#468: Everybody's Doing It", Not A Legal Standard Of Care With Hermine Hayes-Klein, ESQ.
Birthing Instincts
Dr. Stuart Fischbein + Midwife Blyss Young
4.8 • 692 Ratings
🗓️ 3 June 2026
⏱️ 103 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What happens when hospitals decide informed consent no longer applies to breech birth?
In this powerful and deeply important episode, Blyss and Stu welcome back attorney and birth rights advocate Hermine Hayes-Klein to unpack a landmark Oregon malpractice trial centered on coercion, informed consent, and the growing normalization of mandatory cesarean sections for breech babies.
This is not just a conversation about breech birth. It’s a conversation about power, coercion, medical culture, and whether women still have the right to make informed decisions about their own bodies during childbirth.
If you care about birth autonomy, informed consent, or preserving disappearing birth skills, this is an episode you cannot miss.
About Hermine Hayes-Klein:
Hermine Hayes-Klein, JD is an attorney and advocate for reproductive justice and human rights in pregnancy and childbirth. Hermine works on legal actions and advocacy projects related to preventable injury and informed consent violations in childbirth, and advocacy for access to midwives and doulas around the US and beyond. Hermine began her international advocacy for the recognition of human rights in childbirth when she was teaching law at The Hague University in The Hague, the Netherlands, in 2012, and organized 6 international conferences on that topic in the US, Europe, South Africa, and India. She has worked on many cases related to breech birth for both plaintiffs and defendants.
Website: https://fringeheals.com/
Instagram: @fringeheals
Blog: https://fringeheals.com/blogs/blog/tagged/womens-health.
Email: hi@fingeheals.com
References:
Realfoodology Podcast - Why So Many Women End Up With C-Sections: Birth Interventions Explained with Dr. Stuart Fischbein
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3HChoFaUvAmmHsGMoCRvCp?si=LHN-gYRgS_OgE6f24W2qHA
CHD.TV segment with Stu NEEDED
Mentorship with Blyss: wovenmoon.com
Elena Bridgers Substack: To Home Birth or Not to Home Birth?
Dr. Sara Wickham Instagram Post @drsarawickham
https://www.instagram.com/p/DYPHRC0DPqg/?igsh=NmZwMHNpNGxiY2Vx
Discussed in This Episode
The dangerous misuse of the phrase “standard of care”
Why informed consent is a legal duty, not a physician preference
How hospital policies quietly override individualized care
The lasting trauma many women experience during cesareans and epidurals
The legacy and flaws of the infamous Term Breech Trial
Why bodily autonomy in childbirth matters now more than ever
Podcast Produced by: Raquel Hernandez, Pride and Joy Doula Care
This show is supported by
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- Restorative Roots | Go to restorativeroots.com and use code BIRTHINGINSTINCTS to get $20 off
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- Caraway Home | Go to Carawayhome.com/instincts for an additional 10% off, or use code INSTINCTS at checkout!
Connect with Dr. Stu and Blyss
- Join our Patreon! patreon.com/birthinginstinctspodcast
- Instagram: @birthinginstincts/@wovenmoon_
- Website: birthinginstincts.com/birthingblyss.com
- Email: birthinginstinctspodcast@gmail.com
- Podcast webpage: birthinginstinctspodcast.com
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Burthing Instincts podcast. |
| 0:05.0 | I'm Dr. Stewart Fishbein, a hospital and home birth obstetrician for over 40 years, and a long-time advocate for birth choices. |
| 0:12.0 | And I'm Bliss Young, a traditional midwife. |
| 0:15.0 | Join us in our conversational style podcast where we talk about everything births. |
| 0:20.0 | Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we cry, but we're happy |
| 0:22.7 | that you're here. So here we go. It is so good to start out the day with a laugh. You mean |
| 0:30.3 | God spam, fucking spam? Yeah. But that's what you said right before we started yeah fucking spam phone calls god |
| 0:40.4 | damn it's all my phone is going off all day long and then you get i think most people can |
| 0:45.3 | understand that er sentiment and then you get spam things to tell you how to get rid of your spam |
| 0:51.0 | phone calls it's's hard, Steve. |
| 0:55.4 | I know what? |
| 0:56.3 | I'm sure there are ways to do it, but I don't open anything. |
| 0:59.3 | I'm not getting into anything that isn't, like, verified. |
| 1:03.7 | Good. |
| 1:04.4 | Right, these days. |
| 1:06.0 | So good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good middle of the night to all of you listening. |
| 1:10.7 | Thank you for being |
| 1:12.0 | our fellow travelers and joining us on this journey today. We've got a really great guest today. |
| 1:19.7 | As always. As always, Hermine Hayes Klein is coming on today to talk about what happened in Oregon. |
| 1:27.0 | And if you don't know what happened in Oregon, you listen to this |
| 1:29.6 | podcast, you'll know everything that happened in Oregon. That's funny because we just had the |
| 1:34.2 | what's going on in Texas, Beatty, and now we've got Oregon. Yeah. We're fighting back. And that's |
... |
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