Today, Stephanie King, founder of My Essential Birth, shares her knowledge on natural childbirth and the importance of education and preparation. She emphasizes the need for knowledge and understanding of the birthing process, as well as hands-on techniques to align the body and prepare for contractions. Stephanie also discusses the significance of having a supportive birth provider and the role of visualization in creating a positive birth experience. All my expectant mamas out there you are not going to want to miss this one!
Tune in as she tells us all about:
🔹The importance of baby’s position and addresses common myths and misconceptions
🔹The need for support and care for both the baby and the mother during the postpartum period
🔹Insights on making informed decisions, considering birth settings, and navigating insurance constraints
🦋 Get my Pregnant & Powerful prenatal yoga course for mamas and teachers on flash sale now! => https://www.brettlarkin.com/prenatal-yoga-vinyasa-kundalini-meditation/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=pp
GUEST EXPERT: Stephanie King | https://www.myessentialbirth.com/
Stephanie King is a mama to 3 boys & 2 girls {all born very differently}, professional childbirth educator, doula, host of the Pregnancy & Birth Made Easy podcast, and creator of the online course, “My Essential Birth,” as well as “My Essential Birth – Postpartum.” She is passionate about empowering women through knowledge to trust in their bodies and the process of birth. When she’s not doing birth work you can find her homeschooling, serving in her church calling, indulging in good food and company, & spending time in the sun with her kids.
Find Us: @larkinyogatv and @myessentialbirth
Book mentioned: Penny Simkin’s ‘The Birth Partner’
FREE Practice: Gentle Prenatal Morning Yoga Routine – Safe for All 3 Trimesters (30-min)
Relevant Blog: 9 Yoga Modifications for Pregnancy and How to Teach Them
Relevant to Today’s Episode:
🦋 Pregnant & Powerful Course
💖 Uplifted Membership
🎧 Also Listen to:
My Home Birth Story (with a Twist!) | Yoga Teacher | First Baby | Prenatal Yoga
#293 – Model Yoga in Your Family with Sophie Jaffe
© 2024 Uplifted Yoga | BrettLarkin.com
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Transcript:
Brett:
All right, and we are good, okay. Hello, my friends. I am here today with Stephanie King. She is the founder of My Essential Birth. She has five children who are all born very differently. She is a professional childbirth educator, a doula, and she has an amazing podcast, which you should all be listening to, called Pregnancy and Birth Made Easy. And she’s also the creator of her own online course, my essential birth and my essential birth postpartum because we were just talking about how postpartum really needs to be its own universe. There’s so much we can focus on during that period. So welcome Stephanie. I’m really excited for you to share your knowledge with all the pregnant mamas today.
Stephanie:
Thank you, Brett. I’m really excited to be here.
brett (00:51.578)
Well, tell us where you want to start because I know that you really believe in the yogic approach of like aligning your body and then once that alignment happens, birth is easier and smoother. But where do you like to start when a woman’s pregnant and maybe she’s telling you she wants to have as natural a birth as possible because most people in this community, that’s something that they are interested in. I know you talk a lot about how…
Knowledge is power. So what are some of those first things that you invite pregnant women to think about or tap into?
Stephanie (01:27.661)
I love that question and it is a great question, especially for women who are looking for more of that natural approach. It’s kind of, I joke that it’s a chicken egg situation.
because there are two things that I think really set moms up for success when it comes to having that kind of hands off, I’m in tune with my own body and I get to make the calls kind of birth. And that is you need to have that knowledge and education. So the like knowledge behind why am I making the decisions that I’m making throughout my pregnancy and labor and birth experience? Do I understand the pros and cons of each things when the provider’s bringing up?
big scary words to me, am I able to process that information and already have a response ready to go? Like, have I already run across this situation, which you wouldn’t do without some kind of education behind you? And then the other half of that education is like the hands on, how do I work with my body? How do I align my body? How do I align my baby? How do I prepare to have contractions? How do I prepare for this entire process of pregnancy and labor and together with my birth partner?
And then there’s the side of you can know all of that and you can prepare for all of that and that is wonderful and great. But if you do not have a provider that is on board with you, you’re going to be fighting the whole way through. So that’s why I joke that it’s kind of a chicken egg situation. The thing is you could get the provider first, but if you don’t know what all your options are, you don’t really know how to vet your provider. You don’t really know how to ask for what you want. So it is one of those things they go hand in hand. Those are the two things that I highly, highly recommend for moms.
And truly the first step, like the very first place I send moms, and yes, the podcast is excellent, Pregnancy and Birth Made Easy, as you mentioned, but there’s these three simple exercises that I ask every mom to do, and that is pelvic tilts, forward leaning inversion, and a seated squat. Not like squats like you’re trying to build your butt, but like squats like you wanna sit down into a nice deep squat with a nice straight back and see how long you can hold that.
Stephanie (03:21.325)
and I ask moms to kind of build that up to 15 minutes at a time, which sounds a little bit crazy when you’re beginning because a good 20 seconds will have everybody’s legs tingling and you need to stand up. But as you practice that and as time goes on, you get really good at being in that position and that’s a very common position, especially late in labor when we’re talking about pushing and stuff that it’s like a natural position for moms to be in.
