The Well-Nourished Mother: Helping You Thrive in Pregnancy, Birth & Motherhood

20. Born Through Movement: The Biomechanics of Birth with Adelaide Meadow

What do biomechanics have to do with birth?!

Everything.

And yet, it's often left out of the birth conversation and pre-natal education entirely.

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“You’ll never hear me say I trust birth.”

Those are the words that caught my attention last week on social media and ignited my fascinating conversation with this week’s guest Adelaide Meadow, but the conversation goes much deeper than this.

Adelaide is a physiologist, yoga teacher, bodyworker, and homebirth attendant who is passionate about the radical feminist reclamation of the body. Her genius is her ability to read the female body- specifically, women's sacred posture and the magic of the female pelvis. She is passionate about liberating movement practices from biologically inaccurate and harmful bodily teachings that are grounded in male physiology, and rebirthing female movement practices.

Adelaide thoughtfully shares:

  • Her deeper perspective and expanded definition around the phrase “I trust birth”
  • The need for nuance and humanness in your decisions around what type of birth experience is right for you
  • Her definition of "Physiological Womanhood" and the mismatch between what you believe about idealized physiological birth and the common capabilities of your modern body
  • The effects of the "hands-off" birth movement and the loss of wise, gentle and skilled hands on care

Adelaide seeks to answer the question "What can we learn from the patterns we see within the births we experience or witness?".

She paints a beautiful picture of the synergy between hormones and body mechanics, giving you a new, deeper understanding of how birth unfolds in the body. She shares some of the modern root causes of pelvic issues and more difficult births and offers a new way forward through a deeper understanding of individual biodynamics and body mechanics. 

Her insights promise to deepen your understanding and preparation for childbirth, and shift your perspective around how birth unfolds within the body whether you're pregnant yourself, or providing care to perinatal women. 

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Follow Adelaide on Instagram: @adelaidemeadow_

Check out Adelaide's newest course, as mentioned in the episode:
Born Through Movement A study of birth biomechanics, prenatal movement, & actionable ways to support baby’s pathway through the pelvis.
(SAVE 100$ off and get one month in her True Core Health Membership FREE if you sign up before September 16, 2024)

Don’t forget to use discount code LAUREN for 10% off any of Adelaide’s courses and programs. 

I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts and feedback... send a text message directly to the show.

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Join the community over on instagram to connect with your host Lauren @nestandnourish.

