Speaker 1: Previously on the dream the supplement is sheually won, so
Speaker 1: the FDA has not been able to seize back much
Speaker 1: power since the passage of that law. But I think
Speaker 1: that everyone on both sides knows that there's many cases
Speaker 1: in which these products are being taken in the same
Speaker 1: way you've taken over the counter drug and they're taking
Speaker 1: as substitutes in many cases for prescription drugs. And the
Speaker 1: irony being is taken by people often who have distrust
Speaker 1: in the pharmaceutical industry because I think that there's sketchy
Speaker 1: things going on there who think that dietary supplements are
Speaker 1: quote unquote natural. Pardon my affliction this week, but I've
Speaker 1: been cursed with every podcaster's nightmare laryngitis. Most of the time,
Speaker 1: unless you opt into thinking about wellness, you can pretty
Speaker 1: much avoid it. But there are a few moments in
Speaker 1: life where try as you might to avoid it, you're
Speaker 1: inundated by the messaging of the cult of wellness. And
Speaker 1: one of those is during pregnancy and birth. It's well
Speaker 1: known that once a woman becomes pregnant, her body is
Speaker 1: no longer her own. And I'm not just talking about
Speaker 1: the body being taken over by the new more important,
Speaker 1: more precious being inside of it, but the whole world
Speaker 1: suddenly feels ownership. This comes at us with unwanted questions
Speaker 1: and unwanted touching, unsolicited advice about the right way and
Speaker 1: the righteous way to be pregnant, to give birth, and
Speaker 1: to mother, And a lot of that has to do
Speaker 1: with wellness, eating well, exercising well, sleeping well, taking the
Speaker 1: right pills and tinctures, and choosing the correct caregivers for
Speaker 1: this special time. Often on this show we're talking about
Speaker 1: the people and businesses that take advantage of these vulnerable
Speaker 1: moments to profit from our uncertainty or our attempts to
Speaker 1: be healthier. But it's hard to say that there's a
Speaker 1: specific villain in the birthing industry. Sure, there are a
Speaker 1: slew of teas and supplements and crystals that promise to
Speaker 1: support fertility and pregnancy, but it's not like there's widespread
Speaker 1: policies or cases of evil doing healthcare providers hell bent
Speaker 1: on screwing women over at this time. It's more the
Speaker 1: culture around birth is broken, and often the damage comes
Speaker 1: from inside our own heads. So today we're just going
Speaker 1: to talk about what it feels like to be in
Speaker 1: one of those vulnerable moments, to be overwhelmed with advice
Speaker 1: and information, and to be forced to question everything you're hearing.
Speaker 1: Because when it's just you alone, you have a right
Speaker 1: to pick and choose how well you'd like to be.
Speaker 1: But introduce a new human whose existence you are completely
Speaker 1: responsible for into the mix, one who cannot yet voice
Speaker 1: their opinion on the subject, and things get complicated. I
Speaker 1: grew up being told that birth was easy by a
Speaker 1: mother who'd had three successful natural births, and who also claimed,
Speaker 1: until she saw me in labor, that mothers who had
Speaker 1: epidurals experienced less pain, and that pain was necessary to
Speaker 1: create the maximum amount of love women like her had
Speaker 1: for their children. Basically until a few years ago, her
Speaker 1: thinking was that you had to pay a great price,
Speaker 1: sacrifice as much as humanly possible to earn true love.
Speaker 1: She was also, I might add, twenty years old when
Speaker 1: she had me, so her bones and joints were supremely bendy,
Speaker 1: and she had super short labors. But enough about my mom.
Speaker 1: I love you, Mom. Despite this attempt to indoctrinate me,
Speaker 1: when I found out I was pregnant at thirty four
Speaker 1: years old, I didn't have super strong feelings about the
Speaker 1: type of pregnancy or birth I wanted. I basically just
Speaker 1: wanted the baby to come out however it needed to
Speaker 1: from pretty much the day it went in. But then
Speaker 1: I got a bad pass me or. At five weeks
Speaker 1: something showed up called atypical glandular cells, and my doctor
Speaker 1: called me. She said it could maybe be cancer, maybe not,
Speaker 1: but that a they couldn't do any more tests on
Speaker 1: me while I was pregnant, so b our best bet
Speaker 1: was to try for a vaginal birth because that process
Speaker 1: has the potential to flush out whatever was creating those cells.
Speaker 1: That's what she said. Spoiler alert. I'm fine, I just
Speaker 1: had HPV like half the planet. But spending thirty five
Speaker 1: weeks thinking maybe you're growing a cancerous tumor right next
Speaker 1: to a baby is what was fucked up. I'd never
Speaker 1: related to friends on the hippie or end of the spectrum, who,
Speaker 1: like my mom, had really strong feelings about natural birth,
Speaker 1: but here I was unwillingly thrust into their world in
Speaker 1: La of all places, and I found myself having many
Speaker 1: conversations with women like my friend Alicia, who had a
Speaker 1: baby a few years after I did and who couldn't
Speaker 1: have been more different than me in terms of how
Speaker 1: she looked at her pregnancy. Did you always want a baby?
