Welcome back to season 3 of the podcast!! We are eager to share another season with you, focused around topics where we need more nuanced conversations to grow our awareness so we can identify and breakdown biases and understand more fully the benefits!
In this first episode we are joined by Brittany Sharpe McCollum of Blossoming Bellies Birth to dive deep into bias around pelvis shape, pelvic biomechanics & dynamics, and the relationship between the pelvis & movement during birth.
Brittany Sharpe McCollum, CCE, CD 
Maggie Runyon, MSN, RNC-OB
Brittany Sharpe McCollum, CCE(BWI), CD(DONA) is the owner of Blossoming Bellies Wholistic Birth Services based out of Philadelphia PA, providing childbirth education and doula services to expectant families and pelvic biomechanics trainings for clinical and non-clinical birth professionals. Her workshops are conversational and hands-on with a focus on developing skills to reduce intervention, increase labor efficiency, and empower the birthing person. Brittany’s pelvic biomechanics workshops combine well over a decade of experience in supporting and educating parents and training and mentoring birth workers with a multidisciplinary research-based approach to movement, drawing on resources from obstetrics, kinesiology, physiotherapy, and anthropology. Brittany is honored to be a sought after guest at international childbirth related conferences, including the Evidence Based Birth conference, the Midwifery Forward 2020 Conference, the ICEA 2020 Virtual Conference, and the ICPA Freedom for Family Wellness Summit, among others. Find her on FB and IG.
Brittany discusses the history of pelvic shape classification, and dispels some myths about the role of pelvic shape in labor progress, as well as addressing the racist ways this information has been used.
We identify some common times where birth pros get hung up on understanding pelvic biomechanics, and how we can expand our understanding of creating space through the pelvis during birth.
We talk about expectations during labor & birth and preparing for those with awareness of possibilities, without creating self-fulfilling prophecies of challenging outcomes.
We close out with Brittany sharing her “5-4-3” guidelines for movement during labor, which is a simple framework to be used by birthing parents & support people and birth workers for being intentional about movement!
Brittany also wanted to recommend this list of books for readers wanting to deepen their understanding of the perpetuation of racism in obstetrics & midwifery:
Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington
From Midwives to Medicine by Deborah Kuhn McGregor
Motherwit by Onnie Lee Logan
Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
If you’d like to learn more from Brittany, don’t miss her upcoming Creating Space workshop, and join our giveaway for it happening over in our community group.
Check out this episode’s full transcript or tune in wherever you enjoy podcasts.
We’d love to hear from you; join our community group to discuss!
Music from https://filmmusic.io
“Gonna Start” by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)