#313 | Including Children at Birth: Should They Be There? with Dr. Morgan MacDermott

Then when we get into the layer of then people who are like, No, I would want my children to be there. But the thing that still then holds them back is, I think my kid can't handle it. My kid's gonna freak out. There is so much we can do to prepare them so and then also have backup plans so that this is a very normalized, amazing, beautiful thing. And then also it's okay to pivot, yeah? Well, the whole reason we would do any of this is to seize the opportunity to teach them about birth, because society will teach them to fear birth, and we don't want our children to fear birth. How beautiful if they trust this process, because on a deep level, no matter how much they consciously remember the experience, they were taught to trust birth. Yeah, yeah. I think my middle child is still a little bit perturbed with me that she did not see her brother be born because she was four. Lola, my older child made it in to see the birth, or came in right after. And Lola and Ruby shared a room, and Ruby was too short to reach the door handle and was stuck in her bedroom, and she still talks about it all the time.

I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of HypnoBirthing of Connecticut, childbirth advocate and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Podcast. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

Hi, everybody. I am Dr Morgan MacDermott, I'm a naturopathic medical doctor. That's what we call ourselves in Idaho. But you also may know the title as naturopathic doctor. Nd, that's sort of the most common amongst most of the states. And I am a perinatal health specialist, just like you two. I work with the pregnancy, birth, postpartum, little bit of pediatrics and then a lot of just philosophical motherhood type stuff, because I have four of my own that are young. They're 964, and then 17 months. And so I have listened to you guys, though, for years now, and I am just really excited to be here to talk about this topic, because it's not that often talked about. There are resources out there for it, but it's something that's near and dear to my heart, is the idea of having older children at your birth. And so typically, this is going to be in a home birth setting. So I could say, I guess, having older children at your home birth, but maybe there's birth centers that allow children sometimes, probably not often, or they should. They should in hospitals too. You know, we are going to talk about this mainly from a home birth perspective, because that is where it occurs most often, but it should probably occur in more spaces. So, yeah, all settings. Yeah, I agree. And it's, it's something that is not for everyone. So this episode will not apply to every person. And so let's talk about, sort of, maybe one of the couple of the reasons or considerations to have for not having your kids at the birth. And then we'll talk about what maybe would want you, or you would want to have them, and then how to prep them. Because it's not going to be for every family, for sure, and it's not going to be for every woman. And there's a couple of different things to think about. So I've had just so that we can get some context one of my my third birth, my son was present for he was at the time, almost five, and my other daughter was, like 22 months, and it was in the middle of the night, and so we just didn't mess with it. I also knew she was not going to handle it well, so and he was going to be sort of indifferent. And that's exactly how it was. And then with my fourth birth just recently. I had all the older, older children there, and so at the time, they were just turned three, and then almost five and almost eight, and so they handled it really well. There was a couple of little classic child things that occurred, and for me, it wasn't a big deal because I had prepped for this for a very long time, and I had also prepped them. So sometimes I get a lot of backlash about this, about having older children at birth, because they think I've traumatized my kids and and I'll talk about how I think that we can kind of manage that and prep them so that it's not traumatizing. But then also, you need to have plans A, B, C and D and E and F and whatever, because it's it's a variable that you know, if you have other people there at your birth, no matter who they are, you need to be able to have some sort of level of flexibility, and not every woman is going to have that flexibility.

I think the top reason that women are really reticent when it comes to having a child at the birth is they seem to believe that the child is going to be traumatized in some way by what they think the child will perceive as the mother being in pain. And I had my son at my daughter's birth, we just decided to, you know, he's welcome in the room if it's not the middle of the night and he's up and he's awake, we're certainly not going to close the door and say no, no, don't come in here right now. Mommy's busy. That would talk about scaring.

A child that would have done it, he became kind of an active participant, holding the cold washcloth to my forehead, and it was wonderful. I like to tell my own couples that if they're considering it and it feels right to them, that I truly don't believe children perceive it as painful, that kind of fear is taught no more like it's it's no more scary to them than if a child were to watch the mother like pushing a heavy piece of furniture across the room and grunting and straining. The child isn't scared at all. I think that's something that we we imagine to be the case. Is that one of the most common reasons you see couples hesitating?