Speaker 1: I always wanted a baby, what I always did. What
Speaker 1: I would say is I don't I want to read
Speaker 1: that chapter in the Book of Life. I want to
Speaker 1: know what it says, in the chapter of having a
Speaker 1: kid and being a mother to somebody. I helped write
Speaker 1: the chapter right before that one in Alicia's book, by
Speaker 1: introducing her to the man who would eventually become her
Speaker 1: husband and the father of her baby. Ever since she
Speaker 1: told me she was pregnant, I've had this kind of
Speaker 1: pride around it, like I did it. That's my baby.
Speaker 1: And as you'll hear, Alicia and I are a lot alike.
Speaker 1: That's why we're friends. We're both producers, type A, etc.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to the baby stuff, there are
Speaker 1: some pretty stark differences. When did you start thinking about
Speaker 1: what kind of pregnancy and birth you wanted? Well, I
Speaker 1: went to a birth class at a natural birth center,
Speaker 1: which is a midwife run. You go have birth there
Speaker 1: at this birth center. Why did you decide on that?
Speaker 1: So I have like a joint disorder called Taylor's damn
Speaker 1: Less syndrome. So I'm just like very hypermobility. So I
Speaker 1: was told that I had a high risk pregnancy. So
Speaker 1: they were like, you have to give birth in a hospital,
Speaker 1: which I would have done anyway. I don't think I'd
Speaker 1: watched the business of being born, and I have friends
Speaker 1: that have trained to be dullah's, but I'm not. I
Speaker 1: wasn't afraid of medicine, so the avoidance of it. I
Speaker 1: didn't think that I would need to protect myself from
Speaker 1: a medical experience. Nor was I so interested in the
Speaker 1: experience of birth that I felt like I needed to
Speaker 1: control it. Yeah, I went to a birth class because
Speaker 1: I wanted to learn all about it. The birth class
Speaker 1: was about ten couples. I'd say half the people they
Speaker 1: were going to have hospital births. Half the people were
Speaker 1: going to have home births. I tracy flicked it completely.
Speaker 1: Was taking notes the whole time, constantly raising my hand,
Speaker 1: dominating the conversation, barely would let anyone else talk, asking
Speaker 1: I had researched everything, would would hold myself back from
Speaker 1: saying what the teacher was about to say. Talked so
Speaker 1: much about you if you were like like annotating, just
Speaker 1: like um clarifying for the group that I think what
Speaker 1: you might mean what might make i've what I've read
Speaker 1: is maybe something my husband was like, every time you're
Speaker 1: going to ask a question, you inhale like this because
Speaker 1: I am holding myself back, like raising my hand like
Speaker 1: high in the air. I mean. And at the end
Speaker 1: of the class, she goes, I think what you need
Speaker 1: to think through in terms of having an ideal birth
Speaker 1: experience is what makes you feel safe. For some people,
Speaker 1: what makes them feel safe. And then she looks right
Speaker 1: at me and she goes, might be information that might
Speaker 1: be the thing that you feel you really need to
Speaker 1: calm you down. And what I thought was, Okay, if
Speaker 1: I arm myself with information, if I know everything about
Speaker 1: this process, then I will be able to make really
Speaker 1: healthy decisions. I don't. I'm not mistrustful of the hospital experience,
Speaker 1: but I also feel like there's a lot of credible
Speaker 1: things I've heard that make me not want to just
Speaker 1: do whatever they tell me to do. This is exhausting
Speaker 1: me even to think about how much you cared, Like
Speaker 1: I think of that amount of information you saw out
Speaker 1: that comforted you at the time is like overwhelming me
Speaker 1: right now. What's complicated about it is that because all
Speaker 1: these decisions are available right which I think has all
Speaker 1: been generated to give women agency in their birth. I
Speaker 1: was constantly asked, like six or seven times a day,
Speaker 1: what kind of birth are you going to have? Where
Speaker 1: are you going to deliver? Are you going to do
Speaker 1: delayed chord clamping or not? Are you going to do
Speaker 1: the vitamin K? Are you going to labor at home?
Speaker 1: Are you going to have a duel or a midwife
Speaker 1: or you're going to have a duel at all? Are
Speaker 1: you're going to have your friend there? Who's going to
Speaker 1: be there? Do you guys have a playlist? How are
Speaker 1: you going to get there? What hospital are you delivering at?
