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- [00:01]
A
Close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today.
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B
Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh, my gosh, they're so fast.
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A
And breathe.
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B
Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste.
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C
Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-contacts.
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D
It's nature.
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It'S freedom. It's the open, it's the earth, it's the grassrooting of our nature. I mean, after all, aren't we, to some degree, primal? That's the whole lure, that's the whole attraction of going out into nature and camping and being one with the earth. And there is something about the freshness of air that just makes you feel better. You just feel so alive. After all, it's freedom and nature.
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I mean, after all, what could go wrong, right? I mean, we're talking about the ability to connect with the earth, and it's our own bodies that we should listen to. After all, I mean, what could go wrong? Our bodies know the best for us. Simply saying that life.
- [01:41]
Finds a way. Life finds a way. What could be wrong? The body will take care of itself. That is the key message, or one of the key messages from the Free Birth Certificate Society. Definitely not a sponsor. Now, let me set this up here. In this episode, we're going to tackle something that has made recent national and international news because of a piece, a very good journalistic piece that came out of the Guardian. Okay, this was at the end of November 2025. To give you the exact date, it was on Saturday, 22nd November, 2025. And we're still doing this within the first week of December 2025. So this is rel. And the title of this Guardian piece was quote, influencers Make Millions Pushing Wild Births. Now, the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world. End quote. Again, not my words. That's exactly the title from the Guardian article published September 22, 2025. Now, let me be very clear here. Patients are absolutely free, absolutely free and encouraged to make their own decisions. That's called patient autonomy. That is the foundation of informed consent and informed refusal. So for a long time, it was, you listen to what I say. Medicine was very paternalistic. And if you don't do it, then I'm gonna fire you. Now, there's a role for that? Absolutely. There's definitely a role for that. If a patient is abusive, you don't have to take that. Respect goes both ways. And we've had to do that over my 25 years of practice. Many times we're like, you know, we don't yell at you, we don't curse at you. And so we're not going to accept that on our stance either. I mean, it's professionalism that we have in our part. We also respect that in kind. So we will be very, very happy to give you another referral. We'll watch you for X number of days as is required by law. But we will release you now from our practice because we have violated our patient physician relationship trust and mutual respect. Totally fine. I mean, we don't have to sit there and take abuse, for heaven's sakes. Nor do we need to be coerced to do something that we don't feel comfortable with either that is federally protected. So the point is, respect and autonomy goes both ways. And we need to encourage a patient if they choose to do a path of therapy or decline a path of therapy, that's totally okay. Our job is to give them education, give them the advocacy that they need, and still, if they're in their right state of mind, they decline the evidence based approach to go, yay, we're on your team. We work for you. We don't agree with this, but it's totally okay. You get to do what you do as long as we have documented, done our part to explain to you the risks. And we will document that. We have to do that. And if you're admitted to the hospital, then we have to potentially sign something called against medical advice. But we're not mad at you and we'll be here to catch you should you fall. Because again, that's what we want to do, is leave a patient exposed to no care when potentially a harmful issue happens. So in this episode, we're gonna talk about something that's been gaining traction, which is why the Guardian Society did this article. So here's what I'm trying to get at. If a patient asks you your opinion on either free birth technique or wild birth technique, I don't want you to say, I don't know what that is. Well, I'm gonna tell you because the wild birth technique is the even more kind of out there, out of bounds opinion as opposed to free birth. Free birth is, hey, I may get some prenatal care, I may not, I don't know. But typically I do. But at Home. I want to have a unattended delivery, meaning I just want my lay family and friends around. And it will be okay. After all, life finds a way. So it'll be okay. I mean, life, the body will figure it out. So no certified nurse, midwife, hell, not even a lay midwife. And nobody in the healthcare profession is going to help me deliver because I'm going to do this at home. That is called a free birth. The wild birth is that kicked up a notch, which says your body is not going to do you wrong. Your body is going to do everything it can to protect you and the baby because that's how, that's what the body does. Guess they haven't heard about preeclampsia, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, growth restriction, gestational hypertension, eclampsia, gestational diabetes, and so far down the line. But nonetheless, the body's not going to do anything bad to you, which is one of the premises again of the wild birth and free birth society. So just forego all of that. You're pregnant, hey, good for you. Your body will take care of you. And so we'll abandon all standard prenatal care and test during the antepartum period and do delivery unmanned. So free birth is just unmanned delivery, so to speak, while birth is that plus absence of prenatal care. What could go wrong? I mean, honestly, I mean, it sounds fine, right? I mean, what could technically go wrong? Wow, this is actually a thing, guys. And I had to learn a lot about this because I'd heard peripherally, you know, these little rumors of things going on for about the last, really five years. But because I want to stick to evidence based things, I kind of put that off to the side. Well, this new publication from, this new investigative piece from the Guardian really does need some attention. So very quickly we're just going to address what this is more for all of our awareness. We are going to talk about, of course, the American College of Nurse Midwives, acog, smfm, American kind of pediatrics all pretty much have the same vibe here, which is, hey, things can go bad so fast that having a delivery in a non clinical setting doesn't have to be a hospital. I mean, it could be a certified birthing center. At least there's somebody there that's okay. For low risk patients, that may be a thing. So people always get this wrong. Every professional decides against a non hospital delivery. That's not true. That's not true at all. Actually, it says in the birthing center with trained professionals that have quick access to a hospital in a low risk patient setting. That may be okay. Even a home birth with a trained certified nurse midwife in a patient who is otherwise low risk, who's had the appropriate evaluation may be okay. But the safest option the safest option tends to be in a hospital with blood bank access and an operating room because labor and delivery is predictably unpredictable. So Podcast Family I think I've set it up enough. I just thought this was so interesting and it's kind of so out there that we had to cover this. So in this episode, we're going to tackle the potential perils and the appeals of this issue called Free Birth and Wild Birth Movement. It's kind of out there. Now that I've done all that, let's get to it.
