130. RhoGAM, Birth Choices, and Women's Health with Dr. Nathan Riley (Part 3)

Speaker 1 (00:32):
The Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission Podcast.
My name is Rebecca Toomey andwe are on a mission to encourage
and inspire you as you'renavigating through your life and
with your relationship withChrist.
We have been in a series onbeing countercultural and, as
listeners of this show know, welove talking about birth and
God's design for birth, and forthe last two weeks we have

(00:55):
featured Dr Nathan Riley, ahospital OBGYN who left the
system to support midwives andhome birth.
The system to support midwivesand home birth.
In our first episode together,which was episode 128, we
discussed the spiritualsignificance of childbirth and
its impact on parenting.
We questioned the necessity ofpharmaceutical interventions in

(01:20):
maternity care and emphasizedthe importance of personal
empowerment in making birthchoices.
And then last week, in episode129, we discussed men in women's
healthcare, questioned routinegynecological procedures like
annual pap smears and HPVtesting, discussed the very rich

(01:41):
history of childbirth andNathan's reasoning for leaving
hospital practice.
How COVID created a paradigmshift which gave many people
permission to question authorityand say no to medical
interventions that they didn'tfeel comfortable with.
And how the medical systemoperates exactly as designed,

(02:03):
profiting when women outsourcetheir power rather than trusting
their bodies and intuition.
This week, we are rounding outthe conversation by touching on
some of the questions thatfollowers of the Radiant Mission
asked, including a discussionsurrounding RhoGAM and clinical
studies, emergency scenariosduring birth and more.

(02:25):
So tune backwards if you missedthe conversation up to now, to
episodes 128 and 129.
And if you're already caught up, we're going to jump right into
this conversation with Dr Riley, because that's what it really
comes down to is like you haveto break down those mental

(02:46):
barriers that say this is whateverybody does and I'm not going
to do it.
Interestingly, my first birthwas in December of 2019.
So it was just a couple monthsbefore COVID happened.
Now, had it been into COVID, Ithink the result would have been
the same, you know.

(03:06):
But it's interesting because Ihad my first and then COVID
happened and then COVID was aride, like you said.
I mean it was.
We didn't know what was goingon.
In the beginning, my husbandwas watching all these Chinese
propaganda videos.
In the beginning, you know, hewent to the grocery store
wearing all this crazy stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
didn't know yeah, you know, we don't know.
It's like humvees, we don'tknow.
Yeah, it's like what the heck?

Speaker 1 (03:30):
it was crazy in the beginning, but we also saw
something early on fromkatherine austin fitz, which was
she.
She has the solari report and,yeah, she had made this video
and it didn't have anything todo with covid.
But it was kind of like she'sbeen awake to this stuff for far

(03:52):
longer than we had been and itopened up a lot of things.
But I do think that you'reright that that covid helped to
open up a lot of people's mindsand brains to what's behind the
curtain.
Now, the political side ofthings I can't even have this, I
can't even have a politicalconversation because I think the
whole thing is such a joke, um,but but it's hilarious.

(04:14):
It's hilarious to me that firstof all, the side, the blue and
the red have swapped so manytimes, you know, have like
changed and morphed, and thenpeople will be like back in.
You know, 100 years agodemocrats were actually
republicans and republicans weredemocrats and it's like, yeah,
it's still going on today.

(04:37):
I can't help, but I just I don'thave any trust for any of it.
I have zero trust in any ofthese people.
The trust has been broken,let's say, because let's take
the red, for example, and thelast time.
The red that is now going to bepresident was red.

(05:00):
He was Warp Speed was red, hewas warp speed, he was Mr Warp
Speed.
Here you go, everybody,everybody, take it.
I made this vaccine in twoseconds.
Take it.
And now and now it's about RFKbreaking down the, the breaking
the system down, finally doingvaccine testing, and I don't buy

(05:23):
it.
I think everything is a test tosee what people do, like we're
rats in a cage and as we makemoves based on how we're
controlled by what the mediaputs out in front of us.
It's, what was their responseto that?
All right, let's control themagain with this information.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
It's what it is.
It's a compliance test.
Yeah, how far can we getRebecca to budge this way with
this tech tactic?
Oh, she was going to go thatfar.
Okay, that's the new normal,and we'll get her to go a little
further, and we'll go a littlefurther.
And then suddenly you findyou're in a completely different
world.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, it's like the education system.
You mentioned it earlier thatthe education system does not
mean to actually promotecreativity and to promote it's
to create workers, to createemployees that follow the rules
and do things a certain way.
Because if it was aboutcreating good, happy, healthy

(06:19):
human beings, then they wouldteach children how to do their
taxes.
They would teach children abouthow to write, you know, how to
balance their checkbooks, how tosave money, how a cycle works
at the age appropriate as girlsare getting like.

(06:40):
It would be an actual classthat is taught.
I mean, I didn't learn aboutfertility awareness until I was
31 years old.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Isn't that wild 31.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
It's ridiculous, like it's actually a joke, because I
should have learned that as ateenager.
And now, here I am, a geriatric, old, pregnant person.
You know, if I was in thesystem, that's how it would be
labeled, saying like girls, yougot to really women.

(07:13):
You've got to educate yourteenage daughters on this stuff,
because if you don't do it, noone is going to do this.
No one is going to teach yourdaughter about their fertility
no one.
But our culture is so tabooabout this and even in Christian
communities it's like, well, Idon't know how to talk to him
about it or I don't know enoughabout it.
It's sad because I didn't knowabout it until I was in my 30s.

(07:36):
Now I'm talking to other30-year-old women about it that
they didn't know about it andwe're all having to learn all
this stuff.
So then we can now pass it.
We can pass it to the nextgeneration, which is great, but
so much of just the natural.
You know how our bodies work.
Stuff is completely lost.
We are totally dependent.

(07:58):
Like you said earlier, we'retotally dependent as women on
the medical system.
They've won us.
We're customers.
We keep coming back.
We have not taken on theauthority or followed the
intuition on our own, but I mean, we go to other people for
questions on everything, though,even when we become mothers.

(08:19):
Well, fevers I'm so scared thatthey have a fever, I've got to
reduce it.
I'm so scared that they have afever, I've got to reduce it.
For what?
What are you reducing?
What are you reducing?
Are you reducing it because youwere told to reduce the fever,
because you want your kid to goback to school tomorrow?
What is the reason behind and Iused these words earlier

(08:40):
suppression.
It's all about suppressingeverything.
We've got to suppress.
They have a sickness, suppressit.
You have a period and it sucks,suppress it.
Don't possibly look at what canhelp support your period.
No, just get rid of it.
It's all about convenience.
But now see, now I'm starting toget into territory where you
and I agree too much.

(09:01):
I can't do that right.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
We had a good run.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
I agreed too much.
I can't do that Right.
We had a good run.
We had a good run, we fought it.
I fought as hard as I could,but yeah, go ahead.
No, that's my window for asecond.
That was it.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
Okay, yeah, I mean I, I, I have.
I didn't have anything more toadd to that point.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
I don't want to.
I know we've been talking for along time.
You have a family and I don'twant to keep you just talking
forever, but this has been great.
I don't know I feel like it hasbeen.
It's been a very just, openconversation.
That I don't think is hadenough.
But I also I don't want peopleon Instagram to be like he
didn't ask me my question, solet me see.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well, go through, go through some of the rapid fire
ones, maybe, just to make sure.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
So the ones that were from home birthers.
I had a variety of questionsthat were all the same, but it
was about talking about menpractitioners in the birth space
, and there is one thing that Iwant to say about men in the
birth space.
I, like I said, I went to fivemale OBGYNs in my life.
Every experience was memorable,mostly because the first two

(10:12):
were hilarious.
They were like these guys fromLong Island and I lived in
Connecticut at the time, so theywere just really funny to me.
Another one stood out becauseso I had RhoGAMam during my
first pregnancy.
I'm negative blood type, myhusband's positive, and I bought
into the whole Rogam bit backthen.