Speaker 1: Are you going to induce? So I kind of felt
Speaker 1: like why I want to be responsible and have answers
Speaker 1: to these questions and really think it through. I remember
Speaker 1: getting into a thing about delayed chord clamping where I
Speaker 1: read about it. There's a risk of jaundice. It seemed
Speaker 1: like a good idea to have all the chord blood
Speaker 1: in to the baby, right, I don't know talking about
Speaker 1: even see this is what I'm thinking. I shut that
Speaker 1: like there was a point at which information overload convinced
Speaker 1: me that there wasn't an answer. How did you continue
Speaker 1: to be interested. I was terrified. It wasn't interest. It's
Speaker 1: not like I actually it was not that I am
Speaker 1: so interested in birth actually or really wanted to know
Speaker 1: the answers, or actually, I don't think I even thought
Speaker 1: that there was a right answer. It was that I
Speaker 1: was completely terrified that I was going to make the
Speaker 1: wrong decision and something bad was going to happen. In fact,
Speaker 1: I was sure that something bad was going to happen.
Speaker 1: Why Because that's how I go through life, is planning
Speaker 1: for a variety of contingencies of what to do when
Speaker 1: something very bad happens. And that led me. You're not
Speaker 1: a doctor, so that led me to a very difficult birth.
Speaker 1: The first mistake Alicia made is the same one I
Speaker 1: made watching The Business of Being Born, which is a
Speaker 1: documentary by Ricky Lake about home births versus the medical
Speaker 1: industrial complex that, according to Lake and her Dula, has
Speaker 1: made birthing more dangerous and less healthy for everyone involved.
Speaker 1: It wasn't an illness, It wasn't something that needed to
Speaker 1: be dumbed. It needed to be experienced. It was the
Speaker 1: most adventurous day I've ever had in my life. There's
Speaker 1: this explainer scene in the middle of the movie that
Speaker 1: anyone who's seen it definitely remembers. It's an intense and
Speaker 1: terrifying cascade of what could go wrong if you make
Speaker 1: the biggest wrong decision. After the decision to have a
Speaker 1: hospital birth, and that's the decision to get induced, you
Speaker 1: get this feeling of the hospital where there's like a
Speaker 1: limit to how long you can be in labor, like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's been twelve hours, so now you need potosa. Oh
Speaker 1: I did know the pressure was on, you know, as
Speaker 1: we got into like twenty hours, twenty one hours at
Speaker 1: the hospital, I had potosa and then that made me itchy.
Speaker 1: So they give you something else for your itching. I
Speaker 1: knew once they gave you that potosan you need the
Speaker 1: eppidooral steel better now that you have the epidural film value.
Speaker 1: And then things come on really strong, so then you
Speaker 1: get a D and if you're uncomfortable, we can always
Speaker 1: give you more. It was very easy for them to
Speaker 1: start doing things that we hadn't really wanted them to do,
Speaker 1: like potosin and whatnot. Because I already had the ivy
Speaker 1: in my arm. They don't really give me the option,
Speaker 1: you know, and then another epidural because nothing was happening
Speaker 1: confections I met. They gave me another drug called State
Speaker 1: all seventeen hours of potocan. They gave me that, and
Speaker 1: I remember that made me. I was like, what's going on?
Speaker 1: We're going on there? Something wrong? Serviduel was the end.
Speaker 1: I hated that drug. You know, it seemed to me
Speaker 1: that once they started an intervention, they all just kind
Speaker 1: of it was a domino effect. If you're pregnant and
Speaker 1: you feel strongly about having a drug free vaginal birth,
Speaker 1: or like me, your doctor is telling you that's what
Speaker 1: you need to aim for, watching that scene in the
Speaker 1: movie really pushes you over the edge. So imagine Alicia's
Speaker 1: frustration when she's faced with this exact worst case scenario.
Speaker 1: So I ended up getting induced. I'll tell the story. So,
Speaker 1: like I got to forty one weeks. Tons of people
Speaker 1: I know had wanted to have home births ended up
Speaker 1: going to forty two weeks, went into the hospital, had
Speaker 1: had an emergency C section, And I said to the
Speaker 1: doctor why is that? And she said, well, what I
Speaker 1: would argue is we're getting new data that at forty
Speaker 1: one weeks in the earlier you induce if you're going
Speaker 1: over the earlier, you induce, the baby's smaller, your placenta
Speaker 1: is younger, and you have a better chance for a
Speaker 1: vaginal birth. What I also had internalized is that a
Speaker 1: c section is very bad. An epidural will lead to
Speaker 1: a c section. If I get in an epidural, then
Speaker 1: I won't be able to move, which then will interfere
Speaker 1: with pushing in some way where I won't where they
Speaker 1: will then eventually that will lead to a C section.
Speaker 1: I want to avoid that for a variety of reasons.
