Welcome to Grounded Wellness, your go to podcast for
simplified and trusted information on how to live a
more non-toxic and holistic life.
We're your hosts. I'm Bethany McDaniel, founder of
Primarily Pure biohacking enthusiast and mom of three.
And I'm Courtney O'Connor, holistic esthetician with over
15 years experience in the healing power of touch and
holistic skin care rituals. A woman's intuition should never
be overlooked or underestimated, especially when it comes to
pregnancy and birth. That's why I'm so excited to
welcome our guest, Lindsay Neelis.
Lindsay is a widely renowned midwife in Southern California.
She uses a combination of ancestral wisdom along with her
own experience and expertise to hold space for birthing
experiences that are sacred and transformative.
In this episode, we discussed the importance of animal protein
for a healthy mom and baby, why hospital births often lead to a
cascade of interventions and healing from birth trauma.
Lindsay will forever change your outlook on birth.
Let's dig in. Hello, and welcome to another
episode of Grounded Wellness. We are here at the farm set.
We're barefoot, we're grounding, we're drinking liver smoothies,
doing all the things. And we have Lindsay Meelas here.
We are going to have a conversation all about
pregnancy, birth and postpartum. And you are the perfect person
to have it with. So thank you so much for being
here today. Yay.
Thank you, guys. So good to be here with both of
you. I'm really honored.
Okay, we're gonna jump right into it.
We know that fertility rates are declining at a staggering rate
right now in the US. They have been for several
years. What in your opinion are the
biggest contributors to this all time low in fertility?
Yeah. I don't think that people
realize how staggering these rates actually are.
So what's estimated right now is that our infertility is
increasing at about 1% per year. So if you actually calculate
that out, it's really not that many years.
If we really go by that statistic that we have a chance
of fertility for our children, for our grandchildren.
If we look at our grandparents, maybe our parents, the boomer
generation, our birth rate is 50% lower right now in 2024 than
it was during the boomer generation.
We can look at the statistics from 2000 to 2020 and there was
a 25% drop in birth rates just in that time frame.
So these are very concerning. We have to look at all the
different factors that factor into this because we know right
now that 25% of women are burdened with PCOS, which is one
of the leading causes of infertility.
We know that 25% of men under the age of 40 are struggling
with erectile dysfunction. So many of these things are
contributing to us being able to not get pregnant.
First things first, let's look at plastics.
Microplastics are talked about so much right now in the in the
news and all of the health podcasts that we're listening
to. But I don't think that people
really understand the magnitude of why these microplastics are
affecting us so much. So the inception of using
plastic in our industrialized nation was in the early 1900s.
There's 8 billion metric tons of microplastics in our oceans and
our air and our soil right now. For placentas that are being
tested right now, it's 100% of placentas that have
microplastics in that. 100%. 100% in these research studies
across the board, not just one across the board, we find these
microplastics in the umbilical cord.
We're finding microplastics now in our brains.
They estimate that .5% of our brain matter is made-up of
microplastics. This isn't good.
Microplastics create a chemical reaction within our bodies that
cause an excessive estrogen. When we look right now at
testosterone rates, the average 25 year old male in 2024 has the
same testosterone rate of a 70 year old in the year 2000.
This isn't that long ago you guys.
All of these implications are having huge effects on our
fertility. Because I know that there's all
these different like LG's that they're looking into with get
rid of the micro plastics and our oceans.
And there's like the human vacuum that they're using.
There's an island floating around in the Pacific Ocean.
I don't know how big it is, but it's huge.
It's just made-up of plastic. So we need to start getting
these plastics out. And what we also need to look at
is what we're spraying on our foods.
So we use chemicals in our foods that actually require people to
be in hazmat suits as they're spraying them.
OK, if someones in a hazmat suit, how is that safe for human
consumption? We use atrazine, which is a
chemical that most of the world doesn't use.
We buy most of it from China and this ostrazine actually goes in
and it creates a Zeno effect within our bodies that reduces
the testosterone and creates this excess estrogen.
So we know now that the menstruation age of little girls
has gone down our grandparents. The average rate was anywhere
from 12 to 15 years for menstruation.
When we get our periods, the onset of men are key.
When we look at it now, the average age is about 10 years
old. I hear stories from kindergarten
teachers that have to keep menstruation pads in their
classroom in case they have abnormal vaginal bleeding, which
is a period from kindergarteners.
These statistics are horrifying. They actually have a 20%
increase of developing breast cancer opposed to someone who
starts their period after the age of 13.
Gosh, that's not good. Because of all the excess
estrogen. Because of all the excess
estrogen, we know that these kids are more likely to have
obesity problems. We know that these kids are more
likely to have type 2 diabetes that onset the pre diabetic
state. So we need to do something and
we need to move away from all of these microplastics.
We need to move away from the conventional food industry.
Right now it's really in the spotlight.
A lot of people are talking about this.
We are one of the unhealthiest nations on the planet right now
that the World Health isn't even that great.
But the United States has no regulations for these things.
Every year there's 70 billion tons of this Astrazene that's
sprayed all over the food supply.
So we need to make sure that we start changing and selecting
with our pocketbooks what's most important for our families and
for our children. The number one thing that's
bought right now with food stamps is all the sodas, the
Pepsis, the Cokes. One of my favorite brands that
was clean, didn't use seed oils, just got bought out by Pepsi.
So we have these different alternatives, but then somebody
comes in like a big Pepsi whoever and has a $2 billion
check that they present. So we need to find a way that we
can still keep all of our salt, small sustainable foods intact
for our children. One of the best ways to do this
is from a farmer's market. We know that just the
transportation of citrus fruits can lose up to 50% of the
vitamin C potency if it's driven across.
