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Birthing Instincts

#444: Restoring Midwifery: Breaking Down the Indefensible

Birthing Instincts

Dr. Stuart Fischbein + Midwife Blyss Young

Alternative Health, Kids & Family, Health & Fitness, Parenting

4.8 • 691 Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2025

⏱️ 101 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this week’s episode, Dr. Stu and Midwife Blyss interview Rowan Bailey and Sarita Bennett, two midwives who have faced significant legal and professional challenges. They discuss Rowan's experience of being jailed for practicing traditional midwifery and Sarita's struggles with administrative hearings. The conversation dives into the importance of traditional, individualized midwifery care and critiques the current medical and midwifery systems for their lack of emotional and community support. Rowan and Sarita share their innovative approach to restorative peer review, aiming to create a compassionate, accountable midwifery community. 

About Rowan Bailey

My heart for midwifery is rooted deeply in my conviction for sovereignty in the childbearing year.  The more I studied and became involved in birth work, the more stories I heard that began with ‘they wouldn’t let me ____’ or ‘I was high risk because ____’ and that solidified the midwife I was to become. 

The infantilization of women within obstetrics and modern day midwifery is systemic, damaging, and down right patriarchal. I didn’t take my call to be the one to say yes to those that the system failed lightly. I knew that they were smart, capable women who just wanted someone to walk with them. I figured if I was going to answer this call, I was going to do it with integrity.

My mission is to be a mirror and a reminder that when we break out of captivity and become our most powerful selves we can make the movement move. I want us all to find our feet and our breath and be fully who we are meant to be: wild, raw, messy, and beautifully ungovernable. 

About Sarita Bennett

I learned midwifery in the traditional model - by attending those families who were choosing home birth early in the modern home birth movement. Most of the forty-plus years I have served as a midwife and osteopathic family physician have been in a rural, mountainous region that is far from any hospital with OB providers or surgical capability, leading to the development of a detailed understanding of reproductive physiology and the inter-relatedness of all parts of the reproductive process.  The added experience of teaching - from home school with my children to medical students - has given me the ability to explain complicated concepts in understandable terms.  Fueled by my passion for supporting healthy humans, I am excited to share my embodied knowledge with those who are on the same journey towards building thriving communities.


Website: Foundationalconcepts4mws.com

Instagram: @foundational.concepts4mws


Mentioned in this Episode

Compromised to Alchemized Podcast


Discussed in This Episode

Challenges in Midwifery Practice

Critical Thinking in Midwifery

Personal Work and Midwifery Skills

The Importance of Knowing Why

Humanizing Obstetrics

Defensibility & Autonomy in Birth Choices

The Obstetric Myth and Women's Power

Restorative Peer Review in Midwifery


Podcast Produced by: Raquel Hernandez, Pride and Joy Doula Care 


This show is supported by


Connect with Dr. Stu and Blyss

Podcast webpage: birthinginstinctspodcast.com



Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to the Burling Instincts Podcast.

0:05.0

I'm Dr. Stewart Fishbein, community-based practicing obstetrician and long-time advocate for birth choices.

0:10.0

And I'm Bliss Young, a licensed midwife.

0:13.0

Join us in our conversational style podcast where we talk about everything birth.

0:17.0

Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we cry, but we're happy that you're here. So here we go.

0:23.7

Hello.

0:25.3

Wow, you sure look dapper today.

0:29.4

It's chilly in Austin.

0:32.8

If you're not on Patreon, you can't see that Dr. Stu is looking very handsome in his houndstooth tweed coat.

0:42.3

As you know, he usually is wearing t-shirts in his homestead.

0:47.4

And if you guys aren't paying attention, Bliss is actually in charge today because I'm on the road.

0:53.1

So, yeah, I'll just start, I guess.

0:55.4

So I'm in Austin, just so you know.

0:58.7

And I'm just thinking about looking at our lowly budget and the fact that you're on Zoom.

1:04.7

And I just spent two days recording in studios for live form interviews.

1:13.1

So look out for those coming out.

1:16.5

By the time this comes out,

1:17.7

I'm pretty sure my day with Dell Bigtree and the Highwire

1:21.8

will probably already be released.

1:24.4

So hopefully you liked that interview that I did with him. And he's coming on our podcast,

1:30.1

which is very exciting. Yeah, he was very gracious about coming on. He wants to talk about his

1:36.1

documentary and inconvenience study. But I'm putting it off until January, simply because in two

...

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