Ep 194. Homebirth Stereotypes

Join us while we take a fun look at common home birth stereotypes, share personal stories, and explore how home birth stereotypes can miss the mark. This episode also covers our biggest enrollment event and the philosophy behind natural birth.

00:00 Introduction to Kelly and Tiffany's Podcast

01:07 Diving into Home Birth Stereotypes

02:51 Rant on "Med Spa" Treatments

10:18 Home Birth Stereotypes

17:57 Why Stereotypes Miss the Mark 

27:39 Upcoming Enrollment Event and Conclusion

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to at Home with Kelly and Tiffany, where we share powerful tools, exciting education, and relatable views about holistic health, physiological birth, and thriving in the female body. We are home birth midwives in sunny San Diego. Passionate about the alternatives that give women control and confidence in health, in birth and in life. We've poured a lot of love into creating very in depth and high value offerings. A monthly membership, a physiological birth course, and holistic guides for the women who really want to dive all the way in. But this podcast. We want to bring zero cost information about health and natural birth and make these important topics accessible always. Your support of the show is also zero cost and means everything to us. When you leave a review, share an episode and join our newsletter. It really helps us keep this space open, ad free and full of honest, valuable conversations. Now let's dive into today's show. Welcome back to the at home with Kelly and Tiffany podcast. I'm Kelly. And I'm Tiffany, and I'm laughing because you don't know this Tiff. So we're talking about home birth stereotypes today, as you could tell by the title of this podcast. But I actually had a dream about. Some YouTubers who do stereo, like they do videos about stereotypes of all different kinds, and I literally had a dream last night that I was like somehow a part of their church and was going to some event with them, and then my dog drowned. It was very confusing. Wow. But anyway, here we are. Home birth stereotypes. Yeah. I got this idea because when we were doing our free birth episode, I was thinking like, oh my gosh, the free birthers are so stereotyped. And we're like, we need a let's break that down a little bit. But I forget that just home birthers in general are, and so this, of course, there'll be some undertones of education, but this episode is meant to just. Have a fun look at a couple of stereo, a couple of homer stereotypes, and there's, the, there's some, I think there's some fun to be had because I see myself in one of those, one of the stereotypes and I could think of other people and other clients and stuff, and yes, there's stereotypes and we're, e even ai when I was like, Hey, can you create a couple of these? Stereotypical things. AI was like, don't you mean archetypes? We don't, wouldn't an archetype be something that we want to be a little bit more? And I was like, no, I wouldn't. This is, we're gonna, we're trying to have fun with this ai. Okay. Come on robot. Come on. My personal robot. But before we begin, I have to tell you, I went down this rabbit hole a couple of days ago about, I guess it's like it was a medical spa account that had some in, had an interesting reel that hooked me in that I went to. Then, you know how you just end up sometimes like dialing down what is this business, what are they doing? How is the, like all of those things. It just got me so worked up. So totally worked up. And I know that we've talked about aging gracefully and let's not do crazy things to our face and stuff like that, but, and if you do crazy things to your face, that is your prerogative. I guess I just need to say that. There's gonna be a lady listening who is making informed decisions about. What you're doing to your face. And that is, I'm not judging that person. I am ju I'm not judging the individual. I am saying as a society, why are we normalizing this thing where we're injecting stuff into our faces? Why? And I also want you guys to know the. The Beau, I don't, what do we even call this industry? It's I'm like, I'm ta I'm saying med spa because it's that's always how it's, that's always how it's put out there because it's not it's like medical beauty cosmetic. Yeah. What do you, I don't even know what we're calling it anyway. The label for injecting things into your face is. Natural. They think this is natural aging treatment because it's not surgery. Because you're not gonna go get a facelift or get your face lipo sucked or whatever. It's they're telling God, they're telling people that this is a natural way to. Embrace aging? I don't know. I just think we're not, that's not good. I just think it's not good. There's things on my face that I would love to fix. Trust me, I am tempted beyond all, there's just two wrinkles that if we could just smooth those out, my face would look so much better. It truly would, but I'm not buying into it. I'm not gonna do it. We're just gonna have wrinkles and we're just gonna. Do some other things and be actually gr aging naturally with treating our bodies well and getting sunshine and drinking water and I might start to look old. I don't know. I feel like this year in particular, I am, I feel like it was not a linear aging progression. For me, I feel like all of a sudden this year I'm looking older than ever before. Yep. Not saying. Not saying yet to that, but saying that's often how it happens. All of a sudden you wake up and you're like, huh, I'm just processing it out loud with the listeners because I'm probably not the only one. Although I do think our en, our audience is generally younger than us. At this point, yes. At the it's, but I do think that's really helpful because I wish when