38 Vaginal Steaming with Steamy Chick Kelli Garza and Pregnancy

Uncover the ancient health practice of vaginal steaming with resident expert Kelli Garza, the woman behind national super brand Steamy Chick. In this episode, Heidi and Kelli discuss what GBS (Group B Streptococcus) is and just how it can impact moms, how vaginal steaming can be a positive experience for postpartum pains, and so much more. Kelli's favorite product is more for Mom than baby, but, she suggests eating nice and hearty chicken noodle soup and drinking plenty of nettle tea.

Looking for a Virtual Doula to create a custom birthing experience and guide you through your journey to parenthood in the United States? Contact Heidi at www.mydoulaheidi.com For additional free birth education resources and to purchase Heidi’s book, Birth Story: Pregnancy Guidebook + Journal, visit www.birthstory.com. Want to share your thoughts on the episode? Leave a review and send a message directly to Heidi on Instagram.

TRANSCRIPTION

What does a contraction feel like? How do I know if I'm in labor and what does the day of labor look like? Wait, is this normal? Hey, I'm Heidi. My best friends. Call me hides. I'm a certified birth doula host of this podcast and author of birth story. An interactive pregnancy guidebook. I have supported hundreds of women through their labor and deliveries, and I believe every one of them.

And you deserves a microphone and a state. So here we are within each week to get answers to these tough questions. Birth story, where we talk about pregnancy labor deliveries, where we tell our stories and share our feelings and of course chat about our favorite baby products and motherhood. And because I'm passionate about birth outcomes, you will hear from some of the top experts in labor and delivery, whether you are pregnant, trying desperately to get pregnant.

Or you just love a good birth story. I hope you will stick around and be part of this birth story family. Thank you for listening to the birth story podcast. If you are tuning in for the first time, I want to encourage you to start at the beginning. I want you to go on a journey with me and allow me to be your virtual doula and teach you all the things along the way.

So I'm just going to give you a couple highlights as some of the earlier podcast episodes. If you are just now tuning in. So very first episode, episode one, you can learn all about me, who I am, why I became a doula, why it is I do what I do and also my very own birth story with my second child Jagger.

Then I have interviewed some really cool CEOs. So episode three, Tori Jones is the CEO of EHL triangle and she was awesome. So featured on Rachel Hollis's the rise podcast episode seven was Rachel coli. The CEO of can do kiddo. She was just on good morning America. Yeah. She's an incredible occupational therapist that teaches you how to play with your baby and her birth stories are incredible.

Episode 10 was one of my best friends. Amy who had back in the car, we had, we've done episodes on micro preemies episode, 1821 on international adoption out of Uganda, 24 and 25. Oh, those episodes, like get a box of tissues. They're on Seragusi and cancer. We've addressed hypnobirthing fertility, really easy, joyful mitigated birds, really hard, long labors, medicated, unmedicated, everything in between.

So I hope you'll start at the beginning. Let the birth story podcast take you on a journey all the way through and enjoy this episode and then remembered a rewind all the way back to episode one. Thanks for tuning in. Episode, steamy chick Kelly Garza. If you guys are not following her on Instagram or you do not know vaginal steaming is because you've never heard of Gwyneth Paltrow.

Well, Maybe you'll learn about it on the birth story, but yeah, Gus today. So in this episode, I'm interviewing Kelly Garza, the CEO, and the founder of steamy check, a booming vaginal steaming company and, and Oregon to get really intimate. And you're going to hear way more about my vagina and my period than you would probably like to know, but.

My goal is that you learn about vaginal steaming. You learn about the brain, if it's of it and kind of like the process of what it's like to have a consultation. So I am being really vulnerable today and I let Kelly Garza give me a call. Okay. Siltation and I'm airing it for all to hear. I know, welcome to the birth story podcast.

I don't know if you remember, like I sent you a message in November, but I found you, I feel like I'm so behind the times, Kelly, because I'm laying in this like hotel I'll room with my best friend, Amy, and she's like, are you following steamy chick? She's like, are you, are you doing the vaginal steaming?

And I'm like, yeah, I've been a doula for 15 years and I'm like, what is vaginal steaming? And so we sat there for like hours just to get you through your Instagram and just so fascinated. And then I'm thinking, okay, well, number one, you have to be on my podcast, but number two, how can I get this? How can I deliver it to all of my clients?

I mean, I just was like, Let's just start with this interview and see where we are go, because I have so much to learn and hopefully there's some people out there they're like me that are like, what is VAD, you know, steaming and are going to stick around for this whole podcast so that they can learn. And hopefully we can all buy some things from you at the end of this.

And we can all like, you know, post Instagram, pictures of us. Doing our vaginal steams. You're telling me that your vagina has never been, Oh, my vagina has never been seen. What is that called? Is it, is it, is that make my vagina a Virgin again?

I'm a Virgin vaginal steamer, but it's coming

before it is. Um, I think the first thing to address is that it's not painful. I don't know who got this idea that it's painful, but it's not, it's not painful. And it's also not supposed to be very hot. So I explain it like when you take a shower, The temperature doesn't have to be Spalding hot as if it is, then you should turn it down.

Do you know what I mean? Then the shower was too hot. Like there's no, like, it's not like you get clean because it's called the, and then you don't get clean because it's lukewarm, you know what I mean? So that's how vaginal steaming and they've worked at all different temperatures as long as you've generated the steam.

So it should be a comfortable temperature and it actually feels really soothing. Like I describe it for myself after I did my first vaginal scheme, I was like, I kind of feel like I had a bath for the first time, but it was my vagina. You know, like if your vagina had never had a bath, like, it was just like, ah, you know, and it smells very natural.

Like there's nothing that feels like your sports unit. It's not like going to the dentist then. You know, just getting a feeling like it's supposed to be happening. Right. It's just really natural. It just feels really normal. And like, I think a lot of times people are just like, Oh my gosh, how come I haven't been doing this my whole life?

