Becoming The Creator Of Our Pregnancy, Birth and Life

As featured in the Best Holistic Life Magazine….

The biggest act of self-love is to become the creator of our lives, not the victim; to take charge of our thoughts, emotions, reactions, behavior and habits that do not serve us; to take responsibility for our own health and well-being, not depend on others to do that for us. As a holistic nurse-midwife of 27+ years, self-love includes taking back our pregnancies, births, and health of our babies. This takes lots of work. But the reward is divine, sacred , empowering and transformative. You want to shout from the roof tops how incredible your experience was, how it moved you and your partner to tears and opened your hearts, that you DID it, you found your strength in the challenge – in the mountain that you felt too big to climb, and you birthed your baby as YOU wanted to. Your body worked to birth as your heart knows how to beat and your lungs know how to breathe.  You can draw on this power forever as you face other mountains that seem too high.

In the westernized early 1900s, healthy birth was moved out of the homes and normal family life, and taken over by hospital institutions and their providers; it was treated as an illness and stripped of humanity; our ability to give birth and experience it in its intensity, its raw realness and wondrous beauty, surrounded by the support and wisdom of our loved ones was robbed from us. We surrendered our autonomy, and harmful things were done to us in our most intimate areas, at our most vulnerable moments; we trust technology and modern medicine rather than ourselves and our healthy bodies innately wise ability to grow, birth and breastfeed our babies, and our healthy babies’ ability to be born and breastfeed. This caused high rates of birth trauma and worsening health outcome stats for mom and baby as compared to developed countries, among other concerning long term effects.

There is HUGE hope. That depends on YOU. It involves lots of preparing like you are running your marathon, educating and empowering yourself with knowledge; mastering coping and life enhancing techniques to practice so they become habitual; shifting your mindset, getting your modern mind out of the way so you can let you body do its thing; remembering what you forgot; going against your conditioning, going against the grain, your culture, your family and friends who may not understand, and joining a new rapidly growing community who are doing this with you around the world; being very selective about the provider and setting you choose to give birth, and respectfully speaking up for your rights as an autonomous human being. This may involve paying more money, but it’s worth every penny. The outcome is not only a healthy mind, body , heart and spirit for you, but also for your baby and your family, you will all treasure forever. You will have the experience of pregnancy and giving birth beyond your wild dreams, supported as you deserve postpartum – as we have been for thousands of years before. You will LOVE the experience in spite of its intensity and challenges. You will be so darn proud of yourself with a heart bursting with joy and gratitude.

It is SO possible. But YOU must be the change. I recently received an email from a mama who lives in a remote rural area. She had no option for her birth setting and provider other than a small local hospital with an obstetrician with unacceptable, extremely high rates of risky interventions and cesarean. She was inspired by my social media pages, devoured my book. She wanted a natural birth, a special peak life, family-centered experience that is inherent in bringing the new life of your own baby into the world. He said he did not practice that way, never saw natural birth and did not believe in it. She empowered herself further by taking my online course, presented him with her evidence based decisions and choices, and kindly insisted that he honor her wishes, to be there in the background, just in case, to do nothing but let her body go through its natural physiologic process without disturbing it. He finally agreed. She had her beautiful healthy birth and not only was she in heaven, but also her obstetrician was humbled and moved beyond words. What a ripple effect that will have on how he cares for others in his practice. That is how we improve birth and make needed change.

My gift to you to get you started is my free guide to planning your own birth mini course - with video and PDF download. My advice is to prepare like a boss so you can rock you birth in all settings. It takes work, but it is beyond worth it. Here are more resources I have for you. Each are different, and they are meant to be used in adjunct to one another. Many blessings on your journey of a lifetime!

Love Your Birth Course

$397.00

NEW! and IMPROVED, including an extra 20+ BONUS Videos!

Love Your Birth is a holistic, holistic midwife created, doctor recommended, on-demand course to help you birth YOUR way at home, birth center or hospital. Prepare for the most blissful experience from pregnancy to postpartum.

I’ve taken everything I’ve learned, trained and supported women with locally for over twenty years in my private practice and I’ve poured all of my love, passion, knowledge and experience into creating something truly special for you ... LOVE YOUR BIRTH!