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This is Dr. Chapa's obgyn no spin podcast.
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C
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E
This message may be shocking to many millennials. If you are one, you might want to sit down. Right now, loads of people are searching the following on low rise jeans, halter top, velour tracksuit, puka shell necklace, disc belt. You likely placed these in the dark of your closet in 2004, never to be seen again. But if you can find it in yourself to dust them off, there are a lot of people who will give you money for them. Sell on Depop, where taste recognizes taste.
- [10:37]
D
I'm simply saying that life.
- [10:40]
Finds a way that's pretty much the at the heart of this movement, which is, hey, it's nature. Life will get you through this. Your body's mechanics, the naturalness of this will work.
- [10:58]
I don't mean to make fun of it. I'm really not. And guys, I do believe there's something about grounding the practice, the exercise of meditation and mindfulness where you take off your shoes and you go walk through grass. As long as the grass isn't full of poop or snakes or something. And that grounding, that feeling of the earth, hey man, I'm all for that. And like I said, I'm very traditional medicine. But there is something to get your Butt outside, get some vitamin D. The sun is phenomenal, which is why we have seasonal affective disorder in parts of the world, part of our country that have a lot of cloud cover. Right. So there is something to that. No question. However, the idea that nature will entirely take care of you. Obviously you've never been out into the woods in West Texas because nature will kill you. So this is the idea. It's a right concept as everything else in a new fandom trend takes a little piece of good information that is actually correct but extrapolates it incorrectly. So free birth. Wow. Birth is actually a big thing right now on social media. Surprise, surprise. And it's gaining a lot of traction because of the distrust of medicine. And I get that y', all, I'm very profess medical, professional, society friendly. I get that. However, I also do get the room for discourse, the room for open discussion, the room to question things based on some of that's tradition, some of that may be, let's call it what it is, you know, corporate sponsorship of something where medicine, you know, soon becomes very similar or assimilates to a, you know, a pharmacy ad on tv. You're like, where's the line here? Let's just stick with the evidence. And then without getting the influences of other things. This is what frustrates not only physicians, but obviously patients. And this is where we are. So this, this rebuttal, this refusal of mainstream medicine is absolutely allowed in medicine because of patient autonomy. However, patient autonomy is a fine line and it's a fair balance, fine balance between that advocacy for the patient to be well informed and at the same time allowing a potential birth atrocity like is covered a heartbreaking story that is covered in the Guardian piece. I'm gonna put the link in our show notes. But of course as you would expect, the horrible case of a, of a birth shoulder dystocia which happens at home, you can pretty much imagine how that went. And it's horrifying. And not only because the labor and adverse issues are predictably unpredictable, but the grief and the self blame and regret that at time the mother and or the entire family have about choosing this when it otherwise potentially not that all things are preventable. And I'm not saying that, I'm saying they're much better manageable when they're in a clinical healthcare setting. Okay. Because this story does talk about almost this very cult like vibe here of these societies. And that is not my words. Okay, Please don't send me any ugly messages because Michael, I'm sure Deletes half of those stuff anyway. Some of them gets through. I don't know. I, I tell them just leave it alone, because I'm all for open discussion, but sometimes he's like, yeah, we're not, we're not sharing that, but whatever. And it goes through. It's a very long piece, very long piece. And it really goes through some heartbreaking causes. The short of it is, guys, is that an eclamptic seizure can kill somebody. Postpartum hemorrhage will kill a woman if we don't have uterotonic agents or the right skill to protect that and, or give her blood products. Shoulder dystocia may potentially severely neuronally injure a child and or cause fetal death. There's so much to potentially lose here, so much potential lose here, that our job isn't to be confrontational, is to give the patient exactly this education. If you are choosing a planned home birth, please, please know that that is part of your free will and ability to choose where you want to deliver. That's called patient autonomy. But there is a statement from the ACOG that predates Covid, but it was said again in 2020 in the middle of the COVID pandemic. And it's ACOG statement on birth settings. And of course, we'll post