Restoring the wisdom of safer & gentle birth back to the family.
Ending the global abuse of birthing women by reteaching the art of family birth through the care of wise women.
Bringing birth home
Welcome
Why we exist
We are in the midst of a global health crisis
In most developed nations, at least one in three women reports that her birth was traumatic. Not disappointing, but full-out traumatic in that it included the elements of violation, loss of control, fear for life, and helplessness. The result is that about one in eight women enters parenthood with birth trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder from the experience. Further, many more will have some, but not all, of the symptoms of trauma.
Just when a new mother should be focusing on bonding to her baby, she's instead dealing with flashbacks, nightmares, insomnia, chronic pain, memory loss, rage, anxiety attacks, and more. She's now at risk for future health problems, including postpartum depression and anxiety, cardiac, respiratory, and digestive illnesses, and musculoskeletal problems. She'll face more obstetrical problems in the future, if she chooses to have another baby. Her relationships suffer, her job suffers, and her children may suffer. And most terribly, these suffering parents are at higher risk of suicide, which is now a leading cause of maternal mortality in the developed world.
It doesn't have to be like this.
There are solutions
There is an absolute abundance of research from around the world that informs us about the causes and the solutions for this travesty. While birth trauma might result from a medical emergency, it most often is the result of a breakdown in the relationship between the woman and her care providers. She felt abandoned, abused, violated, manipulated, threatened, coerced, and helpless. It's an issue of interpersonal communication and relationships that could be resolved by care providers investing in the skills of trauma informed care and maternity systems moving from a hierarchical to a collaborative care model.
The barrier to this simple solution is that current maternity models are not open to changing from their current power dynamic where women are subordinate to the clinician and trauma informed care interrupts the flow of services as they exist today.
Instead, increasing interventions are benefiting existing power structures and producing worsening results in terms of outcomes for mothers and their babies.
However, we are not without solutions.
It comes down to us. We must be the change we need to protect ourselves and our babies. We can do better and we are doing better.
Based on the Law of Diminishing Returns, we know that today's technocratic medicalised birth services industry is on the brink of collapse. It must not collapse as we still need these services for rescue and crisis care. By removing the burden of normal birth from these legacy institutions back to the sovereignty of the family, the community, and the wise woman, these institutions will be available for what they do best ~ manage a medical crisis with life-saving skills. And the vast majority of babies can be born safely and gently from healthy, empowered, and non-traumatised mothers.
How we get there
We are re-learning the skills of normal family birth. We are learning what this industry will not do. We are learning the skills of breech birth, physiological birth, pregnancy nutrition, how to holistically heal from common pregnancy concerns, how to wisely use food, herbs and other healing modalities, and how to gently help babies when they are born.
We are learning the skills of trauma informed care and we are healing from past birth trauma and embracing a much more optimistic future.
These are normal life skills. They are for everyone who wants them.
Medical testing, treatment, and interventions are available to those who want or need them. We are creating an alternative where 1 in 4 women are not injured by poor instrumental technique, where 1 in 3 women don't end up with a scar on their uterus, where 1 in 3 are not traumatised, where 1 in 3 don't suffer with postpartum depression and/or anxiety, where 1 in 8 don't have PTSD, where 1 in 10 don't have thoughts of self-harm in the first year postpartum, and where suicide is not a leading cause of maternal mortality after the baby arrives.
We care about the whole family. And it starts with caring about the mother.
Creating a better future
We know from the last several years that legacy institutions don't serve us. They serve those few who fund their (mis)direction and get the results that benefit the few.
If we want a different outcome, we'll have to make different choices.
We have created an ideal forum for like-minded men and women to come together to reclaim our autonomy over our bodies, births, babies, families, finances, and futures. The Hive Collective - a Private Member Association provides us with the private forum for collaboration, connection, and community. Together, we exit government regulated services to instead serve one another holistically and ethically while protecting each other's medical information and right to choose what's best for us. Here we can relearn how to have healthy families, how to birth our babies, how to parent with gentle integrity, educate ourselves and our children, access the food we want for healthy living, and so much more. It's up to us to create the future we need and deserve.
Need someone to talk to who understands?
Consultations
We get it. We've been there.
Not only are we survivors of obstetric violence and birth trauma, we've got years of research and experience in helping women both inside and out of the regulated maternity system as they heal and welcome subsequent children where family birth is at the centre of their healing.
A non-therapeutic consultation gives you the opportunity to talk about your experience, learn what the research says about the effects of trauma on your limbic system in the brain, your physical health, your emotions, reactions, and relationships. You'll learn some immediate non-therapeutic strategies that start the healing process. It's an opportunity to identify therapeutic options you can explore to facilitate your healing. And you can learn more about both regulated and non-regulated support for a birth after trauma.
Becoming Trauma Informed
It would be ideal if trauma informed education was mandatory for maternity providers. However, it's not and there's no interest coming from this industry. They don't think they need it and seem to be ok with having the highest rate of injury to women having an instrumental delivery in the developed world and resulting birth trauma.
This is for us.
We need this information for our own understanding and healing, for our relationships, and for our children. We are the survivors and we are the wise women who are creating options for today's families. We are the change.
Becoming Trauma Informed is the world's most comprehensive course of its kind. Entirely online and backed by research from multiple disciplines. It goes through the tough grit of maternity abuse, obstetric violence, the ramifications of living with a traumatic brain injury (PTSD), and focuses on recovery and renewal. It's a collaborative and supportive exploration of the causes, consequences, and cures for this journey we never asked for.
Birthing Safely in a Technocratic Model
This is the childbirth education you'll need if you want a different outcome. This one-day intensive explodes the myths that keep us in birth-fright and takes a deep dive into the science of safe and joyous birth. Called 'life-changing', this workshop equips you with a new approach to childbirth that will have you heaving a sigh of relief, laughing until your sides hurt, and leaving with a spring in your step filled with hope and optimism. You'll meet some awesome people who are on the same journey and understand where you've been and believe in your hopes and plans for the future.
2024 dates will be announced soon
In person only. Kitchener Ontario.
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