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Mainstream mental health is flawed and I’m pulling back the curtain.
I’m Andrea Clark, a former family therapist, who walked away from the system to expose the truth. After my own journey from medication maze to holistic healing, I’m here to challenge the status quo and reveal the mental health truths most people don’t know.
”The Truth About Mental Health” is your radical roadmap to wellness. Raw stories, expert insights, breakthrough solutions – this is where traditional modalities end and real healing begins.
Andrea Clark (00:00)
Hi, Hehe. I am so excited to have you on today.
HeHe (00:04)
Hi, thanks for having me. I'm really excited for this conversation.
Andrea Clark (00:08)
I know, okay, so I really just wanna dive right into the meat and potatoes. You are one of my dream bucket list people to have on as a guest. And the reason why is because you talk very openly about birth trauma, advocacy, you educate so that women understand what to expect when it comes to birth.
and how to, you do a lot of prevention around birth trauma. And that really hit me because I experienced a lot of birth trauma myself. And I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of women who have also experienced birth trauma. And I just don't think there's enough of a community.
or it's not well known enough so that women can process it and understand that what they experienced, number one is not typical, right? Or it's typical, but it's not healthy. And also it's a very lonely thing to carry for some reason, like trauma in general is, but there's certain trauma that's very openly talked about.
And there's other trauma that's kept very secret. And I feel that birth trauma is one of those things that it keeps, women keep it close to them as if they're almost not allowed to acknowledge that it was trauma.
Right? So that was a very long intro, but I wanted to kind of put that on the table as the premise of this conversation is why do you think that women keep it so close to them? It's almost like they don't think they're allowed to acknowledge it as a trauma or they don't even know that it was trauma, but they're traumatized.
HeHe (01:28)
Yeah.
Yeah, well,
I think this is multifaceted. Number one, I think you just nailed it on the head when you said they don't even know it's trauma. So many women don't realize that what they experienced in labor is not normal or expected. It's common, meaning you're not alone. A lot of people, a lot being millions of women, experience either what you did or similar experience to what you did.
Andrea Clark (01:53)
Yes.
Yes.
Thank
Yeah.
Yeah.
HeHe (02:15)
⁓
But it's not normal. It's just common. It doesn't have to be that way. I think the second thing is there are a lot of feelings that come up of guilt and shame and embarrassment and self-blame of Well, this must have been my fault. I must not have done enough. I must not have prepared the right way. I must I must should have
you know, read more books, listen to more podcasts, taken more classes, done more breathing exercises, had more discussions with my partner. And the truth of the matter is when we look at the data, what we actually find that causes the most birth trauma is the way that you're treated by your hospital staff. And I think that that leads you into the third point, right? Which is women are made to feel
Andrea Clark (03:02)
Oof, it's the script.
HeHe (03:10)
that if you come out alive and your baby comes out alive, then you ought to be grateful. And never mind that your baby had an ick, you say that was two and a half months, you lost your uterus, you hemorrhaged on the table, you were told to lie down and shut up that I've been a doctor for 32 years and right now what you want isn't important because I'm trying to save your life. Like all of those things are incredibly traumatic, yet we are sold this lie that like
Andrea Clark (03:36)
Yes.
HeHe (03:40)
Well, you lived, so you should be grateful for that. You didn't die, did you? And it's like, well, no, I didn't die, but I didn't ever think I was coming into birth to die. I thought I was going to come into birth and have a really respected, grounded, calm, supported, loving, nurturing experience with dimmed lights and soft voices and people.
rubbing my back and braiding my hair and holding my hand and encouraging me that not only am I strong and beautiful, but I can do this and I was made to do this and that my body is working exactly as it is expected and if it doesn't, then I'm in safe hands that not only will care for me, but will allow me to be the decision maker in that. And I think that leads me to my very final point, which is,
So many women unintentionally and unknowingly hand over the control in their birth and so that loops us back to that very first point of they don't even know that they're traumatized because they did what they were taught. They were the good girl. They were the good patient. They were the compliant patient. They went in and they said, okay,
Yes sir, yes ma'am, okay, I'll get the induction if you think I need it. Okay, I'll get that extra ultrasound. Okay, I won't go past 40 weeks. And in that, in the attempt to be a good patient, they absolutely robbed themselves of any sort of autonomy and the hospital system loves that.
They take advantage of it. That's where they want you to be. They don't want you to be autonomous. They don't want you speaking up. They don't want you knowing your rights. Doctors' egos get bruised when you ask questions, even though that is a key component to medicine, is having open conversation, informed consent, leaving your patient with the final decision of what
is being done to and for and around their body. That is the essence of informed consent is freedom of choice and personal autonomy. And so many times we're robbed of that and unintentionally we play a role in it because we hand it over.
Andrea Clark (06:15)
Yeah, it's really, really hard because it's very intimidating. It can be very intimidating. I and also it just comes down to
control, in my opinion, which, you know, people always think like I'm crazy for the stuff I say, but when I was in labor, I, so I did the Bradley method. It's very, very, I don't know what your orientation is, but it's very much educate, like it teaches you everything that's happening to your body, how you can induce labor, how you can labor through the discomfort without
assist like you know epidural like all the things and I had planned to have a home birth but then I had a partial placental abruption due and we didn't know why it was like at 37 or 38 weeks or something so then started my whole journey of being in the hospital and being literally humiliated on a daily basis because I was there for like a week being monitored
And every 12 hours that they switch shifts the doctors and or the nurses would come in and want me to explain Why why I thought this birth plan would work right? like I brought my plan and all the things and my my doula turned into or my Yeah, my my Midwife turned into my doula in the hospital, right? So she was still there supporting me
but it was this like process of every 12 hours, people would want to come in and talk to me about like the birth plan and how you can't have a birth plan every 12 hours for like a week. Plus my progression of my fluids going down because of the abruption and like different things, right? And it was, it was literally, I felt like I was in a battle.
for a week straight before I even went into labor. It was crazy and it was very much this.
