Dr. Amali Lokugamage Bio.

Time Stamps

3.20  Undoing systemic biases and privileges in maternity  care starts. 

Discussing :

• Power imbalances in maternity care
• Maternal mortality
• Decolonisation
• Cultural safety
• Privilege frailty

7.25 liberating the curriculum. Challenging the  Eurocentric, white male dominated curriculum

15.27 Power hierarchies in medicine

21.17 Pedagogical changes including teaching students to detect differing symptoms in different skin tones.

25.33 High profile example: Serena Williams

26.45 Dr Rupa Marya Video clip about woman being nearly missed for having a stroke as Doctors dismissed her pains.

31.10 Cultural Safety

32.20 Unconscious bias training.

33.38 Geographic bias

38.23 Well being agenda and indigenous healing ideas

40.07 Procedures of Limited Clinical Effectiveness -  not looking at all evidence only considering NICE.

45.26 Next steps for diversity equality and decolonising health care

51.16 Dr. Amalis experience of becoming a mother.

Natalie's Books and links to studies quoted in the video.

Natalie's Bio

Time Stamps

Currently 2% of women choose home birth.  This means 98% say I feel confident about having a baby in hospital ; why when it gives you the worst odds of a normal birth of anywhere? From a consumer perspective women are opting for the hardest place to give birth.  The hospital added a level of unpredictability and variables that were not seen when birth was predominantly at home earlier in the century.

7.04 The idea of opting in for medical assistance rather than opting in for home care.  In birth women are opting for the strongest' insurance policy' ie the hospital they can find which by default gives them the least chance of the ordinary birth they want.

10.00 They myth that medical staff are insisting on the interventions. The reality is that you run out of road in hospital where you are on the clock and observed which interrupts your natural biology and flow.

14.27  It is  cultural confronting idea to the system and strange to us in the public tto not choose to be tracked for example with scans and Vaginal examinations. Once we understand that we can feel progress the brain clicks into place.

16.06 We recognise we can tune into how our child is once they are born but this is already the case in pregnancy. In the hospital a sense of self management and what do I need to do is created and this is a mental process that is impeding the flow of knowing what it feels to follow her bodies cues.

19.15 At home we do not have to manage ourselves and be vigilant and we know the rules and have the power.

The myth that the first time mother doesn't know what to do. Her body does know this is biology and it is primal.

26.00 There is a place for more support for first time mothers.   Remember the birth place study confirms that it is very safe for a baby in any setting and Hutton et Al study in August 2019 confirms 

29.50 If home gives the best of all possible worlds why do we still go to the hospital- peoples misconceptions fear of media and talk of risk. Looking at making decisions based on prejudice and not evidence.

31.59 Debunking myths of mess, noise and frightening the children if we birth at home. And a look at the fears of danger for the baby such as not breathing when the baby is born and what will really happen. Also what happens if you bleed at home.

39.54  In 1953 most women gave birth at home and 90% of women had no interventions so clearly the question to be asked in the case of intervention is- Would this have happened at home? but no-one is asking it this way round.

41.03 Natalie takes us through a detailed example of a woman who has a home birth that ends in a transfer to demonstrate how birth unfolds and we follow the cues of the body with timely transfer arranged/

50.40 Understanding the biology to see why birth at home works- home ticks all the boxes to help keep you pelvis free and your body and ligaments pliant. How the hormones flow and at 100% in the right setting and this makes birth easier and swifter.

58.00 At home the baby is the torch bearer and we all follow its journey and they come. Everyone is listening to them and following their lead.

1.03 Birthcentres are partly the reason that an increase in home births has stalled. The question to ask of your birth centre is to ask the  stats on who stays there to actually give birth. Does London skew the stats?

1.05  How apps are missing the point and can make birth longer as mother has to observe herself rather than going into her feelings.  Women move from rest to rest at home and work with the good bits.