Speaker 1: The duelas sent me a video, the gist of which
Speaker 1: was babies are a ripening fruit on the vine, and
Speaker 1: some cherries become ripe later than other cherries, and forty
Speaker 1: two weeks versus forty weeks, sort they never really know
Speaker 1: anyway when the baby was conceived. And and I was like,
Speaker 1: that sounds that doesn't sound like science. The thing the
Speaker 1: other ladies said sounded like science. Plus, my husband has
Speaker 1: to leave town next week. It would be cool if
Speaker 1: you was there. There's three doctors in the practice, and
Speaker 1: they had said, like, would you want to deliver on
Speaker 1: a Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday? If you induce it's
Speaker 1: about a twelve hour process. So you know which which
Speaker 1: doctor do you want, Which morning do you want? And
Speaker 1: I was like Monday, let's get it over the week going. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my Duela had texted me just so you know as
Speaker 1: you go into this, induction can be kind of a
Speaker 1: mind fuck because it can take a lot longer than
Speaker 1: you think. And I had kind of absorbed that and
Speaker 1: thought like, okay, whatever. It was fifty five hours from
Speaker 1: the second it started, and every drug I got I
Speaker 1: had the most painful, least productive possible reaction. So they
Speaker 1: gave me servidil and they were like, you'll sleep through this,
Speaker 1: and about an hour later, I was having like one
Speaker 1: continuous level ten contraction. Yeah, that lasted for twelve hours
Speaker 1: and nothing happened. I wasn't dilated, and because I was
Speaker 1: so scared of getting a C section, I asked for
Speaker 1: laughing gas, which also confused them because they were like,
Speaker 1: I guess they had to go find this machine. They
Speaker 1: offered it, which did absolutely nothing. My whole body was
Speaker 1: like shaking uncontrollably. I was in so much pain. And
Speaker 1: the nurse came in at one point in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night and the first night and she was like,
Speaker 1: how are you doing? And I was tears were just
Speaker 1: streaming down my face, but I was trying to be
Speaker 1: quiet because my husband was finally asleep, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm having a panic attack, I think, I like, I
Speaker 1: can't breathe and I can't stop crying. And she was like, Okay, well, okay,
Speaker 1: baby looks fine. Yeah, I mean so, then the duela
Speaker 1: came and she said, you look like someone who is
Speaker 1: at about the kind like you look like you're in
Speaker 1: the kind of pain that someone who's about to give
Speaker 1: birth is in. And you're not dilated at all. Right,
Speaker 1: so this isn't doing anything. I think you should get
Speaker 1: the epidural. So my duel went home because I wasn't
Speaker 1: in labor. Every next thing that happened, when they were
Speaker 1: going to break my bag of water, when they were
Speaker 1: going to give me a different drug, when they were
Speaker 1: talking about a C section, the doctor would come in
Speaker 1: and say it, and I would say give me a minute,
Speaker 1: and I would call the dula and she would tell
Speaker 1: me different and new information. Okay, they want to break
Speaker 1: your bag of water. Just so you know, once you
Speaker 1: start that you're on a twelve hour o'clock they're not
Speaker 1: going to let you labor more than twelve hours because
Speaker 1: your bag of water has been broken and it's a
Speaker 1: chance for infection. So if you do not deliver in
Speaker 1: twelve hours, you will have a c section a day
Speaker 1: later or whatever. When they're like, I'm going to break
Speaker 1: your bag of water, I was like, stop, no, if
Speaker 1: you do that, I can't go home. It'd been there
Speaker 1: for forty eight hours and labor. I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: I can't even I can't walk. I can't barely talk
Speaker 1: like I'm mumbling. And it's like you're kind of but
Speaker 1: it's because I had all these ideas in my head,
Speaker 1: like oh, I was so afraid, Like, well, then I
Speaker 1: can't go home, and then I'm gonna lose my I
Speaker 1: was just so like it was like clawing. It felt
Speaker 1: like I was like being pulled off of a cliff,
Speaker 1: and it was like my job to try to stay
Speaker 1: on the cliff. What was in my head was I
Speaker 1: decided to do this, and this is my fault. So
Speaker 1: every single thing. I was so mad that I had
Speaker 1: been surprised at all, Like you should have told me
Speaker 1: I couldn't move around. You should have Why didn't you
Speaker 1: tell me that this could take so long? The Duelah
Speaker 1: had to tell me. So I don't trust you because
Speaker 1: you told me this was going to be twelve hours.
Speaker 1: And I don't trust the duela because like she said
Speaker 1: something about cherries, so like, but like, this is all
Speaker 1: my fault. This pain is my fault, and the baby's
Speaker 1: going to die for sure, and that's definitely going to
Speaker 1: be my fault. The baby's fine, But what happened to
Speaker 1: Alicia is the perfect example of the uncertainty and uncontrollable
Speaker 1: nature of pregnancy and birth. We make most of our
Speaker 1: decisions during pregnancy with the best of intentions, based on
Speaker 1: evidence we gather from many where we can find it.
Speaker 1: Some of those decisions are based in science, like we
Speaker 1: can all agree that it's a bad idea to I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't want to finish this sentence, because
Speaker 1: there's an exception to every rule. When you're pregnant. There
Speaker 1: are always people who are like, my mom drank and
Speaker 1: smoke during her whole pregnancy and look at me now,
Speaker 1: and you're like, yeah, anyway, there are the decisions that
Speaker 1: we make based in feelings. Some people choose homebirths because
Speaker 1: they feel more comfortable there, while others feel more comfortable
Speaker 1: in a hospital. Some want a scheduled c section a
Speaker 1: few weeks early, while others will go weeks beyond their
Speaker 1: due date, And who are we to judge? That mushy
Speaker 1: space provides us with plenty of choice, which can be
Speaker 1: a great thing, but it also provides an opportunity for
Speaker 1: all kinds of messages based in science or religion, or
Speaker 1: emotions or folklore or firsthand experience to come in. After
Speaker 1: hearing Alicia's story, we really wanted her to have the
Speaker 1: chance to shake off, once and for all any feeling
Speaker 1: that she actually had control over the outcome in the
Speaker 1: first place, or that any mistakes were made by trusting
Speaker 1: her doctor versus her Duela versus everyone else in the room,
Speaker 1: that the baby just comes out however it comes out,
Speaker 1: and that aiming for natural versus saying yes to medical
Speaker 1: interventions in the end really didn't matter. It doesn't say
Speaker 1: anything about Alicia or about motherhood. So Alicia invited her
Speaker 1: doctor into talk. I am Sarah too Good, MD. I'm
Speaker 1: an obstetrician kinnecologist with Cedar Sini Medical Group in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: The thing I've always been the most fascinated about your
Speaker 1: job is being a doctor in LA in the neighborhoods
Speaker 1: of LA that I think those hospital service do you
Speaker 1: get people coming in with non medical or alternative or
Speaker 1: like people getting outside information and like, I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly what to call that kind of a thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like the word wellness. It implies that you're trying
Speaker 1: to be well, and that means something different for different people.
Speaker 1: I think using the words complimentary or adjunctive treatments, I
Speaker 1: like using those words as well, because it's not the
Speaker 1: word alternative. Medicine used to be pretty traditionally used, and
Speaker 1: I don't think people are or should be using it
Speaker 1: as an alternative to traditional Western medicine treatment. I like
Speaker 1: it when my patients use it as a compliment to
Speaker 1: what our treatment courses. Do you remember when you started practicing,
Speaker 1: like sort of having to contend with patients coming in
Speaker 1: with questions about it or telling you about complimentary treatments
Speaker 1: they were doing. Like, Yeah, in residency, the focus is
Speaker 1: so much on evidence based medicine and knowing the most
Speaker 1: current literature and staying up to date on the journals,
Speaker 1: and there's not room for a lot more than that
Speaker 1: because you're learning so much every single day. We would
Speaker 1: be in the clinic or on labor and delivery, and
Speaker 1: it's a patient who had a history of a heart transplant,
Speaker 1: who's pregnant, is trying to deliver a baby. How acute
Speaker 1: that medical situation is is very different than a young,
Speaker 1: healthy woman with her first pregnancy who drinks a cup
Speaker 1: of coffee every single day and wants to know she
Speaker 1: can continue it. When I became in attending, my patient
Speaker 1: population changed where it was, you know, predominantly ppo well ensured,
Speaker 1: good access to healthcare population. And that's when I found
Speaker 1: myself dealing with patient questions about these complimentary techniques. I
Speaker 1: guess I would say my memory of pregnancy is almost
Speaker 1: like kind of looking for things to worry about to
Speaker 1: a certain extent, and having the caffeine thing comes up,
Speaker 1: where it's like it didn't occur to me till you
Speaker 1: just said that that like, oh yeah, that's a slightly
Speaker 1: ridiculous thing to worry about, but like it came up
Speaker 1: constantly in my life with people saying like, are you
Speaker 1: going to keep drinking coffee? Oh my god, you're so
Speaker 1: brave for continuing to drink coffee. Have the glass of wine.
Speaker 1: Waiters pushing me to have a glass of wine. Should
Speaker 1: I have a glass of wine? Reading studies about it,
Speaker 1: talking about it, I can't imagine how little stuff like
Speaker 1: that comes up. But it's I mean, the thing is,
Speaker 1: it's not ridiculous. It was part of your life before pregnancy.
Speaker 1: Pregnancy is not a disease state. There are things that
Speaker 1: are safe that you did before pregnancy that you can
Speaker 1: continue to do during pregnancy. But in certain amounts caffeine
Speaker 1: can be dangerous. There is an association with an increased
Speaker 1: verse for miscarriage and very high quantities. So that's why
Speaker 1: I say it's not ridiculous those our questions women should
Speaker 1: be asking. It's the women who are really sick and
Speaker 1: have a lot of complex medical problems almost don't even
Speaker 1: have the space to think about that. Since pregnancy is
Speaker 1: such a common experience, a lot of women think that
Speaker 1: because something happened to them during pregnancy, or they did
Speaker 1: something specific during their pregnancy and it helped them, or
Speaker 1: they had a nice delivery, and they think this one
Speaker 1: thing helped them achieve that. They spread that around like
Speaker 1: it's fact, and it's just not. Let's pause here for
Speaker 1: a second and talk about a few psychological things that
Speaker 1: go on not only with our thinking about pregnancy and birth,
Speaker 1: but with the idea of wellness in general. What doctor
Speaker 1: two good is talking about here is confirmation bias. It's
Speaker 1: a totally normal human thing that we all do, where
Speaker 1: we seek out info to confirm stuff we believed before
Speaker 1: we sought the information. I think, if I don't get induced,
Speaker 1: i'll have a vaginal birth. Oh look, I didn't get
Speaker 1: induced and I had a vaginal birth, so I was right.
Speaker 1: It's not scientific. There's no telling what would have happened
Speaker 1: in the scenario that didn't happen, but it feels good
Speaker 1: to distill reality down like this. We also take it
Speaker 1: too far sometimes and engage in a thing called apophenia.
Speaker 1: I was so happy when I learned that there was
Speaker 1: a word for this, because you see it everywhere in
Speaker 1: the wellness world. Apophenia is the tendency to make connections
Speaker 1: between things that have nothing to do with each other,
Speaker 1: and then to instill meaning in something where there is none.
Speaker 1: The most common example is seeing Jesus in a piece
Speaker 1: of toast, but it could also be thinking that you
Speaker 1: landed a dream job because you started drinking moon juice.
Speaker 1: These mental tricks we play on ourselves are a shortcut
Speaker 1: to feeling and control of situations like birth that are
Speaker 1: often so far out of our control that making sense
Speaker 1: of them would be impossible. And also that people comment
Speaker 1: on pregnant women's bodies. It's obvious when you're pregnant for
Speaker 1: most people. And I mean, you know, you get on
Speaker 1: the elevator when you're pregnant and someone looks at you
Speaker 1: and says, oh, must be having a girl, based on
Speaker 1: what they think a woman carrying a girl looks like,
Speaker 1: which has been studied and has not been shown to
Speaker 1: be accurate. I mean, it's is it Like what I
Speaker 1: heard was like, if you have a linnaea negra, that
Speaker 1: means you have a girl, And if you're carrying low
Speaker 1: that means you have a girl. Yeah. I mean in
Speaker 1: some studies, I would say, some groups say if you're
Speaker 1: carrying low, it means you're having a girl. Some groups
Speaker 1: say if you're carrying high, it means you're having a girl.
Speaker 1: And it's just that's just not true. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: just so many factors about why women carry low or high,
Speaker 1: and it's different from pregnancy to pregnancy and woman to woman.
Speaker 1: But people people take their own experience and they apply
Speaker 1: it to everyone who's going through a similar experience, and
Speaker 1: by definition, your experience is unique because it's just you
Speaker 1: on that specific pregnancy. The flip side of this feeling
Speaker 1: that there's like a huge amount of information everywhere is
Speaker 1: that there's no information everywhere, and I got an enormous
Speaker 1: amount of it off of Google. Yeah, so it's constantly
Speaker 1: on Google researching things and then leading me into stuff
Speaker 1: I had never heard of or worried about, and then
Speaker 1: when you start asking questions about it. One of my experiences,
Speaker 1: I would come in ask a question about a thing
Speaker 1: I had heard on the Internet, and a lack of
Speaker 1: feedback or information about that would then make me suspicious
Speaker 1: and make me think that it was on me to
Speaker 1: like truly learn more about it versus being calmed down
Speaker 1: by a lack of information. Absolutely. You know, I get
Speaker 1: asked a lot about about the chord blood the delayed
Speaker 1: chord blood clamping. I did that to you, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean, and you're not alone. We get that question,
Speaker 1: you know, with probably seventy five of our patients. Patients
Speaker 1: were asking those questions you might be asking as well.
Speaker 1: So here's what delayed chord clamping is. It's a prolonging
Speaker 1: of the time between delivery and clamping the umbilical chord,
Speaker 1: which usually happens within seconds. Delayed chord clamping let's more
Speaker 1: blood flow from the placenta to the baby, and on
Speaker 1: the positive side, it's said to increase blood volume and
Speaker 1: iron in the baby's blood, which has been shown to
Speaker 1: benefit preterm babies. But on the negative side, it can
Speaker 1: also increase bilirubin, which causes jaundice. It's not an easy answer,
Speaker 1: and I don't have the answer. I have information, but
Speaker 1: that's information. Especially with pregnancy, people can't perform really well controlled,
Speaker 1: tight studies on pregnant women because if we don't know
Speaker 1: if something safe and pregnancy, we're not going to expose
Speaker 1: one group of pregnant women to something that we don't
Speaker 1: know is safe in the other group not. And so
Speaker 1: it's hard to find really solid information in the exact
Speaker 1: kind of clinical trials that are considered the gold standard,
Speaker 1: those aren't available for pregnant women. Do you get asked
Speaker 1: about makeup? Yes. The clean beauty industry is booming right now,
Speaker 1: especially in Los Angeles, and it's based on having certain
Speaker 1: chemicals and preservatives not in the product. You know, I
Speaker 1: think that the thalates with in perfume. That's a commonly
Speaker 1: asked questions and I did a deep dive into that too,
Speaker 1: and there they might cause some harm. But people concentrate
Speaker 1: so much on the thalates in perfume, but they're everywhere.
Speaker 1: The most common exposure of thalates is from receipts, and
Speaker 1: no one talks about that. Everyone talks about, you know,
Speaker 1: perfume and how you should have a free perfume, but
Speaker 1: when they go to the store, they don't think about
Speaker 1: not having a receipt and not grabbing a receipt and
Speaker 1: exposing themselves to that. Thalates spelled p T A L
Speaker 1: A t ees yes are a man made chemical that
Speaker 1: binds polymers. They make things malleable and sticky, and they're
Speaker 1: in everything from sticks to flooring to hairspray and perfume,
Speaker 1: so it sticks to you. And they're blamed for everything
Speaker 1: from developmental delays to autism to ADHD, but most comprehensive
Speaker 1: studies show they only have a negative effect in super
Speaker 1: high industrial doses and the average people who don't work
Speaker 1: in a thallit factory don't need to worry. But then again,
Speaker 1: we can't do studies on babies and pregnant people, so
Speaker 1: maybe we should reduce our reliance on them just to
Speaker 1: be safe. How important is that and what is the
Speaker 1: decrease that we should use to be quote unquote safe.
Speaker 1: There was this split in the two different kinds of
Speaker 1: advice I was getting, and one was from the medical side.
Speaker 1: It was totally outcome based, which is all I can
Speaker 1: look at is information. All I can do is look
Speaker 1: at empirical information, and all I can really judge and
Speaker 1: all I can count is outcomes. So and then on
Speaker 1: the other side was experience, which was sort of believing
Speaker 1: as an article of faith that if you have a
Speaker 1: good experience, if you feel right about it, if it
Speaker 1: feels good to you, if your instinct says, if your
Speaker 1: body says, if you feel comfortable, then that is what
Speaker 1: will determine a good outcome. If I feel safe during
Speaker 1: my labor, if I feel if I feel safe is
Speaker 1: stuff I was told. If I feel safe and comfortable
Speaker 1: during my labor, then my labor will continue to progress normally.
Speaker 1: If I feel scared or uncomfortable, whatever it is, I
Speaker 1: don't like the look of someone's face, I don't like
Speaker 1: the smell of their perfume, that's going to stall my labor.
Speaker 1: It's it's a mindset. You have to be in the
Speaker 1: right mindset to do. Yeah, trust trust the baby. Just
Speaker 1: because you're having a good experience does not mean you're
Speaker 1: going to have a good outcome. Everyone wants a good
Speaker 1: experience and everyone wants a good outcome, and for some
Speaker 1: women they can absolutely have that, for others they can't.
Speaker 1: And if you you want to trump your experience at
Speaker 1: the expense of your outcome, that's really difficult for a
Speaker 1: doctor to help guide you through. I, as your doctor,
Speaker 1: want a good outcome for you and your baby. Pain
Speaker 1: level I remember being kind of specific to that where
Speaker 1: it was like like during my birth, the duela came
Speaker 1: in and was sort of saying, like, you are in
Speaker 1: the amount of pain I would qualify as like a
Speaker 1: level ten and you're not even dilated at all, so
Speaker 1: you should get an epidural. But pain level to when
Speaker 1: I was describing all this pain I was into a
Speaker 1: nurse or a doctor. The look I would get as
Speaker 1: kind of like a bummer, but I can't do anything
Speaker 1: about that. But I do remember feeling like, Okay, you
Speaker 1: don't care about that because it's not something you can measure. Therefore,
Speaker 1: it's kind of immaterial to you, So therefore I have
Speaker 1: to be the defender of my own pain. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's me versus you about that decision, which is very complicated.
Speaker 1: I don't think you wanted me to be not you specifically,
Speaker 1: but like you were one of many people that came
Speaker 1: into my incredibly long labor, I don't think that you
Speaker 1: wanted me to be in pain, but also pain didn't
Speaker 1: seem to determine outcome. Where do you see the most
Speaker 1: tension between those things of people favoring their experience at
Speaker 1: the expense of their outcomes. Yeah. I talk about this
Speaker 1: a lot because we worked so closely with one of
Speaker 1: the birthing centers and who I loved working with, and
Speaker 1: I trusted the midwives, and I thought they took excellent
Speaker 1: care of patients, and we would be their doctors. At
Speaker 1: the patient disqualified for a birth at the birthing center
Speaker 1: because she developed some complication or an induction was indicated,
Speaker 1: or if something happened during labor, and by the time
Speaker 1: they come to the hospital, I mean, they have a
Speaker 1: fifty percent chance of having a c section because they've
Speaker 1: already veered off of a normal labor course and that's
Speaker 1: why the women who were already in labor being transferred,
Speaker 1: that's why they had to come to the hospital as
Speaker 1: they veered off course. All of their kind of education
Speaker 1: and childbirth classes is we're geared towards giving birth unmedicated
Speaker 1: in a birthing center with limited interventions and really no
Speaker 1: options for pain control except for nitrous oxide. All of
Speaker 1: their birthing classes were centered around empowerment and empowering themselves.