And the less strain and stress you have on your body, the better it is. So there’s obviously, we’ve got like a free guide and stuff at myessentialbirth .com where you can dive into that and I can provide that link for you as well. But those are kind of the first steps that I tell moms to go take care of those things. And along with that, the other side of that, like before you’re like, so I have to take a whole birth course or I have to go and vet this provider before I figure all of that out. I think one of the easiest things to do.
is focus, like take a moment, do some breath work, be quiet and still close your eyes and walk yourself through what your labor would look like without any other influence. What is happening in your labor from beginning to end from that very first contraction? Where are you? What’s the atmosphere like? Who’s with you? What does it feel like? How are you working through them? Are you hooked up to an IV? Are you in a hospital room? Are there bright lights on? You have to work through all of this and most of the time,
like 95 % of the time, that’s not what people are picturing. It’s very calm, they’re in their bedroom, they’re rocking back and forth, or they’re laying in their bed. They see themselves in a very comfortable setting, which is very normal. But if that’s the setting that you’re seeing and then you’re planning for an OB, kind of higher intervention hospital birth, you gotta do something to match those together. So that visualization part I think is really important too.
brett (05:06.83)
my gosh, these are such amazing tips. The visual is so important because yes, I feel like so many women, especially for that first birth, it just feels like birth is something that sort of like happens to them, right? And then they have so much information the next time. And it’s like to take the power back and have it be something that you are actively, just like an athlete would sort of like visualize a big event, thinking through all those little pieces.
I think is so important and I want to, I mean, so many things I want to dive into, but before we even do that, I want to review the three exercises. Obviously we’ll put the link where people can download those, but I know you talked about Molossina squat. So we’re all on board with that here. I teach that as well, like 26 squats a day is what I teach. And I love the idea of also just sitting in it for a longer periods of time. That’s beautiful. I think you mentioned two others. One was a pelvic tilt. Do you want to just describe or talk about that movement a tiny bit?
Stephanie (05:49.037)
Thank you.
Stephanie (06:03.565)
Absolutely. So this is where mom is on her hands and knees. Weight is distributed evenly between her hands and her knees. Your back is nice and straight and then it is not a cat cow. So I like to start by saying that, but you are literally taking your pelvis and tilting it under and forward. So imagine that you have like a string on your tailbone and you are pulling that string forward as you’re kind of pulling your belly button towards your back.
And you’re it’s just this rocking motion so that it comes in and forward you rock and you bring it back to flat back And you will have a little bit of roll in your upper back like where you curve just a touch like a cat But that’s why I say make sure that you’re not overextending and especially in pregnancy when we’ve got all that relaxin you want to be careful I’m sure that in your course you’ve got different ways that you do this But especially for moms who are not very active and stretchy normally you want to be gentle with your body?
But it all happens in the pelvis. It’s a nice tilt and we say start with like 20 to 30 in the morning, add that at the evening and then you can increase to really whatever feels good. But if you can get up to 50 in the morning, 50 in the afternoon, 50 in the evening, or however that works for you because we’re all busy people, then that’s great. I like to do it like right out of bed and right before bed because we have a lot of pressure on those forward ligaments and our lower back.
And it just feels good to kind of release those things as we’re getting up for the morning and resting at night.
brett (07:30.17)
And that tilt, so we’re doing like an anterior pelvic tilt, right? And then we’re coming back to neutral and even rounding a tiny bit. And that is kind of engaging the core, right? But like in a good way where we’re like hugging baby up and in. So I’m also seeing like the core strength benefit of that exercise. So absolutely love that. And then what was the third exercise? So we have the pelvic tilts, the squat, and then there was one other you mentioned.
Stephanie (07:40.461)
Totally.
Stephanie (07:46.861)
Yes.
Stephanie (07:54.381)
The forward leaning inversion. And this is so important and so simple and it’s done, it’s just done once a day and for like three breaths. but this is something you get onto a couch or a chair where you’re able to put your hands on the floor. So nothing too tall. And if you need to, and we highly recommend use your birth partner or somebody next to you, especially the first couple of times, you put a pillow down right in front of you and with your legs, like your shins sitting kind of on your feet,
on a chair or on the couch. So you get up on the couch and then you lean forward and put your hands on that pillow until you can get down to your elbows. And you tuck, a very important part of this is you’re sticking your bum in the air, you’re tucking your chin to your chest, and then your back is completely straight all the way through down to your neck. And then you kind of release, you just like.
breathe into your belly as heavy as you can and you do that for like three full breaths. So if you can count to like seven, seven to 10, as you’re breathing, breathing in and breathing out, and then you help yourself get back up and that’s it. And what it’s supposed to do is it kind of releases these lower ligaments in the pelvis that allows the baby to kind of be in a better position. So if it’s not so tight in there, then the baby’s free to move around and be more in that left occiput anterior or where baby’s
baby’s bottom and back is on our left side of our stomach and their head is down low. So it just allows them more space, more room to move into a really good position for birth. And it feels good. Like you’ll notice the first couple of times might feel a little weird and wonky, but it feels really, really good. The only women that don’t want to be doing that, if you have any issues with your amniotic fluid, like you have a very high amount of amniotic fluid, you have a very low amount of amniotic fluid, you have any kind of preeclampsia or anything like that, we are dealing with blood pressure and headaches.
or if you have any acid reflex, then that’s something that you don’t want to be doing. It is completely safe for everybody else. And it will not, because I know this question comes up all the time, it will not turn a good position baby into a breech possession ever. So you don’t have to worry about that.
brett (10:01.594)
I’m visualizing kind of like a down dog, like a long spine, but then I’m on my shins and I’m kind of supported by the couch or something like that. And it also kind of makes me happy. Yeah. So if people are doing a lot of down dog, I mean, that’s a similar position too, right? So that’s like, if people are yoga practitioners. Okay. I absolutely love these tips. And I think we’re honing in on something really important, which is like baby’s position. Cause I don’t think people realize maybe like,
Stephanie (10:05.549)
Totally.