I was in my twenties or even early thirties as a 41-year-old woman now looking around and being like, why? Why do I look older than my 50-year-old friends? That I saw more women aging naturally and like truly just aging. And I think the same thing with birth. Like I wish that I saw more women just naturally, like I, I wish I saw more natural birth when I was younger, right? I wish I saw a lot of things that are natural but are just being hidden. And it drives me insane because we just have. Granted, some women look beautiful and it's natural ish looking, and it's not so over the top that it's like clear that, oh my gosh, they've been like doing a lot of work on their face. But at some point, right when I'm looking at somebody, I'm like I know you're 65, but you don't look at, and there's something that's not quite right about that. You're not fooling anybody either. You know what I mean? I'm like, you're aging and that's okay. I get there's a lot of reasons that people do a lot of things, and again, like you, I'm like, oh man, I get pulled in and I'm like, I would love to be able to just tighten that up or, whatever. But recognizing also. What a gift it is to get older. I'm so thankful I'm still here. Not that I'm so old, but yeah. It's a gift. And so being able to put that into perspective and anyway, I, again, I talk about this in my like perimenopause episode too, where I'm like, I, you really have to come to terms with who in the mirror and be like, this is okay, right? This outward appearance. And you can do stuff to support like you're saying. I wanna support myself as I'm getting older in all of the ways that I can, but it doesn't necessarily mean I want I should want to be younger or erase the life that I'm have lived or am living. Or even just be preoccupied with it, to be honest. Yeah. Yeah. Really just to not be preoccupied with it. Yep. Okay. We, I wanna move on, but I wanna horrify you with one more thing. Okay. That I learned this, so maybe other people already know about this and I could not even tell you what it's called, but there is a treatment. It's gotta be new'cause I had just discovered it. There's a treatment where you are removing cores of tissue from your face with little needles. It's like a, have you seen that? Yes. There's a machine that punches. A needle into your face and removes this tiny little core of tissue, and it does, and you, it happens all usually over your lower jaw, like from your nose down, maybe some parts of your neck too. It removes this core of tissue, and what that does is it stimulates collagen production in your face, and so it tightens everything up because now everything has to fill in those holes that you created. It's like your body, it's activating your body's repair system. But when you are done with this treatment, you have. These marks all over your face. You look, it looks terrifying. It's absolutely terrifying. It's all it's bruised. Yeah. And come you could not go out in public like this for at least a week. Be, and I guess that's generally a lot of these treatments have some recovery time, right? Yeah. Anyway I just can't believe it. I just can't believe that we're. This is where we are. This is where we are. Yeah. It's crazy. It is. It's wild to me. The lengths, and granted, there might be some reason certain people, right? Like I, I understand it's not always just about trying to look younger. There might whatever, but I'm like, whew, we are just creating more and more. Torture ways to torture ourselves in order to get a certain look or response or whatever. I don't know either. I know. Okay. I'm done ranting about this. 10 minutes in. Sorry, guys. Yeah, I just had to process that. I was like, I don't know what to what, where does the, I have a lot of questions. Technical questions, clinical questions. Lots of lots and lots of'em. How much does that cost? I can't even imagine. Oh, no. How long does it last for I, I to do it again? I'm sure you do. That's the thing. But after the recovery time nevermind. Not gonna say. Yeah. Alright. Okay, so home birth stereotype number one. The earth priestess. Oh. Oh. I was trying to look for another word for priestess, but it's a stereotype, so it's not, it's, yes. It's yeah. It's just, yep. Okay, so she's barefoot on the grass. Let me paint the picture. One hand on her belly. One hand over her heart. There's a sun halo behind her head. Her deepest desires are a holy portal birth experience, deep embodiment presence, primal instincts, awakening. And birth is a right, not a medical event. Her greatest fears are anyone disturbing her oxytocin, temple fluorescent lighting and paperwork. Her medical history is, knows her baseline basal temperature and her progesterone levels at all times. And she once healed a UTI with garlic sunlight in a song. This is ridiculously wonderful. Her lifestyle staples are nourishing herbal infusions and mason jars, floor pillows, moon circles, and she probably owns a tambourine. Her birth plan is silence, dim light, warm water, my ancestor playlist. And nobody speak unless I speak. Her parenting style after birth is baby wearing co-sleeping bone broth and a stroller is a decorative object. I'm actually envisioning five accounts that we follow on Instagram where I'm like, this is exactly you. Which is perfectly fine. Perfectly fine. But yeah, you cannot disagree. This is a home birth stereotype. You can't disagree. I think when most people think of home birth, like most of the culture, that is the vision that comes up and she's probably got long. Hair that is, wavy and slowey skirts. Yes, exactly. Birkenstocks, until she learned that barefoot was better. Yes. And she doesn't wear shoes anymore. No, of course not. No, she doesn't. This next one is hilarious to me because we've had