I loved everything about this episode!!! I felt like I went back in time 11 years to when I was pregnant with my oldest. I was introduced to this whole concept of natural unmedicated births through my older sister who used the Bradley method and had her first two babies at birth center. I even went to one of her classes with her and met my nephew within hours of his birth. It was so precious and obviously left a huge impression on me and how I approached my own pregnancies and births.
We had a doula and planned on a midwife hospital birth but of course she was not available the day my son was born. Thankfully my OBGYN was super open to all things natural birth (he went on to open a birth center with another doctor where my 2nd son was born). I distinctly recall being told to turn around and push on my back by the nurse, because that’s what she was used to the doctor wanting, and my doctor said “No. She will push in whatever position she wants.” I have no recollection of this because I was in the zone, but my doula told me that so proudly after the fact.
To say natural unmedicated birth was empowering doesn’t even begin to describe it. My 2nd was born in the water, with my former doula as my midwife at the aforementioned birth center. It was one of the most beautiful, full circle moments of my life. I used hypnobabies with both and my doula, turned midwife, told me I was one of her favorite people to watch give birth. I mean…that seems like a huge compliment!! 🤪
I declined the vitamin k shot and cloth diapered. We delayed hep B but otherwise everything else was on schedule. I breastfed and then exclusively pumped when complications with breastfeeding arose. You better BELIEVE I sleep trained and moved my babies out of my room earlier than most because they were loud and grunty sleepers and mama needed to SLEEP. I tried baby wearing but it never really clicked. I myself went to the chiropractor and took my babies, too. We did BLW. I guess you could say I was halfway crunchy. 🤪
My younger son had medical complications, which required him to have an MRI at about 4 weeks old and then surgery at 10 weeks. He had the most amazing team of professionals at that point and honestly, while it’s something I never want to relive, the care he/we did receive was amazing…little (big) things like my first nurse taking the hospital crib away and bringing in a regular bed so that I could nurse him side lying (he had to stay completely flat for several weeks after surgery).
Anyway…such tender memories. Thanks for tackling this topic with such openness and grace.
I was actually surprised at how many crunchy moms talked about co-bedding with their babies. This is a dangerous practice. Especially with babies under 6 months of age. I have worked in the field of child welfare for almost 30 years. Recently, in the county where I work, a mother lost her baby due to co-bedding. She had a second baby, co-bedded with that child as well. The second baby also died due to co-bedding. Now she has been found to be neglectful and is being criminally charged.
So many thoughts! My entry to pseudo crunchy was also though birth. (Although my mom was way ahead of her time and was crunchy in a lot of ways—I was homeschooled. I only went to the chiropractor, not a pediatrician. I think I got all my vaccines when I went to college!) I had a nurse midwife and a doula. I gave birth in the nurse midwife wing of the hospital, which was fantastic! I breastfed even though it was incredibly hard (thanks tongue and lip ties). I did the alternative schedule for vaccines - although we caught up by kindergarten. Looking back I would not have delayed any vaccines, but my pediatrician was so kind and gently helped me through it. Now that I know more about the diseases these vaccine prevent HOLY COW I wish I’d stuck to the original schedule. Luckily my kids did not get any of them!
We did baby led weaning, which was fun. My oldest’s first food was a literal pork chop bone. 😆 he also enjoyed fois gras and other interesting foods. However, he’s autistic and as he got older his diet shrunk (still healthy, but a lot more limited). He’s been a vegetarian for like 9 of his 11 years. His sister eats everything. So BLW ehh, it made meals fun rather than making baby food, but I don’t know if it’s the only way to go.
I did some homeopathics with my kids and I do cringe now because who even knows the dosage or side effects on those things. I could have seriously harmed my child because I was trying to avoid too much Tylenol for teething, for example. When you know better, you do better.
Now I would consider myself a fan of science, particularly after COVID. I do still like holistic methods and they have their place in our lives, but I’m really turned off on that community because of my experiences with loved ones who believe the more extreme parts of that movement, particularly the anti-vax side.
One area that I feel crunchy mom’s have somewhat right is the view on microplastics. That is an issue that I keep trying to navigate without feeling too fearful. It’s crazy-making to go all out on trying to avoid plastics. But it does feel like an area where we can do better!
I find this conversation fascinating. I have never been a crunchy mom, never had issues with hospitals, and never once considered not having an epidural! I do think that geographic location and just life experience impacts this so much. I am a geologist and am pretty science minded and sometimes think the maternal splenectomy skipped me. I was 30 when I was pregnant with my first in 2010. It felt weird, almost wrong (a total holdover from the don’t get pregnant in HS 90’s vibe that made pregnancy seem wrong, even as a grown married adult!). I felt like I had this little parasite inside me, lol. My second was a little different 6 years later, but I have never been the “wow I have this miracle inside and feel amazing” feeling-the whole thing is just weird, lol. However, I had a great obgyn and did a birthing class that was taught by a nurse who had been delivering babies for over 20 years. She really set expectations and made me not afraid of the epidural, which was my only fear of getting it was the actual needle in my back. But she also warned us about getting induced and we would be more likely to end up in a c-section, which I am now learning a lot of people don’t realize. But it was fine-my water broke with both my kids. Our hospital is 5 minutes from home(we live in Gilbert, a suburb of phoenix arizona). I was also working full time and had no reason to look beyond my OB (and one of my best friends was an OB as well, and I didn’t have many friends who had kids at the time either). We were fortunate to have united health care in 2010 and the whole birth was a $500 copay, a huge difference to the $3500 my daughter’s birth cost in 2016 with all the healthcare changes.