So, Adelaide, for those listening that don't know who you are, can you tell us just a a quick little intro who you are, the work that you do, and what you're passionate about? Totally. Hi, women. My name is Adelaide, and I'm so grateful that you just invited me to be, to be here for this conversation. So my name is Adelaide Meadow, and I work as a female physiology academic. So I'm really interested in studying the unique biological brilliance of the female body and specifically within that, the intersection between biomechanics and biodynamics and how they're overall influencing women's health. I am a home birth midwife and I run a well woman care practice. Well, I have a history in home birth inventory. I'm not currently an on call midwife. I did that for many years and now I'm really interested in looking at how when we're supporting the way that babies can be born from a biomechanical perspective and just from a broader women's health perspective that we often see better women's health outcomes overall. So when we're using our reproductive capacity as sort of a litmus test for our overall health, I think that can be a really supportive lens to be looking at women's pelvic health concerns. So for me, I as I said, I run a well woman care practice. I support women prenatally during birth and the postpartum period. And then for the rest of our, you know, our lives as women and really what it is that we're managing from a public health perspective. So I've been doing this work for close to 15 years. I started as a, I started as a yoga teacher and then I started teaching prenatal yoga, took a doula training, went into midwifery school, sort of had an interesting walk with my midwifery education both from a licensure and non licensure perspective, ran a busy birth practice for many years, and then also a well woman care practice seeing women for all other sorts of women's health stuff. And now, I'm largely in a moment where I'm working on some contributions that I can make to our field overall, really studying at this intersection of birth, movement, and biomechanics. Amazing. Thank you. And it's it's funny. I've been following you for, I don't even know how long, years years years, and I feel like I've had this privilege of kind of, like, watching you from the sidelines and seeing your work kind of ebb and flow and evolve into what it is now. And it feels like at least from an outsider that you've just gotten, like, extremely crystal clear about what it is that you're doing and and how you're serving women. And it's been really neat to to see and to witness and Thank you for saying that. Yeah. Yeah. And I've been wanting to ask you to come on the show for so long. And the reason I finally reached out, I I must be in my like ovulation phase when I did it. But the reason was you recently post, made a post on Instagram, and it said, I'll read it out. It said, you'll never hear me say that I trust birth. And it's funny, my like initial response when I saw that I was like, oh, like, what? Like, I I need to know more about this. And I read the caption, and of course, took a dive in the comment section, and which is always fun, especially on your post. And, yeah, I was like, this is it. This is what we need to talk about. So let's start there. Where does this come from? You'll never hear me say that I trust birth. Why is that? What do you mean by that? Yeah. So first of all, I always just really want to remark that anyone who is you know, I'm glad that we're here to have this conversation because a sound bite or a meme on social media is something that's shareable is never the whole conversation. Right? And I try to be quite, you know, verbose and clear in my Instagram content, and just in my newsletters and in my work in general. And I'm not saying that no one should say that they trust birth. I'm just saying that I don't personally say that. And one reason I don't personally use that language is ultimately I don't exactly know what it means. And I think that it means something different to different people. And I, you know, shared a bunch of stuff and people shared what it meant to them, which is amazing. I'm not here to really govern anyone else's language, But for me, it feels a little euphemistic and a little vague, and I don't really know what people are talking about when they're saying that they trust birth. Sometimes what I hear is, like, this sort of idea that I trust that everything will just work out. Right? That it always will just unfold the way that it's meant to unfold. And okay. But those are actually different statements. Right? If that's what you mean, then I'm like, okay. You think everything will work out the way it's meant to work out. Okay. I can get down with maybe that statement. But the the sort of broad sweeping sweeping euphemism that I sometimes see I mean, euphemism, that's maybe a judgment, but that's how it can sing to me. It's just this idea that nothing ever needs to be done, that there's no, necessarily need to support any aspect of birth. I see it sometimes utilized in this opposition to midwifery care. Right? Oh, I don't need midwifery care. I trust birth. Right? And what if I was to say things that I would say instead of that phrase is I trust women. I trust, the body and meaning by that, I mean, I trust that the body is always doing the most intelligent thing based on the inputs. Right? Our body is never, quote, unquote, this dysfunctioning. It's compensating based on various inputs, and I trust that those compensations are going to be, sort of intelligent. I have a really, you know, deep seated innate trust in the intelligence of human biology and the unfolding of biological and physiological patterns and those the capacity for those patterns to be influenced. I trust that babies are actually trying to come out of the body. Right? And that might seem very basic, but if people said, like, I trust birth. I'm like, okay. What do you mean? I'm like, I trust that a baby is working their way through the pelvic pathway, and that baby is going to take space and rotate and move and, you know, sort of part the pelvic tissues, so to speak, in the way that is the most available for them. And I trust that, like, I can be in conversation with women about what it is that they're interested in creating in their birth both prior and then during and as a birth process is unfolding. Those are things that I trust and maybe if I wanted to, you know, not make it about semantics, I could say that's what it means to me to say I trust Firth. Right? But rather than this that sort of blanket statement, I think it's really helpful to be specific and what exactly it means that we're trusting and know why. Because I believe that there are things that can be supported and optimized and that's ultimately what I'm interested in in birth and in supporting birth and then supporting mothers is, and I've seen this sort of across the board from a midwifery perspective and a home birth perspective or unassisted birth perspective that sometimes it's like, oh, well, it worked. Like, you know, even a home birth, like, oh, mom had the baby. And I'm like, isn't that what we're critiquing in modern obstetrics? Like, oh, we have a healthy you know, mom's alive and baby's alive. Like, it worked. We did it, and I'm just interested. It's like, what was it? 3 days you had an LP baby, and it's really, really freaking hard, and now your body feels like you're really struggling? Or, like, did you feel like you maybe lost a ton of blood or had a stressful emergence or baby needed support upon emergence? Or you had a really significant perineal tear or you have, like, a drop foot or an injury or, something as a result of your birth process or it just was scary. Right? It just like it was just didn't feel that good or whatever. Like, can we actually, think about what might be truly supportive to both moms and babies? And to me, that question, how do we support moms and babies? And is something an invitation for, like, unfolding or something an invitation for support? Right? And that question, is this a moment for more support or is this a moment to leave it alone? That's, like, the question of midwifery care. That's, like, the only question. And I sometimes hear women be like, oh, I just want women another one to be there to, like, let me know. It's just that one question, and I'm like, correct. That's literally the only question, and the idea that it wouldn't take us years years and and, like, dozens of births to have an inkling of how to answer that question, is something that I, you know, just gently want to offer. Like, that is an open question that we keep learning about as women and students of birth. And it's not just, like, just that one little question. It's, like, the entirety of all of womankind and everything we've ever learned about birth attendance can be kind of brought into the specificity of that question. Right? And, yeah. And I'm really asking that from, like, throughout the entire trajectory of womanhood. Right? From a pre preconception perspective to a conception to, like, you know, your pregnancy and, like, what support might be needed there all the way through your birth process into your postpartum and beyond. I love that question. And I love how you've framed this because yeah. Like, is this is this a time for letting it unfold? Or is this a time for support? And I think what's what I've seen kind of happening in the birth world, and I mean, the birth world, I just did air quotes. It's like this weird online space with lots of voices coming at you with really big opinions, right? That's that's kind of what the birth world is online, at least. That's what it seems like. And it seems like there's there's kind of extremes where there's the patriarchal oppressive medical system and all of the trauma that has come from that. And then the pendulum has swung. And now a symptom of that is this, this belief that birth should