Birth Words: Language For a Better Birth

In this episode, doula Renee Basham shares about the difference validation made in her pregnancy and birth experiences. Renee is the Executive Director of Hope's Embrace, a non-profit organization in Kentucky that provides doula services to those who need them most.

This episode is a rebroadcast of Episode 4, Discourse: Ways of Speaking and Ways of Being in Birth. Sara explains the linguistic concept of discourse (and Discourse) and what that looks like in a birth setting. Listen to this episode to learn more! REFERENCE: Gee, J. P. (1999). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method. (Fourth Edition, 2014). London: Routledge. TRANSCRIPT: We are g...

This episode takes a critical look at the term "failure to progress."   REFERENCES: Dekker, R. (n.d.). Evidence On: Failure to Progress. Retrieved February 29, 2020, from https://evidencebasedbirth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Failure-to-Progress-Handout.pdf Dekker, R. (2017, April 26). Evidence on: Failure to Progress. Retrieved February 29, 2020, from https://evidencebasedbirth.com/friedmans-c...

This week's episode is taking us back to the Birth Words basics. A rebroadcast of episode 2, this episode summarizes what linguistics is and how it intersects with birth.

For this week's episode, I interview my friend Katherine Grande about her birth experiences. Katherine had a meaningful impact on my perspective on birth during my first pregnancy and beyond. She spoke about birth using positive, glowing terms--a way I'd never heard women speak about birth before! In this interview, Katherine tells how she drew on her faith to shape her beautiful birth experiences...

In this episode, Sara digs into an excerpt of the common pregnancy book,  What to Expect When You're Expecting.  Through her analysis, she reveals the assumptions, perspective, and effect of the text.

In this week's episode, therapist Sarah Adelmann of Resilient Birth shares guidelines about how to mindfully choose our words as part of giving trauma-informed care to survivors of trauma and abuse. Learn more about Resilient Birth at https://www.resilientbirth.com/ TRANSCRIPT: Sara P.: Sarah is an advocate, counselor and educator whose focus is on supporting those with grief and trauma. She speci...

In this episode, I discuss how to say "give birth" in French, Spanish, and Italian   REFERENCES:   Google Books NGram Viewer. Retrieved from: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=dar+a+luz&year_start=1500&year_end=2008&corpus=21&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cdar%20a%20luz%3B%2Cc0   Google Books NGram Viewer. Retrieved from: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=dare+alla+l...

In this episode, I talk with Jenessa Berg. She shares her thoughts about motherhood as a creative process, birth-related terms that can be taken multiple ways, and the circle of support during birth.   TRANSCRIPT: Sara: On today's podcast, I will be talking with my friend Jenessa Berg. Jenessa is the mother to three children, a dancer and dance teacher, and an aspiring birth worker. Welcome, Jenes...

In this episode, I revew key points made by Rachel Naomi Remen in her essay, "Helping, Fixing, or Serving?" I consider their application to birth and the importance of viewing all in the birth space as whole. TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to today's episode. So today I want to have a conversation about an article that I read years ago that was very influential for me. It was written by Dr. Rachel Naomi Reme...

This week's episode is a special one recorded AT the Evidence Based Birth Conference in Lexington, KY, where Dr. Sayida Peprah delivered two powerful keynote addresses. In this interview, Dr. Sayida discusses the importance of being authentic, humble, and curious when interacting with others from different cultures or circumstances.   TRANCRIPT: Sara: Welcome, Dr. Sayida, to the Birth Words podcas...

In this episode, Sara takes a close look at some pairings of words commonly used in birth and what lexically defines each word. Often, one word better contributes to an empowered birth experience. TRANSCRIPT: Hi, and welcome to today's episode. As I said in the introduction, we will be doing some lexical decomposition during this episode. Stay tuned to figure out what that means. But I wanted to s...