Right. And on your elbows instead of your hands.
Stephanie (10:16.493)
Totally.
brett (10:28.57)
what kind of birth you are going to have is so much dictated by baby’s position, right? Like no matter what your plan is, if baby’s not in position, like things are going to go differently. So do you want to just, I mean, I know you mentioned the ideal position, which is head down and baby’s spine to the left, correct? But, and these movements being something that can help baby be in position and stay in position. What are the…
Stephanie (10:34.733)
your profile.
Stephanie (10:49.677)
Right.
brett (10:57.434)
common myths that you hear from your students about position or common myths that are out there that confuse people. I mean, I know if you have a breech baby, that is really challenging because, you know, baby’s in the absolutely wrong position and potentially upside down. So just anything you want to share with us about positioning.
Stephanie (11:16.813)
Yeah, I think if you’re doing all the right things, if you’re doing the prep work to help your baby be in a good position and to help your body really be this strong, healthy vessel for that baby, then whatever position they end up in is okay. And that can even be a breach position. So oftentimes when we have moms, they’ve worked through the birth course or say that they’ve done something like your yoga thing and the body is taken care of, the baby is well taken care of, and for whatever reason, that baby is breached. And they do all the things. They even do…
the external cephalact version or ECV where they have somebody manually try to flip that baby. They’re not flipping, you know. They’re doing the Webster’s technique with chiropractic care, which is just like a, it’s something that chiropractors get certified in that they can adjust the body and same thing, it helps open up that pelvic area so baby can get into a good position. If they’re doing all of these things and baby’s staying in a specific position, they usually have a reason. Babies are really smart.
and you’ll find whether they end up doing a cesarean birth or mom has baby breech vaginally, they will find something along the way that like, the cord was wrapped weird, like through their arm and around their neck or, you know, whatever. Babies are smart. So I always say like, yes, we love to be able to take control over the things that we can. It’s really smart of us to be on top of that. And it’s intuitive for moms to want to be the best that they can for their babies.
But also, like, don’t freak out if they’re not in that perfect position. It doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong, especially if you’re taking the time to do the things that do matter. Now, that’s not to say that if you find out at a late -term appointment that, baby’s posterior, meaning the back of their head is aimed towards the back of your back instead of the back of their head being more towards the front of your pelvis, which can cause some back labor and erratic contractions and you dilate weird and all kinds of stuff.
It’s not to say that a baby in that position can’t be encouraged into a better one at that point once you know, but if you’re doing all those right things, I just really want to stress that don’t put so much pressure on yourself that it’s anything that you did. Just babies are smart, bodies are smart, and there’s a lot of power that you have within your body as you’re working through these things to help to encourage them into that good position.
brett (13:25.818)
And then things, correct me if I’m wrong on this, but like things can change a lot once labor begins, right? Like a baby that’s not in an ideal position can all of a sudden at like the 11th hour sort of everything can turn around, correct?
Stephanie (13:30.637)
Totally.
Stephanie (13:37.517)
Absolutely. Breach babies can go into a head down position. Head down babies can go into a breach position. Posterior babies can move. Babies that are in a good position find themselves in kind of a wonky position. So yeah, labor is its own thing as well. So absolutely.
brett (13:54.714)
All right. So I love the exercise of really having a pregnant person write down their ideal birth. And I always invite people also to think about like, where do you feel safest? Because most yogis that I talk to want a natural unmedicated birth, not all, but many, many, many do. And then the question is like, well, do you feel safer at home or do you feel safer in a hospital? Because if you feel safer in a hospital, your body is going to relax there and your chance of having that natural birth will probably be higher in
Stephanie (14:04.909)
Yes.
brett (14:24.666)
the hospital. So are there any other tips that you would invite us to think about when kind of not just doing that visualization exercise, but sort of thinking about where do I want to be? And then also what’s realistic? Like you talked a little bit about, you know, choosing the right provider. And I remember thinking like, well, if only it were that simple. I had so many constraints of like insurance, right? And what my husband was comfortable with and are deductible and you know, who was in and out of network and.
Stephanie (14:45.997)
you
Totally.
brett (14:54.202)
And it made it feel like I didn’t have the choices that I wanted. And one of the things that really helped me, it was having an HSA, like a health savings account where I was able to put money, which thank goodness I did when I was younger. And then I actually had a little bit of a nest egg that I was able to use to fulfill some of my birth wishes and choices that were not covered by insurance. But I know you know a lot.
more about this. So, you know, what kind of compromises do you see women making and what does that look like?
Stephanie (15:26.637)
It’s funny that you mentioned this because actually within the birth course, we have this, it’s like birth plan priority game and we help women go through decision making. And so one of the things that I think is really important, and this is why I stress a birth course, and it’s not because I have a birth course and you need to come take my birth course. It’s because I’ve been the mom on the other side who didn’t take one. And then I really regretted some of those decisions that I just wasn’t knowledgeable about. So that’s why, that’s what kind of like fueled my passion for what I do today and why I think it’s so important.
