Wood River Midwifery

11/14/2025

Baby Knut is here! He emerged from his mother amidst the aurora, with the whitest blond hair I have ever seen on a newborn. Named in honor of his Norwegian ancestor 🇳🇴 ✨ 🪢 He adores his parents and is luxuriating in endless love and snuggles ♥️

11/06/2025

The worst test in medicine. (No paywall)

We knew all this 30 years ago, maybe more. But does anyone in charge seem to care?

Will apologies be issued to the tens of millions of women who endured unnecessary cesareans? And their babies, who were denied the normal biological experience and programming blueprint of being born through their pelvis?
Major lifelong consequences for them both, physically and emotionally. Ignored.

I have been attending births for 30 years. I often give people the benefit of the doubt. Recently, I experienced another wake up call hearing OBs talk about their fear of being sued and how it’s their right to muscle a woman into their preferred course of action/various intervention/cesareans to “cover their ass.”

Providers are *very* adept and comfortable and stealthy in disguising their fear of lawsuits with pressure/scare tactics, bogus justifications of safety, inciting fear with irrelevant statistics, etc.

Even as a seasoned provider, I lose sight of the very primal fear that is underlying so much of what providers believe and say and do. Vulnerable pregnant women are the last ones who should be navigating this minefield.

And in defense of doctors, I completely understand where they are coming from. One lawsuit for a poor outcome they may or may not have had any influence over can end their career and bankrupt them. One. This is a catastrophic context in which to help women give birth.

This NYTs piece didn’t even get into all the domino effects of unnecessary monitoring— that women cannot walk around normally as they would in labor, can’t squat, get in the shower or do any of the things mammal mothers instinctively do to bring their babies down. Can’t do any of that tethered by cords to a machine. Can’t even move normally with wireless monitors or intermittent monitoring, but keeping women hooked up is in the best interest of the nurses and doctors. The strip is king.

It’s a systemwide failure, driven by profiteering, the insurance racket, failed understanding of normal human mammalian maternal and infant physiology, disinterest in women’s rights of passage, indifference to breastfeeding, ignorance of postpartum and newborn neuroscience and attachment. I mean it goes on and on.

So how do we disentangle all of the above from a modern woman’s experience trying to have a healthy and happy birth and mothering?

We have to start by going back to the roots of humanized care. Midwives carrying for low risk women should be the default.
Say no to induction. No to pitocin in labor. Get the machines and the beeping and the fluorescent lights out of the birth rooms. Returning to sacredness, to the intimacy of birth, to oxytocin, to family, to grounding in mother and baby primal needs. Privacy. Closeness. Connection. Love….This is available to most women. We must stop lying to them.

Turn off the ***$ing machines!

Round-the-clock fetal monitoring leads to unnecessary C-sections. But it’s used in nearly every birth because of business and legal concerns, The Times found.

11/06/2025

The worst test in medicine. (No paywall)

We knew all this 30 years ago, maybe more. But does anyone in charge seem to care?

Will apologies be issued to the tens of millions of women who endured unnecessary cesareans? And their babies, who were denied the normal biological experience and programming blueprint of being born through their pelvis?
Major lifelong consequences for them both, physically and emotionally. Ignored.

I have been attending births for 30 years. I often give people the benefit of the doubt. Recently, I experienced another wake up call hearing OBs talk about their fear of being sued and how it’s their right to muscle a woman into their preferred course of action/various intervention/cesareans to “cover their ass.”

Providers are *very* adept and comfortable and stealthy in disguising their fear of lawsuits with pressure/scare tactics, bogus justifications of safety, inciting fear with irrelevant statistics, etc.

Even as a seasoned provider, I lose sight of the very primal fear that is underlying so much of what providers believe and say and do. Vulnerable pregnant women are the last ones who should be navigating this minefield.

And in defense of doctors, I completely understand where they are coming from. One lawsuit for a poor outcome they may or may not have had any influence over can end their career and bankrupt them. One. This is a catastrophic context in which to help women give birth.

This NYTs piece didn’t even get into all the domino effects of unnecessary monitoring— that women cannot walk around normally as they would in labor, can’t squat, get in the shower or do any of the things mammal mothers instinctively do to bring their babies down. Can’t do any of that tethered by cords to a machine. Can’t even move normally with wireless monitors or intermittent monitoring because the monitoring trumps all else. The strip is king.

It’s a systemwide failure, driven by profiteering, the insurance racket, failed understanding of normal human mammalian maternal and infant physiology, disinterest in women’s rights of passage, indifference to breastfeeding, ignorance of postpartum and newborn neuroscience and attachment. I mean it goes on and on.

