#339 | Pitocin Without An Epidural Plus An Unintentional Free Birth

Down to Birth

Cynthia Overgard & Trisha Ludwig

Pregnancy, Childbirth, Postpartum, Midwives, Alternative Health, Home Birth, Society & Culture, Newborn, Documentary, Hypnobirthing, Kids & Family, Health & Fitness, Breastfeeding, Pregnant, Birth, Maternity, Motherhood

4.8 • 586 Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Emily shares two unforgettable and very different birth stories: an unmedicated hospital induction with Pitocin, and an unplanned free birth at home. In her first birth, she transferred late in pregnancy under New Hampshire’s “two high readings” rule for blood pressure. With a Foley balloon, Cervidil, and the lowest possible Pitocin drip, she labored quietly on all fours, declined unnecessary interventions, and delivered under the fetal ejection reflex—so calmly that all the nurses and doctor...

Transcript

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0:00.0	Anything on my birth plan that was a do not was bolded and underlined and highlighted.
0:07.6	Do not break my waters. Do not do a cervical check without my permission. Do not do an episiotomy.
0:13.1	All of these big do nots were on there. I want to be able to eat. I want to be able to walk around.
0:17.0	I don't want to be attached to a monitor. All these things that I wanted were very clearly listed out. And my husband gave a copy to every single person you walked in that room.
0:25.3	Getting into my hypnoberthing tracks, doing that massage, just relax me completely. And I ended up
0:30.8	falling asleep for the next six hours. On Potocin with no epidural, you were asleep? Correct.
0:36.3	And then I look up after I look at my beautiful
0:38.4	baby girl for the first time. And the room is full. Full of people. Every nurse on the floor was in
0:44.9	that room and three other doctors were in that room. The nurses had never seen a natural birth
0:50.5	where a woman also wasn't laying on her back. They all wanted to watch.
1:01.0	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
1:06.9	certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down to Birth Podcast.
1:15.5	Childbirth is something we're made to do.
1:20.0	But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture?
1:22.9	Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth. My name is Emily, and I live here in Hampshire, and I have two beautiful children, a daughter who is three and a half and a son who just turned one last month.
1:40.2	So I have two actually very different birth stories.
1:45.0	And the punchline of those birth stories is my daughter's birth was a absolutely magnificent and fantastic unintended hospital birth.
1:52.5	And my son was an absolutely magnificent and fantastic unintended free birth.
1:57.4	So very, very different birth stories.
2:00.7	But the one that I absolutely love to share the
2:03.2	most is my daughters. I became pregnant with my daughter in 2022. I was actually 10 weeks pregnant
2:10.0	at our first wedding anniversary. So it was very exciting, very new, very eager to jump into this
	...

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