this client and Right. This is like a stereo, so we're taking it up to the next level, but for sure. Okay, so she is the spreadsheet naturalist. This is her in a nutshell, right? She's a home birth mom. She's read every single study out there. Her midwife us receives PDFs, right? Google Docs, slides, all of that pre-appointment, right? She is prepared and she knows exactly what's up. Her deepest desires, right? She's. Looking for evidence-based sovereignty. This is my goal in life. Absolute literacy in every possible birth outcome. She has figured it out and has taken it down to that end of the road in all on all the ways and to know that she chose home birth because it's statistically safest for low risk women, right? That of course, that is the reason because of, I've done all the studies, people, of course her biggest fears. Being dismissed. She's I haven't put in all this work for nothing. Okay. Being told this is just policy. I ain't fallen for that. She says being treated like she didn't already read the original research. Because she has probably five times and has put it through a Cochrane review herself probably. And she knows all, she knows probably more than whoever's telling her to read a research paper. Her medical history. She's spent the last three to five years biohacking. She's figured it all out. She's gone down every rabbit hole that we probably have as well. She takes magnesium, glycinate, cod, liver oil, and vitamin K with intention, right? And precision. She knows exactly what she is doing. Her lifestyle staples, time blocked Google calendar, right? Of course she does. She has it all laid out. Reusable glass containers because of course decluttering is a spiritual practice, right? Get all of that stuff out of there for her. This is her birth plan, right? Our spreadsheet, little buddy here. No one offers suggestions unless asked. I have a protocol for each phase, right? She knows exactly what she wants, so when she wants it, and then her baby's born. She got her baby in her hands. And she is for sure as that baby gets older, putting them in a floor bed, those Montessori floor beds, that is her style in a nutshell. And then she knows baby's wake windows down to the last minute. I forget who that is, who talks so much about yes, this baby has played and they have eaten and they have interacted with their environment and now it is time, right? The wake window's over. And she has a breast milk freezer inventory spreadsheet as well. She's prepared for when she pumped how much she pumped and when that baby will get that milk. This is a real person based on real events. Yeah. This is probably the stereotype that I agree with. The mo, like that feels the most me. This is my bend. I like, I wanna be thinking about things. Rationally. I like to make decisions that way. You're big on spreadsheets. I would like to have things organized. I'm not always the most organized, but if I can spend time doing it, that makes me feel safe. Comforted. There's something to it. I'm thinking of one client that we have had that came to mind immediately that completely nailed this. And down to the floor bed. It, it's yeah, it hits, it's a, it does hit. Okay. Here's our last stereotype. The cozy homebody who just hates hospitals. I have a feeling she is me. This is the, I big this thing. Oh, maybe. Yeah. Let's see. Okay. She is got her cardigan, she's got her tea. She doesn't wanna leave her couch. Her greatest desires are comfort snacks. A familiar bathroom and birth without being hooked to beeping machines. Her greatest fears are hospitals, hospital smell, hospital food, hospital energy. Her medical history is nothing dramatic. Just very aware that hospitals stress her out, her lifestyle staples, weighted blankets, soft lighting, A sourdough starter named Mabel. Based on true events, her birth plan is I just wanna be left alone with my people, my tub and a playlist. I don't have to explain. Her parenting style after birth is baby naps on her chest while she rees. Great British bake off, warm and intuitive parenting. Makes motherhood feel like a slow winter morning. Yes. This is me. That's you. I, me. That's one of my kids too. I can totally see one of my kids being like, oh, I don't wanna. I really don't wanna have a home birth because that's what you want for me, mom. Yeah. But I just don't wanna go to the hospital even more. Yeah. You know what's funny is in my first labor, I was I went to a hospital and when I was getting checked in, I was having a contraction. They told me to go pee in a cup or something in the like triage bathroom. And I'm like almost pushing at this point. And I got on hands and knees in the disgusting bathroom in like the tree. So it's not like an individual room that was just cleaned. And I remember sitting there like looking around and I was like, this is disgusting. I I want to go home. I don't like this bathroom. So the bathroom part really hit for me. That did, right? Yes. Just my own bathroom. Yep. It's all a girl wants in life. So here's the thing though, right? There's stereotypes. And these all, you might find yourself. There's actually probably a little bit of me in all of those. Totally. I can relate. Yes, I can relate to multiple pieces of those three ladies. Yes. But what's cool is that, obviously we have seen all different types of women in our practice. We have supported all different types of women and families in our practice and even on Instagram, we are followed by so many people or people share, oh, I had a home birth and I never thought I would. I was just having a conversation with somebody who's this is hilarious to me that I'm planning a home birth, because even two years ago, me would never have, even thought of about it as an option. But home birth really is for anyone, right? It's for women who want to feel safe in their bodies, right? We can all relate to that. The woman who wants her birth to be respected, not managed by somebody else. The woman who knows. She makes better decisions when she is in a space where she's unrushed and undisturbed and trusted and respected and all of those things, right? So that is home birth is for so many women, no matter what your lifestyle preferences are in terms of if you have a bent towards spreadsheets or not, right? But right. We see women who are type A like planners. Especially we see that in first time moms too, who are like, oh, I knew, like when I was dating my husband, I made sure he was on board for this. Like they, they knew therefore women who don't wanna be the center of attention and are shy and just wanna like hole up in their room. I'm thinking of one client in particular where a home birth for her second baby was exactly what she needed because of this. Because it took her out of the, the limelight and into just the dim light of her own bedroom where she didn't have to feel like she was. S performing or in the center of, the bright lights and things like that. The woman with complicated medical history, right? Who now is like, gosh, I've worked through this and I just deeply trust my body and this experience that I've been through and. Like that is for her too, or the woman who grew up in the system, right? She's bucking all of the things and she has decided, Hey, I want something different. I'm thinking of nurses that we've taken care of or talked to who are like. No, I see what happens every day in hospital birth, and that's actually not what I'm deciding for myself and for my baby. I just want something gentler for both of us. Or the first time mom who is getting pregnant and realizes I want something different, right? I like feel that this is really all of a sudden, right? Maybe you can't really explain it either. I just feel this deeply in my bones. This is the right. Thing for me. And so I think that is really important to remember. It's for a lot of different women and there's not an actual, as much as we can joke, right? There's not an actual like personality trait that makes you a good candidate for home birth because it's actually is the environment, right? It's the environment that is going to support all of those kinds of things. The hormonal flow, that emotional safety piece. Autonomy, connection just those undisturbed mammalian instincts that we have, right. Crawl into the back of the closet and roar your baby out kind of thing. That is universal. And again, I like love, I love thinking about clients and putting them into these like stereotypical things just'cause of this. That was like funny to think about, but it also, I don't know, it matters so much to remember. Like you may find yourself, like considering home birth or having a home where you're like, wow, I didn't, I don't fall into that. And that's what I want. I want more women of all different kinds of personalities and reasons and whatever to be choosing home birth. Yeah. And I I'm thinking of a couple of times where we've had just interactions with women, whether like we've ended up working with them or not, where they're like I'm not that crunchy. And you're thinking like, yeah, that, that's fine. I don't care. But I think we forget that the. The overarching, like it's true that the majority of women who are choosing home birth end up being on some kind of trajectory of natural living in general, but it is not, home birth is not just for women who are pursuing natural lifestyle. It probably is gonna come up at some point. It's gonna change you and you're gonna be moving along on that path. But sometimes women come to us with almost like shame. Where they're like I feed my family this type of food, or I honestly don't care about such and such. I use this in my house. Or, oh, you guys were coming over today, so I put away the fill in the blank. And we're just like, no, it's not. It's not about that at all. It's about owning your experience and being as far along or inside or outside of whatever it is that your family is becoming. Not comparing yourselves to what is going on in other people's homes or such, but there's definitely a piece of your compatibility with your midwife that is gonna make that feel. Like a better fit for you or not, right? Like it is. I think it is totally okay. I think. Okay. I think a lot of things. Number one, when we were growing up in doula work, there was a movement, and maybe it still exists. I don't know that I, doulas are for every kind of woman and. Any doula can be the right doula for you if you're doing your job right, which is providing unbiased support to anyone who desires it. You can be the right doula for anyone because why would you make it personal? And I was just always eh, no thank you. There's a I, I'm this, I'm about to run my own business. I can choose who to work, I can no, I'm gonna, and so I learned really quickly as. A birth worker that the right fit and the right match and the best mutual match was an important part of being able to work together. Now I will say we, I have had plenty. You can't get aligned on everything. I've had plenty of wonderful relationships. With lots of different clients throughout doula and midwifery work where we are not aligned on some certain thing and it is completely okay and sometimes can be like something that gets talked about, right? Kelly and I are openly Christian and that's a huge part of why many women seek us out in our practice is to have that. Faith-based support and we love to provide that, but we have taken care of tons of families who are not, and sometimes they come to us and they're like we're not Christians, so is this gonna work out? And