Ashley

And so that was my second birth was in 2017. And I really made a commitment. Like, I think a contraction ended. And I just said to myself, I am never again teaching someone the stages of labor, I cannot do it. It's such bullshit. And so I just wanted to know how else I could teach it. And I started thinking a lot about what absolutely had to happen in birth and what was true, and with a lot of trial and error came up with three things.

Tanya Tringali

Did you know that less than 15% of people meet guidelines for recommended amounts of physical activity during pregnancy. As healthcare providers, it is our duty to promote health and wellness throughout the lifespan and the perinatal period is all too often overlooked. Our clients look to us for guidance on this, and we do the best we can with the knowledge we have. But that's often based on a combination of life experiences, common sense and myths. My new course exercise in the perinatal period for healthcare providers is designed for providers who are motivated to improve their ability to support their clients and getting or staying active throughout the perinatal period, including their postpartum return to fitness. Click the link in the show notes to learn more.

Tanya Tringali

Hey, everyone, I'm your midwife Tanya Tringali. Welcome to the mother wit podcast, a show about the issues we healthcare consumers and providers face every day as we interact with the medical system. We'll talk about its blind spots, shortcomings, and share strategies we can use to feel seen and heard no matter which side of the table we sit on.

Tanya Tringali

My guest today is Ashley Richter. She's an educator, speaker, consultant, and entrepreneur. Despite her experience with hundreds of families as a doula and birth educator, like so many others, her first birth did not go exactly as planned. And that ended up being good for everybody else, because she founded birth smarter and 2019. Birth smarter provides unbiased, inclusive and award winning practical wisdom and guidance to the next generation of families. She's a certified Fair Play instructor, facilitator rather. So Ashley, and I connected, because a client of mine told me about birth smarter. And I liked what I saw. And so I referred another client there. And then Ashley looked me up and realized that we had tons in common and we do and we hopped on a call and Omi did we have lots to talk about? So at some point, I said, Wait, wait, wait, let's just stop. Let's just have you on the show. So I'm so excited to have her here to share her story and how her story led to this innovative approach to birth education that is called Birth smarter. Welcome, Ashley. Thank you so much.

Ashley

Thank you for having me. I just I loved that intro. And I was already excited to talk to you because it has been a while since we first connected and now I'm even more excited.

Tanya Tringali

Well, I did it full disclosure, I had to like, revisit the notes that I was scratching down with such enthusiasm about our conversation because it was a while ago. And I was like, what were all those things we had in common again. So like I totally had to reorganize my thoughts because the feeling stayed with me, but like the facts kind of started to go away. But I've got it all down, and it'll come back to us as we go. Let's just start by having you introduce yourself, tell us whatever it is you want to share about yourself as a person in the world and professionally.

Ashley

Yeah, thanks. Um, I am an educator. First and foremost, I love learning things. And I love teaching people. I also come from a family of entrepreneurs. So while I thought growing up that i My love of teaching meant that I was going to be in a typical classroom space with little ones, it was clear that I couldn't really get away from having my own business. And I think that my passion in this space, and I'm going to maybe be a little bit more emotional or raw because I just finished a birth murder Postpartum Support Group like I came right into this from that group of amazing, amazing people who have babies between three and 11 weeks old. And what we were working on then that I feel like I've been working on for the last 10 years of my life is the fact that the most amazing humans who grow and feed other humans feel like they can somehow fail. And I haven't really articulated this in another space but it's something I want to workshop more And it's how I want to introduce myself here, which is that I want to make sure that no parent feels like they're failing. And I think the way we do that is we start with prenatal education and set them up for success instead of setting them selves up for some, you know, arbitrary viewpoint that Instagram and and books and grandparents and the cashier at the grocery store is going to tell you like that there's a right way to do this, there's a right way to show up and have your babies and raise them because there's not.

Tanya Tringali

Yeah, that's all true. And I think it's kind of cool that we're having you on in a moment where you're feeling a little more vulnerable and raw, because this is a really safe space for that. And our listeners are often feeling that way, while they're listening to this show. So I think it's like totally fair game, like, be where you are. And I think we'll get a really interesting take on everything that you were going to share with us regardless because of where your head head is at right now. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So okay, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Ashley

Yeah, I am a born and raised New Yorker. And I'm currently living in Salt Lake City. So I'm enjoying Mountain West life, which is new to me, and I'm open to it. More skiing and camping. I have two kids, my daughter is eight and a half, and my son just turned six. And that alone is wild. Because I've been in this space for long enough to feel like I've been in this space for a long time. And I became a doula, four or five years before my daughter was born. And so I constantly was like, I'm right alongside you, with my clients, you know, I get it, I'm with you. I would teach classes as a pregnant person. And, you know, I gave my stroller away. We like we're done. We're done with the baby phase. I'm married. And that's how theraplay has come into our life. So you know, I think who I am as I am a female, small business owner and mom who survived the pandemic and like is Living to Tell the Tale. And those of us who have lived to tell the tale need to be talking about it. Because it's been a journey the last few years.

Tanya Tringali

Oh, yeah, totally. All right. I have two questions for you right out of the gate, because you touched on things that I'm sure people are like, Wait, pause. I want to know what that means. Let's start with telling people what a fair play facilitator is. So that yeah, as it comes up in conversation, people are following. Okay,

Ashley

fair play is an amazing system. It's a physical book. It's a card deck that you can play. And there's a documentary, The documentary, I think, is the most accessible way to familiarize yourself with fair play, but it's a system for equitably, not equally, but equitably dividing the household labor between two adults who cohabitate the fair play book is very much written for the male female dynamic, right? Mom does all the things dad doesn't do all the things and we need to rectify that. And as the messaging sort of advanced, the documentary is much more inclusive and much more global. But essentially, what I do is I help two people who live in the same house, figure out how they're going to divvy up the workload so that it doesn't fall on one person alone.

Tanya Tringali

Awesome. I love that. And without having ever read this book, or the watch the documentary, when I work with couples, because I do work with couples, even though a lot of my work centers on the birthing person, couples are strongly encouraged to participate. Especially when we're in the prenatal phase kind of preparing for postpartum, I have a whole thing on equity instead of equality. I totally get it. And anyone who's worked with me knows that that's one of my big philosophies, right? I always point out to people that like, things are going to come in waves with parenting, there are going to be times like feeding your baby, where you might be the dominant feeder, the one who does the majority of the work. But like later on down the road, there's going to be something major that the partner picks up that you're like, Oh, thank God, it's not me. I'm not good at that. Or I don't want to do that. And we have to be thinking in these very flexible ways where it's about how can I make your life better? How can I make your life better? And that doesn't happen when people are like, playing tit for tat.

Ashley

No. And it also I mean, I was saying this recently, I have been with my husband for a very, very long time. And it just dawned on us a year ago, two years ago, I guess when we really started the fairplay process that we had never once in almost 16 years of being together had a conversation about we want to how we want to share our bedroom space. Not once, hey, you know, what would happen is I early on was like you put your clothes on the floor? I don't think I like that. And I don't really know how to talk to you about that. Because I already had as a someone who was raised female in our society, the message that by noticing his clothes, I was gonna sound like a nag, right? Or that there was like a hierarchy of values placed on cleanliness. And so for 16 years, I was like, Can you pick your clothes up? And he was like, yeah. And so what I love about fair play is it takes all the emotions out of it, or, ideally, it does. I mean, we tried to do this process, so many times where we divvied up responsibilities, and it led to huge fights. And that's why I went and became a facilitator, because I was like, I need to understand more than what the book is giving me because we're not, we're not figuring it out. And we really, I needed that additional support. And I think most couples do, where we're able to say, Hey, I see you human being with your thoughts and your values and your belief structure, and your childhood experiences and how you were raised. I come in with my own beliefs. And here's, you know, here's why I want my space to be clean. And truthfully, right. For a lot of us, I think it's because we're scared, we're gonna get yelled at. And for the people who are maybe a little messier, it's like, nobody really cared. And so we were just coming to adulting, with different experiences. And if you can sit down, we think a lot about just joint projects, like imagine you started a group project at school, imagine you started a group project at work. Let's divide expectations. Let's be clear, hey, who's doing what and why? How is this gonna go? Well, how do we both win? Right? And it's a real reset button, especially for parents? Who if, and that's why I love doing this work with people prenatally because a kid enters the picture. And you don't have time to brush your teeth, let alone have a big conversation about how you want to operate your household.

Tanya Tringali

Absolutely. That's why we have to start talking about it before, which leads me to my next question for you. Where do you position this work? I'm guessing you're gonna tell me it's always a part of what you do, even if you don't say it is in the moment. But like, where is this more explicitly positioned in the work that you do with birth, education, parenting, education and work with couples?

Ashley

Yeah, so I do one on one work with couples. If somebody wants to book an hour consult with me, or we do a four six week series, where we really workshop how to implement Fair Play practices in your home. So that's always available. I have a dream of creating a six to eight week accountability course that a group of couples will do together because I think the peer support, maybe peer pressure, both will be really helpful. I haven't done that yet. But that's probably coming. But absolutely. I mean, fairplay is woven into everything that birth smarter offers. And I think that's why it was such a natural fit, because we were sort of doing it anyway. But we didn't have language for it. And so birth, smarter birth education, like our signature course, is our childbirth education class. And one of the things that is the most different than other courses, and the most fun and interesting is that we route down into five partner responsibilities. And so we say when somebody comes in, and they're having a baby, right, one of you is going to get the baby out of your body, and the other one is operating as a support person. But that doesn't mean that you're any less important, right? Or we care about you less. And so I mean, every single time we teach, people are just partners, right? They're like, well, I don't want to mess it up. I don't want to get in their way. I don't really know what to do. And either we need to hire a doula or I just want to trust the doctors and the nurses, right? Because they're intimidated. And that makes sense, because it's really a lot to have a baby. And if you've never been around it, how would you know? Right? And our messaging is very fear mongering. So we just say to partners, alright, here's how birth happened. Here's birth physiology, which we can go into out separately, but and then here are the five things that you're going to do from now until your baby is born. That's it. Keep track of these five things. And they're like, oh, okay, thanks.

Tanya Tringali

Yeah, it's so nice when you can make something that feels huge and insurmountable. Simple. It's like it's similar to using a pneumonic to learn something, right? It's like, I only have to know these five things. And suddenly this task feels real. it manageable

Lo

Are you pregnant? And thinking about what making milk for your baby will be like? Do you wonder why feeding human babies human milk has become so challenging. I'm Lo Nigrosh, a lactation consultant and host of the milk making minutes, a podcast that explores baby feeding through the lens of systemic and cultural barriers. Come listen to others share their insight about their own milk making experiences, and empower yourself to feed your own babies in the way that feels best for you.

