Ten Moons Birth Wisdom

09/09/2025

10/06/2025

PLEASE SIGN THIS ABSOLUTELY VITAL PETITION TO STOP THE UK GOING BACK IN TIME ON WOMEN’S REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS!!

This is my gorgeous mum - she’s now 87 and in the early stages of dementia. But she is still vibrant and happy.

I’ve included her in this post because she is from an era where women were shamed into marriage if they got pregnant beforehand as they had no contraception and no access to safe pregnancy termination.

She also had to leave her first job when she married - in the 1950s many firms refused to employ married women because they knew they would become pregnant and leave because of the lack of reliable contraception.

Thankfully things changed but unbelievably in 2025, thanks to far right male extremists who sadly have been given a huge amount of power (without, in my opinion, the wisdom or compassion to help them use it wisely) we are being forced back to a time even before the 1930s when my mum was born.

Although we have come a long way in the UK to equalise life for women in 2025 did you know abortions are still technically criminal in England and Wales?

A vote is happening soon in Parliament which could change that. But just like Trump, Nigel Farage is rallying his troops to roll back women’s rights!

Will you sign the petition to the Government asking them to do the right thing and protect women’s rights?
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/decriminalise-abortion-and-make-it-a-protected-human-right?source=whatsapp-share-button&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=whatsapp&share=1dc161aa-67a9-4f7a-be64-18152eeee03b

09/06/2025

I missed international home birth day last week so wanted to share again this amazing photo of a wonderful client.

Her story is inspiring and I am overjoyed that she shared it with me.

After a first birth in hospital that was utterly rail-roaded by hospital policy-led care (not evidence based, midwifery led care) and the consequent physical and mental scars, this incredible woman decided things were going to change for her next birth.

And the result of her gutsy determination and confidence resulted in a wonderful home birth - although her face is covered you can see and feel the joy, relief and almost disbelief that she had actually done it.

Pregnant women and their birth partners must start to believe in midwifery led care in either a birth centre or at home as the first choice for low risk, straight forward pregnancies.

I truly believe it should routinely be the first choice for everyone, including all of these:

🌟 First time mums
🌟 VBACs
🌟 Suspected ‘bigger’ babies
🌟 Suspected ‘smaller’ babies
🌟 Slightly higher BMI
🌟 Post dates
🌟 Ethnicity
🌟 Anxiety about birth
🌟 Women who want control
🌟 Women who want to avoid induction
🌟 Birth partners who are nervous about it

And midwives need to be confident too - a confident woman teamed with a confident midwife can change the world 🙌🏻

06/06/2025

Yesterday I received a message in one of the WhatsApp chats I have for antenatal groups.

There are 7 pregnant women and their birth partners in the group and the message yesterday announced the arrival of the final baby.

All 7 were born by unplanned caesareans.

All 7.

There are SO MANY nuanced discussions around this and the other thousands of births in the UK annually, some of which genuinely need help from medical procedures, but most of which absolutely do not.

We are at a crossroads of maternity care.

More women are choosing a planned caesarean than agree to an induction.

Unmedicalised, vaginal birth is now uncommon.

Morbidity rates amongst women and their babies is at an all time high, including birth trauma for them and often for partners witnessing these events, too.

It has to change and quickly. We will not stand by and let this happen to pregnant women, their babies and the partners standing by feeling helpless.

05/06/2025

Reposting from and

Our maternity services are sliding at a rapid rate into a dark and frightening place.

Just like the quote from the doula in these slides the birth stories I’m hearing from women are repetitive, often traumatising and almost identical.

A woman in labour being left unattended on the floor of a corridor for hours.

Labouring women and partners being ignored or their requests dismissed, leading to undiagnosed infections and, in some cases, life threatening sepsis.

More and more babies spending time in NICU.

IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS!

Midwives are fighting every single day to be ‘with woman’, to be able to do their work and to re-establish midwifery led care.

Our local Better Births lead midwife is fighting hard to make sure this voice is not taken away from women and birthing people.

Doctors are performing one caesarean after another, after another often on the same day.

When will this tide turn?

We all have to work together to make this happen.

Join your local Maternity Voices Partnership and add your weight and support to the parents having to navigate this minefield and to the healthcare professionals trying to make the changes so urgently needed.

is the account for parents who have used Princess Alexandra.

Women’s bodies are amazing.
Midwives are amazing.
Doctors’ knowledge of pathology is amazing.

03/06/2025

02/06/2025

If you or someone you know experienced postpartum psychosis (approx 20% of women) Action on Postpartum Psychosis (APP) have in person and online support groups all over the country

Join our postpartum psychosis lived experience café groups, where mums and families can meet together.

📆 June dates:

UK wide
• Thursday 26th June, 7.30-9pm (online, via Zoom)
Email: app@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-srut-20250626193000

Birmingham
• Friday 6th June, 10.30am-12.30pm (in person, Birmingham)
Email: natalie@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-s4mw-20250606103000

Lancashire and South Cumbria
• Friday 6th June, 10.30am-12pm (in person, Blackburn)
Email: lancsandcumbria@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-s2sf-20250606103000
• Monday 9th June, 7.30-9.30pm (online, via Zoom)
Email: lancsandcumbria@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-sxnu-20250609193000
• Friday 13th June, 10.30am-12pm (in person, Blackpool)
Email: lancsandcumbria@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-s9m1-20250613103000
• Wednesday 18th June, 10.30am-12pm (in person, Lancaster)
Email: lancsandcumbria@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-s2bf-20250618103000
• Friday 20th June, 10.30am-12pm (in person, Preston)
Email: lancsandcumbria@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-s8wk-20250620103000

London
• Saturday 7th June, 11am-1pm (in person, London)
Email: app@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-spz9-20250607110000

Manchester
• Friday 27th June, 10.30am-12pm (in person, Manchester)
Email: manchester@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-s2vc-20250627103000

North East
• Saturday 7th June, 11am-1pm (in person, Newcastle)
Email: app@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-suwv-20250607110000

Northern Ireland
• Thursday 12th June, 7.30-9pm (online, via Zoom)
Email: app@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-shz6-20250612193000

Scotland
• Saturday 21st June, 11am-1pm (in person, Edinburgh)
Email: app@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-sn5m-20250621110000

Sussex and Hampshire
• Next date coming soon.