We know that just the sun of where we're at actually has
codes that are specific to where you live that benefits our
bodies from eating the locally grown foods.
So there's so many different things that we can look at.
But First things first, let's get the chemicals out.
We need to look at organizations like Moms Across America.
We need to look at Robert F Kennedy's information that's
coming out right now. Callie and Casey Means are
speaking out about this. These are the people that we
need to be turning to within our administration to actually say
like, hey, let's make a change here for a future generations.
And so, Lindsay, with the conversation around like
pesticides being sprayed and all the chemicals on our food, yeah,
and obviously as well as seeping into our soil, Yeah.
And soil health, which is what we're really prioritizing here
on our regenerative farm. Can you speak?
More about the standard American diet as a whole and how that's
impacting reproductive health so one of my favorite doctors,
doctor Zach Bush talks so much about the importance of the soil
yes. He estimates that there's about
40 to 60 harvests left. If we continue to go at the rate
that we're going right now, with all of the chemicals that we're
spraying in our foods and without the biodiversity within
the farming systems, 40 to 60 harvests is not a lot.
So what we need to do is get back into our cell.
We need to come up with creative solutions, which so many people
are doing right now. And if we bring back all of
those minerals into our soil, then what's going to happen is
those minerals are going to come back into our food supply,
opposed to the standard American diet, which really is just
eating out of a box. Nothing's alive.
It's full of chemicals. And so, you know, bring our kids
to places like this, like let them get their hands in the
soil. Let them understand that like
the food actually comes from here and that it's picked that
they have to tend the soil. They have to water the the soil.
They have to water all of the vegetables.
They have to, you know, till the land like it.
There's a whole piece that's missing right now with our
children that don't even know where food comes from.
Yeah, you touch on some kids food and, you know, that happens
to maybe a lot of the food that children eat.
Is this dead food that you're describing.
Yes, I may get judged about this by some people, but there are so
many foods that I do not allow my kids to have.
And I don't see that as extreme because I don't see that food as
food. Yeah, it's not.
So in my opinion, like I the world is changing.
What kids and what people are eating has changed.
Like, my view of what food is hasn't changed, you know, since
I was a kid, but it's seen as extreme to stay away from these
like food like products by the general population because
that's just what we've become so accustomed to, which is really
sad, I think. It's so sad.
And now I'm on the flip side of
it. So I have teenagers and so I can
see like there's only so much I can control.
Like if they're at a friend's house, I can't control what
they're eating. If they're out riding their
bikes, I can't control what they're eating.
And really, teenagers are supposed to be a little bit
defiant to find their sense of self.
So what I found is that both my teenagers, they were both raised
organic. They were both both breastfed
for a very long time. They were, you know, they had
the foundations of this optimal health.
And now that they're out in the world, it's kind of like, oh,
like, how do I find my own footing?
And I always say, you're so lucky you had the foundation of
good health in your early years. And I know they'll come back to
it. You know what I mean?
Like, yes, they'll probably get a bag of Doritos at a friend's
house. But when they come home, we make
our own food. We sit around the dinner table
together and they still have that foundation that's there and
hopefully that foundation will continue to follow through into
their, you know, continuation of the rest of their life into
their own families and and hopefully into their children's
lives as well. So I want to talk about other
harmful chemicals that we need to really look at.
And you know, this is a shameful plug for your company because we
know that what we put on our skin is something that's really
important that we look at as well.
We know the VO, CS and air freshener in our fabric softener
in perfume are all huge endocrine disruptors.
So not are we just looking at our soils, our foods, reducing
the amount of plastics, what's going into our bodies, but also
what's going on our bodies. And I think that's just a really
important piece to weave in to making sure that people
understand that's a huge piece of fertility.
One of our functions of our skin is absorption, of course.
And so it truly, it does impact our internal and overall health.
Yeah. What research shows is that
children are actually 30% more at risk to all of those VOC's
fragrances because they're smaller.
And so their bodies don't have the processing to get rid of
them as fast as adults do. Not that it's good for adults
either, but like 30 times more likely to have an effect from
all of those fragrances and bad chemicals that we're putting
onto our skin, all the shampoos, all of the conditioners, all of
that. So that's a really important
thing to make sure that we weave out of our households.
Yeah, we're really being inundated on so many levels with
these toxins and it can feel overwhelming.
But I always try to say like see it as an opportunity.
All of these things are opportunities and areas that you
can address and make changes. And any change you make, it's
going to be beneficial. And you can go about it at
whatever pace you're able to, whatever pace feels comfortable.
But the more knowledge you have, the more you know what you can
tackle and, and what you can kind of set to the side for the
time being. And then and then kind of get to
eventually, it's hard nowadays because there are just so many
toxins everywhere and so little regulation to protect us from
this stuff. And I think it happens.
I think change can happen on 2 levels from the regulatory side
and also from this place of taking ownership of your future,
ownership of your health, ownership of your Children's
Health. Like you do have a say.
We all have a say. Yeah.
I want to switch gears and chat about animal based protein
because I know you're big on this.
Yeah, I am too. It's something that I'm
passionate about. Yeah.
What do you see as being the role of animal based protein in
preconception and pregnancy? It's the the foundation for
health. So not only is it the foundation
for the baby's health, but it's the foundation for this mother
that needs to continue. We need to be healthy for the
rest of her life to raise these children.
And so we have to think of it as one of the most essential pieces
of something that we talked about with somebody that's
either in preconception or in the pregnancy state because it
is all of the amino acids, it's all of the minerals, it's
everything that's coming in in a dense state.
So we're not getting all of these fillers with things that
are in a box. We're actually getting nutrient
dense foods that go into the moms body.
