Evidence Based Birth®

On today's podcast, we will be talking with Tyler Jean Dukes, my doctoral fellow intern.  Tyler (she/her) is a doctoral candidate and graduate instructor at Texas Christian University. Over this past year, Tyler has been working with me as part of a graduate fellowship program. Tyler specializes in the medical humanities and early British literature. She is also a trained childbirth doula, which i...

On today's podcast, we talk about how to evaluate clinical research and how it is actually carried out. We are currently in the midst of a free 30-day trial of the EBB Pro Membership, and this podcast episode is a sample part of a class series inside the membership! Have you ever wondered how research is carried out, and why certain things are studied... but why other aspects of birth and midwifer...

On today's podcast, we're going to talk with Mary Kathryn DeLodder about licensing certified professional midwives in Kentucky.  Mary Kathryn DeLodder (she/her) is a consumer advocate and leader of the Kentucky Birth Coalition. From 2012 through 2019 she worked on efforts to license certified professional midwives in Kentucky. She is now working on legislation to improve access to birth centers in...

On today's podcast, we have an exciting takeover in celebration of Pride Month. We have Mystique Hargrove, Kortney Lapeyrolerie, and Nadine Ashby to talk about their experiences as Black queer and trans birth workers. Mystique (She/They) is the radical femme CEO, and creator of "The Black Birth Healer." Mystique is a holistic birth and postpartum wellness specialist who is certified as a full spec...

On today's podcast, we're going to talk with Dr. Stephanie Mitchell about starting a midwifery-led birth center.  Dr. Mitchell is a certified nurse-midwife who earned her BSN from Curry College, along with her MSN and her doctorate of Nursing Practice from Frontier Nursing University. Dr. Mitchell is the founder of The Birth Sanctuary of Gainesville, Alabama, a freestanding birth center under deve...

On today's podcast we are excited to feature Feminist Midwife, Stephanie Tillman (she/her), a midwife at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Stephanie is on the Board of Directors of Nurses for Sexual and Reproductive Health and the Midwest Access Project. Stephanie is also a member of the American College of Nurse-Midwives Ethics Committee and is an advisory committee member of the Queer and T...

On today's podcast, we are thrilled to share with you an empowering and transformative home birth story from Trish and Mimi Ang. Trish (she/her) and Mimi (she/her) are first-time parents to their baby boy, Aspen Kai, and they are graduates of the EBB Childbirth Class. Mimi and Trish fell in love three years ago over rock climbing, and pushed up their home insemination plans last year due to COVID....

On today's podcast, I'm so excited to welcome Dr. Shannon Clark. Dr. Clark is a double board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist and maternal-fetal medicine specialist focusing on the care of people with perinatal or fetal complications in pregnancy.   With a special interest in pregnancy after the age of 35, Dr. Clark has been inspired not only by the experiences of friends and patients but b...

On today's podcast, we're going to talk with Mera and Dimitri about having their fourth baby after the age of 35 and giving birth before they could make it to the hospital.  Mera is a freelance writer, enrichment educator, and mom of four living in South Carolina. Dimitri is an army veteran studying computer science and a father of four in South Carolina. Mera and Dimitri recently gave birth to th...

We are thrilled to announce that we have updated the research information on one of our most popular articles, the Evidence on Advanced Maternal Age. My mom had her first baby at the age of 19, and that was "normal" back then. But today, it seems like delaying pregnancy until your 30s or older is becoming the norm. All around the world, the average age at first birth is going up and reaching recor...

Today's podcast episode is focused on a very important topic— the Evidence on Midwives. We've been asked for years to publish an article or podcast on the evidence on midwifery care, and we felt there was no better day to release a podcast episode on this topic than May 5th, International Day of the Midwife! In this episode, I discuss the different types of midwives, the history of midwifery care...

On today's podcast, we are thrilled to share with you an important interview with the co-founders of The Black OBGYN Project, Dr. Rachel Bervell, and Dr. Tamandra Morgan.  Dr. Rachel Bervell, a graduate of Harvard and Georgetown University, is the founder of the nonprofit organization "Hugs for Ghana," and co-founder of "The Fresh Resource Urban Initiative Team" or FRUIT, which addresses food inse...

In this week's podcast, we wrap up our mini-series on breech babies by covering the latest research on external cephalic version (ECV) for breech positioned babies! Topics covered in this podcast episode include updated information on: How common it is to have a breech positioned baby How often people are offered and receive an ECV for a breech baby The effectiveness of ECV for lowering the risk o...

On today's podcast, we have the pleasure to talk to our honored guests, Dr. Rixa Freeze and Dr. David Hayes about breech vaginal birth.  Dr. Rixa Freeze has a Ph. D. from the University of Iowa and is a researcher, professor, and mother of four children. Her current research specialization is vaginal breech birth, and she's president of Breech Without Borders, a 501(c)3 non-profit. She also blogs...

On today's podcast, we will be talking with EBB Childbirth Class parents, Janae and Andrew Rick, as they share their unique birth story about their vaginal breech birth.  Janae is a senior graphic designer for a makeup company. Andrew is in the restaurant industry working as a bar back and bartender in Minneapolis.  After recently buying their first home at St. Paul Park in October of 2020, they g...

On today's podcast, I am excited to welcome a special guest and my friend, Cristen Pascucci of Birth Monopoly! Cristen and I talk about how to file hospital complaints when people experience mistreatment or unsafe care during childbirth.  Content warning: Obstetric violence, birth trauma, and sexual assault in obstetrics.  A former communications strategist at a top public affairs firm in Baltimor...

On today's podcast, we will be talking with our honored guest, Dr. Amber Warmsley. Dr. Warmsley is a wife of five years to an amazing husband and a mother of two young children. She's a native Southern Californian transplanted to the D.C. metro area who will always love the beach. Dr. Warmsley is also an attending board-certified practicing OB-GYN with 8 years experience, 12 years if you count res...

On today's podcast, we will be talking about the evidence on using erythromycin eye ointment for newborns. As this is a controversial topic, I am excited to talk about the intriguing res earch evidence and the history of eye ointment regarding how it started and why it was used in the past, as well as why it is still being used today. We have covered this topic before here in our Signature Article...

n today's podcast, we will be talking with Brooklynn and Hoang Pham. Brooklynn and Hoang currently live in Davis, California, and are the parents to Marvel, who turned seven months last December. Brooklynn is the senior managing director of Teach For America in Sacramento, and Hoang is finishing up his final year of law school at UC Davis School of Law. They took the Evidence Based Birth® Childbir...

On today's podcast, we talk with L&D nurse, Ann Marie Gilligan, about perinatal positioning during labor. Ann is a labor and delivery nurse in Minnesota, who is trained in high-risk obstetrics and advanced fetal monitoring, certified through Waterbirth International and also, certified as a sexual assault nurse examiner. Ann has 30 years of labor and delivery experience, ranging from the start-up...

I'm pleased to share with you today's podcast episode, which is a comprehensive update of the research evidence on COVID-19 and pregnancy and childbirth! To view the scientific references for this article, visit the COVID-19 resource page here and look for the February 17, 2021 podcast episode text. In this podcast episode, I cover: The current global situation What we know so far about prevention...

On today's podcast, we're going to talk with Nathalie Walton, CEO of the Expectful app, about coping with anxiety during pregnancy and postpartum— especially when you have a high-risk pregnancy. Nathalie is the CEO of Expectful, the number one meditation and sleep app for growing families. She has spent the last eight years in leadership roles at Airbnb, Google, and eBay. As a new mother to her 10...

On today's podcast, we are talking with Jamie and Ryan English about their unexpectedly long but empowering hospital birth, as well as the effects of severe diastasis recti on the labor process. Jamie and Ryan are graduates of the Evidence Based Birth® Childbirth Class, which they took with EBB instructor Jennifer Anderson. Ryan is a commercial property manager and Jamie is a photographer. They mo...

On today's podcast, I'm excited to talk with Kimberly Seals Allers. Kimberly is an award-winning journalist, five-time author, international speaker, strategist, and advocate for maternal and infant health. A former senior editor at Essence, and a writer at Fortune Magazine, Kimberly is a leading voice on the socio-cultural complexities of motherhood. Kimberly is also the founder of Irth , a new a...

On today's podcast, we will be speaking with Mystique Hargrove, EBB Featured Instructor. Mystique (She/They) is a certified full spectrum doula who serves BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of color), and LGBTQ+ individuals in Greensboro, North Carolina. Mystique also serves as an advisory board member for the United States Lactation Consultant Association, and is a Certified Lactation Educator,...