So I think, and you mentioned a couple of things actually, but having the knowledge behind the decisions that you’re making. So if right now you don’t feel safe at home only because you’re not aware of how safe it can be at home because you don’t have the knowledge of what happens in the hospital versus at home and you haven’t talked with a midwife and you don’t know the options behind it, then that’s different than not feeling as safe at home because you’ve looked at everything.
read all the information, understand the decisions behind the conversations that you’re having with your provider or decisions that you’ve made during labor, and then you still feel like the hospital is the best place for you. That’s a very different place to be. So I never want women to end up in one space or another simply out of fear. You also mentioned the birth partner. This is like a huge thing. Like if you, and it was so funny because when I would teach birth classes in person, this was my like favorite part, right? Class one, and I’m like, okay.
you know, how many of you are excited to be here or whatever? Like where’d you find the birth class and, or information about it and all that. And then all the guys, right? It’s like, and then guys, how many of you were dragged here by your wife? You’re not excited to be here, right? All hands up. Like I’m here cause I love her and I support her, but like, I don’t care if whatever she wants to do is great. I’m just here cause I love her. By about class three or four, they’re like, Whoa, I didn’t know that I didn’t know all of these things. And now,
I know how to support her. Like I understand what is happening on the back end. So I hear as you’re talking about compromises and stuff, a lot of women compromise not going to a birth center or not going with a midwife, even in a hospital setting because their birth partner isn’t comfortable. So whatever you are reading and learning and getting educated on and practicing, you pull your birth partner in there with you. You guys are in this together. You got pregnant together. This is his baby too. Like it is a dual effort.
Stephanie (17:44.205)
And so I always say, if you’re gonna take a birth course or whatever you’re gonna do, have him listen in, even if he’s not gonna watch the videos or whatever, pop it in his ear, have him listen to the podcast. But I think those are kind of like, if you have ideas, like if you know, for example, I don’t want an epidural, well, okay, and you just don’t want one, but then it comes down to a provider, all of a sudden you’re in labor and things get a little intense and the midwife’s like.
Well, if we just, if we did this epidural, you progress faster and you’d feel better. You’d get some rest, you know, and you start hearing all those things. You’re like, well, why am I not doing an epidural? Like that, of course, that sounds like a great idea. But if you have some reasons behind it, like you’re like, actually I know about all the medications that go into the epidural and how quickly it hits baby. And I want to be able to feel this, not just for my physical state, but for my emotional and mental state. And you know, when you set things up that way, then it can create a different experience. So.
And then as far as insurance and all that goes, absolutely. This is the side of things where when you take a good birth course or you have really good knowledge and education, you’ve listened, you’ve read all the books, you listen to the podcasts and all that. And you’re like, I know exactly what I want for my birth. And for whatever reason, you’re unable to get that perfect provider, which absolutely does happen. That’s a very real thing. Well, at least you are set up in that way. So when you’re on board, your husband or birth partner is on board. They understand your birth plan and they understand the whys behind it.
Then I recommend if you can hiring a doula or having some a friend or whatever that really same thing knows how to love and support you knows how to do those hands -on things understands the process of birth and and how to help you make good decisions not making decisions for you Then that can be a really great addition to your birth team But yeah any any good birth course and stuff like you’re talking HSA FSA all that stuff is covered Some of them it depends on what you’re looking at, but some of them are starting to cover some doula care, too. So
That’s definitely, definitely an option.
brett (19:38.362)
Thank goodness. I mean, sometimes it’s like, why does this take? Why is this not covered? Dual is should be covered. It’s interesting because I love your focus on data and really understanding. And I thought that was such a great example of like, you know, kind of maybe being in a hospital setting, trying to try, you know, someone’s trying to seduce you a little bit into the epidural and then you really kind of knowing the facts and that lets you, you know, stay confident in your choices. And I was just curious if you had any
Stephanie (19:40.141)
I’m going to go.
Stephanie (19:44.493)
Right?
Stephanie (19:58.285)
Thank you.
brett (20:08.474)
tips for people when they’re looking at data. And I’m sure if they do a great course like yours, they’ll have a lot of things that you’ve curated. But I remember one of the things I felt so frustrated about during birth was just that the information that tends to be out there is so polarizing. You know, like people really just make the data look the way they want to to make their point. And I found websites and books of people who were like, home births are extremely dangerous. You have to be in a hospital. You’re insane if you don’t. And then I found books that were like,
totally the polar opposite, which was like everyone should labor at home. Like there was, it just seemed like, and I mean, so much of our world is like this now, like it’s just very polarized. But what scared me is I was like, even, I feel like people are just manipulating the data to make the point that they want to make. And I was just curious if, you know, any resources or maybe books or authors or, you know, how do you tell women in your course to approach this, you know, like really polarized landscape that we’re living in when it comes to childbirth?
Stephanie (20:45.549)
Right.
Stephanie (21:07.725)
I love that. I feel like I, that deserves like an entire podcast episode on my end. Like I haven’t necessarily talked about that, but you’re right. And in fact, I did a couple of semesters at midwifery school and I remember one of the things that they had us do was like, you know, go into this database, find, you know, research that supports you or whatever. and in my case, it was, I think I was researching like why.
or how home birth is just as safe of an option or really close to just as safe of an option for low risk moms as being in a hospital. And so I went and I looked up all that stuff. The problem that I found is exactly what you’re talking about. I could find both sides and I could have supported either side. And I’m like, okay, so what’s the truth? And the difficult thing is if you’re not somebody that’s attending birth, particularly births with women who are prepared and educated and looking for more of that natural approach in either setting, home birth,
birth center or hospital, then you don’t really get to see that side of it. And so even when you’re talking with good providers, good nurses, all of those people, it’s like how many of the other kinds of births have you really witnessed? Have you seen people that have not only gone unmedicated, but that have done it out of hospital? It’s so quick sometimes to say this is unsafe or this is unwhatever. And it’s like, but you’ve only even seen one side of it. So.