Yeah, I think that it's the overall thought that the child is going to be very scared, and then also the woman being like, Oh my God, I don't want my kids there talking to me and bothering me and that kind of thing. That was going to be my question. Is it more often an issue with the mom feeling that her children are going to disrupt her birth flow or rhythm, versus a worry that the child is going to be distressed and that ultimately is going to interfere with her flow too, but the trauma versus the mother's experience, yeah, I think it probably is. It's more the woman not wanting to and then when we get into the layer of then people who are like, No, I would want to do that. I would want my children to be there, but the thing that still then holds them back is, I think my kid can't handle it, my kid's gonna freak out. And I think this is where we're not remembering, or maybe, or we're just not familiar with the concept that there is so much we can do to prepare them so and then also have backup plans so that this isn't a traumatic thing so that this is a very normalized, amazing, beautiful thing. And then also, if, for some reason, it's not going that way, it's okay to pivot and it's okay to, you know, it's one of the things that I prep my children with it, which is like, you know, birth is unpredictable, and so it may be in the middle of the night, it may be too fast. I may not wake you up. Also, I may not want you there. So we are planning for you to be there, but if I change my mind, then I reserve that right, and it's okay, and you'll meet your baby afterwards, you know? But there, we have to be very, very open in these conversations. And I feel like sometimes parents are just not open to that, or down for that, or they're just, I don't know. I don't really know. So one of the things that I would like to say, though, is there are a few reasons why we should potentially not have children at the birth, or we should consider maybe dissuading ourselves from it, which would be age. So sometimes you see these birth, beautiful birth videos where there's like a very young toddler at the birth, I think probably more likely than not, in that kind of a situation, that child has been invited in right as mom is pushing. So it's not that that baby's been hanging out the whole entire labor, all around the mom and with the partner, somebody is in charge. Some point, person, a grandma, a friend, whatever, a babysitter, and they have taken the child out to the park or into a different room, or they're watching a movie, and then it's like they come, they usher them in, just in those last few moments of birth, because now we're controlling for the factors of, like, the child's attention span and like all sorts of different things, because I would argue, at that point of pushing mother being pulled out isn't quite as important. We're not going to stall out probably, because now that for most women, I would say that they don't even know who's in the room at that point when they're pushing, they're just like, in it. They're so in it. So it's not that big of a deal for them. I would also say maturity is another thing. So you may have a like 10 year old who you just don't think can manage this right now, because they're very, very sensitive, and they will be very uncomfortable with you being uncomfortable, and maybe they're squeamish with medical things or blood, or maybe something has happened where you just kind of know, like, this is not the vibe for this child. But then you may have a very mature three or four year old who you're like, she's gonna be fine. He's gonna be fine, whatever it is. Um, so there must be an age where you can actually have the child say whether or not they want to be there, a seven year old, eight year old, 10 year old, certainly a teenager, you know, can make that choice. What would that age be? I think if you ask a younger toddler or child, they're probably always going to say yes, but then they reserve the right to want to leave if they want to too. So this is another reason why we need to have a dedicated person who is able to manage them, and it's not your partner, because you want your partner there, and you want them to be able to be focused on you, to support you, to see their own baby be born, etc. And obviously, I know that people do this. You know, they have free births, and it's just the mom and the partner and any older children, and there's no other people there, and they manage it, and it's fine. Is it ideal? Though? Maybe not. Because if somebody's having a big emotional freak out, or they're just in a bad mood or whatever it can really change the vibe in the room and kind of be unfair almost to the partner, then that's going to have to manage that well, it's unfair to you too, because now you don't have the partner support well. And Let's also not forget, this is a child who has needs. So this child needs also to have meals prepared, and to have company and to have love.

The attention and to be put to bed if it's bedtime. So you do need a dedicated person there for sure, and that dedicated person understands that they're just going to be steady and present in some other room, and the child will come and go as he or she pleases, if that's if that's how it's all shaking out. But they're not there to prevent the child from coming in, but they're there to take care of the child that you can't even relax. I wouldn't be able to relax in labor if I didn't have my mother in the other room, able to take care of my son as he came and went from the room from time to time. Yeah, that's blind. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, exactly. They are still whole people, and this could be a process that takes days, and so we don't want to just Jade them or neglect them because of what's happening, because we weren't prepared. So I will say, the whole underlying theme of this entire thing, if you're going to have older children at birth, is that there needs to just be a lot of intentional preparation, but then it's the coolest thing in the whole world. So if you don't have the option of an additional backup plan person for some reason, which, you know, if you're having a home birth and you have older children, someone's there's going to have to be somebody ideally, then you're going to have to have a lot of other plans with, like, pre prepared snacks and movies going on in the other room. And, you know, that's a whole other thing. A couple other things that I would think, though, are situations where maybe it's not the best in your particular family to have children, older children at the birth would be if you know that your mental, emotional sort of sensitivity is, is, and I don't mean to say that this is like for people who are weak or something, but if you know that that's going to be your biggest obstacle is being able to get into the zone, feel comfortable, like you just said, Cynthia, like if you can't get there because you're feeling constantly aware of and attuned to your children, which is a very common motherhood thing to be, but if you really cannot put a boundary up about that for yourself and say, No, I am not. I am here dealing with this baby, and someone else is going to do that, then it may not be a good plan, because it could be very distracting, or potentially also, if you're very sensitive, auditorially, and then just general noises and sounds that children would be making are going to pull you out or distract you, or anger you, or something like that. But again, you also reserve the right to change your mind, so maybe you think it's going to be fine. It'll be it's not gonna be a big deal. And maybe because of your previous births, you're like, No, I didn't care. It'll be fine. You know what? Every single birth is different. You are a different person in every single birth. Sometimes you're going to be kind of quieter, sometimes you're going to be a screamer, sometimes you're going to need a lot of touch and reassurance, and sometimes you're going to be like, like, get away from me. And that's okay. And we need to know that all of these options are okay. And then how are we going to Interplay this very flexible, dynamic dance, if we're adding the layer and the factor of children in? And so I think we do need to have some sort of a layer of commitment going into this. Of the desire for that of our children to be there is very high because we are willing to make adjustments in the moment in all of these various ways to make it work.

Do you believe it's true that children siblings adapt better to the new baby if they're there at the birth, present at the birth? Yeah, somebody asked me this recently, and they asked if there was like research about it, if there's any research that we know that there's quicker bonding, and I'm not aware of any of that research, but I do think that it makes sense, I think, and given my little n of one family, I mean, my son was there for the third child's birth, but he was so young, I don't know. He just didn't really seem to care. But with my fourth baby, she is everybody's baby, and they were all there. We all did this. We all gave birth to this baby. Yeah, of course, they do exactly, and it's it is really sweet. I don't know if it's just her personality, their personality, their ages, or if it has something to do with the fact that they were there, but they are completely obsessed with her, and there is some such amazing beauty that I was not expecting with having older siblings and still new younger babies. Like, nobody had ever really highlighted that for me about how sweet that dynamic is going to be. I was kind of often thinking about it on the negative side of like, are these age gaps too large? Are they not going to be able to relate to each other? And, like, rah, rah, whatever. No, no. It's like, the best thing in the entire world. And they love her, and they they've we talk about it casually all the time too. Like, remember when Sunday? Her name is Sunday, Sunday was born, and, like, this happened, or that, or, you know, what did you think? And so it's the best. Yeah, yeah. I think my middle child is still a little bit perturbed with me that she did not see her brother be born because she she was
four, and my older daughter was seven and a half, no six and a half, and I don't recall this actually at all, but apparently Lola, my older child, made it in to see the birth, or came in right after. And Lola and Ruby shared a room, and Ruby was too short to reach the door handle and was stuck in her bedroom, and she still talks about it all the time, how she just has this memory of, like, I could hear the baby crying, and I could hear Lola, and I was stuck in my room, and eventually my mother got her, somebody got her, and, you know, she came out, but she really wanted to be at that birth, and, you know, didn't get to. So there's something to be said for for that, too. And how does she integrate now with the baby. Oh, she is extremely close with him. The baby is 14, yeah, the baby's 14, and the older one has more conflict with the youngest one. Oh, see, well, the neck is that they're both sensitive children, and they so they they have that thing. But I just think it's funny from the child's perspective, like she still remembers that she missed this birth. Yeah. Oh, sweet girl. She wanted to be there so badly. So, yeah. So some things to consider that I like to prep parents with would be that, like, you must feel comfortable with having them there, hard stop if you're not going to feel comfortable having them there, or you're really, really just, when you think about it internally, it feels heavy to you. It's it's not a good choice. We really still need to be very intentional, even if this is your fourth birth, we still need to have reverence for the birthing space, for the types of people who are there for the fact that, like, it could be your longest, hardest birth. Like, just because it's, you know, subsequent children down the line doesn't mean that it's just going to be, like, easy peasy lemon squeezy. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's not. So, you know, we also, I think, need to think about our backup plans, and what would that look like, and who could potentially come on top of this other person? Or what if it now rolls into days and then that one point person again? It takes a lot of complex planning, but it's okay, and it's it's worth it, if it's important to you, often our children might be just only coming in right when the baby's born. So you need to plan for that, that it's not necessarily they're going to be hanging out for the whole labor. Or, like you said, Trisha, like maybe they're coming in and out of the birthing space, and that's okay. Or, sorry, Cynthia, I think you said that, and it's okay for that to happen. And or if you hard stop don't want that, you only want them coming in, then we need to make that clear to our people again. We just have to be so flexible with our preferences desires, and then intersect that then with the reality before us of what's actually happening at this birth. Yeah, my experience attending births with siblings there, the children don't generally want to hang around for very long. They want to come in, check on the mother, see how they're doing, say hi, check in, get some love, and then they're off to do their own other thing. But you know, the fact that they feel free to do that is really exciting for them and empowering for them.

