Preparing for birth isn’t just about gathering information. The way antenatal classes are taught can shape how confident, supported and prepared you feel as labour approaches.

Modern maternity care focusses on FINDING problems, but forgets to build health & avoid them in the first place - find out what is missing from NHS care & how you can help yourself.

Graves’ disease is an autoimmune thyroid condition. Some women experience it earlier in life, are treated, recover well, and go on to have healthy pregnancies years later with no ongoing symptoms.

Many women are making the careful and well researched decision to freebirth - but, it’s not a decision being made in a vaccum. Lets explore the pros and cons.

With Gloucestershire’s home-birth service suspended and maternity wards under strain, many women are asking what to do next. This guide explores practical steps to restore calm and confidence — from nourishing your body and preparing intentionally for birth, to understanding your rights and creating your own continuity of care. Whether you choose to stay home, switch Trusts, or hire a doula or independent midwife, you do have options. Birth is powerful — and so are you.

Becoming a parent is a big moment — and everyone deserves support, safety, and respect. Each month, I’m offering one free Doula (Birth Companion) & Advocacy place for someone in the Forest of Dean from a minority or migrant community — such as Romanian, Indian, Polish, Zimbabwean, refugee/asylum-seeking and other under-represented families.

This second part dives deeper into the science behind PAPP-A and the Insulin-Like Growth Factor system — exploring how placental enzymes, blood flow, and vascular growth interact throughout pregnancy.
Aimed at birthkeepers and midwives (but valuable for anyone curious), it unpacks the research, physiology, and evidence behind how lifestyle, nourishment, and calm continue to shape placental health long after the first trimester. 🌿

Being told you have low PAPP-A can sound worrying, but it isn’t a diagnosis — it’s a marker of how your placenta is developing.
This enzyme helps build blood vessels and nourish your baby, and its function can be supported naturally through food, movement, rest, and calm.
Understanding how your body works turns fear into empowerment — your placenta is alive, responsive, and still growing with you. 🌿

Continuous monitoring (CTG) is one of the most common interventions in modern maternity care — yet it hasn’t been shown to make birth safer. Evidence shows it increases intervention rates, restricts movement, and undermines confidence.
What does improve outcomes is continuity, connection, and trust — the kind of support once offered by village midwives and birth companions. This blog explores what the research really says about CTG, and how women can take back their power through homebirth, skilled support, and radical responsibility.

I dare you to listen and tell me you’re not inspired!

Living with PCOS can make pregnancy feel full of questions. What does it mean for your health, your baby, and your birth choices? In this blog I explain what PCOS is, how it can affect pregnancy (including a slightly higher chance of complications like pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes), and — most importantly — the gentle, practical steps including yoga for pcos pregnancy, you can take to support your body.

This week I experienced something profound — being shrouded. For thousands of years, families cared for their loved ones in this way at home, just as naturally as we swaddle our babies or wrap women during pregnancy and after birth. These simple acts of wrapping are not just rituals, they are deeply human ways of offering support, love, and closure.

Pregnancy is one of the most nutritionally demanding times in life. Your body is building not only a baby, but also a placenta, an expanded blood supply, and the reserves you’ll need for birth and breastfeeding. While modern advice often says “just take a prenatal,” the truth is deeper: nutrient density and bioavailability matter most.

In this blog, I explore why certain nutrients — like choline, DHA, iron, zinc, and collagen — are almost impossible to get in sufficient amounts from a vegan diet, and why cravings for animal foods during pregnancy are signs of your body’s wisdom, not weakness. We’ll look at the gaps in vegan nutrition research, the dangers of modern monocropped grains, and how ancestral, wild, and locally-sourced foods can provide everything you and your baby need to thrive.

✨ Plus: a free Yoga Nidra meditation to help you release food guilt, trust your cravings, and reconnect with your body’s instincts.

It’s often seen as strong to carry on performing at work during pregnancy — but it takes even greater strength to pause, say no, and put your health and your baby’s wellbeing first.

Pregnancy yoga isn’t just stretching — evidence shows it reduces stress, improves sleep, and can even shorten labour. This blog brings together key research midwives should know, with a free evidence PDF to download.

Tiredness in pregnancy doesn’t always mean low iron — sometimes it’s just your body adjusting. Standard iron tablets are often poorly absorbed and hard on digestion, but there are kinder, more effective options. In this blog, I explore Spatone, Floradix, nettle tea, and iron-rich foods, plus other causes of fatigue in pregnancy, and how practices like yoga, massage, and relaxation can help you feel more energised and supported.

Biomechanics is the study of how the body moves and functions, particularly in response to external forces. In pregnancy and birth, this means understanding how the pelvis, muscles, ligaments, and baby work together to create the conditions for an easier, more efficient labor…..

This past weekend, I crossed a profound threshold during an experiential workshop led by Samara Hawthorn of Wellmama CIC. Among the many powerful rituals, the women-only sweat lodge stood out as a sacred space to explore the seasons and cycles of our lives as women.

It’s hard to put into words the transformation that happens when women come together in this way. Perhaps that’s why it’s referred to as the “blood mysteries.”

For many women, becoming a mother is one of life’s most precious journeys—especially when it’s a long-awaited pregnancy. Older mums, in particular, often face added layers of advice and medical recommendations, frequently framed around reducing perceived risks. If you’ve been advised to have a planned caesarean section, it’s completely natural to want to take the safest route for your baby. However, stepping into motherhood also means stepping into your power. You are the one growing this baby inside your body, and no one else shares that unique bond.