It is kind of a tricky place to be. One of my favorite things and one of my favorite books actually, Penny Simkin has, The Birth Partner. I think that is a great place to go because it is very just matter of fact. Here’s positions that you can work through. Here’s how to work with your birth partner. Here’s what’s in an epidural. Here’s the effects of the epidural. Here’s what it’s like to have one and have it go well. Here’s what it’s like to have one and not have it go well. So…
I do think that’s really helpful. I would say any kind of birth stories that you can listen to as well. and listening to what their preparation was too, because everybody’s got, you know, like my first birth, I didn’t have, I didn’t take a birth course and I ended up with a cesarean and I could have taken that one of both ways. Like, thank goodness. You know, because if they wouldn’t have done that, my baby would have died. But what happened was, is I got a little bit more educated and I learned about birth. I looked back on that and I was like, wait a second.
Stephanie (23:19.597)
they didn’t even give me a chance here. And if they wouldn’t have started Pitocin at this time and all that, and I watched the cascade of intervention. So it does make a difference, like the lens that the person is telling their story through. But I would say you can’t go wrong listening to a bunch of birth stories and listening to their background and where they came from and then the birth that they had. I highly recommend listening to positive birth stories when you are pregnant. But.
Maybe if you’re early enough on, you want to listen to all kinds of birth stories and kind of get an idea of, I like that, I don’t like that. But yeah, I would say start with Penny Simkins, the birth partner is probably one of my favorites. It’s just matter of fact, like here’s what you can do for your birth and your body and it gives you really good information that way.
brett (24:04.346)
I love that book. I have it on my list too. And I think, you know, it is, it is, you don’t know what you don’t know, right? And so I think it’s a very common experience, what you’re sharing of, you know, you’re so glad everything’s okay, but then you look back and, and it’s like, well, maybe things could have gone, you know, a different direction. And, you know, there’s just so much, I mean, I don’t,
Trauma is a big word, but I do think that so many birth experiences end up being traumatic for folks just because birth is so unexpected and we can’t control it. And I love what you shared about listening to birth stories. That’s something I did a ton during my pregnancy. I think it really helped. And the thing I always think about is like, hundreds of years ago or even a hundred years ago, like you might’ve seen a lot of births. Like as a woman, you would have grown up and you would have seen, you know, everyone in your village.
be born, you would have seen all your siblings be born, you probably would have had a lot of siblings. You, you know, women attended other women in the village or in the tribe or whatever. So birth would just be very familiar. Like you’d probably have seen like eight to 12 births before you ever did it yourself. And, and now we’re in the situation where birth is so isolated. So it’s like you don’t see it at all until you’re pregnant. And so you don’t know. So I think, you know, that, that,
Stephanie (25:20.461)
Yes.
brett (25:26.362)
community aspect of the storytelling is in listening to those stories, even if you never meet these women. I loved listening to those stories when I was pregnant and I’d just listen to them on my walks and it was really, really helpful. This is so great. Let’s talk and shift a little bit to postpartum. We can talk about literally once baby’s out of you, kind of those first early days, but then I know we talk about the fourth trimester now and…
postpartum now people are saying continues until your kids I think last night read I read something like till your kids four or five or something like that like it takes a long time for your body and your hormones to recalibrate so what are your favorite things to focus on to empower women once baby is is breathing out in the world
Stephanie (26:09.677)
Yeah.
Stephanie (26:15.725)
Yeah, so same thing with that knowledge and education because there are some things that happen immediately after baby is born. For example, your baby can immediately go skin to skin or they cannot. They can be, you can have delayed cord clamping, meaning that the cord that they’re like is attached to your placenta, they can allow, you can delay it and wait until it stops pulsing and it goes white.
so that baby gets all of their blood or they can clip it and cut it right away, right? There’s benefits and risks to these things, but if we don’t know about them, same with having baby nuzzle at your breast right away, we can do that golden hour where the first hour of birth or after birth, baby is with mom and dad only, no other hands and people leave them alone. They don’t need to be weighed, measured, bathed, diapered, any of that stuff for that first hour.
And that’s really beneficial. It’s beneficial for mom and baby. There’s oxytocin, which is not only the love hormone, but it helps your uterus contract and come back down to size. It helps expel your placenta. It helps you stop bleeding. And then that nursing for the baby, the smelling, the nuzzling, like looking at each other, falling in love, all of that. Like it’s, it’s really important.
And I think we medicalize so many things, and with good intention. It’s not that people are, you know, give me your baby and all this. It’s like, let me do my part and make sure that things are okay. But sometimes, sometimes I think we get a little too hands -on, a little too involved when, when really, like this is a beautiful sacred event. And I know that most of these happen in the hospital now, and it’s more of a medical thing outside of our homes. But, but just like you were talking about, you know, hundreds of years ago, or even, you know, a hundred or so years ago.
That’s not how it was. It really was at home and with the family and mom went to bed in her bed with her baby in her arms. And there is something wonderful about that. So yeah, that immediate postpartum, there’s definitely decisions to be made. There’s vaccines, you know, hepatitis B, or are you going to do the erythromycin ointment, which is an ointment that goes into baby’s eyes. But again, like, do they need it? And there’s a whole conversation behind that. So there’s those immediate things that happen.