We're building our blood supply in pregnancy between 20 to 28
weeks. A mother's blood supply actually
double s during that time in anticipation for losing the
blood at postpartum. But if we don't have that
sustained nutrition, if we don't have those building blocks that
are in place, moms are going to become severely anemic.
And in making sure that you're getting enough protein, it
prevents so much of nowadays, I feel like there's all of these
iron shortages because women are so the human race is so anemic
because we're not getting those nutrient rich foods.
Our soils are so depleted of the iron that we're not getting it
through our Cracker Jack boxes and all of our fortified foods.
We know that the fortified foods are full of all of these
different sorts of vitamins that aren't broken down for the
majority of the population. We promote folic acid while the
general population promotes folic acid, and what we really
should be promoting is making sure that women are getting
folate from food. If you need to supplement during
that first trimester to minimize neuro tube defects, then it
should be from a methylated folate source.
Most people have never even heard of what a methylated
folate is, but it's a food source.
It's not something that's synthetically compounded in a
laboratory. So one of my favorite studies
that came out with protein was from a doctor in the 70s.
His name was Doctor Brewer. If you've ever taken a Bradley
childbirth class, Doctor Brewer has talked about all the time.
And what his studies showed is that he worked in a very low
income area. And what he realizes that so
many of these women were having issues with preeclampsia.
Preeclampsia is a condition in pregnancy where we have a
dysfunction within the liver, but then we start to see blood
pressures go up. So if a blood pressure goes up
prenatally, then that can be many different risk factors to
mom. Seizures.
It's restricted fetal growth. I mean, we usually if moms start
to have high blood pressure, we induce those babies and get
those babies out. It's not a healthy foundation
for baby to continue to grow. And even if moms are 32 weeks
pregnant, these babies are usually induced out.
And what Doctor Brewer noticed is just by even getting the
cheapest protein in. And what he found that to be was
dairy. Like, they could take their food
stamps and go get a gallon of milk and some eggs and some
cheeses and some cottage cheeses.
What Doctor Brewer's research showed is that just by getting a
minimal of 80 to 120 grams of protein per day, he studied
25,000 women. Not one of them had
preeclampsia. Not one of them.
I'm like on the edge of my seat right now because I have a good
friend that has had preeclampsia with both of her children and
she's on this journey now of like she was told might not be a
good idea to have more kids. And she's pregnant again now.
And she's, I think she's kind of found some of what you're
describing in her own research as well.
But that's just so fascinating. So protein.
Protein. So protein is like the biggest
piece of the puzzle. But like if somebody comes to me
and they're like, I had hypertension, I had preeclampsia
last pregnancy. They're my favorite.
I'm like, oh, this is amazing. Yeah.
This is what we're going to start with.
Like you need to make sure that once you're feeling better out
of the first trimester, because I'm also realistic.
I understand that women, if I tell them to eat 120 grams of
protein in the first trimester, most of them look at me like,
you're insane. So once you start feeling
better, we're going to start prioritizing nutrient dense
protein foods throughout the rest of your pregnancy.
We need to do a food journal. What are you just what are you
eating right now on a regular basis?
I don't want you to add more protein.
And I want you to see what your daily average is right now for
proteins. If you're 50 grams of protein
per day, we're going to have to work really hard to make sure
that you get that protein number up.
Once we get that protein number up, we also have to look at
what's supporting your liver. There's tons of herbs that we
can use that are so simple to acquire that can support your
liver throughout the pregnancy. And what does that have to do
with preeclampsia? So what that has to do with
preeclampsia is it actually keeps the liver in balance?
The liver gets very taxed in pregnancy.
So if we're getting enough protein, we're keeping the liver
happy, it's functioning, The gallbladder is functioning well.
The biles in the gallbladder are functioning well.
All of everything's moving through all the duct system, the
liver, all of that filtration system, because our bodies know
that we want to make sure that we're filtering things out to
keep our babies healthy. So if we're supporting our
liver, then our body's going to be operating in a much more
synergistic way, OK. So just overall that's important
during pregnancy. Overall, for everybody, it's
really important. Another thing is salt.
Why my salt? Yeah, I was going to ask you
about that. Yes, So the easiest thing I
could go to literally a village and one of the poorest places in
the world and bring salt and it would change the outcomes of
their pregnancy. I have a really good friend that
works in Bali, in Indonesia, and she's like Lindsay, like
sometimes all they can eat per day is like a handful of rice.
That's all their family can afford.
And she's done this amazing thing.
We're behind her birth center. She's made this regenerative
farm and people can come and garden and they can get free
vegetables and herbs and you know, they can take whatever
protein that they can to sustain them with that their family
can't afford. But salt, salt so easy.
It's so simple. And I'm not talking Morton's
table salt, that's junk, that's iodized junk.
I'm talking sea salt, the pink Himalayan salt.
I know there's all these new things right now online with
what salts best and what, but like if you have food stamps, go
to the store and get sea salt. Like I don't care what the brand
is, it's going to be better than nothing.
If you, if you can be picky with your sea salt, then go ahead and
find the best one. I love Icelandic salt.
It's one of the best ones out there.
I've been to Iceland. I see the quality of everything
there, but it's so simple, like like a minimum of 80 to 100
grams of protein every single day.
Make sure you're getting enough salt in.
You can put a little bit of salt in every glass of water that you
drink. You don't want it to taste like
salt water it. Just gives you those minerals
for that time. Being that's exactly what my
friend is doing. More protein and more salt and
minerals. So simple.
It was posted on I will I. Will.
She'll do fine. She'll do fine.
