616: Martin Kove | Kicking It in the Cobra Kai Dojo

Transcript

All right, y'all. Before we get into the episode, just a quick disclaimer. Nothing about what you're about to hear should you actually take as any sort of medical or scientific advice? This is the pop apologist podcast. We're solely for the purpose of creating entertainment at its most mediocre. So we are not here to provide any sort of legal, medical scientific guidance. OK. Everything you're about to hear. It's just to entertain you. And that is all. So have fun. Listen, don't see us. Love you by. You guys, she is back by popular demand. Our sister, Ashley, she's come back to pop apologists weeks later to discuss with us all things midwifery, pregnancy, natural birth, postpartum, any and all questions you guys have. Ashley, welcome back to our podcast to you. Did you miss your protocoles daughter returns? Did you actually, Mr.? Do you think about us all the time? I do think about you two all the time. Oh, that's not very flattering. Yeah, sounds like bulls**t to me. But Ashley, what's going on before we dive into all things you know, birthing people would love to hear how you're doing since you've been on the pod. Has your career exploded or are you now a world renowned care expert? Have you been? I definitely have more people streaming me for skincare advice, which is great. I think your followers are really cute. Like what? What's so funny is that my like, sweet best co-worker follows you and I'm like, OK, now she's going to like, fall in love with my other sister more than me, which makes me a little self-conscious. So just don't be funnier than me, actually, OK? Well, and I like literally I was going to say like, your followers have really cute kids. We were just discussing like. Yeah, yeah, a lot of your followers have really cute kids. Oh, wow, thank you. I don't know what I was going to say. Oh my gosh, how boring. Let's move on. Who cares? That's all we should say. Love or followers. I'm glad to have cookies. No one gives a s**t. Some of them are really cute pets, too. And if you will even care less about that, what we mean The Corgi episode is there is no Corgi episode in the works, although we do love Cedar Phineas. I think all of the followers, if want a corgi and a dog based episode, should have Lauren repeatedly, I say, and I will not edit that out. But if I receive a bunch of Diane's requesting a dog episode, this podcast will be over. That's my only drive. So I think we should definitely be. We're kind of like doing this and like, like, yeah, I guess we're. I mean, if we wanted to like do like, we're kind of like doing this in order of my interest, like except for the dogs like, you know, we should have done a dog based episode and then we should have done like the skin care. And then, oh my gosh, no one cares about dogs. I mean, some people do. Here's the thing some people definitely do, and I do love seeing our fitness, but it is just it's not what the pop apologists. Now wait a second. I'm just going to interject Mark Zuckerberg's style and be like, This claim is disputed. People care about dogs a lot more than they care about people. Here's the thing. We are not the arbiters of dogs. OK? OK. That's just to Mark Zuckerberg one more time. Hey, you guys, before we get back to the episode, we just wanted to talk to you about natural pet food. Have you ever noticed came with another thing? We're going to talk about pedigree. OK, Ashley. OK. Yeah. Back to the matter at hand. Get a farmer's dog sponsorship. I want like a 10 percent cut, at least. No, I'm going to be reselling it. Family reselling it on eBay. Absolutely. This is what you would do. OK. OK, let's talk about pregnancy. OK, wait, so. So first of all, I just want to say before we talk about anything pregnancy related after the skin care episode we did, I got a lot of skincare questions that was great. Like, I love talking about skincare informally. As far as pregnancy related topics go, I'm not really at liberty to reply to private follow up questions as much since I'm actually in this area, an actual professional and a licensed health care provider in my state. And so it kind of puts me into a tricky area. People ask me one on one questions in private, so I won't be able to do that. And then what can can people take the advice that you get today, a sound medical advice from their primary care physician? And can they call you their primary care range and they market that listening to this podcast actually now creates an obligation for you to, like, get care for them. No, no, no. So no. So yeah, that and then the other thing I want to say, and this is just sort of a general disclaimer I'm a midwife. I do deliveries for women at home. And so I'm speaking from the point of view of someone who. And that's what I've had 12 years experience doing. I'm speaking from the point of view of someone who works with women who want, like an unnatural experience with as few medical interventions as possible. And so I'm going to be speaking from that point of view, but I want to really strongly state that I know that there are definitely a significant proportion of women who don't have any objection to medical intervention who aren't necessarily set on a natural birth. And that's fine. And I don't want anything I say to be construed as like judging those birth experiences or those women. But I'm just going to be speaking from my perspective, which is a little bit. It's just focus on natural birth and promoting that. OK, I thought you told me that anyone who had a medically induced birth or took an epidural was a weak little b***h. First of all. So first of all, I respect our mother way too much. How do you see anything sideways about anyone who has a cesarean by choice? So no, no. Honestly, there's a thing about cesarean. Birth is women who deliver it by cesarean. In some ways they have to be they have to do be more strong than women who deliver naturally. The difference is, is that they're the way that they have to, the way that they have to be strong and like the recovery they have to go through. That mostly happens after the delivery when there's less support. So, yeah, I agree 100 percent respectful cesarean mother. But you did say pitocin is for pussies, right? You know, you have it on a T-shirt. I've seen you wear this claim is disputed. I never, ever said anything like that. You know what? The funny thing is is like Warren will tell you. One gentleman will call you. I'm like. One of the yeah, like my therapist will tell you, OK, being judgmental, being a judgmental person, like sometimes that's something I struggle with, probably the one area, but I don't struggle with anything related to birth because I've just seen so much experience. So much. Yeah, yeah, I like honestly, that's probably the one area of life where I can approach women like, like, just like approach anyone just completely non-judgmental as anything related to like pregnancy or birth. It's actually very much true. And I, yeah, I can totally second this. You've never said anything like that, and you're very non-judgmental when it comes to birthing, which is actually shocking, giving every other part of life. Yeah. Like, don't tell me about your pet care choices. But yeah, you definitely once told me that you think that women should only have long hair. So there's definitely like not a precedent for nonjudgmental. Oh my gosh, OK. Well, before we dig in, I do think Chandler, you and I should answer a listener question. OK. Yeah, because the listener did ask if you and I would want a natural birth will be a fun question to start off with. Yeah, I'm going to say that. I don't think that's in the cards for me. I know my will as a person. I know my limits and I know my well. I don't think that I'm a person with that great of will. So I don't think that's something I'm going to do. I might, I don't know. I might have a mighty change of heart, but I probably also know I know from a dog. I would say for my answer that if a flower were to grow within the garden of my womb and I was a woman who, you know, would bring forth a child. I if that were the case for me personally at sometime in the future, I would actually love to do a natural birth in like a stunning five star hospital. Or I'm sorry for finding stunning five star hotel near a hospital. You're absolutely right about whatever. Knowing me not in a hotel and an Airbnb, I don't know. Anyway, I would love to do it, but right next to a hospital, just in case anything went wrong. Hotels everywhere. Beware. OK, be where they don't have to be for I've done hotel. Look, you don't have to ask it like you do not have to ask permission from the hotel to have a birth in there any more than you have to. Well, permission from the hotel to engage in the activities that I eventually I'd like to bring out something you're allowed to do. I'm I would like to propose legislation to make hotels have to ask more intrusive questions of their guests because I don't want to be staying anyway. There was just a more way silicon on the technology. It's like, Yeah, honestly, seriously. It's such a good point, actually. No wonder she works for Mark Zuckerberg. No wonder. Oh my gosh. OK, so Ashley, speaking of us back to us. Can I ask you to quickly just give us a small little tidbit about why you got into midwifery? Was it because you had these gorgeous younger siblings and then you were just so inspired by their births and their names, and you just wanted to see more children like us brought into the world? Absolutely not. It was more like it was actually more about like preventing like preventing children. Well, no. And this is like, I love kids. But like I thought, like, it was interesting because I was on a hike one day and like in the little guide book that I was reading during the hike, it said that I was identifying plants on the hike because that was one of the hobbies I