You know, that's just kind of like brushing your teeth. Like, it's just, it feels really natural. And it's something that you should do. I was thinking about it and I was thinking I have all of these extra. Places and tools that I have for like cleaning my face or cleaning my underarms or like, you know, like my teeth things.

And I don't have like different types of things for my, I use the word Yoni that's like in our families, but we can use vagina, but Yoni, vagina, hula, I don't even know what your favorite vagina word is for vaginal steaming, but I was thinking today, And you want to know how this came up? Kelly is I have a facial steamer that I use, like about one third, twice a week to just kind of like open my pores and make my face refreshed as I age.

And I was thinking, well, this is a perfectly comfortable temperature. I didn't dry it, but I was very tempting. I was thinking maybe I should just take it from the face. And steam the vagina, but I didn't do that because I thought I'm going to talk to Kelly. She's going to give me the right herbs. And we're going to go through the process correctly to get a prescription on exactly like what my body is needing.

And so. I want to dig into that because I know you have this whole huge business. I want to tell everybody about and how it's so much more than just the concept of vaginal steaming. Like you, what you do has data behind it. It's very prescriptive. You have to get to know your clients very well, but first let's push pause and tell me like, And everyone that's listening.

Who, who are you, Kelly? Where do you live? What's your life like and how in the world did you get into owning and starting the largest vaginal steaming supply company in the United States. Okay. Okay. I can do that. So I am California based. Um, my name is Kelly guys that. And I am the mom of two little girls, their age, four and six.

I also have a husband and a puppy. So, you know, just a mom like everybody else. Yeah. I had learned about vaginal Steven before I became a mom. I learned about it in 2011 from my abdominal room. She there. Named Marcio Lopez. And so I had heard her talk about it at a workshop. And if she was specifically talking about it within the context of people who have painful periods or periods, it didn't occur to me to ever try it.

But within the next year I had a missing period. And with that missing chariot, I felt like my hormones were raging and I felt like I was really out of control. And so for the first time in my life, I didn't know, I'm just going to screw up my life. It never bothered me. I wasn't pregnant and my hormones were raging.

And so I was like, how am I going to get to feeling like myself again? I asked myself and then I was like, Oh, I really like it. You know what, maybe this has something to do with. My period, not being here. I was been absent for like, probably like two months. Like maybe it has something to do with my missing period.

And then I thought, I wonder if my period comes back, if my hormones would go back into balance. And so I figured that made sense. And so I was like, well then how the heck do I get my period to come back? And I went to sleep with that, but I didn't get all my best ideas when I'm asleep. And I woke up. And I was like, vaginal steaming.

I need to try that. And so to make a long story short, I found a Korean spa that offered vaginal steaming in Los Angeles. And I went, and I did imagine I drove home. I went to sleep that evening and my period started. So I was convinced. It definitely seemed like the vaginal steaming had brought back my period.

And when my period arrived, it was very different in quality than it had been before customarily. I had Brown at a sluggish periods and this period was bright red and it smelled, I want to say fresher than it ever had before. Wow. So it was that quick, your very first one. Okay. My favorite is when it works that quick, you know, some people steam and they have a problem and very quickly it resolves and then some people, it takes longer.

Okay. But I've got that. And so my favorite is when it happens immediately, you know, that's obviously my favorite and everybody's favorite, but some people, they, you know, they're working to get rid of a sluggish Brown period, for example, They may need to stay for two or three months in a row to be able to get those results.

But, so I had science deemed, I had this experience with it. And then if you fast forward, thanks for your four years later, I was pregnant with my son and as all moms are in, I was in a Facebook group full of other pregnant women, getting all of our advice. Yeah. And all of a sudden they started, one of them said, have you guys ever heard of Yoni speaking?

And so then there was a conversation between this woman and two other women in the group who were from Haiti and Ghana. Okay. So that we're getting very international, we've done vaginal steaming. That's what we do customarily, you know, we'll be steaming after giving birth. Then the Haitian woman was sharing how it's done there.

The guy, man, woman with Jane hose. And it was all really fascinating to see because. I had never told anybody that I had ever done a vaginal steam. Like I had never even told anybody. And after I ever stepped that practice, that I did it as a Korean spa, I started to do it every month, but I created my own vaginal steam sauna at home because I do not like doing it in public.

Like, you know, like I wanted to do it more in the privacy of my own home. So I had about done it for three or four years without telling anybody. So even on this Facebook conversation, I didn't really say anything. I don't even think I said anything, but I was just like, wow, that's so interesting. And those couple of years, or you just doing actual steam or were you already incorporating herbs that were, you know, suggested to you from your original esteem?

No, I wasn't using like herbal knowledge in that way that you're mentioning I myself work with a couple of herbs, you know, where I live, white stage grows. And I, you know, it was a, it was an urban that I used in my household for like making tea and things like that. So I would just see him with the herbs that I knew, and that were familiar to me in my household.

So white Sage was one of them more. You are looking at the benefits of the actual steam. Well, the Caribbean spot owner told me that Korean women's team. At least once a month at the end of their period, in order to just make sure that all the rest of them please comes out. And I was like, okay, I specifically said that it's a preventative right practice.

That is why that helps to prevent people from cancer and, you know, having any problems, her English wasn't great. But that, that much was communicated to me. And I was like, well, that makes sense. Cause you know, who has health insurance? I'd be like, I'm in production with them. Exactly. I was like, well, you know, and then this is when I'm just doing the steam and talking to her, which, which also I wasn't, I didn't really want to talk to anybody when I was sleeping.

You know, it was a little bit, I was a little bit out of my comfort zone. So anyways then when I, when my period give back that night, I was like, wow. This was really effective. And my period is so much better. I could see that it's a preventative practice. So I just did it once a month and I would use, I think I just use white Sage, honestly, that whole time at this point, did you purchase a steamer or like the seat or did you make your own Haiti?

I went home and I looked at this chair and I took the seat off of that chair. And then I drilled a toilet seat to that chair. And that's how I steamed at home at first. Oh my gosh. I love you. This is how all great entrepreneurs begin. You need to be on guy. Roz's how I built this and talk about this moment.

Like this is a pivotal moment, right? Oh my gosh. I love it. Bob was great, but I had a problem. The problem was that they were talking to me while I was Stevie and like everything that they were saying, it also wasn't like. It wasn't all like fun topics. Like they were like, they were a little bit raised in stuff.

Cause they're like American women, they'll spam. You guys like to be dirty, you know, things like that, you know, which is like, I understand that, you know, we're using broken English. They were just trying to communicate a concept and we were cool. We were cool. But what I'm hearing is that you were like, I need, I need to build a company that incorporates vaginal steaming and privacy, and I'm going to joke here, but you know, you have like the gut brain connection.

There's probably a Yoni brain connection where you need to be in a peaceful. Calm relaxation. I mean, if I get into a sauna of any kind, I don't want anybody chatting me up, so, or getting a massage or anything, you know, this sounds really relaxing. And so, yes, I totally get it right after my period. And it never occurred to me that it never occurred to me.

A boyfriend. And then he was like, you, what? And then I was like, no, nothing. So anyway, like I was just like completely changed the topic because I was just, I don't know. I, it was just, it was so private. Like to me it was just something that was so private and it was never something that I intended on sharing.

Well, we're not going to believe this. Right. But like 99% of people listening to this podcast right now are thinking, I don't know what this is. I've never done it. Right. And this seems like a kind of like a private thing. So anything that we speak out about and we share, and we spread the good news about, you know, it starts with one and at least in my world over here, Kelly, you're, you're the one, you know, you're the first one.

Okay. And so I think this is amazing coming forward. And now like having this huge business and talking about it, there's so much curiosity. And so. You know, then what happens? You, you screw this toilet seat on top of a chair and you start doing this at home. And then you said, you know, fast forward now you're pregnant and you're in this mom's group and you find out other women are doing this.

So is this the first time you started to share about it and that group. Well, it was the first time I've heard other people talking about it since that original meeting where I had learned about it from Marcio Lopez. So I leaned that, that I could use it for postpartum. So I was like, okay, let's get the good old vaginal sleeps on out.

So I got it out and I started the steam postpartum. And at that point, Other people around me were like, um, hi Kelly, cute baby. What's that chair over there? I'm Hottie. Like, you know, everybody who came to meet me and the baby was asking about this future and the, and the corner. And I was like, that's.

Chair in the corner and stop asking me about it. You know, like I was just like, it's none of your business, don't worry about it. So I also wasn't necessarily trying to share about it with anybody, but one of my friends in particular was like, you gotta ask Kelly about her, which chair just started to spread it around through my friends.

And so more and more people started to ask me about it. And I did start to share at that point, So then when you fast forward, that was about, I was six months postpartum and one of my friends was crying to me about her terrible, terrible period. They were really long. I mean, we really clouded and all these problems.

And so the clotting kind of peaked my interest and I thought, well, I don't know if, you know, I don't know about the rest of that, but like that Claudine, like, you know, steaming could help that because it could help with the circulation and help get those clots out. And so I recommended it to her. And she was like, okay, look, I'll try it.

But I just don't want to make a chair the way that I was describing it to her, she was like, can you just make one for me, here's a hundred dollars. And I was like, okay. So I took her money and I made her a vaginal steam chair and believe it or not, she seemed three times in a row. And her period came and her 10 day long periods had went down to five days.

And her heavy bleeding went to mild bleeding and the clots. She actually had more clots clear out, but then the clots went away and she had just a clean period. So she had an incredibly different period after just doing those three steam sessions with my vaginal steam chair. So the next week, three of her friends contact me and each one of them wanted to buy a vaginal steam chair from me.

And I was like, you can just use hers. And they were like, no, no, thank you. I would have been like, now it's $150 and I'll take it from you and from you and from you. And so that's what happened basically then their friends contacted me. And so it was people that I didn't know at this point contacted me.

And offering me money to make them vaginal steams on it. And it was all based on the testimonials of the people that were using them. And so with everybody, I would ask them, so I would make them the sauna, but I would also ask them what their period was like. And then after their next period, I would ask them.

What their posts being period was like. And so I worked with over 700 women like this, where I would write down their, their beginning period, and then their posts, theme, period, and even consequently, even the cycles that happened after that as well. And so what I started to see was how periods were changing as a result of speed.

And that's ultimately why I'm steamy check is because I started selling these vaginal steam chairs, which turned into vaginal steam saunas. And I was the only person that sold those in the United States at the time. And there ended up being a pretty big need for it. As women were contacting me from everywhere who had period problems and the, you know, vaginal steaming was appearing to be helpful and beneficial for people solving, resolving these these issues.

And so my company has actually been a demand driven since the beginning. I had never, I didn't have a website. I didn't have a name. I didn't decide to sell vaginal steam chairs. But early on, what are the friends of the friends who got one of my first vaginal esteem, chairs contacted me and said I did it.

And it was so great. And this is how my period changed. And, you know, so I took down those notes and then she said, and can I write a blog about it? And I was like, I'm pretty sure nobody reads blogs. I was very wrong. I didn't think anybody would read it. So I was like, yes or no problem, because she writes this blog and that blog went viral.

So that went from, you know, sellings to theme chairs, you know, to friends of friends, to selling it, to and shipping them across the nation. And so this was all pre 2015, 2015. Was there a really big landmark for vaginal steaming? Because that's when hell trail mentioned it. So. Yeah. So anyways, so I was the only person selling vaginal steam chairs.

