In this deeply moving, wairua-filled episode, host Claire Holloway is joined by Joanne (Jo) Teina - Registered Midwife, proud Indigenous Nurse and Midwife, and Ngāti Apakura keeper of traditional birth knowledge. As a mother of eleven (seven birthed, four borrowed), Nanny to twenty-one mokopuna, and great-Nanny to two, Jo brings a rich tapestry of intergenerational wisdom grounded in Te Ao Māori.

Jo explores what it means to reclaim birth sovereignty and honour the sacred transition of bringing life into the world outside of medicalised management. She shares how connection to ancestral lineage, tikanga, and deep bodily trust restores true authority to birthing parents.

Grounded, humorous, and profoundly wise, Jo also reflects on how the strength discovered during homebirth serves as an unshakeable anchor on life's hardest days. This conversation is an invitation to remember the innate power carried across generations and to step into birth with reverence, self-trust and autonomy.

This episode is generously sponsored by Vicki Hobbs, founder and trainer at Doula Training Academy, offering online and in-person doula training courses. If you're in Perth, come and join Vicki and many other perinatal service providers at the Pregnancy, Birth & Postpartum Expo on 18th October.

Key Takeaways:

• Grounded in Te Ao Māori: Weaving wairua, ancestral connection, and traditional tikanga into modern birth spaces.
• Reclaiming Indigenous Birth Sovereignty: Moving past systemic management to honour birth as a sacred, autonomous transition.
• Intergenerational Wisdom: Life lessons from birthing seven children, raising eleven, and nurturing over two dozen mokopuna.
• Birth as a Lifelong Anchor: How remembering your power in birth grounds and sustains you through the challenges of parenthood.
• Autonomous Midwifery & Cultural Safety: Advocating for care that respects the sacred mother-baby dyad and honous bodily authority.

Chapters:

00:00 — Traditional Maori welcome & defining home, wairua, and ancestral connection in Te Ao Māori.

08:15 — Reclaiming Indigenous birth sovereignty and traditional birth knowledge.

19:40 — Intergenerational lineage: Insights from mothering eleven and nurturing mokopuna.

31:10 — Homebirth as a lifelong anchor of strength on hard days.

42:25 — Honouring bodily authority, physiological birth, and cultural safety in maternity care.

53:10 — Final thoughts of wisdom for the homebirth curious.

Links & Resources:

• Access the podcast transcript here.
• Study to become a doula with Doula Training Academy
• Access Claire’s FREE resource: Choosing Your Birth Guide
• Connect with Claire on Instagram: @yourbrightbeginning

If this conversation resonated, please consider leaving a review in reciprocity for the hours of voluntary care and the generations of wisdom that have gone into the creation of this episode.

Planning a home birth after two caesareans (HBAC2) often means confronting intense pressure, rigid risk labels, and institutional fear. For many women who have experienced unwanted surgical births or trauma within the medical system, finding the courage to choose a physiological birth at home can feel like swimming upstream against a wave of societal conditioning.

In this episode, birth advocate and doula Nikola Moore explores what it really takes to reclaim birth after multiple C-sections. From navigating a four-day hospital induction that ended in a repeat caesarean to stripping away "textbook" birth prep in favour of mindset work, Nikola shares her raw, unfiltered story of birthing safely on her bedroom floor.

Together, Claire and Nikola unpack the reality of unmedicated physiological labour, reframing risk on your own terms, and why we must dismantle the "failed VBAC" narrative once and for all.

Key Takeaways:

• Dismantling the "Failed VBAC" Myth: Why a repeat caesarean is never a personal failure and how reframing our language changes birth recovery.
• Internal vs. External Preparation: Moving away from outsourcing birth prep and tuning in to what you actually need.
• Owning Your Risk Assessment: How to evaluate risk on your own terms rather than letting hospital policies dictate your choices.
• The Reality of Labour Intensity: Normalising loud, vocal, unmedicated physiological birth without spiritual bypassing.
• Partner Alignment: How Nikola’s husband was ready to fully back a home birth after caesarean.

Timestamps:

13:22 - Why there is no such thing as a "failed VBAC"

18:30 - Simplifying your birth prep

32:24 - Facing the raw reality & intensity of an unmedicated birth

46:04 - Getting your partner aligned & trusting physiological homebirth

49:09 - Redefining risk & making decisions on your own terms

Resources & Links:

Connect with Nikola on Instagram @nikola.moore

Explore her inspirational t-shirts at Sacred & Sovereign

Follow Claire on Instagram @yourbrightbeginning

Free Training: Register for Plan Your Dream Homebirth at yourbrightbeginning.com.au/homebirth-plan

Community: Join a Homebirth Community Catchup at yourbrightbeginning.com.au/free-homebirth-community

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If you are living in a regional or remote community and exploring your birth care choices, this is a must-listen episode.

