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Unknown
Welcome to Hello Universe, where perinatal peeps come for more evidence, more clarity, and fewer WTS for Jen and Heidi. Labor nurses, educators, and research obsessives here with you in podcast form. From deep dives to surprising rabbit holes, we're here to help you think differently about the work you do every day. Let's launch.
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Unknown
Hello, universe. We're here. We're doing it. We're making a podcast. We're making a podcast.
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Unknown
Yeah. We've been long time coming on this, right? It was the group chat name for a while. Yeah, for a long time. A long time. Thanks, Coco. Yeah, yeah. My son started calling a uterus a universe because, of course, he would know that.
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Unknown
Anatomically correct words for that since I'm a labor nurse. Of course. All three year olds. Oh, is that not a common thing for all three year olds to know what a uterus is? Yeah. And
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Unknown
you know, have a lot of things going on. You know, we have a website, we've got classes. But I think the podcast especially came from us having a shared love slash hate of the question or the statement, this is how we've always done it, or it's always been this way or that sort of idea of
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Unknown
things are not changing, which of course is like
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Unknown
bananas. Are you, as you would say, for your word of the year, you've said is cuckoo bananas. I know I'm regretting that being my year. My word of the year kind of is manifested. Some cuckoo banana stuff for you. Yes, yes it has.
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Unknown
But speaking of cuckoo bananas,
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Unknown
you and your rabbit holes. I do love a good rabbit hole. It's just. There's something about it. Where? Give me a topic. Doesn't matter what it is.
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Unknown
And I will just investigate it to its its end. Yeah. Buckle up. Buckle up, buddies, because this is what this podcast is all about.
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Unknown
All about.
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Unknown
So what tends to happen is either Heidi or I will hear something that is just a, you know, this is how it is type statement regarding practice issues or something. And like, I don't know if we get like an itch or it like it's activates something a neural implant in us and we just off we go down that rabbit hole.
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Unknown
And so that's really the like the framework or like the impetus for this
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Unknown
whole podcast is, is this how we've always done things? Or actually is it that things that things change, right. Things are constantly evolving and changing, and it's really hard as a bedside nurse to keep up on all of that, right?
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Unknown
I mean, stuff is coming out all the time. All the time. And so when I hear things at work, even when I was at work yesterday, you know, someone made a statement about like, oh, we need to do X, y, Z, and I and I kind of stopped and question that. And I said, oh, well, my understanding was that it was actually this thing.
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Unknown
So tell us about it. I was like, happened to work yesterday. Oh. So yesterday we had a patient that we were she was really sick and we were trying to figure out kind of what was going on. I got her partway into her recovery and she had help and was really, really sick. And she was also septic. And it was it was kind of an odd presentation.
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Unknown
And I was, you know, flagged that her lactate was up until we were trying to figure out what was, what was going on. And the provider was like, well, I think help can make her lactate go up. And I was like, oh, really? I wasn't familiar with, you know, with that being a thing. So she's like, well, let me look that up, right.
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Unknown
Because like, I mean, that happens all the time where we hear something and you're like, is that a meat? Like, I, you got to stay humble, right? Totally. Yeah. Things do and can change. And how? You can't keep everything in your brain at once. No, no. Anyway, so it was just like a good moment where she was like, you know, now, I don't know either.
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Unknown
Let let me look it up. And I was like, okay, I got to go take another blood pressure and we'll, like, circle back in a couple of minutes, you know? Yeah.
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Unknown
will have to say like, one thing about where Heidi and I work is we we have the best coworkers and doctors and midwives. I do like the story that she just told about.
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Unknown
That is not a one off. It is not. It is absolutely always how it is. Like everyone stays humble and everyone is very willing to be like, you know what, you're busy, doctor so-and-so. You know, I'll let me let me look this up on up to date or I'm pretty sure it's this. Let me I'll call you right back.