So do children need to be prepped to be at birth, or do we just show up in labor and they're there and it's all good? I'm sure there has been people who have done that, and it's probably been fine, but there's probably also been some processing that needs to have it on the side of the child. So I do think so. I think we need to prep them significantly. And it doesn't need to be stressful, but it needs to happen in multiple layers, not just one conversation. We also need to take into account the fact that, say, you have a two year old when you get pregnant and you want that child to be at your birth, where that baby's gonna or that child is gonna be about three, there's an entire, almost year of developmental differences now happening in their brain. They're a totally different kid. So maybe, if your mind, in your mind, you're like, I actually don't want them to be there, but then you're forgetting, oh, wait, they're they're actually gonna be almost three. Maybe that, to you, feels like the number, that's fine, or whatever. So we need to take into account that. But we also need to sort of popcorn in these little layers of exposure. This is kind of like the conversation about sex with your children, with your older children. It's not just one conversation one time. It's little drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, so that it's normalized multiple layers of the onion and of exposure and lots of opportunity for them to ask questions and talk about it. We also don't want it to be traumatic for them. So this is the thing that I get a lot of hate for online. Is that they're like, you're traumatizing your child. Oh so cool now that they have, like, all this therapy lined up for their futures because your kids were there. And I'm like, you guys, no kidding, no. It's one of my most viral videos. Is a video of my children. It was about transition. The video was, it was an educational video about, like, facts about transition, you know, in birth. And it's a video, though, of my three older children kind of leaning on the edge of the tub. And I'm clearly having a tough time in the video, but I'm just sort of like, oh, you know, I'm just working through it. And I got so much hate from generally the older population. I feel that was just like, or people who don't have children yet, maybe, but there's so much uncomfortability, and I gotta watch those people who don't have children who make their comments Exactly. I'm like, Oh, this is just, we're just perpetuating the problem with birth in that though this, this is the whole problem. Like birth is a normal, physiologic process, and the way that we can help change birth is through including our children, through demonstrating that birth is normal and beautiful, maybe loud, maybe uncomfortable, but all part of the healthy, normal process.

Others out there who won't watch birth, who think it's gross to see their baby being born, that still exists. You're kidding? Oh my gosh, that still exists. Yeah, and that's, that's the main point of gripe of them is that they see my son, and he was almost eight, and they're like, Oh, your son's seeing your like, you know, your lady bits, like, whatever. How tactful Are you? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, it's birth that's the problem with breastfeeding. So you're not going to breastfeed in front of your child, because your eight year old is going to see your breast. That's what it's the same line of thinking. It's so demented. I mean, he's pre pubescent. It's just like, it's such a shame that people say that, and also people just need to mind their own business boards like you're not asking them to watch or to comment. You know, if you don't like it, just look away. Just go somewhere else. Oh, that's not how social media works. It is not how social media works. One thing my son, the more intense my labor became, the more present he became so he became consistently present. My labor didn't last very long. It was just a few hours, maybe four or five hours, and he stayed there, and he was holding the washcloth, and he was like very calm and quietly content and joyful and involved. And my I had, I didn't even envision a child who would need the mother. I'm so glad we're having the conversation, because in all these years, it didn't even occur to me. Of course, some children would need the mother, but my son didn't, and I didn't imagine he would. He was just very present and quiet. My one request of everyone else in the room was, if my son asks any questions, answer him.

I don't want him to be brushed aside. I don't want him to be told later, not right now, I want his questions answered. And he did ask one question. I don't remember what it was. It's a very innocuous, little casual question, like, what's that or what is that for? And I looked up. I looked up in labor. I was like draped over the I was in the tub with my arms draped out, and then looked up and said, somebody answer him.

I didn't want him to experience the discomfort of noticing adults ignoring him. Why would they ignore me? Uh oh, something intense must be going on. So that was my only request. Just that's actually, yeah, a really good point that. Okay, so I talk about this in the prep, and I'll get there in a second. But that's a great point that even during the birth that people are still the adults in the room and the reactions. It's just like, as we know with children, if they fall down, and if our reaction is just kind of like, Miss whatever, they don't usually even seem to care about it. But if we are like, Oh my god, oh my god, you know, then they start crying. And it's the same thing with birth. It's the same thing when we're prepping for them. These with birth, but if they are looking to the adults, and they're cool and common, collected and acting pretty normal, that will integrate so differently into their experience, and they will feel heard and that they were part of the experience, and that they were important, and that they were participants in it. And I Yeah, you're right. I do think that that's probably a very large part of sibling integration too.

