Healing Birth with Carla

Today I bring you a bit of a different episode. I’m joined by six women who, like me, are core members of the Wise Women Network. This is a fast growing movement that aims to protect physiological birth and champion women-led care through connections with birth-workers and mothers who are seeking our support. Tune in to hear more about our ‘why’ and be inspired by our fire, heart and passion.

**If you want to be a part of the Wise Women Network, you can join us on the following social media pages**

Facebook group aimed at birth worker support and information: Wise Women Network NZ 

Facebook group aimed at consumer support and information: Wise Women Network: Birth Support (to Birth YOUR Way)

Instagram @wisewomennetwork_nz

Please note that this episode includes discussions of domestic violence and suicidal thoughts. Listener discretion is advised. If these topics are distressing for you, you may wish to skip this episode or listen with support. Relevant Aotearoa/NZ helplines are accessible at the bottom of these show notes.

Naomi’s story is a troubling, heart-wrenching listen. She bravely lets us in on the abuse and trauma she endured as a young first-time mum in a violent relationship with a manipulative man who would later become her husband. Together they had two more children, both healing home births, but the domestic abuse continued.

One day, whilst working a shift as a midwife, Naomi spotted a brochure that stated, “family violence changes the brains of our children.” This realisation was the final straw for Naomi. She knew she needed to protect her babies from growing up in this abusive household, and she left their dad for the final time. He still had contact with the children, though no formal parental agreement was instated. Fuelled by anger and jealousy, when he discovered Naomi had met a new man, he took the children and told her she wouldn’t be getting them back. The police could do nothing. 

Naomi desperately tried to get her children safely back into her care. But after many months of battling the system, and despite a clear history of abuse, including multiple protection orders, Naomi ultimately lost custody of her children to her violent ex. She was utterly powerless to protect her babies, something that nearly killed her.

Find out how Naomi not only found the will to live, but went on to have another baby to a beautiful man, and now works to help heal the hearts of other wounded mothers. Her story is both deeply disturbing and profoundly inspiring.

Also discussed in this episode:

* contemplating abortion

* protection orders for physical and psychological violence

* pressured into medical pain relief - Pethidine & Epidural

* lack of bond with newborn

* Raynaud’s Syndrome (breastfeeding)

* pressured to give formula to baby

* Postnatal depression & anxiety

* Maternal Mental Health support - Aropax

* CBT

* Nursing & midwifery training

* Siblings at birth

* Gambling addiction

* Court appointed psychologist (bias towards father)

* contemplating suicide

* Mama’s Tribe 

* Healing Birth Practitioner Training

* 42 week pregnancy

* PROM & meconium stained waters

* Syntocinon

* healing & empowering cesarean

* Wise Women Network NZ

* sleep consultancy - responsive settling

* postpartum sleep deprivation

Aotearoa/NZ Helplines

Lifeline - 0800 543 354 or free text HELP to 4357

Women’s Refuge 24/7 Crisis Line - 0800 REFUGE (0800 733 843)

Shine (DV support) - 0508 744 633

1737 - Need to talk? Free call or text 1737

Suicide Crisis Helpline - 0508 828 865

Connect with Naomi on Facebook

Join The Mamas Tribe on Facebook

For coaching (mama, baby or trauma related) with Naomi email her on [email protected]

Join the Wise Women Network Facebook group

Check out my (Carla's) Healing Birth Practitioner Training course

In strong labour, birthing her first baby at home, Michelle was unexpectedly met with the news that her baby was breech. Supported by a trusted care team, she went on to confidently birth her big boy in her lounge. 

High on magical birth hormones, basking in the glory of what she’d just achieved and marvelling at the gorgeous human she’d created, Michelle was unaware that she’d sustained a decent tear. But that wasn’t a problem. It went on to heal naturally, without fuss. The real challenge came with breastfeeding. 

Michelle couldn’t make sufficient milk to meet Beren’s needs, and had to supplement feed throughout his babyhood. This was a source of absolute struggle and heartbreak for Michelle. 

