Well Rounded Birth Prep

08/29/2025

08/24/2025

My midwife friend shares truth!

08/22/2025

USA stats are comparable. Do you want to give birth without surgical interventions? Statistically, odds are 49% for that outcome. If you want a low (or no) intervention birth, it’s not enough to just state that that is your birth plan. It takes preparation & planning & action steps, if you don’t want to end up a statistic of the hospital assembly line.

08/21/2025

Literally every decision for our health, including pregnancy & birth, is weighing risk vs benefit of taking any action or intervention, as opposed to a different action or intervention, vs taking no action & waiting to see how things progress.

Literally nothing in life is risk-free & if someone tells you that, they’re lying to you.

When any clinician says that there are no risks with repeat cesareans, they fail to provide what patients need so they can make truly informed decisions. Not to mention: It's factually inaccurate.

Learn more about VBAC with us: https:// vbacfacts.com/courses

08/11/2025

The only position worse for labor & pushing, besides mother lying on her back like a stranded beetle, is maybe being hung upside down.

I said what I said.

Gravity & movement help mom & baby work together to get baby out safely & keep both healthy.

07/17/2025

How does the breast crawl at birth impact breastfeeding and health outcomes? This brand-new study tells us a lot! (More successful first breastfeed! Faster milk supply increase! Better newborn body temps! Less maternal anxiety!) The link to the study is here.

Does it matter if babies do the breast crawl at their first post-birth breastfeed? Yes, according to this 2025 randomized controlled trial, which found significantly more exclusive breastfeeding in the breast-crawl group at 24 hours, Day 3, 1 month, and 6 months when compared to the standard skin-to-skin contact group. And there’s much more. Read all about it here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/mcn.70063

06/02/2025

05/31/2025

100km is 62 miles for my 🇺🇸 USA friends. (I had to ask Siri…) Anyway, congrats to this outstanding athlete & breastfeeding momma who doesn’t let anything get in the way! 🤱

05/26/2025

If a hospital cannot safely accommodate a VBAC, then they’re also not qualified to accommodate ANY birth at all.

Clarification: ACOG says: “Trial of labor after previous cesarean delivery should be attempted at facilities capable of performing emergency deliveries…women attempting TOLAC should be cared for in a level 1 center (ie, one that can provide basic care) or higher.”

In other words, level 1 centers can attend VBAC, and facilities do not “need” 24/7 anesthesia to attend VBAC any more than they “need” it to attend non-VBAC labors.

The point is:

- Where can VBACs safely take place?
- Who is “allowed” to attend VBAC?
- Who gets to decide what is “safe” when both VBAC and repeat cesarean carry short and long term risks (especially cesareans.)
- How to we safely increase access to care, including VBAC care, in light of the growing maternal health deserts in the US?

We know from the research that VBAC is happening in rural hospitals with good outcomes. And ACOG’s guidelines support that.

______________________

We need to share this far and wide.

A reader comments, “Patients have responsibilities too. If you know your Dr and hospital do not do VBACs you need to find a different one before you are in labor.”

My response, “This is an oversimplistic response to a complex problem.

‘Another hospital’ is limited by insurance, distance, snowy passes, transportation access, missing more work to attend appts, paying for childcare/kids in tow, and more.

US national guidelines say all Level 1 hospitals with L&D units should offer VBAC.

We should work to do the right thing rather than make women jump through hoops.”

I am grateful for the exchanges that comments like this generate.

This is how we get the facts into the feeds of more parents and professionals.

Want to deepen your VBAC knowledge? As a Continuing Education Provider through the California Board of Registered Nursing, we have courses and trainings for parents & birth professionals.

Learn more at https://vbacfacts.com/courses

04/16/2025

Dr. Poppy lays out facts. I wish it were simple to get GOOD help from doctors & midwives on hormone health & addressing root issues. It can be a challenge to find someone who is even aware of all this!

