Celebrating the Power of Informed Birth with Guest, Davina McCall
Celebrating the Power of Informed Birth with Guest, Davina McCall
Davina McCall joins the Birth-ed Podcast to share her transformative journey from anxious first-time mum to empowered birth advocate. Celebrating the launch of Davina's new book "Birthing," co-written with midwife Marley Henry – a judgment-free guide that supports women through conception, pregnancy, birth and beyond.
Davina and I explore what's missing from modern maternity care, celebrate the wonder of pregnancy and birth and empower you to navigate you rbirth choices with confidence and a sense of self.
A gorgeous listen if you're having a pregnancy wobble, need a lift or a nudge to remember just what a fantastic job you're doing already.
Listen now to discover how finding your voice in pregnancy can transform not just your birth experience, but your entire parenting journey.
TRANSCRIPT
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Speaker 1: 0:07
you're listening to the birth ed podcast and I'm your host, founder of birth ed and handholder extraordinaire megan rossiter. The birth ed podcast is here to provide you with the in-depth conversations about pregnancy, birth and parenting that you deserve to be getting in your antenatal appointments but aren't so. If you're ready to take your birth prep seriously and take back control of your birth, but need a gentle holding hand to get you there, you're in the right place. Make sure you hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. Hi everybody, welcome back to the Birth Ed podcast. I am very excited today to be joined by Davina McCall. Davina's new book Birthing, co-written with midwife Marley Henry alongside expert contributors, is a roadmap to a positive conception, pregnancy, birth and postpartum experience. I've had the pleasure of reading it already and it is jam-packed with information and birth stories. It is warm, it it's inclusive, it's accessible, it's totally judgment-free support for anyone at this stage um of this journey from conception, conception to early parenthood. Davina, welcome congratulations on the birth of your book, thanks. Oh, my god, I birthed a book.
Speaker 2: 1:20
I love that you did birth a book. How did birth a birth? Or?
Speaker 1: 1:23
a baby um very very different.
Speaker 2: 1:26
I mean, although both come with a gift at the end, which is nice, um, the gift of a book or the gift of a baby. Yeah, I mean, I, I actually loved giving birth and I don't know that many people that actually say that and, um, I, I changed the whole trajectory of my birth when I met somebody that said to me at a dinner party I loved giving birth, and I literally grilled her for the next hour. I was like I don't understand, how did that happen? I was at the point where I was, I think, probably 18 weeks pregnant. I'm just about to get my first appointment with an obstetrician and she said to me why are you seeing an obstetrician? And she said to me why are you seeing an obstetrician? You're not ill. And I was like, well, because that's what you do when you have a baby. Like she said is there any? Are you high risk or anything? I was like no, and she went well, why is? And then I thought, god, what, what, what is going on? She blew my mind.
Speaker 1: 2:24
Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it, how one little bit of wisdom, one passing conversation, can completely change the trajectory of your birth, which ultimately can then completely change the trajectory of your entire life.
Speaker 2: 2:38
And the trajectory of your child's entire life you know in such a major way. Because I think if the mother is happy or her well-being, you know, is taken care of at the time of her birth, then that change that helps everything yeah, absolutely, and do you.
Speaker 1: 2:56
is that what kind of led you to decide? I mean, I mean I'm very aware that you have spoken kind of publicly about your own birth experiences kind of over the years For people that actually maybe aren't so familiar with that. What was it that led you to write this book now and you know this is a question that could easily take five hours to answer but what was it about your birth? How did that experience kind of unfold for you with each of your children? Was it about your birth? How did that experience kind of unfold?
Speaker 2: 3:25
for you with each of your children. What I, what I really realized back in back when I was giving birth, was that my experience was um quite rare, but I enjoyed it. Secondly, I was horrified every time I got pregnant at how everybody felt that they needed to give me their opinion on either what I was doing, how I was doing it, the way that the awful birth that they had and I've said in extreme capitals in this book, like if you had a terrible labor, which I am really sad for you and sorry for you if you did. This isn't a judgment on the type of labor that you had. If you had a bad time, I am that's so sad. But tell me, I've had my babies and I will be so sympathetic with you. But don't tell the pregnant lady. And it's very funny how many people want to express their bad experiences to a pregnant lady.
Speaker 2: 4:24
So I've wanted to write this book for years and years, but at the time when I had Chester, I was right in the middle of filming Big Brother. I just wasn't known for women's health, and now I've become more well known, obviously, for my work with the menopause and around the pill and contraception. And when they said, oh, would you like to write a next book? I was like, please, please, let me write one called birthing. I mean, they're obviously the wrong way around. I should have done birthing and they're menopausing, but but I'm so pleased that I've been given permission to do this, you know it means a lot.
Speaker 2: 5:03
I'm very proud of it.
Speaker 1: 5:04
What do you think it was? Um in you the very first time you're expecting a baby, as somebody that didn't come from a healthcare background or a medical background that led you to go. Actually, I want to get really like deeply informed about this.
Speaker 2: 5:22
Go informed, get informed. What do you want to know?
Speaker 1: 5:26
yeah and what? But what do you think it was? You know, some people are going into pregnancy and some people go in and go. Okay, the midwives, the doctors, they know what they're doing, I'll trust them, I'll do what they tell me to do. And other women, lots of the women that will be listening to this podcast, um, go actually. No, I want to take back that control, that power for myself. Um, yeah, what was it for you that led you to kind of take that path and go? Actually, I'm going.
Speaker 2: 5:53
I'm going to become deeply informed in women's health and pregnancy and birth and everything so when I got pregnant the first time it would be it would have been like nearly 25 years ago, and there was no podcasts. There were books and that was it and the only one. I think what to expect when you're expecting was like the only kind of book that I could really get my hands on, and it was a good book. But I was also just to give you a picture of where I was. I was probably at my most famous I had ever been. We were just hitting series two of Big Brother. I had paparazzis camping outside my house and I was thinking how am I going to give birth and keep this private? I knew I wanted to keep my children private and out of the public eye. I didn't want to do the kind of hero I am standing on the steps of a hospital. I couldn't trust anybody. Stories were getting into the paper. I didn't realize. Everybody's phones were hacked but stories were getting out in the papers and I didn't understand and I suddenly I felt under siege from. I had no privacy. I was driving round roundabouts twice. Every time I went around a roundabout so I could check which cars were following me.
Speaker 2: 7:09
When you're pregnant, you are like a lioness. I am going to protect this baby at all costs, and being in the public eye and being pregnant was an interesting new feeling for me. I I was like really protective. So I thought I'm going to go down and this is sort of against my ethos, really but I'm going to go down private hospital, try and hide away from everybody, not do NCT which I really regret now because you meet so many great people doing antenatal classes and stuff that you go on to be friends with and your babies grow up together because I just didn't feel safe. So I was in a really interesting, different kind of situation to lots of other people.
Speaker 2: 7:59
But I sat next to somebody at the dinner and she said I loved giving birth. And I was like I don't understand how, how did you love giving birth? And she said I had all my babies at home and that in a funny way I suddenly thought oh, home for me equals safety, it equals privacy, it equals not having to go anywhere when I'm in labor, which would feel like so counterintuitive, like having to get up, get in the car. I just want to stay home, hunker down, and so that's. I said could I speak to your midwife? Who did you have. She said, yes, she's called Caroline Flint and I don't know if you know Caroline Flint but she has so many books with her I guess, so many books and everything.
Speaker 2: 8:46
She's absolutely mega. And I went to go and see her and I walked in and I was quite big, I I was not the football up the jumper, pregnant lady, I was balloon in every direction lady. And she was like you look gorgeous. And I was. It was the first time somebody told me I look lovely. Instead of going wow, you know, um, look at the size of you, type thing, and I was like, oh, thank you. I said so, I'm not too big. She went, no, you're just the size you're meant to be.