Ashley

So, yeah, basically, I learned a ton about birth less than you, I want to learn from you and everybody else. But I learned a lot about birth as a doula as a childbirth educator. And mostly, the way childbirth is presented, is in what's called the stages and phases of labor. So we talk a lot about the fact that you're going to have contractions, we're going to time them and certain patterns of contractions mean different things for where you are in your progress to getting the baby out of your body. And in my first birth, I had sort of a funky labor pattern, and I couldn't quite tell where I was. And, you know, like you said, in the intro, I did all the things. And then my birth was like, Oh, this didn't really work. And with my second birth, it was just, I mean, we were we were on the moon, like I was so far away from the stages of labor that I had been reading and teaching that I said to my Doula, I don't understand what's happening right now. And she was like, sort of Me neither. But let's just keep going. Right, which was such a wonderful doula thing to say. And so that was my second birth was in 2017. And I really made a commitment. Like, I think a contraction ended. And I just said to myself, I am never again, teaching someone the stages of labor, I cannot do it. It's such bullshit. And so I just wanted to know how else I could teach it. And I started thinking a lot about what absolutely had to happen in birth and what was true, and with a lot of trial and error came up with three things. That has sort of worked out for us. So in order to have a baby vaginally, there's no way around needing uterine contractions. Like that's one, we need to have contractions. Okay, in order to have a baby vaginally, the cervix has to get really, really soft. If your cervix stays hard. Even if you have a ton of contractions, it can't get that cervix to open up. And then one of the phrases that Caprice, who's our Director of Education uses all the time that I love, and she just says, well, the pelvis is in a water slide. So even if you have big contractions, even if your cervix gets really soft, and it's able to dilate, the baby doesn't just slip out. So the third thing we came up with is the baby has to rotate. And it seems like I mean, we've I'm so honored and humbled to say that Bruce martyr has taught over 8000 couples, which is just like, wild, like in doing this, you know, for the first few years I was like, Is this true? Is this like is somebody going to come in and be like, This doesn't make any sense. It's weird to have an idea. And now when we think about people who are induced, we think, Well, you need contractions, you need your cervix to get soft, you need your baby to rotate. If you get an epidural, you need to have contractions, you need your cervix to get soft, you need your baby to rotate. And, you know, if you're in a larger body, you need these things to happen. If you are 39 years old, you need these things to happen. It became what we call the three actions. It just became such an inclusive and unbiased way to talk about birth physiology, that left a room for the unpredictable. It left room for in my situation, a two minute long contraction, it leaves room for a long rest and be grateful fees. It leaves room for starting and stopping whatever things happen in labor, and you're like, Wait, what is this? Where am I? What is this mean? We don't know it doesn't matter. Right? So the partner responsibility has really come out of that simple understanding of how birth happens physiologically. And so the first thing we say to partners is in order for the uterus to contract, the body needs to be releasing oxytocin, right this like love trust safety hormone. So we asked partners to become the keepers of oxytocin. We say, yeah, if you're pregnant, you're producing you're the producer of oxytocin right now. But it's your partner's job to keep it up. And right away, you can see the wheels turning in people's brains because certainly when I was coming, I mean, I was born at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, my mom had an epidural, she had like, the most classic white male OB like, lay on your back at an epidural, you know, the OB, and my dad shot the shit and ate pizza. And I, I will say, I didn't question that for a long time. I was like, that's how you have babies. And if somebody wants a midwife, and if somebody wants candles, they're, they're a little more woo than me, right there reaching for something that I don't need. And I think when you just understand birth physiology, and say, hey, you know, we need you to keep up oxytocin, I'm going to need you to shut the light, because you're not going to feel as safe under fluorescent lighting, I'm going to need you to stay really close to her because we know scientifically that that touch right is going to help somebody feel safe. Those things aren't about being woowoo. They're not about being alternative. They're not about needing an unmedicated birth, do this on an epidural. It's just that we're going to need the hormones to be operating. And then, from a fair play sort of relationship perspective, could you imagine better relationship advice, then, hey, could you pay attention to what might trigger your partner's oxytocin release of oxytocin. And so if they're feeling scared, or stressed, or nervous, in daily life, you have a list a little cheat sheet of, hey, you know what they really like, they really like when I shut the lights off, they really like a foot massage, or they really don't want me to touch them. They really want me to put music on and light a candle and leave. So number one, keep up the oxytocin do it in a way where you have to investigate your partner and learn about each other. And that's amazing. Number two, right, we think a lot about and these can go in any order. But the uterus, we teach people how awesome the uterus is, like, we this muscle, this this muscular organ, not a muscle, but Right. But like, I think everybody understands and appreciates the heart, this thing that pumps constantly, right, that shape shifts and works for us, the uterus is so friggin cool. But in order for it to contract over and over and over again, it needs to be oxygenated. And it needs to be hydrated. So we asked partners to be the alpha breather, that's their second responsibility. And that means not saying, just breathe, just breathe, just breathe. So we modeled deep breathing, and we show them how tapping into their own breath can help them regulate their nervous system, and how that can model for their partner what breathing through contractions can look like. And then we talk we talk about, we got to change the name on this, I'm open to ideas, but the way we say it is being the chief hydration officer. And what it means to keep a water bottle, fool around and hand somebody a water bottle after every contraction. And that's always a bigger conversation too, about eating and drinking and labor. And then we sort of get into getting into the baby moving and we talk a lot about posture and alignment. And so their their fourth responsibility is to keep it moving. To understand that movement in the maternal body is going to help the baby signed its path. And we give them lots of positions to get into. And we ask that all of these responsibilities start as soon in the pregnancy as they learn them. Right. So this isn't something that you sort of study, and then like do as soon as contractions begin. All of these are appropriate as pregnancy support as well. Right? hand her a water bottle, do some deep breathing. Get her into different positions. Hey, I noticed that we're going to start watching a movie instead of sitting on the sofa with your tailbone tucked. Would you like this ball and I draped a throw blanket over the ball so that you can be more comfortable and I spritzed lavender on it for you. Right like we we need to practice all of this because we we also say all the time like we labor how we live right so put it in your body. So they keep it moving. And then the last partner responsibility is just to keep track of all the logistics and I don't know if you have Have you seen the Seth Meyers comedy special lobby baby.

