Send us a text Matthew Fray's new book "This Is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships" is directed primarily toward a male audience, and asserts most marriages end with a whimper, not a bang. Matthew helps us understand how good people like him "can be terrible husbands" by unknowingly causing harm to their wives. Did you know most divorces are initiated by women? Matthew explains relationships don't tend to end from a single betrayal, but after years of a slow but p...
Aug 17, 2022•56 min•Season 3Ep. 174
Send us a text Anne Margolis is a Certified Nurse Midwife, author, and trauma specialist who has been catching babies for over twenty-seven years. Anne began as a nurse, whose first birth experience ended in a fourth degree episiotomy and vacuum delivery after being told she needed an emergency cesarean because her baby's heart rate was decelerating. She was so "checked out" due to stress and shock that Anne describes her first birth as an out-of-body experience. Her baby was born with normal AP...
Aug 10, 2022•36 min•Season 3Ep. 173
Send us a text Sex and birth are inextricably linked. Both functions operate optimally under the same conditions: trust, safety, security, surrender. Furthermore, they both require oxytocin. So it is no wonder that birth can actually be the biggest oxytocin rush and/or orgasm of your life. But the importance of healthy sexual energy goes far beyond birth. It is also the key to our best relationship and our best life. Kim Anami is a holistic sex and relationship coach whose thirty years' experien...
Aug 03, 2022•46 min•Season 3Ep. 172
Send us a text It's the last Wednesday of the month, and you know what that means! We are back with our monthly Q&A episode. Today, we are discussing how long it is safe to go after your bag of waters releases ( see link to our amazing birth story below ); What can be done to treat or prevent Hyperemesis Gravidarum? Is Aspirin in pregnancy really necessary and what does ACOG have to say about it? When your hospital says waterbirth increases the risk of infection and is harmful to the baby--i...
Jul 27, 2022•44 min•Season 3Ep. 171
Send us a text Nicole Alfred the @csectionrecoverycoach is a cesarean recovery coach, massage therapist, and mother of two. She has given birth two times by C-section: one emergent and traumatic, the other empowered and planned. Her different experiences opened her eyes to the abject lack of support mothers receive post-operatively. Nicole sees a need for much more emotional and physical attention. In today's episode, she shares with us the key steps she believes mothers must take, beginning imm...
Jul 20, 2022•35 min•Season 3Ep. 170
Send us a text Should we really be treating fevers in young children? Why are babies so gassy? Are germs helpful or harmful for our kids? Do kids actually need cows' milk? What is the problem with dairy? Dr. Joel Gator Warsh , an integrative pediatrician in Los Angeles, CA, joins us today to discuss what is happening in our environment that is contributing to making kids sicker in the past generation rather than healthier, despite all the resources of modern society. He answers our most pressing...
Jul 13, 2022•58 min•Season 3Ep. 169
Send us a text The Business of Birth Control is a new documentary directed by Abby Epstein and produced by Ricki Lake, who achieved international acclaim for their revolutionary 2008 film, "The Business of Being Born". Abby joins us today to discuss why she and Ricki made their new film, which boldly shines a light on some of the severe side effects that accompany hormonal birth control, including death -- and the fact that congress, and the pharmaceuticals who make the pill, have long known abo...
Jul 06, 2022•42 min•Season 3Ep. 168
Send us a text Hello! This month's Q &A begins with a story from one of our Instagram followers on the pressure to have a vaginal exam to document cervical status so that her doctor can schedule an induction that she didn't need or want. Next, we jump into our questions starting with, "I have a narrow pelvis and grow big babies; what can I do stretch my pelvis for birth?" What can be done about plugged ducts and "Is my haaka helpful or hurtful?" Do I have to be on my back for a cervical exam...
Jun 29, 2022•44 min•Season 3Ep. 167
Send us a text Danielle Daure holds a Master's Degree in Education and has over 20 years' combined experience in education and behavior analysis. She is a Board Certified and Licensed Behavior Analyst (BCBA, LBA). For years, Danielle worked with children as old as five with extreme anxiety around toilets, to the point where they had severe constipation through tears and tantrums. She saw frustrated parents trying to reward and/or punish their children into potty-training; children who couldn't s...
Jun 22, 2022•42 min•Season 3Ep. 166
Send us a text "There is something going on against midwives, against birth centers, and against choice for women." Cathy Parisi is the director of the Connecticut Childbirth & Women's Center in Danbury, Ct since 1999. The center is the only free standing birth center in Connecticut and promotes physiologic birth under the midwifery model of care, offering women choice, freedom, and empowered decision making in their care in the birth center itself or across the street at Danbury hospital. R...