actually be totally hands off. And that's the best way to birth and free birthing without any attendance is the way to go. That's the safest, that's the best. And I just feel like we've gone kind of one extreme or the other, where what you're talking about is this beautiful middle where there's nuance, not even middle because the medicalized part, I don't think that's what you're saying. You're saying, what I'm hearing is that true midwife free care involves knowing, is this time for unfolding? Or is this time for support? And I think women are now being or women now feel maybe that any hands on support, any caring, any information sharing can be seen as this like, Oh, that's not the way. So I almost see it as like this, It's it's the symptom of, you know, all of the trauma that has come from the allopathic model and, you know, hands on hands in birth. But there's a different type of hands on birth that we're talking about here. Yeah. And I just want us to, like, take a beat and sit with the immensity of the question that we're actually asking. Right? If we're talking about sitting in a birth with a woman and we're not sure if things are okay or not, and we're in that moment of mystery that is innate because there's a lot that we can't actually know about birth and there is a lot of limitations that come from the, sort of the contemporary medical tools that we utilize for assessment. They do not by any means paint a complete picture. That doesn't mean I don't think there's ever a moment that the information that can be gleaned from those tools might be beneficial for coming to some type of, you know, decision based on the unique circumstances and the wishes of that individual mother. But, like, right, like, who are we if we are aware that we, like, don't know? And that, like, we might, as some people put it, like, make a mistake. Like, you might say, I think this needs support, and you could have potentially left it alone. And that would have been not only fine, but it might have been better. Or who are you if you're like, I think this is fine, and you leave it alone, and it's not fine. And anyone that's, like, interested in birth work and, like, just sitting with the immensity of that question and the reality of the likelihood of a misstep answering that question. And if we're not available for, like, woah, that's a big thing to take on that I might actually make a mistake, so to speak, if you wanna call it that. I don't even I don't even know if that's really the right language, but that, like that there's, like, how do we know this? I was talking about this with a a good colleague, midwifery colleague of mine. It's like, how do you know? You try something, and then you see. And the fact that we're, like, learning on each other is just such a humbling experience that I really would love for to just bring that, kind of reverence and energy of humility into this conversation where, like, I can have all the ideas about birth that I wanna have. I can critique any side of the system that I want that anybody wants. But, like, at the end of the day, I'm just like, holy smokes. This is as big a deal as there is, and it's often as simple as it gets. And who are we to be willing to be students, to be willing to be naive, to be willing to try something and have it work or not work, and then learn in those circumstances, and know that every mom is different and every baby is different, and that there's things in birth that are, I think, you know, mystical and out of our control, and that it's never just what's happening physiologically. Like that's a big ask and it has taken me probably like over a decade in birth work and, you know, almost that long of like attending births to to really come into right relationship with the immensity of that question and come into the humility of, like, there's so much that we don't know, and how can I forever be a student thinking about how I can learn more about what supports moms and babies? And sort of this question of, like, the pendulum swing of, like, okay. One side is, you know, very sort of instrumentation heavy, another side is very kind of hands off in every sense of the word. And rather than looking at that dichotomy, I'm really interested in the very like human discussion of this question and how we wanna orient to that question. And then look at the imperfect menu of skill sets and people that we have available to us and figure out how we as an individual, woman, either attending birth or seeking some type of birth care, wants to orient towards the imperfect menu that you just laid out of that spectrum from, you know, all the way unassisted with no, you know, potentially with very little care of any kind. I'm not saying that unassisted women birth women who birth unassisted have no care. Many of them have way more care. Right? I'm not saying that. But that's what I'm saying. Like, maybe you're unassisted, but you have all this prenatal care and so much support and okay. And that's, like, a different part of the sort of menu, and it's not this linear spectrum. Maybe it's seen as, like, you know, a wheel or something, but whatever. This entire all of the potential ways that we can orient towards the immensity of how do we wanna or how do we wanna bring a baby into this world and sitting with, like, sort of the deeper question there of, like, it's likely not gonna be perfect. And that doesn't mean that the birth won't be perfect in a broader sense, but, like, the exact right care, like, doing everything the way that I want to and, like, what exactly would I've imagined and the, like, perfect mom with a midwife who, like, is, like, perfectly hands off and, like, nose in and steps in exactly the right moment and is, like, you know, trained in this whatever way. Like, whatever anyone's ideal is, like, how do we actually enter this knowing that, like, we are women in relationship with other women who are also sitting with this immense question and navigating this spectrum? And when you're talking about, like, birth culture and you're referring to online birth culture, but if I'm thinking about, like, actual in person birth culture, like like, how are we with each other there? And that's really my interest in any family in any family that I'm supporting is, like, I don't know it all. Of course, I could you know what I mean? Like, of course, there can be things that I would support you with, and, of course, there might be things that are out of our control. And, like, who are we then, and how do we, like, sit? Who are we when we sit with with that immensity and on, let's say, inside of that immensity is, like, the most sort of, like, brilliant jewels, I think, to be gleaned from this lifetime. Like, what is theirs and what is ours to claim and how do we wanna to do that? And I don't want that to seem too esoteric, but, I'm just interested in, like, the humanness that happens within birth as opposed to, like, the ideology that I think can so often be at the base, of these discussions. Mhmm. Yeah. And I think that's kind of what I'm what I see a lot of is this like desire to want to belong to a group or belong to a label. And we were kind of getting our identity mixed up with the outcome. So if I don't have the home birth that I ideally want, then I've done something wrong. And I think there's a lot of kind of messaging like that out in the world right now where if you're doing it this way, it's not the right way. I think the birth world has a lot of black and white, at least portrayed that way online, when really, like you're saying, there is so much nuance. I love that idea of like a circle of like, this is your menu of options. And it's a circle, a spiral even. And there's so many different, like, pick and choose your own adventure kind of thing. And I think that's beautiful. And I think that's how it you know, air quotes should be. But, it's interesting to see how it actually is. Is. And I I that actually is what's happening. Like, that we actually do have all of these choices. And I know a lot of women would feel like, I don't have choices. There was no one near me, and there was whatever, or, like, this was the only care available. Like, okay. I get that. And and also even within that, there's always choices to to be made. And but, I mean, I like the big questions. Like, what do you believe about the body? What do you believe about birth? What do you believe about life? What do you believe about women? And, like, what do you believe about yourself, your family? Like, what's gonna be most sustainable? Like, birth is a place for through which can be a lens through which to look at those questions in a new way. And I feel like I've said this every birth I've ever attended has changed everything I've ever thought about birth. Like, I feel like I've said that for years and I'm just you know, I was talking to a repeat client. She's, you know, I was whether it's a really long challenging birth with her first. She get it, you know, 3 and a half day, OP baby, blah blah blah. And, like, she was like, I feel like, you know, how you even think about birth now is so different from when you attended my first. And I'm like, right. Every year birth changed everything for me, and then so did the next one, and so did the next one. And I and god willing, it keeps being that way for as long as I'm, you know, interested and have the gift of supporting women in that way. And I'm just wanting and there is, like, a maturity, I think, in that also, like, is available to different people at different times. I was talking to everyone the other day, and she had her first baby at 18. And she was like, I'm so glad. And she's now pregnant with her 3rd, and they're like, she's in her early twenties. And she's like, you know, planning the home birth with this baby. And she was like, oh, I'm so glad that this is what I had, and this is what I did for this baby. And I'm like, right. Because this has to fit within the context of your life, and I just have a lot more, like, spaciousness, I think, for the different ways that women have capacity to orient towards birth. And what I'm really interested in in general is, yes, talking about these human questions, but then also not talking like, sometimes we talk so much about ideas about birth that we don't actually talk about birth itself, which is what I'm very interested in, at least in my professional work and my contributions. I'm like, I don't really care what is that you think about birth because birth isn't a thought. Birth actually happens in the body. And my background is in physiology. So I'm like, okay. Like, let's actually look at regardless of what type of birth you're having. What's actually happening from a tissue based perspective at the pelvic inlet, the mid pelvis, and the outlet? Can we actually talk about the biomechanics of breach and how they differ from the biomechanics of a vertex baby? Can we actually talk about not whether shoulder dystrophage happens and is rare or what causes it or whatever? Like, those are fine, interesting conversations, but I think they often overshadow conversations of, like, what to do in those moments if that presents. Like, I feel like on one end, I was of my sort of birth education, it was like, oh my gosh. This stuff's really dangerous. This stuff happens all the time. Be really freaked out. These are the skills. This is out of your scope. This is when you call somebody else, whatever. Versus on the other side of my birth education, it was like this stuff never happens. Don't even worry about it. It's all caused by the medical model. It's all filmongered. And then my experience was that neither of those are actually what I saw then played out in my experience attending and supporting moms. And, and instead of being like, well, what do you think? What are your ideology? What are your beliefs about birth? It's like, I want us to sit with those big questions as I just said, but, like, from a human perspective, from, like, who someone is and what they're interested in, what they're available for, and what their goals are rather than from, like, I want this kind of birth because this kind of birth is best, sort of an inside out job, so to speak, in terms of orienting to the birth menu. And then in terms of, like, birth physiology, I'm really into, like, the outside in job. I'm really into figuring out, like, yeah, there's a lot of really, I think, helpful and pertinent information available to us to learn whether you're wanting to birth unassisted or whether you're a labor and delivery nurse. I don't or an OB, like, whatever about how we can keep studying and keep learning and keep, you know, witnessing at birth after birth and mom after mom and really look for patterns. And, like, of course, we can continue to, you know, to shape our birth culture in a way that I think is more and more supportive. And, you know, the fact that women, not women, don't feel supported in their births or that we're feeling, you know, I've been talking about this a lot lately. Like, first, are we seeing more long laborious labors? Are we seeing more OP babies? Are we seeing more breech babies? And me and, you know, my colleagues, I've got one colleague and we work together a lot on these questions like, why is that? And we're really thinking about that and what we can do and what we can provide and how we can educate whoever wants to learn. Licensed, unlicensed, OB, midwife, doula, mom, we don't care. Whoever is actually into this stuff and wants to think about less the the sort of where do I land on the spectrum and more like the nitty gritty, let's bring it back to birth in the body. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the quotes, I don't know where I grabbed it from, somewhere in your in your ecosystem. You said physiological birth requires a commitment to physiological womanhood, and our modern living is not in alignment with our biological design. So there's so much truth in this statement, but what does this mean? Like, how how do we kind of return to or live more in alignment with our biological design? I wanna, like, zoom this in from the really broad way that a statement like this can be taken and extrapolated because in a very simple way, like, average age of first birth has changed drastically over the last 100 years. Women are saying, like, advanced maternal age. I wanna say that women have been having babies into their late thirties and forties for all of womankind. That's not actually particularly new, but having your first baby at that time is actually biologically new. Right? From if we're looking from a human evolutionary perspective. Also, if we're thinking about our sedentary lifestyles, the movement away from cottage industry, like, this has changed. Right? And we're really, you know, if we're thinking about sort of industrial revolution, now we're in technological revolution. Right? So industrial revolution also really changed our bodies. Right? And you know it it's this is it's not only like our bodies have been changing really since I would say industrial now into technological revolution, that it's not actually the same likely as 10000 years ago. Everything from the age of first birth all the way, through the sit, stand, walk, move, breathe, patterns that we develop moving through our actions of daily living. Our actions of daily living have changed and therefore so have our bodies, right? And it's interesting to think about this from a bio evolutionary perspective. We're like seeing, you know, everyone's brains are changing as a result of our, you know, interfacing with computers in such an, you know, contemporary perspective. And, like, obviously, I run Instagram. I'm on my phone all the time. I run an online business. I see telehealth clients every day. Like, I'm not immune to this in any way, but I'm interested in it. Right? And I guess what I'm saying is, like, it's written in this commentary, is if we are struggling in our women's health, like, if your vaginal microbiome is, you know, not optimal and if you're having less lymphatic flowing blood flow into your pelvis, if you're not actually breathing in a way that is compatible with in your daily life with, like, long term exertion, which just even though long. The idea that you would work physically as a woman for 12 hours a day every single day of your life is, like, was the historical norm. Right? And now the idea that people working physically in a way that might have them somewhat winded, like, it just is, like, that's less likely. Right? And and then we're thinking about the movements of the pelvis, where I really am interested in women having good pelvic mobility, having, I mean, you can just think of, like, the, like, dimension of dance culture. Like, I just think there's so much that's actually, like, the change, like, for all, like, for all of humankind, women have, like, danced and had, like, a variety of different dance styles all over the world. But just this idea that there's, like, mobility in your hips and even more specifically than that that, like, the iliums, right, those outer hip bones. I know we're on a podcast. So if you want more on this, I have a whole course about this. But, like, you know, those iliums, those hip bones being able to, like, AV duct and move them away from the midline, being able to internally rotate, spaciousness in the posterior pelvic floor, a sense of functional curvature in the spine as opposed to sort of dysfunctional erecting of the spine that is often comes from, quote, unquote, postural patterns as opposed to coming from movement and carrying load for every day of your life. Like, our bodies, our muscular development overall is actually quite you know, I don't wanna overplay how different it is because I don't want to, you know, I don't wanna, like, speak above my collar. I'm not, like, a biological anthropologist that's looking at the, you know, sort of history of the diameter of your glutes compared to 500 years ago. Like, I don't want to, like, pseudo science this, but I also am really interested in women understanding or even recommending specifically women who are I don't know how old you are, but, like, say you're in your thirties or forties or fifties and you're like, oh, you mean the way my body felt and the way my hips moved when I was 22 or 25 before I ever had an iPhone and walked around all the time? And, like, how that actually is different than the way I live in my body now? Like, even just our own lived somatic experience in our bodies. And so when I'm talking about physiological womanhood, I'm thinking about like just our response to stimulus, the way our bodies can move, our metabolic and our mitochondrial function, like things that we know have been impacted and are impacted through our daily life, and the idea that we don't think that the drastic changes to our physiology that are so popular to discuss, like everyone's here at Biohack and Blue Light Lock and mitochondrial function and mineral balance and all this stuff, but having the gall to say that maybe the way you also sit, that this stuff might, like, impact your birth and people are like, oh my god. You're pathologizing birth. Birth just works. And I'm like, well, it works as long as the body is, like, functioning, and sometimes it works. Maybe your body isn't functioning optimally because biology is intense and birth is amazing, and I think there's obviously a spiritual and a god hand in a lot of birth. Like, I don't think it's just the body. Don't mishear me. And what I've seen mostly is that women who have, you know, more health in this particular capacity and more function and comfort in this way often have easier births. And I don't think that that is, I want to be really clear there. Like, my answer what I'm saying this way, I don't want this to seem vague or amorphous. Like, I specifically, in my work, I'm looking at biomechanics and the