10 core video modules with 13+ downloadable resources and packed with over 20 new BONUS videos and resources:

• Health In Pregnancy

• Preparing The Mind

• Testing Procedures

• Anatomy and Physiology

• Labor Coping Techniques

• Birth Preferences

• Guidance For Dads And Partners

• Postpartum - the 4th trimester

• Breastfeeding and Newborn Care

• Meditation, Breathwork, Visualization and Relaxation

  NEW! Over 20 Newly-Added BONUS Videos Where I Answer the Most Common Questions I am Asked, and Discuss Hot Topics Relevant to Your Journey.

  Value — Priceless :)

  The videos include discussions about such topics as:

• What to do when family and friends not supportive of your choices.

• Supplements in pregnancy.

• Prenatal yoga.

• VBAC (Vaginal Birth after Cesarean).

• Kids at birth.

• Friends and family at birth.

• Ideal Candidates for homebirth.

• How to have a homebirth like experience in the hospital.

• More on the placenta.

• How to deal when things don’t go as planned, and so much more!

The key to a positive birth, is feeling confident, strong, relaxed, and empowered during the entire process, regardless of the twists and turns it may take.

Photo Credit: Megan Hancock Photography

Add to Cart

A Walk With Anne - Tips & Insights on Holistic Pregnancy, Birth & Beyond Online Course

$77.00

Take a walk with me, Anne Margolis, where I talk on topics that matter to you on your journey of planning pregnancy, birth, postpartum and beyond.

Over 45 short, sharp video talks, covering:

Planning pregnancy

• What to do

• The preconception appointment

  Pregnancy

• How to find & choose a provider

• When to start prenatal care

• Elective testing

• Pep talk for first trimester feeling sick symptoms

• Group B Strep

• Internal exams

• Preventing late pregnancy panic & birth trauma

• Pep talk for going past due date

• What we can control & when we need to let go & flow

• What happens at the prenatal home visit when planning a homebirth

• How to know if your tub is good for water labor/birth

• Tub temperature, when to set up & get in

• Planning a homebirth & packing a hospital suitcase?

• Dealing with homebirth in apartments or with neighbors close by

• Postpartum prep

  Birth

• Fear of losing control

• Pep talk for second time mama birth fears

• How we can improve birth outcomes

• Why the name Home Sweet Homebirth for all settings

• Handling emergencies out of hospital - at home or birth center

• Need for advocacy in hospitals & why we must be the change

• Soothing nature and labor sounds

• Visual for birth

• Inspiration for your birth

• The huge gift in birth

• Dogs & cats at birth

• When to call your provider in labor - noticing stages & progression

• Early labor pep talk

• Pep talk for on and off or prolonged labor

• The post birth sacred pause

• Dealing with birth ‘mess’

• Planned unattended freebirth

• Some things we learn from animals

  Postpartum

• Preparation begins in pregnancy, what you need to do, what support is needed

• Dealing with emergencies - processing & healing afterwards

• Postpartum illness, depression/anxiety

• Gifts to give your midwife

  Holistic Health and Healing

• What is it?

• Importance of posture & improving it

• Pausing throughout the day

• Tools for hard days

• How to find your inner calm

• Transforming ‘what if’ thinking

• Meditation - why and how

• Self-care non-negotiables

Watch anywhere/anytime, on your PC, laptop, tablet or mobile.

Prenatal & Mindful Hatha Flow Yoga Class Series Online Course

$147.00

This course has 16 yoga classes plus bonus material:

• Seven ~ 60-80 minute Prenatal Yoga classes

• Seven ~ 60-80 minute Mindful Hatha Flow Yoga classes

• A soothing Gentle Slow Flow Yoga class

• A Restorative Yoga class for deep relaxation

• Bonus videos of an hour Live more advanced Vinyasa Class, shorter breaks of yoga anywhere anytime, use of props - like the wall, a chair, yoga blocks, yoga belts, yoga blankets and bolsters to enhance your practice, and practicing with your baby or pet.

