that.
HeHe [21:48]
Totally.
I mean guys that's normal, I guesslike why wouldn't we accept that?
(22:26):
What's the hold up in accepting that?
That instant gratification, the, youknow, and I don't say this to scare
you, I say it to put it in perspectiveof like you could choose the 24 to 36
hour route and come away with, you know.
none to minimal birth trauma or youcan choose to speed things up and
(22:46):
unnecessarily intervene and we knowthe likelihood of your birth trauma
is going to significantly increase.
I don't think thatinductions are a bad thing.
I think that they're overused and alot of people say they're overutilized.
That's not if you overuse them,that's not utilizing them.
Utilizing them is using them.
(23:06):
to the best that we can, using themenough to improve results without hurting
our results, without harming people inthe process, without causing additional
C -sections or NICU rates, right?
So yeah, that's it.
The Best Birth [22:59]
Well, how can women determine their goalsfor labor or birth when they're unsure or
(23:33):
uneducated about what is going to happen?
What's a good plan to goabout your birth goals?
HeHe [23:13]
it's never too late toput together a birth plan.
In terms of birth planning, though, wemust recognize we cannot plan out birth,
but we can plan for different situationsand scenarios that might pop up in labor.
(23:55):
And I call these twists and turns orbirth pivots where your birth, you
know, don't forget it's a natural event.
So nature, outside of our control,
does have a large influence onbirth and so we want to leave room
for mother nature to do her work.
Sometimes we're hoping that contractionsstart, we get to labor at home and
(24:17):
everything is groovy and we go into thehospital at eight and a half centimeters,
get into a labor and delivery room, havea baby an hour later, it's blissful.
And then what really happens is yougo to bed one night and your term,
so it's not preterm, but your watersbreak all over the place and...
You're like, okay, now what?
(24:38):
Right?
This is a pivot.
You still are in total control,but what you're not in control
if you're not prepared.
So if you've never thought aboutthis scenario, you are gonna
spiral and be like, my God,this wasn't part of the plan.
We were supposed to, I was supposed tohave contractions first and I was supposed
to be able to be here in my waters.
(24:59):
I never even thought aboutwhen my waters would break.
We wanna think about, okay, whatare you gonna do at this point?
While your GBS status may matterto you, there is an approach where
you get antibiotics throughoutlabor in order to combat that GBS.
And then some people choose not tohave those and to do a wait and see
approach where you monitor yourselfand your baby postpartum to see if
(25:23):
either one of you need antibiotics.
That was a very shallow.
There is much more to those protocols.
So don't just like hear this one time andthink that's everything, but look into it.
You have options.
People have differentfeelings about stuff.
So,
What will you do at that point?
Let's say you're GBS negative, there's nomeconium, your water smells like amniotic
fluid, it's a normal amount, your baby'smoving as normal, you don't have a fever,
(25:44):
you feel great, no contractions are here.
Your options would be to go tothe hospital if you wanted to, go
back to bed if you wanted to, ortry and encourage labor at home,
try and get things stimulated.
You know, you're free to do...
any of those, they're all goingto have different outcomes.
If you go to the hospital, the hospitalis going to want to try and do something.
(26:06):
That's their job.
They want to try and get things going.
So likely that's going to be pitocinafter your waters have broken.
You could have a conversationabout cervical ripeners.
There are guidelines about using cervicalripeners once your waters have broken.
So make sure that you're havingthis conversation, but likely your
(26:26):
option is going to be pitocin or
to go to the hospital and hang out and donothing, but you may run into the problem
where they don't want to admit you becausetheir job is to get things going, right?
If you decide to go to bed and putdown something on your bed and go to
sleep, likely contractions will follow.
At some point, you may wake upin the morning and still not be
(26:46):
in labor, but that next day theymay come or that next evening.
There's different guidelines andapproaches and beliefs around how
long your waters can be broken.
Hospitals typically would liketo see your baby be born around
24 hours of your wires broken.
In terms of true infection risk, thedata suggests more around 48, possibly
(27:08):
even 72 hours, depending on how we'vebeen treating your body in that time.
And what I mean by that is,if you get into a bathtub,
have you cleaned it out first?
Remember your amniotic sac is open.
Don't be having penetrative sex.
Fingers shouldn't be up there,not sexually, but cervical exams.
(27:29):
We want to really minimize and think aboutcervical exams once your waters are open.
Once your waters are open, your baby isexposed to the outside world in a sense.
So is your amniotic fluid inboth layers of your amniotic sac.
There's two layers to the amniotic sac,by the way, is a corian and amnion.
