Functional Midwifery: Holistic Gynecology and Women's Health

20/07/2025

🧬 Early Breast Cancer Screening—Through Tears?!

Yes, really. Auria is a revolutionary, non-invasive breast health test that analyzes your tear drops to screen for protein biomarkers associated with breast abnormalities.

No radiation. No compression. No appointment needed.

✨ Uses just a few drops of your tears
✨ Detects signs of abnormal breast activity, even before a lump appears
✨ Safe, private, and can be done at home
✨ Ideal for women wanting a proactive approach to breast health that is noninvasive

At Functional Midwifery, I am excited and proud to offer this innovative test as part of a holistic approach to women’s health and cancer screening. But the best news is that it’s direct to consumer and so you can order it on your own and do it at home! See link in bio and use code MIDWIFERY20 for $20 off 🙌

Please note this is a Screening not Diagnostic test with a moderately high false positive rate which means if you get a negative: GREAT, you are in a very healthy breast camp. If you get a positive, no need to freak out! You are likely still healthy, however the next logical step will be a clinical breast exam and perhaps imaging.

🌀 Functional Midwifery Holistic GYN + Full-Spectrum Women’s Health

12/07/2025

🎤 …Vasectomy! OK obviously this isn’t a fit for everybody and there are a lot of urologists out there who won’t do it until a guy is 30 or meets their criteria for when they think it’s ethical (that happens with tubal ligation too), but as a product of a dad who had a vasectomy reversed to have me, and myself: a mom of a toddler born out of a vasectomy reversal, I’m living proof that vasectomy reversal is possible (not guaranteed, but fertility never is), and I have to say that the stress of not getting pregnant after baring the brunt of “birth control” from my teens into my 30s and then of course baring the babies, I feel so strongly that more men need to just have the tiny ✂️ that literally just gives them the free pass to catch up on Netflix and NBA (or whatever they are into) for a couple of days while they ice their balls… (we need not mention the months and Years of discomfort women endure between their bleed times to pregnancy to childbirth and the postpartum time).
It’s also Cheap.
It’s highly effective.
And No hormones are affected, and therefore no full body endocrine disruption occurs.
Oh, and I’m glad you asked: increased risk of prostrate cancer? MYTH! That was a poorly done study from the 90s. A large 2017 meta-analysis in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine found no significant association between vasectomy and high-grade, advanced, or fatal prostate cancer. (In reality it was just that men who had vasectomies were more likely to have more medical testing done and so a skewed rate of prostrate cancer was shown to occur in those guys who sought more medical care).

Alright men, make me proud! Let’s see how much you care about your ladies!

01/07/2025

This summer, moving to I’m particularly interested in how to protect my skin from the sun without actually wearing toxic sunscreen 🤔 I don’t even like wearing the mineral stuff if I can get away with it, because a) my skin always breaks out and b) I truly value the benefit of the sun on my skin….and yet being fair skinned, I do need to do something once I hit altitude beyond my typical routine of a large sun hat and spending time in the shade. And so I’m personally experimenting with which helps preserve collagen and elastin, which are broken down by sun exposure And it increases the threshold at which one typically burns. It also inhibits oxidative stress and inflammation (far better than vitamin C).

Typical dose is 4–12 mg/day orally for skin benefits (from natural sources like Haematococcus pluvialis algae). I’m personally just trialing 6mg daily.

How soon do you need to take it you might ask?
In the First 1–2 weeks: Cellular antioxidant activity begins, but no visible changes.
Weeks 3–4: Skin hydration may improve, and inflammation begins to decrease.
By weeks 4–6: Increased resistance to sunburn (higher minimal erythema dose)
Reduced skin redness after sun exposure
Enhanced collagen protection and reduced oxidative damage

Have you experimented with Astaxanthin? Tell me your experience!

22/06/2025

Just cherishing my last days of Vermont and of nursing a 1 year old here, who will be 2 tomorrow! We have five weeks until we move to and in the meantime, we will be trying to soak up all of the beauty of the green mountain state. Because of the long day of the summer solstice yesterday, and the fact that our little one is up at five, we went to the Waterbury reservoir State Park, Curtis Pond, AND Camel’s Hump State Park yesterday! Which was good because per the typical Vermont summer it is raining and cool again today….

With the move, I’m here seeing clients virtually through mid-July, then will pick up again mid-August with virtual clients, and then I will be seeing people in person at starting in Sept 🥳 (and I will continue to see people virtually ongoing as well)

19/06/2025

We know it’s important to eat seasonally, so why not use herbs seasonally as well? Red clover is in bloom right now, and it’s my Favorite all around herb to support women’s health and support lymphatic flow and immune system health. Plus it’s amazing to drink a cup of flowers! This isn’t to say that I don’t use dried herbs all year round, but there is something so special about picking herbs and enjoying them fresh in tea.
What are you wild harvesting or grabbing from your garden to enjoy these days? 🌺
and and

16/06/2025

literally means: with woman. It means having a health care collaborator who honors your unique needs and constitution. Instead of one-size-fits-all solutions, strive to meet you where you are, and to be with you on your journey. Yes: midwives are most well know as guardians to the sacred physiologic process of birth, but midwives are also safe-keepers of your health and life journey.

As a Certified Nurse Midwife, originally trained as a Certified Professional Midwife, I work with women of all ages, teenage through menopause and beyond, as well as some men (including trans-men and trans-women). I am also trained in newborn wellness through 6 weeks of age. My oldest client (beyond newborns) has been 10 (a girl who was struggling with ongoing menstrual bleeding from menarche) and I have had several clients into their 80s. In fact FUN fact: the oldest person I ever treated for an STI was 83.

thanks to and for inspiring this post

15/06/2025

Happy Father’s Day to all you dads!

12/06/2025

I wrote this initial graphic over a year ago when asked by clients and friends why I wasn’t sharing more of my knowledge 🙊 but it just exemplifies my point…I’ve been Occupied! Living in Vermont with a teen and a toddler (and a great husband but no family or childcare), trying to do all the things: elimination communication, driving to the farm stands for meat, veg, and raw milk, making food, trying to Be with other people with small kids, parenting a teen, and yet outside when the weather sucks, etc but the very exciting news is that I’m back! My husband is taking our babe (who turns 2 the end of the month) more, and I’m leaning into work more, and we are planning to switch places once we move to Denver in August, so that I am working 4 days/week and he is working 1 day per week to be with Lupin (which is what I have been doing the last 2 years). Over the last two years I have been gestating on so much good information and Real Life Experience in regards to women’s health, in particular nutrition and ETC and can’t wait to share!

11/06/2025

Holy 😂 this just feels wrong, but a Denver local tipped me off that Blucifer is a far more well known horse statue in the Denver and area, and that I should have ChatGPT combine the former picture that it created previously from an iconic denver statue with Blucifer… and so here you have it
Can’t wait to meet ya! 🤠

11/06/2025

This absolutely fascinates me

During pregnancy, fetal cells migrate out of the womb and into a mother’s heart, liver, lung, kidney, brain, and more. They could shape moms’ health for a lifetime, Katherine J. Wu reported in 2024:⁠ https://theatln.tc/qozjIdje
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The presence of these cells, known as microchimerism, is thought to affect every person who has carried an embryo, even if briefly, and anyone who has ever inhabited a womb. The cross-generational transfers are bidirectional—as fetal cells cross the placenta into maternal tissues, a small number of maternal cells migrate into fetal tissues, where they can persist into adulthood. ⁠
⁠
Genetic swaps, then, might occur several times throughout a life. Some researchers believe that people may be miniature mosaics of many of their relatives, via chains of pregnancy: their older siblings, perhaps, or their maternal grandmother, or any aunts and uncles their grandmother might have conceived before their mother was born. “It’s like you carry your entire family inside of you,” Francisco Úbeda de Torres, an evolutionary biologist at the Royal Holloway University of London, told Wu.⁠
⁠
Some scientists have argued that cells so sparse and inconsistent couldn’t possibly have meaningful effects. Even among microchimerism researchers, hypotheses about what these cells do—if anything at all—remain “highly controversial,” Sing Sing Way, an immunologist and a pediatrician at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, told Wu. But many experts contend that microchimeric cells aren’t just passive passengers. They are genetically distinct entities. And they might hold sway over many aspects of health: our susceptibility to infectious or autoimmune disease, the success of pregnancies, maybe even behavior. ⁠
⁠
If these cells turn out to be as important as some scientists believe they are, they might be one of the most underappreciated architects of human life, Wu writes.

09/06/2025

😂 this is what I got from ChatGPT when I gave it my logo + an iconic cowboy statue in Denver (which is of a man riding a bucking bronco) and asked it to show the woman in my logo riding the horse. And with that, I am here to share my exciting news: luxurious holistic GYN and women’s healthcare is Coming to Denver this fall! My plan is to be at the beautiful in the Highlands neighborhood. I can’t wait to be a quick flight away from family, friends, and clients in San Antonio and Austin, as well as basically anywhere, as Denver has direct flights from pretty much anywhere! So come and get your vacation pap smear, breast exam, pelvic floor assessment, or work on women’s health goals in gorgeous Colorado with me! 😎
Booking through the summer for virtual appointments on my website, and booking Sept for in person appointments. Please DM or email to book any in person appointments.
And established clients: please check your spam box for an email from me yesterday about promo pricing during this exciting time 🥳
see you soon! 😘

06/05/2025

It’s OK to Just say No…. OK they are kind of blowing this off, but Just saying: If it’s changing periods, it’s doing other things too! This is coming from JAMA, that is to say the Journal of American Medical Association, you know the professional journal your doctor doesn’t have time to read and the media doesn’t care about, but both will gaslight you about hormonal changes since taking a certain injectable or 2 🤔