Stephanie (28:18.733)
And that’s all baby related. Like what decisions is mom gonna make for the baby? But then you also have the mom side of things. And you wanna make sure that you’re taking care of postpartum, because everybody’s so excited and interested and worried about the baby to make sure that they’re okay. But who’s worrying about mom? And so whether that’s dad being prepared for that or whoever you have on your birth team.
making sure that like as soon as baby’s out and good to go, like, are you wiped up? Do you feel good? Do you need chapstick? Do you want some water? Do you want a bite of food? Because most women are extremely famished after giving birth and like, give me a burger or something to eat, you know? but maybe even just some crackers or something in the meantime, making sure that mom’s taken care of. And then same with like, you know, at some point she’s going to need to.
to shower and feel good and all of that. So do you have all those toiletries or whatever’s going to make you feel like more at home and comfortable postpartum too. So those are just some of those postpartum things. And that was more hospital setting. Like those things do exist at home too. But I feel like when you have home birth and certainly birth center, you’re like, you chill for a couple hours and you go home. But at home, some of that’s so much easier. It’s like, okay, head to bed and you’re all wiped up, placenta’s delivered, we’re good to go. And you just rest with your baby. So.
It just, yeah, the setting will make a difference, but I think making sure that you have decisions set for baby and also support for yourself is really important.
brett (29:42.458)
yeah, reflecting, you know, my postpartum at home, which I did first. And then my postpartum in the hospital was just so different. I mean, just drastically different. They could have not have been more different, you know, just in the hospital. So many I don’t want to call it interruptions, but there’s so many people like cycling through our room, right, as opposed to just like that blissful sort of nap that we took for a day when I was at home with my my first son. So, yeah, I think.
Stephanie (29:50.285)
I’m going to go ahead and close the video.
brett (30:11.738)
And I love how you talked about too, like who’s taking care of mom, not just because of, you know, that we might be hungry or need chapstick, but there’s also like serious medical things that can happen, like postpartum hemorrhage is real, like, you know, keeping an eye on mom and really, it sounds like, you know, women just have to take such a leadership role telling their partner or their doula, like what they want. And I think that’s just hard for women in general, because most women, like that’s not.
Stephanie (30:20.749)
Thank you.
brett (30:39.034)
necessarily our zone of comfort to be like bossing everyone around. Maybe for some it is, but you know just to be very demanding about our needs and what we want, especially if it’s your first birth because you’re just like well who am I to you know you just kind of want to give your trust away to people who know more than you. But I know you also talk about like a lot like we do about intuition right and that you actually do know so much. Is there anything you just want to say about that and and kind of those immediate
you know, post -birth moments before we kind of talk about like the longer postpartum period.
Stephanie (31:15.789)
Yeah, I love that you brought up intuition and I actually love how you phrase that about giving your trust to other people that you feel like know more in a situation because it’s so interesting that we, in so many ways, we trust ourselves in our own space. But then when we get in front of somebody with a white coat or who has quote unquote more knowledge about something about us, we really do kind of like, okay, whatever you say, not realizing that we actually know our bodies.
like 100 % were really in tune with them. And I talk about this, I never ever felt intuitive whatsoever. And I didn’t trust when people said that or whatever. I’m like, I really just, I don’t necessarily know what I need. But when it came to labor that I was like, my gosh, and birth and mothering, I’m like, yes, I am. I totally am. And I will tell you if I am, so are you. So yeah, there is great power behind that and having people around you.
that can support that. I was going to say the other thing that you brought up is, yeah, we have these other people that might know more or quote unquote more. And also this idea of maybe we don’t want to boss people around, which I totally agree with. But if you have a good birth partner and you’ve got good communication with them, you’ve been talking with them throughout your pregnancy about what you want and why, because that’s just natural. Maybe you don’t say it in those ways, but you’re having conversations all the time about what you expect or what you desire for this birth coming up.
and or you have a good doula because a good doula is gonna find a way to get to that information no matter what and you won’t know that she’s doing it but as she’s getting to know you she’s pulling all of that out then hopefully those people in your birth space are gonna be so good about making sure that your needs are met but I do think that’s it’s worth the conversation prior to pregnancy but back to that intuition
You will, like, and I know that you’ve had this experience because you’re a mom. Like, you have intuition about your body, but you also have it about your children. And when you are so connected like that, it’s all in one as we’re talking about pregnancy and birth and even on to postpartum. You know, it’s really neat how connected you are with your baby. There are studies that show postpartum, they did where they connected like electrodes to mom and baby and you watch the brain patterns go and they are the same.
Stephanie (33:30.061)
they are the same, awake and sleeping during those first couple weeks. Like you are so connected. So it’s really me. It’s pretty special.
brett (33:31.354)
NOOOO
brett (33:39.802)
Wow, that is so special. I’m so glad you shared that with us. What is the definition of the postpartum period these days in the birth community? Is it still kind of like people are talking about the fourth trimester? Is it much longer than what I mentioned? What tips do you have or what are you also seeing in the data about how our bodies recover? And if you have any exercises you like for postpartum, please share those as well.