(10:35):
And I say bought into becausenow I just I like unsubscribed.
I've literally just made thedecision that I unsubscribe from
the narrative around bloodstuff and that's my own personal
choice and you know, if youwant to question that, that's
cool.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, so like because blood, because life is in blood
, didn't you say that?
Yes, I did, I did, yeah, which,by the way, like the Chinese
medicine practitioners of 6,000years ago, or something you know
, chi like that blood is aliving quality to blood.

(11:11):
We'll talk about that next.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
I'll give you some yeah, that actually is what
changed my Rogam, was whatchanged my perspective on blood,
to be honest with you, becauseI had the first injection and I
had a crazy reaction to it, butI didn't know it was from Rogam
until I had the first injection,and I had a crazy reaction to
it, but I didn't know it wasfrom Rogam until I had the
second injection.
And then I had an anaphylacticreaction to Rogam and that's
when I finally was like I got towhat is this, what is this made

(11:35):
out of?
And went down that road.
That comes from human plasmaand it's pooled blood.
It's a bunch of people's bloodall mixed up together, and there
is a spiritual aspect to thatas well.
And, like you know, you don'tknow what medications people are
on.
They cannot filter out diseasesor you know anything like that.
So you don't know what you'regetting.

(11:55):
You're getting anything.
And because my body had thereaction that it did, I have to
tell you it was creepy.
So the first one, I had thisinjection and then, a couple of
days later and again I didn'tthink anything of it, because
we're not taught to question ourreactions after we have shots

(12:16):
or vaccines or injections orwhatever the case might be,
we're not taught to look forthings.
Later I started developing itchyhives in different places on my
body and they would come and go, but they were so itchy I
wanted to rip my skin off and Ifelt like it was something alive

(12:38):
underneath my skin.
I was looking up it's a scabies?
Because it felt like a livingsomething was alive underneath
my skin and it was so painfuland my OBGYN, who was a woman,
was totally useless.
She was like, have you taken anoatmeal bath?

(13:01):
I'm like, lady, I'm telling youlike this is bad.
This is more than oatmeal bathbad.
Like, yes, I have.
And you know, oh, put cortisolcream on it and stuff.
This is coming from the inside.
Something inside of me ishappening.
It's not external, it'sinternal.
And then you know I'm the onewho asked her is it my bile?

(13:23):
I'm doing the research to try tofigure out what the problem
could be, thinking maybe it'spups or whatever they call it,
which now I think that pups isoften a way that the medical
system uses to diagnose peoplewith skin conditions that they
just don't understand.
But that's opinion.
And I literally paid for anebook that this lady wrote.

(13:48):
It was like three dollars andit was.
She wrote it because it was howa remedy for pups.
And the way that she wrote thisit was like she understood that
something was happeninginternally inside of her body
and that you needed to cleanyour liver.
Cleanse your liver becausesomething is attacking your
liver is used to process right.

(14:08):
So I started taking high dosesof dandelion root, like in
capsule format, and then Ibasically was like no processed
food, only clean, you know,vegetables, fruits, that kind of
stuff.
And within within a week mybody started to clear up and
then by two weeks I was all theway better and I continued to

(14:31):
take dandelion root.
My ob, when I told her aboutthis, it was like she didn't
even give two craps.
She was just like great, goodfor you.
And I'm like man, what a missedmoment, like what a missed
opportunity that you're nothearing that.
Something that is attacking theinside of the body if you treat
it, if you try to clear theblockage.
That's happening, you know,because clearly I was having a

(14:54):
histamine response and my livercouldn't process it.
It couldn't clear it on its own.
It needed assistance and I didtake whatever it's called
antihistamines.
I did take Benadryl to try to.
I took everything at this pointand this was when I'm trying to

(15:16):
avoid taking anything becauseI'm pregnant and I'm like I'll
take the allergy pill whatever.
I'll take the allergy pillwhatever.
After going through thisexperience and then kind of
being like gaslit about it, andthen I had the second dose when
I had the baby.
After I had this horrificC-section, they gave me the

(15:38):
second one and I have thereaction again and I carry an
EpiPen with me, actually becauseI have an allergy to red four,
which is carmine, which is madeout of crushed beetles not red
40.
Red four carmine, yes, whichthat's a whole other side story.
That took forever to figure out.
That I had to figure out on myown because the allergist
couldn't figure it out.

(15:59):
But there are these little bugsand they release this red
poison and we use them for redcoloring in cosmetics and food
products in America becausewe're really smart and a lot of
people are allergic to itbecause it's a poison at high
levels.
So, anyway, I have thisreaction.

(16:22):
They have to use my own Epiipen on me because they're like
it's gonna take us too long toget one, we'll just use yours.
And then they're like what didyou eat?
What did you?
What did you do?
Why did you have this reaction?
And I'm just like I, I don'tknow.
You guys gave me a rogam shotan hour ago, 40 minutes ago,

(16:44):
whatever it was.
So in the end they're finallylike I guess, I guess it could
be from that, I guess.
so, going into that, my nextbirth I mentioned to you.
I went to an ob-gyn and it wasa male ob and then he had
another male partner OB.
So I saw this other guy thesecond visit and he walks into

(17:08):
the room and he like has mychart and he goes oh, you have
bad juju.
He walks into the room.
I'd never met this man beforeand that's what he says to me.
I'm like, excuse me, and he'slike you had an allergic
reaction to Rogam.
I've never heard of that.
And I'm like, okay, well, ithappened.

(17:32):
And then he's like okay, sowe're going to have to figure
out how we're going to managethis if you can't get a Rogam
shot.
And I'm like there's nothing tomanage, I'm just not going to
get another one.
He's like, yeah, well, you know, could be a big problem, could
be a big problem.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
And I'm like what did he tell you about the risk if
you didn't do it?

Speaker 1 (17:56):
This guy knew nothing , and the more I pressed, the
harder it got for him to answer.
I kind of wish my husband washere to tell.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
hang on.
Hang on, Because he washilarious.
This is a doctor, he knows alot of people.
What did he tell you?
What did he choose to tell you?

Speaker 1 (18:11):
This is an.
Yes, you're right, this is anOBGYN who says, because I'm like
, okay, well, what is?
Maybe we could?
We could maybe maybe tell ifyour baby has a problem in utero

(18:33):
.
I heard that the skin lookskind of weird.
I'm like, what do you mean?
The skin looks weird, like,yeah, you know, if you get
sensitized and you pass it toyour baby, their skin will look
kind of weird.
So we could probably tellthere's a problem, but I don't
know, I've never actually likeafter they were born no, he

(18:55):
meant like from an ultrasound ohwell, I don't know what to say
about any of that.
Um he he was very it was veryclear that from the interaction
that I had with him that he'sjust a procedure guy.
You know he does what he alwaysdoes and this was the first

(19:19):
time that he had had somebodycome in that's like I'm not
going to do this and he didn'tknow how to respond to that
scenario.
Now my former OB who convincedme to do RhoGAM, she had a
longer speech about it, she hada longer explanation to

(19:39):
sensitization and all that stuff.
But this guy he was just verymuch like because I was asking
him if I don't take this shot,if I don't get the RhoGAM shot
again at 27 weeks, then whatwill happen?
And he was like well, ifthere's a blood mixing, your

(20:02):
baby could become sensitized.
Mixing, you know your babycould become sensitized.
But there was a big disconnectbetween you know there's this
whole narrative in the RhoGAMsensitization, blood
sensitization, sensitization,explanation about how it's not
about the baby that's in youruterus, it's the next one, right
Like it's not about the onethat's there.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Why don't we talk about this, yeah?

Speaker 1 (20:24):
let's talk about that .

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, the red blood cells like every cell in your
body.
They express proteins on thesurface of the cell and some of
those proteins are going to beconsidered native, like they're
your own proteins.
So you're generally unless youhave an autoimmune condition,
which is certainly something alot of people deal with you're
generally not going to have anyproblem.

