Welcome to Season 10, Episode 5 of the She Births® Podcast. 

Today, I talk with the pioneer, author and founder of Active Birth, Janet Balaskas.

If you have done She Births®, you will have heard me say how essential it is to understand and even criminal to not include active birthing in birth education.

Janet began her work as a pioneering birth educator and author in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, she founded the Active Birth Movement and published the Active Birth Manifesto. To this day, Janet is a leading voice in the global campaign to transform birthing practices.

Her innovative ideas have spread throughout the world, inspiring parents, birth educators, yoga teachers, midwives, obstetricians, and doulas. She has even created new designs for birthing centres.

She has published multiple books and a film. Her Active Birth Centre was founded in the early 1980s in London, England, and continues to this day. 

It was an honour to have Janet. You can discover more about her at

https://www.activebirthcentre.com/

Our conversation covers the origins of active birthing.

We discuss Janet's personal birthing experiences, the evolution of childbirth practices, and the importance of understanding the physiological processes involved in labour. 

Janet emphasises the significance of gravity, hormonal interactions, and the role of fear in childbirth while also highlighting the benefits of yoga as a preparation tool for expectant mothers. 

The conversation delves into the need for informed consent and the empowerment of women in their birthing choices. 

We chat about the profound spiritual experience of birth, emphasizing the importance of presence and surrender. We highlight the evolving role of partners in the birthing process, advocating for their active participation and emotional connection with the baby. 

We discuss the Active Birth Movement, detailing its revolutionary impact on birthing practices and environments. 

Finally, we conclude with reflections on motherhood, matrescence, and the essential qualities of nurturing and love in parenting.

I hope this podcast has been inspiring and empowering for you and helps you create your own beautiful birth.

Remember, you can learn and embody the power of active birthing in all of our She Births® Courses online or face-to-face. Prepare today at the website shebirths.com

Our sponsor today is the amazing MILK LABEL. www.itsmilklabel.com⁠ 

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Make sure you are wearing MILK by using code SHEBIRTHSLOVES at the checkout to get 15% off any purchase. Simply go to www.itsmilklabel.com 

Welcome to Season 10 Episode 4 of the She Births® Podcast.

Today I talk with She Births mum and opera singer Emily Edmonds. 

Emily is a mezzo-soprano who has worked extensively overseas. She is sought out for her interpretations of both contemporary and traditional work. She has worked with the Royal Ballet and Opera, Komische Oper Berlin, Opera Philadelphia. This year she is making an exciting Opera Australia debut, in the role of Cinderella. I can’t wait to go and see it this Summer in Sydney.

Our conversation touches on the raw, transformative, and often uncomfortable experiences of matrescence. And how we enter that portal of change, from maiden to mother, even before we conceive.

We talk about how matrescence can encompass an entire identity shift. Emily shares how her birth was powerful, connecting her to nature. 

We discuss how women have been gaslit and often underestimate their capacity to handle the challenges of motherhood. The journey of motherhood is unique for each individual, shaped by personal experiences. There is actually a gift in juggling work and motherhood and a reciprocal enrichment I believe.

It's so important to discuss taboo truths about motherhood. We also chat about

Stay tuned to the very end when we summarise both birth and matrescence - taboos and truths - into 3 words. Words that I hope stay with you and offer you the hope and power for your own process.

Remember you can join a Soul Mama Circle and be within the safe container for matrescence and of course a She Births® Course to prepare for your beautiful birth either online or face to face via our website shebirths.com

Welcome to Season 10 Episode 3 of the She Births® Podcast. This is our Taboos and Truths season.

And today holds a bit of both, like our previous episodes. 

In episode 1 and 2 we covered conversations about our pelvic floor and our boobs. Two essential parts of the body as we birth are often filled with taboo, shame and confusion. So I hope those previous chats have helped bring more awareness, truth, and empowerment into your field in relationship with your body and mind.

Today I talk with Sharon Settecasse, a mother and community advocate from Better Births Illawarra @betterbirthsillawarra 

Sharon is a space holder whose work is rooted in reclaiming and healing self, community and culture. Her ancestry is Argentinean and her story and responsibilities are now interwoven on Dharawal Country, south of Sydney. 