developed, like not being popular in high school. And yeah, no, I know. I'm like Courtney, people did not invite me to parties and stuff, so I like I had to develop like interest from our bookshelf. So anyways, I was identifying plants on this hike that I was on, and one of the plants was actually queen and ladies. It's very common. Know people consider it a weed in North America. And I was reading in the guidebook the women and there's actually a version that grows in Europe. There's a version that grows in North America. And I was reading in the guidebook that women could use the seeds of this plant to prevent to prevent pregnancy. And that just blew my mind. I think that just blew my mind because I, you know, I think I just had a rather conventional education with the idea that fertility control was something that only started happening in the 1960s or whenever, you know, conventional birth control. So it just blew my mind that, you know, that plants were used for that purpose. And so that and I had always wanted to work in health care. And so that kind of just led to a development in my interest in midwifery. OK, so wait, let me bridge the gap a little bit, so you learned that a common weed could prevent pregnancy and that showed you what that there's like a lot of power and natural, like your holistic things that are basically like no one makes money from. So no one talks about it. Well, yeah, sort of. Exactly. Well, it's sort of. And it's just more about the fact that like I kind of knew I wanted to work in health care like health care, and I knew I wanted to work with women, but I didn't. We actually told you remember the story we told in the last podcast I was on about how, like mom talking about like the lady from our church group who like and remember she was saying, like she gave birth in a bathtub. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't really know about like midwifery about. I mean, I knew about it, but I thought it was like something that was just like relegated to a little house on the prairie, you know? But then once I found out it was like, you know, like honestly, like the idea of going into a health care based profession where I would work with just with women like that really appealed to me. So I thought, Yeah, and I love like, you know, and it eventually developed into like a specialization in like first time mothers. And I don't know, I love it. Like, it definitely was my calling, for sure. That's amazing. OK, so let's kind of go back to basics with midwifery. So there's a dula and then there's a midwife. Can you explain to people the difference between the two? Yeah, absolutely. OK, so a midwife and a dual-LED, they can work together just like a dual. It can work with a doctor or other professional, but they're just two totally different things. Now, a dual is something anyone can become after. Like a weekend training course. It doesn't require a whole lot of skill and specialization. It's basically where you learn to be an emotional support person for somebody who's experiencing childbirth. So it's like where you learn to like, OK, here are the things you could you could say or do to help support a woman in labour. Then, you know, it's kind of a free process to become a tool, and then you could start attending birth and doing all of the things now to become a midwife like that. What took me, I think, around seven years to do my bachelor's degree and then do all the clinical training. And that's where you actually become like a medical primary care provider to pregnant women. But it's very interesting. Anybody could be a dual just in the sense that like, you know, like I've attended birth like plenty of birth is a deal where I'm there not to actually be the medical care provider like I care to, but you don't do that now. All right. I'll do it every so often now. Like, I'll do it just because like, for example, like sometimes like all have a woman who wants to have a home birth. She's planning for a home birth and then a condition develops like something that would be, you know, like like, for example, she develops high blood pressure during pregnancy. Home birth is no longer considered safe, but we've developed a relationship at that point. And so it would be common at that point for me to, you know, for her to have me at her birth and in a labor coaching role instead of them. Got it. OK? Here's my question for you. But as a result, you're not offering any medical advice, correct? No, no, no, no. As a family, you don't do anything medical. You just leave that to the medical. Got it? OK. OK? Can you talk to us a little bit about your practice in general? And it's called a practice, right? Yeah, yeah. My midwifery care practice. So my midwife, we can't practice. I started it after working for several different birth centers, working for several different whole birth practices. So I had seen a lot. But I started my own practice here in Corvallis, Oregon, in 2015, and I developed the specialty in first time mothers. OK, why is that? What, like dad specializes in high conflict divorces? You specialize in first time mothers. Why this? Well, specialization, you know, it kind of just grew organically like like, I didn't set out to specialize in first time mothers. You know, I noticed with midwives, that happens a lot. It's like a certain type of woman or situation is attracted to us. And then we develop a specialty and not like, for example, there are midwives who specialize in breech birth, OK? And for whatever reason, like, I just started working with a lot of first 10 mothers and having really great results with them and kind of developing a system to like, really help them have their first birth, which is the hardest birth for women. It's the hardest birth for women. Typically, right is the first for an analogy I use, and this is an analogy that I came up with one day is that she was a certain degree of having your first is like going into the splits for the first time. You know, it may take somebody six months of stretching to finally get their muscles accommodated to the point where they can go into the hospital with the cervical muscle. If it's similar in the sense that, like for a woman cervix to fully dilate to the point where it can have a full grown term baby pass through it, that always takes more time than like second, third, fourth, fifth birth, right? I mean, you know, it's just that it is the most for your cervix. Your first birth of a full term baby is the most. It is the most intense. And so I just developed a specialty, helping women navigate that first birth, and that became really important to me, right? And so obviously, with your practice, you know, you try to avoid a cesarean section as a C-section, and obviously they're there for a reason and they're important and there are a lever that people might need to pull if things are not going well. Can you talk about why it's so important? Why stress you are trying to avoid a cesarean with your first birth? Yeah. So there's one main reason, and the reason is that caesareans are linked with death for the women. So each, you know, this is this fact will come as a shock to a lot of people, and it's not a very pleasant fact. And you're saying, sorry, I just want to repeat, you said that caesarean sections are linked to death like more likely. Right? Yeah. For the woman and like this, I want to say a really important fact that a lot of people don't know and it's really sad for. It should be common knowledge, but among all the industrialized countries in the world, like all the what are considered colloquially like First World Nation, United States, I think is dead last in terms of maternal mortality. Mm hmm. All like it's our country has a really bad maternal mortality rate. And one of those reasons is that we do so many surgical deliveries compared to other nations like, for example, a country like Iceland. Iceland has like a 15 percent cesarean rate. This country has around a thirty three percent cesarean rate, where one out of every three births is by C-section and in the US hospital and U.S. hospitals are really yeah. And every cesarean you do triples the mother's risk of death. So it's like when you look at somebody like our mom who survived like six five. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But really, you know, like by the time that she was having her life cesarean, she was at such an increased risk of death and thankfully everything was fine. But yet read that there's a limit for every woman's body into how many times you can cut through that little that many layers of muscle and tissue and put everything back together. And one adult, for example, she's not going to have a massive hemorrhage and die. Mm hmm. OK, so this is so interesting. I am sorry, but I was totally in disbelief, so I just did. A quick Google on your 100 percent spot on is 31 percent of its budget. Basically between it's about between 30 and thirty five. That's, I think, shocking. Can you hypothesize as to why that is like or is it a doctor's choice to doctors pressure more women to have a cesarean section? C-sections like what? We're doing this stuff. So this is super multifactorial things that are going on. It's like, first of all, like if you look at like and this is one of the reasons I became a midwife, it's like if you look at like the number of midwives, like if you look at the countries that are the best for it in terms of like outcomes for women like they have way more midwives than doctors attending birth. And there's a high ratio of midwives to women, whereas like if you look at the US, we have very low rate of midwives to women and, you know, for example, an obstetrician. I think that their obstetricians are great. The medical school is obviously no joke. But the thing is obstetrics, that's a surgical specialty. Midwifery is the specialization. Yeah, they're surgeons. I mean, that's amazing. I mean, that's