And then with that, I was doing the herbs. But with the herbs, I would work with my colleague and friend who was an acupuncturist, Chris Gonzalez. And I would say, okay, what categories of herbs do you think they need? And so we would create, we would consult with each other and we would create herbal blends with the properties that the person needed.

So, you know, I don't know if you know, but acupuncturist can actually do a diagnosis by reading the period. So I would share what their period was like. She could already diagnose what their imbalances are and also what herbal properties that they needed. And so that's where, you know, we brought in the intelligence and being able to tailor the herbs to the different menstrual cycle types that I worked with over 700 women.

And I was able to see that there were four different like herbal properties. That you would want based on the different menstrual cycles in order to get the desired effect, which is basically a pain free period, without any side effects, walk us through those four main categories. So I named them, um, the cleansing blend.

So this blend has the most circulatory arms that are going to be so steam itself that helps to improve circulation. But then this blend has like even stronger herbs that are Magog, which means that they're going to be uterine cleansers. So this is the strongest blends to be able to clean somebody clean out old residue or old Memphis that's and somebody uterus.

The second blend is going to be the Genesis. So what I call the gentle or so the gentle herbs, it turns out that not everyone, but it can handle steaming or not. Everybody can handle steaming for a long time and not everybody can handle strong herbs. There are some people who have fresh spotting throughout their cycles.

And some people who have short menstrual cycles, like plenty days, you know, 23 days. Um, and it could be shorter, but I consider anything 27 days or shorter, a short menstrual cycle, which doesn't mean that there's a problem. It just means that this person needs herbs, that help to extend the cycle rather than shorten it.

The cleansing blends. You know, it's going to be best for people with missing periods that would bring back the period or people who have long menstrual cycles, like 40 days long that cleansing blend is going to help to shorten the menstrual cycle. Whereas the gentle herbs, you need the exact opposite.

You need herbs. That are going to help to extend the menstrual cycle. And those herbal properties are going to be herbs that are anti hemorrhagic that stopped bleeding and that have cheat tonics, and that will strengthen the uterus so that it stays longer before actually initiating that period. All of these things make sense to me if anyone's listening and you want to kind of follow along with what we're going through.

Um, this is a great opportunity. If you near a computer to go on steamy check.com forward slash herbs. So if anybody just wants to kind of just, if you're not driving your car on your way to work right now, or on your way home from work, and you have a computer, then jump on steamy chick.com forward slash herbs as Kelly walks through the next day.

Very sweet. Yes. Okay. So then, Um, so those are like the main two things that we're really, really looking for when I'm screening somebody to see what kinds of herbs that they need, but the third category of people who have infection. And so I'm using infections really broadly here at the main bacterial infections and yeast infections, as well as viruses.

Okay. I'm going to interrupt really quick. Would you consider GBS colonization under this category? Yes. I wanted to put like some stronger disinfecting herbs in there. So all of my herbs actually have some disinfecting properties, although my herbal blends, but the disinfecting herbal blend has the wrongest antivirals in there.

Antivirals antifungals and anti bacterial. But remember how I told you SD was with white Sage. All those years, white Sage is the same because white Sage is. An antimicrobial, it hits all of those advantage, viral, antibacterial and antifungal. And then it's also a Menulog it's also a uterine cleanser, so it's good for circulation.

So it was interesting that I had chosen that one or because that one, or does it all, yeah. And then the fourth blend was I wanted to develop a blend for people who have a lot of heat in their body. This is like the symptoms that you can see would be like hot flashes and night sweats. And we associate it with women who are menopausal.

Although you have women in there who are teenagers who have hot flashes and night sweats, as well as postpartum moms often have it. So, you know, it can happen at any time, but yeah, we associated with menopause the most, but I wanted to create a blend specifically for women who do have these signs of this excess heat and their body.

And so I created a cooling blend. I love this. And I'm going to jump in right here, because as you're talking, I'm like, this is the one I need cooling herps I am 41 years old and I ended up in postpartum because I had babies late. And so all I've a lot of heat. Lot of it, but one of the things that you say at the very bottom, like how would someone know that?

Right. But if you weren't having hot flashes and different things, but sometimes, um, and I'm just taking the Liberty right now to talk about my own experience, but there's a lot of vaginal dryness. With intercourse. And so I would imagine that that has something to do with this. Cause in your description, it says like vaginal dryness.

And so I'm like, Oh, get checked, hot flashes, check night sweats check. So anyway, well I will be ordering some grueling herbs when we hang up and when we get to like, what chair is the right share too. Yeah. Okay. So those are the. Four main herbs, steams that you have. And so because people are listening to the birth story podcast or likely pregnant or trying to get pregnant, I want to kind of get your advice or expertise on a couple of things that come to mind.

And the first one is what we talked about with GBS colonization. Like most of my moms don't want to take antibiotics because they are colonized with group beta strep. And so. We had just talked about the product that you would recommend if someone is either GBS positive, or if you're in your second trimester and leading up to that, moving into the third trimester and leading up to that 36 week appointment where they usually kind of swab the vagina and rectum.

Have you, is this where you would recommend maybe starting steaming with the disinfecting herbs? Yeah, that's a good question. Um, I've I actually, I was recently talking to midwife, Raquel Lehman's about that. And also midwife hyper love and Piper in particular, brought it up with me and wanted to, to figure out if steaming could help with this.

If somebody GBS positive and Raquel. And I actually, we kind of came up with a protocol, but here's the thing. We don't have any information about it. I think that like, this may be a good point of disclosure, right? Like I'm a doula. Kelly is a vaginal steamer. Neither of us have MD next to our name. And we're fine with that.

Right? Like we're talking about anxious practices that have been passed down to us from generation after generation, after generation. Some of these things have been lost. And then we're bringing them back. Like your friend that, you know, works in Mayan, abdominal wound, healing and care. Like these are things that in some cultures have been preserved and an ours, they were not preserved.

And so it's okay that we're not like on my show. It's okay. Right now that we're not talking about like, Oh, there was trial at the university of California Davis on, you know, I'm just saying. We don't have a lot of tools in our toolbox, right? Like moms come to me and they're pregnant and they're like, is there anything I can do?

And the only thing I can think of is wash your vagina with Hibiclens, which is like an antibacterial soap. And so, you know, here's one more tool for your toolbox. If you're pregnant, you know, can we prove that this may. Work? No, but can we, it may the like, why not? It feels great. It's disinfecting herbs.

It's going to do all of these other things. So, you know, I'm on here as a doula saying, try it for sure. So GBS says, um, I'm going to go for the herbal blend. Okay. Yeah. I'm gonna go for the queen over blend, which also has this infectives in it. What happens is you want to use moisturizing herbs in order to help for labor prep and also use it for the, the GBS.

But here's the thing you don't. So there shouldn't be any steam prior to 37 weeks. Okay. That was, that was a huge question that I had. Right. So they have a, and it doesn't cause somebody. We haven't seen any cases where somebody like immediately goes into labor when steaming, but steaming does help to assist the body to get ready for labor.

But when you think about what the steam does, it moisturizes the area, lubricates the area, and it helps the open and ripen the cervix. So it's not something that should ever be done up until. But it shouldn't be done before 37 weeks. It's okay. When did this start using it first for steaming and getting ready?

Yeah, 38 weeks. Now the idea at starting a couple of weeks earlier than, you know, what's considered full term 40 weeks is that you never want to force the body into labor. If you're doing something to force the body into Libra, you can't force the body until labor, but it often comes with side effects, you know, like.

A lot of times everything doesn't line up where steaming can very gently doing mild steams from, you know, 38 weeks for every day. I recommend like 10 minute steam sessions. I recommend water only unless you were trying to address the GBS, but those miles themes can, it just helps the, the cervix of the body to get ready.

And it helps to introduce that circulation, which is what's useful for. Bringing contraction. But as far as GBS goes, the only, the only herbs I recommend prior to pregnancy, when doing labor prep is going to be the cooling blend or using water only. And if somebody does have GBS, I do recommend the Coleen blend.

And I think that if they start steaming at 37 weeks or 38 weeks using the chlorine blend. And I think if we looked at 20 cases of this or a hundred cases of this, I think that we might find that. The vaginal steaming is successful at getting rid of that. And so I think we were talking about, I have to go through the specifics Raquel and I created a specific steam plant at GBS positive steam plan.

And we have that in my course, vaginal steaming for labor prep and Raquel actually walks the practitioners through, um, how to use this Damien and what the protocol should be in the case of B and GBS positive. But. I think people that aren't midwives that aren't familiar was steaming. I definitely do feel comfortable with using steaming as opposed to the antibiotics.

Now we're going to take a short break to just share a few things with you. Thanks for listening to the birth story podcast. I am so excited to announce the launch of my book. Birth story, a 42 week guide for your pregnancy. A collection of these birth stories, a ton of doula advice and journaling prompts.

You can order a copy today@birthstory.com. It also will mean the world to me, if you'll spread the word about this podcast, so on Stitcher or on iTunes, just leave a review. Thanks. Tell me where does one find the information on the vaginal steaming for labor prep? So there's two ways. Number one is that this is somebody who's looking for.

To do this. I think it's really important to work with a practitioner who's trained in this. So on my website, I have a vaginal steam directory of all of the steamy chick practitioners that I've trained and who have gone through the labor prep module and who can add, who can work with a client and they don't have to work with you in person.

But they work with, you know, the different things that are going on. Cause you know, there's a lot of different variables going on labor and with different people and what their health care providers, you know, like what their, you know, with induction pressure. And there's just a lot of domestic situations going on.

So my, a trained in all of the safety forces, you mean for labor prep. So that's the best way to go for somebody. Who's looking to do this for their own. For their own pregnancy. This is a time when it's it's best to have somebody who's been trained in this area. And then for birth workers who want to learn this training, I recommend you have to do the prerequisite, which is the vaginal steam facilitator course.

That way, you know, I can make sure that all of my practitioners know the differences between the different herbs, how to mix them and how to scream clients, and then they can do the vaginal steam facilitator certification and then skip forward and take that labor prep course. For people who are interested in this, this is awesome.

And on your website, you go to like the geographic map with all of your trained practitioners. I mean, it's all over the whole world that you've learned at practitioner. So no matter where you are in this world, listening to this podcast, please, if you go to steamy chicken, common, then forward slash practitioners, I'll link to all of this Michelle notes.

So you can. You know, click to your geographic area or somewhere close and see a directory of those that Kelly has trained to help you through, you know, not just your labor prep, but anyone who's listening that might have been struggling. And they may be in between children right now and are struggling with different things like irregular periods or heavy periods.

Yeah. And you know, all the different things that we. Run into as women. So, Kelly, I want to take a turn really quick. We probably should have done this at the very beginning, but you know, you're just fun to talk to. So we just were chatting, but I wasn't just go like, and more of a concise manner go through willing what is steam?

Right? Like. W it comes to mind to me that like steam is something that we use to glean things. Right. But I wanted you to just mainly go through like the main benefits of steam. We've highlighted it here and there and here and there, but really for the audience that's listening, the quick bullet points on, you know, why vaginal steamy or what, what steaming is and why it's good for our bodies.

Okay. Yeah. So as well as when you would take a pot of water and you heat it up and we would get, you know, shoot it to the point that it's steaming, and then you could also add herbs for the treatment. And then what happens with this pot of herbs with steaming herbs is that the woman can put it on the ground and then squat over it, or put it in a sauna.

Well, the special seat in order to be able to step over it. So this is what a vaginal steam is talking about. And so the steam directly goes up and it touches the entire perennial area. So it's going to touch the vagina. It can touch the anus as well. It touches the Lavia, it touches the clutter, right? So the steam ends up targeting that whole area.

And you just sit there and relax. It feels nice. And you do your vaginal steam. There's two different steam sessions you could do. I recommend the mild is 10 minutes. I recommend that for beginners. And then another way to do it is where there's actually a burner under the pot. And that burner could be put on low, which helps to extend the steam to do a longer theme session.

I might call that an advanced steam session, which is 30 minutes. Okay. So this is what vaginal steaming is. It's been done all around the world by women. Since the beginning of time, the earliest books that we can find about women's medicine and gynecology include information about vaginal steaming and them.

Okay. So that's what vaginal steaming is. And wait, what else are we talking about? Oh, why is it beneficial? So again, it hasn't been studied and the West by Western medicine, but. When you look at the benefits that women are reporting vaginal steaming, it appears that the vaginal steam is useful at increasing circulation.

And circulation is really beneficial when there's pain, pain is often a sign that there's like some type of stagnation. And so just increasing the circulation can often move whatever is stuck and caused somebody to not have pain where they did have pain before. Okay. Another thing that happens with the steam is that when people, steam people don't stay on their period, right.

When they're actively bleeding. But what happens is when people steam, then when their period comes, their period looks a lot cleaner, fresher, and redder. Okay. And so the vagina, and you'll hear people say that the vagina and the uterus are self cleansing and that's absolutely true, but there are cases when there is old residue buildup.

Okay. And so signs of old residue. You can see them during the period. There's going to be Brown, blood clots. Perhaps those are all signs that there's old residue that's actually stuck in the year. So what happens when people statements they'll steam prior to their period, and then when their period comes.

Usually there's a bigger Clint, there's like more class, the more Brown blood, you know, and then past that you get to this fresh bread. Okay. So we don't actually have a standard for what a healthy period is where we have our, um, when you look at gynecology descriptions of what normal is, but when people, Steve, after the 700 women that I stand with, I was really surprised to notice that people's periods.

Tended to all look the same, like a healthy period. That was pain-free was this fresh red period with that didn't have clots or cramps or our Brown blood in it. So that's kind of like one of the learnings. One of the, one of the things that, that I've learned through looking at all of these different periods before and after, and then for postpartum, a vaginal steamy and people have reported benefits with it for, um, for prolapse they've reported benefits for, um, if they've had, if they have painful sex clearing out, the lochia helping to reduce bloating and then also helping stitches to heal and not having some of the.

Uh, discomfort around stitches, basically helping the mom recover, helping the mom like recover and be comfortable overall. It seems like when people steam. That they are able to recover quicker than people who do not. I wish I could go back in time to after delivering my 10 and a half pound baby. And

with some cooling herbs, I feel like this lessons learned. So if anyone's listening. I really hope that you're going to go to  dot com and just to learn, first of all, follow you on Instagram, you have a beautiful Instagram. It's very informative, but also go to the shop of the store and just kind of look at all of these different things, which leads me to, because I said at the end of this, like, I want to buy this for my house.

But there's so many options that let's just play a game. Like if I'm coming to you and you're my practitioner and I already shared with you, right? I'm 41. I had babies late. I am in peri-menopause. I was in perimenopause since I was about 32 years old and then somehow had babies and then just stayed in peri-menopause a lot of vaginal dryness.

You know, the doctors want to say like low estrogen and put you on estrogen green, which I've never done. So if I'm coming to you and I, and my cycle is every 27 days, um, it used to be a little bit longer before kids. It was about 29 days and now it's more 26 to 26. Seven days. So my cervical mucus happens six days after I finished my period.

My period is very light spotting, not heavy at all. No, I don't experience any cramps or uncomfort. And oftentimes from my thirties on, I would just shed the lining of my uterus a little bit, but they were proving. Through blood work and ultrasounds that I wasn't actually ovulating very much so I don't, I still don't think I am.

I can't still can't tell if I'm ovulating. So if I was talking to you and this was my. We're going through this questionnaire, what would be my prescription from the steamy chicks store and which chair there's so many. And let me just explain to everyone, because Kelly said she like drilled a toilet seat on top of a chair.

These chairs are beautiful. They almost look like boxes. I mean, they're beautiful. It's worth just. Going on the website just to look. And so I wanted to ask, do I pick one by style or by design or is it just, you know, what I think would look beautiful in my house? Yeah. That's basically how women really shop like really, that's how we have thought as I've gotten more and more beautiful over time because women want beautiful saunas.

I would also look at what's going to be convenient for you. So like for example, there's that Atlanta traveling sonnet, like if you were going to do it with clients as well, and that's one that's like popular with birth workers because of the legs, um, can unscrew and then you can just throw it in like a backpack, you know?

If you want, I like ones with the most like fabric it's possible. Cause you know, I got big heads. So I do think coverage is important. And then the ones with a, what do you call it? The cushions. I mean the cushions are the absolute most comfortable. If you have a cushion. So. He's just got to look at and then, and then you gotta stop based on, you know, what, what looks good for you, too.

Beautiful. Do you make these, or do you have different designers that now make them for you? Yeah. These are all third party sauna vendors who are actually advertising on my website. I stopped making fondness and I focused. I realized, you know, and probably anybody could make a, or sorry. There were people who could specialize in making saunas.

But the, the information that I had learned from looking at all these different menstrual cycles and the herbs, that was something that, you know, I was getting a lot of questions about. And so I turned my focus to actually working on certifying and training other practitioners with this information. But yeah, so then I started to, I just reached out to a couple people.

I knew who made saunas and I listed them on my website and then I've continued to do so. So this is where you could find the majority of the vaginal steams on it. Sometimes there's some on like Pinterest and Etsy as well. But yeah, you just have to choose whichever one looks good. Now how many women, more than one type of seem like?

I think we already established my prescription might be the cooling herbs, but do you also recommend doing at one point during the month doing, you know, maybe the disinfecting and then later doing the cooling or do you typically just prescribe one tape of herbal blend for steaming, you know, per client?

Well, it could vary, but like postpartum, it tends to vary quite a bit. But with you, I want to know how, how long ago did you have your last baby? Like how, how far postpartum are you? Well, I feel like it was yesterday, but he's technically four years old and they were 15 months apart. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. So it's been four years.

And then you said that your period is, you said it's kind of like spotting and not heavy at all. Yeah. I wanted to know what, what colors you see? Do you see any pink? Do you see any orange? Is it Brown or is it all red? Is it dark purple? What, what colors are you seeing? I would say more like dark purple would be an accurate description and maybe some, you know, just red to dark purple.

Okay. Okay, cool. And that you, you bleed for four days or it's three days, two days, three days, three days. And it's mostly just spotting. It's not like a consistent, well, yeah, it's just spotting here or there. Okay. Cool. Alright. So let me tell you what I, everyone knows everything about me. Yeah,

well, not yet, but now they will. What I'm seeing is that you have, so there's seven minutes to cycle and balances that you can determine from looking at the period. Okay. So you're showing me that you have uterine Fitzy, so your periods come a little bit early. Because your uterus is tired. Okay. So uterus gets hired for the same reason that the rest of our bodies get tired.

Like, okay. Like when you're not tired, then your uterus, so your uterus is showing some signs of fatigue. Which means that instead of waiting until like 29 days or 28 days, it was several days earlier, your uterus is like, nah, I'm tired. I'm just giving up like the uterine vessels open and just like start the period.

I was just cause your uterus got tired. Let go of the period to like early, earlier than, than it should basically. So right. And it feels so sad. Right. My, my Yoni is tired. Well, I mean, you got two kids, a birth worker. I don't know a birth worker who doesn't have uterus. Like you guys are running around, first of all, taking care of your own family.

And then in all of your spare time, like running to assist women when they're in labor, I mean, you know, birth workers are pretty much angels.

I consider uterus like the imbalance that angels get, because I really find that the women who are doing the most around us usually have signs of uterus. So anyways, if that makes you feel any better, thank you for calling angel. Okay. So then the other thing that I'm getting is that you, you don't have that I'm looking at is that you don't have very much less.

And so what I healthy period, and again, these are my definitions of a healthy period of healthy periods. Usually has four days of freshmen blood that is consistent low. Okay. Not heavy, not too light. So you, you're kind of getting spotting here and there. What that means is that your body isn't able to create a lot of blood, which means that you're probably blood deficient.

So in other words, your body doesn't have a lot of nutrients to create lead and providing will often do that. Because of fatigue or because of poor digestion or because you're not getting enough protein or, or like vegetables or whatever. Like, so, um, so you're showing some signs of blood deficiency and then you are, is this too much?

I'm like, this is very interesting. You nailed it. Probably core digestion. I have Celiac's disease and I am a terrible. Like I had a cupcake today. Well, I'm a terrible either and there's gluten all in my diet. So this is probably linked back to that. Well, it's very interesting. I'm blood deficient. Okay, right.

There's one very important follow up question. What kind of cupcake was it? It was a really great cupcake store from GGS cupcakes and it was a strawberry cupcake with strawberry icing. It was really good. Okay. Very sweet. So, okay. So now I'm not really, like, I'm not like a food Nazi or anything, but what happens with women is that we tend to get blood deficient.

And the reason why we do is because we bleed every month. And so unless you properly replenish the blood that you lose during the menstruation, you're going to end up less efficient. Like, that's just a very common thing that women are walking around with. Like you see when you see like blood deficiencies, like.

The unbalanced at correlates to anemia. And we know that so many women are in Mimi, right? Like that's like a girly thing to say anemia, why women have it. So part of that has to do with when you have your period, it's really important to eat nourishing food at that time. You can have your cupcake too, but you also want to have like some hard boiled eggs, some chicken soup for the vegans.

They want to have a spirited, Lena, you know, and so, you know, you, you want to have your, your blood tonics at that time, blood tonics are the foods that help to nourish the blood. So chicken soup is the best example of that word, hard boiled egg, you know, so learning how to eat like that during your period is something that helps it.

Like it kind of immediately starts to stop that trend of that blood deficiency. And starts to nourish that blood again, you gotta think you have to replenish what's lost because the body has to create lead at that time, you know? Yeah. I just went to therapy.

Mama mama's into, especially moms who nurse. So any mom who creates a baby, you know, during pregnancy ends up most likely blood deficient at the end of it, because we use all of our nutrients to prepare our children. And so that's why you see like certain cultures and even cultures, I would say historically, um, postpartum women were well cared for, and there were specific foods for them to eat.

And nourishment was really important at that time, in order to replenish those, those nutrients that were lost during the pregnancy. And then next thing, when, when moms are nursing, then their nutrients are going towards that breast milk production. So moms need higher nutrients at that time, too. And so what you have is it's pretty common for somebody who's had children who didn't necessarily focus on nourishing the blood afterwards.

It's pretty common to have a little bit of blood deficiency and you don't have a lot. You just have a little. Very interesting. Okay. So I'm going to focus on sleeping and nourishing foods during my period and getting the gluten out of my diet. And I'm going to start my vaginal steaming. Yeah. So excited.

There's two more things. It's really thorough. Okay. Okay.

So you also do have that sign of the excess heat, which you mentioned, and then you also have some signs of stagnation. So like, you know, more circulation is necessary. So anyways, from that, I am going to recommend the herbs and the gentle herbs. And I'm going to recommend that you rotate them. So every other steam session you would do, you would do gentle this time that you would do pulling back.