Sharon’s work involves visioning collective liberation, connecting with each other, and dismantling colonial and patriarchal systems while honoring the intergenerational strength and collective resilience of marginalised peoples.

Sharon is the president and co-founder of Better Births Illawarra, a fierce grassroots community advocacy organisation committed to ensuring every mother and birthing parent has access to an empowered birth through respectful, just and humane maternity care.

In my chat today, we get to celebrate something rare yet powerful—triumph in the birthing space. For decades, we've seen choices taken away from women and their families, interventions on the rise, and far too much trauma as well. But amidst all this, a group of incredible women from the Wollongong area have been fighting for better births, not just for themselves, but for all of us.

I'm honored to be joined by one of these trailblazers, Sharon as she shares with us their recent victory in expanding the Midwifery Group Practice at Wollongong Hospital’s Birth Centre, and how this win is not just a triumph for the Illawarra, but represents even more in terms of the power of community, advocacy and the powerful ripple effects of writing to our ministers and recent birth trauma inquiry.

I have spoken about it before but we'll dive into the groundbreaking parliamentary inquiry into birth trauma—a victory that’s already igniting action in New Zealand, the UK, and beyond. Truths, when they are spoken and come into the open work like wildfire—each triumph fuels the next. Truths and healing on a collective level is one of the most powerful ways we can help ourselves and our sisters and children. Speaking the truth, breaking taboo, releasing pain and shame is actually helping us move toward a world where birth is safer, more empowering, and filled with choice.

I hope this conversation inspires you as much as it has inspired me. Let's celebrate these victories and continue pushing for change together!

I hope wherever you are on your journey as a parent or birthworker that this podcast helps to have a beautiful birth and create more beautiful births for others.

Please share with a friend, review and subscribe as it really helps us deliver more podcasts to more families. 

You can find Sharon and her crew @betterbirthsillawarra 

Why breastfeeding is hard & how to make it easier

Welcome to Season 10 Episode 2 of the She Births® Podcast. Today I talk with midwife and lactation consultant, Katie James from The Midwives' Cauldron & The Feeding Couch. 

Katie has been a midwife for over 23 years and Lactation Consultant for more than 17 years. She teaches midwives, doctors and doulas; as well as thousands of pregnant women and parents.

Together we talk about how amazing breastfeeding, lactation and human milk really is. And, we talk about the most common issues women have with feeding and why it is so goddamn hard!

There can be so much grief with our feeding journeys for so many women. I recently did a podcast for Katie's show and shared my journey with her and wow…it brought up so much maternal guilt and shame. It was really uncomfortable and felt so important. I really love what she is doing at The Feeding Couch by sharing stories, just like we do birth stories.

If you have finished your journey or if you are about to begin your feeding journey, I am sure that you will experience at least one of the issues we discuss. I promise you it will help to be informed now. Make sure you share this with all of your pregnant or wanna be pregnant friends and partners too.

Did you know that by the time a baby is 6 months old, more than 80% of mothers have ended their breastfeeding journey and this is not b/c they want to stop

Together we talk about the most common issue women stop, nipple pain and trauma plus all the other challenges. How to avoid them all and say no to the extremely common non evidence based forceful techniques and mother baby separation that happens every day in hospitals.

I really hope wherever you are on your journey with feeding that this podcast helps to alleviate any of the maternal guilt and shame and allows you to celebrate how amazing we all are in whatever we are able to do.

Please share with a friend, review and subscribe as it really helps us deliver more podcasts to more families. You can find Katie at her website. katiejames.site on instagram @katiejameslactation @themidwivescauldron and @thefeedingcouchpodcast.

How you can take ownership of your pelvic health with special guest Anna Scammell.

Welcome to our first episode of Season 10 of the She Births® Podcast.
This season is all about Taboos and Truths.
We have got some really juicy conversations for you about all things us women go through. Todays episode is about prolapse and your pelvic floor. 
I talk with women’s health physiotherapist and continence specialist Anna Scammell from The Whole Mother. She is also a She Births® mum, of course.

