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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. Caroline. Why don't

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Speaker 1: we start things off with a bit of news. It's

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Speaker 1: not new news. I think semi new news. Yeah, may news.

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Speaker 1: People who don't frequently keep up with the news will

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Speaker 1: maybe not have heard about it. Yes, news for the

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Speaker 1: under infum So today we are talking about whether or

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Speaker 1: not a pill can cure obesity and the quotes obesity

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Speaker 1: epidemic that has been sweeping the United States because an

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Speaker 1: FDA advisory committee recently recommended that the agency of not one,

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Speaker 1: but two anti obesity drugs. Yeah, it starts with q nexa.

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Speaker 1: Back in February, the committee gave a thumbs up to

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Speaker 1: that drug, which is made by Vivas or vis It's

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Speaker 1: a drug company. It's called Vivis. It's pronounced yeah anyway. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This is also there's Lorca sarin brand name would be Lorkess,

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Speaker 1: and that is another drug to treat obesity, both of

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Speaker 1: which had previously been rejected after they submitted studies to

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Speaker 1: this advisory committee and they were like, no, we're not

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Speaker 1: convinced that you won't kill people. Yeah. For instance, uh

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Speaker 1: Lorkes was initially red lighted because the medications seemed to

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Speaker 1: only provide modest weight loss, and there were also some

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Speaker 1: studies linking it to mammary tumors in rats, and so

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Speaker 1: the drug companies went back, they did more studies, they

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Speaker 1: did more tweaking, and came back again, and the FDA

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Speaker 1: Advisor Committee is like, all right, you know, put it

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Speaker 1: through um putting, pushing it closer to getting these drugs

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Speaker 1: on the market. And just on a side note, just

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Speaker 1: getting that Advisory committee green light is such a financial

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Speaker 1: boon for these companies. Um. Right after Lorcas announced that,

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Speaker 1: or I guess Arena Pharmaceuticals that produced Lorcas announced that

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Speaker 1: the FDA Advisory Committee Committee had given it the thumbs up,

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Speaker 1: shares of uh It's stock skyrocket immediately. Well, I mean

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Speaker 1: I can see that because you know they've been and

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Speaker 1: we'll get into this, but there have been so many

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Speaker 1: attempts at successful obesity drugs that help you lose weight

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Speaker 1: and don't actually weaken your heart. UM, So if there

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Speaker 1: is something a promising drug to treat an epidemic that

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Speaker 1: is very widespread that could potentially make a lot of

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Speaker 1: money for a lot of people. Absolutely, and there's also

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Speaker 1: the money that goes into all of these clinical trials

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Speaker 1: that the pharmaceutical companies have to fund. But kind of

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Speaker 1: in the back of my mind, I'm always a little

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Speaker 1: wary of all of those hundreds of millions of dollars

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Speaker 1: that are going into these drugs because of the potential

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Speaker 1: to earn money. But my skepticism aside um. According to

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Speaker 1: Forbes Magazine Lord kest and this is now we're talking

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Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve, not when the FDA UH initially

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Speaker 1: put the brakes on it. Lorkes helps people lose on

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Speaker 1: average three percent more weight than diet alone UM and

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Speaker 1: will also increase the percentage for people who lose five

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Speaker 1: percent of their body weight. So it seems like there's

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Speaker 1: kind of a snowball effect there, the more weight that

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Speaker 1: they're able to lose with medication and UH dietary changes

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Speaker 1: because doctors always advised that with UM clinically obese people

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Speaker 1: that they've got to have the it's not just the

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Speaker 1: magic bill. There has to be nutritional change that goes

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Speaker 1: along with that, and there is more good news because

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Speaker 1: the senior VP at Arena, the drug company producing Lorcas,

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Speaker 1: says that the cancer they found in these studies is

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Speaker 1: rats specific. But it's not all good news because there

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Speaker 1: are some people out there's medical experts who still have

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Speaker 1: concerns about possible heart valve problems. Um, there are calls

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Speaker 1: for more cardiovascular tests across the board for any kind

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Speaker 1: of anti obesity drug, probably because of issues with the

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Speaker 1: now defunct Finfin, which we'll talk about in a minute.

