Healing Birth

Leisa Masters is a mother, an accomplished birthworker, and an experienced business manager. She has been supporting women through pregnancy, birth, and motherhood for over a decade.

Her own experience birthing her daughter in the Australian medical system became a classic cascade of interventions, ultimately leading to an unnecessary cesarean. However, being deeply committed to personal growth, Leisa chose not to simply blame the system. Instead, she realized that at a deeper level, her own people-pleasing tendencies had allowed the birth to unfold as it did.

In the years since that birth, Leisa has discovered a way to have revolutionary conversations with women, empowering them to own their birth experiences, their introduction to motherhood, and, by extension, their lives. As a sought-after voice in the global birth community, Leisa now helps other birthworkers recognize how to work with women in a truly life-changing way. She believes that women already possess all the wisdom they need inside them, and her role is to help them uncover that wisdom and build the confidence to trust in it.

Follow Leisa on Instagram @leisa.masters

Leisa's Website

Join Leisa's course Becoming a Birthworker

If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth

Do you have a birth story you'd like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at [email protected]

Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto

India was 21, and dancing without a care in the world at a festival in Nepal when she suddenly felt her water break. That was the moment she realized she was pregnant—and about to have a baby!

What followed, in one of the most incredible birth stories I have ever heard, was a four-day labor, supported by her Rainbow Gathering community, in a remote village in Nepal.

If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth

Do you have a birth story you'd like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at [email protected]

Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto

Returning guest Tiffany shares her powerful third birth story—a precipitous freebirth. Alone with just her partner, Tiffany navigated this intense and transformative experience following a wild pregnancy.

Tiffany's story also includes one of the coolest placenta births I've ever heard!

You can hear her first two birth stories, on her first appearance on the podcast, here.

If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth

Do you have a birth story you'd like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at [email protected]

Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) is a connective tissue disorder that presents differently in each individual. For Emily, it significantly affected her digestive system. During her first pregnancy, she struggled with severe hyperemesis, unable to keep any food down at all.

In this episode, Emily shares one of the most unique and challenging stories of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum I have ever encountered. Her journey is a powerful testament to the resilience of the mother-baby bond and her incredible strength.

Despite the hardships she faced, Emily has recovered and found joy in the small but profound moments of motherhood. She recalls the first time her baby smiled at her—a moment when her heart truly felt light for the first time.

Tune in to hear Emily's inspiring story of determination, love, and healing.

If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth

Do you have a birth story you'd like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at [email protected]

Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

After two hospital births—one of which was extremely traumatic—Laura decided to homebirth her third baby.

During her 20-week anatomy scan, a velamentous cord insertion was discovered. Laura's main concern with this complication was the risk of intrauterine growth restriction. She chose to closely monitor her baby's size through ultrasounds, and by 35 weeks, it was clear she was carrying a large, healthy baby. Feeling confident, Laura moved forward with her plan to give birth at home.

Her birth experience was fast, powerful, and profoundly healing.

We close this episode with Laura reflecting on the unexpected grief she felt for her older children's birth experiences. She shares how she now recognizes the ripple effects of those births in their lives.

Listen to Laura's first appearance on this podcast, where she shares her first two birth experiences, here.

If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth

Do you have a birth story you'd like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at [email protected]

Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto

I open season six of the podcast with the jaw-dropping story of a family who fled France after the authorities targeted them for freebirthing their baby.

Katie initially planned a homebirth for her first child, but during labor, her midwife transferred her to the hospital, where she was given no option but to have a cesarean section. When Katie became pregnant with her second child, her family had relocated from the United States to Paris, France, due to a job transfer. Because of her prior cesarean, no midwife in France was willing to attend her birth.

Faced with the prospect of another hospital experience as her only option, Katie chose to freebirth her baby. The birth was beautiful, but trouble arose when the family tried to obtain a birth certificate. Since there was no record of medical care during her pregnancy and no official attendant at the birth, the French authorities retaliated. After a series of bureaucratic encounters with government and medical officials, Katie learned that French Child Protective Services planned to remove her children from her care.