It was so interesting to have these practitioners try to show me how stupid I was. And I'm like, what is the deal? Like, why is this so necessary for them to show me how stupid they think I am, right? Like, and it was like constant. It was constant. And I was really tough because that's...
how I am, but it was exhausting. It was traumatic. was like fighting, right? Because I had a, at the time I was married to a very passive man who had no idea what was going on. And he, you know, was just like, we should just listen to the doctors. And I was like fighting all on my own. And then when it came down to me going into labor, I didn't want pitocin. I wanted to self-induce. So we did mesocrostal, right?
in my cervix and I'm like, I know I can do this. Like I know I can put myself into labor, just give me time. And they tried to treat it like it was so life or death, you know, and I'm just like, look, I know we're on a clock, but I know I can do this. And I wanted to do certain things to put myself in labor. And they argued with me about every single thing I wanted to do, right? And
one and they had like intern doctors coming in right so then
I'm fine. like, want to I want to do nipple stimulation. Like I and I was already my cervix was already opening and I was like working really hard on visualization that I had been practicing like my body opening and her moving down like I already had it dialed in. I'm just like, stay, leave me the fuck alone. Like I know I can do this. And they wouldn't give me the space. I sat on the toilet in the dark and they wanted me to lay in the bed. And I'm just like all the tools that I've been practicing and that felt good to me. They like took away from me. You know what mean?
HeHe (09:53)
Yeah.
Andrea Clark (10:05)
And it's like, no, because we need to monitor it. And I'm just like, OK. So thank God there was this one nurse who had actually done a couple of home births.
And the intern doctor comes in and he's like, he's like, we really want to do pitocin. And I'm like, I don't want to do pitocin. I know I can put myself into labor, like, let me do the nipple stimulation, let me do what I want to do. And he and they're like, they don't want to do that. And, and so I was like, why? And he said, because we can't control it. He literally said that to me, we can't control your contractions, we can't control your pacing with nipple stimulation, we can control it with pitocin. And I'm like, why?
do you need to control that? Like I don't understand why you would need to control that. And the nurse just intervenes and she goes, just let her try if you don't think it because he was like, it's not going to work. And she's like, if you don't think it's gonna work, then why wouldn't you just let her try so she can feel like she did everything she could?
And it was really interesting. He like shut his mouth and he's like, fine, try it, whatever, you know, and like leaves. And I'm just like, why? I was so upset that I had to have my baby in this like environment, right? And I was so thankful for that nurse. And of course I put myself into labor. And so, you know, and there's other stuff to the story, but.
I feel like there's so much of this control. It's like, we want to control the pacing. If the baby hasn't come out in this time, like it's time to move. And they create this feeling of like, my gosh, if the baby's not out in 30 hours, like this is too much. has to be. I'm just like, but that's, but no, like.
HeHe (11:44)
I mean,
that's birth, right?
Andrea Clark (11:45)
Yes, and so there was just a lot of that that I experienced and I'm so thankful I took the Bradley class because I knew how I was being treated. I knew the things that they were going if I had to go to the hospital how to advocate but it was still incredibly traumatic like I have am still doing a lot of forgiving work towards certain people like in my personal life who were supposed to be there to support me and who
kind of cracked under the pressure, if that makes sense. And that experience that I had, because I felt like I was robbed of a peaceful birth, right? And people to really hold me, and I was holding myself, holding it, holding the safety of my child while being in labor. It was insane, it was insane. So, you know.
HeHe (12:33)
You
can I interject two things here.
Andrea Clark (12:37)
You interject as much as you want.
HeHe (12:39)
So
you hit two like really big key points that I want to drive home for your listeners. I don't want to gloss over them because they're incredibly important. The first one is that
You know, your doctor said, we can't control this. And the fact of the matter is, birth is not meant to be controlled. Birth is nature. So just as we don't control sneezes and our heartbeats, we don't control birth. Just as we don't control hurricanes and tornadoes, we don't control birth. It's nature.
Andrea Clark (12:53)
Yes.
Mm-mm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
HeHe (13:16)
This
is not something that we control inside of us. We can try and you know, when we have cases like yours where we have a medical condition, a partial abruption that needs some medical support, thank God we have that medical support. But the goal is not to control birth from start to finish.
Andrea Clark (13:21)
Mm-hmm.
HeHe (13:44)
goal would be to intervene as least as possible to get a good outcome, right? And so in that moment, the question is, how do we provide this patient with as little intervention as possible that will benefit her and her baby without
overstepping our role as care providers and robbing her of all of her choice. And it seems like your provider totally disregarded any sort of autonomy and consent and any thought of, what does my patient in front of me want? And you know, that's a really common story. I'm super sorry that you were treated that way.
You're certainly not alone. think that there are millions of women out there who faced very similar experiences of being told that you can't do this and that their providers didn't believe in them or their ability to do whatever it was that they wanted to do. And the fact that your providers didn't downright mock or make fun of your birth plan, but they made it very clear that not only did they not support
Andrea Clark (15:00)
Yeah.
