The Birth Lounge Blog

When Nurses Perpetuate the Patriarchy All right. I had something planned for you, but then, after being in a birth I decided to bring something different to the table today.  It's just something that I walked away with a reminder of and I wanted to pass it along so if you are having your baby soon, hopefully you will remember this and you'll come back to this conversation and find that confidence to speak up.  So what I want to share today about is how nurses can perpetuate the patriarchy of birth. And when I'm talking about the patriarchy of birth, I truly am talking about the medical system taking the power away from birthing people.  I think that there is a place where our medical system can be second tier, right? And that birthing person is the top tier. They're literally the top of the totem pole. They are number one on the pyramid. They are the peak, right? And the medical system, the medical staff, the doctor are below them. I truly believe this.  So, so deepl...

Why Your Baby's Position Matters Today I want to talk about why your baby's position is quite possibly the most important thing that you need to be focused on at the end of pregnancy. And when I say end of pregnancy, I pretty much mean the entire third trimester. Your baby's position is literally everything as your baby starts to snuggle into position and the real estate, if you will, your belly kind of gets smaller. Your baby is going to start to push on these nerve endings, ligaments, and tendons, and the pressure, those sensations that your baby is sending to your body are intentional. Your body is looking for specific nerves and tendons and ligaments to be pressed. Your body is looking for specific signals and your baby is looking for specific signals too. Your baby's position is everything for this process.  We want to make sure that in the third trimester, we're really working on your baby's position. Now I'm not going to give you tips on how to get yo...

Talking Torticollis, Hip Dysplasia, Tummy time, and more with a DPT! Originally a 'The Birth Lounge Podcast' Interview with Kara Masse, DPT.  I'm really excited about this because I think these are things that you're going to want to know before your baby gets here, but nobody tells you. Today we are sharing an interview with Kara Masse, who graduated with her doctorate in physical therapy in 2013, from Simmons college. She's been a pediatric physical therapist for seven years now. And she started her career in early intervention, just like me. She's a certified early interventionists and now she actually works in outpatient setting for Mass General in Boston. It seems like we all kind of know bits and pieces babies, but nobody knows the nitty gritty about their physical development. And that is what Kara is going to share with us today. What is it that you do with infants every day as a pediatric PT? If you know, if somebody is out there listening and they'...

Magic Words in Birth Hello, happy 2021 friends. I cannot wait to see what this year holds. And you know what, when I look back over 2020, it hadn't all been bad at, if you look at Episode 121 of The Birth Lounge Podcast , I actually talk about some of the positives that have come up for women's health from Coronavirus, specifically within the birth world. But in general, I think we're going to start to see some positive strides. I know that 2020 has been a hard year for so many people in, in the birth world. I was just actually talking to the birth workers and we were all sharing that collectively things just feel heavier in the birth space. It feels like outcomes aren't as great and that there's a lot more medical manipulation (Check out Episode 136 of the podcast on medical manipulation). Recently, we had a really amazing birth at TBH. It was so beautiful. Total hours was only 11 hours. And this birthing person only pushed for 20 minutes and she had zero tearing ...