Debunking Myths About Cannabis Use in Pregnancy with Sydney Parlier From CannaBirth
Have you ever wondered if there are any benefits to using cannabis during pregnancy, and if so, how can birth doulas help manage those risks?
If you are ready to approach the topic of cannabis use with your pregnant clients then get out a pen and paper, this episode is for you!
This week we are debunking myths and misconceptions that have long surrounded this topic. I want you to leave this episode feeling more confident in your ability to support doula clients who consume cannabis or want more information on how they can do so responsibly.
Get ready to challenge your beliefs about cannabis use in pregnancy with Sydney Parlier, a doula who has dedicated her life to educating and advocating about all things cannabis and birth!
In this episode, we dive into the following:
The one myth about cannabis use during pregnancy that needs to be debunked by every birth doula…
How birth doulas can use evidence-based information to educate clients about the use of cannabis during pregnancy…
How to know the legal rights surrounding cannabis consumption…
… and a whole lot more!
If you're tired of hearing conflicting information and myths about cannabis use during pregnancy, then you wanna listen up! Sydney Parlier from CannaBirth.Co is here to debunk those misconceptions and provide evidence-based information on the topic.
Follow Sydney on Instagram @cannabirth
Visit Sydney’s website: www.cannabirth.co
Sydney Parlier: How did I get here? It was a journey for sure. So I've been consuming cannabis for a very long time. I'm almost 32. I started when I was 16, so it's almost been right around half my life.
Kyleigh Banks: I'm the same, by the way. We've never actually had this conversation, but I'm almost 32 and I started at 16 also. And for me, there's been periods of not smoking, but I would say typically, a daily smoker for 16 years. Yeah.
Sydney Parlier: Yeah. And I definitely, it was so different back then. It just was. It didn't have a name, nothing had a name, but I actually was treating some substance abuse and alcohol issues at the time that I got pregnant, I was treating them with cannabis. So I had been sober for a few months for the first time in a long time, probably since I was 16. And I applied for my medical cannabis card in the State of Hawaii because that's where I was living at the time, and I got it. And it was such a relief because it was helping me. And like I said, I had been sober for the first time in a long time for a few months and then found out I was pregnant. And it was a surprise. I wasn't trying or not trying, it just happened.
And ironically, had gotten, actually received my medical card in the mail three days before my confirmation appointment. So my whole idea was, okay, the dispensary is right next door to the doctor's office. I'll just go to the doctor and then go to the dispensary. And lo and behold, it was my confirmation appointment. So I immediately asked, I was like, "Hey, I've got my medical card. What do you think about this?" And she was more than dismissive and she was like, "I cannot give you advice on that. I won't give you advice on that". And quite frankly, it could be considered child neglect.
And I was devastated because it immediately made me feel so much shame. I mean, it was obviously the first thing that crossed my mind because even though I didn't plan to become pregnant, once I knew, it was like everything changed for me. I was like, "Oh, wait a minute. I've never had to think about my consumption before. Now, I do". And so she was like, "Google it". And so I drove home and I did, and that was in 2018. And I pretty much have not stopped Googling since that day. And her response actually kept me from consuming for a while. Two or three days after that appointment, I started getting nauseous. I don't know if it was just a placebo thing or it was just the time, but it started right after I found out for sure that I was pregnant. And it became pretty severe pretty quickly, and I intuitively didn't want to consume it either.
I think I had tried a couple of times and it was like I was so sick, it almost made it worse. And I felt so much shame and fear that I was just like it was in my head. And if you've ever, for anyone that has ever had hyperemesis gravidarum, HG, or even extreme morning sickness, it's debilitating, to say the least. As I said earlier, I'd had some alcohol issues earlier in my life, and it was being hungover every single day of my life. And there was a point that I didn't think I was going to make it, and I was so... It's surreal to think that it even crossed my mind at one point like, I don't even really care what happens in this pregnancy anymore. I'm so sick of feeling like this. I feel like I'm dying. And I was working as a waitress at the time, and I was working at a fast-paced, high-volume restaurant working my ass off.
It was awful. And one day, my friend was like, "I've got these vape carts. Do you want one?" And I was so sick of feeling like that, that I was like, "You know what? I'm going to try it". I was right around 12, 14 weeks, went in the bathroom, took a couple of puffs, came out, and I walked out of that bathroom a completely different person. It was like, I'm not kidding you, like a switch. And I came out and I worked an entire eight-hour shift on my feet, barely sat down, I had energy.
And at the end of that shift, I ate my first full meal of fish tacos, I'll never forget - because if you're that sick, you are not eating fish tacos. And I nourished my body for the first time in what felt like months. I mean, it had been a couple of months, but it felt way longer than that at that point. So I pretty much decided right then and there that I was going to keep using that tool that was helping me, and yeah, that's pretty much where that journey started. I didn't really know it then, but it did.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah, and look at you now. I mean, you haven't stopped learning about it and discussing it and teaching others about it since then and were going on four or five years, so very exciting.
Sydney Parlier: Yeah, very exciting. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And then I've had two kids now, so in my second time around, by that point, I was more educated on cannabis. I had taken consultant training, I had learned about the plant, and I felt confident. I consumed the way that I wanted to. Sometimes I didn't even want to. It was so intuitive, and so that's what I do now work with people to really rely on their own intuitions and use their own discernment to decide if it's right for them or not.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about what you found on Google after you left your doctor's appointment that day?
Sydney Parlier: Oh, gosh. What did I not find on Google? Because it was like a slew of, "Yes, it's good", "No, it's bad", and "It causes birth defects, it causes low birth weight". Well, wait a minute. Those studies say that they also included cigarette smokers. Everything was problematic, everything was confusing. I didn't know how to read research. It's still difficult to read research unless you're trained in it, skilled in it. So I found a lot. And I think that's the main issue even now. We're still at the very beginning, we're in the infancy of cannabis, well, the lifting of the prohibition on cannabis, I should say because actually, it's one of the most researched plants in the entire world. So when people say, "Oh, there's no research", it's like, "Yeah, there is research". It's just been buried from us a little bit, and it's been tainted with other substances and organizations that have other interests.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah, that's the thing. It's interesting when I Google and go down the rabbit hole, if I see conflicting information about anything, whether we're talking about marijuana consumption or induction or free birth or whatever, the research that's conflicting on both sides, actually, it empowers me. I like that. I don't say, "Oh, actually, I'm more confused now", no. I say, "Oh, really? People have no clue what they're talking about?" Or, "Who's funding which study, and why are they trying to hide that information or promote this one certain thing?" And so it actually, in some weird way, it makes me feel even more empowered to, for me, say no to interventions or say yes to medicating myself with marijuana if that's what I feel like doing. Yeah, so I feel like it puts the power back in my shoes, which is really strange.
Sydney Parlier: Yeah, absolutely. I feel the same exact way. It was like, "Okay, I can't find anything that tells me definitively yes or no, so that means that now I need to look inside and find the answer myself". And it was a tool that worked for me, it's a tool that works for many people. So now, that's why I've come up with my own little framework that I use with my clients. I've been doing one-to-one consultations for over a year now. And I feel like this framework is, it really doesn't... We don't rely on mainstream research or evidence because there is none. And I know there's going to be some people that don't want to hear that answer, but it's the truth. And it should be more empowering, it should be like, "You know what? Now I'm going to rely on my own internal compass to make this decision and stand in my power of making that decision".
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. I love how you brought up that a lot of the marijuana research, it includes maybe different drug use also, or alcohol use during pregnancy also. And man, it's just so hard to sort through that. So it's almost like, you look at a study and you're like, "Is this even relevant to me?" For instance, if you're a woman of minority ethnicity, or if you're a woman in a poor community, it's like, are any of these studies really relevant to you? If they were done in Boston, the Boston suburbs, or whatever, it's actually probably not. And the same goes for marijuana consumption in pregnancy, probably through birth, and then also breastfeeding.
