Seasons of a Birthkeeper
When birth work was first ignited in me, I was a young woman entering my own childbearing years. I was learning about pregnancy, birth and motherhood not only through books and teachers, but through my own body and through my own babies. My children and my work grew alongside one another. The seasons of my family and the seasons of my work became deeply intertwined. Now, almost three decades later, something feels different. My children are grown. They are young adults making their own way in the world. They are now around the age that I was when I was becoming a mother myself. As I look at them, I realise that I, too, am standing at the threshold of a new season. Not yet a grandmother, perhaps, but certainly no longer the young mother who first stepped onto this path. This week I also quietly moved into inactive status with my professional midwifery certification. It was not a decision made in a moment. Like many decisions that matter, it unfolded over time. There were practical realities, changing requirements, and many months of trying to find a way forward. But alongside all of that was a growing sense of acceptance. Sometimes life gently asks us to pause, not because we are giving up, but because we are being invited to listen more deeply. Although there is definitely an aspect of experiencing the loss of something I worked hard to achieve, it also feels like an opportunity to stop for a while and ask a different question. Who am I, in relation to birth, in this season of my life? For many years I have cared deeply about building bridges between different worlds. I have been grateful to study and work within traditional, academic and medical spaces. Each has taught me something valuable. Each has helped me understand birth from a different perspective. I have appreciated being able to move between those worlds, and I remain deeply thankful for the opportunities my professional certification has opened for me. But over recent years I have also found myself reflecting on something else. Can the deepest work of birth ever be fully held by institutions? Not because institutions are without value. They have an important role. Good legislation can protect women. Education can deepen understanding. Professional standards can help create safer care. Yet the healing of birth itself begins elsewhere. It begins in homes. In quiet rooms. In relationships. With women and with babies. In communities willing to sit beside one another with humility, love and presence. I don’t know whether I will return to active certification. I don’t know what new forms this work may take. Birth has taught me many things over the years. One of the greatest has been that life cannot always be forced into our timelines. There are moments for action. And there are moments for waiting. There are seasons for pushing. And there are seasons for allowing something new to gather itself before it enters the world. Perhaps this is one of those seasons. And for now, that feels like that is...
Read MoreBirth First Aid: Roots, Trust, and Preparedness
We are three weeks away from starting the next cycle of the Birth First Aid for Mother and Baby and I find myself wanting to speak to where this course actually comes from. Not in terms of curriculum or structure, but in terms of roots. From the age of 8, I was raised in a rural, mountainous part of South Africa, far from towns, hospitals, and easy access to help. We lived without electricity or hot water, and “making a plan” was simply part of daily life. My mother, a farmer and a self-taught rural traditional midwife, was my first teacher. Part of her work revolved around growing herbs, preparing natural medicines, and offering care to the local community. Birth happened quietly, often in the background of everyday life. Sometimes in the middle of the night, and then life simply went on. To be honest, it wasn’t something we, as children, paid close attention to. It was simply part of the landscape we grew up in. Women trusted my mother to sit with them while they birthed their babies, and this trust felt natural and unremarkable at the time. Birth wasn’t feared. It was accepted as a normal part of life. My mother had a still, calm, and deeply accepting presence. The women she supported often spoke of her quiet nature and her healing hands. And although much of this was absorbed unconsciously, it shaped something fundamental in me: a sense that birth, when held with trust and respect, usually unfolds as it should. Later, as a birth attendant myself, I experienced those rare situations where a baby struggled to breathe, a mother lost more blood than expected, or a birth asked something extra of those present. These moments taught me that preparedness does not need to mean fear, and that calm, grounded response is very different from panic. This understanding was later deepened through my work teaching Helping Babies Breathe and Helping Mothers Survive in African hospital settings. These experiences reinforced that even in moments of urgency, calm presence and simple, well-understood responses matter more than fear-driven reaction. This is the soil from which the Birth First Aid course that I now offer grew. The course is not about anticipating disaster or turning birth into a clinical event. It is about cultivating steadiness, discernment, and confidence. Knowing when to trust the process, and knowing how to respond when gentle, respectful support is needed. Birth isn’t about fear. It’s about trust. And when we hold birth with trust, and pair it with simple, well-understood first aid skills, we create safer, more held spaces for mothers and babies, without unnecessary intervention. If this way of approaching birth speaks to you, you’re warmly invited to read more about the course and its upcoming cycle...
