Transcript
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Hello, today I have with me Micah Burgess.
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Micah is the mother of six, she is a doula in Waco, texas, and she is the host of the podcast My Doula Micah.
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Today she is here to talk about teamwork in the delivery room.
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Micah hello, thank you so much for joining me.
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Hey lady.
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Happy to talk.
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I'm so excited.
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We have talked about this collaboration for a while.
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I know It's fucking happening.
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I'm so excited We have a common goal and that is working together in the delivery room because we want moms to succeed at this birthing process, however it looks.
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But that requires a lot of teamwork and a lot of coming to the same page between the nurse, the hospital, the doula, the mother, the family member All of those people need to come together and set aside all of their stuff and work together to help the mom on this goal of birthing It's child.
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So, because you're a doula that comes in and helps guide what that support might look like, i'd love for you to elaborate on what the role of a doula is, because I don't think a lot of people know.
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I think people have assumptions they don't know.
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And also Kelly.
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You may not know this, but a lot of people still think that a doula and a midwife are the same thing.
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They don't know the difference, and so a midwife actually delivers your baby.
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If you hire a midwife, they would replace your obstetrician, but a doula is simply a chopper's labor.
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Coach Literally means servant.
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I don't do anything medical, i'm not going to deliver your baby.
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I don't want to deliver your baby.
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I have a job, and when people hire like a modern day doula would be someone that helps prepare a family prenatally about, maybe, what to expect.
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Typically, my main clientele would be women that are wanting to have a more natural childbirth experience, and so we go over a lot of what that looks like and what that means.
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A lot of people think that doulas only support home birds or birthing centers, and that's not true.
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I literally built a thriving career here in Waco, texas, and my specialty was natural hospital birds And it's very rewarding, very rewarding, and I think that there's a lot of different kinds of doulas, if I was going to be honest, which I didn't realize until I really got on Facebook and started getting to know other doulas and other Facebook groups, and so the approach is different.
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The thoughts are different.
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Some doulas really only want to go to home birds or birthing centers.
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They're not comfortable supporting a woman in the hospital.
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And then there are some doulas that are very adamant about having your baby a certain way, that there's a right way to do it.
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And I think what I have found, not only just in my career but also as a mom of six that at the end of the day, birth is birth.
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Yes, i have a goal maybe going in a birth plan.
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I want a birth experience a certain way, and that's great.
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But what I'm really learning is that having a positive birth experience is the most important thing And I, early in my career, realized I'm going to leave my agenda as a doula at the door.
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This isn't about me.
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This is about the laboring mama and what kind of experience she wants and needs at the end of the day.
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And there's a huge difference in delivering at home and delivering at the hospital.
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There's a really big difference And I think it's important for a family to understand the difference And I think it's important for a doula to understand the difference.
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So I talk a lot about that on my podcast, yes, and I listened to that and I loved it, and I loved your book.
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By the way, too, let's go ahead and plug your book.
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Yes, i was rolling, rolling with laughter.
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So I really I love that you're talking about putting the agenda at the door and really working together, because the hospital has policies that they abide by.
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A hospital birth is going to look a little bit more medical, or, if it's not medical, it's going to.
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We're going to offer you things that are medical, that are put in place to ensure safety is available in the context that the hospital understands safety, which is the medical context.
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So things like an IV port will probably be put in.
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You don't have to be hooked up to it.
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You may be offered fluids or medications through that IV, which can be declined if it is not medically necessary.
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There's, additionally, some other things that may be perceived as inconvenient, such as being hooked up to a monitor for certain periods of time so that we can ensure, in our medical way, the safety of the baby based on medical studies that are considered evidence based practice.
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Right, and I'm saying it in that way because we don't really do studies on natural birth.
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Right, we don't do randomized controlled trials on women laboring naturally Right.
