Pure Natural Pregnancy

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Eilidh (Ay-Lee) Venning shares her two beautifully peaceful home birth stories. Originally from Scotland, she now lives in Cape Town, South Africa, where the birthing "norms" are very different. She was determined to have a natural home birth both times, and she did it well! Please support the hosting of the show by donating at https://ko-fi.com/purenaturalpregnancy

Dr Stephanie Barto is a crazy busy women. She's a mum of 2, with a third baby on the way, she's a prenatal and paediatric chiropractor and business owner. In this episode we discuss the importance of self care throughout pregnancy and into motherhood. Stephanie & myself also veer off into the extremely important discussion of expectations. The people around you (and their views on pregnancy/birth) can make or break your outcomes, so choose them wisely! Please support the hosting of the...

Feng Shui Mommy – the book – was sent to me by Bailey’s PR team as a fit for the show. I’ll be honest, when I first looked into it, my thoughts were: “WTF!? Feng Shui is some Chinese home organisation thing, right?” How does Feng Shui Mommy even fit into a book title?! I took a look around Bailey’s website so I could get a feel for her before having her on the show. I’m happy for a good dose of hippy but I’m not an all-out-woo kinda girl. I just couldn’t see how the concepts of house &...

This episode is a MUST LISTEN for anyone in the UK. The face of birth is changing - midwives are currently regulated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (an oxymoron in itself!), who are proving themselves to be unfit for purpose. Rather than being responsible for assisting the wants of the women they are providing care for - which has always been the duty of a midwife - under the new regulations, midwives are instead going to have their practice ruled by what their employer (the NHS...

Feeling like a failure after my caesarean This is an off-the-cuff episode that I recorded whilst sitting in a hotel room early in the morning. The weekend away was a planned bit of relaxation for myself and my beautiful friend MaryAnne (from the You're Doing Great Mom podcast). We had a few glasses of wine in the bar in the evening and got talking about my first birth with George, which was a planned home birth that turned into an emergency caesarean at 33 weeks. Although MaryAnne knew bits...

Child development is something every parent is concerned about - we all want our children to be the best! As with many health-related issues, we often wait until something is wrong before seeking help. When we wait until school age tests to be certain how our child is developing, it's often past the critical period to be able to see the biggest change to their brain function. In this episode, I talk to Dr Marty Rosen who teaches internationally on the topic of how skull movement affects...

In this episode of the Pure Natural Pregnancy podcast, Sarah talks to Mark Harris from Birthing for Blokes. Mark Harris Mark is registered as a midwife and nurse. He is an author, podcaster, speaker and general good guy who loves people! Mark travels around the country teaching men, and same sex partners, about the importance of their role in pregnancy and birth. “The choices I have made in my professional life have been shaped by this gregarious inclination. I have trained and worked as...

Mark is registered as a midwife and nurse. He is an author, podcaster, speaker and general good guy who loves people! Mark travels around the country teaching men, and same sex partners, about the importance of their role in pregnancy and birth. "The choices I have made in my professional life have been shaped by this gregarious inclination. I have trained and worked as a Nurse, Midwife, Teacher in Further Education, hypnotherapist, NLP trainer, out reach youth worker. I still work as a...

Suzy Ashworth is an author, pregnancy coach and a mindset & marketing mentor for pre and postnatal specialists. As founder of The Calm Birth School and The Baby Business School, she has a passion for showing women exactly why they can and should believe in themselves, empowering them to create mind-blowing birth experiences. When she is not working and entertaining her two children Caesar and Coco, mainly she’s sleeping/growing another human being as she incubates the latest addition to her...

In this episode, I speak to a wonderful chiropractor who I had the pleasure of meeting during my training with the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association (ICPA) certification programme in London. For those of you who don't know, I'm a chiropractor (currently on maternity leave) and I'm working my way through this specialised paediatric chiropractic training. When I met Ron, he was so passionate about what he does, and so eloquent in his explanations, that I knew I had to get him on...

Sally Beare is a nutritional therapist based in Bristol. She originally trained at the UK College of Nutrition and Health in London, following the discovery of a new level of health, which emerged when she changed the food on her plate. She is registered with the Nutritional Therapy Council and the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council, which set the highest standards for nutritional therapy practice in the UK. Sally has written books, and also worked with the Natural Health Clinic,...

I loved this discussion with Susanne – be forewarned, it’s the equivalent of eavesdropping on us in a coffee shop. It’s not an information overload episode, it’s a chat about our experiences. We both have been diagnosed with PTSD following different circumstances, and our experiences are vastly different, yet remarkably similar. We both agree that there needs to be more awareness of how this can affect a pregnancy – not only for the woman, but for her partner, and her care givers. Midwives...

Catherine teaches adults to breathe fully, and thus to heal unresolved trauma that affects them in their day-to-day life. They may not be conscious of this link with the time of their birth. The name Rebirthing Breathwork came about because about 80% of clients remember their birth as a time of stress and change. Much of this is caused by Western birth practices (such as cutting cord before baby is breathing) but also by the fear of the adults present as the baby is learning to breathe....

Chantal has been practising as a holistic therapist since 2007 offering massage, aromatherapy, reflexology, and various types of massage. Her interest in pain management guided her to do my BSc in Acupuncture which she completed in 2012. After having twins in her final year at uni, an interest in fertility, pregnancy and labour developed. Now as a mum of 4, she wanted her children to enjoy the benefits of acupuncture so completed her paediatric oriental medicine practitioner training in...

When a baby is born, two amazing things happen. There’s the arrival of a new human into the world which is a momentous, beautiful, incredible event. But most people don’t know that also happening at the same time is the critical transfer of bacteria from mother to baby – this is the “seeding” of the human microbiome. Even more amazing is that there are special sugars in breastmilk that are designed to “feed” the bacteria in the baby’s gut newly arrived from mum. This “seed and feed” process...

Gordana studied acupuncture at the University of Westminster in London and graduated with the BSc Hons Degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). She also holds a Masters Degree (MA) in Music Performance from City University and Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London and Diploma in Existential Psychotherapy from the New School of Counseling and Psychotherapy (NSCP) in London Waterloo. As a traditional Chinese Medicine acupuncturist, Gordana has a special interest and extensive...

Currently juggling breastfeeding, nappy changing & swashbuckling pirate adventures, I also find time for the odd rant on the blog, and a little bit of pregnancy reading too. I’m a chiropractor on maternity leave, spending my CPD studying babies and how to best care for them from a chiropractic perspective. I’m mum to two boys, born at either end of the scale. I am on Facebook and Twitter, and you can also follow my day to day life on Instagram if you so desire! (I did have snapchat for a...

Today’s episode is all about releasing fears during pregnancy, so that you can enjoy a fear free childbirth. It surprised me to learn that there are so many thousands of women for whom pregnancy and birth is something that creates massive fear. To the extent that marriages break down and women are having abortions, because they are so petrified of birth. Alexia specialises in helping women to overcome these fears, so that they can enjoy their pregnancies! It was a pleasure chatting to her,...

Amanda has been in Midwifery practice for over 27 years. Although most of her practice has been in Leeds, she also worked as a Midwife in New Zealand, experiencing a very different model of Midwifery care. Over ten years ago Amanda began to challenging the practice of immediate cord clamping after realising that this common routine practice had absolutely no evidence base and deprived babies of valuable stem cell enriched full blood. Amanda has campaigned for a change in practice from...