Okay, so I wanted to say that, you know, when we're doing our prepping, there's so many different methods to go about this, and so I like to talk about all of the different things that can happen, whether or not they actually do happen. We want them to be prepared to see us potentially vomit and poop and blood and placentas, and what is a placenta, and what's it going to happen? And I might be moaning like this. I might be yelling like this. Or, you know, newborn babies kind of can look a little scary. If a baby's if a child has never seen one, they don't look like a normal baby, and maybe they have vernix or meconium or, you know, so just all of the different sights and sounds and smells and all sorts of different stuff. I mean, this is my job, though. So I mean, my kids are very well versed in birth, but I think that it would be a good idea still for people to really have, like, cast the net wide on the types of experiences that you're going to show them. So there are several books online that you can buy that are made for children. They're like board books or picture books for children to prep them for the idea of being at a home birth. It's really, it'll just be like a story of, you know, oh, my mom gets in this tub. She's making all these sounds and blah, blah, blah. So I would get several of those books and start reading them to your children. Your children. And it's cool, I think, because kids say, Oh, wow, there's like, an entire book about this. You know, there's books about tigers, and there's books about astronauts, and there's books about birth, like, it must be this very, quite normal thing. So it's, it's sort of a child directed way to get more information in them, because they're so used to learning through books already. But I also really think that watching videos of varied types is probably the biggest key. So the way I do that is through Instagram following birth photographers or birthing accounts, even your guys' podcast Instagram page, you'll show different births sometimes. So it's like you'll have to.

Find them, and then I'll have my guys come over here watch this. Come watch how amazing this is. And now this is key your affect and attitude when you're watching this birth video with your children, is everything like I was just mentioning. So say it's an up close view, and the baby's head is crowning, and there's the butt hole is right there. And it's like, what is that? You know, even sometimes, like you said with men, it's like, they can be like, whoa, whoa. It's a lot. And I get it. I mean, okay, yeah, it's very visceral. Birth is so visceral. And I think it's just something that a lot of humans haven't really affronted yet, until they're like, Wow, this is like, so bodily. And so just kind of, like, gooey and whatever. And so obviously children would also carry some of those, like, maybe, like, they're a little wary about it. And so you just say, Wow, isn't that the coolest thing you've ever seen? There's the top of the baby's head. It's coming, like, completely ignore the butt. Or if they ask a question, you can say, Oh, look, yeah. Well, she's pooping a little bit because she's pushing so hard, she's working so hard to get this baby out and look at that. Oh, that's so beautiful, so amazing. Here's the head. Okay, look, there's all this amniotic fluid that's coming out of their nose. Like you, your attitude is just stoked beyond belief. You are so excited about it, and you're just calm and chill, and you're not, like, you know what I mean, like you're not or Don't look. Don't look. Don't look at that. You also don't need to show them crowning photos either, though, right? I mean, my son wasn't at the crowning position when I was giving birth. My midwife was and he was at my side. It's true. I guess you have to prepare them for things. I showed him, mostly animal videos, and I was always really excited and enthusiastic, and maybe a birth video or two, I really don't remember, but I specifically remember starting with animal videos, and they are beautiful and amazing to watch. That's interesting. When we were prepping for birth with our children, Instagram did not exist, so we didn't even have the option, really, of showing very there were a few online videos that I remember showing my kids. And then there was this one book that was so amazing, written for children called, I believe it was called, Welcome home. Welcome baby. Is it welcome baby? Yes, it's beautifully, like, it's so artistic. The whole story of her going through the labor and she's got, like, the wool socks on and cooking. Meal. It's so beautiful. My kids read that with me every night. It was like their favorite book. So that was how they perceived birth to be. So of course, then, you know, when it was time that's they just perceived it as this beautiful, cozy, warm, loving experience. Yeah, it's normal. It's just a normal thing. And so with the sounds and the and the, you know, watching you be uncomfortable part of it, I think we, if we can verbage it to where it's like, I'll be working really hard to get the baby out, and it's a lot of hard work. And, you know, I, what I would say to my kids is, you know, when Daddy comes in from working out and he's all sweaty and his face is all red and he's kind of huffing a puffy and he just, like, walks right into the shower, you know, and he looks a little different than he normally does. It's because he's working super hard. That's what I'm going to look like. I'm going to be working like, I'm going to be moving my body, and I'll probably be moaning. And so then also, another tip, I think, is to make this sound. So take practice contractions in front of your children, with your partner, or without, or whatever, different positions. Maybe talk about how, like, you might be laboring on the toilet, so that they're not like, what are you doing? You're gonna flush them down the toilet. You know, you just normalize all the different things. And you're like, oh, or you might be when I, when I'm pushing the baby out, like, you know, when you're pushing out a big poop. So kids love to talk about poop, and you can say, you know how you have to, oh, you have to, kind of push and grunt it out. Well, when the baby's coming, it's like the biggest poop I've ever taken in my life. And then they laugh, and they think it's super funny. And you know, you're diffusing it. You're talking with children to meet them where they're at. And you're you don't need to bring it to this whole huge scientific level unless that's where they want to go. And if you have children, older children, teenagers or sciency kids, they might think that this is, like the coolest thing ever, and you've now opened up this can of worms, of, like, a whole homeschool study about, yeah, reproductive biology and animal births, all sorts of stuff. Or you might not be talking about it really at all, and you're working on the basics of just anatomy. Because a child who thinks that a baby comes out of a belly button, who then sees a baby not come out of the belly button. That can be scary. So we need to talk about a vulva and a vagina and the butt. It's not coming out of my butt. It's coming out of a different hole. It's called a vagina, and it's part of the vulva. And it's like, super easy. You don't have to be you don't want to be like, No, these are your private parts. Like, we're not going to talk about mommy's privates. Like, that. You don't do that because now they're like, whoa. Something's weird here. I don't know what it is, because children do not view vaginas as sexual. That's kind of my main thing too. About the backlash that I would get about my son being at my birth is he is not looking at this like it's sexual. For him, his first layer of exposure of these parts is their anatomical purpose, which is to bring life into the world. You know.

