Transcript: Cervical Scar Tissue: A Cause of Preventable C-Sections

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Preggie Pals
Cervical Scar Tissue: A Cause of Preventable C-Sections

DAWN THOMPSON: Have you ever have a LEEP or an IUD place? How informed are you about the effects that gynaecological procedures can have on your birth? Have you talked with your care provider about your complete medical history?

I’m Dawn Thompson the founder of www.Improvingbirth.org . Today on Preggie Pals, we’re talking about: “Cervical scar tissue and the effects can have on your birth.”

[Theme Music/ Intro]

ANNIE LAIRD: Welcome to Preggie Pals broadcasting from the Birth Education Centre of San Diego. Preggie Pals is your weekly online on-the-go support group for expecting parents and those hoping to become pregnant. I’m your host Annie Laird.

Thanks to all of our loyal listeners who have joined the Preggie Pals Club. Our members get special episodes, bonus content after each new show plus special giveaways and discounts. See our website for more information. Another way for you to stay connected is by downloading our free Preggie Pals app and it’s available in the Android, iTunes and Windows Marketplaces.

Now, Samantha our producer is going to give us some more information about our Virtual Panellists Program.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Thanks Annie. So, if you don’t live in San Diego but you’d like to be panellists in our show, you can still participate through our Virtual Panellists Program. Just like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram using hash tag #PreggiePals.

We’ll post questions throughout the week prior to our taping and we’d love for you to comment so we can incorporate your thought in our episode. You can also submit your questions directly to our experts. Learn more about our VP Program through the community section on our website – www.preggiepals.com.

[Theme Music]

ANNIE LAIRD: All right, well let’s go around the table and introduce ourselves. I’m Annie. I’m 35 turning 36 next week. I’m a government contractor and I have no D Date. I have three little girls. Let’s see – two of them were born in the hospital. One was a planned home birth.

We transferred to the hospital and then the last one was a home birth. So, I think we’re done. I think I just need a break. Yes, I need a diaper break. I love it.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: So, I’m Samantha. I’m the producer of Preggie Pals. I am a stay-at-home mom now. I’m no longer working for Coffee Bean. Yes.

ANNIE LAIRD: Can you make me a coffee?

SAMANTHA EKLUND: I can still make it. I still want to make strangers’ coffee. I have one little girl – Olivia. She’s 19 months old. I do not have a due date although I wish that I did. She was in unplanned caesarean and I’m hoping for a V Back next time around.

ANNIE LAIRD: All right, great for you.

DAWN THOMPSON: So, I am Dawn Thompson kind of introduced myself already. But, as far as my personal life; I have six children. Two step children and four that I gave birth too. I had three C Sections and finally a vaginal birth which has ultimately carved to this path of starting a non-profit organization

ANNIE LAIRD: Yes and you’ve been doing that for I think that was the one on the first time I met you.

DAWN THOMPSON: Yes, that’s right.

ANNIE LAIRD: Personally was probably what – three years ago or so.

DAWN THOMPSON: Three years ago. Yes, we’ve been doing it three years now; a little over three years actually. So, yes you came into my house in your uniform because you were still active duty.

ANNIE LAIRD: I was, yes.

DAWN THOMPSON: Came and painted some signs.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yes, probably coming up this fall again. So, it’s just getting bigger and bigger every year. It’s awesome.

DAWN THOMPSON: It is.

[Theme Music]

ANNIE LAIRD: All right, today for us on Preggie Pals, sometimes we review apps or news articles. Not really review just talk about them. So, this news article that caught my eye was: “French woman don’t stay fat after baby.” It said: “Don’t blame yourselves American moms.”

Now, it talks more about post natal care as far as stomach muscles and pelvic floor muscles. So, it’s not really talking about too much ice cream or something like that. But what it saying is that: “French woman, here in the US we give birth and it’s like – hey. See us six weeks later.” If you’re lucky, they’ll see the baby maybe at two weeks later at a two-week appointment.

For the women ourselves, our post natal care is pretty abysmal. We often envy the French. But apparently, there’s one area that we should genuinely feel green-eyed and that’s impost natal care.