So what we know is that by increasing our protein intake,
just making sure that that simple thing, there's going to
be an increase with the blood volume.
If the blood volume increases at an optimal range that 50%, that
doubling of the blood volume, the placenta is going to
function at a much better place. This means that it's going to be
a huge reduction, not just as with the preeclampsia and all
these things we've just talked about.
This is going to be a healthier baby.
The the Brewer babies are typically always over 8 lbs.
These are healthy, sustainable babies.
Now, we don't want a 12 LB baby. That's metabolic dysfunction.
That means mom hasn't regulated her blood sugar throughout the
pregnancy. But these good, you know, Hardy
8 LB babies, that tells me right away that moms had good
nutrition throughout the pregnancy.
What differences have you seen in the placenta and how the
placenta looks in moms that eat meat versus moms that don't?
So I had a, a viral video that went out that was comparing I, I
was recording one day and I just happened to have a client that
was vegetarian for most of her life.
She was vegetarian throughout most of her pregnancy pregnancy
until she started craving meat, which I encouraged her, but then
her her iron levels dropped significantly.
So I said if you can just do one thing, let's just start getting
in some beef organs. Let's just start getting some
liver into your diet every single day.
So by the third trimester she was consuming about 6 liver
capsules per day. Of desiccated.
Of desiccated liver. And I was.
Going to say that's a big leap to go from vegetarian to, like,
actually, yeah. No, she was liver in the
capsules and so we got her iron levels up, which was really
great, but she had a basically a lifetime of being depleted from
these all of these different minerals that are in a more
plant or a more carnivore based diet.
So what happened was she gave birth and she had this placenta
and while she did have the liver capsules at the end, she there
was a lot of calcification. It didn't look as healthy
compared to the other mom that gave birth.
It was like full carnivore and eating, you know, 80 to 100
grams of protein every single day, which was thick and the
color was different. It was like more robust deep
red. It was more robust.
You could see side by side that these placentas looked
different. And so, you know, I, I hated the
controversy that came from it because it, it did seem
dogmatic. Like it felt like in the snips,
it was me saying like, if you eat vegetarian, this is what
your plus on is going to come out looking like.
And if you eat meat based, this is what your plus on is going to
come out looking like. No, There's variables in every
single thing that we do. We have to make sure that we
take dogma out of everything. There has to be a place where we
can have conversations like this.
It's part of a critical. Thinking and still take that
insight and learn from it and not letting like the emotional
aspect of it kind of like blind you to certain reality.
And I think that the problem is, is that people do get so
emotional because then they think they've done harm to their
kids. And so you, you like, that's not
what we're saying. We're saying let's do better.
Like, let's look at this as a place of like total neutrality
and say, let's do better for our for our family, for our
children. Let's do better for ourselves.
Let's make sure that we're not minerally depleted for our next
pregnancy. There was a study that came out
that looked at different movie stars and I thought this was so
funny. And usually the best looking
child in the family was the first born and is because mom
had way more nutrients, way more minerals.
There was a there wasn't this like depletion that happens from
pregnancy to pregnancy to pregnancy.
It was like the prime before she continued on and you could see
the difference in the draw structure.
You could see the difference in just their overall glow.
And I was like, that makes so much sense.
So interesting. Yeah, One thing I don't
understand. It is why so many women have
meat aversions during pregnancy if it's such a critical
nutrient. I know for myself, I craved meat
so intensely, and if I didn't have enough animal protein
consistently, that's when I would start to get nauseous and
that's when I would start to just feel crummy and have low
energy. But I know that's not
necessarily the norm. Can you speak to that?
And can I ask a piggyback question on that too?
Yes, like the one side of the aversion.
And then you also just mentioned you had a vegetarian client who
then started craving meat. So speaking to both sides.
Yeah, So I usually see the aversions in first trimester.
And I really truly think that first trimester is when
everything is being built. So all of the essential organs,
the brain, like everything is being built during that time.
So our body doesn't want us to be sick.
Like, if if there was an invasion of something that came
into our body, like some sort of, you know, foodborne
pathogen, it would really dramatically affect our babies.
And our bodies are smart to say in a sense that, like, we have
aversions to most things during the first trimester because it
just kind of keeps us safe, in my opinion.
That's what I've seen. That's what I've noticed.
That's my own personal take on it.
Once moms start to move out of that developmental phase out of
the first trimester, I see the opposite.
Like almost all of my clients are craving some sort of meat
substance. It's like my own sister was a
vegetarian for a very long period of time.
And during her pregnancy, she was like, I'm like literally
craving blood. Like I want to eat like red
meat. Like I can't even describe it.
And I was like, go get it. And she lives in Sweden.
So like, she has this ability. They have moose everywhere.
So like, they went and filled their whole freezer with moose.
And so I just think that the more that we listen to
ourselves. But you are right.
Like if you are really paying attention to your body instead
of like going to grab the bagel and like get the carb where your
sugar spike really really fast, then you get the crash and you
feel like crap. Again, sometimes I would crave
those, those sugary, you know, more carbohydrate rich foods.
And whenever I would give in to those cravings is when I would
feel the worst. I were very vividly remember
with my first pregnancy, I had a muddy buddy craving.
Do you guys remember Muddy Buddies?
It's also known as puppy child. Yeah.
So like, I went to the store, I tried to like, find the
healthiest versions of everything, but I made a whole
big batch of Muddy Buddies and I ate so much of it and I felt
horrible. And I told myself, never again.
I'm not going to listen to it. I'm not going.
To listen, and the reason you did is because of the sugar
spike. So you spike really high and
then your body would be like, Oh my gosh, that was not a complex
car. That was just really easy, fast
sugar. Then you're going to dip really
low and crash. Then when you're dipping, you
just feel absolutely awful. So it's like, yeah, like, fine.