relationship between, human movement. I'm generally I'm, like, obsessed with human movement and, like, how to optimize human movement and then how that human movement relates to fetal movement and then then how those relationships of fetal movement and maternal movement actually unfold during the process of moving baby through the pelvic inlet, the mid pelvis, the outlet, and then obviously fully born. And so how of those, if we're lacking in our, like, range, strength, and capacity, somatic awareness ability to do some of those actions, that, of course, is gonna impact the birth. Will the birth likely still work? Of course. Right? But I'm here to support moms and babies. I'm here to make this the smoothest, easiest as possible. And I think that that's really the gift of of birth care in general. Like, that's what we're interested in, I think. Right? That's what I'm interested in, I should say. Not just does it work, but how smoothly and easily can we help it work. Right? Because even if it goes butter butter butter, birth is generally hard. Right? And so just, yeah. When I meet and to come back to your quote, physiological birth requires physiological womanhood, Like, our bodies we birth with our bodies. Right? And if our bodies are struggling with some of the things that are really supportive for the birth process, then that's going to impact our birth process. Right? In which case, I think, luckily, so much of that is such low hanging fruit and so impactable with very little risk. Right? Learning to, like, how to somatically connect with your mid pelvis, like, meaning not the inlet, not the outlet, but the mid pelvis and what musculature and actions and movements are gonna help you achieve certain actions. It's gonna help you mobilize in your mid pelvis. Like, that's freaking cool. You can learn to do that. You can learn that pre pregnancy. You can learn to do that in pregnancy. Right? And regardless of your thoughts on, like, the safety, I put that in quotations, but, like, you know, your orientation towards other birth interventions. So anything from, like, blood tests to ultrasounds to ECVs, whatever it is, like, people are all over the map with their relationship to those particular interventions. But this just feels really low hanging and really low risk and truly under taught is my opinion. Like, I did not learn this stuff anywhere in my midwifery education. I learned this in my, like, being a personal trainer, honestly. And, like, being, like, not just, like, a swinging kettle or personal trainer, but, like, you know, deep level PT, pelvic pelvic PT kind of stuff. And I just found that that wasn't incorporated into arbibifery and our prenatal care. And I think that there is a a gap there that I'm really interested in us learning how to fill in. Mhmm. So what I'm hearing is that there's this mismatch of, you know, there's beautiful physiological birth and the, you know, the amazing hormonal matrix that occurs no matter what, but there's a mismatch with our modern physiological and physical bodies because of the way Can I just pause you right there? Yeah. Does the hormonal matrix occur no matter what? I don't know about that. Yeah. I think that there is an interplay between biomechanics and our hormonal blueprint. And to think about the hormonal blueprint, independent of the biomechanics, is to not actually have an accurate picture of physiological birth. Right? And we know this because maybe you have and, like, let there be no more evidence than you can, you know, manufacture a hormonal blueprint and babies don't descend. Right? Just your hormonal blueprint unfolding doesn't actually mean the tissues are gonna yield and your baby is going to descend. And you can entirely sabotage a hormonal blueprint and the tissue yields, and those babies come out even with an entirely sabotage and mismatched hormonal blueprint. So I think this emphasis of, like, hormonal blueprint as the gold standard in standing in isolation with biomechanical unfolding is an oversimplification. I don't think there's any extricating one from the other. Right? I don't think if we're talking about physiological birth, we can talk about, like, oh, well, it's your hormonal unfolding that starts your contractions and then changing the shape of your tissues. Okay? And, also, it's like the position of our baby providing even and balanced pressure on the cervix that can in that can also be a major aspect for initiating the hormonal unfolding that then starts the mobilization of those tissues. So is it the chicken or the egg? And the idea to discuss it as though it's chicken or the egg, I think, is an oversimplistic and a linear reading of a nonlinear interwoven physiological process. So I just always wanna say that because I think there's this big specifically in doula and the bupary culture like, oh my gosh. The hormonal blueprint. Don't disturb the hormonal blueprint. And I'm like, can we talk about not disturbing the spaces just in the posterior pelvic floor? Because more often than not, when I see the tissues yield, I see those babies be born. And I've seen hormonal blueprints be sabotaged. And I think it's I think we just have an oversimplification with that emphasis alone. It's true. Anything birth related, like you said, it can it can feel like we think about it so linear linearly, which it never is. And I I I love this reframe that they cannot be separated from each other. The the physiology, the anatomy, the hormones, the safety of the environment, like all of it goes together. It can't you can't separate one from the other because like you said, they can be disturbed and birth still happens, or they can be encouraged and birth happens, you know, in a more difficult way, but it still happens. And, like, if I just had those 2, everyone's like, I just want, like I mean, yes. The environment, all of it, but I'm my 2 are, like, biomechanics and hormonal unfolding. Yeah. Like, if we're gonna have 2 pillars that I want to uphold. Right? From a physiological perspective, of course, there's emotional perspective and interpersonal and a spiritual perspective. But if we're thinking physiological birth, which is what people love to talk about, that's like the the term people love. I'm like biomechanics and hormonal blueprint. Biomechanics and hormonal blueprint. Like, that is the inner what interweaving, that I'm really interested in for allowing and, of course, things influence the biomechanics and hormonal blueprint, which is, you know, we can look, you know, and sort of zoom out from there in a concentric circle, you know, just like as broad as you wanna get. But what I have found and with colleagues that I've worked with is that when we are able to support those aspects of physiological birth, that that's some of the most encouraging things we can do for supporting moms and babies. And not that I wanna bring my own experience into this, but it's making me think of my own birth where I was one of the I mean, that's how we learned. Oh my god. I did. Let's talk about birth. Let's talk about Well yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I was 32 at the time, first baby, 3 days of labor, felt nothing in my front, felt nothing low. It was all in my hips, earth shattering hip pain. Yeah. 3 days of labor. Finally, baby was born when I went to hospital, got an epidural, so the pain was better and, birthed her vaginally with a lot of grunting grunting and really forcing her out of there. But, what I'm what I'm getting at is that I kept thinking afterwards, like, was this biomechanical? Yeah. Like, is this my anatomy? Was this the way she was positioned? Like, I just wanted to know. I wish I could know that if I were to have another baby, would it be the same or would it potentially be different? And then it makes me think of a friend of mine as well, who her baby got really kind of crumpled up in her pelvis, and got to 10 centimeters at home, then ended up with an emergency c section. And the doctor was like, oh my, that baby was really crumpled up and sideways in there. And then I think to her entire pregnancy where she had so much, kind of hip flexor pain and symphysis pubis pain. And it just makes me think of those connections. Like, they must be connected. Yeah. So what I guess my question or reflection is like, what are some of the more like, what are you seeing out there? Like, what are the most common kind of biomechanical issues that you're witnessing? Totally. And I always want to really, again, speak with an open hand and not say that these things cause these other things. Right? To say that there is, again, this sort of lineal causation in birth is something that I generally, you know, am just speaking to, hopefully with a sense of humility with the direct core correlation is not causation. And what we can do is look at patterns, and this is all we can do with birth. And that is really my interest. And your question, you're like, oh my gosh. I had this, like, excruciating 3 day birth with this baby that wouldn't descend, and then I got an epidural and my baby came out. Right? For this woman who was, like, able to dilate, but then her baby wouldn't descend and was, like, asyclinic or, you know, whatever, oblique, whatever issue they were having. And, you know, really struggled to have that baby move down. Like, those are the patterns that I'm looking at. And, like, this is what if you are really interested in this, I wanna just, you know, offer my board through movement course that is, like, a study of the biomechanics of birth. Right? And not, you know, because I this is a big topic and not even that that, you know, of course that has, I don't know, so many dozens and dozens of videos on this topic. Not that even that can fully come you know, take in the immensity of this topic. But what I'm about to say is not, like, the whole freaking story. Okay? But the first thing that I will offer is yeah. If you're and, again, I don't I'm not