one of the things the most amazing things your kids could ever become as a surgeon, right? But the surgeon or podcaster or or an amateur celebrity gossip podcaster? Right, right. Whereas like, you know, midwives, what we specialize in is promoting normal birth, like the normal process for the normal process to occur. So, OK, I never I've never processed that before, like obviously Joanne as a surgeon, but like there's not really another like, is there a doctor is a gynecologist, then just it's it's one specialty, it's called OB. It's like one area they can choose is ob do. And obviously some of them don't do deliveries anymore. They just solely do gynecology. Yeah, right. So it's not. So it's always your gynecologist is always an OB-GYN. Yeah. But I know there's one specialty like the thing is, there's a cascade of hormones that starts the labor process that usually actually starts in the baby's lungs, and they trigger like an inflammatory chemical that starts the labor process. And when that process occurs, it's way easier for the woman's body to handle. Typically, I mean, don't get me wrong, there are reasons why sometimes inductions need to happen. But we have had in this country like, you know, practices and things where, like, you know, people were just getting into that right at thirty nine weeks for no medical reason, like people getting induced, like women getting into for reasons like, Oh, my doctors going out of town. So I want to get into the 39 weeks and it's triggering things that is triggering things like, I mean, you know, it's not I mean, I mean, imagine they had like chemicals that they could inject in you that would make you sneeze. I mean, it's not going to be quite the same as just like sneezing naturally on interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it's like a whole cascade of processes that happen. And the chemicals that they use to induce labor are like crude compared to the body's own natural processes. And like one thing you'll find that's like super common is women. We'll talk about the experience of like the contractions that are from induced labor versus the contractions from natural labor in the contractions from natural labor are actually a lot easier to handle for most women. And that's because the pitocin is being, you know, is being secreted by their own brain embedded to it. And it's it's basically pitocin that they just, you know, if they run an I.V. and you, it doesn't actually cross the blood brain barrier. And so there's just I mean, if you get it, we could get really deep into the deep into the science of this. But basically, like your body's own natural labor is, there's going to be endorphins and things that your body has to help you handle that process interestingly and then induce labor. There's not going to be that sort of thing, which is why, you know, things like epidurals exist. And if you get an epidural, especially before a certain point, I mean that just I think it almost doubles your risk of caesarean chan. I just have to tell you, I woke up in the middle of the night last night with a little bit of anxiety. I had half an early bird gummy and I swear to you within 30 minutes, I was peacefully dozing off. Early bird CBD gummies are magic. They're truly magic. They are literally magic. I don't want to travel without them. I don't want to be without them. I think it's the twelve point five milligrams of CBD, two point five milligrams of THC. It's that little c**ktail. It gives you the warmest Julius fuzzy best feeling. It feels so good. It's so light. Also, one bottle last so long, it's a lot of product. Also, I feel like I prefer it to drinking at this point. Absolutely. You guys go to Earlybird CBD. Com Use Code Pop Apologists 20 for 20 percent off your order. You will not regret it. Earlybird CBD Icon Use Code Pop Apologist 20 if you say that So if you get a epidural too early, yeah, probably we'll have to have a C-section if you're not far enough. So one thing say is like, obviously home birth is not for everyone. I'm assuming a lot of your listeners might plan to have a hospital birth. One thing I mean, our sister Courtney had all hospital births. Our mom did. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm kind of the weird outlier in the family where I'm kind of interested in natural birth, obviously. But like one of those things, like if you go to a hospital and this is something I've worked with, women that I've worked with. If you look for in the hospital, if you can wait until after six or seven centimeters to get your epidural, you'll be in a lot better place, statistically speaking, to accomplish your birth vaginally versus eventually needing a cesarean. Interesting. Right? So can you speak to like people who want to have a natural birth? Obviously, a lot of it's out of your control, but if you want to try and have that like, what can you do to have the best chances? Yeah. So one of the things so I work with my specialty is working with first time mothers to have that first birth naturally. So we do a whole lot of stuff. Some of it's controversial, some of it's well accepted by the larger community. First thing we do that's not very controversial is we look at like mental preparation. I want mothers to be mentally preparing for the experience of labor and honestly like that just looks like that just looks like. A lot of times like that can take the form of like some sort of like mindfulness operation because the things like when you're actually in labor, you know, like one thing I would compare it to is like, you know, there's various things that can be compared to you. But like one thing that I would compare it to that I think is a really good analogy is that it's a little bit like running a marathon, right? And so if you're on mile two of the marathon and you're thinking, Wow, this mile is really hard, I'm not going to be able to run the mile twenty four, it's going to be really hard for you to complete that process versus like if you just focus on the mile, the steps, the what's in front of you and you don't worry about what's coming on later in the process. You know, later on, your body is going to give you runner's high. It's going to give you a lot of more tools to cope with that process if you've done it. So it's like it's a lot about it's a lot about, first of all, is the mental part of mindfulness being present, not worrying about what's coming on later in the process, staying where you are mentally and just handling the contraction that's in front of you instead of worrying about what's coming six hours later, right? That's one. Yeah, OK. Being number two is, OK, can we talk shaving for a second? You guys, I shave every day. I cannot even stand the slightest stubble. It's not my thing. It's not my journey. I need a smooth, supple legs and arms. I shave it all, baby, so I shave every day. And for me, it's been really tough to find a razor that I love. I have tried the expensive ones at the grocery store. I've tried the cheap ones. It is all trash to me. Well, let me tell you about Athena Club razors, which I've just discovered. They are incredible. 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Along that same metaphor is athletic, one of the questions that I ask almost every first prenatal visit I have is did you play sports in high school? No, I always feel like a hypocrite for asking this, right? I'm like also, you know that none of the sisters in our family of our brothers played sports, so it's like we're going to be answering no to that question. Right? Well, you can't say, Okay, I'll tell you a couple of questions, but I'd love to hear it when a woman says, like, Oh yeah, I played this sport in high school. If somebody hasn't played sports in high school, the question that I ask is, have you had much experience working out? What if they what if they said they did ask me, what would how would you translate that skill that it student government like, you know, call your local surgeon now like this? Well, I can make a kickass post, but I will say I want to make. I want to stay like women, even with like no athletic background, give birth naturally every day with no problems. But it is a good idea. Like with something I say all the time is that the pain of childbirth, the discomfort of childbirth. It's very similar to the discomfort of running a marathon. Same analogy versus like, there's different types of pain our body can have. And the pain of birth is really similar to athletic pain, where it can be extremely uncomfortable. But it's also the result of a normal process happening normally. Right? It's like not even like there's pain technically, but it's it's not just your body reacting rather than like your body being hurt. Yeah, it can be really uncomfortable, but it's not the same as like getting shot in the leg or having a shark attack or something. It's it's an actual process happening that your body is designed to handle. It's not an injury. And so, yeah, so it's so the thing is women with athletic experience, it's great because they're accustomed somewhat to feeling that burn or feeling the pain of athleticism. And so if they can reframe childbirth in their head and then also exercise during the pregnancy that not only promotes a healthy pregnancy, it's like they can carry that mindset into labor of like how to deal with the sensation of the contraction, right? Is your slogan No pain, no gain, no baby, no pain, no baby. Actually, my slogan is like, Please have a six pound baby, OK, you know, I want to have that. Actually, I will say that one of the more controversial aspects of my practice is that not all midwifery practices do not all doctors. It like I work a lot with the women I work with, and I have a very good success rate. I have a huge almost every baby I almost. And I love it this way. I almost never see an eight pound baby, unlike many practices I almost never see. We have six