So, they get 12 half hour sessions with the post natal physiotherapist that specializes in rehabilitating the pelvic floor and abdominal muscles which I think is awesome. I don’t really like the title of this article. So, the whole article is talking about: “Bringing back the stomach muscles back together that sometimes in some pregnancy, some women can have a separation of the stomach muscles.”

SAMANTHA EKLUND: I have that actually. I’m having a surgery in four weeks for it.

ANNIE LAIRD: Really?

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yes because I have like a full two-inch gap in my abdomen.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yes, I got a three-finger gap. I’m trying to get it back together but it’s so infuriating because like: “I’m losing weight from breastfeeding.”

SAMANTHA EKLUND: But, it’s sticking out right there, right?

ANNIE LAIRD: Exactly, yes.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yes, that’s pretty extreme.

ANNIE LAIRD: I got a pooch basically.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: But at the top and not at the bottom like: “What the heck?”

ANNIE LAIRD: Yes, exactly. It shouldn’t be like that and then as well as pelvic floor. Then, the article goes and in the addition to kind of having the mummy tummy that we kind of eluded to hear. Talking about: “Running without peeing yourself or having stressing continents that a lot of that core muscles of the pelvic floor muscles are really helps women not have urinary in continents.”

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Doing the cackles doesn’t cut it.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yes.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: That’s which we’ve all been told is what we should be doing and it doesn’t help cankles.

ANNIE LAIRD: Exactly. Do a hundred cankles.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yes, it doesn’t help the pelvic floor actually.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yes. I have actually gone through a pelvic floor physical therapist but it wasn’t included in my post natal care. It was just something I have to seek out on my own.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: On your own, right.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yes, but wouldn’t that be nice I think if American women could get that for sure.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: It seems like: “We should be comparing ourselves to a lot of different countries because a lot of countries are doing a lot of things better in maternity care and we really should be emulating that in a lot of different ways. This is obviously one of them.”

ANNIE LAIRD: Yes, I agree.

[Theme Music]

ANNIE LAIRD: Today on Preggie Pals, we’re going to be talking about: “Cervical scar tissue and the effect that it may have on your birth.” Joining us on the studio today is Dawn Thompson.

Dawn is a labour Doula and she is the founder of Improvingbirth.org which is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping women make safer, more informed decisions about their care and that of their babies. Welcome to Preggie Pals Dawn. Thanks for joining us.

DAWN THOMPSON: Thanks.

ANNIE LAIRD: To start of here, a lot of women I don’t think even know what cervical scar tissue is. So, what is a cervical scar tissue?

DAWN THOMPSON: So ultimately, it’s been described in – there are two different types of cervical scar tissue and how they are produced. But essentially, one of them is in more of an external; so is on the outside of the cervix and it feels like what midwives have described as a grain of rice. It’s like an uncooked grain of rice.

It’s a small scar where something caused like a LEEP Procedure which will go into causes more of a circular scar with inside the cervix which many have described as a rubber band. Like it feels like there’s a rubber band on the inside.

ANNIE LAIRD: Okay.

DAWN THOMPSON: That’s a little more extreme and sometimes the one with the uncooked rice will basically resolved itself on its own and doesn’t need a whole lot of help. But the other one typically will need some assistance.

ANNIE LAIRD: Would they able to be able to see that like during a pelvic exam or something like it?

DAWN THOMPSON: No.

ANNIE LAIRD: No?

DAWN THOMPSON: Yes because the cervix has to thin in order for it to be recognized and it has a sort of thing and dilating or at least thinning. The thinning is the most important part because the cervix normally is pretty thick. I really encourage you to go look up pictures of cervix because most of us have no idea what our cervix looks like.

ANNIE LAIRD: Is it there like a website called Beautiful Cervix?

DAWN THOMPSON: Yes. Beautiful Cervix Project, it’s what it’s called. Go look at what they look like. It looks like a doughnut essentially. It looks like a doughnut and so when you’re not in labour,

ANNIE LAIRD: Doughnuts.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: It was National Doughnut Day yesterday.