With emergency passports issued by the American embassy and all their belongings still in Paris, Katie and her family fled the country, eventually making it back to the United States.

Katie went on to have a third baby, another freebirth, which brought her healing, closure, and invaluable lessons. She is now planning to write a book about her extraordinary experience. You can follow her journey on Instagram at @thek80show.

If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth

Do you have a birth story you'd like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at [email protected]

Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net

Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Podcast cover photo by Karina Jensen @karinajensenphoto

Katie's journey with birth has been one of both trauma and triumph. It begins with an excruciating, 3-day Pitocin induction, ending in a c-section, which left her devastated and later diagnosed with postpartum PTSD. She endured months of nightmares, flashbacks, and depression.

In contrast, Katie later experienced a second trimester loss, and says that her experience in the medical system managing the death of her baby was better than the previous live birth - because this time she had trauma-informed, deeply compassionate care providers.

Katie finally has her healing birth, a VBAC, at a trauma informed hospital. She describes this experience as incredibly beautiful, and something she sources strength from even to this day.

If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth

Do you have a birth story you'd like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at [email protected]

Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Julia became pregnant in December of 2019, right before the world shut down. She spent that pregnancy isolated, alone, and made to go to her prenatal appointments without her partner.

Beginning at just 36 weeks, she was pressured to have a c-section, because her baby was breech. Deep down, Julia knew her baby was healthy, still growing, and perhaps still had time to turn. But after several weeks of unrelenting pressure from her doctor, she gave in and scheduled the cesarean.

After this experience, Julia immediately knew she wanted a natural, unmedicated VBAC. And after lots of research and listening to birth podcasts, she decided that home was the safest place for her to achieve it.

When she met her team of midwives, and delved into the world of Hypnobirthing, Julia discovered how beautiful and peaceful birth can be at home, rather than the medical emergency it often is in a hospital.

Her second baby was born at home, in the water, at just shy of 43 weeks.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Business of Being Born

Hypnobirthing: The Mongan Method by Marie Morgan

Birth photos by @skylightphototx

If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth

Do you have a birth story you'd like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at [email protected]

Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Patience is a doula and birth keeper, and was quite familiar with birth when it was time to have her first baby. She chose to give birth in a midwife-run birth center, but her labor progressed so fast that they never made it inside, and the baby was born in the doorway!

When she became pregnant with her second baby, she wanted a more autonomous experience, and chose to birth at home with just her husband and a non-medical birth keeper for support.

Patience has an unshakable faith in the wisdom of the birth process which is inspiring and infectious. She attends home births and offers placenta encapsulation + art services in the Sonora, California area.

Follow Patience on Instagram @atouchofpatience_birth

Patience's website: www.atouchofpatiencebirth.com

If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth

Do you have a birth story you'd like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at [email protected]

Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net

Intro / Outro music: Dreams by Markvard

Molly planned to give birth to her first baby at a birth center, but when she hit 41 weeks, she was bait and switched into a hospital induction. The Pitocin-induced birth was traumatic and excruciating, and ended with a week long NICU stay for her son.

In retrospect, Molly believes the induction, and the trauma to her and her son, was completely unnecessary.

It wasn't until she began therapy at one year postpartum to address the scars of this first birth experience that she began to heal, and consider that she could give birth again without interventions and trauma.

Discovering Hynobabies, was also a complete game changer for her the second time around. The affirmations and hypnosis techniques helped her to address her fears and feel confident. She describes that birth experience, using Hynobabies, as pain free!

At the time of this recording, Molly is pregnant and planning a home birth with her third.

If you love the show, I would greatly appreciate a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Follow me on Instagram @healingbirth

Do you have a birth story you'd like to share on the podcast, or would like to otherwise connect? I love to hear from you! Send me a note at [email protected]

Check out the website for lots of other birth related offerings, and personalized support: www.healingbirth.net

Intro / outro music: Dreams by Markvard