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So the only thing that we know as a medical community is the way that the medical community has set things up, of course, and women have birthed babies for the since the beginning of time Yes, some successfully, some not so successfully And the goal of the medical community is to use science in the way that we understand it and have studied it, in order to improve outcomes, and sometimes we're successful.
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And, yes, the goal for the medical community is for there to be a safe delivery for both baby and mom.
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All of that came about, i mean, honestly, there's been doulas way before there were doctors.
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Oh, yeah, because I mean, when a woman went into labor before there were hospitals and doctors, i mean it was her friends and her neighbors that showed up Exactly To help her.
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Yeah, okay, so this is the idea of having a support person in the room, somebody that's going to help you physically.
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Let's find a good position mentally.
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Hey, you're doing so good This next contraction.
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Let's breathe through it together Emotionally.
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I know you're so tired and you're ready for this to be over.
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Come here, girl, let me give you a hug.
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I mean, that is essentially what I do in a lot of respects And because that element has been removed once the medical aspects hospitals, obs came into play, and I think one of the things I really try to do with my clients is educate them on especially what the role is of a labor and delivery nurse.
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Most people don't understand their job and what their role is And they're surprised that the nurse wasn't hanging out with them for hours And I'm like well, first of all, the amount.
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You can't even imagine.
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All of the paperwork, all of the things they're required to do.
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They have to, they have to fill out all of those things And, trust me, none of them want to.
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They would not prefer to hang out with you.
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Okay, i have lots of friends now that are L and D nurses that they'll come in and they're like, okay, i'm hiding out in here for a while And they literally sit down and prop up their feet and we talk and my clients are involved in the conversation.
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It's super laid back.
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I mean that they would love for every person to look that way, but it that's just not possible.
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They have more than one patient, more than likely, that they are taking care of.
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They answer to like three different entities.
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They answer to, first of all, they are the upholders of hospital policy.
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That's not even really the doctor's job.
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That is the labor and delivery nurses job.
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She also answers to the OB.
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The OB decides what's going to happen, what kind of cares, the nurse updates the OB.
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So the nurse is answering to them and answers to the patient.
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That's a lot, that's a lot of hats to be juggling, and so I just don't think people fully understand that role, and so, in my opinion, that's where it's really great to have a doula there.
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If you're wanting somebody that has been to births before that is going to try to help you accomplish maybe a more natural childbirth experience, you're mostly what women are looking for.
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They want to be calm, they want to feel in control, they want to know how to attack this contraction and how to breathe properly.
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They'd like to find the best position so that they're comfortable, but it's still working well for them to have consistent hard contractions.
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They want somebody to remind them that they're giving births and not dying.
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They want somebody to maybe advise them on okay, we could go this route or this route.
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What's the plan here?
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What's the great advice?
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And so I really want my clients to understand all the ins and outs of that And I prepare them for the things that they will be faced with, the decisions that they're going to be making upfront, so that they're not surprised when the labor and delivery nurse comes in and says, hey, we have not gotten a good read on baby with the monitors for about an hour now, and it's mostly just because you're up and about moving around.
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Hey, let's find a position where you're comfortable and I can still be hearing baby.
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We're getting closer and closer to delivery And we want to make sure baby's still doing well, and the truth is, the baby's heart rate is the best indicator if everything is okay or not.
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It just that's your best indicator, because we can't look inside there and really see.
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And so What should happen?
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what I want to see happen and what I've worked really hard in my community to have happen is I Want to work with that L&D nurse.
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Great, yes, let's do it.
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Let's find a good position.
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I will literally hold that monitor in place, if you want me to, so that you can walk out of the room and know We're gonna get a good read on baby.
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I want you to be able to get that.
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This is a benefit to my client and to your patient when you and I are Collaborating on the best way for you to get your job done.
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Listen, kelly, i want you to do your job well.
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I Want you to do your job well, and what I have found is that when I let you do your job Well, you let me do my job well, and what I have been trained in is Natural job, birth and comfort measures, and here's how we breathe through that and that's what I have been trained in, and so When you see that I am not standing in your way on doing your job, then you don't stand in my way and doing my job and what I have found is we don't run into each other, we don't trip over each other, we're helping each other.
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There's not Tension in the room, we're not combating.
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There is actually nothing to be fighting about.
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Anyway, you could tell I'm passionate about this topic, i know you are and so am I.
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You're just voicing all of my, my thoughts and feelings.
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I just think that it's a beautiful dance when a labored and delivery nurse and a doula can work together And I love those experiences 100.
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And I love that experience with the mother and you know, i honestly, because I can't be in there every second of the birthing process I need someone there that is going to help that mother get through it.
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Otherwise it's all kind of on her.
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I can, i can Put someone in a position that's comfortable for the moment.
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Yeah, but because you need to maintain a dynamic pelvis Sometimes, you know you need someone that's there constantly in order to make that happen, and I can try to teach the other support person what to do.
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But you know, everybody's kind of just learning right when this is all happening.
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So to have somebody there that understands all those comfort techniques that can change the atmosphere of the room to something That's calm, whether it's with the, the essential oils or the fairy lights, or you know I love coming into the rooms that are just like have this vibe right.
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Yeah, i also love someone that's there Helping to reposition the patient when it's appropriate.
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Yeah, and like you said, it is important to get those data points, which is for mothers in labor, at least in the early stages of labor.
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For the Most part, that's a 20-minute segment of what we call a reactive strip, which is moderate variability, and we'd, we'd love to have two accelerations in that baby's heart rate.
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So we want to see a nice wiggly heart rate and, like some, some jumps that tell us that that baby's neurological system is intact and Still that the baby is just, you know, rocking through this labor.
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And that's all we want, that's all I care about, is to be able to put that data point in the computer so that Everybody is reassured that everything is going well.
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Yeah, and then, honestly, sometimes the data point of having How we have progressed is somewhat helpful, yeah, however, yep, most of the time moms can tell us that Let's think it to that point where there's so much pressure, right, that we know a baby's gonna come out.
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Yep, you know exact.
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As long as the baby's safe, does it really matter, right?
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It's gonna come out at some point, exactly, exactly, and I think you know again, because I don't do anything medical, honestly, i'm glad it really does free me up to do my job.
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I am not watching the monitor, i don't have to, you are, i don't have to do that, thank goodness, you know, and so I'm.
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I'm glad because it really doesn't enable me to do what I am there to do, and what I really want is when a laboring mom is Calm and is successfully breathing through her contractions beautifully, she's not traumatized, she's not scared, she's progressing well.
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That benefits Everybody.
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I mean, that's one of the things that I'm.
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One of the OB's that I worked with here in town It was like, hey, micah, what you're doing for women makes my job easier, and so that's exactly what I want.
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I want to bridge the gap Yes, for my client between me and the medical team, because I want my client to know hey, we are all team, sarah, everyone in this room Wants you to have a positive birth experience, and I remember this one OB telling me we were having a conversation.
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I had gone to his clinic one day so we could actually have a conversation.
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It's hard to have a conversation with an OB in the labor and delivery room.
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He's yeah, right, and so he and I were having a conversation in his clinic and he was like listen, i don't care how she wants to have her baby, i'm not trying to mess with her birth, i don't care how she wants to do it.
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I just want to make sure that I'm being able to check the boxes and that I'm overseeing and watching.
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Because What I learned is that if, if the you know emergency door is at a 10, like we're knocking on the door, if we got to get this bomb into a C-section right now or we're gonna lose baby Nobody, including me, we don't want to get anywhere near that door, we're not, i don't want to get to attend.
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And so, typically an OB, maybe if we're getting to a three or five, it's gonna start talking and mentioning Hey, i'm noticing something or I'm concerned, potentially, about something.
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An OB might be communicating some thoughts, some concerns, some wishes to be considering, and I think They communicate that in plenty of time to help maybe the mom get adjusted to the fact that maybe we might have to Do an intervention here, and so we want to have that conversation sooner rather than later.
