We have an unvalidated continuous fetal heart rate monitoring technology that's been around for 50 years, and we still haven't validated that it actually does anything to improve outcomes.

What I always say is the burden of proof lies and the one who wants to deviate from nature.

I had to actually carry the studies around in order to support my notion that we don't need

to intervene, which is backwards from what it should be.

We should be using data to support natural physiologic birth.

And if there is some reason to deviate, we need to be very, very short of that.

But that's not what's happening. We're using medical publications in order to support our internal bias, which is publication and confirmation bias that it's worse. It's like you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't, unless you just step away and say, okay, you guys do your thing over there. I'm going to help support

the midwifery care model over here. I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of hypniburthing of Connecticut,

childbirth advocate, and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Tresha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife

and international board certified lactation consultant.

And this is the Down to Birth podcast.

Childbirth is something we're made to do, but how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture?

Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

My name is Nathan Riley.

I'm a fairly young physician.

And I trained, I started in the University of Pittsburgh, got all my, you know, I was a Spanish major, saw the world,

did all that stuff, and then decided to go to med school. So I went to med school at Temple

University. And then I found myself in California, my wife, I was about to say my wife at the time,

my still wife, wanted to go to a place with beaches and palm trees, sunshine, because we're

from Pittsburgh and it's a pretty

dreary state. So at least that half of the state is. And so we found ourselves in L.A. I did my

residency training. It's four hard years. And that was at Kaiser Permanente in Hollywood in Los Angeles.

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