I Couldn't Face Giving Birth Again—Until This

She didn't scream. She froze. And birth changed her forever. At 24, Moran Liviani went into labor unprepared for what birth would bring. When the first surge hit, she froze. Fear, past trauma, and feeling unsupported collided in one moment. That birth left her disempowered and anxious. For a long time, she questioned whether she could ever give birth again. This storytelling episode is about how past experiences walk into the birth room with us and what becomes possible when women feel safe, supported, and connected to their bodies. Welcome, Moran. How are you?

Good, good. Thank you for having me, Rita. I'm glad to be here.

Oh, it's great to have you. And this is a subject not many people talk about, you know, having a doula with them during the birthing process.

Yeah, I think it's— it was once really taboo sort of thing, not something that many women even knew there was an option, but I think it's becoming a bit more Well known, a bit more women are talking about it and knowing that this can be something that they can have at their birth. So yeah, that's good.

And you've written a book about it. So can you tell us the title of the book?

The title of the book is Birthing with Trauma and Fear. I guess every woman is going into birth with some element of fear. And from kind of when I was doing research for the book, I actually found that a lot of women are traumatized going into birth with some sort of traumatic life event of any kind. It's— the statistics are sad, but most women will come into birth with some sort of trauma.

Take us back to when you first gave birth at 24, and what did that moment feel like for you emotionally?

We didn't intend to have babies that early, and I was living in Australia, in a country where I didn't have any family, didn't really kind of know anyone, didn't create any kind of network of support. And so when we found out we were pregnant, I did what every person would do, which is basically you pee on the stick, you go to the doctor, they confirm the pregnancy. And then he gave me options and only one option. He basically said to me, do you have private healthcare? And I said yes. And so he gave me a list of obstetricians to choose from. And so I thought, this is just what you do, kind of like I didn't know there was other 'Cause right now as a doula, I know there's many other options other than just going through obstetric care, but I just basically picked the first Jewish name off the list because I'm Jewish. And that was my decision-making process. Not very good when you're making big life decisions, but that's what I did. I went to this doctor, he was very nice. Didn't really see him for very long as kind of the standard of care with most obstetricians, not a lot of them, but like most of them. You don't see them for very long. You see them maybe for like 10 minutes, but you're waiting there for quite a while. So I saw him for a very short amount of time. He did all the normal observation checks and things like that, and he was all good. I didn't really question what was going to happen at the birth or anything like that. I didn't read many books. There was one book that I read, which was What to Expect When You're Expecting, which I don't recommend as a doula as the book to To guide you on your way, and so I just kind of like went with it. I thought I had a really good pain tolerance. I thought like I'm gonna totally ace this. Like I'm gonna you know go with the flow and have the type of birth that I'm wanting, which was a natural experience. I did want to have a natural birth, but I didn't really look into what that entailed. And so as the months went by, I then had an appointment with my obstetrician towards the end of the pregnancy. He then said to me, "Listen, if you don't go into." labor on your due date, then I've already booked you in for an induction. I was like, oh, okay. Like, what does that actually mean? I don't really know. But I was just, okay, well, I'll deal. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. We didn't really question, even my husband at the time, we didn't really know what we didn't know. So we didn't really question anything.

Mm-hmm.

You kind of go with it. And so I went into labor, um, a couple of days before my due date. Uh, the first contraction that I had, I had a panic attack, like a full-blown panic attack.

Mm-hmm.

And in that panic attack, I reverted back to very childlike dissociative behavior. I went into that very much, 'cause I went through a lot of childhood trauma, which I kind of go through in the book, a lot of it. And in that moment, I became sort of like that 12-year-old child going, why am I having a child? I don't wanna do this. And so I went into a full-blown panic attack, like hands shaking, can't think straight, Told my husband, can you please just call the hospital? Tell them I want a cesarean. I don't want to do this. Like, I just want to— I just want to get out of my body. I just do not want to be here right now and do this. And so he rang the hospital and the midwife was really nice. She just basically said, we don't offer cesarean as a method of pain relief. So then I was like, oh my God, I literally have to do this. Like, I just— I have to go through that. There's no way out. And so I ended up having, uh, quite a long labor, full of interventions. At the time, I had my husband as my support, but I also had my sister who had gone through the same childhood trauma as me. So every time I looked at her for support, all I was seeing was fear kind of mirrored back at me.

Mm-hmm.

And we were just— we— it was just a loop of anxiety and fear. And so I succumbed to an epidural more so to quiet the chaos that was going through in my mind, um, because I just And then after like 2 days basically of labor, my doctor who looked like my knight in shining armor came through the door and said, are we ready to have this baby? And I was like, take this thing out of me. I'm just, I want this done, sort of thing. And so he, without asking for consent, he took the surgical scissors, cut me, did an episiotomy, didn't even tell me. I didn't even know I had an episiotomy at the time until I became a doula. I did. I had no idea. And took 4 steps and got her out, bundled her up, put her on top of my body, and I felt nothing. I literally felt nothing. I felt like, what just happened? I have no idea what's happening right now. I felt— I felt this sense of, I'm just so relieved this is over. Like, I'm just so relieved this is over.

Yeah.

But then it came to the realization of, like, oh, God, now I have to mother this thing.

The hard part's coming.

The hard part is coming. It's not ending. And so what ended up being just the birth ended up being postnatal anxiety, postnatal depression, all bundled up into one traumatic package, compounding the trauma that I already walked into birth with. I had this birth trauma because I felt like everyone was not being supportive. Things were happening to me without being explained to me. I felt like, you know, even with him, like not telling me what he was doing down, I felt like a sense of helplessness and out of control. Like I felt like I had no say in what was happening to my body as well as to my mind. And so I walked out of that experience going, this is never, ever, ever happening again. Why would I put myself through that again? Why would women do this ever? Like what? And I used to go with my daughter. To, um, like walks in the stroller to the park, you know, as you do as a new mom. And I used to see women with 2 or 3 children, and I was like, what is wrong with them?

Don't they remember?

