it gets to get even more increasingly
dangerous to even have a child
now people are scared of it people don't
know how to do it i was talking to my
grandmother she was in a garden
right and she was wearing a long skirt
she was gardening while she was pregnant
i won't tell anyone give it to us raw i
recommend everyone
a country that spends as much money on
health care it still does not have very
good outcome it was like a major
complication that you've had had so i
signed out against medical advice
this fear has pushed on you and you own
it and greetings and peace welcome to
the dean's show i'm eddie your host
subscribe if you haven't already
hit that notification bell so you can
get all of our shows delivered to you as
soon as they come out and don't forget
to support us on our patreon page
we got a very very important topic that
we're going to be discussing today
because even with all of the madness all
the chaos
in the world people are still having
babies and now
people are scared to go to the hospitals
so home birth the topic of home birth
has come
up and we brought an expert on the show
who's delivered over 1200 babies from
the comfort of your home
so this is a home birth expert we're
going to ask her
on the ins and outs of it so you can be
more informed
better informed to make a better
decision with our next guest
you mentioned home birth this is what
this is this field you you specialize in
what's officially your title uh i'm a
certified nurse midwife
sort of so i'm an rn with additional
training and certification by exam
in nurse midwifery yeah so now
especially now since people are scared
of hospitals they're
turning around now a lot of people are
trying to stay away from hospitals
right but then it seems like it's
growing now home birth
home birth has seen a little uptick
people are nervous about going to the
hospital
there are different issues though i
always tell people
it's not enough to say you want a home
birth because you want to avoid covid
home birth is a really 150
commitment so it's hard to jump in at
the end of pregnancy
just because something scared you at the
hospital it's really good to spend as
much of the pregnancy as possible
preparing for home birth how long have
you been doing this i started attending
home births in 1990 as an assistant
i went as a nurse with some a physician
group that was doing home births and
then some midwife groups
and i became a nurse midwife in 95. so
how many around how many babies have you
1200
1200 yeah yeah why is it that when you
mention home birth it's it seems like
it's something from the stone age it
seems like something like you know
that it becomes something like even
weird to talk about
well there's a lot of fear around birth
in our culture
we're somewhat protected from it we
don't
see it growing up we don't hear about it
too much
and then women are not always as
educated as is ideal they haven't really
been prepared for the experience of
birth and it's
kind of common in our culture not just
in birth but it's kind of
common to defer to medical authorities
if anything is wrong with your body it's
a very rare doctor who will say
tell me what's going on you're the
expert on your body
the doctors usually want to maintain the
authority and
be the experts and they are they do have
training
and they do have experience to inform
people's care but i look at my
relationship with my families
very much as a partnership i'm not
telling them what to do
i'm guiding them i'm giving them the
benefit of my knowledge
but they are in the driver's seat the
one exception being if
in labor there's some type of emergency
then i will take
charge of that situation and that's
really why most people hire me they
don't want me telling them
every little thing they can do or can't
do but they do want me there making sure
the process is staying healthy and
normal
so during these times we want to give
people a better clearer picture a better
understanding
because now it's on the table it's
definitely something now because people
again are some are scared to go to the
hospitals
some have heard the term some are
considering it you know but still kind
of nervous and scared so we want to kind
of
let them know what it's all about you
know but you just had to
go back to some of your grandparents
really and ask them you know
i was talking to my grandmother about
this and she said
she told me a story that she was in a
garden right and she was wearing a long
skirt a dress a long dress
and she was gardening while she was
pregnant and she gave birth while she
was pregnant she
pretty much uh she had the baby in the
garden
yeah and the baby came out into into the
uh
her her dress and uh
when i talked to her about this [\h__\h]
yeah it was just normal you know it was
very something very
very normal but now it's become like the
normal at one time become
abnormal and this fear there's so much
fear right there's a lot of fear
around the pain of childbirth now i
won't i won't tell anyone it's not
painful there's
no give it to us raw childbirth
preparation that is
i mean very rarely maybe a handful maybe
two people in all those 1200
would say they had a relatively
pain-free childbirth experience but
there's going to be some pain
but what i try and reassure people about
is it's not pain like you broke your arm
it's not pain like you have a kidney
stone it's normal pain it's
for purpose pain and it's doable so you
have these
intense sensations they call them
contractions
and you do think yes something really
big is happening in your body but you
get some breaks from them you
you learn to relax very quickly between
so that you have the stamina
and the strength to continue and and
women do it all the time
is this is this are we seeing a turn in
the culture now are we seeing that now
people
are are also insurance companies are
they covering this
are is it turning around don't get
reimbursement from insurance companies
but i would say it's too early to say
there's a turn in the culture
it's still probably only about two
percent of the population that
wants to seek out home birth only two
percent
there's a i don't know if you've seen
this documentary i recommend everyone
who is planning on having a child
i was about to have a child that they
watch it i don't know if you've seen it
it's called the business of being born
it's a great documentary like it's
brilliant yes very good for those people
who haven't watched it can you kind of
give us a breakdown for what you
remember of it
so um ricky lake whom i only knew
as a comedian and a an actress i
didn't know she's smart and she put
together a very good film
but she talks about the business end of
things and how some of the practices in
the hospital that women take for granted
like
you have to be induced for this that or
the other reason
or you know you have to speed up your
labor you have to they
assume that that's for health reasons
but actually um there are some other
factors that are figuring into that the
hospitals are run
to move people through because it's a
for-profit model
so they don't want women having
three-day labors and tying up a room
and and you know it's a little
simplistic to say that is really
in people's minds um and physicians
you know i don't want to uh denigrate
any physician they they want to
do the best for their patients but they
kind of
swallow some of the kool-aid sometimes i
see that they think it's for the best
for the patient that her labor be sped
up
but there can be some very serious
complications from the misuse of that
technology
i think technology is wonderful i'm
grateful for it
but it's for the rare labor and not for
the every
woman that comes through the doors and
so it's misused quite frequently
and it leads to problems and you
mentioned the increasing cesarean rate
yes women's bodies have not changed in
the last 35 years
it's not like suddenly women are not
able to give birth
vaginally what has changed is the
practice of medicine
there's a lot more emphasis on this
health care as a business
there are liability issues that um
drive practices sometimes in a negative
way
so that's what um she i remember talking
about in the documentary that these
c-sections are just i mean like you said
okay
it's there for a purpose in case of what
would you say extreme emergency
right for an extreme emergency um the
most common reason
probably given when you're looking at
medical reports would be
failure to progress well failure to
progress
is kind of a catch-all phrase meaning
the labor didn't go as we expected it
didn't go fast enough we thought the
baby was getting stuck
but honestly everything is um
everything is changing in labor the
baby's head is molding
the woman's pelvis is opening so what
that usually means
is failure to progress was just you
didn't progress in the time frame that
we had
in our heads so it's uh in our heads
right right the um the thing that people
don't realize
is that cesareans lead to sometimes very
devastating complications
and that's part of people don't talk to
talk about infant mortality as being
higher than it should be for this
country
but the maternal mortality is too high
it's really high for this
uh a country that spends as much money
on health care
and has really um
everything every bit of technology that
you could wish for
it still does not have very good
outcomes and there are a lot of
countries that are
that have many fewer resources that do
better
yeah that article um the article rising
rate of c-section is rising at an
alarming rate
and there's a quote here from it it's
very interesting
and this is what the business aboard
documentary really revolves a lot about
that the business model but this
particular quote is interesting
uh where i believe they're quoting it
says as an obstetrician
told me said you're going to pay me more
meaning for the c-section you're not
going to sue me
and i'll be home in an hour so it'll be
very convenient less liability
and more pay all true
now i would hate to say any given
obstetrician has that consciously
in their minds when they're performing
an operation but
it does play into the way practices
unfold
yeah that's that's a fact a reality of
life huh many people it's nice to i mean
there are a lot of great doctors out
there there are a lot of but some gifts
get overtaken with i would say the
worship of money
and also the fear of losing money
because
uh lawsuits potential lawsuits liability
so is that
with the with the caesarean c-sections
it's like you um are waiting
and you mention the hospitals like you
got to get them out
get them out and if if they're not
delivered at a certain
time it's time is money time is money
