C-Sections Versus The Full Birth Experience

We have to reimagine what does easy mean? You are creating other issues by doing the C section, especially if you're going to have multiple pregnancies, which could be far harder than actually going through this process of integrating this sort of sacred ritual of giving birth vaginally. And it's also not for everybody. There's not a right answer here. But when women say, hey, I want to have a home birth, we in the medical profession should not treat that as a, as a stupid, uninformed, naive decision. There is a really, really good reason for us to honor birth. And I would argue if we want to fix any of these big problems we see in the world and we can't even get birthright, like the only thing that's helping us stay alive as a species, you know, and relevant here on this planet. I think we need to get, get birth right. I think we need to reimagine what, what easy birth actually means. Because my wife described hers as ecstatic. Like it was a pleasurable experience.

The interesting thing when you bring up C section, you know, if, if you would rewind, like maybe, I don't know, like 10, 12 years ago, I would have said, oh, well, the problem with the C section is that the baby isn't getting exposed to the natural flora that they might get when passing through the vaginal canal. And therefore there might be a little bit of a delay in the development of their immune system. And I think I came across data that it takes until a child is around 7 years old or so to actually regain the normal flora that they would have gotten from passing through mom's birth canal. Arguably, you could probably fix that with exposure to farm animals, use of probiotics, and, you know, other methods. But nonetheless, that I was concerned about it from a, from a hygienic standpoint, the, the, the distinction between the C section, the vaginal birth. Yet now, and I think you might have some thoughts on this, it seems to me that scheduling a C section and simply pulling the baby out of the mother reduces a lot of the sacredness and even, as I mentioned earlier, perhaps even the pain from the childbirth process. Talk to me about that. Like, like what we're missing out on with something like a C section when it comes to the full birth experience.

Yeah, I mean, that's a big question, Ben. That's an hour long conversation there. So when we, when I use the word sacred.

Let me actually use instead the word rite of passage. With any true initiation, death is on the line. There was a West African author I Can't remember his name, so may his last name. But he said that in one of his beautiful books.

A true initiation. In any true initiation, death is on the line. And when I say that around childbirth, people are thinking, like, I can die. And like, yeah, you could die, but the likelihood of you physically not breathing and your heart beating after a birth is, at least in our country and really most of the world, it's way less than 0.01%. Like, it's a highly unlikely scenario that a woman will die in childbirth. However, when a woman. When a woman gives birth and actually her partner. When you guys are going through this process, you are transforming. There's an old you that is dying. There's a new version of you that's being born, just like with this baby that's coming Earthside. So what I mean by when I say that it's a rite of passage, it's a true initiation, is that when women come to me and say, I felt like I was gonna die, you did die. There was this old identity that is gone. And there is nothing safe about that. It's just like doing a big dose of mushrooms or something. There's nothing safe about that. If you go in with the wrong set and setting, there is a transformation that's going to happen here. And if, if, if we don't honor that as a true.

Ceremony, and we don't have a closing piece to that where we integrate the stress of this incredibly challenging experience, a lot of women are left with what they actually report as trauma. So even women who have natural, uncomplicated, undisturbed bursts in the hospital, perhaps they had somebody shove their hand in their vagina without getting full consent. Their body was saying no, but somebody was holding their arms and legs back because I need to check on the baby, they shove their hand in there. And even though they had an unmedicated birth, no epidural, nothing like that, a vaginal birth, they feel like something was wrong. So I'm helping women unpack this trauma. And I'm realizing that because we're not honoring this experience of a person. I used to have attendings, the supervising docs when I was in residency say, like, this birth plan thing is ridiculous. You don't bring in, like, the flight plan for the pilot of the airplane. But that reflects that we have some sort of control over this. This is something that is far deeper than. Than a medical procedure. And when we don't treat it as a medical procedure, that. That stress of this really exciting experience, sometimes ecstatic, sometimes scary, as hell doesn't get integrated appropriately. And that is probably a definition that even Gabor Mate would agree with. That unintegrated stress is actually what, what leads to this trauma pattern in the future.

