What if birth isn’t simply an event to prepare for, but a rite of passage that fundamentally changes who we are? Hosts Ashley Makan and Wendy Bruns welcome Dr. Britta Bushnell, mythologist, childbirth educator, relationship and parenthood specialist, and author of Transformed by Birth, for a conversation about the profound transformation that unfolds through pregnancy, birth, and early parenthood. Britta explores birth through the metaphor of metamorphosis—the “messy middle” of letting go, rebuilding, and becoming.

Together, they discuss expectations and control, openness and resilience, how our own early experiences can surface in parenting, and the ways partners can move through transformation with greater curiosity, tenderness, and connection. The conversation also touches on self-compassion, rupture and repair, and what becomes possible when babies are understood as active participants in pregnancy and birth.

In this episode:

• Birth as a rite of passage and transformative process

• The chrysalis, metamorphosis, and the “messy middle”

• Letting go of expectations and opening to the unbidden

• Openness, resilience, strength, and curiosity

• How our own early experiences can surface in parenting

• Supporting partners through simultaneous transformation

• Moving from criticism toward curiosity and connection

• Relationship as an ongoing practice

• Self-compassion, rupture, repair, and our children’s inner voices

• Babies as active participants in pregnancy and birth

• How tending the beginning can create cultural ripple effects

Learn more about Britta Bushnell, PhD: https://brittabushnell.com

Instagram: @brittabushnellphd

Book: Transformed by Birth

Learn more about APPPAH: https://birthpsychology.com

Demystifying Birth Psychology is presented by the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH), exploring how our earliest experiences—from preconception through birth and beyond—shape the human experience.

Breaking the Pattern: Epigenetics, Early Adversity, and the Possibility of Change with Dr. Bonnie Goff

Hosts Ashley Makan and Wendy Bruns welcome developmental psychologist and UCLA lecturer Dr. Bonnie Goff for a conversation about how our earliest experiences shape the brain, nervous system, relationships, and sense of self. Dr. Goff reframes many responses to early adversity not as damage, but as intelligent adaptations designed for survival—and explores what neuroscience, attachment research, epigenetics, and neuroplasticity reveal about our capacity for change.

Together, they discuss prenatal stress, co-regulation, rupture and repair, resilience, attachment, adult relationships, parenting, and the ways unconscious patterns can travel across generations. Most importantly, the conversation reminds us that development is not destiny: with awareness, connection, compassion, and new experiences, patterns can change—and what we heal today can influence the generations that follow.

Learn more about Dr. Bonnie Goff:DrBonnieGoff.comInstagram: @drbonniegoff

Learn more about APPPAH:BirthPsychology.comAssociation for Prenatal & Perinatal Psychology and Health

Hosts Ashley Makan and Wendy Bruns welcome global midwife Kristine Lauria, whose decades of experience span home birth, humanitarian settings, breech birth, multiples, and more than 5,000 births across 25+ countries. Lauria reflects on her roots in traditional midwifery and explores how fear, over-medicalization, and loss of embodied skill have reshaped modern birth care. The conversation examines autonomy, physiological birth, breech and multiples, provider regulation, relational safety, and the difference between being at higher risk and being labeled high risk. Lauria discusses why women are so often taught to look outside themselves for authority, what it means to be “allowed” to birth, and how coercion and fear can disrupt labor physiology. She also shares the story behind the documentary Allowed to Birth, the importance of preserving traditional midwifery knowledge, and how prenatal and perinatal psychology changed the way she relates to babies and families in the birth space.

Learn more about Kristine: https://kristinelauria.com/

Learn more about APPPAH: https://www.birthpsychology.com

Ashley Makan and Wendy Bruns introduce APPPAH's new podcast, Demystifying Birth Psychology.

Learn more about the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH): www.birthpsychology.com

Hosts Ashley Makan and Wendy Bruns welcome midwife, mother, and Innate Postpartum Care creator Rachelle Seliga for a wide-ranging conversation about what becomes possible when we understand human development through the lens of relationship, physiology, and early experience.

Rachelle shares how her work evolved from a deep attunement to babies into a broader understanding of maternal wellness, describing mothers as the soil from which humanity grows. Together, they explore postpartum as a rite of passage, the role of co-regulation in healthy development, and how touch, sleep, feeding, and connection reflect our innate biological design.

The conversation also examines how cultural conditioning can pull families away from physiology, how early experiences from the womb through childhood shape lifelong patterns, and why meaningful change requires support that extends beyond the individual. Rachelle shares how her work with practitioners across disciplines is helping create more integrated, non-hierarchical models of care rooted in relationship, embodiment, and the conditions that allow both mothers and babies to thrive.

Learn More About Rochelle: www.innatetraditions.com

Learn More About APPPAH: www.birthpsychology.com

In the first episode of the APPPAH Podcast: Demystifying Birth Psychology, hosts Ashley Makan and Wendy Bruns explore a simple but far-reaching idea: our stories begin long before we have words for them.

They introduce birth psychology and the work of APPPAH, exploring how our experiences during pregnancy, birth, and early life shape the nervous system, relationships, and the ways we move through the world. Wendy shares the origins of APPPAH and the pioneers who helped bring prenatal and perinatal psychology into greater awareness, while Ashley and Wendy share the personal experiences that led each of them to this work.

From pregnancy and loss to childbirth, matrescence, doula work, and discovering APPPAH’s educational programs, this opening conversation offers a personal introduction to the field—and to the larger vision behind the podcast: making birth psychology more accessible, bringing these conversations beyond professional circles, and exploring what becomes possible when we understand more about where the human story begins.

Learn more about APPPAH: www.birthpsychology.com