Hi, I'm Skyler Grant and welcome to Commune, where each week we explore the ideas and

practices that bring us together and help us to live healthy, purpose-filled lives.

I'm taking over the mic from Jeff for a few weeks because I've curated a brand new kind of

commune course. It's a 21-day deep dive into pregnancy, childbirth, and early postpartum called

empowered birth. We're offering the course for free to mamas and Mamas to Be and their partners

and other support team from August 12th to September 1st.

If that sounds like your jam, just go to Onecommune.com slash birth to sign up.

This week and next, I'm inviting two experts from the course onto the podcast.

Today I'm going to be talking to Elizabeth Bockner.

She's a home birth and birthing center midwife.

And next week, I'm going to sit down with obstetricians, Suzanne Gilbert Lenz. I'm super

excited to have a conversation with both of them about what empowerment throughout the baby-making

journey means to them and to give all of you some actionable tips about how to navigate

the wacky world of the

birthing industry.

Last week on the podcast, if you were listening, I shared some birth stories, including my own

birth and the birth of a few of my daughters, all of which happened at home.

So you might imagine that I'm an advocate of home birth, but that's not entirely true.

I'm an advocate of a woman being informed about all the ways that she can safely and healthily

grow and birth and raise a baby. And then that woman making an empowered decision to have that

baby wherever she is most comfortable. Because all the science, as well as our

intuition, tells us that one of the most crucial elements for a positive birth outcome is the

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