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Medicine Stories


Jul 8, 2019

Through untold eons mammals have evolved a beautiful birth-giving physiology based around a complex cascade of hormones that are released during labor. We give both mother and baby the best chance at a peaceful, ecstatic birth and postpartum period when we remember and respect this ancient dance.

IN THE INTRO:

  • Complex parenting topics: sleep, immunity, birth

IN THE INTERVIEW:

  • Sarah’s mainstream doctor grandfather and how she got interested in natural birth
  • The exquisitely designed ancestral/mammalian hormonal blueprint of labor 
  • The impact of (unnatural, external) stress on a laboring woman and how it disrupts the optimal hormonal flow
  • Creating optimal conditions for birthing and for bonding
  • The hormonal consequences of bypassing the natural physiological onset of labor (such as by induction or scheduled C-section)
  • How feeling unsafe (at a subconscious, limbic system level) disrupts the flow of birth
  • The irony of how we treat animals in labor v how we treat human women in labor
  • The ecstatic, altered state of mind we enter into during labor 
  • What first time mothers need to know but are often not told
  • Fear and mystery in birth
  • The body is designed to transcend the (natural, intrinsic) stress and pain of labor and they play a critical role in bonding
  • The role of vocalization in labor
  • Newborns need placental blood: cord clamping and how our cultural beliefs around that have changed over time
  • What “No hatting, no patting, no chatting” means for the postpartum period
  • Ancestral family sleep and motherbaby biological regulation: the many reasons that co-sleeping is best for babies and the science that backs it up
  • The fascinating phenomenon of some birth attendants being able to smell the moment before the baby is born

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