Today she shares with us the trials and tribulations of her breastfeeding journey, both with her first born, and then with Willis, her second child, also born at home (but this time, head down). Even now, as she reflects on her 12 years old story, the emotions run high. Oftentimes birth is a breeze compared to the breastfeeding challenges that some are met with. Michelle’s story is a testament to this.

Also discussed in this episode:

* importance of good relationship with midwife

* holding boundaries

* meconium

* Maggie Banks’ books - Homebirth Bound & Breech Birth Woman Wise

* partially torn cord with birth of head

* consuming placenta

* donor breast milk

* La Leche League support

* supplemental nursing system

* water birth

* sibling at birth

It was the following Suzanne Arms quote, that inspired my guest today, Sharon Robinson, to become a midwife:

“If we are to create a nonviolent world where respect and kindness replace fear and hatred, we must begin with how we treat each other at the beginning of life, for that is where our deepest patterns are set. From these roots grow fear and alienation, or love and trust.”

As a new grad, Sharon left her home in the US to practice midwifery in NZ because of our “gold standard” midwifery care. However, she was met with challenges - hierarchies, power-plays, professional jealousy, over-medicalisation - that stifled her ability to practice where and how she wanted to, and in the ways that she knew women deserved.

Sharon shares with us some of the trials and tribulations she has faced throughout her personal and professional life, including childhood abuse at the hands of her father, a mastectomy for breast cancer 10 years ago, and then, last year, being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. We discuss what the role of a midwife is, how the way a woman is treated in birth matters a lot more than her mode of birth, and what birth and midwifery are like in different parts of the world.

Also discussed in this episode:

* Creating birth plans

* Stillbirth

* Deep grief versus trauma

* Abusive and fraudulent maternity ‘care’ in South Africa

* Rights in birth

* Informed decision making and consent

* Post dates

* Induction of labour

* Differing roles of midwives and obstetricians

* Defensive, risk-centric practice

* Home birth midwifery

* Collegial support from like-minded midwives

Check out Sharon’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/sharonrobinson.midwife

Find some awesome videos that Sharon has created on her YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sharonrobinsonmidwife516

Become a part of the Wise Women Network NZ - a global (despite the name) Facebook group for birth workers and birth-passionate consumers who are seeking a reclamation of empowered, undisturbed, physiological birth, supported by wise woman midwives: https://www.facebook.com/groups/538842372367843

Follow my (Carla’s) Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/healing.birth/

Check out my website here: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/

Email me [email protected] if you have a story that you believe is a good fit for my podcast and that you’re keen to share

You can also watch this episode, and others, on my Healing Birth YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@healingbirth

Millie’s father passed away just prior to her first pregnancy. She was consumed by grief and had no capacity to take birth preparation on board. Just shy of 42 weeks pregnant, Millie agreed to an induction and a sequence of disempowering, sometimes traumatising, events played out, including a 3rd degree tear which required 2.5 hours of surgical repair, separating her from her newborn at this critical time.

Now, 6 weeks postpartum with her second baby, Millie has quite a different story to share of pregnancy and birth. Encouraged by her midwife, Millie chose a home birth this time, and she did the inner work necessary to set herself up for a vastly different, very empowering, experience.

Tune in to hear all about the self work that’s required to honour the need for a healing birth. Millie shares all of her top tips and invaluable resources.

Also discussed in this episode:

* ARM/Syntocinon

* TENS

* Unconsented student midwife involvement

* FSE

* Cervical lip - told not to push

* Painful catheterisation

* Fetal heart decelerations

* PPH

* haematoma

* physical trauma

* Soulful Birth course

* Acupuncture

* 40 minute physiological 3rd stage

* Journaling

Learn more about my (Carla’s) Soulful Birth course here: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/soulfulbirthgroup

Or there is the option to do a personalised Soulful Birth For You course with me, 1:1. Check out the details here: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/soulfulbirthforyou

Candice, a midwife, recently gave birth to her second baby. We worked together during her pregnancy, helping her to unpack the story of her first birth and to prepare for a different experience this time around. Mildred’s birth had been shockingly painful for Candice, and she exhaustedly made the call to abandon her home birth plans in order to have an epidural in hospital. This left her with feelings of shame and self doubt, especially given she was a midwife. But doing the self-work required to unravel her traumatic experience and find compassion for how she had coped, enabled Candice to manage another very painful posterior labour in an entirely different way.

