Episode 146: The Financial Impact of Informed Consent for Birthing Choices with Dr. Stu

For Episode 146 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast, Rennie is joined by Dr. Stuart Fischbein. Known as Dr. Stu, he has been a practicing obstetrician for over 40 years. He is co-author of the book “Fearless Pregnancy, Wisdom & Reassurance from a Doctor, A Midwife and A Mom” and peer-reviewed papers on home birth and breech birth. Dr. Stu has spent 24 years assisting women with hospital birthing and hosts The Birthing Instincts Podcast.

For the last 13 years, Dr. Stuart Fischbein has been the only home birth obstetrician in CA who works directly with midwives. He also travels around the world as a lecturer and advocate for re-teaching breech & twin birth skills, respect for the normalcy of birth, and honoring informed consent. 

Wondering what this has to do with building wealth and Complete Financial Choice®? Listen in and find out how your decisions around birthing options can impact your health and your wealth.
 

In this episode, Rennie and Dr. Stu cover:

02:00 How Rennie and Dr. Stu met and why Rennie felt this was an important topic for his podcast.

02:51 Dr. Stu’s professional background and his personal journey learning about midwifery and the birthing world.

04:48 Why using the word client instead of patient is important in empowering an expectant mother.

05:39 How Dr. Stu found a different way of doing things and how he chose to embrace it.

09:01 The many things Dr. Stu does to give back, including supporting the Physicians for Informed Consent, the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, and FLCCC.

11:51 How the C-section rate in the US has increased and why.

15:44 The financial implications to consider if a woman adopts a more natural approach to childbirth. Looking at childbirth as a major life event – like a wedding is.

17:02 The cost of childbirth or C-section vs. the average cost of a home birth.

19:41 Why home births are not covered by insurance and why that is a good thing!

20:40 Why the money spent on your home birth is money well spent for you and your family - there is an incalculable financial cost to giving birth dramatically at the hospital.

22:52 How to get some resources from Dr. Stu on his website https://birthinginstincts.com including The Birthing Instincts Podcast and his blog. 

“What we need to do is back up, and we need to rethink of how we look at pregnancy and childbearing, not as a medical problem, but as a life event. And if you look at it as a life event - we use this analogy all the time - that two of the most important events in a woman's life are her wedding day and the birth of her children. For your wedding day, you plan everything. You plan the color of the napkins, you pick out your invitation list. You pick out what kind of cake you want. You pick out the venue. You do all these things, you invite people that you love. For your birth, you got your Medicaid card, or you got your Blue Cross card and you say, ‘Ah, this guy has been doing my pap smear for 10 years, I'll just go to him’. And you abdicate all these things to a third party who has no interest in your life event.” – Dr. Stu Fischbein

To listen to The Birthing Instincts Podcast visit https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/birthing-instincts/id1552816683 or read Dr. Stu’s blog at https://www.birthinginstincts.com/blog

To learn more about Dr. Stu visit his website at https://birthinginstincts.com