The Experience Miracles Podcast

Becoming ‘Birthfit’: Birthing Outside of the Medical System

Jun 9, 2024

A BirthFit Approach with Dr. Lindsey Matthews

Episode 19 — Experience Miracles Podcast | Host: Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP — Pediatric Chiropractor & Founder of PX Docs | Published: May 7, 2024 | Duration: 76 min Guest: Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu, DC — CEO of BIRTHFIT, Certified Doula & Neurologically-Focused Family Chiropractor | willowhaustx.com

Key Takeaways

  • A woman’s nervous system health in the months before conception directly affects fertility, pregnancy resilience, and birth outcomes. Dr. Lindsey Matthews recommends achieving a “green zone” HRV reading for at least 90–120 days before attempting to conceive — the time required to develop a quality egg.
  • America spends close to $100 billion on birth annually yet has some of the worst maternal and infant mortality rates of any industrialized nation. More spending on the same medicalized system is not producing healthier moms or babies.
  • Women stuck in Sympathetic Dominance — chronic fight-or-flight with depleted adrenals and sluggish metabolism — may need a minimum of 6–9 months of Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care at 3x/week before their nervous system is ready to support conception.
  • Dr. Lindsey Matthews conceived naturally at 40 years old after 9 months of rebuilding her HRV through consistent chiropractic adjustments, ancestral nutrition, and nervous system nourishment — and completed an empowering home water birth at 36 weeks.
  • As Dr. Lindsey summarizes: “You birth how you live.” The daily practices, mindset, and nervous system regulation a woman builds before and during pregnancy directly shape how birth unfolds.

What Does Nervous System Health Have to Do with Pregnancy and Birth?

Nervous system health is the foundation of fertility, pregnancy resilience, and birth outcomes — yet most women entering preconception are operating in chronic Sympathetic Dominance, a depleted, fight-or-flight state that can block conception, complicate pregnancy, and lead to the medicalized, fear-driven birth experiences that have become the default in American maternity care. Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu, DC, CEO of BIRTHFIT and a Neurologically-Focused Family Chiropractor, argues that the missing link in maternal health is not more medical testing or earlier intervention — it is nervous system repair that begins months before conception occurs.

The mechanism is straightforward: when a woman’s body is operating in protection mode, driven by stress, adrenal depletion, and chronic sympathetic activation, it is not physiologically ready to expand, receive implantation, and sustain a pregnancy. Dr. Matthews uses Heart Rate Variability (HRV) as her primary clinical marker for nervous system readiness, targeting a “green zone” HRV reading for at least 90–120 days before a patient attempts to conceive. For those pursuing IVF or IUI, the same standard applies before embryo transfer.

For families, the implication is significant: preparing the nervous system for pregnancy is not a quick fix. It may require 6–9 months of consistent chiropractic adjustments, nutritional rebuilding, mindset work, and intentional lifestyle change. But Dr. Matthews’ own story illustrates the payoff — she conceived naturally at 40 after 9 months of rebuilding her HRV, maintained a green zone reading throughout her pregnancy, and gave birth to her daughter Vera in a peaceful home water birth she describes not as painful, but as “the portal to God.”

From Hollywood Set Chiropractor to the Birth World [00:05:23 – 00:11:57]

Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu: BIRTHFIT started for me as the intersection of chiropractic, strength and conditioning coaching, CrossFit coaching, movement coaching, and my doula work. It began as a blog, and then classes were born.

At that time — around 2011, two years after graduating chiropractic school — I was working in what I’d call the sports rehab world. Right out of school I was hired in the Hollywood industry, traveling around working on movie sets, getting actors and actresses ready for their biggest stunts. We were also working with professional athletes and Olympic athletes at the training center in Los Angeles.

For me, coming right out of school and working on the set of Mission Impossible, or being at a Laker game, or working with the best soccer player in the world — it was blowing my mind. But at the same time, it was not fulfilling.