and
and to be fair the physicians do not
have a very it's not a very
um easy time to be an obstetrician in
this country
they do have huge malpractice premiums
yeah big time yeah
and they have a lot of other expenses
that
and even just loans from medical school
they are
not it's not a get-rich-quick scheme but
you're right they are
concerned about now to get rich it's a
quick scheme
absolutely um we've we've noticed from
talking to people and then they
you know the difference between also
someone who's a professional like you
you just seem like there's
there's more just this uh this less
hands-on approach
a lot of times we hear this term i want
to deliver naturally what does that mean
when a woman says i just wanted to live
naturally
without intervention without
intervention without intervention so
even you could at the most extreme point
you could say that going to the hospital
is an
intervention and it does have an impact
often women's labors
slow down when they go to the hospital
it's the stress of transition the stress
of being in a strange place you actually
slow down
slow down or stop completely so then
you're in a situation
where of course they want to add some
medication to your iv so that you can
get your labor back
that's called the potosum the pitocin
what is that pitocin
what does that do tocin is the synthetic
version of oxytocin which is what a
woman's body makes to
cause her uterus to contract so they put
it in an iv
they start it very slow so that because
people react to it differently
so they want don't want to over stress
the baby and then they gradually
increase it till they get a contraction
pattern that will
cause the baby to be born now i'll tell
you a most amazing story about
how much of the mind affects labor
so i had a woman call me on a sunday
this is years ago this baby's probably
15 or 20.
she called me on a sunday and she said
i'm interested in home birth can you
take me on
and i said well i don't know tell me a
little more she said well i should tell
you
my due date was on friday and i said
okay
and um has your prenatal course been
normal and she said yeah it's been fine
i said
okay she said i should tell you that i
was in labor on friday
in fact i was at the hospital and i got
to seven
centimeters and they my labor slowed
down and they wanted to break my water
and they wanted to add pitocin to the iv
and i was uncomfortable so i signed out
against medical advice
i'm in the middle of labor and so very
brave woman
i said well okay that's interesting i
said if you're still pregnant tomorrow i
can't take you as a client over the
phone without laying eyes on you
or seeing your records but bring your
records to my office we'll meet tomorrow
and we'll see and so she came she
brought her records everything was in
order
and i said well i don't usually do this
the first visit but
would you mind if i checked your cervix
she said sure
she was seven centimeters she had been
seven centimeters for three days waiting
to
see me two hours after she left my
office she called me and she said well i
think it's time for you to come
and i went she had her baby in it like
two hours she's she's had babies before
obviously she had she was her fourth
baby
she kind of understood the process and
she understood her body
she understood her body but i had not
imagined it was possible to
halt your labor in the middle because
she was very
uncomfortable she was very fearful about
what the medical professionals wanted to
do
that's another complaint that we get a
lot you know people complain about this
uh fear inducement right and then they
just
you're like it seems like you're the
environment usually like you're in a
laboratory
and this fear is pushed on you and you
only you're gonna get an infection you
have to
we have to induce you we have to there's
that in the other and panic kicks in
that can't be healthy can it you're very
vulnerable you're
vulnerable when you're in labor and
you're vulnerable when you're making
decisions around the health
of your children so yes
i have heard physicians say
you will kill your baby if you don't do
what we say
how can you respond to that you can not
really
it's hard and then if you're in the
middle of labor you can't even
barely finish a thought much less have a
conversation
so the most important thing i think with
having an
uneventful or straightforward efficient
labor
is to find a provider that you have very
good communication with
and to that you have a similar
philosophy
because there does need to be a a deep
level of trust
like your you know there could be i mean
even at home there are certain decisions
that need to be made like
do you want to give birth in a tub or do
you want to give birth on your bed or do
you want to be in a squat or do you want
to be
lying on your side and some most women
can make those decisions
in the middle of labor but it's nice to
have
um thought it through a little bit and
and think of what you might like and to
have somebody that's going to support
you in those choices
what's your feedback on this from
watching if someone watches that film
the
business of being born and then people
through their experiences have related
similar stories
okay so they go to the hospital and this
is the concern because
um the community let's say or the family