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So what I learned is okay, they're not saying you're done, but the panic I think, oftentimes with a mom or even a doula, because it was even brought up Yeah, have this feeling that, wait, you're trying to stop me from getting what I want, and that what I have found is that that's actually not What's happening.
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It's it's a conversation, and so I've learned how to Put some strategies in place in the birthing room so that there can be a conversation, so that I can hear what he's trying to say, what he's concerned about, and so I teach my clients how to ask good questions.
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Oh, wow, okay, you're concerned about that.
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So, wait, are we in an emergency situation right now?
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And he's like no, no, there's not an emergency.
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Okay, great, good.
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What happens if we don't do what you're saying right now?
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Well, nothing's gonna like happen if you don't do it.
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I just want us to be sinking along those lines Okay, great, perfect.
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Thank you for telling us that We don't wanna get to that point either.
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Are we cool to still keep doing what we're doing?
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Yeah, y'all can do it as long as mom and baby are fine.
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Y'all can do this as long as you want, perfect.
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So those questions and that cooperation, acknowledging what's been said agreeing.
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We don't wanna be an emergency that communicates to the medical staff.
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I'm not trying to knock on emergency door either.
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I'm not gonna ignore if there needs to be a medical intervention and I'm not leading my client in that way either.
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So then that brings a relief and a reassurance to the medical staff that I'm not there trying to mess with their job.
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Right, they're not trying to mess with my client's birth.
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They're happy with me doing what I'm doing.
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So now we're establishing this trust.
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Now the next time I come in I'm trusted a lot more.
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Then, after I've been there for a year and they know I'm not cutting the knees off of these OBs and say don't be a doctor ourselves.
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I mean, i am not the medical provider.
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I'm actually not gonna say that I am going to give my client all of the options.
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I am gonna let them know what all their options are so that we can have that discussion.
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But I'm not there to try to change hospital policy.
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I think if you're a doula, and that is what you're trying to do, you're in the wrong line of work.
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There is a spot for you somewhere if that's what you're passionate about, but at the end of the day it's not helping the client that you're working with right now.
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Yeah, if your goal is to try to change hospital policy, are there some things that need to be changed?
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I probably yeah.
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As a person who's more natural childbirth friendly, yeah, i would love to see some things updated or changed, for sure, but that's not why this mama hired me.
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Right, yeah, and there's my.
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I work at a couple different hospitals and I have worked at other hospitals and I've noticed that the policies are slightly different in every single one And there are things that I wish that I could do at certain hospitals, but it just doesn't work with the workflow And the thing that I have come to understand is that nothing stays the same.
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So if I don't like something, i just kind of decide I'm gonna wait a minute, might mention it, i might mention it a couple more times, i might just keep talking about it And eventually I found especially if it's something that is evidence-based practice or if it's something that is being researched, they're starting to compile good data on it, i might start mentioning it.
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But it does take a while for things to change in a medical setting because you have to have a lot of good data.
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There's not a whole lot of experimentation that happens at the bedside, right, right, right.
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So if you have a tiny little research trial in one area of the world that's a small population and there is data that suggests that one of these interventions might have an outcome that you are not interested in, i'm not gonna say bad outcome, because bad for one person may be fine for the other.
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If that's what we're looking at, probably in the hospital, it's not gonna be something that is going to be a policy.
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We're gonna go with the bigger trials, all the information compiled together.
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It may not be that way forever, but that's how it is for right now.
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There are things.
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You can decline, certain things And, depending on what that thing is that you're declining, you're either gonna get very little pushback or you may get a lot of pushback, and it has a lot to do with, without mentioning certain specific interventions, it has a lot to do with, again, how much data is involved.
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So I think it's really important to have that conversation when we walk in, because if I am admitting a patient and I'm lucky enough to have the doula there when I'm admitting the patient because oh, my goodness, that's awesome We can all talk at that beginning in time and not necessarily later on when we're five centimeters and really working through things.
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I love to have that conversation ahead of time because then, for instance, if somebody says, oh, i don't want vitamin K, because there was this study of 200 people in Switzerland that had later in life, at age 40, all the babies that had vitamin K had cancer.
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Let's have a conversation about that.
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One trial because I'd like to talk about babies that didn't have vitamin K in Tennessee had a huge incidence of brain bleeds in a six-month period when there was this trend of declining the vitamin K, and it's all.
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I feel like in this world there are no facts Like what is a?
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fact, actually Everything's fluid.
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It's evidence.
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You may present the evidence to me and I may present the evidence to you and I'm gonna talk about my concerns and you're gonna talk about your concerns.
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And if the hospital policy says something, for instance that I have to have a waiver, for you to decline this medication boy, i'd really prefer to do it at the beginning.
00:21:33.244 --> 00:21:53.612
So, for instance, back to vitamin K, because it is a medication that is recommended at most hospitals by most Nick users special care, nurseries or whatever you have at the hospital you're gonna probably need to decline in writing and also may need to have a conversation with the neonatal provider because we have to have that medication in within an hour.
00:21:53.612 --> 00:22:00.575
it's so much better when you do that before you give birth rather than waiting and having that conversation later.
00:22:00.575 --> 00:22:08.290
Now, if you come in and you're 10 centimeters right, sure, sure We're not gonna have that conversation right now, but I've had that conversation.
00:22:08.290 --> 00:22:12.348
unfortunately, even though I've had full conversations and read somebody's birth plan.
00:22:12.348 --> 00:22:23.872
I have had situations where I am hanging blood on a mom who is passing out and the last thing she says to me before passing out is I am declining the vitamin K And I'm like whoa, that's not what I wanted to hear.
00:22:24.153 --> 00:22:24.734
Yeah yeah.
00:22:25.105 --> 00:22:50.295
So you know it's like it's hard because we come from a place where we've seen those kinds of things and it's triggering as providers, and so we really, really try to, we try to work with you and we try to work with your desires, because I want you to have the beautiful, perfect birth that you want, but that involves having a healthy mom and a healthy baby.
00:22:50.295 --> 00:22:58.493
I really don't think anybody comes in desiring the birth process to be better than the birth outcome.
00:22:58.684 --> 00:23:10.133
I think many, many, many women would like for the birth process to be just as successful as the outcome, which is a healthy baby right.
00:23:10.133 --> 00:23:13.433
And we really, you know we're women.
00:23:13.433 --> 00:23:15.592
I want what I want you know what I'm saying?
00:23:15.612 --> 00:23:20.712
Yes, I get that, i get that, and so let's shoot for that, why not?
00:23:20.712 --> 00:23:23.071
Let's try to check all the boxes.
00:23:23.071 --> 00:23:24.911
You know, i'm certainly not opposed to that.
00:23:24.911 --> 00:23:26.893
I want you to have the experience that you want to have.
00:23:26.893 --> 00:23:30.607
I will say this as a doula, you know a lot of my training.
00:23:30.828 --> 00:23:35.233
I did go to a lot of homebirds, but my career was primarily in the hospital.
00:23:35.233 --> 00:23:37.413
I really felt like that ended up being my calling.
00:23:37.413 --> 00:23:38.971
Women really need help.
00:23:38.971 --> 00:23:43.010
If you want to have a natural birth in a hospital, that's hard, you know.
00:23:43.010 --> 00:23:52.672
It's a totally different bird than if you're at home, and my approach as a doula is completely different at a home birth than at a hospital.
00:23:52.672 --> 00:24:00.615
And so I guess what I would say is you know a lot of my clients who are having their babies in a hospital.
00:24:00.615 --> 00:24:11.557
They want a more natural experience, and the plan is to deny just about everything, and it's not even that the L&D nurse kept bugging them about it.