Speaker 2: 9:14
And everything she said that came out of her mouth was just heavenly and I thought, wow, you're going to change everything about the way I view birth. I can feel it, and you know. Then the next thing I'm doing is I'm buying Ina May Gaskin spiritual midwifery. I must have bought 200 copies of spiritual midwifery over the years and given them to people, even strangers, in the street. I've got their address off and gone. Let me send you this book because she had such a massive impact on on the way that I view birth and and thought about it, which in the end meant that I, like I said, enjoyed giving birth yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: 9:50
It's um something that you mentioned. That is something that I think for so many women is missing from that pregnancy journey. Now, is that feeling of being celebrated and being sort of what's the word Not?
Speaker 2: 10:03
worshipped, but adored.
Speaker 1: 10:05
Just like wow, look at what you're doing.
Speaker 2: 10:08
On a pedestal.
Speaker 1: 10:09
Yeah, and we don't have space for that in modern maternity care. You've got a 15-minute appointment and that's it, and we don't have time to build those relationships anymore and create that real celebration of the enormous thing that you're doing every day whilst you're getting on with the rest of your life, absolutely.
Speaker 2: 10:26
I also feel like after giving birth. I feel like I wanted them to start playing the opening tune to the Lion King and kneel on the floor and hold my baby aloft and start singing a Spaniard. You know, everybody kneel down.
Speaker 1: 10:45
My brother was born at home and she held him up to the window to be like, look, look, what I did. But it is. It's that feeling of I remember walking around after my first baby was born, walking down the high street and just looking at people and being like, do you not know what I've just done? Like you're just there, you are walking in Costa, hello.
Speaker 2: 11:05
This was a problem because Caroline Flint had said to me 10 days bed rest and I was desperate to get out there and sort of do the same thing as you show, you know, but it's kind of showing off, look, look, I've got a baby Like it's brand new. I've just done it myself. But I tore the first time and I'm glad I did the 10 days bed rest because actually when I went to go and see my doctor for a checkup, um, the six-week checkup, um, she was like wow, your stitches have done brilliantly, the scar is healing so well. And I was like I haven't had stitches. And she was like, wow, really, look at that, you know, you look great. And I and I thought, oh, that's quite interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 2: 11:48
By just not doing too much, which is the expectation of my soul? Is that right? Go to Sainsbury's, go and get the weekly shot, you know. And it got quite difficult with subsequent babies. But my stepmom was really helpful and, you know, came and gave me a hand so I could try and stay not doing too much in those first 10 days.
Speaker 1: 12:13
Yeah, because it's hard to. It's very hard to protect, that isn't it, but it does make just like, yeah, the absolute world of difference. I want to loop back to something that you were talking about when it comes to kind of thinking about your plans and things for birth. Well, two things that you sort of said that you were looking for was privacy and safety, and those are things that I would talk to families all the time about when it comes to making decisions for their own birth. And obviously your kind of personal circumstances are quite extreme in comparison to what many women will be experiencing.
Speaker 1: 12:44
But that instinctive need for safety and for privacy, it's just like the perfect example of of how important those things are. And when you begin, you know you can intellectualize it, can't you? You can begin to understand all of the physiology about birth and then suddenly it makes sense why feelings of privacy and feelings of safety are so important to women. And something that I think your book and particularly kind of working alongside Marley with it has done really well is it's kind of tied together both the kind of what I call the passed down wisdom from mother to mother of like. This is what it was like for me. This is what helped me, this is what it felt like with the kind of the other side of that, the kind of the scientific, the physiology, the birth choices kind of thing together and those feelings of safety can look very different for you than they might look to somebody else.
Speaker 2: 13:43
Yes, totally Was that something that you kind of wanted to get into the book.
Speaker 2: 13:49
Yes, I mean. What I wanted to do was, firstly and most importantly for me, was for women to be able to read this book and not feel judged in any way for any decisions that they make. Life is hard enough for pregnant women and new mothers as it is, without other people's unwanted opinions about how you should be doing it, how you're doing it, what they think. You know, I have never felt more raw or in touch with my true self or like a lioness than when I was pregnant I was, than when I was pregnant, I was Pregnant. Women are so precious and we kind of are expected to carry on as normal in our life, but when I see a pregnant woman I go overboard If I don't even know them.