sure, but your baby is struggling to descend, and I don't know why your baby was struggling to descend or what position your baby was in. But so often when we have first time moms with babies that are, you know, not really engaging either in the inlet or moving down and rotating in the mid pelvis, often they're in ox foot posterior position. Not always, and I also see babies born like that. That doesn't mean it's gonna be hard and long, but there is a common pattern there where not all of the time, but a lot of the time, right, that those births are longer and not are they always longer and more painful, but a lot of the births that are longer and more painful have that pattern. Right? So there's some overlap that we're looking at. I don't know how much you knew about your fetal position. But the other aspect is then what can sometimes happen with, like, long and painful births, like, the pressure pressure pain pain pain, like, in the butthole, like, early urge to push, pain in the back. Does any of this sound familiar to you for your birth? It was all hips. All hips. Nothing else. I felt nothing nowhere else. Just in my hips. And, like, in your hips, you mean like the sides? Like, yeah. My lower back to the side. And oddly enough, I went to a pelvic floor, physio soon after birth, maybe a few weeks or months or something. I don't know. And she did an internal exam, and she pressed on some muscle in there. And my anatomy days are long behind me, but pressed on a muscle in there and recreated the pain. So to me, that made me think like, oh. Well right. So, like, your baby is trying to move back into your posterior pelvic tissues. Right? And there's a lot of restriction there. This is my thought. Right? There's a lot of restriction there, which means then there's not actually space for maybe to move back there. And the fact that you could put the amount of pressure that a pelvic floor PT would put on those tissues, which is not very much, think like 2 fingers pressure, and that you could create that much pain. The amount of pain then that I imagine was commensurate with your birth process of that much pressure on those tissues where you're like, oh my god, 2 fingers worth of pressure is really intense. And now you have a whole baby's worth of pressure, like being buried down by your uterine tissue. And if those tissues have never moved, have never yielded, the idea that the first time that they are being asked to yield and move in a new way is during your birth process, that's a big ask for the body. It's a big ask. And it they sometimes do, and yours did eventually. But one thing that allowed, it sounds like, and, again, I'm conjecturing, but allowed your tissues to move, and I've seen this not infrequently, is, like, if women are in a ton of pain because there's a ton of restriction. And, again, birth is painful or it's often painful, but there's, like there really are levels to it. Like, there really is pain that is and I've just seen this too. There's pain that's, like, kind of, like, more functional and pain that's, like, oof, that really freaking sucks. You know? Yeah. And the There's pain that feels like a symptom and pain that feels like part of the process. Right. Exactly. I don't mean to put words in your in your mouth, but, like, yeah, there's pain that's like, you know, I had a friend that had a dropped foot as a result of her birth. It took a while to heal after her work. It was just like the way her baby was moving down and the way her tissues were patterned. It just put a ton a ton of pressure on, like, iteration all the way down her leg, and her leg was numb. She could no longer move her foot, and it took healing. It's like nerve damage as a result of the birth. And and, like, you know, like, things weren't really yielding. And then for you, one thing that will inherently make tissues clench is extreme pain and, like, fear. And then you have a circumstance where you can then soften, not grip, and not have an involuntary. And, again, involuntary and, you know, women who've given birth can know there's, like, a huge mind over matter in response to pain in birth, and we get better at it. And subsequent moms often feel more skilled at this. And Mhmm. Remember, also, humankind, it would never be uncommon for a first time mom to have a 3 day birth and then for to go on and have 10 more babies. Like, you know, like, it's it's not necessarily a problem to be solved. But if we're thinking about it through this lens of biomechanics and tissue yielding, then the fact that you were able to not feel pain and allow your tissues to yield and that that's then what encouraged your baby to move down. Right? That that does Yeah. It all makes sense. It's information that I would be aware of. And then going to pelvic PT and being like, oh, you feel where you this could expand, and it's really painful for that to expand. You know? And then I'm thinking, okay. Well, what could you do from a movement perspective? What could you do from a breath perspective? What could you do from a manual therapy perspective to help you have more space in your pelvis? Right? Because then what also often occurs is, say, a baby can't move into where they're say there's the restricted. Right? Say they can't move into the posterior pelvic bowl, say they can't kind of angle towards the back of the inlet where there's more space in the bony pelvis. Then what has to happen is they have to change the diameter and direction. Right? Which that takes time. And anyone who puts a strong emphasis on the cardinal movements, right, which I don't know if you know what these are, because, like, the way baby rotates. I think that even that idea, the way that baby rotates, like, if you've seen a baby, they don't have, like, control over their bodies. They don't have head control. That baby isn't, like, doing the cardinal movements. They are being moved by maternal tissue. Then if your maternal tissue is unable to move in certain directions, that's going to impact, therefore, the way the baby is able to move. And if they can't move in a certain area, then you might need to have really significant conic. Like, their head might really need to change shape in order to then fit down through the pelvic inlet and then rotate in the mid pelvis and then rotate again at the outlet. So that could just take more time because their entire body has to change shape and be adapted to the shape of the mother's tissues. So now we might be just be seeing longer birth processes, harder birth processes, right, that in your circumstance was then really assisted by by pain relief that could allow for a sense of yield. Now does that mean your baby wouldn't have come out if you labored for another few few days? I don't like, you know, I don't get to know that. But what I am aware of is, like, what are what are women up for? And I think there's so much sort of vitriol that can be behind that question. Mhmm. So much, like I mean, vitriol might be a little strong, but, like, just, like, value judgment. Yeah. She wasn't up for it. And you're like, whatever. Like, I don't know. Or that's how I feel. I'm like, okay. Yeah. Like, one of my Yeah. One of my biggest, like, x is there's a certain person that loves to say that her certain group, I'm sure that if you didn't have a like physiological free birth or home birth completely hands off, then you're just not healed enough. You're just not you weren't ready enough. You didn't do enough healing. And it's just like, that is utter bullshit. It's just utter bullshit to me. And like having this new perspective, like, what you've I think what you're giving us here, it's not new information, especially as a doula. I know that the biomechanics are important and even just as a mother. But when you're able to kind of view it as like, yeah, like, the baby's not moving, your body is making the baby move with the space that your body has and the capacity that your body has, and the tissue, you know, pliability that your body has. Yeah, the yields. Thank you. Yeah. So it kinda just makes you look at birth as a whole in in such a different way that it's it can also feel empowering that I do have some control. Like, I can do certain things. Right. Yeah. And, like, also this idea that, like, you're like, oh, yeah. Like, we know, of course, that, like, the body works and the tissue, you know, like, the way we move impacts our birth, but the idea that that that, like, I don't know, that there's so much education and emphasis given to, like, the hormonal blueprint and what's happening and how do we unfold it and how do we protect it and, like, you know, days and days and books and books and books and all this stuff. And everyone's like, yeah. Keep moving and do some squats. Like, the idea that it's, like, a sound bite that the way your baby the way you move impacts your the way your baby moves is such a disservice. It's as deep of a field of study of birth as any relationship to the bio to the hormonal blueprint. Like, a deep and in-depth study of the tissues and the anatomy and the biomechanics and the fascia and what affects what and how and why and where babies are and where they are in the pelvis and how this relates to fetal positioning and how what we can do not during birth, but during pregnancy. Right? How you can prepare, how you can assess mom understanding fetal positioning, relating symptoms to fetal positioning, relating symptoms as maybe a canary in the coal mine, but then help a baby move to then take some pressure off a tissue, and then how that will impact the way the baby enters the inlet. Like, the fact that this isn't, like, front row center in our birth education, but we spend so much time talking about the hormonal blueprint when as we've talked about, we've seen the hormonal group be sabotaged or supported and those babies not come down. And then we've seen a disastrous hormonal blueprint and those babies shoot out. Yeah. Those are places