(20:48):
Your immune system is not goingto have any problem with those
proteins being around.
So the red blood cells arecirculating around and they're
just waving at the immune cellslike hey, ted, hey Larry, hey
Georgia, you know, and they'rehaving a good old time in there,
good old time in there.
But if there's a protein inthere on one of those red blood
cells that is looked at as likewhoa, you don't belong here,

(21:09):
sort of like Germany, everybodywho was wearing one of those bad
do those, like you know, armsleeves, arm cuffs, like to mark
you as Jewish, like you'regoing to be treated differently.
So the immune system goes afterthis red blood cell that has a
protein there that doesn'tbelong.
That protein is called Rhfactor in the context of what

(21:31):
we're talking about, and thereason that it's circulating in
mom's bloodstream is because thebaby must have a different
blood type, specifically an Rhpositive blood type.
So that's A positive, bpositive, ab positive or O
positive.
You are Rh negative, so youhave either A negative, b

(21:52):
negative, ab negative or Onegative.
When you have a baby inside ofyou that is Rh negative like if
you're A negative and your babyis A negative, there's going to
be potentially some fetal bloodcells that circulate in your
system that are just passingthrough like they're nobody
knows, no surveillance.
Immune cells are going to beseeing that as a threat.

(22:13):
But if you have a baby that hasa rh factor on their blood
cells, then those cells aregoing to start to be seen as a
foreign invader, right, and thefirst thing the immune system
does is try to destroy thoseblood cells in your circulation,
which is fine because you don'tneed the baby's blood cells in
your circulation.
But then you also produceantibodies to it.

(22:34):
So the way that baby's bloodcells get into mom are through
the birth experience, throughmiscarriage.
Sometimes there's some otherthings where you get placenta
needs to be scraped out orsomething postpartum or whatever
.
There are instances in whichthere can be sufficient
circulation or mixing of bloodbetween mom and baby that you

(22:56):
would produce antibodies and thereason antibodies are relevant
to this conversation is that thebaby that helped to generate
those antibodies is not indanger.
But if you have another babywhich is likely, if you have
multiple kids and you have ahusband that's Rh positive and
you're Rh negative, you haveanother baby that's Rh positive
and some of those cells do comeinto your circulation.

(23:17):
I'm sorry.
If you have a baby that's Rhpositive in the next pregnancy,
after enough blood has passedinto your circulation from your
previous baby, who was also rhpositive, then those antibodies
can mount a very rapid responseagainst the new baby that's
growing in there with rhpositive blood.
And so what we generally see isthat your baby's blood cells,

(23:40):
the growing baby's blood cells,are all destroyed by your immune
cells and so their blood getssuper, super, super, uh, uh.
It's, it's like.
It's like not viscous, whatever.
The opposite of that would belike like it, it, it.
It's almost super liquefied ina way, because it doesn't have

(24:01):
the viscosity that is providedis provided as a consequence of
there being all these bloodcells in there.
So the baby will potentially insome cases pool fluid in
different compartments in theirbody, which we call fetal
hydrops, but the risk of thathappening is around 10% to 15%
if you never got Rogaine.

(24:25):
There's a catch, though If youget the Rogam, presumably it
drops it down to like one to 2%.
This risk of alloimmunization,that process I just described
the problem with RH right now inthe people.
Well, first off it could bewhole blood.
That's from a person who hadthe COVID vaccines and all that.
That's one part of theconversation.
The other consideration is wedon't know how much Rogam to

(24:47):
give to prevent thatalloimmunization from happening.
So we just say, hey, just takea whole, just take the whole
slug, whole syringe of it.
Nobody's actually looked atwhether or not, like, maybe a
little whiff of Rogam issufficient at this part of their
pregnancy.
Or you know, you know you gotto double that for postpartum.
We just give you this bigwhomping dose, dose which could

(25:09):
in a person like you.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Could you explain what is in RhoGAM that would
potentially prevent someone fromhaving their immune systems
these cells attacking?
And one other question I haveon top of that.
And one other question I haveon top of that when you do
genetic testing and you knowtest for the gender of the baby,

(25:37):
you're giving your own bloodbecause the baby's blood is
circulating in your blood system, in your blood and, to an
effect, right.
What's the difference betweenthat baby's blood being in your
blood and a traumatic bloodmixing event that they're
referring to when it comes toRogram?

Speaker 2 (25:57):
So what you're asking is, when we do like a
non-invasive prenatal screen andthey want to look at the sex of
the baby based on a blood drawlike 11 weeks baby, based on a
blood draw like 11 weeks, theycan determine what the sex of
the baby and a relative risk forthings like trisomy 21 and
whatnot.
It's called the NIPT.
It's not really a test, it's ascreen, but it's super specific,

(26:20):
super sensitive.
It's almost as good as a test.
What's the difference betweendoing that and this mixing of
blood?
Because if we have enoughinformation to be able to probe,
you get a blood draw from momand determine the sex of the
baby.
Doesn't that mean that there'slike blood cells circulating?
No, because what thatnon-invasive prenatal screen is

(26:42):
looking for is little tinyfragments of the baby's genetic
makeup that do not correspond towhat mom's genetic makeup is,
and the only reason that I guessthat they're able to tell that
is that they're able todetermine, like they're able to

(27:02):
see that, okay, mom's whole redblood cell is here and we can
dissolve that and we can see.
Here's the genetic material, andthen there's these little
fragments that don't match upwith that.
So it must be fetal there is.
So that's very different fromwhole blood cells from the baby
circulating into yourcirculation, and those whole

(27:23):
blood cells have proteins on thesurface.
Those proteins are what triggeran immune response.
The little snippets ofpresumably little snippets of
fetal DNA that are circulatingthrough your system when we do
the NIPT, that blood draw, thoseare not going to have those
proteins that elicit an immuneresponse.

(27:44):
So it sounds like magic, and itkind of is, because frankly I'm
not even sure exactly how thattest is able to distinguish
between mom and baby's bloodtype.
But it does seem to have beenvalidated and we do generally
trust that result.
But your next part of yourquestion was the Rogan thing.

(28:06):
What is in Rogan was the Roganthing what is in Rogan?
So let's say that you had an RHyou're RH negative, which you
are and you had a baby that wasRH positive.
And after that, yes, and afterthat you were found on a what we
call type and screen.
There's an indirect Coombs testwhich basically looks for

(28:27):
antibodies to various things.
It's called indirect becausewe're looking for antibodies
against the antibodies thatwe're searching for.
It's not relevant, but when wedo a type in screen, what we're
looking for is what is yourblood type and do you have
antibodies against any of thosecommon proteins that are found
on the surface of blood cells?
If you were to go and get atype in screen when you get

(28:48):
pregnant which you might in thispregnancy they'll do a type and
they'll say what is your bloodtype.
So let's say that on your typein screen they said ooh, you're
positive for some RBC antibodies.
Let's go and figure out whatthey are.
They find that you actually haveanti-RH or anti-D another word

(29:09):
for it antibodies.
That means that you've beenalloimmunized.
That means you have antibodiesagainst RH factor, meaning if
you have another baby inside ofyou that is RH positive, you
could, in theory, mount animmune response through
antibodies and destroy thatbaby's blood system or blood
supply.
Okay, we've established thatpart.

(29:32):
So what is Rogam?
Rogam is a product made bytaking somebody like Rebecca's
blood that has antibodiesagainst Rogam and they are
against RH factor and theyprobably do some magic with it.
But then they inject that intoa person who hasn't been

(29:52):
alloimmunized.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
So it would be someone with negative blood type
that has the antibodies againstit.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah.
So what we're trying to do iswe're trying to prevent another
woman from making antibodiesagainst RH factor.
So we give them whole bloodfrom somebody that has already
gone through this process and itserves the function, from what

(30:24):
I understand, of basicallyblocking the new person's immune
system from making thatresponse.
We don't want them to produceantibodies, we don't want them
to even see this as a as aforeign invader.
We're going to mask it and sothat next person or you in in
your pregnancy, if you get ashot before pregnant, before you

(30:46):
give birth, and then a shotafter you give birth, we drop
that risk of that immuneresponse and the antibody
production.
We mask that and prevent it forthe next pregnancy by giving
you those two shots.
So that's what we hope toachieve with it.
But we don't know theappropriate dose.