HeHe (15:01)
But they thought it was quite silly which is interesting because the data is Undeniable when it comes to birth plans they give us better births We have less interventions less epidural rates higher Satisfaction less birth traumas less inductions less c-sections better rates of breastfeeding less nicu stays Less him. I mean we just have so
Andrea Clark (15:04)
yeah.
HeHe (15:31)
many benefits when it comes to making a birth plan. And it's not the printed birth plan. It's not like you print something off and you take it to your hospital and you're like, well, there it is. I'm not gonna hemorrhage. It's deeper than that. It is the act of becoming educated. It is the act of going through each individual decision and option, benefit, risk, pro, con, alternative that you need
to put together a birth plan. And so you can hypothetically put together a birth plan and never write it down, never print it out, never bring it to your hospital staff, and you will still reap the benefits of a birth plan, of the science that supports a birth plan.
Andrea Clark (16:21)
Well, yes, I agree. It's that feeling of empowerment and preparedness for anything. So the whole time that they were saying things to me, even if I didn't always have the perfect medical jargon, I knew internally what was happening with me and my child, even with the placental, partial abruption.
HeHe (16:27)
Totally.
Andrea Clark (16:43)
I, know, at one point the doctor was trying to freak me out because her heart rate was shifting. And I wanted to say that's because the contractions are squeezing. Like I know why this isn't bad that this is happening, but you're trying to move me along quicker telling me that I need to get her out faster. But this is actually a natural process.
It's not it's it wasn't anything abnormal, but they wanted me to move along, right? And so that didn't I didn't feel freaked out. Like I knew what was happening and the things that they were saying I understood because I had prepared.
enough to understand what is concerning and what is typical, what's natural to birth and the process of having a baby, right? Of pushing a baby out of your body and what they're going to experience and what I'm going to experience.
it really they use sometimes things that are very normal to create like a sense of urgency. So essentially what she said to me was, and this doctor was actually pretty good. I was thankful I got her because she's like, she leaned into my ear and she said, Hey,
HeHe (17:43)
Really?
Andrea Clark (17:52)
I know you don't want me to use suction or forceps, but the heart rate, your baby's heart rate is, you know, is, I can't remember what she said, but she's like, so if we don't get her out soon, like I'm gonna have to do that. She wanted to scare me. She wanted me to like, and so, I mean, I essentially pushed like eight to 10 times every contraction, which is not, I mean, my face was purple, but I was like, F you, are not using anything like that on my baby. And I got her out, but it was like,
I felt like I had to protect her because I didn't want them from something that's typical that wasn't actually a concern, but they made it feel like it was a concern. And if somebody didn't educate themselves, I could see how they would feel terrified and be like, sure, do whatever, like pull my baby out or because they weren't educated, they weren't prepared, right? That happened to my sister. She did not.
And there's no judgment. Like she's just a different personality. I'm very much like educate myself, prepare myself, understand if I understand it, I feel less scared. And my sister's very much like, whatever. And she went in and she was in labor for a while and it went from like,
know, pit and, and epidural to a C-section. And she was utterly traumatized. I mean, I remember talking to her after and she just, she's not somebody who cries a lot. She's not somebody who falls apart. She just was beside herself with the trauma and just didn't know what to do with any of it. And then she was terrified when she got pregnant again. So she just went in for a scheduled C-section. That was that.
HeHe (19:26)
I mean, you you say like I pushed and then I ultimately got her out. Yeah, you did under duress, right? That wasn't a pleasant memory. That's not a joyous moment, which is what birth is meant to be. Birth is designed to be this really incredible transformative moment and you were robbed of that and you can see how the system preys
Andrea Clark (19:33)
1000 %
HeHe (19:56)
on women being uneducated. They take advantage of women not knowing and had you not known that fetal heart tone fluctuations were normal due to contractions, you would have fallen right into the trap and said, oh my God, okay, well, let's just get her out. Just do those things. And at the end of the day,
Andrea Clark (19:58)
Yes.
HeHe (20:21)
It is about control and money. They got to control the situation. They got to birth your baby in the way that felt good to them, best to them, over you at the expense of your choice. And they got to bill for that. They got to bill for the forceps. They got the bill for the suction. They got to bill for the extra interventions. And it's really too bad because
We walk into the hospital system trusting our providers and thinking that they will always make the decision that is best for us and that they will always have our best interests at heart. And the really ugly truth of the way that our healthcare system is set up currently is that that is not the truth. Those doctors are beholden to hospital policy and that hospital policy is written by people who
are not looking out for the best outcomes for patients, but instead, how do we keep our hospital and our staff out of litigation? And then you have this hospital administration who is breathing down the necks of our hospital staff, and they're not answering to the hospital staff, nor the consumers, they're answering to investors, and investors are only interested
in that bottom line and their ROI, they only are interested in profit. And that's why we have a for-profit healthcare system. Now, of course, within this system, we've got some nonprofit hospitals, but as you can see, and you look across the landscape of our nation, those hospitals are dwindling and they're closing every single day because they just simply can't make it because our system is set up to have profits
be put over people and we see that in our really abhorrent maternal mortality rate and our infant mortality rate and we just have a country that devalues and decenters women. Now the second thing that you had brought up that I wanted to talk about is that passive partner. So if you are a partner out there listening, I want to get really real with you and
I'm gonna hold your hand when I say this and I wanna bring you in close and I wanna let you know before I start this conversation that this is all said with so much love, but it's gonna require you to self-reflect and look into that mirror and ask yourself how you wanna show up for your partner, your wife in labor. When women are in labor,
It is really hard for us to advocate for ourselves. It's not impossible. That's actually what I teach. I teach people how to use neuroscience hacks to advocate for yourself and achieve your best birth possible without birth trauma, right? So my whole entire goal is that people who go through my course, they don't have any birth trauma. And for the most part, that's true. They almost always achieve it.
