Being labelled "fat"

In this episode I bring to you my top tip when it comes to birth preparation. No it isn’t a fancy breathing technique, no it isn’t the best position for birth, nor is it a cool hypnobirthing tip. But the one and only thing that matters.

I reemerge from my hibernation over the last few months of darkness with some reflections as a new mother, as an individual and what it means for MummyYoga.  In this episode, I want to share with you my honest coping strategies of a harsh winter. I also want to share with you how despite making plans, having ideas sometimes our external spaces seep into our resolve and make our days so challenging.  I also share the wonderful creativity of birth workers such as the wonderful UpNorthDoula 

In this episode I talk to writer, speaker and coach Lyndsey Hookway. Lyndsey has spent more than 20 years in the field supporting babies and new parents. Her nursing and lactation consultant background gives her a unique perspective on the importance of gentle and responsive parenting.  Check Lyndsey's work out on her website and definitely connect with her Instagram page  Lyndsey is the author of Holistic Sleep Coaching and Let’s talk about your new family’s sleep

In episode 2 we talk to Louise who was "fat" or "high BMI" when she was pregnant and was treated exceptionally because of this label. Many of us will have some label attached to us during pregnancy, so Louise's journey through navigating these complex issues around professionalism, communication barriers and deep seated internal bias is relevant to us all.  To help me understand the complexity of labelling women during pregnancy, I called upon my friend and midwife, Sam Bull to reflect on my chat with Louise. Sam has some amazing nuggets of wisdom on how we can think about not just labels but how we can approach our pregnancy care with context of evidence from generalised data to making individual decisions.  If you are looking for more information on high BMI during pregnancy the NHS website is a good starting point. 

In our very first episode we bring you the pregnancy and birth journey of Gemma. Gemma was 39 years old when she got pregnant with her first baby Eric and was 40 by the time of birth.  This particular age is a threshold in maternity services, where your care can be determined as high risk simply because you are 40 or above. Increasingly mothers are more mature in age than the previous generations and yet we can be more healthy, more ready for motherhood than when we were in our 20s and 30s. We hope Gemma's story will inspire you to find your own way through the these complex decisions.  In this episode we also bring you the evidence about the power of skin-toskin in new babies and why the touch is such an amazing sense.