Healing Birth with Carla

In today’s episode I interview Olivia about her two very different birth stories that, in some key ways, looked set to head down the same path. It’s hard to fathom how she maintained the self determination and belief that she could birth vaginally with her second when, like her first birth, which was a cesarean, Olivia’s second baby remained very high, not seemingly keen or able to drop into her p...

Today I dive into a passionate conversation with UK-based Shellie, aka The Serenity Doula. Shellie caught my attention with the Instagram reels she creates, depicting some of the many ways birthing women’s bodies and rights are undermined, and challenging a lot of mainstream narratives and maternity system practices that contribute to so much unnecessary birth trauma. We talk through the importanc...

Rural living saw Chloe choose a sight unseen birth centre as her birth place and she anticipated she’d do just fine, like the thousands of animals she and her man had seen giving birth on the farm. A hideous car ride during labour to what turned out to be an incredibly unappealing birth space, followed by a lack of attentive support and meconium in the waters, meant that Chloe ended up being trans...

Today’s episode is a bit of a different one and quite possibly my favourite interview to date. Tessa gave birth to her first baby just 4 months ago. I met her during her pregnancy when she did my Soulful Birth course and then she also went on to do my Healing Birth Practitioner Training in the final months before she gave birth. Tessa shares with us the path she walked to prepare herself for a tru...

Abi is Mum to 4 year old Bill, 2 year old Freya, and 8 week old Ida, living on their rural property 2.5 hours drive from the nearest hospital. Her first two births were medical affairs, involving epidurals, induction and a large postpartum haemorrhage. Her most recent birth, however, was a gentle water birth experience at home, an utterly ordinary, yet simultaneously extraordinary occasion.  Abi s...

Pregnant with her first baby in Australia, Grace did her doula training and was planning a gentle home birth. She had an epic support team who she fully trusted, but then at 36 weeks of pregnancy Grace had to make the excruciating call to move to NZ for her partner’s work.  Aside from the struggles with leaving behind her wonderful home birth midwife and having to find a new match, Grace was also...

Donna takes us on quite the journey, vulnerably sharing the stories of her two very different birth experiences. Her first birth was a harrowing time, fraught with abandonment, labouring in a motel room, meconium stained waters, a terrifying hospital transfer, exhaustion, a delayed epidural, and then finally culminating in a cesarean section. In stark contrast, Donna’s second was an incredibly emp...

In this episode I speak with Aroha and her partner, Tihikura, about the home births of their two children, 5 year old Te Rangimoeke and 4 month old Rangiāniwaniwa. We hear about the challenges of having a long labour, including the influence of other people and their energies within the birth space, as well as a sense of abandonment when labour dragged on. Within the conversation, a lot of Māori w...

Today’s guest, Sarah, vulnerably shares about the various struggles and traumas associated with her Mothering journey, including horrific Hyperemesis in her first pregnancy, numerous ultrasound scans which involved a lot of professional misconduct and needless fear mongering, being medicated for perinatal depression, feeling completely disconnected from her baby girl, amongst other medically manag...

Chelsea is a young mum of two littlies, Bindi and Wolf, and has another bub blossoming in her womb. Although she had hopes for a birthing centre water birth with her first, like so many, Chelsea found herself pushed down an interventionist path that culminated in a ceserean. In this episode of the podcast, Chelsea vulnerably shares the impacts that this experience had on her and how determined she...

Elsie is the host of the Birthing at Home podcast, a mission that was inspired after the empowering home birth of her second baby. Both of Elsie’s children were born at home, but not all home births are created equal, and in this podcast episode she shares with us the various ways she was negatively impacted during her first birth, comparing them to the ways she stood in her power in her second. W...

Kate’s story is a bit of a different one to those that are typically shared on here, not because she didn’t have a traumatic first birth, she did, and not because she didn’t have a healing next birth experience, she did. But, Kate’s second birth went nothing like the peaceful home birth she had hoped for and dreamed about.  Thankfully, the self work and birth preparation that she did during her se...

Nicola is Mum to 3 year old Skye and 6 week old Luca. Her first birth was a traumatic 5 day long ordeal that involved a posterior baby, an excruciating induction of labour, and an epidural that took far too long to be administered. During her next pregnancy, Nicola sought my support to unravel her trauma and to make plans for a healing birth experience. She talks us through how that 1:1 guidance e...