Andrea Clark (23:33)
amazing.
HeHe (23:34)
One of the key components is having a partner who's willing to advocate for you. And one of the biggest failures of men is that you don't do your work to be able to advocate for your partner and your wife in the time of labor. You retreat into this fight or flight, most often fawn type of mentality. You are so passive that
You actually abandon her. And I know that is not your intention. I know you don't walk into those hospital rooms and say, well, she's on her own. I'm just going to like be over here and I'm going to abandon her and I'm not going to advocate for her. And I'm just going to let this system do what they want with my wife and her body. No man would ever say that. However, by your actions, by the words that you say,
By not speaking up when you see hospital staff is badgering her about her birth plan, by not speaking up when they won't stop coming in every 12 hours asking her to prove herself, when you see a doctor lean down and whisper something in your wife's ear and she immediately looks fearful and you don't speak up in that moment, you have abandoned your wife.
And that is unfortunately how men play a very active role in the birth trauma of their partners. Again, very unintentional. It's not anything that men set out to do. But if you think that you're gonna walk into a hospital room and be able to flip a switch and just advocate your face off for your wife, unless you're in a position at work that you are
commonly advocating for people or you're in a position where you are very comfortable with confrontation. Let's say a lawyer. Those people are never afraid to speak up. So advocating in a medical setting would be very second nature to them. They're super comfortable saying things in a place where they haven't been invited to that space. But if you are a school teacher or
Aligns men meaning you work on like, you know the the oil rigs or you work on the power lines Or you are someone that holds a desk job It is gonna be really tough for you to walk into a place that you have not been invited to You're already uncomfortable You are made to feel as if you don't know anything if you think they're making your wife feel that way
Wait until you speak up, because you are neither their parent nor their colleague. So to them, you're really nothing. And so it is going to take some practice. One of the things that a woman really needs in labor is a protector. And if you cannot be that for her, it's a-okay. It is not a reflection on you or your manhood or your love for her.
or your capability to be the father of that child. It could simply just come down to personality and your comfort level with confrontation. But I'm begging you. Begging you. Please hire a doula. Hire a doula not only for your wife, but for you as well. A doula is never going to take your place. A good doula will actually elevate the two of you together as a unit. A good doula
will help highlight and keep in the forefront of everyone's mind that mom's voice and she will also bring you along. So when there's a decision made, she will say, hey Amy, I know that you had wanted this prenatally, because we talked about it. John, come over here. We're going to have a discussion really quick about this. Did you have any thoughts you wanted to share with the doctor? Right? When, when
Megan is saying like my god, my back is just hurting so bad. I don't want the epidural, but I don't know what else to do. Your good doula is gonna say hey Frank come over here. I'm gonna hand you some hot packs. Hold it on Megan's back like this and then do that hip squeeze that I taught you in the prenatals. I'm gonna run and get a peanut ball and fill up her water bottle and I'll be right back.
And we can see if maybe we've alleviated some of that back pain and if not, I've got a couple different ideas of how we might be able to do that. That way, Megan, you don't have to get the epidural right now. We've still got some time that we can try some different things. And if those don't work, then we can revisit this conversation. Right, you can see how a good doula is going to bring you together as a unit, elevate you both, make sure that not only is she being centered, but that you are
also playing a vital role in that process. And so I really, I really cannot stress enough that if you are the personality that you don't think that you're going to be able to truly advocate for your wife or your partner in labor, I am begging you to get a doula because your wife deserves the protection of having someone on her side that is not going to let the medical system
take advantage of her. And I want to note that
I want all your listeners to hear that I'm not saying doctors and nurses. I am saying the system. Our doctors and nurses were trained differently. If medical schools taught an entire semester long, one year class long, one year long class on patient autonomy, informed consent, respectful communication, how do you actually inform a patient
Andrea Clark (29:13)
Yeah.
HeHe (29:37)
on hospital policy while also respecting their autonomy and resigning that they have the ultimate say about their body while protecting your own license with proper documentation, our whole entire healthcare system would be completely different. This is not a problem with individual doctors and nurses. Now of course you have the rotten apples in every basket. I'm not saying that there are not.
Andrea Clark (29:41)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
HeHe (30:05)
bad providers and bad nurses out there. There definitely are. But there are bad teachers, bad police officers, bad accountants, bad fishermen. I mean, you've got unethical people in every single industry. So it's not a healthcare issue. The problem with healthcare is the system as a whole because it preys on everyone. And a lot of times, a lot of times we don't recognize that our
Healthcare workers are just as much victims as we are and so much of their trauma is being projected on us and that control that they are so desperately grabbing at, it is top down. It comes from fear that they have, that they are being threatened. Your license is on the line. You're going to be fired. You're going to get written up. You're not going to meet your RVU. So you're not going to get a bonus at the end of the year. So
Andrea Clark (30:36)
Yeah.
HeHe (31:00)
You just have to think that our healthcare providers are humans too and the problem is really the system as a whole.
Andrea Clark (31:01)
Yeah.
