Birth Trauma Training for Birth Workers

I wanted to stop by and say thanks for supporting this podcast, and to introduce my new one- Mum As You Are. https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/mum-as-you-are/id1577282849

This new podcast is unpolished and unfancy. A 10 minute or so convo each week to explore ways to work with parental burnout and depletion and isolation and guilt that are really practical, focussed on radical self-compassion and really having fun. 

This less of a here’s the A-Z on parenting topics and more about Motherhood as an identity and an institution and where mental health fits within that. 

Earlier this year I stopped using social media for my business and personally as well. It’s been one of the most rebellious things I could do and it’s been life changing. It has really brought me to question the ways in which I have used numbing and what you might call shadow comforts as replacement for real proper fun and real proper support. 

This is not about saying don’t use social media – if you are a mum in business and genuinely seen results from it more power to you sister, however, I do come from the standpoint that this is our generation’s addiction. I think mothers are settling for substandard, faux-fun and while we are familiar with the old ‘do self care” I think a huge part of what’s missing in the motherhood mental health conversation is the idea of fun – like real, belly laugh I feel like myself not just someone’s mother or a worker – fun. That’s the crux of what I’m interested in exploring here.

If you want to follow me over there, new episodes come out weekly https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/mum-as-you-are/id1577282849 

You can reach me: [email protected]

Books:

More Than a Healthy Baby: Finding Strength & Growth After After Birth Trauma

https://amzn.to/3PbdohA

Birth Trauma: Tools to Cope

https://amzn.to/3Ri67i8

Courses:

Birth trauma training for birth workers the online course has over 2700 students from 42 countries

*note* this is a very condensed version of my conversation with Bruce for those with short attention spans. It's an edited down version of a video so it will sound a little choppy. It's better viewed as a video - you can watch in both short https://youtu.be/iX0tSWeYdkU and long form on my Youtube channel https://youtu.be/XpkjS1AER4Q 

It was really important to me to have this conversation with my guest today. I’ve interviewed him as part of my second book I’m writing – parents of the pandemic but it also just made so much sense to turn our conversation into a podcast

Some of you may remember the story of Amber Rose Isaac. A beautiful soul who died a really unnecessary death. Amber had HELLP syndrome which results in low platelet counts which is treatable, except Amber was continually ignored. She knew her body. She knew she didn’t feel right and yet she kept being dismissed and ignored. It wasn’t until she decided she’d switch to a midwife and homebirth model that they discovered how high risk she was. Doctors were signing off on her bloodwork and yet by the time she went to be induced her blood was like water. Induction resulted in an emergency c-section.

Instead of being with her partner Bruce and her mum, she bled out in a hospital room alone. She didn’t even get to met her baby boy, Elias. I just don’t believe it wouldn’t have happened if she were white.

In my first book, more than a healthy baby I talk about how in the Bronx in New York City black women are 12 times more likely to die than white women. Not just statistics. I don’t want us to forget and just say “oh well, that’s sad” I want things to change. This is in 2021, not 1821.

Since I first her of her story, it has haunted me. Maybe it’s because like me, Amber had a psychology degree and was getting her masters. Maybe it’s because my parents are Glaswegian and Amber’s partner Bruce McIntyre has one of the most Scottish sounding names you can have.

Maybe because I know a little of what it’s like to lie on a hospital bed, terrified while knowing I was losing a lot of blood.

3 days before she died Amber tweeted about how she wanted to write a tell all book about the negligence. Her partner Bruce has channelled his grief into activism. It was such an honour to be able to speak with him. This episode is a little longer. It is a beautiful love story with such a tragic ending.

As you listen to Bruce and Amber’s story – I ask you to channel your sadness and anger into action. Go to the Save a Rose foundation

@savearosefoundation

*note* both the full version of this interview & a 15 minute highlights reel can be found on YouTube & wherever you listen to podcasts

It was really important to me to have this conversation with my guest today. I’ve interviewed him as part of my second book I’m writing – parents of the pandemic but it also just made so much sense to turn our conversation into a podcast

Some of you may remember the story of Amber Rose Isaac. A beautiful soul who died a really unnecessary death. Amber had HELLP syndrome which results in low platelet counts which is treatable, except Amber was continually ignored. She knew her body. She knew she didn’t feel right and yet she kept being dismissed and ignored. It wasn’t until she decided she’d switch to a midwife and homebirth model that they discovered how high risk she was. Doctors were signing off on her bloodwork and yet by the time she went to be induced her blood was like water. Induction resulted in an emergency c-section.

Instead of being with her partner Bruce and her mum, she bled out in a hospital room alone. She didn’t even get to met her baby boy, Elias. I just don’t believe it wouldn’t have happened if she were white.

In my first book, more than a healthy baby I talk about how in the Bronx in New York City black women are 12 times more likely to die than white women. Not just statistics. I don’t want us to forget and just say “oh well, that’s sad” I want things to change. This is in 2021, not 1821.

Since I first her of her story, it has haunted me. Maybe it’s because like me, Amber had a psychology degree and was getting her masters. Maybe it’s because my parents are Glaswegian and Amber’s partner Bruce McIntyre has one of the most Scottish sounding names you can have.

Maybe because I know a little of what it’s like to lie on a hospital bed, terrified while knowing I was losing a lot of blood.

3 days before she died Amber tweeted about how she wanted to write a tell all book about the negligence. Her partner Bruce has channelled his grief into activism. It was such an honour to be able to speak with him. This episode is a little longer. It is a beautiful love story with such a tragic ending.

As you listen to Bruce and Amber’s story – I ask you to channel your sadness and anger into action. Go to the Save a Rose foundation

@savearosefoundation

The interview with my guest today took about a year to coordinate! This happens a lot on this podcast because babies get born, we get sick, there’s the whole parenting and home schooling in a pandemic thing. There are times when I feel like I can barely run a bath let alone run a podcast, so if you’re feeling frazzled, know you are not alone!   If you are interested in trauma informed parenting, then you may have heard of the lovely Mama Manon.   No matter how much we cognitively know how we want to parent our kids, and we read books, and we take courses, we still get triggered. We still struggle with feeling resentment, rage, numbness and depletion. As a parent, I personally find Manon’s videos and resources so helpful.  When she posted a video last year about using somatic experiencing with her own traumatic birth, I knew we would get on like a house on fire. Self-compassion for our traumas is something we are all working on.   Manon has a voice that makes you feel like you’re being wrapped in a warm blanket. She combines Aware Parenting and somatic experiencing to offer deep, gentle and empowering support. She chats to me today about her birth, her healing and growth and the lessons that come with working alongside your child in that process.   

Erin Underwood is a movement therapist from Oregon that specializes in prenatal and postnatal health. She is passionate about education around pelvic floor and core strength and function. She has studied extensively and certified and trained with the top minds in the country connected to pelvic floor and core wellness. She currently is focusing on her local community by serving through workshops to the prenatal and postnatal community as well as local birth workers, providing them with the most up to date science broken down into practical and helpful tools. She also has four beautiful boys and, post deliveries, has personally healed from a grade 2 uterine and grade 2 rectocele prolapses and a four finger Diastasis Recti using all the tools she teaches in her movement therapy, which further fuels her passion for seeing women fully functional and getting all the information necessary to heal.