Speaker 2: 14:47
I was at this thing called the Founders Forum and there was a pregnant woman there and I went and I talked to her for a bit and I was like, how are you feeling and how are you feeling about your labor? And then I told her a bit about like, loving, giving birth and all the positive energy and just, you know, whatever you do or however it ends up, you are going to end up with a beautiful like. Maybe you know how excited I was. But she, she and I had like such a beautiful moment and I thought she's there at this work do with, surrounded by work people and and because we are such boss women now you know, we, we sort of think well, there she is, she's pregnant, but she's just working, she's just carrying on, she's just normal. But actually a pregnant woman isn't normal, she's very special and does deserve attention of some sort. So I feel like, um, that is where you need safety. In a way, you do need to be taken care of and paid attention to and listened to very carefully.
Speaker 2: 15:55
And secondly, I think the big thing that I wanted to create with this book was the safety is in the knowing. I think a lot of time some I mean I always think sometimes water's breaking. That's a real classic one where sometimes women who've had their waters broken um feel like they're advised quite quickly to have um to be induced and um to know your rights about how long and when is it safe to go to without being induced, unless there's meconium or unless there's a, unless there's a problem? Um, you know what about the health of your placenta? How long can you go? There are so many things that a woman should be aware of and know about before she makes the big decision of should I have um, an uh, an induction, because that can be quite a a big extreme way to give birth sometimes, because it's like naught to 60, you know, and that's a lot for some women. So that also I was trying to provide safety through knowledge.
Speaker 1: 17:07
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: 17:09
And the way that you've kind of weaved in alongside the kind of the knowledge side of things that passed down wisdom from women's stories and there is a really diverse variety of experiences in the book and I know that there is a kind of there can be a lot of messaging for women when they're pregnant, like only listen to the positive birth stories, like, don't listen to anything that's not, you know, your kind of plan, a dream birth experience. I'm very much of the opinion which I imagine sort of mirrors what's in the book is that actually there's real wisdom to be gained from all kinds of experiences. To be gained from all kinds of experiences, experiences that were very difficult for people to go through, experiences that were quite complicated for people to go through. If they are in, if the person sharing them stories themselves are in an emotionally safe place to share their experience. They're not using you as a kind of sounding board to process the traumatic experience. So how did you, as a kind of sounding board, to process the traumatic experience? Um, so how did you balance the kind of I think it's always, I always find it very difficult thing to do myself is tell how do you balance the real, helping women develop that sense of trust that they have in themselves, that sense of trust that they have in birth and the kind of real sharing of that.
Speaker 1: 18:27
I loved giving birth, but because I loved giving birth as well, and it's, how do you, how did you manage to kind of balance that with that? Actually, sometimes birth can be really difficult and sometimes people can experience trauma. How did you kind of find that in the kind of writing process?
Speaker 2: 18:41
there's two ways of telling a story and the stories that came in where they were just honest about their experiences. Often it was women who wanted an experience like us perhaps a more natural birth and they hadn't got that and they'd had to be induced and it ended up being, I don't know, von two's episiotomy forceps you know like really everything. And then I think you know you, I was looking for somebody that could tell that story in an honest way, not sugarcoated in any way, but also not be amplifying the horror of it. And I think you just said something very interesting where you said, if they're not writing it to try and overcome the trauma, what I was looking for was women who had had difficult births but who had dealt with that and were ready to just tell the story as it was but to not go through the deep emotional trauma or bring that to the table, because I think when it comes to emotional trauma, no one person's experience will be like another's. So the latest thing that I had was an operation on my brain, so my experience of that will be very different from someone else's experience that's had the same operation or maybe even with the same outcome. I will feel differently about that. Even with the same outcome, I will feel differently about that. So I was looking for people that could bring kind of clear story of their experience, without the kind of heavy emotion, so it wasn't going to terrify women. But it is important at the same time to hear that sometimes things don't go as planned and you can then, when you're in your labor and it's not going as planned, resort to that story that you read and thought, oh, I remember this. Sometimes this happens, I'm not alone. Okay, this is what happens. Okay, I feel empowered because I know where this might go.
Speaker 2: 20:57
Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin, which was my go-to book. After I'd seen Caroline Flint, I was like Ina May Gaskin's book was my Bible. There was a beautiful chapter in it which I read a couple of times, which was called what to Do If your Baby Doesn't Make it. And this is the darkest place that a pregnant woman can go to and there are stories of what happened to women that had stillbirths or something had gone wrong when the baby had been born.
Speaker 2: 21:25
I was born to a mother who had preeclampsia, so I was an emergency cesarean and I know how sometimes and it's not all the time otherwise women would never have babies. But sometimes things get complicated and I wanted to find a way of being able to tell those stories so that for the women whose stories did get complicated, they would feel seen and heard and feel armed in a small way. But it is as I agree with you. I think it is important to look at all possibilities because anything could happen, but the vast majority of the time nothing does. But if it does, you should know about it.
Speaker 1: 22:12
Yeah, and there is a real imbalance. Isn't there in um? Are the stories that we do hear and the stories that we have had most women haven't heard? The. It was great, I liked it. That's the often the kind of key piece that is missing um. But yeah, it was. It was just, I think, really validating for women to see that real breadth of experience and stories and to see so many versions of birth recognized.
Speaker 2: 22:37
I think yes which is which is, and that was another thing. You know, if you want to have an elective cesarean I don't, I don't even care if it was because of a traumatic birth before or not if that's what you really want, then you should have it yeah, um, and what do you?
Speaker 1: 22:54
so I mean, if you know, your first baby nearly 25 years ago. I had my first baby nearly 10 years ago and I imagine, just with the rise of social media, even between those two births things have kind of had changed. But women giving birth today, now there is there is this like unrelenting division, polarisation between she did it this way, she did it this way, she did it this way, whatever this way is, it could be birth, it could be feeding, it could be parenting, it could be anything. Um, is that something? Did you, did you feel that 25 years ago? Is it significantly, you, significantly worse now would you say?
Speaker 2: 23:34
I think it is really much, much worse now, and it's the same in everything. There is extreme differences in everything you do. So there's no more kind of middle of the road. I remember talking about something online and somebody went oh, you're one of those middle of the road people and I was like, yes, I am, and I'm quite happy to be a middle of the road person. I want to see both sides. You can't make me have an opinion on something that isn't true. Like it was such a weird insult to throw at somebody. I took it as a compliment.
Speaker 2: 24:20
So I feel like, as I said earlier, pregnant women are precious and this kind of negative telling everybody that they have to be one extreme or the other is wrong and bad. And if you want to be half hippie, like total natural birth, and half epidural, do that. You don't have to be anything. You don't have to be anything. You can be exactly what you want, because your baby and you will benefit enormously from that being the case. And I am going to be deliberately on the fence in this book as well. So this is a book written from a place where I agree with everybody that chooses whatever birth they want, and we're going to help you get that.
Speaker 1: 25:17
Yeah, absolutely, I think it's. It can sometimes feel when you're pregnant these days, like you have to pick a team or you have to pick a direction or a way of doing things and you have to pick that kind of wholeheartedly and do absolutely everything. That that kind of dictates. And yeah, and realizing that there is actually a middle ground where you could have different aspects of different bits of different things, can feel like an impossibility. But actually, as you say, it's such a powerful way to start your kind of parenting journey, to be like hang on, these things are happening because I'm choosing them, because they work for me and my family and we're all very unique in what we need and what we want from that experience this empowering thing as well.
Speaker 2: 26:02
When somebody tells you what to do and it slightly feels like it's not what you want to do, but you end up doing it, it, everything about that is wrong and and and. When we think about it, giving birth is that time where you want to go and stand in the garden and with your baby and lion king. You know that's the opposite. Isn't it taking that away and making you want to kind of go? Or I wish I hadn't done it like that, or I wish I couldn't? You know, I could have um said, said the thing I wanted to say, but I felt like I didn't have a voice. That would be my nightmare if I thought that a woman had to have that kind of birth. I want to give all birthing women a voice. And can I just big up the midwives like that? They are the most beautiful, incredible, empowering, patient, kind women that are like bringers of life to the world.
Speaker 1: 27:06
I mean, it's amazing yeah, and when you get a good one, you need to like hold them tight and keep them very, very close so important because it is, it does it.
Speaker 1: 27:17
I think this is the. The thing that is kind of overlooked is we think of. Sometimes birth is presented as this thing that happens on one day and then that's the end of it, and it's it's the. Actually one thing I loved about the book is that it's it's conception, it's pregnancy, it's birth, it's postpartum. And my like huge qualm with our model modern kind of medical system is the insistence that it seems to have in disconnecting conception, pregnancy, birth, feeding, postpartum, as though they're completely independent experiences that aren't like directly like intertwined in this big old web. And and the way that you give birth matters you know what was interesting.
Speaker 2: 27:59
Holly got stuck. She basically I was in labor. I was in false labor for a bit, I was in labor for like 36 hours and, um, she took quite a long time. It was a long time in pushing and it got to the point where my midwife very brilliantly said to me because she knew, she knew me, who I was she said if you don't get this baby out in the next three contractions, I'm gonna have to take you to hospital because we need to get you somewhere where we can get this baby out. And on the third contraction I got it out. I got her out, but Holly, I I had this big thing of put the tit in the mouth immediately. I wasn't waiting for her to root around. It's my first baby.
Speaker 2: 28:43
I didn't know what I was doing and I went skin to skin and I was like boob in mouth and I basically spent too long trying to shove my boob in her mouth and she got fussy. She was like, oh God, what are you trying to do? All I want to do is sleep. I'm shattered. So eventually the midwife very kind of subtly said let's let her have a sleep and when she's ready to feed she won't starve herself. She'll come to you, don't worry.
Speaker 2: 29:14
And I immediately kind of went, my shoulders dropped, she slept on me for a bit and then when she woke, she, she searched, she found, and it was amazing. But it's, you know, she gave me the power to do that, otherwise I probably would have made Holly an antsy feeder for two months afterwards, and you know what I mean. And she was a bit. And you know what I mean and she was a bit. She was a bit funny after that. So I had made her a little bit, um, a little bit touchy. But I knew, with the second and third, it's so funny, isn't it? With the third, I don't know how many have you got.
Speaker 1: 29:45
I've got two.
Speaker 2: 29:46
Yes, yeah, I just totally knew what I was doing with Chester at that point, golden balls, you know, it's like life was easy for him really yeah, I've got.
Speaker 1: 29:57
I'm one of three, so yeah, I've got the which one?
Speaker 2: 30:01
I'm middle, middle, okay, brilliant. Yeah, was it two girls and a boy?
Speaker 1: 30:07
what for me? I'm in the middle, I'm the girl, but boy, other side, oh boy, okay, brilliant, yeah, sandwich, the sort of mediator in the middle, um, okay, amazing. Well, the sort of final question that I suppose that I've got is if you, you know, if women were coming to this book and they didn't know anything about birth, or they were coming to you and you know this was their very, very kind of first toe dipping into what is it that I'm supposed to do? Um, what would be your kind of one takeaway message that you would want women to know when they're pregnant, about preparing for the best birth for them, whatever that looks like?
Speaker 2: 30:45
I would say don't make any major decisions about how you're going to do it, um, until you know 20 weeks, 20, 20, 25 weeks even maybe because we like read the book, but read all the options and read all the stories and decide what feels right for you. Um, because that is your first step to empowerment and to finding your voice. When you see your midwives, you want to feel confident and be confident enough to say what you'd like. I remember I think, especially with first-time mums, you are really deferring a lot to the medicals, like the medical profession, because you want to be safe. But there are still lots of things that you can make choices about.
Speaker 2: 31:39
And I would say try and get informed before you make any big decisions about how you want to give birth. Otherwise then you're telling people and then you're having to kind of change your mind. It's confusing enough as it is. So get it all sorted in your head first, and then and your partners, you know, um, if, if, if, they might think strongly in one way, you know, kind of really sit down and have big discussions about that.
Speaker 2: 32:08
I mean, it's always quite funny, isn't it, when a partner feels very strongly about how you're going to give birth. It's like what. Oh, another thing I really just want to say very quickly is there is enormous pressure for partners to really get stuck into women in labor and some partners you know love doing that and they want to get really stuck in and kind of. But I just wanted to big up some partners who really love the mother of doing that and they want to get really stuck in and kind of. But I just wanted to big up some partners who really love the mother of their children and they, but they they don't know what to do when a woman's in labor.
Speaker 1: 32:41
They're totally freaked out well, it's bad, isn't it how we expect them to be like trained midwives, and they've never seen anybody give birth right and also like sometimes it's like you know, have a look.
Speaker 2: 32:52
It's like they might not want to have a look. It's a bit like making a small child kiss someone or hug someone they haven't met before. You think you don't know this person. Like, just let them. What would they like to do? And before you give birth, ask your partner how do you feel about it? Honestly, I'm not going to get offended. Do you want to even be there? Because I would rather be with a birthing partner who fucking loves it and wants to get completely involved. Sorry about my language.
Speaker 1: 33:22
Oh, you can swear it's fine I think I've already sworn and wants to get completely involved and be with you and get really excited.
Speaker 2: 33:29
Then make someone be there who is awkward, doesn't know how to fight your corner, doesn't know where to look, is horrified by the blood. You know it's much better that they're outside on a seat um reading and your part, your birthing partner, can be with you, filling you with joy, and then they come and meet their beautiful baby. That's a much better experience than you being constantly annoyed that your partner looks completely horrified through your whole labor because, like you said, we all feel like look what I did. This is amazing. If your partner isn't your cheer, biggest cheerleader and they can handle it, don't have them in the room.
Speaker 1: 34:14
And that taps into the emotional safety that we talked about being so important. Yes, when we're, particularly when we're in labour, but even when we're pregnant, we soak up the kind of we tap into the emotions of a space much more than we do when we're not pregnant and certainly not in labour, and if there is somebody in that space that feels anxious, that doesn't feel welcome, like you.
Speaker 1: 34:36
Yeah, you pick up on that, yeah and and again, when you tap back into the physiology, that can literally impact the way that birth is unfolding, like it really does matter. Yeah, um, but also, if they don't feel like confident to be a birth partner but they want to be there, it's about, yeah, get making sure that they have support. So I ended up at my first, my first baby's birth. She came to bring us pizza because we were starving and then I, my husband, was like, should we get her to stay? I was like, yeah, she can stay, and then it just gave that balance. That was my responsibility, wasn't there?
Speaker 2: 35:14
yeah, I'm grandma next. This is my next step and I'm like that is my, please stay what me really okay.
Speaker 1: 35:25
I think it was probably my mum's dream as well. Yeah, amazing. Well, thank you so so much for yeah coming and sharing.
Speaker 2: 35:32
I really enjoyed it, thank you.
Speaker 1: 35:34
Amazing. I hope everybody's spreading the word. No, not at all. It's a yeah fantastic book and yeah wonderful resource that you've put together, so it will, yeah, I'm sure, go a long way to informing people and getting them feeling empowered ahead of their own birth. Amazing, thank you so so much.
Speaker 1: 35:49
Have a lovely day, lots of love bye. Thanks so much for listening to the birth ed podcast. I know you're already feeling how much of an impact these conversations are having on your own pregnancy and birth plans and parenting journeys, and I want that impact to be as far-reaching as possible. But I can't make it happen without your help. If you've got two minutes now to five-star rate and review the episode or send it to a friend, this is what helps us creep up the podcast charts and into the ears of more and more parents-to-be. Together we really can change the face of birth as we know it.