Tanya Tringali

Yes, love it. Love that story. So so much.

Ashley

So that's our it's like a stump joke that we're like logistics and then we give everybody the homework of going to arch lobby baby because Seth Meyers explains what it means to keep track of logistics, put your doctor's phone number in your phone, put your doulas phone number in your phone, know the hospital address know if you have to go into a different entrance, if it's after midnight, you know, and all of those things that they might not that they, because we have this pattern and this right, it goes back to fairplay, we have a pattern where typically in a male female relationship, the female is going to be doing the information gathering and holding a lot of the mental load. And we want to interrupt that as early as possible. And just give them the things that give partners, all the information that they really need to be keeping track of.

Tanya Tringali

I love this so much. What I'm hearing, I'm hearing a lot of different things that are interesting to me. The big one that is kind of overarching in my mind right now is that even simpler right than the five things is this kind of global idea that I'm hearing as you state them each, that if couples can tap into the ways in which they have should, if this is established, and in a good place for them, the way they tap into intimacy, it's the same set of skills. Right, if one partner is like angling for some intimate time, they kind of do a lot of these things. Yeah, but we get busy in life. And we stopped doing them all of that stuff. So it's about staying super tuned in the way we would be when we are being intentional about being intimate. And it doesn't have to be sexual, but it could be. And that's why it could these skills are going to work for a doula, they're going to work for a midwife. And that brings me to my next thought, in listening to you. I'm almost having this interesting, like I'm of two minds, because everything you're saying is 100%. Correct. There's nothing I need to like debate with you. But you use language that's so different than the language I accepted a gazillion years ago. And while I might talk around it in creative ways, I have largely stuck with language that is reflective of the stages of labor, for example. Right? So what you've done is you've just taken this thing, and set it more precisely more concisely, and taken away the like the medical mystery. That is, the phases of labor, which you write are total bullshit, because everybody does them differently. Like I've told this essence of my birth story on the show a million times. I was that person. I only ever had one kid, but I was that person who was literally one centimeter for over 24 hours. And then I broke my water bar for my brains out and I was fully dilated. Yeah, yeah, you were Yeah. And so that's the thing. Like, I've always been super frustrated when a team member rolls their eyes and says somebody has no pain threshold, because they're only one. And I can tell the difference. I'm not even saying that it's ever okay to say what they're saying. But there is a range of experiences and the way people cope. But I can always tell when that person is just ahead of what the number that we can sense is. And that's a level of nuance that I don't see a lot of providers come to labor with. And that pisses me off like to no end. Because I know my personal experience, and I can always spot the person who's having that kind of labor.

Ashley

Yeah. What is this third birth that I ever attended as a doula This is helpful context, even before my birth, the third birthday ever attended as a doula with someone in a childbirth education class that I had the opportunity to audit. She went into labor three weeks early, she didn't have a doula. She called the teacher of the class and was like, Can you come like we're freaking out, and she couldn't. And she called me and I could, and I showed up, and she was like, my water broke. I'm two centimeters dilated. And they were talking about induction methods and all of that, and her husband was like, we don't have anything I want to go to the store. I want to get a change of like a clothing or a shirt or something. And I was like, Okay, great. You know, I was brand new, and he laughed. She was gonna go to sleep. And I sat down on the chair. Maybe maybe five minutes later, she roared. I mean, she roared, and I like jumped up and held her hand and we breathed, and I don't know what in me knew I texted her husband. I was like, I don't know where you are, dude, like, come back. The labor and delivery nurse came in her OB came in and she was nine centimeters dilated. And I was like, what just happened? Like they don't teach you this in doula school. Oh. So I just think having a baby is so awesome. And of course, it happens differently for different people. And it's no surprise, you know, like, my background is in education. And I didn't become a classroom teacher in the Department of Education in New York City, because I was like, Man, that's so institutional, I don't think I'd be really happy there. Little did I know that entering birth work in New York City. You know, I was going to be up against this really big institution where things didn't totally make sense for the individuals in the system. But once you understand the pattern of how big institutions operate, and in capitalism, it's like, oh, okay, I get it right. And so how do we just change the model of understanding to make it make sense for each person individually?

Tanya Tringali

Are you pregnant, or a new parent looking to ensure a better postpartum experience? Or are you a birth worker looking to improve your postpartum care skills? Check out thriving after birth, an online self paced course by me, midwife and educator, Tanya Tringali. It's 10 and a half hours of video content featuring experts in lactation, mental health, pelvic floor health, pediatric sleep issues, you also get worksheets and a workbook as well as options to have a one on one session with me sign up and Motherwitmaternity.com/thriving. And let's improve postpartum care together. Yeah, I mean, the other thing you're also kind of bringing up is that just because OBs or midwives or even doulas learn about something like the the stages of labor? Why did we ever think that that was what was going to be best for the average person who doesn't have medical knowledge? And is just out there to have their frickin baby? Like, why did we pass that along? And I'm guilty, right? I'm sitting here saying like, right, I never questioned this till this conversation. And again, I think I have a creative way of talking about all of these things. But with that said, I still used these basic premises to explain, you know, what's happening at various points in labor? Why do we continue a thread that doesn't really have a basis of understanding in one group of people that it may in another, it just, it's entirely unnecessary?