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Speaker 1: That um initially people got excited about because hey, it's

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Speaker 1: easy to lose weight, and it's producing all this extra

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Speaker 1: serotonin in your brain, so you feel good while you're

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Speaker 1: doing it. But then down the road they were like, wait,

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Speaker 1: my heart doesn't work quite right. And there are also,

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Speaker 1: you know, some potential side effects. Were still talking about

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Speaker 1: uh lord kess of headaches and cognitive problems, like the

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Speaker 1: potential you for amnesia. But then they might just you know, forget,

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Speaker 1: forget that they ever had way to know. I'm about

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Speaker 1: to argue in favor of amnisia. Well, I mean it

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Speaker 1: sounds like you take a pill and you end up

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Speaker 1: on a soap opera. Yeah, you end up thin with amnesia. UM.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, Kristen just mentioned that there are more tests

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Speaker 1: being called for for these types of medications. And back

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Speaker 1: in March, an FDA advisory committee voted to require clinical

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Speaker 1: trials to ensure that obesity drugs do not cause heart attacks.

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Speaker 1: And this sort of caused an argument because some people

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Speaker 1: were saying that this would actually discourage people because it's

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Speaker 1: a very expensive process to go back and do all

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Speaker 1: these tests over and over again, and a lot of

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Speaker 1: tests are performed from the beginning anyway, So a lot

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Speaker 1: of people were saying that this added cost, added time

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Speaker 1: would discourage people from developing certain obesity drugs. But then

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Speaker 1: other people are like, hey, shouldn't we air on the

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Speaker 1: side of caution anyway? I mean, and that's okay. So

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Speaker 1: we with this issue of whether or not we like

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Speaker 1: a pill can cure and quotes obesity. Um. There are

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Speaker 1: two big things to talk about. What a what kind

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Speaker 1: of problem are we talking about talking about? UM? Like,

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Speaker 1: what what is the scope of obesity right now? And

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Speaker 1: what might happen if some kind of medication does not

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Speaker 1: get on the market that can cause some significant changes? Um?

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Speaker 1: And also why has it been so difficult to find

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Speaker 1: some kind of anti obesity medication. So first up, let's

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Speaker 1: talk about just plain stats on obesity. And we're talking

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Speaker 1: about the adult population right now. We're not talking about

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Speaker 1: childhood obesity. Um. Some Duke researchers, this was reported in

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Speaker 1: Slate in USA today. Some Duke researchers project that the

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Speaker 1: percentage of Americans who are severely obese, which would be

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Speaker 1: a hundred or more pounds overweight. I'm sorry for metrics

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Speaker 1: system listeners right now. I don't don't have that those

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Speaker 1: that kilogram conversion or stones. I WI should know how

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Speaker 1: many stones that was. But for severely obased people that

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Speaker 1: they're projected to nearly double to eleven of the population

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Speaker 1: by if we continue in the path that we are on,

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Speaker 1: and they project that of the population may end up

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Speaker 1: being abased by twenty thirty, which is up from the

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Speaker 1: rate of thirty six percent. And if we were to

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Speaker 1: just keep it that level of thirty six percent and

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Speaker 1: not not hit those those rising levels, just just seeing

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Speaker 1: plateaued right where we are. The Duke study co author

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Speaker 1: Justin Shrogden says that the United States alone would save

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Speaker 1: more than five hundred and forty nine point five billion

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Speaker 1: dollars in weight related medical expenditures through twenty thirties. Insane.