So how do we disentangle all of the above from a modern woman’s experience trying to have a healthy and happy birth and mothering?

We have to start by going back to the roots of humanized care. Midwives carrying for low risk women should be the default.
Say no to induction. No to pitocin in labor. Get the machines and the beeping and the fluorescent lights out of the birth rooms. Returning to sacredness, to the intimacy of birth, to oxytocin, to family, to grounding in mother and baby primal needs. Privacy. Closeness. Connection. Love….This is available to most women. We must stop lying to them.

Turn off the ***$ing machines!

An excellent article today from . Note the lack of evidence supporting the use of continuous fetal monitoring, the clear influence of business and economics, and the money grab from AI companies who claim studies support their product - when in fact they don’t - resulting in remote monitoring hubs.

I especially love that placenta accreta is described early in the article so the public can see that cesareans carry risk. As a result, we need to ensure that they occur only when needed or wanted.

Note that the photo for this article is of a remote monitoring hub. One such hub is up to 60 miles away from the hospital in which the woman is laboring.

“Nearly every woman who gives birth in an American hospital is strapped with a belt of sensors to track the baby’s heartbeat. If the pattern is deemed abnormal — too slow, for example — doctors often call for an emergency C-section.

But this round-the-clock monitoring, the most common obstetric procedure in the country, rarely helps baby or mother. Decades of research have shown that the tool does not reliably predict fetal distress. In fact, experts say, it leads to many unnecessary surgeries as doctors overreact to its ever-changing readouts.

The obstetrics field has long ignored these problems. Now, it’s putting more trust than ever on the flawed technology, often prioritizing business and legal concerns ahead of what’s best for patients, The New York Times found.

This fall, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists updated its guidelines on continuous monitoring, sanctioning it even as some other wealthy countries have cautioned against its routine use…

All three remote hubs, along with 400 other hospitals around the country, use A.I. software to help analyze the heart data. The software’s maker, PeriGen, has claimed on its website that 50 studies backed up its products.

But none of the studies found that the technology improved birth outcomes. PeriGen removed the list of studies after an inquiry from The Times. The company’s chief executive, Matthew Sappern, acknowledged that no clinical trials had shown benefits.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/health/electronic-fetal-monitoring-c-sections.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zE8.145f.FPhFANzFoVZp&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

11/02/2025

‘Twas the happiest of Halloweens for Rachel and Guillaume 🧡🤎 whose precious baby made her way into mama’s arms, on her due date! Surprise! Welcome Maeva Otsisto!

Her middle name, gifted by Rachel’s Great Grandmother Tewa, means “star” in their traditional Mohawk language 🌟

A blessing shared by Mohawk midwife Katsi Cook:

“Now remember, next time you look at the morning star, that morning star is you glittering bright….
I give thanks, for peacefully you are born. I pray that peacefully your life will be ongoing because as I think of you clearly, I know you will always be loved.”

✨

10/12/2025

Excuse the photo….I have observed this to be true in my practice— it’s folk wisdom that has been going around for as long as I can remember (but only recently gaining traction with the new media).

I also see markedly shorter, and easier for labors with first time moms who have trained through their pregnancy downregulating their nervous systems, and getting comfortable in states of profound relaxation with the Hypnobabies program. Zero affiliation with them it’s just what I’ve seen.

And of course, eating the rainbow with ample protein, and all the yummy phytochemicals in the traditional herbs of pregnancy + birth including red raspberry leaf, oats, alfalfa, and others.

At the end of the day, giving birth for the first time is the most profoundly transformative experience a woman can have as the process restructures every part of her physical, emotional and spiritual self. She will be a different woman on the other side of giving birth, and giving birth, by design, ripens and matures her, and makes her capable of loving a human baby beyond compare. But how we live our life and how we move and how we eat and how we commune with ourselves during pregnancy absolutely greases the wheels for this process and brings us more ease.

An incredible new study found that pregnant women who consume just 6 dates a day in the 4 weeks leading up to their due date were 74% more dilated upon their arrival to the hospital, had a 77% shorter first stage of labor and a 42% lower rate of caesarean sections.

Eating dates in the late stages of pregnancy lead to higher cervical dilation upon hospital admission because the fruit contains nutrients that influence oxytocin receptors, preparing the cervix and uterus for labor by increasing muscle response to oxytocin and other labor-supporting hormones. Dates are a rich source of energy from natural sugars and fats and also contain prostaglandins, which contribute to cervical ripening. Additionally, they provide serotonin, calcium, and tannins, which contribute to powerful uterine contractions.