Ashley

You're sort of blowing my mind? Because I've never asked myself that question. And I think that there's, there's so much to unpack in there that could really help change the conversation, I think, well, one is right. Part of what I'm so passionate about at birth smarter is building an education first company, like, they're the parenting industrial industry, because like that's, let's just call it what it is, is a very crowded space. And there's a ton of education and marketing messages out there to teach people, but nine out of 10 times a blog post or an Instagram post or a podcast, where somebody is offering education is trying to sell a product. And word, we're just educators to be educators, right. And so what I do every time we create a new class, or edit a workbook or a curriculum, is we do this thing, which in education is called Understanding by Design or backwards planning. It's like a very simple framework where you say, what do you want someone to know? And we take it a step further by saying what do we want someone to know and like really be able to remember and utilize two hours after they leave the class two weeks after they leave the class two months after they leave the class two years later. And so we find like the core nugget, right, and then, and the core nugget for us about birth is you have to feel safe. Mm hmm. That's it. Right? Like how if you then I mean, we just wrote about this too, like, if you want to write a birth plan by answering one question, what's the thing that's going to make you feel safe, and then we backtrack our way into creating a curriculum. And so the stages of labor like it doesn't fit into our model. And most of the most typical birthing classes are a regurgitation of information from the medical field. And then brilliant people brilliant, like they're, you know, I was just listening to something that Brenda Bushnell did with she her book and transformed by birth and Pam, England, like so many people have then brought so much to the category of how do we cope with contractions? How do we show up mindfully through labor? Like I have learned from everybody who's come into this space before Me, but, and that's what we teach, like we haven't invented anything new when it comes to coping. But it was that core premise of, we're still asking you to cope with contractions based on the stages of labor, which sets you up for this feeling of success or failure. Because if I have contractions that are two minutes long, and I have 10 minutes between them, that was my story, or I'm thinking of another client, you know, if your labor is 40 hours, like how do you not feel like something got messed up? And then you're walking into parenthood immediately, feeling like it didn't go? Well? And what does that say about your ability to parent?

Tanya Tringali

Totally, I think there's two more things I just thought of while you're talking Gosh, this is like mind blowing. One is, I think we do this, because many of us, we want to sound smart, that's normal human thing. We learned all this knowledge, we spent all this money and time and we're gonna, we're gonna use it. You know what I mean? So we want to sound smart. But then this other thing happens. And I'm not saying everybody's out there doing this. But I think there are some people who are out there. And it becomes an unintentional thing that maybe we all have engaged in to some extent, we maintain a sense of control over the situation, by making things inaccessible. And again, I'm not assigning intention to this. But by by talking and complicated terms, we separate us from them. Yeah. And that's what you're doing away with? Yeah, that's what I hear whether you whether you thought of it that way or not. At the beginning, I don't I don't, yeah, I'm not getting that that's where you started this from, but it's like this consequence that this is why I wanted you here to talk because it's so the conversation about how do we do better by our clients? And how can our clients understand us, but it's just it's so circular.

Ashley

I love that you're identifying that and what we're doing. And we think a lot about power dynamics. I think when I started out, I was less interested in challenging power dynamics. And I was more interested in helping people see the process of preparing for delivery as a bigger life process. And so like, for me, if you teach somebody to prepare for the stages of labor, like that's it, it serves you for these, you know, one to three days of your life, and then it leaves and what I love about thinking about the three actions, and then the five responsibilities is they're all life lessons, right? Like thinking about oxytocin thinking about communicating with your partner, thinking about staying hydrated, and movement. This is like, I don't really care how your birth goes. But like, you're gonna learn a lot about being a human. And how cool is that. And then one of the things that we've definitely identified within that is, you need to it does break down the wall between you and your providers, whether it's a midwife, or an OB, or a labor and delivery nurse, probably right? To say, you can just really understand this process and then follow how it's going for you. And, you know, one of the this is just a really specific part of our class, but it's one of the things that makes me most excited, like when I figured this out, do you know that ice exercise that people do in birth classes? Okay, so for people that don't know it, you hold an ice cube in your hand for about a minute. And you see how you cope with that discomfort? And it's a cool training exercise to be like, Okay, well, I'm gonna have a contraction, maybe for about a minute, except the stages of labor bullshit, but typically, and, and how does that work? And so I learned that it's in birthing from within, which is an amazing book. And we did that in class a lot. And I did it, you know, I probably did it for months and months, and then something clicked in me. Where, if we did it a second time, or a third time where I had them pay attention to their breath, or get up and move around or listen to music, then it always felt better the second and third time, but is it because we learned that we had more coping strategies? Or is it because you had success the first time and you felt more confident the second time? And the problem? Ellen choose who we both know, right, who was

Tanya Tringali

my childbirth educator 22 years ago?

Ashley

Yeah. And my childbirth educator nine years ago, but also

Tanya Tringali

I Ellen Chuse, we're gonna make sure you're listening to this.