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Speaker 1: And just on another side note, since we're talking about

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Speaker 1: billions of dollars, the US weight loss industry is now

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Speaker 1: s made it roughly sixty billion dollars. There's so much

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Speaker 1: money everywhere in this conversation. There is a people are

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Speaker 1: willing to do almost anything to lose weight except sometimes

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Speaker 1: work out. Yes, um, but that's okay. Uh. The projected

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Speaker 1: increased rate of obesity, this whole thing with the Duke research,

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Speaker 1: that means that thirty two million more obese people will

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Speaker 1: show up within two decades show up to the party. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and um. The Duke researchers were trying to figure out

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Speaker 1: the factors that might be going into this forecasting, and

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Speaker 1: they're looking at things like the unemployment rate, prices of

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Speaker 1: fast food, alcohol, and fuel. And if you're thinking about

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Speaker 1: the price of fuel, that ties into the sedentary culture

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Speaker 1: that we live in right now. I mean, I just

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Speaker 1: thinking about myself, Like I take public transit to work

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Speaker 1: and I still sit constantly. I actually took public transit

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Speaker 1: yesterday and had a woman lying on me on us

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Speaker 1: So I'm sorry that was me. I was tired, I

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Speaker 1: was standing, So it's pretty impressive. It's also my yoga.

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Speaker 1: Um well, I think it is important to ask the

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Speaker 1: question of how how accurate are these projections, and Slate

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Speaker 1: did ask that question. Um, they might be a little high,

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Speaker 1: but they're they're actually pretty accurate. Scarily enough, they point

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Speaker 1: out that in two thousand three, the CDC predicted that

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Speaker 1: the rate of obesity would be Americans and that was

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Speaker 1: pretty close to the actual rate of thirty five point seven.

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Speaker 1: And we do have to take into account that forecasting

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Speaker 1: like this hasn't been around forever. It's not like we've

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Speaker 1: been tracking obesity rates and predicting them for more than

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Speaker 1: just about a decade. Yeah, which is surprising, because we

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Speaker 1: hear about obesity and just wait in general all the time.

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Speaker 1: I feel like we're constantly inundated with information about how

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Speaker 1: to either how we're getting fatter or how to lose

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Speaker 1: all of that fats one or the other. Um. And

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Speaker 1: but it really hasn't been around that long, because it

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Speaker 1: was only in n that the Institute of Medicine published

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Speaker 1: a study saying that obesity should be perceived as a

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Speaker 1: chronic condition like hypertension and recommended that doctors use extended

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Speaker 1: drug therapy or surgery to treat it. It was a

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Speaker 1: complete shift in mindset from just saying, hey, you know

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Speaker 1: you should just go you know, diet exercise to actually

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Speaker 1: uh pathologizing weight UM and Scientific American looked into why

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Speaker 1: in that time, from when we have that shift in

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Speaker 1: the medical community and the perception of obesity and then

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Speaker 1: the rising rate of obesity UM just to give you

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Speaker 1: an idea, the rates of obesity were stable from around

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Speaker 1: the population and then jumped in the nineteen eighties and

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Speaker 1: nineties and in two thousand and Meanwhile, doctors have tried

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Speaker 1: to develop some kind of anti obesity drugs, but it

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Speaker 1: has not been an easy thing to do. No, definitely

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Speaker 1: not so. In two thousand four Cornell University study looked

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Speaker 1: at obesity drugs their success, who is using them, And

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Speaker 1: they looked at nine f d A approved obesity treatment

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Speaker 1: drugs in particular that were around between and two thousand one,

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Speaker 1: and those were at apex tenuate at a post did

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Speaker 1: drex Or directs. I don't know, these names are getting

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Speaker 1: still a mazanor, pon, demon redux, Meridia, and zenecalo that

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Speaker 1: got easier to resent and if those don't ring many

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Speaker 1: bells for listeners. That's because I think Xenical is the

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Speaker 1: only one of these drugs that you can even still purchase. Yeah, exactly. Um,

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Speaker 1: they they tended to have quite a few side effects,

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Speaker 1: and least of which was losing weight. Yes, yes, there

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Speaker 1: was no significant weight loss with many of these. Um,

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Speaker 1: they definitely worked to suppress appetite, but they also tended,

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Speaker 1: you know, to kind of modify your central nervous system neurotransmission.

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Speaker 1: So the side effects could definitely be fatal in some

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Speaker 1: instances and could have crazy things happen your heart, your

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Speaker 1: your mood, your memory, all sorts of things. And so

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Speaker 1: there's fin fin which we should talk about, which my

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Speaker 1: mother actually took Finfinn, and let me just tell you

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Speaker 1: how upset she was. Not about the news about the heart.

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Speaker 1: She was just really angry. She had to stop taking,

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Speaker 1: probably because she was going to have a serotonin come down.

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Speaker 1: But tell, tell the people, tell the kind of people

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Speaker 1: out there about the heart valve. Yeah, fin Finn was

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Speaker 1: pulled from the market in nineties seven because it damaged

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Speaker 1: heart valves, which we've mentioned is a side effect of

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Speaker 1: some of these things, and it was a combination of

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Speaker 1: pondamin or fin fluoramine, which releases extra serotonin, like Kristen said,

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Speaker 1: and the stimulant finn termine. So you you've kind of

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Speaker 1: got some ups and downs going here. Yeah. It was

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Speaker 1: essentially like a drug cocktail, an OTC cocktail, over the

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Speaker 1: counter cocktail that doctors like, oh, hey, here we go,

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Speaker 1: we can just balance these scales and just lose that weight.

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Speaker 1: But apparently it was tougher on the heart and the

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Speaker 1: pharmaceutical company has since had to pay lots of money

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Speaker 1: to folks for very expensive surgeries. Yeah. Well, the same

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Speaker 1: year that Finfinn was yanked off the market and Meridia launched,

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Speaker 1: and it was effective in weight loss, pretty effective. Forty

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Speaker 1: six percent of people lost ten percent or more of

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Speaker 1: their body weight and clinical trials, which is significantly more

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Speaker 1: than what we cited for larks over here, which was

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Speaker 1: three percent and five percent um. But it affected the

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Speaker 1: heart rate and was withdrawn in And now it's starting

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Speaker 1: to make sense why, uh, these medical experts have recently

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Speaker 1: come out saying, hey, we need cardiovascular tests. They must

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Speaker 1: be rigorous because all of these uh former ANTIBC drugs

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Speaker 1: and it being pulled because of heart related issues. And

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Speaker 1: then we have zen accou, which Kristen points out points

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Speaker 1: out as one of the few names that I actually

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Speaker 1: recognized that launched and happy not insignificant side effects of

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Speaker 1: oily stools and flatulence. So God help you. If you

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Speaker 1: were taking zenacal and eating a lustrac chips, well that's

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Speaker 1: the thing. Uh, If you regulated your diet, had a

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Speaker 1: very low fat diet and seneca, you'd be fine. But

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Speaker 1: if you decided to blurge and have a parfit or

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Speaker 1: some French fries, then you'd have a Well you have

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Speaker 1: oily stools. I'll just leave it at that, right, Well,

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Speaker 1: that's because your body isn't absorbing it or or digesting it.

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Speaker 1: It's just passing. The fat is just passing right through you.

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Speaker 1: And I'm glad you mentioned o Leustra chips because front

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Speaker 1: Line over PBS I didn't end that story on the

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Speaker 1: fen Fenn craze. And essentially, how you know we have

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Speaker 1: you know, the studies coming out saying that we need

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Speaker 1: to treat obesity. Obesity is becoming a problem and people

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Speaker 1: start getting aware of it, and we want to lose

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Speaker 1: this weight. And by we, I mean I'm talking more

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Speaker 1: specifically about Americans, but we don't really want to change

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Speaker 1: our lifestyles necessarily, and so you have all of a

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Speaker 1: sudden this bonanza of low fat junk food. This is

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Speaker 1: when brands like snack Wells come up and make bookoos

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Speaker 1: of money because you can still ey cookies because they're

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Speaker 1: just fat free. Or my favorite product, which I remember

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Speaker 1: when it first came out, I was I was pretty

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Speaker 1: pumped about it because I liked potato chips, but it

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Speaker 1: was those o Lustri chips which really did taste like

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Speaker 1: normal potato chips, but they were fat free. Um. But

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Speaker 1: if you ate too many, you would be on the

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Speaker 1: toilet for quite a while because those that's just a

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Speaker 1: load right through well. We we had all of that

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Speaker 1: stuff in my house because my dad had a heart attack.

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Speaker 1: So that's like right at the peak of all this

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Speaker 1: healthy junk food coming out, and it's like, I know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's really hard. Dieting is a lifestyle change, and

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Speaker 1: it's hard to all of a sudden go from you know,

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Speaker 1: eating kind of tasty junk food too, being told you

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Speaker 1: need to just stick to fruits and vegetables basically, So

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Speaker 1: we those weird snack foods definitely aided his transition. And

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Speaker 1: also we have to you know, acknowledge things like thyroid

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Speaker 1: problems and other genetic problems that might make it harder

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Speaker 1: for you to lose weight or impossible for you to

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Speaker 1: lose weight. And if we're talking about obesity as well,

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Speaker 1: the it's not a snap of the fingers hop on

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Speaker 1: a treadmill, because you know, there are health problems that

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Speaker 1: could or health risks that could even go along with

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Speaker 1: intensive exercise. So the you know, plenty of doctors have

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Speaker 1: stressed the need for some kind of anti obesity drug,

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Speaker 1: which does seem like a much better alternative to poop

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Speaker 1: chip um exactly. Um. But this Cornell study looked at

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Speaker 1: who exactly is taking this medicine, and it's kind of

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Speaker 1: surprising because basically they found that the people who really

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Speaker 1: should be taking it, the severely obese population, only one

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Speaker 1: of those people who meet the medical criteria are taking

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Speaker 1: the medicine. Of those taking anti obesity drugs don't meet

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Speaker 1: the medical criteria for their use. So that means that

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Speaker 1: for every two point to nine people, so like two

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Speaker 1: tall people and a short person maybe taking for every

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Speaker 1: two point to nine people taking such a drug who

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Speaker 1: meet the criteria, another person using it doesn't And we

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Speaker 1: should also emphasize we probably should have said this earlier

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Speaker 1: in the podcast. We're talking specifically about prescription anti obesity pills,

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Speaker 1: not over the counter pills. If you are, you know,

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Speaker 1: trying to drop a few pounds before um, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: uh sure. And we should also say too that the

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Speaker 1: Cornell study pointed out that whether or not someone has

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Speaker 1: prescription drug coverage with health care insurance will also make

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Speaker 1: a difference, because those who do are fifty seven percent

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Speaker 1: more likely than those without coverage to use anti obesity drugs.

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Speaker 1: Because I can imagine if these are you know, there

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Speaker 1: are not generics of these kinds of drugs, and they're

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Speaker 1: probably pretty expensive. So we haven't talked about gender yet

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Speaker 1: in the podcast, but if we're talking about weight loss,

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Speaker 1: as you can imagine, there is plenty of gender information

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Speaker 1: out there. Yeah. According to the National Health and Nutrition

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Speaker 1: Examination Study from in two thousand, more men than women

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Speaker 1: were overweight or obese. Um, but it looks like more

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Speaker 1: women are actually taking these prescription anti obesity drugs. Once again,

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Speaker 1: signing that Cornell study from two thousand, four, women are

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Speaker 1: how about this A hundred and eighty one cent more

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Speaker 1: likely to use anti obesity drugs, and it is probably

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Speaker 1: because women tend to be more motivate aded to lose

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Speaker 1: weight than men are, because well, hey, we've talked about

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Speaker 1: before in the podcast, how physiologically it is harder for

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Speaker 1: women to lose weight. Men can drop pounds quicker because

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Speaker 1: of the muscle mass, et cetera. Um. According to a

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Speaker 1: two thousand eleven gallop pole, sevent of American women have

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Speaker 1: attempted to lose weight an average of seven times, compared

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Speaker 1: to fifty of men who have attempted to lose weight

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Speaker 1: an average of four times. It's they that's a huge gap.