Jun 20, 2022•37 min
Send us a text Dr. Nathan Riley is a board certified obstetrician in California advocating for autonomous birth. Through his experiences as a hospice care provider he learned that choices around end of life care are no different from choices in birth: What matters is that mothers feel in charge of their bodies during their birth experiences. He argues that birth is so much more than the standard metrics of vital signs, length of labor, fetal status or any variable routinely measured in labor in ...
Jun 15, 2022•36 min•Season 3Ep. 165
Send us a text Kendra grew up around physiologic birth and was a VBAC, breech baby herself. She was planning a birth center birth when she went into labor unexpectedly at 35 weeks. Her physiologic birth plans quickly went out the window as she was continuously monitored, poorly treated, stalled around 7 cm, got an epidural and ended up with a C-section when her baby's heart rate dropped. Despite being born with excellent APGAR scores, her baby was whisked away from her and sent to the NICU for f...
Jun 08, 2022•40 min•Season 3Ep. 164
Send us a text Today's episode is another special roundtable, in which we sat with some postpartum women in Cynthia’s kitchen to talk about their experiences with anxiety, depression, panic attacks, arguments with their spouses, lack of professional and personal support and unmet expectations. Amy is a young mother of three; Devon is a forty-year old mother of one. Through tears and some laughter, you’ll discover that much of what a struggling mom experiences in her early months and years is uni...
Jun 01, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Season 3Ep. 163
Send us a text Hey everyone! Starting this month, we have an exciting announcement: Down to Birth Show is now producing longer Q&A episodes. So if you can't get enough Q&A, and you want to enjoy ad-free episodes all the time, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts! This week we're answering questions on: Difficult conversations with your doctor and how to discuss things like aging placentas, eating during labor, breech deliveries, etc.; What Erythromycin eye ointment works for and what i...
May 25, 2022•32 min•Season 3Ep. 162
Send us a text You may remember today’s guest from episode #105: Tips for Supporting Women in Labor with Guest Host Doula Krisha . This time, Krisha of @serenitylifedoula returns to the show to discuss her effective techniques for "training" - in the athletic sense - her clients for a natural birth. As a former collegiate athlete, Krisha has developed a methodology for training your mind and body to have your easiest, fastest, and safest birth. Today, she explains her four key steps to get there...
May 18, 2022•37 min•Season 3Ep. 161
Send us a text If you are on Instagram and you have a vagina, you most likely know Sara Reardon, aka the vagina whisperer , pelvic floor extraordinaire! Your pelvic floor is a group of muscles that attach to your pelvis and support your bladder, rectum, and reproductive organs. A healthy pelvic floor is essential to normal functions such as: peeing, pooping, sex, and childbirth. But after pregnancy and childbirth many women experience difficulty in one or all of the above. Sara joins us today to...
May 11, 2022•55 min•Season 3Ep. 160
Send us a text Yvonne Strahovski is the Emmy-nominated, SAG Award-nominated and Golden-Globe-nominated actress whose voice you may recognize as the stoic Serena Joy Waterford from The Handmaid's Tale. She is the mother of a toddler and newborn, with starkly different birth stories to share. During Yvonne's first pregnancy, she felt an intuitive pull toward birthing at home, but suppressed her inner voice in favor of the rational, which warned Yvonne that she lived too far from the hospital in th...
May 04, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Season 3Ep. 159
Send us a text It is time for our monthly Q&A episode! This month we kick it off with a follow-up conversation on the impact of early, frequent breastfeeding on significant jaundice. Next, we address the question of why babies who are born "big" get heel sticks for blood sugar monitoring; the impact of a c-section birth on your pelvic floor; how to manage family boundaries around your birth and birth preferences with your sister and mother-in-law; if you tear during vaginal birth and get med...
Apr 27, 2022•44 min•Season 3Ep. 158
Send us a text When Jessica Pin was a teenager, she became convinced her labia minora were unusually large and unattractive. Within days of her 18th birthday, she underwent labiaplasty with a prominent and trusted OB/GYN. Without her consent or knowledge, her surgeon severed the dorsal nerve of her clitoris, resulting in a loss of clitoral sensation. In the face of clear evidence, her doctor denied wrongdoing. Jessica has since discovered labiaplasty is regularly performed by OBs even though (a)...
Apr 20, 2022•51 min•Season 3Ep. 157
Send us a text Postpartum psychosis occurs in 1 to 2 per thousand births and involves extreme conditions such as hallucinations, intrusive thoughts, paranoia, suspiciousness, hyperactivity and inability to sleep. Today, Christa Ardelean joins us to share her powerful story of suffering with postpartum psychosis. Her story begins with a difficult pregnancy and birth, which, unbeknownst to Christa, included numerous risk factors associated with perinatal mood disorders. When Christa's son was born...
Apr 13, 2022•38 min•Season 3Ep. 156
Send us a text Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) is the most common metabolic complication of pregnancy impacting 5-10% of pregnancies in the United States. It is controversial, complicated and loaded with misinformation. Do I really have it? Can I reverse it? Is there a way to prevent it? According to Lily Nichols, RDN CDE author of Real Food for Gestational Diabetes and Real Food for Pregnancy, you can certainly "stack the deck in your favor" to reduce your chances of it impacting your pregn...
Apr 06, 2022•43 min•Season 3Ep. 155
Send us a text It is time for our monthly Q&A episode! Thank you to all who submitted excellent questions. Today we are talking about managing postpartum boundaries with in-laws, newborn nursing blisters--are they normal or not? What can I do to ensure my baby is not separated from us after giving birth in the hospital--do they really need to leave the room to be examined? What are the actual reasons I might truly need a C-section? What is the best way to split parental duties after baby arr...
Mar 30, 2022•45 min•Season 3Ep. 154
Send us a text "You'll never get sued for doing a C-section. You'll only get sued for the C-section you didn’t do." This is the narrative in obstetrics and the lens through which hospital birth is viewed. Litigation is feared in obstetrics but for the wrong reasons. What if, instead of resorting to C-sections to prevent liability exposure, doctors were rewarded for avoiding unnecessary C-sections? United States law as it's practiced today actually incentivizes OBs to perform C-sections, and this...
Mar 23, 2022•57 min•Season 3Ep. 153
Send us a text Today's discussion with sisters Jenny & Carrie, the pediatric occupational therapists behind Ontrack baby and the NOEL method, is a fascinating exploration of how the way we give birth impacts infant development. In particular, when the baby does not experience the "vaginal squeeze" the infant Moro or "startle" reflex may become over-reactive, leading to more fussy babies and slower development. Jenny & Carrie explain how vaginal birth can help infant development and answe...
Mar 16, 2022•42 min•Season 3Ep. 152
Send us a text "I don't have time for this today. My son has a soccer game. I am going to say that her baby's heart rate is decelerating and we need to do a c-section." This is just one of the many things Shelby, a nurse in Arizona, heard from doctors in labor & delivery when she worked on the maternity ward. This episode brings to light the very real fact that providers don't always have the laboring woman's best interest in mind. Instead, profits, time, and liability concerns drive many of...
Mar 09, 2022•25 min•Season 3Ep. 151
Send us a text Dr. Rachel Reed, PhD, is a midwife and author of Reclaiming Childbirth as a Rite of Passage. Since earning her doctorate, she is inarguably now among the world’s leading experts on placentas. The publication of her book has come during an era in which women are often told placentas can “fail”, “calcify” and “stop working”, or even cause stillbirth. This rhetoric - all of which we discuss in the episode - is not only terrifying, but false and harmful, and consistently contributes t...
Mar 02, 2022•46 min•Season 3Ep. 150
Send us a text We are back with our February Q&A episode! Today we are answering your questions around: Whether or not it is ok to eat in labor, leaking (or not leaking breastmilk), how long it takes to feel good in your postpartum body and relationship again; whether or not you need an OB in order to get prenatal ultrasounds if you are having a home birth; understanding ovulation postpartum; why not to birth on your back, and our quickies series, loaded with great questions submitted by all...
Feb 23, 2022•37 min•Season 3Ep. 149
Send us a text Today we are joined by Diana Marks , a social media influencer and coach, who is deeply passionate about bringing awareness to women on how and why to consider egg freezing for fertility preservation. If this is a topic you've been curious about, today's episode will answer your questions from, "When should someone consider egg freezing," to "How much does egg freezing cost," to "What is the emotional journey of going through this process?" With more women choosing to start famili...
Feb 16, 2022•27 min•Season 3Ep. 148
Send us a text How do you know if you are carrying generational birth trauma? And if you identify it, what can be done about it prior to giving birth? Today we meet with Stefanie, whose mother had a traumatic obstetrical experience while birthing to her second daughter, resulting in permanent brain damage and disability to Stefanie's little sister. Stefanie was five at the time. For nine months, she had excitedly anticipated her parents coming home with a baby, only to end up in her grandparents...
Feb 09, 2022•30 min•Season 3Ep. 147
Send us a text Lizzie Bolliger of Fiercelizzy doesn't consider herself necessarily a fierce person but very much a fierce advocate for autonomy and informed decision making in childbirth. Today, she joins us as a guest host to discuss what it actually means to be fierce in your birth planning and preparation. Guess what? According to Lizzie, it's not about having the most detailed birth plan because there is no power in the birth plan if you don't know why you are checking the boxes. So what is ...
Feb 02, 2022•38 min•Season 3Ep. 146
