Episode 32: Empowering Folks During Pregnancy, Birth, & Beyond with Dr. Tasha Darden, DPT, Doula

In this episode, we examine pregnancy, birth, race, and consent through Dr. Tasha Darden’s unique lens of pelvic physical therapist and doula. During her pregnancy, she realized “​​that it was really hard to find a doula that looked like me” and since has become the provider she needed. She shares all you need to know about doulas and how they support people in birth. But we can’t talk about improving birth outcomes without talking about consent and obstetric violence. Tasha shares the Planned Parenthood model of consent: FRIES along with tips for discussing birth trauma postpartum. Finally, we dive deep into the effects of misogyny, patriarchy, and racism on pregnancy and postpartum experiences. This is a MUST listen-to episode for anyone working with pregnancy/postpartum folks!  -- Dr. Tasha Darden PT, DPT is a Pelvic Physical Therapist and Full Spectrum Doula. She is the owner of Physiodoula, which has a mission to help women shift from surviving to thriving in all phases of their lives. She is passionate about being an advocate in the birth room and in the greater Los Angeles community and has created a program called Reclaim Postpartum. It aims to support Black women and families in postpartum with supplies for parents and babies, meals, hands-on support, and access to free resources such as lactation consultants, physical and occupational therapists, mental health services, etc.  Dr. Tasha feels that there is a lack of accessibility to basic pelvic and sexual health, especially in black and brown communities. She is active on Instagram sharing knowledge about all aspects of women’s health including self-care, holistic approaches to healing, optimizing pelvic floor function, body literacy, labor preparation, postpartum recovery, the impact of racism on health, and debunking pelvic health myths. Highlights from our conversation in Episode 32 (0:34) Introducing Dr. Tasha, physiodoula! (4:57) How pelvic PT and doula practice have helped her provide a holistic view with clients (8:42) Defining birth trauma  (12:47) Screening for birth trauma as a pelvic PT in a trauma-informed way  (19:11) What is a doula, what they do, their training, barriers to and benefits of working with a doula (30:31) Racism - not race - is responsible for poorer health outcomes  (33:31) Defining obstetric violence (36:00) Obtaining true consent with FRIES  (43:40) What would happen if we started by saying we are partners in your care? (53:11) Tasha’s Lightning Round Thank you for listening to The Conscious Clinician. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and write a review for the podcast so we can reach more people! Resources from Episode 32 (2:09) Reclaim Postpartum Community Initiative in LA  (23:20) Episode 26: Supporting New Parents’ Health with Catherine O’Brien, MA, LMFT  (36:24) FRIES Consent by Planned Parenthood Let’s Connect! Follow Tasha @physiodoula on Instagram Check out Tasha’s website www.physiodoula.com/ for more on her Pelvic PT and Doula Services  Email Dr. Tasha via [email protected]   Find us on Facebook Connect over Instagram @TheConsciousClinician Connect professionally over LinkedIn with Sammy & Monika