Episode 254 Q&A With Prenatal-Focused Chiropractor Dr. Elliot Berlin

“We are pieces of an important puzzle and there are a lot of pieces. Working together, we can effect a lot of change.”Joining Meagan on the podcast today is Dr. Elliot Berlin, a renowned prenatal chiropractor based out of Los Angeles who is making a huge impact on the birth community. Dr. Berlin is extremely knowledgeable and experienced in holistic birth preparation and advocacy. He is a birth doula, hosts the Informed Pregnancy Podcast, and his most recent project is the Informed Pregnancy Plus streaming service where birth documentaries and other educational videos can be found on one online platform. Dr. Berlin and Meagan discuss TONS of topics that come from your questions! Topics include: What happens during an adjustmentWhen to start prenatal chiropractic careBodyworkAdjustments during laborCPDBreech PresentationPubic SymphysisSupport at homeBreastfeedingAdditional LinksDr. Berlin’s WebsiteInformed Pregnancy PlusPediatric Chiropractic Search WebsiteNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, hello everybody. You guys, we have a very special episode for you today. We have Dr. Elliot Berlin with us today and he’s actually live with me so that’s pretty cool that I actually get to see his face live via Zoom. Dr. Berlin: It feels like we are in the same room. I’ll be honest. Meagan: Right? As live as you can get through a computer. I feel like this is our new norm these days. This is how live works. Dr. Berlin: Yeah. And you know, we got used to it. Meagan: Yeah, we did. We got used to it pretty dang fast actually. We’re so excited to have you on today and we have so many amazing questions that our listeners and followers have asked. But I first want to just talk a little bit about you and who you are so if anyone doesn’t know who Dr. Elliot Berlin is, you need to know and you need to go follow his page right now. Push pause unless you are driving. You can do that later and go follow @doctorberlin on Instagram because he’s amazing and has so many incredible things and has done—I mean, for years—so many incredible things in the birthing community. Dr. Berlin is an award-winning pregnancy-focused chiropractor. If you don’t know yet, on this podcast, we love chiropractic care. He’s a certified birth doula and host of the Informed Pregnancy Podcast. So again, if you haven’t followed his page or his podcast, press pause. Go follow along and go—what’s the word? Subscribe to his podcast— Informed Pregnancy Podcast. He combines his passion for entertainment with his desire to educate and spread awareness about important issues in the birth industry. We know that in the birth industry, we have a lot of issues that need to be talked about. His latest project is the brand new streaming channel on Informed Pregnancy Plus dedicated to all things fertility, pregnancy, labor, and parenting. Informed Pregnancy Plus So, Dr. Berlin, I would love to actually start right there before we get into these questions. Will you tell us more about this new project that you’ve got going on? Dr. Berlin: Thank you for having me and for the incredible work that you do. I was just telling you recently that I feel like we are pieces of an important puzzle and there are a lot of pieces. Working together, we can effect a lot of change. The Informed Pregnancy Plus is a streaming platform. Everything grew organically from me really being a very medical-minded person wanting to go to medical school. Sometimes little arrows pop up. I see my son play video games and he’s not sure where to go, then a big arrow pops up and says, “Go this way.” I get those arrows sometimes and it led me on a more holistic path. I fell in love with chiropractic and massage. I smooshed them together to make chirossage. I ended up with my wife and I having a fertility struggle. We ended up overcoming that with natural means when medical options ran out— and she is a psychologist. We started this mind/body program together, wellness care, with an eye on helping people boost fertility. Over time, that turned into babies and pregnancy. Again, coming from a much more medical background—I used to work in ambulances and emergency rooms—everything was brand new to me on the more natural front. Meagan: Mhmm, yeah. Dr. Berlin: I had never heard of doula. So I would get questions a lot that I didn’t know answers to. It still happens regularly. I would go on to research. I’d talk to experts, read, and try to prepare an answer that was not, “This is what you should do or not do,” but “These are the facts as we know them. What do you want to do?” As I’d get the same questions over and over again, I started to write that as a blog. It became a magazine for a minute when people still printed stuff and then before I knew anything about podcasts, I was doing a podcast. Then I made a couple of documentaries, one of them about VBAC, Trial of Labor. It’s a beautiful film and when we finished it, I realized that the only thing I know less about making a documentary is what to do with it once you have one. How do people get to see it? Right when it came out, there was this big flash of excitement about it. There were screenings and all sorts of people were buying it in lots of different ways and showing it in lots of different ways, but then that excitement fizzled out. It was out there in the blogosphere and the webosphere but people weren’t finding it. I was getting these crushing emails saying, “Hey. I saw your movie, Trial of Labor, and I really loved it. I just wished I would have seen it before I had my baby.” I was like, “No, I made it so you could see it before you had your baby.” Meagan: Right. Dr. Berlin: So after talking to some of the other filmmakers in the space, I realized that I’m not the only one having this problem. There’s not an easy place where people can go and get iconic films like The Business of Being Born, Orgasmic Birth, The Mama Sherpas, Breastmilk, so on and so forth. So I just decided, “Why not make it easy for anybody to access from anywhere without having to pay $25 for each film?” and just boom. You can have it on your phone or your TV. That’s how Informed Pregnancy Plus was born. Every day, we are working on acquiring licensing for more great content. It’s expanded from film to also web series, also mind and body like yoga and meditations and workshops. My wife has a workshop on there on relationships how to still like your partner after you have a baby together. We have one on birth plans. We have one on sleep. It’s just growing all the time. Anybody can try it absolutely free at informedpregnancy.tv. It also has apps for Apple, Android, and Roku. After that, it’s very affordable. It’s $7 a month. Meagan: That’s what I was going to say. It’s $6.99 a month or $59 a year. That’s pretty dang affordable. Dr. Berlin: That was our goal. If you have an internet connection, a device, and $60 for the year, you have access to all of this great content. That’s what we were hoping to achieve. I don’t know how I’m going to survive. It’s like each element of this is a full-time job. Meagan: A full-time plus. Dr. Berlin: Full-time plus like Informed Pregnancy Plus but thankfully we have a small crew here but very dedicated to the project and very hardworking, very savvy. It’s growing both in terms of content and in terms of viewership. The films are finally having an avenue where they can make a greater impact. Meagan: Absolutely. I love that so much. I wish I had something like this back when I was in my childbearing years or having babies, I should say because even the time. In my opinion, how much time I spent researching VBAC and all of the things during pregnancy, even those courses like yoga classes and all of these things, I spent way more time than I would have money. It would have been so much more worth it to just buy a subscription like this and have it all in one great platform. Dr. Berlin: I mean, that’s the goal. Especially for people who live in areas where there aren’t prenatal yoga classes. We don’t have a ton yet, but we are always adding more. We have Baby by Simone on there for people who can’t go to