Midwifery Wisdom Podcast

Midwifery Wisdom Collective
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Welcome to the Midwifery Wisdom Podcast This podcast is your go-to resource for practical education, thoughtful insights, and relevant conversations tailored to modern midwives. Each week, we bring fresh content and engaging guest speakers to explore key themes in midwifery, including: Advocacy, business, and clinical skills Self-care and professional growth Current issues shaping midwifery today Listen to meaningful stories and essential advice from leading midwives working to elevate care for families across the globe. Gain clarity, encouragement, and actionable guidance to support your business, practice, and personal life. Wherever you are in your journey, the Midwifery Wisdom Podcast is here to empower you. Together, we strive to make midwifery the gold standard of care worldwide.

  1. 5 days ago

    From The Farm to Motherfly with Corina Fitch

    Corina was literally born into midwifery. She came into the world in an old school bus on The Farm — the legendary intentional community in Tennessee founded by Stephen Gaskin and Ina May Gaskin — and grew up surrounded by communal living, the absence of money, and birth as an ordinary, community experience. After years of practicing midwifery across six countries, raising three daughters as a single mother, navigating a nine-year mental health journey, and returning to The Farm as part of a new generation of midwives, she has arrived at something extraordinary: a framework for motherhood that she believes could change everything. This episode is for every midwife who has ever burned out, every mother who has lost herself, and everyone who believes birth work is about so much more than catching babies. In this episode we cover: Growing up on The Farm — communal living, kid herds, no money, and birth as a normal community eventLeaving The Farm at 10, landing in Hollywood Florida, and the culture shock of the "real world"Her first birth on her 21st birthday — and three months apprenticing with Ina May and the Farm midwives that summerGetting licensed in 1999, practicing in Florida, taking students to Honduras, and attending births across six countriesBecoming a mother as a midwife — and how her first postpartum experience shattered every expectation she hadA nine-year mental health journey including depression, anxiety, and eventually a bipolar diagnosis — and the shame of suffering in silence as "the one who knows"The vision for Motherfly — a new archetype for motherhood rooted in self-compassion, creativity, and community rather than martyrdom and supermom mythologyWhat matrescence is, why it matters, and why it should be a household wordReturning to The Farm in 2020 — driving through the Confederate-flag South with her Black daughters, the financial relief, and the racial reckoning of arriving in a predominantly white communityThe onboarding meeting that became a confrontation — and the "Midwives for Black Lives" sign that nobody would respond toHolding Ina May's legacy with nuance — the good, the harm, and the missed opportunityFounding Community Birth and Wellness with three other midwives — and the spontaneous passing of the torch at the Sanctuary SummitThe Motherfly nine-month group coaching container, the Matrescent Circle, and what's coming nextWhy our culture does a so-so job birthing babies and a terrible job birthing mothersResources & Links: 🦋 Learn more about Motherfly: motherflymom.com 📱 Instagram: @motherfly.tribe 🎙️ Corina's podcast: Mother Tongue — Reclaiming Motherhood from the Patriarchy 🏡 Join our Skool community: skool.com/midwiferywisdom 🌿 Birth Center Incubator: https://www.skool.com/birth-center-incubator-4343/about

