October 29, 2025 · 39 minutes · Episode 483
About this episode
Sarah Lavonne discusses her work as a registered nurse, childbirth educator, and the founder of BundleBirth , a global education company training nurses in physiological birth.
Connect with the guest:
Informed Pregnancy Media and Mahmee present an all new podcast! One Way or a Mother is a new narrative podcast from Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC. Each season is an intimate story of one woman, one pregnancy, and all of the preparations, emotions, and personal history leading up to the birth. Episodes feature the expectant mother along with her family, doctors, and birth work team.
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Key quotes
“I'm okay, and I looked at her dead face back and was like, I know mom”
“I walked out of that, called my friend and was like, my soul will die here”
“the way I'm gonna make a difference and an exponential difference is through nursing education”
“We are not being trained in the core of what birth is”
“These nurses are investing their own personal money to be better for you.”
Related episodes
- Ep. 470 Carlson Young: After Birth
- Ep. 487 Love & Loss with Kristin Mundy
- Ep. 484 Transformative Postpartum with Francesca Fondevila
- Ep. 479 NICU Nutrition with Dr. Melinda Elliott
Transcript
AI-generated transcript with speaker labels — may contain errors, especially names and medical terms. Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC appears in blue; Sarah Lavonne in orange.
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [0:00] My guest today is a registered nurse childbirth educator and founder of bundle birth a global education company training thousands of nurses in physiological birth She's been on the podcast before but now there's so much more going on. I can't wait to share it with you all I'm pregnancy focused chiropractor. Dr. Elliott Berlin and you're listening to the informed pregnancy podcast Sarah LaVon, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be back I'm honored. Well, I haven't seen you in forever which kind of sucks. I know you have crazy energy I can feel it coming through the zoom over here as always and you are sort of an earth mover game changer in general
[0:56] But when it comes to the world of childbirth Empowerment and childbirth education and childbirth You are like top of the mountain and so you have a lot of new stuff going on since the last time we talked To you and I want to get into all of it But let's start at the beginning where you from originally how'd you get into this stuff? Well, thank you for that compliment
Sarah Lavonne [1:16] I have been working now for seven years I'll get to that and it's just so so fun to be back with you and just to see where the world can take Us my life now is very different from what I ever Could have possibly dreamt it to be and my journey in birth really started. I'm living in Los Angeles Right now I've been in Los Angeles my entire adult life and it started in birth here in LA and so I moved here from Ecuador when I graduated high school and Came to nursing school here in Los Angeles really never thinking that I would stay but a few years later Many many years later now. I'm like very much an LA person and I don't see myself leaving. I love Los Angeles
[1:59] I love it here. I love the culture even the birth culture and everything that I get to do because I'm in the city So currently in Los Angeles been in Los Angeles and that is now my home
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [2:09] But your original experience with birth was in Minnesota
Sarah Lavonne [2:14] So how'd you end up in Ecuador? Yeah, so my very first experience with birth was with my mother when I was five years old She let me be present at my sister's birth She had a very progressive doctor at the time and I remember I did like little sibling classes and they talked me through The whole process they brought me in when my sister was crowning and I was there for her birth at five years old and so I blame my mom actually for my like fascination and obsession with birth because she Stuck it in there at a very young age. What is your memory of that? Like that's a great question I remember it very clearly actually I remember Knowing that my mom was gonna be in pain and that being just like, okay
[2:57] they've told me this is the way that it is and it's normal and natural and I remember that I was with my mom's best friend outside the room and I could hear my mom making loud primal birth noises and The friend was like, yeah, that's normal and I was like, okay Okay, and like this is what you're gonna see when you walk in and sure enough My mom did have a hospital birth. It was unmedicated meaning no epidural but she was you know in a hospital bed on her back and all that and Felt everything and so they brought me in as they could start to see my sister's head and I remember standing right next to her and My mom turning to me at a moment after she had pushed and was very vocal with her pushes
[3:40] And looked straight at me in the eye and was like Sarah I'm okay, and I looked at her dead face back and was like I know mom Like so serious just so calm. That's always kind of how I've been with people's discomfort and labor So I blame my mom for really setting me up with a perspective on birth that I think was really unique especially at that time that was in the 90s and It was just very rare that people Especially children were allowed in the room Remember we like went from like husbands not being in the room to then being in the room and then let alone a child