On the vaccination front, I remember doing a paper in 5th grade about polio. My mom is older (83 now) and she remembers kids in iron lungs and seeing some of these old diseases in action. I learned then that vaccinations are ever so important and I have honestly never understood not getting them unless there is a known family reaction. Spacing out is fine, just making sure we all have them is important. I am flabbergasted that the measles is spreading. Oh, I was also an avid breast feeder and pumped (both my kids went almost 2 years), but I would never do cry it out and my kids were terrible sleepers. So maybe there is some crunchy in me, but just after the birth part in some cases! But hats off to all the natural birthers that out there!
LOVED this conversation! I’d love to have a sequel sometime!!
I’m curious when the crunchy movement became anti-vax…I have always been on the crunchy spectrum. I grew up next door to a crunchy Baptist mom with 9 kids who vaccinated and also had her babies at home, breastfed, used essential oils and made her own foods. So I went into adulthood as an aspiring crunchy girl, but I still believed in western medicine.
I resonated with the idea that crunchiness is/was a moving target and nothing is quite enough. I still consider myself pretty crunchy - had a birthing center birth with a midwife, used the Bradley method, breastfed and cloth diapered, we use natural cleaners and care products, we are pescatarian, use essential oils for some things, we make our own kombucha and elderberry syrup, try to treat things naturally first and then use western medicine when needed. With all that “crunchiness”, I still believe in science though…all fully vaccinated and my ADHD kiddo takes meds.
Maybe for our family and a lot of other crunchy but not maha families, it’s less about the crunchiness and more about taking a wholistic approach to life and health.
I LOVED this episode. I’ve never been too crunchy but have a “soft crunch” to me if you will. 😂
1. I really struggle when looking for research on internet some of these things… where do you guys go and how do you know if it’s legit? FOR EXAMPLE a few months ago I started getting concerned about plastics in the kitchen after the black plastics study. Do I need to throw out all of my plastic containers and plates and bottles and bowls and utensils? After hours of research I STILL DON’T KNOW because I have no metric of “reliable”. So I’ve just settled with not microwaving them will replace with some other material once their time is up.
2. My husband is a ENT airway specialist. And WHOA ABSOLUTELY NO WHOLE GRAPES HOTDOGS ETC ARE SAFER THAN CUTTING THEM!!! I did not know this was a crunchy mom thing!
3. Wow the prenatal care you got from your midwives sounds amazing!!!! How do you find a practice that does that kind of stuff?
4. It’s so tough to know if you can trust the medical system… on one hand I completely trust the training because I see how much work it takes to get there… on the other hand I am completely distrustful because I’ve seen so much of the shit that takes place behind the scenes. There truly is a huge huge huge lack of accountability for physicians to adhere to best practices after they get out of residency and that is terrifying to think about
This is tangentially related (post COVID bazar health stuff), but I recently walked through my father-in-law’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis and subsequent passing.
After him being diagnosed in early January, I received many messages and urging from friends and family members for him to try taking a dog dewormer, which “reportedly” was “curing” stage 4 cancer. (There’s a guy with a blog who says he’s curing cancer left and right with a cocktail of dog dewormer and ivermectin.)
It seems that everyone in my small northern CA town who has or had cancer is taking either dog dewormer or ivermectin (or both) on a regular basis, and some are taking it preventatively.
I struggled with one family member who went hard, subscribed to the blog and bought the guy’s whole cocktail remedy. She told me that Trump was going to cure cancer and that she knows there are cures, but “they” don’t want to release it because of big pharma.
Fortunately, I had a friend who runs cancer clinical trials at UC San Francisco, who explained that these drugs will actively hurt him. It barely broke through.
It was such an infuriating experience to have such absurd solutions to an extremely difficult situation. Ultimately, he passed within 6 weeks of diagnosis and the whole argument was moot. I’m still so concerned about all the people in my town casually taking Ivermectin. 😬
As a Diabetes Educator Dietitian I hear ALL of the disease and nutrition related theories. While I validate individual experiences, the two that I immediately shut down without discussion are -
1. There is a known cure for Diabetes but Big Med and Big Pharm want to keep people sick because it makes them a lot of money
2. They "caught" Diabetes
So many other beliefs can be half-truths, so more layered discussion is always needed. However, most people want the easy answer and solution.
I moved 8 times before the age of 18 and attended 4 different elementary schools. I loved the vast majority of my childhood, and I definitely credit that experience with giving me resilience and the ability to put myself out there and make new friends. And STILL, when trying to decide to move cross-country my kids (going into 4th and 7th grades), I agonized over how it could negatively affect them. Two years later, we all agree that the move was the right choice, and they both grew through the experience.
Also, closer school = more likely to have neighborhood friends.
We have a son Jeremiah that was born with a disease called Tuberous sclerosis. Through that we learn a lot - when to do surgery, when to do meds, what kind of meds etc. where we diverted down a 'crunchy' mom and dad path was around autism schooling/training. We went and learn how to run 'home' school for our son and we tried that for about a year. The amount of exhaustion on the two of us was awful. We have two other older children and we just couldn't manage it. When we opened up the opportunity for him to go to school we both agreed and our whole family benefited from this. I remember feeling a bit guilty. But got over it after I saw the way it helped our whole family and the community by having Jeremiah as part of their lives.