Don't they remember? Like, why would they do this again? Like, I just couldn't fathom the idea of it. Like, every time I used to think about it, it used to just give me such anxiety that I couldn't even think about it. It was just horrifying to me. We succumbed to that. This is it. Bella, who's our first girl, is the only child. This is not happening again. And that was it. So that was it for a couple of years. And we had our first daughter in Sydney. And then a couple of years later, we moved to the Gold Coast, um, just here in Queensland. I, this was about probably 3, 3 or so years later. And so we, I kind of like got into circle of women who were a bit more like-minded. And so something about that change of environment, talking to women, becoming a feeling a bit more like a tribe, something that I didn't have, especially in my youth and, you know, growing up and the way that I did. And, um, and even at the time that I had Bella, I didn't have that circle of support. I kind of became a little bit more mentally strong. And with that, um, I was doing also a lot of, uh, I was seeing a psychologist at the time, was doing a lot of like CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy stuff. And I was really working on myself, like my mental capacity to deal with things and become stronger. So a lot of— there was a lot of stuff going on. And then I shared my birth experience with a friend at the time, and she said to me, next time you get pregnant, why don't you get a doula? And I was like, what's a doula? Like, I had no idea what that is. You actually had to research what a doula was. Like, there was no, like, Google. Like, Google wasn't the platform at the time to just look it up. I actually had to properly research what a doula was and It sounded incredible. Like, it sounded like someone who was just going to be there for me. Like, I needed that person. I also really wanted someone who was quite maternal. A lot of my childhood traumas involved around not having my mom in my life. And I wanted that maternal figure in birth. I needed that, someone who to reassure me, reaffirm my strength, and like catch me when I fall, things like that. It sounded like what I needed. And so we got pregnant. I had a loss at around 11 weeks and I was like, oh no, that's a universe sign telling me, no, no, don't have a baby. This is a clear-cut sign. Do not have a baby. But then I was like, no, no, no, this is what you want. 'Cause I really wanted 3 children. Like my picture perfect was 3 children. And so, okay. I was like, no, we're gonna do this again. Got pregnant again. And then once we kind of passed that threshold of, as the weeks went by, where it's kind of, I know this pregnancy is going to continue, I hired the doula that that friend recommended. It just, it completely changed, changed my perspective on birth. She basically saw me for a couple sessions throughout my pregnancy. And in those sessions, she was just this non— judgmental person who is just listening to everything that I was going through. She normalized birth for me. She showed me videos. And I remember she showed me a documentary called The Business of Being Born by Ricky Lake and Abby Epstein. And I was like, wow. I just had this kind of, like, mind-blown moment. And I was like, oh my God, I can actually do this. Like, I have so much more power than I thought I did. It's incredible. So then I was preparing. I prepared the difference. The biggest difference I did in this, that pregnancy, is that I prepared more mentally than physically. I wasn't concentrating on what I was feeling in my body. I was concentrating on how can I make my mind more resilient? And so I was working on that. It was just basically mental exercises, basically. So I was constantly working on How I was feeling, what I can do to strengthen my ability to deal with things, what I needed on any particular day. I was very conscious of my needs and things like that. And the doula just strengthened all of that. And I just— the only thing I did that I did similar to in my second pregnancy to my first, I hired an obstetrician and he was going to be my primary care provider. And He was lovely. Like he was just very nice, like great kind of bedside manners, like really complete opposite to what I had the first time. Like he was very— my first one was kind of very abrupt and quick with his answers where this one was quite— he's quite good in listening and gave me the time and everything like that. But the only thing I didn't know about him is he had quite a high C-section rate and high intervention rate, which I didn't know at the time. But as the weeks went on, He kind of suggested that, oh, do you want to sign consent forms for an epidural? And I was like, no, I'm not doing an epidural this time. And he let that go and everything. And I just— the pregnancy was low risk. I didn't— was nothing to talk about. It was like boring as, and it was great. Yeah, that's what I needed. I went into labor on her due date, and I woke up in the middle of the night, felt my first contraction, and I was like, yes! Bring it on. Like, bring it on. I've waited for you. So then I went back to sleep, woke up in the morning. It was a touch stronger. And I remember I didn't call my doula yet. My husband and I just went for a walk near the water, just on the Gold Coast Broadwater. And it was just a beautiful day. And then we came back home again. Things got stronger again. And so we called the doula. The doula came. She went with me for a little walk. And then I said to her, I feel like I need to be back home now. We got back home, my waters broke, and then she said to me, I think we need to head into the hospital. You're, you're going to have your baby now. So the minute that she said, I think we need to go to the hospital, I said to her, no, I want to have this baby at home. And so I knew that my doula was a free birth doula. So she was a doula that attended births at home, which I don't, without a medical provider. So I knew that she did that. But during the pregnancy, not even once, Rita, did I think about having a home birth. Not once. Didn't even cross my mind. Didn't even think about it. I was like, no, I'm birthing in a hospital. That was 100% my aim. But in that moment, hospital did not equate to safety for me. And I said to her, I want to birth at home.

Yeah.

So I really, I was very intuitive in that pregnancy and I was just like, no. This is my intuition saying stay at home. And so I asked her to fill up my bathtub, and I got into my bathtub, and I birthed her like 40 minutes later.

Oh, that's an amazing story. That— you know what I find incredible about what you've been saying is, you know, we all talk about the mind-body connection, and in your first one you were full of trauma, fear. And then do you feel that that is why you had the type of pregnancy that you had? In the first one because, you know, it just equated to, you know, how you were feeling internally. And now this one went super easy at home in your bathtub because you had released that fear, or did you— had you— had obviously dealt with the trauma?

A mix of both, definitely. Um, I didn't do any— like I said, I didn't do any mental emotional work preparing for Bella's birth, and I was not going to step into this birth without kind of looking back and unpeeling the layers of what was going on for me through childhood, getting to the point of like, why was I scared of birth? All of that, because I did that mental work. That's the only reason I had the type of birth that I had.

That just, yeah, it's an amazing testament to people when they do do the work. 'Cause sometimes we do the work and we think, oh yes, I'm clearing my emotions for my emotions, but we're not thinking, Wow, these emotions, you know, like you didn't have no idea that your trauma would have an effect on your birthing process. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's, I think, women don't realize is that when we go into labor, we actually become our most vulnerable selves. And when we become our most vulnerable selves, everything comes out, you know what I mean? And everything comes out. And if you don't have especially the right support to hold you through those emotions that might come out, because you might have not processed it, you might not have realized it, but if you don't have people that will Hold you through that, that can sabotage an incredible experience. I didn't have that. I had my husband who had no idea what to do with me, and my sister who was as fearful as I was. And they were both. And even in my second birth, I said to my sister, "I don't feel like you are the right person to be at this birth." And she, out of love, did not come to my second birth. She was not there.

Well, that's amazing. She took it so well. Some would get offended and then hurt and blah blah blah. But she obviously understood where you were.

She definitely did. And she understood, and she also recognized that what she was bringing into that— because every person that comes into your birth is bringing their own baggage of stuff with them. And if their own baggage of stuff with them is something that might hinder your progress or hinder your transformation and everything that you're going through in your labor, that might not necessarily be the right person to be there.

Even, even the hospital staff, as we just mentioned before we press record, even like— I'm not gonna make this about me, but even my story, you know You know, I, I think I went into the birthing process, uh, having, you know, childhood, uh, trauma in a way, or beliefs of not being supported. And what did I get? I got a— I've got a nurse who sent away my support team.

Yeah.

And I had no support throughout the whole process. So it's really, what are we bringing in? And then what is mirrored back to us at the time, especially women who are pregnant or are going for their second, third child Really look at your, your emotional state and your mental health going into pregnancy or before you get pregnant.

Oh yeah, 100%. And I think that's what I was trying to kind of relay in the book, because in the book I've wrote— written kind of my story, and I've then written like what I call the 10 essential things that women can do to prepare so they're not re-traumatized.

And can you give us a snapshot of that?

Yeah. So what I've done, because what happened was after I had my third daughter, when she turned 1, I actually became a doula. And I then attended every birth that I could go to. Like, I went to every birth that I could take on because I wanted to just experience birth in all its variations. And so what I found and what I think most practitioners find when they're kind of doing any sort of practice is that you get people coming to you that are like you. Very much, you very much attract the same people who kind of had either the kind of the similar experiences or they're very much like you. So I got all the anxious women, the women who had gone through something, and I was then seeing so many births. And the, what I've noticed was a pattern in the women who didn't look into doing the work before they get into their birth. Those are the ones that When they got into birth, everything just unleashed right then and there, and then their birth either wouldn't progress or the pattern of their labor would be more difficult, or they felt traumatized. Even if the birth went amazing, they still came out of it traumatized. It's it's if they don't. So what I found that the women who kind of walked into birth without doing some sort of mental look, emotional look at what's going on for them, or even didn't listen to. Their sort of like attachment patterns or their belief systems and looked further into that. Those are the women who kind of went into birth and birth didn't necessarily go the way that they wanted it to. Now, not all women, but I saw for a great majority of women that was happening. And the women that had the most incredible positive experiences, not necessarily natural experiences, but positive experiences, are the women who did what I call the Essential 10. They did certain things to prepare for themselves to go into that birth and to be able to release and let go. And the certain things that I found that they do, and I mention each one, I kind of go into further detail with each one, is first of all, look into what equates to safety for them. You know what I mean? Like in today's world, we kind of listen or we're kind of, we have inbuilt belief systems about what safety means to us. It might not be what we actually believe safety is, but what we've kind of been prescribed to believe. So for example, You might have your mom who birthed all her babies at a hospital, and she thinks that, you know, birthing a baby in a hospital is the only way to go because that equates to safety. So you will just follow that same pattern, but you actually want to have a home birth, but you, you have that little thing in the back of your head going, no, no, no, home birth is dangerous. Home birth is dangerous. Home birth is dangerous. Or for example, I had a woman years ago that all her friends were home birthing moms. And she was like, yeah, I'm gonna have a home birth 'cause everyone's telling me to have a home birth. But all our conversations and all our sessions throughout our kind of prenatals were about all safety aspects to do with the equipment that she wants to have in terms of easy access to the hospital and things like that. I was like, in the back of my head going, I don't know if this is gonna end up being a home birth because everything she's saying, everything in her core belief system is saying, I actually do not feel safe at home. And so what happened was in the labor, she was pushing for hours. This baby would not come at home. Once we did the transfer, she birthed her baby quite easily in the hospital. You know what I mean? So—

The fear was keeping it stuck.

100%. 100%. So like looking at safety, also looking at safety is who are the people that are going to make me safe? Who are those people? It might be like, I really want my mom there because I really do not want to offend her. But does that make me feel safe in the moment? Is that who I need to be there, or is all her baggage going to come with her into the birth where I will feel like I need to protect her instead of her protecting me?

My mom started crying because she saw me in so much pain.

Exactly. She wants to save you from that. Like, it's not coming from malicious intent. She wants to save you from the pain, but it might not be what you necessarily need. You know what I mean? And then we look at kind of oxytocin. What's the love that you have in your life? Like, what are you doing the things? that you love throughout your pregnancy. So oxytocin is the love hormone that we need in birth to be able to make things progress. If we're not feeling oxytocin infused in labor, we're not gonna actually progress our labor. We're gonna present more with adrenaline, and adrenaline stops things or stalls things from happening. So thinking about, if I don't have oxytocin moments in my pregnancy, I'm not gonna suddenly feel it at my birth. So if I'm constantly anxious in my pregnancy and I'm overthinking things and I'm not letting myself have downtime, And we're having— I'm having issues with my partner. I'm not getting oxytocin moments from him. What suddenly will change at the birth? Something's not going to suddenly change at the birth. I talk a lot about mind-body connection and how we can connect to our bodies and how we can start working on our core belief systems. And I do like a lot of reflective exercises around that. And I talk about therapeutic healing. So if there's anything that's sitting on that subconscious level that you feel like I would like to work that through that, you know, before the birth and even before postpartum, because sometimes it might not show up at the birth, but in postpartum, the attachment patterns that you had or the things that you've gone through will then show up in postpartum instead. So talk a lot about therapeutic healing, about community. I found that a lot of this, because I've interviewed a lot of women for this book, and I share a lot of women's stories, and a lot of them involve having a community, having someone to lean on, even if it was not even a physical community, someone you can reach for and see face to face. It was even an online community. But community is so important. We're just so disconnected from people today, even though we're so connected in so many, you know, social media aspects. But we are so disconnected from having community. And I found that that's a really essential element. And so I walk through that kind of the 10 10 essentials, and I don't say you have to use them all. And I see if women just draw into 1, 2, even 3 essentials, they have a better experience. And I'm not saying that every woman that's gone through some traumatic event or any woman that's going into birth with fear will have a negative experience, but I'm saying these are the things that will help you and kind of maximize your chances of having that good experience going into your birth.

It really is so important to do as much as we can and When we haven't felt supported and haven't felt the love during pregnancy, does that affect that instant when the baby, you know, you have it, you're holding the baby, that birth connection? And then you go into all the sleepless nights, and if the baby cries a lot and doesn't sleep, is that where a lot of the postpartum sort of depression comes from?

100%. I feel like, um, even for my birth, even when I walked out of that first birth with Bella, I feel that if I had support around me and I was feeling loved and knew how to kind of exhibit love in that way, I don't think that I would— I'd spiraled as badly as I did. So I feel that's such an important element, that support and that love, because when you feel that, you're able to give that. So I always say, even to my clients, you know, mothering the mother so you can mother the child, because if you're not able to do things for you and use that self-care for you— and I'm talking, even when I talk about oxytocin, I say it's not just about people doing things Yes. Self-care is just so vital and important. And that's what's going to get you through postpartum because postpartum is hard. It's such a hard time. And like, you're not sleeping, you're breastfeeding, you're still discovering this baby and kind of getting to know this baby. You're probably not eating as well because, you know, you might not have the ideal meals and things like that. You might have family around you who are not the best at it. that lives far away. It's just such a mind-boggling time. But if you're able to prepare your mind and body for it, you're able to give yourself little oxytocin moments and recognize when you need them, your postpartum can go so much better.

Now, it can be like, you know, 5 minutes. I used to lock myself in the bathroom, you know, with either my phone— but back then, I don't know, it wasn't even— we didn't have everything on phones that we do now, you know. I think the most you could do on a phone was take a photo. And, you know, I used to bring magazines in and they'll say, are you okay? You've been in the bathroom for— yes, just go away.

Yeah, just go away. It could be a quiet shower without hearing phantom cries.

Yeah, exactly. It's just grabbing those small moments, even if you only have 5 minutes. Well, make the most of that 5 minutes, because some of the women that I've spoken to, you know, mothers and that They all express the feeling of being just emotionally numb after and really finding it hard to connect to baby, connect to husband, or finding the joy in this whole process that they've just gone through.

Yeah. And to— like, it's sad, but the statistic is in Australia about a third of women walk out of birth with birth trauma, and our cesarean rate is just skyrocketing. So imagine going now to mother a baby after you've had either a traumatic experience or you've had major abdominal surgery. Like, you know, you need some self-love, self-care. You also need people around you who will recognize that this is such a vulnerable time. Like, we as women, on day 3 after we have a baby, have the biggest hormone plummet that we will ever experience in our lifetime.

Mm.

And that can drive us insane in some ways, you know what I mean? So we need someone to be able to recognize that, hold space for us in that moment, and be able to care for us so that we're able to care for this baby.

For you, what did postpartum depression look like? What did your anxiety look like?

So, um, well, after I had Bella, I, um, the first night in the hospital was quite hard for me because I was still recovering from an episiotomy and I was quite sore, and they didn't allow my husband to stay.

Mm-hmm.

There was also one, only one midwife who was a lactation consultant. She came that night at 2:00 AM, only 2:00 AM. So I waited up for her to help me with breastfeeding. And it was just like, I was just so sore I couldn't get up and they, they weren't very helpful. And so I discharged myself the next day and I went home. That's kind of when the journey of anxiety kind of started for me. So what it started initially for me Was as panic attacks that would just show up out of nowhere.

Mm-hmm.

Like, and they usually used to happen to me in the middle of the night when my husband was sleeping. I might've been up with, with Bella for a little bit. She would be settled, and then I would just get this overwhelming dread of panic. It was just, I felt like I was having a heart attack. I felt like I was kind of having this out-of-body, something's wrong with me. Experience. And at first, I didn't really recognize what it was like. Today, in hindsight, I can tell you, even when I had her, like, in the— and when I told you my first contraction was a panic attack, today I can tell you what that was because I've recognized it now. But at the time, I didn't realize that those were panic attacks. So I used to have these little panic attacks here and there in the middle of the night, and then they would sneak up in the middle of the day sometimes. And this is like over kind of a And then what happened was it just became just overwhelming anxiety all the time because I was scared of getting the panic attack.

Oh.

So I was just constantly scared, constantly scared. I didn't want my husband to go to work. I wanted someone to stay with me. Um, and because I felt so helpless, I went to a G— my GP and I said, listen, um, I'm feeling this and that and all of that. And he said to me, here's some medication you can And you're probably having postnatal depression. And I wasn't really drawn to just having something that would just alter my mind function. And so I said, no, no, I don't wanna do that. And so I had to research myself, probably this is like months down the line. I had to research myself and look into a psychologist who would kind of listen to me and kind of be there for me. And that took a lot of trial and error because I, you get to see someone and You don't really connect with them, and then you find another one. And finally, I found someone who I connected with, and that was where it shifted for me. I started like it wasn't about her going to any trauma or anything, but it was just catching me where I was and being able to kind of go, "What you're going through is normal." Like that's okay. This is just part of postpartum for some women. And to be honest, a lot of my clients that I support today. don't go through that because they've got such great support. And like, we educate, like, like we go through a lot of the education around what do you need for postpartum so that they're not getting to a point where they're down that rabbit hole. But about 80% of women will have the baby blues. So the baby blues is just like day 3 when your hormones take that plummet. You'll start becoming a little bit more emotional. Some things that never even triggered you before will be suddenly Um, tear-jerking. For like a small majority of women will then go down to postnatal depression and postnatal anxiety, and that could just be hormonally things are shifting, you know, even more so it could be lack of support. I, I truly believe that for me a big compounding factor was lack of support. I had no one in terms of support. My husband went back to work because he had to. Um, my sister who didn't live here went back overseas. And I just had no one. I absolutely had no one. It was just me and Bella constantly, sort of thing. So it was really, really hard. Where the second time around, I had my mother come from overseas. We kind of rekindled our relationship. I had my mother come from overseas to be with me in that postpartum time. And the— also the biggest difference, to be honest, with my second is that my doula suggested to me to take my placenta and to do placenta encapsulation.

Mm-hmm.

And that was a game changer. Like that.

What is that quickly?

Yeah. So placenta encapsulation is basically once you give birth, you give birth to the placenta and the placenta holds a lot of hormones and minerals in it. And when you give birth, you consume your placenta. You can consume either in pill form or you can just consume it like take a bite, like, like cut into bite-sized pieces. And then you can, once you get that plummet on day 3, it's not such a, like an immense shift because the hormones that you had through pregnancy are now carrying you through to postpartum. And once you feel well, you can stop taking your placenta. And so I did that because I was trying to avoid any plummet.

Mm.

And so I cannot even tell you how great I felt because of it. And it's just been, it's been a, Game changer for me, both in my second and my third.

So never heard of that.

Really? It's quite becoming quite well known in Australia, and because I did it for myself when I became a doula, I trained in what's called placentophagy. And just so you know, like other than sea mammals and camels, we're the only mammals that don't consume their placentas. Most mammals do. consume their placenta. And I got trained in it, and I've encapsulated over 1,000 placentas to date. And women— the feedback from women is just beyond incredible.

Like, well, that, that is absolutely testament to why it is such a good idea to have a doula, because you're actually a wealth of information, a wealth of information, support, physical support, emotional support. what, you know what to say, when to say it. Uh, you know, you take all the anxiety and fear out of it. You know, that was one of the questions I was going to ask. How does your experience now, um, help you help other women? Um, you know, it, it's an incredible, um, field.

Yeah, it definitely is, and it's definitely changed my life. It was really like, you know, I know it's a cliché, but it's quite life-altering for me. Um, I feel like today Because of my experiences, I'm able to walk women through birth in a much better way. Not only did I experience quite a variation—I had a private hospital birth, a birthing center birth, and a home birth—all because I had my last one in that in a birthing center. It was just—it gave me such a wealth of knowledge of like how to support women. And you know, a lot of women think that to get a doula and to have this natural sort of experience, you have to be like. Hippie dippy or whatever. I am not a hippie doula. I came from a long genetic line of very anxious women, and I say to women, "If I can do it, anyone can." So it has nothing to do with that. It's like birth is a hundred percent. It's a mind. It's a mind game. You know, I mean, I'm not talking about the women who have high risk births and things happen, and you know, complications. Things can happen. Birth is very complex, but birth is really. really a mind-body connection game. And if you're not— if at one point you say, I'm not doing this more, your body's listening.

Always listening. Don't listen to the stories. As soon as you get pregnant, or as soon as you're about to go into labor, everybody comes and tells you all the horror stories. Tune out. Do not listen to them. Because, you know, it's just human nature that everyone has to come and tell you everything that's going to go bad. Because we focus on the worst. We never sort of focus on, you know, everything that positive that's going to be go, you know, happen. So it's so true.

And horror stories circulate quicker than positive stories.

They do. So if there's a woman listening now feels scared to give birth because of, you know, maybe what she's been through, what would you want her to hear?

Um, I want her to know that, um, she's not broken. There's nothing wrong with her. Like, we all come into birth with an element of fear, and that's completely normal. We're not asking you to come to birth being robotic and not having any fear. What I think she should just be mindful of is to come to birth with an open awareness of that birth takes a lot of emotional, physical, mental, spiritual toll on you. And if you don't prepare for that, then birth can, you know, birth can become something you don't want it to be. And you want to go walk out of your birth feeling a holistically healthy woman in every single way. So take the time and prepare yourself. It's not like you would tomorrow say, I'm gonna run a marathon and I'm just gonna wing it.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? So birth is the same thing. You need to prepare holistically for this day and it will pay volumes later on. Like seriously, it's not just one day in your life, it's life-altering. So I want women to really realize that. It's— it really changes who you are.

Thank you so much for coming on, Maran, and giving your great advice around, you know, birthing and, you know, putting positive feelings back into women, and to educate people on the importance of actually having a doula with them.

Yes.

So, you know, I reckon that is the best person to have in the room with you. And for all our listeners, anyone who's pregnant, thinking of getting pregnant, or about to give All of Moran's details will be in the show notes, all her links including to her book. Do reach out, you know, if you are considering having a doula and to have a great chat with her. She will help. Thank you so much.

Thank you.