Yesterday I spoke with two young women who were both started on birth control at the age of 13 for painful periods. Both of them has a family history of breast cancer. They didn't even know that the Pill increases their risk of breast cancer because, of course, they had never been told that. At this point, I'm a broken record talking about how poorly the Medical Industrial Complex is doing at women's health.
🔆 Birth control doesn't "regulate your period."
🔆 It turns off your own hormones & substitutes a small dose of a synthetic steroid drug.
🔆That drug has side effects such as increased risk of breast cancer, blood clots, strokes, insulin resistance, anxiety, depression & increased risk of su***de in the adolescent age group.
🔆 This drug is not fixing, regulating or treating the underlying issues that are causing your pain or heavy periods.
🔆 While sometimes it can manage your symptoms, ask yourself, at what cost?
🔆 There is no such thing as "birth control deficiency syndrome".
🔆 Birth control has dumbed down doctors, NPs, PAs and even midwives from actually diagnosing & treating the underlying problem.
🔆 Did you know there are knowledgeable women's health professionals who can actually help you get to bottom of your issues?
🔆 Or, you can settle for "5 minutes and a script" so they can get to their next 30 patients.
#

04/14/2025

Meta-analysis from 2024 on what we’ve known for decades: waterbirth is safe.

There’s no reason water shouldn’t be an option for labor and birth in hospitals and in birth centers! Just because a healthcare provider may have a bias or phobia, does not mean they should impose that on the laboring mother. They should work those fears out with their own therapist & seek training on what normal waterbirth looks like & how to support mothers the way out of hospital midwives always have!

Conclusion

When compared with land birth, water birth does not appear to increase the risk of most maternal and neonatal complications. Like any other delivery method, water birth has its unique considerations and potential risks, which health care providers and expectant parents should evaluate thoroughly. However, with proper precautions in place, water birth can be a reasonable choice for mothers and newborns, in facilities equipped to conduct water births safely.

AJOG Expert Review in Labor: Water birth: a systematic review and meta-analysis of maternal and neonatal outcomes https://ow.ly/nr7O50R9Nzi

04/11/2025

Full term breastfeeding benefits both moms and babies! However long that “full term” is for each dyad.

The natural term for us humans to breastfeed is anywhere between 2 and 7+ years. Some babies stop earlier, some children carry on for longer. It’s thought that the eruption of the permanent set of teeth (losing your milk teeth) influences this timescale.

Many cultures around the world breastfeed until natural term, including many women in the Western world. This age range is only surprising in cultures that interrupt breastfeeding, often without realising it or knowing which norms are biological and which are cultural.

The concentration of fats and proteins increase as the baby grows into a toddler, along with increased levels of antibacterial and antiviral components such as lysozyme, which is an anti-inflammatory, and destroys bacteria.

Lysozyme increases in concentration from about 6 months old, when babies become more independently mobile and everything (toys, sand, twigs, the cats biscuits?) goes straight in the mouth, and keeps increasing after the first year.

The concentration of Lactoferrin also increases over time. Lactoferrin inhibits the growth of some cancerous cells. It also helps our babies to absorb their own iron stores, whilst binding to the iron in our baby’s body which prevents it from being available to harmful microorganisms that need iron to survive. Lactoferrin also kills the bacteria strep mutans, which causes tooth decay and cavities.

Our body’s immune system takes around 6 years to become fully mature, so the support of the protective factors in human milk until our immune system can fully function on its own seems play a part in the timescale of natural term weaning too.

Longer term breastfeeding is also associated with reduced risk of diseases for the mother, including breast cancer.

We acknowledge that many mothers find it difficult to establish breastfeeding in the first place, that breastfeeding is a multi-layered investment on the part of a mother and that natural term feeding might not feel like - or be - a possibility for many.

Or you might simply not want to. We're not here to tell anyone what to do.

We also acknowledge that lack of information about our biology contributes to the lack of support for mothers when they want to establish - or continue - breastfeeding, but cannot find the help they need from people who understand why it matters so much, or what is normal.

Let's continue to turn that around.

More information and references about how remarkable you are at https://human-milk.com/pages/science-of-breastmilk