Know what I mean, and then we'll get onto the layer of sexuality later on in life. But children don't have that yet, so we're just helping them understand that this can be bloody, and there can be fluids, and at some point my water might break, and that's going to be super cool. It's like a big water balloon and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, so we're talking about all the processes of it. So do you think back to your point about the discussion around the crowning like, Should every child who you're planning on having at the birth see that level of detail in birth? I mean, they may walk in, and you might be squatting, and they might see that moment, so where they might not they're like Cynthia giving birth in the water. You know, her son never saw any of that. My children came in just after they didn't see that. Should, should mothers show that? I so I would say yes, but I can understand why people would maybe not want to. But to me, I think if we can lump it all in together with the other aspects of birth, then it's not anything different. We're we are still kind of almost thinking like this is too intense for them. We're putting that on right then, and it may not actually be that way for them at all. We just say, Okay. And then when the baby comes out, it's like this. And then this and then this is happening. Because, yeah, if you don't really want to have to shift your position in your birth, because you're like, shoot, I don't want my kid to see that. You just want to be able to be comfortable, whatever position that is hands and knees, you know, something like that, where it's really upfront and close and personal. And to me, so I say, Yes, I think that we should just show them all of the parts about it, but, but you do need to be selected. Selective in not showing birth videos that are maybe, like, super scary if you think that your kid's not there yet. Yeah, well, there. The whole reason we would do any of this is to seize the opportunity to teach them about birth, because society will teach them to fear birth, and we don't want our children to fear birth. And if our sons can grow up, and if they get married one day and are expecting a baby with their wives one day, how beautiful. If they trust this process. Because, on a deep level, no matter how much they consciously remember the experience, on a deep level, they were taught to trust birth, that's that's the primary driver for me. I thought, What an incredible opportunity to show my son that this is something to trust, that nature is something to believe in. So I never used words like, don't worry about mommy, because then he would have thought, worry about what I mean. I didn't even go there. I just said, isn't that cool? Isn't that neat? And sometimes it's like this, and sometimes it's like that, and look at this, and look at how that happens. And he was very, very calm and present, and that was really all I wanted out of it. I just know society will do a hell of a job on our kids, everywhere they turn, from every comedy show to every drama to every show that ever took place before 1900 someone's going to die in childbirth, the mother or the baby, and we just have to do the best we can, because the one reason is, does it serve them to go into adulthood fearing birth? No, it doesn't serve them. That's the trauma. That's the fear. Birth isn't comedic. Birth isn't inherently traumatic. We just want to teach them it's normal, and then they can piece together the rest of it through their life experience. But most couples, as you said, they don't even talk about it with their children, so they leave it in the hands of society. And the first thing they'll see is some comedy show where, like, the woman hates her husband all of a sudden because she's in labor. That's what was my first experience. Like, oh my gosh, she hates him, the person she loves the most. It must be terrible. That was my first experience. My first belief was formed by watching some silly movie or comedy.

