279: Making a Personalized Birth Plan With Dr. Elizabeth Pearce

Dr. Elizabeth Pearce is a psychologist, a childbirth educator, a doula like I am, and a mom of three. Today, we are talking about that mysterious, wonderful, and sometimes scarring experience called birth! Dr. Elizabeth is an expert on how personality and other key factors can impact your overall birth experience and outcome. She focuses on educating women on how to have a whole-person approach to birth. To do this, she created the Pregnancy By Design program, her own Birth Profile Assessment, and the Beyond the Birth Plan Childbirth Course. Her aim is to help women remain in control and navigate the twists and turns of labor, regardless of what may unfold.

Having had six births (all very different, challenging, and amazing in their own ways), I can’t wait to hear what Dr. Elizabeth has to say about this most personal of experiences.

Episode Highlights With Dr. Elizabeth Pearce

• Elizabeth’s take on the approach to maternal care in the U.S. today
• Why we need to reinvent the popular saying “the most important thing is to have a healthy baby”
• The ways a birth experience informs mother/child bonding, PPD risks, and more
• Common reasons why birth plans don’t work
• The four most important factors of any birth experience
• What to do if you need to heal from a birth that didn’t go as you hoped
• How to make a personalized action plan for birth
• The personality traits to consider when making decisions about birth
• And more!

Resources We Mention

• PregnancybyDesign.com (use the code “wellnesspregnancy” for 20% off)

More From Wellness Mama

• 122: A Healthy Baby Is NOT the Only Thing That Matters (& Is Home Birth Safe?)
• 76: How to Optimize Your Pregnancy and Birth Experience with Mama Natural Genevieve Howland
• 69: Saunacast: Birth Freedom, Gut Healing & Healthy Starches
• 68: The Miracle of Microbirth: What Every Mother Should Know
• The Hospital Birth of My First Baby
• My Breech Water Birth Story
• My Healing Birth
• My Unexpected Cesarean Birth Story
• My Calm Hospital VBAC Birth Story
• My Natural Hospital Birth Story After 26-Hour Labor

What surprised you about birth? Did Dr. Elizabeth’s advice resonate with you? Please drop a comment below or leave a review on iTunes to let us know. We value knowing what you think and this helps other moms find the podcast as well.

Thanks to Our Sponsors

This podcast is sponsored by Organifi, my source for super high quality superfood powders that are often part of my meals, especially when I travel. Green juice, their most popular drink, lets you incorporate farm fresh, gently dehydrated ingredients into your diet and lock in the extra vitamins and antioxidants. I just add to water and drink! It’s my go-to for veggies in the morning and is packed with chlorella for detox, spirulina and turmeric for detox as well as pain and inflammation, mint for improved digestion, matcha green tea for energy, and ashwagandha for cortisol and stress balance. Organifi also has a red juice with antioxidant-rich superfoods like cordyceps, reishi, and rhodiola plus an abundance of red berries. It’s sweet and fruity but low in sugar. It’s designed to fight aging, improve energy and metabolism, and sharpen cognition so I often drink it midday. And lastly, their the Organifi Gold drink is awesome at night and is filled with turmeric for skin health, ginger for achy muscles, turkey tail for immunity, and coconut milk for healthy saturated fat. Check all of these out at organifi.com/wellnessmama and use the code WELLNESS20 for 20% off.

This episode is also sponsored by Kasandrinos Olive Oil. I love family-owned companies with a mission and that are dedicated to making the highest quality products while supporting sustainable agriculture. This olive oil fits the bill! Founded by an active duty marine, Tony Kasandrinos, and his sister whose family is from Greece, this company is dedicated to the absolutely highest quality olive oil with the most amazing flavor. With all the controversy over some olive oils being adulterated and diluted, they go above and beyond to test for purity. In fact, all of their olive oil has three independent tests done by third party labs to confirm the freshness, oleic acid levels, and organic production. They use cold press extraction to retain the beneficial properties and Koroneiki olives which contain very high levels of polyphenols, which are the well-studied beneficial component of olive oil. Their olives are harvested within 50 kilometers of their family press in Lakonia Greece. Finally, Kasandrinos oil is non-GMO, USDA-certified organic, and PGI-certified. Learn more and check out their products at kasandrinos.com/wellnessmama and use the code WELLNESSMAMA for 10% off your order!