The Positive Births NZ podcast

"I'm so proud I enjoyed birth so much" is what Terese shares with us on this episode. She enjoyed a smooth fast hospital birth to first baby Zac and a very quick homebirth in the bath to second baby Toby. Through her enjoyable pregnancy she came to hypnobirthing because she felt birth was such an unknown journey and learnt about the control we have within the mind-body connection. As she states "I...

Midwife Alex had a huge amount of experience of supporting couples on their hypnobirthing journey. She felt she was inspired by what she’d seen with her couples experiencing the course, so as soon as she was pregnant she was like “ok it’s my turn”. Alex generously shares her fertility journey with IVF, her scares in early pregnancy. Plus other topics that get featured in this episode are, pregnanc...

An episode about more than just birth -  Cara shares with us her massive fertility journey in order to conceive her two miracle baby boys. Cara was told she would have a 1% chance of conceiving naturally with her own eggs and only a 10% chance of conceiving with reproductive technology and at one stage she was told there was about a 1 in a million chance of her being pregnant. Those are slim...

"If you had asked me prior to being pregnant did I have any fears, I probably would've said childbirth" is what Hannah says early on in our chat. Fast forward to meeting her first baby Mateo, she says her first thoughts were "I can totally do this again, it was such a beautiful experience, it was doable, manageable". After witnessing an amazing video of a friend's birth she learned about hypnobirt...

Despite all that occurred in her birth journey that could have been perceived as traumatic, Eugenie reached out to me to ask to share her birth story while it was still fresh in her mind, because she says: "it was a positive birth and if I had to do it all again I would". We chat when baby Miles is just a week old, and you can find out just WHY she feels it was a positive birth. She shares her jou...

It's not every day that you hear a mother describing her birth as "soooo good" and parts of it feeling orgasmic, but this is what Katerina feels she experienced during her birth. Katerina came to pregnancy having already been surrounded by positive stories and positive experiences of birth. She had also spent plenty of time learning to tune into her body, energy and her intuition. She shares with...

Hayley shares her two boys' births and her breech baby experiences. First baby Toby was breech in pregnancy but managed to turn near the end of pregnancy and his birth was fairly straight forward.  In her second pregnancy (during of 2021 ) things were different for her and she mentions  how the pandemic created anxiety. Her mantra became “if it’s not something I can control, don’t worry...

As long as she can remember Ziska was really scared of birth. She talks about her visceral reactions whenever anyone would mention anything birth related. She had never previously associated birth with being a positive and powerful experience. So it’s so wonderful to know that now, (we speak to her when baby Auri is just 18 days old), she describes her birth as healing, affirming and a life changi...

Cindy was in Iraq when pregnant and felt she needed to birth in NZ so she could be in a hospital and have an epidural.  We chat about her ideas of birth, how she had never heard a positive birth story, and  how her mindset completely changed after arriving in NZ and stumbling upon hypnobirthing. After starting the course, she committed herself 100% to practising her relaxation techniques...

Kate's first birth involved a very long 5 day labour, where she admits she felt she wasn't ready to birth baby Oli and the circumstances that could have caused her to hold off with allowing the birth to progress. I'm also grateful that she is open to sharing about her significant post natal depression that occurred after - that it pushed her over the limit and what helped her.  Her second pre...

Holly says she was terrified of birth before becoming pregnant, but with education and learning about how it could be, she planned for a straightforward birth and that is literally what she got. We talk to her only 8 days after George was born and she says it was a privilege to have been able to experience and feel the sensations of what her body could do. This is a pretty straightforward birth st...

Midwife Dione was super excited for her births and both of her labours were similar. In both situations her membranes released as her first sign of labour and then there was a bit of stop start stop start before things really got going. Dione tells us about how she chose the ‘dream team’ midwives to support her, she and husband Nick had total faith in them and how easy it was for her to switch off...

In this episode Alana literally entertains us with the powerful stories of her 3 babies. There are tears, loads of laughs, goosebumps, some F bombs and.........lots of drama. Despite the drama around Alana she was able to stay in the zone, stay calm and use her hypnobirthing stuff to enjoy birth, be in the moment and do her thing. First baby Duncan came early so that Alana went into labour at work...

This is a little 4 minute "little snippet" of a chat taken from a longer conversation that I wanted to share separately. Kate chats about her experience of listening to my hypnosis track to help encourage a Breech baby to turn. At the time she is 37 weeks pregnant and her baby has been sitting breech for a long time. She's not keen to use any other techniques to help him move, she wants to give hi...

An incredible episode packed full of inspiration and information. Ash was very well prepared, researched and educated in her first pregnancy and describes herself as “headstrong and untouchable”. She knew what she wanted and she was pretty direct in telling her midwife exactly how it was going to be. And from listening to her story it sounds like it paid off! Ash shares with us her textbook home,...

“We love our birth story” says Julia as she describes her feelings about her first birth to Remy. This is one of those special stories, a birth that was planned to be somewhere else, but ended up progressing so quickly that it became an unplanned homebirth, with a midwife they had never met before. But this midwife brought with her the perfect energy that fitted perfectly with Julia and Ryan and J...

Jemma shares the similarities and differences between her two girls, Harriet and Adeline's births. Both started with her sitting bolt upright in bed and both involved arriving at Birthcare almost fully dilated. However Harriet's birth involved a bit of help to get her out, where Jemma shares that she was able to keep calm during a potentially scary part of her birth, and that she was able to trust...

Kali talks us through the two births of her boys. She was excited in her first pregnancy about becoming a mum and the course enabled her to establish boundaries around hearing other peoples stories as well as being valuable for her husband to understand how to support her. She mentions how the affirmations worked well, plus she feels the perineal massage she used at the end of her pregnancies help...

So many titbits of information and learning to gain from this episode with Tash especially when it comes to moving through emotions. Her first baby Nahlia arrived after a long early stage of labour where she felt called to being in nature and at the beach, and she shares how family support was so helpful to her. In her second pregnancy as part of planning for another home birth Tash tells us how s...

Amanda and Joe's first baby was due around Christmas and you'll hear Amanda explain how that timing had an impact on her finding a midwife initially and also how it impacted on baby getting some help with a tongue tie. However, it turned out that it was a great time to have a baby especially when it was a beautiful sunny day in labour and Amanda spent quite a bit of time swimming in the waves whil...

Anna describes the feelings of meeting her babies as 'proud, in awe and an amazing sense of love' in all three birth experiences. Her first birth to Sol occurred when he was pre term as her membranes released at 33 weeks and  it was a highly monitored birth which could have almost been a C-Section, but wasn't. Second baby Rosie also came early, due to, once again membranes releasing earl...

So many nuggets of gold, insights, and wisdom from first time parents Tash and Kyle about their intentional creation of their birth experience which makes this episode such an incredibly valuable one to listen to. Tash and Kyle came to this stage of their life with the principles and practises of the law of attraction, frequency and energy well embedded. Kyle works with energy clearing and balanci...

Janelle was 45 years old when she gave birth and had previously, less than 2 years prior had her first baby by C-Section. She generously shares her time with us when her baby is only 19 days old, and says that she was inspired by other positive birth stories and wanted to share hers too. In this episode she shares her experience of attempting a natural birth with her son Ezra, born in Level 3 lock...

Leanne always believed in the power of her mind and her mental state combined with some practical tools helped her through a very long and gruelling labour. Baby Ayla was positioned posterior and Leeanne had to bravely accept a change in birth plans to proceed with an induction and episiotomy in hospital. 

Jess' compares her two very birth experiences and what made them so different. Fighting against what was happening in her first birth, husband Carl feeling powerless she knew when pregnant second time around she didn't want to repeat this. Her birth to Rose was a complete contrast, circumstances lead her to have baby at home, she was sleeping inbetween surges and she waited until her body was read...