the womb room podcast
episode 19 :
we birth how we bleed: physiological birth with saima kara
Have you ever thought about how you bleed every month, and your relationship with your cycle, is built-in birth preparation?
Whether or not you plan to one day be pregnant, we are always giving birth to something: ideas, projects, relationships, evolutions of ourselves.
And when we learn how to surrender to the phases of our cycle, and cultivate our inner knowing and trust in our body… we can experience the births & deaths in our life with so much more ease!
Just like how our menstrual blood is a physiological process that unfolds without force or intervention, so does birth – even though our modern world has largely forgotten this reality.
In today’s podcast conversation, I talk with my friend and fellow birthkeeper, Saima Kara, about the brilliance pf physiological birth, and her experience shifting from hospital doula work to being a birth keeper outside of the medical system.
Saima is a radical birthkeeper in the UK, holistic childbirth education teacher, and a powerful voice and leader in the world of supporting women through physiological birth.
If you’re even considering being pregnant one day in the future, or if you’ve gone through the birth portal before and are still unpacking your experience, this one’s for you!
We get into:
How and why Saima transitioned from mainstream doula work to serving women outside of the system, and what it took for her to speak her truth
The role of physiologic birth, and how it is brilliantly designed to protect the safety of mother-baby
The pitfalls of the obstetrical birth model, and unpacking the routine interventions like ultrasounds, inductions, and giving birth on your back
The role of evidence, and how our hormonal physiology supports keeping birth undisturbed
There is so much to unpack around the science of physiological birth, much more than we can get into this episode – though there will be more to come! If you’re interested in diving into the brilliance of the birth process and the evidence on interventions, I highly recommend these books:
Gentle Birth, Gentle Parenting by Dr. Sarah Buckley
Pushed by Jennifer Block
Optimal Care in Childbirth: a Case for a Physiological Approach Goer, H., & Romano, Amy. (2012)
And, a few pieces of information we touched on throughout the episode:
Hormonal contraceptives and the increased risk of breast cancer
Potential harms of ultrasound technology
Abramowicz JS. Benefits and risks of ultrasound in pregnancy. Semin Perinatol 2013;37(5):295–300.
Miller DL. Safety assurance in obstetrical ultrasound. Semin Ultrasound CT MR 2008;29(2):156–64.
Beneath all the research and the evidence, which is fascinating and important (and, comes with its own set of biases and limitation)… it really comes down to your deeper knowing.
Cultivating that capacity to hear your intuition, trust your knowing, and be in your relationship with your brilliant body is the foundation of not only birth preparation, but of being in our power in all stages of our lives.
May this conversation inspire your deeper womb connection!
To connect with Saima, follow her on Instagram and check out her Radical Childbirth Education program, which begins January 23!