Positive Birth Australia

On today’s show I have the privilege of interviewing Dr Sarah J. Buckley. Dr Buckley is trained as a GP with qualifications in GP obstetrics and has been writing and lecturing to childbirth professionals and parents since 1997. She is also the author of the international best-selling book "Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering" - which is available for purchase on the PBA website. Dr Buckley is well know...

On today’s show I interview Meg, homebirth midwife and co-founder of “It Takes a Village Midwifery” here in Brisbane. Meg takes us through her journey from maiden to mother, sharing how each of her births impacted her and the diversity she experienced over those four births. From her first birth where she felt inspired by her labour but traumatised by her baby needing special care, to a healing bu...

Today’s show features Grace taking us through the birth of her daughter at home. She explains her search for care as a journey within itself that pushed her to look deeper into how women birth, exploring the option to free birth, but ultimately deciding to birth at home with the support of a doula and midwife. We chat about the emotion-charged conversations she had to herself during labour and how...

Today I interview Kate about her two positive births. Although wanting a homebirth, financially at the time it wasn’t a viable option so she opted to get into the local hospital’s Midwifery Group Practice. She went on to have a natural, water birth. When her family decided to relocate to New Castle, knowing they offered publicly funded homebirth was a great bonus in their decion to move, giving he...

On today’s show I chat with Maha, founder and creator of Bellydance Birth and Embody Birth, about the births of her three children and her life’s work as an award-winning author, educator, and birth advocate. Maha describes birth as a transformative experience; a spiritual alignment that brings connection and awareness to everything in life. We chat about the difference between imposed fear and in...

Today’s show features freebirthing mama, Sarah, sharing her three births. Her first two girls were born in a hospital with a private midwife, completely straight forward and somewhat fast. When she fell pregnant with her third baby, she took the approach of tuning into her intuition and being mindful of how she felt throughout her pregnancy, never feeling the need to call on anyone and ultimately...

Today’s episode features Woonona artist, Tegan, sharing the birth of her daughter. For as long as Tegan could remember she knew she wanted to birth outside of the system. After a surprise pregnancy, she immediately found the perfect midwife to educate and support her on her rite of passage into motherhood. She describes her early labour as being crucial preparation and practice for the deep surren...

Today’s episode I chat with Meme about the birth of her daughter. Meme already had a great sense of what true physiological birth looks like from her work in the field as a doula, hypnobirthing practitioner and photographer, so it was a no-brainer that she chose to birth her baby safely at home. We chat about the positive impact getting in tune with her cycle had on her and what she learned from h...

Today I chat with Elysha about the birth of her son at her local public hospital. Originally planning to go with the flow, a sudden onset of anxiety persuaded her to do a hypnobirthing course that changed her entrie mindset about birth and enabled her to stand firm on her decions along the way. She went on to have the drug-free, physiological birth she desired, receiving her son en caul at 42+3 we...

Today’s show features childbirth educator, birth attendant, counsellor and author, Rhea Dempsey. Rhea’s well-known book “Birth with Confidence” has helped awaken and guide so many of us along our own journeys, and her latest release “Beyond the Birth Plan” is of equal magnitude. Rhea shares her three birth stories, focusing a lot on her first birth and unpacking how that whole sequence of events i...

On today’s show we chat with Elise, a midwife and cofounder of Shine Postnatal Services, about her two hospital births. Diagnosed with PCOS, it took two years and a major lifestyle change to concieve thier first child. Elise chose to have a “social induction” at 39 weeks using prostin gel and was lucky enough to have the water birth she desired with no other interventions. During her second pregna...

Today’s show is an extra special episode because for the first time on PBA we’ll be hearing from the partners perspective as well. Teisha, a proud Wiradjuri-Yuin woman whose songlines sing from the mountains to the ocean, and Markus, a proud Maori man from Aotearoa, New Zealand, take us on the journey to birth their son on aboriginal land, under a gum and she-oak tree. Although having two drug-fre...