So if you didn't know that...
you can get an infection in anyof those places in either of those
(27:52):
layers and in your amniotic sac.
So yeah, you know, what was the thirdoption was to try and get labor going.
You know, if you try and get labor going,one of the one of the possibilities
is that labor gets going, you know,you sit on the birth ball, you put
it in the tub, you start hand pumpingor nipple stim and labor is going.
The other option is we don't get laborgoing and you kind of exhaust yourself.
(28:16):
You know, you have.
The Best Birth [27:43]
it.
HeHe [27:51]
option of combining those things.
Maybe you decide to go tosleep because it's 1130.
You are going to give yourself untilnoon tomorrow and if labor has not
started on its own, then you are goingto start encouraging things at home.
You're going to lay in the mile circuit.
Once you pick up your toddler fromschool, you're going to go curb walking.
You're going to clean out your tuband get in the tub during bath time or
(28:40):
during dinner time and let your partnerdo the evening routine so that you can
hang out and just relax and then maybe yougive yourself until 24, 36, 48 hours and
if labor hasn't started then then you'regoing to utilize the hospital option.
You can see how it's a spectrumand you can use different options
along each spectrum in thespecific order that you want.
(29:03):
It's almost like an equation.
It's like an ingredients list.
You put together your specificrecipe of the birth that you desire.
and how much of each thing that you want.
Do you want a reallymedically involved pregnancy?
Some people really, that makesthem feel super comfortable.
There's a way to do that.
And then some peoplewant absolutely nothing.
If they can get away with no cervicalexams, no IV, not even maybe going
(29:30):
to the hospital, maybe their homebirth in, that's their ideal, right?
You gotta find your flavor.
The Best Birth [29:09]
And I love that you're talking aboutthese ingredients because the more
that we know about the ingredientsthat can be added, the more
beautiful we can make our end result.
HeHe [29:19]
Yeah, absolutely.
It's as individual as your fingerprint.
(29:51):
The Best Birth [29:25]
And then what happens if you plan for acertain birth, maybe you want to a VBAC
or maybe you had planned for your firstvaginal birth and then it's a C -section.
How do we work through the mentalcomponents there if we were attached
to one outcome or the other?
HeHe [29:42]
Yeah, you know, this is deep.
(30:13):
So, birth trauma rarelylooks like physical injury.
It just doesn't.
A lot of birth traumais mental and emotional.
And so, I know, right?
Like, it's deep.
It hurts our heart.
It hurts our soul.
It hurts our confidence.
It hurts like us as a human.
(30:34):
It just hurts, right?
Birth trauma is very painful.
And
being attached to a certainoutcome, I think, can sometimes...
exacerbate that.
I think instead of attaching yourhappiness or your outlook of your birth
on a specific outcome, I try and insteadinstill in you a confidence that says
(31:00):
no matter what happens in my birth,I know I'm going to stay in control
and I know that I will figure it out.
Everything is figure outable.
And I truly do believe that in birth.
I think that a lot of times thatcan be fairly difficult to achieve
(31:21):
in the hospital system because thesystem is not set up like that.
But if you either get really luckywith who's on call when you go
into labor or you know you do thework to find a provider that's
going to come to your birth afterthey have given you your prenatal
care and you're not being seen by.
kind of a Rolodex of providers oryou've done the work to seek out a
(31:42):
home birth midwife that you feel reallyconfident in and they are going to
be the ones that are at your birth.
I think you can have that butsometimes it's hard to get
it in the hospital system.
So just think about that and againthese things are not said to scare you.
It is to say here's what you canexpect in the hospital system.
Take the nine months that you're pregnantor the 10 months and do the work.
(32:03):
to protect yourself against it.
You know, like if you knew a floodwas coming, are you just hanging
out in your living room watching TV?
No, you're not.
You are getting a higher ground.
You're packing your stuffup in waterproof bags.
You're getting sandbags.
Prepare for birth.
You know, we have the time to do it.
(32:26):
It's really, really important that wetake the time to prepare the right way.
And you know,
Your nursery is really fun andyour registry is really fun and I'm
not trying to take those things.
I'm not a practitioner that feelslike you shouldn't do those things.
I think you should do them.
I just think they should eitherbe the first or the last things
(32:46):
you do or they're peppered in,but they should not be your focus.
Your focus should be really learning.
What is your goal in birth?
How do you want to feel in your birth?
How do you cultivate thatfeeling in your birth space?
Where do you find aprovider to support that?
And then how are you actuallygoing to advocate for yourself
(33:07):
in the birth room to make sureyour goals are met and respected?
