Healing Birth

Leah shares her four birth stories with us. Her journey includes suffering a serious birth injury, a devastating second trimester loss, a hospital birth after that loss, and finally, a blissful home birth. Of that homebirth Leah says, "I trusted my gut, my lived experiences, and the team that I had. I instantly felt this release of all of the trauma I had experienced. It was exactly the experience...

Audrey shares her three birth stories, all quite different, and all of which reflect her powerful nature. You can connect with Audrey on instagram @ajoyfulbirth and at www.ajoyfulbirth.org Do you have a story you'd like to share on the podcast? I would love to hear from you! Email me via the contact page at www.healingbirth.net. PLANNING FOR YOUR VBAC EVENT! On Sunday, April 30th, 2023 @5PM EST Jo...

During her first pregnancy, Chaya was dropped from her midwife's care for the sin of going past 40 weeks. She gave birth to that baby in the hospital, an experience that left her feeling a lot of anger. When she quickly conceived again, a series of life circumstances (and some slight denial), led her to have a wild pregnancy, and to freebirth her baby. Do you have a story you'd like to share on th...

Only in recent years has there finally been a recognition that birth trauma, affecting about one in three women in most Western countries (I would argue that number is much higher), has profoundly deleterious effects on a mother's mental health. But to my knowledge, there is no formal study or discussion about how traumatic births can affect our babies, who experience the birth right along with us...

Every now and then a story takes a twist I am not expecting during the interview - and it always makes for an even better story than the one I thought I would hear! This episode is a perfect example of that. Rebecca shares two birth stories with us. First, a traumatic, unnecessarian (major kudos to whoever coined that term), and a redemptive, led by faith freebirth. It is the extraordinary experie...

Nelia was assaulted during her first birth experience at her local hospital. Stories like hers are tough to hear, but unfortunately, common.  What is uncommon is that she understood immediately what happened to her was wrong, and  sought legal counsel to get justice and to heal. The second time she gave birth, she took back her power in a massive way.   We mention @birthmonopoly as a great resourc...

Carla's planned home birth with her first baby ended in a hospital transfer. Two years later, she conceived again. Armed now with more knowledge about the birth, she hoped and planned for a physiologic birth, without interventions, at home. This is part two of her birth stories. You can find Carla on instagram @carla.sage.birthwork Her website is www.traditionalhealingbirthwork.com Use the link be...

Carla's mother passed away on her first baby's due date. A week later, still grieving, she went into labor.  She had planned for and desired a home birth, but was transferred to the hospital. This is not, however, the traumatic story it could have been. While there it was evident that her mother's spirit was present, protecting Carla and her baby. And this birth experience, in the miraculous way t...

Lynsi Eastburn is the world's established expert in the field of hypnosis to promote fertility. She began professionally using hypnosis to facilitate pregnancy before anyone else had actively considered or pursued its benefits. Blending the scientific with the spiritual, she is also gifted with the intuitive capacity to sense spirit babies around their mothers. In this fascinating conversation, we...

After the devastating loss of her first pregnancy, Sharna became acutely aware of the lack of professional support for, and understanding of, the uniquely painful experience of pregnancy loss. Sharna is now a pregnancy loss life coach supporting women through miscarriage or pregnancy loss. She has also founded The Institute of Healing through Pregnancy loss, out of the need for there to be other p...

The power, mystery, love and rawness surrounding pregnancy and birth have intrigued Carla since childhood. In 1998 she became New Zealand's youngest graduate from the Direct Entry Midwifery program, and began work as a midwife.  Her experience as a midwife was eye-opening, to say the least. She became aware that the power and mystery of birth had, for many it seemed, been flipped on its head, with...

Sarah's journey includes multiple losses, two cesareans, two VBACs, and births both in and out of the hospital. Her story encompasses so much richness, that I had to break it up into two parts. In this part two, you'll hear about her third birth, a traumatic cesarean, and her fourth birth experience, a total reclamation of her power. Be sure to check our instagram page this week to see photos of t...