Sydney Parlier: Absolutely. I know a study that comes up a lot, and this is going to be something that some people don't want to hear, but there's a study that comes up a lot by Melanie Dreher, and she did the Jamaica study, and it's like, everybody loves talking about this study. It was, I think, 56 women who were consuming mostly teas. And this is an indigenous medicine for a lot of cultures. So when we're looking at that and we're saying, "Okay, this study showed that it had no negative impacts, and the kids at five and six years old were ahead milestone-wise", that's great, I totally believe it, but it's also not a study that we should rely on because it's in Jamaica and it's being used in a different way than a lot of people are using it today. I think, I don't know a lot of people, I know more and more, but I don't know a lot of people that are consuming teas and things like that and using it as a sacrament. I know a lot of people who are smoking, so that's that.
Kyleigh Banks: And it's so interesting because, I mean, pregnancy health is so much more than physical health, too. And it's like if you are, let's just say using marijuana in ceremony and ritual, potentially, you have more calm in your life and more purpose in your life, less stress in your life. So maybe their having less stress from that culture or the ritual use outweighs whatever. Like when you're in the States and maybe you're working a full-time job and you don't use it in ritual, and it's like you can't even separate these things, which makes research around things like this so funny because you can't ever know. You really can't.
Sydney Parlier: Yeah. Yeah, I definitely prefer to look at the research on the plant itself and focus on sourcing high-quality medicine, getting the information out that like, watch out for butane, caution against certain things that we know are problematic with just cannabis itself, not so much the cannabis and pregnancy aspect.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. And I feel like there are a lot of parallels, for instance, with bed-sharing or yeah, sharing a bed because when you look online, it's like, "Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it", but so I actually don't have any actual information on the ways to actually make it healthier, or safer, rather. So there are things you can do when you're bed-sharing to make it safer for your baby, and so there are things that you can do when you're consuming marijuana to make it safer for just your life in general, whether you consume it when you consume it, your mindset around consuming it, where you're sourcing it from. And so it's like why? It's the abstinence thing, it's like it's not helping. Telling someone when to consume it's not helping.
Sydney Parlier: We have been through the D.A.R.E. program, we know that abstinence just does not work, right?
Kyleigh Banks: Yes.
Sydney Parlier: And that's what I focus on too, are we have to remember that women have been consuming cannabis during pregnancy and for labor pains and for enduring postpartum, and while they're breastfeeding for centuries, they are not going to stop just because even if a research study came out tomorrow that was like, "It's inherently bad", people are still going to do it. Why would we not give them the tools and information that they're seeking to the best of our ability? There are obviously a lot of nuances and a lot of complexities, but why would we not give them the information they're looking for instead of just saying like, "Nope, we don't have anything for you"?
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. Okay. I have a question for you, and this is a little bit of an interesting question, so I know you're probably prepared because you're brilliant.
Sydney Parlier: Oh gosh.
Kyleigh Banks: But what are most doulas or birth workers doing wrong? I would be willing to say that the majority of birth workers are probably not consuming marijuana themselves if I would say less than 50% if I just had to guess based on the people I train. And so I'm assuming that when clients come to them and have questions, sometimes birth workers are leading them in the wrong direction. So what do you typically see birth workers doing wrong, and what can we do instead?
Sydney Parlier: That's a really good question. I do want to back up just a minute and kind of define what we're actually talking about when we're talking about cannabis because there are so many different things that are under this umbrella. And this came up at the discussion I led a couple of weeks ago, which was this woman was like, "What is cannabis?" And when we're talking about the controversial subject of pregnancy and cannabis, we're talking about THC, we're talking about the psychoactive, most commonly used form of cannabis, which is marijuana, THC, but cannabis also includes CBD and hemp, and topicals and suppositories and so many other things. So I just wanted to define that just for the ease of conversation that really, what we're talking about when we say cannabis is THC. I don't think most people are worried about CBD.
I think most questions are coming about THC. So with that being said, I think that, and this is just my own experience, that birth workers, I see people ask these questions in mom groups and things, and it's like immediately, there are all these studies posted in the comments that are the most mainstream studies that are these really problematic and flawed studies. So it's almost like, I don't know that they're doing anything wrong. I think they just, that's all they know to do. I don't think that they know, especially if they're not a consumer, they don't really know anything about it. They don't know where to point them to resources other than, "Well, this is what ACOG says" or, "This is what the JAMA study says". So I don't know that wrong would be the right word for it, but yeah.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. It's just so surface-level, it doesn't leave room for any nuance whatsoever-
Sydney Parlier: No.
Kyleigh Banks: .. any nuance. Are we talking about how are we consuming it? Right?
Sydney Parlier: Right.
Kyleigh Banks: Are we smoking? Are we smoking it with something else? Are we ingesting it? But then also at which level, how many times per day? There's so many-
Sydney Parlier: What are we treating? Where are we living? Do we live in a legal State?
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah.
Sydney Parlier: Are you someone that is of a lower socioeconomic status and of a certain skin color? Because it matters.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah.
Sydney Parlier: And so these are really important factors to take into consideration, for sure.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah, absolutely. And that's fascinating. That's a whole different, we could have a whole nother podcast for that because it's so true. It's like the stigma, it matters. It matters where you live, it matters your skin color, it matters how much money you have, it matters who your parents are. And I mean, some people would say, "Well, that's not even a conversation about cannabis use", but absolutely it is because it's part of it, it's part of this-
Sydney Parlier: It is.
Kyleigh Banks: And it also depends where you're giving birth, too. It's like there's so many factors.
Sydney Parlier: Yeah. And here in Illinois, something that's really interesting is that they don't do routine testing. So if you admit to your OB sometime during your pregnancy that you are or were a consumer, they'll make a note in your file, and when you go to the hospital, they will test you automatically. That's the only time they do. So it's like don't ask, don't tell. But if you are planning a home birth and you transfer somewhere, some counties, depending on the hospital, will test you because you were not supposed to come there, and you don't have a provider there, so they test you upon admission. So it's like you may think, "Well, I'll have a home birth because then I'll just be safe and sound", but as we know, birth always has different outcomes, so it's good to be prepared.
And one question that I always ask my clients, especially in certain States, is, if you're going to choose to keep consuming, do you know what happens if you test positive? Are you prepared to deal with what comes out of that? Because it's different everywhere, and you can absolutely call your hospital and find out the policy. I do it all the time for my clients, and I call as an anonymous person and ask for the policies, and they'll tell you.
Kyleigh Banks: That's fascinating. As you're speaking, I've gotten into this thing lately with my students where I'm like, "If you don't love something, and if you're not super passionate about it and you have a lot of information, you should actually probably refer your clients out in certain situations". And to be honest, I think this is a certain situation where 99% of doulas probably should refer their clients out to have these deeper conversations, rather than just saying, "Oh, it's probably okay" or, "Oh, what does your intuition say?" Which is fantastic. That's a great question, what does your intuition say? But also, it's like we need to have the conversation about what happens if you test positive. Yeah.
Sydney Parlier: Yeah, because it's very real, very real. I think that 99% of OBs and midwives should be sourcing out for this when their client comes to them and saying, "Here's someone that specializes in it" because they don't know. It's something like 10% or 11% of the medical community is actually trained in the endocannabinoid system, or even has any knowledge.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah.
Sydney Parlier: That's not much.
Kyleigh Banks: No, not at all. And yeah, and I just can't believe your doctor said, "Absolutely not" or, "Just go Google it". It's like, what are you here for?
Sydney Parlier: Right.
Kyleigh Banks: What are you here for?
Sydney Parlier: Yeah.
Kyleigh Banks: You know what? It's interesting, too. We could have the whole conversation of certain drugs that are prescribed to pregnant people that do have the risks that are also very well-studied in pregnant people, but we still prescribe them. I mean, whether it's something like I'm just throwing things out there like an antibiotic or something else for HG. I mean, there are even pregnant women who have surgeries and go under anesthesia and stuff like this.
Sydney Parlier: Yeah.
Kyleigh Banks: So it's fascinating to have other potentially more "hard pharmaceuticals" be okay, and then have a doctor say, "Absolutely not. Go Google it. I'm not even going to have this conversation".
Sydney Parlier: Yeah.
Kyleigh Banks: That's irresponsible.
Sydney Parlier: It is. Yeah. And I think that's what's really interesting is that they tend to say, "It's not ethical to do studies on cannabis and pregnancy, but it's ethical to try Fentanyl", and things like this, how did we get here? This is a plant. And actually right now, Zofran and a synthetic form of cannabis are in the same drug class. I don't know if it's class or category, but it's like class C category, and it's the same. So it's like, if we're going to prescribe pregnant women Zofran for extreme cases of morning sickness, why are we not at least looking at cannabis when we have overwhelming anecdotal evidence of this?
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. Do you feel like you're up against a really big beast?
Sydney Parlier: Yeah, kind of, but I stand so firmly in my own truth that it's really changed the game for me a little bit, where it's like, "You know what? At the end of the day, if something came out tomorrow and just nullified all of my work, I would still be talking about this. I would still be sharing my story. I would still be sharing the framework that I created with other people because it's important to me.”
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. And I guess that one of the things too is always remembering why you got into this in the first place, and it's to impact the moms' lives, and you could still do that, like yes if you fight directly against big pharma and the medical system, that's a huge beast. But in some ways, you could just turn around and help support the moms regardless.
Sydney Parlier: Yeah, and there's some really cool communities out there of cannamoms and you see it on social media, it's getting bigger and bigger. And as we see the prohibition lifted, we're going to see more and more. People are going to be admitting more and more that they consume during pregnancy, which means we need more tools, we need more people that are knowledgeable on this. Even just base knowledge, even just being able to guide someone through a framework or a worksheet, tracking your consumption, help your client track their consumption to really see if it's benefiting them, or it's just a habit because you would be surprised how many people come to me and they actually just want to clean up their consumption.
They're like, "Oh, I'm a stoner. I got pregnant, and now what do I do? I don't want to necessarily stop consuming, but I also don't want to be smoking a couple blunts every day". Great. At some point, I would love to encounter people, before they become pregnant, to dial in their consumption and really clean it up so that when they do become pregnant, we're not worried about these things. We already know, we're consuming at a therapeutic dose, which is the sweet spot, and no worries, right?
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah, that's huge. I love that. You're not just putting a bandaid on something or just giving a general five-step framework to everybody. It's really, it starts with individualized care, which is really cool. And that's way different than someone posting in a Facebook group and having a bunch of doulas just share research with no nuance, no conversation, just posting what ACOG says.
Sydney Parlier: Yeah.
Kyleigh Banks: That is so very cool. Are you considering helping train doulas on how to have these conversations with their clients?
Sydney Parlier: I would love to. I really would. This is where it's going. I feel like... It is, yeah. And that's why last year when I started doing consultations, just one-to-one hour calls, I was doing them for free or for low cost, just to find out where the gaps are so that I can start finding out how to bridge them. And now that I'm figuring that out, it's like, yeah, now I realize the people that I really want to talk to and educate are my colleagues, are people that I work alongside. And there's such a spectrum of knowledge from what is cannabis to what's the best way to implement it into someone's routine, so it's all over the place.
Kyleigh Banks: Oh, yes. Yes. And even then, it's interesting, it's not something that I would say every doula needs to go educate themselves on because I think it has to come from either that passion, that understanding, or that maybe personal consumption, or I just don't think it's something that 99% of doulas should teach about. I think the majority of them should still refer their clients out to someone like you, but I mean, even in my own practice, it's like if I was a daily consumer, why am I not able to have these conversations with my clients? It makes no sense.
Sydney Parlier: Yeah. I feel like at this point, and maybe it's because I'm still in the first part of my journey, I find that a lot of the birth workers that are interested are consumers, or they have been, or they're already a little familiar with it. So that's definitely helpful, but then when I lead the local community discussions, it's like, these are people that maybe never even realized that people do this. So let alone the ramifications, let alone the benefits, let alone all the other information.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. I remember you saying something about you wanted to speak to medical providers about these topics, and maybe there was some pushback or someone canceled on you because it wasn't... Tell me about that story.
Sydney Parlier: Oh, yes. Yes. I was invited by one of my colleagues who does our local meetups. She hosts them at the birth center in our State, and we had it scheduled. And the week of, they came back on her and said, "We cannot allow you to talk about this here". So we were like, "Oh, okay".
Kyleigh Banks: Interesting. Yeah.
Sydney Parlier: And yeah, we ended up finding another venue that was actually a better place for us, but it was very interesting. And at first, I'm used to hearing a word no, it's not really foreign to me, but I felt really disappointed that somewhere like that who boasts inclusivity and just being informed and using evidence-based care and also your intuition, that they wouldn't even allow us to discuss it. This is a discussion. We weren't coming there to tell your patients that they can use cannabis.
The topic was reducing harms and social stigma regarding cannabis use during pregnancy. So it's like, and the midwives that work there were coming to our doula meetup to learn about this, and then they weren't able to do that. So I find that it just was very disheartening, for sure.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah, it's eye-opening for sure, but it just almost makes it more clear of yeah, this has to be like us and moms. And it could... Yes, of course, there's ways that we can lobby and fight the system and help implement change, but we can't do that at an expense to turn around and helping moms. It's like helping moms one-to-one directly has got to be a big focus also.
Sydney Parlier: Yeah, definitely. And that's where I am now, is I'm potentially looking for people to work with, which is why I want to start educating doulas and birth workers because it's a lot of work for... I'm not the only person out here doing this, for sure. But it's a lot, it's still a lot.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah. Okay. I want to ask, in case someone wants to send one of their clients to you, what does that look like? Do you do just one-on-one consults? Tell me about what that looks like when you're actually educating moms.
Sydney Parlier: Yeah, so I'm still doing one-to-one consultations, which are just like pick-my-brain sessions, and that's my focus right now with moms. And I'm also working on workshops. I'm rolling out a bunch of workshops this whole calendar year. We'll have one at the end of May. I know this comes out the 10th or something, so there'll probably still be time to enroll, and that'll be for birth workers and doulas. But for now, I'm just doing one-to-one consultations. I am dreaming of a mentorship type of program for moms to take them through a six-month starting by tracking consumption, becoming well in all areas of your life. It would be very in-depth and it's a lot of work.
Kyleigh Banks: Yeah, and it's so needed though, so I'm glad that that's on your radar and on your vision board. Hell yeah. Okay, so this comes out May 10th. If someone listens to this and they're like, "Okay, I have to go to Sydney's workshop coming up", where can they find you? Are you on Instagram? Do you have a website?
Sydney Parlier: Yeah. So the easiest place and where everybody's going to go is to Instagram, and you can find me @cannabirth, and it's very easy to navigate and find out how you can work with me. If there's a link in bio right there, grab the freebie, which is the five-step framework. In depth, I'm giving you all of those steps. I'm not showing you exactly how to do it, but I'm giving you the nuts and bolts and the bones and things to consider, prompts that you can talk to your client with are in there as well, so yeah.
Kyleigh Banks: Fantastic. Awesome. And I'll put a link to that in the show notes, too. So you can just scroll to the show notes, click that button and go say hi to Sydney. Go to her workshop coming up later this month. And I mean, just honestly in general, be on the watch out because this is going to grow into something really, really, really big. You're going to impact a lot of lives.
thank you for listening
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Meet your host, Kyleigh Banks, a side-gig doula turned CEO of a multi-six-figure birth-focused business. Her passion? Teaching birth nerds, like you, how to build an incredibly successful doula business that allows you to quit your day job, stay home with your kids, and most importantly, make a lasting impact on the world.