Like listen to your body. If you're like really craving
those things, make sure you're pairing it with a protein of
some sort, like get like a beef stick or something that you can
balance that with. I always say first trimester, if
you're trying to eat when you're awake every two to three hours,
your blood sugars will stabilize so much that you usually don't
end up with any of those crazy cravings.
In our culture, if you look at the Hollywood culture, you look
at most of the stars that are like on their Instagrams and
they're like eating like the junkiest junk because they have
an excuse to gain weight. And I remember Kim Kardashian's
pregnancy, she posted this picture and she was in these
clear heels and she was so swollen, like literally like her
like swelling was like coming over the like, straps on her
shoes. And I remember saying to my
husband, I'm like, oh, she has preeclampsia.
She'll be induced. And he was like, stop being
judgmental. And I was like, I'm not, I'm
saying she has preeclampsia. She's really, really swollen and
she's not healthy. And like two days later she was
like induced in the hospital for preeclampsia.
It's simple like don't eat junk, prioritize your protein, get
some salt, support your liver and you should have across the
board really good results. 25,000 people studied by doctor
Brewer with not one incidence of preeclampsia that's profound.
It's. Amazing, everyone should know
that, yes. What are your thoughts on raw
foods during pregnancy? I consumed raw liver throughout
two of my 3 pregnancies. Have really positive results
with it, but I know that can be controversial, yeah.
So as somebody that's like a healthcare provider, I wouldn't
like get on anything that would be a wide recommendation and be
like, everybody should go eat raw liver and raw fish and feel
really good because everybody needs to make individual
choices. You have to feel comfortable
with what you're doing. So do I tell clients that are
eating raw liver in their pregnancy just stop?
Heck no. I think it's really good for
them. Actually.
If you look back to what our ancestors did, everything was
locally sourced. My grandma grew up on a farm.
She would go and milk her cow. She would drink the the milk
right from the cow. Anything that was butchered was
saved. Every part of that animal was
eaten. The organ meats were like the
most delicious, delicate part of the whole system.
Like they were prioritized for pregnant women because they knew
that they were the most nutrient dense.
And so you look at Japan, do you think pregnant women stop eating
sushi in Japan? No, it's part of their diet.
They have raw fish all the time. They know the source of where
it's coming from. They go to places or they bring
it home from the sea markets that they you know, it's, it's
it's good people that are bringing this fish home that
they've trusted for the last 10 years within their home.
Would you go to like some round table sushi restaurant in the
mall? No.
You know, you want to make sure that no matter what you're
putting in your mouth that it's from a good source.
So with everything in life, there's going to be inherent
risks and you have to be comfortable with those risks.
You could get in a car and get in a car accident.
Does that mean that you stopped driving?
No. But when you take responsibility
for what you're doing in your life, then you get to go through
those inherent risks and see what's beneficial for you.
Is that raw liver beneficial for me?
Yes, I'm willing to take that risk.
And then you actually move away from what the Western medical
model is, is of putting your trust in somebody else.
You get to bring back that inherent trust to yourself,
which I feel like is one of the most important things that we
can be doing right now in medicine.
Let's back up a little bit. I want to talk about your birth
experience as a first time mom and how that influenced the rest
of your life and your career path.
So when I got pregnant, I was young.
I was 21 years old. I worked in a hospital setting.
I chose what the standard hospital route was, not because
I didn't have this desire within me to have a natural birth.
I did. I took childbirth classes.
I really went outside of what the standard was at that time
when I was with a standard Western medical Doctor Who
practiced obstetrical medicine. When I was a day before my due
date, he said that my baby was measuring too big.
He put the fear in me that my baby might not be able to be
born vaginally. At that point, I didn't really
know any other difference, so I went along with the
recommendation of being induced. I had every medical intervention
you can imagine during this induction.
We call it the cascade of interventions.
So during this time I ended up with AC section after 18 hours
of pitocin after my water was broken during my C-section.
I had epidural anesthesia that wasn't placed properly so I
actually felt most of my surgery.
So I had an experience where I gave birth but in the same
sentence. I also thought I was dying from
the pain. I asked to be put to sleep.
The doctors didn't believe me that I was feeling pain.
Then they started pinching a part of my body, asking me where
it was, and I said the exact place that they were pinching.
So as it came out of anesthesia, obviously the most important
thing was that I wanted to see my baby.
I wanted to make sure that my baby was OK.
But I had this deep underlying sense that something was wrong,
and then I was robbed from an experience.
It's a sacred rite of passage. There's no way around that.
Any way that we look at it. There's gifts that are given
during this process. There was just a quote recently
that said during pregnancy we stretch, during birth we
shatter, and during postpartum, we put all of the pieces back
together. So in my postpartum, putting all
these pieces back together, I realized that in missing out
from the sacred rite of passage with what was, I said stolen
from me, I became a savior. I wanted to save everybody from
having the same experience that I had.
And I got into birth work within a year after my daughter was
born. I was a doula in the hospital.
I had witnessed hundreds of doula hospital births.
I became a lactation consultant. I saw all thousands of babies
that were in the hospital for breastfeeding problems.
And what I realized is that you really can't save anybody.
They have to want to find their strength within it.
They want to, if they want to have those experiences, it has
to be within themselves. And during that, I realized the
best way to do that was provide a place for women to, to have
the voice to do that, to have individualized care.
And I became a midwife. So in the process of midwifery
school, I got pregnant with my son.
He was born at home and my Jacuzzi underneath the stars.