and seven pound babies here. And why is that? I love it, and the women I work with. Love it. Yeah, right? I mean, but like, so what part do you play? How she's acting like, she's like, literally God. Like, I give him all seven pounders. I know women love it. I know it's like, she's like slicing deli meat or something. We actually shoot for six pounds, but seven pounds is OK, if you would, which again, I feel like a hypocrite because I was a 10 pound baby. This b***h is six one. OK? OK, if I was a 10 pound baby, because this is honestly baby, that's why I do what I do now. But yeah, so we focus on like, OK, things that you can do during the pregnancy to control and help your baby be a more physiological or normal size. And it is true. Like, honestly, babies are really not supposed to be nine to 10 pounds. They really aren't. Can't control it, though. Sometimes if both parents are really tall, you know. Right, right, right. And like, for example, like, you know, I work at a birth center and like, you know, like, I remember one of the women that came in there like, you know, she was taller than me. She was like six three. Her husband was also big. Yeah, but there's a difference, though, between like. But that's the thing. Like tall women like me are where, like most women are in the five one five eight range. Yeah, it's just a matter of being tall. Like, even if you're tall, you're the different openings in your pelvis may not necessarily be that much larger. Yeah. You know, and so like like having if you can like, but how do you control for that? Yeah, yeah. So I tell this and this is, you know, this is like, okay, like this is a little bit controversial and this is not something that everybody does. But like, I honestly believe, but like the and I've seen results of this in my practice that encouraging women to focus on some food groups and not focus on other food groups, it's generally been helpful. Like focusing, I say on the three pillars of your diet should be meat, fruits and vegetables. And then once you start adding in like, you know, like especially like large about the very large amounts of processed sugar, you know, these other groups that you know are more common since the advent of industrialized food systems. We start to see, I think, bigger and bigger babies because of that. Interesting. Interesting. OK, so we. You wouldn't even say it's an excess of calorie intake. Not more. Yeah, well, in that part of it is to is like if you're eating meat, fruits and vegetables, it's really it's really like hard and not pleasant to like, eat to overeat that we like to tolerate other foods. It's very easy to. Mhm. Right, right. So you know what it's like? I mean, I mean, I mean, we always have outliers like that really banana girl who ate like 40 bananas a day or something like that. But like most people, if they like, that was a YouTube reference, but like, Oh, we've talked about her on the pod before. Oh, don't you worry. Yeah. So like, honestly, like I do not do. I do not. I'm not really encourage like women to do, like calorie controlling on my breakfast. I just say stick to meats, fruits and vegetables as much as you can. If you're going to have like a treat meal, have it be like a once a week instead of like a once a day thing. And that generally has been really helpful for controlling baby size. And does that also help with pregnancy symptoms as far as like sickness, that type of thing? No, not necessarily so. Who gets morning sickness and stuff like a lot of that is seems to be like genetic and related to like specific, you know, like woman or her specific pregnancy. As far as, like how sick she's getting, I can't give you like if if your readers want and like obviously, if this isn't medical advice for your specific situation, but I can give some of the greatest hits advice I have about controlling pregnancy. Yes. OK, so first of all, the best thing in the world. Let's go ahead and put a link to your show notes for this. So constipation is huge with pregnancy. Tons of women get constipated with pregnancy. It comes from various factors, including like the progesterone, which slows down digestion. Can you drink coffee when you're pregnant? This is something I'll read. You can. I can have like two two cups a day. OK? Oh, thank. 300mg. I believe I have to look that, but I believe 300 mg is the pregnancy safe limit for OK. OK, great fan. But yeah. Yeah. But pregnancy constipation is really common. Best supplement in the world for that is natural calcium, magnesium or if you're constipation, isn't that either by that, just the plain magnesium. And that's the dissolvable magnesium powder that you put into water and drink. And I've literally never encountered a case of pregnancy constipation in my years. In practice, that wasn't salt by that. Do you know that I carried natural calm with me across the country when I moved to New York because I love it so much about it. But yeah, you put me onto it and I like I use it somewhat frequently. I don't conservation issues, but I actually think it helps me sleep and I but I it's so expensive. I don't want to trek if I don't want to buy new when I got here, so I took it through security. Oh my gosh, right? And it being number two is a maternity pilot. So these are really great. So let me just give some background on this is a single strainer for your baby. No, it's like. So I guess it might look like that to some people, but let me play. That has nothing to do with like appearing small or something like that. So the bones in your pelvis during pregnancy, there's a hormone called Relaxin that spikes during the nine months that you're pregnant, right? And this hormone is really important because what it does is it loosens like if you look at a woman's pelvis, it's made of like several different bones that are attached. And what this does is this loosens the connectivity between all of those bones. OK. That's fantastic for the day or two that you're in labor, but it's really miserable the rest of the time just because it makes it hard to walk. What does it feel like? It literally feels like your pelvis is like. Like, what does it feel like? Yeah, it just feels like I think it feels like for women, it just feels like walking is more painful. There's like more instability, just like more. So it kind of you wobble more when you're pregnant. Yeah, yeah. Or waddle? Yeah, exactly. And so what is what this does, like the belt does is and also you have like this, you know, growing know the growing bump. And so what this is, it's kind of like an analogy I've used before is like most women with like even average, two large breasts would not even consider going for a run without a jogging bra. You can't just be too uncomfortable, right? This is kind of like a jogging bra for your pelvis and like your bump was like it gives you a bump, a little bit of uplift and support. And because of the horizontal, it's like, you know, usually they're like four or five inches wide. And they're just like, if you put them on your hip, you put it on your hips, then their elastic and stretchy and you velcro them and then it just hold your hip bones and your bones together. And it kind of combats that hormone introduced instability, and it makes walking and moving around more comfortable. So the pregnancy belt, it's like, I really like the analogy about boobs. Like if you have big, if you have larger boobs you would not like, it's impossible for you to not wear a sports bra. It's more comfortable for you to wear a sports bra. So it's like, Yeah, let's go jogging. Yeah, exactly. It's like it's compression that makes everything more comfortable. Yeah, exactly. And that's what it does, that's what the pregnancy belt does to, you know, so and you can like, you know, obviously talk to your own provider. But like for women I work with, like, you know, even some, some women have even worn like a pregnancy belt. And it's not like over the middle part of your belly. It's actually lower, like it's just lower on your hip bone. Yeah, that is, you know, they've even some of them have even worn at night to sleep. The next thing is to decrease pregnancy related discomfort. Let's give it to nausea in a minute. But as far as like, it's really common to get like shooting pelvic pains or like shooting sharp pains during pregnancy, you basically have to change how you move during pregnancy. One thing I'd tell women is like, You have to move it, start moving in slow motion, like work like the average woman, you know, not pregnant. She can just hop out of bed, right? I can't watch your back. You can't really just hop out of bed like once you're pregnant or you or if you do, it can cause like these thousands of pain. You know, getting out of bed or getting into or out of the seat like that can be a process you need to set up slowly. You know, do all these things a little bit in slow motion. And that is because, OK, so a typical uterus with no baby in it, just some just a woman who is not pregnant. It's about the size of a golf ball, and it's tucked behind her pubic bone. Really, it's not even, yeah, it's so tiny. It's so tiny, right? Is that were my ideas that were my OK. And so that so so it's really tiny. And then obviously, it grows to like the size of a watermelon. It's up underneath your lungs, right? Well, it's like the exact same ligaments that hold it in place. One of the tiny golf ball behind your pubic bone are the same ligament that the ligaments that hold it in place when it's a giant watermelon shaped thing under your lungs. Yeah. And so this spasm like those ligaments really easily with like quick movements or like certain types of but all of this to say it's like, you know, I work with a lot of women who are really athletic and a lot of them keep doing a lot of the athletic stuff through their second and third trimesters. Even it doesn't mean that you can't be active, but it just means you have to