The She Births® Podcast

The Birthing Institute
The She Births® Podcast

Inspire your birth, evolve your parenting & live a life you love. Nadine Richardson, Founder of She Births®, hosts a collection of conversations with special guests about beautiful births, connected parenting & healthy living. Ideal for parents, parents-to-be & birth professionals. She Births® is a scientifically verified childbirth education program (BMJ July 2016). Evidence-based & holistic we provide families with knowledge to empower a beautiful birth. She Births® is Face to Face & Online. Download the free She Births® app. Please subscribe & leave us a review. www.shebirths.com

  1. S10 Ep6 Journey of a Midwife - Born on ‘The Farm’

    29 JAN

    S10 Ep6 Journey of a Midwife - Born on ‘The Farm’

    Today I share a conversation with a beautiful mum and midwife, Corina Fitch. She is a midwife of birth and a midwife of matrescence, deeply passionate about both of those things.  In fact, Corina was born into midwifery. She was born in the back of a bus, on The Farm in Tennessee. If you are new to the birth world or just pregnant - The Farm, was founded by Steven and Ina May Gaskin,  It was set up as a commune that just kind of birthed itself. The midwives were self taught and ended up becoming the world's best midwives that we know of. And Ina May is the most famous. She has written many books still in print, the most popular is Spiritual Midwifery, and it's beautiful, such a wonderful collection of stories and such an extraordinary amount of knowledge, not just for midwives, but for pregnant mums and doulas too.  So I hope you enjoy our conversation today. We talk a lot about what The Farm and how it was, how it is now. Their amazing statistics - a c-section rate of 1.4%. We also talk about the importance of matrescence and making that word and mother’s struggles more visible. Want to feel empowered, inspired, and deeply prepared for birth and motherhood? The She Births podcast brings you expert wisdom, real birth stories, and transformative insights to help you navigate pregnancy, childbirth, and beyond with confidence. Subscribe now and join our community of conscious parents creating beautiful beginnings. This podcast is proudly SPONSORED by the amazing @itsmilklabelThe creators of leakproof bras made with ultra soft and stretchy merino fabric. Fast-absorbing and fast-drying. Perfect for your baby feeding journey.MILK is about supporting and empowering mums just like you.Make sure you are wearing MILK by using code SHEBIRTHSLOVES at the checkout to get 15% off any purchase LINKS https://thefarmmidwives.org/ https://motherflytribe.myshopify.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOOBNKYUbXohttps://thefarmcommunity.com/stephen-ina-may-interview-midwifery/

    57 min
  2. S10 Ep5 - Active Birth with Janet Balaskas

    09/12/2024

    S10 Ep5 - Active Birth with Janet Balaskas

    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  Did you know that Milk Label uses only sustainable and natural materials that care for your body, your milk, and your baby. So you can be totally rest assured that there are no plastic fabrics on your skin or near your baby.  Milk has patented their amazing leakproof technology in all their bras and utilise Australian Merino to wick any moisture into a leakproof core, keeping you dry and feeling good all the time. 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

    1h 14m
  3. S10 Ep4 - The great unravelling of Matrescence

    23/10/2024

    S10 Ep4 - The great unravelling of Matrescence

    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 Experiencing a miscarriage before birth Great challenges in postpartum with feeding How creative expression can flourish through the experiences of motherhood How creative identity can be deeply intertwined with motherhood Sensuality and desire  Communication with partners  Finding your voice in postpartum How motherhood is a season, and each moment is temporary Letting go of the idea of 'bouncing back’ with career, not just bodies The process of becoming less afraid is a vital gift of motherhood 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

    1h 24m
  4. S10 Ep 3 Advocating for Trauma-Free Birth Experiences

    04/10/2024

    S10 Ep 3 Advocating for Trauma-Free Birth Experiences

    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

    52 min
  5. S10 EP2. Taboos and Truths - Breastfeeding

    16/08/2024

    S10 EP2. Taboos and Truths - Breastfeeding

    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. Cultural forces and interruptions Low milk supply Tongue ties and lip ties Cracked nipples and how to use nipple shields The importance of skin to skin contact and proper support in the first few hours and first few days Rituals for a gentler approach to weaning 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.

    1h 5m
  6. S10 Ep1: Taboos & Truths - Pelvic Floor

    31/07/2024

    S10 Ep1: Taboos & Truths - Pelvic Floor

    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: How to prepare your pelvic floor for childbirth  The most important things you need to know for better recovery The different types of pelvic organ prolapse - how they typically present in postpartum women? Preventative measures you can take to reduce the risk of pelvic floor issues  Effective rehabilitation techniques for women experiencing pelvic floor dysfunction How mode of delivery (vaginal birth vs. caesarean section) impacts pelvic floor health Tears versus episiotomy Painful sex and the emotional aspect of returning to sex Diastasis and what you can do postpartum to repair abdominal separation  What a truly holistic approach looks like, how critical that is and how we can engage our partners help in recovery 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/

    1h 3m
  7. S9 E6: Creating a great parent-child relationship

    17/06/2024

    S9 E6: Creating a great parent-child relationship

    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. The creative process is a wild one, and I feel really grateful to be in it as grateful as I am almost to being a mum. 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/

    1h 13m
  8. S9E5 How to make ‘high risk’ birth beautiful

    29/04/2024

    S9E5 How to make ‘high risk’ birth beautiful

    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/ #whatworkedforyou #childbirtheducation #shebirths #nadinerichardson #pregnancytips #labourtips #childbirtheducation #pregnancy #childbirth #birth #doula #pregnant #birthdoula #empoweredbirth #birthwithoutfear #birthsupport #postpartum #birthmatters #breastfeeding #childbirtheducator #positivebirth #motherhood #laboranddelivery #doulalife #doulasupport #prenatal #newborn #gentlebirth #pregnantlife

    1h 42m
4.7
out of 5
70 Ratings

About

Inspire your birth, evolve your parenting & live a life you love. Nadine Richardson, Founder of She Births®, hosts a collection of conversations with special guests about beautiful births, connected parenting & healthy living. Ideal for parents, parents-to-be & birth professionals. She Births® is a scientifically verified childbirth education program (BMJ July 2016). Evidence-based & holistic we provide families with knowledge to empower a beautiful birth. She Births® is Face to Face & Online. Download the free She Births® app. Please subscribe & leave us a review. www.shebirths.com

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