disastrous. You don't know what I you know what I'm saying. I shouldn't say that. That's not really what I mean. Yeah. But, like, you know, the screaming and the lights and the car and the ambulance, like, everything that you would think would be harmful when those babies are, like, out like a bullet. Biomechanics worked. Hormonal blueprint was in those circumstances. It being optimal was actually secondary. And the fact and I just really want to bring this perspective because it's so work on able. It's so work on able. Like and it doesn't even have to happen during your birth process, which is, like, not the time I wanna work on it. Shit, to be honest. Right? Like, I like, nope. That's not the time. Right? This is, like, prenatally. This is preconception. This is, like, manual therapy body work, like, hands on care, assessing posture, and not just being like, yeah. Totally. Try some of this. Like, you know, like, oh, you're having this pain? Try this exercise. Like, I get that I do that, but, like, it's very detailed. It's, like, really using the science of biomechanics and biodynamics to, like, affect mom and baby. And I just want us to know that that's available to us, and that's really where the that's, like, the intersection of of of my work truly. This is, like, you know, I have this background in birth, and I have this background in human biomechanics and, and, like, movement and movement and exercise physiology and really wanting to bring those all together to have the sense of contribution to our birth culture overall. And that's, like, what now that I'm, you know, not running it on, like, a really busy on call practice at this time in my life, like, that's really where my work is focused. It's like, how do we support women in pregnancy to have better births, and how can we use this lens to support women in pregnancy to have better births? And be it your mom learning this, a midwife learning this, a doula learning this. And that's what we do in my Born Through Movement course is utilize. And I didn't learn this in, as I said, in my bifurcary education. This was, like, not considered to be particularly important. Maybe I learned with the names of the muscles, but we're not I didn't really learn that much about human movement, and babies are born through movement. I can't say it enough. Right? So okay. Maybe I'll leave it there and see if you Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Before I just, like, rattle on. Yeah. So I love I love the name of your course, born through movement. Like, it's it's perfect. And I know that you've mentioned the course. It sounds incredible. And we've talked a lot about kind of, you know, the bigger ideology of the biomechanics and how it intertwines with everything. But Yeah. And I was gonna say, like, take my course or don't, but, like, let this sink in. You know what I mean? Like, let it sink in that this stuff impacts birth. So that so many women like, you know, I'm not here to knock anyone else's work. You know, that's not really my interest in any way. And, yeah, maybe it is your unhealed mother wound, or maybe you just don't have space in your post or your pelvic floor. Maybe it is your fear of breach manifesting your breach positioning, or maybe it's your, like, restricted breast is a dominance, really intense contraction of your obliques, and a lack of mobility in your respiratory diaphragm. Like and, like, for me, and I'm not saying and there are women that do amazing work that are really at the intersection of, like, unfolding, you know, emotional historical ancestral patterns in regards to birth and whatever. I just don't really know that that's just not really my thing. Right? And I'm not saying it's not you know, I can't really speak to it, ultimately. But what I can speak to is that if that doesn't feel either accessible or available to you, I just wanna remind everyone that birth happens in the body, and we can prepare for birth in the body. And that I think that is deemphasized on all ends of the birth wheel, so to speak, all over the spectrum. I feel like the said that I wanna be, like, broadening the part of that spectrum that is, like, body work and hands on care and movement biomechanics. Like, that's a small slice of that spectrum, and I want that to be a much bigger slice of the spectrum regardless of other views on birth. Mhmm. And it's you know, I just keep thinking of my own. Even my nursing education, I never learned the terms like mid pelvis inlet outlet, those were just not a part of my maternity care rotation. It's crazy. And luckily, my doula program did include those. And that was the first time that I heard that even though I had some knowledge of birth prior I was like, woah, why didn't I know this? And we learned some movements. So it's funny. But, like, even some, like, movements. Sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. But, like, it's not about the movements. Right? Because do you know what will happen? Some people, a squat, will close their pelvic outlet. Some people, a squat, will open their pelvic outlet. Some people, external rotation will open their external rotation of the, like, ilium will impact their mid pelvis. Some people, internal rotation of the ilium will impact their mid pelvis. It's not about the movement. It's about the action. What actually creates these actions of spaciousness in the inlet, spaciousness in the mid pelvis, and spaciousness in the outlet? And the movements might actually be distinct because we all have different patterns, and we need to learn how to do that somatically connect not with the concept of the pelvic inlet, but with your pelvic inlet, with your mid pelvis, with your outlet, and then feel into the body, like, there's no replacement. There's no exercise I can say is the freaking answer. It's like and what I really work on in my course work and in my teaching is, like, how do we teach women how like, a bunch of different options to try to find these actions in their own body, how to go slow, how to feel. Right? And that can take time. That's like learning that's like learning to move into your body. And we talk about that often from a sort of an esoteric perspective, like, learn to feel, like, learn to move into your body. And I'm like, no. No. No. Do this over and over and over and over again until you start to develop even just new nerve endings, like, actually new neurological connection to having your tissues move and, like, oh my god. And then when they're asked to move in new ways, they're maybe it's not as new. And then you might actually have a more ready response in the body when that's happening during the birth process. And, like, I just want there to be so much I just want there to be so much more than just, like, look at the baby moves through the three levels. Right? Look at the station, positive 4, negative 4. You know what I mean? Like, I just Yeah. And then even I as I know, I said this before, but, like, turning the cardinal movements, like like, on their head kind of. Like, what? Yeah. Like, the way they're not that not that that doesn't happen. Sure. I love babies to do those rotations, but, like, the why of the rotations, the how of the rotations, the when of the rotations, the where of the rotations. Like, that's the freaking stuff. Like, that's the inside truly of the pelvis and of birth and, like, and then what if? Just what if? Okay. This is my small conspiracy theory, but, like, the like, okay. So vaginal exam, this VEs, get a really bad rep for good freaking reason. Right? And I know a few midwives that are able, be through a really quick and skilled VE, to feel to, like, you know, assess the orientation of which way the baby is facing and at what station of the pelvis they are in without using a Doppler during the birth control process. That is a manual skill that you're not assessing for dilation, you're assessing for fetal position. Right? And the idea that you might with your hands be able to assess and feel and understand a fetal position and then help a mom maybe move at birth accordingly for where her baby is. Like, can we just, like, take everything that we think about, like, hands on hands and care and put it back into the realm of women with intelligent hands knowing where babies are and helping the women giving birth, which has been all of midwifery for all of woman kind. And we're just being, like, I feel like pressured in some ways to, like I mean, okay. Another one. Alright. Which, like, again, I'm not, like, here to advocate for Versus. I'd like whatever. That's sort of a big discussion. I'm not like and to be clear, I don't actually have that that skill. That's not what I was taught. When I was taught about VEs, I was taught how to assess for dilation. Nothing else. Right? And, again, going back to our initial discussion, we're learning on each other. How many VEs would a woman have to do to learn that skill? How many bad VEs would you have to do? Probably quite a few. Right? And so now we're in a bioethics concern and a bioethics consideration and whatever. Like, I'm not saying it's simple. I just, like, this idea that, like, our hands are bad and that, like, the way things move doesn't really matter. Or not only does it matter. It's like not only does it matter. It's like, in my opinion, like, the forefront. It's like it's birth. It's moving a baby. It's the birth is moving tissue inside the body to outside the body. Like and another one is, like, the okay. Now I'm just, like, on a on a tear, but, like, the go off. But, like, the like like, turning baby turning every baby like an ECV. Right? ECVs can be horribly dramatic. Right? You can it can be everything and, like, everything from, like, 2 fingers worth of pressure and, like, a midwife at home helping a baby, like, move where there's space to an epidural and 2 obese with, like, all of their body weight hung on a baby while you're monitoring for signs of distress. Like, the fact that all