Realfoodology - Pregnancy Decisions Explained: Rh Factor, Testing & Birth Choices | Emily Stanwyck

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

296: I’m joined by Emily Stanwyck to dive into the conversations around pregnancy, birth, and the medical system that many women aren’t fully informed about. We talk through topics like Rh factor and RhoGAM, common interventions and testing, and how to approach pregnancy decisions with more clarity and confidence. This episode is all about understanding your options, asking better questions, and feeling more empowered in your care, whether you’re currently pregnant or planning for the future. Topics Discussed: → Rh Negative Pregnancy & RhoGAM → Informed Consent in Pregnancy Care → Hospital Birth vs Home Birth → Pregnancy After 35 → Routine Testing & Interventions → Vitamin K & Newborn Care → Fear-Based vs Individualized Care Sponsored By: → Cowboy Colostrum | Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code REALFOODOLOGY at ⁠https://cowboycolostrum.com/realfoodology⁠ → Our Place |  Our Place is having their biggest sale of the season right now! Save up to 40% on your sitewide now through April 12th. Head to ⁠https://fromourplace.com/REALFOODOLOGY⁠ to see why more than a million people have made the switch to Our Place kitchenware. And with their 100-day risk-free trial and free returns, you can shop with total confidence. Shop Our Place’s best sale of the season right now → Manukora | Head to ⁠https://manukora.com/REALFOODOLOGY⁠ to save up to 31% plus $25 worth of free gifts with the Starter Kit, which comes with an MGO 850+ Manuka Honey jar, 5 honey travel sticks, a wooden spoon, and a guidebook! → Timeline | Timeline’s clinically proven formula is now available at a new, lower price. Mitopure now starts at $79, when you go to ⁠https://timeline.com/REALFOODOLOGY⁠ → Shopify | It’s time to turn those “What Ifs” into “cha ching” with Shopify today. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at ⁠https://shopify.com/realfoodology⁠ Timestamps:  → 00:00 - Introduction → 01:15 - RhoGAM + Rh Negative Blood Types → 06:00 - Testing, Pregnancy Decisions + Options → 09:30 - When You Do / Don’t Need the Shot → 16:30 - Birth Philosophy + Medical System → 25:30 - Hospital vs Home Birth → 33:00 - Fear in Pregnancy + Care Approaches → 41:30 - Preeclampsia, Nutrition + Baby Aspirin → 48:30 - Genetic Testing + Amniocentesis → 53:24 - Vitamin K, Circumcision, GBS + Epidurals   Show Links: → ⁠realfoodology.com⁠ Check Out Emily: → ⁠Instagram - emilystanwyck⁠ Check Out Courtney:  → ⁠LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE⁠ →  ⁠Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide!⁠ →  ⁠@realfoodology⁠ → ⁠⁠PEOPLE VS THE POISON - Sign up now!⁠⁠⁠⁠ →  ⁠www.realfoodology.com⁠ →  ⁠My Immune Supplement by 2x4⁠ →  ⁠Air Dr Air Purifier⁠ →  ⁠AquaTru Water Filter⁠ →  ⁠EWG Tap Water Database⁠  Produced By: Drake Peterson

The antibiotics are only 80% effective if you get two doses that are four hours apart, but they do the doses every four hours in the hospital. More and more women are giving birth after 35 now and into their 40s. Everyone I know is having babies after 35. I know. I feel like I was a teen mom in Los Angeles. I got pregnant at 28. If you are a negative blood type woman, you are going to be offered this shot at around 28 weeks pregnant.

The Rogam shot is to protect a future. pregnancy. Would you kill for your baby? I'm like, what kind of question is that? Yes, obviously. Oh my God. Emily, I'm so excited for this episode. You have no idea. I have been wanting to do this for a while because it's obviously very relevant to me right now. And also, I've been getting a ton of questions from people. Yeah. So you are my birth dula. Yes. I'm very excited about. You too. Also very nervous. Yeah. Normal. As you know. Okay, so what should we get into first? I got a ton of questions on Instagram since it's top of mind for me,

and this was probably my number one most asked question, is let's talk about the Rogam shot and being negative blood type and your partner being positive blood type. Oh my gosh, this is such a thing. And what's really funny is this is like zero evidence-based, but somebody that I follow on Instagram goes, all the RH-negative people attract each other. And literally all my friends are R-H-negative.

It's so crazy. That's so, oh, yeah, because you are. friends. Yeah, I am too. And I am. Yeah. And my husband is positive. My husband's positive too. What is that? I know. So, okay, this is really complex. And I will just say, just to preface the podcast, I'm not a doctor or a medical professional in any way. So if I say something wrong, correct me. That's okay with me. This is just everything I've learned over the last literally, probably 15 years of being exposed to prenatal and postpartum care, whether that be fitness, that's where we started, and Dula work. So the Rogam shot is from the outside perspective,

not controversial. You should get it. Everyone should get this shot if you're RH negative. And let's talk about what it's for. So if you are a negative blood type woman, you are going to be offered this shot at around 28 weeks pregnant. First of all, your first pregnancy is not going to be negatively impacted in any way. So for all of you who are first-time moms, like the Rogam shot is to protect a future pregnancy. This is what I really needed to understand. Yes.

And wait, let's also make this clear before we dive into it. And maybe you're going to go there, so sorry from interrupting you. But this is something that I actually, it was very new to me until we tested Hector. So after we got pregnant, then we found out he was positive blood type. And then I was panicking because I didn't even know that this was a thing. Yeah. If you are negative blood type and your partner is positive blood type, if your baby, there's a pretty high chance of your baby being positive blood type. And if that's the case, then your body is essentially going to be fighting with the baby's blood, right?

Or your next baby. For the next one. Okay. Okay. So here's how this works. It's really complicated, but once you understand it, it makes sense. Your body right now is not attacking, quote unquote, that baby. But if there is a blood mixturing, for whatever reason, your body, if your baby is a positive blood type, your current baby,

If there's any sort of blood-mixing, and I'll explain what that could be in a sec, your body may start producing antibodies for positive blood-type babies for a subsequent pregnancy. A blood-mixdring could occur if you fell down the stairs. And part of your placenta abrupted or, like, came off the uterine wall slightly. It would be a trauma to the baby slash placenta, not life-threatening necessarily, but just like a trauma, like a fall or a car crash. That's why they do it around 28 weeks when your belly is more pronounced. The other time a blood-vextring could occur would be at birth. So blood flows at birth, but it's usually your blood.

The placenta blood. And this is where, again, I'm not a doctor. So I don't know, like, where the literal line is between my blood and the baby's blood is when it comes to the wall of the uterus and the placenta and that barrier. But that would be the other case where a blood-mixing could occur. So what you would do, or, like, what would happen if that happened at birth is if there was some sort of blood-mixing, like the baby's blood-blood got into your blood-blood's blood. stream. Your body would start producing antibodies because that positive blood type baby and your blood mixed. Okay. So you, the Rogam shot is essentially making sure that I believe your body has whatever protection it needs to either not create those antibodies or it like does something to protect

that future pregnancy. Again, not a scientist. I don't know. exactly what happens with that shot. But it's to protect a future pregnancy. Yeah. Yeah. So this is what I really wanted to understand. And we were going, so we had a long conversation, we being me and my husband, Hector, with our midwife after we found out that he was positive. And we had not gotten the results back from the baby yet, from the, what is that test called the MPT? NIPT. I was messed up. And we actually ended up getting really, really lucky. because apparently the chances of you being negative and your partner being positive

and the baby being negative are actually on the lower end. Really? Yeah. She was saying that it's more likely because the positive blood type is more dominant, so it usually takes dominance.

And my baby is actually negative. So I'm negative, baby's negative, so I don't even need the shot at all. All three of my kids are negative. So, and they had you get the Rogam shot, right? I got it. My first pregnancy, and it was a very fear-based decision

because I knew somebody who had a really traumatic situation and didn't get the real game shot. So I was like, absolutely, I'm getting this, no questions asked. But when you're pregnant, you are offered it at 28 weeks, and then postpartum, they blood type the baby once it's born. And then you get another shot before 72 hours postpartum if your baby is positive. So it's like a protection, quote unquote, in pregnancy, in the baby. event of a trauma and then you get it postpartum so now okay not making any recommendations but knowing what i know now so the blood typing wasn't an option for me with my first interesting it wasn't my mom either

yeah fetal blood typing wasn't an option it became an option that i was aware of in the last five years wow yeah so i got the rogam shot for my first two pregnancies at 28 weeks and then I didn't get them postpartum because my babies were negative. And so knowing what I know now, I would have waited till I was immediately postpartum and blood type to my babies, and then I probably would have gotten it postpartum knowing I was going to have another baby.

