The Three-Legged Stool of Doula Support
A three-legged stool is very strong. It can support us and provide a comfortable resting place. And because three points define a plane, it is hard to topple over, even on an uneven surface. The three-legged stool has a long history – from milking stool to birthing stool and even, in some cultures, the stool … Read more
Birth Trauma Awareness Week
I find myself writing this blog during Birth Trauma week, from my bed, as I recover from a very different birth to the one I had planned. For those of you who do not know me well, and even those who do, but haven’t seen me or spoken to me much in the past year, … Read more
What Birth Trauma Means To Me: The Process of Healing
DD Abi Wilcox writes candidly about her own experience of birth trauma and what helped her heal. I think when we hear the word trauma we always think about the dramatic worse case scenario. Especially when it comes to birth narratives we think emergency intervention or life threatening moment – which it can be too, … Read more
Birth Trauma Made Me Who I Am
DD Kathryn Hassell blogs for Birth Trauma Aaweness Week about her own struggle with birth trauma. 14 years ago I gave birth to my first baby, aged 21, married and mortgaged and ever so grown up. Sadly I wasn’t as grown up as I expected and I was almost playing house. I wanted a baby. … Read more
The Myth of Equitable Care
Waiter, waiter, I have a fly in my soup! Shhhh, quiet, or everyone else will want one! It can seem just this bizarre as we navigate our way through the maternity journey. With scant resources and staff stretched so thin the system is at breaking point, logic flies out of the window and reason drowns … Read more