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [4:14] So I think it's even rare now husbands and partners not allowed in the room to all of a sudden No, are you in the room? But you're the coach? I think that's incredibly cool. I know that when I started to attend birth I come from more of a conservative background I come from more of a medical background and got into more of a holistic lifestyle later in life and You know the idea I would be present at a birth invited to attend a birth and then they've like oh Yeah, the toddlers are gonna come down when I'm ready to push. I'm like, that's crazy. Are you sure? That's okay Do we need a psychologist and then right every single time? I've seen it happen
[4:53] It's just so natural like the kids come down and they're not afraid of it We just think they're gonna be afraid of it and they're not traumatized by it. They're educated by it and they have exposure That's really important I think that's missing for most women because you get to birth now and it's like your first time ever being around it is When you're going through it and I don't think that's the way it was meant to be so you went to Your parents went to Ecuador
Sarah Lavonne [5:16] Yeah My parents went to Ecuador when I was in sixth grade and then I was there went through middle school and high school in Ecuador I went to an international school there So there were kids from 53 different countries in my little K through 12 school And which was the most incredible experience and actually I've had family in Ecuador up until last August So for the last goodness like 25 years, there's been someone in Ecuador. I know I know So that's also home for me It's my like sneaky sauce because if you saw my picture you'd be like, I'm sorry. What you grew up in South America I'm like, mm-hmm It's my secret that I definitely hold back because you learn a lot about people when you can fully understand them and they think you
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [5:57] Can't so it's fine. Yes, you do. I know several examples of this Undercover speaker languages. Okay. So then you left Ecuador and then when did you Realize nursing is your calling. I
Sarah Lavonne [6:15] Realized nursing was my calling although not fully understanding what nursing was to be honest. I knew I wanted to help people I knew I didn't want to be behind a computer Although now ironically that is where I spend a lot of my time But I knew that I also really loved babies and I really loved working with women and so it sort of naturally was like Interesting. I've also always had a full-on obsession with pregnant people I think they're the most beautiful human beings on the planet I still after 5,000 births later I still think at every single birth like how is that just inside like this is Nuts still to this day and so that started at a very young age
[6:57] But I decided and I had like a gut feeling to be honest about nursing and about 10th grade That's when I started looking at schools and was looking for specifically nursing schools and good nursing schools I went to Azusa Pacific University here in Los Angeles is where I ended up They have a very very good nursing program. It was number one in the country Actually when I went to it, I did not have a social life. It sort of traumatized me to be honest Now I'm like I'll never go back to school again, but it prepared me to be a very good nurse and I had a lot of experience. It was four years of clinical I walked out with a public health nurse license on top of it. And so it was just amazing
[7:35] So I knew nursing in about 10th. Yeah, and then I came here and
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [7:39] Graduated okay, so after graduation, what kind of jobs did you want? Did you get?
Sarah Lavonne [7:45] So I was throughout nursing school working at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles so I was a like a CNA basically there and that gave me incredible experience and I loved peeds and I loved working with the kids and not but and It was also not for the faint of heart and just like grueling Emotionally for me and I remember I had a 13 year old Passaway in my arms and I remember holding her as I felt her body go limp and was like This is the last time I want to do this And so I had a job in peeds and I love that and if you are a peeds nurse out there You know anybody, please give them extra love because that is like the most amazing job And also the one of the most challenging but I also always knew I loved labor and birth in nursing school
[8:34] My labor and delivery rotation my professor sort of I think she knew that like I'd probably end up I had like the personality for a labor and delivery nurse And so she'd pull me from the postpartum shifts and put me in labor I saw like 26 births when I was in nursing school, which is insane You're lucky if you see one or two on the huge and so that was just amazing I just remember loving it and really wanting labor and delivery Having a job in peeds and then it was also in the era where nursing jobs were extremely Competitive extremely to the point where I had people in my nursing cohort Which again like one of the top schools in the country that didn't get a job in nursing
[9:13] No matter what specialty for like a year and a half after they graduated. It was wild But I got hired directly into labor and delivery Yeah, yeah, it was amazing and I really think like it set me up because I feel like I've been on this like Expedited trajectory through my career. I've also never considered myself an ambitious person Which if you knew me now, you'd be like, I'm so confused by that But really I just wanted to help people and I remember My first day of nursing and going in and crying like bawling to my mother who was still in Ecuador who I had To call on like Skype and being like I will never be able to do this. This is terrible
[9:57] It's so hard. They're doing so many things at once I will never be able to do it and I love it and it really being like I remember saying within the first couple of Months like I will do this the rest of my life Like people go through multiple careers and stuff and like I was like I will never get tired of this This is the most amazing job in the entire world. I mean, I still feel that way. My career has shifted
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [10:23] Yeah, but I think that even me like it's incredible to be connected with your passion for what you do But I think the audience can already feel the drive from the nuclear energy behind you that has led to what you're doing right now We are gonna take a break But I will say a few things that you mentioned that I can relate to number one birth never gets old I never thought I'd be in the birth world ever but 20 years later. It just never had the magic of it the Miraculousness of it everything about it just never gets old and number two nurses run the world Save the world make the world go round. I knew that from work that I've done in emergency rooms and hospitals from when I was 18 years old working in emergency medicine all the way up until
[11:09] Working in pregnancy labor and delivery And then when I got kovat and I was trying not to die from the alpha Kovat and doctors wouldn't come in the room But the nurses were there putting their life on the line for me and for everyone else who had it Nurses are insane and then pediatric nurses in general even in like healthy settings are insane and in hospital settings I mean just the biggest angels and you know as in my emergency medicine if someone would die in my arms in there in Their 90s, it's Devastatingly sad but when you lose a peed and they make that transition with somebody loving nurturing caring It just makes all the difference. So those are a few things. We'll recap
[11:49] I want to know where your nuclear energy took you next, but we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back with Sarah Levan
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [12:06] Welcome back to our nuclear submarine Sarah Levan. Okay, so nursing now big change So you get into labor and delivery? Mm-hmm. And what's that transition like for you?
Sarah Lavonne [12:18] It was amazing. It was very hard and I learned a lot in my downtown Hospital that I saw literally every major obstetric emergency within the first about year Which they say usually takes about five and so I was just like ushered into a whole lot of learning Really quickly and lucky for me. I do learn very quickly. I love a challenge. I love the adrenaline I love the interpersonal and yet that was the only vantage point on birth that I had and again It was like at an inner city hospital in downtown Los Angeles I only spoke Spanish my Spanish was better there than it ever was living in Ecuador to be honest And I learned all the OB Spanish too, which is like a whole nother language in and of itself in English
[13:02] Let alone Spanish. So it was really amazing and I realized what honestly the motivation was I looked at my student loans and was like, oh I'm gonna be broke and in these loans forever if I don't actually start doing something about it And then I had a nursing friend or nurse friend who had started at a very different Demographic hospital here in Los Angeles out in Beverly Hills and she was like come and got there's per diems available so I technically got a second job one to pay off my student loans and Two because but specifically looking for an environment that would provide me with a complete opposite perspective And often in nursing this is true in many specialties
[13:42] but I'll speak only to labor and delivery because that's all I've ever done and That each hospital has its own culture and its own way of doing birth and we know this as birth workers Now having gone all over that like they have like it's a process, right? And until you get out of that and you start seeing and learning from one another Whether that be in the same city or the country or even the world now that I get to learn from these nurses All over the place you start to realize like wow, there's a lot the same but there's a lot different And so I started at the second hospital per diem paid off my loans loved it there, too And as I was working those two jobs
[14:16] They were looking for eight nurses to pull and help develop their childbirth education program In Beverly Hills, yes, and so I was one of those eight chosen to help develop their childbirth education program and We did that and then I started teaching I started developing and teaching a bunch of their specialty classes and really started seeing what was happening in like the community Prior to birth my only exposure to pregnant people really was like unless I was at Target or something At the bedside when they were in labor or when they were having a medical issue that hopefully we discharge them home or take care of them throughout their pregnancy and so my
[14:54] experience of seeing the process of like early pregnancy to like middle pregnancy to Labor was non-existent. And so that was really helpful for me. I never really thought about that Mm-hmm. Yeah as labor and delivery your labor and delivery Yes, and our vantage point on pregnancy birth sort of like even the like perinatal period is very much labor centric and So it really helped sort of bring my vantage point just like one step outward to go Oh wait, like community health and like public health stuff and like prevention all of that And so I realized too that like which I knew for a while because I'd been doing it on the floor as a peer Mentor I had sort of like created jobs for myself
[15:39] I just like see a need and fill it and then they'd be like you should do that the whole time We'll give you a promotion. So I moved my way through various roles on the floor very quickly in a like short amount of time and everything related to education empowerment supporting nurses, but then now I was also getting to support the community and see how specifically childbirth education Completely transformed their experience and I to the end I could tell like a family would show up in labor And I'd be like, you know observe them for a while ask them a few questions and I'd be like you did our classes Huh, and they'd be like, yeah, we did I'm like I can totally tell and it would make a difference
[16:20] And so that was really exciting to me And I was also seeing a lot of gaps and a lot of issues and a lot of concerns and I Was seeing and hearing the stats that up to 78% of people would use the word traumatic to describe their birth and I'm thinking Wait a second. That is so Unacceptable, and then I went into this whole like trauma thing with trauma informed care and all of that And it just really got all of those vantage points I started working with doulas in the community Training doulas in the community and really just hearing a lot more stories that were a lot more varied than my own Only patient care as a nurse with nurse, which is very valid and helpful, but it just sort of expanded my mindset
[17:06] And so I had lots of ideas. I am an idea girly. I am a problem solver I want to help I realize I can't save the world but I know that I can show up with myself wherever I am and help make a difference and So I pitched that to that hospital at some point in there I quit my other job and I went full-time at the Beverly Hills hospital So I was not doing both jobs the whole time and working like six days a week forever Thank goodness, but when I was there, I pitched these ideas and was like I I I have some ideas and I have some thoughts I had just done a presentation for CMQCC, which is a Multidisciplinary collaborative in California that sort of sets some standards pools the research and says here's how we're better as
[17:50] a medical world and So that had sort of gotten me on the map There were some calls coming in from managers across the country asking me to train their staff they didn't like that and I had a very pivotal conversation with my manager at the time and Was pitching like we could do this and dreams and what about this and we can do so much better We could be on the map and like change the world, you know, I'm exaggerating but not really I was very naive Especially looking back. I'm like, what was I thinking? Did I not know where I was? I did not I was just like, you know the starry-eyed young kid that like just wanted to help I still feel that way but you know in a different way and so I looked at her gave her those thoughts and she
[18:32] laughed at me and I said so basically what I'm hearing you say is you want me to come to work and go to some meetings and She's laughed and said well that and like answer some emails. Oh And I was like, oh Because at that point I was up in management so I had worked my way into an assistant nurse manager role was running the childbirth education program at that hospital and I walked out of that called my friend and was like my soul will die here and I remember saying that I know exactly Where I was and I was like, oh You're not gonna be able to stand being in this place for very long And it was about six weeks later that I officially quit my job
[19:13] And I just said if they don't want me then I'm just gonna try it on my own and that was also very dumb I Well that started with I knew so honestly how it really started was I googled like I was like, okay So I'm pregnant. I have a question. I would Google it, right? This is seven and a half almost eight years ago and you Google it and the first bar that came up on the screen For Google was a bunch of YouTube videos. And so I was like, okay, what's out there? And I remember this video still is out there. It had millions of views and it was this Woman with sort of a bowl cut that was at the front of a classroom with an easel and talked like this about
[19:56] pregnancy and your uterus and and I was like, oh I got this one down at that point. There really wasn't birth influencers. There really wasn't people on Instagram There definitely wasn't really anyone on YouTube and I was like I have a few things I knew I was gonna take clients as a doula So I knew I was going that direction as well and was gonna do private childbirth ed But I was like if I put a few of those videos on YouTube one I could send them to my clients so I don't have to answer the same question again 7,000 times again Yes, when do I know that I'm in labor? What is the cervix? What do they do for a vaginally all those things? so I was just like I'm gonna do these videos put them out there so I can use them for my clients and
