Kylie Kelce Wants You to Find Your ‘Soul OB’ — Here’s How to Actually Do It
If you are pregnant, staring at a positive test or mapping out a timeline to conceive, you already know: choosing the person who will guide you through this experience feels enormous. That is because it is.
Kylie Kelce recently put language to something many women have felt but could not quite name. In an Instagram reel, she talked about finding your “soul OB” — the OB-GYN who actually feels like a match. Kelce has been candid about her own pregnancy experiences, her relationship with her doctor (she famously brought her OB to the Super Bowl at 38 weeks) and her miscarriage, which she has discussed on her podcast. The phrase landed because it captures exactly the kind of provider relationship most women want but have no roadmap for finding.
If you feel overwhelmed by the search, the data backs you up.
The Numbers Behind That Gut Feeling
The 2026 State of the Vagina Report from O Positiv Health, a survey of over 3,000 women, found that 68% of women do not trust their OB-GYN, two in three say they do not have a good relationship with their provider and only 35% describe their OB-GYN as “on their side.” Those are not fringe complaints. That is a systemic gap between what women need and what they are getting.
A 2025 study in JAMA Network Open found that women with gynecological disorders see an average of 5.7 providers before getting an accurate diagnosis, and 39% reported being made to feel “crazy” by a provider. Women’s pain is consistently more likely to be undertreated than men’s — a gap that widens further for women of color.
If you have ever left an appointment feeling dismissed or second-guessing yourself, that is valid. And you deserve better heading into pregnancy.
How to Actually Find Your Soul OB
Think of this less like being assigned a provider and more like interviewing someone for one of the most important roles in your life right now.
Request a consultation visit before committing. Most practices allow a meet-and-greet appointment and that first conversation tells you a lot without any obligation. Use it to ask questions that reveal how they actually practice: What is your philosophy on pain management during procedures? How do you handle concerns you cannot immediately explain? How do you approach patients who want to discuss options rather than just receive a recommendation?
Know the red flags worth acting on: dismissing symptoms without investigation, attributing concerns to stress or anxiety without further exploration, discouraging second opinions and making patients feel rushed. If any of those sound familiar with a current provider, that is information.
ACOG’s Find an OB-GYN tool is a solid starting point for finding board-certified providers in your area. But peer recommendations in local Facebook groups and Reddit threads are where women are actually finding referrals in 2026. Per Mira Fertility’s 2026 Women’s Health Trends Report, nearly 80% of women in Reddit’s r/WomensHealth say it feels like a safer space than a doctor’s office. Your crowd-sourced referrals are not just anecdotal — they are one of the most effective tools available right now.
Midwives and certified nurse-midwives are also worth considering for low-risk patients who want more time and a more relational style of care. And if something feels off with a provider you have already seen, switching is not dramatic. It is a right.
What to Bring to Your First Appointment
Preparation changes the dynamic more than most people expect. Bring a written symptom log with timing, frequency and severity — details you are sure you will remember tend to disappear once you are in the room. Bring relevant family history: PCOS, endometriosis, fibroids, hormone-related cancers. Write your questions down before you go; research shows patients forget up to 80% of what they planned to ask once the appointment starts. If it helps, bring a trusted person. Having someone present can make it easier to advocate for yourself, especially at a first visit with a lot to cover.
The Bigger Picture
This search is harder for some women than others. The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate among peer nations and a growing shortage of OB-GYNs, particularly in rural areas. For women in some regions, choice is genuinely limited. The “soul OB” concept needs to exist alongside that reality — not as a luxury exercise, but as a standard every patient deserves access to.
The appetite for a provider who listens, takes concerns seriously and does not make appointments feel rushed is not a high bar. It is the baseline the system is failing to reliably deliver. Start the search now, ask the hard questions and trust yourself when something does not feel right.
This article was created by content specialists using various tools, including AI.
This story was originally published March 26, 2026 at 5:00 PM.