For families living outside major metropolitan hubs, planning an autonomous birth often means navigating vast travel distances, high staff turnover and involuntary relocation.

In this episode, Claire sits down with endorsed private midwife Holly Jones - founder of The Family Room and co-creator of the Rural Roots Midwifery Collective. Drawing on 14 years of clinical experience across 13 health services, Holly breaks down how to access relational care when you live hours away from a major hospital.

From executing shared-care arrangements over 600km away to conducting antenatal checks on park benches and in the back of cars, Holly demonstrates how creativity and determination can bridge regional service gaps.

Holly also candidly reflects on her own recovery from severe spinal trauma, chronic pain, and forced relocation - a personal journey that reshaped her own trauma-informed practice.

This episode is proudly brought to you by Claire’s online program: Yoga for Homebirth. Designed specifically to bridge geographic isolation, this program brings high-calibre homebirth preparation straight to the room in which you plan to birth - wherever you are in the world.

• Your Postcode Does Not Limit Your Birth Choices: Living in a regional or remote area doesn't mean accepting a one-size-fits-all model
• True Continuity Is Relational, Not Geographical: Clinical connection doesn't require living next door to your provider - shared care, remote consults, and flexible check-ins can create the same benefits.
• Matrescence starts before birth: Pregnancy is a natural unravelling that prepares you to create boundaries, reject unsolicited opinions and step into empowered parenthood.
• Advocacy Protects Future Options: Protecting home birth access requires community awareness and active collective voices

03:19 - Moving out of institutional constraints into endorsed private practice.

12:35 - Regional birth care realities: Distance, agency staff and postcode barriers.

24:40 - Shared care logistics and building collaborative regional and rural support.

38:51 - Rebuilding through trauma: Spinal injury, chronic pain, NLP, and trauma-informed practice.

46:13 - Driving 1,000 km a week & dreaming up "The Flying Midwife" service.

46:42 - Legislative hurdles: The 2027 second-midwife mandate.

58:45 - Matrescence, boundary-setting, and stepping into maternal authority.

Access the podcast transcript here.

Connect with Holly:

The Family Room and Rural Roots Midwifery Collective

Instagram: @the.family.room.wa

Connect with Claire:

Yoga for Homebirth: yourbrightbeginning.com.au

Instagram: @yourbrightbeginning

Imagine a country where the entire birth landscape has changed within one generation. For the women of the Maldives, this is the current, high-intervention reality of maternal healthcare.

Hadhee Jah - a traditional birthkeeper, author of Postpartum Is Forever, and the fierce catalyst behind the Mothers of the Maldives movement - exposes the rapid, devastating erasure of her homeland's ancestral birth wisdom.

Hadhee also provides a transparent look into her own three homebirth journeys in Australia. She contrasts the undisturbed physiological experience of her first birth under a private independent midwife against the policy-heavy environment of a public Midwifery Group Program during her second. Finally, she chronicles her third birth - a solitary freebirth where she received unexpected support during her darkest moments.

The conversation concludes with an affirming revelation: the biology of birth may not unfold as we plan or expect, but, postpartum always has your back.

Key Takeaways:

• How Western obstetric metrics were used in the Maldives to systematically erase traditional midwifery and community care.
• Hospital-led homebirth programs come with time constraints and continuous monitoring policies.
• Allopathic maternal medicine relies on a standardisation approach, in contrast to the observational, living science of traditional midwifery.
• We can reclaim the postpartum window as a healing zone through practices such as self-massage (Abhyanga), belly binding and warming nutrition.

Chapters:

02:23 — The modern obstetric crisis and high C-section rates in the Maldives.

11:32 — Comparing the models: Private independent midwifery vs. hospital-led Midwifery Group Programs

19:46 — Navigating sudden birth isolation and receiving unexpected support.

24:40 — Handling a traumatic hospital transfer

34:44 — How the postpartum window can heal birth trauma.

Links & Resources:

• Access the podcast transcript here.

• Purchase Hadhee's book: Postpartum Is Forever. *All proceeds go directly toward funding her documentary preserving Maldivian midwifery wisdom.
• Follow Hadhee’s movement: @mothersofmaldives.
• Connect with Hadhee online for 1:1 support.