This episode is a deeply vulnerable share which delves into all the taboo topics surrounding birth and new motherhood. Poppy, a home birthing mother of two, one of which was a free birth, speaks frankly about herpes, about miscarriage, about radical responsibility, about being confronted with the potential for death in birth, about vaginal wall prolapse, about healing ourselves, and about postpart...

Pippa is Mum to 5 year old Greta, whose planned home birth ended in cesarean, and 8 month old Flora, whose empowering home birth involved an unexpectedly healing postpartum transfer to hospital due to a third degree tear.  In this episode, Pippa shares various dimensions of the healing that becoming a mum has encouraged her to delve into. She talks about how peeling away the layers of the mother w...

As humans we are also mammals, and like all other mammals, evolution has ensured that we are well equipped to birth in safe and rewarding ways with a very rare need for outside interference. In fact, disturbing our innate birth design in the countless ways us humans do, often creates a lot more difficulties and harm than safety.  Today’s podcast guest, Lindsay Askins, knows a lot about mammalian b...

Today’s guest, Carla, is an Australian traditional birth keeper and healer. She shares with us the deeply moving story of birthing her first baby just days after the passing of her own mother. This planned home birth ended in hospital transfer and provided the lessons for Carla to have a redemptive home birth with her second child. She now works with others supporting them on their own journey tra...

After the birth of her first baby, Bekki experienced intense fear and anxiety surrounding whether her baby was getting enough milk from her, or not. She hadn’t addressed the fears she held onto with regards to the breast reduction surgery she had had years earlier and what this might mean in terms of her ability to produce sufficient milk. Through good support, expert advice, generous offers of do...

In celebration of ONE YEAR of the Healing Birth with Carla podcast, including 45 episodes and 4.6k of downloads in 30 countries, I invited Sophia Paskell to join me on this episode. Sophia was one of my first podcast guests and her episode #3, titled Sophia Paskell - on Grief, Loss, Birth & Death, has been the most listened to episode of them all. This special celebratory episode has Sophia sh...

Like me, Emma is an ex midwife who now works primarily in supporting new mothers to find healing after a traumatic birth or who have struggled with the transition into motherhood. She shares with us about her midwifery experience and why she quit not long after starting; about her own two birth experiences and the crucial impact that her positive first birth had on navigating major breastfeeding c...

In this episode I interview free birth mentor and podcast co-host, Victoria whose instagram page is titled @freetobirth. Victoria shares with us the stories of her own two births, 4 and 2 years ago. Her first birth was planned to be a home birth but ended up being a hospital transfer for meconium stained waters. During her second pregnancy, Victoria went on a bit of a journey of self discovery tha...

In this episode I interview Mieke, a Canadian mother of two, whose Instagram page, @takeyourbirthbystorm, captured my attention and sparked a desire to dive a little deeper with her. After training as a birth doula Mieke went on to birth her first baby at home with a midwife in attendance. Her second birth ended up being a free birth. She shares with us why this was the path she chose and how this...

In today’s episode I talk with Bonnie… and her newest little sidekick, Tilly, also apparently has quite a bit to add to the conversation! Tilly was born in their house bus, a beautifully healing experience for Bonnie after Eddie’s birth having gone nothing like she’d planned and hoped for.  I love the openness with which Bonnie shares her stories and the various challenges she worked through. Eddi...

In this episode I speak with Kate about her three birth experiences. The first was a traumatic induction with the, all too familiar, cascade of interventions that ensued and a birth that ended in an emergency cesarean. With her son being whisked away to NICU for breathing troubles, Kate didn’t get to meet her baby for 24 hours. And if that wasn’t devastating enough, she was essentially told that h...

Today I’m joined by Sharna Southan, a Melbourne mama to one angel baby and one rainbow child. After Sharna’s traumatic miscarriage experience, she struggled to find the support she needed to work through overwhelming feelings of confusion, guilt and grief. In this podcast episode Sharna vulnerably shares with us how she navigated this, and the strategies she utilised to make it out the other side...