1.09 Michel Odent talks of how women in hospital are deprived of the  transcendent state of birth. No one is doing this on purpose, but the hospital acts as gatekeeper on accessing deep alternative states of consciousness. It is a privilege and honour to witness life force and what it is capable of.

1.14 Home birth gives the best chance of having a mother and baby in good shape after the birth.

1.17 if you are listening to your body and choose hospital then this is what is right for you which is not the same as going in through fear and not instinct. Find your truth and stick to it. 

Quick Links to Resources mentioned in the Interview

Amber's Bio

Apologies for some of the sound quality. There were a few connection problems. As a bonus to make up for this I have also included a written interview with Phoebe. Scroll down below the bio to read it and scroll further down to see time stamps for the video interview.

Phoebe Pallotti Bio

Q1. How did your passion for birth begin and what called you to become a midwife?

I was brought up by a very strident second wave feminist, a young single parent, which was not a very easy thing to be in Thatcher's Britain. Social inequality was something that I experienced and observed and I went to University to study Anthropology - essentially the philosophy of people as I have always seen it. During my first undergraduate I became very interested in the anthropology of birth; both different customs and practices but also the social, political and feminist context of birth. I decided to retrain as a midwife because I thought at the time that birth was the last great battle of feminism. It is not. It is the first, and we are still fighting it. Birth is either the cradle of female power, the point of departure when we believe in ourselves and our bodies in a way not constrainable by the patriarchy. Or it is the crucible of woman's oppression - a seminal, powerful and creative moment of our lives denied us as control is stripped away and our own instincts are erased from the conversation. It became my passion to divert the course of the river towards the former, not the latter, though I still have reservations that I have much impact as a researcher in this, despite the feminist underpinnings of my work. We've just founded a Maternity Cooperative based on loosely anarchist and very definite feminist principles in Sheffield. Watch this space, for that one.

Q2. You spent some time in Malawi volunteering as a midwife. What did you learn
from experiencing birth in a different culture? What are some of the highlights of your
international work?

Mostly what I learnt from my time as a midwife in Malawi (I wasn't technically a volunteer, I worked for the governmental NHS like most midwives in Malawi, they just didn't pay me 😉 was that there is no corner of the world in which the colonialist patriarchy has not brutally inserted itself. That said, I was mainly in a University Hospital in the largest city in Malawi, so most of my experiences were in a highly interventionist ward, dictated by colonial intervention in the health system. Maybe things are different in more rural locations - although the maternal mortality in Malawi is high regardless of location of birth so there must still be certain issues. Personally, I loved Malawi (there is a blog about my more general experiences at www.phoebepallotti.com - scroll down to find the Malawi bits) it is a stunning country and I lived in a very gentle community there - coming home was rather jangling to the nerves, thereafter. But my experiences of birth there are always going to be coloured by my work as an international researcher in maternity - I could go on at length about models of delays in care, about the obstetric threshold (whereby women in half the world die for lack of treatment and the other half from over treatment) if this is of interest to you? Women generally at the unit were not heard, their experiences were erased and human rights were thin on the ground - very much like my experiences in the UK in fact. There were some issues with stock outs and particularly for kit in maintaining asepsis (sterility) but generally my colleagues were highly experienced and very skilled. I learnt a lot from them all. One of the biggest challenges was in responding appropriately to a different extended care situation - by this I mean, as an example, saving a baby born in poor condition at all costs is something we would do without thinking here. In Malawi, where ongoing paediatric care is minimal, different axes of decision making need to be applied. This speaks to the wider discourse of modern medical colonialism - effective treatment and strategies need to be developed and led by people who really understand the situation, which is mostly but not always, local women and Malawian staff. Madonna, in penance for her unpopularity due to her rather strong handed adoption of a Malawian boy, gifted an MRI machine to my hospital. Unfortunately, the nearest supply of liquid helium to run the damn thing is 2000 miles away with no appropriate transport mechanism. So really it's just a very expensive bed taking up otherwise useful space. That.

