The Experience Miracles Podcast

Delivering Truth: An MD’s Response to Fear-Based Birth

Jun 9, 2024

How Medicalized Birth Harms Your Baby’s Nervous System

Episode 20, Experience Miracles Podcast | Host: Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP, Pediatric Chiropractor & Founder of PX Docs | Published: May 14, 2024 | Duration: ~63 min Guest: Dr. Stuart Fischbein, MD, Obstetrician with 24 years of hospital practice and 13 years as a home birth OB | Founder, Birthing Instincts Podcast

Key Takeaways

  • The U.S. C-section rate has risen over 500% since 1970, from 5% to today’s rates, with no corresponding decrease in cerebral palsy or neonatal death, but with clear increases in chronic illness and nervous system dysfunction in children born through that system.
  • The Perfect Storm begins before birth: maternal stress during pregnancy puts the baby’s nervous system into Sympathetic Dominance in utero, and birth interventions, pitocin, epidurals, forceps, vacuum extraction, C-sections, compound damage to the Vagus Nerve and Brainstem.
  • Dr. Stuart Fischbein, who spent 24 years as a hospital OB before 13 years as a home birth obstetrician, states that 80% of pregnant women do not need the hospital model, yet the system treats every pregnancy as high-risk to generate revenue.
  • The medical “high risk” label is not based on a fixed number. It is applied to anything doctors are uncomfortable with, a definition designed to generate anxiety, trigger the Autonomic Nervous System stress response, and justify more billable interventions.
  • Cleaning up diet and reducing environmental toxins alone will not heal the sickest generation of children. Until the nervous system damage caused by medicalized birth is addressed through Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care, chronic childhood illness will continue to climb.

How Does the Medical Birth System Harm a Baby’s Nervous System?

The modern hospital birth system creates nervous system dysfunction in babies before they even arrive. When a mother is subjected to fear-based prenatal care, unnecessary “high-risk” labels, alarming ultrasound findings, and escalating interventions, her stress hormones flood her Autonomic Nervous System, which her baby shares through the umbilical cord. The baby arrives already in a state of Sympathetic Dominance, meaning its fight-or-flight system is overactivated and its Vagus Nerve, the master regulator of rest, digestion, immunity, and development, never fully comes online.

Birth interventions then compound this initial stress. Forceps, vacuum extractors, and the mechanical forces involved in C-section deliveries apply direct physical pressure to the baby’s head, neck, and Brainstem, the control center for all autonomic function. Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP, explains that this physical disruption shuts down the microbiome and immune system at the moment of birth, leaving infants who can’t latch, can’t sleep, can’t regulate, and can’t develop on track. This is what he calls The Perfect Storm: a system that starts the cascade before birth and pulls families deeper in with every subsequent intervention.

Dr. Stuart Fischbein, an OB with 24 years of hospital practice and 13 years as a home birth obstetrician, confirms what Dr. Tony documents clinically. The C-section rate rose over 500% since 1970 with no reduction in cerebral palsy or neonatal death. The outcomes data makes clear: the current system is designed around institutional protection and financial incentives, not the health of mothers and babies.

Dr. Stu’s Journey: From Hospital OB to Home Birth Advocate [00:00 – 11:07]

Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP: Parents, you are in for a truthful conversation today. Dr. Stu has spent 24 years assisting women with hospital birthing, then left that traditional medical system and spent 13 years as a home birth obstetrician working directly with midwives. He specializes in natural breech and twin deliveries, and as you’ll learn today, it shouldn’t be rare to have someone who truly knows how to do this. Since retiring from home birth in 2022, Dr. Stu has turned his attention to traveling, teaching, and advocating for reteaching birth and twin birth skills, respecting the normalcy of birth, and honoring true informed consent.

Dr. Stuart Fischbein: I didn’t want to be a doctor when I was a kid. I was a science major, and I had a Jewish mother, so I didn’t have a lot of choices. I went pre-med, got into medical school. In your third year, you start clinical rotations. I came off a rotation dealing with cancer in kids, and then my next rotation was obstetrics. Instead of being up at four in the morning dealing with a kid having a seizure or pushing a chemotherapy dose, I was up catching a baby. I was floored by that. Giving birth was happy medicine. Your patients were happy to have you. They weren’t coming because they were sick.

The most important thing for me was longitudinal care, taking care of people over time. I didn’t want to be a pathologist or an ER doctor. There are only three specialties that really do longitudinal care: family practice, internal medicine, and obstetrics. And obstetrics had all those other things. You don’t think about the consequences downstream, the hours, the liability, the poor reimbursement. Fortunately, young people are naive. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have people going into these professions at all.

Dr. Tony: What I take from that is you chased the joy, the enthusiasm. I’ve been blessed to be there four times, three daughters, one son. I was the guy in the corner with ice chips, trying not to get in the way of the midwife and doula, just waiting to give the first adjustment. As a pediatric chiropractor, we’re taking care of that nervous system right out of the gates.

That’s how I chose chiropractic, too. I loved science, loved biology, loved helping people. I shadowed a chiropractor as a senior in high school and I will never forget: his patients were excited to be there. I fell in love with that idea of helping people in a joyful, health-building environment. In our practice, 84 of our patients have gone on to become chiropractors. You have this longitudinal lifetime relationship with these kids, that’s the reason I have all the forehead wrinkles. I smile so much.

What Gets Lost When Medicine Replaces the Relationship [11:08 – 15:35]

Dr. Stuart Fischbein: I know many midwives, and even in my own practice, where I’ve caught a baby and that baby grew up, and then I caught her baby. If you practice long enough, as some of the granny midwives did, you’re catching the grandchildren of people you delivered. There’s something special about that which is missing in the medical system, where it’s become corporatized. It’s based on shifts, salaried work. People that are enthusiastic about their work, people that are happy in their job, don’t treat other people poorly.

When I hear stories about women who were disrespected, told they weren’t allowed to do something, or had a doctor storm out of the room because they didn’t follow advice, happy people don’t do that. A lot of people in our profession are unhappy. It’s not because they’re naturally unhappy. It’s because the system has beaten them up so badly. Longitudinal care is really disappearing. Everybody works a shift. They put in 12 hours, they go home. That change of shift isn’t good for the practitioner. And it’s really not good for the woman in labor either.

“Happy people don’t treat other people poorly. A lot of people in our profession are unhappy, not because they’re naturally unhappy, but because the system has beaten them up so badly.”

Dr. Tony: My college pre-med buddies, they look 20 years older than me. They’re miserable. They are wildly unhappy with their choice. They’re praying their children don’t go into medicine.

The OBs I chose for our family are rare birds because of their joy, because they love their job and build relationships. One of them told me, “I’m heartbroken. When we’re gone, it’s gone. We can’t get anyone to want to keep this going without selling out.” But he’s a happy son of a gun. You’re not looking for credentials per se when you choose an OB. You need to meet these doctors. You want that joyful enthusiasm.

Why “High Risk” Is a Revenue Strategy, Not a Medical Standard [15:36 – 32:57]

Dr. Stuart Fischbein: Every license-by-the-state profession gives the state ultimate power over you. I was board certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology for over 20 years. I chose not to renew. And I get criticisms: “He’s not board certified.” Being board certified on Tuesday and not on Wednesday doesn’t make me less qualified. When doctors are quoted in articles saying, “If your doctor isn’t board certified, they can’t possibly be good”, that’s how they denigrate midwives and alternative practitioners.

The real question is: how does that person make you feel? When you come in with questions and walk out with more questions than you had, or feeling worse, don’t stay there. There are other options. Even though those options are dwindling.

Labor and delivery wards are closing across the country, can’t staff them, liability is unmanageable, birth rates are falling. We have maternity care deserts. A shortage of midwives. Doctors discrediting certified professional midwives. Birth centers closing because they can’t get enough midwives. All of this is done in the guise of safety. So think about that: we have fewer hospitals, fewer birth centers, fewer midwives, because doctors are so concerned about safety. And we ask, how is any of this making it safer for women to have babies?

“High risk is not a number. High risk is something that the doctors are uncomfortable with, and they call it high risk.”

Dr. Tony: Dr. Bruce Lipton has a quote: “The function of the nervous system is to perceive the environment and coordinate the behavior of all other cells.” He also says: “You can’t be in growth and protection at the same time.” When you take that out of neurobiology and put it into hospital decision-making, they have practiced medicine from a protection, fear-based mentality for generations, all in the name of safety.

They’re taking the most outdated approach and marketing it as the safest. And if you look at the consequences, we are absolutely awful at maternal health, at infant mortality. Maternal deaths, infant deaths. These are the results of this system. And even if baby and mom make it through, because they were disempowered all through the pregnancy, mom’s nervous system is stress, anxiety, tension. Baby’s nervous system is plugged into hers by the umbilical cord. So baby is born in a Sympathetic Dominant state where the Vagus Nerve and their regulation center never literally even developed. And there is a system that starts The Perfect Storm. The earlier they hook you in, the more likely you are to be dependent on it forever.

Dr. Stuart Fischbein: The programs in medical training are generally run by maternal fetal medicine specialists, MFMs. They deal with high-risk problems. That’s their specialty and they’re good at it. But if you’re a hammer, everything’s a nail. They look at every pregnancy as a potential high-risk situation. High risk is something that the doctors are uncomfortable with, and they call it high risk. And every time they frighten people, they generate more revenue.

So think about this cycle: “We found this one little thing in the kidney at your 20-week ultrasound. We don’t think it’s anything, but we want to see you back in six weeks.” What is that woman doing for six weeks? She’s thinking there’s something wrong with her baby’s kidney. And she’s got all that autonomic nervous system activation going on.

We were influenced a lot by tradition. Thomas Paine once said: “The long habit of not thinking something wrong gives it the superficial appearance of being right.” Sometimes we just did stuff because it was always done that way. When I was a third-year medical student in 1981, we cut an episiotomy in every single woman. Was there informed consent? No. By the way, informed consent is often misinterpreted. The doctor gives you information. You the patient give consent. It’s your consent to give.

How Birth Interventions Trigger The Perfect Storm [32:58 – 45:28]

Dr. Stuart Fischbein: Let’s look at the health outcomes. In 1970, the C-section rate in the United States was 5%. We now have a C-section rate over 500% higher, with no reduction in cerebral palsy or neonatal death. Those are the endpoints every obstetric study uses. They never look at baby’s health, mother’s mental health, mother’s satisfaction, breastfeeding, bonding, microbiome. None of that is ever mentioned.

So you end up with a rise in intervention rates, no evidence it’s doing anything good, and obvious evidence it’s doing things that aren’t good. Babies are born whose microbiomes are affected. Born by cesarean section, given artificial pitocin instead of their mom’s oxytocin, given an epidural, disconnected from their mom. During labor, mom and baby are a beautiful symphony playing between each other. When you start removing certain instruments, it doesn’t sound the same.

“Mom and baby during labor are a beautiful symphony playing between each other. When you start removing certain instruments, it doesn’t sound the same.”

All that matters to these doctors is a live baby in the bassinet. What happens to that baby in the future? What happens to that mom’s future babies? That’s not their concern at that moment.

Dr. Tony: When I got into pediatric chiropractic, I started looking at this from a statistical analysis. This is the sickest generation of kids ever by a large margin. We have what researchers call a “hockey stick spike” in epidemiological data, it was climbing, okay, whatever, and then it goes like a rocket, straight up. That’s not genetics. Genetics takes thousands of years to show marginal statistical differences. Something changed dramatically.

Then Addison, our first baby, arrived. I witnessed a birth as a dad, full natural birth, midwife and doula there to support and empower. And I got angry, because I realized: nobody else is going to get this. My friends, my family. If they’re not going to get this, I have to do something about it.

Here’s where I got duped, and I want moms and dads to hear this. A lot of Facebook groups and Instagram influencers with great intentions are putting out accurate but incomplete information. The foods, the toxins, the roundup, the gluten, the dairy, the preservatives, all part of the problem. But lead paint and asbestos and cigarettes have been around for 60, 70, 80 years. Autism was not one in 14 boys before. If you project current data, it may be heading toward one in eight.

Toxins didn’t change as rapidly as the prenatal system and the labor and delivery system did. We are at a greater rate than ever before labeling every pregnant mom as high risk. And then once you’re labeled, the system gets the excuse: pitocin in, epidural in, vacuum on, C-section scheduled, grab the baby by their head and neck, yank and twist them into the world. That wreaks havoc on the Vagus Nerve and the Autonomic Nervous System, which then shuts down the microbiome and the immune system immediately.

Now you put toxins, gluten, glyphosate, into that suppressed, Sympathetic Dominant system. The toxins are a problem, but they’re a bigger problem than ever before precisely because of what the birth system already did. Eighty percent of the case histories I take today are gluten-free, casein-free, red dye 40-free. Essential oils, detoxes, probiotics. But that child’s nervous system is exhausted and disconnected because of what happened during pregnancy and labor and delivery. Until we clean up kids’ nervous systems, and clean up mom’s nervous systems early, we will still have the sickest generation of kids.

The Fiduciary Problem: When Doctors Work for Systems, Not Patients [45:29 – 57:08]

Dr. Stuart Fischbein: As a solo practitioner, my fiduciary duty, my ethical obligation, is to the woman I’m caring for. A doctor employed by a larger system has a conflict of interest. Their fiduciary duty is no longer just to the woman they’re caring for. It’s also to their boss. And their boss’s obligation, the chief financial officer of a hospital, is not to the patients. It’s to keep the hospital financially viable.

So policies are put in place that make the hospital more money. They’re honoring their ethical obligation to the institution while denying physicians the ability to honor ours. And the only way this system changes is if people stop using it. They will self-destruct in time, but how much damage will be done until that happens?

For pregnancy, we need to think about it differently, as a special life event, not a medical event. If you start thinking of it that way, you might start planning and saving and looking for a way out. I would like to see the hospital completely removed from the care of pregnant women. That’s not practical or possible, we need them for true emergencies. But 80% of women don’t need them. The problem is, if you take those 80% out, the hospital isn’t financially viable and their maternity wards close.

“For pregnancy, we need to think about it as a special life event, not a medical event.”

Dr. Tony: Every department in that hospital is run by a spreadsheet. People making decisions based on financial numbers. My friends in occupational therapy, I know the ones making decisions via spreadsheets and the ones forced to just comply to support their families.

Every single department in that hospital and in that healthcare system is run by a spreadsheet, and the consequences are staring us in the face. The U.S. is absolutely awful at maternal health and infant mortality. The realization that The Perfect Storm is causing the sickest generation of kids came from reversing the conversation from outcomes backwards.

I had seven years as an insurance-dependent practice and now a decade as a patient-centered, direct-pay practice. I know that parents want to build a relationship with their doctor, not with administrators and CFOs. Once there’s a third-party payer in the conversation, that doctor no longer works for you. They work for them.

Choosing Your Provider and Taking Back Control [57:09 – 01:04:30]

Dr. Tony Ebel: This podcast exists for individual families. We’re not going to change the world overnight, but we can change your world by changing who you choose and who you trust for your pregnancy, for your labor and delivery, and for your child’s health.

When you choose a midwife, when you choose home birth, when you choose a prenatal chiropractor and a pediatric chiropractor, sadly, today you will not be supported by Medicaid or third-party insurance. But there’s a secret in that: you don’t want them to, because once there’s a third-party payer in the conversation, that doctor no longer works for you.

Joel Salatin, the farming advocate, said: “You choose with your dollars.” When you choose local food, choose organic, you add growth to the good system, which is the same as taking a chip away from the big system. Healthcare is no different. Parents, you are in charge of your child’s health. It’s your child, your voice, your choice. Find a joyful, happy, empowering doctor who actually knows their stuff but more importantly wants to slow down and listen to you.

“We’re not going to change the world overnight. But we can change your world by changing who you choose and who you trust for your pregnancy, for your labor and delivery, and for your child’s health.”

Dr. Stuart Fischbein: You and I are talking, and people will say: “Who are these two guys? Why should we believe them?” And the answer is: you shouldn’t, automatically. But you shouldn’t automatically believe corporate medicine either. They don’t have your best interest at heart. They’re full of propaganda. The media publishes what whoever pays them the most tells them to.

Look at independent podcasts, independent journalists on Substack. Look at what they’re offering and ask: are they making money from telling you this? We don’t make money telling you not to do things.

Be careful when you see “experts say” or “the consensus is.” That doesn’t mean anything. There are true believers in the medical model who have seen tragedies and concluded everything outside the system is dangerous, but they don’t see the damage the system itself causes.

I spent 28 years in hospital settings and 12 or 13 in home settings. There aren’t many people with that experience. What I have to say may upset some people, but I’d argue: look at the facts. Look at the outcomes. If the results of Team America’s work were that Paris was still blown up, that’s what we’re seeing with the outcomes from this system.

Dr. Tony: Once you find a nervous system-focused pediatric and prenatal chiropractor, you open up a whole new world of real health, real truth, and genuine outcomes. We have found the Dr. Stus. We have found the midwives and the other providers going in the same direction. Go to pxdocs.com, check out the articles and videos, and if you need a new doctor to lead your family out of the system, click the link to find your nervous system-focused chiropractor.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can birth interventions like C-sections and vacuum extractions cause nervous system problems in babies?

Yes, according to Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP, and Dr. Stuart Fischbein, MD. The mechanical forces applied to a baby’s head and neck during vacuum extraction, forceps use, and cesarean delivery directly stress the Brainstem and Upper Cervical Spine, disrupting Vagus Nerve function and triggering the Autonomic Nervous System into Sympathetic Dominance. This can result in infants who struggle to latch, sleep, regulate, and develop, the beginning of what Dr. Tony calls The Perfect Storm.

Does maternal stress during pregnancy affect my baby’s nervous system?

Yes. Dr. Tony Ebel explains that a mother’s nervous system and her baby’s are connected through the umbilical cord. When prenatal care generates fear, anxiety, and stress, through “high risk” labels, alarming ultrasound callbacks, and constant medicalized monitoring, that stress response floods the mother’s Autonomic Nervous System and is transmitted to the developing baby. The baby can arrive already in a state of Sympathetic Dominance, with the Vagus Nerve underdeveloped before birth even begins.

If we have a higher C-section rate than ever, why aren’t outcomes improving?

Dr. Stuart Fischbein points to the data directly: in 1970, the U.S. C-section rate was 5%. Today it is over 500% higher, with no corresponding reduction in cerebral palsy or neonatal death, which are the endpoints used to justify those interventions. What has increased are chronic childhood conditions, microbiome disruption, and nervous system dysfunction. The medical model, he argues, does not measure what matters most: baby’s long-term health, mother’s mental health, breastfeeding success, bonding, and the quality of the birth experience.

My child eats clean, we’ve removed toxins, and we still aren’t seeing improvement. Why?

Dr. Tony Ebel addresses this directly. In 80% of the case histories he takes, families are already gluten-free, casein-free, and following clean-diet protocols. But if the underlying nervous system dysfunction caused by birth interventions has never been addressed, dietary changes alone can’t restore function. Until the Brainstem and Vagus Nerve dysfunction from birth is corrected through Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care, the nervous system remains in Sympathetic Dominance, and that suppressed state makes every toxin more damaging, not less.

How do I find a provider who will support empowered, non-fear-based pregnancy care?

Dr. Stuart Fischbein’s advice: look at outcomes, not credentials alone. If you leave an appointment with more questions than you came in with, or feeling worse, change providers. Look for midwives, home birth obstetricians, and birth centers who operate from the midwifery model of care, focused on empowering women and supporting physiological birth. For nervous system support throughout pregnancy and for your baby after birth, find a Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care provider through the PX Docs Directory.

Where can I find a PX Docs chiropractor near me?

Visit pxdocs.com/directory to search for a nervous system-focused pediatric and prenatal chiropractor in your area. PX Docs practitioners are trained in the clinical protocols Dr. Tony Ebel teaches and can support both prenatal nervous system health and infant care from birth.

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