Brighter Births By Chanté Shine

09/19/2025

Love this podcast!

1. If you are one of the 90% of people who are considered low risk in pregnancy, hire a midwife. Midwives are strongly associated with lower interventions in birth and we are the experts in unmedicated home birth. Obstetricians are amazing skilled surgeons, but they are not as skilled in supporting low-risk, low-intervention physiologic birth. Full stop.

2. Take a high-quality childbirth education class that actually KEEPS IT REAL with you about birth. You can do it, but it is hard. If someone is selling you on “breathing your baby out” and using pure hypnosis without really going into what the sensations feel like for almost everyone, they’re not keeping it real with you. You don’t have to be afraid, but you can feel empowered knowing you can do really hard things. Link in bio for our class built for people having their first unmedicated birth.

3. Plan a home birth. If you truly want an unmedicated birth, you have to give birth with people who do unmedicated birth in settings where unmedicated births happen. Imagine trying to run around a track with someone saying to you the whole time, “Do you want to just stop? Do you want to walk instead?” You’d start walking pretty quickly. Now imagine running around a track with someone saying, “You can do it. Just keep going. One step in front of the other. I know you’ve got this.” You’d make it. That’s the difference and that’s why home birth means unmedicated birth.

4. Identify the things that feel scary or unknown about birth and talk to your providers about it. You can really only do this if you have time with your providers, which again means midwives. If you don’t have time in a prenatal to talk to the person who will actually be at your birth about the fears you are experiencing, how can you ever hope that they will remember and care for that in labor?

5. Stay active and focus on nutrition. So many of the complications of pregnancy that result in inductions and interventions can be avoided with movement and nutrition.

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08/31/2025

I hate when people say
"it doesnt matter how you became a mom.." -let me explain before coming at me...

Facts are facts. And the facts are that negative birth experinces increases the risks of PPD and with the rising healthcare costs and social stigma surrounding PPD we should all be taking all precausions. There is nothing wrong with having PPD. There is something wrong with not getting help for it or not being able to get help for it!

What we should be saying is "it matters to mom how she became a mom.." That being said we all know and undeestand that birth is a fluid event. It does not always go perfectly to plan BUT, there are ways to prepare and to adjust actively in the moment to still ensure mom has a positive birth experience! Lots of this depends on choosing the right carepeople and location. Having at doctor/careperson that gives you a choice and a voice in your labor and delivery is incredibly important!Instead of telling you what you will do or using scare tactics on you in a vulnerable state your careperson should be calm and stating facts and giving you options and always actively striving for your ideal birth as safety as possible.

At the end of the day we all becomes moms differently and sometimes totally in ways we did not plan but if you were able to feel in control and supported through the process our experiences can still be positive which in turn lowers our risks of PPD!
So adoption, c-section, physiological, epidural, gas....it doesn't matter as long as mom decided and felt good about it! 💙🩷💛💜