Ashley

She was one of my my teachers when I was becoming a childbirth educator. She said something that has stayed with me I think about it every week. She said, as a birth educator, you're really teaching people to prepare for their second births because It's so hard when someone has no context, no understanding to give them enough information where they can make a difference in the outcome of having their first baby. And I'm a pretty competitive person. So I think I took that out as a challenge, and was like, but how can we do it? And so the ice exercises kept gnawing at me. So I did the ice exercise one time in class. And the whole, you know, as a roomful of people in Brooklyn holding on to ice for a minute. Some of them were doing great. Some of them were struggling, but they all were sitting still holding the ice, not really doing anything, maybe they were breathing. And I had them put the ice away. And I just said, can I ask you a question? Like, why didn't you always get up and walk around? Why didn't you like talk to each other? Or like bounce on a ball or put music on? And why didn't anybody put the ice down? Like, why did you do this? I asked you to hold I used every 60 seconds. Like, why? And they were they just sort of stared at me, you know? And they were like, Well, you didn't tell us that we could. And I was like, okay, so that is how we prepare to have a baby, especially how we prepare to have a baby in a hospital, and especially how we prepare to have a baby in New York City Hospital.

Tanya Tringali

Well, and that's why I tell everyone, ideally, do not go to childbirth education class in your own hospital, because they're just teaching you Sorry, guys how to be a good patient. And maybe there's some out there that are better. I'm sure there are. But I'm not going to take that risk with my people. Yeah, I'm not taking it. Because I've heard the stories. I know what they say I've I've, I've I don't want that to be what this is about. drives me bonkers to think about that. I love that Elon said that because I have a version of that. And I'm like, maybe I picked it up way back then even and I don't even know it. But I often talk to people, you know, when we're talking about all the ways to have a baby and all those things, right? It's like, I have to impart on people how important it is that the first birth go smoothly to some extent, because unless you know, for fact, you're only going to have this one baby. And very few people know that for a fact. Yeah, we have just made all your other births so much easier and safer. And so yeah, first babies are brutal. They just are. Yeah, and it's and then everybody, the thing of the talk about having a second baby is always interesting, because even your story that my podcast guests from last week, there's always this feeling. And I don't mean to discount the feeling that, oh, I got it. I figured all these things out and I learned all this stuff. And my second birth was better. That may be true, but also just our physiology is designed to make that second one better. Like yeah, we're just we're going to have a second one that's better whether we put effort into it or not. Or think about it or not, that's the majority of humans. Yeah. Hey, everyone, it's me, Tanya, your host here at the mother wit podcast. You know, I sometimes invite my clients on the show to talk about their birth stories and postpartum experiences. But I want to tell you a little bit more about what those clients and I actually do together. I started mother wit to help people in the perinatal period achieve their health and wellness goals. That means whether you're hoping to conceive and struggling with high blood pressure, or high blood sugar, or you're having trouble managing anxiety, or depression and the postpartum period, or maybe you just need support and advocacy between prenatal or postpartum visits, I can help get a discount on your first consultation with me at motherwort maternity.com. Using the code firstconsult10%off. That's 1-0-percent symbol, all one word. I'm looking forward to working with you, and maybe having you on the show too. Okay, so this has been amazing to talk about birth on this level, because you would think I would have done this already on this podcast. But I really haven't. We spend a lot of time talking about postpartum. And I would be remiss if you and I didn't do that, also, because we're, we're following this thread through of what you do so well. And I have no doubt that this piece of it is going to be profound and add value as well. So I'd love it if you would touch on and I'm giving you your own order of events here. But your fourth trimester survival groups, as well as your partner support groups, and you know how those kinds of work together so,

Ashley

okay, so true, truth be told. And this is mostly because you can't do all the things all at once. We didn't start offering Postpartum Support Groups until COVID. We were really just focused on teaching birth classes and I think I needed I needed more educators and I needed more time on my plate and then COVID hit. And in New York in particular, there was a moment in time where partners were not going to be allowed in the room. And I think everybody in the birth World just showed up as hard and as fast as they could to do whatever they could. And we put out a call that we were going to do free birth class is just literally, I think we I think I did four or five in one week, and had 100 200 people show up each time. And I was like, I mean, it's, those calls were probably and I wasn't in the room with people like, but those calls in and of themselves were shockingly challenging to facilitate. With all of these people just saying, I don't understand, like, what I would need to know if my partner is not going to be with me. And out of that, there was a core group of about 20 couples that were just like work, we want to do whatever it is that you're offering. And so we wound up just continuing to meet weekly with a, it was like a pregnancy wherever you were in your journey. And it turned into us meeting for the better part of a year, every week with a group of women who half of them gave birth in those few days window where their partner wasn't there. And I was blown away, and COVID Amplified it. But I was blown away by how important and practical and connected a zoom group could be. And then at some point, I was like, I think I need to do this for other people, and graduated that group, and started offering six or eight week sessions. And I will tell you, so we have people because it's virtual, we have people who join three days postpartum, two weeks postpartum, and my version, my in my head pre COVID, if you were going to join a parenting support group, you were going to go when you were six or eight weeks postpartum, because you have to be able to get out of your house, you know. And so I am not a therapist, I am not a midwife, there is no clinical diagnosing, or anything that happens. It is a peer group where people come on and like, share what's good, and what's hard. And we talk about all the things. And it's, it's certainly my favorite thing to do. At this point in our business. I then started, we have, we're very, very flexible at birth smarter. So if there's a group and they're all like, I want my husband to come on, or I want my partner Come on, then we do group with partners, you know, or if they want another session, and then we do another session. But it was clear that the people who were giving birth wanted their own space. So we carved out that as the majority of what we offer, and that it was clear and I have a soft spot in my heart for for dads and I say that with the definition of humans who are born male and raised a male in our society who are now parenting, because there is a particular set of fucked up Ness that they have to deal with, to figure out how to step into fatherhood and show up as a partner or a husband, however, they identify with all the pressures of the world on their shoulder, and unlearn everything they've been taught to be the dad and the husband, we expect of them right now. And I think they need a lot more support than they're getting. And I think they need to space to talk to other men about that. And, and we talk a lot about fair play. So that they're getting, you know, people are some some people are like, Why do you facilitate the dads group, like, usually get a dad to facilitate the dads group? So we have monthly drop ins for dads and I have a co facilitator who's a man. And I've asked on occasion, you know, like, does it make sense for me to still be here? And we keep coming back to Yes, because it's really nice. Well, there's two reasons. One is I have more perspective as a doula and a postpartum doula than I do. As a parent, I've only had two kids, right. But I know what it's like to show up and support someone in labor. So I can speak to that. I know what it's like to show up in a postpartum house. And it's really nice, I think, for them to have the perspective of a birth parent and a mom and a breastfeeding parent to say, you know, I think this is what you guys aren't thinking about, or have you thought about it like this, or what she might really want is where they don't feel like they're being attacked, right? They feel really supported and they're just getting really good ideas. And the absolute best part of birth smarter is when a dad comes to dads group and a birth mom comes to mom's group and they're getting really similar information from really safe spaces, and then they run with it. And well, yeah, I'll take a break there.