When a client patient asked me to attend her birth — she was in a TV show and wanted an efficient postpartum recovery so she could film the next season — that question opened a door. She wanted to get her mind, body, and soul ready for pregnancy and birth, then recover efficiently. That made complete sense to me. So I started researching birth.

We had almost no training on birth and pregnancy in chiropractic school. At the time, our school was fear-based about even adjusting women in the third trimester. So I started taking classes, became a doula, and began attending births.

That’s when I realized: this is the Olympics. This is the biggest sport of a woman’s life. Coming from working with athletes at the NBA Finals and the World Cup, none of that compared to watching a woman go through her birth experience. My mind was blown. I had grown up standard American — standard diet, standard antibiotics, hospital birth as the default. Then I discovered you could give birth where you choose. You could have a midwife. You could have a free birth. There were so many options I had no idea existed.

Dr. Tony Ebel: That is exactly it. These are our babies. This is our whole world. When you saw those births and that transition to motherhood, you understood — the NBA Finals and the Olympics don’t compare. I remember having a conversation with Christina in our kitchen after Oliver’s birth and all the transformation that chiropractic and the nervous system gave him. She said, when chiropractors say “let’s go change the world,” she used to think we were nuts. But that baby in your arms literally is your world.

The Nervous System as the Root of It All [00:11:57 – 00:19:21]

Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu: It’s absolutely why everything came full circle. The minute I started zoning in on these babies coming earthside and looking up at their mom and making eye contact — I still get the heebie-jeebies. That’s when I knew: the mother-baby dyad is priceless. There is nothing on earth that can compare to that bond.

That realization made me think differently about when to intervene. As chiropractors we’re often trying to “fix the problem” later in life. But why not take it a step back? Go to pediatrics. Take it a step further back — go to birth. Take it further — go to pregnancy. Further still — go to preconception. At preconception, you’re cleaning out the cobwebs of the closet and offering that child a blank canvas from which to grow and develop exponentially.

So I quit my great-paying job and started working at two birth centers in Los Angeles — one run by a certified nurse midwife, one by a certified professional midwife. That’s where I gained real hands-on experience. And through all of it — chiropractic, birth, movement coaching — the underlying theme kept showing up. The nervous system was the connective tissue between all of it.

“The mother-baby dyad is priceless. There is nothing on earth that can compare to that bond between mother and baby.”

I started working on mindset and affirmations alongside movement. Hypnobirthing led me to NLP. I became an NLP practitioner and started helping preconception and doula clients shift how they thought about birth. The nervous system, philosophy of chiropractic, birth physiology — it was all converging.

When I moved to Austin, I asked Dr. Morgan if she needed an associate. I told her I didn’t care what she paid me — I just wanted to learn. Working with her for about a year and a half is where I came across Dr. Tony and the PX experience. She said: “If you work here, you sign up for PX.” I was like, game on. Then I became fully immersed in the pediatric experience, and it made complete sense as a family practice model. I needed a playbook for opening a nervous system-based practice 12 years after graduating school. PX was that playbook.

The Medicalized Birth System — and the Alternatives [00:19:21 – 00:26:28]

Dr. Tony Ebel: The standard medical playbook for pregnancy is disempowering to the nth degree. First you get diagnosed as pregnant — and if you’re over 35, suddenly everything is wrong. You receive tests, fear, toxins, and stress. Then you show up in the place where sick people go to have a healthy baby. Once baby arrives, there’s a new quarterback for the medical playbook called the pediatrician, and they take over. How are those outcomes awful? We’re here to have a different conversation that leads to different actions, different providers, and different outcomes.

Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu: Birth affects us all — period. How we are born affects us all, whether we acknowledge it or not. In America, we spend close to $100 billion on birth and have one of the worst maternal mortality rates and one of the worst infant mortality rates of any industrialized country. Our children have never been sicker.

I am a firm believer that what we do from three months prior to conception through the first two years of life is the biggest window of health that will influence your wellbeing into your seventies, eighties, and beyond — and with epigenetics, potentially for generations to come.

On one end of the birth spectrum you have free birth — a complete, natural physiological birth with no medical assistance. In the middle are traditional midwives and certified nurse midwives. Further along are birth centers attached to hospitals, and at the far end are hospital OBs and cesarean sections. Our country has swung the pendulum so far toward that medicalized end that some states have close to a 40% C-section rate. The World Health Organization recommends the rate sit between 10 and 15%.

If you look at the research by Dr. Michel Odent, a French OB, the more C-sections we perform, the more we may be naturally selecting against our own oxytocin system — our feel-good hormone system. Oxytocin is that warm sensation you feel when you receive a hug. It shows up in birth, in connection, in these profound moments. It is not the same thing as Pitocin, which is a synthetic version of oxytocin that drives uterine contractions from zero to a hundred instantly. There’s nothing gradual about it.

“We keep spending money on the same process and it’s not working. Women are becoming more depleted, more depressed, more anxious. It’s a really sad state when a woman goes into what should be the greatest day of her life fearing it.”

Dr. Tony Ebel: Birth Fit and PX are not here to make a few subtle shifts to a broken system. We need to make a seismic movement. We need to rebuild from the principles of chiropractic, natural health, and birth. And what’s important here: when you begin with your ideal birth in mind — the birth most congruent with your values, most empowering to you — and then work backward from that goal, the options on the natural side of the spectrum open up. The medical system just plops mom into the default playbook. So many moms and babies stay stuck there simply because they don’t know there are options on the other side.

Assessing a Mom’s Nervous System for Preconception Readiness [00:26:28 – 00:42:54]

Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu: First, two things people might get triggered by. One: your emotions are your responsibility. Two: the system is not going to change if we keep operating within it.

With that said — you have to take radical responsibility for your health. The mom, the dad, the whole family. That conversation starts way before conception, because another phrase I keep coming back to is: we birth how we live.

Birth is absolutely a lifestyle. We show up in birth the way we show up everywhere else. If we are not practicing surrender in other parts of our lives, we cannot expect to surrender in birth when it becomes intensely demanding.

So in the office, we start with three pillars: nervous system health, nourishment, and movement. I want to give patients free tools alongside clinical care. Get some sunshine. Walk for 20 minutes in the morning. No screen time for 30 minutes before bed. Start building a list of what nourishes your nervous system — for some women that’s a hot bath, for others it’s a CrossFit class, a walk, a book, or putting their feet on the grass in nature. That list carries through preconception, pregnancy, postpartum, and into birth.

Dr. Tony Ebel: For the majority of patients who show up at the start of this journey with a PX doctor, the nervous system isn’t just dysregulated — it’s in disrepair. It needs what we would call nervous system repair first. We see thermal and EMG scans on preconception and pregnant moms that are a real mess. So what do they need, chiropractically?

Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu: Dream scenario: a woman comes to me preconception, we look at her HRV, and it’s out of the green zone — sitting in orange or red. That tells me she’s depleted. She’s in Sympathetic Dominance. Operating in masculine energy more than feminine energy. She has time caps on everything. She’s tracking weights and percentages in the gym rather than going with the flow.

When a woman comes to me preconception, I want that HRV in the green — and I want it there for at least three months, ideally 90 to 120 days. That is how long it takes to develop a quality egg. If her partner is involved, same standard applies for sperm quality. For anyone going the IVF or IUI route — I want that HRV in the green for three months before embryo transfer. If your body is operating in protection mode, it is not ready to expand and receive implantation.

Dr. Tony Ebel: So if a woman comes in very sympathetic dominant, vagus nerve exhausted, HRV low, adrenally depleted — how long at three adjustments a week does it typically take to reach that green zone?

Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu: Minimum six months.

Dr. Tony Ebel: So we’re looking at six to nine months just to get there — and then another three months in the green zone before conception. Moms should ask this question of every provider. What I love about PX doctors is we have clinical protocols and patient population data to give honest, experience-based expectations — not false promises, but real clinical pictures.

Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu: Women come in wanting to be pregnant yesterday. I tell them I wish I could have seen them two years ago. I went through this same journey myself — opened my office, my HRV tanked, and it took nine months of consistent work to get back in the green.

HRV, Nutrition, and Rebuilding: Dr. Lindsey’s Preconception Protocol [00:42:54 – 00:54:07]

Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu: I attribute my experience entirely to chiropractic. I have always made it a point to get adjusted at least once a week, even when I wasn’t yet nervous system focused. When I was in Los Angeles, Dr. Jeremy Brook adjusted me. When I moved back and started working with Dr. Morgan, we adjusted each other.

I’ll share something important with you: I’ve had a miscarriage. I got pregnant on my first try in 2020, then miscarried in the first trimester. For me, that experience was absolutely necessary — it taught me to trust my body on a deeper level. I could have seen it as a negative experience, but God was watching out for us. I went through the miscarriage naturally at home with the support of chiropractic and acupuncture.

Fast forward: right after that, we started planning the move south to open the office. Well, the adrenals go kaput when you’re up all hours of the night building something. It was natural — and I almost expected it.

So I became very intentional. The two biggest pillars for rebuilding:

Getting adjusted 2–3 times a week — non-negotiable. And eating enough, whether I was hungry or not. I set alarms and ate every two to three hours — always a protein with fat, or protein with carb. No naked carbs. No eating just carbohydrates on their own. I shifted to roughly 80% animal-based meals. Raw milk daily. Raw eggs. Organ meats. I went deep on the ancestral nutrition approach and used Heart & Soil supplements.

“Looking back, the first time I was pregnant I was surface-level healthy. The second time I had so much more depth, so much more nutrient stores. Women need to see that it’s okay — and often necessary — to carry a little softness around the edges in your mothering years.”

I did a scan in December 2022 — and that was the first time I noticed my HRV was in the green. We conceived right after Christmas, between Christmas and New Year’s. I turned 40, took a pregnancy test in mid-January after missing my period, and found out I was pregnant. Mind blown.

Dr. Tony Ebel: Did your HRV stay in the green through January, February, March?

Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu: For the most part, yes. There’s very little research on this, but what exists suggests HRV dips trimester by trimester, then spikes just before birth. Which makes sense — fetal development requires nervous system resources. The sympathetic nervous system, which I talk a lot about as the problem in pediatric practice, is not always the villain. In fetal development and growth, you need some sympathetic surges to drive the process forward.

Pregnancy Mindset, Movement, and Going Inward [00:50:04 – 00:54:07]

Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu: One of the biggest lessons early in my pregnancy was that I needed to slow down — really slow down. Around nine weeks, I started experiencing some bleeding. It was old blood — the musty red color. I didn’t know exactly what it was from, but it caught my heart. I asked myself: what is my baby telling me? What is my body telling me?

That’s when I cut my clinical shifts from nearly every day to two days a week for the entire pregnancy. And I started really going inward.

The three daily practices I built my pregnancy around were prayer, meditation, and affirmations said out loud. My affirmations every morning were: “I get to birth my baby. I am deserving of the home birth I desire. I am worthy of the home birth I desire.” I would then do the BirthFit basics — movement to feel those intentions in my body. I missed five days across the entire pregnancy.

I also walked an average of three miles a day, including a hill loop where I’d stop at the top, say a big prayer, and speak my intentions out loud. That loop became sacred to us — our dog had passed away on that walk the year before, and Vera and I still walk it three or four times a week now.

The only book I read during pregnancy was Portal by Yolanda Norris Clark — a pioneer of free birth and an incredible mentor. She resonated with me deeply around taking responsibility for your own health and calling out the industrial medical complex. One key question she helped me get clear on: if everything went perfectly, where would you want to birth? And then: if nothing went right, where would you want to be? My husband Lance and I both answered the same way throughout the entire pregnancy: home.

Vera’s Birth at 36 Weeks: Trusting Values Over Fear [00:54:07 – 01:07:17]

Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu: My pregnancy got cut short because Vera decided to come at 36 weeks. My water started leaking the day I turned 36 weeks exactly. I called Lance — I know what’s happening. He came home at noon. We met with the midwife I had hired, a certified professional midwife, and that’s when things got complicated.

Her license allowed her to assist home births only from 37 to 42 weeks. At 36 weeks, she released us from care. Her advice was to go to the hospital and be induced.

That did not sit well with me or my husband. We had asked ourselves from the very beginning — even on our first date, I asked Lance if he was open to a home birth — where we wanted to be in both the best and worst case scenarios. The answer was always home.

Lance spelled it out clearly. He said: “You’re 40. You’ll be labeled high risk the moment you walk in. You haven’t done GBS testing. They’ll label you GBS positive whether you are or not, and they’ll administer antibiotics automatically. At 36 weeks, baby goes straight to the NICU.” He said he could not imagine having to choose between accommodating me or the baby if they separated us. He told me he would rather be home with both of us — even if something went wrong.

That is a deeply personal decision, and not one right for every family. But Lance is a Marine. He has faced death. He is calm and clear in crisis. We were aligned.

We called Dr. Stu that Friday night. He got on FaceTime and said: “You could go a whole week if you wanted to, but I guarantee you’ll have that baby by Monday.” Then he gave us the key: in Texas, a certified nurse midwife (CNM) can legally attend births at 36 weeks. Every state has different laws.

“If I had made decisions out of fear and let fear drive the bus, I would have ended up at the hospital.”

The day before, I had gone to dance class and run into my friend Lauren — a CNM who had just returned from travel. Completely serendipitous. We texted her that Friday night: “Do you want to attend my birth?” She said she’d come Saturday.

We went to sleep Friday night. Contractions started around 1 or 2 AM — gentle. I woke up, had breakfast, went on our loop walk. Met with Lauren. Had my acupuncturist come over. Active labor by 8 PM.

Lance and his dad had built a deck on the back porch specifically to hold a birth tub — because I had a vision from day one that I would birth in nature. I wanted sun, earth, open air. Vera was born in that birth tub at 1:24 AM Sunday. She was absolutely perfect.

I could literally feel her moving down in my body with each breath. I would not describe any part of my labor or birth as painful. I would describe it as the best journey of my life. Blissful. And literally the portal to God.

Dr. Tony Ebel: You prepare. But preparation means thinking through the tough points too — not just the ideal. We aren’t prevention experts. We’re preparation experts. Health, in this framework, needs to be synonymous with resilient and adaptable. Not in a bubble. Because the challenges will come. You and Lance prepared for the hard decisions, and you made the call that was right for your family.

That’s my full dream for The Perfect Storm work — not that every birth will be perfect and intervention-free. That is not realistic. The real vision is that far more births than today go optimally, go powerfully, go the Vera Lee way. And when trouble comes, families are prepared, supported, and have access to a perspective that includes more than one option.

What Vera’s Birth Solidified: Radical Responsibility and Getting BirthFit [01:07:17 – 01:14:01]

Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu: The whole experience solidified BirthFit even more deeply. Being absolutely adaptable, resilient, and game-ready for preconception, pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. We didn’t even get to postpartum today — but that stage requires just as much preparation and intentionality.

Had I gotten pregnant and given birth 10 years ago, I genuinely don’t think I would’ve had this experience. I needed to go through so much unlearning, personal development, and nutritional nourishment. But at the base of it all was chiropractic — woven through every chapter. I believe I would have had a completely different birth experience without it.

Trust the timing. God knew what He was doing when He said: okay, Lindsey, you’re getting pregnant at 40, and you’re going to have an extraordinary experience. Her name is going to be Vera. And that’s going to mean faith. It’s so freaking cool.

Dr. Tony Ebel: There was a big decision you made in the middle of your pregnancy — you chose not to take on a massive project that would have tanked your HRV and likely robbed you of this experience with Vera. That is the example: what we’re doing this year we’re still going to get done. God’s design and God’s timing are not affected by a 12-month delay. But those 12 months made everything different for Vera.