Read MoreTHE BASIC NEEDS OF THE NEWBORN
Listening at the Threshold of Life There is a moment, just after birth, when everything is still tender, open, and profoundly alive. The newborn is adapting to life outside the womb.The mother is adapting to life with her baby in her arms.Both are exquisitely sensitive to their surroundings. How we meet this moment matters. The first hours and days after birth are not simply a time of transition; they are a time of imprinting. What is felt, sensed, and experienced here echoes forward: into bonding, regulation, health, and our capacity to meet the world. When we speak about the basic needs of the newborn, we are not speaking about techniques or protocols. We are speaking about conditions. About atmosphere. About the quality of presence offered around new life. In this reflection, we turn toward a simple yet radical orientation:zero separation and zero interruption. ––––––––– LISTENING THROUGH THE LENS OF MONTESSORI AND ODENT Looking through the lens of Maria Montessori and Michel Odent, we are invited to reconsider what care truly means in the earliest moments of life. Montessori understood that birth and early life must be protected, not managed. She spoke about the newborn as a “spiritual embryo,” a being in a profound state of formation, deeply affected by the environment into which they arrive. Privacy, warmth, continuity, and calm were not luxuries, but basic needs. Michel Odent later articulated this understanding through the language of physiology and Primal Health. He showed how early experiences shape the interaction between the primal brain, the hormonal system, and the immune system: systems that guide us for a lifetime. High levels of stress and interruption in the early hours after birth can have lasting effects on bonding, regulation, and health. Both Montessori and Odent remind us of something quietly challenging:any unnecessary help can become an obstacle. ––––––––– THE NEED FOR SAFETY, SERENITY, AND SILENCE The most fundamental need of the mother and newborn is to feel safe. Safety allows the body to soften.Serenity allows hormones to flow.Silence allows adaptation and bonding to unfold. After birth, both mother and baby are recovering from an immense physiological and emotional passage. They are learning each other. Their senses are heightened. Their nervous systems are open and impressionable. When the space around them is filled with noise, conversation, observation, or subtle interference, energy is pulled outward. When the space is quiet, respectful, and restrained, energy can turn inward: toward healing, connection, and rest. Silence is not emptiness.It is an offering. It allows mother and baby to reconnect after an abrupt separation. From this reconnection, everything else flows. ––––––––– LEARNING WITH KARIN SLABAUGH This work is at the heart of the teaching shared by Karin Slabaugh, who has dedicated her life’s work to studying, guarding, and protecting the newborn. Karin brings together Montessori’s original insights with decades of lived experience and careful observation, bridging traditional wisdom with contemporary understanding. Her work is grounded, humble, and deeply respectful of the newborn as a sensitive, relational being. Karin and I collaborate closely on the Basic Needs of Babies work, and it is a deep honour to walk alongside her in exploring how we meet life at its very beginning. You can learn more about this shared work here:https://www.montessori-for-life.org/the-basic-needs-of-babies/ ––––––––– A QUIET INVITATION When we change how we meet the newborn, we change something fundamental, not only for individual families, but for the wider culture. This reflection is an invitation to listen more closely.To protect the earliest moments of life.And to remember that sometimes the most powerful care we can offer is silence, trust, and reverence. ––––––––– This session is...
Read MoreWeaving Birth, Life and Death…
It is nearly two weeks since our dear Michel passed away, and the loss of this incredible human still sits heavy in my heart. The news of Michel’s passing reached me just days after I returned home from a pilgrimage to my own birth land, Switzerland — the place of my earliest years, where I had not been back since my 20th birthday, 25 years ago. I spent time in the home I lived in as a baby, with my god family, in the mountains. The places, smells, and sounds stirred long-forgotten memories — a quiet homecoming of sorts. I stood beneath the trees that were planted when I was a baby and now tower over me, holding their own stories of time passed. Visiting my eldest daughter, who is now living and working very close to where I once lived, was also profoundly connecting. Sharing a landscape familiar to us both, but for our own reasons, felt very special. While there, I had the honour of attending the birth of a beautiful little girl high up in the mountains overlooking a magical lake. Samara and I have been friends and colleagues for over a decade, but this was our first birth together. Joined by Ale, a new midwife friend, we formed a circle of elephants around this birth — weaving a silent, steady web of safety around the birthing mother and her family. Now, back home, I find myself in an integration phase — holding both the tenderness of Michel’s passing and the enormity of my journey. Here in South Africa, spring is beginning to show herself: longer, warmer days and African daisies greeting the sun each morning. I am holding my heart gently as I continue to sit with it all. The enormity of Michel’s legacy sits with me, and many ideas bubble to the surface about how I — and we — can stay true to his work. Yet I also feel the need to honour the fact that he himself is still transitioning, and that he and his family require our quiet holding and respect. Transitions must be honoured with reverence. As I shared in my previous newsletter, Michel repeated one message again and again: every mother and baby require our silence to find one another. “Do not wake the mother!” he would say. In this moment, I feel the same is true for Michel. May we offer him that silence as he crosses over. If you feel called to walk more deeply with these themes of birth, life, and transition, here are some upcoming offerings: Birth First Aid — a global, home birth–friendly learning space for birthkeepers. True Midwifery Study Spiral — with our next session on Supporting IVF Pregnancy and Birth led by Vera Dubrovine, 25 September 2025. Silent Birthkeeper (2026/2027) — add your name to the waiting list to be the first to know when bookings...
Read MoreComing Back to the Simple
A heartfelt reflection on birth, physiology, and the wisdom shared by Michel Odent and Liliana Lammers. Coming back to the simple in True Midwifery.
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