that link in our show notes. But as you would think, it says exactly what the previous guidance stated, which was ACOG's Committee Opinion 697, that the safest place is in a hospital setting. The next step down is at a certified birth center that has quick access or open communication to a hospital setting and that has medically trained peripartum personnel there. The least safe seems to be unattended home birth. Now, let me be very clear. This is unattended on purpose. There are some unattended home births where, you know, we have plenty of grand mole tips like G8S, G9S, and that's a risk factor, of course, not only for macrosomia and shoulder dystocia, because babies tend to get bigger as the pregnancies go, but also for a postpartum hemorrhage. But sometimes, you know, they just have a couple of contractions and boom, there's a kid. Now, thankfully, because they've been through it several times, they kind of know what to do. So that is the unplanned, undesired, unattended birth, because things happen so quickly. That's not what I'm talking about here. Even though that's risky in and of itself. I'm talking about the deliberate decision to when I break my bag of water, when I have regular onset of contractions, I'm going to stay home and do this joker in my bedroom. One, hope you have a lot of sheets and towels. Two, knock yourself out. It is part of patient autonomy. But we do have to be also that patient advocate to go. I really recommend you not do that and here's why. In an empathic and compassionate manner. So again, I'm not going to cover a bunch of articles here. I just wanted to give you those two references from, from the college. There is also a very nice piece from the New York Times and I'm not very New York Times friendly, but they do have a nice article that also covered this on the harms of unattended home birth based on, on this popularity, based on social media. So it is something that people are reading and that are out there so very quick. I, I and this also stems from two things. One, this Guardian article that came out, and somebody did message me actually when this came out the next day at the end of November, said, hey, can you just put something together? And I'm like, well, yeah, but there's not a lot to say except, you know, basically, buyer beware. I mean, if the patient wants to take the risks into her own hands, and that's fine. But there is a distinction between wild birth, which is absolutely no care at all, antepartum or intrapartum, which even extends, I guess, to postpartum, whereas free birth is. Some of those patients may elect to have at least some testing done to allow them to have an unattended birth, which in and of itself is very risky. But there's a lot of dangers here and a lot of this has to do with past ptsd, past patient dissatisfaction, a rejection of common medical practices and norms for a variety of issues.
- [18:17]
And when this has actually been published, it's really not for cost, guys, because there are a lot of patient financial packages and or state funds that can help patients for emergency coverage. This is typically those who have a distrust of the medical community, a distrust of medical professionals and or nursing professionals. This is deeper than just finances. So please don't message me and say some patients don't have the money to go to the hospital. I absolutely get that because those are all my patients, because there's ways to help them. The hospital will help them either through local funds, charitable gifts, state funds and or federal funds. So most of these are a deliberate rejection of medical care because of distrust or past negative experiences, not because of a financial issue. Okay, so the wild birth or home birth phenomenon, it really is kind of wild. And it really does go to show how a dissatisfaction with with a current system, in this case, you know, medical care and traditional prenatal care, can really actually kind of go south. So just because it's nature and just because it's natural doesn't always mean it's good for you. Just ask those bitten by a rattlesnake in one of our Texas woods.
- [19:41]
Look, man, a little bubbly bubbling brook, sounds of birds in the air. I love it. It's great. But nature is not always your friend. Podcast family. We've covered the free birth and the wild birth movement just as part of our own awareness of what's going on. So if patient asks you what do you think? Say, well, I'm all, I'm on your side. I want to be your advocate. However, that doesn't mean we always have to agree on you potentially picking a dangerous with devastating outcomes. Decision making that decision can be very traumatic. So let's talk about it. That's all I'm saying. Free birth and wild birth pocket family. Now that we've done all that, Michael, let's take it home.
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This has been Dr. Chapa Zobi Gyn no Spin podcast.
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Podcast family. Thank you for your support. Thank you for listening. And as always, we'll see you on another episode of the no Spin Podcast.