100 % I am a retired licensed family therapist and the reason why I walked away is that very reason I don't even have I didn't even have the same level of pressure as somebody who's delivering babies or you know doing surgery or anything like that but it was always this it came down to well you could get sued your license you know like it was always the license the license the license
And I'm like, I can't practice the way that I know is truly best for my clients. And I just got to a point where I said, I'm not doing this anymore. Like, this. Like I would rather educate on the internet, right? Like, and say what I know people need to truly hear. And I agree, but it's so hard because I think a lot of practitioners, again, don't even know that they're...
being traumatized and or just, you know, molding into this system. And it's also hard when you choose to be a practitioner who goes against the system because your license is always on the line. There was this story of this, this.
think he was like an OT surgeon in Australia and he was finding these people coming to, he was like an orthod. I can't remember exactly his position, but he had these people who had diabetes coming to him and having to get amputations. And so he started doing all that. He was like, he didn't want to amputate so many people. So he started doing research about a very simple diet change.
and he started coaching them like, okay, let's see how things go if you shift your diet for like the next six months or something, if we still need to do the surgery, we will or whatever. So he started, all these people started their blood levels and their A1C and all this stuff started getting better and he wasn't having to do as many surgeries and a dietician reported him and he lost his license for like four years. Like.
HeHe (33:03)
And you would think
that a dietitian would want that. You would think a dietitian would be like, thank God that somebody else is thinking like me. Thank goodness that we have a surgeon that is not unnecessarily operating on somebody, but instead teaching them a lifelong skill of how to properly fuel their body. But instead you felt threatened and you turned them in.
Andrea Clark (33:26)
It was all about he's not working in his scope of scope of practice. And that's like always this thing of that's not in my scope of practice. Like I need to refer you out. Right. And it's like I have a lot of knowledge and a lot of things, right? I've done health code, I've done so many things. And so as a therapist, I'm like, I could really, I'm like, that's not in my scope of practice, I could lose my license, right. And so there's always this fear and this amount of holding back that I did as a really well rounded
person and professional because maybe I didn't have a special certification that accompanied my specific license and that could get me in a lot of trouble. And so I understand it's just maddening when you're a patient in this system because you feel like you guys are supposed to be the people who have the education. And it's just it's really disheartening because you feel especially this is something I'm very passionate about because I am a very privileged woman like
I have education, I'm a woman, I'm a white woman. Like I have, and I'm treated, I have had so many poor experiences. And then I think about all the women who don't have the education, women of color, like, and I'm just like, where do we, how do we fix this? It's such a huge issue. And it's so overwhelming. And it's so upsetting, right? Is so many women are just disregarded and so many things happen to them that are so unnecessary.
It's maddening. It's maddening and so upsetting. I just, I know we can educate, right? I'm doing what I can with this podcast. You're doing amazing things, but it's just like, almost feels like it's never enough to combat how overwhelming the main message is. Do you know what I mean?
HeHe (35:11)
Yeah, of course. mean, but that's the age old battle of good versus evil, right? Is that the good always feels like there's not enough, but I'm sure you feel similarly. If I just impacted one woman, if I just avoided one C-section, if I just helped one mom say no thank you to something that she was being forced into, then I've done my job.
Andrea Clark (35:35)
Yeah.
HeHe (35:37)
I feel so good in that and at the end of the day there is a responsibility of women. They have to want it. So until women decide, hey, I'm not going to be a pawn in this game anymore. I don't think I'm just going to go with the flow anymore. I'm not going to strive to be a quote unquote good patient. You can be a respectful patient.
Andrea Clark (35:48)
Totally.
HeHe (36:06)
still be an active participant. So when people here don't be a good patient, I think their brain automatically goes to the idea of like, well be a disruptive, crazy, loud, obnoxious patient, you know? That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying don't go in there and strive to be a good girl. Don't go in there and say, well I don't want them to not like me. If they don't like you because you're asking questions, that is a big red flag.
Maybe you should not see that doctor anymore. What kind of provider would not want their patients to ask questions? Well, one that is threatened by questions, one that doesn't want you to be an active participant, one that they want to control the decisions and they don't believe in your autonomy. That is not a safe provider. That is a very, very dangerous provider because if you think when you are in a
Andrea Clark (36:57)
Yeah.
HeHe (37:03)
clinic setting, completely dressed, not experiencing contractions, not having all these hormones running through you, not having a baby exit your body that they are disrespecting you then, imagine how they're going to treat you when you are 25,000 times more vulnerable in labor. They're going to abuse you. And that's where the term obstetrical abuse comes from is because there are providers out there
who will literally take advantage of the vulnerability of laboring women. It is a coined phrase in science. There's decades of research behind it. There's so many articles out there showing that obstetrical violence is a large part of maternity healthcare and it ranges from
Fear-based tactics like leaning down into your ear saying I'm scared that your baby's heart rate is not doing well I need to do X Y & Z all the way to physical assault where a woman is saying I Don't want a cervical exam and a doctor enters her body anyway
Andrea Clark (38:19)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's crazy. So tell us, how do you help? what's your...
prevention education. Like what does that look like? What are some of the things you teach women? What does your program look like? It sounds like you said you have a really high success rate, which is amazing. So tell us a little about that. And I'm curious because you're currently pregnant, right, with your first child.
HeHe (38:37)
Yeah, we do.
I am, yeah. Thank you.
Andrea Clark (38:44)
Congratulations. what, I mean,
you did it kind of like I did. became a family therapist before I had children. So it's a similar journey. What prompted you to go into the work that you're doing before you even had that experience yourself?
