Thrive Midwives LLC

10/31/2025

10/20/2025

As my clients and SM followers would attest, I’m big on talking about evidence based care. But some folks are simply not clear on what that actually means. Others may feel like what research tells us about a particular topic isn’t pertinent to them, because it doesn’t jive with their own viewpoint or values around their body/care. Or the evidence conflicts directly with what their past experiences are.

I really love how Rebekah Decker PhD from talks about this topic. One salient piece is figuring out how you approach your own care, or scientific evidence. I’m definitely a skeptic…surprising nobody. What about you? How do you filter health information, and how does that influence your decisions or who you seek for care?

https://youtube.com/shorts/Pm_wgXnAbIM?si=4Yy_cBCR3sD5AJJg

10/18/2025

It's national pasta day, and instead of stuffing my leggings (cuz that's where my carbs go) with noodles, I will instead do something healthier...rant MORE about insurance companies. Like UnitedHealthcare. Why? They are by far the craftiest (that is a thin veil for "unethical") and most difficult to work with. Here are some of their tactics:
1. The phone prompts I need to go through to get to a representative take about 3.75 minutes and over 7 different elections. If I fudge it by putting in a wrong #, the call can be terminated.
2. Depending on the plan, instead of sending a check to Thrive Midwives via snailmail or doing direct deposit into my business account, they sometimes send me a paper credit card voucher. In order to cash it, I have to pay a 3.5% "convenience fee," where they (Optum, the evil baby of UHC) get a cut of that. So they send me payment that ends up resulting in a lower payment to a provider or client. In other words, they make money off of my care. If I call and request a paper check, they take another 30 days to send that out. The longer they can hang onto their money, the more $ they make.
3. I have to go into their provider portal every 90 days and "attest" that I am still me and practice in the same location. Can you imagine what a large corporation has to do to complete those "attestations" for thousands of providers every 3 months?! If I forget, I cannot send claims.
4. It takes about 38 minutes to get through a verification of insurance benefits with one of their representatives, where they repeatedly put me on hold to look up a benefit for 4-5 minutes at a time, even if the benefit summary is right in front of them to read. They are likely hoping that the call will be disconnected or I will have to hang up in order to answer another call, have a BM, or God forbid, see a client.

Be under no illusions that all of these are intentional tactics to make providing, billing for care, and getting paid from UHC VERY VERY hard for an out-of-network provider.

Now I'm going to go take a walk in the woods, so that I refrain from spontaneously combusting from frustration (not from eating too much pasta).

10/15/2025

I've been thinking a lot lately about how to address concerning trends I am seeing in the alternative health or wellness space. I neither want to alienate clients nor do I want to insult a myriad of lovely professionals in the wellness space. So I've been publicly silent on social media about these issues and conspicuously neutral in clinic, with the attitude that "if it doesn't hurt you and you like ___, keep doing it." But as with most women in their 50's, it gets harder to keep my mouth shut ; ) After all, I don't refrain from criticizing conventional, corporate healthcare.

Today, the rock in my shoe is about what is called nutrition response testing (NRT).

People who offer NRT state that it is noninvasive way to determine what may be going awry in the body and "what it may need." They brand it as noninvasive, based on the body's innate wisdom. Well who doesn't love the sounds of that?! Just hearing it makes me feel like the person doing it to me is a bit magical, while simultaneously hearing that my body is wise. Scrumptious! And you get touched in the meantime, which is often therapeutic in and of itself. Unfortunately, there is zero peer reviewed, published research that supports NRT as a diagnostic tool. None. Look for yourself, tapping ChatGPT5.0 to see what it comes up with. You can hold that vial of powdered milk and have someone pump your arm up and down, and it still won't tell you if you are lactose intolerant or have milk protein allergies. I've had people NOT take their iron supplement in pregnancy, based on lab work that indicated their iron stores were low, because their chiro did NRT and told them they don't need it. It was a real bummer when I needed to send them for an IV iron infusion a month prior to birth because they were too anemic to safely qualify for a home birth. An expensive, time consuming, and needless situation, when they could have taken the $12 bottle of ferrous bisglycinate purchased on Amazon.

While some would brand this care as "getting to the root cause" of someone's issues, the only impact may be on your wallet. The bulk of the time, after NRT, people are sold a myriad of supplements by that same professional, that will cure their digestive woes, clear their brain fog, detox their body, etc. The mark up on those supplements is often 40-100%. I have a problem with that and you should too. I don't make money off of the prescriptions I write, and that is the way it should be. No financial incentive likely translates into less biased care. Sometimes what you are paying for in the wellness industry is a feeling, a warm fuzzy, an experience. I would rather get a massage...

Take home message. Be discerning about ALL of the care you receive. Get in touch with whether you are paying for a feeling, or for legitimate care.

10/11/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1CHQkhT66J/?mibextid=wwXIfr

10/07/2025

My clients with gestational diabetes and PCOS are crushing over FullWell’s new inositol supplement! “I use it as a mocktail now and love it,” per one of my savvy GD mamas.

09/28/2025

Thank you Dr. Aviva. I agree, in spades.

09/24/2025

Who else gets excited for Amazon to deliver a silicone/soft ni**le measurement tool? Not you? Many clients do not have breast pump fl**ges that are properly sized for them and consequently cannot pump as efficiently or comfortably as others. Most pumps come with one or two fl**ge sizes (24 or 25) despite ni**les being in a vast range of sizes. I am happily integrating this sweet, floppy tool into my postpartum tote so that clients who plan or need to pump are equipped with what they need to be successful. See comments for cool post by Aero Flow on measuring ni**les and choosing pump fl**ges that are right for you.

08/30/2025

This month marks my 2nd year in the current Thrive office space in Eden Prairie, and I'm still crushing on it so much! I've shared apps and stories with other midwives on the chesterfield, witnessed so many amazing families walk into this nest, held space for very hard stories, had quiet tears when my care time with people has come to a close, held babies who spit up on my shoulder, and helped people conceive pregnancies in a safe, everyone-is-welcome-here way I can be proud of. Wish me a happy suite-versary and please, don't be a stranger!

08/28/2025

Despite being a s*x positive person, I'm leaving on a hiking trip to the Scottish Highlands in 2026 from May 20-30. For people who are planning to conceive and want me to be all midwifey with them, please DO NOT conceive between now and about September 14th. Like, please. I would love nothing more than to be with you for your next great birth adventure! (Pic of landscape last time I was in Scottland. The moss people, it would break your heart, it's so beautiful.)