There are a lot of myths and fear mongering about birth and pelvic floors that we need to address.
And, there are many things we can do to take care of this sacred and extremely important part of the body, if you know how. 

We cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time and honestly I felt like a women’s health physio after the interview! 

This is definitely a pod to share with your friends no matter what age they are because pelvic health matters at every age and will change with your stage of life, as I share personally about perimenopause too. 

Knowing how a women’s health physio works could be key to helping someone make an appointment or detect an issue that is arising, be free of embarrassment and pain.
50% of us will experience POP, pelvic organ prolapse after giving birth or later in our lifetime. So please share the love.

At She Births® we have always recommended that every woman work with a women’s health physiotherapist.
It is so important to get individualised care, assessments and support. 

I believe a women’s health physio is something that should be compulsory and paid for by our government - as it is in France.

Today we talk about the most common issues that arise and of course really unpack POP or pelvic organ prolapse, fears, preventions and solutions.
We discuss:

Please share with a friend, review and subscribe as it really helps us deliver more podcasts to more families.
You can find Anna and her online pregnancy and postpartum programs, that I have also contributed to, at website: www.thewholemother.com and IG: @the.whole.mother

You might notice I created a new introduction for our Podcast this season as I will be sharing not only interviews with experts and of course more birth stories but also stories of matresence - the unravelling and becoming journey of motherhood.
Look forward to sharing more with you soon.
Nadine xx

Links:

Website https://shebirths.com/

Weekend courses

https://shebirths.com/weekend-birthing-classes/

Online course's:

https://shebirths.com/online-birthing-classes/

Insta https://www.instagram.com/shebirths/

Today's episode is extra special because it is a conversation with my beautiful son Leroy, who is now 22 years old. 

We start our dialogue about what constitutes a good relationship and then explore what fosters that. 

We ended up going into some deep dives about education and values at home, the importance of community and teachers, the importance of self expression and freedom that we give to our children.

We discuss in reflection the priorities that I have endeavored to bring into my parenting with Leroy - to see if he also thinks they were a good idea. 

We were going to talk about intuition, and Leroy mentions intuition a couple of times, but these topics seemed a lot more relevant to you and our audience.

I will have more conversations with Leroy I hope on the show because a parent child relationship is always in the process of change and growth. As he talked about adolescence and his experience of identity changes, it felt so relevant to our new understanding of matresence and patresence (and even menopause and andropause too).

I wonder if we can, as a society, be more compassionate for all of these phases of change. Then, we can also connect and feel the privilege of having so many deep feelings during these times—as Leroy explains, he even misses them. 

We chat about my regrets as a mum and the regulation of the nervous system. Plus, the latest research and discoveries about our awakened brain, the protection of spirituality, connection, and perspective in our lives. As you will hear, he is a very intelligent and very insightful young man, if I do say so myself.

He is my greatest gift, and I couldn't be prouder. But we certainly are not perfect, as you will hear in the conversation. (There is some swearing, so only for adult ears.)

I hope you have a few laughs, and I look forward to sharing more conversations with you next season, where we're going to launch with an amazing chat about boobs and feeding our babies. 

It is winter here in Australia, so it feels like time to be a little quieter and more inward.

I'm finding my energy is deeply creative right now, during the cooler months. As I dive into the finer details of editing my book, I just changed the title. Funnily enough, I was reminded that this was the title I had five years ago when I first sparked the idea.

Sending lots of love to you and your tribe. Please help others by sharing or reviewing this episode - as we'd love to hear from you, too.

What touched you and what do you want to hear more of?

Have a beautiful birth, enjoy your parenting and live a life you love.

Nadine xx

Links:

Website https://shebirths.com/

Weekend courses

https://shebirths.com/weekend-birthing-classes/

Online course's:

https://shebirths.com/online-birthing-classes/

Insta https://www.instagram.com/shebirths/

Hannah’s successful VBAC after 2 c-sections

In a world where VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section) seems like an insurmountable challenge, Hannah took a leap of faith. 

Listen in as we explore her journey, filled with lots of learning, determination, resilience, and the unwavering belief in her instinct and intuition.

Today I am talking with She Births mum Hannah Rodger @hannahrodgerchaimama about her 3 birth experiences. Across those stories, there are 2 hospital births, 2 c-sections and 1 Homebirth transfer.

We allow space for Hannah to really harvest her birth experiences. To understand the growth and journey, the lessons and the gifts. 

The gift of awe really stood out to me, as you will see in her photos, too. And awe cannot be underestimated in life. Awe is profound and brings with it a deep sense of belonging to the expansive universe. It can change and heal us. According to some researchers, awe is even an antidote to loneliness. 

On socials, you can enjoy the wonderful birth photos taken by She Births mum, Tessa Tran @iamtessatran, who has also shared her amazing birth story with us on the show.

This podcast is an epic unfolding, like our motherhood journeys are, and it seems like Hannah is never going to achieve her natural birth, even up to the last minute when she starts to feel her c-section scar.

Stay tuned to the end, where Hannah shares her intuition across the birth experiences. I know you will find it insightful and probably resonate deeply.

I hope you enjoy it.

Nadine xx

Links

https://www.instagram.com/shebirths/

https://www.facebook.com/shebirths

https://shebirths.com/

How intuition expands talent, creativity, confidence & happiness

I believe this program, with its teachings and the power and integrity of the organisation behind it, has the ability to change the world and, as my guests say, contribute to world peace. The documentary and the Australian research are also going to be amazingly powerful.

So, let me begin by asking you a few questions…

Do you believe in intuition? How often do you access it?

Are your children more intuitive than you?

Do you think it is important for them to harness their intuition?

Today, I have Mala Sundareshan, International Program Director of the Intuition Process, with me. Mala works for the global Art of Living non-profit organisation founded by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and is currently leading the teacher training and rollout of the Intuition Process worldwide.

I also have a dear friend and documentary filmmaker, Michael Collins. Michael is a four-time Emmy-nominated director and producer and the founder of Thoughtful Robot Productions. His films are highly impactful, have been screened globally over the last two decades, and have even changed laws!

Mala and Michael share their experiences and insights into following and teaching children aged 5 to 18 techniques to harness what seems like magic or superpowers.

The Art of Living says the Intuition Process wakes up our latent intuitive potentials through specific techniques of brain activation and meditation. Allowing children to access, cultivate and maintain their inherent intuitive capacity.

“Intuition is the faculty of knowing or understanding something without the need for conscious reasoning or proof. As a culture, we have learned to follow our rational thinking as we go through our daily lives. We pay little attention to our inner voice, our gut feeling, that instinctual form that goes beyond our reasoning layers.

We were all born with a naturally intuitive ability to perceive beyond our senses. As we grow, our culture and education obstruct us from developing our capacity to access our inner potential, especially when we need them most.”

Today, we talk about:

This will create a revolution in not only Artificial Intelligence but Absolute Intelligence!

I hope you enjoy.

Nadine x

#intiution #shebirths #podcast #newepisode

Links

https://thoughtfulrobot.com

https://www.artofliving.org/au-en/intuition-process

https://www.unsw.edu.au/staff/joel-pearson

Hello, and thank you for joining me for today's podcast. 

Whether you're pregnant, you've got a baby in your arms or a child at school. Whether you are a birth worker or an allied health practitioner, you will find this conversation very interesting. 

I believe it is important to have conversations with people who think differently, especially those who are curious. People who speak their minds and research outside the mainstream narrative. 

Dr. Stuart Fischbein has been an obstetrician in America since 1986. After working in the standard medical model at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, California, he now practices community-based birthing. He works directly with home birthing midwives through www.birthinginstincts.com to offer hope for those women who prefer and respect a natural birthing environment and cannot find supportive practitioners for VBAC, twin and breech deliveries. He is an outspoken advocate of informed decision-making, the midwifery model of care and human rights in childbirth, receiving the 2016 “Most Audacious” award from HRIC. 

He has spoken internationally on breech and vaginal birth after cesarean section. He has appeared in many documentaries, including: “More Business of Being Born”, “Happy Healthy Child”, “Reducing Infant Mortality”, “Heads Up: The Disappearing Art of Vaginal Breech Delivery” and multiple YouTube videos discussing birth choices and respect for patient autonomy and decision making.