HeHe (39:00)
because I saw how many women were being taken advantage of and I had kind of a, if you're 90s kid like me, I had this like that's a Raven moment where I had like this out of body experience and I could like see this vision and I was like, wait a minute, it didn't have to be this way. I thought something different that we can try and
Yeah, so I bundled all of that up and I put it into an online course called the Birth Lounge. And we have a 3 % C-section rate, which is 11 times lower than the national C-section rate. And we have a very low birth trauma rate. That one is a little bit harder to calculate purely because birth trauma is so... ⁓
individualized. So what one person considers birth trauma, the next person will not. So it's a little bit harder to really dwindle that one down to a hard number. But it is very few of our students come back and say that they had birth trauma. Almost all of them say, had an amazing birth. ⁓
Andrea Clark (39:51)
short.
sauce.
HeHe (40:12)
What we teach you that's a little different than what traditional childbirth ed teaches you is I start off by teaching you about the hospital system. I want you to know the hierarchy and I want you to understand who's actually calling the shots in the birth room. And it's ultimately you. But if you don't know who is the intended decision maker, which is not you, then you're not gonna know how to navigate the hospital system.
Andrea Clark (40:26)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, totally.
HeHe (40:40)
So I teach you that first and then I teach you how to engage in collaborative respectful communication with your provider but not at the expense of yourself. So a really great example that I always use is that a provider might say, Andrea, I need you to get on your back. I cannot deliver you in this position. And most women are conditioned and other childbirth eds would teach you that you can either say,
No, or you can ignore them and I teach you that too and if you take a hospital childbirth education class through your hospital they're going to teach you like and at that point you probably would need to get on your back. I don't teach you that bullshit. I'm teaching you that you look at that provider and you say if you can't do this get somebody in here who can. And it just simply insinuates like
I'm not going to move and change my birth plan because you are uncomfortable or you lack the skill. I chose to birth at this hospital. You guys led me to believe during all of my prenatals that you were capable of supporting me in birth. OBGYNs are viewed as the experts of birth and I'm birthing on hands and knees in a very normal, natural mammalian
way to birth. So either you support me or get somebody in here who can. And you don't say it ugly, right? We're not saying it in a way that's disrespectful. It just simply is, if you can't support me in this, please get someone in here who can. And that's it. And so the collaboration part comes from
your prenatal appointments. So a lot of your conversation with your provider is happening in your prenatal appointments. And we break it down very specifically because unfortunately in the healthcare system that we have, we only have five to six minutes on an average meeting, eight to 10 to 12 minutes on a really good long meeting and with a really good facility that doesn't have their provider schedules over packed, right? Even then,
If you're meeting with your provider 20 to 24 times in pregnancy times 10, you're getting them for 240 minutes. That is not a lot. That's not a lot. I have hundreds of hours inside of the birth lounge and I'm teaching you everything that you need to know. So throughout your labor experience only, not even prenatally, labor experience only, you're gonna have
Andrea Clark (42:58)
Yeah.
HeHe (43:15)
More than choices come your way in the labor process. From really small to really big. I'm teaching you all of those. I'm teaching you the pros, the cons, the risks, the benefits, the alternatives and how to discuss these with your provider, not only prenatally but in the moment. I'm teaching you breathing positions. I'm teaching you labor positions. I'm teaching you pain relief and coping skills. I'm teaching you pushing positions, pushing breathing.
How do you reduce tearing? How do you avoid unnecessary induction, unnecessary C-section? How do you decline unnecessary interventions? How do you request different care than what you may be being offered? So there's literally no stone left unturned. You even get partner support and education within the birth lounge. So when I say that I fully prepare you,
Andrea Clark (44:00)
Mm-hmm.
HeHe (44:12)
all of the gaps that I found over the last 10 years to exist in childbirth education, traditional childbirth education, either online courses or at the hospital or provided by, some states have childbirth ads that they give out. I've taken so many childbirth ads and
I pinpoint the gaps and then I include it in the birth lounge because I want there to be a comprehensive place that a woman can go to get every single answer. Within the birth lounge membership, you also have access to the birth lounge app, which you don't have to be a member to. So anyone with an Android or an iPhone can go to their app store and download the birth lounge app and it's evidence-based childbirth education in small little snippets.
in the form of evidence-based articles and they are all anywhere from a two-minute read to a 12-minute read. They have the data linked and they have questions at the bottom that you can use to engage your provider in this collaborative discussion format to help you understand what are your options around this specific topic? What are your hospital's policies? What kind of protocols can you expect in labor?
What kind of alternatives can your hospital provide you? And it also includes questions about declining and how will your provider support you if you decide to do something different on every single topic within the birth lounge app. it's just, it's really different because it is so comprehensive and you're not gonna find any judgment. So.
We don't demonize choices like the epidural or like choosing a C-section or like choosing a 39-week induction, which the internet can really demonize a lot. We want you to choose that if that's what feels best to you. What I don't want you to do is choose it because you feel like it's your only option or choose it and not be educated on it and then later find out, damn, I wish I hadn't have chose that because I...
I now know more, or I now know better, or that was such a horrible experience because I didn't know enough and I made an uneducated decision. Whatever you choose is totally fine with me. I certainly don't care. It's your birth. I'll support you in whatever. I do though want you to be fully informed and I want it to be a hell yes, not a I guess so and not a I really don't want this but I just I
feel like I have to because my doctor said I had to, I definitely don't want that to be the choice that you make.
Andrea Clark (46:53)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, because that's really where the trauma comes in. So tell us about your preparing for it because you have all this knowledge, right? So are you having a home birth? Okay. And I mean, it's obvious to me why, but can you tell our listeners why you're choosing a home birth?
HeHe (46:56)
Of
Yeah.
I am.