• Connect with Claire on Instagram: @yourbrightbeginning
• Access Claire’s FREE training and workbook: Choosing Your Birth Guide

*If this conversation resonated, hit 'Follow' on your podcast app so you never miss an episode!

What happens if your homebirth takes an unexpected turn and you need an ambulance?

For many families, the fear of an emergency transfer is the ultimate barrier keeping them from community birth. Historically, a lack of specialised obstetric training on the road has created tension between paramedics and midwives, leaving mothers navigating a high-stress, disconnected system.

In this episode, host Claire Holloway sits down with Melissa Gardiner - a mother of three, senior paramedic, and registered midwife with over 20 years of community experience. Driven to bridge these two fields, Melissa created STORC (State Obstetric Referral Call), a midwifery-led, 24hr telephone service connecting on-road St John WA paramedics with expert midwives in real time.

From managing postpartum haemorrhages and surprise breech presentations to rolling out lifesaving infant warming cocoons across regional WA, Melissa provides a masterclass in clinical collaboration. Tune in to replace transfer anxiety with the reassurance of a synchronised, safety net that is evolving to respect physiological birth.

• Hospital transfers are a collaborative continuation of birth care, never a failure.
• STORC is bridging the gap between the roles of paramedics and midwives.
• Clinical innovations like rural oxytocin and thermal cocoons are shifting out-of-hospital outcomes.
• Honouring the agreements on boundaries with your private midwife protects your safety and the profession.

5:19 - Mel's career journey through nursing, paramedicine, and finding her passion for midwifery.

7:44 - Witnessing the clinical tension between ambulance crews and hospital labour wards.

11:45 - The inception of STORC: pitching the business case to St John WA for a 24-hour midwife helpline.

14:64 - Planned homebirth vs. accidental birth, and a beautiful story of an empowered breech transfer.

23:52 - Aligning paramedic guidelines with physiological principles.

The postpartum golden hour: managing haemorrhages.

32:52 - The importance of client-midwife agreements and an incredible story of a birth on country.

48:25 - Masters research data from 164 paramedics and the power of simple eye contact during pregnancy loss.

59:20 - Melissa's personal birth story and final thoughts.

Read the episode transcript here.

Connect with Claire:

• Free Homebirth Training: Watch the Plan Your Dream Homebirth Masterclass to assess your personal readiness.
• Yoga for Homebirth Program: Prepare your body, mind, and spirit inside a trauma-informed digital community environment.
• Instagram: @yourbrightbeginning

*If this conversation answered some of your homebirth questions, hit 'Follow' on your podcast app and leave us a 5-star review!

What happens when a qualified health professional is left out of public midwifery continuity programs simply because of a number on a scale?

In this episode, we sit down with women’s health physiotherapist and outdoor adventurer Jen Nicholson. When Jen fell pregnant, the public system's rigid BMI cut-off disqualified her from birth centre care. This led her to choose private homebirth care to bypass systemic assumptions that refuse to look at patients as whole individuals.

Jen pulls back the curtain on plus-size pregnancy, revealing the physiological advantages larger bodies hold in birth. She shares her experience navigating five weeks of exhausting prodromal labour and explains how she managed due-date pressure during the 41st week of her pregnancy.

Merging her clinical expertise with a trust in instinct, Jen breaks down how she utilised the "open throat, open vagina" connection and drew on her cross-continental hiking mindset to meet her labour one contraction at a time.

Jen is the Director of Whole Human Therapy and has kindly been a sponsor of the podcast, supporting the voices of Aboriginal birthing families.

Key Takeaways

• The BMI Fallacy: BMI is an inaccurate standalone metric for birth risk, often gatekeeping healthy, fit individuals from low-risk midwifery programs.
• Plus-Size Advantages: Research shows larger birthing bodies frequently have lower risks of postpartum haemorrhage, lower tearing rates, and faster labours.
• Pelvic Floor Surrender: The pelvic floor doesn't push a baby out - it opens to let the baby out. Relaxing into the intensity is key.
• The Vocal Connection: Clenching your jaw and throat forces the pelvic floor to contract. Low, open vocalisations actively encourage vaginal release.
• Mastitis Tip: Never aggressively poke or prod a mastitis lump. Treat the breast tissue like a fragile eggshell to avoid driving up inflammation.

Chapters

00:02 — Meet Jen: women's health physio and cross-continental trekker.