Candice’s story highlights our undeniable mind-body connection and its very real impacts on how we birth. When we enter labour with unhealed traumas and experience the inevitable loss of control that giving birth entails, many, like Candice, experience this as hugely triggering. Tune in to Candice’s vulnerable share about how she worked through her fears to ready herself, as best she could, for a beautiful and empowering home birth.

Also discussed in this episode:

* Posterior labour - direct OP birth

* Long early labour

* Nitrous oxide - gas & air (at home birth)

* Ventouse birth

* Second degree tear

* Effects of childhood trauma on birth

* Difficulties bonding with baby

* Work with me - Havening, Unravelling Your Trauma session, Planning Your Healing Birth session, Soulful Birth online course

* Journal prompts and guided meditation

* Tools for managing fears (especially around pain) in labour

* Affirmations

* Water birth

* Self vaginal exam

* Requesting a managed 3rd stage an hour postpartum

* Tandem feeding

Follow Candice on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/villagebirthnz/

Learn more about healing with me (Carla) here: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/healing

And learn more about my online Soulful Birth (holistic birth & postpartum preparation) course here: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/soulfulbirthgroup

When Nathalie got married in her 20s, she and her husband were set on a life without children. They had met in an ashram in India, studying Vedanta philosophy, and were of the view that parenthood was a distraction from the spiritual path. But some years into their marriage, Nathalie developed a growing, undeniable urge to become a Mother.

With her biological clock ticking, and a marriage where needs were no longer aligned, Nathalie and her husband separated. He returned to NZ, and she went on a wild journey of self discovery, delving into the more feminine aspects of her nature, and doing her all to call in the man who would father her children.

As I talk to Nathalie today, her boy Sage, now 7 weeks old, is being cared for by his Dad, Ivan, in their LA apartment. She shares with me about the challenges she faced, and preparations she undertook, to achieve a positive and rewarding birth experience. Find out how her childless ex-husband came to be the one who enthusiastically encouraged Nathalie to explore home birth, and suggested that she contact me for guidance around achieving that. It’s quite the story!

Also discussed in this episode:

* Breast reduction surgery and its impact on milk production

* Donor milk, low supply, supplemental nursing system, triple feeding

* Home birth obstetrician

* Fears of going post-dates. ‘The labor salad’ & castor oil smoothie

* Chinese medicine - Nathalie is an acupuncturist

* Denial/suppression of feminine aspects of self - healing the guilt and shame of being a woman

* Dr Sarah Buckley’s work

* Bed-sharing

* Positive impacts of home birth on postpartum

Nathalie worked with me (Carla) via both my 1:1 and Group Soulful Birth (holistic birth and postpartum preparation) options. For more information on these, head to this webpage: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/birthprep

Check out Nathalie’s work here: https://nathalievitality.com/

For someone who, like so many out there, had been under the illusion that their hideous cesarean births were ‘just the way birth was’ and not justifiably classified as traumatic, Kiki, having just birthed her third baby at home, has quite the story to tell! She and her husband, Adam, share about initially being under the veil of disempowering conditioning, and the journey they went on to achieve an undisturbed home birth just 6 weeks ago.

Kiki’s is a powerful story of courage and self-determination. The system had her labelled as ‘high risk’ due to multiple factors that Kiki came to see were not based on good evidence, didn’t align with what she instinctively knew, and were tools in the patriarchal birth machine, designed to keep her scared and under the control of the system. Once she learnt that she was rightfully the one behind the steering wheel, Kiki stood in her power and readied herself for the birth that she and her baby needed and deserved.