they want to have more children right uh
but now
um at a at a growing uh exponential rate
you see these
c-sections they're growing at an
alarming rate that's that's
i believe it's like one in three or
something like that so now you're
in this environment you're scared and
now what happens after a c-section
now it's even harder um to have
a natural births the next time around
and then you
and then the next time around what
happens it's like it gets get even more
increasingly dangerous to even have a
child is it
is that right oh many repeat c-sections
do lead
yes i mean you i would say
you wouldn't want to have a big family
if you were having all c-sections but if
those things were just
if they let it run its course do you see
in your experience that
this would be avoided i mean have have
you and your 1200
uh burs what kind of what was like a
major complication that you've had have
you had to run any to
get a c-section oh sure we go to the
hospital about one out of ten
times and it's usually not an emergency
usually it's something
long labor like the woman's getting
tired she wants pain medication or
or she's getting to the point where the
contractions are getting weaker because
her body is
so tired and so then it is helpful to
have those tools that the hospital has
to offer it's
helpful to have pitocin it's helpful to
have pain medication
but that should be reserved for the
unusual labors i tell women when they're
having their first baby
they can pretty much expect to lose one
night's sleep and if they're unlucky
they might lose two nights sleep
if you start approaching the third night
without sleep
then probably you need to look at going
to the hospital because
i don't think people can really um
handle that
length of time of extreme stress and so
that's so yeah i'm grateful for the
technology to help with those kinds of
labors
but it's not helpful when it's used on
every labor
when too much intervention would you say
is a bad thing too much so so we have it
here in case of unique situ
situations extreme emergencies but
um in general yeah and and
birth is not like a television show
usually these things unfold over time
it's not like
one second everything's fine and then
you're saying oh my gosh we have to go
to the hospital
it's usually um okay this is looking a
little bit
like maybe we'll need to go we have a
conversation with the parents
and it's not um now there are a few
emergencies that can happen at the last
minute
and then we activate ems we called for
an ambulance
and that has gone very well too i mean
um
the paramedics around in the chicago
areas know enough about home birth
and they don't actually do
that much birth themselves and the
births they do do are usually just
normal births that
came faster than the parents expected so
they're very um
collegial they want the midwife to be on
board as part of the team and they
are extremely helpful so what what
people have talked about
when they've kind of described the home
birth it was
home birth which is more comfortable
less stressful
comfort of your own home they're not
tied up to all these machines beeping
beeping
um it was less like a laboratory cell
setting the fear wasn't there
right it's um they have they're the
hosts of the party and their people that
they
know and have invited to be there are
there in the hospital it's much more a
stream of
usually shifts are coming and going
people sometimes come in the room and
look at the machinery and don't even
interact with the couple there can be
some serious disrespect
and it's just yeah it's just um
i don't know why people don't
go someplace to make love or to go to
the bathroom like it's a normal
physiologic
experience and it should not normally
need to be medicalized
we see some hospitals going towards more
towards midwives
sure because that's what women want
that's very much the result of consumer
demand
and the midwives are doing a great job
in the hospital but they're still in an
institutional setting and they still do
experience
some of the same pressures that
physicians do so they
you know they do do inductions
they um i'll give you another example so
between 37 and 42 weeks is a normal term
pregnancy
that is during that time there's a one
in a thousand
rate of stillbirth those are babies that
don't make it for some reason that can't
be predicted or prevented it might be a
cord accident it might be a problem with
the placenta but there's not
really anything to be done about it
at 42 weeks that number is two in a
thousand
so it is a small but measurable increase
so
from a medical legal perspective why
would you ever let a woman get to 42
weeks because that
extra risk of stillbirth could lead to
lawsuits i
have a conversation with parents about
that especially as we get to their due
date or we're starting to go past their
due date i'm like
we have some testing we can do to
reassure ourselves that the baby is
still
healthy and the placenta is functioning
well but i don't force
people to be induced strictly because
they're 42 weeks they might have been
off on their due date by a couple days
i really believe that babies know when
to be born with a few exceptions and
there might be
like a baby that's not growing well even
that can be
misinterpreted because of the
imperfections of ultrasound
so mostly i would say
it's a parent's choice if they want to
be induced at 42 weeks
they shouldn't be pressured as much as
they are because
induction is one of the main causes of
c-section
you decide that the baby needs to be
born and you're going to start
the process of making the woman have
contractions but it doesn't work for
some reason
you're stuck you thought you said the
baby needed to be born and if the
induction isn't working
what else can you do but a c-section
okay so help us understand that for the
rookies out there for people to
understand
induction and then 42 at 42 weeks
it's it's more standard practice that
the baby needs to be born needs to come
out
otherwise we need to start induction
what is induction induction is putting
pitocin the that's the potassium
and the iv and 42 weeks is the latest a
lot of
a lot of practices want to start that
conversation
just as soon as you get past your due
date or at least by 41 weeks they're
like oh you're past your due date let's
just
make this baby due date can usually it's
not it's not 100 percent right
you do take it it's not a hundred
percent it's pretty it's pretty much
your best guess
the best guess within of the women that
conceived when you conceived so
only five percent of babies are born on
their due date okay so then
so then the induction is a ptosis does a
pitocin come with side effects
like any pharmaceutical drug well sure
so the first thing that
uh pitocin does the strength of
contractions is roughly the same by the
peak of labor whether it's natural labor
or pitocin labor
but the curve to get there the hill to
get up to the peak
is steeper for pitocin so women
experience that as
more painful so there's a greater need
for pain medication with a pitocin
induction
and that can cause different problems it
can lower the woman's blood pressure can
cause fetal distress
it can make it hard to push the baby out
all the
side effects of anesthesia can make it
harder to have a vaginal birth
the other thing is the pitocin can be
too strong for the baby
too many contractions can cause fetal
distress so yeah
but once you go down that route now if i
understood correctly
that has a domino effect so exactly if
it doesn't work
and and we're seeing that in most cases
a lot of cases let's say it's not
working
that equals c-section now yeah yeah
and then c-section equals next time you
want to have a baby
more like you become high-risk it's much
harder to have a vaginal birth after a
c-section
and then again then that could
potentially lead to another c-section
and then it's like hybrid we won't even
deliver you naturally
right but even even if you're planning
say you've had four c-sections and so
you've resigned yourself that your next
baby is going to be born by c-section
that's not even safe because the uterus
is so scarred
the placenta barely has a place to
implant
the placenta can actually grow through
the uterus and implant
in different parts of the body it can
cause horrible side effects
what about when the baby's breached
usually that equals
there have been some good doctors who
can kind of manipulate can you
do it do you also work with a breach or
you you go is that automatically equal
in most cases c-section
that is a thing that has changed over
the last 30 years there used to be many
doctors who would deliver a vaginal
breach
baby it is a slightly higher risk birth
i do recommend that people find a
provider that is comfortable and
experienced in breach but it's not being
taught in medical schools
it's it used to be considered a
variation of normal
it used to be just some babies come that
way
and now people are scared of it people
don't know
how to do it what's the wisdom behind
we're also hearing a lot from people who
look into this
and uh that leaving the when the baby
comes out
usually they'll snatch the baby and
they'll give him all these shots and put
the stuff that burns in their eye and
cut the cord but
how does it work with homework is it
where sometimes i even heard that
uh is there some science behind this
we're leaving the umbilical cord
and and have you have absolutely uh
it's delayed or physiologic cord
clamping i mean delayed can be
um like someone will say they're
delaying cord clamping if they wait
through
cord clamping that's what it's called
right but i wait until the cord is
stopped pulsing so the baby gets
um all of the it's a third of its blood
volume
in the placenta it gets stem cells red
blood cells
white blood cells there's a lot of good
stuff still got a lot of stuff
going through the cord and the baby gets
oxygen that's still coming through the
court so it helps
enormously with that transition to air
breathing which all babies have to make
they come out they've been getting
oxygen through the cord
now they have to expand their lungs and
take a breath
and if there's a little delay with that
if there's a problem with that
it's wonderful to have that cord still
pulsing and helping that baby transition
the skin to skin with the mother helps
the baby
it's not even just bonding it's like the
baby doesn't even know it's a separate
person from the mother
so its physiological processes
are so tied up with the mother it
responds to her heartbeat and her
breathing noises and it's been hearing
all of that in utero
so putting the baby i've seen a baby
that looked a little bit like maybe a