I’m not even done with this episode yet, but it was delightful. Sarah had me rolling for a lot of the episode. It was a great discussion but the way you and Maggie shared so much of your personal journey made it feel light and enjoyable which we can all use a little more of right now. Appreciate yall always! 🫶🏻
I’m in the process of listening to this episode for the second time. I found it to be so interesting and insightful. However, I felt that there was still a tone that felt negative towards c-sections and I wanted to share my story in case it helps better understand why someone would have one (especially an elective one). Buckle up… this is a long one…
I have never been a “crunchy mom”, however, I watched “The Business of Being Born” in my 20s long before I was ever pregnant, and looking back, that documentary made me so set on home birthing and looked down at so many moms for having hospital births and especially having elective csections (even though I had no idea what it was like to give birth because I’d never given birth at that tjme). I honestly wish I hadn’t seen it because I’m positive I said some hurtful things to a friend who had just had an elective C-section (there’s a full scale irony coming about this… I’ll get there)…
Fast forward a few years, I relaxed for whatever reason about how to give birth (truly can’t remember a “why” for why my opinions changed — probably because I then realized getting pregnant was not so easy and needed medical interventions for that). I finally got pregnant after years of trying and ended up seeing a midwifery group that was licensed through my local hospital for all my OB care. They were FANTASTIC. IMO they were the best of both worlds — listened to me and respected my decisions, but allowed me to have a midwife deliver my baby at the hospital.
I had a great, relatively easy pregnancy with my first. the labor and delivery was anything but. I pushed for 3 hours, she finally delivered, then I hemorrhaged and lost a ton of blood. It was a whole thing. I didn’t walk normally for nearly a year (thank heavens I finally said something to my midwife and she referred me to pelvic floor PT immediately).
Fast forward another 3 years and I’m pregnant with my second. In the middle of covid. I got pregnant before covid was even mentioned in the states (Nov. 2019) and then found myself not being able to have my partner with me on all my OB visits, and in Aug. 2020 when I was due, hearing about so many hospitals not allowing even a partner to be there for the delivery. Let’s just say there was SO much stress during that pregnancy. But overall, it was a fairly healthy pregnancy until 32 weeks, when they had to do an ultrasound to check on something with my son’s kidneys and measured him already weighing in at over 6 lbs. They kept an eye on it and at 36 weeks he was measuring over 9 lbs. My midwife spoke with me at length and said she was very concerned that he was going to get stuck. My first birth was so traumatic and I pushed for so long, and she was under 8 lbs! Having a baby this big (I’m only 5’2”), she was really concerned for both me and him and thought having a C-section would be a safer option all around. But she said she would do whatever I decided, she just wanted to me to make an informed decision.
After consulting with my husband (because he couldn’t be at the appt so I had to go home and tell him everything), and thinking on it for several days, I opted to schedule a C-section. At first, I was so upset. I had DREAMED of getting a second chance at a “good birth” — the ones like Sarah talks about. I’d read books (like Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth) and taken classes and did all the things. I was angry I wasn’t getting the calm relaxing birth I’d dreamed off. And I had friends telling me I was making the wrong decision and that those ultrasounds are wrong (spoiler alert: this one was NOT. He ended up being 9 lbs 15oz and that was a week early).
But then I went to my scheduled C-section (a day late because a hurricane came and knocked out the power basically everywhere) and when I say that that birth ended up being so empowering and healing for me, I mean it with my whole heart. My midwife was in the room with me even though of course an OBGYN had to do the surgery. She followed and relayed all my requests (a big one being to drop the curtain when they started to pull my son out so I could see him being delivered). She took pictures of everything. The nurses in there were so kind and asked for preferences on music and scents in the room and everything. I was PRESENT and AWARE and it was a beautiful experience. My son came with no complications, I healed much more quickly and easily than I did with the first birth, and I truly have zero regrets about my decision to have an elective C-section.
All that to say, if you had a C-section — either by emergency or elected to have it — please know your birth is not less of a birth because it wasn’t a vaginal one. You may have a ton of complicated feelings around it if it wasn’t what you pictured, but you still brought a whole new human into this world and that’s pretty badass no matter how that baby came out.
Loved this convo. I’ve had three children via c section. I very much had faith in my physician and good insurance so I trusted him to do his part. I remember being particularly nervous about the possibility of a C-section, and my mom made a good point. She brought up that as much as I don’t want anything bad to happen neither does my physician. They pay the most in liability insurance out of all physicians- their desire for good outcomes is high! Again, thankfully I have a great OB with great bedside manner alongside his medical acumen.
I am a dietitian I usually defer to medical experts, treat others how you want to be treated I guess! I do recognize that not every medical expert has “soft skills” when it comes to people and that can make all the difference when explaining a diagnosis or treatment plan.
Last point - I never had the urge to do a “natural” or home birth. I think about maternal/fetal mortality rates before we had readily available intervention services. That usually kept me wanting to be with a medical team should I (which I did need emergency c section) need it.
Loved this conversation. I was raised by a crunchy mom and married a very uncrunchy man. I remember getting the HPV shot before getting married and telling my mom and her being horrified and saying, "you could have died!" And me being like, "yeah but I didn't and now I won't get cervical cancer." But I actually came on here to say that the scientific/medical side can be just as "in or out" and move the goal post on you. I remember joining a woohoo free mom's group on Facebook and they were hyper fixated on safety. Safe sleep, safe car seats, safe hair chairs, etc. They were actually judgey about things like baby led weaning, bed sharing, and buying organic food.
