We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brittany Sharpe McCollum a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Brittany, thanks for joining us today. Can you recount a time when the advice you provided to a client was really spot on? (Please note this response is for education/entertainment purposes only and shouldn’t be construed as advice for the reader)
Having been in the birth education and advocacy field for over sixteen years, I have the honor of working with newer and seasoned doulas in the role of a mentor. This allows me to support their work with their clients, impart knowledge and suggestions for making their clients’ births progress in a more positive and efficient manner, and create a sense of community and empowerment among colleagues as well as clients. One of the most rewarding experiences as a mentor occurred when a doula in my program was with a client in labor who had been laboring for well over 24 hours. She reached out to me for suggestions because labor had progressed to the transition phase but there was not descent from the baby nor further dilation. The client was working hard for a vaginal birth and was starting to feel defeated and was feeling the pressure from her providers to intervene. Through a combination of phone calls, texts, videos, and pictures, the doula and I were able to work collaboratively to offer her clients suggestions specific to the signs she was experiencing that provided clues to how the baby was positioned in her pelvis and where the baby needed space for descent. The effort put out by the client, the consistent and positive support from her doula, and the positions and movements I was able to suggest based on the circumstances, sensations, and station of the baby made a difference in not only encouraging her baby to come down and out vaginally without intervention but also in her confidence and sense of satisfaction with her birth experience.
Collaborative care, the sharing of knowledge, and the use of intuition and biomechanical understanding really offers an opportunity for improving birth outcomes, physically and emotionally.
Brittany, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My work supports both expecting parents as well as clinical and non-clinical birth professionals in making individualized care evidence based support a reality in the childbirth experience. I am an educator focusing on birth, perinatal advocacy, and pelvic biomechanics, providing childbirth education, birth doula support, lactation services, and continuing education for midwives, nurses, obstetricians, doulas, and childbirth educators.
I began this work in 2006 soon after the birth of my first son. My experience as a first time parent highlighted the gaps in information, expectation, and care that are trademarks of our current reproductive healthcare system. This was the catalyst for my journey into understanding the realities of childbirth in the U.S. as well as developing skills and curriculum for encouraging individualized care through advocacy, movement, and education.
My services include childbirth education, offered both in person in Philadelphia PA as well as in virtual live classes and self-paced courses, virtual and in person birth doula support, lactation education and support, and classes and workshops on the role of movement in all labors as a tool for decreasing intervention rates and improving emotional and physical birth outcomes.
When it comes to the classes I offer expectant parents, I emphasize strongly that I don’t “teach” people how to give birth and I don’t make recommendations. I view myself in the role of an educator as an information provider and skill developer. Through supporting people in exploring their options and learning skills for communicating with their providers and supporting the progress of labor through simple yet effective movement, I aim to provide expecting families with the information necessary for creating a birth experience that is positive and joyful based on their individual preferences and priorities.
The continuing education workshops that I create and facilitate aim to provide clinical and non-clinical birth workers with the evidence based understanding of pelvic biomechanics as a platform for approaching childbirth with a set of no-risk skills that can be applied to all labors to encourage progress while minimizing intervention and restoring a sense of autonomy to the person birthing. Workshops take a dive into the history of the role that pelvic shape classification has played in the development of the false notion of optimal fetal positioning and the subsequent bias that is perpetuated in obstetrics as a result. Through the development of an understanding of movement and its real-life application to labors with and without epidurals, providers broaden their skills in supporting labors through a physiological approach to the process.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
My own first birth experience was really the catalyst for my start in this work. This meant, though, that I was both processing my experience while navigating the world of learning how to support others. When I began doing birth work, I felt drawn specifically to clients that were interested in birthing in a way similar to my ideal. However, as I attended more births and was exposed to the myriad variations of circumstances that can affect the decisions someone makes in labor I began to realize that I was able to effectively provide information, physical support measures, and emotional care for people desiring all different experiences.
Being in the world of doula work and education, my philosophy really began to evolve as I gained more experience. Although I can’t pinpoint an exact moment this happened, upon reflection this recognition seems like the big shifting point of growth for me personally and professionally. As I inadvertently learned the importance of providing support in the way in which someone needed it rather than the way I anticipated them needing it, it became inevitable that my potential to impact people’s birth experiences in a positive way need not be limited to a certain “type” of client or preference.
This opened the door for my knowledge base to grow tremendously, for my creativity in the laboring space to unfold, and for the solid need to provide evidence based movement support for all laboring experiences – regardless of pain medication choices, induction or spontaneous labor, or place of birth. It also meant that I was able to recognize the need for active participation in birth in ways that looked different than what I had previously believed. This opened the door to research based education and support as well as awareness of options and one’s rights in the laboring room being a backdrop for all of the work that I do.
Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?
The absolute most important thing in birth work is the ability to listen. Far too often people experiencing pregnancy, birth, and postpartum are talked down to, told what to do or what not to do, given conflicting information, rushed through prenatal appointments, given testing/medications/interventions without any discussion, and rarely just listened to. We ask pregnant people all the time “how are you feeling?” but then don’t actually expect a realistic answer. When someone does provide a response like “well, I’m really tired and my back has been aching” the response is far too often “just wait til the baby comes!” or “you’ll feel better once you’re not pregnant” when really they just need to be heard.
When someone is not listened to during such a transformational time as the childbearing year, it can chip away at their sense of power and lead to feelings of trauma surrounding their experience. This can affect their ability to communicate with their partner, provider, and even their baby.
By offering the ability to simply listen and be present, we allow our clients the space to be heard, reflect upon their thoughts, and feel empowered in their experience.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.blossomingbelliesbirth.com
- Instagram: @blossomingbelliesbirth
- Facebook: @blossomingbelliesbirth
- Youtube: Blossoming Bellies Wholistic Birth Services https://www.youtube.com/@blossomingbellieswholistic2318
- Other: Tik Tok @blossomingbelliesbirth
Image Credits
Tammy Bradshaw Photo