04:17 — BMI gatekeeping and navigating rigid public health restrictions.

14:08 — Plus-size pregnancy advantages.

22:01 — Facing weeks of prodromal labour and cutting out the "emotional labour".

38:00 — Jen’s physiotherapy tips for managing labour intensity

45:00 — In-home pelvic health and perinatal care.

55:00 — Reclaiming shared wisdom at community homebirth catch-ups.

Links & Resources

• Read the Episode Transcript here
• Dr Sara Wickham: Plus Size Pregnancy and In Your Own Time

Connect with Jen

• Website: Whole Human Therapy
• Instagram: @wholehumantherapy

Connect with Claire:

• Free Homebirth Community
• Yoga for Homebirth Program
• Instagram: @yourbrightbeginning

*If this conversation resonated, hit 'Follow' on your podcast app so you never miss an episode!

This profound yarn explores the definition of 'home' in the context of physiological birth, connection to country, and ancestral wisdom. It delves into the extraordinary life tapestry of Alison Burrell - a mother of twelve (spanning seven births and five stepchildren) - and her journey through pregnancy, postpartum, and matrescence.

From navigating a teenage pregnancy to standing in her sovereignty against a colonial medical mindset, Alison demonstrates how our birthing bodies are hardwired for autonomy. We examine how birth imprints ripple into parenting, space-holding, and trauma-informed counselling, before confronting the ongoing lack of cultural safety within mainstream systems. Offering a visionary framework for Birthing on Country, this conversation is an essential listen for anyone seeking to dismantle institutional birth fear.

**This episode is proudly brought to you by Jen Nicholson from Whole Human Therapy. Providing exceptional, in-home Pelvic Health support for mamas across Perth. Connect with Jen for your home visit needs here.

• Connection to 'home' is an embodied alignment with the land and our nervous system.
• Traditional lineages and the natural world insulate us from obstetric fear.
• The autonomy we experience during labour directly shapes how we show up as caregivers.
• Birthing on Country offers a pathway toward collective, intergenerational healing.

• 00:00 — Entering matrescence at nineteen and how watching animals birth built an unshakeable trust in physiological birth.
• 28:07 — How labour experiences shape our space-holding and prepare us for the waves of parenting.
• 34:04 — Merging Lineage and Land: Connecting Celtic roots, First Nations Songlines, and traditional birth ceremonies. How a safe birth heals country.
• 40:23 — Birthing on Country & Reframing Risk: Confronting systemic failures and reframing vulnerable mothers as our greatest hope for inter-generational healing.

• Read the episode transcript.

Connect with Alison:

• We Al-li: Culturally Informed, Trauma Integrated Healing
• Core Cellular Healing: Participate in Alison's pre-Celtic and Nordic healing circles
• Instagram: @mummaof12

Connect with Claire:

• Free Homebirth Resources: Access webinars, guides and free meetups under the 'Homebirth' menu.
• Yoga for Homebirth Program: Prepare your body, mind and spirit in a non-prescriptive, trauma informed community environment.
• Instagram: @yourbrightbeginning

*If this yarn resonated, hit 'Follow' on your podcast app so you never miss an episode!

Have you ever felt an inkling that birth could be something more than a managed clinical event?

If you’ve found yourself looking for a path that feels more aligned with your own body and your own rhythm, you’re in the right place. You’re simply Homebirth Curious.

In this introductory episode, host Claire Holloway (perinatal and pelvic health specialist, yoga facilitator and therapist) invites you into a new kind of sanctuary. This is a first glimpse into a project dedicated to shifting the narrative around birth: moving away from the idea of home as a place of risk and back to the understanding of what coming home really feels like. It’s about the relief of familiar floorboards, the comfort of your own space, and the safety that allows you to settle into your own internal knowing.

What to expect from this season: As this series unfolds, we will dive into the "nuts and bolts" of homebirth logistics while honouring the sacred rite of passage that is matrescence.

Claire and her guests will explore:

• Logistics: The practicalities of birthing in a home environment.
• Advocacy: How to reclaim your status as the expert in the birth room.
• Reciprocity: Platforming the ancient birthing wisdom and stories of First Nations custodians and marginalised voices.
• Mindset: Shifting a lifetime of conditioning to find your own internal wisdom.

This is the beginning of a journey home: to your body, to your choices, and to a community that honours the sanctuary of birth.

The first conversations are about to reveal themselves. Subscribe now to ensure you don’t miss an episode.