a prenatal workout class. She’s got great workouts. The whole idea is that no matter where you are, these tools should be accessible to everybody. Thankfully, they are trickling their way through the internet and people are finding them. I’m getting fewer messages about, “I wish I had seen your film before I had my baby,” so that’s very rewarding in the way that finances can’t reward. Review of the Week Meagan: Okay, so we do have a Review of the Week so we are going to get into that before we jump into all of the amazing information that Dr. Berlin has. This is from 471046246me and it says, “My Labor and Delivery Nurse Told Me About The VBAC Link.” Oh my gosh, that makes me so excited. If you’re a labor and delivery nurse, thank you, thank you, thank you for the love and we would love for you to continue sharing with your patients. It says, “I had an emergency C-section six months ago with my first baby. I planned and prepared my entire pregnancy for a non-medicated, vaginal birth with midwives in a hospital. I had an amazing team. Labor was going great. Hard, but I felt strong. But my son had other plans that involved wrapping himself in his umbilical cord so the sunroof exit he went. Ha ha,” she says. “In my recovery room, my nurse told me that she had an HBAC and told me to listen to The VBAC Link. I am so thankful that she recommended y’all to me because I already am stoked for my VBAC and I’m not even pregnant yet. Thank you for the work you do. I can’t wait for y’all to come back from your break.” This was back in 2022. It says, “These stories fill my day with so much joy when I take my son for my daily walks.” Oh, thank you so much for your review. You guys, we do love these reviews. We appreciate them so much. We always welcome them in wherever you leave them. You can Google “The VBAC Link” and leave us a review. You can do it on Apple Podcasts. You can message us. You know it. Wherever, we love your reviews so bring them over and maybe they will be read on the next podcast. Q&A Meagan: If you guys are wondering, we will make sure to have all of his links for his platforms in the show notes so make sure to check out the show notes. Dr. Berlin: Thank you.What Happens During an Adjustment?Meagan: Without further ado, I mean there are so many questions. I don’t know if we’ll get to all of them today, but I was shocked, but then I thought, “Oh well, from someone that had never gone to an adjustment before during pregnancy, I didn’t know either.” One of the questions is, “What happens during an adjustment? What does that look like?” Dr. Berlin: These, I’m sure, are going to be amazing questions because they come from real people who are very curious. This is a great question. The answer is it’s different from chiropractor to chiropractor. Generally, the one thing we all have in common is that we’re all looking for restriction in the bones—so where two bones come together, they form a joint. There should be good movement between those two bones, a certain amount of good movement. If they become restricted or totally locked up, they can create problems for you. It may be a problem like you feel like a loss of range of motion or swelling around that restricted joint that starts to become an issue that presses on nearby things like nerves or other tissue. Or it may be a problem that you don’t feel. It might just be restriction where you should have fluid movement. If you’re talking about your low back, hips, and pelvis, those kind of restrictions, that’s the baby’s studio apartment. So where the baby should be able to move freely, your body may not be able to accommodate that. So what we all have in common, really, is that we look for those restrictions and we try to release them. We try to restore motion between those restricted bones around the joint. There are a lot of different ways to find them diagnostically, a lot of different ways to restore movement therapeutically so if you go to a bunch of different chiropractors, you might have very different experiences. Then sometimes, chiropractors also add on top of that other modalities that they do whether it’s a physiological therapeutic thing like electric stim or heat or ultrasound or other types of body work like massage. We tend to combine those two together in our practice. What the adjustment is a restoration of movement where it was previously restricted where two bones come together. Any two bones in the body can pretty much be adjusted but many chiropractors primarily focus on the spine and pelvis and maybe the major extremities. Meagan: Yeah. Like you said, it’s the baby’s apartment. I remember my chiropractor telling me how my pelvis shifted. My right side would shift forward, so it would kind of be off. She was like, “You need to have it aligned for the baby to come out of the apartment.” Dr. Berlin: Yeah. Meagan: I actually wasn’t having a ton of pain. I couldn’t have told you that my pelvis was wonky like that, but she was like, “It’s so easy. You can do it getting in and out of a car or walking up stairs or putting a laundry basket on your hip.” There is so much that happens during pregnancy. Dr. Berlin: That’s before the baby gets there sitting on your hip. Meagan: Right. Your body can get out of alignment through pregnancy. Dr. Berlin: That’s one of the interesting things though. If you come in even if you do have pain but there’s nothing restricted, then on the pure chiropractic front, there’s really nothing for us to do. Sometimes it’s the opposite. You can have hypermobility where things are moving too much. There are ways we can treat that as well, but the adjustment wouldn’t be one of them in that direct area. But on the other hand, you could have restrictions that you don’t feel. We would still want to address them if that’s what you want to do.Bodywork Meagan: Yeah. You touched a little bit on bodywork. That was kind of a question that was answered a little bit farther down on our list, but what all does bodywork look like with that? You talked about massage and things like that. Is there more to it or is it just more like prenatal massage and then a chiropractor? Dr. Berlin: Bodywork is a vague term, even more vague than chiropractic. There are a lot of different kinds. In our office, what we do is massage therapy. It’s more of a clinical massage therapy so it’s focused. It’s usually 25 minutes long. It’s targeted in a specific area. When it comes to musculoskeletal health in general, I see myself as WD-40. I look for things that are stiff, tight, and restricted, and try to get more motion in there. The other side of that coin is duct tape where things are too weak or unstable, somebody’s got to help bring that back together again. That’s more like a personal trainer or a physical therapist. When we are working together, we can get really good balance and function and strength around the muscles and bones of the body. You can really feel wonderful even through all of the different stages of pregnancy, sometimes even with multiples all the way until the end. When things are out of whack, sometimes not even a month into pregnancy, you start to feel weird things happening to your body. Bodywork can be a lot of different things. For us, it’s that more clinical medium to deep tissue, finding muscles, tendons, and fascia that are too stiff, tight, and rigid and trying to use massage strokes to elongate them, lengthen them, and restore normal tone. Other things that we infuse are trigger-point therapy. Sometimes you have a tendon coming to a bone or the center of a muscle where there’s an accumulation of all of the tension in one area so we use trigger-points to release that. Back when I was doing birth work, we would also do a lot of reflexology, cranial massage, craniosacral therapy, jaw releases, and anything that’s going to release the mind and the body through the process. Not so much in the office, we do craniosacral therapy a lot. We have two pediatric chiropractors that work from newborn through adolescence and they do a lot of craniosacral. Meagan: Yeah, my daughter had torticollis from my C-section actually. Dr. Berlin: Oh, interesting. Meagan: It was literally