From Sperm to Worm: Why Healthcare Needs a Dose of Hospitality | Cara Osborne | TEDxFargo

Midwife and entrepreneur Cara Osborne questions why the United States spends more on maternity care than any other country yet has the worst maternal mortality rate in the developed world. She argues that the healthcare system has drifted toward treating normal physiological processes such as pregnancy as illness. Drawing on the shared Latin roots of "hospital" and "hospitality," she makes the case for a system built on human connection, reciprocity and safety. The talk also draws on her experience from delivering babies in Haiti and running a horse farm and retreat in Kentucky. NOTE FROM TED: the speaker's views are personal, several claims lack scientific support, and the talk falls outside TED's content guidelines for TEDx events.

• US maternity care spending compared with its maternal mortality rate
• Pregnancy viewed as a normal physiological process rather than a disease
• The Latin roots of hospital and hospitality as a framework for care
• Nature, animals and community as factors in shifting the body out of fight-or-flight

NOTE FROM TED: Please do not look to this talk as a substitute for health advice. Contents only represent the speaker's personal views and business approach to nature exposure, physiology, and health. Several claims lack legitimate scientific support. We've flagged this talk because it falls outside the content guidelines TED gives TEDx organizers. TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers. The guidelines we give TEDx organizers are described in more detail here: http://storage.ted.com/tedx/manuals/tedx_content_guidelines.pdf Why does the United States spend more on maternity care than any other country on the planet, yet suffer from the worst maternal mortality rate in the developed world? In this thought-provoking talk, midwife and entrepreneur Cara Osborne explores how our modern healthcare system has lost its way by treating normal physiological processes like pregnancy as illnesses and diseases. By tracing the shared Latin roots of the words "hospital" and "hospitality," Osborne makes a powerful case for returning to a system centered on human connection, reciprocity, and safety. Sharing insights from her unique professional journey, from delivering babies in Haiti to running a horse farm and retreat in Kentucky, she demonstrates how reconnecting with nature, animals, and community can shift our bodies out of fight-or-flight and allow our natural physiology to thrive. This talk is an urgent call to action to rethink health through the lens of hospitality, helping us live healthier lives from cradle to grave. Cara Osborne MSN, CNM, ScD is a nurse midwife who holds a Masters in Nursing from Vanderbilt, and a Masters and Doctorate in Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health. She spent her early career as a clinician, nursing professor and perinatal epidemiology researcher. Cara owned and operated her own health services business, and in 2013, she sold her business to the partners fund at Fortress Investment Group. She has spent the past three years as a professor of practice in Entrepreneurship at the University of Arkansas Sam M Walton College of Business, starting businesses and advising start-ups. She is a technical advisor to Diana Health, a venture backed comprehensive maternity care solution based in New York, founder of Blaize and Brooks Bourbon, Managing Partner at Native Spirit Holdings and a maternal health subject matter expert for Ingeborg Initiatives. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx