Happy New Year, Women of Strength! Meagan and Julie share an exciting announcement about the podcast that you don’t want to miss. 

While they chat about topics to look forward to this year, they also jump right in and share stats about cervical checks and duration between pregnancies. 

We can’t wait to help you prepare for your VBAC this year!

Needed Website

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

Full Transcript under Episode Details 

Julie: Ready? 

Meagan: Happy New– 

Julie: Oh, are we supposed to say it together? Oh, sorry. Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go again. 

Meagan: No, you were just saying okay, but let’s do it together. Okay, ready? Remember I did this last time? 

Julie: Okay, 1, 2, 3– 

Meagan and Julie: Happy New Year!

Julie: No, it was not right. 

Meagan: Well, we’re going to leave it. You guys, we’ve been trying to say Happy New Year at the same time. There is a delay, I’m sure, on both sides, but Happy New Year, you guys. Welcome to The VBAC Link. It is 2025, and we are excited for this year. Oh my goodness. 

Obviously, you have probably caught on that there is another voice with me today. 

Julie: Hello. 

Meagan: I have Julie. You guys, I brought Julie on today because we have a special announcement. I didn’t let her get away for too long. I didn’t want her to go. I couldn’t. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been bringing her on. I’m like, “Can you do this episode with me? Do you want to do this episode with me? Do you want to do this episode with me?”

And now, at least for the next little bit, she’s going to be doing her own episodes. She is helping me out. 

Julie: Yeah. 

Meagan: We have been doing two episodes a week for almost a year now, and it’s a lot. It’s a lot. 

Julie: You have been such a champ. 

Meagan: Oh my goodness. So that’s what we’ve been up to. I decided that Julie needed to help me. She was so gracious to say, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” Get this, you guys. She was nervous the first time. 

Julie: I was like, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Meagan: But she totally does know what she’s doing. But yeah, so you will be hearing every so often Julie’s voice solo. She is going to be hosting the show solo, so you will be hearing a little bit of a new intro with her and I where we are both talking so you don’t get confused, but I don’t think it is very confusing. Julie has been with us since the very beginning because her and I created the company. It’s been so fun to have her here, so thank you, Julie, for helping me out. 

Julie: You are always welcome. It’s always a pleasure. 

Meagan: I’m trying to think. I want to talk about 2025 and some things that we have coming up as far as stories go. As a reminder, if you have not subscribed to the show, please do so. As you subscribe, it will send you the episodes weekly. 

Right now, like I said, we are doing two a week, so soak it all up. We have so many great stories. We have stories from OB/GYNs. They are doing Q&As. We have polyhydramnios. 

Julie: Polyhydramnios. 

Meagan: Yes. I always want to say dramnios. We are going to be talking about that because we have a lot of people who have been asking about more unique things. Poly is not necessarily unique, but it’s not talked about, so we are going to talk about the high fluid, low fluid, unsupportive providers, and if you have been with us for a while, the biggest thing that we talk about is supportive providers. 

Julie: Mhmm.

Meagan: Maybe it’s not the biggest, but it’s one of the biggest. We talk about finding a supportive provider all of the time. It is so important. Then we’ve got vaginal birth after multiple Cesarean, twin births, gestational diabetes, PROM– if you’re new to that one, that is premature rupture of membranes meaning that the waters break, but labor doesn’t quite kick in. 

Whave else do we have? We actually are going to do some re-airing. We are going to rebroadcast some of our older episodes that we just think are gems and wonderful or have connections with people like Ali Levine. She came back on recently and we want to bring back her episode. Dr. Stu– just some really great episodes from the past and thinking about how long ago that was, Julie– 

Julie: Oh my gosh. 

Meagan: As I’ve been going through these podcasts, holy cow. Some of these are in our 70’s or there was actually one that was out 17th episode or something like that. 

Julie: We need to re-air the dad’s episode. Do you remember that one time when we had all of those dads on? 

Meagan: Yes. 

Julie: That was so good. 

Meagan: That was so good. It was a lot of fun. 

Julie: You need to put that in a spot. It was so good. I remember, I can just be taken back to us in the studio recording and calling each of these dads. It was so cool. 

Meagan: It was. It was really fun to hear their take on it and their opinion of doulas, their opinion of VBAC, their opinion of birth and how they were feeling going into birth, and how they felt when their wives were like, “Hey, I want to do this.” Yeah. Do you know what? That’s for sure. We will make sure that is re-aired as well because I do know that we get people saying, “Are there any episodes that can help my partner or my husband?” because they want to really learn how to get the support for them or help them understand why. Or Lynn. Guys, there are so many of these past episodes that we will be bringing back. 

Julie: Lynn’s episode was so great. 

Meagan: That was so great. We’re going to be having home births. Forceps– VBAC after forceps or failure to progress or failure to descend or big baby. We’ve got so many great things coming this year, so I’m really, really excited. I also wanted to share more about what we’ve going on the blog. We have had weekly blogs, so if you haven’t already subscribed to our email list, go over to thevbaclink.com and subscribe. We send out weekly emails filled with tips or recent episodes. We have a lot of questions in The VBAC Link Community on Facebook. We see some repetitive questions in there, so we respond to those via email. 

Those are really good. We’ve got cervical checks. When is it good to do a cervical check? When is it not good? 

Julie: Umm, never? 

Meagan: When is it not good to do a cervical check? When are they really necessary? What do they tell us? We’re going to be diving into that. We have a blog about that. Do you want to talk about that for a second, Julie? Let’s talk about that. 

Julie: Okay. I understand that there is nuance. That’s the thing about birth. There is nuance with everything. There is context with everything. It just reminds me of the recent election and things like that while we are recording. There are all of these one-liners are being thrown around on both sides. One sentence can be taken out of context in big ways when you don’t have the context surrounding the sentence. For both sides, I’m not pointing fingers at anybody. I’m sorry if that’s triggering for anybody. I know there are a lot of people upset right now. 

But the same thing with cervical checks. Isn’t that true with all of life? All of life, all of birth, and all of VBAC, there is nuance and context that’s important. I would say that most of the time, most of the time, cervical checks are not necessary. They only tell us where you’ve been. They don’t tell us where you’re going. They are not a predictor of anything. I’ve had clients get to 8 centimeters and not have a baby for 14 hours. No kidding. I’ve had clients push for 10 hours. 

I’ve had people hang out at 5 centimeters for weeks, then go into labor and have the baby super fast and also super slow. It doesn’t tell us anything. 

However, there are times when it might be helpful. I use that really, really carefully because it can only give us so much information. I feel like sometimes the cervix can swell if you’ve been in labor for a really long time, or if the baby is in a bad position, so if labor has slowed or hasn’t been progressing as much as expected– and I use that term very loosely as well. There might be a suspicion for cervical swelling. Having a cervical check can confirm that, and having a swollen cervix will change the direction of your care. 

I would say that maybe an important question to ask– and this is a good question for any part of your care– is, “How will this procedure, exam, intervention, etc. influence my care moving forward?” Because if it’s not going to influence your care moving forward at all, then is it necessary? 

Meagan: Why do it?

Julie: Right? So, a swollen cervix, maybe checking baby’s position. You can tell if baby’s low enough. You can see if their head is coming asynclitic or with a different type of presentation. Again, with a suspicion that it might be affecting labor’s progress.

Meagan: You can check if they are asynclitic. 

Julie: But, how would your care change if you find out that baby is asynclitic? What would you do if that is the result of the cervical check? If the answer is nothing, then I don’t know. B