We are closing out our Cesarean Awareness Month series on the most common reasons for C-sections with a deep dive into all things fetal monitoring! CNM Paige Boran, who attended Lily’s VBAC and who we deeply love and trust, answers every question you can imagine. This is definitely an episode you will want to save and listen back to often!

Midwife Paige talks about:

• The history of continuous fetal monitoring
• The differences between continuous, internal, and internal monitoring
• Bradycardia and tachycardia readings
• CFM and VBAC
• When she recommends having CFM
• How to advocate informed consent and declination
• Early, variable, and late decelerations
• Head compression and cord compression
• When fetal heart tracings become concerning & what empowered conversations look like
• Ways to help resolve decels
• Placental insufficiency
• All signs of uterine rupture
• How to make the decision of going for a C-section or continuing to labor
• Evidence on continuous fetal monitoring

And more!! We are so grateful for providers like Midwife Paige who we have seen in action and are willing to take the time to help educate our community. For those who question if they made the right call to have a cesarean or continue to labor due to fetal heart readings, we send you love. It is so tough!

Fetal heart tones are so nuanced. We hope that with this episode, you feel empowered with more knowledge to find a team that gives you the support and individualized care you deserve.

Evidence Based Birth®: Evidence on Continuous Fetal Monitoring

NYT Article on Continuous Fetal Monitoring

The VBAC Link Blog: The 5 Most Common Reasons for C-section

The VBAC Link Blog: How to Navigate VBAC Hospital Policies

Needed Website: Code TVL for 20% Off

We’re so excited to bring you another episode in our Cesarean Awareness Month series! This one was highly requested in our VBAC Link Facebook Community and we can’t wait for you to hear Catherine’s stories. Today’s topic is all about BREECH, one of the most common reasons for cesareans.

Catherine, a mom of four with a bicornuate uterus, shares her four births: a scheduled breech cesarean, a precipitous head-down HBAC, a breech CBAC, and a planned breech HBA2C that ended in a hospital transfer for a CBA2C but with a surprise breech VBA2C on the OR table!

Catherine opens up about how communication can shape a birth experience just as much as the outcome, and how even intended healing experiences can have traumatic pieces to them. She shares her passion for informed breech birth, patient advocacy, consent, midwifery care, and navigating both in-hospital and out-of-hospitalbirth settings, along with the importance of emotional processing and support.

Her message is a strong reminder not to settle, Women of Strength! When you understand your options, trust your body, and advocate for the care you deserve, you can move through birth feeling informed and empowered, even when things don’t go as planned.

Breech Without Borders

The VBAC Link Blog: The 5 Most Common Reasons for C-section

The VBAC Link Blog: ECV and VBAC

Needed Website: Code VBAC for 20% Off

The Ultimate VBAC Prep Course for Parents

Online VBAC Doula Training

As we continue our Cesarean Awareness Month series, CBAC and RCS moms, this one's for you. If your future birth looks like a subsequent cesarean, we want to make that cesarean the best, most peaceful, and empowering experience it can be. Better birth after cesarean means better options, and today's episode takes a deep dive into the option of Maternal Assisted Cesareans (MAC).

We are joined today by Dr. Koen Deurloo from the Netherlands. Dr. Koen is a Dutch OB/GYN specializing in perinatology and family-centered cesarean birth. Since 2017, his team has performed more than 300 Maternal Assisted Cesareans, developing one of the most experience-based approaches to this technique. He is also the author of Door de ogen van een gynaecoloog and teaches widely on respectful, trauma-informed birth care. His work focuses on creating transparency and calm so parents feel genuinely involved and supported throughout the entire process, especially in the operating room.

In this episode, Dr. Koen walks us through how he was first introduced to the MAC (spoiler: it was a mom and her doula!), how the procedure has evolved over time, what his patients have to say about it (another spoiler: 100% recommend it), and how to advocate for this kind of experience with your provider.

Birth after cesarean deserves dignity. It deserves options, and it deserves finding a provider who holds your stories with care and who speaks about birth the way Dr. Koen does.

We PROMISE this is an episode you will not want to miss!!!

Women of strength, we know how difficult it can be to choose between going for a VBAC, pivoting to a CBAC, or scheduling a repeat cesarean. Whether for medical or personal reasons, your choice is valid and good. There are so many brave ways to birth. As always, our team here at The VBAC Link is here to give you options, stories, resources, love, and support!

Through the Eyes of a Gynecologist by Dr. Koen Deurloo

MACAZINE

Paige’s Maternal Assisted Cesarean Story

Needed Website: Code VBAC for 20% Off

The Ultimate VBAC Prep Course for Parents

Online VBAC Doula Training