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Speaker 1: It is a huge gap. And yet women are actually

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Speaker 1: less likely, according to that galop Pole, to cite exercise

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Speaker 1: as helping them lose weight. In the poop chips, God,

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Speaker 1: you've God, he brought up a lestra I did it

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Speaker 1: is my fault that you called them poop chips? Um.

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Speaker 1: There are other factors that Cornell looked at in looking

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Speaker 1: at who is taking these prescription obesity draw um. They

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Speaker 1: controlled for whether the survey respondents met the medical criteria

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Speaker 1: for using these drugs and found that African Americans were

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Speaker 1: only as likely as whites to use them. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: with Hispanics there were only seventy as likely as whites

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Speaker 1: to use the drugs. So even if let's say those

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Speaker 1: two drugs we talked about at the top of the podcast,

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Speaker 1: Lorcus and Quenexa get the green light, they end up

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Speaker 1: on the market, the question is going to be whether

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Speaker 1: or not they actually get into the hands of the

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Speaker 1: population that medically could benefit from them. So that's a

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Speaker 1: big question that we've got to ask um. And also

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Speaker 1: in the meantime, there are all these over the counter

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Speaker 1: diet pills that I'm sure everyone is seen in drug

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Speaker 1: stores or on advertisements promising to lose weight quickly. And

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Speaker 1: we don't need to go to in depth on it

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Speaker 1: except to say that really take the well, don't take him.

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Speaker 1: But I'm saying take the advertisements with a grain of salt. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And like in h for Ally for instance, that over

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Speaker 1: the counter diet pill, they encourage you in the ad

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Speaker 1: to make it part of a healthy diet and exercise

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Speaker 1: because you know, we've already talked about the poop chips.

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Speaker 1: Ally is just or Lesstat all over again, but it's

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Speaker 1: in a reduced strength version. And so the Mayo Clinic

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Speaker 1: basically tells you that bowel changes will result from the

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Speaker 1: undigested fat moving through your system, So eat that low

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Speaker 1: fat diet. If you're taking an over the counter pill

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Speaker 1: like ally, because it ends up decreasing the absorption of

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Speaker 1: some vitamins. Yeah, yeah, so you'll need to take those

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Speaker 1: supplements um as well. And of course the Mayo Clinic

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Speaker 1: urges you to talk to your doctor first. And remember

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Speaker 1: there are no quick fixes when it comes to popping

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Speaker 1: a pill to lose some weight. Generally, the first course

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Speaker 1: of action is changing the diet and exercise. With all

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Speaker 1: of these drugs that we have talked about, there's repeated

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Speaker 1: mention of the prescription along with the nutritional counseling to

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Speaker 1: make sure that you're eating more healthily. And who's to

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Speaker 1: say that in the future we won't have a really

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Speaker 1: successful diet drug, one that doesn't cause hard problems, helps

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Speaker 1: you lose weight, and doesn't make you poop all the time. Um.

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Speaker 1: Scientific American actually pointed out that obesity drugs in the

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Speaker 1: future could be a replacement for weight loss surgery, which,

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Speaker 1: although it is successful for a lot of people, it

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Speaker 1: is pretty dangerous. So if we end up with a

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Speaker 1: really good, successful relatively healthy diet drug, anti obesity drug.

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Speaker 1: You know, maybe that could help with the surgery stuff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it seems like from what the doctors who

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Speaker 1: are seeing all of these patients are saying, yes, we

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Speaker 1: need some kind of medical treatment, and you know too,

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Speaker 1: as an alternative to something like gastric bypass surgery. But uh,

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Speaker 1: it's it's hard to figure out how to do that

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Speaker 1: without endangering our hearts and our brains and our bodies.

