This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Birth Vibes: Feeling Empowered During Childbirth with Jen Hamilton | 416

Starting point is 00:00:00 In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19-speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility, and Optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. Hey y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if?

Starting point is 00:00:34 Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. I am Nicole Khalil and you're listening to the This Is Woman's Work podcast. We're together. We're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing women's work in the world today. And if there's one area practically begging for a rewrite, it's pregnancy and childbirth. Because few experiences expose the pressure, expectations, fear, unsolicited opinions, commentary,

Starting point is 00:01:17 and absolute chaos of being a woman quite like they do. Because the moment you get pregnant, everyone has advice. You're a doctor, sure, but also your mother, who, by the way, is the same woman who might have smoked while she was pregnant. every friend you've ever had, all the women on social media with a ringlight and a superiority complex. They'll say things like, it's the most natural thing in the world, while also making you feel like that if you don't do every single thing exactly right in exactly the right way, you're probably one mistake away from worst mother in history. And that's implied, of course, because nobody will own up to the fact that they hate being judged as a mom, but we'll jump right on that bandwagon when it's time to do some judgment. judging. You're told, what kind of birth to have, how pain medication is less of a medical

Starting point is 00:02:06 decision and more of a litmus test for your commitment as a mother. You're told how long to breastfeed, what position to push in, whether your birth plan should be laminated, color-coded, or accompanied by whale sounds. The woman at the checkout line at Target asks your due date and suddenly feels called to share the most traumatic delivery story she's ever heard. Your mother-in-law thinks she should definitely be in the delivery room, helping. And that online influencer tells you to trust your instincts immediately after explaining that your instincts are wrong. And listen, I love a plan.

Starting point is 00:02:41 I am deeply committed to checklists and timelines, but babies, babies do not care about your plan, your tabs, or your vision board. They arrive on their own time with their own agenda. And that's part of why I wanted to have this conversation, because so many women go into their delivery, believing that a perfect experience and a postworthy birth story are somehow likely options, when in reality, birth like motherhood itself, is often unpredictable, emotional, messy, beautiful, scary, empowering, disappointing, humbling, and occasionally one giant, what in the fresh hell is happening right now, all at the same time. And the minute you think you've

Starting point is 00:03:27 got it figured out, it's time to duck because something new is coming. So this episode is not about telling you the right way to give birth. We don't do one-size-fits-all around here. This is about empowerment, your empowerment, about adaptability, about understanding that you can have a birth that goes exactly according to plan and still leave feeling unheard or dismissed. And you can also have a birth that goes completely off script and still feel powerful, informed, respected, and deeply cared for. Today's guest is Jen Hamilton, Labor and Delivery Nurse, Viral Creator, and now the author of the instant number one New York Times bestselling book,

Starting point is 00:04:11 Birth Vives, Stories and Strategies for an Empowered Birth. With more than a decade of bedside experience and a social media community of over 6 million people, Jen has become known for blending clinical expertise, humor, compassion, and real talk about birth, health care, and advocacy. She's also one of the few people on the internet who can make you laugh, cry, and feel emotionally supported all within the same 60-second video. And is one of the only reasons that I'm still on Instagram. Jen, I could not be more excited to say this. Welcome to the show. Hi.

Starting point is 00:04:48 Nice to see you. Oh my gosh, so excited for you to be here. Okay. So my first question is around the title of your book. You basically are, I believe, saying that women need to focus less on a rigid birth plan and more on their birth vibes. And my question is, what's the difference? So as a labor and delivery nurse, one of the things that I get to witness, and so I have such an honor of being able to witness this is what the birth story looks like. And I find that you can have a birth plan that you have thought about. your entire pregnancy, about how exactly you want things to happen. And even if it checks off every single part of your birth plan, you can still leave that experience if you didn't feel heard, respected, empowered. But on the flip-flop of that, you can have a birth that goes completely off the rails, but still leave that birth feeling positive about that experience. if you had all these other things that I think matter more than the what happens, but more the

Starting point is 00:05:51 what you're feeling while it's happening. So how are you being communicated with? Who do you have with you and what are they doing for you? Are they being helpful? What is your environment like? Like there's so many other things that I think matter more than this past, fail, did I do birth the way I said I was going to? Because I think that birth is kind of like a surprise party. for someone that you've never met. So you're planning it, not knowing exactly how you're going to feel in that moment or what your baby's going to think in that moment.

