Rebirth: Birth Words is Back for Season 2... With a Twist‪!‬ Birth Words: Language For a Better Birth

After a two-year hibernation, Birth Words is being reborn! Season 2 of Birth Words will offer monthly episodes, plus a new twist... listen to this episode to find out more!
 
TRANSCRIPT:


Intro: Welcome to birth words. Words are powerful. What are you doing with yours? In this podcast, birth doula and Applied Linguistics scholar Sara Pixton invites you to be intentional, reflective, and empowering with your language as we come together to honor those who give birth.
Hello, this is Sara with Birth Words, and I am thrilled to be back in this podcast space with you. The last episode that I published of Birth Words was episode number 78 in June of 2021, so over two years ago. And since then, Birth Words has been in hibernation. I've still worked on a few things here and there, but for the most part, I've shifted over the last couple of years, my attention to other places.
I did a lot of work as a birth doula, spent a lot of time on call, attending a lot of births, and just needed one less thing on my plate as I did that. Now I'm kind of shifting my rhythm again, and I am ready to come back with Episode One of Season Two of Birth Words.
I am going to be working on Season Two at a little different rate than I did with Season One. Rather than weekly or bi-weekly episodes, I'm planning to release monthly episodes. So this is the August 2023 episode of Birth Words, Season Two.
Coming into Season Two, I will be adding a new angle into the work of Birth Words here in the podcast and in other work on social media and elsewhere. I am starting another master's degree. And when I get a new master's degree, I just have to add it into my podcast work.
Many of you who are with me from Season One may know that I, during Season One, was pursuing and then graduated from a master's program in applied linguistics. And that was a lot of where much of the content came from for Birth Words Season One. As I would learn about different topics in my applied linguistics classes, I would reflect on their application in the birth space, and then come up with episodes to discuss and think about the impact of language on the way that we give birth and the way that we experience pregnancy and postpartum.
With my new master's degree, I will be building off of that work, always incorporating that background of linguistics. But now, I'm also going to bring to the podcast, the new perspective and understanding and knowledge that I gain during my work in my Masters of Social Work program. And we will incorporate the perspective of social work and healing talk throughout the coming podcast episodes.
So briefly, I just want to share a bit about my journey and why I decided to get another master's degree. I likely mentioned at some point during the 78 episodes of Season One of Birth Words that my long-term plan was to work as a doula for a while and then go back to school, first for a bachelor's in nursing and then for a master's degree in nurse midwifery, so that I could be a Certified Nurse Midwife and be the care provider in that space, and catch new babies and watch and empower and support and love my clients as they brought new life into the world.
And that is a beautiful dream. And I have watched many of my doula colleagues go on to choose a path in midwifery. And it is beautiful, and I am so thrilled that they act as care providers in that space. And the longer I worked towards it, and the more I was on call, and the more I attended births at all hours of the night, I realized that it was taking a big toll on my mental health and my family life to be on call, always needing to have my phone with me and ready to go to a birth at any time, and that the irregular sleep schedule is really not something that was going to work long-term for me to be in a mentally healthy place.
And so, I decided instead to focus on mental health—my own by making a choice that will work much more naturally with my strengths and my own needs and family life—and one