And I had a completely different story outside in the middle of
summer. But both experiences were
equally as important for me because had I not had the
experience of my daughter, I wouldn't have even had the drive
to look into basically my whole life's dedication to women and,
and every family that I serve. So it's really interesting, you
know, at these sacred contracts, we have to look at them and
really take them for what they are and allow ourselves to be
moved by what experiences we have.
For anyone that's unfamiliar with the differences between a
traditional OB and a midwife, can you kind of break that down
for us? So it's different models of
care. So the obstetrical model of care
is basically where they look at pregnancy as an emergency
waiting to happen. So anytime that there, you know,
something comes up, it could be a potential emergency where the
midwifery model of care really looks at pregnancy and birth as
the most normal physiological process there is on the planet.
We've done this for all of time. We wouldn't be here as a species
of birth didn't work. And so we we have similar
training in a sense. Obviously, I'm not a trained
surgeon, although I can stitch very, very well and I can do
things within a scope of practice that it's not involving
surgery. But we do have a lot of very
similar skills. I don't have an anesthesiologist
at home. We're we're not providing any
sort of medication for moms, any sort of pain medications for
moms. Although if a mom desires some
sort of antibiotic for a positive status of Group B
strep, we can provide stuff like that.
We have in most states, we have available to us anti hemorrhagic
medications which are to help minimize postpartum bleeding.
Very rare that we have to use it, but it's something that
we're so, so grateful that it's available to us if we ever
needed to do that. We are able to provide the same
level of care for normal low risk women.
So if a normal low risk woman comes to me, I can see her
throughout the entire pregnancy process without her ever having
to facilitate care from a doctor.
Obviously every state's going to be a little bit different, but I
can draw labs in my office, I can refer for a diagnostic
ultrasound if there's something that comes up that's maybe a
different level of care. I can make referrals to maternal
fetal medicine doctors, which usually do Co care with me and
try as hard as we can to keep those patients and care
together, making informed decisions along the way.
But you know, it's, it's pretty similar.
Like I always say, I bring a basic labor and delivery room to
the home. I was just going to say that I
think my midwife, Lisa Marie, you know, I love her, told me
that, that they bring even, maybe it was even more equipment
into your home than they have in a basic room in the hospital.
Depending on what grade of hospital it is OK.
Yeah, but that was just kind of like a light bulb for me because
I think a lot of people think of midwifery and home births as
this woo woo hippy dippy kind of thing.
But really there is a lot of medical components to it.
And we're trained in normal physiological birth.
If you were to ask most OB's if they've witnessed a normal non
interventive physiological birth, chances are they would
say no. So you know, when you look at,
if you look at like FEMA, like if there's a natural disaster,
the people that should be writing the protocols for out of
hospital birth should be the midwives because they're
experiencing normal physiological birth where isn't
an emergency situation. And OB wouldn't even have access
to a lot of those tools that they use within the hospital
setting. And so it brings it back to the
basics time and time and time again.
You just look back to the basics, which I think is what
we're all trying to do with everything right now.
Our food systems. Let's go back to the basics with
our air. Let's go back to the basics with
our water. Like let's take all all the crap
that we've put our water. Let's look at fluoride.
I mean, we just had a recent ruling that says fluoride's bad
for us. Yeah, of course it is.
We've we've in the natural health world, we've been talking
about this forever. That's another thing that
contributes to low testosterone, right?
Yeah, it's one. I mean, it also decreases your
IQ. So we have to look at like, what
are we putting in our systems that we could so easily take out
that would make such a substantial difference with the
health of the human race? Yeah.
We have to really question all of these things that we have
just taken as being normal and really evaluate like is this
serving me and my family or is it not and make decisions.
Based on that very simple question.
Very simple question. Yeah, One thing I love about
home births too, is that in the home setting, it's just so
comfortable and peaceful and it really allows that natural
physiological process that you're talking about to happen
versus the hospital setting with the fluorescent lights, the
stranger noises, the strangers, the different people coming in
and out. I mean, if, if you look at
animals in the wild, like I've seen it plenty of times on the
farm, they kind of just go somewhere private to give birth,
like away from all of the commotion.
And I, I see like humans birth in the same regard is like I, I
just kind of want to, every time I've had a child and given
birth, I just wanted privacy and I've wanted to be, I've wanted a
peaceful, like the most peaceful environment possible.
And that has what has allowed that process to kind of flow
naturally. And not that not to say that you
can't have a great birth experience in a hospital
setting, but there's just a lot of things that are kind of set
up against you. It's apples and oranges.
I always say that like you can't not say a natural birth in a
hospital setting is the exact of what a hospital or a natural
birth would be in a home birth setting.
It's 2 completely different things.
You're stepping into somebody else's space.
When you're in your own space, you're comfortable.
It's where you Make Love. It's where you poop.
Like these are like normal physiological functions that
people don't think about. But birth is one of the most
normal physiological things that happened to us.
So you have to think about if you were on a bed in a room with
fluorescent lights and there's people watching you, could you
have an orgasm, you know, and so and the sphincter muscle.
Too like you can't in front of other.
No, I mean if someone walked in and you were like going to the
bathroom, you would automatically cinch up like this
cervix is a sphincter muscle, like it closes when you don't
feel safe, so. What if you mentioned something
before about how long? Like depending on how many extra
people are in the room, you can run a long labor by a certain
amount of hours per person. Yeah.
So one of my favorite OB's is a OB in France, and he grew up on
a farm and his name's Michelle Odont.
He's probably in his 90s now and he says always in his French
accent, for every extra person you have in your labor room, you
add an extra hour. And I say it for for a first
time mom, it adds extra two hours for each extra personal
room. And that is people that are
observing you. If that doesn't include the the
midwife team, like they're there to help you, there's a purpose
for them to be there. But for the observations, it
definitely adds time to your labor for sure.