So for my third, I didn't get it because we're done. So I didn't need, I don't need to protect a future pregnancy. See, also, my third baby was a negative blood type baby. So I wouldn't have needed it anyway. So this is where I get so frustrated with the conventional medical system is that they don't explain this at all, the mothers. They're just like, you need this. They just say you absolutely 100% have to take it no matter what. They don't even test the baby's blood type.

I shouldn't say nobody does this, but this is the protocol. Yeah. Is it generally they don't test it. They just have you get it regardless. They don't explain it to anyone. My midwife and you, you both of y'all, talked to me through this. very, very extensively so that I was actually able to make an informed choice. Now, we ended up getting really lucky that baby is negative blood type, so it's not even a problem.

But had baby been positive blood type, we had already decided that what we were going to do is wait until birth and test and like double-to-act. Do an antibody test, which you can do as well. Exactly. And then we were going to make a game-time decision, probably get the Rogam shot if baby was positive because we know that we want to have more babies. Yeah. But we just really wanted to make sure that if we were going to absolutely,

absolutely get it. It was for good reason. Yeah. So what would be reasons to not get the Rogam shot? Okay, number one, and this is really annoying. They will still recommend this shot in hospitals even when your husband is a negative blood type. What?

Yeah. Why? They're like just, you know, it's precaution. What? I've heard, literally someone has messaged me on Instagram and they said, my doctor still wants me to get it. My husband is a negative blood type, though. I'm like, okay, wait, I don't, Just because, I mean, are they making money off the shot?

Like, what is that? I have, I think it's just such tunnel vision on standard of care. And it's so much fear. If they say you don't need this and you are a negative blood type, they're like liable. Yeah. It's just blanket statement care. So if you and your partner are both negative, you do not need the Rogam shot. Okay, not medical advice.

As a mom, I would not get the shot if my husband was negative. that's not evidence-based in any way. Well, you don't need it because you're not going to build up the antibodies because you're both negative blood type. And your baby will be a negative blood, I think. Yeah. I'd assume that'd be kind of weird. I don't know.

But yeah, you're good. Oh, that's crazy. Yeah. Another instance, I wouldn't get it, is if your baby is a negative blood type. So I had a hunch that my third baby would be negative. I also did not need it. You know, had we wanted a fourth child,

I still wouldn't have got it at 28 weeks because both of my previous children were negative blood type babies. So if you have had multiple pregnancies that were also negative blood type babies and you go on to have a third, you don't have positive blood type antibodies in your system, right? Yeah. This spring, if you're really trying to see results

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Head to from ourplace.com slash real foodology to see why more than a million people have made the switch to Rplace kitchenware. And with their 100-day risk-free trial and free returns, you can shop with total confidence, shop Our Place's best sale of the season right now. The other instance where I would not get the Rogam shot is if postpartum, you do have a positive blood type baby, but what if you didn't have a blood mixtureing? I don't think blood mixtureing is common.

So I would test for antibodies immediately postpartum. I don't know how chill hospitals are with that. I don't know if that's something they just are like, oh yeah, let's order that as a lab. They might be like, what? I don't know. They'll probably fight you on it. They might.

But midwives certainly can do that right away. And I want to say, like, I don't know how quickly antibodies are formed, but considering you'd get the Rogam shot within the first 72 hours, I imagine it's quite quick. It is quite quick. Yeah. So I would do an antibody test probably at the 24-hour mark, I'd assume when you would test.

And if you have not developed any antibodies, I wouldn't get the shot. Now, maybe if I had an abundance of caution, maybe I'd take another test at 48 hours. And if I'm still not producing any antibodies, I'd be like, okay, cool, there was no blood mixing. I don't need it. But that's a personal choice. Well, that's exactly it.

And that's just why I really wanted to explain this in great depth. And our midwife did such a good job of doing this also. And so did you. You guys both talked us through this and very well. And made us feel really comfortable about the choices that we were making and also helped us make a really educated decision. Yeah. And that's why, one,

I'm so grateful for the team that I chose because every step of the way, we have been talked to and educated in a way that we weren't being talked down to. It was like, hey, you have options. Yeah. This is everything that could happen. And same with the midwife. Like, I just love that the way that she explained it to us was, you know, these are all the different options that you have. This is generally what I see patients do. But whatever you want to do, I am 100% fully in support of. And we just, we left feeling incredibly informed over it. And what I'm seeing a lot of my DMs of women writing me is that their doctors are not having these conversations with them at all. They're just saying, you have to do this or your baby will be harmed and there's no discussion,

there's no nuance. And in so many cases, I mean, they could be, well, with my, well, they didn't have the test for my mom, but like perfect examples that my mom is negative. I'm negative. And they just made her get the Rogam shot for all of them just because she, because my dad was positive. Right. And there was no sort of discussion. Now again, it's a different time. They wouldn't have been able to test for it anyways. But there is a world in which you test baby right away when baby is born. And then you can make that decision. Then you can make that decision. And then, yeah, and then I think from there, it really is case by case dependent. There's also, I do want to make this point too, because our midwife told us this. There is a world in which you are negative,

baby is positive, you give birth to that baby, there's no problem whatsoever, and then there's no problem with future pregnancies. So, but you have to weigh the risks and you also have to look at the individual situation and go, okay, was there any sort of situation during labor where there could have been blood mixture? Are there antibodies present? If there's not, then there's not necessarily a need for it. Well, here's something I like to think about too, with every medical intervention. And I don't want to discount tragedies or the importance of medical advancements for life-saving care. Of course. But how did we get here?

How did we get here? How did the R.H. negative bloodline prevail and get to 2026 without the Rogam shot, which was introduced when, I don't know, the 70s, 60s earliest? Yeah. Like, this wasn't around in 1920. Correct me if I'm wrong. wrong, right? How did we get here? So I use this a lot for many instances with childbirth. In fact, my husband the other night, not trying to call you out, Hector, but I hear this and I see this a lot online. I'm seeing this argument on TikTok and Instagram a lot, and I'm sure you're

going to have something to say about this, where people talk about how being pregnant is a medical emergency and it's really dangerous for mothers. And my husband was on a bachelor trip. This weekend. And by the way, my husband was not saying that he believed this. But he just said that he and his friends were talking about how much respect they have for women because it's so dangerous for women to be pregnant. And I kind of scoffed and laughed at that. And it's no fault to my husband, but I'm seeing this narrative all over the internet as well where I have to push back to that and say, how do you think all of us ended up here on earth? It can be dangerous. But inherently being pregnant is not dangerous.

No. And I think this is the miss. There's a difference between danger and having the human nature fear of the unknown. That is scary. It is scary. Going to the moon is scary. Being a deep sea welder is scary.

Like, I'm not comparing giving birth to that, but it's an extreme situation. I would never go to outer space. I would rather give birth 100 times. Me too. Then go to outer space. Yeah, I have no desire. I remember having a conversation with my midwives.

And, you know, oh, and one thing I want to say just about the blanket statements with Rogam, and then I'll go to where I was going. The average OB appointment is seven minutes long. That's crazy. So crazy. I don't explain anything. So, like, our midwife appointments are 45 minutes to an hour. Oh, yeah.

We had an hour and a half appointment yesterday. Hour and a half. Like, they're so thorough. They're so in-depth. You create a loving relationship with your care providers. Like, that is just they don't have time for that in the hospital. So they're just like, you need this or else. Yeah.

Because it's my ass on the line. So I remember talking to my midwives and they were like, how are you doing emotionally? Like my first pregnancy, I was on cloud nine, positivity. And I just kind of went down from there every pregnancy. Like I can laugh about it because it wasn't that serious. But like, I was so happy in my first pregnancy. And I'm really grateful for that. I was blissfully ignorant.