after birth when she was little. Then it just kept getting worse and all of a sudden, her ear was touching her shoulder but her shoulder wasn’t going up. Her ear was going down. Dr. Berlin: Right. Taco neck, they call it. Meagan: Yeah. It was pretty dang bad. We went to PT and that was great, but ended up finding a craniosacral one. Anyway, it was amazing. They did this adjustment and suddenly she was back up. She wasn’t fussy and having acid reflux and all of these amazing things. It is really cool. Dr. Berlin: It is so gentle yet powerful at the same time. Meagan: Right! PT was actually hard on us. It was a lot of forcing her to get in these positions and things then just a few chiropractor adjustments of craniosacral work was a game changer for us. Dr. Berlin: That’s amazing. Meagan: And a lot more sleep for this mama, right? Dr. Berlin: Yeah. It’s not just great for the baby. It’s great for the parents. When to Start Chiropractic Care During Pregnancy Meagan: Yeah. Well, awesome. So when should someone start chiropractic care during pregnancy? Is it something like, “Hey, I’m thinking about conceiving. I should start now.” Should we always be seeing? What does it look like? Dr. Berlin: A lot of that depends on your goals. If you want to optimize your body for pregnancy, it would be great to know ahead of time when you’re definitely not pregnant because there’s a lot of stuff that we can work on that we can’t get to once you’re pregnant like all of the core muscles, psoas, hip flexors, and the ones that go behind the baby. Loosening that stuff up if it’s tight before you get pregnant is ideal. That happens in my case more frequently either if people are on a fertility journey or they had a pregnancy that was either difficult or birth that was difficult and now they’re thinking about getting pregnant again. They’ll come in for some pre-pregnancy bodywork. Once you’re pregnant, it really depends on the goals. If you’re coming for maintenance, in my view, there’s not really a time that is too early. We do make modifications in the first trimester then we make modifications again at different times as you get bigger and your body changes, but there are always ways that we can, almost always, get you comfortable, situated on a massage table and/or a chiropractic table and find those restrictions and release them.I would say our typical patient comes in the second trimester so maybe somewhere around 20 weeks unless they are coming for something specific like sciatic pain or positioning issues or just getting ready for birth and they come later. They tend to come maybe twice a month during that middle part of the pregnancy then at the end in the last month or two, they’ll come once a week to get ready for birth. We don’t prescribe a hard and fast number of visits or frequency of visits. It really depends on your goals, how you’re feeling, and what your life looks like—what kind of resources you have or want to put into it. Meagan: Yeah. That’s what I did at the end of my pregnancy. I did every other week so twice a month then in the very last few weeks, like my 39th to almost 41st, I ended up going a couple of times because I started getting some discomfort and feeling some sciatica pain and things like that. My baby proved his point. He was hanging out in my back. Dr. Berlin: Ouch. Meagan: Yeah. In labor, he did that for 42 hours. Dr. Berlin: Oh my goodness. Ouch. Ouch. I’m sorry. Meagan: It was fine. I was adjusted twice during my labor. Dr. Berlin: Wow. Meagan: I full-on believe—I mean, I believe that my team and everything and that space I had created was an impact, but I swear that my chiropractor really did impact my VBAC. Dr. Berlin: Some people swear by us and some people swear at us. Meagan: I know. Dr. Berlin: I’m really grateful that you were able to have the VBAC. Structure and function are important when you’re trying to get a baby through.Can We Get Adjusted During Labor? Meagan: Yeah. I mean, I saw switches in my labors with both adjustments. It’s so awesome. That was one of the questions. Can we get adjusted during labor? As a doula, I’ve been to a few births where we’re seeing this lag in this labor and the same thing. We’re working through all of the positions, but something is not quite working. We say, “Hey, let’s go get an adjustment.” We’ll go to the chiropractor with them and things big-time shift and we’ve got a baby. But yeah, are there signs that someone could use an adjustment? Maybe we’ve got people in a rural area where they can’t have access to a chiropractor or maybe they’re already in the hospital and sometimes chiropractors can’t come in. Dr. Berlin: Yeah, nowadays they don’t let too many people in. Always, ideally, that’s why we switch to once a week as you’re getting closer to the end so that ideally, you go into as a labor freely moving ball with enough WD-40 to carry you through. But yeah, there’s no problem generally doing adjustments during labor. Some people just schedule it and say, “Hey, will you come check on me when I’m in labor?” Other times, we get called when there are some signs that labor slows if there is no progression like things don’t progress in a “reasonable time frame”, if the baby’s not in a great position, and if there’s back labor like what you were talking about. Those are all signs that it’s worth checking. Are there restrictions here in the pelvic bones? Your pelvis is not a solid bone. It is a bunch of bones connected by soft tissue. It has the ability to expand and contract and accommodate or even facilitate the baby’s movements but if everything is just in a vice grip, then it may not be able to do that the same way. It can be more resistant to the movements. So we don’t do anything to the baby. We’re musculoskeletal specialists. We do things to your muscles and bones and make them more functional. That could make you a lot more comfortable. It could provide an environment in which the baby is better able to line up with the runway and things like that. Yeah. So you know, it’s never a guarantee. Sometimes I’ll get to a birth and there’s really nothing to adjust. In my case, I also do body work so at the very least, I can do some body work. There are a lot of reflexology points that are just calming. There are those famous hip squeezes or counterpressure on the sacrum and lots of different massage stuff we can do to open up muscles. A lot of what I do in the office I’ve learned from birth. When someone is in labor and they’re having these weird muscle spasms during contractions, you realize, “Oh, that is so tight.” I never would have guessed ahead of time that it was going to be so then as part of labor prep, I’ll explain to somebody, “Do you want to release these muscles because they can play a role?” Sometimes you can’t see what looks like the direct effect. It’s all anecdotal. No one studies on this but all of a sudden, things start to loosen up where those spasms are occurring during labor and they loosen up, then all of a sudden, you start to see a healthy progression. The other thing you see a lot with bodywork is somebody, especially in unmedicated birth—I don’t think there is anything like unmedicated birth. Either you get medications or you make your own. The ones that you make look pretty cool. But if there’s someone who’s not medicated medically, there’s this major transition that you can see when a surge comes through and she doesn’t feel totally safe or relaxed and she’ll start to tighten up and sort of not consciously but fight the surge and fight herself, really. That can look pretty violent sometimes. With bodywork, you can sort of help the nervous system relax to a point where it doesn’t feel like it’s in danger. It doesn’t feel like it has to fight even when intensity comes. That’s the most rewarding thing to me from being at a birth. When I see that shift is when it’s like, “Wait a second. This is more tolerable, much more tolerable if I don’t fight it.” They get the confidence to relax into it and they realize, “Okay. I’ve got this.” So it’s not always, in my case at least, the adjustments and bodywork. Things that people can do on their own, there are all of the doula tricks if the baby is not wanting to come down with the peanut ball but sometimes you can actually roll different parts of the low back, glutes, and piriformis if they’re acting up. There is some stretching you can do. Some of the Spinning Babies exercises come in really handy. There is other stuff that you can do even if you can’t get a chiropractor over there. Meagan: One of the clients that I went to, her chiropractor went during labor. He showed me this-- I don’t even know what it was—tight ligament or something right down next to the bone. Dr. Berlin: Yeah, above it? Meagan: Kind of on the side. It was honestly by the butt crack. That’s where it was, this tight thing. He was like, “Do you feel that?” I would feel it and it was so tense. Dr. Berlin: A spasm, mhmm. Meagan: He said, “During a contraction, press on that.” I would press and eventually, it just released and all of a sudden, we had transition coming. It was really interesting. I don’t even know what that is. He said, “Press right here.” I could feel it. It was tight. It was really interesting. Dr. Berlin: Yeah. You’ll find little things like that in labor. With permission, a little trial and error, you can sometimes really find a gem that is helpful for birth or that you can do ahead of time or that you can train a partner or doula to do. It can make a huge difference.CPD Meagan: Yeah. Absolutely. So we were just talking about our pelvis and how it moves and shifts and all of these things. CPD, cephalopelvic disproportion is a common, as you probably know, diagnosis in C-sections and people wanting to have a VBAC. It’s given a lot. In my opinion, too often. I was given it myself. I was told I would never get a baby out of my pelvis. Dr. Berlin: Oh wow. Meagan: So that’s a big question. How can someone tell the shape of their pelvis? Does it matter? How can we make our pelvis “bigger” during birth and what can we do to help these babies navigate through this pelvis without getting this diagnosis of, “Your pelvis is too small”? Dr. Berlin: Well, I think the first and most important thing always with a VBAC is to line yourself up with a provider who is really VBAC supportive, not just tolerant. If you feel really trusting that your provider is like that, then they are only going to tell you things. They know your goal and they are supportive of your goal. They are only going to tell you things that are well thought out or that aren’t just fear-based. There are a few things coming together here. Number one, there is the pelvic paradox. You see someone with really tiny hips give birth to a 9 or 10-pound baby with no hiccups really smoothly. Then you see somebody who has big hips. Maybe they’ve been told their whole life, “Wow. You’re going to have great hips for birthing,” and a 6-pound baby gets stuck and doesn’t come out. How do you explain the pelvic paradox? One of the explanations is that there is a big difference between structure and function. Structure is your pelvis, the bones themselves, the soft tissues themselves, and how big they are. It is measurable to a degree and your baby and how big they are is measurable to a degree. But if you’re just looking at structure without function, you’re going to see what looks like cephalopelvic disproportion a lot partially because we don’t have great measurements on these things. We have approximate measurements and partially because you’re not taking into account function. The baby’s head is not a solid bone. It’s a bunch of bones meant to smoosh through a smaller passageway than it is at its full size and the pelvis is not a solid bone. It’s a bunch of bones meant to expand and transmit something bigger than itself through while you’re in labor. If those functions are working, then for sure, a larger baby can get through a smaller space even though on paper structurally, you have what looks like a baby that is too big to come through a pelvis that’s too small. Sometimes they are too big and that’s the issue. That’s why it’s really important, I think, to be with a provider who really gets you and supports you and is on board with you because if that provider is saying, “Wait a second. You have a head that is like this or the entryway to your pelvis is a concern,” then you’re really going to not be second-guessing them in the moment which is really important, I think, for safety. That’s the number-one thing is if you want to have a VBAC or even a vaginal birth the first time, is to have a provider that is really supportive. Number two—this is again really anecdotal. I see a lot of pregnant people every single day. What I did was a little poll on social media like, “How many people told you that your baby was going to be 9 pounds and it was substantially smaller?” A huge number of people came up. I don’t think it’s nefarious at all. I think that doctors in general and obstetricians in particular are trained to look or what might become a problem at some point which is sort of good. We want them to predict those things. But then it could get carried a little too far away because it’s like, how likely is that to become a problem and what are the interventions that we take to prevent that and what are the side effects of those interventions? That’s a much more complex equation where there’s not always a clear answer. It is sometimes presented as a clear answer rather than, “These are the pros and cons, the risks and benefits as we know them. What would you like to do?” I think that’s something all practitioners can learn over time. I’m certainly still a student every day 25 years later learning how I can do things better and more comfortably and more effectively. I think towards the beginning of practice for me too is that you know what you know and you want to be so helpful, but sometimes, the person on the receiving end of that doesn’t want that and that’s okay. That’s your choice. It’s 100% your choice. Even if it’s not the choice that I would make, at the end of the day, I’m supposed to support whatever choice you want to make. That’s a lesson that at least for me, took time as both a chiropractor and a massage therapist and as a doula especially. Meagan: Yeah. That’s what I was going to say. It’s taken a lot of time for me as a doula. Dr. Berlin: Yeah. Meagan: It can be really hard. Dr. Berlin: Yeah. It’s really hard. And very well-intentioned practitioners who want the best for you, who would do the same exact thing for their wife or their daughter are trying to help you, but at the end of the day, it’s an informed consent situation. What happens with the measurement is that there’s no scale for the baby before it’s born. It’s a computer doing calculations. The calculations have a margin of error. Let’s say that margin of error is a pound or a pound and a half. If I tell you that your baby is going to be 7.5 pounds at birth, based on those calculations, that means it could be anywhere between 6 and 9 pounds if the margin of error is a pound and a half. A) I could have probably told you that without the ultrasound. B) The problem with that is if it’s ticking upwards if the baby is measuring 8 pounds in there, now all of a sudden I’m thinking, “What if it’s 9.5? That could be too big. It might get stuck. We might have problems. We don’t want an injured baby.” Nobody wants an injured baby, so maybe we should just induce you or do a C-section or whatever to prevent that. How many of those babies are actually going to come out at 9.5 pounds? That’s the end of the margin of error on that side. On the other side, you have the same issue. If a baby is measuring 6.5 pounds, you start to think, “What if it’s 5?” because of the margin of error. Maybe the baby’s not getting enough nutrition. These are all logical things to think about and important things to talk about, but we can’t forget that there is this margin of error and that there is a person who really should be the one at least involved if not making the decision. So that, I think is what happens and anecdotally what I see in the office happens with cephalopelvic disproportion. Either we’re doing measurements and we’re guestimating that the baby is a certain size