Having avidly listened to every episode and completed both Katie's lactation courses, when it came to creating a breastfeeding preparation episode I knew who would be the perfect expert to bring into the room.

In this week's episode we chat about the importance of real support and community when embarking on your feeding journey, the basics we can go back to when we're finding things challenging, and how we can stand in our power when things don't quite go to plan. Katie is a wonderful guest and had me chuckling several times (sorry to your ears about that) and I feel like this is a must-listen episode for those who are pregnant and preparing to breastfeed.

Katie James has been a midwife for 25 years, an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) for 18, she’s also the host and creator of the podcasts The Midwives’ Cauldron and The Feeding Couch.

Katie has worked in a variety of settings from hospital, homebirth, and community midwifery. Katie has worked supporting all areas of breastfeeding and lactation including with families of small and vulnerable babies in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Katie has a passion for education and has enjoyed teaching students, midwives doctors and doulas; as well of thousands of pregnant women and parents; basically, anyone who will listen to her talk about the marvels of breastfeeding, lactation and human milk!

(Katie currently spends her working time creating two podcasts, hosting online lactation and breastfeeding courses for birth workers or parents-to-be, and providing lactation consultations globally.)

Instagram

Website

The Feeding Couch Podcast Insta

The Feeding Couch Podcast

The Midwives' Cauldron Podcast

Katie offers courses and one-to-one consultations.

Visit my website

Follow me on instagram

Book in my diary

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Resilience

Disappointment

Worry

Intuition

Medicalised birth

and everything in between.

It's no secret that there's a whole lot of fearmongering in the birth world, abut every person's story deserves a voice. There's a lot of power in people's stories and I'm passionate about keeping things real. Serious medical complications are rare, but when they happen how amazing that we have so many talented specialists at our disposal.

Placental abruption is an incredibly rare complication in pregnancy and birth, impacting between 0.4–1% pregnancies, based on the data that does exist. It is the early separation of the placenta from the lining of the uterus before the baby has been born. Its etiology is still not fully understood yet, and because it happens rarely, it is hard to predict.

But what happens when you're in that 0.4-1% of people, how do you act? How does it feel? What do you do?

Kirsten generously shares her experience today of her dream homebirth turned c-section, and the factors that proved invaluable as she moved through this experience. We discuss the feelings of disappointment and grief when our birth experience doesn't follow the path that we really wanted it to, but also the powerful and life affirming things we can take away from these experiences. The key one... maternal intuition.

See this as a further sign to connect with your instincts, the feelings in your body and start that process of connecting with your gut. Maternal instincts and intuition are a consistent theme that comes up in people's stories time and time again, and ultimately was Kirsten's biggest tool in her birth tool box.

A huge thanks for Kirsten (and indirectly her partner John) for sharing their experience.

Visit my website

Follow me on instagram

Book in my diary

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When I say how much of this podcast I had to edit out before we actually got to our chat, I’m not joking when I say I had to cut out half of it. From CBD lube chat, Dubai life, grief pep chats and so much more – there’s nothing that doesn’t come up when I’m chatting to this wonderful human.

Sara and I met through Lisa Sykes – a business coach in the birth and early parenting world. Sara is an absolute powerhouse of a woman, and I feel so grateful to have met her on this journey of building our businesses and supporting expectant and new parents.

Sara is a play therapist, psych teacher, mum, entrepreneur to just name a few of the strings to her bow. She founded The Lifestage Lab in the last couple of years, which offers no-nonsense tips, tools & strategy to help parents and educators manage challenging behaviour & fuel kid’s social and emotional growth with expert precision. In the episode we explore what happens to an infant brain in those all important early years, and bust some myths about how to best support your little one.

With foundations structured in psychological, therapeutic & educational insights, The Lifestage Lab approach is dedicated to empowering adults to unlock new perspectives & find their inner powerhouse to not only tackle those life-stage challenges, but propel the development and wellbeing of kids and young people.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone who will be spending time with your baby – it’s a brilliant opportunity to relearn what is biologically normal behaviour for babies and little ones, and how our adult world makes us doubt what is driving us on a deeper physical and emotional level.

A big thank you to Sara for her knowledge, expertise and time. If you’d like to explore more about working with Sara (which I’d HIGHLY recommend), you can catch all of her links below.

Sara's Website

Follow Sara on Instagram

Visit my website

Follow me on instagram

Book in my diary

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.