Well, yeah, that's I mean, and then look at where you are now you've, you've really helped rewrite, rewrite that story for yourself, which is amazing. But I love that you said that, because it made me think about the idea and the opportunity too, to show our children how our partners can be supportive to us in birth and how beautiful that can be. So for my son specifically, to see my husband step up. So much, be right there with me, holding my hand, calming me down, rubbing my head, whispering sweet nothings into my ear. Like doing all of that, I think modeling just utmost support and seeing him be so calm, and my rock is huge. And then for my daughters, yes, hopefully they were young, but hopefully it's imprinted on them, this idea that it's normal, it's beautiful, and it's okay for it to be hard work, because sometimes things in life there are tough, or there's they're worth it. There is an aspect of this that we don't need to run away from pain or discomfort and it's going to be okay. It's not super fun to hike a mountain. Sometimes, you know your legs are burning, or your ankle hurts or whatever, but then you get to the top and you're so proud of yourself, and it's amazing, and you do it anyway. And you know, even when children are doing something like coloring in the lines of a coloring sheet, like it can be hard, and they get a little frustrated, and then they have this opera, this moment of still doing it and then seeing their finished product and being proud of themselves. And I would try to talk about that sometimes too about it with my kids, and actually, my now six year old has told me a few different times: I'll never have kids. I'm not gonna have ever have kids. And I say, Oh, really tell me about that. And she goes, Yeah, because it hurts. And you it was hurting you when you had baby Sunday. And I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. So then we'll open up this conversation about this, everything that I just said about, you know, working hard towards things, and that's okay. And it's, it's a different kind of her. It's, it's like, just intense. And I was just moaning, it felt so good to be able to make big sounds, because it's a big feeling in my body, and I'm doing big work. And so just like when you're lifting up that really heavy chair and you kind of grunt, it's the same sort of thing. So I was doing that and rubber up. But this brings me to a point too, that I think people who are going to invite children into birth need to be ready for, which is that children process things through play and through repeated discussion and conversation. So you have to be ready for lots of questions and conversation and statements afterwards. And it may come in time. It may not be initial. It may be in weeks or months or even sometimes years later. And you also may see them acting it out in play. So they may be giving birth or with their siblings. They're they're sort of acting out what they saw of giving birth. They may be like, breastfeeding the baby, you know, on themselves, and we need to just not like shame them for that. I mean, it seems obvious, but I just have to say it like, we're not going to make them wrong for that. They're acting it out. This is extremely normal for children. This is how they learn. This is how they process and integrate what they've seen in all sorts of different realms of life. And you can talk about it with them, if they are open to that, or you can just let them have their moment.

But then also, I think, opening the door of conversation. So say your kid doesn't say anything to you about it, nothing. And then couple months goes by and you're like, hello, maybe you're trying to ask them about it, and they still don't really have that much to say. They may not want to disappoint you, especially if they're a very emotionally mature and attuned child and a little older. Usually people pleasery, because maybe for them, it was scary or there was something they weren't sure about, but they don't want to tell you because they think it might hurt your feelings. So I think it's a good idea to open up, sometimes give permission, if we think that might be happening, and say, hey, you know, I was thinking about the birth the other day, and it was so wonderful to have you there. Thank you for being there. It was amazing. And also, I just wanted to, you know, say there might have been something that was a little scary for you or or, what did you think about all the sounds I was making? Or, you know, you don't want to put it in their mind that it was scary, but you could, you can somehow open it and give them permission to have an actual, candid, real conversation with you about whatever it was that they thought. You just want to be able to again, like with sex conversations or anything big that happens in life. You want to allow the child to tell you all their stuff, and you're not going to take it personally. You're not going to make them feel wrong. You're just going to kind of like, help talk about it with them. And also, they may, like, not thought anything of it. It may have been just like a normal Tuesday for them, but I guess I just wanted to say that they're they're all children are different. All experiences are different. I asked my son that exact question after I gave birth to my daughter within that week, I asked him, so what did you think about all the sounds mommy made, or, what did you think about all the sounds I was making when I when the baby was coming out? And he had a very non-memorable response. He kind of shrugged. He was like, Well, you know, and I very quickly was able to assess that he really took it in stride as he appeared to Yeah, I have to think that, particularly for boys watching their mother give birth, there has to be some very long, lasting positive view of like female power and respect that comes with that. And certainly for girls too, watching their mother, but I just that's got to really change the way a boy grows into a man, viewing a woman and her body and the respect for her being. And that's really powerful, absolutely, I mean, and now they see this baby that's here, that wasn't in the room before, and that's something that my husband and I just talk about amongst ourselves, because we're so shocked by we're so shocked by it. Every time it happens, it's like, I obviously knew I had a baby inside there. But when you're holding this whole new person that didn't wasn't here before, I mean, they were but they were behind skin, it didn't feel like they were there, and now you're just like, life has forever changed. And this is so incredible. And my kids will often come up to me now, and they'll cuddle with me and point at my stomach, and they're like, I was inside there, like we were all in there. I'm like, Isn't that crazy? Like, Isn't that the coolest thing you've ever thought you all four of you have been inside and grown inside there, all in this the same spot, different years, like, whatever. And it's just, I think it's so cool to cultivate this awe for life and off and reverence, and it's amazing and it's beautiful. It's not disgusting, it's not squeamish. It's not something we don't talk about. It's not something hush hush. It's so incredible every single time. And we need to, you know, when we see a new baby, we can.