He has the goals of improving collaboration amongst the differing professions in the birthing world and the re-teaching of the core skills, such as breech and twin vaginal birth, that make the speciality of obstetrics unique.

One of the most challenging conversations I have during She Births is informing people that your body is your own and only you can decide what to do with it, even during pregnancy and birth.

The second uncomfortable truth is that so-called evidence-based care is a term that gets bandied about a lot in search of status and prestige and power, but in truth, health care varies from practitioner to practitioner. From hospital to hospital. From country to country.

In today's conversation, Dr Stu and I explore how the medico-industrial complex is more likely to be influencing the policy and therefore the suggestions, trickling down into advice and maybe even coercion that is given to us during pregnancy and birth. 

Different policies flow down to us as consumers from the private companies that own the hospital as to whether we are allowed to birth in water for example. An insurance company that covers an OB may be the determining factor as to whether you are offered a VBAC. 

We need to do our own research and choose. Just because someone says so, does not make it so for you. 

Right now we are living in an age of disinformation and misinformation, and as the powers that be seem to continually try to confuse us and divide us. We're going to have to come back to ourselves. 

We talk about

And finally my favourite part is seeing this system vs consumers as a Star Wars battle. We also lean into a vision that has hope.

I hope you enjoy today’s conversation with Dr. Stu - sending lots of love across the ethers to you and your family.

If you feel passionate like I do, and you want to help families have better births then reach out and join me in our upcoming training. Become a wise woman of birth and help others find their own way. I also will be holding a Wise Woman Retreat towards the end of the year.

What happens to your brain as a mother or father?

Welcome, dear listeners, to 2024. I am so happy that this season of the podcast has decided to be about intuition. It is one of my favourite topics, and I believe it is also one of our superpowers as mums. 

This season I will be exploring intuition and of course other topics with professionals and parents around the world. 

Today's podcast is with Rocio Zunini, a neuroscientist with a Ph.D. from the University of Ottawa and a mother of two.

She is the founder of Newborn Parents, which was born out of a fusion of her two passions: the brain and the relationship between parents and their infants. 

She educates parents and professionals about parental brain science so that they can take advantage of the profound brain changes that accompany matrescence and patrescence. 

She is also an advocate for nurturing infant sleep.

She firmly believes that when parents and professionals learn about the power of the parental brain, they can create a path for a lifelong nurturing relationship between families and their babies.

I couldn’t agree more! And birth is the big bang beginning of this relationship.

Today with Rocio we explore the parental brain and the amazing changes that occur across pregnancy, birth and postpartum…And I mean in my experience, when does matrescence ever end? Our children, if we maintain a relationship with them and want to have quality connection then we have to continue adapting and growing. They continue to keep us on our toes.

I'm hoping I might even convince Leroy to come on this season, even though as a philosopher, he doesn’t actually believe in intuition I think it would be fabulous to hear about quarter-life and his 21st birthday experience. Let me know if you would like to hear about that. For me I was so emotional I could hardly give the speech. 

Anyhoo! Today we discuss

I love how brain science reiterates so much of what we practice in our Soul Mama Circles, which start up again in February. 100% of mums say that they loved the process and found it priceless btw.

Also, the wisdom and importance of She Births to utilise both bottom-up and top-down approaches in education.

So I hope that there will be joy in your new year, whenever or wherever you are listening to this podcast.

I love hearing from you. Leave us a review, send us an email and let us know what you think and feel, please.

We have so many exciting things to share this year. My new one-day Masterclass is a hybrid learning program with an online course. It is a one-day live program plus Zoom workshops for Q&A and allows me to include some of my new teachings about intuition, embodiment and matrescence.

Our new She Births® Guide and Educator training is launching again. We have a vision to reach so many more families, but we need your help. If you are passionate about helping restore the sacredness of birth in your community and helping others have beautiful births, then reach out.

Links

Rocio Website

www.newbornparents.net

Weekend and Masterclass dates:

https://shebirths.com/weekend-birthing-classes/events/

Soul Mama Circles

https://shebirths.com/mothers-groups/

Guide and educator training

https://shebirths.com/birth-professionals/

Email

[email protected]