In this powerful episode, I sit down with Diane Ortega, a Certified Nurse Midwife and co-founder of the first nurse-midwife-owned freestanding birth center in Arizona. Diane shares her personal journey from being an office manager to becoming a midwife, a path inspired by her own "profoundly different" and empowering birth experience with midwives after a conventional hospital birth.

Our conversation is a deep dive into the philosophy of midwifery as an act of "mothering the mother". We discuss the "medical-industrial complex" and how the current system often disempowers women through fear-based tactics, taking away their choices in a process that should be empowering. Diane challenges the "healthy mom, healthy baby" narrative, pointing out that it often dismisses the emotional trauma a mother may experience during birth, which she then has to process while navigating new motherhood.

Diane also introduces her podcast and coaching brand, "The Midwife Life" , which expands the concept of midwifery beyond childbirth to support all women "midwifing something in their life" —whether it's new motherhood or a midlife career change. We explore the critical need for a "village," a community of support that is often missing for modern women, and how she is building programs to help women find that connection.

You'll also hear about:

(01:32) Diane's work making out-of-hospital birth accessible to more families by accepting almost all insurance.
(03:30) How she views midwifery and mothering as "very similar, if not the same".
(13:15) The fear-based culture surrounding birth and how it disempowers women from trusting their bodies.
(22:21) Why birth is "not a medical event until it is," and how hospital protocols are often based on tradition, not evidence.
(23:20) My personal story of choosing a home birth, which was sparked by the simple, primal desires to be able to eat and control the lighting.
(27:57) The loss of the "village" for modern mothers and the isolation that comes from being a "transplant" without family support.
(38:23) The one cultural mother code Diane would rewrite: the "ridiculous" expectation that women should "bounce right back" after giving birth.
(43:52) My update on my TEDx talk being censored for including information on the high U.S. maternal mortality rate and the "hostile takeover" of birth from midwives.
(49:43) Diane's final definition of "Rewrite the Mother Code": "releasing the societal norms" and "put[ting] our oxygen mask on first".

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203: Midwifing Your Life: Birth, Transitions, and Creating Your Village with Diane Ortega

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