(31:07):
We don't really know what's theminimum effective dose.
That's where most of thecontroversy lies, and I have
women who've had like sevenbabies.
They're Rh negative but Rhpositive babies and they haven't
alloimmunized yet.
So that's a pretty unlikelyscenario and I do feel like that

(31:27):
risk of 10 to 15% is probablyan overestimate.
It's probably way less thanthat and I don't think we fully
appreciate why Sarah Whitcombhas a great book on RH.
I think it's called like Anti-D.
Yeah, yep, that explains someof this.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
I tried to get her on the show but she's like booked
for three years.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
What do you think about thefact that the initial RhoGAM
trials for testing RhoGAM was onmen and only men?

Speaker 2 (32:04):
Wait say that again, wait say that again.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
The testing that they did, the medical testing for
the theory behind RhoGAM.
It was performed on men, onmale patients.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
It's never actually been studied on women because,
first, they can't study thingson pregnant women because it's
considered unethical.
Yeah, this is the answer tothat is probably that to answer
this you have to actuallyappreciate how is research
conducted.
And to do research you have togo and write a grant or write a
grant proposal and get a bunchof money.
But that grant proposal isgoing to say, hey, here's how

(32:43):
we're going to do this study.
And the reason that research isso cool and so hip in the
academic world is that when youget giant papers published,
especially if they change aperson's clinical practice, it
gives you a little bit of extralike trip spot when you're
walking around like, oh, I gotpublished in nature or whatever.
So everybody wants to getpublished and they want to have

(33:05):
a result that is really reallystatistically significant,
meaning the result that we saw,or the effect of a drug or
whatever else, was far stronger,it was a far more significant
effect than you would expect bychance.
So it's similar to saying likeif you flipped a coin 10 times,
you would expect it 50% of thetimes to be head, 50% of the

(33:28):
times to be tails, but in thistrial when I flipped a coin, it
was 90% of the time heads and10% of the time tails.
That's statisticallysignificant way, way more than
we would expect by random chance.
So in order to do a good study,which our gold standard is
called a randomized controlledtrial, you have to eliminate any

(33:51):
possible confounder, meaningany attribute of your test
subject or the test protocolthat could potentially interfere
with an un-medicated, so tospeak, study.

(34:12):
So what I mean by that is thatif we were to study 100 people,
we want them all to be roughlythe same type of person, so that
when we look at the effect of adrug or an intervention or
whatever else that we can't say,well gosh, maybe it would have
been different had maybe there'sa difference between men and
women.
We don't have enough people nowto do a sub-analysis.

(34:32):
So what they try to do is theytry to get a homogeneous group
of people, meaning people thatare almost identical in height,
in weight, age, in race, inethnicity, in socioeconomics,
whatever.
The problem with this is thatthe people that are most likely
to volunteer for studies areyoung, healthy men, and the

(34:55):
reason that young, healthy menare great test subjects is
because they don't havemenstrual cycles, so across,
let's say, a 30-day menstrualcycle.
You're going to havefluctuations in various hormones
, various physiology, variousbiochemistry pathways,

(35:15):
biochemical pathways.
There is going to be adifference in how your gut works
, how your brain works.
Your whole nervous systemoperates differently in the
follicular phase versus theluteal phase, so women are
naturally poor test subjects inrandomized control trials.
So what that means you are farmore complex than the physiology

(35:37):
, at least as we know it, of men, and so what most studies look
at are men of about the 25, 20to 40 year old range.
They're generally in goodhealth and they're very often
athletes, because athletes arevery disciplined and they're
very willing to do the thing theway the protocol was set out to

(35:57):
do.
So you're already biasing anyresult from most literature not
all literature, but much of theliterature that is in randomized
control, trial format, doubleblind, placebo control, all of
that that we all talk about asbeing really important.
You're going to find it in abias towards young, healthy men,
because women are not good testsubjects because they fluctuate

(36:20):
on a month to month basis noteven a month to month, a day to
day basis throughout.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah, throughout the month, yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
Right, so.
So I presume, like with mostresearch, that's what we're
seeing with RhoGram.
I actually didn't know that,but also I don't know if it
necessarily would change myperspective on things.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
Sure, Cause it sounds like you're pretty used to that
being the way that it's done.
Yeah, exactly, it's like ofcourse it is because we don't.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
We don't ever study women, especially pregnant women
, in anything, so the data isusually very, very sparse and we
try to draw, you know, reallysweeping generalizations from
those studies, and it doesn'talways serve us well.
Sometimes we're kind of stuckto doing that, like we have to
do it that way, but it very,very rarely serves us super well

(37:07):
that way, but it very, veryrarely serves us super well.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
So question then the output of this is do you believe
in Rogam or no?

Speaker 2 (37:23):
Should women be getting Rogam?
I don't like using shoulds.
I think that.
I think.
I mean I think that it's.
I think people should not getthe COVID vaccination or the
booster.
I think they should becompletely withdrawn from the
market.
I can say that in good faith.
I have seen a number of babieswho have developed high traps,

(37:51):
vitalis, which is the collectionof fluid due to the loss of
viscosity in their blood,collection of fluid in the
baby's body and the baby dying.
I have seen that it's not theworst thing I've ever seen.
But when you've seen a lot ofbad stuff, your practice tends
to be altered by that.
We know that actually through avariety of studies.
What I will say is I am all fora person being fully informed

(38:12):
around any risks or benefits oralternatives to any procedure,
and that goes for induction.
It goes for C-section.
If you want to have like anelective C-section, go for it.
Is that what I would do?
No, is it?
You know, would my wife and Iget Rogam if either of us was RH
negative?
Or if my wife was RH negative?
I should say no, probably not,because I think we're talking

(38:34):
about a fraction of a fractionof a percentage, but do I think
we shouldn't be offering it ortalking about it?
No, I had a midwife who used towork with me who said I said
well, how did you talk to herabout the vaccines?
And she was like abouthepatitis B.
Let's say and she was likeabout hepatitis B.
Let's say, oh, I don't talk tomy clients about that because I
don't believe in it.
Well, like scientific inquiryor let's say, science itself is

(38:57):
not a belief system.
It's my job not to tell you howto think or how to be or how to
live your life.
It's my job as a doctor to giveyou the full complement of
information in a respectful way,when you're not under duress
with, like you know, in themiddle of labor, so that you
fully appreciate the pros andcons and alternatives, and then

(39:18):
to support you in that position.
And if I'm not comfortable withyou, you doing X, y or Z, then
it's my job to find somebody whomight be more comfortable with
that.
That's it.
So with Rogam, I do teach thisin the Born Free Method.
I will tell people, if it was meand my wife, we wouldn't get it
.
But if you're open to this andthis is what you want to get,
then I think it's a veryreasonable thing to do.

(39:41):
Do I think we should be givingthe full dose?
No.
Do I think we're giving it totoo many people?
Yes.
Do I think it's necessary?
In every single situation whenyou're pregnant, rh negative,
including a six-week blightedovum miscarriage?
No, no, there's almost zerochance of you alloimmunizing

(40:01):
after a first trimester loss.
But we love protocols.
We love to just box it in andmake it neat and tidy.
If you're RH negative, you getthe shot.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
I think there's always room for more
conversation and nuance likethem or the stance that their

(40:32):
practitioner took was well, wedon't know if that's the father
and have pushed Rogan either way, regardless of whether there
was a true potential.
So I think in some cases it canbe that.
But I think what I hear youtrying to or I hear not trying
to, I hear you pressing intothose listening today is or I
hear it not trying to, I hearyou pressing into those
listening today is we all knowthe COVID shot's no good.
We have no way of parsing thatout from the potential of that

(40:58):
mRNA being in the RhoGAMinjection, because it's made
from people's blood and ifsomeone had that shot it could
potentially be in rogan.
I mean it's just the same as Ihear and see women all the time
asking for breast milk donationsand yeah, like if you've had

(41:19):
the jab, no thanks.
So same kind of thing toconsider.
I mean I stand where I stand onit based on my own experience.
It's like been been there, donethat, had a bad reaction, no
thanks, I opt out, I unsubscribefrom this and you know I'm just
going to, like everything elsewith autonomous birth and making

(41:39):
these choices, leave it up toGod.
It's in his hands now.
There's nothing I can do aboutit.
You know, I didn't create mybody.
I didn't create my husband's.
I mean, technically, my body iscreating my children's bodies,
but I'm not doing anything, it'sdoing it itself.
Yeah, I know I've kept you onhere for 100 hours now and I

(42:01):
appreciate you taking the timeto talk with me.
Let me run through this listreal quick.
You tell me if you want toanswer anything or if you want
to just jump off.
That's fine.
So from the home birthersshould men practitioners really
be in the birth space?
What part of hospital birthmade you walk away?
And again, that was asked like17 different ways.
What would you tell current ornew labor and delivery doctors?

(42:23):
So that was from home birthers.
From non-home birthers, isconstant, excruciating pain when
fully dilated, even betweencontractions, normal.
I'm not a doctor, but thatdoesn't sound great.
Use of tinctures waste of timeor worth it?
A lot seem to make them forreducing risk for postpartum

(42:43):
hemorrhage.
Do you screen the people you'llaccept for home birth?
Would you support a mono, monotwins for home birth?
What about insurance?
The midwives team I have,what's that Don't use?

Speaker 2 (42:57):
insurance.
I don't accept insurance Momotwins.
I would not do it at home.
I mean, unless that person waslike I would.
I would rather you, I'm goingto free birth.
If you don't attend my birth,and I accept that there's risks,
I just want somebody there.
In case there's something thatyou can do to help, I would be

(43:17):
willing to consider it.
But Momo twins are generallynot what I would do at home.
Can?

Speaker 1 (43:24):
you explain why to people that don't know about
twins Can?

Speaker 2 (43:28):
you explain why to people that don't know about
twins.
Yeah, so you know, if the twinsare separated by dags, meaning
either mo-di or di-di twins,then they are relatively
separate, like their cords andeverything are separate, mo-mo
twins almost invariably.
I don't think it's reasonableto even expect that they're not
going to be tangled upcompletely, reasonable to even

(43:51):
expect that they're not going tobe tangled up completely.
So one twin has the cord aroundthe you know twin B's cord
around their arm and twin B hastwin A's cord around their neck.
Like they just get tangled upinside there.
It's like natural.
Does that mean that Momo twinsin never, ever, in any situation
, could ever be born vaginally?
I don't think so, but I'm surethat they have in the past.

(44:13):
It just seems to me like sortof one of those like man,
there's a great chance thatwe're going to need an operating
room rapidly here.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
What would you think about or what would you say to a
free birther who's never had anultrasound?
What if they have Momo twins inthere?

Speaker 2 (44:30):
Well, you wouldn't know until they came out, I
guess.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
Yeah, you wouldn't know.
There's our proof of concept.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
It can happen, yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
Let's see what other ones on here.
I don't work with insurance.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
A lot of people ask that, yeah, I don't accept
insurance.
That's a whole separatethree-hour conversation.

Speaker 1 (44:51):
I know, and most midwives don't, or home birth
supporters, do all your co-paysand you have your monthly
premium.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Once you do all of that, the insurance company
might start working it over, buteven that is a negotiation with
the hospital.
The insurance company mightstart working it over, but even
that is a negotiation with thehospital and you're going to end
up paying way more if you'rebilling insurance than if you
pay out of pocket, whether it'sin or out of hospital.
So we have a big problem in thehealth insurance scam.
But I don't do it because Idon't get paid to do a lot of

(45:42):
the lifestyle intervention stuffthat I do by the insurance
companies.
It's not billable.
There's literally no way for meto get paid Like I'll get 20
bucks for doing a well womanvisit and that's just not worth
it to me because I'll spendsometimes three hours at a
consult with people.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
So yeah, yeah, absolutely.
That's definitely a wholeconversation.
Insurance in general themidwife team I have only
delivers at the hospital.
What questions can I ask aboutexpectations?
And then I'll just throw theseother two out there and you can
kind of circle to what you, whatyou want.
How would you support a clientwith a history of shoulder

(46:17):
dystocia and what is the plan ifthere is a true emergency?
For example, I'm 45 minutesaway from an ER.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Yeah, I mean, that's all the ones asked.
Yeah, not everybody, I think,needs to have a home birth.
Um, you know, of all the thingsthat we we train in uh like
emergency wise in in the birthspace, shoulder dystocia and uh
hemorrhage are probably the twothat we get the most practice

(46:51):
with, because it also doeshappen more often than people
like to believe.
It's not like one of thosephony things where people say
this could happen, like like youcould get penile cancer if
you're not circumcised, likethat's baloney.
Um, but like stop.
But shoulder dystocia, likethat is not one of those like

(47:12):
fairytale things.
Like there's a lot of shoulderdystocia now, whether or not
it's actually a true impactedshoulder, probably, that's
probably relevant.
There's probably very fewactual true dystocia.
But when it happens and thebaby's bone is hitting into this
pubic symphysis, that's likethe pubic bone in the center you
have to know what you're doing.

(47:36):
Having said that, when a personsays I have a history of a
shoulder dystocia, that's wheremy mind goes, like was it really
a shoulder dystocia?
What had to happen for it to beresolved?
Because if it was just like apushing and then I got an all
fours and it resolved to me nota real shoulder dystocia, but
for those out there who weren'tprompted to get on all fours

(47:56):
when a shoulder dystocia wasidentified.
That's, the first step is geton all fours.
I wouldn't say that on my oralboard exam, but that almost
always relieved them.
You know, because that's amidwifery movement, that's not
what we talk about.
I did that on my boards and Iwas like, well, if I was um, you
know, I probably would get themon all fours.
Oh yeah, but you're notpracticing like a midwife.
I was like, uh, okay, all right, let me think like a doctor now

(48:19):
but that's the next answer.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
What's the real answer?
Cut the baby out.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
No, no, there's things like you can deliver the
posterior arm, you can do woodscrew, ribbons, maneuvers,
there's all these otherdifferent techniques you can use
.
But getting them on all fourschanges the baby's relationship
to the pelvis.
It actually can sometimes openup the outlet of the pelvis.
So, anyways, I would want tomake sure for starters was it a

(48:46):
true dystocia?
And if so, are you willing toperhaps accept that that might
happen and that there might be areal catastrophe that you can't
get access to to help forimmediately?
And if not, then that homebirth is just not a right idea.
It's not my job to convinceeverybody to have a home birth.

(49:06):
It's my job to say hey, thevast majority of women are
probably close enough to ahospital first off and probably
are healthy enough to expectthat they can have a baby
without any medical supervisionwhatsoever.
And if they have a midwife anda doula there, that's probably
sufficient.
If you need a little extra help, there's a doctor available up
the street, maybe, maybe in meor you just go to the hospital.

(49:30):
So it's up to every singleperson to not be looking for
somebody to convince them that ahome birth is a good idea.
If you feel called to have ahome birth, that's probably the
best place for you to have ababy.
We haven't even talked aboutthe nervous system and
everything and how that allresponds to where you know your
birth environment, but that isactually an important factor.
That all responds to where youknow your birth environment, but

(49:50):
that is actually an importantfactor.
So, um, to that person askingthat question, I say you know,
if you're not feeling likecalled to have a home birth and
don't like, that's okay.
Nobody should nobody shouldcorrect you or or condemn you
for having a hospital birth,that's okay.
When you're in the hospital,that's where I think navigating
that space is really, really.
It's tricky, but it's veryimportant that you practice

(50:13):
saying no, thank you, but alsoreally knowing what it is that
you stand for, you and yourpartner.