And I really think too, it creates a lot of complications
postpartum. Like I will never let a bunch of
people come into the room until the placenta is out.
Like that's still part of birth. Like we still have to protect
that space. And if we don't protect that
space, we're going to increase our risk of having postpartum
hemorrhages. And one of the things that I
know you have done for postpartum hemorrhages is you
will give the mom a little bit of her own placenta to kind of
chew on. Yeah.
So it's, I mean, it's not for the faint at heart, but
typically when a mom is bleeding a lot, it's one of the best
medicines that we have. I think our ancestors have
probably used it for all the time.
If we look at any mammal that gives birth, they eat their
placenta. Once the placenta comes out,
it's part of. How does that work and how does
it stop the hemorrhaging? So it's from all it's, it's all
of mom's natural hormones that are already, it's bioidentical
hormones for moms. So it's full of oxytocin.
Oxytocin is known to contract the uterus.
It's full of iron, it's full of stem cells.
All of these things will help contract the uterus down.
I I told Courtney a story once of a client that had a
complication of pregnancy. I sent her to the hospital.
She didn't even know she was in labor.
I was sending her in for blood work, for stop blood work and
she got into the hospital. She was 9 centimeters.
She gave birth like about 30 minutes of after getting to the
hospital. Her husband wasn't even in the
room because everything happened so fast.
And the condition that I was worried about was actually true.
And she started hemorrhaging, like significantly hemorrhaging.
And she called me and she's like, I don't know what to do.
Like, you know, like they're saying that like, I might have
to go in for surgery. And I said, is your placenta
out? Yes, it's out.
I want you to take a piece of that placenta and put it in her
mouth right now. And she said the staff looked at
her like she was like crazy. Like, like they had like she was
an alien or something, Like, oh, I'm sure.
But it stopped her bleeding. And then they were all like, Oh
my gosh, like, wow, something like that happened.
And I actually have a friend that's mom was in the hospital
at that time. And she said, oh, that sounds
like something Lindsay would do. Was that one of your clients?
I said yeah. And she said they actually
talked about it for a while because they were all so blown
away that the medicine and was actually right there.
Wow, do a lot of your clients eat their placentas?
They usually don't eat it raw and they'll usually do it in
some sort of capacity, either with mixing it with the
smoothie, which would be raw, or they'll desiccate it and then
they'll put it into capsules of some some sort.
What about the tincture? Tinctures are great too.
Yeah, kid preserves it for a lot longer.
This is such an exciting time to have this conversation with the
three of us here because Courtney is newly engaged.
Yeah. And so and they want children.
And so I feel like all of this stuff is probably, I mean, maybe
not quite like something that you're thinking about super
deeply yet, but but maybe it is. And you're also a doula.
Like you have so much experience.
We did that in his first doula immersion last year and Lindsay
was my sister's midwife and so I got to be present for that
birth. Cool.
There's so many connections like with that and then with Lisa
Marie and you being close friends, like very cool.
What are some things? That are I we?
Haven't even talked about this like offline yet, but I'm
curious like where are you at with birth?
What kind of a birth do you want?
What are some things that you're still kind of like wrestling
with regarding birth? Honestly, you guys, before my
sister had her baby in 2019, birth terrified me.
Which I also think your message that you're sharing with the
world and with women is so profound and powerful and we
need to hear it because of this is a natural process for women.
It's a divine process for women. And I feel like we've been
indoctrinated and ingrained with this fear mongering mentality
and seeing my sister go through a natural home, unmedicated
birth. And then she made me watch this
documentary by Ricki Lake called The Business of Being Born
Which. So good.
Transformed my juice like that one.
It's one. Of the midwives, so good.
I watched it actually create a tidal wave in the birth world.
Like it really shifted people's perception.
That's. A good one completely shifted my
perception to birth is beautiful women are that asked and our
bodies were created and designed to do this.
And so then going through your doula training last December, it
really just opened my eyes even more to the beauty of birth and
to really lean in and surrender and how you really take this
holistic approach and how mental it is and how emotional it is
because I think physical pain has always been my worst fear.
So birth, when I would think about becoming pregnant, I was
like, oh shoot, there's only one way out for this baby to get
out. Like this baby has to come that
one way or another. And that really scared me.
And now just learning alongside of you and even being a part of
the primary peer team and this holistic approach to living and
all the resources and tools we have to optimize our experience
and really surrender and just experience a really beautiful
birth excites me. And I actually going through the
doula training program, I did realize as I was going to begin
observing births that maybe birth doula is not my calling
because the on call life is a bit like, bless you for being on
call. Like that is not for the faint
of heart and like dropping everything in a minute to be by
women's side. But I'm really drawn to the
postpartum side and that recovery and replenishment and
safety. Yes.
And I feel like the 4th trimester is often overlooked.
We there's such an emphasis on pregnancy and birth and labor.
But the postpartum to to help that mom re establish that
foundation for future children. And like what you were saying,
like the first born has that those nutrient stores and that
solid foundation. So wanting to maintain that
first. I'm just deeply blessed by you,
Lindsay, and this movement that you're really leading.
And I think that more and more women are going to be blessed by
your message to to step into their power to feel embraced,
embodied and empowered and like really tuning into that innate
wisdom and that great grandma wisdom that you often talk
about. And I feel like we're, we can
live quite disconnected from the generations before us.
And I feel like reconnecting to our mothers, our grandmothers,
and then thinking more. With our legacy and the children
that are going to come after us is really powerful perspective.
Yeah. Yeah, I received that.
Thank you. So beautiful.