Tanya Tringali

I just I like a soul, love what you're doing. And I like, wish I could hug you right now. You're doing amazing work. And you have, I hope everybody is I think everybody listening will be feeling what I'm feeling. You just have such a fantastic way of articulating what so many of us well intentioned people try to articulate. But you just do it better than most of us. That's really what's happening right here. It's, it's pretty amazing to listen to.

Ashley

Thank you. I feel like you're saying everything I'm saying you're reflecting back to me in more clarity what I want to be saying. So I would say ditto, but I really appreciate that.

Tanya Tringali

That's really sweet. But as you talk, I hear the ways in which I accepted certain status quos and just spit them back out. And again, I'm the first to say, and my clients would say it, too. I always put an interesting spin on it. But I start from the root of what I learned. Yeah, then I have to talk a lot to get to the point where I've made my point, you just turned it on its head and set it and got it out in a completely new way that I just think is easier to hear from the get go. I think so I think we're done back up and walking again.

Ashley

I actually I really appreciate that you notice that? Because I do think that is something I do fairly intentionally. And I get very frustrated in spaces where we do teaching on top of misinformation, or we do teaching on top of misunderstandings. And that just happened because after you know after shock the there was a documentary right so aftershock is an amazing documentary that highlights the black maternal mortality crisis in the United States, and I just went to a screening of the film for Black History Month. And there was a panel discussion afterwards. And I want to explain this in a way that people will get it I think you will get it but basically, the facilitator, the moderator of the panel, was not a birth worker. She was a public health official and was very brilliant. And, again, well intentioned. I think that's a good word. But she kept asking the panelist who were a midwife and OB a maternal fetal medicine doctor. She kept asking if midwives and doulas could help solve the problem. And there were a number of questions that were Oh, well, what do you think about midwives and doulas are midwives and doulas and I was sitting there so frustrated that two things were happening. One is at no point did anyone define what a midwife or a doula was? And this screening was open to the public, right? So how people don't know. And to and I would love it. If you have a soapbox, I would love to hear what you have to say about this. But midwives and doulas are not the same thing. Midwives and OB is could be in the same category because you are both medical professionals. Right. doulas really have nothing to do with that. And so the the assumptions and the misunderstanding of how midwives and doulas are somehow connected because they're the alternative cast members. Yep. limits our ability to push maternity care forward. Because we're not naming what the actual issue is. And the actual issue in maternity care is that modern day Western obstetrics is not supporting physiological birth.

Tanya Tringali

Amazing. Well said. I am not even going to try to add to that because I'll tell you why at least, because what I am put in a position to talk about why midwives and doulas are not the same thing. I often feel very frustrated, but while feeling frustrated, I also fear coming across like I'm trying to say doulas are like not important, because I never want it to sound like I'm putting myself on a pedestal. But sometimes it feels like that's what I might be ultimately saying. So I end up doing this thing where I'm like, I love doulas. I'm not saying I like ridiculously defending in circles. But it's it is even more ridiculous that I still have to do this well and that we all have to do this. I think that

Ashley

that's true. And I want to challenge you to not do it and I will stand behind you if you ever come off as being nobody is going to be anti let's just stop Being pro or anti anything, everything is a little bit of a gray area. And we're all doula Week is coming up and I have already written an Instagram post that likely because I think it's great will get absolutely zero engagement but maybe you can comment on it. And the question is just our band aids are doulas a bandaid for the maternal health crisis. And I want to have that conversation because I think it's very important that people understand that midwives are trained medical professionals that they understand how to support low risk birth, and that they can work very well within a hospital system and probably push hospitals to make changes. doulas. I doulas are lay people, right, who provide wonderful emotional, educational, physical support. But I will say it and people can come at me. I think nine out of 10 times, especially in a city like New York, doulas are being hired to protect the birthing person from a big system, which is not going to fix the problem. And so anytime we lumped doulas and midwives, together, we're we're losing traction, and having the more important conversation, which is how to midwives and OB is support birth in the current medical model.

Tanya Tringali

Oh, my God, well said. I feel like it might have been on my podcast that I recorded last week, but should have already aired. There. For instance, in Westchester County, I don't remember what practice this is. So if anybody does, they can feel free to write me and remind me, but there is an OB practice that literally has an office in their office, that is a doula service. And that, to me was one of the most brilliant things that any OB ever did to say, we're here to support you. Because what what an endorsement for doulas. And the thing I think people still obviously are struggling to understand is that it's a choice generally speaking between having a midwife or an OB, and whether to have a doula or not. It's two separate things, to separate things. And yet, what happens to me is, you know, just the idea that people still to this day don't have the slightest clue what the difference is between a doula and a midwife is just heartbreaking to me.

Ashley

It's heartbreaking. I was just at a conference this past week with 350 Really smart women, but like business entrepreneurs, business women, and everyone was like, what do you do? And I said, Oh, I'm a birth educator. I own a company called Birth smarter. And they were like, Oh, are you a midwife? But no, they said, Oh, are you an OB? Right? Like, that wasn't the misunderstanding? Oh, are you an OB? No, I'm not an OB. I'm also not a midwife. Because, you know, I'm not a trained medical professional. So I really want to get behind. I think there's a lot, a lot, a lot a lot happening in the doula community is to support doula work and a lot of policy right now. Right, should Medicaid cover doulas, and it's all really important. I just want to put all my effort behind backing, midwifery care and midwifery coverage.

Tanya Tringali

So interesting to hear your perspective as a doula continuing to circle back to intense support for midwifery care. It's, it's not that I'm surprised, per se, but you're very articulate about your rationale for why you position things the way you do. I love I love the way you think. And I love the way you talk about all of these things. And I really hope our listeners are gonna go check you out. Birth smarter is on my resources page on my website, so you guys can get there easily that way. Clearly, they have tons of amazing offerings, and I want to see you guys continue to be super successful. I'm so proud of the work you're doing and I'm so excited to know, you know,

Ashley

I feel that way. I'm very excited to collaborate in lots of ways and and I'm I'm just making sure that I stand by everything that I said, which I think I do. And I have some concerns that I'm trying to move past that people are gonna be like mad at me for my opinion. So I'll just voice that too.

Tanya Tringali

I, you're you're very brave, because I said right out of the gate like this is a hard one for me because I feel badly when I may come across XYZ way and you were like, I'll do it. And I think we need more people who are as brave as you are. And I'm not always that person, which is why I sit in the interview seat. Interviewer seat, I should say. I'm always more nervous when I'm sitting in the seat that you're in. But you did remind me that this conversation about what's the difference between doulas midwives and OB Is was actually one of the first podcasts that I was a guest on. And I'm going to need a hot minute when this one's over to remind myself what episode what show that was. But I'm going to find it and put it in the show notes. Great. So we're going to put, Ashley mentioned, just a ridiculous amount of resources that are super cool. That probably hadn't have not previously been put in the show notes. So I'm going to make sure when I'm listening to this, when I'm editing it that I go through very carefully, and put everything in there that you have touched on, because I'm sure people are like furiously scribbling or wishing that they could have been scribbling. So I'll just make sure to take care of that business for everyone. Are there any details that you want to share about your business with our listeners, before we wrap up,

Unknown Speaker

the only thing that we didn't touch on for BirthSmarter is that our classes are priced at a at a at the top of the the pricing market. And so sometimes people come in and they're like, Oh, well, I could take a free birth class at my hospital or a $50 birth class at my hospital. So the thing I want to point out on our website is a link to our alternative pricing policy. So our classes are listed at the price point where people dual income homes, or people with generational wealth can afford to take them. And if that is not you for any reason, it goes into this in the policy, but all of our classes actually do operate on a sliding scale. So we want to make sure that folks can come in if they want this sort of education, and community that folks can step in wherever they are at financially. And so just trying to be inclusive, and all the ways I can think of so the alternative pricing policy, we do have an LGBTQ partner support group for folks that don't fall into needing the dads group. And so if somebody's interested in that, if we don't have a date on our website, we're between planning it but folks should reach out. And then the only other thing is that I, to the extent that we're still a pretty small team, I respond to all of our Instagram, DMs and email. So if folks have questions or want resources or want to chat, I'm happy to give my time if it just doesn't fall, fall into a typical class.

Tanya Tringali

Awesome. Well, that's all really great stuff. Thank you so much for your time today, I have no doubt that you guys are just going to keep doing really great things.

Tanya Tringali

Thank you for listening to the mother whip podcast. If any of the issues we discussed today resonate with you or your experience, I'd love to hear from you. Leave me a voicemail at 917-310-0573 Or better yet, email me a voice memo at Tanya@MotherWitMaternity.com. I really want to hear what worked for you what didn't work, what support you'd wished you had, how you got through the tough times how you advocated for yourself, or especially any tips you want to share with our listeners. I want to hear all of it. And if you'd really like to work together, you can get a discount on your first consultation with me at Mother wit maternity.com using the code firstconsult10%off. That's 1-0- percent symbol, all one word. Okay, that's all. That's wonderful being in community with you all. Thanks again for listening and see you next time.

Carolina

And remember, listeners, nothing we discussed on this show should ever be considered medical advice. Please speak to your local provider about anything that comes up in this show that resonates with you and your needs and your health care.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai