Down to Birth

Dr. Joel Gator Warsh is a classically trained integrative pediatrician with a holistic health practice in California. His approach to care puts parents at the center of the decision-making process. In today's episode, we discuss the key questions parents should ask when interviewing a pediatrician (and yes, you should interview numerous pediatricians before choosing the best fit for your fami...

The importance of healthy oral function is essential not only for infant feeding but also for a person's entire life. Poorly shaped palates, low resting tongue posture, restricted tongues, and mouth breathing are all common signs of oral restrictions or tension that can begin in the womb and influence one's health from infancy through adulthood. In today's episode, Jeannie Nelson, a...

In last week's episode (#272) you met legendary midwife-author Nancy Wainer. Well she's back today for Part II, where she joins us in a Q&A-style episode to answer our listeners' questions. Nancy experienced the first planned VBAC in the United States and she coined the acronym itself in her first book, Silent Knife, published in 1983. She has over 40 years of birth experience a...

This episode has been a long time coming and is finally here! Meet Nancy Wainer, the legendary woman who began the Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC) movement. Not only did Nancy coin the term VBAC, but she is the first on record in the United States to experience a planned VBAC. Nancy has been a midwife, fierce birth advocate, author, mentor, and teacher to thousands and thousands of women, moth...

Welcome to the June Q&A with Cynthia and Trisha! Today, we start the episode with all the romantic, hilarious, and random ways our community met their spouses, and we finish the episode with one woman's question to us: "If you were a dog, what kind would you be?" -- you'll hear us reach out to a friend on the spot to answer that question for us. In the regular version of th...

Can you imagine giving birth without ever "checking on" your baby? Without a test, an ultrasound, a need for reassurance from others that your baby is okay? And, what does it mean to cross the threshold from Maiden to Mother? How does a woman step into her wiser feminine self, relinquishing her controlled, organized, masculine energy and need for control in birth? What is required of a w...

Dr. Lizzie Kieffer is a doctorate of physical therapy with a specialty practice in women's pelvic floor health.  She joins us today to let us in on the little-known secret to protecting, relaxing, strengthening, and restoring your pelvic floor. She teaches us three simple techniques you can initiate immediately after birth to optimize pelvic floor recovery, how, when and why to do kegel exerc...

Dr. Trillitye Paullin is a molecular biologist and founder of Free to Feed , a consultation service for navigating infant food reactivity in breastfeeding dyads. Today, Dr. Trill joins us with one of her clients, Chelsea, a first-time mom who found Trill and our podcast and reached out to help spread the research around newborn food reactivity. Trill shares her ground-breaking research into why an...

Hello everyone! Cynthia and Trisha are back with the May Q&A episode. Today, we kick it off with an enlightening discussion on the worst parenting advice you have ever received--here's to all the things we never need to hear as mothers! Next, we hear one woman's beautiful take on her cesarean scar. Then, we dive into your awesome questions beginning with: What is the likelihood that...

Today's episode is a four-way conversation between us and a mother and daughter who are living in France. Nicola Thompson is a former L&D nurse of 30 years who worked in the U.S., and is now working in France as a traditional birth attendant, full-spectrum doula and IBCLC. Sasha Sharif, her daughter, is a mother of two with a third on the way. Sasha explains the impact her mother's l...

Tiffany and Kelly of Beautiful One Midwifery are a midwife team in California who both began their birth work as doulas.  As a result, they designed their practice from a hands-off, hands-out approach--meaning, the woman is the focal point of all decision-making making, and interventions are only utilized with her absolute permission and desire. Not only does this model require a woman to take rad...

Welcome to our first breastfeeding-only Q&A with Trisha & Cynthia. Trisha is a Certified Nurse-Midwife and International Board Certified Lactation Consultant with thousands of hours of clinical experience. Today's episode follows the format of our regular monthly Q&A episodes, where women call in with questions and we wrap up with Quickies at the end, but this time it's your...

Amanda Holden was planning a home birth with her first baby, having hired a midwife she loved. When she reached 42 weeks, her midwife terminated her care abruptly, due to Colorado state law prohibiting midwives from attending late-term home births. With a heavy heart but optimistic mindset, Amanda and her husband made the decision to birth in a hospital rather than have an unattended home birth. U...

Welcome to the April Q&A episode with Cynthia & Trisha. Today, we invite you to guess the two things that Cynthia and Trisha will never talk about on the podcast. Hint: They are not scandalous or controversial. Shoot us a DM with your guesses! Next, hear the most annoying habits from our podcast community regarding their partners. As for our questions this month, here we go: I had a pain-f...

Emma Armstrong,  author of The Fearless Birth Book, and Instagram birth influencer at @thenakeddoulaofficial, joins us today to delve into the meaning of pleasurable birth. We ask the questions, "Why should a woman want a pleasurable birth, what does it even mean, and what holds women back from experiencing pleasure instead of pain?" In this enlightening and off-the-record-style conversa...

You won't find an obstetrician anywhere in the United States who will birth triplets vaginally in the hospital, but today you'll hear the story of traditional midwife Kristine Lauria who welcomed them at home with the respect and reverence for birth every woman deserves.  Kristine witnesses some of the most "high risk" births around the world in her midwifery work for Doctors W...

When Carolyn was pregnant with her first baby, she went past her "due date." After declining an induction at 41+6, her doctor questioned her integrity as a mother, stating, "I am surprised your motherly instinct (to protect your baby) hasn't kicked in yet."  Knowing that she and her baby were ok, she continued to wait despite heavy pressure from her OB. When she passed the...

We are back with the March Q&A episode with Cynthia & Trisha.  We kick off today's episode with an unbelievable, once-in-a-lifetime story of an OB who holds off a mother's pushing to tie a bow in the baby's hair before being born! Next, we get into our questions beginning with a mother who wants to offer important birth advice to her friend's daughter but doesn't k...

In today's episode, three current and former L&D nurses join us in a roundtable-style conversation to share their behind-the-scenes experiences on the L&D floor. These three women get raw, real, and honest about what pulled them to this line of work and for one, what forced her to leave. They share their experiences and that of the women they serve on how birthing mothers are manipula...

Like many mothers, Taylor Chamberlain Dilk had no idea where to begin in preparing for childbirth. Lucky for her she has a large social media presence and requested recommendations from her audience, and lucky for us, Down to Birth Show came highly recommended. Once she started digging in, she felt her inner maternal voice rising to the surface.  She knew she wanted an unmedicated birth, but had n...

In this episode, we welcome back Dr. Stu Fischbein for his third appearance on  Down to Birth Show. We start the conversation by catching up on some of the latest problems occurring on the birth scene including VBACs, aspirin in pregnancy, the monetization of birth, late pregnancy ultrasounds, big babies, and due dates, before we get into the meat of the episode on Intrauterine Growth Restriction...

Welcome to the February Q&A with Cynthia & Trisha. To kick things off, we share some of your New Year's Resolutions--don't miss this as Trisha makes Cynthia momentarily speechless! Next, we dive into your questions beginning with: Is cord traction really necessary to birth the placenta? Another woman explains that she always throws up in labor right when her water breaks and asks...

In today's episode, Cynthia and Trisha break down some of the current guidelines published by ACOG (the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists). You'll see many of these guidelines favor physiological birth and stand for minimal medical intervention in exactly the ways we recommend, which makes it  all the more perplexing why so many of today's obstetricians don'...

IUGR or Intrauterine Growth Restriction is the latest trend on the obstetric scene--a diagnosis that has afflicted many mothers unnecessarily. Eric, a father of two daughters,  joins us on the show today to discuss his experience with his wife's IUGR experience.  When an early ultrasound told them their baby was measuring smaller than expected, they were sent to maternal-fetal medicine and th...

Have you ever wondered why we actually need to get a pap smear or why the testing guidelines frequently change? The presence of HPV or the Human Papilloma Virus is associated with an increased risk of cervical cancer and is the reason behind the pap smear.  A pap smear looks at the health of the cells in our cervix and the presence of HPV. When abnormal cells are found, it is usually recommended t...