Yeah, absolutely. So I think first and foremost, I'm a low risk woman with a low risk pregnancy and it's been very straightforward. I have no reason to believe that I need higher medical care, that I need to birth in a medical setting or that I would need the skills of a surgeon. The second thing to keep in mind is I live in Boston. So I live in not only a region of the country that we have a really fruitful
⁓ home birth midwifery culture, but I also live in the heart of the city. So at any given time throughout the day with heavy traffic, I'm about 25 minutes from a hospital without heavy traffic. I'm about 10 to 12 minutes from a major hospital. And when I say major, I'm talking about an academic medical center that has a NICU that has an OR that has a trauma.
level ER, right? And so I'm talking about not a, not like a county hospital that your baby would need to be transferred out for a NICU stay or that they don't keep an abundance of blood products on hand just in case something happens or they don't have access to, let's say,
which is a procedure and a machine that's commonly found in ICUs, right? So I am not only am I a good candidate for home birth, but I'm also in a region of the country that
also provides good hospital access.
Andrea Clark (48:48)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
HeHe (48:50)
Excuse me. The next thing I think to know is that I'm getting co-care. So I have decided to go with home birth midwives, but I also have established care at the hospital under midwives who in the hospital setting in Massachusetts, all hospital based midwives. Sorry.
Andrea Clark (49:04)
Mm.
HeHe (49:12)
They all practice under an OB. So I actually do have all three levels of care on my case. My primary care is being done by home birth midwives. Then I have hospital based midwives that are following my case and I have received care from them. I have had prenatal appointments with them. I am sharing my birth plan with them. They are familiar with my home birth team.
Andrea Clark (49:15)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
HeHe (49:40)
And when the time comes, we haven't made it there in pregnancy yet, I will share my transfer plan with them so that they understand my goals if I need a transfer and they know what my expectations are. And then it also gives my husband and I a chance to ask about their expectations. What can we expect on your end for being received as a transfer into the hospital?
I have an OBGYN that's on my case, but I haven't seen them. I haven't needed to. They're just simply overseeing the hospital-based midwives that I'm receiving care from, right? And so I think all three of those are really, really important to think about when it comes to the decision to home birth. And when, in terms of like, why,
Low-risk women, when we look at the data, they have better outcomes when it comes to home birth. It's just where they should be birthing. And when we look at countries that do birth really well, I'm talking about Norway and Sweden and Austria. All of these countries prioritize not only midwifery care for low-risk women,
but home birth as well, right? And so those countries reserve OBGYNs and the surgical skills of an OBGYN and an MFM for their high risk population, for people who truly need someone who has surgical skills, someone who is more suited for acute disease or acute...
complications in pregnancy, not a low-risk labor because when you're a surgeon,
Everything is an operating table, right? When you're a surgeon, you see everyone in front of you as someone who might need surgery because you're a surgeon. That's the lens you're looking through and it doesn't make them bad. It just simply means that they shouldn't be attending low-risk labors until that low-risk labor
Andrea Clark (51:30)
Mm-hmm. ⁓
HeHe (51:51)
shows that it needs the skills of an OBGYN. And it's just not what we have here in the US currently. And so that's why I'm Home Birth. And those are the things that on a foundation helped my husband and I decide that Home Birth was right for us.
Andrea Clark (52:09)
incredible. That's really awesome. And it sounds like you help other women make that decision for themselves through educating them through education and them weighing out their their options. I do think sometimes it's hard. So I actually birthed in Massachusetts as well and was yeah. And but I found that here in Nevada, where I live now, it's there isn't the same
HeHe (52:25)
Okay.
Andrea Clark (52:33)
midwives are not treated with the same level of access to hospitals and or the mentorship that so every state is also very different. So it's hard you have to you know, you have to work with what you have depending on the state you're in in Massachusetts is way more forward thinking if you will with their medical system for sure versus a lot of hospitals on the West Coast or are behind in that regard.
HeHe (53:00)
And
you also have to think like a hospital-based midwife is going to practice very different than a home birth midwife, right? And so there are different calibers of care and flexibility and approaches that you must expect when you go with different birth facilities. Ideally what we would have is every state would not only have
legal but they would have independently licensed home birth midwives. Okay, and we're talking about independent license meaning there's a licensure process so that anyone who wants to hire a home birth midwife, they can expect a certain level of education, professionalism and support. But then ideally,
Each state also has wide access to birth centers for the women who either aren't appropriate for home birth or don't feel comfortable there, but they don't need to birth in a hospital because their birth just doesn't call for it. Okay. And then what we would have ideally is the lowest portion of the population.
Andrea Clark (54:07)
Yeah.
HeHe (54:14)
which would be reserved for our high risk populations. They either have a medical condition or a complication or a diagnosis that they need the skill of an OBGYN and they need the access to a hospital and or a desire to be in the hospital. Then that's what we would do. We would have a three tier process and the majority of women would birth at home.
because that's where it's most appropriate. And then your middle tier would birth at the birth center because that's where they were appropriate and or that's where they felt most confident. And then your smallest tier, your third part of the population would birth within the hospital with that higher skill set of an OB-GYN or an MFM and would have access to things like the NICU, which is an ICU setting, the ICU for
maternal complications and OR things like that.
Andrea Clark (55:12)
You know, it's interesting because everything you're saying makes so much sense to me. But I think back to when I told people I was having a home birth and every woman I spoke to was like, you're insane. You're insane. It's too painful. You should get an epidural. What if this like very much it seems like birth as a whole in our country is seen as
HeHe (55:22)
Yeah.
Andrea Clark (55:37)
this very unpleasant thing. And also that it's somehow just by being in labor, you're at risk for a medical complication. like, my gosh, what if you did a home birth? I mean, even with my partial placental abruption, I look back and my midwife was really good. She didn't say to me, we have to do the hospital now. She said, Andrea.
