What a Birth Doula Wishes Every Woman Knew

Birth is one of the most intense physiological and psychological experiences a woman will ever go through, yet many women enter labor feeling overwhelmed, underprepared, and disconnected from how their bodies actually work.

In this episode, we sit down with birth doula Jackie Woodfin to have an honest conversation about pregnancy, labor, advocacy, postpartum recovery, and the nervous system’s role in birth.

We explore what a doula actually does, why continuous support during labor matters, and how fear, stress, and environment can directly impact the birth experience. Jackie also breaks down common interventions, informed consent, epidurals, inductions, C-sections, and the importance of preparation over perfection.

This conversation goes far beyond birth plans. It’s about learning to trust your body, advocate for yourself, and approach one of life’s most vulnerable experiences with education instead of fear.

Whether you’re planning to have children, currently pregnant, postpartum, or simply wanting a deeper understanding of women’s health and physiology, this episode offers a grounded and empowering perspective.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Our role as Dualis is to help educate women and their partners to advocate for themselves. We don't wait till we're in labor for that to happen. It is truly through their pregnancy and helping them understand their bodies and the role of the medical community and what their say is in that. That is the morally right thing that a woman gives true informed consent.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

You're listening to the All-in Wellness Approach podcast. This is your wellness, your life. So just one question. Are you ready to go all in?

SPEAKER_02 0:35

What's up, A1 Nation? It's Aubrey here. Welcome back to an episode of the All-in Wellness Approach. Today's episode is kind of a special one. This gal sitting to the right of me is one of my peers that I've looked up to since I moved to Texas. I met Jackie over a decade ago and was just beginning my own wellness journey. She was my fitness instructor, which is very fitting for what we do here today on the show. I remember looking at her and thinking that this is the kind of woman I want to become. We became friends and we've stayed connected through so many seasons, career shifts, life pivots, growth, all of it. You moved away from Longview, so I don't get to see you as much anymore. And she now sits here today with that same fire, but it's focused in a new direction. You're still in the wellness community, but she is a birth doula, which is very cool. And the more I've watched her step into her work, the more it makes sense. Because birth, just like wellness, is about strength. It's about the nervous system, it's about fear and safety, preparation, and who you become when you're stretched beyond what feels comfortable. So today just isn't a birth conversation, even though that's what our topic of discussion will be. It's a nervous system conversation, an advocacy and an identity conversation for both women, men, families stepping into that next chapter of their lives. So, Jackie, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Thank you so much. And thank you for having me because it is such a huge passion of mine. And I'm so excited to share this with your audience and with you. And I would just have to say, when you walked into my class all those years ago, I was so as an enamored with you as you say you are with me because you're just an incredible woman and so many things. And honestly, I had never met a female pilot. So I was just blown away. So anyway, it's been very cool. Our whole journey through this relationship of friendship has been beautiful. So thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

I remember like that one time you hired me and the four of us. Yeah. Me, you, Drew, and Blaine went to Nashville.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Nashville. That was so much fun. So I could we have driven to Nashville? Yes, but I was like, no way, I am gonna have Aubrey Fly Us. And it was beautiful. It was so fun. So yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

I know you teach fitness classes online.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

I did. I'm virtual now, yeah. Uh tell me about like birth doula.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

How did you get into that?

SPEAKER_03 2:51

I've just been in awe of the birth process since I was even a little girl. And it sounds crazy, but growing up on a farm, we had all kinds of animals, lots of birth things. I was never not sh privy to that, but I never witnessed a human birth, but I've always been intrigued with birth and the women's bodies. My best friend all through high school, I was actually her birth coach. Coach, I say that loosely because we were both so young in our early 20s, but I helped her in her birth. And it was one of the most beautiful, impactful things that I'd ever witnessed and been part of. God has designed our bodies so incredibly to birth babies, grow babies, birth babies. And so I felt like in that moment that there was a purpose for me in birth work somehow, somehow, but I didn't know what. And honestly, as a 20-year-old, I really only knew like labor and delivery nurse or OB, maybe. But shortly after that, I started having my own kids and growing my own family. And I just, I didn't know what route I would take doing that. But fast forward years later, I was homeschooling my children. And in the homeschool community, there is a lot of more natural births, a lot of midwifery care. And that's when I first learned about Adula because I had never even heard of what Adula was. Something sparked in me and I was like, that is what I want to do. Because raising my family, I didn't want to go back to school. I wanted to be home with my kids. I still didn't do anything with it for many years because I was raising kids and birth work. You may walk out the door and be gone for three hours or three days. You really don't know. And so um I just put it off. And then in 2019, I feel like God reignited that passion for me to step into that role. My kids were grown. And so I decided to pursue being certified and become a doula. And that's what I did. And it has been the most incredible journey. Can you define what is a doula? There's there's lots of different avenues for doula's. Truly, a doula is just a servant. Like if you look at the meaning of doula, it's someone, a woman who serves. And so as a birth doula, we are non-medical, non-clinical. I think a lot of people think doula's are midwives, and we're not. We are non-medical, non-clinical. We truly provide education, information, support. We help women feel safe and heard and respected in the birth space. We walk through their entire pregnancy journey with them. So we develop a relationship with them, a trust system with them, so that when it is time for labor and birth, they feel informed, educated, safe, heard, and supported. So they have continual birth support, labor and birth support. Because that's something that a lot of women don't have, or they don't have an educated support system to help them through the process. But we are that's probably the m biggest misconception is that we are clinical or we catch babies. So what's a midwife? A midwife is like like an OB, they just can't do surgery. So they are educated, they do everything an OB does, they just don't perform surgery. So a lot of them are out of hospital midwives, but there are also in-hospital midwives that are covered basically by an OB or under an umbrella of OB in case there's a surgical procedure that has to happen, like a C-section.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:13

But midwives do all of the clinical parts. So everything, uh, woman's care for prenatal through her pregnancy, labor, birth, and postpartum, they do all of the clinical.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

So you're basically like people have life coaches. You're like a birth coach. Yes. From the beginning to, and you cover all of that from how you take care of your body.