Ask questions about it, or we can be like, Wow, that's so cool that that this happened again, somebody else did this, and every other human you've ever seen in your life has been born. And so, you know, I to me, obviously, because I geek out about this. It's my job, but, and I'm obsessed with it, it's, I think there's so much opportunity for really, really expansive conversation and layers to it for all of time. And, you know, like making a if there was any photos of the birth, looking back on them in time and talking about it and showing them their own birth. It's so fun. Like every year on my kid's birthday, we always watch their birth video. Same, same. Yeah, right. So my son did hit a point where he was like, No, I don't want to watch that. Yeah, I see.

And if couples opt not to have their children at birth, or that isn't a possibility, the key point here anyway, is they can still achieve that benefit of teaching trust in birth, and that's really what we're talking about here. Let's send our children into the world without this common fear that's been developed in the past 150 years or so. Let's send them into the world trusting this process. Obviously, they can educate themselves and learn about when things go awry and things go off course like anything else, but they must start from a point of respecting, like you said the word reverence, having reverence for how they came into the world and if they didn't come into the world vaginally, having reverence for how nature intended them to come into the world and what their bodies are inherently capable of doing, and how just the fallback is to trust in This process that nature didn't mess up, and that nature, like designed this over so much time. I think that's just a beautiful gift we can give our children, whether they attend the birth or not, and it's one we actually, I believe, have a responsibility to give them. Why give them an extra fear going into the world that will almost definitely work against them? Yeah, and I even bring up, like, you're gonna see people talk about this, like it's the worst thing in the world. And you'll see later on, when you're older, you'll see, like, scenes in movies where people are just screaming their head off and whatever. And it's sad. That's not how it could be. I guess it's like there are two different ways, multiple different ways, to do any one thing. You can enjoy it and work with it, or you can blatantly work against it, and, you know, be on your back and never move and be in the bright lights and whatever. And there's reasons. And obviously, as they're older, they can take in these different concepts about the brain and hormones, and again, like the infinite amount of learning, but I think still, the point you're saying is that the imprint is there so that they learn. It's like with sex, like we want to talk about sex with our children before they've learned about it on the playground from someone's phone. We want to be the ones to initially set that groundwork of what this thing is, that it's a beautiful part of life and a beautiful part of a relationship. You'll do it when you're late, older, when you're, you know, later on, we don't need to treat it as a different conversation between boys and girls. It's, you know, pleasure is part of it. This is part of love. Is part of it? That that whatever, it's sort of a counterculture movement to be like, No, my I want you guys to know that there is so much power and beauty in this process. And, you know, I think us three, we're on a mission to change that for for good, because it really ought to, and I think that there's so many amazing downstream effects when our society and our culture at large, respects how babies are born.

Thank you for joining us at the Down To Birth Show. You can reach us @downtobirthshow on Instagram or email us at Contact@DownToBirthShow.com. All of Cynthia’s classes and Trisha’s breastfeeding services are offered live online, serving women and couples everywhere. Please remember this information is made available to you for educational and informational purposes only. It is in no way a substitute for medical advice. For our full disclaimer visit downtobirthshow.com/disclaimer. Thanks for tuning in, and as always, hear everyone and listen to yourself.

Oh my god, how you guys. I'm so excited.

Thank you. We're excited to meet you too. Oh, this is the best thing ever. I'm so excited to be here with you guys. I've been listening to your podcast for years, and I just, I'm like, fangirling right now, your podcast is my favorite. I there's not another one. I feel like it where it's kind of a combination of birth information that's also on, like the sort of like natural side, or integrative or physiological based side, but then also really well evidence based. But then also has birth stories, but then also has the Q and A's. I don't know. I just like, love the way that you guys break it out, the way you do it. We're hilariously funny. You're hilariously funny. I love your voices. I love that does the voice thing is a big deal? Like, I, I didn't listen to a whole lot of podcasts before we started podcasting, and I didn't even listen to podcasts when we started podcasting, but I started listening to podcasts a lot in the last couple of years. And, like, like, Jay Shetty, like, I can't listen to this podcast anymore. Yeah, it's great. Like, the like, the like, yeah, voices are, yeah. Hopefully, I think you guys are also really, like, kind of dry and funny. Like, sometimes the things you say in there, like, you won't comment back on something that the guest said, but then you'll just, like, make a quick comment. I I just laugh. I love it. I think it's I think it's great.