And again, that's not to scare people. But I had no idea what birth was really like. Even though I had seen births before, I had never felt. felt it. And so I was like, I'm doing great. It's going to be awesome. I'm super excited. I genuinely was. And then that one appointment, they're like, how's everything emotionally? And I was like, okay, I'm going to be real with you guys. Like, I am afraid of dying. And they're like, okay, totally normal. Human. You're human. Congratulations. I was like, all right, cool. I feel better. I got that off my chest. I said, I don't, like, I don't think I'm going to die in childbirth.

That's, that's like, I'm not like projecting that onto you guys, but I just have that. And they're Like, that is normal. We hear it all the time. And I was like, okay, cool, I feel better. And so, yes, do women die giving birth? Sadly, yes, it happens. But birth and pregnancy inherently is not a dangerous situation by any stretch of the imagination. It is the most normal thing.

It is actually our primary function. Okay? And so it's actually really cool. One of the definitions of fitness, which I love, is the ability to reproduce. And it's like, that is just part of the human body. Are you fit enough to do this, have a baby, get pregnant? And so that, I loved that because that was the world I was in. But fear is very normal.

Danger and fear. Fear of the unknown, super duper normal. And so if someone's not afraid during their birth, you know, like I hear this all the time, like, oh, my OBIs amazing. Like, I'm not worried at all. I'm just like, I am not projecting my shit on. to you from what I've seen, but like, I need you to, like, have a little more stake in this game because you, you know, when you go from maiden to motherhood, and that's kind of funny to say that to you in your 40s, you're like, that's, but that's your transition right now, right?

You're going from, like, maiden to mother. And the claws come out when you become a mom, and you're used to the claws being out, right? So this will be cool. You're going to be, like, damn, Courtney, we thought you were. We thought you were a little nuts and now you're, sheesh. And I love it. I love that about myself. It changed me a lot.

And I want every woman to have that, like, can we swear on this podcast? Oh, yeah. Like, do not fuck with me at all. That fear needs to have something in its place of just this, like, intensity of confidence and commitment to yourself and not letting the system. dictate what's going to happen. There's a time and a place. I've been in situations at the hospital where, you know, like I was at a birth recently and it ended in a C-section and I said this, this is the right call. And they made the call at the right time where no one was scared. It was

non-emergent. It was just like, we know where this is going and it's going to end in a C-section. So we can either do it now. Yeah. And, you know, my clients were like, is this what you would do? And I was like, I would never put myself in a hospital personally. So no. But if I was you right now, yes, this is what I would do. Because you're coherent, you're happy, you're not stressed out, you're emotionally with it, you're, you know, in a pleasant enough mood.

Let's meet your baby. Let's not let this get scary. Time and a place, right? But before it gets to that point, don't let anybody dictate your care. So this is something that I feel. Talk about the claws coming out. So incredibly passionate about since I have gotten pregnant and since I have chosen my care team and have very, I have made a very strong decision to avoid the traditional conventional medical system as much as I possibly can. The way I put it in my own words is I say I'm avoiding it like the plague.

And I think some people when they hear that probably are freaked out. I'm sure people are judging me right now for it. But let me be clear, have never put myself in any sort of dangerous situation. We have amazing care. We're getting sonograms. We got the NPI test, NIP, whatever it is. NIPT. NIPT test.

Like, I'm not just fully raw dog in it here. Yeah. Yeah, like we have the tools to make this really safe outside of the home. Yes. One thing that I find myself reaching for every single morning, is my Manukora honey. Instead of using processed sweeteners, I do a heaped teaspoon into my coffee.

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It contains uralith and A, which supports something called mitophagy, basically helping your body clear out damaged mitochondria and support healthier, more efficient energy production. It's about supporting the foundation of how your body actually creates energy. For me, it's really about protecting strength and resilience long term. Timeline's clinically proven formula is now available at a new lower price. Mito Pure now starts at 79 when you go to timeline.com slash real foodology. So make sure you go to timeline.com slash real foodology. I just, I love sharing this little tidbit because it's such an important distinction.

OBGYNs and labor and delivery nurses are trained in medicine. They're in a hospital. They are not trained in physiologic birth. spontaneous physiologic birth is not a medical event. This is pretty obvious to me and you, I know that. But people tend to not make that distinction because birth has been in the hospital in America for over 100 years now. And we have now multiple generations of hospitalized birth, medicalized birth, surgical birth, as opposed to the physiological process.

And then you'll have the haters say, so many women died before the hospital. How do you know? Do you know that to be actually true? Or do you know the whole propaganda of the hospital entry of birth? I don't think you know that. Well, women have also died giving birth in hospitals, too. Still do. Yeah.

And so it's not that you're giving up the risk of death just by being in the hospital. In fact, sometimes you increase your chances sometimes. Yeah. I mean, notoriously, I think. feel like probably almost everyone has been touched by a story where, you know, a loved one went at the hospital, things cascaded wildly out of control, and the person ended up dying from some fluke, like medical malpractice, basically. Yeah. Safety is, I don't like the word illusion, but safety is not out there necessarily. Yes, there are things you can do to make your pregnancy

safe, a sonogram, making sure your placenta is not covering your cervix. Right? Like all these things that are like, cool, we've got the tools. Let's check it out. But safety is in here. For me, I have never felt safe in a hospital. But I've never been in an instance where I needed life-saving care. So I want to put that out there. If I needed life-saving care, I would go to the hospital. Of course. So they're trained in. And I'm not one of those people that's like, oh, I'm just going to put like a tincture on it or something. Like if I need life-saving care, I'm not avoiding the hospital. My arm is sticking out of my skin. I'm going to go to the hospital.

Of course. Yes. But would love to have a situation where we don't have to turn this into a medical intervention. And admittedly, when my husband and I first found out that we were pregnant and we were, you know, kind of debating, do we do a birthing center? Do we do, you know, do we get an OB-GYN? Do we, you know, think about doing a hospital birth? And my husband, so I, the way I describe it is I'm more scared of a hospital birth. I'm just one of those people that is inherently very fearful of birth.

I just am. Sure. To what you said in the beginning. Like, I am very scared. Yeah. I'm more scared of giving birth in a hospital than I am anything else. Yeah. And my initial reaction was, why don't we do a birthing center?

Because it's kind of halfway there, you know, halfway home birth, halfway, like, in the hospital. And we had a conversation with who is now our midwife. And she, the way that she described it, actually by the end, my husband was like full gung-ho home birth. Yeah. And I was a little bit like, oh, yeah, I think I'm there. I'm just still, like, scared in general. but the way that she described it is that she said the reason, and we told her we were debating doing a birthing center,

and she said, just so you know, if you do want to be under my care, I don't do birthing center births, but I fully support whatever decision you guys decide that you want to make. And we asked her, we said, well, why don't you do birthing centers? And she said, because what I've found, in my experience, is that the second that you start moving the mom out of the house when she's in labor,

the more likely you are to just have a cascade of interventions. She said the best possible scenario, best possible case is you just stay at home, you labor at home, and then, you know, God forbid there's some sort of medical emergency that's a totally different situation and we get you to the hospital and we have a connection with the hospital where we would take you. But if you're not wanting to have any sort of interventions, best case scenarios, we don't move you and you just stay where you are. Yeah, the first intervention is getting in the car.

That's literally what she said. Yeah. And I remember when our first was born, they left after four hours. And that's what happens with midwives. They leave. And I remember being like, you're like, hello, what do I do with this thing? She's leaving? Wait, what?

Because it's like, cool. Like, they do all the checks. They stay. They monitor baby for a little bit. But like, I just watched a video that a midwife friend posted of mine of a rhinoceros giving birth. And the rhinoceros came out. And the mom rhinoceros was just looking at it. didn't really even touch it.

The sack came off, and the rhino just started moving around and got up on its feet. I was like, okay, cool. Just like, all right, let's go eat. You know? It's so wild when they can walk like a meeting. Same with cows. Yeah. I watched a cow being born and literally just started walking within four minutes.

And I was like, what? I know. What? Yeah. It was unreal. Yeah. So birth inherently is not a medical event. And that is what the medical system has stolen from human.

truly. Because they treat it as a medical event because they are trained in medical birth. Yeah. I challenge all of you watching if you are under OB care and you desire an unmedicated hospital birth to ask your OB how many unmedicated zero zero, no potocin, no epidural, no cytotech, nothing, how many unmedicated births they have attended this year or in the last year? If you can find me one OB that says 10 or more, I will be shocked. Okay? That's how uncommon it is.

Wow. 89% of women use epidural. So they don't see. And I think the other 11% is you have mama bear claws out, great doula, or they give birth in the hallway. You know, like it was an accident. On the way. Yeah. This actually happened to my friend.

Yeah, and that can happen. Yeah. Yeah, so physiologic, spontaneous birth is not practiced in Western care. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and I wanted to say that, so, you know, after I made this decision and we've been going along our, you know, our merry way with our midwifery care and all that, we made that decision to do that, I have noticed. And I'm, I want to say this with care because I truly, I say this from a little. loving place and I don't I don't want anyone to feel ashamed. I honestly I say it as a place of

from observation of seeing how women have reacted or how they're they're reacting to their pregnancies versus how I am. You know, I get a lot of fear-based questions in my DMs constantly, almost every day now ever since women found out that I was pregnant, I'm getting, you know, constant, oh my gosh, are you doing this? Are you doing that? What do you do about this? Are you taking this thing. My doctor wants me to take this thing. Half the stuff I was like, okay, so actually one I want to talk about was I kept getting all those questions, well, is your doctor having you on baby aspirin? And I was like, wait, what? Why? And then found out that if you're quote unquote geriatric, which is after 35, they just automatically put you on a baby aspirin,

I'm so glad it was never even offered to me because I would have said no anyways, but I want to talk about this. But I just kept finding that there was so much fear around everything. and there's so much stuff being pushed. And again, to be very clear, my midwife, we have done all the normal stuff. We're doing sonograms. We're doing the tests. We're making sure that, you know, I just did my gestational diabetes test. Like, I'm doing all the normal stuff, but there's no fear.

Like every appointment we have is just like, okay, we're just testing, you know, we're checking on things. Everything looks great. Do you have any questions? Do you have any concerns? Like, you know, voice any concerns that you have. But I've been so at peace with this whole pregnancy, and I've noticed that there's a lot of fear in the conventional medical system. And it makes me sad. Like, I don't say this to judge other women.

It makes me sad for their experience because I'm so grateful that I'm living in so much peace around all of this. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, put yourself in a hospital. Are you cozy and comfortable in there? No, it's like sterile. And White Coat Syndrome is very rich. real. This idea that the doctors know more than you, you know, on paper is true. In one context,

medicine, sure. Yes, they know more than you. Do they know you in your feelings, in your body, in your heart and soul? No. Yeah. You're a number. And so they have to treat you like the lowest common denominator, which is everything's going to go wrong. Yeah. You're just on the assembly line. You are. Checking off boxes. If they treated everybody like picture perfect ideal birth, people would have way more problems. Actually, I would probably argue they wouldn't. But that's what they think.

They think, oh, well, if we just treat everybody like nothing's going to go wrong, then everything's going to go wrong. If we treat everybody like everything's going to go wrong, we can manage. Minimize and manage, yeah. We can medically manage. So this idea of geriatric pregnancy is so crazy to me. Oh, my God, it's so crazy to me. So this goes back to the idea of fitness, right?

And I don't want to discount, again, I don't want to discount anybody who's like needed to do IVF or whatever. I'm not saying like you're an unfit human. That's not, that's not the language or the intention of saying that. It's like our capacity to reproduce is inherently human. It's not a dangerous thing, right? I think if you need to utilize reproductive health, great, go for it. Do what you need to do. It's a very person-by-person scenario. But if you, let's just use you for an example. You're 41, right? Yeah.

You got pregnant naturally. Yeah. Right away. Yeah. But your birth, though, that's just going to be a disaster because you're old. Like, what? I know. What?

Well, where's the bio-individuality? Why aren't we testing everything and seeing where everything is? Because so far, all the tests we've done, baby looks great, genetics look great, blood sugar looks great. Like, why would we treat it any other way? starting something new is terrifying. I remember when I first started real foodology, I had all the what-ifs. What if no one listens?

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To put it really bluntly. And obesity causes major problems. And I think the baby aspirin thing probably goes along with that type of not optimal health. And I don't know why there's a 30, like, I can understand why there's a cap at 35, like you're geriatric after 35. But it's crazy that hasn't been updated with the times where more and more women are giving birth after 35 now and into their 40s.

I don't know. Well, okay, I guess that's not fair to say because it's my age range. But I'm like, I don't know anyone that's, everyone I know is having babies after 35. I know. I feel like I was a teen mom in Los Angeles. I got pregnant at 28.

The first... In L.A., that is teen mom. I know. The first private training client I told I was pregnant, she goes, did you plan it? I was like, yes. Yes. What? At 28, that's diabolical. I know. She didn't have any kids.

It was so funny. And she was like in her mid-40s, so it was pretty funny. She probably saw me as a teenager. But like the baby aspirin thing is I, as far as I'm aware, it's for two reasons. One, placental health. Very blanket statement. and two, preeclampsia prevention. And that is the big one that really pisses me off. Placental health is like just a, in my opinion, like a crazy blanket statement because I live under the umbrella of if your baby has a heartbeat that doesn't waver,

why would we assume the placenta would just all of a sudden quit on you? That makes no—that's like saying, oh, your heart could fail tomorrow. You're a healthy person. It's an organ that we grow. Yes, we get rid of it. But it's like, it's literally that. It's like, oh, well, your stomach could stop functioning at any minute. So you got to take this for the rest of your life.

What? That's so weird. It's very weird to me. It doesn't make any sense. And this is a newer practice, I think, right? Because I had never heard this until people started asking me about it in my DM. I'm sure it's relatively new. My mother-in-law had her last at like 42.

Go, mom. 44. Love it. In the 80s. Hell yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. She had six kids.

And she's like, I didn't even get an ultrasound. You know, like, oh, I have a girlfriend who's pregnant with number two, and she has never, she didn't do any ultrasounds for the first pregnancy, and she's not doing it for the second. I love that so much for her. I'm a little bit too anxious for that. Yeah. I needed to be able to see my baby. And no judgment for however which way people want to do this.

And I just want to say this really quickly because I know that everything we're talking about can be so sensitive and tender for people. My only intention with sharing all this is not to shame, judge, put my opinions, or like what I think other people should do. I'm just simply sharing what my whole process has been and what I've learned along the way and what I'm doing. That's it. Yeah. I'm in full, like, I have friends that have gone full OB, like epidural, like planned C-sections. Yeah, same. And I'm like, you do you, girl. I fully support how are you. over which way you want to do this, whatever you feel most comfortable with. This is just simply what I feel most comfortable with.

Yeah. There's no judgment on you. Truly, the judgment is on the system that manipulates us into believing that we are less than capable of doing the thing that is inherent to being a human. Thank you. A woman. Yes. Thank you.

They act like we're broken. Yeah. This is why the geriatric thing makes me so angry. Yes. They act like we're broken. We're just inherently broken. And after, you know, good luck getting pregnant after 35. okay, well, many women get pregnant after 35.

Yeah. Yeah. And so like this baby aspirin for placental health is like, it instills this, wait, what? My placenta could just stop working? That's scary. What kind of crock of crap is that? Yeah.

That's crazy to me. I've actually, and, you know, again, maybe that's why stillbirth happens. I don't know. I don't know. But to just blanket statement that, like, I would love the research that shows like Aspirin has drastically lowered stillbirth.

I don't think that that's the case. Yeah, I'm curious about that. I don't think that that's the case. To me, the aspirin for preeclampsia is way more annoying. And again, like you with ultrasounds, for example, you feel safer getting more ultrasounds. Love that. Great. Peace of mind is huge for your health, right?

Yes. And honestly, seeing my baby right now, it's like, ooh, everything I'm going through, I'm like, oh, there he is. Yeah. Yeah. That's a huge benefit of ultrasound. Yes, it says it's recommended for high-risk individuals to prevent or delay preclampsia. So here's the thing.

Again, this is what makes me mad and why I'm doing this whole episode is that I want care to be bio-individualized. If you are diagnosed as high-risk pregnancy, not just because, oh, my God, you're 38. Oh, my God, your high-risk, you're 38. No, no, no, no. Like, for me, for example, and why I love my midwife, right now, we had the very first conversation we had when we decided to take her on was, I'm 41, am I inherently at high risk? And she said, no. She said, we're going to do, we're going to do all the normal tests, and we're going to take this day by day. And if things start going south and, you know,

then we do diagnose you as high risk, then we're going to address it then. But inherently out the gates, we're not going to act like you're high risk. And what happens in the conventional medical system is right out the gates, 35 and up, oh, they're high risk. We're not even going to look at anything else. We're not even going to treat this as bio-individual care. And so you're just automatically being told that you're high-risk no matter what because of your age. So that being said, it says for high-risk individuals, they put them on baby aspirin to prevent or delay pre-eclampsia. If you are at very, very high risk for developing that because of whatever's happening in your pregnancy, then probably maybe something to consider. It might make sense. Yeah. The thing that drives me

nuts about this is preeclampsia most of the time, because there are absolutely outliers, can be completely managed, if not mitigated with nutrition. Wow. Of course. It is high blood pressure in pregnancy, which is very serious. And me, homebirth mom, if I was diagnosed severe preeclampsia, like you're at risk for stroking out, I would go get a C-section. I would be like, let's just, I'm 38 weeks, let's go do a C-section. It's not worth the risk to have elevated blood pressure for a prolonged period of time as a human and then especially as a pregnant woman. That is very serious.

Doctors aren't trained in nutrition. We have horrible nutrition in this country. Duh. This is a real foodology. What? That's news to me. Like, I just remember this mom that I trained years ago just being like, this baby just wants Taco Bell every day. And I'm just like, no.

We have created a world in which I can't say, hey, you should really stop that. And she had a C-section. And there's C-Section. Who knows what for? I don't think she had preeclampsia. But, like, your nutrition affects everything in pregnancy. It makes the most difference. Okay, I can't even believe I'm admitting this, but I'm going to admit it because you brought up Taco Bell. Taco Bell was my favorite in college.

So if people have been listening for a while, they know my story. I grew up not eating fast food at all and then went to college and had like a free-for-all. And then was like obsessed with Taco Bell. Dude, was obsessed. Yeah. Then I learned about nutrition, learned about the importance of food. I have not had Taco Bell in probably like 20 years. I was joking with some of my friends.

Actually, I might have even sent this to you because I sent it to a couple of my friends. during my first trimester, I was literally getting targeted all these like muckbang videos of women like overeating Taco Bell in their car. They literally would get like a cup of queso this big and like dip their burritos in it. And I was sending it to my friend being like, oh my God, I've never wanted Taco Bell so bad in my whole life. Okay. This is first trimester. You have like the weirdest food versions and the weirdest food cravings. And there were days where I was like, oh my God, why am I cravings so bad?

But I never gave into it because I knew the importance. importance of feeding my baby. You know what I did instead? I would make like, I'd buy like organic grass-fed cheddar and like some good tortillas and I was making like cheesy gordita crunches at home to satisfy that craving because I knew I was like I'm not going to subject my baby to this toxic soup crap. Like Taco Bell is not food. No. No. So yeah, your nutrition affects everything. And particularly what I have found for preeclampsia is high protein low. carb, which is hard when you're pregnant, but it's easier in the third trimester because you're really full. Really full of baby. And electrolytes, massively helpful for preeclamps, assuming you don't

have like a sodium sensitivity. I like mega dose electrolytes all the time. But in pregnancy, all the time, I could just go on such a rant about electrolytes in pregnancy and postpartum, But, like, if doctors were like, you need to take four elements a day instead of baby aspirin, that would probably be better. Yeah. Well, that's good to know. Yeah. Okay.

Because I know preclampsia is a big concern. It is. The high blood pressure, I mean, that's connected to nutrition. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so optimizing your health preconception is the best case scenario. optimizing it the moment you find out you're pregnant is second best. Like, okay, shit.

Should it on this three years ago. But here we are. Let's start now. Don't continue the habits that aren't optimizing you nutrition. Switch it up. Like this third pregnancy, I had like probably the highest protein pregnancy I've ever had. And it was awesome. It felt great.

My baby was huge. I mean, I have big babies, but I'm like, what a healthy baby. He was just a fat little thing. So cute. Yeah. But my blood pressure was immaculate. That's amazing. Yeah.

It makes sense. Yeah. Okay. So in the essence of time, there's still so many things I want to go over. So let's try to. Okay. So amniocentesis. I don't even know how to say it.

Yeah. That's, so say you do a blood test in your first trimester, which most people do in the hospital system, to detect for any genetic abnormality such as Down syndrome or trisomy, 18 or anything like that. We opted out of all of that because I was like, you know, we don't, don't do termination of pregnancies for us. And I was just like, we'll cross that bridge, you know, like, see what happens. And so we opted out. We waited until the 20-week scan. I was like, well, if my baby has Down syndrome, well, we see it on the scan. And my midwives are like,

most likely yes. Chance you couldn't, but most likely yes. And to me, I wouldn't, I wouldn't know boarded Down syndrome baby. But anyway, say you get, a positive result for a genetic abnormality, incompatible with life. Very controversial, right, with all of the abortion laws. And I don't want to get into that. But I say, I bring that up because that's essentially why people do that test. So, like, I need to know because I don't want a medical child.

So I want to know. Okay. So if you got positive results for XYZ, genetic, incompatible with life, you can get what's called an amniocentesis, which is a very highly risky true test. I'm blanking on the exact word, diagnosis. So the blood tests they do in the first trimester, they take your blood and they screen it for genetic abnormalities for a baby. It's a screen.

It's not a diagnostic tool, which I think is crazy. Yeah. Because they are not super duper accurate. They are not 100% accurate. They are not 100%. The blood test is not? Correct. Okay.

The genetic screen in the first trimester. They are not 100% accurate. So you will need to wait to your belly is a little bit bigger to get a literal needle in through, I believe, I don't know if it's through the belly button or just in through your abdomen, into the sack where your baby is to draw out amniotic fluid. And that's the way that you can get an accurate diagnosis, also not 100% accurate. These freak me out, and I don't want to...

They're really rare. Well, I was just going to say, I don't know. I'm going to share it was like, I don't want to trigger people, but I know somebody who got an amniose synthesis. I don't even know how to pronounce it. I still don't know how to say it. That actually ended up having a miscarriage shortly afterwards. They're super raspy. They had like a really strong intuition.

In fact, this person told me, this is the day that I... I learned that I have to trust my intuition over doctors bullying me because the doctor insisted and she had a really, really bad feeling about it was like, I feel like something is going to go wrong and had a miscarriage. Oh, no. And this is such a good reminder of your intuition is so freaking strong and you can tell your doctor no thing. Like, you can tell them no for things.

Yeah. They're really rare. And I would never advise anyone to get one. Never. Like you've already, you got a big belly. You got a baby in there. Give it a chance. That scares me.

Scary. Yeah. I remember when I got ultrasounds for my first two, 20-week scan, they both had markers on their heart for Down syndrome. It's like a correlation. Every kid with Down syndrome has these things. It's not like, because they have these things, you have a Down syndrome baby. And then my third, no, my second I went to the 20-week scan and she had two markers for Down syndrome on her heart, one marker for Trisomy 18. Again, correlation.

I was alone. It was COVID. And they were like, we need to see you every four weeks now just to keep an eye on this baby. And I said, okay, sure, I'll make an appointment as I leave. I walked out and never went back, didn't have another ultrasound. I was like, wow. You're like, I don't want to live in fear in my whole pregnancy. No, I was like, my first baby was fine.

It had these two things. My third has one more thing. Okay. Wow. So what happens. Well, they tell you when they see that because I didn't hear any of that in my skin. Oh, yeah, right away. Oh, yeah, right away.

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Okay, vitamin K. I got a lot of questions in my DMs about this. In fact, and I had some people very strongly worded.

Why would you even question the vitamin K shot? Because it prevents blood or brain bleeding, and why would you risk the brain bleeding? So I'm going to give you... Courtney, let me ask you a question. How do brains bleed? You should get the vitamin K shot today. Your brain gets our bleeding tomorrow. Well, I mean, is there a world in which when it goes through the birth canal that, like,

you know, something could squeeze and cause a brain bleed? Potentially. Like, that would be crazy to me. And I would say, actually, here's where I would say yes. Foreps and vacuum delivery. If you use forceps, like, please, please everyone listening. If your doctor recommends forceps or vacuum, please go get a C-section. It is so horrific on the spine of the baby.

Oh. Is that what V-back is? Is that the vacuum? No, no. V-back is. vaginal birth after cesarian. Oh, wow, I feel dumb. Okay, because I keep seeing that.

Oh, that's okay. Yeah, when the baby is stuck, according to doctors, they'll either put a literal suction cup vacuum and pull. Whoa. Like, I've seen foot on the bed, lawn mower pull. It's, lawnmower pull. It was, my jaw was on the floor. I was like, how was this legal?

Like, that's a. Yeah, at that point I would say just get a C-section. Please, if you don't ever use forceps or a vacuum. So in the event of you using one, because you didn't know or you're unaware, I would say vitamin K is probably a smart decision in a trauma. That is a trauma on the spine and the nervous system. Yeah. And potentially the brain. Those can cause brain damage.

Yeah. But in a normal birth, your vagina is squishy. Your bones are meant to move. Your baby's not going to get stuck on a bone. your tailbone moves out of the way. Your pelvis is wide enough. If it's not, you're going to have a C-section. Yeah.

Because it's not going to come out. And that's pretty rare. It's real, but it's rare. Well, in my thinking is, I just believe in God's perfect design. Yeah. The way that I believe that our bodies were designed and made to have babies, because they were.

There's a reason why God designed for the vitamin K to come a little bit later because it starts being made by the baby's body of seven or eight days afterwards. Eight days. Okay. Yeah. So they call all humans vitamin K deficient.

But we're all like that and we haven't evolved. So first of all, if you're having a girl, you really, I would question it even harder because you're not circumcising your baby, which is a good sideway. This is probably a good sideway. Oh, yeah, we're going to want to talk about that too. Yeah, yeah. If you're circumcising your baby, which I hope you don't, we'll talk about that next, you will be required to get vitamin K because blood loss is very high risk with circumcision.

Yeah. Even if you wait, because I've been told that. So, yeah. Like in Jewish culture, they wait seven days. They do it on day eight. Or, yeah, or sorry, eight, yes, because of vitamin K. That's when vitamin K starts to form. Okay.

Which is amazing. Yeah. It's cool that they had the foresight to do that. Yeah. Yeah. The vitamin K thing to me is very, like, it's like a personal choice. We did it for our first two, and I couldn't tell you why. It was just one of those things that felt like, that's safe.

It's super low risk, which it is. Yeah. But to me, it's less about the risk and more about is it actually necessary. Yeah, do they need it. My babies were born at home. We didn't circumcise. I didn't drop them on their head after birth. Can I ask, did you do the shot or the drops?

We did the shots. Okay, wow. Yeah. Okay. We did their like thimerosol-free, no preservative. We did the whole, like. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Well, because I know a lot of women are now opting to do the drops instead of the shot because it has less preservatives and you're not like injecting it. Correct. And their bloodstream. I don't think you have to like order them from Europe. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Somebody, wasn't my...

Maybe not anymore. I can't remember now if it was my midwife. Somebody told me they could order them for me if we decided to do it. In full transparency, Hector and I just have not even had a conversation about whether or not we're not going to do it. Yeah. My assumption is that we probably won't. Yeah. But we haven't had a discussion.

So I haven't made a decision yet. It's, to me, it's more like, is it absolutely necessary? Yeah. We did not do it for our third. Knowing what I know now, which is like we're not circumcising, born at home, low intervention. And Yolande was at my birth. And she said to my midwife, so Duke, my third, his birth was fast and furious.

He like rocketed out. And looking back at birth find me. Yeah. Looking back at his pictures, his forehead was super purple. Didn't look bruised, but it was it was purple compared to the rest of his body. And Lauren, my midwife, told me after, Yolanda, like, asked me on the side, like, do you think we should offer vitamin K because of how fast that was and how purple his head is? And Lauren goes, she'll say no.

And he was totally fine. The next, I mean, the next morning. It was born at night the next morning. Everything was perfect looking. Well, that's good. Okay. Yeah, it was just discoloration. It wasn't bruised.

Yeah. And I had a true shoulder distosia also. So like a scary in the hospital, but not so scary. What does that mean where the shoulder got caught or? So when a baby comes out. they start like this and as they like actually crowned their shoulders turn and because his head came out so fast his shoulders didn't turn so he came out like this whoa so my midwife got in there did a little maneuver got him out less than 30 seconds wow yeah yeah but he was stuck wow yeah yeah should we talk about circumcision yes let's talk about circumcision yeah yeah so um this is a very passionate topic of mine because um I mean, there are so many amazing resources. Maybe we can share in the show notes for parents who are unsure.

But I remember thinking when I was pregnant, we didn't know if it was a boy or girl. We waited to find out for all of them. I didn't know that. Yeah. It was really fun. I don't know if my anxiety would let me do that, but I love to hear the stories. Yeah, it was really fun. And I remember telling my husband very gently, I don't want to circumcise our boy.

most men are age and older are circumcised. Yeah. And he was like, why? I'm circumcised. I'm fine. And I say it like this because he changed his mind. And I'll share like our story. But in my mind, I was like, you're going to have to pry that baby for my cold out hands.

Fuck no. But I said to him, listen, if you really want to do this, like, you're going to have to go to the appointment. You're going to have to watch it. And you're going to have to care for it. I will not be involved in. this at all. You will have to do all the diaper changes and you're going to have to take him. I will not, I will not participate. I cannot do that to my baby. He was just kind of like, okay, well, damn. But I was like, no way. So his journey to that, like, he, you know, did a lot of thinking. We did a lot

of talking. And I really was, like, I'm surprised at myself at how, like, kind I was about it. I never forced it. I never said, like, you will never do this to my baby. You know, I was just. You know, I was really like I don't want to. I don't think it's right. And then he came home one day and he was like, I realized that I am justifying my own circumcision by wanting to do this to my son. And that's crazy. So we don't need to circumcise. And I was like, wow, cool, amazing. Well, we read a statistic the other day that said, we've read two different ones. One said 40% of couples are not circumcising their babies anymore. And then one said 50% of couples or not. Yeah.

And we were talking about this with friends recently, and they said that their OB told them that, yeah, they're seeing in their clinics about 50% of parents are opting to not do it anymore. So their advice was if the only reason that you are choosing circumcision is because you don't want your child to be, quote, unquote, different, that is no longer going to be a thing. Correct. If you choose to do it for other reasons, like religious or whatever it is, like if you're going to make the decision, base it on that, not just based on societal pressure, because that is changing. Religion would also be societal pressure, in my opinion. Yeah, oh, for sure. Yeah.

Absolutely. So I'm shocked because I'm sure you have your side eyes to the American Association of Pediatrics as well. But they actually came out in 2021 and said that there are no medical benefits to circumcision, which is nuts. Wow. I can't believe they said that. I mean, it's shocking. But it is true. It is. I mean, it goes back to, again, there's a theme in this whole episode, which is God perfectly designed our bodies the way that he meant them to be. Yeah. And so when somebody tells me, oh, it's, you know, it's easier to clean them and they get less infections when they get the circumcision. I'm going, well, then why would have God designed it that way in the first place?

I've had people DME whenever I go on a circumcision rant be like, I work in elderly care. And like the amount of uncut men that I have to clean. is just like crazy. I'm like, I don't know how to tell you this, but that's your job. You chose this. Yeah. That's your job. We care for our elderly. They need help. They can't, and I go, they probably can't wipe their own ass either. Well, exactly. At that point, they are, they need lots of help in many different areas. And actually, so just to be very, very clear in this episode, because Hector and I have not decided what we're doing yet. And I also don't want to publicly share it without asking my husband whether or not he wants me to share. We're just going down the route of getting all the answers and

we're questioning both sides right now, and we truly, honest to God, have not made a decision yet about whether or not we're going to do it. But we're asking a lot of people right now in our life, and we're asking a lot of medical professionals. And we asked our sonogram tech yesterday about it. And she said that she's seeing a lot more couples not doing it. And she also said, she goes, and she goes, but I will say when I was working in the hospital, it's not true that uncircumcised penises are dirtier and get more infection. She was like, in my experience, it was exactly the same circumcised. She was like, there was no difference there in, like, cleanliness. No, we have running water now. Exactly.

Exactly. Very good. Well, let's just talk about the procedure. And if you guys, the number one thing I recommend to watch is called Elephant in the Hospital on YouTube. I think it's like, there's something that comes, it's like circumcision elephant in the hospital. If it's on YouTube, it's about 30 minutes long, I recommend watching it together. It's free on YouTube. And it is fantastic. I have had like handfuls of nurses DM me saying, I will never do this to my sons after having watched this procedure

because what, and it's crazy, OBGYNs do the procedure. It's not a urologist, which is crazy to me. That's crazy. Botched circumcisions in a hospital are much more common than we think. The risks are just a botched job. Loss of penis, rare, obviously. Yeah.

Death from blood loss. between 100 and 300 babies die every year from blood loss, that's insane to me. This is elective. It's not needed. It's totally elective. Oh, that makes me sad. The other risk that is really big that no one talks about is it can greatly impact breastfeeding because you have a tiny baby who cannot be on rounds of pain meds for the first days, weeks of their life. They get the lidocaine. And what I've heard from many nurses is they do the

shot of lydicane and don't wait. They just start cutting. And the babies just scream and dissociate go into shock. That's one of their first experiences on this earth. What? When I know a story of someone that their babies was botched and they were newborn, had to go back in at two and get it fixed. Yes, yes. And their instances.

And mom was very distraught about it. Oh, I cannot imagine. What a nightmare. Yeah. So the breastfeeding is big for me because the serious risks are very low. Okay. The breastfeeding is not low. And the reason is because the baby is in pain.

They are too little to be on prolonged pain meds. Yeah. They are healing. Their latch is impacted. Their ability to nestle into you is severely impacted. It's gnarly. I remember going to a client's house and her baby was just not nursing. And I was like, I know they got him circumcised like two days before.

And I was just like, I didn't say anything. I didn't want to make her feel worse for having trouble nursing. But in the back of my mind, I was like, yeah, your baby was fine. The day it was born, I was there. It was nursing just fine. I know that's so sad. I never thought about it impacting breastfeeding. It makes sense, though.

Yeah. So I always say, like, if you are adamant, and, you know, the Jewish community doing it with a moyle, they don't use any pain meds. Really? No. The common practice is wine. Correct me if I'm wrong, please. But I know they for sure do not use meds.

And some might, some might, it might be like a lytocaine cream, but that's new. That's new. Yeah. No, that has not been, and I'm sure in Orthodox Judaism, they do not do anything except for probably just wine. Like they give the baby a little bit of wine? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah.

That's interesting. I know. So I would say, like, if you're adamant for whatever reason about doing circumcision, wait until three months old, minimum, until your breastfeeding and your breast milk is fully established. and go to a pediatric urologist who is going to properly pain, what's the word I'm looking for? The pain management. Yeah.

Give the baby proper anesthesia, like local pain meds. They do a lydicane cream and then a lytocaine shot. That also scares me. Lidicane into a newborn baby. Yeah. That scares me. That scares me too. For an elective procedure.

Yeah. So wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Do not do it when they're two days old. my gosh. Okay. That's smart. Yeah. So this is good. I think this is really helpful for people. And that was one of the questions I got. I'm looking through, wow, look at this. Oh my gosh. We got so many questions from people. You can send me some and I'll answer them online. Okay, cool. I'll do that. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Also, one thing about circumcision, I'll end on this. You're going to see your newborn baby. And be like, I don't want to mess with them. They're perfect. They're perfect. Oh, I know.

Yeah. That's so cute. And then you can get into the whole controversial of, it's completely barbarically unethical when you talk about it for women. Why don't we talk about it the same way for men? Yeah. It's a good question. I agree. I mean, that's always been my mind. My inclination is to not want to do it,

but we need to have more conversations. We're digging into it. I have great podcast resources also, especially one from a Jewish professor from Harvard. Fantastic podcast. Okay, yeah. Actually, on the Luke Story podcast. Okay, and I was going to say we should put that on the show notes too.

Yes. Okay, oh, another one that we didn't go over was GB. Oh, yeah, group B strep. I tested positive for Group B strep for all three of my pregnancies. And for my first pregnancy, I was very nervous because I, you know, I wasn't really aware of the risks of GBS, but I knew that it could become serious if your baby ingests GBS. Group B strep, GBS. Group B strep is a strep bacteria that lives in the vagina. It's allegedly transitory, meaning it can come and go.

If you test positive for it, the protocol is prophylactic antibiotics in labor. Okay, so let's just think about that first. They're treating me or you for something your baby could ingest and could become sick from. Okay, that's weird. Yeah. In Europe, standard of care is not even to test for it in pregnancy. They test the baby for GBS. What a light bulb.

Yeah. What? They do more bio-individual care in Europe because they predominant. use midwives in hospitals in Europe. And then if they find out baby has it, then I'm sure they treat the baby with antibiotics. Okay, so that's, yeah. Okay. I tested positive.

I was nervous because I was like, oh, everything's been going so perfect up until now. They test you at 36 weeks. And the reason they do that is because it's transitory, meaning it could come and go. The likelihood of it sticking around for five more weeks is high at the 36th week. They give you like a five week before and after window. Do they treat it while you're pregnant then? like put you on antibiotics or something? No. Some obeys will test for it in the first trimester and tell you to be on antibiotics

or whole pregnancy. Ooh. I hate that. Someone just messaged me about that the other day. I said, get a new doctor immediately. That's insane. Yeah. Ooh, that's so bad for your gut microbiome.

Oh, so bad. I was really nervous. I didn't want to do antibiotics, but I also didn't want to put my baby at risk, right? So then I talked to my midwives and I was like, I just, I'm feeling really uncomfortable about antibiotics. So, like, what's the timeline? Say my baby comes out and. ingest to GBS, like, when do we know they're sick?

Do they, like, crash and die in 10 minutes? Or, like, what's the time? They're like, oh, God, no. We monitor the baby, and if they're showing signs of respiratory distress, we go to the hospital, they're going to have time in the NICU. It's going to suck. But it's not, like, immediately fatal. It's like an infection.

I was like, okay. And this could happen even if you did the antibiotics, right? Yes, it could. The antibiotics are only 80% effective. if you get two doses that are four hours apart, but they do the doses every four hours in the hospital. And is that an IV that they do with you in the hospital? Okay, so what would somebody do in a homebirth situation?

IV also. Oh, they can do that. Okay, okay. So I, my husband was really like, I just don't think antibiotics. We were kind of going down the vaccine rabbit hole, and he's just like, it sounds like antibiotics are something we want to avoid it for as long as possible for our kids. Like, we want their guts to be healthy.

I want your gut to be healthy when you're breastfeeding. Like, I just think antibiotics we should avoid unless, like, absolutely necessary, which is where most people stand, right? Yeah. And so then the more I think about it, I'm like prophylactic, that doesn't make any sense or treating me for something the baby doesn't even have yet. We should just test the baby. So anyway, baby was born, everything fine, and he was perfect, okay?

Everything good. Second time I'm pregnant, I go to my midwives, and I go, well, we can do the time. test again, but I'm not going to do antibiotics again. She goes, the test is total BS. I was like, huh, huh. I was like, oh, you don't say that to first time moms, too. She's like, nope. Only to my second time moms who don't use antibiotics the first time.

She's like, it's so, it's like not a good science to test. She's like, if it were that serious, which it can be, I want to highlight that it can be a serious thing. But if it were that serious for every baby, they would have rapid tests in hospitals. Yeah. It was like, yeah. That's a great point, actually. That's a good point.

Then, so opt it out. And if you have a water birth, the baby is less likely to ingest it. And also they have to ingest it. Okay. They could not ingest it. So most babies don't. They get the good stuff. I don't know.

I don't know how it works, right? But they could come up perfectly fine and most do. Then I spoke with a midwife here in Texas. And she said, okay, so I do want to highlight, if a baby, In just GBS, some do get sick, spend a NICU time in the NICU. Of those NICU babies, some do die. It can become a very serious infection. I don't want to minimize that.

Do I think prophylactic antibiotics is the proper protocol? No, I do not. I think testing babies is the proper protocol. And seeing if they have it. If they have it, then treat them right away. Yes, right away. A midwife here told me, she said, if you take pre-term babies out of fatality statistics,

deaths are almost zero. Wow. I was like, whoa, that makes sense. Her lungs are underdeveloped. Yeah. 37 weeks and before. And don't quote me on that. That's what I heard from this midwife.

She's like, but if you take babies born before 37 weeks out of fatality statistics, it's almost zero. You have a 41 week baby. Your baby is doing great. Fully developed. Fully developed. I'm going to be fine. Yes.

That's good to know. Yeah. So. Makes me feel better. Yes. I really. And again, it's like, how did we get here? Right?

I know. Infections can be really serious, but the chances of them getting severely ill are pretty low. Okay, that's really good to know. Yeah. I mean, is there anything else? I mean, we have like a couple minutes left, and I just want to make sure we can, you know, like drop where people can find you and everything. But is there anything else that we haven't gone over?

All these questions mostly are everyone's asking about vitamin K, which we covered. Yeah. And Rogam. I think I would just hit epidural for a minute. which is please do you please get a doula who understands physiologic birth your chances of getting a C-section increased drastically with epidural and potocin drastically if you are trying to avoid a C-section Potocin and epidural can cause fetal distress they both have heavy heavy meds in them actually very cool I was out of birth at St. David's and they don't use fentanyl and their epidurals anymore

They don't use narcotics. Oh, good. Very cool. Very good. You can also ask for no fentany. You can, but not in the moment. You have to order it ahead of time. Oh.

They're like, oh, it's not ready, which I don't know how true that is. But you could order it ahead of time. Tell your B. O B, I don't want narcotics in my epidural and see what they can say. Let's end on this. Pain of childbirth is not pain and suffering. It, you know, if you have a five-day birth, it could turn into what seems like suffering. Okay, so there are benefits of epidural, time and a place, absolutely. But the panic of childbirth is in your head and managing that mindset of this is pain with a purpose.

Every contraction gets me closer to my baby rather than the pain we're used to, which is car crash. I broke my leg. Like, I hurt myself. Like, that's pain we don't ever want to experience again. The pain of childbirth is so rewarding at the end. it ends. Yes, you're sore afterwards and you might have some pains here and there. But the intensity is so high that it makes it feel so much worse. If you can manage that intensity and trust in God's design, trust in your ability to be able

to push through the quote-unquote pain, you will be able to do it. And again, I'm not judging anyone who wants an epidural, but it's like a lot of people think about it. What about not? Like, oh, I could never. Well, yes, you could. You absolutely could. I want to see the depths of the power that lives inside me. This is the last true right of passage that exists in the modern world. Men don't have rights of passage anymore. Wow.

Think about that. That's so true. Right? I think that's a big problem in our modern culture. Yeah, I think it is too. this is the last true primal right of passage like fucking send it i want to end this life having been like i have got all the scars i did all the things like i want to feel it and you know you'll get the haters be like like there's no trophy like yeah there is i feel like an absolute rock star

and i'm not saying women who go through medicated birth don't feel like that either you got your baby unbelievable it's still labor it's still labor it's still long. It's still intense. But doing it as it was meant to be primally done, I felt like I could run through a brick wall. So this is what I keep hearing. And I think there's a lot of theories around like why we medicate birds down. Obviously, you know, a lot of it's about pain management. But there's also this theory that if women could access and see how incredibly powerful they actually are, that it would be really bad for men. Because more women would actually. actually be walking around going, oh, I'm powerful as fuck and you can't fuck with me.

Yeah. Like, you know those reels that women are like, or someone asked these women like, would you kill for your baby? And they're like, kill someone. Oh. And they like, I'm like, what kind of question is that? Yes, obviously. You know, like no questions asked.

I'd go to prison for the rest of my life. I wouldn't think twice about it because I understand that. And again, you could feel that to you and have a medicated birth. But like, of course, yeah. That power that you feel having gone through something so, and I'll use the word excruciating, because it can be. For me, my first birth, like, I went to the depths of hell. I know. I'm scared.

It was, but, like, my second birth was, like, amazing. My third birth was so gnarly. Like, it was all different. But I went to a place I didn't know possible. And it was, it was, but I remember. being like, this can't be right. Like, surely someone is calling an ambulance right now. Like, this can't be right.

And then, like, the contraction would be over. And my whole birth team would like, you're doing amazing. Good job. Like, smiling. I'm like, okay, we're having two very different experiences. Like, I feel like this is serious. And you guys should be calling 911 right now,

but no one is. Okay, I guess we're staying here. Isn't that crazy? Because you're going to be at my birth. Yeah. I'm sorry in advance. I'm going to be so. Oh, girl, I thought I was going to be quiet, and I told Michael to close the windows because I thought someone was going to call the cops.

Like, I was like, it sounds like someone's being tortured in here. I was really loud. I'm sorry in advance. It's probably going to be me. Just knowing me and my pain tolerance, I'm like, oh, dear God, buckle up, Emily. Yeah. You're going to coach me through a lot. Oh, yeah.

And you're going to have a tub. The water makes a huge difference. So, yes, there's a time and a place for an epidural. There's a time in a place for meds. Absolutely. I've seen it all. And should our epidural situation? statistics, 89%? Hell no.

89%? Probably more now. Oh my gosh. In hospital. Wow. So, like, that is staggering. That just goes to show that we don't believe in ourselves. I know, and I think that's a theme. And we're scared. Scared as normal, but, like, you let the fear run the show. Yeah. Overcome the fear.

Like, I had a friend whose birthday I was at, and it was really slow, really slow. And her maid wives were like, I want to start some herbs. I want to do the breast pump. Like, we got to get this going a little bit. And she's a much more worried person than I am. And she was like, oh, we're going to the hospital, aren't we? I was like, no, we're good. Like, you're good.

If they thought there was a reason to transfer, we would transfer. I promise you. And she was so nervous, but I was just like, listen, if you don't try everything here, because she was really like, I think we should just go. I was like, I'm not going to tell you what to do, but if you don't try everything that they're offering, you're going to kick yourself. You're going to wonder, what if I stayed?

You're going to wonder. And her husband was like, you're right, you're right. And she finally was like, I was like, you're so close. Her contractions were just so far apart. It was just very slow. It was abnormal. The herbs really worked, and she had the baby. And she was so happy.

and I'm just like so glad that I don't feel afraid in those situations as a doula to where I let that fear run me too. If I, because I'll talk to the midwives and I was like, are we going to transfer? They might be like, we're transferring. Like, okay, cool. I'll go talk to them. And if they're like, no, we're good.

But I usually now can tell by the midwives vibes. Like, she's fine. She's just scared or something. There's a block, right? So I'm like, you're going to kick yourself if you don't try. And that's what I wish all women had. Just give it a go. See what you can do.

It's fucking crazy. It's so gnarly. But being out of the hospital when your baby's born, it's the best. Oh my gosh. The best. Well, that's like one of the main motivators, motivators for me. Well, I could talk to you all day about this. But in the essence of time, we're going to have to wrap this up.

Please let everybody know where they can find you. Yes. I'm mostly only on Instagram. My name, Emily Stanwick, is my handle. And I do teach birth education classes. I do do la mentoring. So if you want to be a doula, hit me up. I do one-on-ones.

I used to do group classes. I don't know if I'll do that again. I prefer one-on-one. All virtual. And my birth classes are all virtual. And if you're in the Texas area, I'm taking one birth a month. And I have doulas who I refer out if I get more inquiries. Yeah, that's where you can find me.

Yay. Thank you. Thank you. It's such fun. Yeah. fun. Love it. Okay. And I can't wait for your birth. Oh my God. I'm so scared. It's going to be great. But also excited because I just want to meet him now. I know. So soon. It's going to be here before you know it. I know. My God. Okay. Thank you so much Emily. Thank you so much for listening to the

Real Foodology podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson. The theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com. See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider-patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first. If you struggle with bloating gas, constipation, digestive issues,

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