    From The Farm to Motherfly with Corina Fitch

  2. 29 Jul

    Mother-Assisted Cesarean: Reclaiming Choice with Dr. Koen Deurloo

    In this episode, Augustine sits down with Dr. Koen Deurloo, a Dutch gynecologist at the Diakonessenhuis in Utrecht and the first physician in the Netherlands to perform a maternal-assisted cesarean (MAC) — a technique that lets the birthing parent help lift their own baby from the incision during a planned cesarean. What began as a single patient's request in 2018 has grown into a practice Dr. Deurloo has now performed more than 200 times, and one he freely shares with hospitals around the world. This conversation goes far beyond the surgical technique. Dr. Deurloo talks candidly about the home births of his own two daughters and how that experience shaped his respect for the midwifery model of care, learning to ask "why" instead of overriding a patient's choice, and building one of the most collaborative OB-midwife relationships in the Netherlands — a country where roughly 90% of pregnancies start with midwifery-led care. He shares research on women who request care outside standard guidelines, why the "dead baby card" says more about a provider's own trauma than about safety, and how he trains residents, midwives, and doulas to work from a shared goal instead of competing silos. Dr. Deurloo is also the author of Door de ogen van een gynaecoloog ("Through the Eyes of a Gynecologist"), a collection of 35 stories from his clinical life. Whether you're a physician, midwife, doula, or student, this episode offers a rare, first-hand look at what it looks like when a high-risk hospital system chooses trust and autonomy over rigid protocol — and how that shift actually happened, person by person. In this episode we cover: The story behind the first maternal-assisted cesarean in the Netherlands and how the procedure has evolved since 2018What selection criteria Dr. Deurloo uses for MAC, and why he doesn't offer it routinely to every patientHow the Dutch maternity system integrates first- and second-degree midwives with hospital-based obstetric careDr. Deurloo's research on women who request birth outside clinical guidelines — and what happened to their outcomesReframing the "dead baby card" as a signal of provider trauma, not patient riskHow to build trust between physicians, midwives, and doulas without changing the actual clinical carePractical advice for starting pilot programs and finding your "pioneers" when introducing new practices into a hospital systemResources & Links: 🔗 Follow Koen on Instagram for MAC photo series and behind-the-scenes footage: www.instagram.com/kldloo

    Mother-Assisted Cesarean: Reclaiming Choice with Dr. Koen Deurloo

  3. 22 Jul

    One Fellow's Journey Through Burnout, Betrayal, and Rebuilding with Emmelia Cappelletti

    In this episode, Augustine shares a real one-on-one consult from the very first Midwifery Wisdom Fellowship cohort — a conversation with Emmelia. Emmelia is navigating a question many apprentice and student midwives face: what does a sustainable path in this work actually look like? She's processing betrayal by a preceptor who left her stranded without signed-off skills, wrestling with whether solo practice or a birth center model fits her life, and trying to figure out if she can be both a hands-on provider and a business owner without losing herself — or her family — in the process. Augustine and Emmelia talk through the Dunning-Kruger effect and why that crash in confidence after early competence is actually a sign of real growth. They talk about processing trauma from an unsupportive preceptor relationship, the difference between scarcity and abundance mindset in a competitive field, and why so many birth centers close within a few years while others last for decades. It's an honest look at the tension between calling and capacity — and a reminder that building something sustainable is its own form of midwifery. Emmelia generously gave us permission to share this consult, believing other students and apprentices working through similar struggles might find something useful in it. To learn more about the next cohort of the Midwifery Wisdom Fellowship starting September 1, 2026, visit our website https://www.midwiferywisdomcollective.com/midwifery-wisdom-fellowship-2

  4. 15 Jul

    Pink is for Midwife: Birth Work in Bangladesh with Rafia Islam

    In this episode, Augustine sits down with Rafia Islam, a midwife from Bangladesh with eight years of experience spanning refugee camps, mentorship roles, and one of Dhaka's busiest labor wards. Rafia walks us through her training, her path from data collector to midwife, and what a 12-hour night shift with 13 deliveries actually looks like. The conversation turns to the realities shaping birth in Bangladesh: a cesarean rate as high as 80% in some private hospitals, the financial incentives driving unnecessary surgery, and the coercion many families face in the delivery room. Rafia also shares why midwives are legally barred from home birth in Bangladesh, how the country's neonatal mortality rate has dropped dramatically since 2000, and a harrowing memory of delivering a baby during a hospital fire. This is a candid look at what it means to fight for autonomous, respected midwifery care in a system still learning what a midwife is for — and a reminder that no matter where you practice, the work of holding space for birth looks remarkably the same.

    Pink is for Midwife: Birth Work in Bangladesh with Rafia Islam

  5. 1 Jul

    Seeing Birth Clearly: Birth Photography & Fighting for Women's Choices with Eva Rose

    In this beautiful and powerful episode, host Augustine sits down with Eva Rose — Norwegian birth photographer, doula, advocate, documentarian, and creator of Birth Mood — for a conversation that spans birth rooms, operating theatres, Ethiopian hospitals, and the fragile future of midwifery-led care across the globe. Eva has been attending births for nearly 30 years, building one of the most extraordinary visual archives of physiological birth in the world — and along the way becoming an unstoppable voice for women's birth rights and informed consent. In this episode we cover: How witnessing her baby sister's home birth at age seven — and growing up in a family of photographers — set Eva on her pathHow a midwife told Eva "you are a doula" — and what happened nextThe closure of ABC, Norway's most beloved midwifery-led unit, and how Norway went from 70 such units to just fourWhy Norwegian hospitals profit from over-medicalizing birth even within a free public healthcare systemThe fetal scalp electrode post that went viral globally — and why Norwegian midwives were furiousHow Eva's role as a doula shifted from loving birth companion to consent advocateThe mother-assisted cesarean in the Netherlands — and Eva's mission to bring it to NorwayBirth culture across countries — the stark difference between consent practices in Norway, the UK, and SwitzerlandBirth Around the World — selling everything to document birth globally before COVID shut it downFundal pressure in Ethiopia and Eva's campaign to make it illegal worldwideBurnout, her lowest two years, and what slowing down has taught herBirth Mood — the visual birth preparation course now used by birthing women, midwives, and doctors worldwideResources & Links: 📸 Follow Eva: @evarosebirth on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook🏡 Join our community: skool.com/midwiferywisdom🌿 Midwifery Wisdom Collective: midwiferywisdomcollective.com

    Seeing Birth Clearly: Birth Photography & Fighting for Women's Choices with Eva Rose

  6. 3 Jun

    Sustainable Impact & the Art of the Ask with Vandana

    In this wide-ranging and utterly fascinating episode, host Augustine sits down with Vandana — doctor, public health expert, MBA, entrepreneur, beekeeper, candle maker, and one of the most multi-dimensional humans to ever grace this podcast. Born and raised in Bangalore, India, now based on Long Island, New York, Vandana has spent over two decades working across 13 countries in disaster zones, war zones, and underserved communities — always following the woman, always asking: what does she actually need to thrive? This conversation moves from the villages of rural India to the boardrooms of global philanthropy, from beehives in Brooklyn to the operating table, and from the burnout of nonprofit founderitis to the liberating power of learning to ask. There is so much in this episode for midwives, birth workers, nonprofit founders, and anyone who has ever built something from scratch and wondered why it won't grow. Resources & Links: 🌐 Learn more about Komselj: https://www.komselj.com/ 🏡 Join our Skool community: skool.com/midwiferywisdom 🌿 Midwifery Wisdom Collective: midwiferywisdomcollective.com

    Sustainable Impact & the Art of the Ask with Vandana

  7. 13 May

    Narrative Medicine with Kayla Branstetter

    In today's episode, host Augustine sits down with Kayla Branstetter — English instructor, TEDx speaker, doctoral candidate in healthcare education, and author of the forthcoming book Don't Be an Athena — for a conversation that sits right at the intersection of storytelling, reproductive trauma, and the future of patient-centered care. Kayla's work in narrative medicine is a beautiful reminder that behind every chart, every lab result, and every clinical encounter is a human being with a story that deserves to be heard. And for midwives and birth workers who already know this in their bones — this episode gives you the language, the research, and the tools to do it even better. In this episode we cover: What narrative medicine actually is — and why it's been around for centuries, we're just now naming itKayla's personal journey through her mother's teen pregnancy, her own infertility and miscarriage, and how storytelling found herHow a patient's chart tells a story — and what we miss when we only look at the numbersThe growing mistrust between the medical community and patients — and what narrative medicine offers as a bridgeHow providers can support traumatized clients after unwished-for birth outcomes — including the power of offering writing as an alternative to talkingObstetric violence, medical gaslighting, and what patients can actually do — from documenting their experience to filing grievances and amending their own medical recordsHow a midwife or doula can be a powerful patient advocate in the aftermath of traumaVicarious and secondary trauma in providers — and how narrative medicine workshops create space for clinicians to reflect and healThe myth of Medusa and Athena — and why Kayla's book asks us to stop turning survivors into monstersWhy medical humanities is on the rise — and the medical school built next to an art museum that's changing how future doctors are trainedResources & Links: 📖 Pre-order Don't Be an Athena by Kayla Branstetter — available July 20th on Amazon and in independent bookstores 🌐 Follow Kayla: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn — search Kayla Branstetter 🎤 Watch Kayla's TEDx Talk on narrative medicine and reproductive trauma 🏡 Join our community: skool.com/midwiferywisdom

