480 episodes
Australian Birth Stories Sophie Walker
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- Kids & Family
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4.9 • 4.2K Ratings
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A Podcast of Mothers' stories of childbirth. Weekly interviews with mothers giving their first hand accounts of child birth in Australia. Designed to help educate and inform first time pregnant women, parents wanting to have better subsequent births and birth enthusiasts who love to hear and tell birth stories. An entertaining and heartfelt resource for pregnancy, labour and delivery and postpartum.
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480 | Sea, MGP, physiological birth, positive birth story, Indigenous, planned postpartum
Sea shared her first three physiological births in episode 304 and today she returns to tell us all about her fourth pregnancy and birth.
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479 Postpartum | Ariane, postpartum psychosis, psychologist, hallucinations, postpartum depression, psychotic depression
Ariane shares her experience with postpartum psychosis. As a psychologist working in child and family services, Ariane was aware of perinatal mental illness but her anxiety prevented her from disclosing her symptoms which included disillusions, hallucinations and suicidal ideation. After a stay in a mother and baby unit, she started seeing a perinatal psychiatrist who saw past her well-presented exterior and diagnosed her with psychotic depression.
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478 | Katie, one baby, plus-size, doula, induction, vaginal birth, PPH
In this episode 478 Katie shares her pregnancy and birth experience as a plus-size woman. She was denied access to midwifery group practice because of her weight and was immediately placed in a high risk model of care.
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477 | Angela, physiological home birth, private midwife, water birth
In this episode Angela shares her incredibly positive first birth - a water birth at home, supported by private midwives. Before she had conceived, Angela spent years learning about birth and discovered that a physiological birth in water was her preference.
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476 | Georgie, four babies, MGP, physiological birth, breastfeeding, surprise breech, breech vaginal birth, DCDA twins, twin vaginal birth without epidural
Georgie details her positive physiological first birth, her second that was a surprise breech (birthed vaginally!) and a DCDA twin pregnancy with confronting fragmented obstetric care.
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475 Postpartum | Arnikka, postpartum, IBCLC, neurodivergence, autism, ADHD, sensory overwhelm
In this absolutely brilliant episode, Arnikka - @sucklebubs - takes us through her life-changing diagnosis of autism and ADHD in her second postpartum
Customer Reviews
The most amazing podcast!
Australian birth stories is the best podcast,Sophie is incredible! Love love love
Beautiful podcast
My favourite podcast by a mile. I adore hearing women’s stories of their births.. and their stories have also served their ancient purpose of informing, inspiring and empowering me for my own births. I absolutely wouldn’t have had the birth experiences I’ve had without this beautiful resource for knowledge sharing and connection.
Became more biased over time
This podcast began as a beautiful sharing of birth stories with something for everyone, but Sophie would do to be aware of her very apparent bias towards “natural” deliveries and home births. For many women this does not eventuate, and whilst it would be wonderful for every birthing person if they had an uneventful vaginal delivery with minimal tearing, no intervention and no drugs, this is not always possible or in fact realistic. Historically foetal and maternal death during pregnancy and birth was very prevalent, and medical intervention does have a place. The vast majority of healthcare providers are coming to work everyday to do their absolute best for their patients and the misinformation and ill-informed opinions shared by the host are, at times, frankly irresponsible. We should not be seeking to fear monger when for many women pregnancy and birth is a very anxious time already. Also there is a lot of anti-termination/pro-life sentiments expressed when story-tellers discuss that they considered termination or were advised that termination is a possibility when they discover their baby has foetal abnormalities. The current statistics are that 1 in 5 Australian women will have a termination at some point in their life. There is already so much stigma surrounding termination. It’s just really gross hearing judgemental comments from the host and story teller about what, for another person, is a completely valid choice and entirely dependant on their life. No one is ever forcing or coercing you to have a termination or a baby. There is a responsibility from healthcare providers to ensure that you know your options and are able to make an informed decision relevant to your personal situation. Anyway, take it back to the 2017 days for more balanced story telling.