Speaker 1 (50:19):
Yeah, or perhaps repeating what they did in the
last birth that released theshoulder, or studying different
positions that they could getinto to potentially, you know,
because I think the thing that'shard for thinking about this
space is when someone is says Ireally want a home birth, but

(50:40):
I'm you know that this scenarioand then going into the system
it's not going to be the same.
I mean, you can be as educatedas you want and still, birth is
not the time for you to bearguing with people first of all
, or fighting with people, orhaving somebody that has to
stand up for you.
Like you said, the way that wego into birth.

(51:03):
You were mentioning the nervoussystem and it's not exactly
what I'm talking about, but atthe same time, it is who is in
our birth phase matters.
And yeah, for example, when mymidwife ended up backing out, I
was like, well then she wasn'tmeant to be there.
Yeah, you know, this is this,is everything's falling into
place, because I wouldn't wantsomeone who is afraid or has any

(51:26):
fear or could have slightconcern, to even be in that
space, because then they bringthat fear and that negative
energy potentially into thatspace.
You know, I'm planning thisnext baby and my mom always
comes in.
Actually, all the birth videosthat you see on my page my mom
took oh, cool, she's, she's beenpresent, which is cool, so it's

(51:49):
been my husband and then my momum, you know, was there and she
talked about my dad potentiallycoming this time around to just
keep an eye on all the otherkids and they were just here
over the holidays and I was likedad, I hear you're, you know
you might be coming.
He's like, oh, am I gettingvolunteered for that?
I don't want to be here forthat I don't want to see any of

(52:10):
this stuff.
I'm like, well, you're notinvited first of all to see any
of this stuff, but would I evenfeel comfortable with him being
in the house giving birth?
Like that's something I have tothink about as the one who's
giving birth.
It's like would I feel weird if,knowing that my dad is here,
like if I feel like I'm going toscream or whatever I'm going to

(52:33):
do, I'm going to.
You know, I need to be able tofeel comfortable doing that, and
I've heard a lot of birthstories from women who have had
people in their birth space thatthey shouldn't have, that they
then later, you know, feltdidn't feel completely
comfortable and had a long, slow, drawn out birth, and I don't
want that.
So you know, it's somethingthat I think that women need to

(52:58):
consider.
So, anyway, any other of theseother questions you wanted to
respond to, you don't have to,but just I don't I don't know if
any of those jumped out to me.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
I mean the whole being a man in birth.
I think that there's more tothat question that we haven't
really addressed, but, you know,at the end of the day, I think
it probably is perceived bypeople that, like it's kind of a
there's some sort of I don'tknow the like OBGYNs males are

(53:29):
all perverts because they get to, like, see vulvas and stuff
like I'm not sure what part ofthat is like driving the
perverts to go to obgw, and Ireally don't know.
I don't think that that's thesituation.
Um, what I will.
I'll add to that, though, andsay that, yeah, a lot of, I
think, men have done reallyreally horrible things to women

(53:51):
over the years.
We've talked about a number ofthem.
But also, when you survey apopulation of people and you can
, you can actually try this onyour Instagram and tag me.
I'm curious, but I've done this, and the question is, if you

(54:15):
think back to the worstexperience you had with an
OB-GYN, were they male or female?
It's a 50-50, you know, likelike all the men are not the bad
ones necessarily.
I'm sure there's a lot of badones, but there's also a lot of
women that are not being verykind to other women.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
I agree.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Oh, I agree In my experience, it was like the
majority of male of femaleOBGYNs were actually harsher
against women than men were.
Men were almost like I'm goingto be very, very gentle, and the
women were like, come on, youhad a baby.
It was like, ooh, that's nothow I would treat my own wife
and I hope you never get totouch my wife, because that was
not very kind.
Um, so I think that there's.

(54:51):
I think that we have a medicalsystem.
There's a lot of people workingwithin it that are I, I.
It's a little sociopathic, likeit's a little bit like they're
the captain of the ship and theywant you to know how smart they
are.
There's a lot of that.
These are all good people thatgot into a space where now they
feel like they, in order to theyhave a chip on their shoulder,

(55:15):
in order to flex theirintellectual status or something
they need to show you just howsmart they are.
But ultimately, if you canappease to either a male or a
female OBGYN, appease to them inthe sense that you're like
listen, I don't mean anydisrespect, I really just want
to have a conversation.
I think most of them areactually going to be pretty open

(55:37):
to conversation.
They've become so we all doctorshave become so conditioned to a
person coming in wanting asilver bullet or a magical fix
for something when it took 10 to20 years maybe, to develop your
problem.
I don't have a magical cure.
I don't have a holistic remedyfor that thing.
We have to actually develop arelationship and we have to go
forward together and try somethings and see where we can work

(55:59):
.
But if you're a consumer that'sdemanding a quick fix, whether
it's in the form of aninjectable pharmaceutical or a
surgery, those OBGYNs realizethat they can more easily cater
to you, to those people.
If you go in and you're likelisten, I understand that
there's a lot of good things outthere.
I want to have a conversationaround this and not have
pharmaceuticals and surgery.

(56:20):
Is there anything you can do?
And if they're like sorry, Ididn't train to do that, that's
okay.
That's true, but at leastyou've had the conversation.
This like mudslinging betweenmidwives and doctors and doctors
and patients and all this isjust.
It's too much for me, which isanother reason why I'm so happy
to be out of it.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
Yeah, what I hear you saying is that it because the
medical complex is a business,in a sense it's.
You're going to someone for aservice, so tell them what
you're looking for.
They will tell you whether ornot they're a fit for what it is
that you're looking for.
I mean, when it comes down toit, and if it's not a fit, then

(57:01):
move on.
I mean, that's kind of what alot of women are, the situation
that a lot of women are in now,and why they're seeking home
births, and then you know,that's the thing that makes it
tough, though, for a lot ofwomen, especially in the area
where I live.
I've, you know, I know themidwives in my area and I
personally, while I think thatthey're wonderful, beautiful

(57:23):
people, are not a fit for mepersonally to attend my birth
right, and that's okay andthat's the place that I have to
come to right.
Um, how does your wife feelabout you being in the, in this
field and like all the birthystuff?
I mean?
In some senses she's probablylike this is great because she's

(57:44):
you know.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
It sounds like you guys have had two babies in the
last couple of years and you'vebeen there to support her well,
she's been with it throughthrough thick and thin med
school, residency, fellowship,and then even when I was still
in the hospital.
After all of that, uh, you know, one big thing for me was I
need to get out of the way,because now I'm an expert in how
to give birth and I'm alwaysthe guy that's like she's.

(58:08):
She's Mexican, she's traveled.
When I, when I met her in highschool, we've been together
since we were 16.
And when we met and I was like,oh, I really want to learn
Spanish, I went in and I learnedSpanish and I made the mistake
of correcting people's grammar,you know, and she's like, dude,
I grew up speaking.
That's like, let this be mine.

(58:28):
You know, she did karate whenshe was little and then I got
into competitive judo when I wascollege.
It was almost like I was tryingto be like her because I was
like I had such an adoration forher and so this was like the

(58:49):
story of her life.
And then, when we got pregnant,I had determined that I'm going
to take a step back and like lether be fully, the full.
I'm not even the co-pilot, I'mlike the flight attendant in the
back, like you, do you?
But I stepped back so far thatshe actually felt like I had,
like we were not connected superwell in our births, which is a
regret that I have and then Iwill always will have.
But there was a confrontationfor me to be like man do I

(59:09):
really believe this?
Like I talk the talk, but can Iwalk the walk?
We're going to have a.
We had our first birth was inthe hospital, but we went in at
10 centimeters and had a baby.
The second one we did it athome because it was like dead
center of the COVID stuff at theend of 2021.
And we decided to have amidwife and everything.