In this episode, I continue the conversation from previous episodes about the language surrounding infertility. Natasha Marchand, co-founder of Bebo Mia, discusses the unique situations of would-be expectant parents facing infertility, and what helpful and non-helpful language looks like.   TRANSCRIPT: Sara Pixton: Welcome to today's episode. Before we jump in, I just want to say if you have liste...

In this week's episode, I interview Kelly Buck, a Dunstan Baby Language Educator and doula. She talks about the Dunstan Baby Language program and how it gives us a window into the first communicative interactions between baby and caregiver. From birth, babies make sounds that are reflex-based. When we understand what these sounds mean, we can respond to and interact with babies more confidently an...

This episode takes a look at the history of the use of the word "deliver" in relation to childbirth.   REFERENCES: Exodus 1:19. Retrieved from https://biblehub.com/text/exodus/1-19.htm Oxford English Dictionary (2019). Deliver. Retrieved from https://www-oed-com.erl.lib.byu.edu/view/Entry/49470?rskey=blB3K2&result=2#eid   TRANSCRIPT: Hi, so we are here today to talk about the word deliver . We tou...

In this episode, I tackle the topic of pain during labor and childbirth. REFERENCES: Chooi C. S. L., Nerlekar R., Raju R., Cyna A. M. (2011). The effects of positive or negative words when assessing postoperative pain. Anaesthesia and Intensive Care 39 (1), 101-106. Dick-Read, G. (1984). Childbirth without fear. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers. Mongan, M. (1992). HypnoBirthing: The Mongan m...

In this episode, I interview Margaret Quinlan and hear her perspective about the social phenomenon surrounding the topic of infertility. Margaret M. Quinlan is an associate professor in the department of communication studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She explores how communication creates, resists and transforms knowledges about bodies. She critiques power structures in or...

In this episode, I collaborate with Hillary Melchiors from the Birth Geeks podcast, as we discuss three guiding principles for positive language during pregnancy and birth. Transcript: Hillary   Hi, Sara!   Sara    Hi Hillary! How are you? I'm just fabulous. I'm so excited to be talking to you.   Hillary   Ditto, I'm a big fan. I totally fangirled when I met you, by the way. Do you remember that?...

In this episode, I tackle the hot topic of consent in the birth space. TRANSCRIPT: Before we jump into the content on today's episode, I wanted to encourage you to head on over to www.birthwords.com , check out the new website and all the features there. You'll notice a few things. There's a Classes tab, where you can sign up for one-on-one video consults. And I'd love to meet with you that way, e...

Sarah Roberts, birth photographer, shares her birth experiences and journey to becoming a birth photographer. We discuss the rhetorical role of being a birth photographer in the community and how her profession honors the birth experience.   TRANSCRIPT:   Sara Welcome to the Birth Words podcast. Today we have a special guest, my friend Sarah Roberts. She is a lifestyle photographer and specializes...

This episode features a very special guest: Dr. Rebecca Dekker, founder of Evidence Based Birth. Dr. Dekker shares her thoughts and experiences surrounding problematic and empowering language used during birth.

In this episode--an extension of Episode 9 (Complexities)--Sara examines two excerpts from birth stories to further consider the complexities of our communicative interactions. She dissects the underlying beliefs accompanying the utterances exchanged during a birth to discover why some interactions are negative and others are positive.

Episode 16 features Lisa Cowan, a Utah-based birth doula with a unique birth story. She shares her story about her unexpected cesarean birth and how the words of others affected her throughout her birth and postpartum journey.

In this episode, I take a linguistic lens to consider the role and implications of birth affirmations. REFERENCES: Austin, J.L. (2014). How to do things with words. In Jaworski & N. Coupland (Eds.), The  discourse reader (pp. 51-61). New York, NY: Routledge. Butler, J. (1997). On linguistic vulnerability. In J. Butler, Excitable speech: A politics of the  performative (pp. 1-41). New York, NY: Rou...

In this episode, I welcome Heidi Pyper, a fellow doula who shares her experiences about a difficult postpartum period. She discusses how problematic language made it challenging to get the help she needed at first, but she moved forward to find healing.