we're like, of course. It's, here's how that here's how that relationship and how those pieces, can work. So I think that is holding a lot of women back sometimes from choosing home birth because they think that the. Midwife is going to be a certain way, and it's only gonna work if there're a certain way too. And so I think that's a really important part of the interview process and stuff. But I will also say having options and having the breadth of opportunity inside of those options. And hopefully you live in a place where. You do have the options to see who does feel like the best fit for you and makes you feel secure in that space, that you can imagine that person there supporting you on that day. Yeah, I can think of doula clients that I was not the right doula for. That you ended up working with. Yeah. That I ended up working with, or I was like, this was, and I, and I can think of clients that we've taken, especially early on in our practice, not saying. Like I, we ended up, I feel like, really connecting with all of our clients, but certainly we figured out in our practice better questions to ask for, on both ends and being like, let me provide you with some questions to be asking us so that you can figure out are we the right ones for you too? And so I'll link in the show notes, actually our interview guide. There's a great blog post and questions and things like that to ask just as you consider some of these things too, because. Again, home birth is for everybody. Yeah. I think sometimes we just put our, put ourselves and put our choices in a box a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So anyone who can choose home birth and wants home birth can choose home birth because the desire to be undisturbed while you are doing something so profound. It's not niche. It is an instinct. And any woman who wants to explore that or tap into that we would. I want to encourage you to do that. for sure. And we know absolutely that like no matter how much home birth may be calling to you, it's also just not possible for many women because of differing circumstances. And home birth really shouldn't be put on a pedestal either, right? But physiological birth should absolutely be advocated for. Any birth space that the woman actually desires it, right? Like really conscious connected birth happens not just because you're like, Ooh, I hope so. But it's because you fully understand and trust the design, like very purposeful design. Of what your body was made to do and how to go about supporting it. Just doing that and really there's like a deep knowing that women can really find that you can lay down that idea of a performance in birth and pick up the capacity to really not just endure the suffering of birth, but really thrive in it. And I think just so many women are missing that. And that is one of the many reasons we do what we do. And we love sharing how we share and what we share. Because that is absolutely what women deserve to lean into. And so this is obviously what we teach and advocate for inside of our online childbirth education course. And I wanna say tis the season, but we are currently preparing for our biggest enrollment event in the history. Of the course since we launched it like a little over a year ago, right? We're gonna be temporarily lowering this financial barrier for entry for a few days. This is happening next week. I know if you are listening to this live, we're launching this on Black Friday of 2025, depending on when you're listening. But we're gonna be, again, temporarily like taking this barrier away. And'cause we wanna make this kind of philosophy more reachable for more women. So we're offering lifetime access also to the course during this event. So if you're like. Ooh, I've been thinking about it. Or I'm not quite pregnant yet. I'm gonna look at that when I do get pregnant kind of thing. This is a great time. It also just jumps right into first trimester stuff. And so you absolutely will be prepared and supported no matter when you purchase this class. But if you've been thinking about Ooh, I love that education style. I love that support. I love being prepared for whether it's your current or a future pregnancy. This is absolutely the time to jump in'cause you will own it forever. And it is going to be the lowest price we have ever put it at. You will find a link in our show notes to get on the email list.'Cause you will be the first one to know. When that access window opens. So make sure to add yourself again. The link for that is in the show notes. And then we will be signing off for the rest of 2025. And we just wanna say we love you and we just thank you so much for being a part of our community. Absolutely keep up with us on Instagram at Beautiful One Midwifery. That's where we. Are most often as well as again, that email list where we show up once a week just to say hi and share some wisdom and stories and all that good stuff. Thanks ladies. Hey ladies, if you're loving the show and want to help us keep it ad free so we can keep talking about all things birth and women's health, without cutting to an ad about electrolytes or grass fed beef sticks, here is how you can support us. First, leave us a quick review or a rating. It helps more women, new moms, and birth enthusiasts find our show. And it honestly means so much to us to be reminded that you love what we are doing here. Second, share this episode with a friend, with a doula buddy, or anyone who is on their own holistic health or natural birth journey. And third hop on our newsletter list. This is where we share. Bonus goodies behind the scenes stuff. Fun little extras you just won't hear on the show. You can find that link to join in our show notes below. 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