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Unknown
And they're fine with it. Or like, Heidi had to go back to the bedside. The doctor is like, let me double check on that thing. It is just how. And we've worked at the same hospital for ever. Yeah. So then we we just have been living our life thinking that this is totally normal way of being. All of our coworkers are this way.
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Unknown
And then we get out into the greater world, the universe, as it were. Which side note, the universe is not just labor and delivery, right? It's not just Heidi and I. The universe is anyone having to do with anything in the birth world. And come to find out, it does not operate like this everywhere. No. Hence on our website where it says nursing is wild.
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Unknown
Yeah, because it truly is. But, yeah, like you said, you know, the universe is really like comprised of of doctors and midwives and doulas and birth ethicists. Yeah. For pets, like, we have just an amazing community of like, friends and colleagues and, you know, hopefully through both the podcast and our classes and our website and stuff, we're going to be sharing all of the the universe is all of us, right?
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Unknown
Postpartum. Right. So yeah, so kind of like circling back to that and we're like, have we always done it this way? What we need to look at is how we're doing it right now is this evidence based practice, which kind of brings us to to the beginning, to the beginning, which is what is evidence based practice, what is evidence based practice.
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Unknown
And I was going to start we get questions all of the time about, you know, DMs or this or that. And I particularly liked this one because I think it's a great spot to to start or to leap off from in this conversation about and getting the podcast kicked off about what is evidence based practice and you all going to read this at, everyone's going to be like, oh, I felt this, I felt this question, what if there is risk, but I don't have the evidence or they put it science words, right?
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Unknown
There's like that. I mean, so many layers to this that we can't get through all of I mean, we could slice and dice that this is an onion of a question and, you know, a question.
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Unknown
This is where evidence based practice can be so helpful because we kind of freeze a little bit. Like if I don't frame this question perfectly or I don't present my argument or my reasoning perfectly, am I going to just be dismissed?
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Unknown
Right. But I also recognize that my patients on the line. So I also want to be accurate. We want to be clear in our communication. And so there's this tension between I need to communicate what I'm feeling in a way that's going to be both received and is like accurate. Although vibes for me is always plenty of reason to say something, right?
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Unknown
Like, oh, this is just not looking or good feeling good. But yes, if we want to develop like credibility and good relationships with all of our colleagues, like being able to navigate evidence well is kind of where the name of the game. Yeah, it's really helpful. So on our website we have a free downloadable that is kind of gearing up for Intro to evidence based practice.
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Unknown
It's free and use that as you're listening to this podcast, because in subsequent episodes, we're going to dive into certain studies and talk through them in. This will break down the fundamentals of what evidence based practice is, different parts of a study, different types of studies, and is going to be just kind of a helpful guide to go alongside as you're listening to episodes and as like maybe you're getting down your own rabbit holes.
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Unknown
Oh my gosh, I can't wait for people to, like, let us know what kind of rabbit holes are going. I know I can't wait for those night shifters to send us, like the 3 a.m. DM's that like, okay, I'm down this rabbit hole. Unhinged. Yeah. Absolutely unhinged, I'm sure.
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Unknown
Okay, so evidence based practice is what we call like an epistemology.
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Unknown
It's a way of filtering through information because information is, like, more available than any other point in history. Right? For nursing especially, there was, you know, back in the day, it's you did have textbooks, you had to go get your textbook. Then we got, you know, the internet. I know my my dad's retired as a nurse. My grandma was a nurse.
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Unknown
And it's like their concept of like this information sharing on Instagram or through Facebook groups there, they love it. They're like absolutely tickled by it. But they're like, also, I have definitely inherited as you did because you're you come from a nursing family also. Yeah. Oh, we want that textbook. We want to go. Yeah. Turn to page 270 and I'm going to blow your mind.
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Unknown
I need a I need a good index in the back. Oh I love an index I know I still I still love that. Do you ever just, like, crack open the this. God, we're gonna sound like such nerds. But look, I'll be looking for one thing in the index, and it'll have a different. You know, it's like all of the different topics that you could possibly search for within this massive 600 page textbook.