Speaker 1: And if you feel empowered, you will have a better
Speaker 1: outcome and you're in control. Your body's made to do this.
Speaker 1: And so for women who have that mindset going into
Speaker 1: their labor and delivery and they have a vaginal delivery
Speaker 1: in a birthing center as expected, of course, they feel
Speaker 1: so empowered because everything that they told themselves was correct,
Speaker 1: that they trusted their body and their body could do this,
Speaker 1: and they did it. When those women have to come
Speaker 1: to the hospital because their labor course is not going
Speaker 1: the way that they thought, they're dis empowered, and more
Speaker 1: so than women who are expecting to give birth in
Speaker 1: a hospital. But they feel like they did something wrong,
Speaker 1: that it was on them that they you know, they
Speaker 1: surrounded themselves with the wrong person or they weren't in
Speaker 1: the right mindset, or they whatever it is they could
Speaker 1: think of. They go through and dissect every minute of
Speaker 1: every day for the weeks leading up to their birth
Speaker 1: and think if they had done one thing differently, it
Speaker 1: would have changed the outcome. And it's just not statistically,
Speaker 1: that's just not true. A lot of them feel devastated
Speaker 1: and the outcome was good, right, but they their experience
Speaker 1: was not good for them, and it's partly because they
Speaker 1: blamed themselves for it, because they were always told this
Speaker 1: is how you empower yourself. So then if you fail
Speaker 1: at you've disempowered yourself. I had a patient stuck with
Speaker 1: me who had a c section for a rest of descent,
Speaker 1: which means that you're one hundred percent dilated and you've
Speaker 1: pushed and the baby is not going to come out
Speaker 1: of the vagina. So this woman had a C section
Speaker 1: and the next day she was still questioning the decision
Speaker 1: to have the C section, and she asked me, well,
Speaker 1: what would have happened a hundred years ago if I
Speaker 1: was in this situation. And I looked at it and
Speaker 1: I said, you and the baby both would have died.
Speaker 1: And I one hundred percent believe that, and she said, well,
Speaker 1: that's dramatic. Doctor two good is a real doctor, and
Speaker 1: trained dulas and midwives are real health professionals whose presence
Speaker 1: during birth has been shown in multiple studies to lead
Speaker 1: to more positive outcomes for mother and child. And we're
Speaker 1: going to come back to that later in the season.
Speaker 1: The statistics are truly remarkable, especially in unders served communities.
Speaker 1: Prenatal care of any sort is shown to have positive
Speaker 1: effects on pregnancy, the birth experience, and the newborn phase.
Speaker 1: But what that care looks like exactly can vary so
Speaker 1: greatly as to nullify the feeling that any one particular
Speaker 1: choice is better than another. At the beginning of my pregnancy,
Speaker 1: a few studies came out saying that drinking moderately during
Speaker 1: pregnancy had zero effect on the baby's intelligence. And then
Speaker 1: I found some articles that said even one drink could
Speaker 1: cause birth effects. I got acupuncture on the advice of
Speaker 1: my midwives because they said it could increase the likelihood
Speaker 1: of going into labor on my due date, which would
Speaker 1: decrease the likelihood of getting induced. But during one session
Speaker 1: I asked the practitioner if I had to believe in
Speaker 1: acupuncture for it to work, and she replied, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it helps. I never went back, but I did go
Speaker 1: into labor on my exact due date and the baby
Speaker 1: was born two days later. Next time on the Dream,
Speaker 1: I think the same applies to many of these new
Speaker 1: wellness ideas, that if it's not working, the fault somehow
Speaker 1: lies with you, not the machine. That's him self quite
Speaker 1: insidious as a business model, but when you start applying
Speaker 1: it to things like anxiety and depression, that's an incredibly
Speaker 1: nasty and evil way to approach trying to help someone
Speaker 1: by telling them that they are the reason why their
Speaker 1: condition isn't getting better. When you're just selling them something either,
Speaker 1: you know that it doesn't work, it doesn't do anything.
Speaker 1: The Dream is a production of Little Everywhere and Stitcher,
Speaker 1: written and reported by me Jane Murrie and Dan Galucci,
Speaker 1: editing by Peter Clowney and Tracy Samuelson, with production by
Speaker 1: Stephanie Kiayuki and Lyra Smith. The Dream is executive produced
Speaker 1: by Me, Dan Glucci, Peter Clowney and Chris Bannett. Our
Speaker 1: mixing engineers are Casey Holford and Brendan Burns. Please rate, review,
Speaker 1: and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and thanks for listening,