but they may not really be that size and we’re not really looking at function. There’s a great episode of our podcast called “Labor Day Surprises” where there are two women who have both had surprises at the very end of their pregnancies and they are sisters-in-law. One of them had a breech baby and had quite a very interesting story there and the other one had a surprise 11-pound baby. Meagan: Whoa. Dr. Berlin: Now she is 5’8” or so. She is tall but very petite with tiny, small hips. She gave birth to the baby vaginally, unmedicated and are you sitting down? She didn’t even tear. Meagan: Oh my gosh. See? That’s amazing. Dr. Berlin: It was the most incredible thing to watch and it’s one of the few where you saw a very ecstatic birth almost orgasmic birth at the hospital. She really talks about how she got into that mind frame. Her doctor knew the baby was going to be on the larger side and said, “What do you want to do with this?” She said, “I want to try.” He goes, “Well, if you don’t try, we won’t know.” Meagan: Oh, that just gave me the chills. If you don’t try, we won’t know. Dr. Berlin: We won’t know. Meagan: Like you were saying, it’s informed consent. It should be up to that mama to decide if she feels that it’s a good thing to try, but we also have to respect that if we have a provider who is not comfortable with it, we have to respect them too. Maybe that’s finding a new provider or working with their partner or something but yeah. It’s interesting. Dr. Berlin: I mean, I know that I’m not a good match for everybody out there who is looking for a pregnancy chiropractor. I’m not a good doula for people who are looking for a doula. What’s really important is that you find providers that you feel are on the same page and that they are a good match. This happens with dating all of the time. It’s like, “You’re not for me but I have a friend and they would love you.” I don’t think– I’m never insulted if I meet somebody and they’re like, “I don’t want this type of care.” Great. Let me find someone you would love to see. It’s the same with obstetricians. There are some obstetricians who are very paternalistic. They make all of the decisions for you and there are people who love that who don’t want to make the decisions and who don’t want that responsibility. You guys are a great match together, but you’re not going to be a great match for my Prius-driving, vegan, hippie mom, who wants to have her baby hanging from a chandelier over a tub. You know? She’s not going to be a match for them. Meagan: Not so good of a match. Dr. Berlin: It’s not an insult. Neither one of you wants to be with someone who’s not a great match. I always encourage people that if you’re not with a provider that you feel comfortable with, if they’re not on the same page or your interests are conflicting, then try to find a provider who is on the same page. It makes a huge difference and you don’t get to do this very often. Meagan: I know and it’s worth finding that provider. Just like it’s worth dating and dating and dating until you find the one, it’s worth going out and continuing to find that provider because like you said, my best friend went to a provider that may not be the best for me. I’m happy that she found him, but I might need to find someone else and that’s okay to take that time and find that provider. Dr. Berlin: Totally and if you’re going a more natural route, even psychologically if you end up having a Cesarean, which I don’t think is the worst thing on the planet. I think it’s a great thing. I’ve been known to say that I think one thing worse than a Cesarean being forced on someone who doesn’t want one and doesn’t need one is not having one available to somebody who does need one. A Cesarean is a great medical marvel of our time. The doctors who learn how to do them perfect them and do them with very little risk and a lot of skill. They’re heroes to me. But you know, if you want a more natural birth and you end up with a Cesarean and you’re not with somebody who you felt like you are on the same page with, you’re very likely to leave that birth feeling like, “Did I really need that?” It leads to a lot of not-good mental thoughts at a time that you are already going through a tough– for most people, a big transition. Meagan: Yeah. Dr. Berlin: I can’t say it enough. Having a provider that is good for you and that is a match for you is so important on all fronts. Breech BirthMeagan: Beautiful. I love that. I couldn’t agree more. Finding that provider is so important. We were just talking about these two cute sister-in-laws. They had a surprise breech and that is a question. If the baby is breech, what things could someone do on their own to help their baby turn? How soon should they start to worry? How could chiropractic care truly help that baby turn? We know that there’s not a lot. Breech is kind of dwindling away. It’s unfortunate and it’s really unfortunate that we’re not having as much support in the breech world, but we’re not.  A lot of people get put in a corner that if they have a breech baby, they feel like they have to have a Cesarean whether they want one or not, but they want options. How can we work with these breech babies? Dr. Berlin: It’s truly interesting. I think if there were more options for safe, vaginal breech delivery– not everybody’s a good candidate for that– but if there was more of an option, primary Cesareans would be down. Meagan: I wonder too. Dr. Berlin: Substantially and as a result, secondary Cesareans would be down because all of those people who had C-sections are told, “Once a Cesarean, always a Cesarean.” They don’t even get a chance. I think it would bring down the Cesarean rate greatly as a whole. The question is, what is a safe breech birth? There is a lot of debate around that but one thing is for sure. There are some people who are much better off seemingly having a Cesarean birth but they’re breech and other people who are much better off with the option to try and deliver vaginally but they’re breech. Meagan: You have an episode on your podcast talking about that specific topic with Dr. Brock and some other providers talking about what that looks like. Dr. Berlin: Yeah, we have a 3-part series called Breech 101. It’s two midwives and two obstetricians just talking everything breech from all angles. With Dr. Brock, we have another episode called “Vaginal Breech After Cesarean Breech” with a mutual patient, Dr. Donna Lou who had a breech with her first and ended up in a Cesarean because her doctor didn’t. She went into labor and didn’t have the chance to meet Dr. Brock. At the hospital, her doctor just doesn’t have the confidence or the comfort to deliver breech babies. He was very apologetic but she had a C-section. One of the few people I have seen over 20 years who was breech again with no known reason, with her second, Dr. Brock also equally baffled said that she is a great candidate for VBAC and a great candidate for breech birth. The two, the risks that come along with those, don’t compound each other. It’s just two different sets of risks. What would you like to do? She opted for the vaginal breech birth after a Cesarean breech birth. I have them both on and they talk about the decision-making that went into it and what the process was actually like. When it comes to breech, I have a premise which is that– let’s talk about a singleton baby in a first pregnancy. That’s where we have the most data. I have a premise that at the end of pregnancy, babies generally want to be head-down. The reason I have that premise is because according to Williams Obstetrics, these numbers are a little bit old, but still seemingly relevant. At 28 weeks into a singleton first pregnancy, about 50% of babies are not head-down yet. Meagan: 50%. Dr. Berlin: 50% at 28 weeks. Now, at 32 weeks, about 10% are not head-down yet. You go from 50 out of 100 babies that are not head-down to only 10 out of 100 babies in a 4-week period of time. Meagan: That’s a lot of babies that turn in a very short period of time. Dr. Berlin: It’s a big migration and it’s seemingly because they run out of space. When they have space to move around, they