01/24/2026
🎤 *Steps onto soap box & clears throat*
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If you are a doula, childbirth educator, midwife, birth keeper, social media influencer, person who just loves birth, whatever label you have that makes you the "expert" on women's bodies & birth. And you are telling women "you don't need a cervical exam. They aren't useful. Your dilation doesn't matter." Or even worse [and I've heard this] "You don't need to be m*lested in order to know when to push." 👀...
Disrespectfully, stop fear mongering these same women into believing every.single.option.or intervention is inherently bad/wrong. Because then you leave women with no options. As a trauma-informed midwife, amplifying their fear & mistrust of their provider is the bigger issue here. It takes away their power, it places YOU in the position of power, & makes them feel bad/wrong for making a choice that felt right for them in that moment.
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I have attended births where I could visually see, hear, smell, & feel that a mom is well on her way to birthing her baby very soon & never did an exam!And I love that for us.
And I've also attended births where we have been there for HOURS when (usually a first time) mom looks like she's in transition but when she finally decides she wants an exam, she's 2-3cm. Or a mom who is "pushing" on a 6cm cervix. You know what isn't helpful? A woman in early labor with her entire birth team present, trying not to make her feel like a watched pot, feeling like she has to perform, and E X H A U S T E D. When she could have had a gentle & useful exam followed by a loving conversation & reminder that she can just rest.
Look, I've said my fair share of crazy sh*te before I was a midwife (& probably since!) But what I've come to realize in the last 5 years, is that women are afraid of everything! Thanks to information overload! Like, if they have a cervical exam or didn't do their hypnobirthing "right," they didn't have a physiological birth & the crunchy police are coming for their crunchy card - I'm crunchy so I can say that...
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Moms: Tune out the noise, check in with yourself, have an informed convo with your trusted provider, & advocate for what YOU need. You are the expert. 🤟🏼