Birth Healing Summit Podcast
We are here for meaningful conversations that will transform how you work with pregnant and postpartum clients. Whether it is a new perspective, tool, or technique, you’ll be able to implement it into your practice today.
Beyond the Physical: How Birth Healing Transforms Pelvic Health Practice
How does the work you do on yourself change the way you show up for the people who trust you with their care?
In this episode, Lynn Schulte sits down with two Birth Healing Intensive students, Charlie Watts, OT, and Anne Guist, PT, to explore how integrating somatic awareness, energetic work, and personal development has transformed their clinical practice. Through powerful patient stories, they share how exploring limiting beliefs, creating space for the body's responses, and asking the right questions can open new possibilities for healing – even when traditional approaches ha...
Using Intuition in Pelvic Health Therapy (Pelvicon Presentation 2026)
What does listening have to do with your pelvic health practice?
Today, Lynn Schulte shares what she presented at the Pelvicon conference about bringing intuition and spirituality into manual therapy practice. Through powerful clinical stories, she explores how listening to the body's signals, trusting intuitive insights, and approaching tissues with curiosity rather than force can transform the way we work with clients.
From an unexpected discovery during a pelvic floor assessment to helping a client release long-held emotional tension, Lynn challenges practitioners to expand their understanding of what healing can...
Overcoming Isometrics: Are We Missing the Passive Side of Pelvic Floor Rehab?
Are we missing a big piece in postpartum rehabilitation by focusing on the pelvic floor muscles?
In today’s thought-provoking episode of the Birth Healing Summit Podcast, Lynn Schulte is joined by physical therapist, strength and conditioning coach, and 2026 Strength and Conditioning Association Personal Trainer of the Year, Rachel Selman, to discuss a concept that's beginning to change how clinicians think about postpartum rehabilitation and athletic performance: overcoming isometrics.
If you're looking for fresh clinical ideas that bridge pelvic health, strength and conditioning, and sports performance, this is an...
10 Year Anniversary
What happens when you keep finding the same pattern in your postpartum clients – but you can’t find an explanation for it in the research?
In this special 10-year anniversary episode, Lynn Schulte, PT shares the unexpected journey that led to the creation of the Institute for Birth Healing – from working with postpartum clients and noticing recurring pelvic patterns, to developing courses, launching the Birth Healing Summit, navigating the pandemic, and continuing to push for research into what happens to the pelvis and the pelvic outlet after birth.
This episode is bot...
Supporting Pelvic Health Clients Through Infant Loss and Grief
What happens when a patient walks into your pelvic health clinic carrying not only physical symptoms, but profound grief and trauma from pregnancy or infant loss?
In this powerful conversation, Lynn Schulte, PT, talks with Noelle Moore, founder of the Finley Project, about what providers need to understand when caring for families after loss – and how our presence, language, and hands-on care can make a lasting difference.
Key Discoveries from this Episode:
When the Tissues Won’t Release: What Are They Holding?
What if the tissue you’re treating isn’t simply “tight” – but is holding onto an emotional or traumatic experience?
In this episode, Lynn shares two clinical case studies that highlight the potential connection between emotions, trauma, the nervous system, and the physical tissues of the body.
One case begins with something as seemingly straightforward as shoulder tension. But when Lynn follows what she feels in the tissues, the story takes an unexpected turn.
The second case involves a woman preparing for another pregnancy after significant reproducti...
Stop Chasing the Gap: New Findings on Diastasis, Strength, and Function
As pelvic health therapists, should we be focused on “How big is the gap?” or on “What can this person's abdominal wall do?”
In today’s episode of the Birth Healing Summit Podcast, Dr. Nina Theodorsen, associate professor at the University of Bergen in Norway, practicing physiotherapist, and diastasis recti researcher, shares the latest on what current research tells us about exercise, pregnancy, and postpartum recovery.
Her research discoveries challenge what practitioners have been taught to focus on with abdominal health, and she provides new insights on how we can better sup...
When Rib Pain Isn't a Rib Problem: A Pregnancy Case Study
What’s the connection between ribcage and diaphragm tension when it doesn’t originate in the ribcage?
In this episode, Lynn Schulte, PT walks through a recent pregnancy case where she saw just how interconnected the growing uterus, uterine ligaments, diaphragm, and ribcage can be – even before the baby is large enough to physically push upward into the ribs.
A pregnant client of approximately 17 weeks presented with a painful, “vice-like” sensation around the left anterior ribcage. As Lynn assessed her body, she discovered something unexpected: the uterus was growing significantly toward the...
The Neurological Birth Cascade: How the Baby, Brain, Pelvic Floor & Hormones Work Together in Birth
How does labor actually get started? Labor isn't simply something the uterus does, but a coordinated neurological and hormonal cascade involving the baby, placenta, maternal brain, cervix, pelvic floor, and nervous system.
Today, Lynn Schulte sits down with Dr. Carly Cameron, a pediatric and perinatal chiropractor, to explore the neurophysiology of physiologic birth and why this process is important for pelvic health providers.
Key Discoveries from this Episode:
The Gold Standard for Pelvic Health Education: Are We Training Therapists the Right Way?
Internal pelvic health work can be incredibly valuable – but are we truly teaching clinicians how to do it safely, skillfully, and effectively?
In this candid conversation, Lynn Schulte, PT, and Laura Rowan, OT, challenge the way pelvic health clinicians are being trained and explore what the gold standard for intravaginal education should really look like.
In this episode, we explore:
Beyond IVF: How Pelvic Health Providers Can Help Optimize Fertility Before Treatment
As pelvic health providers, we often see patients who are trying to conceive, recovering from pregnancy loss, or navigating the emotional weight of infertility. But how much do we really know about what happens before a patient ever walks into an IVF clinic?
In this fascinating conversation, Lynn Schulte sits down with internationally recognized fertility expert Gabriela Rosa, who has spent more than 25 years helping couples with complex infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss. Together they challenge common assumptions about fertility care and explore why so many patients may be missing critical pieces of the...
Following the Tissues: The Clinical Reasoning Behind a Complex Pregnancy Case Study
What do you do when a pregnant client presents with tailbone pain, SI joint dysfunction, painful intercourse, and persistent uterine cramping – but nothing quite explains the full picture?
In this fascinating case study, Lynn walks through the clinical reasoning behind treating a first-time pregnant client whose symptoms continued to evolve over multiple visits. As the pieces slowly came together, an unexpected finding challenged assumptions and reinforced the importance of following the tissues rather than chasing symptoms.
This episode explores how careful assessment, respectful hands-on treatment, and clinical curiosity uncovered a re...
When Pelvic Floor PT Isn't Enough: Solving Complex Postpartum Cases
What if your client has done everything right – pelvic floor PT, stretching, exercise, therapy, nutrition – and they're still struggling more than a year postpartum?
In this episode, Lynn sits down with former client Samantha to unpack a complex postpartum recovery that many pelvic health therapists will recognize. After two very different births, Samantha was left with persistent pelvic floor tension, low back pain, bowel dysfunction, urinary symptoms, painful intercourse, and overwhelming emotional distress. Despite months of treatment elsewhere, her symptoms remained unchanged.
This conversation explores the clin...
The Pelvis-Neck Connection Every Postpartum Therapist Needs to Know
Could your postpartum client's neck pain actually begin in the pelvis?
In this episode, Lynn Schulte, PT, explores the often-overlooked relationship between pelvic stability, upper cervical mechanics, shoulder function, and the physical demands of caring for a newborn. Learn why headaches, neck pain, thoracic outlet symptoms, and shoulder tension may be driven by postpartum compensation patterns – not just local tissue dysfunction.
You'll discover how birth biomechanics influence the entire body, why first rib mobility and scalene function matter, and practical assessment strategies you can immediately integrate into your postpartum evaluations....
Sports Medicine Meets Pelvic Health: Why Every Clinician Needs This Conversation
Pelvic floor health has long been overlooked in sports medicine – but that's changing. In this episode, Lynn sits down with internationally recognized pelvic health physiotherapist and researcher Gráinne Donnelly to discuss her groundbreaking new textbook, Sports Medicine in the Pelvic Floor: Science to Practice. Together, they explore why pelvic health deserves a place in every athlete's care, how this ambitious project came to life, and the exciting future of research that will shape the next generation of clinicians. If you're passionate about helping athletes perform at their best, this episode will leave you ins...
Show Notes: The Hidden Impact of Obstetric Anal Sphincter Injuries (OASIS): Must-Knows For Pelvic Health Therapist
Many obstetric anal sphincter injuries (OASIS) are missed immediately after birth, leaving women to unknowingly compensate for years until hormonal changes, aging, or menopause expose underlying dysfunction. In this eye-opening conversation, Lynn Schulte sits down with urogynecologist and pelvic floor surgeon Dr. Alexandra Dubinskaya to discuss obstetric anal sphincter injuries (OASIS), why they are often missed, and the lifelong consequences they can create for women.
From the realities of birth trauma to missed diagnoses to pudendal nerve injuries, this episode dives into the complex factors influencing bowel control, pelvic floor function, hormonal shifts and...
Empowering Your Clients for Birth: The Missing Piece in Birth Preparation
Birth preparation involves far more than physical readiness. In this episode, Ama K. Karikari, Esq., joins Lynn Schulte, PT, to discuss how pelvic health therapists can help clients build self-trust, find their voice, and become active participants in their birth experience. While outcomes are unknown, clients who feel empowered, informed, and supported often navigate birth with greater confidence and less fear.
Clinical Takeaways For Pelvic Health Practitioners
Why Some Perineal Tears and Episiotomies Don't Heal: 3 Hidden Factors For Healing
Why is your client's perineal tear or episiotomy still painful months after birth? Today, Lynn Schulte, PT, explores three commonly overlooked contributors to delayed healing: pelvic bone positioning, surrounding tissue restrictions, and unresolved trauma responses held within the tissues.
Clinical Takeaways From This Episode
• Assess for an Open Birthing Pattern when healing is delayed.
• Approximate the ischial bones during scar treatment.
• Evaluate tissues surrounding the scar, not just the scar itself.
• Consider unresolved trauma when tenderness persists.
• Prioritize circulation and tissue mobility to support healing.
• Never force tissue release....
Going Beyond Pregnancy in Pregnancy Pain Treatments: Hidden Structural Patterns in Prenatal Clients
This episode pulls you into two pregnant client case studies that seem straightforward at first – until the bodies start telling a very different story. A 35-week first time pregnant client arrives with pelvic pain, leg symptoms, and nighttime disruption, and what unfolds reveals a layered map of old surgical history, a snowboarding injury, and a spine that never developed typical curves. Each piece of her history quietly shapes how her pregnancy is unfolding. Then a second case at 25 weeks looks like “typical” postpartum carryover and hypermobility … until subtle clues in the sacrum, ischium, pelvic floor, and even whiplash history...
Understanding Resistance: From Force to What Actually Works
Ever find yourself stuck in resistance – knowing what you “should” be doing, but unable to actually do it? In this episode, Lynn shares a personal post-Birth Healing Summit moment where overwhelm, exhaustion, and guilt led to total shutdown, procrastination, and scrolling instead of working. What shifted everything wasn’t more discipline – but a simple question from a loved one that revealed the hidden pressure underneath the resistance. Once she gave herself permission to fully step away from work, the guilt dissolved, the energy shifted, and creativity came flooding back. By Monday, she returned to her projects refreshed, focused, and reconn...
What Happens When You Finally Trust Yourself as a Practitioner
What if the thing you’re waiting for … is simply the courage to begin?
In this heartfelt and inspiring episode, Lynn Schulte sits down with Occupational Therapist Stephanie Smith to talk about the unexpected journey that led Stephanie from being a new mom experiencing leaking postpartum … to launching her own thriving pelvic health practice.
Stephanie shares the vulnerable story of the moment she realized something in her own body wasn’t right after childbirth – she never expected it would become a major turning point in her life. That single experience eventually...
Lymphatics in Pelvic Health: What Pelvic Health Practitioners Need to Know
Pelvic health clinicians are trained to assess muscles, fascia, joints, and organs – but one powerful system influencing pelvic function is often overlooked: the lymphatic system.
In this episode, Lynn is joined by pelvic health therapist and certified lymphedema specialist, Mary Ellen Kramp, to discuss why lymphatic function deserves more attention in pelvic health care.
The lymphatic system plays a critical role in fluid balance, immune function, and tissue health, yet it’s rarely emphasized in traditional PT training. When lymphatic flow becomes impaired in the abdomen or pelvis, it may cont...
An Assessment that Can Lead to an Easier Birth: A Case Study on Baby’s Position
In this episode, Lynn explores how a baby’s position in the maternal body can directly influence pain patterns during pregnancy and impact the progression of labor. Through a compelling case study of a client at 39 weeks with a high, mobile fetal head, this conversation highlights how skilled palpation and targeted bodywork can help facilitate engagement into the pelvis. Lynn shares the common areas of tension that may prevent the baby from descending and how to address these restrictions to support more efficient labor mechanics.
Learn the importance of palpation skills and understand fetal pos...
Hidden Birth Injuries: The Pelvis–Hip Link Behind Chronic Pain
In this episode, Lynn explores an intriguing postpartum case that reveals how birth mechanics can influence hip pain decades later. A clinician shares the story of a colleague whose leg was tractioned off the bed during an epidural birth – creating long-term pelvic alignment changes that eventually led her to consider a total hip replacement. The discussion highlights how unresolved pelvic positioning from birth can alter hip mechanics, including internal rotation and load through the acetabulum. This episode encourages pelvic floor and orthopedic practitioners to look beyond symptoms and evaluate how birth and postpartum pelvic alignment may be driving ch...
Beyond Muscles: The Bone Driving Postpartum Pelvic Pain
Are you considering the bone itself (and not just the muscles) when postpartum patients come to you with persistent pelvic pain, adductor tightness, or tailbone symptoms? In today’s podcast episode, Lynn Schulte, PT introduces the concept of osseous lesions in the pelvis, subtle hardening of pelvic bones that can occur during childbirth and continue to drive soft tissue tension long after delivery. She explains how birth mechanics, baby positioning, and prolonged pushing can create trauma in key pelvic structures – and how skilled palpation can help clinicians identify the difference between healthy bone and hardened bone.
...
Beyond the 6-Week Check: The Evolution of Postpartum Care
The importance of postpartum care is no longer just an afterthought – and this conversation shows exactly why that matters for your practice. Today, Lynn Schulte is joined by Rachelle Seliga, a Midwife, Educator and the creator of INNATE Postpartum Care. Together, they unpack the dramatic shifts that have occurred in postpartum care over the past decade, the direction this field is going next, and what we can do as practitioners to keep up with the changing tides.
You’ll hear how pelvic health directly impacts mental health, why more moms are seeking care even when...
Clinical Mastery with Lynn Schulte: The 5 Levels That Transform Your Patient Outcomes
This episode is our final in the series on clinical mastery and dives deep into what clinical mastery means – it’s likely not what you’ve been taught. Rather than focusing solely on knowledge and techniques, Lynn reframes mastery as how you show up as a whole practitioner, blending presence, intuition, and connection.
Drawing from conversations with Birth Healing Summit speakers, she shares how mastery is layered, personal, and developed through both ongoing inner work and clinical experience. Lynn shares a powerful breakdown of the five dimensi...
Clinical Mastery with Shelly Prosko: Therapeutic Presence & Compassion in Care
Clinical excellence isn’t just about doing more – but about showing up differently. In this episode, Shelly Prosko challenges traditional rehab thinking, revealing why evidence alone isn’t enough, and how the real driver of outcomes may be something far less tangible. She uncovers the hidden power of therapeutic presence and why the connection you build with patients can outweigh the techniques you use.
But there’s a catch – what most clinicians think is empathy may actually be leading them toward burnout. Listen in to learn a different approach that can unlock better results and resilie...
Clinical Mastery with Nari Kaur: Boundaries, Alignment & Authentic Care
How does doing your own inner work help you as a practitioner?
In this powerful conversation, Nari challenges the traditional, performance-based definition of mastery and reframes it as deep alignment, boundaries, and self-trust. She shares how honoring your unique style, rather than copying others, allows for more authentic and effective patient care. The discussion dives into blending intuition with clinical reasoning, meeting patients where they are, and releasing the pressure to “fix” everything. This episode is a refreshing and thought-provoking invitation to evolve your practice from the inside out.
✨ Key Takeawa...
Clinical Mastery with Suzanne Scurlock: Finding Your True Clinical Calling
What does it mean to find your true clinical calling? Is this the key to clinical mastery?
In this deeply insightful and heart-opening conversation, Lynn Schulte sits down with Suzanne Scurlock, founder of Healing from the Core®, CST-D, author and educator, to explore these questions and what it truly means to evolve as a pelvic health therapist – not just in skill, but in presence, clarity, and purpose.
With over four decades of experience, Suzanne shares a perspective that many clinicians feel, but have yet to name. Mastery isn’t about ...
Clinical Mastery with Tami Lynn Kent: Going Deep Into Practice
What is clinical mastery to you?
Today, we continue the exploration of clinical mastery with another great in pelvic and women’s health, Tami Lynn Kent, PT, Founder of Holistic Pelvic Care™. In today’s conversation, Tami discusses with Lynn what she sees as the essentials for true clinical mastery.
In this important conversation, Tami Lynn Kent encourages therapists to move beyond quick knowledge and step into the deeper work needed to help clients heal fully. She shares how curiosity, mentorship, and thousands of hours of hands-on experience shape the kind of...
Why Releasing the Pelvic Floor After Birth Isn’t Enough
What if persistent pelvic floor tension, heaviness, or pain postpartum isn’t primarily a muscle problem – but a stability problem the muscles are trying to solve? In this short but powerful clinical reminder, Lynn Schulte challenges pelvic health therapists to rethink how they assess and treat the postpartum pelvis. She explains why working with pelvic bones and pelvic floor muscles together can dramatically improve outcomes and why releasing muscles alone can sometimes make symptoms worse. This episode highlights a critical but often overlooked relationship that can transform how you treat the postpartum pelvis.
✨ Key Takeaw...
Clinical Mastery for Practitioners: Presence, Listening, and Patient Collaboration
In this conversation, physical therapist, educator and world-class presenter (presenting in the 2026 Birth Healing Summit), Susan Clinton shares lessons from decades of clinical experience and how true clinical mastery develops through presence, curiosity, and collaboration with clients. She discusses how clinicians often over-educate and over treat, when in reality meaningful change happens through listening deeply and simplifying care.
This conversation highlights how small shifts – both for clinicians and patients – can create powerful outcomes over time. Susan emphasizes that empathy and self-awareness allow practitioners to build stronger therapeutic relationships and better results.
...Sacral Slope, Parity & The Overlooked Pelvic Outlet
In this episode, Lynn breaks down why the pelvic outlet – not just the sacroiliac joint – may be a key contributor to postpartum pain, heaviness, and persistent pelvic floor tension. She explores the biomechanics of birth, how the inlet and outlet function as a reciprocal system, and why most traditional treatment approaches only address the top half of the pelvis. She shares clinical examples of pregnant and postpartum clients whose pain, tailbone tension, and pelvic heaviness resolved quickly once the ischial tuberosities and sacrum were mobilized and brought back toward midline. She also shares emerging research on sacral slope chan...
Embodiment Before Exercise: What Clients Need First
If you work with pelvic pain, chronic pain, trauma, high-performing athletes, or clients who don’t fit the protocol, this episode will help.
In this powerful conversation, Lynn Schulte sits down with seasoned Occupational Therapist, Elizabeth McBride, of North Texas Therapy Innovations to unpack what it really means to work with neurodiverse populations in pelvic and orthopedic practice. They explore masking, sensory processing, executive function, trauma, and why many clients are profoundly disconnected from their bodies – even when they are elite performers.
Episode Highlights ✨
Why...The Ischiorectal Fossa: The Missing Piece in Postpartum Pelvic Floor Recovery
If you’ve ever assessed a postpartum client and wondered whether a pelvic floor “defect” was really a tear, or something else entirely, then this episode gives you the answers. Lynn shares a newly discovered and surprisingly powerful way to release the ischiorectal fossa, a structure that can quietly inhibit pelvic floor function and stall progress. What looks like weakness or a missing contraction may simply be tissue that can’t move. In this episode, Lynn reveals a simple but game-changing connection between the ischiorectal fossa and the adductors that can unlock rapid change. If you’re ready to stop se...
Beyond the Numbers: Using Wearable Data to Transform Maternal Care
What if the future of maternal care uses technology to tune us into the body?
In this episode, Lynn speaks with Katherine Sylvester, Dr. Kat as she is affectionately known, about her program to use wearable technology and remote monitoring to reshape maternal health by pairing objective physiologic data with relationship-centered clinical care. Instead of relying on population averages, they dive into the power of tracking each mother’s personal baseline – and monitor subtle shifts in trends to reveal early warning signs long before symptoms escalate.
From...
Why Anterior Ilium Rotations Keep Coming Back: What Pelvic Therapists Are Missing
If you keep correcting anterior or posterior rotations of the ilium – yet they keep coming back – this episode can change how you assess the pelvis forever. Lynn invites pelvic health therapists to look beyond bones, SI mechanics, and muscle energy techniques to uncover what may actually be driving these stubborn patterns. You know that quiet inner nudge that says, “There’s more going on here”? This episode confirms it. Listen in as Lynn reveals two often-overlooked structures that can torque the pelvis and prevent corrections from holding. If you’re ready to stop chasing symptoms and...
Beyond the Intake Form: Releasing Assumptions to Enhance Pelvic Health Treatment
What if your client’s healing is being limited by … what you think you already know?
In today’s episode, we take a deep, honest look at how assumptions – no matter how clinically sound – can quietly steer treatment in the wrong direction. Through a compelling real-life case study, you’ll hear how setting aside diagnoses, patterns, and expectations allowed the body to reveal a very different story, opening the door to profound change.
This is not an episode about ignoring clinical reasoning.
It’s about knowing when to...
How Kidney Trauma Can Cause SI Joint Pain: A Visceral Therapy Conversation
In this powerful episode, Lynn unpacks a deeply moving clinical session with Beth Anne Fisher, PT, that reveals how early-life surgery, organ consciousness, and unresolved fear can show up decades later as SI joint pain and pelvic floor tension. Rather than “fixing” the body, Lynn listens – allowing the heart, kidneys, and pelvis to communicate what they’ve been holding onto all along. Through imagination, gentle dialogue, and energetic awareness, profound shifts occur without force or manipulation.
The conversation challenges conventional approaches to pain by showing how organs, paired structures, and the nervous s...