The Best Birth [32:46]
This is incredible.
It's so inspiring.
And the word that comes to mind whenyou say like, how do you want to feel
the word is energized, like your passionand your fire and your education and
all the knowledge that you bring tous, I think just really gives us that
(33:28):
energy and that hope in our births.
can you tell us, do you have anyresources, authors, books, like things
that you love personally that wecan share with our listeners today?
HeHe [32:54]
Ummm...
my gosh, you bet.
boy.
So can I share a list of books with youlater for you to put in your show notes?
(33:49):
There's a list of just like really,really awesome books for people who are
trying to to learn about birth, right?
If you are someone who is trying tolearn about the medical system and
how it influences birth in America,born in the USA is a wonderful.
book.
(34:11):
And I think another book iscalled maybe Catching Babies.
It's written by a midwife andit's another really great book.
I'll get you a list of it.
Badass
Mother -Birther is anotherwonderful person to follow.
She really does a great job of depictingwhat undisturbed birth can look like.
(34:37):
If you want to follow me, Iteach all of your traditional
childbirth education stuff.
So everything that you get with all otherchildbirth education positions and, you
know, pain relief and partner support andall that jazz, everything that you get.
But what I do a little bit differentlyis I teach you the advocacy skills.
So it's not only what are your goals andwhat are your options, but it's how do you
actually get those met in the birth space.
(35:00):
I think the documentary, Why Not Home?
is another really powerful one.
It can be kind of tricky tofind online and often times it's
behind a paywall but I don't know.
I'm pretty biased that Ithink it's worth the money.
It's really interesting to seewhat the plot line is that.
(35:23):
medical professionals that workinside the hospital are choosing
to birth outside of the hospital.
And it's very, very interestingto see their perspectives and why
they choose to birth outside of thehospital when they've dedicated their
lives to working inside the hospital.
The perspective is really wild.
And then there are a coupleof really great OBGYNs online
(35:44):
that are really showcasing whatpatient -centered care looks like.
Dr.
K is a high -risk MFM.
Dr.
Lexi Hill is another one and Dr.
Nicole Rankins.
They all do awesome work.
Obviously all women, duh.
And you know, they really, again,they just, they showcase what patient
(36:07):
-centered care looks like so that ifyou're not getting that, you know how
to spot that and then you know how tochange to somebody who can give you
the appropriate care that you deserve.
The Best Birth [35:53]
and the care that we deserve isexactly what you're talking about.
Just having the options.
What are my risks?
What are my benefits?
How can I, eat from this allyou can eat buffet, but also not
(36:30):
feel gross at the end of dinner.
So this has been suchan amazing conversation.
HeHe . Thank you so much for your time.
Do you have anything elsethat you'd like to add?
HeHe [36:14]
Hmm.
Yeah, I will say if you haven't lookedinto home birth you you should if if
you are even like a little interestedjust check it out It doesn't have to
(36:52):
be for you, and you definitely don'thave to choose it I understand that the
hospital can sometimes feel safer thanhome birth but for a lot of people Home
birth is just as safe if you decide thatthe home is not for you make sure you're
doing the work to have a good hospitalbirth because it is possible you can
definitely have a good hospital birth and
they exist all the time, but thosepeople are working hard for them.
(37:14):
They're getting the right provider.
They're doing out of hospitalchildbirth education.
They're preparing their partner.
They're hiring a doula.
They're doing the work to get those.
So I think that's where I'll leave you.
Positive hospital birthcan absolutely exist.
The Best Birth [37:02]
Thank you, that is awesome.
I have loved this conversation.
Before we go, we're goingto share a mom squad secret.
(37:35):
We're going to do this every week.
And this is from a woman in ourcommunity and her name is Dawn.
She said, start taking prenatalvitamins a few months before you
start trying to get pregnant.
Always a great reminder tobegin that nutrition early
as you prepare to conceive.
Hehe he, it has been a completehonor to interview you today.
(37:56):
We hope that all of our listenerswill also follow you at the Birth
Lounge and we thank you for your time.
HeHe [37:35]
Thank you very much for having me.
Thanks y 'all.
The Best Birth [37:37]
Thank you.
Thanks for joining us on today's episode.
We hope you've been elevated andinspired by this week's expert.
Subscribe today so you never missan episode and please share our
podcast or post on your socialmedia so that other moms and dads
(38:20):
to be can also have the best birth.
Please note that the informationprovided is based on the expert's
insights and personal experience.
It is not intended as medical guidance.
Please seek the advice of yourmedical provider as it applies
to your specific condition.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.