Calmbirth, Jenny Childs

01/12/2025

Daniel Grose talks about guarding his wife's 'personhood'.

Such a great term about ensuring she has space to find her own mind amongst the constant caring thinking and planning she innately does for everyone else in the family.

Daniel says that he took a long time to learn this and is now teaching other men the importance of this to prevent feelings of bitterness and resentment.

It's so good to see men understanding these deeper dynamics and forging ways forward into fatherhood.

23/11/2025

Awesome Calmbirth conference in Melbourne last week. So good to catch up with everyone.

I spoke about the body and knowing how our nervous system works (through the poly vagal theory) is such an insight into understanding how we respond in a given situation. It is just so interesting! .... and one of my favourite subjects.

It was so great to hear from all the speakers and the pioneering Rhea Dhempsy . Read her books, they are an inspiration.

25/08/2025

There is so much to say about Michel Odent, he was such a legend, ground breaker/pioneer, despite what he advocated was really quite simple. The primal private space for women to birth. It was a privilege to see him at numerous conferences when I first began to practise.

As write....Michel Odent reminded us that birth is not a medical procedure to be controlled, but a primal rythm to be respected. He advocated for home-like maternity units, warm water births, protecting the birthing woman's privacy and honouring her instincts, undisturbed contact between mother and newborn; he was among the first to discuss the importance of the microbiome, and question many of the practices that had (and have) become normalised in
overmedicalised maternity systems globally.

Michel Odent's legacy lives on in every dimmed, quiet birthing room, and in every midwife his words and work inspired to join our profession.

Thank you, Michel, for your passion, vision and committment to women and newborns.

class calmbirth

22/08/2025

What a legend....Michael Dent was a leader in reshaping the way we see birth. He understood the primal nature of birth and the importance of womans need to feel safe and private.
I was privileged to see him at 2 or was it 3 conferences. Before oxytocin became famous he called it "zee hormone of love" in his French accent.
He outlined the industrialisation of childbirth in simple succinct form in his many books. "The Scientification of Love" and "The Farmer and the Obstetrician" particularly resonate.

We are saddened to hear news of the passing of Michel Odent, whose vision and writing reshaped the way we understand human birth.

Michel Odent reminded us that birth is not a medical procedure to be controlled, but a primal rythm to be respected. He advocated for home-like maternity units, warm water births, protecting the birthing woman's privacy and honouring her instincts, undisturbed contact between mother and newborn; he was among the first to discuss the importance of the microbiome, and question many of the practices that had (and have) become normalised in overmedicalised maternity systems globally.

Michel Odent's legacy lives on in every dimmed, quiet birthing room, and in every midwife his words and work inspired to join our profession.

Thank you, Michel, for your passion, vision and committment to women and newborns.

Photo: Xavier Caré / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA

09/06/2025

Sara Wickham leading childbirth academic and her thoughts on induction. Now 50% of first time mothers will be induced. What do you think of that? 50% of first time mothers not beginning labour when they and their babies bodies natural orchestra of hormones begin it.
Is there any long or short term implications to mechanised birth?

I'm not anti-induction.

And neither are most of the people who will share this post with you.

In fact, there are some really good reasons to induce labour.

I wrote about some of those in a blog post a few months ago. I explained what I see as good reasons for induction. And I also listed the reasons for induction that I would consider to be questionable.

Because, sometimes, induction is offered or recommended for less-than-good reasons.

Convenience, fear or a lack of trust in the female body. In fact, those of us who work in birth-related areas see many unnecessary inductions. We also see the negative consequences that can sometimes result.

That's why we discuss it and want everyone to make the decision that's right for them.

Once they have ALL the facts.

You can read my blog posts about good reasons to induce labour at https://www.sarawickham.com/articles-2/are-there-good-reasons-to-induce-labour/

It offers links to many others as well as the books that I have written on this topic.

And yes, please feel free to share/repost our pic with our text, credit and link intact. Please don't put Sara's material into your own branding.

08/06/2025

I often talk about physiological birth being an endangered activity. By the estimation of midwives I’ve spoken to in Australia, physiological births that unfold without intervention in our hospitals make up between 1 and 5% of all hospital births. (While births in settings where you would expect physiological birth would be occurring, such as at home, in a birth centre, or ‘born before arrivals – think the back seat of the car – only make up around 3% of all births.)

But it’s not just Australia where the statistics are concerning for anyone hoping for physiological birth. Caesarean births, for example, are rising worldwide. In England, 42% of all births are now by caesarean section compared with 29% five years ago.

High caesarean rates in other countries (based on 2021 figures reported in 2024) include Turkey (58.4%), Brazil (56.4%), South Korea (53.8%), Mexico (52.6%), Ireland (35.5%), Vietnam (34.4%), Italy (32.3%), US (32%), Germany (30.7%), Canada (29.8%), Aotearoa New Zealand (29.6%).

Locally, the most recent Australia’s Mothers and Babies report (as well as reporting an increase in our caesarean rate) included a new field of data. The ‘selected women’ cohort are between 20 to 24 years of age, birthed at term and had a single baby, with ‘head down’. They are a ‘cohort of mothers who are expected to have reduced labour complications and better birth outcomes’. Comparisons between these ‘selected’ groups of women ‘allows for an indication of standard practice’.

Just looking at this cohort (for first babies born in 2004 compared to 2022), rates of induction have increased from 25.9% to 43.0%, caesareans have increased from 24.5% to 34.5%, and non-instrumental vaginal birth have decreased from 53% to 42.5%.

Research suggests that the majority of women want a physiological birth — a ‘natural birth’. The stats show us just how rare this is, not just in Australia but in so many settings around the world.

In my books I talk about the complex causes behind these stats, and the emotional and relationship dynamics readers need to be aware of that will affect their labour and birth in these care settings. But the key message I always have for my readers is not to see those statistics and think there is something wrong with our birthing bodies. What makes physiological birth so hard isn’t usually the birth process itself. It’s how we have come to support it (or not).

Read those stats as evidence that the care you need for physiological birth is not standard practice. Read those stats as a warning of what you are up against.

Really take in those stats as a first step. The next steps are those choices required to claim the birth you want.

08/04/2025

Baby Amy was born to Grace who has the then (2yrs ago) UKs first successful transplanted womb donated from her older sister....also Amy.

Its amazing the capacity of medical science and the benefits to someone like Amy who was born with a rare medical condition (MRKH syndrome) where the womb is underdeveloped.

The first baby born as a result of a womb transplant was in Sweden in 2014. Since then around 135 such transplants have been carried out in more than a dozen countries, including the US, China, France, Germany, India and Turkey. Around 65 babies have been born.

It's fascinating, miraculous, joyous......but then a little disquieting and one wonders where could this all go? Why does these fantastic medical advances in woman's reproductive health sometimes feel like a double edged sword?

Congratulations to Grace and Angus.

Baby Amy's mother on the ''act of sisterly love'' that made her pregnancy possible.

27/08/2024

Ina May Gaskin recognised for her deep commitment to physiologic childbirth emphasising both physical AND mental well-being. She wrote the first book by a midwife in 1975, has inspired many of us and is an all round LEGEND!