The one mom group I never felt judged in and only ever fully supported was an Exclusive Pumping group. Whatever the reason you didn't breastfeeding was supported, if you supplemented you were supported, if you wanted to quit you were supported, if you transitioned to breastfeeding you were supported, etc. it was a really beautiful community. And also exclusive pumping is a bitch. I couldn't breastfeeding due to my anatomy and was open to formula but my first had bad reactions to both dairy and soy based formula. I pumped for nine months (on a dairy and soy free diet). With my second I planned to go straight to formula but he was born during the formula storage and so I pumped for four months before switching.
I'm late to the party in commenting, but I just had to chime in. I was pregnant with my first kid in 2008-09. PEAK "Business of Being Born" time period - and I lived in a small town in Alaska which totally contributed to my head-first dive into crunchiness.
I was DEVASTATED when I had to have a c-section with my first baby after hiring a doula, planning a totally unmedicated, "here's my birth plan that you WILL follow" birth. But the crooked kid had other plans and I ended up with a c-section... which I think contributed to the rest of my "I'm going to do everything else 'right'" attitude. Breastfeeding was an absolute MUST, even though I had to go back to work. I even timed my lunch break with the mid-day feeding so I could go nurse her myself at daycare (hey, privilege to do that!). Baby-led weaning?Abso-freaking-lutely. Make my own baby food despite that full time job? You bet. Fight with the daycare so they wouldn't feed her absolute crap and would respect my "need" for her to have breast milk before anything else until she was 1? Yep. (Listen, I would do this one again... why were they giving actual babies pop tarts????)
I fought my husband when he wanted to take her to the doctor for a cold. I used the Hyland's teething tablets even after we were told not to because "that's just big Pharma not wanting us to use natural remedies." And I most certainly didn't vaccinate on schedule because Dr. Sears was so much smarter than all the other doctors - and also, he wasn't *against* vaccines, he just thought there was a better way.
Then we moved from Kodiak to a much more "conventional" kind of place (the deep Deep South) and we got kicked out of a pediatrics practice for not vaccinating on schedule. Know what that did? Made me stop all together! The letter we got from the practice (a practice that had ok'd our alternate schedule to that point) read to me like "you're an idiot parent and we know better than you, so you either do what we say or get out." It wasn't very conducive to convincing me that vaccinating was the right thing to do. So instead, via the crunchy mom network in my town, I found that one doctor who wouldn't question you if you said no to vaccines and switched. I did ask him questions and had a very open and honest conversation with him about them, but ultimately decided to stop all together when my oldest was about 3.5 and my youngest was about 6 months.
Military moves had us all over the country from that point until 2019 when we got to where we are now. In the other two places we lived, I continued to not vaccinate, getting exemptions in both CO and OR to send my kids to school. The whole time, I was moderating a Facebook group that was ostensibly founded around breastfeeding and early nutrition support, but that also was a hidden haven of all things crunchy. I was deep into vaccines bad, essential oils good, home remedies the best, doctors should be avoided, etc. etc. etc. And I KNEW that all of the mainstream medical world was just out to get us!
In 2019, we moved yet again, and I, once again, used the crunchy mom network to find that one provider who wouldn't give us a hard time about not vaccinating. And then, COVID. At this point, my kids were in 6th and 3rd grades. It had been a loooong time since either of them had had a shot. It had been a long time since *I* had had a shot. And then the second the covid vaccines were available, I lined us all up like it was the only thing that would save us. And then the next check up we had with our doctor, I told him it was time to do the rest of them, saying "There's nothing like a global pandemic that will change your mind about something like this." The thing that REALLY changed my mind, though, was that I was following Dr. Sears on socials, along with another doctor who had written what I thought was a common sense approach book about vaccines. And both of them were openly defying what disease experts were saying about covid - laughing at masks, decrying the vaccines, saying it was stupid to stay away from people, etc. etc. All of a sudden, I realized I had been taken in by these people who didn't actually know better than the entire rest of the scientific community - they were actually the problem! I had let years of confirmation bias make my decisions for me instead of being the critical thinker I really am. But that pull of "I know something no one else does" is strong. It can make you feel like you're special and smarter than everyone else. But then you see something like Dr. Tenpenny - someone you thought was right - stand up and try to say that the mRNA vaccines were making people magnetic and you smack yourself in the head.
I have let go of SO many of my crunchy ways over the years. That first baby who got homemade food and just ate what we ate? She won't eat anything now. And she drinks a Red Bull every morning. The second baby who hardly even took a bottle because I was a SAHM by then and she only nursed? She eats chicken nuggets and fries twice a week in the car on the way to dance class. My grocery cart that used to only be filled with all organic everything and NEVER chips or processed foods is now more apt to be a bunch of produce (mostly organic still, some meat (also mostly organic), and then a 12 pack of soda, 3 4-pks of Red Bull, and at least one bag of flamin' hot Cheetos. I've learned that there are some things that still matter to me a lot (we pretty exclusively use re-useable containers and not ziplocks in lunches, for example), but other things aren't nearly as important as I was so convinced they were. And I'm still daily having to give myself grace for "failing" on some things because that crunchy life had me hard!