ANNIE LAIRD: It was.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: We’re running on that theme. Look at that.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yes, exactly.

DAWN THOMPSON: It looks like a big thick doughnut and when it starts to thin, it literally gets to a piece of paper. So, until that happens, that’s why unfortunately you can’t deal with it until you’re actually in labour.

ANNIE LAIRD: Okay. So, what are some of the ways that women can even get scar tissue on their cervix in the first place?

DAWN THOMPSON: So LEEP Procedures, Cone Biopsies, Cryo Procedures which most aren’t doing those anymore.

ANNIE LAIRD: Was it that? Is that like freezing?

DAWN THOMPSON: It is freezing where they freeze the cells on the cervix.

ANNIE LAIRD: Would that be in case of like Cervical Cancer or something like that they would do?

DAWN THOMPSON: Yes or just abnormal which unfortunately this is part of the problem, right? When we have the full HPV; HPV is a huge epidemic at this point and many women suffer from it. So, it’s very common for them to – even though a lot of the HPV would resolve itself; if you go in and you have abnormal cells on your cervix, they want to remove them.

ANNIE LAIRD: Because it such as like HPV is one virus. There are many different varieties of it.

DAWN THOMPSON: Correct. There’s like over a hundred strains of HPV.

ANNIE LAIRD: Some of them like you said resolved on their own and some needed if ever there’s a cancer.

DAWN THOMPSON: A very few of them actually developed into cervical cancer but it’s hard. You don’t know which one you have unfortunately until there’s a biopsy done. Even a biopsy can close. So, biopsy is when they take a tool in there and they literally like bite off a piece of your cervix. It’s of course you can imagine as well. But as you can imagine of that would potentially leave scarring.

It’s important to say that not every woman would develop scar tissue. But unfortunately, you don’t really know if you’re the woman who develops a lot of scar tissue. I didn’t know that for myself. It’s funny because I went around teaching about scar tissue for many years long before I went and had more children.

I had my first children when I was very young before I was a doula and all of that. But when I went to go have my second, my third and fourth child, ultimately cervical scar tissue was my nemesis. Certainly, not my friend and I would never imagined that I have anything because I’d never had a LEEP Procedure or Cone Biopsy.

ANNIE LAIRD: Now, what is a LEEP?

DAWN THOMPSON: LEEP is where they literally like scrape it.

ANNIE LAIRD: Okay.

DAWN THOMPSON: They scrape the cervix. They take a tool in there. It’s kind of like the tool like: “How they do a circumcision.”

ANNIE LAIRD: Okay, all right.

DAWN THOMPSON: How they pull that skin off. So, it’s very similar to that.

ANNIE LAIRD: Okay.

DAWN THOMPSON: So, that’s how you can imagine like visually imagined having that scraped and why there would be that rubber band type scar tissue within the cervix, right? Because that’s what they’re doing there – they’re kind of scooping that out.

If people want to go look up the procedures, there’ s lots of images on there so that you can see not actual procedures but like when they are drawn, not an actual photograph but it’s a stupid word.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yes, a picture that’s not a picture applying.

DAWN THOMPSON: Yes, a diagram

ANNIE LAIRD: There you go.

DAWN THOMPSON: So, anyways so you can look at different procedures but not everyone is going to develop a scar tissue but there’s no way to know until you’re in-labour whether or not you’re going to have that.

ANNIE LAIRD: Right and we talked about earlier about – so we talked about LEEPS and Cone Biopsies and things like that. But, what I was surprised about with women that have a caesarean that it has no procedures on your cervix that was caesarean because they use the tool like a manual dilator

DAWN THOMPSON: Yes, exactly.

ANNIE LAIRD: That a woman who is for example say a DNC or IUD placed. You have no idea that a woman who is just had a previous caesarean; well they still have to open up the cervix.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yes, so that’s me. I have only ever had one caesarean; so I’m like: “I wouldn’t have cervical scar tissue. There’s nothing going on down there.”

