Earlier this year, some midwife and childbirth educator friends and I presented a 5 day refresher training workshop to some 30 midwives and health workers in Laos. They were from villages within 2 of the poorest districts in Luang Prabang Province, where there are...

Emily Vaccaro is a family and baby photographer in San Francisco, California. In this video, Emily reads to her own newborn, Jolene, about the day she arrived.

Here we have a lighting designer, midwife, student and medical doctor answering two questions about birth:
1) Where were you born?
&
2) What would you tell your daughter about birth?

How would you answer those questions?

Brenda and DeAndre´ Vaxter were planning on a hospital birth and were all set for that when Brenda, at 36 weeks, approached her husband about having their baby at home. Loving and practical, DeAndre recognized that his wife’s desire was deep and heartfelt. He asked Brenda to set up an interview with a midwife and the rest is history.

The Compassionate Birth Project is a systems based programme which offers staff working in public maternity units, from midwives and doctors to clerks and security, a process to discover the human compassion within themselves, empowering them to provide more holistic,...

In many cultures, burying the placenta in or near the house is a guarantee that your child will return home. A young woman called Lilith visited me last week. She came all the way from Belgium to visit her place of birth. She had just turned 21. When her mama was 21...

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Anamboya means ‘midwife’ in Shona I have heard about this Zimbabwean midwife in the informal settlement of Masiphumelele for about a year now. I have heard that she is a traditional midwife and that many women in the Zimbabwean community in Cape Town seek her out...

Matilda has a flock of fine looking hens. All kinds and colours. They live close to the house, but don’t generally come in the house. She loves having them around, clucks over them and cares for them. When she went into labour at home, one of her hens, called Dougal,...

Ministry of health: A hearing with a panel of 3 “judges”. I sit in the room, watching them, hearing them. They are all men, even the expert witness who came to give his insights about homebirth. Beside me sit 7-8 more women, listening. We are not allowed to talk. The...

The reboso, or Mexican shawl, can be used in many ways to promote circulation, mobility, balance and open-ness in a mother’s pelvis in pregnancy and birth. Different techniques can also effectively bring babies in or out of the pelvis, and help them change to a more...