Wales
• Saturday 7th June, 11am-1pm (in person, Wrexham)
Email: app@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-svtz-20250607110000

Yorkshire
• Next date coming soon.

APP group – mental health difficulties after postpartum psychosis (PP)
• Next date coming soon.
Email: app@app-network.org

APP LGBTQ+ group
• Next date coming soon.
Email: app@app-network.org

Muslim mums group
• Tuesday 1st July, 12.30-1.30pm (online, via Zoom)
Email: Muslimpeersupport@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-s9qt-20250701123000

APP neurodiverse group
This group is for those who have experienced psychosis in the perinatal period, and are neurodiverse.
• Thursday 17th July, 7.30-9.30pm (online, via Zoom)
Email: app@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-s0bc-20250717193000

Dads and Co-parents group
• 8-9pm, every 3rd Wednesday of the month (virtual).
Zoom joining link: bit.ly/PARTNERMEET. Or email Simon: simon@app-network.org

Grandparents group
• Monday 2nd June, 6-7.30pm (online, via Zoom)
Email: app@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-s5l9-20250602180000

APP book club
• Thursday 19th June, 8-9pm (online, via Zoom)
Email: app@app-network.org or reserve your place here: https://bookwhen.com/apppeersupportgroups/e/ev-sxno-20250619200000

💜 We’re here for you. We hope to see you soon.

30/05/2025

Love this post from Hannah Croft IBCLC, Infant Feeding Support

It’s common for women to not feel,the ‘rush of love’ that is so often spoken about in the context of meeting your baby for the first time - lots of women don’t get it particularly if their birth experience was hard or complicated.

Some great tips here if you’ve chosen to breastfeed 🙌🏻

Oxytocin is an essential part of conception, labour, birth and breastfeeding. But if you’ve had a tricky or unexpected birth process, then sometimes this essential oxytocin can be slow to show up, and this can interfere with the start of breastfeeding.

I’ve coined this ‘Noxytocin’.

It can feel disappointing and confusing if you’ve been anticipating, even longing for, that rush of oxytocin when you first meet your baby and it doesn’t happen.

Perhaps rather than your baby rooting for your breast and latching, they’re hard to wake and/or shocked by birth too, and your body doesn’t feel like your own, making it hard to get yourself in a comfy and sustainable position for breastfeeding.

All is not lost!

What can you do if the oxytocin isn’t quite there and instead you’re reeling after birth?

-Hold your baby skin to skin. Breathe them in. Don’t be in a rush to dress them, or put them down. And if you can’t hold them, ask your partner or birth supporter to.

-Feed your baby. If your baby can’t latch immediately, try hand expressing colostrum and feeding your baby with a spoon or syringe. If colostrum isn’t available, consider using formula via syringe, spoon, cup or finger feeding. Remember they only need very small amounts at each feed initially, and it’s much easier to accidentally overfeed from a bottle.

-Cut yourself some slack. You’ve just been through a massive physical experience and it’s understandable if everything feels a bit upturned and confusing. We have time. Be kind to yourself.

-Find some skilled support asap; someone with a specific feeding qualification.

If you’ve had a tricky start to feeding, and I can help please message. I can help if things are happening right now, or if it’s weeks, months or even years down the line and talking through what happened would be healing. Please let me know.

***s

27/05/2025

Believe it or not, the majority of policies for antenatal care and common procedures during labour are NOT based on sound evidence.

In fact, the research that most of them are based on is hugely flawed - and in favour only of measurable behaviours to prove that healthcare professionals are meeting insurance liabilities.

Whilst the intention is to keep women and their babies as safe as possible (which clearly is a great thing), they are not based on TRUE physiology of how women’s bodies and their babies work together in incredible harmony.

Because this is difficult to measure unless you are a HCP who has good knowledge and experience of physiology (not just from a textbook, but because you have seen it many times and know when it’s working and when it might need some help).

People in my courses are gobsmacked to hear that obstetricians (pregnancy and birth doctors) do NOT have to observe unmedicalised labour and birth as part of their training.

And hospital policies are founded in this textbook, tick box approach.

But when you witness the powerful journey that women (without pathological conditions) make during an undisturbed process it will blow your freakin’ minds!

Come find out more at my birth circles and workshops.

27/05/2025

Believe it or not, the majority of policies for antenatal care and common procedures during labour are NOT based on sound evidence.

In fact, the research that most of them are based on on is hugely flawed - and in favour only of measurable behaviours to prove that healthcare professionals are meeting insurance liabilities.

Whilst the intention is to keep women and their babies as safe as possible (which clearly is a great thing), they are not based on TRUE physiology of how women’s bodies and their babies work together in incredible harmony.

Because this is difficult to measure unless you are a HCP who has good knowledge and experience of physiology (not just from a textbook, but because you have seen it many times and know when it’s working and when it might need some help).

People in my courses are gobsmacked to hear that obstetricians (pregnancy and birth doctors) do NOT have to observe unmedicalised labour and birth as part of their training.

And hospital policies are founded in this textbook, tick box approach.

But when you witness the powerful journey that women (without pathological conditions) make during an undisturbed process it will blow your freakin’ minds!

Come find out more at my birth circles and workshops.