Stephanie (33:47.789)
You
Stephanie (34:04.589)
Yeah. So it is, it’s one of those things that’s like fluid and we learn more every day. And I think the more and more people talk about it and talk with each other about it, we do learn that that postpartum period extends quite a bit. And especially for women who are having multiple children, you know, I can relate to that. I had a baby every two years. And when we were doing that, it’s like, okay, I was pregnant for nine months. And then, you know, once that baby was 12, 14 months old, I was pregnant again. And it’s like,
I had just stopped nursing or I was still nursing when I got pregnant. You know, you don’t give a chance for those hormones to recover. And so that can extend it even more. But we do look at those first couple of weeks, right? Within the first two to three weeks, that’s your like baby blues period where we’re looking for, like it’s really normal with the fluctuation of hormones. As soon as that placenta detaches, mom starts nursing. And especially when her milk comes in, there are hormones, especially oxytocin, oxytocin that drop.
and they drop heavily and that drop in hormones of all these things, these pregnancy hormones that we’ve had, when they drop, mom experiences what we call baby blues. And so it’s really normal to have that like sad, mopey kind of, I don’t feel like myself or can I do this mom thing? Some of that can be pretty normal within those first couple of weeks. Once we get past that like third week, you’re like, let’s pay attention to this. How often are you feeling it? When are you feeling it?
Are you having any intrusive thoughts or things like that? And we start talking about postpartum, and it’s not just depression. We say postpartum mood disorders because it can be postpartum anxiety. It can be depression. It can be anger. It can come out in all these different ways. Kind of like some OCD, maybe if you had it or didn’t have it before. So those are the kinds of things that we look at within that first six weeks.
And then there’s also the physical things within that first six weeks, you know, are how’s your bleeding, how’s your breastfeeding, how’s your uterus, how’s your mind, all that kind of stuff. And then moving into the like long game of things, right? That’s like communication between you and your partner, breastfeeding and feeding your baby. There’s a lot of how your body’s recovering or quote unquote, getting your body back or feeling comfortable in your postpartum body. There’s a lot of, you know, other things in the way of postpartum there. So.
Stephanie (36:17.709)
It is a process and it’s a period as you’re working through it to be gentle with yourself and to work with your birth partner. Even if you have a chance to kind of like set some expectations before baby’s here, especially if it’s your first baby. my gosh. My husband and I had very different ideas of what we were going to be doing and we didn’t talk about it. We didn’t know to talk about it. But then it was like, why aren’t you doing this? And there’s not enough of that. And you know, back and forth between the two of us and it’s just learning that process. So I think the more you communicate beforehand, the easier it will be.
brett (36:48.634)
Again, the leadership role, right? Of designing, you know, this is, I want meals delivered or I want help with this or, you know, I think it’s, it’s such an important time. I was just coaching one of my yoga teacher. She’s an advanced yoga teacher, but she was having her first baby and she was actually having a lot of anxiety, not around her birth, but the postpartum period because she was really concerned about everyone’s family coming in and, and you know, what they would be doing and what people’s different roles were B would be and how she was going to get support. And.
Stephanie (36:50.925)
I’m going to go ahead and close the video.
brett (37:18.298)
And it was interesting because what we ended up sort of coaching on was just like, again, like her taking the leadership role or at least very strongly stating what her desires were and kind of assigning different people different jobs. So, I mean, it’s kind of like project management in a way. And then it’s hard because you don’t actually know what you’re going to want. I mean, her vision was really she wanted other people doing all these things so she could be with baby.
Stephanie (37:33.773)
way.
brett (37:43.546)
But I also know like for me personally, I was like, can someone take the baby? I really just need to go for a walk or I really just need to, you know, be like feel like myself for an hour or two. And so, you know, sometimes you don’t even know exactly what you’re going to want. And it is just a challenging period because it’s a transition. It’s a transition into a whole new dynamic. If it’s your first time becoming a parent or a whole new dynamic in your family, you know, how those other siblings are adjusting and going to react. There’s just so many balls in the air.
in that postpartum period. Yeah, yeah. So before we let you go, is there anything you want to share with us just about your birth stories? Because we always love storytelling as just a concept and a coaching tool and all the things in this community. And I know you had five very different births. I know we probably don’t have time to go into all of them, but are there just any things you just want to highlight for us about your personal journey?
Stephanie (38:15.245)
Totally.
Stephanie (38:39.181)
Sure, yes, and I, so I birthed three of those babies. We have two adopted nieces and they’re incredible and we’re so happy to have them with us. But yes, so my first birth, I late into pregnancy, probably like 33, 34 weeks, I’m coming up to labor and we had taken all the hospital classes, which were 100 % useless, by the way. We had taken all the hospital classes and I’m like searching for some kind of birth story online. Now mind you, this is like.
16 years ago at this point. So they’re like, the birth has exploded online now. It was not that way. And I, but I had found this book and I was reading the intro and it had a birth story and I’m at work and I’m like bawling cause I’m so pregnant and in love with the story. And I’m like, that is what I want it to be like. And it was totally hands off. And even though it was in a hospital, but she was listening to her body and, and, and there were people observing it. And even the observers were like, we felt like we were intruding because it was so, she was just in it and you could feel it. And I’m like, that’s what I want my birth to be like.
And so I had reached out to local birth educators. There was nothing because I was so close to having my baby, nothing in the area with anybody that could help. And then the one that could, it was very expensive and she wanted to do it for like all these hours on a Saturday and my husband was working weekends. And I’m like, my gosh, like I can’t make this work. And I was like, it’ll be fine. I’ll wing it. Like I have whatever information I have. I’ve read some stuff. It’s fine. And that birth was what set off.
you know, everything that I do today because everything that could go wrong went wrong. And what happened was I had a little bit of a trickle in the middle of the night where my water had broken, but it was just a tiny trickle. I kept waking up. And of course I called the hospital and they’re like, yes, come in. And at least I bought myself a little bit of time because I’m like, well, I need to shave my legs and paint my toenails because people are going to be looking, you know. So I took a little bit of time to do that.