Sarah's birth journey includes multiple losses, two cesareans, two VBACs, and births both in and out of the hospital. Her story encompasses so much, that I had to break it up into two parts. In this part one, you'll hear about her first birth, which ended in a cesarean after the classic cascade of interventions in the hospital. Despite that experience, she still felt that people who gave birth at...

Corinne shares the story of giving birth in a birth center during the height of Covid. After the birth, her baby was transferred to the NICU where she spent her first   few days, seemingly unnecessarily. Thank you for supporting brands that help support the show! Treat yourself with Puffs for the Public. They make high quality, CBD & CBG products that I absolutely love. As a listener of this show,...

Nelson and Alison were so inspired by the home birth of their first baby, that it lit a fire in them to share what they learned through this experience with others. They believe that conception, pregnancy, birth, motherhood and fatherhood are all sacred experiences and should be honored as such.  Five minutes into speaking with them, I fell in love with their passion, their light, and infectious e...

After a birth experience that left her feeling trapped and traumatized, Sian developed severe postpartum anxiety and depression. Realizing she needed help, she turned to the National Health Service (UK) for mental health support, but the therapy she was received was nearly useless to her (and, delivered over the phone no less). Sian found her way out of the dark place from spiritual, rather than c...

After a long labor, and, feeling like she needed some relief, Emily transferred from her midwife-attended home birth to the hospital. The classic cascade of interventions ensued, beginning with an epidural, ending in a cesarean. At several points during her labor experience there, surrounded by total strangers and overwhelmed by the sensations in her body, the staff failed to support her in the wa...

Welcome to SEASON FOUR! Christina is a coach, doula, and childbirth educator, who helps new parents with the transition when a new child is born. Like so many of us who get into birth work, her passion for it comes from her own experiences giving birth, which she shares with us today. After two births in German hospitals, the second of which left her traumatized, she knew she wanted to birth her t...

An end of year message from my heart to yours. Thank you so much for listening! I love you! Send me a note at www.healingbirth.net We're on Instagram @healingbirth Diana

Unhappy with her previous experience birthing within the medical system, Saphron decided to simply stay home and free birth her second baby. Leading up to the birth, she had constant, vivid dreams with visual representations of transformation. Reflecting back on the two birth experiences, she's says that physiological birth is what helps us cross the transformational threshold, ushering us into ou...

Jackie shares the story of having her first baby via unplanned cesarean at 35 weeks. After the NICU stay, and very tough first year, she found healing in getting answers from a spiritual perspective to the "what, why and how" of that birth experience. When she was ready, she and her daughter had a rebirthing ceremony that also helped to heal the trauma of the birth. Be sure to check out our instag...

How do you ravish a mother? In this vulnerable conversation, Lisa and I share our experiences coming back to our sex lives after a traumatic birth. I strongly suspect that feeling shut down sexually after giving birth, especially   a traumatic one, is something that is way more common than is openly discussed. The reasons can be myriad. Our relationship to our bodies change, our very identity chan...

Two births in the Finnish medical system left Anahel angry and knowing, in her words, "something is not right here." She planned to have her third baby at home. That whirlwind birth experience completely healed the pain of the past two. Anahel is a listener who reached out to me to share her beautiful story. If you have a story you'd like to share too, reach out! Send me a note at the contact page...

After years of working in hospitals as a midwife, being a part of the broken maternity system that causes 1 in 3 women to experience birth trauma, Anna chose to step out on her own, become a whistleblower and actively work to speak the truth about the power of natural physiological birth. She exposes the over medicalized maternity system for the harm it is causing women, babies, families and the w...

Julia was planning for a peaceful home birth with her third baby, but plans changed when her labor began at 34 weeks gestation. Even though she gave birth in an environment she didn't want, she did an amazing job advocating for herself and her baby during his subsequent NICU stay, and medical complications. She truly believes that the circumstances around his birth were exactly as they should be....