Moms, dads, providers — we use these examples not to moralize but to show what is possible when you invest in nervous system health first. The results aren’t theoretical. They’re Vera.

Closing: “You Birth How You Live” [01:14:01 – 01:15:45]

Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu: You birth how you live. That’s why BirthFit is a lifestyle. Radical responsibility is one of our favorite phrases for a reason. Nobody is going to do this for you. We can hold your hand, we can spot your lifts — but you are going to have to reach through another dimension to bring your baby earthside.

And it can be so much fun. You get to do this. How incredible is that?

Dr. Tony Ebel: Beautiful message. Drive right into the paint and make it happen. Moms and dads, please follow Dr. Lindsey on Instagram, get connected with the BirthFit community, and share this episode with everyone you know on the motherhood journey. We will be back to go deep on postpartum. That conversation still needs to happen.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does HRV have to do with getting pregnant?

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a measure of nervous system balance between sympathetic (fight-or-flight) and parasympathetic (rest-and-repair) function. Dr. Lindsey Matthews uses HRV as the primary marker for preconception readiness. When a woman’s HRV falls outside the “green zone,” her body is operating in protection mode — and a body in protection mode is not physiologically prepared to support implantation or sustain a pregnancy. Dr. Matthews targets 90–120 days of green-zone HRV before a patient attempts to conceive.

How long does it take to get my nervous system ready for pregnancy?

It depends on how depleted your nervous system is when you start. For women with significant Sympathetic Dominance — adrenal exhaustion, sluggish thyroid, chronic stress — Dr. Lindsey Matthews estimates a minimum of 6 months at 3 adjustments per week to reach green-zone HRV, followed by another 3–4 months maintaining that green zone before conception. That means the realistic timeline for a highly depleted patient is 9–12 months before conception — a number that surprises many patients, but one backed by Dr. Matthews’ own personal experience rebuilding her HRV over 9 months before conceiving Vera.

What is BIRTHFIT and how is it different from standard prenatal care?

BIRTHFIT is a community and methodology founded by Dr. Lindsey Matthews Cantu that integrates chiropractic care, movement coaching, nutritional nourishment, and mindset work to support women from preconception through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. Unlike standard prenatal care, which Dr. Matthews describes as fear-based and heavily medicalized, BIRTHFIT emphasizes radical responsibility for your own health, building a personal wellness philosophy before conception, and approaching birth as a lifestyle — not a medical event. Learn more at birthfit.com.

Can chiropractic care actually help with fertility and pregnancy?

According to Dr. Lindsey Matthews, Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care directly impacts a woman’s capacity to conceive and carry a pregnancy by restoring nervous system balance. When the Autonomic Nervous System is dysregulated — stuck in sympathetic dominance — it suppresses the hormonal and physiological environment required for conception and healthy fetal development. Getting adjusted consistently (2–3 times per week for depleted patients) is the clinical intervention that drives HRV improvement and shifts the body from protection mode into growth and reception mode.

What is “radical responsibility” and why does Dr. Lindsey emphasize it?

Radical responsibility is Dr. Lindsey Matthews’ phrase for the foundational mindset shift required to take ownership of your health journey outside the conventional medical system. It means getting clear on your own wellness philosophy, building health-supporting habits before pregnancy begins, and making decisions from values and informed choice rather than fear. As Dr. Lindsey says: “The system is not going to change if we’re operating within it.” Radical responsibility is not about dismissing medical care — it’s about becoming an active, informed participant in your own birth experience.

Where can I find a PX Docs practitioner near me who works with pregnant women?

You can search the PX Docs directory to find a Neurologically-Focused Chiropractor trained in pregnancy and pediatric care near you. Many PX Docs providers work closely with the BirthFit network and can assess your nervous system health using HRV and INSiGHT scanning technology. Visit pxdocs.com/directory to find a provider.

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