hospital rooms need bars. They need things hanging from the ceiling. They need squat stools. They need the bed to be in the background, not the foreground, because then mothers don't have to think about all this stuff. They can just see something that their body and their mind is called to. All birthrooms, there should be something hanging from the ceiling

that women can grip onto because it helps so much with the pushing. I mean, it can be as simple as

where do you squeeze the hips? Like when I'm doing a comfort measure, you know, a lot of people

like press really directly in at the sacrum, which I'm like, that can relieve back pain,

but it's not

addressing why we're having back labor? So why not? If someone's already having back labor and

they already want me to support their comfort, why not address why they're having back labor

rather than just pressing in that actually might be preventing the birth from happening as efficiently.

I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of Hypnoberthing of Connecticut, Childbirth Advocate, and Postpartum Support

Specialist. And I'm Trescia 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.

Well, hello, everyone. My name is Lindsay McCoy. I am the creator and co-founder of the Body Ready Method.

I am an exercise physiologist and a birth dula of 15 years, and I have trained, you know, now 2,000 professionals in the Body Ready Method

and, you know, tens of thousands of families through our work virtually, and then, of course,

in person. I am the daughter of a labor and delivery nurse, the granddaughter of an OBGYN,

and funny enough, my husband's father was an OBGYN. So I was like, no thank you.

Like dinner, talk was epiziotomies and hemorrhages and I was going into exercise science.

Thank you very much. And then going through college, I got really interested in special populations,

thought about doing cardiac rehab, worked in that for a while. Then when I was starting to think about

having my own babies, got really into the research and what was going on with pre-natal exercise,

...