Trauma is just a long term series of disconnections to your true self, as Gabor would argue. You know, as you, as you bring this up, it makes me question a little bit what the alternative would look like. What, what in your idea, kind of like that. Not there's a gold standard, but what a, what a natural birthing process would look like. And, and just one thing I'd throw into what you just described. Although these may seem like trite examples compared to a birthing process, you know, it's like an Ironman triathlon, right. I wouldn't pick you up in a helicopter and drop you off at the finish line. It's going to be a far more transformative experience to train for nine months leading up to that race and put in all the blood, sweat and tears and suffering during the actual race to actually make that metal that gets hung around your neck at the finish, or I guess in this case, Iron man baby, a lot more rewarding. And you know, there are of course, hundreds of other analogies that I'm sure people could draw up in terms of the difficulty of a process resulting in a greater reward afterwards. You know, Greg McCown in his book Essentialism, says that we should be asking ourselves the question, what if this were easy and trying to find the easiest way? But you also need to take that with, with a grain of salt and understand that sometimes the easiest way is not the most character building or transformative way. And sometimes doing things the harder way has some, some beneficial side effects, you know?

Yeah, and let me spin on that for a minute because I love essentialism. I think that actually is a bit of a reflection as to how I've been really trying to live my life since getting fired from the system for the mask thing. And by the way, in case you haven't heard, I was caring for a guy who's 95 at his end, at the end of his life, hasn't seen family, hasn't been touched for 18 months, locked away in a cell and people were sliding food, you know, through his door and closing it. He just was desperate to have some love at the end of his life. And I gave him that. Was that the right or wrong thing to do? I don't know. However, I mean, I would argue it's the right thing to do, but.

When that happened, I had to really, really Kind of reconcile.

Like, what is really needed for this person right now. Like, what is. What is actually happening here? And what does easy. What does an easy birth actually mean? On one hand, we have people giving birth at home. My wife, Very, very brief story. Her waters opened at 5pm on. On our guest date, which is the due date. I call it a guest date because you don't really know. It could be off two feeds.

I like that guest.

Her water's opened at 5pm we called our breathwork friend. She's an effigy breath worker, Sarah Tromoly. She lives in Louisville. She came over. We started breathing at 6. I went into, like, tetany. I was out in outer space by 6. 45. We're talking an hour and 45 after labor started. Our baby was out. The portal opened. Baby Everly Rosa came out asleep on my wife's chest, and the portal closed. And. And that as far as we. If we're going to talk about easy, that is way easier than having a C section. It is way easier than being in a hospital being induced for two days just under this semblance of this sort of notion, this illusion of safety provided by the hospital. Now, that's not to say we don't need hospitals. There are some reasons why we should induce. There are some reasons why we should do C sections, but we shouldn't be inducing one third and doing C sections on one third of pregnancies. So we have to reimagine. What does easy mean? You are creating other issues by doing the C section, especially if you're going to have multiple pregnancies, which could be far harder than actually going through this process of integrating this sort of sacred ritual of giving birth vaginally. And it's also not for everybody. There's not a right answer here. But when women say, hey, I want to have a home birth, we in the medical profession should not treat that as a stupid, uninformed, naive decision. There is a really, really good reason for us to honor birth. And I would argue if we want to fix any of these big problems we see in the world and we can't even get birthright, like the only thing that's helping us stay alive as a species, you know, and relevant here on this planet. I think we need to get. Get birth, right? I think we need to reimagine what, what easy birth actually means, because my wife described hers as ecstatic, like it was a pleasurable experience.

Well, let's. Let's put a wand in your hand and make you the home Birth fairy and you were to kind of wave it around and implement a few things that you think would be recommended for a natural birth or a home birth. I don't know if you put scenarios like that together, but especially for people who might not even be familiar with that. Or maybe somebody's listening and they're like, oh, I'd love for my baby. Or maybe, you know, somebody's listening, they want to talk to the children because it's their grandbaby. We want to talk about natural birth. What's it actually look like?

Well, I'll take you through an exercise I do with all of my couples who come to me for pregnancy support. I care for people across the world through pregnancy. I just had a couple, actually, twins. They just like telemedicine. Yeah. Everything I do is remote, unless close enough to me and I can drive to their home birth, which I do.

And by the way, you're in Kentucky, right?

Yeah, Louisville, Kentucky. So my. My last clients that I attended their home birth, they lived up near. Near Lake. What is it? Lake Michigan. They're in like the. The Gary, Indiana area. And they also had like a 20 minute labor. I didn't even get there in time, it was so fast. But they had really dialed in their lifestyle and everything, so they had this really easy, beautiful birth as well at home. But anyways, the exercise that I ask everybody, and I'll ask you now, is if you actually close your eyes. Maybe not because you're walking on a treadmill, but if you really kind of tap into your inner space there. What do you imagine? Imagine you and your wife's name is Jessica.

Jessa. Yeah. Jessica. Yeah.

So imagine you and Jessa are going to have another baby. Let's just play hypothetical here. What does the room feel like to you as you're welcoming in this? Let's say it's a little girl this time. She's kind of. She's coming. What does the room feel like to you? What does it smell like? What sounds you're hearing? Who is there? What are you tasting like? So just do that exercise for me. Like, what would that ideal experience, that sacred experience feel like for you?

Yeah, it would be peaceful. It would be ceremonial. There would be music.

But really relaxing and peaceful music. There would probably be incense or aromatherapy in the room. There would likely be lighting, but very like, soft, natural lighting. There would be comfortable bedding and. And my wife would feel like she was in a place of safety and trust. There would be supported loved ones gathered around. If that were my wife's wishes to have people in the room, like her family members or my family members or me or our sons to support. And there would probably also be someone there to help us feel, you know, confident, whether, you know, a physician or a doula or a midwife to help out with the process. And.

Yeah, it would be very, very peaceful and ceremonial setting.

Well, the reason I had you do that, Ben, is that when I ask people that question, they say the exact same thing.

So I don't even need to present.

And there'd be a lot of really white walls and bright overhead fluorescent light also.

Oh, you forgot about that.

And they're beeping, and there are lots of beeps.

You left out all the stuff that we expect in the hospital. So you mentioned a really important thing there, and that was that where your wife feels safe. So anybody listening, wherever you actually feel the most seen the most witnessed, wherever you feel the best cared for, that is the best place to have a baby. It may be a free birth out in the woods or in the water with the dolphins or whatever. Wherever you feel that that's the best place that is actually relevant. Because if you're not feeling safe, if you're feeling stressed out, we get this surge of catecholamines, which actually counteracts the love hormone oxytocin. I won't get too far into oxytocin, but that is a. A lecture series all on its own.

So that safety piece is advertised by the hospitals, but all those things that you mentioned at the very end. So let's actually just walk through what a hospital birth looks like. You're on your back. Usually you're in this uncomfortable bed wearing this starchy kind of uncomfortable, scratchy gown. Your baby emerges after they're yelling at you. They're pulling your knees back to your head. There's all this cacophony of noise in the room. The baby emerges. They immediately cut the cord. Although some hospitals are now finally opening up to the idea that we're going to let it pulsate for 60 seconds. The last birth I was at, just the one in Indiana. I think we waited 90 minutes before we even addressed the cord or the placenta or anything. So they clamp the cord, they cut it. They get the baby dried off. They dress the baby up in a little burrito outfit. They put eye goop on the baby's eyes, a little hat. They maybe even stick a needle in their foot, injecting vitamin K. And then eventually they get the baby on your chest. But in the meantime, they're touching you, they're probing you. There's these bright lights, there's beeping for days on end. All this in and out, people coming in and out, maybe not even introducing themselves. That is the reality of what the hospital experience looks like. I think we should improve upon the hospital experience. And is it possible to have the birth that you just described, your dream birthday or Jessa's dream birth? Is it possible to do that in the hospital? And many would argue no. And my clients are sort of deliberately choosing home birth because they had something bad or something that didn't feel right in the hospital setting.