change your body's moving biomechanics temporarily to, you know, to just make sure that you're not like aggravating the situation or causing yourself undue knowing. What kind of exercise do you recommend for a pregnant woman? So the ideal exercise, I think, if I had to choose one is aerobics swimming because it's like you're going to these laps, basically. Yeah, it's like you're in a situation where the pressure of the water is providing the water pressures, providing just complete support all around your stomach. And so you can really vigorously exercise while getting the support for the shape of your body. So that's really excellent. A lot of women do yoga. I mean, you know, just anything. I mean, honestly, anything that you really love to get you huffing and puffing, get your heart rate moving is going to be helpful. So all of that is great, obviously, like certain. I mean, people will ask me questions like, Oh, it's like bike riding, safer pregnancy. And it's like, you know, the answer is usually like, Well, if you never fall off your bike, you know, it would be good, like you just have to. And like, honestly, one thing that's not safe for pregnancy is being totally sedentary and sitting in a chair for like 12 hours a day during your whole pregnancy. I don't consider that to like athleticism has its risks, but it's worth it to be active during a pregnancy. Yeah. OK, so funny. My future sister in law, Kagan's twin sister, she recently gave birth and like, literally like two weeks before she gave birth, she like, did her last mountain biking ride and was like, last ride. Like, she's so active the whole time. She's like, So Rathlin, that's so excellent. And like, when you do that, you're not just like making your pregnancy healthier, you're making your future child healthier because you're sending them like the epigenetic signals. Because, you know, do you guys know about epigenetics at all? I don't. So it's basically about like, OK, so all of us have like a certain genetic set of information in our body. But there's things where like, I mean, colloquially speaking, certain things can be quote unquote turned on or turned off based on the environment we're born into. Like, for example, somebody born into a famine state or something like that, maybe certain genes or certain tendencies will be exaggerated or not, right? So when you exercise during your pregnancy, it's actually beneficial for your baby because it's like turning on or off regulating the things that will help them be healthier in the long term. Oh, that's very cute. Well, that's bad news for all of us. Yeah. Well, you know, we'll see when my baby's going to want to work out about three times a week, and that's it. And then last one I'll give is my ultimate hope for pregnancy nausea now. So this is a big one. There's usually for most women, it's going to go away significantly by like 13, 14 weeks for most women. The biggest thing you know, there's a whole list of things, you know, acupressure like. It's like uniform, like all of these things you can do, I will tell you my most helpful thing for that is practice now and when I say packers, I mean, like having like I usually suggest what are called my packers. But really, any cracker that you need like whole wheat? Yeah, like wheat would be fine, too. Now, obviously this doesn't. Yeah, because I think so. Yeah, like it doesn't fall on my list of recommended food, but the thing I tell people about the recommended foods is it's fine to start eating like your pregnancy ideal diet in your second trimester. I mean, before that, your baby is so small and like if you need like to eat a lot of crackers to get through the first trimester, yeah, that's just fine. Basically, what you do is like, you always carry these crackers with you. You can set like an alarm bell on your phone to go off like every half hour or an hour, and you basically just need to never have an empty stomach. You need to practice. Yeah, big thing is like having them by your bedside table and eating the crackers before you even sit up in bed in the morning, like eating a few crackers, waiting five minutes before you even get out of bed. Because if you just get out of bed and you have a totally empty stomach like you're done, it's you're going to have pretty bad energy. So does it have to do with like your inner ear? And then that type of knowledge? Is that what triggers it? Because from the way you said it like you need to have it before you even set up in bed, like is it triggered by movement or is it or what is it? Cause I was this whole pregnancy and like, yeah, I don't know exactly. Some people, some I think some research we could do, like HPV levels, the pregnancy nausea. But one thing that's pretty conclusive about not one thing we know is that like. It gets into people, get into a really like women, they get into a really bad feedback loop with it because they don't eat, because they're feeling so nauseous, like a lot of women will lose weight during their first trimester because they're so nauseous they can't eat. But yeah, not eating always makes it worse. And so if you're able to just always even just have a little tiny bit of food in your stomach, little tiny bit of rice, a little bit a tiny bit of crackers like it can make the it doesn't completely solve the problem, but it makes life a lot more tolerable. OK, brilliant. Wow. OK, another little ask people have. While we're on the subject, it's like giving out tips is how do you prevent tearing? I know we're fast forwarding now to when you actually give birth. But what are your thoughts there? Yeah. So it starts in pregnancy with like, you know, like I said, like, Well, and this is my advice. Talk to your own doctor and midwife about how you early in pregnancy. But I think it starts with like eating and pregnancy to manufacture a six or seven cow baby instead of an eight or nine tummy because it's going to be easier not to pair it with one another. That's how you can still get a gnarly pair with like a six or seven. Yeah, yeah. Next thing is like not getting an epidural in labor. And the reason that you want to have a natural birth to not tear is that if you're mobile and you can move around and you can change position, in my opinion, it's a lot easier for you not to tear our attorneys severe way for having an epidural, which means like you're immobilized and you're probably getting like coach pushing both things like both of those things lead to tearing when as coach pushing, I don't know what that exactly means. Yeah. So the thing is, coach pushing is like where and you don't necessarily like. So when a woman has an epidural, what that means is that sensation to the lower part of her body is cut off. Right, right. And so do you guys. I mean, I guess I'll use a crude metaphor, but like, like, for example, how do you guys? It's actually a similar sensation that women experience in labor. Like, how do you know when it's time to push all the ball movement like you feel that urge to put, right? Yeah, it's actually the exact same thing for Labor. Let me get to the right point. Like when your baby gets to the point where you should be pushing them out, which is not most of labor. Most of labor is the cervical dilation. But when your baby gets to that point like you, you actually feel that urge to push. You feel it really strongly. It's like you have to go with it, right? Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like the most satisfying poop of your life. And you love the cool, right? Oh my god. Yeah. And so the thing is, and it's like, yeah, until basically if you have an epidural, you're cut off from that sensation. And so that usually the doctors and the nurses will just like. Tell you when and why. And you just kind of have to imagine that you can't really, you know, so I can't really lean into the feeling. Yeah, yeah. No, no. OK. So OK. So being unmedicated, having a six or seven POW baby and then also getting a midwife who's like, really, you know, like, for example, like what? During those last pushes for women, like last birth I went to, it was totally intact. And that was because like, you know, like during those last few pushes me and my assistant and Anita, like, we were just like basically telling her like, OK, the heads, like once the head was like, kind of like frowning, like we're just telling her, just like, stop pushing, breathe really slowly. Just let the baby's head ease out on about even pushing. And, you know, just giving her like time to stretch and everything like that. OK, interesting. So like once the baby, once the baby's crowning, you don't have to keep pushing. Well, if you don't mind. Yeah. So I can't be like a one size fits all. Many times where it's like the baby's crowning in me, the head colors that way you want to keep looking like. But yeah, like if you have an experience like midwife or doctor who can help you when the baby's head. Because that's when that hearing would typically right as the head is emerging. Yeah, yeah, you would. You know, they can use their experience in that moment to guide you. So you help it. And you know, like what? I've had a lot of women do because I work obviously at home with women who are completely on another kid. They actually reach down there. They feel their perineum, they feel the baby's head, and they literally will just guide their baby's head out and, yeah, coach themselves on how to push the baby. I feel like that's like a natural instinct that you almost have if you're especially if you don't have an epidural. And the only reason I asked you further to clarify that is because I feel like in movies or, you know, whatever exposure you have to watching, you know, women give birth. It's like, you think it's like this situation where it's just push push as hard as you can the whole time. I mean, and then you stop, I guess, and kind of take breaks. But yeah, if so funny that because we're