[20:40] if people watch them great and Slowly, but surely my youtube channel grew and it continued to grow and for about four and a half years I put out a video a week on YouTube while building up a client base. Yeah, they're well done Well, and they've gotten even better well done So I took a break because YouTube if you're thinking about doing any kind of social I will say YouTube is the most strenuous. It is the most Expensive it requires the most and I do all of them now So I would say that like I just sort of my business took off and so I took a break for about almost three years And just this last April we are back and I am put back to posting a video a week
[21:20] and what's fun about it now is that all of our production has increased like Exponentially, and so it's so fun to get to go a little shorter Give a fresh take and be back on YouTube and continuing to Nurture that audience. Thank you. It's so fun. So I did that I started taking doula clients I did some private classes. I taught childbirth class in the community and then Sort of got to a place where I was maxed out and then kovat happened Somewhere in there and so but mind you I know that also took place I'm sure it's like, you know, it's a distant memory now But I remember that FaceTime call from you actually when you were in the hospital was so sweet
[22:04] So it was actually prior to kovat where I was all of a sudden It took my nursing brain where like when you're a nurse and you're at the bedside I really only saw how I Practiced as a nurse and I knew how I was and I had ownership over that but you don't really get to see What other nurses do all the time? But now as a doula I did and I started to get to go to all the hospitals all over LA and was Observing the nursing culture nursing environment nursing care all over the city at the same time I was developing my own practice as a nurse which I can offer my patients my nursing education My nursing brain all of that and also couldn't up the pit Increase the pitocin on the pump. I couldn't call the doctor. I couldn't advocate in the same way
[22:53] I couldn't use the medical stuff to help my patient along which that was how I was trained
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [23:00] It sounds like a neutered nurse It was my hands were tied with my normal like anatomy that I was used to my hand must be so hard because even as A doula you kind of want to jump Yes. Oh my gosh, that was your environment. That's what you were running and doing and then managing Yeah, now you're just kind of there like hands tied observing. Yeah Well, and like imagine there being emergencies and you watching people's response and being like get over there What are you doing or like resuscitating a baby? Like I was just like I always will tell people you want Sarah LaVon She's gonna be the best doula ever because like doulas don't have medical training medical experience for other kinds of support
[23:47] You had everything and then I never thought about the fact that you're in there and just have to like zip it and yeah
Sarah Lavonne [23:53] Well, it's it's like an art. I will say that like it's a practice I feel like I've developed to and I will say that now having rapport with the nurses because now I show up to a Hospital and they know me and they're like you do whatever you tell us what to do and I'm like no No, no, no. No, that is not what I'm here to do. I'm here to support you But they're a little bit more Easier to work with but I will say secret sauce is that I had never obviously been on the doula side But I'd been working with doulas in the community and like hearing complaints and hearing the challenges. I Never got it until I was on that side and I was like, whoa This is very different and I have all this expertise
[24:35] I am like, you know board certified and obstetrics like I know my ish and I wasn't always Like that at the bedside or seen that way. Let me recap before we take our next break
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [24:48] Five years old you watch your mom give birth and it's like wow, that was cool Then ten years old you're like, I want to be a nurse whatever that means then you become a nurse get a job right out of it and Pediatric experience and then working at an LA Hospital trauma hospital Where you see a lot it must have been taking on experience like drinking from a fire hose Yeah, and then the Beverly Hills version of labor and delivery quite different Then getting involved in education then management and then realizing your hands are very tied at the hospital So you leave that system to have a better impact on a problem, which is people are having crappy childbirth experiences
[25:30] And you're not able to solve the problem the way you want to from within so you go outside the system And you're supporting people one at a time, but making videos for the rest of us And then you're doing childbirth education, which is a great effort at solving the problem Like the more information people have the more empowered they are. That's what we're all good information. They have Yes, okay catch there important clarification and That's what you and we have in common so much as an informed pregnancy basically empowered pregnancy But then as the doula you have this other problem Which is you're in the hospital setting now, and you can't do anything, but you're a nuclear submarine
[26:15] So you don't stop there, and that's gonna bring us to what you're doing now when we get back. We'll be right back Well, this is the moment you've been waiting for we're back with Sarah LaVon And how do you solve the key issue which is people are still having crappy traumatic birth experiences? In the hospital setting and what do you do? How do you make a difference? I know that you go home at night and scratch your head wondering what you could be doing different to influence the system So what you come up with?
Sarah Lavonne [26:55] Well, I also realize that like I can train people through YouTube or my online classes And I'm not there and like they're at the will of the nurse And so knowing that I had the background that I did that I've always really believed in nurses I am a nurse at my core. I will always be a nurse at my core. I Thought to myself the way I'm gonna make a difference and an exponential difference is through nursing education and really what the phrase that we use is changing the game in obstetrics and flipping the switch on the various Statistics that I've been hearing be the same for like the last five ten years And so I really thought to myself like if we're gonna make a difference these nurses
[27:38] They are the ones that are preventing issues they're recognizing they're assessing they're having those one-on-one interactions they're showing up providing support or not and I could train them till I'm blue in the face and you show up to the hospital and your nurse either gets right on board and empowers you and amplifies your experience and supports you all the way or disempowers you in Potentially even just like one sentence and again I was seeing all the variations of the way that nursing care was being provided not only all over LA but at that point I had also began to build a social media presence in the nursing side as well and began to
[28:18] nurture that community and Just was seeing what was going on more And so I said if I can't make a difference from the outside in let's go back to inside out But from the outside which is the innovation side of things
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [28:32] I'll believe that makes a lot of sense
Sarah Lavonne [28:35] I hope so and so I had been brewing a training in my brain at every single birth Testing it out. I was in like massive study mode and had been sort of obsessing about the concept surrounding physiologic birth I read PT books I read Chiropractic books I read like all sorts of specialties I was like kind of really pushing into the more holistic side of medicine, which I always was inclined to I was always given the patience without an epidural, you know, like that was always very comfortable for me but I also knew that like the more holistic side and particularly the physiology of birth was not Included in any of my nursing education not in nursing school or on the floor
[29:27] We are not being trained in the core of what birth is and So I had been putting together this class in my head that I was calling physiologic birth that I was like if everybody knew this stuff One we decrease medical interventions, but we decrease these section rates We'd increase patient satisfaction and they'd have better birth experiences But again, there's like this enormous gap in our nursing education related to the concepts around physiologic birth and so I put together a class alongside Justine who was my partner at the time partner meaning professional partner at the time and She eventually got pregnant and needed to take a leave So I ended up doing it by myself
[30:08] But I needed her to like expedite the process and like help me do it and commit to it And so in January of 2020 we launched our first nursing training I rented a space in Los Angeles that had room for 46 people. We sold it out I like basically asked for favors from all of my nursing friends and like invite everybody and it sold it out added a second day Sold it out and the buzz was there and I was like we're gonna take this ish on the road We're gonna change the whole world of OB families are gonna have way better births. Their nurses are gonna be trained in physiologic birth we're gonna start with like Activating the body and helping set the body up to work on its own
[30:48] before we go to medical interventions and that was in January of 2020 and As we all know the whole world shut down in that March And so that training went really good and I kind of sat on it for a year as I pivoted to virtual support and did A lot of online stuff. That was when my YouTube channel really blew up as you can imagine, right? But I was sitting on this and just was like, oh my gosh I have to get this out and it was Justine who actually just kept pushing me like we can put it online We can put it online. I was like it's like a positioning class and it's like hands on you got to practice and sure enough by that time I'd done enough YouTube videos that me being on camera was very comfortable and we had multiple cameras to do multiple camera angles and
[31:27] My assistant at the time had a broadcast degree Long story short we put it online and to date I have trained over 6,000 labor and delivery nurses
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [31:35] Sarah congratulations. It's amazing. Isn't that crazy? You know when I was building my practice I would be tempted to go to these marketing events these Pregnancy expos where all these people are running around and be able to expose them and say oh I know you're achy and you're stiff or your breach or look at what we can do We can help you feel better We can help you function better and you would bring in like three or four people from the event though You know all day on your feet and have four great new clients from the event, which is okay. That's worthwhile Yeah, when you go to an event of childbirth professionals Same amount of time on your feet and then make really deep relationships with three or four childbirth professionals
[32:19] They're going to be sending clients to you Yeah till the end of time and so the difference between being able to help an individual which is very powerful But to be able to help an individual who is then gonna go help many many many individuals is so Exponential and six thousand nurses just means nobody knows how many people's lives you're affecting impacting How many births you're improving and then you double it or more because it's not just that mom that's giving birth It's the child that was birth and their birth experience and there's that nuclear energy There's that person that never stopped thinking about the problem and about solutions and putting in the hard work to make it happen
[33:04] And then seeing success so all right at the end of the day first of all just major kudos to you You're just thank you Inspiration you always have been but even more so now so as an Individual as a person who might be pregnant or thinking about a pregnancy What do you have for us for them and then as a nurse or a childbirth professional? What do you have for them and where do we find it all?
Sarah Lavonne [33:34] Yeah, so for pregnant people if you want more from me I encourage you to take the bundle birth class Which is a childbirth class combined with everything that I teach our nurses And so it really is this like easy touch point where then if your nurse has taken our class and now you've taken The bundle birth class you're off to the races You're speaking the same language you're on the same page And it is so fun to hear those stories of like I took your class Was really hoping for a bundle birth nurse and sure enough they came in with their team underwear pin or their starfish pin or they had your position guide at the bedside because now it's Turned into products and mentorships and all sorts of things
[34:10] We have a learning retreat in Mexico for nurses that like it's just exploded and so then you're off to the races You're speaking the same language, and so we have that coping with labor class etc Mind you what I will say to those pregnant people is that I think and I was thinking about this moment with you Dr. Belin and I just was like I think so much of the information out there about hospital birth is really scary People love to tell their horror stories Which your story is so valid and there is a lot that the hospital still has to improve if anybody knows I know trust me, you know, and I'm hearing those stories every day and There's so much good also happening in the hospital and there are so many
[34:51] Incredible Human beings and I say nurses because that's really my community but also doctors midwives other birth professionals Dulas out there that genuinely care to be the best they can be for you These nurses are investing their own personal money to be better for you. And I think for me as a pregnant person I'm not pregnant But if I was a pregnant person, you know I think to know that it's not all bad that there are Especially ask for your bundle birth nurses and they might be like, what's that and then be like, oh well You should know bundle birth because what's happening is that units are not only decreasing their c-section rate by like 1015 percent
[35:33] Okay, which is astronomical if you read any of those studies like a 1% decrease is considered significant But these families are walking out feeling whole feeling like they were heard that they were seen safe and soothed as we teach That like they've had nurses who came alongside them and maybe it didn't go as planned But also they had that support that they were never alone. They felt autonomy over their body their experience That's been one of our big pushes. And in fact, if you are being asked, can I touch you here? Can I do this? Are you ready? Now you tell me when that movement is a bundle birth nurses movement and these nurses have latched on
[36:10] Because they've just needed the tools to be better and that's exactly what I get to do now on that Exponential level which just feels like what am I doing with my life? It's just like again I was fully happy just being a bedside nurse and helping every patient and I still miss that to be honest because I'm not There at the bedside right now, but you know, it's like a million bedsides Yeah, yeah, which is why I still take private clients occasionally because I'm just like desperate to be at births People are like I'm sorry. I'm like no there's no place I'd rather be than at a birth until I've been up for three days and then I might want to be in my bed for like a second, but
[36:46] I digress So if you want to find us bundle birth calm bundle birth on Instagram bundle birth on tik-tok Sarah LaVon on YouTube But if you put in the search bundle birth, you'll find me There's so many free and paid resources out there for you. We just want to support you and a
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [37:03] Smattering of gifts on informed pregnancy plus. Oh, yeah shared with us. That's right Taste you can always check it out if you subscribe to informed pregnancy plus
Sarah Lavonne [37:14] Sarah you're amazing. So are you I really am honored to be in this work with you to be honest I actually talk about you and physiologic birth by the way, not by name I keep it anonymous unless you don't want to be anonymous But I talk about the work that you've done and how you had to sensitize your fingertips To be able to feel and all of that So you've influenced my practice and I appreciate that I can come to you with questions and that we're in this work doing Like very different work, but also very similar work. It's mutual
Dr. Elliot Berlin, DC [37:43] There's you know, a bunch of puzzle pieces that together make the full picture Yeah, and super honored to be in that puzzle with you. Thank you for sharing everything that you're doing now And thank you for doing it. Yeah, and if you're listening, I would definitely recommend going to check out bundle birth and Sarah LaVon You're gonna be glad you did. All right Thanks for listening to the informed pregnancy podcast for more pregnancy and parenting information just like this Visit us online at informed pregnancy
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