SPEAKER_03 6:33

Yes. Okay. We help educate them, um, keeping within our scope of practice that it doesn't cross over into the clinical side of it. So really, we don't recommend things, really. We just give information and then support them through their pregnancy. Any questions, anything they have, they can come to us and ask. And everything that we give them is for them to take that information to have a discussion with their provider. So we're unbiased or should be, we're unbiased. We just are there to answer questions and give them support where they're educated and informed so they can make a true informed decision. Because there's a lot of decisions to be made through pregnancy, through labor birth, and postpartum, because an educated woman is more likely to have a positive birth experience, and that's important. Okay, how do you find birth, doula? Thankfully, uh the role of doula is being elevated in communities now where more people know what it is. Thankfully, a lot of communities have, especially through social media, have doula pages, Google searches you can find in your area, or you can just put it out in social media. Hey, does anybody know a doula in the area?

SPEAKER_02 7:38

And you're part of like a community of doulas now here in like the greater east, north northeast Texas area, right?

SPEAKER_03 7:44

Yeah, the end of um 2025, we started a doula collective. So we have a group of doula's that are doula similarly. We're all different, we all own our own businesses, um, and we all have different personalities, but we all have that same passion to help women and serve them well through labor and birth. And it's called East Texas Doula Collective. So you can always Google search in your area, reach out to other moms, and just ask the homeschool community is a great resource to have to find a doula in your area.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

So then you're going through this whole process, this big wow, I just got pregnant, I need to find an OB, I gotta talk to my family, all these things. Why would seeking a doula be so important? Like, why is a doula necessary with everything else that we have available?

SPEAKER_03 8:31

Going through pregnancy, labor, and birth is a huge moment in a woman's life. And we know from all the studies and all the evidence that continual birth support, especially educated birth support, someone who is skilled in what they do lowers C-section rates. It increases a woman's positive birth experience coming out of it, can shorten labors. Every study shows that having continual birth support is beneficial to mom and baby. And I don't think there's a woman alive who wouldn't want that in her birth, you know. And so I just think a lot of women think, oh, it's such a natural process. I'm just gonna let whatever happens, happens. But that is a setup for a lot of birth trauma. A lot of people think the doula concept is new. It's not. The thing is, it used to be done in families and communities. If you think about it, our families and our communities don't look anything like they did in the old days. We'll just say that, because families lived sometimes even communally, like in the same house, or at least in the same area, the same property. And the communities were so close knit. If a woman went into labor, the women in the family in the community came would be there, would be there at whatever time of the day, night, and stay for however long. Whether it was two hours or two days or three days. Most families these days don't even live in the same city anymore. They're spread across the country or the world. And then communities look very different. It's not like sitting on the porch anymore and everybody's just integrated. So you can't just call a community of women at two in the morning and say, I'm having my baby, can you come take care of my other kids? Support me for three days. Because women are working and taking care of their own families. To have doula support, to have continual birth support only helps a mom through her labor and delivery. I think people think that having a doula means that it's someone there holding your hand going, you can do it. And that is part of it. But that is that is so minimal because there are things that do las know for positioning. Two of our main goals is to help a mom get through every single contraction as comfortably as possible because it's intense. Some will say painful, a lot would say painful to help them get through contractions as comfortably as possible, but to also to help them labor as efficiently and effectively as possible. We want baby coming down in the right position. And a lot of times that has to do with mom's position. So knowing positions to get moms in to help her labor better, more efficiently, is only a positive thing for the mom. So it's not just someone in your ear saying, you've got this, you can do this. It truly is someone educated in knowing a woman's body and the physiology of birth.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

I want to shift gears into advocacy and preparation because that's something that you are very passionate about. We're becoming more aware and a little angry in the US about Western medicine. There's again a time and place. I mean, always consult your healthcare provider. But no person is a one size fits all. And we've created some for forceful standardization for birth. Yep. And so talk a little more about like advocation, advocacy, and and preparation.

SPEAKER_03 11:41

Yes. I think another common misconception of doulas is that we advocate for what we want for this client or even advocate for the client, which that there is a place for that in a in a situation that's very rare that a mom would be incapacitated or something. But our role as doulas is to help educate women and their partners to advocate for themselves. And you can't do that if you don't, if you're not educated and you don't have the information. So we don't wait till we're in labor for that to happen. It is truly through their pregnancy and helping them understand their bodies and the role of the medical community and what their say is in that. A woman to have true informed consent, and that is the morally right thing, she has to be informed, right? Right. Or it's not consent. It's coercion, or there are a lot of things that fall into that. But for a woman to be able to give true informed consent, she needs to know all the sides of it and what make the decision that's best for her. It shouldn't be a standard of care. It shouldn't be we have to do this. This is hospital policy, because that may not be what's right for every single woman. But I and I understand, I get it from the doctor side or the OB side or the hospital side. We live in a very litigious society, and that's the other thing. Like people are so happy and they really are trying to protect themselves too. But at the end of the day, just having a standard policy may not be what is right for every single woman. And so to help her understand her rights, her find her voice to speak up for what she wants and what she doesn't want, even if the policy says this is what we do, she should have a right to decline. You have a right to say yes or no. The question is, should you? And that is where you have to build trust in your provider and really lean on them to be able to help educate you. And that's where we fit in and fill in some gaps to help women be educated to go back to their providers and have that conversation. What's the one question every woman should ask their healthcare provider? I think that it's important for a woman to ask her provider what their c-section rate is, what is their induction rate? Because while correlation doesn't equal causation, we have this huge rise in C-section, huge. You just mentioned it a minute ago. But ask a provider, what is your C-section rate? What is your induction rate? I think another good question to ask is especially if I wanted a more natural birth, a physiological birth, unmedicated birth, I would want to know from that provider how many physiological births have you attended in the last six months? How many have you been part of? It's really rare for OBs, especially. There's usually some interventions along the way. Our induction rate, our C-section rate is huge. So a lot of them have never been part of a physiological birth or completely natural birth. And the whole like backbirthing is actually convenient for the doctor. That's right. Right? Yeah. It's typically the worst position unless a mom wants to be in there. You know, it depends. Every woman is different, but they should have the option or the right to choose what position they want to be in to birth. And that's a girl, we could talk, we could do a whole podcast on just that on birth positions. But I think it's important for a woman to get to know her provider, trust her provider, and be able to ask the provider questions without feeling like you're being talked down to or that the provider is condescending or like it's gonna bite you this way or yes. Do they have what we call a god complex? It's like you came to me, let me do my job, and not like if you ask questions, or or I have moms that will say, I plan on birthing outside of the normal policies of the hospital. What does that look like to you? How accommodating are you of that? Because we do have incredible providers for women like that that are like, yes, I'll be very hands-off. They recognize I'm here to step in if it's necessary and provide these interventions. Otherwise, we're gonna let you do. But there are other providers who are like, we're gonna do it this way. And if if you don't want to do it this way, you're gonna get either a lot, yeah, find someone else or you're it's gonna be a fight. It's gonna be a lot of pushback. And that is not anything a woman, especially in labor and delivery, should be having to deal with.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

How many plans do you um coach your mothers to have in place? So if something was to go wrong, they have this beautiful ideal birth plan. Do you have like plan A, plan B, plan C?

SPEAKER_03 16:09

What does that look like? Yeah, I think it's important as Adula, one thing that I really encourage my clients and if you we do make up birth preferences. I just call it birth preferences. Plan seems so rigid, and you can't be rigid in birth. Like you just can't. So I just tell my clients, like, we're gonna go through these preferences. What would be your ideal birth if you could pick? But we also have to hold loosely to that because birth is unpredictable and we have to be able to pivot. But my goal for my clients is if we have to pivot, that it's a peaceful pivot. And the way that happens is when they're informed and supported. Women look back on their birth experience, traumatized or with, you know, bad feelings about it when they have felt like things were just done to them, that they didn't have a say or it was chaotic. And so my goal is yes, we do have to pivot in birth lots of times. But I have moms who we have a total change in plan sometimes, and they're still like, it was beautiful because they feel supported and heard and respected. Feeling safe, heard, and respected in your birth makes all the difference. Even if we have to pivot from that birth original birth plan, there's still a way to that it can be handled. Yes, there are true emergencies sometimes that demand immediate action where we just have to do and it and it happens, but those are rare. Even in when we have to pivot in big situations and circumstances, it can be done in a respectful, informed, supported manner.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

Okay. Well, now that we've reframed, I like that you renamed it and I want to switch and let's talk about what everyone obsesses over. And that's I was gonna say birth plan, but we'll call it a birth preference, right? So are are birth plans basically helpful or harmful? I mean, you kind of went over that just now, but do you do you prefer people to have in their heart like heart of hearts how they wanna do that?

SPEAKER_03 18:05

I think it's important for women to be prepared for their birth, even knowing this could change. I it depends on who you talk to. Some people are like, Whatever happens. Yeah, whatever happens, what happened? Hey, and I think it depends on the woman too. But I typically find that women who go into it like that suffer some sort of trauma. I do think it's important for women to at least have some sort of plan regarding policies, regard it regarding things if they walk, especially in hospital births. If they walk into a hospital, there are certain things that are going to be done unless you say you don't want it done, or not going to be done unless you say you want it done. Have those things specified out already so that you're not having to really address it in labor and birth. You're not having to make up your mind or be like, oh, I don't know, do I want an IV? Do I not want an IV? You know, things like that. You've already addressed it previously with your provider.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Basically fighting the rigid control versus like informed flexibility. That's right. And you you are advocating for that informed flexibility.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

It is, and we have to be flexible on all accounts. Even as the birthing woman, you have to be willing to be flexible in some things, but there are lots of things that you do have and should have a say in to have informed consent.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

Give me your top three things women should actually be prepared for. For pregnancy and birth, or both the whole the whole nine-month process, even pre-pregnancy.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

Yeah. Um, I can tell you it's not the nursery. Yeah, that's what I would be like, let's decorate. Not that that's not fun and important, but it is way down the list. And unfortunately, today I see women that spend so much time, energy, effort, and money nesting, creating, oh, creating this most beautiful aesthetic nursery. And they are gorgeous, and that is so fun. But ultimately, decades down the road, it's gonna be a photo in a baby book that most people will never remember. And women carry their birth experience their entire life. Choosing your provider is huge. A woman should really look into the provider that fits with her. And you're talking like OB or OB or midwife. Okay. Those are the two providers that you would have an OB, which is in hospital, a midwife, which could be in hospital, but also out of hospital, birth center, or home birth. And is this just like a Google provider? You could, but some of the women have already have established an OB gen. Okay. And they may be a great, let me just say this, they may be a great gynecologist, but not the best obstetrician for labor and birth or what you want in your birth preferences. I think it's important you can ask again, social media, while it has a lot of downfalls, it is a great resource from women who have had experience with these providers. But word of caution, if you're going to ask in a social media mom's group, don't just put a blanket statement out of who's the best OB, because women responding may not have wanted your birth preferences. And they're fine with all of the interventions. They're fine with being induced and with C-sections. And so I caution you to be specific when you ask other women for references or recommendations from providers, is who has had a birth like what I want? And what was your experience with this provider? Because there may there may be a wonderful, funny, great bedside manner. I hear this all, oh, they're great. They're so fun, they're so nice. But they are, by the book, not gonna cave to your preferences, and they are more standard of care than manage or managed care than taking into your specific preferences. And so be careful how you ask and who you ask. But choosing your provider, I think, is number one. Number two is preparing for coping skills in labor and birth. Women go in just thinking, oh, my body is just not, it's just gonna happen, and they want less, no interventions, but it it is work. There are things that you really have to work on in labor and births. And then third, I think preparing for postpartum. And it's not the nursery. You know, again, I think women have no idea when they get home and having support, having people that are there to help you, not someone that just comes in to hold the baby, because you should be holding the baby, you know, but truly having postpartum care.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