(59:31):
And it was like man, if Ireally believe this, I got it
Like we're going to have to getthrough this, and it wasn't as
hard as I'm making it sound.
But there was a moment therewhere it was like what?
Moment there where it was likehome birth, what?
if something doesn't go rightand I had to just surrender to
that, but we did and I was like,yeah, home birth, we had a home
birth don't boast about it oninstagram now.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
Um, so you were a little even you had that, that
concern in your mind, which Ithink is very yeah, it's healthy
, normal and human of us, right,right, especially after being
in the system and experiencingthings.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Yeah, I mean you experience a lot of bad things
Like that's what people don'tappreciate about OBGYNs.
They've seen some horrificstuff and they don't want that
to happen again.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
And midwives.
Even midwives too, and I thinkthat that's something that can
become tough is when they haveexperienced tough births long
ones, or things where bad thingshappened, or still births or,
whatever the case might be,transfers, that things weren't
great.
It shapes your experience andthe way that you're going to

(01:00:37):
react to things.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Yeah, it colors everything it does, it really
does yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
Yeah, things, yeah, it colors everything it does, it
really does, yeah.
Yeah, I've watched a couple.
I've watched a one midwife inparticular whose transfer rate
has just like skyrocketed thelast couple of years, and I
think I obviously don't know allof the stories, but my
assumption from the outside is,you know, she's seen some things
and now she's erring on theside of caution.
Yeah, yeah but I'm not.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
I mean, it's her, her , her deal, right yeah, well,
yeah, and we actually have datathat that does support this
notion that doctors who have hadbad outcomes tend to have like
lower thresholds forintervention because they just
can't.
Our fear of mortality, like asa society, is reflected in
doctors too.
We don't want babies to die.

(01:01:23):
It seems unfair that a babywould have to die, and in many
regards it is, but it's also apart of the fabric of our
mortality.
Not every baby is going to makeit through this.
And that's a hard pill toswallow, but for a doctor they
then carry that as like oh, hadI done this thing differently
Whether or not it's true thatwouldn't have happened.

(01:01:44):
And same with midwives.
So we know that that colorstheir practice and maybe even
over the long-term, modifies howthey view informed consent,
birth plans and whatever.
So you have that first breachthe baby dies or something.
It may not even have beenrelated to the breach, but it
now gives you this impressionthat breach is super dangerous.

(01:02:06):
Sure, I never really told youwhat my wife thought about all
of this, but she never oncethought that like oh, my
husband's a gynecologist.
She actually was always veryproud of me and supportive, like
.
I don't think it ever occurredto her that that's like like,
can you like?
She's like he's not in therehaving sex with people.
He's like doing his job, likeand I don't even know if she had

(01:02:27):
heard to her that it was likeyeah, I guess that is kind of
weird, until I started doinglike hand gestures, like I'd be
like I was doing an exam.
She's like can you stop doingthe hand gestures?

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
She's like all right, this is getting weird now.
Oh, I don.
She's like all right, this isgetting weird now.
Oh, I don't know about this, Imean.
But I even had to, kind of likeI said I it's not something
that I've thought about fromthat perspective either.
Until you know, I have to havethe you and I were preparing for
this.
I'm like I have to have thecritical conversation.
This is what people want toknow people want to know.

(01:03:00):
People want to know about this.
There is a concern there, ornot necessarily a concern, but I
know that.
You know women in the freebirth community they don't they
don't want anybody there, letalone a man.
It's it's a totally differentworld, you know.
It's a different bag altogether.

(01:03:21):
But I really appreciate youtaking the time to talk to me.
I I hope that this wasn't toofar off the path of what you
were hoping for in the firsthalf of your 2025 great actually
.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
No, this is pretty great.
You're the first one I've doneand I thought I hope you're
gonna release this whole thing,because it's been like what is
it Four hours or something.

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
I've been timing.
We've got three, 43.
Hey, and I started after, likethe intro, so there was maybe
another five minutes or so.
So I'm going to break this upinto multiple episodes.
I mentioned Dr Stu to youbefore he was on the podcast
Gosh.
I think it was two years ago,two years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
I looked it up.
Actually I looked it up and Iwas like, ah, twice I doubled
his time.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
And he did too.
Yeah, he was here for a whileand then he was like I gotta go,
very abruptly, like I gotta go,I'm done, and I don't blame him
.
But you know he he was lovingsharing all this stuff and he,
you know, he really went intothe whole medical system stuff.
So it's good but anywayactually.
So those episodes are some ofthe most listened to episodes of

(01:04:36):
all time and so I have afeeling these are going to be
too, because people want to hear, you know, especially women in
the home birth space.
They want to hear from folksthat have like seen it, seen the
real stuff, and then like nowthey're out, what was it like in
there?

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
Yeah, I mean it's like it's like watching a car
wreck, you know like it's likewe all want to hate on the
doctors but then wheneversomebody steps out of bounds,
you like, want to like getinside of them.
I totally get that.
I meet doctors like that andI'm like I want to know your
story because every one of themworked very hard to get where
they are, to make the decision,to make any decision that's

(01:05:12):
going to take away or invalidateor some in some way that
literally the journey youstarted when you were 18 pre-med
student in college.
I mean that is like we have togive people credit when they are
like I'm not saying this totoot my horn, but stew was one
of my mentors residency.

(01:05:34):
Like dr stew, um bliss.
His partner, like I, was at abirth throw and she was still
apprenticing with him when I wasin residency.
Like, uh, when you meet thesetypes of doctors, for me I want
to get to know how they madesuch a radically unusual
decision to break away from acareer that had the potential to

(01:05:54):
make you 40 years of decentincome Not millions, but a
decent income and have respectand prestige and awards and the
white coat and all that I'm 40,so 40 this year.
So like I have 20, 30 yearsmore of doing this and it's

(01:06:15):
exciting, but it's also like man.
I can't imagine these peoplethat are doing this for 24 years
and then they step out like Iwant to get in, I want to go and
give them a hug, like that's areally hard decision.
So when you meet doctors thathave made that hard decision, I
hope we can all give them alittle, a little grace until
they cross us and then you cancome down absolutely well.

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
I give you tons of credit and you know, that's why
I said this is going to be atough one for me, because I feel
that you really respect birthand you really respect the birth
space and you respect homebirthers and it sounds like free
birthers too, that you're justlike cool I respect women and
and and fathers for for whatthis is so that actually for

(01:07:02):
both of them that brings up areally good point, and I think
this is something that you do inyour class, in your born free
method.
I think it is where you'resupporting, you know, both
husband and wives, but I see ahuge need for support with
husbands when it comes to birth,I mean, obviously, with home

(01:07:23):
birth.
As a home birther, I see theneed because I get so many women
that are like my husband's noton board and I want to do a home
birth, and then thatconversation is always, you know
, a deep one.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
I've got the prescription.
Do you have it?
I've got the prescription?
Tell me, yeah, okay.
So young men Got theprescription?
Tell me, okay.
So young men, going back to thewitch hunts, there's this deeply
like wounded masculine where wewant to protect women, right,
and it's sometimes it comes outin a very toxic way, a very like
sort of controlling way.

(01:07:54):
But when we were born littleboys, we heard our birth story
around the table, our momstelling our grandmothers and our
aunts and whatever, and there'softentimes a lot of language
that's very negative around, howpainful, how hard it was, which
I'm sure.
Of course it was painful, ofcourse it was hard, but that's

(01:08:15):
the language that we hear inrelationship to when we were
coming into the world and ourmother going through terrible
pain, maybe nearly dying, I wasripped open.
Those types of language oflittle phrases they stick with
us even before we can understandwhat they mean.
So that, plus this culturalmilieu of messaging that birth

(01:08:37):
is unsafe and it's dangerous andsomething bad is about to
happen at every moment, we menhold that within us and we then
fall in love with a woman.
Usually this is how it goes.
We fall in love with a woman,usually we, we have a baby and
yeah, and and this is certainlyhow it went for me and and then

(01:08:58):
our partner is going to have ababy and we become afraid for
them because we remember howharmful birth was to our mothers
.
And so we then become veryprotective of our partners
because they're now the one thatwe're the most in love with.
But we never forget harming andmaybe even making our mothers

(01:09:21):
feel like we almost killed them.
And in some very rare instanceswe do kill them and on maybe an
identity level, we did killthem and we know that our moms
and our dads never were the sameafter our birth.
And there's all this stuff, youknow, and mom's body changed
and all this stuff, all thestuff that we hear.

