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By Margo Blackstone
4.8
3232 ratings
The podcast currently has 56 episodes available.
In this episode of ‘Midwifery for the People,’ I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicole Morales, a home birth midwife based in San Diego, California. Nicole shares insights from her diverse background, which includes teaching, co-authoring books on midwifery, and training others in breech birth techniques. She discusses the various roles and internal conflicts midwives face while emphasizing the importance of storytelling, nervous system work, and the evolving nature of midwifery education. The episode delves into the complexities of practicing midwifery today and offers perspectives on how to navigate the ideological and practical challenges that midwives encounter. Below I’ll include the caption quote of hers that we discuss in the episode, and that inspired me to ask her to come on the show.
“This question, who are you, gets asked by the universe not just amidst birthing babies or when we are faced by challenges in parenting, it is also asked of us birth workers after challenging births and overwhelming experiences. It gets asked of us during the emotions of both grief and triumph.
I have been many midwives. I have been the trust birth midwife. I’ve been at births where some might call me the medwife. I have emulated other midwives. I have been the burnt out midwife and the exhilarated midwife. I have felt I was even several of those midwives all at once. I have also come out of births and arrived in what I call midwife purgatory, awaiting my sentencing of how someone feels about me and about their birth.
I have awaited my sentencing of my inner critic after a birth, vowing to never make a certain decision or put myself in a certain position again, and I have broken that rule and cared for a family similarly again, but from a completely different perspective. In all the seasons of midwifery, I continue to deeply trust birth.” – Nicole Morales
You can find Nicole at restorybirthwork.com and on IG at @nicolemoralesmidwife
00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction
Wowee wow wow I have gotten to talk so some cool people lately on the podcast. This week I have Mel from the Great Birth Rebellion Podcast on and we really get into some good stuff. I invited her on after I saw the clip that the birth world was resharing like crazy, where some official looking Australian folks were talking about limiting homebirth access (or so it sounded) to ultra low risk women, which is a pretty small percent of women. It all sounded very Handmaid’s Tale and I asked Mel if she could come help us north american folsk understand what’s going on and also learn more about the state of midwifery in Australia in general.
I love that Mel and I have pretty different ideas of “how” we can get to the same place with women and midwives having autonomy and power, etc, etc. She is working in the system. I’m working outside any systems. And yet we have a lovely chat, and I think there is a lot of richness because of the differences.
We talk educational pathways, how to find hope for the future of birth and midwifery, regulations, advocacy and so much more. Also be sure to check out The Convergence of Rebellious Midwives here and more of Mel’s awesome work here.
So have a listen and tell me what stood out for you or what you took away!
I was so blessed to record this conversation with Hannah Penaluna that was a long time coming! She is an experienced midwife who moved from state controlled midwifery landscape of Australia to the wild west (ok she is in the south but still) of Georgia, an unregulated state in the U.S. The episode delves into her journey, exploring her midwifery practice in rural Australia, how vaccine mandates led to her termination under disciplinary action for non compliance there, and her transition to home birth midwifery in the U.S.
Her experience in both of these locations and versions of midwifery help shed a lot of light and nuance on the regulatory challenges we are facing as midwives globally. This is a conversation between two unlicensed midwives who stand fof midwifery autonomy, and yet, we definitely also talk about the disturbing trend of unskilled unlicensed midwives or midwife adjacent practitioners cropping up in communities. Our conversation focuses in on humility, continuous learning, and accountability in midwifery, especially when we are working outside the system.
Listen if for some genuine midwifery wisdom and a fresh take on some of these old conversations that trend towards being too black and white.
This episode is SO MUCH FUN. I have really enjoyed stepping out of the normal birth circles and talking about birth with “non-birthy” people lately. The same old conversations are tiring and frankly boring. So this episode is an interview Jake and I did on Mother’s Day for the spiritual community called Aldea that I have been a part of since moving to Tucson. He asked me so many great questions about birth and spirituality, and the lessons I’ve gleaned, and hopefully you’ll enjoy hearing a different perspective and different stories than usual from me
You can check Aldea out at https://www.aldeaspiritualcommunity.org/
In this episode of Midwifery for the People, I’m sharing a recording of an interview where Kristen Nagle of the Reclaiming Birth Conference asked me about my journey into radical midwifery! Different things come out when different people ask me questions, so this was a lot of fun
I chat about my background in women’s and gender studies, my shift from studying domestic violence policy to becoming a midwife, and then the early years of apprenticing with Maryn. The conversation touches on the importance of community and autonomy in birth, the challenges of navigating midwifery regulations, and the impact of real-life connections and experiences in birth work. I definitely encourages you to check out the upcoming Reclaiming Birth Conference in London, Ontario (I might be there as a speaker!), where you can be surrounded and inspired by like-minded women.
https://www.reclaimingbirthconference.com/
In this episode of Midwifery for the People I have a quick chat with doula Elisha Anderson about her experience trying to accept state medical care funds for her doula services in Oregon. She had reached out to me about midwifery school and shared a little about her experience, and I invited to come on and share more fully on the podcast because I think this topic is SO IMPORTANT. I am not professing to have the answers, but I do know that inviting the government into birth (through licensing or insurance) is not going to ultimately help women reclaim their power and sovereignty in birth.
Find Elisha at https://medicinalmom.company.site/
On this episode I wanted to share a reading from our book Indie Birth: A Story of Radical Birth Love, and in keeping with the recent theme, I’m sharing the complete story of my first miscarriage. This is one of the most “popular” pieces of content I’ve ever created. I wrote it in 2013 when there were almost zero stories like this available. Even now, there aren’t many, especially from the perspective of a midwife. For that reason, and to honor my own experience (I was so longing to own my own birth story) I wrote this. I have never read it out loud, and it was more emotional for me than I anticipated, so pardon my sniffles.
In this episode of ‘Midwifery for the People,’ host Margo Blackstone shares deeply personal experiences exploring her evolving relationship with death, both in her personal life and professional work as a midwife. She reflects on the profound impact of attending a birth where a baby unexpectedly died, which contributed to her first panic attack and a journey into understanding her fears related to death and leaving her children behind. Margo discusses the importance of confronting and understanding one’s relationship with death for birth workers and society at large. She emphasizes the need for a regulated nervous system in the birth work environment, acknowledging the inherent risks of childbirth.
Join Margo on this exploratory first part of a series on death and navigating our relationship to it as birth workers. If we want to shift the cultural narrative so that we honor birth as a right of passage, we will also need to reimagine death as a right of passage. The Western medical perspective is that death is the ultimate defeat. That often means there is someone or something to blame. On our quest to eliminate death from the pregnancy and birth continuum (which is ultimately the aim of “evidence based midwifery” and medicine) what do we lose? Is this the right goal? Or do we need to ask different questions to come up with different solutions for living and birthing in a sacred way?
In this candid episode, Margo discusses her spiritual journey and how it intersects with her work at Indie Birth. She discusses her shift away from conventional religion towards a more earth-based spirituality that embraces elements from different practices such as earth prayers, shamanic journeying, and tarot. These approaches provide a crucial context for understanding the spiritual dimensions of birth and womanhood, challenging the mainstream, evidence-based, and black-and-white paradigms dominating midwifery. Margo also talks about how incorporating these spiritual practices into her everyday life enhances her personal and professional growth. She encourages aspiring midwives and doulas to explore their spiritual dimensions and integrate them into their practices to provide holistic and deeply connected care.
The podcast currently has 56 episodes available.
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