Healing Birth with Carla

In today’s episode, I share with you about my own journey into birth trauma support work and becoming a birth healer. I’m Carla Sargent, founder of Healing Birth and the Healing Birth Podcast, home birthing mother to three, ex midwife and Biology teacher, and all ‘round passionate birth keeper whose primary focus is on supporting others to heal after birth trauma, and educating other birth-passion...

Today’s guest is Jojo Hogan, a maternal postpartum care specialist, doula coach and founder of the Slow Postpartum Movement; an international movement that educates and inspires as to the importance of the weeks following birth. She believes that the postpartum period is a time when new mothers, parents and families need and deserve to be nurtured, supported and celebrated so that they are able to...

In this moving episode I spend a heartfelt couple of hours on the couch with my dear friend, Maria. She shares her undulating journey of motherhood, one that involves early pregnancy loss, as well as two stillbirths. Maria speaks to the challenges of birth and death, grief and shame, and how she found hope, love and strength streaming through the murkiness of it all. Maria lost her daughter, Brook...

This episode of the Healing Birth Podcast has a particularly Aotearoa, New Zealand focus. It delves into the work of a Kiwi mama whose passionate drive and determination is making positive changes to the New Zealand landscape of birth trauma support. Kate Hicks is a Manawatū-based full-time mum to two. She is also the creator of Aotearoa's key birth trauma support website called, My Birth Story, w...

Today we welcome Lynley to the podcast. Lynley’s first birth was a traumatic experience. Her planned home birth ended in an emergency cesarean, and she was devastatingly separated from her precious boy for 14 hours. When Lynley found herself pregnant again, she was determined to do the inner work in order to prepare for the healing birth that she so desperately desired. In this episode of the Heal...

Prior to conceiving Charlee, Amanda had struggled with infertility, miscarriage and the devastating suicide of her brother. Although her pregnancy was mostly positive, nearing her due date, Amanda developed pre-eclampsia and needed to be hospitalised. She was determined not to be induced and spent 2 weeks being monitored and on bed rest. When she did finally go into labour, her experience became t...

This episode we welcome back a previous interviewee, Georgiana Fitzpatrick. In her last interview Georgi shared with us the story of her journey from a traumatic first birth experience, to a healing and empowering second birth. Today we dive into a discussion about Georgi’s birth work. Georgi has dedicated the last 7 years of her life to supporting women pre and postnatally under her many hats of...

I am so excited that Bella, from @boldlyshe, has so boldly and generously offered to share her pregnancy journey with us as she progresses through it. This is no ordinary pregnancy story either... since the traumatic birth of her daughter, Bella has come to realise that experiencing a wild pregnancy, with no routine medical or midwifery input, and planning a free birth, is what is safest and best...

Toyah Hicks is a Healing Birth Practitioner, Postpartum Doula in Training, Vaginal Steaming Practitioner, and Māmā to her 2 year old Son. She is deeply committed to the path of the Feminine and the Reclamation of our sacred Rites of Passage, specifically those woven through the pregnancy, birth and postpartum continuum. In this episode of the Healing Birth Podcast, Toyah shares her experience of h...

Today’s guest, Claire Eccleston, is a mother of three beautiful children, an experienced registered midwife, a Spinning Babies® approved trainer, a biodynamic craniosacral therapist and a STREAM (‘scar tissue remediation, education and management’) practitioner. Claire has been supporting women’s transitions since 2000, attending births, offering childbirth education, pregnancy yoga and providing...

Today we welcome Kristin White, from Mama Rise , to the podcast. Kristin has experienced three very different births: a hospital cesarean, hospital VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) and home birth after cesarean, all of which she shares about in this episode. Kristin describes her c section birth as traumatic, her hospital VBAC as ‘such a ride’ but ultimately a beautiful untouched hospital birth...

In this episode of the Healing Birth Podcast I’m speaking with the beautiful, loved up, Sophia Paskell from Mothers Circle . Sophia is a birth doula, Childbirth Educator, facilitator, bath connoisseur and radical devotee to Love. For over a decade, her work has been focused around empowering women in the space of pregnancy, birth and Mothering, gently guiding birthgivers to discover, explore and t...

Today’s guest is Georgiana Fitzpatrick, though to most, she is known as Georgi. Georgi is mama to two gorgeous boys. Her first birth was a traumatic experience, a journey that led her to find support and healing, and to eventually rock an incredible home birth with her second baby. Georgi has dedicated the last 7 years of her life to supporting women pre and postnatally under her many hats of fitn...

For this, the opening episode of the Healing Birth Podcast, I interview my mum, Gay Summers, about her experiences of birthing in the 1970s. She shares about the trauma of routine interventions during the births of my older two sisters, and then about her courageous and radical birth planning when pregnant with me. Planning a home birth in Hamilton, New Zealand, in 1976 was no small feat. My paren...