    Narrative Medicine with Kayla Branstetter

  8. 15 Apr

    From India to Indonesia: Navigating International Birth Cultures

    This episode of the Midwifery Wisdom Podcast is a beautiful, globe-spanning conversation about what happens when birth workers step out of their comfort zones. Host Chetana sits down with Brooke, a US-based midwife, and Johanna, the founder of a birthing clinic in India, to discuss the "sisterhood of midwives," cultural humility, and the universal language of birth. In This Episode, We Cover: From Opera and Animals to Midwifery: The unconventional paths that led Brooke (a former vet tech) and Johanna (a former opera singer) to birth work.Navigating the Indian Medical System: Johanna discusses the challenges of running Jeevalaya Birthing Home and the "diplomacy" required to advocate for gentle birth in a rigid obstetric environment.A Journey to Papua, Indonesia: Chetna shares her experience volunteering at a remote, non-profit birth center and the differences between physiologic birth and the mainstream medical model in Indonesia.The Global Epidemic of Anemia: A clinical discussion on why low hemoglobin is a worldwide challenge and how different systems address it.Cultural Competency vs. Connection: Brooke shares a moving story about attending a twin breech birth for a Ukrainian refugee family without a common language, proving that being "with woman" transcends words.High-Tech Solutions: A look at how real-time translation earbuds are changing the game for international midwifery care.Key Takeaways "Don't go thinking you are going to teach somebody else. You should be going open and receptive to what they can teach you... checking our ego at the door." — BrookeMidwifery is a Versatile Species: Whether it's navigating "midwifery deserts" or adjusting to spicy local diets, midwives are uniquely equipped to blend into and serve diverse communities. The Power of Presence: In many cultures, the most radical intervention a midwife can offer is simply holding a hand, looking into a mother's eyes, and returning her agency. Bridging the Gap: International collaboration isn't just about sharing clinical skills; it's about providing the emotional support and "sisterhood" that keeps birth workers sustainable.Resources Mentioned Jeevalaya Birthing Home: Johanna’s clinic providing care to marginalized women in India.Timekettle Translation Earbuds: The tech Brooke uses to communicate with her Slavic-speaking clients in real-time.Midwifery Travel Experience August 2026 This 2-week experience takes you to Angel Hiromi Bhumi Sehat (AHBS), the only midwife-led birth center in Papua, Indonesia. Set near the stunning Lake Sentani, AHBS serves indigenous families who often travel long distances to access respectful, midwifery-centered care.

    From India to Indonesia: Navigating International Birth Cultures
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About

Welcome to the Midwifery Wisdom Podcast This podcast is your go-to resource for practical education, thoughtful insights, and relevant conversations tailored to modern midwives. Each week, we bring fresh content and engaging guest speakers to explore key themes in midwifery, including: Advocacy, business, and clinical skills Self-care and professional growth Current issues shaping midwifery today Listen to meaningful stories and essential advice from leading midwives working to elevate care for families across the globe. Gain clarity, encouragement, and actionable guidance to support your business, practice, and personal life. Wherever you are in your journey, the Midwifery Wisdom Podcast is here to empower you. Together, we strive to make midwifery the gold standard of care worldwide.

Information

  • Creator
    Midwifery Wisdom Collective
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    160
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © (c) Midwifery Wisdom
  • Show Website
    Midwifery Wisdom Podcast

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