of those are put into the ECB category is nuts. Right? That's actually a really broad spectrum. And then let's even take it out of that. For all of humankind, women have known how to put hands on bodies and turn babies. Of course, they have. Right? For all of humankind, we've been able to feel and prepare and then help a baby turn. Right? Is that pathology of birth, or is that lost history of midwifery? Right? And that's an open question. I don't know the answer to these questions, but this is what I plan on studying for the rest of my life. Right? And, like, I've been doing this for, like, you know, less than a decade. That's not very long, right, in the grand scheme of things. And, like, if I'm lucky, right, I can study with women who've known more about birth than me for the rest of my life and keep doing that. And, you know, and I was talking to a wonderful woman. She's an, you know, maybe I can just, you know, I was talking to what's her name? Nicole Morales. She's an educator for spinning babies. She's a very well known midwife. I was talking to her recently, and I was just like, Nicole, I just, like, really want to learn and, like, have someone really just, like, help me learn what I don't know and be the better way to life. And she slipped me in the eye and went, me too. And Nicole has been attending births for, like, 35 years. And I was just like, that's what's up. Like, I just, you know well, shout out to her because it really mattered to me. I'm like, right. We're here to humbly learn how to do it better knowing that we're, of course, it's life and, you know, it's high stakes and it's birth and it's intense and it's all the things. And, and if I can just, like, offer this little bit of information I mean, I guess it's more than a little bit of information. It's a lot of information on, you know, just on a deeper study of biomechanics. I think that that is truly what I have utilized the most in supporting moms in pain patterns, whether I'm, you know, at their birth or not. Right? This is, like, what I've used the most in my practice. Mhmm. It's paradigm shift, really. It's, yeah. I was gonna ask a very broad question about, you know, you know, for the mothers who might be pregnant, who are listening, like, what movements would you suggest for them? But you just in this whole episode really shifted my perspective that that's really not what it's about. And I love that you've been able to broaden that for me. But is there something that we can give those moms other than take your course? Because I think that is what could be so Well, yeah. Helpful. Learn from me or somebody else, but, like, learn to pronate and supinate your feet. Learn to have internal rotation of your femurs as well as your iliums. Right? Learn to learn to hinge and create space in your posterior pelvic floor. Learn to disengage the rectus abdominis and engage your transverse abdominals, and learn to breathe broadly into your side ribs and posterior rib basket, having a sense of thoracic curvature, not the like shoulders back straight spine. Thoracic curved lumbar curve, right, work on rotation of the thorax. Are you able to have relative pelvic stability or even a pelvic counter rotation? So like think of right hip forward, left nipple forward, right, so this sort of spiraling counter rotation in the body, right, that it happens in gait patterns, but being able to train a sense of thoracic rotation is really gonna help. Mobility in the diaphragm as well as manual, on like, I I mean, I love manual therapy. I think abdominal therapy during pregnancy is, like, the name of the game. I think it's so helpful. Right? And pre pregnancy, if you could. Right? And then I'm really into sort of myofascial release for pregnancy and myofascial release for the internal pelvic tissues, learning to do that for yourself, learning to do it through your sex life with your with your partner. Partner. Right? And actually feeling like what you're just saying, like, oh, I had a pelvic PT put pressure on this and that's exactly what like, what if we were, like, nurturing our tissues, pre birth? And the idea is it's never manual therapy or movement. It's always like you can do all the manual therapy you want, but if you're sit, stand, walk, move, breathe patterns, put your tissues back in a tension pattern, your manual therapy won't last. Or if you can't actually access different movements in the body because you have so much restrictions, sometimes manual therapy can create enough space for them to access a different movement pattern. Right? So they really go together. So again, but what I just said was not like squats and lunges. Right? It is like Yeah. You know, pronation and supination of the feet, spaciousness in the posterior pelvic floor, which is done through hinging, but a lot of people hinge from their lumbar and their hamstrings, which is not a hinge. Right? You need to actually hinge through the pelvis, meaning the tip the sit bones and the sacrum need to move. Sacral mutation needs to be something that's practiced. Abdominal engagement without abdominal tension. Right? That also can specifically for multiple tips. Multiple time like, you know, moms that maybe have pendulous uterus, history of diastasis. Diaphragmatic mobility, seeing if you have some diaphragmatic compression work in the diaphragm. It's so helpful. Right? Restriction of the diaphragm is associated with breech positioning. And again, you would work on that through thoracic rotation. And, yeah, that's what I would those are actions that I would work on. Right? Those are great for overall health and fitness in general. Right? But they're truly gonna be deeply supportive for, preparing the body for a physiological birth unfolding. And, again, learn about those from me or somebody else. If you do wanna learn about them from me, I they're all outlined in my course, and we do, like, a deep dive into, one biomechanics, how it interlays with the hormonal blueprint, and then we have a study of the mid of the pelvic inlet, a study of the mid pelvis, and a study of the outlet, both from an anatomical perspective, what's happening with baby, what tissues are there, how to and then how to somatically connect with that layer of the pelvis. And then we have a whole series about pain patterns in pregnancy and how they actually then relate back. So if you have this pain pattern, this is how it relates to what might be happening from a tissue based perspective, and now here's what do about it. And here's how you find those actions and which ones you might be lacking access to if you're having these pain patterns. So how to be utilizing what it is that you're feeling in your body as a roadmap to how to help your baby have less tension and move more easily both in pregnancy and birth and beyond. Beautiful. It's all communication. Like, those those pain patterns, it's all telling you something. Yeah. Or it's likely it's likely telling you something. Yeah. I'm not here to tell you that it's always this way or this is what's up, but, like Yeah. Give it a shot. I'd say the pattern is more times than not. That's the case. And this is for people who want it, not for necessarily people who need it. Right? If you're not actually interested in looking at birth from this perspective, like, of course, there's a 1,000,000 different ways we can look at birth, but, I'm really I'm really here for it because it feels really applicable, and I've have seen it work time and time again. Amazing. Well, this has been awesome. I think we'll leave it there. There's so much, of course, as always that we could continue talking about and digging deeper into. But if if, you know, the women listening are interested, where can they find you? Yeah. So you can find me on Instagram at Adelaide Meadow. My website, adalademeadow.com. If you just Google Adelaide Meadow, you'll come up with this. Also, this course, if you remember the name, you can just Google that. It's called Born Through Movement. In addition, I have other offerings. As I said, I run a well woman care practice, so I take, I see clients 1 on 1, for varying pelvic health concerns. I also am, I have a course called TrueCore Health that's all about really intelligent understanding of our bodies from a movement based perspective that's not specifically related to birth, but a great movement practice to be doing for healing, pelvic health concerns, and it's what I want all women to be doing for their postpartum healing as well. So if you're interested in that, and then I also, teach strength training for the female body. So if you're interested in becoming, jacked or yoked and don't want to, compromise your ability to birth your future babies by compressing your pelvic floor or doing stressful things, but you want to be training to be an athlete without compromising these patterns. That's really my, you know, that's what I'm interested in and so I have that as well. And if you're interested in running a well woman care practice and really adding, you know, biomechanical movement, postural assessment, and, like, this human centered, non ideological centered approach to your practice, I run a practitioner training once a year, or we have, like, a deep dive year long study where we're learning anatomy and physiology, earth, public health concerns, movement, biomechanics. And it can just be a really great enriching study if you work with women. So that's what I got. You can find me, and you can always, you know, shoot me an email, shoot me a DM. And, yeah, I'm so glad that you invited me here. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you so much. It's been amazing to get to know you and listen to your wisdom and perspectives. And, you know, it's got me thinking. So I know that the people listening are the women listening are are going to have a lot to digest and integrate as well. So thank you so much. This was beautiful.

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