00:10:07:13 - 00:10:23:13
Unknown
And then I'll just, like, one will catch my eye and I'll be like, oh, I wonder what they have to say about this totally derails you. Not what we were looking for. So rabbit hole in print, rabbit hole in print. Old school rabbit hole in,
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Unknown
that's going to be a t shirt or something. He's like, shut up, Jen.
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Unknown
So evidence based practice is a way of epistemology, of funneling through information, which we have so much of right now
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Unknown
historically, the way I was taught it, you know, in nursing school or grad school was that it's conceptualized by like a three legged stool, and you have to have all three parts, or else the stool falls over and the three parts are like research evidence, what we think of as evidence, like, you know, articles, textbooks, studies, things like that.
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Unknown
Then there's our experiences, right? As a clinician, I'm bringing the last, whatever, 5000 patients or however many I've seen in my career, some number of patients, you know, we're funneling, okay, this patient kind of looks like these ones I've seen before. And then obviously the patient, they have their lived experiences, they have their values there. What's important to them.
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Unknown
You know,
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Unknown
what's going to be their choice ultimately for their care. And so we thought of it as a three legged stool. And you bought all that information together sort of at once or the stool would fall over. But that's not really how it works in practice. And I think when we try to do that, it feels clunky.
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Unknown
It can feel a little messy because you're sort of to do all of those pieces at the same time are challenging. So there has to be some sort of like stepwise process for filtering down, because we can't take the whole of the internet and present it all. I can't put out, you know, if Heidi's drags out, you know, all 16 of her textbooks, a patient's going to be like, wait, what?
00:12:11:16 - 00:12:38:06
Unknown
Yeah, that's that's just not realistic. And, well, what makes even sense for this circumstance? Right. So now the way I think is a little bit better way of conceptualizing this. And this is not my framework. This is somebody else's framework is a funnel. And the top of the funnel is what we think of as evidence like that classic like the research case studies published evidence basically.
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Unknown
And so you start there. And the thing is, is that changes. And that's kind of why it's important to start there. Because we all know like the top of the funnel, it's going to be garbage in garbage out. So we have to be really good at discerning what evidence, the quality of the evidence, the applicability of the evidence.
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Unknown
And so that's that second piece is we are kind of taking all of that research knowledge evidence out there. And then that second piece is our experiences as the clinician. And we're filtering it out a little bit of what's going to make sense for our particular situation based on our experiences. Right. And then of those, you know, handful of things that now have been funneled, you know, through the funnel, we got rid of 95% of the stuff that's just like not applicable to this situation.
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Unknown
And then here are the like the actually available and reasonable choices for our patient. And I think that makes it a little less daunting. And actually people are like, oh yeah, I'm doing evidence based practice kind of all day, every day. We're sort of doing this process, I think, without realizing it or putting a name to it. Oh, 100%.
00:14:01:03 - 00:14:01:10
Unknown
Yeah,
00:14:01:10 - 00:14:13:09
Unknown
But back to the top of the funnel. That stuff can really change all the time. All the time. You were just telling me about one of your rabbit holes. Oh, yeah. Okay, so
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Unknown
this was like an accidental rabbit hole. I was listening to this kiss by Faith Hill had it on. And in the song, she's describing that as kiss causes like centrifugal motion.
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Unknown
And I was like, okay, what does that actually mean? I look it up, obviously my internet is like geared towards birth and birth. The algorithm has been built brick by brick for this one. Yeah for sure. So the first thing that comes up is centrifugal force in birth. And I'm like, wait, what? And so there was this thing called the Blonsky method that came out in the late 60s by this guy named George Blonsky.
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Unknown
He just told me everything. The 60s by this guy, by this guy. That's pretty much how everything starts, right? Wild time. Anyways, he came up with this board slash device. It's a circular board that a woman is strapped to. Okay? They're like splayed out, strapped to the middle, is cut out, and there's a net to catch. What, the baby.
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Unknown
So centrifugal force is used to spin women around. And it's going to help like launch the baby out. Yeah. And the amount of like g forces that are emitted from the spin is like the same as. Like what? Like a fighter pilot experiences. Like, it's really, really fast. So this was kind of like developed on the brink of like when we thought like space travel was like really going to take off and we were going to get to a point where we were going to have pregnant astronauts that needed to deliver in space and needed to with no, with no gravity.
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Unknown
Okay. So like this is the way that they're going to do it. Yeah. Okay. That that okay. I see where he's going with this. Like he's really he's like really thinking forward like okay birth is fine. But how is it going to work in space. So that definitely like softens the blow of like yeah I mean that's kind of where it got to.
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Unknown
But initially it started as, you know, if if women are having trouble delivering, you know, can we use this to help get a baby out that we're having difficulty get out. And then it kind of led to this. Obviously it never came out into practice because Mrs. Blonsky said, yeah, Charlotte was her name. Charlotte? Yeah, yeah. She's like, I'm not being strapped to this thing.
00:16:39:21 - 00:17:10:15
Unknown
I mean, I just essentially like, picture someone being like, duct tape to a merry go round. You have to laugh. Otherwise you're like, I know. Otherwise it's just horrifying. Okay, that did bring up something for me. Because again, as things change, you also have to think about like the context and the time in which these were happening. And I think about early, very early 1960s, well, we didn't synthesize pitocin until the 50s.
00:17:10:17 - 00:17:38:23
Unknown
It was not widespread. We weren't using pitocin as a force generator the way we do now in like, whatever, 50% of our prime ups are getting Pettersson for induction, plus another percentage for augmentation. So that was our first generator. But in the early 60s, I mean, I think the guy, it was a professor from Cornell who synthesized it, we would get it from like, I think animals or something like that.
00:17:38:23 - 00:18:02:02
Unknown
But it was hard. It was not, you know, very pure, all of these things. And so to be make it synthesized in a lab that happened actually, like in the late 50s, like post-World War two, and it started prior to the war. Then, you know, things got put on halt, like synthesizing hormones to like, eject babies out of women's bodies was like not a top defense priority at the time.
00:18:02:04 - 00:18:24:20
Unknown
Men were at war. No one should be having babies, I don't know. So it makes sense that he's thinking like that. There actually is maybe a real need for some sort of force generating situation. Launcher. Yeah, I love how we're trying to soften. We're trying to like, soften. This guy's actually just an unhinged lunatic. Maybe. Maybe not. Yeah.
00:18:24:20 - 00:18:41:23
Unknown
Don't we don't know. We just we had the Artemis and that was everyone was, like, locked in on that. Miss universe went around the back side of the moon. So maybe we are going to need that Blonsky method here on that one. I know we're going to be this is going to be one of those archives things that people are like.
00:18:42:05 - 00:19:03:12
Unknown
I found this podcast from 2026 when they were talking about the Blonsky, which like and everyone uses that now. Probably not. That's going to replace pitocin. Exactly. Well, I know for me to be like, maybe not as like really saying something. So it's like, I know that's kind of your general approach is stuff, you know? Right.
00:19:03:13 - 00:19:07:04
Unknown
you know, so that top of funnel is always evolving, always changing.
00:19:07:04 - 00:19:30:12
Unknown
And it is hard as a, as a nurse to, to in our day to day keep up on all of those things or even just to realize that's happened like the same thing. I mean, we always have to stay humble like I, you know, I lady in my 40s having some sleep and my husband is telling me, well, you just got to take my tone in.
00:19:30:14 - 00:19:51:23
Unknown
But I learned in nursing school 20 years ago now, 20 years ago, that you shouldn't take melatonin unless really necessary because it's going to, like, mess up your own. You know, we were taught that you would stop making melatonin, right? And so he's like, take some helm. And I'm like, you're not getting me hooked on, you know, hard drugs.
00:19:52:01 - 00:20:08:19
Unknown
And he is also a scientist. He's an engineer. So he, you know, different obviously than us. But he's like, well, let me look into it. So he looked into it and he's like, babe, you know, it doesn't seem like that is in fact the case anymore. It's not what the research is saying anymore. That's right. So my top of funnel.