And what I'm going to recommend for you are doing the mild steam sessions. Since you have that heat, we don't want you steaming too long. You just do a little mild steam session. You don't need to put a burner under it and just do 10 minutes, miles, same session. What would be good for you would be to stay in three times after your period, and then three times before your next period.

Awesome. Thank you, Molly. I hope there's somebody listening. That's like got a similar, you know, that I'm like, is this your prescription too? Cause then it will make it easy for everyone. Now, at least I hope that this episode has made it easy for everyone to understand. Stand, like, what is vaginal steamy?

Like why are we doing it? And then breaking them down those four different or blends that you specialize in so that they can kind of say, okay, here is my steaming chair. I'm going to purchase. And then here is the herbal blend that I think best fits. Like you said, I'm going to definitely, we're going to steer everyone to your website though, to get a.

A certified practitioner so that they could go through what, what Kelly just went through with me. So going through that questionnaire, I'm assuming it's probably a little bit more like in depth when you have, you know, an hour on the phone versus we did it in 10 minutes. That was pretty good. But making sure that everyone has your licensed or certified practitioner through steamy check to be able to direct you to getting the right products.

So yeah. Sure. And so the practitioner consultations, usually they will do them online or email and they run about $120 and big come with, you know, again, that was like a little 10 minute version, but they usually last one to two hours of really going through all of the different signs and what they might mean, and then having specific recommendations for each one.

So I just let you know, use the implant real quick, but there are additional things that. You know, during this consultation, I would be able to, to let you know that you, that you could have with, like, for example, the blood deficiency and the excess heat, basically like a really good milk where you would be put the excess heat.

You want cooling foods. So really a good meal for you would be like a protein salad, because it's going to be cooling. But it's going to have that blood tonic in there for you. It's like the, you know, so yeah. So it's going to be on that through information and for people who that is above their price range, it's definitely worth it because it changes your period forever and it makes it healthy or whatever postpartum symptoms somebody has, or at least it could.

It's possible that I put in a lot of people aren't expensive experiencing those benefits, but if you want to, you could also try on my website. There's a do it yourself tutorial, where I just kind of. Try to do questions and answers and give general information. And a lot of times people are able to use the, do it yourself tutorial to create their own state plans.

Do they use their facial steamer?

Even if you don't have a song, you know, and stuff like that. So, yeah. Well, Kelly, this has been so eye opening, so informative. I just like, I honestly can't wait to like go back to my Instagram and be like, you guys have to know all of these. Things. Um, I hope this is the most two episode on the bursary podcast, whenever it shall air.

And so this has been really good. And I usually ask everybody like, what's your favorite baby product as a way to conclude. And so, um, I don't know if this would be considered your favorite baby product, but I thought I would give you the opportunity since you're a mom of two to chime in Kelly and tell everybody if you have.

Favorite pregnancy or baby product aside from vaginal steaming that you want to share with the world? Ooh,

I really like herbs. I really like herbs for right after the postpartum nourishing the mama. So I would say like a nice chicken soup and then, um, some like nettles tea, like those are like my favorite. Then I try to give those to my friends when they get for it. Um, because those are going to be nourishing that blood and replenishing my mama and helping her with that breast milk.

So it's all homemade stuff. It's not necessarily a product, but those are, those are what I'm trying to. Trying to get to the mom. Well, Kelly, thank you so much. It was really, this was just, I mean, where have I been living in a cave as a doula for 15 years? I'm just so thankful for laying in bed with my best friend in Austin, Texas, and learning about vaginal steaming so that we could connect.

And how did, does everybody find you? I mean, I think I, I put everybody to the website, but why don't you give us your handle on Instagram and the best way to connect with you? Sure on Instagram. I am at DME chick and the website is the metric that calm. Okay. Wait, but Heidi, I'm just worried that you're going to get mad at me for not telling you about this.

You know, as your friend is going to tell you, and you're going to be like, how did failure? But we, um, last year I sponsored a, a theme study called the fourth trimester vaginal steam study. So I very. Specifically for all the birth work various, you guys should check that out and read up on it. And what we did was we looked at a group of women who steamed postpartum and a group of women who didn't stay in postpartum.

We had a midwife facilitate all of the vaginal steam sessions so that they were all the same. And then we looked at several different postpartum indicators to see when we measured them before and after to see what the difference was. And the results were credible. So can I get a copy of the study? Yes.

So if you got to see me check that all right. Now on the home page, you will see the fourth trimester vaginal steam study. There's a copy of this study. The PDF can be downloaded. There's a PowerPoint presentation of the study. There's a talk about the study. All of the information is available and. Not only that this was just a home done study by me and three of my friends.

I be professional, but so getting the word out there about it, learning about it, reading it and getting the word out there is really, really great because it's, this is even, it's just a trial study because it was so few women in the study. We had 12 entirely. But this was the first study done in the United States and it was just home grown.

It was just done by us, you know? So I'm so proud. Lot of you look at you, you do have data. I'm talking about eating my placenta early and you're like, there is data and you look at, I mean, Everything that you are Kelly. You're amazing. You're like, Oh, there's not a study. So I'm going to do one here. Like there I had, Oh, this, this company of yours is incredible.

I love your entrepreneur. Like mind. I mean, I hope a million people listen to my podcast so that a million people buy your products. And this is amazing. I can't wait to, so if you do another study, will you let me be in it? Yeah, I volunteer.

I'm in, I'm in, I'm in so, well, thank you so much. I appreciate everything. And I am, I'm going to sign off now so I can go steam. Yay. Thank you so much, Heidi, for having me on it was such a pleasure.

Thank you for listening to birth story, Michael is you will walk away from each episode with a clear picture of how labor and delivery might go, and that you will feel empowered by the end of your pregnancy to speak up plan and prepare for the birth you want. No matter what that looks like.