SAMANTHA EKLUND: But here’s the difference though, if you dilated during your first birth then they wouldn’t do that. This is only for scheduled C Sections when the cervix hasn’t opened. So, what they do is: “They manually dilate from the top to open the cervix so that the blood flow comes out; where if you’ve already dilated, if you’ve got to three, four or five whatever centimetres when you were in labour then there would be no need to do that.

DAWN THOMPSON: So, I had only had a DMC for miscarriage before and then I also have an IUD placed. But, my IUD had been place not every that’s another thing to know: “Not every provider uses the dilation, the automatic dilator to put the IUD in. Some just insert the IUD without dilating the cervix.” So, that’s something you would need to know, even though you should know.

Certainly something it’s so funny. It’s about really taking part in our maternity decisions is it: “Those are the kind of questions you should be asking your provider if you’re going to get IUD Placed, how are you going to do it? Are you going to dilate my cervix or you’re going to sit in – these are all questions that we should be asking.”

ANNIE LAIRD: Right instead of like: “Well, IUD or pale. Right whatever.” Just do it, I don’t want to know the details; exactly. So, what are some of the effects that scar tissue can have when a woman goes to give birth then as you said: “Can and could have and not necessarily will have?”

DAWN THOMPSON: Correct but it’s more common than most people realize. I really think that it’s one of the probably one of the bigger issues for C Section other than induction because so many women don’t know and neither do providers. That’s really important.

They aren’t taught in medical school. They are talked about cervical scar tissue. They are not taught that it that it causes Dystocia in labour. What they are taught is that: “It can cause the cervix to not hold a pregnancy and to dilate and thin out too soon.”

ANNIE LAIRD: So, yes it’s the opposite or at least the concern of all women. I need to [inaudible] this woman – correct.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Correct and not the opposite.

DAWN THOMPSON: Exactly. Often times, the biggest problem with that is that: “Nurses aren’t taught and they are the ones doing the vaginal exams during labour.” The doctors as we all know – many people might find this surprising but: “The doctor usually shows up about the last five minutes of your labour.” Maybe 10 unless you have great doctors like we have Dr. Cap who like to be part of the pushing process the whole time but most care providers are not.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: I think there is: “That is a huge misconception. I was just sad a birth this past week. The mother-in-law was in the room, she was Greek.” So, she had not her children in the country but she’s like: “She looking around at me and when I look at her daughter and as to her daughter-in-law – where’s the doctor? Where is the doctor?”

I said: “He doesn’t come until later.” She goes: “Like when? 30 minutes later? When is this guy going to get his butt here? My daughter-in-law is having my grand child?” I had to explain that: “No, she shows up at the very end literally.” The nurses call her in. So, they are the ones doing everything.

DAWN THOMPSON: When they’re starting to see the head, stop pushing. Stop pushing. Okay now, we got to call the doctor. It’s a really bad misconception but you’d asked me another question about: “Some of the things that what it does in labour?”

ANNIE LAIRD: Right.

DAWN THOMPSON: So, I got a little off topic on that one. But ultimately, essentially; it can do a lot of things but probably the most common thing we see like a LEEP Procedure for an instance is that: “A woman won’t be going into labour; she’ll have just ridiculous amounts of prodromal labour of starting and stopping, starting and stopping.”

ANNIE LAIRD: Of course, starting in the middle of the night and stopping in the morning. She’s exhausted.

DAWN THOMPSON: Labour all night and this could go on for a week to weeks. I think it’s important to know that the problem is: “A posterior baby shows a lot of the same signs.” So, making sure that you’re addressing those issues; as well that the potential that your baby is posterior causes a lot of the same confusion about a lot of prodromal labour will happen when the baby is posterior too.

So, if you have a risk for cervical scar tissue, you certainly should be paying attention to these things. It can also cause Dystocia of the labour which means that: “The cervix kind of stalls or stops dilating.” I want to back up a little bit.

When you have a LEEP Procedure, the thing that we see a lot is that: “Finally, when labour starts, sometimes it’s with the water breaking prematurely or before labour begins. Then, labour will finally get going and mom will be rocking it out 2-3 minutes apart she is totally in.”

You’re thinking: “As a doula and as a parent, you go to the hospital because you’re in. You did all the things.” It’s been two minutes apart for an hour.

ANNIE LAIRD: You have at least five centimetres

DAWN THOMPSON: Yes, exactly. They walk in and they’re one cm or half a centimetre or not even a finger tip dilated which was really what happened. That’s how I found out about cervical scar tissue. I could share that story because it was my sister and she had this prodromal labour. She lives up in [inaudible].

I was travelling. I went up there the week before. She’s like: “Okay, things are starting.” I went up the week before laboured with her all weekend long – off and on labour, off and on labour. I’m just like: “Okay hon. I got to go home. This isn’t real labour.” So, I came back home. She went to the midwife the next day. She had midwives at Kaiser.

She went to the midwife the next day and they said: “Your fingertip dilated.” I thought: “How could she have been?” Like I can’t even get my finger in there, how could she have been labouring so much over the weekend and not done anything? So, I thought: “Okay, it’s my dramatic sister. Chuck it up to mama.” So, a week later her water broke.

Now, keep in mind she’d having contractions all week long, nonstop, all day, and all night. She could move on with her life. They weren’t horrible. They were just: “Okay, I’m tightening again. I’m having the pain – all those things.” So, now I know the water’s broke for real now. So, I go up there and she’d chosen to labour at home for as long as possible.

I got there and seven minutes apart, seven minutes apart from 17 hours. I was just like: “Something’s not right. Mindy, I am so sorry. I know that you wanted to do this as long as you could here but my gut is telling me – we need to go in. It’s just you’re not getting longer, stronger and closer together.” So, we went but she was in; there was no doubt.

She was exhausted. She was working hard. It wasn’t like: “Mild sort of just like she’s been having the week before.” We walk in and now this is a new midwife who she only seen once during the time. She did a vaginal exam and she’s like: “Your fingertip dilated.” I’m like: “What? How is this possible?” I’m just like: “Rocking my brain thinking how is this possible?” I’ve just been watching her labour for hours.

Then, she said: “But you’re 90% effaced almost a 100% effaced.” I thought: “Well, that’s weird.” You don’t have zero dilation and almost fully effaced. That just doesn’t make sense to me. Then, suddenly she still has her hand in there.

She says to my sister: “Have you any procedures done to your cervix?” My sister said: “Yes, I have a LEEP Procedure done a few years ago.” This was her second child. I have been telling her: “Your birth is going to go so fast. It’s your second baby. But she had the LEEP Procedure since she had her first baby.” She’s like: “That’s what it is.” You have cervical scar tissue.

I was like: “How if I have been a doula for four years and I have never of cervical scar tissue?” So, she’s like: “I’m going to see if I can get in there enough to see if I can break it up.” Sure enough, my sister went immediately to three centimetres and they went ahead and put it on Pitocin which was a mistake but whatever.

They put on her Pitocin so she immediately went into like a rock star surges. Check her an hour later and she was four centimetres. So, she went in again. When she was doing the exam, she could still feel a little bit of scar tissue. So, she manipulated again which by the way – they say cervical, you massage the cervix to get the scar tissue out which sounds really kind but it’s not comfortable.

But I’ve seen lots of women do it and get through it without medication. It’s not like: “My gosh. I’m climbing the walls. It definitely is uncomfortable massages is definitely not the word. But manipulating the cervix is probably a better word.”

ANNIE LAIRD: Okay.

DAWN THOMPSON: Anyways, an hour later; my nephew was born. So, she went on four to complete and pushing out my nephew an hour later.

ANNIE LAIRD: That’s amazing.

DAWN THOMPSON: Yes, it was the first so I pulled that midwife aside and I was just like: “You got to fill me in what is this?” She did. I immediately went home and try to do some research on it. There was absolutely nothing. There was nothing on cervical scar tissue.

So, I wrote a blog post about my sister specific experience. Then, I started talking to midwives and the midwives were like: “Of course, we deal it with it all the time.” I’m like: “Why isn’t there an article? Why is the internet full of this stuff?”

I immediately I started going back through many clients, several clients that I knew. I mean I even called one after because I was sure because she’s one having a C Section. I called her and sure enough she says: “Yes, I’ve had three LEEP Procedures.” She’d never dilated, never dilated.

ANNIE LAIRD: The missing puzzle piece.

DAWN THOMPSON: Yes, totally. So, I’ve had clients who have been rocking their labour like you think they’re in transition.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yes.

DAWN THOMPSON: You walk in and they’re 1 centimetre dilated. But also then, you’ve got a care provider who’s willing to get in there and come into the hospital because that’s the first thing right? We just had that discussion about how the provider doesn’t come until the baby’s coming out and/or there is a problem.

So, now we have to ask that nurse to bring a provider in. So, it’s so important to make sure that you have a provider that is aware of cervical scar tissue, knows how to deal with it and is willing to come to the hospital when you are in labour in the early labour and deal with it.

ANNIE LAIRD: Well, let’s talk about that after the commercial break. So, when we come back, we’re going to be discussing: “How to talk with your care provider about cervical scar tissue and what they actually would do as Dawn says – manipulate the cervix.” We’ll be right back.

[Theme Music]

ANNIE LAIRD: Welcome back. Today, we’re discussing: “The issue of cervical scar tissue.” Dawn Thompson is our expert. Dawn, you mentioned that the midwife with your sister that she manipulated the cervix. So, what exactly can the care provider do? You even mentioned if during labour that this has to happen. But, what they are doing to actually break up that scar tissue?

DAWN THOMPSON: Well, typically it’s done during a vaginal exam.

ANNIE LAIRD: So some a special technique or something?

DAWN THOMPSON: No. I’ve never done a vaginal exam. So, I’m only going with what providers have shared with me. Some have described it where they literally go in and they just put more pressure on it. It’s kind of like when you just get your membrane stripped or something that’s something that’s disgust. So, it’s just an aggressive vaginal exam. They use their fingers.

But I’ve had providers describe it like: “When it’s a LEEP scar which is that tight rubber band that it feels like per spring during opening.” When it releases, they can feel it. It feels like and often times the cervix will just open to a dilation which is where it supposed to be so I mentioned women who are acting

ANNIE LAIRD: One to like five.

DAWN THOMPSON: Three or four – exactly, absolutely. Then, you realized: “That make some more sense.” That’s how she was acting. Her body was participating in being five or six centimetres

ANNIE LAIRD: But it was just being held close.

DAWN THOMPSON: Right, exactly.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: So, what kind of discussion should a woman be having with her care provider? When should this discussion be happening?

DAWN THOMPSON: Immediately. I mean when she’s interviewing him. The care provider as far as I’m concern

ANNIE LAIRD: Do you know about cervical scar tissue?

DAWN THOMPSON: Yes, are you aware of cervical scar tissue? She should know her history. She should remember it. It’s amazing how many women go: “I don’t remember. Did I have that? Have I ever had a LEEP?”

SAMANTHA EKLUND: I thought it was so neat at the – I can’t remember what baby fair. It was maybe the natural baby fair, a couple of years ago. [Inaudible] came.

ANNIE LAIRD: She did.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: She said: “In this focus group that you were doing, we really should pay more attention to what women’s medical histories are.” It’s not just a thing where a woman comes in off the street and that’s not the hallmark of midwifery care.

DAWN THOMPSON: We have to look at their whole history.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yes.

DAWN THOMPSON: A lot of times, we move. We change insurance companies. We don’t have the same provider. You may go to a different person for your gynaecological procedures. You may have gone to a midwife or other things or an obstetrician for other things. That stuff doesn’t carry over what happened at this provider doesn’t carry over to the next provider.

ANNIE LAIRD: Right.

DAWN THOMPSON: So, it’s important that you are aware of what you’ve done so that you can have that discussion.

ANNIE LAIRD: Woman taking charge of their own health care.

DAWN THOMPSON: Yes, absolutely.

ANNIE LAIRD: This is my body. This is my baby.

DAWN THOMPSON: It’s so important. We’ve been brought up in a culture that says: “You just do what that guy over there with the medical degree says. But he doesn’t know your body the way that you know your body.” Well, at least I hope that you know your body and if you don’t, you should.