I'm very blessed by you. It's just such an honor to be
sitting here with both of you guys and having this
conversation. One of my prayers on the way and
driving to the farm was that this message is received by
everybody that needs to hear it because I feel like this
movement can really make a significant difference on the
earth. Yes, I really think that we can
bring everything back to like the roots and and get back to
the the core of the essence of what human nature is, which is
living simply like living by our hearts and really being in the
space of moving through these sacred rites of passage to give
us the gifts that we need for each step of our life.
There is a book you had us read in our duo training, and one of
the quotes that stuck out with me was Peace on Earth Begins
With Birth. Yeah, it's really stuck with me.
Lovely. That's really cool.
Yeah. I love that.
Yeah. I mean, having experienced birth
three Times Now, like natural home births, it has been such a
transformative experience. Of course, every time in
different ways. But I think the main thing, it's
really empowering. Like I always post birth just
feel like so proud of, of what took place, like proud of
myself, proud of the baby, the bond it creates between the two
of us. It's like makes me want to cry
just talking about it. Amazing.
It's. Amazing.
I have I have to read this. I I got a text message last
night from a client that had has had four babies and hold on.
It came through like literally right before this.
So looking at this baby nursing on my chest, I watched my birth
videos again and again. I feel overwhelmed and in such
deep gratitude. This birth healed parts of me
that I didn't even know we're broken.
It ignited a fire with me that I didn't know was there.
Thank you for holding space and providing the guidance and care
that gave us our story. This has truly changed my life.
Forever. Wow, that's so perfectly said.
Yeah. Yeah, that sums it all up.
Yeah. Courtney touched on something
that I've always been curious about with midwives.
Yeah. So obviously you're, you're on
call, you're having to, you know, work odd hours up all
night, like all the time. How do you still take care of
yourself and prioritize your own health while showing up for moms
in that capacity? I think that this is like an
ongoing question that I continue to ask myself because it
continually evolves. The average lifespan for a
midwife to have a career is 7 years.
I'm going on 20, so I constantly am needing to find what nurtures
me the most. One of the most important things
that I do for myself that I prioritize is AI try to
prioritize always making dinner for my family when I'm home, I'm
sitting around a table with my family is one of the most
important things for me. And the second is making sure
that I get outside, then walk like, like, you know, get my
steps in, as everybody says. But I, I, I have a beach path
that I walk. I try to walk it every single
day. And doing that has made such a
significant, significant difference within my health.
It's it grounds me, it nurtures me.
I am able to breathe. I'm able to be in communion with
God on those walks. Like it's just one of those
things that like, it's almost a non negotiable unless I'm out of
birth. And if I'm out of birth I still
try to get outside and and walk if possible.
I'm the exact same way, walks are my jam and I have different
biohacking devices but out of everything if I could choose one
thing it would be the walks. Yeah, I agree with you.
Yeah, I have all those mats and the lights and everything stuff.
It's walking. It's walking.
There's there's research, if you look at the CAT scans of of
women or of humans that prior to a walk and then after a walk,
the parts of the brain that light up after a walk is like
mind blowing. You're like, how is that even
possible that it could make that much of a difference?
But that's what we're meant for all the time.
We always were walking. You know, they say the average
steps for humans right now on the planet is 3500.
I probably would say that's in the United States because if you
go to Europe and stuff, everybody walks.
But 3500 steps is nothing that's sedentary.
The research shows that if you're walking more than 7500
steps per day, you're reducing your risk of inflammatory
disease, of bad metabolic health, by 50%, 50%.
That's so simple. So simple.
Back to the basics. Back to the basics.
I know we're running out of time, but I want to touch on
postpartum quickly. Yes, since it's something that
so many moms struggle with. What would you say to a mom
who's struggling with postpartum depression or just healing
postpartum anything? Yeah, I think the biggest thing
is that we're a nuclear society, so we've moved away from being
in community with all of our sisters and our aunties and our
grandmothers that would come and help take care of us and take
care of our babies after we've had our baby.
Having a baby is a significant life changing event.
And So what we need to do is prepare ourselves with before we
give birth, we need to find our community.
We need to find our tribe that can come and help nourish us.
If that's not an option, prepare your foods beforehand.
Make sure that you have really nutrient dense foods that you
can get out of the freezer and pop in a pot, warm it up, and
then you have food for your family all day.
Making sure that you stay in a place of being not depleted is
huge. Making sure that even in between
nursing or babies that you're prioritizing rest and not
running around like our Western society promotes.
I really, really like what Eastern cultures do.
It's 40 days in bed. Western culture.
There's moms that are outside running around doing errands.
At two days postpartum, we need to be in our houses.
I say 5 days in bed. That's non negotiable. 5 days in
bed, five days around your bedroom, and then five days
around your house. If you give yourself two weeks
of rest and recovery, you're going to have a completely
different postpartum experience. And the majority of people in
the western world, women need to prioritize themselves.
When we are, we just gave birth, we've just had a life
transformative event. We're bleeding, we're recovering
from our bodies being stretched. Remember what I said at birth,
you shatter and postpartum, you put those pieces back together.
So we need to be able to create a space where those pieces can
come back together. Yeah, it's so simple and so
powerful and yet so hard in our culture today.
Even for me, like knowing all of this going into birth, it's
still a struggle just being still and like doing, doing much
less during that time. But it is so important.
Yeah, it is the times that I've prioritized it more.
We feel so much better. Yeah, Lindsay, thank you so much
for being here. This was such a treat.
Where can people follow along with you, learn from you,
connect with you? My Instagram is a really good
one. It's just my name at Lindsay
Milas and then my website istheremembering.com.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank. You thank you so much for having
me, of course. Yeah.