The prenatal yoga 7 class series will invite you to grow, strengthen, focus, train and enhance your mind, body, heart and spirit. Discover for yourself the calming, healing and transformative power of yoga - intentional meditative movement with breath. Classes begin with meditation made simple using breathwork, gradual warm up, increasing difficulty as well as yoga play, gentle cool down, and end with restorative practices in deep relaxation. They are slow flowing, with space to explore specific poses but are meant to challenge you. Classes are different each session, with classical fundamental alignment based asana fused with modern postures and their many modifications and varied creative transitions. The classes are taught with modifications for pregnancy, incorporate positions for positively influencing baby’s position and active birthing as well as those to relieve common discomforts in pregnancy. They also are fused with meditative, breathwork and visualization techniques and tools for coping with and easing sensations of labor and birth, which will transform your childbirth experience with regular practice.

The seven classes are there for you to practice a different class each day of the week or according to your own frequency, then start over again from the beginning of the series. Each class ranges from on average 60 minutes to 80 minutes, and they build on each other; following the sequence from class 1 onward is advised if it is your first time taking the series or are a beginning practitioner. Classes are mindful, at a slow safe pace, gentle but challenging, so that you build strength, flexibility & agility. They start with the basics but are for all levels, and beginners too are welcome! If you are not pregnant, you can use the prenatal classes as beginner classes, just modify as needed and use any mention of pregnancy and labor as it pertains to any labor of your own life. The need to relax into intensity and the multiple benefits of yoga practice pertain to everyone. Or simply take the general Mindful Hatha Flow Yoga Class Series online course.

Once you hone your skills, you can take the Mindful Hatha Flow 7 Class Series that follows, doing your own modifications as needed - for pregnancy or wherever you are on your yoga journey, or simply start them after you are recovered postpartum. They also build on one another and can be practiced successively until you are ready to mix and match and create your own classes and practice schedule.

Additional videos are included to enhance your practice with use of the various props, as well as a soothing gentle slow flow class and a restorative yoga class for deep relaxation (great for evening!), shorter breaks of doing it anywhere and anytime, and a live bonus video of a more advanced class.

Add to Cart

Want a comprehensive holistic guide to the journey of getting pregnant, being pregnant, birth, breastfeeding, postpartum and beyond? Check out the second edition of my international and national best selling book Natural Birth Secrets.

Common Causes of Bleeding in Pregnancy

Featured image: Photo by Sierra St John on Unsplash

--- BEGIN TRANSCRIPT Instagram.com/homesweethomebirth ---

Hi there. I am just going come on and say hello, and I wanted to talk to you about bleeding in pregnancy. It's incredible. A lot of people online, on my social media pages, are asking me about bleeding in pregnancy - and they're freaking out. Of course, they're freaking out. It's scary. I get it. And in my own practice, when people call me and tell me they're bleeding, they’re scared.

I totally get it. 

But what I wanted to do is reassure you that in the first trimester, 25% of women will bleed. And many times, the causes are benign. Like nothing to worry about, easy to treat if needed, or monitor, kind of watch and wait. 

Sometimes the causes are more serious, so definitely if you have bleeding in pregnancy, you can post it on my Facebook group or post it on Instagram, you can tell me about it. But I really want you to check it out with your provider.

Let me go over some of the common things. First of all, I would say about half of people who bleed in the first trimester miscarry. So that means 50%, they're not going to miscarry. A lot of times miscarriages go unnoticed if people aren't tracking their cycles. It's just like, you have a heavier or a late period. But there are people that track cycles and they see bleeding, and that's scary. 

So, the first thing is that when the fertilized egg implants in the uterus, around the time of the missed period, that's implantation bleeding, and that might last a day or two, a little bit of spotting. Nothing to worry about. Okay. 

Also, some people have a little vaginal or cervical inflammation or infection, like a yeast infection, for example. Many infections or inflammation can cause a little bleeding and that's easy to treat holistically. It's easy to deal with. 

Sometimes, first of all, in pregnancy, your blood volume is doubling. You are so vascular. There’s just many more blood vessels in the area.

So that's how come people tell me they have bleeding and I said, did you have sex?, and they'll say, oh yes. Well, that's what it is.

Now, it's not dangerous to have sex, but if you notice a little bleeding after sex, intercourse, that's just a little tiny blood vessel in the vaginal area or the cervix that just broke, and you'll just have a little spotting, a little bright red blood, and then brown the next day or something like that, and then it will go away. 