This goes for midwives are perfectly capable. In fact, I think they are even more capable it seems because they are fully aware of cervical scar tissue. All the midwives, most of the midwives that I’ve talked to have been seen it, they deal with it. They know how to address it but the obstetricians have been a little less coming around.

Although, I feel like I’m talking about this for seven years now. So, it’s now in several child birth education programs where they talked about cervical scar tissue. So, I think the original blog post I wrote got a lot of attention. But, I wrote a follow-up with much more information and stuff. That’s been read hundreds of thousands of times across the country. So, the awareness is definitely coming and happening.

ANNIE LAIRD: You’ve mentioned: “If a woman has a baby or say she gets pregnant and she has had previously a procedure on her cervix and she has that baby vaginally, is that scar tissue still an issue at that point or is it completely broken out?”

DAWN THOMPSON: No. It typically I mean my understanding is that: “Unless you do something else to your cervix, it’s gone. It’s gone.”

ANNIE LAIRD: Well that’s great. Okay. Thanks Dawn for joining us today. For more information about Dawn and improvingbirth.org visit the episode page on our website. This conversation continues for members of our Preggie Pals Club.

After the show, Dawn is going to be discussing: “The upcoming rally for birth occurring this upcoming Labor Day in locations all over the world.” To join our club, visit our website www.preggiepals.com.

[Theme Music]

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Hey, we have a comment from one of our listeners.

This is from Nichole in Texas:

Hey Preggie Pals, I’m pregnant with our first child and I desperately want to breastfeed my baby after she’s born. I listened to a couple of episodes you have done focused on breastfeeding but I can’t seem to get enough. Is there another resource you can recommend?
-Nichole

SUNNY GAULT: Hey everyone. This is Sunny. I’m one of the producers on the show. So, thank you for your question. Yes, regarding breastfeeding; this has always been kind of an interesting topic for us because some of you may know or may not know; we have a whole show that focuses on breastfeeding. It’s called: “The Boob Group.” You can find all the episodes of www.theboobgroup.com .

It has all the free apps just like Preggie Pals does. You can listen to it on-the-go. So, we don’t concentrate so much on Breastfeeding because we have a whole show that’s dedicated to it. They go into lots of great in-depth information about breastfeeding as well as how to breastfeed in public and how to just cope all of the emotion that comes with breastfeeding and helping out other mamas who maybe having a bad day. We talked about everything on that show.

Sometimes we do have a breastfeeding episodes on Preggie Pals but I would steer you towards The Boob Group for everything breastfeeding. That’s where you’re going to get the most comprehensive information.

But, yes we have huge breastfeeding advocates here at Preggie Pals. We don’t want to give the impression that we weren’t; when in fact we’re so into breastfeeding. We have a whole show about it. So, feel free to check out The Boob Group at www.theboobgroup.com .

ANNIE LAIRD: That wraps up our show for today. We appreciate you listening to Preggie Pals.

Don’t forget to check out our sister shows:
• Parent Savers for parents with newborns, infants and toddlers
• Twin Talks for parents of multiples.
• The Boob Group for moms who breastfeed their babies

Next week, we’ll be discussing: “How that you can cope with the nemesis of first trimester women everywhere: morning sickness.” This is Preggie Pals: “Your pregnancy, your way.”

[Disclaimer]
This has been a New Mommy Media production. Information and material contained in this episode are presented for educational purposes only. Statements and opinions expressed in this episode are not necessarily those of New Mommy Media and should not be considered facts. Though information in which areas are related to be accurate, it is not intended to replace or substitute for professional, Medical or advisor care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating health care problem or disease or prescribing any medications. If you have questions or concerns regarding your physical or mental health or the health of your baby, please seek assistance from a qualified health care provider.

SUNNY GAULT: New Mommy Media is expanding our line up of shows for new and expecting parents. If you have an idea for a new series or if you’re a business or organization interested in joining our network of shows through a co-branded podcast, visit www.NewMommyMedia.com .

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