I know you want this home birth, here's the risks.
If for some reason you have a full abruption that I can't save your baby and I can't save you, you might not have a full abruption. You might be fine. But if you did you, there's seconds for you and your baby to, to live. And I can't hand, like, I won't be able to guarantee you. I wouldn't be able to save you guys. Right? Like that would require medical intervention. So I'm going to support whatever you decide, but I
need you to know the risk. Like she actually said that, like, I think she would have said yes to a home birth if I would have said yes. And I decided to go to the hospital, right. But she gave me, she let me make an informed decision. And she didn't treat it like this. We have to go right now. You know what I mean? Like, it was she was very calm and
I was able to gather my things. were able to drive me to the hospital. It wasn't like we called an ambulance. It didn't create this. So when I went into the hospital, I didn't have this feeling. I knew it was serious, but I didn't have this like, need to be induced right this minute. my gosh, I'm going to die. My baby's going to die. Right. It was okay. This is something we need to take very seriously, but it's going to be okay as long as we do close monitoring. And it just made me feel empowered going into the hospital. And so
it's really hard because that's a very different experience that I had even with my complication that so many women they don't even have complications and they have this fear of like, my gosh, it's gonna be horrible. And I could die and all these things. I'm just like, my gosh, no, you're not like and I just I don't understand where that comes from. I mean, I know why it's there. But it's like why that even started in the first place, right? It's like, how do we ⁓
How do we even tackle that? You know I mean?
HeHe (57:57)
Well, women have to learn to stand in their power, right? You have to learn that unless you give over your power and you outsource that, no one can take that power from you. Your doctors can try all day to take that power from you. You're a really great example of that, of how that provider leaned into your ear and tried to scare you and you said, but I know this is normal. It's the same exact thing and...
You know, a lot of people I think will resign to the fact of like, well, that's a complication that I could never know about and I'm here to share with you. I teach it in the birth lounge. So you could know about it. At any given time, I have between 300 and 500 students in the birth lounge and I've been running it since 2019. There are literally tens of thousands of women out there that know about rare complications in birth.
Not because they wanted to learn about it, but because they went through the birth lounge and they realized if I'm going to stay in control no matter what happens in my labor, then I need to know about the common things, the expected things, the normal things, the uncommon things, the rare things, the unexpected things. I need to know all of it because if you have a provider
who is offering up A, B, and C and you know that your options are actually A, B, C, D, E, and F, then you get to bring up the conversation. Thank you so much for sharing A, B, and C with me. I did want to discuss D, E, and F because I know those are an option and I would love to understand if they might be appropriate for me in this situation. Right?
A provider that's operating from a place of ego is going to feel very threatened by that. A provider that is operating from a place of collaborative, patient-centered, trauma-informed care is going to say, my God, Andrea, I'm so impressed with you. And I'm actually genuinely sorry that I forgot to offer those to you. You're right. Those are an option.
F is not so much an option, but we can discuss it and see if you're comfortable with the risk. It's certainly the most riskiest. But I definitely want to talk to you about it and that way you can decide for yourself. That's a good provider. That's a provider that says, I'm going to honor your autonomy no matter my fear, no matter what I think you should do. I'm going to put the ball in your court and you get to make the decision because this is your birth and I am simply
confident in that process.
Andrea Clark (1:00:43)
Yeah. Okay, I love this discussion and I know we've been chatting forever. So I am gonna have us wrap it up. But can you tell everybody where they can find you? Like, it's all gonna be linked in the show notes, but what is your profile handle? How can they get a hold of your birth lounge? Like, how can they, you know, be all over it?
HeHe (1:01:07)
Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me on social media on all platforms at Tranquility by Heehee. Instagram is, the Birth Lounge is the period birth period lounge. So both of those Tranquility by Heehee and the.birth.lounge. I have a podcast as well. It's called the Birth Lounge Podcast. It's completely free. We are nearing 400 episodes.
I actually put out two episodes every single week, every Wednesday and Friday. I'm showing up in your earbuds to help you have a more informed and confident birth. And then finally, if you're interested in joining the membership, you can go to thebirthlounge.com backslash join. Or if you wanna just kinda dip your toes into what that access is like and what that education feels like, then download that app I was talking about, the Birth Lounge app. It's available for iPhone and Android.
And it is, like I say, digestible articles that are easily scannable. And I made it because I felt like so many people were sitting in their OBGYN's office and they realized, crap, I don't know what to ask today and I only have six minutes. And so you can pull up the app, you can type in the...
conversation that's on your mind, the topic that you're hoping to talk about that day, or you can just simply go to whatever week you are and see what's going on in your body and that will help you derive some questions too. And you'll be able to scan that article in the time that it takes for you to check in and get pulled back to your OBGYN's office. And then there you go, you have all the questions right at your hands. You can screenshot them, you can...
keep the app up, you can share the app with your provider. It's all evidence-based, so it's nothing that you need to hide from your provider. I actually really would enjoy it if you shared it with your provider because I think providers would love to know that their patients are coming in informed and confident and feeling good about that collaborative care.
Andrea Clark (1:03:02)
I love it. Thank you for all your advocacy work that you're doing and educating women and empowering them. Your work is just incredible, absolutely incredible.
HeHe (1:03:12)
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me today. This was a phenomenal, phenomenal discussion.
Andrea Clark (1:03:14)
Yeah.
Absolutely, thank you for being here. All right, everybody, we'll see you in the next episode.