Give me a few examples of postpartum care. Cause for me, I think I want someone coming in to prep meals, clean the house, take care of their kids if there are other children.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

Yeah. Um, yes. And also like uh a lot of our postpartum doulas will do overnight care and help a mom. Because if you babies come home from the hospital and typically they're on a feeding schedule of two to three hours. But a mom wakes up, gets up, sleepy, and two in the morning. It's a 30-minute process of feeding the baby. Then she has to burp, change, take care of the baby, try to get the baby back to sleep, get herself back to sleep, and then it's time to do it all over again. She may not even get any sleep in between feeds or 30 minutes, but postpartum doulas will come in, mom will feed the baby, and then the postpartum doula will take the baby, do all of those other things so mom gets a full hour and a half-ish, two hours sleep, which is critical. I think women have no idea the sleep deprivation is huge in postpartum. If it's not a postpartum doula, have someone that can come in and fulfill that role through the night, through the day. Yes, cleaning, take care of household things, but also helping you take care of the baby.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

Before we move on to the postpartum realities and any more in a deeper discussion, I think the last few questions I wanted to ask for the birth plan conversation is uh what's the most overused intervention you see during birth?

SPEAKER_03 23:50

Um probably pitocin inductions. What's pitocin? Pitocin is um so oxytocin is the natural hormone that women's bodies produce that put us into labor. It's the love hormone, it's what has to happen, it has to flow for labor. But a woman that is going to be artificially um induced instead of spontaneous labor, they'll use artificial induction. Pitocin is the drug that is used force the labor. To force the labor.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

You can tell I've never had kids. Yeah, I don't know anything. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:22

Yeah, it it is the most commonly used. There are other there are other modes of inductions or starting inductions, but predominantly pitocin is used. And a lot of people think it's the same as oxytocin. As a matter of fact, in the hospital, the bag they hang says oxytocin, but it is not oxytocin because oxytocin crosses the blood-brain barrier. And when oxytocin does that, it triggers your body to release the feel-good hormones, the euphoric hormones, the um endorphins, the things that also help with pain management. And so that's why you'll hear lots of times women who are induced who have pitocin say the contractions are unbearable because it is different. It is, it is very different. The pitocin contractions are different than a normal physiological contraction. They're much harder. And so I think that is used very routinely and done often. I mean, we have a huge increase in inductions, and most of them are done using Pitocin.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

And that's just because they're trying to move it along and not let the body do its natural process.

SPEAKER_03 25:24

Yes. I think it's for several reasons. And you know, that would definitely be case by case. Uh, if we just talk elective inductions, sometimes those are done for the convenience of like you want my baby to have this birthday. Yeah, I want my baby to have this birthday, or I'm we're my husband is going out of town for work.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Military, military, or for the convenience of the doctor.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

The doctor may say, I'm going on vacation. If you want me to be here, we induce. And a lot of times it is for convenience. And just think about it, like doctors, if we can control when women are going in to have their babies, we control our schedule a lot more. Yeah. If we're on call for numerous amounts of patients randomly going into birth, you know, it's harder to control that. Should we should it be controlled? No. But there are situations where inductions are necessary. And that's also why I feel like we have this huge increase in C-sections. Yeah. You know, we're at 33% nationwide, higher than that in Texas of C-sections. So one in three, one in three women will have a C-section. And 1970 was five and a half percent.

unknown 26:33

Gee.

SPEAKER_03 26:36

And do you know the stats of the US compared to other countries for C-sections? I don't know, like broken down in that. I know globally that's about the same, you know, C-section, right? But the WHO, the World Health Organization, recommends about 15%. We're always gonna have C-sections. Thankfully, we're not against C-sections, by the way. I'm thankful. I've C-sections save lives. But there we have to take a serious look at why the increase. It doesn't make sense. If you truly think about a natural physiological process, finely designed process of birthing our babies, why are one in three women cut to get their babies out? And I truly think it is correlated to the amount of inductions. If you try to force a baby out that's not ready, of a body that's not ready, you are more likely to have complications. And when we see that there is a 30 to 33% rate of inductions and a 33% rate of C-sections, I think that we have to take a long, hard look at why and the risks. And also, the United States of all developed countries has the highest maternal mortality rate. It's disgusting. And I think it has to do with all of those factors. Yes, there are other things to take into account, but what's the most underdiscussed complication? Um I think when it comes to inductions and C-sections, hemorrhage. And that's the maternal mortality. And that's the number one thing that leads to maternal mortality is hemorrhage because of pharmaceuticals that are used to induce labor from C-sections, that obviously it's a major abdominal surgery. And so I think hemorrhage, and I think a lot of women don't truly know the risk of these interventions that are happening, especially when they're elective. Especially for women, it's very hard. I see women traumatized from decisions they made that were elective that led to poor outcomes for them or their baby, a C-section maybe, or worse. And so I think that's a hard pill to swallow. And something that we really should take into account because C-sections are so common, because inductions are so common, because epidurals are so common that women hear of all these people that did it. But when they truly look at the risks and the outcomes of what is happening in the world, to be better informed, they can make a decision that's right for them and not just, oh, this is what's done regularly. What about epidurals? Epidurals are absolutely an amazing tool that can be used, but just like any of the interventions, I think it's overused routinely a lot of times. That lead, every intervention we use has risk to it, and so does epidurals. I've seen them save a woman's lives. I've seen them help women get through a very, very hard labor where they just need rest. I've had moms laboring for days and they just need it's not even, I mean, they're managing the pain well, but they're now they're worn out. What's your longest labor? 59 hours. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I cannot can't imagine. 59 hours. And all natural. She was exhausted. And so this was an out of hospital. Sometimes transferring a mom or even in hospital, just getting that epidural can help a mom rest. So there is a place. I'm not anti-epidural. I'm thankful that we have these medicalized interventions when they're truly necessary. I just think they're used so routinely, and that one intervention leads to a cascade of interventions that oftentimes leads to a negative birth outcome. And then it's just normalized. And it's so normalized. And what happens a lot of times is these providers will encourage an intervention that leads to a cascade of interventions that leads to a bad outcome, or where they had to do an emergency C-section. And then the women are like, thank God I was here in the hospital and my doctor saved me, or have saved my baby when in reality, did they save you or did they cause it, you know, from the intervention? So that's a hard line. Yes, medical providers save women and save babies. And I'm so thankful that we have them. I just think there are a lot of interventions that are used so routinely and become so commonplace that we don't truly look at the risks and what is causing these bad outcomes.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Um, a lot of women, you know, in this day and age, like our previous episode about PCOS and metriosis, all these things, a lot of these women think because they have some sort of underlying personal factor with their own medical journey that they're not a candidate for a natural birth. So what would make an ideal candidate for a natural birth?

SPEAKER_03 31:24

I think every woman is a candidate for natural birth. I mean, it is a natural process that our bodies do anyway. Are there outliers or illness or injuries that can affect that? Yes. I think that's where it like being so having so much trust in your provider and choosing the the correct provider uh matters. And you should always discuss that with your provider. It is very selective. Each person, it should be taken into account. But I think most women can at least prepare for a natural, what we call natural, a physiological, unintervened birth, unless there is some physiological reason that their provider can give them information about. Like I think that's the biggest thing is women are just walking into these offices and just like, just tell me what to do and not asking questions. You truly have to look at the information, talk with your provider, and pray for discernment because I tell my clients all the time, I have opinions of this. I'm gonna show you information and you're gonna hear information from both sides. But God gave you this baby, not me. God gave you this baby, and He will also give you wisdom and discernment for this baby. So it doesn't matter if this is what has been right for every single one of your friends, that may not be what's right for you and your baby.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

So we've we've now had our baby and hopefully our birthing preference of choice and we're bringing the baby home. What shocks women the most after birth?

SPEAKER_03 32:53

Are you talking immediate postpartum or like when they get home with well? Let's just talk about both. Yeah, okay. Let's start immediate postpartum. I think um immediate postpartum, a lot of women are blindsided by the fact that once baby is born and comes to chest, that it's not over. You still have to birth the placenta. I have a question about that, but you're still have to birth the placenta, which can be uncomfortable. It can, you know, there's a lot that goes into it. And I think a lot of women are not prepared for that process and also the decisions that have to be made in that process because there are decisions regarding the delivery of your placenta that need to be addressed as well. I think they're not prepared for that. And so that's one of the things as a doula that we really try to help women understand the whole process.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

I can't believe I'm gonna ask this question. So I was in Target yesterday and ran into a family friend of ours. She's been through, she's had three kids, and I think she did them all pretty naturally, maybe medicated naturally. Anyway, uh, she had a birth doula and her birth doula turned her placenta into pills. Yeah, encapsulation. And supposedly it's gonna help with her going through menopause. She's like, please ask on the on the show, you know, yes, this question because I got them done, but I just don't know if when I should start taking them or if did she just have a baby?

SPEAKER_03 34:12

Is she fresh postpartum? No. Okay, she's good because she's preparing for menopause.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

Yes, she she did just have um a hyster uh elective hysterectomy. Yeah. And so she's like, should I take them while I have my hysterectomy to help with healing?

SPEAKER_03 34:25

So I I'm not sure uh perimenopausal menopausal for placenta encapsulation is something that is done pretty regularly with moms. But there's so what I do and how I help my clients know if they want to do this. Number one, I haven't seen a lot of huge studies that support the fact that it is beneficial. There's just not a lot of studies out there, if any, that are really like peer-reviewed, all the things on that. But I do have a lot of moms who swear by consumption of their placenta that has helped them postpartum. And I can't argue with that. Even if it's a placebo effect, I'm like, okay, if it helps you mentally, then it helps you. But I don't recommend it because I don't recommend things like that. I just give it information for them to make the decision. There's a couple of trains of thought. So our bodies, as we're preparing and building a baby and building the placenta, use hormones to do that. Once that placenta is delivered, then our body switches and says, okay, we don't need this estrogen and progesterone anymore that we needed to carry this baby. Now we need to lower that. And now our prolactin needs to increase to breastfeed. That's what will produce milk and breastfeed. Well, two camps. If you are consuming this placenta that is full of estrogen and progesterone, then you have the risk of lowering your milk supply. And this is one risk that we see in women, fresh postpartum, that are consuming their placentas, is low milk supply. And so that may be correlated. But on the other side of that, there are women who say it is good for you. It is all the things of why even other animals consume their placenta. And it helps you in with that with postpartum depression, it helps you build your blood supply back. There are a lot of both can'ts. I provide all of that information and you decide what to do. Yes, because I don't, I have not seen any firm studies or peer-reviewed in all the clinical trials of placenta consumption that say definitely there's a benefit in postpartum. But I do have anecdotal things from clients telling me that. So I'm not gonna tell a woman she should or shouldn't. I'm just gonna share both of those. And then, you know, there are things that you can do working with a lactation consultant and things to keep your milk supply up, but those are those are kind of the two camps. I don't have an answer for your print for the menopause. For the menopause because I've seen nothing on that. I know we got off on that tangent.

SPEAKER_02 36:53

What is what is the going home postpartum thing that you find shock women the most?

SPEAKER_03 36:58

Um, lack of sleep and breastfeeding. Those are the two biggest things that my clients that I see mostly in the doula world are just slammed with because the lack of sleep is brutal. And then trying to breastfeed your baby as a natural process as it is, can truly be a lot of work and takes a lot for a woman to breastfeed her baby. Some do it just naturally and like have no problems, but that is not the norm. And I think women go home thinking, I'm just I'm made, I have breasts, they have milk, I have baby, it's going to happen. And it oftentimes is not the case. And sleep deprivation fuels every negative part of postpartum. So I think lack of sleep and struggling with breastfeeding are probably the two most common things. There's also postpartum depression, signs of that post postpartum psychosis, all those major, major things. But the two most common things that I see with women are sleep deprivation and struggling breastfeeding.

SPEAKER_02 37:57

And is that something also a birth doula can help with? I guess it's is it educationally or do you still show up postpartum?

SPEAKER_03 38:04

Yeah, um, education for one, but also when a woman leaves the hospital for having her baby, she doesn't see her provider again for six weeks. And I just think that's a disservice. That's why I love midwifery care so much. Is like you see your midwife comes to you in 24 hours, 48 hours, five days, two weeks, you know. So there's a lot of contact of someone getting eyes on this new mama to see how she's doing. Because unfortunately, I think a lot of women struggle postpartum needlessly because they think, who's had a baby? Of course I feel this way. Of course I'm expected. This is normal. This they could just assume it's normal. Yeah. Or they have a mom or a sister or someone in their ear that is like, this is exactly what happened with me. It becomes normalized because of who they've surrounded themselves with when in reality I can walk in a door and get eyes on a mom three seconds and be like, oh, she needs some help. She needs some resources. She's struggling with this needlessly. It's not just, oh, I just had a baby. Yes, there are some things that you're gonna deal with because you just had a baby, but there are a lot of things that can be dealt with with outside resources that can help you and your partner through that postpartum period that we just don't recognize as a mom walking sleep deprived, trying to breastfeed a baby and just thinking, you know, this is just normal. And so we as doulas do visit at least two times with a mom in postpartum. Again, non-clinical, but to recognize where they need help and to help them get the resources, to give them information. And sometimes a mom just needs someone who walked the journey with her. Like a neutral outside, not a family member. Yes, yes sit down and revisit the birth with them, answer questions, fill in gaps, give them reassurance. Sometimes that's all they need, but sometimes we do need to intervene and get them resources to help them where they're not suffering. I think that's where full weeks can be a long time, a long time. And that's why I think we see these women who crash and burn and have the postpartum psychosis and the things that are detrimental to them and their baby. So body covery or timeline, what's a realistic expectation? I think that that's another misconception with women is like the six weeks postpartum because they go to their six-week appointment and their doctor's like, okay, good, you can have sex now and carry on. Have another baby. Yeah. And I just think that that's a that's a disservice too. I think a lot of women um need to number one, give their bodies grace, have patience. I think we live in a society that is so much pressure to get your body back or bounce back back, and they're not bouncing back. Like truly, just let your body heal, take the time that it needs. And again, everybody's different. And but we have so much comparison because social media, we see the positive, you know, glorified stories at this. And you see, we don't see the behind the scenes part. We just see moms who bounce back, they're back in their pre-pregnancy clothes in six weeks and you know, out doing their workouts and everything. I just think we have to give our bodies grace. I see, I mean, it literally can take years for a mom's body to to bounce back. Yeah, it's not uncommon. I really think a reasonable amount of time is 12 months for a mom to feel back to normal. And I hate to even use that term, but I just think six weeks isn't is a very unrealistic time frame for a woman to expect her body to you just grew a human and birthed a human out of your body.

SPEAKER_02 41:34

Nine months for you to go through this. It's not gonna take you six weeks to go. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 41:38

And and to get rid of the concept that we're gonna go back to what we were, you're never gonna go back to what you were. Even if your body looks like it did, you are not the same woman. You are not. Your body's not. You're gonna see changes, beautiful changes, even though it's ostracized or or it's looked down on to have stretch marks or your body shaped differently. When you think about what your body did to bring your baby into the world, if we would embrace that, instead of demonizing it, I think it would help women's mental health so much in postpartum.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

Yeah, there's so many beautiful things with social media to get into communities with our everyday and age. But then there's also, you know, you see the false narratives of everybody's having this perfect life and perfect bodies and back to Pilates, and they have five kids and they're all perfectly dressed. And it's like, that's not reality. It's not.

SPEAKER_03 42:29

They have a nanny, they have full-time careers, you know, or or whatever. Everybody's different. Everybody's body is different, and we just have to have grace with ours, do the right things, nourish our bodies well, take care of our bodies, but stop part of that is not putting the mental pressure on ourselves to bounce back or look a certain way or be a certain way in postpartum.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

It's your timeline. Take take control of your narrative. This is your book that God is writing with you. Like 100%. This is a chapter. The chapter can be two pages, it can be 20. That's all right. So if you could sit across from every woman six weeks postpartum, what would you tell her? I feel like you kind of just did. Would you push towards fitness and and nutrition?

SPEAKER_03 43:12

I would number one say nourish your body well. Surround yourself with positive people and give yourself grace. Like stop being so hard on yourself and don't compare. Stop looking around at what you think other people are doing in that situation, what you think your body and your baby should be like, and just pray for wisdom and discernment for your specific journey with your baby and your body and embrace it. Yes, take care of yourself. Yes, eat well. As far as working out, that that doesn't even need to come till way later. Yes, movement when your body is ready to move. That's healthy. Nourishing your body well, prioritizing sleep, and that means getting help when you need it, get that postpartum help. It doesn't even have to be a doula, but gets a trusted person that knows what they're doing. That's not just there to hold just your husband. Yeah, not just your husband. They need postpartum help too. They're sleep deprived too. In, you know, in couple situations like that, everybody is sleep deprived. Or if only one person is, there's a lot of animosity towards the person who's not sleep deprived. Like your turn to tell me. Yes. That's another thing in postpartum that I see this huge toll on relationships. And I tell my clients the same thing both. The partner and the mama, give each other grace. Both of you are walking your own struggles. Both of you are going through huge changes in your life. It's a different perspective from both of you, but I assure you, both of you are walking a hard journey. And both of you love and care equally for this baby. So you have to look at each other in that light and not as an enemy or someone that you're fighting against in your household. Truly look at each other, give each other grace and understand, hey man, we are both going through the fire here.

SPEAKER_02 44:57

Okay, so we've we've been through pregnancy, birth, postpartum. Um, we've talked a little bit about Western medicine. Let's go over a fear and physiology just in general, because I feel like that's something, you know, women are so resilient and we are so stubborn and strong, and we just assume like this pain is normal and we'll just get through it because we'll just carry the burden of whatever that is. So, what happens physiologically when a woman feels afraid in labor?

SPEAKER_03 45:23

Yeah, I think as a society in general, we have unfortunately instilled fear in our women today of what birth is on the movies and all the things you see and you hear the worst of the worst. And women are very fearful of birth and they shouldn't be. It makes me sad that women are fearful of this divinely inspired process, the most special, impactful thing that they'll probably go through in their whole life. And when women start off their pregnancy labor with fear, it does a lot of things physiologically. Number one, it shuts down those natural love hormones, the oxytocin that we've talked about previously, the hormone that a woman's a woman's body needs to have to effectively birth her baby. When we're fearful, adrenaline takes the place of that. You can't have oxytocin. Yes, it's the fight or flight mode. And our bodies, we're mammals, and every mammal desires a quiet, safe, uninterrupted birth space. If you follow a cat or a dog or any mammal that is laboring, then and a threat comes to them, they freeze up. They flee, they run, they try to find that safe, quiet spot. They stalls labor. It's the same thing with a woman. If we feel fear, our adrenaline rises, our oxytocin plummets, and labor can stall or become very irregular. And that's where a lot of times we have failure to progress, which leads to C-sections. It also makes our muscles tighten up. We have a cycle, it's called the fear, tension, pain cycle. It's the one we don't want. When a woman is fearful, she's more tense. That is the antithesis of what a woman needs to birth a baby. Her pelvic floor tightens and tensens. Our muscles tighten, we're ready to flee this oncoming threat, right? That's what mammals do. So everything tightens, and what we need is loose and open. We need our pelvic floor soft and relaxed. You have the perfect voice to talk to someone to just I try to do that. I try. That's what I want. Like in birth, we need that calming presence. We need our bodies need to be in our parasympathetic nervous system, not fight or flight. And not only is it difficult to birth a baby that way, it's more painful. So women who are in that fear, tension, pain cycle find birth unbearable. They're the ones that are like, get the epidermis, you know, because their their bodies were in fight or flight. The women that I support 100% that are able to prepare, use their coping skills, the two primary ones. I have a whole arsenal of tools that we use. None of them matter if their breath and their focus are out of whack. If their breath is, or the opposite of that is holding. That creates tension in the body. That creates more pain. And that pain creates more fear. It's this vicious cycle. But if we can get the woman in a confident, coping, calm cycle, I see it all the time. And women go through birth, and they're even the ones who will say it wasn't painful. That sounds crazy. It was intense, but there are women who get through birth calm because they're confident. You know what creates confidence? Information. Knowledge. I was gonna say knowledge. When they're knowledgeable, when they feel out of control, I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's happening. Then it becomes tense and tight and painful. But when they're confident and they're like, I got this, then they're calm. And when they're calm, they cope better. It doesn't mean it's not painful or intense, they cope better. And those are the ones that women will see on social media of the mom breathing their baby. You're confident and focusing on what you know is you're prepared. And using breath work and focus. And I I'm a faith-based doula, so I come from that slant. Not all of my clients are, but predominantly because that's they're attracted to me for that reason. But I tell moms all the time, God is not giving you a spirit of fear. That is from 2 Timothy 1.7. He is not giving you a spirit of fear, but of power. You have you can do this. Love, look at what you're surrounded with, and a sound mind. And those three things are what are gonna help you cope through this labor and delivery. When we become fearful, that's not of God. So we got to rebuke that, get that out of here, right? That has to flee, that has to be gone for a mom to truly cope. Fears of the devil, especially in birth. It's good when we're running from a barrow line. It creates that adrenaline and gets our body going, I can outrun this. In birth, opposite power, love through the whole thing. And having continual birth support can help you do that. And yes, our husbands, our spouses, our partners are the number one birth support, but they don't know it's a curse time for them too. A lot of times, especially they'll come out of birth and they're like, oh my god, what's this happened? Their God-given role is protector provider. They want to save their woman. They cannot save their woman in this, they just have to go through it with them. But that's a hard thing for men to watch and be part of. Do birth doulas do anything separate with them for like to educate the men? Absolutely. Okay. So much. And I tell my clients this all the time. Because dads, a lot of times, are like, Well, what am I? Chopped liver? What do you need a doula for? You know, like, what am I? I'm the doolist. Yeah, I'm here to support you. What do we? We're gonna spend money on what? You know, yeah. But I tell them, you know your wife better than I will ever know her. And I know birth better than you will ever know birth. So when you put that together, it creates this dream team for her. I'm not here to replace you, I'm here to elevate you. I'm here to make you walk out of this birth. Yeah. You can't just go out and play baseball. You need a coach. That's right. You don't know. You may have all the talent in the world, but if you don't know how to channel that, yeah. So I have dads on the whole spectrum. Some will say, I just want to hold her hand and tell her she's beautiful. You know, I don't want to do all that. And then I have others over here that are like, I want to do it all. I just don't know what, when, how, why, and where to do it. You tell me. Usually it's in the middle, usually it's in I do, you do, we do. We are working together as a team. What you want it to look like to support your wife so she has the best possible birth experience. And that's not any one person doing any one thing. I call myself a gap filler. I'm like, whatever, you're the man, you're the one that's here to support her. I just want to make sure it all gets done, as much or little as you want. Whatever you want to do, what's that like? I got you. What does that look like? And then I'm gonna just make sure it's all done and done well so that you both have a great birth experience.

SPEAKER_02 52:02

So if you're comfortable talking about it or in some sort of general sense, but I I don't think it's talked about enough on certain situations like this, but like financially. I automatically being of a business mind, if I hire a birth doula, I feel like in some capacity, you're gonna save me money and justify your position. So, what does it look like financially to hire a birth doula?

SPEAKER_03 52:23

Yeah, it's it is an investment, but I don't think it's as much as people anticipate. I hear this often in consults, and when I tell the price and they're like, oh, is that all? I do hear the opposite too, because that's all perspective. That's everyone's perspective. What I can say is investing in your birth is worth it. And again, I see people who like spend almost what a doula would cost them as a doula on a stroller for their baby that will last six months. Yeah. Seriously. And I'm like, your birth experience lasts a lifetime in it. A lifetime. My mom's in an assisted living home, and there are women that are 80 to 105 years old in there, and they can't tell you what their nursery looked like. They can't tell you what they had for breakfast that morning, but they can tell you every day their birth experience, the trauma that they've carried, and the beautiful parts of it. That's amazing. These women who have Alzheimer's and dementia, but they can tell you about their birth experience. Women carry that with them for their life. To me, it's worth the investment. And do us, we work with clients all the time with financial payments, plans. Like we want women to have birth support. And the last thing I want is a woman to not have birth support based on finances. So we work with them. And so it's just reaching out, and it's different in every geographical area, like what a cost or or if insurance covers it or not, which uh that's a whole other thing. I don't like the bureaucracy or people trying to control. That's how we get into the issues in hospitals. Yeah. Because insurance, I just think it is well worth the investment for something that is absolutely one of the most pivotal and important times of your life. It's your baby, it's an experience that is going to happen to you that you will take with you for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_02 54:11

Every facet of what you do is so beautiful. Now I see why you've you've gone into it. It's a it's I'm on a mission. Yeah. I'd like to do a rapid fire round with you for it.

SPEAKER_03 54:21

Okay, let's go. Hold on.

SPEAKER_02 54:26

Okay. One myth that needs to die.

SPEAKER_03 54:31

Once a C-section, always a C section.

SPEAKER_02 54:34

One red flag women should never ignore.

SPEAKER_03 54:38

A provider that is dismissive and condescending. One thing every partner should understand. They can't they can't save their partner from this. They they need to walk through this with their partner. One underrated preparation strategy.

SPEAKER_02 54:57

Coping skills, breath work and focus and focus.

SPEAKER_03 55:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:00

And the last one, one sentence you whisper during transition.

SPEAKER_03 55:04

Well, the scripture that I just said God has not has not given us a spirit of fear, but a power, love, and a sound mind. But also, you can do this. You can do this.

SPEAKER_02 55:14

Okay. And then the final question that we ask on every episode, and this is a personal one for you. Oh, okay. What are you currently going all in on, big or small?

SPEAKER_03 55:23

Oh, educating the community in two things. What doas do, elevating the benefit of having continual birth support, and then also educating women to know and trust their bodies that birth is not something to be managed and feared. It truly is a divinely designed process that our bodies can do.

SPEAKER_02 55:44

I just saw last night on your socials, because I am a Jackie fan and I follow you on everything. What's Glow? A glue. Glue, glue, glue network.

SPEAKER_03 55:53

Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a social media um streaming service that is faith-based, that is a safe place. You're not going to see like crazy ads and inappropriate things like that. And it's a streaming service of all kinds of things. That's where I have a lot of my fitnesses hosted now there. But it's on across all devices, all platforms, and it's free. It's a free app and ever all the content on it is free. And there's some good stuff for kids' programs, movies, physics. There's a huge assortment of things on there that you can find that are safe, appropriate, you know, for your children and for yourself. We have to protect our minds and stuff like that. Yeah, the Glue Network. Love it.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

We hope you enjoyed this episode of the All-in-Wellness Approach. If the show resonates with you, please rate, review, and subscribe. It helps us reach more people who are ready to live all in. Join the collective on Instagram at AWAP Podcast. That's at AIWA Podcast. For tools, insights, and inspiration and catch every full episode on YouTube. Your support fuels dismission and keeps the collective moving. All in. This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not intended as medical, psychological, or professional advice. Always consult your doctor before changing your lifestyle.