If you had an internal exam that can cause bleeding. So first of all, I’d question why you're having internal exams, but many times I find that people are having way too many internal exams that are necessary, but that can cause bleeding. A pap smear can cause bleeding. And this kind of bleeding does not endanger the pregnancy. Yes, if you need to have a pap smear in pregnancy, you can absolutely have one, it does not affect the pregnancy. It's just scraping the little cells on the top of where the cervix is. That doesn't go inside the cervix or into the uterus, okay, but that can cause bleeding. I've even had moms that have had varicose veins vaginally, and have noticed some bleeding with that. 

So, these are all sort of innocuous things that can cause bleeding. 

Another is it benign growth, like polyps. It could be uterine or cervical, can cause a little bleeding. They have nothing to do with the pregnancy, it’s just that it's more in engorged, more likely to bleed. So these are just normal, nothing to worry about.

There is something called sub chorionic hematoma. I don't know if you've ever heard of it? I definitely want to hear in the comments your experience with bleeding in pregnancy too, because I want everyone to feel that they're not alone.

I want people to be able to share and to know how common it is to have bleeding in pregnancy. 

A sub chorionic hematoma is kind like a bruise, or like a collection of blood between the placenta and the uterus, and most of the time, the vast majority of times, it's something that might've occurred at implantation or somewhere after that. Most of the time, it just resolves, and does not affect the pregnancy. 

So, if you're in the first trimester, I definitely would check with your provider because there's some basic blood tests that we can do, and sometimes you need an ultrasound.

I'm not talking about routine ultrasound; I'm talking about if we're concerned about something. Sometimes an ultrasound can help us determine what's going on.

Anytime there's bleeding in the first trimester, we want to make sure that it's not an ectopic pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancy is potentially life threatening. It's rare, thankfully, one in fifty pregnancies, twenty in a thousand pregnancies. I've seen it, I've detected it myself, and that's something that we want to detect before it actually ruptures.

So thankfully it's rare. What's more common of the serious is a miscarriage. And a miscarriage is most often related to a pregnancy that's just not meant to be, a chromosomal abnormality in the fetus, and it's sort of nature's way of releasing that. Sometimes it could be a low progesterone and the pregnancy is healthy, so that can be treated with natural progesterone. 

There's so many that are involved, but you know, years ago, before we had all this testing, and people weren't using birth control, and people were having sex, and I would say, just about everybody who gets pregnant will have, in their lifetime, one miscarriage at least. That's how common miscarriage is. 

Once we get the heartbeat of the baby, it's rare. So if you have a fetal heart rate, miscarriage is rare. But anytime there's bleeding again, just check it out. 

Now, in the second half of pregnancy, we start thinking of, we’re not thinking of ectopic pregnancy anymore, or a threatened miscarriage, we are thinking if there is bleeding in the second half of pregnancy, in addition to possible bleeding after sex, or a little inflammation or infection, thinking also about a placenta previa, which means the placenta is implanted partially or directly over the cervix. That is something that we need to watch and monitor, and you do not want to have any internal exam if that happens. And thankfully it's rare, but we just want to make sure that that's not what it is. 

Also, placental abruption; if the placenta is partially separating from the uterus. That can cause bleeding.

Preterm labor; because look, as the cervix dilates, tiny blood vessels will disrupt and cause bleeding. 

In labor; labor, there's blood. You have bloody show and as you dilate you bleed, right? 

So, these are just some of the many reasons that you can have some bleeding in pregnancy, and I just love so many times we just don't find out the reason. All right? And then everything's just fine. 

But it's always better to just check it out. 

So that's what I have to say today. I would love to hear from you your experience with bleeding in pregnancy, whether it's your personal experience, the experiences of your clients, or people that you know, so that all of you will just realize how common it is, and that you're so not alone. Okay? 

And if you found this interesting or helpful share it ok?

Love to you all. Namaste. Have a good afternoon, or day, or evening wherever you are in the world.

--- END TRANSCRIPT ---

Learn ways to calm yourself, and holistic modalities you can do depending on the cause, and so much more….in my Natural Birth Secrets book second edition.

Need more personal guidance? Book a chat with me!

Chat With Anne

from $125.00

Coaching Session:

Select Coaching Session 1/2 Discovery Call (Personal)1/2 Hour Discovery Call (Future or Current Birth Professionals)1 Hour Coaching Session1 Hour Coaching Session and 1/2 Hour Follow Up1/2 Hour Subsequent Follow-Up Coaching Session

1/2 Discovery Call (Personal) 1/2 Hour Discovery Call (Future or Current Birth Professionals) 1 Hour Coaching Session 1 Hour Coaching Session and 1/2 Hour Follow Up 1/2 Hour Subsequent Follow-Up Coaching Session

Quantity:

Book Now!

Interview With a Family in My Practice on Their Podcast

“Julia and Gino were blessed to have Anne attend the birth of four of their children in the comfort of their home (they attribute Anne for saving Julia's life by detecting an ectopic pregnancy when the doctors did not!), and wanted to share with the community what an amazing midwife, mother, and entrepreneur Anne is.

In this week’s show, Anne discusses her passion for midwifery, what led her down the path of homebirth, the amazing power and joy of giving birth, and how her struggles in life led to her own transformative healing, growth, deeper joy and inner calm.

Anne draws parallels between raising a family and creating a successful in-person and online business, and how she did not set out to write two books or create online courses and coaching sessions, but a conversation with her daughter about joining Instagram changed it all. And then it grew organically.

Since that conversation, Anne has collected more than 97,000 followers on Instagram alone, and more importantly to her, has been able to serve mothers all over the world, including Australia and Europe.”

Source: Entrepreneur, Midwife, Author, and Mother, Anne Margolis with Julia and Gino Barbaro | Jake & Gino (jakeandgino.com)

Cesarean Birth and Prevention

Blog post featured image: Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

--- BEGIN TRANSCRIPT Instagram.com/homesweethomebirth ---

Hi. I wanted to come on and talk about cesarean and why I'm so passionate about preventing it. 

But what I want to mention first is that the rates in this country, in the United States, are going up and our outcomes are getting worse. Okay. The national average is 30%.

That's just unacceptable.

Some hospitals around where I live, the rate is 40 to 50%. Unbelievable. Why? There are so many reasons why, but I just want to share something with you.  

My rate is 5%. My rate of cesarean birth is 5%. I'm not bragging. This has nothing really to do with me. I, 

What's different. Why is that?

Why do you think the rates in my practice are 5%, and the rates in the national average of hospitals are 30% and climbing?

The families that come to my practice don't have different bodies. The people don't have different bodies. 

You know what's different. They're getting midwifery care.

They're getting midwifery care. They are low risk and healthy. And maybe someone even labeled them as high risk, but they're not really high risk. They're just healthy. They might have an issue or two, but you know what they're doing? They're taking responsibility. That's also what they're doing.

They're preparing as I recommend them to prepare, and they're taking responsibility for the birth, they're not just saying to me, do whatever, right. 

They are taking it upon themselves. 

Why do they need to prepare? I'll tell you why they need to prepare, because I know that women's bodies know exactly how to give birth. A healthy body knows how to give birth. Right? 

Why in the West do we need to prepare? Because we're in the West. We're in the Western culture.

I feel so strongly about this because I do hospital shifts. I do hospital shifts and I love to do hospitals shifts in hospitals that serve the immigrant populations.

I love that. And I can actually do prenatal care and help a mama in labor as much as possible with my heart and with my Spanish. Now I am not fluent, okay, but I love working with this community, the immigrant population that's coming up, because I'll tell you why. Not just, I love them, but the less Westernized they are, they don't need to take childbirth classes, they just come and birth just like that. 

And you know why? Because the newer they are to this country, the less westernized they are, they came from countries where they were surrounded by people having birth. And in a community. And the women in their community, the elders, the wiser ones would talk to them about it and they would see it. 

I mean, I just spoke with a grand-momma, an abuela, who had 11 babies in her casa - back in her country. 11 babies in her Casa. That's what everybody did.

She didn't need a childbirth course. She was surrounded by everybody doing that. So, she got that education, and she got that by osmosis, that “We know how to do this. This is what we know how to do". And you know what, it's hard, but we can do hard things. Like we don't need to numb ourselves from pain. They deal with pain. They just deal with it. The more westernized they are, the more we are in our brains, the more we are in fear. Not “we”. No, because I've healed myself, I've tried to de-Westernize myself when it comes to helping moms give birth.

And I feel strongly about this, because, we can't help the way of our culture. Okay. We get fear messages. Oh my gosh we get fear messages all over the media. You know, someone sees you're pregnant they're going to tell you a story. And we are addicted to Googling everything. We're just too much in our brains. It's just, it's just the way it is. We have to research this, we have to research that, and we have to numb. We're not comfortable with discomfort.

And that's why I love my yoga training. That taught me, that deep in yoga, to combine that with being a midwife is just an amazing combination. Yoga doesn't come from the West. It comes from the East. To be comfortable with uncomfortable. To be comfortable with discomfort. To be comfortable and relax into intensity. 

And I needed that to help me understand and how to help other people do that. But there are cultures around the world, here are countries around the world that never did any yoga. They just live in a community, and are surrounded by the elders and other women in the community. They just do it. You know, we do hard things. And we just give birth.

So, that’s why I think a huge part of the success of a lot in my practice, and a lot of my colleagues, is that we're really are, to the families that have a baby in the home, in our practice are Westernized. They might want to have a home birth, but it's their first time, they know nothing about birth. They haven't been around it. 

They tell me they don't know anybody that's had a home birth that I can connect them with. Well, I know tons of people that have had a home birth.

So, that's why I love connecting moms and their partners, so that they don't feel so isolated. But a lot of times the families that come to me, their parents gave birth in hospitals with all kinds of interventions and they just, they feel very isolated and unprepared. And, and just looking at videos and pictures, scrolling down, on Instagram is not the way to prepare. I'm sorry. It's not. And that's why I really think a lot of the success comes from myself and my colleagues really being insistent that the family who comes in to have a home birth is going to prepare like a boss, right? 

Get de-Westernized, get primal and get sensual, and learn how to relax into intensity and learn about birth because no one ever taught you. Right. And learn the techniques that you need to do to master your calm. And, and to just let your body do it. And, and I think that's a huge part of our success. 

I track my stats, and unfortunately the 7% of times that I have to go into the hospital, it's not because of an emergency. Emergencies are rare. We deal with them, or I can count them on my hand.

I'm the EMT. The midwife is the EMT at the birth. We prevent and we deal with any problems that come up. And if we need to go to the hospital, we need to go to the hospital.

But that's 7% of the time. That means 93% are having births at home.

But who is my 7% that needs to go to the hospital?
It tends to be, and I track my statistics. I've been tracking them for years. It's people with long, stuck labors, first time birthers, first time vaginal birthers, who did not prepare.

They just didn't want to take a course, they were preparing on Instagram or they, or they just weren't preparing at all before Instagram.

You can't prepare on Instagram. You have to take a class today. Yes. In the West. You have to take a class, unless your mom and your grandparents have given birth at home, and you're surrounded by, natural birth. Because natural birth in the West is very different. It's a very different experience if you've never done it before and you can't prepare on social media. Okay? 

Then, you have to think about who are you going to, who are you going to - let's say you want a natural birth. Well, if the hospital or the provider that you're going to is, let's say you're healthy and you want a natural birth, if the hospital and the provider that you're going to doesn't do natural birth. They're not into it. They weren't trained in it. They're into interventive birth, it's going to be very hard for you to have a natural birth, right? And one intervention leads to another intervention, leads to the other intervention, and unfortunately ends up in too much intervention and complications and cesarean births. 

I am so grateful for cesarean births for when it's necessary and that's why I post on it. And yes, we could have gentle cesareans for those mamas. Five percent - they're still human beings, and that's still a birth, and those mamas are rockstars because they need to have a compassionate, human, respectful family centered, gentle cesarean, and we can have as much as possible that home-sweet-home birth in the hospital or in the operating room, but we still have to prevent. 

So, you have to think about – even if you want a vaginal birth - let's say you want an epidural - if you want a vaginal birth, you have to know. Ask “What's the rate of cesareans in your hospital?”. Is it 30%? Is it 40%? Is it 50%? Then it's very unlikely - unless you prepare. Then have to prepare even more, right, to fight that system. Because, I don’t know, I talk about this all the time and I'm so passionate about it because I think that's how we make the change. 

How we be the change, how we make the change, is for you all to prepare yourselves and take back your birth and know what setting and what provider you're going to. 

And if you are blessed, if you're healthy, or you have a little issue or two, that doesn't risk you out of midwifery care. Find a midwife. 

That's the model of care in a lot of countries where the midwives who are trained. You know, I have seven years of training, it's not just a weekend course. I had to get my bachelor's, and I got my master's, and where I live, I need a master's degree. I have seven years of training and education, and it's specifically focused on supporting the low risk healthy.

Yes, we screen, we prevent, and we look. That's what prenatal care is all about, that relationship, and making sure that it is still safe and appropriate for that mama to have a home birth, or a birth with a midwife in the hospital. 

But midwifery, our specialty, is supporting normal. Keeping it normal. Lay low on intervention. No intervention. No interventions necessary when it's working well. 

What's an obstetrician? What's an OB/GYN. Do you know the difference? There’s a huge difference, and we need them, thank god, but an obstetrician and a gynecologist, OB/GYN, goes to medical school and does residency and extra training for high-risk pregnancies and surgery, to use very highly sophisticated technology to diagnose and treat high-risk situations, medically or surgically. But that kind of provider, I have doctors, I love the obstetricians that I work, but they always tell me they know nothing about natural birth. They're bored of it. They don't know what to do. They love the midwives. If someone's healthy, they say “you're going to get better care with a midwife”. 

So, it's very important for you to know the difference between a midwife and an obstetrician, their training and their background, because if you want a surgical birth, then no, you don't go to a midwife – go to a surgeon.

And that's what an obstetrician and gynecologist, OB/GYN is. And we need them. 

And that's why there are certain countries, that's why the United States ranks the lowest among all developed countries in the world, in terms of maternal and newborn outcomes. We're losing more babies and mamas, or having more serious complications with mamas and babies, than all the other developed countries in the world.

The countries that have the best outcomes are countries where, like Sweden, there's a lot of countries where everybody sees a midwife, if they're healthy. The doctor (obstetrician) is there for the high risk. High-risk and when surgery is needed. When medicine and surgery is needed. 

And that's how we serve the whole population of people having babies, and that's how we get excellent outcomes - live, happy, healthy mamas and babies. 

So last week I talked about a bleeding in pregnancy - this week I thought I'd talk about this.

If you found that helpful, comment, share. I'd love to hear what you have to say, but that's all for now. 

Have a wonderful weekend. Bye.

--- END TRANSCRIPT ---

Plan like a Boss! Create your ideal birth plan and take back your birth!

Feel empowered and prepared for your childbirth experience and all the possible interventions you need to make decisions about - whether you are planning to birth in the hospital, birthing center or home setting! :)

Creating your ideal birth plan with this FREE video and ebook guide will not only help you prepare in advance, it will:

• help you speak up for what you want and what you do not want

• provide the keys to prevent high rates of unnecessary, risky medical and surgical interventions and birth trauma, and

• coach you about the hows and whys, and some great recommendations for helping you design the birth of your dreams!

This is the special guide that I give to each family in my practice, that has been refined and refined over the many years of practice, brought to life in an updatable, printable and shareable guide.

Then use these different but crucial resources to prepare like a boss! Prevent that first cesarean or plan your VBAC! It takes work and is worth every penny, but this is your and your baby’s health and life we are protecting.

Love Your Birth Course

$397.00

Add to Cart

A Walk With Anne - Tips & Insights on Holistic Pregnancy, Birth & Beyond Online Course

$77.00

Add To Cart

Get a comprehensive holistic reference guide to the journey of getting pregnant, being pregnant, birth, breastfeeding, postpartum and beyond. Check out the second edition of my international and national best selling book Natural Birth Secrets.

Getting Real With A Mama in My Practice Who Rocked Her VBAC

Part one and two of a an awesome video I was invited to do with Joni, a mama in my practice who had a homebirth birth after cesarean, that really brings together many things pregnancy, birth, and breathwork, holistic health and healing.

Learn how to rock your VBAC and have the birth of your dreams with these three different but crucial resources - so you can prepare like a boss!

Love Your Birth Course

$397.00

Add to Cart

A Walk With Anne - Tips & Insights on Holistic Pregnancy, Birth & Beyond Online Course

$77.00

Add To Cart

Get deep in this childbearing bible, a reference guide for the whole journey from planning a pregnancy, expecting, birth, postpartum and newborn care, with effective holistic modalities for common discomforts and issues along the way.