And then we made our way into the hospital, but I wasn’t even having contractions. And then it went into this whole Pitocin thing. The nurse comes and she’s like, the doctor says you need Pitocin. I’m like, okay, well, will you ask him if he said I need to have it? Because if not, I want to wait a little bit. And not knowing why I wanted to wait or whatever, just that I wanted to do it on my own. She came back, she used the word need. He said, yes, he used the word need. We have to do it. And I said, okay, well, let’s do it. I would have done things differently today, very differently.
Stephanie (40:55.693)
But anyways, that cascaded into my baby not, they couldn’t get the contraction strong enough because his heart rate kept dropping from the pitocin, which led to his cesarean birth. And so I got really educated after that. I’m like, okay, I’m taking the birth course this time. I have a preference to do it without an epidural. I just want to feel and enjoy the labor and all of that. My second birth, we were overseas in Germany. They’re much more like naturally minded. They set you up with midwives to actually labor with and,
It was wonderful. I did end up getting the epidural. We had a little bit of a communication gap. I think I had some positional stuff and I didn’t resolve that. But the epidural on that case went great. It came at the right time. It did the right thing. I was exhausted after days of prodromal labor. And so it really did just help dilate the cervix. Like in 20 minutes, I went from like four centimeters to eight centimeters or some ridiculous. It just like jumped, you know?
And then I had that baby and I had a really great recovery. Of course I was panicked like, this baby’s not going to be able to handle the pitocin and all of that, but it didn’t happen. And so that was my first vaginal birth after cesarean. And then my third baby was born at home. So we were coming back from overseas to the United States and we were coming to a state where there was like, it was in the middle of nowhere and there was one hospital nearby and that hospital was like, we don’t care that you’ve had a VBAC, like you’ve had a cesarean plan for another cesarean.
and I was like, hot stove, you know, like run. I can’t, I’m like, I know all the benefits of why just having another accessory and like, that’s not a good thing for me. So I reached out to a home birth midwife and I found myself a doula this time and I had that baby at home and it wasn’t that it was easy. It wasn’t because I had all this knowledge, it was perfect or anything like that. I still had a week of prodromal labor.
I still had a longer -ish labor, which all of that though, I’m like, but if I would have done that in the hospital, they would have called a cesarean way earlier. So the other thing that I had in the wake of not having all this perfectness was an entire birth team that totally believed in me. That every time that I felt like, my gosh, like something’s wrong or I can’t do this right, you’re doing great. You’re doing it right now. You’re safe, baby’s safe. Keep at it. And I tell you just that, having the people in your space, in your birth space that like…
Stephanie (43:06.989)
just give you that confidence to just feel like, like I’m okay. All the difference in the world. And so after I had that baby, and I had a really neat experience with that baby, but after I had him at home, I was forever changed. And I’m like, you know what? Like the whole world came up against me and said, you can’t do this for whatever reason, because you’re too short, because you had a cesarean, because your labor is not like everybody else’s, all these reasons. And I did, and I’m like, you know what?
God made us perfectly. We literally are born with uteruses and vaginas and like what we’re supposed to have to be able to birth babies. Why are we lying to women? And I’m like, I know too much. Like I have to be able to share this. And so that’s what brought me into doula work and childbirth education. Cause I’m like, I know I’m not the only one that’s being told for all of these reasons, you know, you need an induction and cesarean birth and all this stuff. So.
Yeah, it’s definitely our birth stories can shape us. And it’s so funny because you asked me, you know, before having children, what you were going to do with your life? What are you going to be when you grow up? I didn’t know. But this has become my passion. And I think motherhood is just part of that journey. Yeah, your birth stories kind of like break you into that. I think who you’re going to be as an adult, as a parent, as a mother, as a wife, as everybody, like it really is that transition into just the next stage of your life.
brett (44:29.21)
Yes, big rite of passage and you know, we don’t celebrate those enough in our modern society, I don’t think so. I just want to thank you so much for sharing your personal story. I loved hearing about, you know, your three very different births so I can just see why you’re such a fantastic educator because you’ve just had such a vast array of experiences and I’m so grateful for the time we got to spend today. Obviously, I’m going to put the link to your course and the PDF that you mentioned so it’s available for everyone.
But just tell them where they can find you. I mean, obviously, if you’re pregnant right now, you want to head over immediately to Stephanie’s podcast because I listened to it a ton when I was pregnant. You can’t miss it. I mean, it’s one of the big birth podcasts that exists and it’s been around a really long time. But yeah, just tell people how they can stay connected.
Stephanie (45:05.133)
Thank you.
Thank you.
Stephanie (45:16.077)
Thank you so much, Brett. And thank you for having me here. Yes, you can find me on Apple Podcasts, anywhere you listen to podcasts. It’s Pregnancy and Birth Made Easy with My Essential Birth. If you go to myessentialbirth .com, that’s got the pregnancy course, the postpartum course, which we have now, so you can access any of that there. It also has the download there as well. And then we’re at My Essential Birth, all one word, on any of the social media platforms.
brett (45:41.658)
Thanks so much.
Stephanie (45:43.213)
Thank you.