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Speaker 1: So with at first of all, I apologize to listeners

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Speaker 1: for the excessive use of the phrase poop chips, and

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Speaker 1: I think I deserve an apology. And I apologize to

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Speaker 1: Caroline uh, and I will not ask for your for

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Speaker 1: your feedback. What do you think about, um, these anti

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Speaker 1: obesity drugs. Do you think the FDA should be more careful?

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Speaker 1: Do you think that they should actually speed up the

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Speaker 1: process get these things on the market? Um, and also

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Speaker 1: advertisements for over the counter diet pills, stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Let us know your thoughts, mom. Stuff

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Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com is where you can send your letters.

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Speaker 1: And the meantime, we've got a couple here from some

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Speaker 1: older episodes. My first email here from Nicole is in

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Speaker 1: regard to our long ago podcast on gender segregated education.

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Speaker 1: She writes, I went to an all girls Catholic high

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Speaker 1: school at that age. Being in an all girls class

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Speaker 1: was great, mostly because I was so shy. It really

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Speaker 1: helped me build confidence. Plus there were less distractions in

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Speaker 1: the classroom. We never had much trouble finding dates. You

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Speaker 1: guys mentioned that girls may be more awkward around guys

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Speaker 1: since they wouldn't have as much experience socializing with them.

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Speaker 1: Totally not true. After high school, I went to college

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Speaker 1: to get a degree in civil engineering, so I had

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Speaker 1: class with a lot of guys, and almost all of

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Speaker 1: my professors were guys. Sometimes I was the only girl

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Speaker 1: in class, but I got used to it very quickly

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Speaker 1: and it wasn't too awkward. It was actually quite nice

397
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Speaker 1: since you're the only girl the guys sent to remember

398
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Speaker 1: you so occasionally. At a house party, I got to

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Speaker 1: cut the kegline and even scored a few free beers

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Speaker 1: at the bar. My housemates were a little jealous that

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Speaker 1: the nerdy girl knew so many guys. It's always nice

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Speaker 1: to cut a kegline, That's what I always say. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This is an email from Hannah about the Midwife episode.

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Speaker 1: She said, I just finished listening to your episode on

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Speaker 1: dulas and midwives and thought i'd pipe in with my story,

406
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Speaker 1: even if I'm a year late. I gave birth eight

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Speaker 1: months ago and had both a midwife and a dulah.

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Speaker 1: I also delivered at a birthing center, and I can

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Speaker 1: say from experience that having both was the most important

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Speaker 1: thing I ever did. I am considered low income, and

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Speaker 1: my dula decided to provide her services free of charge,

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Speaker 1: and it was because of her that I had an

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Speaker 1: unmedicated i e. Natural birth. This woman had no pain

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Speaker 1: killers at the times when I was overcome. It was

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Speaker 1: her soothing voice that kept me going. After I gave birth,

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Speaker 1: there were some complications. I had hemorrhaging. My midwife not

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Speaker 1: only kept a cool head, but also didn't just wait

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Speaker 1: around until the medics came. She acted quickly and ended

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Speaker 1: up saving my life. However, when I was transferred to

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Speaker 1: the hospital, my midwife was able to stay, my dulah

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Speaker 1: was told she had to leave. I was pretty out

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Speaker 1: of it at the time, so I didn't know what

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Speaker 1: was going on. After I came out of my days,

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Speaker 1: I was so furious that a hospital which claims to

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Speaker 1: be very woman centered with the best of start tricks around.

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Speaker 1: Didn't have enough respect to allow my Duelah to stay.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps Duela's are seen is pushy and nonconformist, but mine

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Speaker 1: isn't and is the sweetest, most gentle woman I know.

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Speaker 1: We are still in contact and I count her as

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