little limp a little bit blue
wasn't like perfectly transitioning put
it on the mother's chest
and it pinks up and it starts doing its
thing and it's
it's quite amazing but it's quite
underappreciated in the hospital because
they'd have a different physical setup
if a baby needs a little help
they're not prepared to do a
resuscitation at the bedside
so that's where that clamping the cord
and rushing the baby across the room
comes from because they have a warming
table where they have a team of doctors
around
and i actually find my recess
resuscitations go very well just
simply with me and my assistant at home
at the bedside with the cord intact
so pretty much uh at home home birth is
pretty much
uh just more laid back it is more laid
back
because really we only need to intervene
very occasionally
yeah and you just kind of let it just
run its course
exactly it's pretty it's a beautiful
thing to see
yeah i mean it doesn't seem complicated
at all i mean i mean obviously the pain
everything that goes through it but just
the process
it just seems not complicated more
natural way and we've been doing this
for thousands of years
all over the world women assist women in
childbirth
and they don't have a lot of degrees
they just have that hands-on experience
and it goes very well for the most part
yeah so um in
our last uh a few minutes what advice
would you have
for someone who now is uh they're
thinking about it because they're scared
to go to the hospital because of
everything that's going on
uh they've heard the term home birth
they mention it their family is like are
you crazy what are you talking about
but they're considering it you know what
what advice would you give
to someone like that people out there um
i think being comfortable with your
provider is important so interviewing
different home birth providers
i think that film you mentioned is very
helpful the business of being born
the business of being born that's a must
swatch would you say that's a must watch
the business of being born yeah and um
just
to trust your body and know that you
come from a long line of women who have
given birth
and until recently say the last few
generations
mostly vaginally and mostly without much
assistance
so um yeah i think just confidence
and and knowledge educating yourself a
good childbirth class is
a good thing to do and that's one of the
the beautiful things because fear can
just
it can be uh crippling you know just
talking to you i mean and um
and talking to others it just just seems
much more peaceful
just uh the whole process
the hospitals um it just seems like it's
that fear is just something that um
many people complain about and um less
so with the midwives in that but this
do you think the system is semi needs to
be some some modifications
it's broken or you know well i think
that
it's it's very complicated because
right our health care system is broken
and it's
very dominated by pharmaceutical
companies
and insurance companies and so hospital
administrators
as well there's other the risk
management people that
don't want you to step outside a certain
line because
what if what if what if and they're
afraid about lawsuits
so this i think single-payer health care
would help a lot
if we had simplified that and also if we
had a greater social safety net for
people
that do need some special care like say
you had a baby that
had a birth injury and needed some sort
of long-term care
who could pay for that people have to
sue but if we had
a more of a safety net on a global level
then that would be less incentive to sue
you know this is going to sound a little
political but cuba has
very good outcomes for infant mortality
maternal mortality
and they really do a low tech now they
do do hospital birth mostly
but they are family practice doctors
attending cuba
michael moore did a documentary about
that right yeah
he mentioned it i think in sicko yeah
yeah yeah that's that's what it was yeah
yeah sicko was another great
film to see yeah okay so that's a whole
different topic we're out of time but
this uh
the the healthcare big pharma and all
that but uh with that would you say
like when you look at the data because
we prescribe the most drugs
give the most shots but we still and we
have
the highest level of infant mortality of
sick baby
sick kids sick adults i mean this is
another whole other discussion that
wraps around with fish
yeah yeah okay um thank you very much if
somebody wanted to uh
if they're in the chicago area in
illinois that's where you're based
that's where i'm based they wanted to
give you a ring how can they look you up
my um practice is called new life
midwifery
what is it called new life midwifery and
i have a facebook page new life
midwifery
and i also have a phone number
773-573-9100
so but there are other providers and i
do encourage people to
interview around because a lot of the
success of home birth is based on the
relationship so you want to get someone
you
click with and communicate well with or
you might get some fans of the dean's
show giving you a little ring
all right thank you so much for being
with us god bless you and if you like
this episode of the d
show like this video share this video
far and wide and support us on our
patreon page so we can continue this
work
thank you for tuning in peace be with
you
subscribe right now