00:24:11.557 --> 00:24:22.151
It's that because of the challenges, because of the things we're working around, because I've been stuck in a hospital room for 18 hours, i'm done you know what.
00:24:22.171 --> 00:24:37.671
I'm saying And that is totally fine, and I feel like a huge part of my job as well is to I want to empower my clients that their choice, no matter what their choice is Is there power to choose?
00:24:37.671 --> 00:24:38.173
It is.
00:24:38.173 --> 00:24:48.469
If there are power to choose, after 24 hours stuck at 4 centimeters, no sleep and no food, to go ahead and have the epidural.
00:24:48.469 --> 00:24:55.252
I'm going to celebrate her choice and say, heck, yeah, you need to sleep because you're still going to push a baby out.
00:24:55.252 --> 00:24:56.650
Let's avoid a C-section.
00:24:56.650 --> 00:24:58.329
I think this is the right move.
00:24:58.329 --> 00:24:59.093
Do you understand?
00:24:59.093 --> 00:25:02.250
So what happens at the babies here and now?
00:25:02.250 --> 00:25:06.578
she feels good about her choice and not guilty about her choice.
00:25:06.578 --> 00:25:07.854
That's helping nobody, y'all.
00:25:07.854 --> 00:25:10.107
That's helping nobody.
00:25:10.107 --> 00:25:17.548
To make a mom feel guilty or not encourage her to embrace the choice that she made.
00:25:17.548 --> 00:25:22.147
It's fine, it's okay, it can be good.
00:25:24.385 --> 00:25:32.315
And I am personally not one of these people that, hey, as soon as you walk in the door, hit me up with the epidural and everything seems to be going fine.
00:25:32.315 --> 00:25:34.553
I don't want people to do that.
00:25:34.553 --> 00:25:36.951
I mean that's a strong medication, it is.
00:25:36.951 --> 00:25:39.470
But the fetal in your back, i mean that's a big deal.
00:25:39.470 --> 00:25:42.114
I mean, let's think about that a little bit longer.
00:25:42.114 --> 00:25:46.394
That just happens to be my bit, that just happens to be my preference and what I think works.
00:25:46.394 --> 00:25:55.009
That doesn't mean if a mom ends up getting an epidural, who originally wanted to go all natural, it doesn't mean she failed, doesn't mean she's not strong.
00:25:55.009 --> 00:25:56.470
It just doesn't mean any of that.
00:25:56.470 --> 00:26:06.213
And so I really want my clients, at the end of the day, to always feel like, when they look back at their birth, i'm so thankful for my birth.
00:26:06.213 --> 00:26:08.770
It was hard as hell, no doubt about it.
00:26:08.770 --> 00:26:10.449
I can't make that part go away, y'all.
00:26:10.449 --> 00:26:11.652
I'm not a magician.
00:26:11.731 --> 00:26:18.477
It's going to be hard, it's going to be hard, but it can be inspiring and monumental and good.
00:26:18.477 --> 00:26:28.195
It can be a good, positive experience, even though it was hard And even if you went with plan B and sometimes you guys, plan B is better than plan.
00:26:28.457 --> 00:26:28.576
A.
00:26:28.876 --> 00:26:34.135
And that would be my encouragement to any doulas that are listening right now.
00:26:34.135 --> 00:26:41.049
Yes, we have an idea and we know what our training is and we want to help promote a more natural experience.
00:26:41.049 --> 00:26:44.213
Yay, yes and amen all for all of that.
00:26:44.213 --> 00:27:04.588
But at the end of the day, when you look at this mama and she is absolutely 100% mentally, emotionally done her body's gone through the ringer is your choice going to be what you think is best or is your choice going to be to support her and now what she needs to get through the birth?
00:27:04.588 --> 00:27:06.548
What is your choice going to be?
00:27:06.548 --> 00:27:15.749
And I would say that the birthing experience it goes with a mom for a very long time forever actually.