watching, if I'm watching a movie with my husband and like, there's a child with me, like, I don't even have to say or do anything. It's like my husband just starts rolling his eyes about like because it's so wrong. This is not realistic. We don't have to say anything. Right, right? He, like, knows it's coming. Well, I mean, it's just like the way that like, you know, it's dramatized in TV and whatnot. And you know, I mean, yeah, I have some women who don't even push very much at all. They do. They have something called the this is something that your listeners can Google if they want to go down a rabbit hole for fetal injection reflex. OK? I have some women who want to have the fetal injection reflex. And that's where you basically just don't push it all until your baby's right about ready to emerge. Wow. It happens very quickly. Well, and it's so interesting. I mean, I remember I was in the room for when Kourtney gave birth to all of the kids, but the twins. So just, I guess, James and Louis and birth. The birth process is actually a lot more calm, for the most part. It's all true for everyone. But I mean, growing up, you just think it's like this horrendous scene with so much blood and, you know, just debris. And it's actually really peaceful. It's really peaceful. I mean, there's a reason why it's like the happy couple are in the hospital, right? Like, nothing's gone wrong. It's like, you know, yeah, their bodies are capable of doing. Right, right? Yeah. Let's get into some juicy stories like Ashley. Like, What's one of the worst emergencies you've ever handled? OK, so obviously can't give a. But I would say that like, you know, probably the worst emergency I've ever handled was with a shoulder to. But this one, I mean, I've handled subfolders, shoulders associated. But this one was a really intense one that lasted, you know, like almost five minutes, the baby was totally fine. Everything was totally fine. But that was probably I've seen some pretty serious hemorrhages, too. But that five minute shoulder social was definitely like the most baby's life threatening emergency. I've handled it, but you know, we did. Can you explain what that what a shoulder dysphoria is? Yeah. And so first of all, I want to give a little warning. Like, maybe if you're pregnant like this, you can listen to this. But like some people choose not to like like some women get called like the negative stories or whatever. And that's fine. But actually, like sometimes a little bit of knowledge is helpful to basically the the baby's shoulders are so shy. This is most of the time this happens because it basically happens because, you know, the general idea with delivering a baby is that, you know, after you deliver your baby's head, the rest of the body should come without a complication because the head is typically the largest part. But there are situations for various reasons maybe a large baby, maybe other things that are going on where the shoulders can get stuck, like typically on the mother's pelvis. And what that means is that what that means is like an analogy that I use all the time when I'm talking about birth and like why we do certain things during birth that we don't do it during pregnancy is like, you can think of your baby's umbilical cord like a scuba line, and it's like your baby's like a diaper and like during the birth at various points during the birth process, there's the opportunity for like the scuba line to become pinched, like where the baby's not going, right? Yeah, the the blood, nutrients and oxygen. And so, yeah, and so that happens. And so if the baby is stuck at that point like you're dealing with, the baby was like, know in is like the proverbial pinch who and they're not getting the, you know, so it's not like, you know, during most parts of the birth process, like you can just if there's an obstruction or something like that, especially if you're working like midwifery care, population, normal, healthy women at home, like, for example, if we have like a hang up when somebody's cervix is dilated from three to five centimeters, that's almost never like that's not considered an emergency. That's just like a part of. The process we're waiting through, right? But there's like a hang up between like the moments where the baby's head starts to emerge and then like like if things get really stuck at that point, it's considered a serious emergency because the baby's biblical line can be compromised, right? And so basically, we just had to do various things to help this mother deliver her baby. Her baby is fine. But yeah, that would. That's probably the biggest emergency I've seen. Wow. Sounds really scary, but it's just glad to know that everything was OK. It's just so impressive because like China, you either you or I could handle no even one iota of this responsibility. And I thought maybe I was, you know, my my lanterns were catching on fire and I'm like, I don't know what to do if these catch on fire. I have no idea what to do. It's like literally like, we cannot do this. Exactly. You know, it's very funny. Like, I didn't like it when I saw midwifery school, it was like, How am I going to be able to handle this? Am I going to be able to do it? But like, you know, like, it's interesting. Like part of it is like, you know, it's just like it's almost like a when I have like an emergency at birth, it's almost just like it's almost like you get like a new sense of calm as the emergency is happening. It's like you're like the professional you takes over and you start, right? Right? Yeah, your mind like clears and you can just like, yeah, the adrenaline kicks in. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's also like, that's also part of the reason why I like I don't think like I could ever be like a midwife to like someone in my own family or something like that because I wouldn't necessarily be able to trust it. Like that part, like the calm part. I mean, one time I had to drive my daughter to the emergency. But after hours because he and a bunch of grapes off the vine in our backyard. And I was like hyperventilating and sobbing the entire drive. So it's like, and this was after I had been a midwife for many years, like handled a bunch of emergencies. So it was, but it was not like, now I'm like this supernaturally calm person in every situation. But yeah, I wanted midwifery, you know, like a professional situation like thankfully, like I've had enough training that part of my brain can take over. Yeah, right. Do you have any stories about like water births or like dads? I don't know. I just feel like I don't even know where I'm going with this question or any like doulas that are like pissy, like are like, bug the s**t. And that kind of thing. Yeah, I some I got tend to tell some people it's funny because it's like I'm in a I'm in a bunch of like Facebook groups like Think Mark. We're like, you know, different like professionals like like midwifery. I'm in this group with like thousands of like labor and delivery nurses. And I definitely like there are some doulas who are, like, not considered like it or considered like out of scope or out of line or like, you know, like a common complaint like I've only encountered. This one is like, I do dude who like starts doing like vaginal checks or something like that, like, that's considered a big no-no, but that that will happen from time to that. I got an doesn't and a bunch of people, but it's definitely like something I've seen like doctors and nurses like, complain about or like, you know, that's considered not most. Good luck. I've been pretty lucky. I think I'm trying to think like except for like one breath I want to. And I was still a student midwife at this time, so I wasn't even really into, like most of the people that I work with have been pretty, pretty helpful. That's good. Would you ever like go into partnership with a dula like that 50 50? Obviously. But like, you know, would you ever have a doula that you recommend that you work really well with? Or is that not only have several doulas throughout the area that I recommend, like it's yeah, like I'm one of the last remaining midwifery practices, though like I'm part of the reason I don't have a partnership is because I'm one of the last remaining midwifery practices. I mean, honestly, like I practice like a dying breed of midwifery, like it's called like true continuity of care. It used to be the model of care for like almost all of those, you know, and a lot of things. But now it's like very, you know, it's like, well, there's still a lot of midwives doing it, but it's getting less common because it's not as nice for it's not as nice if you're the midwife or doctor to practice this way, but it's really nice for women. Can you explain what that is? Yeah. Yeah. So here's the thing. So the hormones involved in labour, one of the major ones, is called oxytocin also, but also the hormone of orgasm. It's like it's a hormone that has pretty strong relationship between feeling levels of privacy, feeling uninhibited. Because, you know, there's a reason why if you have like a kitty cat, they're going to find a little box or a closet most often to give birth. And it's just because if you're a mammal like finding a quiet private place without strangers, there's a pretty basic instinct as far as path goes sweet to think about. Yeah, well, the thing is like. The system in this country for that is just like completely opposite, you know, like I work with a lot of I've worked with a lot of women, they tell me about their past hospital births or even other. They'll go literally see, you know, if you look at most group nurse and doctor practices, it's like you'll literally see like they might literally see a different doctor every time they go to a prenatal appointment and then a different doctor that they give birth. It's totally just stranger base, and they're all just relying on just like people