On today’s show I chat with Danae about her two hospital births. While volunteering in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, Danae was placed in a unit that looked after birthing women. She describes that experience as "stepping into an old pair of shoes", and the inspiration she needed to find her passion in supporting women as a doula. Her first birth, she was induced at 40+6 weeks and although class...

On today’s show I chat with the incredibly knowledgable Loz about her two empowering births and what her work as a postpartum doula entails. Loz describes her fist pregnancy as her spiritual awakening, having a deep impact on her in the greatest way. Her waters broke at 38 weeks putting her on the clock for her birth at a birthing centre with a private midwife. Although a beautiful experience, she...

Today's show features the beautiful, divine Roxy - my partner's cousin and a fellow Aries sister. Roxy always knew she wanted to be a mum but she had some deep ancestral fears associated with birth that she knew she had to work on to release. We chat about the deep dive she took into learning and living by her cycle, conscious conception and her euphoric labour and birth. Roxy put some serious wor...

On today’s show I chat with Brylie about her empowering homebirth. After initially planning a hospital birth, Brylie found she didn’t feel aligned with the clinical “ticking all the boxes” type feeling she was left with after each appointment. When she stepped back to think about what she truly desired most during her birth, a woman's nuturing support was at the top of her list. This led her to jo...

On today’s show I chat with Lahni about the births of her three daughters. Lahni’s first pregnancy ended early, just shy of 35 weeks, when her waters broke and she was induced to 'get things going'. Although feeling traumatised by that birth experience, she says it was her spiritual awakening. Choosing to homebirth her second and third babies, she speaks about unexpected anxieties that arose and t...

On today’s episode I chat with first-time mum, Terri, about her empowering, drug- free, water birth in a hospital setting down on beautiful Gold Coast. Terri’s approach to her birth was of the mindset that knowing less is more, she chose to ignore any traumatic birth stories she was told, and she trusted her innate ability to birth her baby. Instagram: @terrivanderwerf Mentioned in this episode: E...

On today's show I have the privilege of interviewing Anita, from The Midwitch Podcast and Instagram, about her two empowering births. Having women around her that only had birth stories filled with trauma and interventions, Anita honed in on her intuition and decided to birth her first child safely at home with the support from a private midwife. After moving states she quickly realised it was fin...

On today’s show I chat with a fellow twin mum about the birth of her fraternal boy/girl twins, and her youngest daughter. Kirsten is a go with the flow, cheerful type personality, so it was a welcomed surprise when, after taking Clomid to help conceive, they discovered they were having twins. She went into spontaneous labour at 35 weeks and had the vaginal birth she desired with the use of an epid...

On today’s show I have the privilege of chatting to Natalie about her two empowering births. Her first son she birthed at home with the support from a private midwife, and although it was an empowering experience, she looks back and can recognise moments of fear and stress throughout her pregnancy and birth. Two weeks into her pregnancy with her second child, she stumbled across a freebirthing vid...

On todays show I chat with Sam about the empowering homebirth of her daughter, Isla. After hearing a powerful homebirth story from her hairdresser, she sought out the support of a private midwife to assist her, and her husband, to birth their first child safely at home in their own, peaceful environment. Initially thinking she was much too early to go into labour, her precious girl made her entran...

On today’s show I chat with Luna about her two birth experiences. After planning her first birth in a birthing centre, a change in midwives led to her having a cascade of unnecessary interventions just as she was naturally about to give birth. Traumatised by that experience, she looked into free birthing when the time was right to fall pregnant again. A shocking cervical cancer diagnosis threatene...

On today’s episode I have the privilege of interviewing Jerusha, one of the co-creators of the new documentary coming out this February called Birth Time. A documentary highlighting the current maternity system and the lack of funding and continuity care for women resulting in unacceptable birth trauma statistics. Aside from chatting about this much needed film, Jerusha, who had been a doula for 1...

Today’s episode I chat with Tina about her two births. Her first was a planned home birth that ended up being in the hospital after an OB diagnosed her with intrauterine growth restrictions, which she still believes to this day was a misdiagnosis. Feeling disappointed by her experience within the hospital system, she went on her own journey of self discovery and expanding her knowledge. When she f...