I had the honour of being a part of Kiki’s pregnancy journey, helping her to learn the truth about her earlier births, and sourcing the tools, understandings and wise woman sisterhood that she needed in order to take radical responsibility for the way her birth would unfold. At almost 39 weeks of pregnancy, her midwife dropped her, afraid of Kiki’s uncompromising approach to planning her birth. This turned out to be an absolute blessing, opening the door for some incredible midwives to rally around Kiki, supporting her right to birth her way.

Kiki now seeks to pay it forward. She has found her voice and has a fire in her belly, and she’s determined to do all she can to tear down the patriarchal structures that keep birthing women from accessing their power in the wondrous rite of passage that birth is. 

Also discussed in this episode:

* NFP ‘The Village NZ’

* Australian maternity system - no continuity of care

* Artificial rupture of membranes - meconium

* Syntocinon augmentation

* Epidural 

* Crash c section under GA

* Lack of initial bond with baby

* Gestational diabetes

* Inaccurate ultrasound scans

* ‘Advanced maternal age’ (41 years)

* VBAC

* Detailed birth plans

* Responsibilities 

* Soulful Birth course

* Freebirth

* Doula

* ‘Unravelling Your Trauma’ session with Healing Birth Practitioner trainee

* Born at Home and Birth Time films

* Sibling at birth

Join the Wise Women Network NZ Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/538842372367843

Check out The Village NZ: https://thevillagenz.org/

Contact Michelle if you’re a birth worker who is interested in becoming a part of the ‘Authentic Midwifery - Wise Women Collective’ - email her on [email protected]. Or connect with her via her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MichelleandIzzy

Join my (Carla’s) Soulful Birth course: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/soulfulbirthgroup

Look into my Healing Birth Practitioner Training: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/hb-practitioner-training

Nell was one of a number of wonderful, and sorely needed, home birth midwives who was mandated out of her job when the Covid epidemic swept the world. When she was legally allowed to re-enter her profession, she chose not to, instead asking the Midwifery Council to remove her from the register altogether. 

Nell had not lost her passion for supporting women to birth their babies, their way, but she had lost trust in the professional midwifery bodies to enable her to work as a midwife, in the truest sense of the word. Instead, Nell became a sovereign birth keeper, perhaps better known as a doula, and focuses on working with families who are seeking out home birth or free birth. 

In this podcast episode we are two friends, two former midwives, two women who know that birth belongs with women, and that true midwifery is an endangered profession, discussing the in-and-outs of what this all means.

Also discussed in this episode:

* NZ maternity care model

* what is ‘true midwifery’?

* impacts of Covid lockdowns and mandates on birthing families

* doula support for partners at birth

* mind-body connection - impacts of birth place and birth companions

Check out Nell’s website: https://nurturingmamas.co.nz/

Or follow Nell on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nurturing_mamas22

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nurturingmamasnz

Check out my (Carla’s) webpage on Healing Birth Practitioner Training: https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/hb-practitioner-training

Clancy is an Australian based birth worker and mother of three. Although she had planned to birth her first baby at home, instead she ended up with a traumatic hospital birth experience. 

In this podcast episode Clancy shares with us the terrain she has traversed in the 8 ½ years since Louie’s birth, including an early loss experience followed by a four years long journey to conceive her next baby. She talks about the solo bush retreat she went on for 4 nights with just water and a tarp, a life-changing ceremonial undertaking that enabled her to drop into full trust when she became pregnant again. This time she had a wild pregnancy and free birth, an incredibly healing experience despite the fact that Clancy was really sick when she went into labour! And it was not to be her last birth either… she found herself unexpectedly pregnant when Opal was 9 months old.

Clancy also shares about her doula work and why she no longer attends births within the system, as well as the role she plays in supporting others to heal after a traumatic birth. I’d been looking forward to talking with Clancy for some time, and now I’m excited to get to share her story and her wisdom with you.

Also discussed:

Follow Clancy on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/womancraftway/