Starting point is 00:06:22 So you can plan a surprise party and you say, hey, we're going to have a seafood boil outside and it's raining, and the person you're planning a party for has a seafood allergy. So does it mean that we shove a plate of crab legs in front of them and get wet outside? No. We use that new information to be able to adapt

Starting point is 00:06:43 and pivot with grace and with dignity and with empowerment of our own choices. And I think that's the beauty of having vibes around your birth instead of like, man, if I end up using an epidural, I've failed. If my, if I don't, if I birth outside of the water, I want to have a water birth. If I birth outside of the water, man, I'm going to be disappointed. So I think that it's so much more about all those other things than it is. the what happens. So I have this personal belief and I have none of the experience that you have, but I find in all aspects of life, the more rigid or controlled or detailed rate we try to be,

Starting point is 00:07:29 the less flexible often we're able to be because we're so aware or so focused on what's going, and I put in your quotes, wrong. And so adaptability is one of the chapters in your book. Talk to us about what this might look like or feel like in the moment of something so important and chaotic as birth. So I think that one thing that you touched on is like how being super detailed can cause some disappointment. And I want to challenge people to be detailed but in other ways, right? So I want, as your nurse, I want you to be detailed in how I can best care for you. I want you to be detailed in the things that you may have experienced in your life that may make today tough or hard.

Starting point is 00:08:19 The more information that I can have about you as a human being, the better that our relationship is going to be. And the quicker I can jump to the things that will help you. So in making like a birth plan, if you want to talk about like, you know, every birth plan says what you want, right? Like I want intermittent monitoring. I want, you know, freedom of movement. I want no interventions. As a nurse, I want you to be detailed and instead of telling me what you, what exactly you want, why those things are important to you. Because if we need to do something like adapt to a new situation, knowing the why of why those things are important to you can help

Starting point is 00:08:59 me hold tight to the values that caused you to want to do those things. So for instance, let's say that something on someone's birth plan was that they did not want to be continuously monitored, that they wanted intermittent monitoring, which just means checking on the baby every once in a while. Now, let's say that that same person comes into the hospital and they're saying, hey, my baby's not moving as much. Well, that is new information that might cause us to want to adapt our birth plan to a new situation to say, hey, the safest thing might be to adapt that part to continuous fetal monitoring. But if I know, and you tell me,

Starting point is 00:09:41 that the reason that you wanted intermittent monitoring is because you really didn't want to be tied to a bed, you really wanted to move around. Knowing that can help me hold tight to that value for you and allow you to both be safe and to adapt to this new information holding tight to those things that were still important to you. So adapting in the moment is,

Starting point is 00:10:05 when something goes different, and I'm not going to say, you know, bad, right? Something goes different than what we assumed was going to happen, or maybe hoped was going to happen. So anytime that maybe like, let's say, you get a fever during birth, or, you know, labor is taking longer than is safe because now we can see your baby is not tolerating labor. or let's say that, you know, maybe an emergency is happening and we need to adapt quickly. It's about being able to take in that information and use that information as power instead of in fear.

Starting point is 00:10:49 Because I think that when we take it in fear, that's when the trauma and the disappointment comes in. But if we say, hey, this new information is powerful to me because now I can make better informed decisions for myself. I think that reframing that change is so important instead of saying this is a bad thing that's happening. No, this is, I'm so glad that I have this new information because more information helps us make better decisions for ourselves. Well, I love everything about that. And more often than not, the why is so much more important than the how. And so when we understand that, everything you're saying makes sense. So then my next question is, how do we get clear on our own wise, our own values, our own reasons, because, I mean, there's commentary everywhere.

Starting point is 00:11:35 Everybody has opinions and stories. And I worry and wonder if often we go into the situation with other people's wise and other people's reasons on our own birth plan. And so how do we distinguish? Yeah. So one thing that I tell people is like, you can make whatever decision you want for whatever reason you want. It only has to make sense to you, right? So, and that can be tough as a nurse, especially if somebody comes in and says, you know, I don't want to do, you know, XYZ medically recommended thing because my friend told me that it causes you to grow three legs, right? So, I mean, there is some of that in the, in the OB world, in the social media world, you know, where you have a lot of misinformation. So that's where you're,

Starting point is 00:12:26 medical team can come in. And I highly encourage people to find out the truth about whatever it is that you're believing. Right. So if you have like a social media influencer online who's giving you what you should do or should not do, it should always come with evidence. And I think that there's so many people getting away with saying like, oh, this, this thing big bad because I say big bad, right? Instead of saying, like, actually, here's a research about it. This is where you can find it. This is where you can talk to your doctor about it. I always tell people, do not believe anything you see on the internet, even my stuff. Like, I want you to use what I say as good talking points to talk to your trusted medical team about because I think that there's so many people who are like,

Starting point is 00:13:17 oh, this person has, you know, a million followers, what they're saying must be true. And that's not always the case. So I think that understanding the evidence behind things can help you find your why. And then also, sometimes it's really hard to get to know ourselves. Like we kind of understand how we feel in certain situations, but we might not understand completely why we feel those things. I always think that counseling and therapy is amazing because that can kind of help you prepare for things. So if you're already in a therapist relationship, you can talk about the things. important to you and they can kind of help you. But then also I think that a wonderful resource is the family and friends that you surround yourself with. In the book, I talk about communication

Starting point is 00:14:03 styles and what you best respond to. And sometimes if you're thinking about that for yourself, you're like, I don't know. I don't know how I best respond to things. But talk to your mom, talk to your sister about like, hey, if you're needing to tell me something hard, how have you notice that I need to hear that information. I think that that can be really powerful because it's hard for us to kind of go introspectively and understand how that shakes out. But relying on the innate knowledge that your people closest to you have without taking everyone's opinions about what you're doing into play. I want you to listen to people around you about their experience in caring for you and how you best are cared for. But if they're giving you,

Starting point is 00:14:49 you unsolicited advice about stuff, that's where we can draw the line. Sorry to break in, but this part matters. Rate the show, share it, and support the sponsor so I can keep making episodes worth interrupting you for. Staples Preferred Business Membership, built for busy business owners, because you've got bigger things to think about. With Staples Preferred, get free delivery, no minimums. Staples Preferred unlocks up to 3% back, plus 10% savings on print and exclusive wireless offers. One less thing on your plate.

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Starting point is 00:16:08 When there is like a feeling of like, please shut the F up, that's usually when you're getting the unsolicited opinions. Yeah. So one of the topics or areas that I think gets a lot of unsolicited opinions is pain medication. What do you think we should be thinking about when we go into our birthing experience as it relates to pain medication? Yeah, I think that what you said in the beginning about pain medication kind of being a litmus test for how good of a mom you're going to be,

Starting point is 00:16:36 I think it's so true about what I see online in the judgment and, you know, I just think all of it's so unnecessary. So I think this can be applied not just to pain medication, but but to any intervention that you could receive in the hospital, but to think of them not as inherently good or evil, right, wrong, bad, good, but instead thinking of them as tools in your toolbox to use as needed. There are people who go into birth who don't need anything for pain. They're coping just fine and they cope all the way to the end. Did I belong to that team?

Starting point is 00:17:17 No, or did not. Nor did I. I thought I was going to, okay? That's what I say. It's like planning a surprise party for somebody you never met. You may have even had a baby before. You never had this baby before, right? So when we think of those things as like,

Starting point is 00:17:34 I'm not going to use those because that's bad. And like, that's how I'm going to figure out if I've done birth good is if I use or don't use those things. I think that that can cause trauma and grief if you do, end up reaching for that in a moment of desperation instead of like, hey, this is a powerful choice for me. I'm making the best decision for myself in this moment. Because when you have people that are making decisions out of desperation, right, that is where you can have a lot of that disappointment in yourself as a human being. And I don't want, I don't ever want that to come. I tell

Starting point is 00:18:16 people, I will be your cheerleader if you do not want anything for pain, and I will be your fairy drug mother if you do. Because I'm just here the ride with you. And knowing that, you know, sometimes things happen in labor that you don't expect. And in the book I talk about, like, let's say that you've prepared your entire pregnancy for an unmedicated delivery. You've done all of the classes. You've mentally prepared. You've held ice in your hand for. You've done. You've hand for a minute to make sure that you can withstand something just uncomfortable for a minute. You've done all the things. And then the night before you go into labor, your first baby gets a GI book and you're up all night long. And you're going into this unmedicated delivery with no sleep,

Starting point is 00:19:01 right? That's a new, that's new information, right? This is not the same birth that we were preparing for before. So if you do decide to reach for something, it doesn't mean that you've failed. It doesn't mean that you did something wrong or that you have to be disappointed in the experience is that, man, I have this new information that I can use to make a decision for myself to help me. I tell people that there's a difference between coping and suffering, right? And so if you feel that you've crossed that line, you've gotten to the end of your cope rope and you need something, that's when it can be appropriate. It can be appropriate at any point, I want to say that.

Starting point is 00:19:46 But like if you, if your sites were set on an unmedicated delivery, I think that when you cross that threshold from coping to suffering, and people know when that time is, that is so okay. It's okay to reach in your toolbox. It doesn't mean that we open the toolbox and we throw everything at our situation. Like if you're building a bench, you know, you're going to use the tools that you need when they're necessary. You don't just like get the jackhammer and the chainsaw and like you don't do all of the things, but you can use things as needed and they're just there for when you need them. Yeah. You know, you're talking about this and it keeps reminding me of somebody had said this a long time ago

Starting point is 00:20:30 and I just thought it was funny. It stuck with me, but it was like my baby came out and the guilt came in, right? It's this feeling that mom guilt is almost immediate. But the reality is it happened well before baby comes out. put all these expectations and there's all this noise and we often create expectations that we can't help but fall short of. So my next question is around. You talk about having a steady voice. You say it's okay to be scared because I'm not when you're with your patient. What is your advice for the people who don't have a Jen Hamilton in the room with them who maybe don't have a nurse or a doctor who

Starting point is 00:21:11 is being that steady voice, how do they create or advocate for that for themselves? Yeah. So one thing I want to say is, I am nothing special. There are a bazillion and one of me's out there because I feel like I represent such a large group of people who are there to truly care for you. So I want people to be hopeful that when they go in, they will find that steady voice within the person that's caring for them. But on the off chance that you, you're not vibing with the person that is caring for you, there are absolutely things that you can do. And I tell people it can be as simple and as quick as I need a new nurse. That can be all that you need to say.

Starting point is 00:21:57 But I understand that there are people out there who are very much averse to any kind of confrontation. They're very much people pleasers. That's me. I'm in that camp. I don't ever want to hurt anyone's feelings. and so that can be a very difficult thing for me. So in the book, I walk through how someone, it's like a script.

Starting point is 00:22:17 If you need help with a script, I got one that can kind of help you be able to find a new person in order to get the better vibe in your room of something that you need. So one of the ways that I talk about doing this is by just calling that nurse by their name, thanking them for their care so far, noticing something that they, do well that you might need something different on and then asking for their help in getting another nurse and then thanking them in advance for doing that. So the way this may look is like, Kelly, thank you so much for taking care of me so far. I notice that you are so good at really being direct and really, you know, straight shooter. And I know that that is so helpful for so many people.

Starting point is 00:23:06 I need someone who has more of a gentle approach. I need somebody who's going to really kind of be there for me in a different way. So I really would like to get a new nurse and I thank you so much for helping me in doing that. So it's kind of like a people pleaser version of that, but I want to emphasize you do not have to do any of that. You can just say, new nurse, thank you. That can be all you have to say. I also have more scripts for if that doesn't work. right? If that doesn't work in getting you what you need, I have like a whole algorithm of how you can get that. But I think that, you know, you only get to live this birth once. And if you're feeling uncomfortable, if you're feeling unheard, if you're feeling disrespected, there's no reason to stay in that environment. There's always a different path ahead. You just need to vocalize that. Well, I agree with you that the vast majority of labor and delivery nurses are just exceptional humans. I don't remember mine's name, but her face is burned in my brain forever, and she couldn't have been any more kind. And I don't agree that you're not special, but I get the point you're trying to make.

Starting point is 00:24:15 But the reality is, especially for women of color, there is an epidemic of not being believed or listened to or being dismissed or pain being minimized. We recently had Dr. Kemi Dahl on who wrote a book called a terrible strength, and it's about the crisis of the black womb and black women not being believed. And I know you've advocated for that as well. What can a woman of color do if they're in that situation, and really anyone, if they're being dismissed or not listened to my first question. And then my second question is, what can we all do? Because this isn't us problem, not just a black woman or a woman of color problem. Yeah. So I have a whole section in my book specifically for women of color and how, you know, there may be some nuances and differences in the way that they,

Starting point is 00:25:08 it's a terrible thing to say, like, showing up in the world is different for women of color in order to be believed. And I hate that it is that way, but I want to give people the language and agency and autonomy to be able to advocate for themselves. And I think that it also begins with having, if it's possible, someone in their corner, meaning like a doula or a family member or friend who also gets to bear witness to this experience of birth and be able to help vocalize when they're not being heard or they're not being listened to, kind of just like an extra voice. Because when you are in sometimes the most pain of your life and you feel like you're not being listened to,

Starting point is 00:25:57 how do you, you know, speak up when you're feeling so vulnerable? So I think that having someone there with you, I think that being very clear on the things that you need and or are not getting, being very clear the things that they need, want, the things that they feel like they're not getting is very important. And all of these things can apply to any woman who feels like they're not being listened to. but unfortunately with the epidemic of black maternal mortality in our country, this is something that is so imperative for women of color. You know, bear on their shoulders, but that's something that should never be that way. And I'm hoping that people who work within the obstetric community

Starting point is 00:26:47 recognize that black women have this looming cloud over them. of systemic racism, of the racist beginnings of gynecology. And it just, there's all of these through lines to today. And I think that anything that we can do as, as a health care team, to help women of color feel seen, supported, herd is only going to decrease black maternal mortality. I feel like we're going down a heavier topic. So I'm just going to add to that. At the end of your book, you have an epilogue for those that are grieving. What does closure look like after a birth experience that didn't go the way that somebody was hoping for? The second question is, how do we best support those that may be grieving a loss or something that went horribly wrong?

Starting point is 00:27:41 Yeah. So I want to really point out that closure is for everyone, you know, and it's especially important for a birth that did not go the way that you hoped or thought that it would. But leaving a birth experience with questions unanswered will always be implanted in our brain as traumatic. Because it's only human nature. It's only natural for us to fill in those blanks with trauma, with negative emotions, with the worst kind of postpartum fear about what's already happened. And that's especially important if you have a birth that goes different than you thought. and then in the worst case scenario, if you're experiencing a loss. So I think that making sure that when you're leaving the hospital, that you have as many questions as you can think of answered about what happened, what went different, what went right,

Starting point is 00:28:39 what went not how we would have hoped. And then as far as supporting people going through loss, I think the biggest thing that often gets missed is just being there because there's no words that you can say there's no you know gift that you can bring that is going to make this loss better but it's just about not feeling alone in that moment. I think that grief can sometimes scare people off like oh I don't want to bother her she's going through so much oh I don't want to you know make things harder on her so I don't know what because I don't know what to say so I'm not going to say anything. I think that just being there and even saying like I have I have no words but I want you to know that I am

Starting point is 00:29:26 I'm going to walk alongside this with you and also just showing up instead of saying things like let me know if you need anything which puts the burden of the work back on her instead of saying that offering to do a specific thing so saying like hey I would love to come pick up your laundry, what is a good time? Or, hey, I would like to send a Dordash meal over. What's a good day that you would need something to eat? Or like, hey, I would love to come get your kids and take them to the park. When can I do that? Instead of saying like, hey, I'm here if you need me. You know, I think that that can oftentimes make people feel more alone because you're not physically there and I now have to reach out to you if I truly do need something.

Starting point is 00:30:19 So I think that offering those very specific things can help someone feel not alone. Great advice. And I want to reiterate the Keep Showing Up part because I think we all do a pretty good job with recency, the casseroles and the shirt. But I think we unconsciously believe that grief is supposed to follow some sort of timeline and it just doesn't. And so the Keep Showing up part I think is really important. you can set calendar alerts for like a month out, month and a half, you know, six weeks, eight weeks,

Starting point is 00:30:52 and just make sure that you're still reminding yourself to show up because we don't, we get lost in our own lives and not, you know, for any malice, but sometimes in our own lives, we can sometimes forget that there are those that are still going through this grief. So I think that that can be a great way that you can remind yourself to keep showing up. Yeah. Okay, my last question is you've seen so, so, so many experiences and examples. What is the one thing you would wish for somebody entering the delivery room to know or think about or be prepared with? And second, what would you wish for their support person? Oh, this is such a good question. To give yourself grace, holy moly, the amount of unnecessary disappointment that people feel. feel within themselves when they're going through the hardest thing that they've ever been through in their life, it just like breaks my heart because I'm like, you don't need to put that on yourself. Give yourself grace. Give yourself the freedom to adapt to new things. And then also,

Starting point is 00:32:02 this is just for anybody, but especially support people. It's going to take a while, okay? So get your patient panties on. Don't be asking how long this is going to take. When's the baby going to be here? just don't do it. Just hush your mouth and just be there. Because if I have to hear another dad say, how long is this going to take? Oh my God, you must want to die. Oh my gosh. Seriously. So put your patient panties on. Things are always usually going to take longer than you think. Give yourself grace and food and those new vibes. I love it. Jen, thank you so much for. writing this book for doing what you do as a labor and delivery nurse, as a nurse, as a human, as one of the most positive best voices on social media. I just, the list is endless. And I want to

Starting point is 00:32:55 also note, and one of the things that I appreciate so much is you could monetize and capitalize your platform every which way upset. And I just appreciate so much, not that you don't deserve to make money, you do, but that you always seem to, stick to your values first and foremost and come from a spirit of generosity. And I appreciate it and the world needs it. So thank you for all of it. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. All right, friend, the book is called Birth Vibes. Go get it for yourself, for any woman who is expecting, anyone supporting her, and for anyone in labor and delivery. I mean, go get multiple copies of this book and follow Jen on social media at Jen Hamilton. We'll put all the links, all the ways to find and follow Jen in

Starting point is 00:33:41 show notes. And let me close out with a loving reminder that empowerment in birth or otherwise has little to do with control or getting it all right. Empowerment is about trust. Trusting yourself to make decisions within the framework of your values and what matters most to you. Trusting yourself when the plan goes out the window. Because birth like motherhood, like womanhood, like life is unpredictable. It's messy, emotional, beautiful, terrifying, humbling. And no amount of, of planning, perfectionism, or internet advice can fully prepare you for something that is designed to change you. But feeling informed and supported, feeling respected, listened to, and safe in the middle of that uncertainty, that matters, and you deserve that. And think about it for a second.

Starting point is 00:34:29 Your baby comes into this world through you. And I don't think that's an accident. It must mean that your baby needs you exactly as you are, not some polished, perfected version of you, you think you're supposed to be. So trust yourself to make the plan and to roll with the punches, because that, well, that is definitely woman's work.

This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Birth Vibes: Feeling Empowered During Childbirth with Jen Hamilton | 416

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