469: Hyperemesis Gravidarum, Membrane Sweeps and En Caul Birth with Melanie Meador (DIAH Classic)

01/16/24 • 70 min

Doing It At Home - The Home Birth Podcast

How do we move through the discomforts of pregnancy and birth?

This comes up in today’s interview with Melanie Meador. Melanie shares her journey with both of her home birth experiences.

Melanie had hyperemesis gravidarum with both pregnancies (extreme and persistent nausea during pregnancy, often with frequent vomiting).

With her first birth experience, she was feeling a little rushed going into the process, because her midwifery practice was going to close 3 days after her due date. Plus she was working full-time. The birth lasted 34 hours with her waters broken. This is a stark contrast from her second birth, 6 hours and baby was born en caul (waters still intact).

Melanie is the only person in her group of friends to have had a home birth. And with her mother and almost all of her aunts having cesarean births, this was something unique. Melanie says, “My mom was so excited to be at the birth of my son that she told anyone that would listen for the first 2 years!”

This birth story includes: hyperemesis gravidarum, doula, acupuncture, TENs machine, membrane stripping, en caul, cervical lip, and red raspberry leaf tea.

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How do we move through the discomforts of pregnancy and birth?

This comes up in today’s interview with Melanie Meador. Melanie shares her journey with both of her home birth experiences.

Melanie had hyperemesis gravidarum with both pregnancies (extreme and persistent nausea during pregnancy, often with frequent vomiting).

This birth story includes: hyperemesis gravidarum, doula, acupuncture, TENs machine, membrane stripping, en caul, cervical lip, and red raspberry leaf tea.

Offers From Our Awesome Partners:

Needed: https://bit.ly/2DuMBxP - use code DIAH to get 20% off your order
Splash Blanket: https://bit.ly/3JPe1g0 - use code DIAH for 10% off your order
Esembly: https://bit.ly/3eanCSz - use code DIH20 to get 20% off your order

More From Doing It At Home:

Send us your birth story: https://bit.ly/3jOjCKl
Doing It At Home book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3vJcPmU
DIAH Website: https://www.diahpodcast.com/
DIAH Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doingitathome/
DIAH YouTube: https://bit.ly/3pzuzQC
DIAH Merch: www.diahpodcast.com/merch
Give Back to DIAH: https://bit.ly/3qgm4r9

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Previous Episode

468: The Science of Natural and Undisturbed Birth with Dr. Sarah Buckley (DIAH Classic)

In today’s episode we speak with Dr. Sarah Buckley on the science of natural and undisturbed birth. Dr. Sarah Buckley is the author of the best selling book Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering, the author the report Hormonal Physiology of Childbearing (January 2015), and all around natural childbirth expert.

We are honored and grateful to have Dr. Sarah Buckley join us on the Doing It At Home Podcast for many reasons.

To start, her book "Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: A Doctor's Guide to Natural Childbirth and Gentle Early Parenting Choices" was a huge influence on us during our pregnancy. Sarah (our Sarah...Sarah Bivens that is) started reading Dr. Buckley's book while we were still planning for a birth with an OBGYN in a hospital. We learned about Dr. Buckley from her appearances in a DVD series called "Happy Healthy Child" (another resource we highly recommend and link to in the show notes.) Dr. Buckley's extensive research and evidence based information on pregnancy and birth, along with her own accounts of her 4 home births left quite the impression on us. It got the wheels turning and prompted us to think about the elements we wanted in our birth. Overtime we found that the best way to experience all of that would be at home. So we're very grateful to Dr. Buckley and the work that she does, because it's like she's been a part of our journey.

Dr. Buckley integrates what would seem like differing philosophies at first glance: in the mindset of a medical background, training, practice and care, and natural, holistic, unassisted, physiological birth.

Dr. Buckley talks about physiological birth as the type of birth that's in alignment with how the body is designed to work. And low tech models of care support this process. Home birth is an ideal situation to allow for this.

We also talk about the core requirements for birth and what a woman needs to feel private, safe and unobserved. And if you didn't know or fully understand the hormonal cocktail that a woman experienced in natural birth, you will by the end of this episode.

Want to know what ecstatic birth is? Listen to this episode.

One of the key takeaways here is the potential to reclaim power in the experience of birth. That with a healing birth, we can heal the earth!

Links From The Episode:

Offers From Our Awesome Partners:

Needed: https://bit.ly/2DuMBxP - use code DIAH to get 20% off your order
Splash Blanket: https://bit.ly/3JPe1g0 - use code DIAH for 10% off your order
Esembly: https://bit.ly/3eanCSz - use code DIH20 to get 20% off your order

More From Doing It At Home:

Send us your birth story: https://bit.ly/3jOjCKl
Doing It At Home book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3vJcPmU
DIAH Website: https://www.diahpodcast.com/
DIAH Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doingitathome/
DIAH YouTube: https://bit.ly/3pzuzQC
DIAH Merch: www.diahpodcast.com/merch
Give Back to DIAH: https://bit.ly/3qgm4r9

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Next Episode

470: First Time Mother and Labor and Delivery Nurse on the Safety of Home Birth with Corrie Oyinloye (DIAH Classic)

Why would a labor and delivery nurse choose home birth?

There are quite a few reasons, at least for today’s guest Corrie Oyinloye. Corrie has been a labor and delivery nurse for 10 years. And two years ago, she chose home birth for the birth of her daughter, Rachel.

While working in the hospital, Corrie saw how midwives’ rights were being taken away. She also did her own research and found home birth to be safer for mothers, and just as safe for babies. That in combination with her feelings around delivering in a hospital, given all she knew and had seen in the hospital setting. The fact is that many hospital birth workers suffer from PTSD from the trauma they’ve witnessed. Some of this hospital-induced anxiety moved Corrie towards exploring home birth for herself.

Corrie’s story also includes creating the space for her husband Gabe to feel confident in the decision, a move to a different state, prodromal labor, a cervical lip, occipito posterior position of baby and a double nuchal cord.

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