I loved everything about this episode!!! I felt like I went back in time 11 years to when I was pregnant with my oldest. I was introduced to this whole concept of natural unmedicated births through my older sister who used the Bradley method and had her first two babies at birth center. I even went to one of her classes with her and met my nephew within hours of his birth. It was so precious and obviously left a huge impression on me and how I approached my own pregnancies and births.
We had a doula and planned on a midwife hospital birth but of course she was not available the day my son was born. Thankfully my OBGYN was super open to all things natural birth (he went on to open a birth center with another doctor where my 2nd son was born). I distinctly recall being told to turn around and push on my back by the nurse, because that’s what she was used to the doctor wanting, and my doctor said “No. She will push in whatever position she wants.” I have no recollection of this because I was in the zone, but my doula told me that so proudly after the fact.
To say natural unmedicated birth was empowering doesn’t even begin to describe it. My 2nd was born in the water, with my former doula as my midwife at the aforementioned birth center. It was one of the most beautiful, full circle moments of my life. I used hypnobabies with both and my doula, turned midwife, told me I was one of her favorite people to watch give birth. I mean…that seems like a huge compliment!! 🤪
I declined the vitamin k shot and cloth diapered. We delayed hep B but otherwise everything else was on schedule. I breastfed and then exclusively pumped when complications with breastfeeding arose. You better BELIEVE I sleep trained and moved my babies out of my room earlier than most because they were loud and grunty sleepers and mama needed to SLEEP. I tried baby wearing but it never really clicked. I myself went to the chiropractor and took my babies, too. We did BLW. I guess you could say I was halfway crunchy. 🤪
My younger son had medical complications, which required him to have an MRI at about 4 weeks old and then surgery at 10 weeks. He had the most amazing team of professionals at that point and honestly, while it’s something I never want to relive, the care he/we did receive was amazing…little (big) things like my first nurse taking the hospital crib away and bringing in a regular bed so that I could nurse him side lying (he had to stay completely flat for several weeks after surgery).
Anyway…such tender memories. Thanks for tackling this topic with such openness and grace.
I was actually surprised at how many crunchy moms talked about co-bedding with their babies. This is a dangerous practice. Especially with babies under 6 months of age. I have worked in the field of child welfare for almost 30 years. Recently, in the county where I work, a mother lost her baby due to co-bedding. She had a second baby, co-bedded with that child as well. The second baby also died due to co-bedding. Now she has been found to be neglectful and is being criminally charged.
So many thoughts! My entry to pseudo crunchy was also though birth. (Although my mom was way ahead of her time and was crunchy in a lot of ways—I was homeschooled. I only went to the chiropractor, not a pediatrician. I think I got all my vaccines when I went to college!) I had a nurse midwife and a doula. I gave birth in the nurse midwife wing of the hospital, which was fantastic! I breastfed even though it was incredibly hard (thanks tongue and lip ties). I did the alternative schedule for vaccines - although we caught up by kindergarten. Looking back I would not have delayed any vaccines, but my pediatrician was so kind and gently helped me through it. Now that I know more about the diseases these vaccine prevent HOLY COW I wish I’d stuck to the original schedule. Luckily my kids did not get any of them!
We did baby led weaning, which was fun. My oldest’s first food was a literal pork chop bone. 😆 he also enjoyed fois gras and other interesting foods. However, he’s autistic and as he got older his diet shrunk (still healthy, but a lot more limited). He’s been a vegetarian for like 9 of his 11 years. His sister eats everything. So BLW ehh, it made meals fun rather than making baby food, but I don’t know if it’s the only way to go.
I did some homeopathics with my kids and I do cringe now because who even knows the dosage or side effects on those things. I could have seriously harmed my child because I was trying to avoid too much Tylenol for teething, for example. When you know better, you do better.
Now I would consider myself a fan of science, particularly after COVID. I do still like holistic methods and they have their place in our lives, but I’m really turned off on that community because of my experiences with loved ones who believe the more extreme parts of that movement, particularly the anti-vax side.
One area that I feel crunchy mom’s have somewhat right is the view on microplastics. That is an issue that I keep trying to navigate without feeling too fearful. It’s crazy-making to go all out on trying to avoid plastics. But it does feel like an area where we can do better!
I find this conversation fascinating. I have never been a crunchy mom, never had issues with hospitals, and never once considered not having an epidural! I do think that geographic location and just life experience impacts this so much. I am a geologist and am pretty science minded and sometimes think the maternal splenectomy skipped me. I was 30 when I was pregnant with my first in 2010. It felt weird, almost wrong (a total holdover from the don’t get pregnant in HS 90’s vibe that made pregnancy seem wrong, even as a grown married adult!). I felt like I had this little parasite inside me, lol. My second was a little different 6 years later, but I have never been the “wow I have this miracle inside and feel amazing” feeling-the whole thing is just weird, lol. However, I had a great obgyn and did a birthing class that was taught by a nurse who had been delivering babies for over 20 years. She really set expectations and made me not afraid of the epidural, which was my only fear of getting it was the actual needle in my back. But she also warned us about getting induced and we would be more likely to end up in a c-section, which I am now learning a lot of people don’t realize. But it was fine-my water broke with both my kids. Our hospital is 5 minutes from home(we live in Gilbert, a suburb of phoenix arizona). I was also working full time and had no reason to look beyond my OB (and one of my best friends was an OB as well, and I didn’t have many friends who had kids at the time either). We were fortunate to have united health care in 2010 and the whole birth was a $500 copay, a huge difference to the $3500 my daughter’s birth cost in 2016 with all the healthcare changes.
On the vaccination front, I remember doing a paper in 5th grade about polio. My mom is older (83 now) and she remembers kids in iron lungs and seeing some of these old diseases in action. I learned then that vaccinations are ever so important and I have honestly never understood not getting them unless there is a known family reaction. Spacing out is fine, just making sure we all have them is important. I am flabbergasted that the measles is spreading. Oh, I was also an avid breast feeder and pumped (both my kids went almost 2 years), but I would never do cry it out and my kids were terrible sleepers. So maybe there is some crunchy in me, but just after the birth part in some cases! But hats off to all the natural birthers that out there!
LOVED this conversation! I’d love to have a sequel sometime!!
I’m curious when the crunchy movement became anti-vax…I have always been on the crunchy spectrum. I grew up next door to a crunchy Baptist mom with 9 kids who vaccinated and also had her babies at home, breastfed, used essential oils and made her own foods. So I went into adulthood as an aspiring crunchy girl, but I still believed in western medicine.
I resonated with the idea that crunchiness is/was a moving target and nothing is quite enough. I still consider myself pretty crunchy - had a birthing center birth with a midwife, used the Bradley method, breastfed and cloth diapered, we use natural cleaners and care products, we are pescatarian, use essential oils for some things, we make our own kombucha and elderberry syrup, try to treat things naturally first and then use western medicine when needed. With all that “crunchiness”, I still believe in science though…all fully vaccinated and my ADHD kiddo takes meds.
Maybe for our family and a lot of other crunchy but not maha families, it’s less about the crunchiness and more about taking a wholistic approach to life and health.
I LOVED this episode. I’ve never been too crunchy but have a “soft crunch” to me if you will. 😂
1. I really struggle when looking for research on internet some of these things… where do you guys go and how do you know if it’s legit? FOR EXAMPLE a few months ago I started getting concerned about plastics in the kitchen after the black plastics study. Do I need to throw out all of my plastic containers and plates and bottles and bowls and utensils? After hours of research I STILL DON’T KNOW because I have no metric of “reliable”. So I’ve just settled with not microwaving them will replace with some other material once their time is up.
2. My husband is a ENT airway specialist. And WHOA ABSOLUTELY NO WHOLE GRAPES HOTDOGS ETC ARE SAFER THAN CUTTING THEM!!! I did not know this was a crunchy mom thing!
3. Wow the prenatal care you got from your midwives sounds amazing!!!! How do you find a practice that does that kind of stuff?
4. It’s so tough to know if you can trust the medical system… on one hand I completely trust the training because I see how much work it takes to get there… on the other hand I am completely distrustful because I’ve seen so much of the shit that takes place behind the scenes. There truly is a huge huge huge lack of accountability for physicians to adhere to best practices after they get out of residency and that is terrifying to think about
This is tangentially related (post COVID bazar health stuff), but I recently walked through my father-in-law’s pancreatic cancer diagnosis and subsequent passing.
After him being diagnosed in early January, I received many messages and urging from friends and family members for him to try taking a dog dewormer, which “reportedly” was “curing” stage 4 cancer. (There’s a guy with a blog who says he’s curing cancer left and right with a cocktail of dog dewormer and ivermectin.)
It seems that everyone in my small northern CA town who has or had cancer is taking either dog dewormer or ivermectin (or both) on a regular basis, and some are taking it preventatively.
I struggled with one family member who went hard, subscribed to the blog and bought the guy’s whole cocktail remedy. She told me that Trump was going to cure cancer and that she knows there are cures, but “they” don’t want to release it because of big pharma.
Fortunately, I had a friend who runs cancer clinical trials at UC San Francisco, who explained that these drugs will actively hurt him. It barely broke through.
It was such an infuriating experience to have such absurd solutions to an extremely difficult situation. Ultimately, he passed within 6 weeks of diagnosis and the whole argument was moot. I’m still so concerned about all the people in my town casually taking Ivermectin. 😬
As a Diabetes Educator Dietitian I hear ALL of the disease and nutrition related theories. While I validate individual experiences, the two that I immediately shut down without discussion are -
1. There is a known cure for Diabetes but Big Med and Big Pharm want to keep people sick because it makes them a lot of money
2. They "caught" Diabetes
So many other beliefs can be half-truths, so more layered discussion is always needed. However, most people want the easy answer and solution.
I moved 8 times before the age of 18 and attended 4 different elementary schools. I loved the vast majority of my childhood, and I definitely credit that experience with giving me resilience and the ability to put myself out there and make new friends. And STILL, when trying to decide to move cross-country my kids (going into 4th and 7th grades), I agonized over how it could negatively affect them. Two years later, we all agree that the move was the right choice, and they both grew through the experience.
Also, closer school = more likely to have neighborhood friends.
We have a son Jeremiah that was born with a disease called Tuberous sclerosis. Through that we learn a lot - when to do surgery, when to do meds, what kind of meds etc. where we diverted down a 'crunchy' mom and dad path was around autism schooling/training. We went and learn how to run 'home' school for our son and we tried that for about a year. The amount of exhaustion on the two of us was awful. We have two other older children and we just couldn't manage it. When we opened up the opportunity for him to go to school we both agreed and our whole family benefited from this. I remember feeling a bit guilty. But got over it after I saw the way it helped our whole family and the community by having Jeremiah as part of their lives.
I’m not even done with this episode yet, but it was delightful. Sarah had me rolling for a lot of the episode. It was a great discussion but the way you and Maggie shared so much of your personal journey made it feel light and enjoyable which we can all use a little more of right now. Appreciate yall always! 🫶🏻
I’m late to finishing this episode, but did want to raise my virtual hand as a homeschooler with fully-vaccinated children 🙋🏻♀️
I’m in the process of listening to this episode for the second time. I found it to be so interesting and insightful. However, I felt that there was still a tone that felt negative towards c-sections and I wanted to share my story in case it helps better understand why someone would have one (especially an elective one). Buckle up… this is a long one…
I have never been a “crunchy mom”, however, I watched “The Business of Being Born” in my 20s long before I was ever pregnant, and looking back, that documentary made me so set on home birthing and looked down at so many moms for having hospital births and especially having elective csections (even though I had no idea what it was like to give birth because I’d never given birth at that tjme). I honestly wish I hadn’t seen it because I’m positive I said some hurtful things to a friend who had just had an elective C-section (there’s a full scale irony coming about this… I’ll get there)…
Fast forward a few years, I relaxed for whatever reason about how to give birth (truly can’t remember a “why” for why my opinions changed — probably because I then realized getting pregnant was not so easy and needed medical interventions for that). I finally got pregnant after years of trying and ended up seeing a midwifery group that was licensed through my local hospital for all my OB care. They were FANTASTIC. IMO they were the best of both worlds — listened to me and respected my decisions, but allowed me to have a midwife deliver my baby at the hospital.
I had a great, relatively easy pregnancy with my first. the labor and delivery was anything but. I pushed for 3 hours, she finally delivered, then I hemorrhaged and lost a ton of blood. It was a whole thing. I didn’t walk normally for nearly a year (thank heavens I finally said something to my midwife and she referred me to pelvic floor PT immediately).
Fast forward another 3 years and I’m pregnant with my second. In the middle of covid. I got pregnant before covid was even mentioned in the states (Nov. 2019) and then found myself not being able to have my partner with me on all my OB visits, and in Aug. 2020 when I was due, hearing about so many hospitals not allowing even a partner to be there for the delivery. Let’s just say there was SO much stress during that pregnancy. But overall, it was a fairly healthy pregnancy until 32 weeks, when they had to do an ultrasound to check on something with my son’s kidneys and measured him already weighing in at over 6 lbs. They kept an eye on it and at 36 weeks he was measuring over 9 lbs. My midwife spoke with me at length and said she was very concerned that he was going to get stuck. My first birth was so traumatic and I pushed for so long, and she was under 8 lbs! Having a baby this big (I’m only 5’2”), she was really concerned for both me and him and thought having a C-section would be a safer option all around. But she said she would do whatever I decided, she just wanted to me to make an informed decision.
After consulting with my husband (because he couldn’t be at the appt so I had to go home and tell him everything), and thinking on it for several days, I opted to schedule a C-section. At first, I was so upset. I had DREAMED of getting a second chance at a “good birth” — the ones like Sarah talks about. I’d read books (like Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth) and taken classes and did all the things. I was angry I wasn’t getting the calm relaxing birth I’d dreamed off. And I had friends telling me I was making the wrong decision and that those ultrasounds are wrong (spoiler alert: this one was NOT. He ended up being 9 lbs 15oz and that was a week early).
But then I went to my scheduled C-section (a day late because a hurricane came and knocked out the power basically everywhere) and when I say that that birth ended up being so empowering and healing for me, I mean it with my whole heart. My midwife was in the room with me even though of course an OBGYN had to do the surgery. She followed and relayed all my requests (a big one being to drop the curtain when they started to pull my son out so I could see him being delivered). She took pictures of everything. The nurses in there were so kind and asked for preferences on music and scents in the room and everything. I was PRESENT and AWARE and it was a beautiful experience. My son came with no complications, I healed much more quickly and easily than I did with the first birth, and I truly have zero regrets about my decision to have an elective C-section.
All that to say, if you had a C-section — either by emergency or elected to have it — please know your birth is not less of a birth because it wasn’t a vaginal one. You may have a ton of complicated feelings around it if it wasn’t what you pictured, but you still brought a whole new human into this world and that’s pretty badass no matter how that baby came out.
Late to the party!
Loved this convo. I’ve had three children via c section. I very much had faith in my physician and good insurance so I trusted him to do his part. I remember being particularly nervous about the possibility of a C-section, and my mom made a good point. She brought up that as much as I don’t want anything bad to happen neither does my physician. They pay the most in liability insurance out of all physicians- their desire for good outcomes is high! Again, thankfully I have a great OB with great bedside manner alongside his medical acumen.
I am a dietitian I usually defer to medical experts, treat others how you want to be treated I guess! I do recognize that not every medical expert has “soft skills” when it comes to people and that can make all the difference when explaining a diagnosis or treatment plan.
Last point - I never had the urge to do a “natural” or home birth. I think about maternal/fetal mortality rates before we had readily available intervention services. That usually kept me wanting to be with a medical team should I (which I did need emergency c section) need it.
Loved this conversation. I was raised by a crunchy mom and married a very uncrunchy man. I remember getting the HPV shot before getting married and telling my mom and her being horrified and saying, "you could have died!" And me being like, "yeah but I didn't and now I won't get cervical cancer." But I actually came on here to say that the scientific/medical side can be just as "in or out" and move the goal post on you. I remember joining a woohoo free mom's group on Facebook and they were hyper fixated on safety. Safe sleep, safe car seats, safe hair chairs, etc. They were actually judgey about things like baby led weaning, bed sharing, and buying organic food.
The one mom group I never felt judged in and only ever fully supported was an Exclusive Pumping group. Whatever the reason you didn't breastfeeding was supported, if you supplemented you were supported, if you wanted to quit you were supported, if you transitioned to breastfeeding you were supported, etc. it was a really beautiful community. And also exclusive pumping is a bitch. I couldn't breastfeeding due to my anatomy and was open to formula but my first had bad reactions to both dairy and soy based formula. I pumped for nine months (on a dairy and soy free diet). With my second I planned to go straight to formula but he was born during the formula storage and so I pumped for four months before switching.
I'm late to the party in commenting, but I just had to chime in. I was pregnant with my first kid in 2008-09. PEAK "Business of Being Born" time period - and I lived in a small town in Alaska which totally contributed to my head-first dive into crunchiness.
I was DEVASTATED when I had to have a c-section with my first baby after hiring a doula, planning a totally unmedicated, "here's my birth plan that you WILL follow" birth. But the crooked kid had other plans and I ended up with a c-section... which I think contributed to the rest of my "I'm going to do everything else 'right'" attitude. Breastfeeding was an absolute MUST, even though I had to go back to work. I even timed my lunch break with the mid-day feeding so I could go nurse her myself at daycare (hey, privilege to do that!). Baby-led weaning?Abso-freaking-lutely. Make my own baby food despite that full time job? You bet. Fight with the daycare so they wouldn't feed her absolute crap and would respect my "need" for her to have breast milk before anything else until she was 1? Yep. (Listen, I would do this one again... why were they giving actual babies pop tarts????)
I fought my husband when he wanted to take her to the doctor for a cold. I used the Hyland's teething tablets even after we were told not to because "that's just big Pharma not wanting us to use natural remedies." And I most certainly didn't vaccinate on schedule because Dr. Sears was so much smarter than all the other doctors - and also, he wasn't *against* vaccines, he just thought there was a better way.
Then we moved from Kodiak to a much more "conventional" kind of place (the deep Deep South) and we got kicked out of a pediatrics practice for not vaccinating on schedule. Know what that did? Made me stop all together! The letter we got from the practice (a practice that had ok'd our alternate schedule to that point) read to me like "you're an idiot parent and we know better than you, so you either do what we say or get out." It wasn't very conducive to convincing me that vaccinating was the right thing to do. So instead, via the crunchy mom network in my town, I found that one doctor who wouldn't question you if you said no to vaccines and switched. I did ask him questions and had a very open and honest conversation with him about them, but ultimately decided to stop all together when my oldest was about 3.5 and my youngest was about 6 months.
Military moves had us all over the country from that point until 2019 when we got to where we are now. In the other two places we lived, I continued to not vaccinate, getting exemptions in both CO and OR to send my kids to school. The whole time, I was moderating a Facebook group that was ostensibly founded around breastfeeding and early nutrition support, but that also was a hidden haven of all things crunchy. I was deep into vaccines bad, essential oils good, home remedies the best, doctors should be avoided, etc. etc. etc. And I KNEW that all of the mainstream medical world was just out to get us!
In 2019, we moved yet again, and I, once again, used the crunchy mom network to find that one provider who wouldn't give us a hard time about not vaccinating. And then, COVID. At this point, my kids were in 6th and 3rd grades. It had been a loooong time since either of them had had a shot. It had been a long time since *I* had had a shot. And then the second the covid vaccines were available, I lined us all up like it was the only thing that would save us. And then the next check up we had with our doctor, I told him it was time to do the rest of them, saying "There's nothing like a global pandemic that will change your mind about something like this." The thing that REALLY changed my mind, though, was that I was following Dr. Sears on socials, along with another doctor who had written what I thought was a common sense approach book about vaccines. And both of them were openly defying what disease experts were saying about covid - laughing at masks, decrying the vaccines, saying it was stupid to stay away from people, etc. etc. All of a sudden, I realized I had been taken in by these people who didn't actually know better than the entire rest of the scientific community - they were actually the problem! I had let years of confirmation bias make my decisions for me instead of being the critical thinker I really am. But that pull of "I know something no one else does" is strong. It can make you feel like you're special and smarter than everyone else. But then you see something like Dr. Tenpenny - someone you thought was right - stand up and try to say that the mRNA vaccines were making people magnetic and you smack yourself in the head.
I have let go of SO many of my crunchy ways over the years. That first baby who got homemade food and just ate what we ate? She won't eat anything now. And she drinks a Red Bull every morning. The second baby who hardly even took a bottle because I was a SAHM by then and she only nursed? She eats chicken nuggets and fries twice a week in the car on the way to dance class. My grocery cart that used to only be filled with all organic everything and NEVER chips or processed foods is now more apt to be a bunch of produce (mostly organic still, some meat (also mostly organic), and then a 12 pack of soda, 3 4-pks of Red Bull, and at least one bag of flamin' hot Cheetos. I've learned that there are some things that still matter to me a lot (we pretty exclusively use re-useable containers and not ziplocks in lunches, for example), but other things aren't nearly as important as I was so convinced they were. And I'm still daily having to give myself grace for "failing" on some things because that crunchy life had me hard!