(01:09:42):
Men are also hearing that.
So what I have men do here'sthe prescription Um, cause the
home birth then is like,absolutely, that sounds crazy,
it's so unsafe, you're going toget, you're going to die, your
head's going to pop up, you know, like all this crazy stuff's
going to happen, everybody'sgoing to die and everybody's
just going to the house is justgoing to erupt in flames.

(01:10:03):
Here's what I have men do, andit's sometimes helpful for their
female partners to do this aswell.
Go to your mother and ask herto tell you the story of when
you were born.
And if you have a mother, youcan do this.
You can also ask your father.
But ask them and they're goingto tell you like, oh, it was so
hard, johnny, I had you know.
Ask them and they're going totell you like, oh, it was so

(01:10:23):
hard, johnny, you split me fromfront to back.
These are some of the terms I'veheard, even in my own verse
story, like oh, you know, I justwas so terrible and I was in so
much pain I couldn't go back towork and my nipples were
cracked.
It was like but what about mom?
So that's the first part.
But then you say, mom, thinkback to when you held me for the

(01:10:44):
first time and you'll seesomething switch in a woman's
eyes, like our mother's eyes,and she'll go back to that
moment.
She will remember it soviscerally, so vividly.
Oh, you smelled like this andyou had these little fingers and
you were making this littleface and these little noises.
They will remember the noisesthat you made and they'll talk
about just how incredible it wasto hold you and that will help

(01:11:09):
those young men in theirsubconscious become reprogrammed
to realize that there'ssomething far more important
here about birth.
And now you have a woman in yourlife who's going to give birth
to your baby usually, andthey're going to get to go
through this.
They're going to be holding ababy that you created with them

(01:11:32):
and they're going to go throughthat and it's going to be really
hard and they're probably goingto feel like they're dying.
But that's not the only story,that's not the only chapter.
There's all these otheremotions that are layered in
there, and so having men go andhave their own birth story
retold to them is like therapybeyond his years.
That's worth like 10 years oftherapy for us men.

(01:11:53):
So it's a great connectingexercise, especially if you can
do it together with your moms.
But that is a very, veryimportant way that I get people
to appreciate.
You know, this apprehension isvery valid, but it doesn't have
to be the only conversation, theonly story that you have about
birth.
And you can tell them birthstories, watch them, make them

(01:12:16):
watch YouTube videos.
You can do all that, but it'snot the same as hearing your
mother talk about how beautifulit was for you to be in their
arms.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
That's cool.
That's a very interesting wayto go about it.
I hadn't thought of that as athing, so thank you for sharing
that prescription.
I think that's going to help alot of people.
I have a hard time at thispoint when I hear people's birth
stories.
I've heard my husband's birthstory and I'm just sitting there

(01:12:44):
the whole time going.
Intervention interventionintervention, and then that's
why you know I'm I'm likeputting all the pieces together
of why it turned out in the waythat it did, but I I see the
value in recalling those things,so thank you for sharing that.
That's awesome, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:03):
Anything else for men to know, or you know, because
they they need to go throughthis.
Whether, wherever a woman ishaving birth, it's important for
her husband or partner to besupportive.
And there and it sounds likeyou had a similar experience
with your wife your first thatmy husband and I had that once I
was in labor and I'm likescreaming and whatever he's like

(01:13:27):
, step it in the background.
I'm like, do your own thinghere, lady.
Yeah, and we both had a lot ofregrets about that and you know,
fortunately we're able to dothat over again Twice now.
So, yeah, I don't know, do thatover again twice now.
So I don't know if you haveanything else that, but I think

(01:13:47):
what I was trying to just putout there is, I see that there's
a lot of room for men like youwho have seen birth, experienced
it, you know, understand it, tospeak to other men and educate
and teach and all that.
And I think that that's a lot.
That's what you're doing, right.

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
Yeah, that's key.
Like we meet up monthly as agroup of soon to be dads,
current dads, veteran dads inthe Born Free program.
We meet up every month.
We have some guest speakers andthat's really helpful for men
to just have other men that havelike gone through this or you
know there's there.
There are certain marriages thatfall apart through the

(01:14:24):
fertility journey becausethere's nobody there talking to
the men and because it's hardfor the women.
I mean, the whole thing is justreally, really hard for people.
But oftentimes men, I thinkthey want to take advantage of
the opportunity to be a activepart of this, but they are given
that opportunity.
So what I would encourage menis to approach the childbirth

(01:14:47):
experience with not theintention of solving any problem
.
I know it's cliche, but just asa reminder, there's no problem
here for you to solve and you'regoing to get to see your
partner go through some reallyhorrific stuff mentally,
emotionally, emotionally, maybeeven spiritually through this
experience and it's going to behard for you to sit there and
just be a part of it and bearwitness.

(01:15:07):
That actually is the best thingyou can do.
We don't need you to flex yourmuscles.
We know you're big and strong.
We don't care.
We want to see how well you cansit on your hands and just be
still and bear witness, which iswhy I think it's helpful for
men like me to have actuallybeen to so many births like.
That part was still stillincredible in our birth

(01:15:29):
experience.
But I I wasn't like looking fora problem to solve.
I was actually for me, it wassort of like uh, tempering my
excitement, like I was like a,like a lab, a Labrador, like, oh
, I want to be.
I'm like so excited I'm notafraid of it so much that I'm in
there and I actually need toget my masculine energy out of
the way.
Most men like are stuck on thewall.

(01:15:51):
I had to like pull myself backand be super, super stoked on
the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (01:15:57):
Well, you also have this.
You also had this medicalbackground.

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
I imagine that makes it even harder yeah, yeah, so I
don't think that there's any.
Um, I don't think that therewas any.
Like one of my macbook speakersnow my headphones died.
Um, that's hilarious.
I should probably go for dinner.
Um, yeah, I had the medicalbackground, I had all of that,
but it was also um, it was alsotrying to like.

(01:16:25):
Your masculine energy reallyforms a, a nice like anchor for
her feminine energy.
When she's, when she's roaringa baby out, like she's
transforming and she's archingher back and she's on different
positions, knowing that I'm justthere as an anchor was
sufficient for my very feminine,very, very like enraptured wife

(01:16:49):
.
You know, in that, in thatprocess but watching a person go
through that, you would thinkthat there's some problem there
to be solved.
But it wasn't more lemonade, itwasn't more sage, and in fact
she was like enough with allthat stuff.
It was just being still andbeing present and not being on
my phone and just being therewith her.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
Yeah, yeah, awesome, nathan.
Thank you again.
I appreciate it.
I'm going to let you go nowYou're done.
All right, if you're lookingfor Nathan, you can find him on
Instagram at Nathan Riley OBGYNor at Born Free Method, which is
oh, there's an Instagramaccount, and then you can also
go to bornfreemethodcom.

(01:17:26):
So, thank you again.
I really appreciate you sharingall this, and we're going to
have to break these, uh, theseepisodes up, but it's going to
be awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:17:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:37):
There you go and, uh, thank you all for tuning in and
for being on this journey withus.
If you'd like to follow alongoutside the podcast, you can do
so on instagram, facebook and onyoutube at the radiant mission,
and today we're going to close.
The bible verse all right,romans 15 and 13.
May the god of hope fill youwith all joy and peace as you
trust in him, so that you mayoverflow with hope by power, the

(01:18:00):
power of the holy spirit, andwe're wishing you a radiant week
.
We'll see you next time.

Speaker 2 (01:18:04):
Bye everyone Goodbye.