Eating dates in the late stages of pregnancy shortens the first stage of labor due to their ability to stimulate the production of prostaglandins, which promote cervical ripening (softening and thinning of the cervix) and increase uterine contractions. Dates also contain tannins, which have a similar effect, and provide a natural sugar source for energy during labor. Some studies even suggest that dates can increase uterine sensitivity to oxytocin, leading to more effective contractions and a quicker and smoother labor process.

These actions are also the exact reason why women who eat dates in the late stages of pregnancy and far less likely to need a c-section!

The most common recommendation is for women to begin eating 6 dates a day starting in their 37th week of pregnancy.
PMID: 40322306, 21280989

SEE ALSO: https://www.pelvicphysio.co.nz/the-sweet-secret-to-a-smoother-labour-dates

09/28/2025

Hedera helix, aka Common ivy, was/is used in Europe as a syrup, tea, and topical for coughs (including whooping cough), asthma, bronchitis, kidney stones, wounds, burns, and to prevent succumbing to the bubonic plague. It is an expectorant, bronchodilator, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antihypertensive, antimicrobial, antifungal and antiarthritic. Children in the south of France were observed to avoid bronchitis because they drank ivy tea regularly.

In Greek tradition, ivy wreaths were a symbol of loyalty and fidelity and bestowed upon newlyweds. Some early European Christian leaders forbade the ancient tradition of decorating with ivy at Christmas because it was sacred to the Druids, embodying the sacred feminine— the counterpart to the male holly. “The Holly and the Ivy.” Romans added ivy leaves to wine to reduce alcohol intoxication and treat hangovers. (I have never tried this). Ivy was used in Italy to treat scabies and worms, and was used by Hippocrates as an analgesic and anti-inflammatory.

Lily of the Valley berries. Our Lady’s tears. The flower represented hope in Christian lore (legend says the flower sprang from the weeping Virgin Mary during the crucifixion of Jesus), and perfumers have long used the beloved flowers as fragrance. This plant is an “herbalists’s herb,” with a long history of medicinal use from the 4th century through today, primarily as a tonic for cardiac debility, heart failure, valvular heart disease, tachycardia, arrhythmias and dropsy. A favorite among British herbalists as a cardioactive remedy with selective action, low toxicity *when used appropriately*, and an unusual mixture of cardiac glycosides that ensure a slow onset of effect; It will normalize and strengthen a slow or weak heartbeat, without putting any extra demand on pulmonary blood supply.

TCM applications include the above + coronary thrombosis, cardiac pain, edema, depression, mental dullness, loss of speech, paralysis, acute or chronic nephritis, cataracts, and more. LOTV is also a diuretic, purgative, antispasmodic, emetic, and laxative. It has been used to strengthen a long and exhausted labor. In Russia, it was used by peasants to treat dropsy and epilepsy. It was used in WWI to treat soldiers exposed to poisonous gases. Culpeper said LOTV strengthened the brain, supported memory and could restore speech if distilled in wine. A German wine with LOTV flowers and raisins is still made in some areas.

Jewelweed is an eastern plant I have always hoped to get to know but have no personal experience with. The fresh leaf, stem and flower juice or infused oil was traditionally used by North American indigenous people (and then Europeans) to prevent and treat itchy trashy skin stuff like poison oak/ivy, eczema, ringworm, warts, hemorrhoids, and nettle stings. It is anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and a vulnerary. You can simply pull off make an external liniment with witch hazel or alcohol. It is also called Touch Me Not because of it’s feral explosive seed spreading when grasping the bottom of the ripe seed pod, it will launch off and explode all over the place— super fun for kids.

09/11/2025

I’m having a week of feeling so much gratitude for my office that I get to be with you in all these days and years. I love that we can see the light and the trees and sit together with tea. And tears, and triumphs.

This week I’ve seen women struggling with severe nausea and vomiting and pregnancy, women feeling ambivalent about being pregnant, women aching with their whole heart for a first time pregnancy. Unexplained fatigue, chronic UTIs. Women questioning the path they are on with their birthing time approaching. Whatever is present, there is space for it here.

09/10/2025

🎉 More good news! We now have another pediatric care provider in Hailey!

🙌🏽 Gusty Swift is a mother of 3 and a experienced naturopath out of Portland. She also does primary care and has a whole host of rejuvenative services.

✅ check out her open house next Wednesday if you can!

https://www.headwatersofwellness.com/

09/09/2025

More on bifidos….a role in minimizing and buffering the effects of jaundice.

We only understand the tip of the iceberg about early newborn physiology.