reading your chart. You know, the women who I work with in my practice, I not only see them for every prenatal point, I attend all of their births. That's something that's not done very commonly. I mean, when you hear about like, you know, when you think of like old timey birth stories like Little House on the Prairie, it was always like the same town midwife or doctor, like you knew who would attend your birth. Most women in the United States do not have that luxury today, and it's a luxury to know who comes your birth and then have a relationship with that person beforehand. In fact, that's one of the reasons some people do caesareans because they want that luxury. And that's one of the only ways you can do it. But to plan was to have, but to plan to go into labor naturally and then to also have the luxury of knowing who will attend it. That's almost right. I mean, and doctors have so many clients like this at the beck and call literally, yeah, like know doctors and even midwives like a lot of them, just don't want to be on call because it's like, for example, I like about my practice of about two to three ladies every month, typically, and I won't call because of that. Like a lot of times, I'm just on call twenty four seven because of that. I mean, then from a theoretically call right now, we would have to start this podcast and most people don't want to look like. But we're and from a personal perspective, like we know this as your sisters and as your family, like you can always come to every holiday because you're on call. Yep. Yep, yup. Yup. Actually, one of the reasons I feel like I had, like the statistical success rate I have is because that will inhibit a woman's labor process to have a stranger. I mean, those women that's, you know, I'm not saying it's going to, but I'm saying like, but to have a stranger show up that day, that's not an advantage, if that makes sense, right? And here you can have, you know, who will be attending you, right? And we also really love hearing that it's connected to the feeling of an orgasm and at least like the the trust and the privacy that you want and those types of situations like that totally makes sense. Like if you're not feeling safe and like you're in a comfortable space, it's not happening or it's not happening in a pleasant way. I guess one of the most natural and very that's a really it's it's a really striking way to crystallize that information. Yeah. And it's honestly like it's like another it's another like something that I like I like talked about, like, like imagine like, I mean, obviously those reasons this can't happen. But imagine if you could get like imagine if somebody could come to your house and like a dentist, could fill a cavity in your bed like that would even take away a lot of the discomfort of like the process of getting a cavity. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, you know, like when you can have somebody who can come to you in your own environment and provide the medical care as needed to you, that is very different than like being in a strange gown, in a strange place with my life, with strangers wandering in and out and like, you know, weird socks that kind of grips on me. I just spoke with for some reason. Well, I know why. For me, a home birth sounds very messy. Sounds kind of gross. I'm going to be frank, but I, you know, I'm all for like, you know, embracing my womanhood. But it sounds gross. How do I always have to do a water bath or like a kiddie pool? Or it's like doing it in my bed? Sounds weird, not weird, but just sounds like I said messy. So what were you trying to do? You know what a puppy pads? Oh, yeah, like, like just like one of those like plastic on one side. Yeah, I think on one side observer, we in the midwifery community, they're called Chuks. But I mean, they're basically the same thing is like puppy. Yeah, we trained through those and like, basically, we catch all the mess with those and like, yeah, having we yeah, it's not like if your house is clean when we get there, it's going to be clean when we leave. Yeah, I mean, and just hearing the idea of it being so much more comfortable really does make an enticing because hospitals are not comfortable. Yeah. Well, that's what it feels. A home birth and natural birth about a lot of women. It's just about like. And the thing is like even for women who, you know, like, let's say they need a transfer of care or something like that, like doing your as much of your labor at home as possible. Just and don't get me wrong, I'm always while I have one hundred percent respect for cesarean mothers who go through cesarean birth. But it's like the only thing to talk about preventing is because I care about like, you know, I know the impact it makes on. Like, for example, if you have a cesarean, it's harder to breastfeed your baby and like, deal with your baby. The first, if she's alive because you're recovering from major abdominal surgery and you can't just like, hold your baby like. Who's had a vaginal birth because the wounds still can be so painful. It's just like, you know, it's just like making it so that like, you know, just like setting everything up so that your body has as much chance to accomplish in its natural process as possible is like why I do what I do. Yeah. Yeah. OK, so what? We have a few more questions for our listeners. Do you care if we just kind of go through them? Rapidfire that. All right. Yeah. OK. So regarding skin care recommendations during pregnancy, how do you deal with zits? Do you have any type of special like this is the intersection of your expertise? Do you have any advice for this? Oh my gosh, I love to talk about it whenever a woman I'm working with spontaneously asked me about like skincare recommended because it doesn't normally come up. But I love talking about, do you then recommend your serum? Just kidding. You know, honestly, like for the women I work with, for I know their health history or whatever, I am not opposed to them using my third trimesters. You know, typically the advice is do you avoid any strong herbal or botanical things in your first trimester? Do the theoretical risk? But yeah, you know, for pregnancy you like as I think we talked about this in the last episode, but as the Lagosian is a good pregnancy, safe like a good pregnancy, safe acne treatment, OK? You know, I know this is really big with the kids on Tik Tok these days, but I think there's actually some science behind it, like chlorophyll for acne, OK? Because diet and lifestyle, they do. As much as some people tell you they don't, they do make an impact into pregnancy. So taking liquid chlorophyll, that's a pregnancy food supplement that you can do for acne. Also, just like a moisturizer that is that has ingredients like squalane jojoba things that mimic your skin's natural, so your skin's actual like your natural sebum. Yeah, that are balancing are better than some of the more heavy or occlusive like, you know, moisturizers that OK, if you're dealing with acne concerns, OK, OK. Another question I don't even really know what this means, but someone said any tzi advice. Yeah, that means trying to conceive. Yeah. So just some of the basics you can do is just like get your vitamin D levels checked. You and father of the baby vitamin D and zinc supplementation, some people think is help. Also, the book Taking charge of your fertility is excellent, and that just involves like tracking your mental cycle, you know, using your temperature, your body temperature, and how does it work? Is it like you have your normal temperature? And if your one degree higher than that, you're ovulating or you're having to explain the in depth in the book? But yeah, basically, you can use your body's basal temperature to track when you're ovulating. And then once you've started to track, like when you're ovulating, you can see like how long your cycles are is like the length of the luteal phase normal or your cycle like balancing occurring regularly. And then if you're having problems like based on that like these, there are certain things that you can try based on, like whatever the issue is, but like if you're just if you're just like, don't think you have any issues, you're having regular periods, not on any birth control and you're just starting off like, I mean, basically the only thing I would do is just, you know, take vitamin, take vitamin D. And the reason I say that is just because almost nobody gets enough vitamin D through diet. Most people need like either, you know, sun exposure, which I am not a fan of or vitamin D. And so taking vitamin D and then, you know, making sure you're eating foods with like natural sources of zinc, those can be some simple things to start off with your fertility. OK, OK, great. Moving on to postpartum care any of your favorite books or reads at home. So for a postpartum. The thing that I tell women to do is like, if you can save up for like one thing, like if you can save up for like one big thing, like one of the best baby shower things that you can get or like, maybe ask for this from your baby shower or whatever so you can get like a maid service to come like maybe once a week for like the first six week or whatever. I don't know how everyone's house gets messy, but one of the best things you could do for your postpartum is just having someone help you clean. Yeah, like having like, I think that's one of the best things mothers can do for their mental health is just having someone else during the poster, because as far as I'm concerned, like important to stay active during pregnancy. If you want to be, you know, 40 weeks pregnant and scrubbing the floors, I think that's great. You should do. Is that aerobic activity? But then once you have your baby like, you should not be doing stuff like that for a long time. And just with the way our society works, like if a woman of the house isn't doing that, it's not. It's