#417: Midwifery & The Conundrum Of The Legislative Process with Ellie Stangl
Birthing Instincts
Dr. Stuart Fischbein + Midwife Blyss Young
4.5 • 631 Ratings
🗓️ 11 June 2025
⏱️ 83 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week Dr. Stu is solo as Blyss is away and joined by guest Ellie Stangl, a certified doula and legislative aide in Nebraska. Together they delve into the legislative process affecting maternity care: Does anyone understand the process? Does it make any logical sense? The short answer is no, but dive into this conversation with us to dig deeper and discuss the complications and frustrations of introducing and passing bills that advocate for midwifery and home birth practices. The conversation delves into the challenges posed by the medical lobby, the legislative process, why laws differ from state to state, and how the cultural misperceptions about natural birth results in a lot of confusion around legislation.
About Ellie:
Ellie Stangl is a dedicated advocate and policy professional who has spent the past seven years working in the Nebraska Legislature. With a lifelong passion for natural and wholesome living, Ellie began in the birth world as a young girl assisting her mother during the home births of her siblings. This early exposure to God's design of birth and the beauty of motherhood inspired her to become a certified doula, a role in which she continues to serve friends, family, and members of the birthing community. Ellie has seamlessly integrated her personal and professional commitments by championing maternal health policy at the state level. She is actively drafting legislation to expand access to midwifery care and protection for women's birthing rights in Nebraska.
Instagram: @miss_elims
Resources
Birthing Instincts Podcast Patreon
Patreon: Advocacy Role Play Episode
AJOG Article: Quantifying the association between doula care and maternal and neonatal outcomes
In This Episode
Ellie's Journey to Legislative Advocacy
The Complexity of Legal Language
Challenges with Medical Regulations
Opposition from Medical Associations
The Influence of Campaign Funding
Comparing State Laws on Midwifery
The Importance of Community and Education
This show is supported by
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Connect with Dr. Stu and Blyss
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- Email: [email protected]
Podcast webpage: birthinginstinctspodcast.com
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Burling Instincts Podcast. I'm Dr. Stuart Fishbein, community-based practicing |
| 0:07.7 | obstetrician and longtime advocate for birth choices. And I'm Bliss Young, a licensed midwife. |
| 0:13.0 | Join us in our conversational style podcast where we talk about everything birth. |
| 0:17.5 | Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we cry, but we're happy that you're here, so here we go. |
| 0:23.1 | Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good middle of the night, fellow travelers. |
| 0:28.6 | It's Dr. Stu. I'm solo today with our guest, Ellie Stangle, which I'll introduce in a minute. |
| 0:34.6 | Bliss has some obligations she's taken care of today, and she obviously |
| 0:39.2 | sends her best wishes. My guest today is Ellie Stangle, and the topic is a conundrum for most of us, |
| 0:45.3 | and that is the legislative process as it pertains to states, even federal legislation regarding maternity care and how it all works or doesn't. |
| 0:59.8 | I'm hoping we learn more than the frustration that we might get from what Ellie has to tell us. |
| 1:06.0 | But anyway, that's what we're going to do after I do some house cleaning, as I usually do. |
| 1:11.8 | I'm going to talk about a little bit of advocacy because we've been getting such great |
| 1:16.6 | feedback from our visits with the intentional birth ladies. |
| 1:21.0 | And I've got a couple of letters and a article that I wanted to go over. |
| 1:26.5 | So let me do that first. Just a brief one from a comment from |
| 1:30.1 | Lennon, one of our Patreon members. You can join our Patreon by going to birthing and singspodcast.com |
| 1:37.2 | and signing up, we have many different tiers. We do peer review. We do Q&A. Bliss does a village prenatal. |
| 1:44.1 | We have other interesting things. I do Q&A. Blist as a village prenatal. We have other interesting things. I do deep |
| 1:47.0 | dives. So check it out. And again, that's brilliant instincts podcast.com. And from Lenin, she says, |
| 1:53.4 | about the advocacy conversation we had, both on the podcast as well as we did some role playing on |
| 2:00.2 | Patreon. Such a great conversation. |
| 2:03.1 | Our biggest local hospital has a terrible doula agreement that doulas are required to sign in order to be allowed to be in the hospital. |
... |
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