Nature’s superb design has figured out more than we can conceive of at this point in time. She has worked out solutions to physiologic conundrums and trade-offs and adaptations that we will never know exist.

Figuring out how to trust the design, trust our bodies, trust turning inward for direction, and orienting toward love and what is working is the work of pregnancy.

Background Recent studies suggest a role of gut microbiota in the development of neonatal hyperbilirubinemia, with bifidobacteria showing promise in alleviating symptoms. However, uncertainties persist regarding gut bifidobacterial species composition and their effects on bilirubin metabolism. There...

09/08/2025

✨ Exciting News! ✨
Our next Doula Training Course begins Tuesday, September 16th! 🌿👶
📅 Registration closes this Friday, September 12th – don’t miss your chance to join this empowering program.

💰 Course Cost: $1,200
✅ Payment plans available- Please reach out!

This course is designed to equip you with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to support families through one of life’s most meaningful journeys.
Spots are limited — secure yours today!

Register here! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfcFsEaQxzgut2xk3odLajZTDnfm0YfJw0FDUkiNESBlpHazQ/viewform?usp=preview

09/06/2025

Fake News! This is old and incorrect information.

Women's bodies and pelvic shape have much more nuance than to each fall into a precise "type."

Bodies don't work that way, and maternal and baby adaptations to labor have evolved over millions of years to make the process highly successful the vast majority of the time, under normal biological conditions.

This is the same old paternalist, misogynist, "men need to save women in birth" rhetoric that underlies the entire education of medical students and obstetrics.

All of this making women feel like they are doomed to fail before they even get to labor stops with this generation!

We need compassionate and realistic understanding of women's bodies and how birth can be both easy and sometimes complicated in this modern world.

Women supporting women is the way we accomplish this!

Did you know that the shape of your pelvis can influence childbirth? While all pelvis types can have successful vaginal births, understanding these variations can be interesting and even helpful in some cases. Let's explore the four main types of female pelves:

1. Gynecoid Pelvis:

* Shape: This is considered the "classic" female pelvis, characterized by a rounded or slightly oval inlet.

* Characteristics: It has a wide and deep p***c arch, straight sidewalls, and a roomy sacrum.
* Childbirth: This shape is generally considered the most favorable for a vaginal birth, allowing for optimal rotation and descent of the baby.

2. Android Pelvis:

* Shape: This pelvis type is often described as "heart-shaped" or wedge-shaped at the inlet, resembling a male pelvis.

* Characteristics: It has a narrower p***c arch, convergent sidewalls, and a more prominent sacrum.

* Childbirth: Vaginal birth can be more challenging with this type due to the narrower shape, potentially leading to a longer labor or the baby needing to descend in a slightly different position.

3. Anthropoid Pelvis:

* Shape: This pelvis is characterized by an oval shape, with the anteroposterior (front-to-back) diameter being longer than the transverse (side-to-side) diameter.

* Characteristics: It has a wide p***c arch, and the baby might descend facing the mother's front (occiput anterior) or back (occiput posterior) more commonly.

* Childbirth: Often allows for successful vaginal birth, though the baby might present in a different position that requires slightly different pushing techniques.

4. Platypelloid Pelvis:

* Shape: This is the least common type, distinguished by a flattened, oval shape where the transverse diameter is much wider than the anteroposterior diameter.

* Characteristics: It has a very wide p***c arch, but a very short anteroposterior diameter.

* Childbirth: Vaginal birth can be the most challenging with this pelvis type due to the narrow front-to-back space, which might hinder the baby's descent.

While these classifications are helpful for understanding pelvic anatomy, it's important to remember that most people have a mixed pelvic type, not a pure form. The human body is incredibly adaptable, and many factors contribute to a successful birth beyond just pelvic shape!

Always consult with your healthcare provider for personalized information and guidance regarding your pregnancy and birth plan.

08/18/2025

Home visiting Sunday in Richfield. I love poking around small towns and backroads of Idaho that I wouldn’t otherwise find myself in if it weren’t for the privilege of being invited into people‘s homes.

Most of the time I feel incredibly provincial, rarely leaving the 2 mile span of my town. I’m an explorer by nature though and love these chances to follow the call to see what’s around the bend….which old buildings remain— the old bones of the town… what stories are told through the landscape….which flowers and trees are growing feral and what have people planted to delight them….Richfield has astounding trees for the middle of the sagebrush steppe. This Maple may have the widest wingspan I’ve ever seen, at least in the west. And you know it’s August when the apricot branches are nearly snapping off, falling toward the earth, offering her countless golden kisses each evening.