not getting done. And that's not good for women's mental health. So that's what I think when you do that for. I love that. I feel like that needs to be a part of like the registry is just like, Yeah, yeah, we should be like Molly made for the first six weeks or something like that. That would be excellent. Other sure, because I think like it's. Very easy to say, like, oh, well, he should just do it, but ultimately, you know, he's at work or whatever, like it's like not that simple, right? And it's actually it's also taxing on your partner, like your partner really going to be up with the baby as well, like taking breaks or like giving you breaks. And so like, everybody needs the extra help, you know, especially the mom. That's the other thing. The next thing is like, you know, and this is like a herbal thing that I recommend to mothers in my practice. So check with your own doctor and midwife before you do this. But for the women that I work with, like I typically recommend, like a cup of lemon balm to a day for herbal postpartum mood support, that's really helpful. OK. And so speaking of moods, postpartum moods, postpartum depression, that's obviously the very common. What do you recommend? How do you troubleshoot that? Yeah. So in my experience with postpartum depression, from what I've seen it, a lot of times like one trigger can be like having a disappointing like we're only seeing. But like, you know, somebody who like, you know, maybe like from what I've heard, you know, like I've had a lot of women come to me and say, like, Yeah, my last breath was really disappointing how it went. And so like, then I had postpartum depression after that. So like having a birth experience that didn't go well for you by what you were judging, that according to that can be one problem. Another one reason in my own practice, I've seen a lot of women seem like they have postpartum depression. It's like, you know, I was, you know, taking like Medicaid insurance. And so I work with women who maybe didn't have the greatest like social. Some women who are low income, who didn't have the greatest social support structure in place, you know, and maybe a enough income to to deal with some of life's stresses. Postpartum depression is a lot more common than, you know, it can happen to anyone. It can happen to anyone. But like if you have like a high degree of social support, like have like, you know, like another one of those. Yeah, or then another risk factor, I feel it can be like, you know, like, for example, maybe you are not Low-Income, but like you have like three or four other young children and you have a baby and you don't have somebody who's going to like care for those kids. You know, it's really hard to have your mood be good after childbirth. If you just have to go right back to your normal life and you have to be like taking care of other kids, you know, just doing whatever you can to make it so that you can spend at least, you know, as much as possible of those first six weeks in bed with your baby not having to care for other kids to cook meals, clean the house. That's the biggest, in my opinion, not the biggest preventative towards postpartum depression, right? So going back to what you mentioned earlier about a trigger for postpartum being that your birth experience wasn't what you wanted it to be. Obviously, there's going to be situations where you want to have a home birth, but you have to go to the hospital because of complications or whatever. How does someone, I guess, like, try and make the best of that? You know, how come? So the first thing I want to say, if there's any woman in listening to this, like who's had a traumatic experience like. Just know that like. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that happened to you, that it's awful. And the sad fact is that you're not going to be able to talk to most people about it because most people are going to say something like, Well, you know, you're healthy, your body healthy. You know what? It's all okay. You know, most people are going to minimize the experience you've been through. And that's because, frankly, to a large degree in this country, we don't. Care about women's experiences, I mean, that's part of why pregnant women are told to avoid so many things because it's like there's not really a nice balance of like, oh, maybe it will make somebody like miserable if they can't have turkey sandwiches for like 10 months, it's like, Oh, we don't care. There's just like this tiny theoretical risk of listeria, just panic, you know? You know, so there's not really the one you're pregnant. You're kind of a little bit seen as like a vessel, and there's not as much care and that extends to the birth. And so a lot of people will not be very careful with you or say very nice things, that you've had a bad birth experience and try to cope with it. Yeah. So I would just say, like, try to like try to find the there's if you search like one good Google search term for these moms would be like CBT techniques for birth trauma. So. And then also, if you can like better, help them use usual pop apologies. Better help our sponsor. Yeah, better help talking to a therapist and just processing one of the ways that the best ways to deal with it. So, OK, so the way that any traumatic experience works is that if it's traumatic, like it's going to be in your memory, it's going to be more towards your brain stem in the sense that it's going to be associated with these primal emotions like fight or flight or fear. You know, maybe you were at the hospital and some doctor or nurse was really rough with you or, you know, something happened that triggered something negative during your birth experience and you start to feel like things were out of control. You know, you're shifting towards these primal emotions that are there for like things like keeping us safe from predators in the wild, like know, they're very like primal emotions. And so a lot of it is about moving that memory from like the primitive part of your brain that is fear-based into the more cognitive, logical oriented parts of it. Just because the thing is like, for example, you know, I knew one mother who had like a traumatic birth experience, and that being the time when things start to go wrong for her birth was twilight early evening hours. And then it was just like, you know, weeks later, she was, you know, she'd be like nursing her baby at that time and like, you know, those families are just that. And she would have all these fear based emotions kick in because it would be like triggers from the event. And so it's like, you know, if you can take a step back, right? That's one of the CBT tactics to think about, like, OK, what are some of the things I associate with my negative birth experience? Like, what? How are they going to help you avoid talking with a trained professional? Well, those sorts of things that you love vomiting, even, you know, like all of these things, can be helpful when dealing with the traumatic memory of like a bad birth experience. And like, honestly, the way I've seen a lot of women, you know, it's like, you know, a lot of women have really bad like, really like, I have had so many women come to me where they have like a three day induction in the hospital that was, like, really traumatic for them. Right, right. And they have their second birth and it's a lot nicer. And it's like that that, you know, to some degree, giving birth again and having a better experience that it's not going to happen for everyone. But that's a way where a lot of women find healing, too. Yeah. Oh my gosh, that was a really beautiful answer. I just thought what you said about how, like some women are just treated like a vessel and we just don't prioritize them in that way is really important. Thank you so much for coming on the pod and talking about all things midwifery. Lauren, do we I don't know if we want to ask any other questions, but I think we'll probably see. I think this is perfect. Yeah. Well, I so much Ashley's amazing, incredible stuff. We you no, absolutely incredible 12 years. So I don't feel good about it. I just am continually so floored by how much you know about literally everything like we just listen to you talk for, you know, an hour and 20 minutes about midwifery, like in the most eloquent, like, articulate, brilliant way. And then we also got that we got this from you with her. I don't even know she's still here about skin care. I think she's talking so much about the world. When I said, Oh, if we don't do the dog episode? Oh yeah, no, we're going to. We're going to do and we're going to bring you back. And Ashley has a lot of also like wacky thoughts. So we'll do a wacky can I sort of scripted? I would love to hear some conspiracy theories from Ashley. I think that would be such an incredible episode. Maybe this episode that will get me canceled. Yeah. Behind the paywall shock. That's the council police on site. Yeah, OK, ash, it's been such a pleasure. Love you so much. Love you too. Love you. Love classic. Love you. Bye, I love you. That's all for now, folks. Don't forget, give us a five star review. Hit us up on Instagram at pharmacologists and we. We'll see you next week. Live every Wednesday. Do you ever worry about running out of interesting things to say to friends when you actually get to see them? Then we've got the perfect podcast for you. I'm Eve Yo ! And each week on Book Dreams, my co-host Julie Sternberg and I use books to explore fascinating questions like what happened when a Harvard professor staked her reputation on an alleged gospel of Jesus wife that turned out to be fake. And how did debut author Tom Lynn save the American Western by blowing it to bits? Are pigeons, rats with wings or wonder birds? And what's the who, what, when, where, how and especially why? Of books bound in human skin recent. 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