00:20:08:19 - 00:20:29:10
Unknown
So the top of the funnel used to be like don't take it. It's not good. That got filtered down to me as the patient of like well I don't want that. But now if that top of funnel changes and it doesn't give me that sweet sweet, sweet melatonin antigens going night night antigens going night night. Yes. So it does.
00:20:29:10 - 00:20:45:21
Unknown
It is actually very effective. I've not seen to. Have you been sleeping better? I've been sleeping better. But I also. It makes you have very vivid dreams. Oh, no. Do you want to. I don't know if I want to hear. Is this. Well, we're getting. I think it's because we're getting ready to go on our girls trip to Miami.
00:20:45:22 - 00:21:11:13
Unknown
I think this is where this dream came from. Okay, so I have this dream the other night. I am hugely pregnant. Geriatric pregnancy. I'm massive. I go into labor, I go to the hospital. Who do I call me? Please. You and I call he. Oh, America's. America's great, America's favorite doula. America's favorite labor nurse. And we go to the hospital, and I'm like, I'm in labor.
00:21:11:14 - 00:21:37:22
Unknown
You've got your giant bag of, like, Swedish gummy candy because you're like, girl, you're going to need some to keep that glucose up. Keep that glucose up. And he's like locked in. She's like, my time to shine. I'm going to doula the heck out of you. So we're doing our thing. And all of a sudden I can hear club music like 2000 club music, like the like 50 cent no, like dada, dada, dada, dada.
00:21:38:00 - 00:21:58:08
Unknown
I'll be going to be my lover 2000 or 90s I don't date I, I don't know about that. Sounds like night at the rocks. It's a little night of the Roxbury and I'm magically transformed. I've got the dress that I wore to the club in the early 2000. I went to I was my club years were like 2000 to like 2006.
00:21:58:09 - 00:22:18:20
Unknown
You just dated yourself? I did just date myself. I had a blue lamé like little dress. We were there, we were at the club. We were like, I was like, I'm in labor. I got to get to the club. There was nothing that was going to keep me from this club. So long story short, melatonin is back in evidence, base is hot and have night at the Roxbury level.
00:22:18:20 - 00:22:24:19
Unknown
Dreams. Yeah, and we're here for it. We're not sponsored. We're not sponsored by any of these things.
00:22:24:21 - 00:22:37:19
Unknown
So I think that that's a good place to stop for this episode. Yeah. We were kind of, again, you know, we just get down these rabbit holes on these rabbits. But. Yeah. So with evidence based practice. It's viewed as that funnel.
00:22:37:19 - 00:23:04:11
Unknown
Now we got to weed through. There's good bad then our own experience and then kind of presenting like what is the patient want what is applicable to them. And that's kind of how we get there. And we know that those things change and they change all the time. So we need to have an attitude of being curious and a lifelong learner, which is just another reason why we're doing this, because we still learn stuff all the time, all the time.
00:23:04:11 - 00:23:05:06
Unknown
So
00:23:05:08 - 00:23:11:00
Unknown
welcome to this crazy journey. Yeah, full of rabbit holes. And
00:23:11:01 - 00:23:26:17
Unknown
welcome to the universe. Welcome to the universe. We're happy that you're here. We're happy to be here with you guys. So download that guide. It's going to be helpful to you for your practice and for following along in this podcast. Catch you next time. We'll see you soon.
00:23:26:18 - 00:23:27:19
Unknown
Bye bye.
00:23:28:01 - 00:23:30:14
Unknown
Thanks for listening to Hello Universe!
00:23:30:16 - 00:23:34:05
Unknown
For more evidence, clarity and community. Head to universe.com
00:23:34:09 - 00:23:37:22
Unknown
and follow us on TikTok and Instagram at hello Dot universe.
00:23:38:00 - 00:23:40:09
Unknown
Nursing is wild. Practice with confidence.
