I became a mother for the second time, 7 years ago today.I loved being pregnant and I was super excited to welcome my new child earthside. My first birth did not go as I had planned, but I had learned so much from that experience and it was because of that, that I became an advocate for the Freedom Of Birth.

So what does that mean exactly?

Well in a nutshell, it means that every woman should have the freedom to choose where and how she wishes to birth her baby. But along the way I realized that so many women are ill informed, when it comes to pregnancy and birth. So many women have no idea how powerful their bodies are and therefore hand over all responsibility for the birth over to the medical profession. And with that responsibly they also hand over their power.

Thanks to the media, most people are fearful of birth, their only experience being what they witnessed on T.V or the negative stories they have heard from others, where it is always very dramatic and often with a lot of complications.They forgot that birthing is one of the most natural things in the world and that women have been doing it since the beginning of time and we are still here doing it!

But now the majority of women never get to experience a natural birth, instead they experience a cascade of interventions so that birth fits into the schedule of the busy maternity hospital and their staff.

It really saddens me that women are not getting to experience the sacred act of birth. Natural birth is so empowering and it really helps prepare a woman for parent hood. This is such a huge rite of passage and the spiritual side of it gets completely ignored. Instead it is suddenly a medical condition, where there is so much talk of risks and so much fear injected into the mother. It is no surprise that so many women feel unable to birth naturally.

When we are birthing our young, just before they are about to be born we go through a transition in the birth process and naturally get to a point where we question our abilities and everything becomes so intense. But it is not just the birth of our young that we are experiencing, it is the rebirth of ourselves as mothers.

At this stage we are being called on to let go, to release all the fears we have inside and surrender to the process of birthing our babies and re-birthing ourselves. It is so natural to hear women say I can not do it at this stage, because they are in a transformative state. They feel everything being stripped away from them and they feel the fear of uncertainty.

But with the right support they will move forward and birth their babies, embracing their power and ready to embrace the next stage of their lives as a woman, as a mother!

A woman's body knows what to do, as do our babies, we just need to listen to ourselves and to trust ourselves. As a woman it is our right to birth our babies peacefully, to be in a safe and supportive environment and to be honoured and respected. The transition to motherhood needs to be celebrated and honoured. I wish to help heal birth, to help empower other women and to help re establish birth as the sacred act it has always been.

Seven years ago on this very night, I birthed my second baby next to the sea in a bell tent and I rebirthed myself. It was such a hugely intense and powerful experience and it opened me up to the power that I hold inside, to the power that all women hold inside. My wish is to help all women feel that power and along the way help men tap into their power also.

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