Q3. Your research focuses on global women’s health and safe mother hood
initiatives and you also campaign for safe and dignified maternity care of women
seeking asylum in the UK. What particular issues do you see for women in
marginalised groups that need to be addressed for these women to be confident
giving birth and to have positive experiences?

They are two particularly different issues to me - global women's health demands that we have a representation, a voice, a power within both the strategic planning of maternity services world wide, in maternity research, in local care provision and when we step onto the labour ward. Currently, in my opinion, we are still fighting to be present at all of these levels. For example, a recent bid for some training funds I put in came back with the comment that 'there was no evidence that midwives were capable of doing a PhD'. Where do you even start with that. Each level effects the other and due to the intersectional nature of inequality, women of colour are even less likely to be visible in all of these spheres, as well as women with disabilities, women who's families, gender identities and sexualities do not match up to the expected heteronormative constructs. All we are doing, from researchers, to Birthrights, to Maternity Action and the White Ribbon Alliance, as well as the fierce radical midwives in practice and the women campaigning and bravely sharing their own experiences - this all makes a difference and on we must go.

Women in the UK Immigration system however, have all of the issues above but a particular set of barriers and vulnerabilities set by the way the Home Office treats asylum seekers and refugees. What shocked me most when I began to work for Medical Justice, was not that the Home Office was systemically racist, I knew that already from the experiences of people I love, over the years. What shocked me was just how incompetent they were. Papers were lost, erroneous information was frequently recorded and many of the consultations I reviewed to write medico-legal reports would have seen the nurse or doctor sacked, had they worked for the NHS. I can't be more specific about this without the patients permission but I can tell you stories off the record if you want. Preferably with wine. Mostly, access is an issue, from being dispersed and not knowing how or where to access care, lack of continuity, to language barriers, feeling afraid of being charged for care (often because they are told, often wrongly, that they will be), fear of being deported because the clinician will report them to the home office if their documentation isn't in order (which happens). This is a very specific inequality, entirely created by a racist and misogynistic system. We did, in the end, win the battle to stop the Home Office indefinitely detaining pregnant women in immigration detention prisons, but it was only a first step, there is still so much to be done here. 

Q4. What is your vision for the future of birth and motherhood? And what do we
need to do collectively to get there?

My vision is that women and parents will have control over the maternity services they receive in a meaningful way, with human rights being the alpha and omega of care planning and provision. One of my current 'rambles in the key of anarchism' is that I think an industrialised health service, like the NHS, is not fundamentally capable of providing genuinely 'patient centred' care. I love the NHS, I fight for it and value it. As a Dr in Public Health, I know that the NHS is the only thing ameliorating our terrible health outcomes, given the extremely high level of social inequality in the UK - much worse than most other European countries. But I don't think the system, as it currently stands, works well for maternity and birth. So, for example, it is really important to know that the quality of heart surgery you will get in London is roughly the same as the quality in Glasgow - it's unfair and unsafe otherwise. It's really important to concentrate expertise for rare conditions so that clinicians are well experienced and the services are efficient (my daughter had heart surgery in the Freeman, Newcastle, one of only half a dozen paediatric cardiac centres in England. They were beyond amazing and we are so, so grateful). It's also really important to make sure that primary care (GPs) are available and of a good standard in every area (though I'm with Marmot on the fact that they are often not - there are inequalities in care provision, but that is entirely another discussion).

Thus, a standardised, scalable and universal set of health procedures and supplies must be in place for the 60 million or so people in the UK - this is industrialisation. The point is, pregnancy is not an illness - it does not belong to the world of medicine but to the world of family, community, wise elders and the children who will be siblings. Of course women can experience illness in pregnancy, of course there are some risks attached to birth, as there are in many life events, but it is not fundamentally a disease. With the forced cooption of birth into the medical profession (13 million midwives burnt as witches in Europe, left a nice space for the surgeons to step into) and the modernist turn to the industrialisation of all medicine birth has been treated as an illness for a good few centuries and with the push for unit births in the 60s and 70s, now an almost entirely institutionalised one. This has left us with a care system which has been hollowed out of relational support and also care over which women have little control. I loved Better Births (2016), we all did, but a lot of the implementation of a drive towards continuity of care has replaced an intuitive understanding of the real benefit of relational care. This benefit is that a midwife who knows you, cares about you will help you feel safe, will detect any changes that are significant to you, will protect you from the things you don't want because they know you don't want them. Instead what we seem to have is the dismantling of a lot of established community teams to ensure the target that you will be seen in labour by a midwife you have met once is achieved. The drive for 'personalised' care seems really, from a very cynical perspective, to mean considering more data points about you in order to feed you into a more particular part of the machine. We organise inductions of labour in response to staffing, we restrict choices of location of birth because of service needs. What you want really is what you are allowed to have in this system.

So what do we need? We need to reclaim birth as a community, local, grass roots, unscalable (but by sharing practice openly, replicable) care which is right for those women, those parents, those midwives (because we are people, mothers, lovers too) and other birth workers. We need cooperatives and other community organisations, run equally by families and birth workers local action groups, our own space to make our own decisions and share our own skills. Of course we need more respect, more family friendly facilities and more oversight on consent in birth. But really what we need is the power back.

Q5. What would you suggest as a starting point for a woman who is currently
terrified of birth for a multitude of reasons and can’t imagine she will ever feel
confident, that this is a dream for others and not for her?

Find a doula, find an advocate, find a witch, get some back up in because, and I know this from my personal experience giving birth - you cannot fight this alone when you're already in lithotomy (both metaphorical and literal). No one can. We need to stand together at the cradle, not just at the parliament. We are not alone, one of the greatest myths of the patriarchy is that we are. 

Q6. In what ways do you see women’s confidence getting undermined and what do
you see as the solution or support for that?

I can't really answer this question in isolation as it's not her 'confidence' which is knocked by the institutionalised, patriarchal system (as above, ad nauseum) but her fundamental belief in her own instincts, in her own body and therefore in her own power as a mother - fathers/other parents also suffer this almost just as acutely. As above, she/they need to understand that the power is theirs and to do that, they need good advocacy, support and love from the outset. Find your team, find your community.

Q7. Do you have any final thoughts or insight that you would love every woman
listening to this interview to take forwards into her life and journey as a mother?

​Whatever your birth, whatever your body, whatever you need - believe that your voice should and will be heard.

Rebecca's Bio

Rebecca is the Co Founder of Make Birth Better a national collaborative of parents and professionals working to reduce the life changing impact of physical and psychological birth trauma.

She writes, podcasts and lectures all around the U.K and internationally.

Outside of work Rebecca is a mum, training to be a yoga teacher and an avid reader and traveller.

Instagram @drrebeccamoore

Mars' Bio

A birth activist, with a desire to see the ‘colouring in of the landscape of birth’ and finding out the reasons for the maternal and neonatal morbidity rates amongst the BAME community, Mars created Abuela Doulas a doula preparation course primarily, but not exclusively, for women of colour. Her desire for reproductive justice led to the creation of the ‘Reproductive Justice Retreat’. Mars was recently recognised in the Mayor of London's Hidden Credits campaign and continues to speak out against cultural safety and reproductive justice.

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/abueladoula/

Twitter: @Abueladoula

Instagram: @Abueladoula

Time Stamps

Abuela – Spanish for Grandmother as Mars loves to bring Grandmother energy in.

4.14  Among the variety of reasons given for the underlying causes of the disproportionate health outcomes is often an assumption that the black body is faulty and the black woman is  stupid. The blaming the black body points to eugenics which says white bodies are superior to black bodies.

Comparing what happened when we discovered that babies born to mothers who smoked were more at risk and an education programme happened and action was taken. Whereas black women are just labelled as faulty.

Looking at reasons why black women access antenatal classes and care later - looking at links to history, including experimenting on female slaves,  eugenics and assumptions to challenge.

 Looking at the suggestion of economics being a factor as black women statistically have less money.

Summary of the message is that black women are dying because they are too black, too stupid and too poor.  This is blaming the victim rather than the system and structure that she has come into.

James Mario Sims ' The father of modern Obstetrics' But who extensively tested on black women without analgesia.

13.49  Drop assumptions and see the human in front of you.

15.30 Looking at what happens when we took our colonial ways and dumped them on developing countries then moved on to kinder methods but look back in horror at what is being done there yet the coloniser started that practice. Plus a look at cultural appropriation of other skills such as baby wearing.

22.51 You may not be the one who set up the system but you are still benefiting from it as it was constructed to benefit white people. WE need to be anti racist not just not racist. Anti racist is active whereas non racist is passive. Get up and call out racism where you see it.

25.07 We know we can do better for all people but watch out for privilege calling out over the voices of black women in spaces where women are gathered to talk about issues facing black women.

Its not pie. We are not wanting to leave you with less.

28.55 Constantly facing daily micro aggressions raises your cortisol levels and you may explode for a minor aggression on the back of many others.

31.00 Look beyond initial defence as a white woman as no-one is accusing you of being a violent racist.

We need to think and look at how differently black women are treated when they wish to home birth or whether they are offered the same length of time to birth in birth centres as white women.

34.00 Historically women's movements have failed black women. The Suffragettes were told to march at the back as this is for all women.

39.44 Watch in spaces where the black woman gets forgotten. #metoo was started by a black woman (Tanana Burke) but this is often forgotten. 

What are our priorities? Notice where most outrage and coverage occurs and what this says about our beliefs.

42.11 Advice to pregnant women: Find your black birth keepers find people who understand and know your stories , the ones who know what it is to be black and birth. Remember the mortality rate is incredibly low 40 in 100000 but for white its 8 so get good information. Find good people to follow and learn from and to listen from. If you are not getting the care and support that you expect from your health care professionals or  if your midwife or doctor are being racist know that you can change them.

44.00 black labelled as aggressive and threaten to take care and support away from you, white women easier to request change easily many don’t know they can do it but when black it’s a whole other ball game say to pregnant black people find out good black birth keepers   reach out to black birthing community and get information and support there who and where you can turn to to give yourself a better understanding of system you are going into lots of us out here. But fe of us given a platform and those who have have to fight to get and keep it in a sea of white experts.

46.30 Vision for the future:  That people be valued, listened to and able to give birth with grace and dignity. As simple as that. Collectively raise up the most vulnerable and then the next most vulnerable until we are all healed.

49.45 If you hear something that makes you uncomfortable file that away and deal with it later, Do not throw it back at the person who just said it.

If we listen then we will heal the world.

Enter your text here...

Naraya's Bio

Time Stamps:

Naraya takes us back 22 years to tell us the story of her first child when the only thing she knew about birth was what the mainstream was offering including the gynaecology checks and ultrasounds and had no teachings on meditation or about natural birth at all. All went well until Naraya started to  feel intuitively something wasn't sitting well with her about the hospital

Naraya changed to a 'Birth House' and did a birth education course with her husband and felt happy with her change of plan as the house was beautiful with slings from the ceiling and a birth pool.
6.54 all was well until her due date came and went. The Birth house was new and under scrutiny and so they were nervous about anything going wrong and at 32 Naraya was already considered old.

9.49 The doctor pulls the 'dead baby card'insisting Naraya should be induced. Instead she asks for the evidence and the doctor scrambles and has no answer.

11.50 Naraya discovers an elderly experienced midwife who has supported 8000 babies to be born and changes her care, then goes into labour the next morning

19.00 Naraya wants women to know this is a natural thing, that nature knows how to do this and our bodies are nature and know how to do this. Naraya suggests we need to ask the question why birth has been taken over and medicalised and how does this dis-empower us.

23.00 Naraya was able to hear her bodies intuition despite having no skills in meditation and even seeing that as some kind of cultist thing at the time.

26.00 Be discerning on what information you take in and your choices.Absorb information on what can go right and our best practice. Tailor your birth to your needs and preferences.Choose your environment to give birth in consciously.

28.46 Have trust and faith in our own capabilities and in God /Creator/Universe  - whatever your name for it is, Trust whatever happens is to and for our highest good of our babies and ourselves. Something may  not be comfortable to live but may be for our growth and expansion.

35.00 We have choice and choice on what to think in the moment that can give us a sense of power.

37.32 Naraya tells us the story of her second child, an unexpectedly earlier than planned child who was therefore born in a tiny remote mission hospital in Kenya.  Naraya has since done much clearing work and forgiveness work on her negative feelings about being pregnant at the wrong time that will have flooded her new baby.  (see re to The Journey above)

45.00 During her first pregnancy Naraya spent a lot of time communicating with her body and in her second it was more about connecting with her baby. She asked her baby to come early and start with her waters breaking as the rains were about to start in Kenya.

And her baby listened! This was exactly what happened.

The birth was beautiful and forever linked to the hibiscus flowers her husband brought her to smell as she was in labour.

1hr. Naraya listened to her body which stopped contracting if she lay down and it turned out this may have been she feels due to a slightly shorter cord and needing more gravity to bring baby down. All went well.g.

Naraya would like everyone to have choice and connect to nature. She would like environments of warmth, connection and for all to be listening to the woman's needs in the moment with medical births available for true needs but not default starting point.

 Naraya asks us to lift the relentless conditioning that birth is painful and we have been cursed with painful birth  ( a mistranslation of the bible as has been discussed in many articles where different people translated the same word differently depending on if they were talking about women in birth or men working in the fields for example.)

Liz's Bio

The Calm Birth School also has an on-line Hypnobirthing Programme available across the world. Liz is a positive birth believer and committed to the work of helping women to create calm & empowered births around the world

Time Stamps

Hypnobirthing was the tool Liz discovered in her first pregnancy that helped her with her fears both of the birth and of the pain relief drugs that she felt she would need. Liz booked her husband and her onto a course and they didn't look back.  She then went into her first birth with little of no fear at all.

6.40  Discussing how hypnobirthing tools can be applied to any situation and how they helped with learning to trust her intuition

8.15 Women are more powerful than we give them credit for and growing and birthing a baby.

10.25 Hypnobirthing is a full l antenatal education programme. Including the physiology of birth and what to do to release the right hormones for birth. 

14.30 Be supported so you don’t feel on your own or lonely. Bring your partner into the experience and work together as a team

15.30 Liz describes how having the hypnobirthing tools and the support of her partner helped her when she had to transfer from home to hospital. She was able to feel frightened then come back to a calm space. 

18.30 How giving birth on the delivery suite with her third  was opposite to her original plan but still didn’t deviate from being an empowering experience. 

21.00  Hypnobirthing is not just about painfree births but about applying the principles to any situation to make it as positive as possible.

26.00  Hypnobirthing supported Liz with the anxiety she had suffered with all her life and she found the affirmations and mind body connection helped in other areas of her life too.g

28.25  Liz describes the way that language can disempower particularly when she hears women saying 'I'm not allowed' and handing over decisions to someone else.

Women are the key decision makers and need to have confidence to talk to their care givers from the perspective of being on the same level. Use the Brain Acronym

34.00  Knowing if you are done having children or not. Talking to your womb and allowing your womb to release emotions including grief.

36.15 Would like all women to approach birth as something that will transform you and your life and for all the future generations. That in birth you are connecting  with your most powerful highest version of you if you can release and let go of fear and embrace the birth. 

41.32 Post Natal Depression Liz describes her journey through PND after the birth of her second with whom she had an amazing home birth experience. She started with a mainstream journey, sleeping tablets and antidepressants but when they didn't work Liz took control of her own healing journey and sought out modalities including counselling, CBT Reiki  until she became better.

The journey has strengthened her. If she can get through that she can do anything. No mountain is too big to climb.

50.00 Advice to others is get support and don't be scared to try something new and keep trying until you find what works.

Kati is a KG Hypnobirthing Instructor.  Check out this previous interview all about hypnobirthing with Heidi Danaher.

Kati Edwards Bio

I’m also a spoken word artist and created a set of poignant birth poetry. I’ve performed at some of the major conferences including Women’s Right’s in Childbirth, Oslo, Norway, the MAMA Conference, Scotland, The Women’s Voices Conference held at The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, London and the Doula UK Conference, London.

If you’d like to know more about my speaking engagements, spoken word poetry or you’d like to book me for a study day or conference, please click on the highlighted links.

Time Stamps

Kati at first dismissed the suggestion of home birth as not for her. She had grown up with the idea birth was to be feared. Her mother had handed over everything to a charismatic obstetrician  to take care of her but did not have a great experience.
As Kati met people on her journey who had different views about birth and began to look at the evidence for iatrogenic harm and she changed her mind to home birth. Key point is to be informed about your options

731  Kati's birth was harder than she imagined and she still managed it. and shares her beautiful Christmas birth story here. In hindsight there were some factors that  may have made the birth harder.  Including five midwives in the room, an ill husband and her mum helping out- a little over crowded. Not knowing who was going to be her midwife after shift change was stressful and made labour longer/

14.08 Second birth was easier, once she overcame some challenges of not being listened to in pregnancy  by her midwife and so changing carers to 121 midwives ( a gold standard caseload midwifery model that is sadly no longer running)This birth was filmed for the BBC.

18.13 Kati chose to film her first birth as she was encouraged by seeing real birth videos of women giving birth calmly but they were all second time mums as no first timers had volunteered.

Second time she got to know producer well so she felt familiar and safe and she stayed in the back ground on the day.

23.33 With her second under 121 midwives she experienced a model of care that didn't do routine Vaginal examinations but used other methods to ascertain how far along she was unless she wanted or needed one.  For you communication with your body will let you know if you should choose to have one or not. Know you have a choice.

28.23 Comparing caring for a horse in labour and a human and how you wouldn't move a horse and humans don't want to move to an unfamiliar place either.

30.39 The curse of 'Miss Polite' Experiencing disturbance in the birth space but not wanting to speak up about it.  Talk to your 'good girl; in advance and take steps that she won't scupper your plans by being too nice and polite to speak up.

33.00 Do not let someone touch you to appease them even if they are being nice if you don;t want it you can say no. Explain to your partner in advance that this may happen.

35 .00 No is a complete sentence - Quoting Deborah Neiger from Yorkshire Stork Doulas. Let go of cultural obligations and say what you need.

36.43 Knowing your midwife reduces interventions more than any machines. Kati would also like to see more doulas as standard including postnatal care.  Kati would like to see better understanding of risk so you can make better decisions . See the BRAIN acronym.

Remember induction is not fool proof and you may not meet your baby quickly it may take days.

4145. With KG hypnobirthing  we take women on a journey so they feel calm confident and empowered so birth is safer when women feel like that and not safe when we feel so scared. Find a Postive Birth Movement Group local to you.  Don't leave it until last minute.

44.10 Kati describes how it felt giving birth and shares her analogy of getting lost in a whiteout at the top of a mountain whilst snowboarding.

48.21 Birth physiology says we like to feel unobserved and safe and these were the conditions that got me in Kati's second birth. 

Kati has a psychology background and feels we should take psychological wellness more seriously which means asking and listening to how women are. 

52.01 Say what it is that you need and make own decisions, don’t be coerced into interventions. Do some practice. Surround yourself with positive birth stories as well. . Those who prepare and put in practice tend to have better experiences