can move all over the womb. It doesn’t really matter. Nobody really cares. They are exploring so no big deal. As they start to run out of space, they have to pick a position that is most accommodating in the space that they have and generally in a typically-shaped uterus for a typically-shaped baby, that is head down. That is where they try to go. At birth, at 37 weeks and beyond in that first pregnancy, the breech rate is 3-4%. So it goes all the way down to 3-4 out of 100 from 50. That’s where the premise comes from at the end of pregnancy, babies generally want to be head-down. If they don’t go there, there must be a reason for it. There’s usually a reason. It could be something structural. It could be something functional. Sometimes when we have no idea why, like in the case of Dr. Donna Lew. Why would babies structurally? Well, there’s a lot to consider. Maybe the cord is wrapped around them funny. Maybe the placenta is in the way especially when it’s on the front wall, it seems to pose more of a getting-in-the-way factor. None of these, by the way, are absolute factors. I have a lot of people that come in with a placenta in the front and the baby does turn. But it seems like of the ones that don’t turn, more of them have the anterior placenta. Amniotic fluid seems to play a role. So if the amniotic fluid index normal is somewhere between 8 and 24, with all of those being normal is a big range. 8, 9, and 10 are healthy but not so much fluid volume for baby to move around. 18, 19, and 20 are also healthy but so much fluid volume that even after 32, 33, and 34 weeks, your baby may have a lot more room to move around than other babies and not have a trigger to pick a position and get head-down. If you add other things to that like it’s your third pregnancy so there’s more room in the uterus anyway and if you’re tall and if the baby’s measuring small, you can take all of those things into account. Not all breeches are exactly the same. The shape of the uterus is a big deal too. Sometimes if the shape is different, it seems not conducive for the baby to get head-down or for the baby to be able to. Functionally, it’s your body. Your lower back, hips, and pelvis are supposed to be pretty loose, relaxed, and open at the end of pregnancy. Your body is doing that hormonally in several different ways but if everything is stiff, tight, and rigid for various different reasons– injuries or excessive workouts or other things like that without enough stretching, then especially if you’re strong, you can have a pelvis that is strong, tight, and rigid. As the baby’s running out of space, maybe down there is not where they are being invited to go. Maybe the end of the rib cage is a lot more inviting or if they’re trying to move as we said before, the body may not be able to accommodate the movements the same way. When I work on breech, I’m not doing anything for the baby itself. I’m not doing anything to the baby. I’m not trying to turn a baby or move a baby. I’m working on the musculoskeletal structures of the baby’s surroundings which is the mom and if they’re stiff, tight, and rigid, we’re creating more functional space using massage to loosen up the soft tissues and chiropractic adjustments to open up those restricted joints and maybe gravity. We have tables that invert so maybe a little bit of gravity if something is really stuck trying to give the baby an opportunity to move naturally with gravity. We also in our office have acupuncture so we also do moxibustion which seems to stimulate more natural movement so it’s synergistic. I can create more functional space and they can create more movement in that space. It gives those babies a chance to turn more naturally. When do we start? Usually around 32 weeks but I always tell people, “Look. At this point in that first pregnancy, 10 out of 100 babies roughly statistically are breech, and in birth, it’s only going to be about 3.” If I was a betting person, I would still bet that your baby’s going to turn. The stuff that I’m doing is really insurance. It’s going to be helpful for birth anyway but I tell them not to panic at that point. And then of course, you have to look at all of those factors that we mentioned to see who is more or less likely to turn and you can tell based on the fluid, the uterine shape, the placenta location, and so on. Meagan: My VBAC baby kept going breech. At 32 weeks, he was going breech. She would motion him and he would flip then the next visit, I was like, “His hiccups are up here again.” He would be breech. He did that until 36 weeks. I think it was 34.5 or 35 and she was like, “We have to trust this baby. We have to trust that this baby needs to be head-up for whatever reason” and I was kind of grouchy because I was like, “I don’t want to have another C-section just because I had another breech baby.” I really wanted this VBAC, but yeah. At 36 weeks, I went in and he was head-down and he stayed head-down. Dr. Berlin: Do you remember if your fluid was toward the more generous side, middle side, or lower side?Meagan: It wasn’t super high, but it was on the higher of the normal. He did have a shorter cord when he came out, so I don’t know if maybe something was bugging him there, but yeah. He flipped head-down. It was great, but it was hard. It was hard not to get panicky. Dr. Berlin: Sure, yeah. That’s the thing. A lot more people have to think about breech than actually have breech at the end. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Berlin: So if there are 4 million births in the United States every year and 10% of them are breech at 32 weeks, that’s 400,000 people every year thinking about breech but only about 3-4% are breech at the end like 160,000. Meagan: Yeah, I even had a client. I’m going to jump off of the breech topic, but I had a client who was breech and was scheduled for a version the next morning but went into spontaneous labor that night. We went in at 1:00 AM and baby was head-down. She was 9 centimeters when we got there. Her body just needed contractions to finish rotating the baby. I have no idea but sometimes it can happen. Okay, so let’s see. Post C-section. This is in regards to cupping fasical release and stuff like that that you guys do in your office as well. Is that something that you would suggest? This is another type of bodywork essentially. Dr. Berlin: New mama TLC. I think whether you have a Cesarean or a vaginal birth, it’s a lot on the mind and body, and nervous system, so I try to do a longer session soon after usually by two weeks regardless of the mode of delivery unless there is some kind of injury then you are good. We can do most things. The goals are to– sometimes there are smaller injuries from birth like injury to a tailbone or pubic bone or something like that. We can address those right away. I’ve had people pop a rib out pushing so hard so we obviously can pop that back in after a vaginal birth right after birth. Meagan: Wow. Dr. Berlin: The goal is if there are any injuries, we deal with them right away. After that, it’s sort of like the sports massage when you’ve run a marathon. Just wear and tear on the body and trying to move that excess fluid around and have it be reabsorbed so we do some lymphatic work and finding those overworked muscles and to relax those muscles and at the same time, if we can work it in, a little sensual nervous system relaxation work to help reboot the system. Meagan: Yeah. Dr. Berlin: And to come back online with calm and quiet. So either a little meditation and/or some cranial work. While our normal visits are 25 minutes at that point, we do an hour-long session to try and get all of that in during the first one or two postpartum visits. There’s also a great opportunity at that point, especially for people with more chronic things that they deal with pain-wise. You still have the pregnancy relaxation hormone for a bit. You don’t have the baby inside there pushing on you 24/7. You’re kind of more moldable clay. I’ve had several instances of somebody who had a lifelong chronic thing from an injury and during that period, we have a better shot at making a lifelong correction there. Meagan: I’ve never even thought of that. I’ve got this long-term back issue. I’ve got this relaxin and great stuff in my body. Let’s work with that. Dr. Berlin: Yes. Let’s use that advantage. I had a patient who was really eager to do that and then she got COVID and she couldn’t come back. It created a whole bunch of problems for her and she’s like, “Damn. I’m going to have to have another baby.” Meagan: I was going to say. That’s what I would say. Now I have to have another baby. That is really awesome. Like you said, it doesn’t matter. C-section or vaginal, our bodies go through quite an event and take a lot of shifts and changes so chiropractic care can be beneficial after as well. We’ve talked about it with babies as well. They go through a lot and that can be impactful. My little boy didn’t poop forever. It was 9 or 10 days. We got him adjusted and he had the biggest poop in the world. Dr. Berlin: We see that all the time. Meagan: He passed out and slept all night. I woke up all engorged and I was like, “Oh my gosh.”Dr. Berlin: I know. It’s the number-one feedback. “My baby slept so well after the adjustment.” Meagan: I know. We need it. Babies need it. It’s so impactful. Back in the day, way, way, a long time ago, I didn’t love the idea. Chiropractic care scared me. It can be scary because you can hear some people talk about it. Like you say, someone is yelling at you. It can be scary sometimes how people talk about it but it doesn’t have to be scary and if you find that really good, skilled chiropractor, they’re going to take care of you. They’re going to help you through this process. Pubic SymphysisThey’re going to help you with pubic symphysis which is another question. I know we’re running out of time but if you have anything you’d like to share on pubic symphysis, that is a really big one. The more babies we have, sometimes it starts earlier. Dr. Berlin: Yeah. And then it’s weird also. Sometimes it doesn’t happen at all. It’ll plague somebody in the first pregnancy and then not be there. Just a comment on the scared about chiropractic bit, certainly chiropractic isn’t for everyone, but it comes back to finding a good match. As I said at the beginning, there are a lot of different ways to find and release those restrictions. Some of them are very, very gentle. It doesn’t have to be that cracking noise that a lot of people are off-put by or violent-looking maneuvers. If you want the benefits of chiropractic but that’s what’s holding you back, find someone who does a low-impact technique or network or activator. Meagan: Drop table. Dr. Berlin: Drop table. Meagan: Yes, I was going to say the activator. Dr. Berlin: Sacro-occipital technique. There are so many that are gentle. The neuro-emotional technique. Okay, so in terms of the pubic bone, there is a right and a left side to the pubic bone. They are separated by pubic cartilage. I’ve learned over time that there are different types of pubic pain and they present differently. It’s still definitely a work in progress. I’m learning new things all of the time. The most common one that presents during pregnancy is pain on sort of the lower pubic bone, the underside of the pubic bone where the fine meets the bone. It’s usually only on one side or substantially worse on one side and it’s like when you separate your knees. When you bring that pubic bone apart, that right and left side apart, so if you get out of bed one leg at a time or if you get out of the car one leg at a time or when you engage it to roll over in bed if you haven’t been moving for a while. A very common one is to lean over to put on pants and lift one leg then ouch, it’s very painful. What seems to be happening there in most cases is that you have an imbalance in the right and left side of your pubic bone. Let’s say that you have the muscle coming up your thigh attaching to the underside of that pubic bone and pulling harder on one side than the other side. When you’re totally stable, your body can accommodate that. But as the relaxation hormones kick in and they kick in pretty early, the pubic cartilage that is holding it together maybe can’t compensate for that imbalance so the right and left sides end up not lined up with each other anymore but they torque so every time you engage it and pull them apart, it’s very painful. If you could get them to line up again, then it would be either not painful at all or less painful. The combination that I use in that case that tends to work pretty well but not always is either massaging out the upper adductor like a deep massage to lengthen that adductor so it’s not pulling so hard and then a trigger point right where that adductor inserts to the underside of the pubic bone. It’s sort of an act of release trigger point as I’m pressing into it. They engage the muscle and then release the muscle. Engage and release a couple of times and then there’s a little test that I do for it also which is if you’re laying on your back or in a semi-reclined position and your knees are bent, feet on the massage table, or a yoga mat, or anything like that, I’ll try to gently pull the knees apart against resistance from the mom. If that is weak, first of all, it doesn’t really have a lot of strength. It elicits that sharpness in the place where the pain has been bothering them. That’s a pretty good sign that this is the mechanism and that doing that combination of massage and trigger point and then adjusting the pubic bone with a drop table will give significant relief. Meagan: Wow. Okay, so that could be a test to say, “Okay. This could be impactful if you do this technique.” Dr. Berlin: Right. Then if it’s not, I wouldn’t do it necessarily because it’s not the most comfortable thing. It’s always up to them. I could still offer it and see if they want to do it even if it’s a long shot or not do it even if it’s a sure bet. But other types of pubic pain that I have identified are definitely the pubic symphysis cartilage itself sometimes gets inflamed. It’s not one side or the other. It’s right in the middle and it’s higher up on the pubic bone. Oh, that’s you. Meagan: That was me. It was ow. Dr. Berlin: I find acupuncture and I’ll tell you something else in a second. Acupuncture, icing, and a support belt that lifts the belly up off of the pubic bone are some of the things that are more relieving there. The third type is the round ligament. They attach to the soft tissue right near the pubic bone on sort of the top ledge of it towards the outside, the upper corners of it. If you have a round ligament that is tight and pulling all of the time, then that becomes very sensitive. In those cases, we try to massage out or gently stretch the round ligament until it relaxes. That usually takes the pressure off there. One thing I would also say if you’re feeling it there in the pubic symphysis cartilage and especially if you’re also feeling it in the back by the sacrum or tailbone is to look for hyperactive pelvic floor muscles, a hypertonic pelvic floor. The pelvic floor runs from the back of the pelvic floor to the front of the tailbone. When it gets really tight, it will pull on both of those areas. Especially athletic women but not only– sometimes you have a hypertonic pelvic floor from all of the activities to strengthen and tighten. You might also be doing that to your pelvic floor. Up until not that long ago, all we knew about pelvic floor was that it can get weak so everybody is instructed to do these kegels and strengthen them but if it’s already hypertonic and you strengthen it, you might be making it worse. So thankfully, we have these pelvic healthy physical therapists as a specialty now. People are just training on that and how to strengthen the weaker ones and loosen the tight ones, making pregnancy and birth more comfortable, more functional, and postpartum wellness. Postpartum sometimes can be treated. Meagan: Yeah. So as you are saying this, I have a weird question. I had all of that during labor and then since, I am really active. I am a road cyclist and I like to lift and all of these things. I get adductor pain now where it’s not as tight and burning right in that pubic symphysis but right in that adductor. Do you think something could still be connected through that pelvic floor?Dr. Berlin: It’s always worth checking if you haven’t had it checked. The adductor by itself could just be the adductor. Sometimes just from the workouts that you’re doing– lifting especially could make it really tight and it just needs to be rolled out or dug out and you might benefit from those trigger points too on the ends or the inserts on the top and the bottom. Pelvic floor could be a factor. There sometimes are other factors too. Even a little drop incontinence when you get the urge, it’s like, “I’ve got to go right now.” Meagan: Yeah. Dr. Berlin: Or pain during intercourse or things like that or if you jump on a trampoline or you sneeze and you pee, those are signs that something is up with the pelvic floor. It’s not functioning quite right and worth investigating with a specialist. Meagan: Yeah. I think a lot of people don’t even remember that even C-sections can impact that pelvic floor and our whole body and create that tension and restrict us from having good mobility. Dr. Berlin: That is an amazing point because it is absolutely true. The end of pregnancy puts a lot of strain on the pelvic floor no matter how you deliver. Body Support at HomeMeagan: Yeah, so again, definitely check out the chiropractors in your area. So for those who maybe can’t have chiropractors or can’t have access, are there any tips or maybe places on the Informed Pregnancy Plus channel where people can learn not to adjust themselves but do stretches and do those things that can help create that mobility and help them have these vaginal births that they’re wanting? Dr. Berlin: Yeah, there are tons. Spinning Babies has a whole bunch of great exercises that you can do. It’s a good idea. We have a course that we do called Labor Kneads. We only do it live right now, but it’s where we’re teaching partners and doulas and other support people to do bodywork before, during, and after birth. That’s a great idea for us to shoot that and put it up on the streaming service. I can’t promise it for one, but I will certainly try to do that. The other thing is that there is a great listing of chiropractors with separate post-graduate training. You should know that anybody who is a licensed chiropractor can work on pregnant people. It doesn’t have to be a specialty. Meagan: Or Webster-trained. Dr. Berlin: Yeah, it doesn’t have to be Webster-trained or it doesn’t have to be somebody who is a prenatal chiropractor. There are some chiropractors who don’t feel comfortable working on pregnancies. Some don’t have all that much experience, but there are a lot who are not prenatal. They are just family chiropractors and as a result, they see a lot of pregnancies. You don’t have to have a specialty to do it. So unless there’s no chiropractic in your neighborhood, then there might be people who can work on you even if it’s not a specialty clinic like in our case, we call it pregnancy-focused chiropractic. The other thing is that there’s a great website by the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association that does a lot of postgraduate training in pediatric and prenatal chiropractic care. They have a listing by zipcode and their website is icpa4kids.com. You can search by zip code in the United States and Canada and maybe some other international options. Meagan: We’ll make sure to also put that in the show notes for everyone listening. Last but not least, the big question is does anybody not qualify to receive chiropractic care? Dr. Berlin: Yeah, I mean, I would almost say that there are some conditions during pregnancy that come up that are delicate. During those very delicate conditions, I love to work together with the obstetric provider. At that point, it’s usually going to be an OB/GYN or a maternal-fetal medical specialist and just access their comfort level with the things that we do. Almost always, it’s going to be modifications. It’s not that we can’t adjust them at all or do any bodywork with them, it’s going to be modifications. Sometimes we’ll just wait a couple of weeks and then do the treatments but for the most part, you can do something for everyone who has things that are stiff, tight, and rigid and are either uncomfortable or want to improve their function. Meagan: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking this time out of your day with all of your projects. You’ve got so many hands in buckets. You wear so many hats these days so it’s really been such an honor to have you on the show and answer all of these amazing questions. I full-on believe in chiropractic care. Like I said, a long time ago, I was like, “Ah!” and then I started getting into chiropractic and I’m like, “No, this is really impactful on so many levels.” Dr. Berlin: It is. Meagan: I mean, I’m not even pregnant or planning on conceiving but I still go to the chiropractor because it really does impact my life in a better way. Dr. Berlin: We have moms come in here and they make an appointment. They say, “I want to make a postnatal appointment with Dr. Berlin.” The reception team will say, “Oh, how old is your baby?” They’ll say, “13 years old.” I’m like, “Yeah.” You don’t have to only be pregnant or postnatal to come here. Meagan: A postnatal visit. How old? 13. Okay. That’s just called a chiropractic visit. That’s all that you have to say. Dr. Berlin: It is, but once you have the baby, you have all of the bending, lifting, holding, feeding, emotional stress, and things like that. The maintenance during that active phase of life is important. BreastfeedingMeagan: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I just said I’m going to end. I feel like I could talk to you all day. Dr. Berlin: Same. Meagan: But something I feel that impacted me and I know a lot of our doula clients is breastfeeding. When we’re breastfeeding, we’re hunched and curled. Our neck is down and we’re in wonky positions then we’re out and we’re stretching then we’re like, “Oh, this is painful” or all of a sudden, my milk supply is not that great, and weirdly enough, chiropractic adjustments can help your body and you nurse better and help your production because your baby is going to nurse easier. You’re going to nurse easier. Everyone’s going to be better. Dr. Berlin: When you’re in a lot of pain, the stress hormones put you more in emergency mode, and making milk is not an emergency function. There’s that and there’s literally just the– here’s one tip I would say that seems to help a lot of people. If you have a nursing station, especially in those early couple of months, you can put a full-length mirror in front of you so you can see what’s happening without looking straight down. That seems to be helpful for a lot of people. Meagan: Absolutely. Yeah. To just be able to see and not be curled over. I mean, you are looking at your baby, but you can look down at your baby versus– Dr. Berlin: Across. Meagan: Yeah. Dr. Berlin: Yeah. One thing that gets a lot of people is that you’re trying to get some sleep and the baby is in a comfortable position and it’s not comfortable for you but you don’t want to move because you don’t want to wake them up. That’s gold for the chiropractors. Meagan: It is. It is. Oh, well thank you so much again. It’s such an honor. We’re going to make sure to have all of the links to your channel, to your page, and to your website. This chiropractic search forum and everything. Everything will be in the show notes so everybody will be able to find you. Dr. Berlin: Thank you. Meagan: Like I said, if you’re listening and you haven’t been able to yet, hopefully now you’re not driving if you were driving. Stop and go follow Dr. Berlin. Dr. Berlin: Thank you so, so much for having me and the incredible work you do. I could also talk to you all day and I’m going to have you back on our Informed Pregnancy Podcast and I can’t wait to hear your full story. Meagan: I would love to share it. It’s quite the story. Dr. Berlin: Awesome. Thank you. Meagan: Awesome. Thank you. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan’s bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands