Stories are teachers. Stories are guides.
Last week I found myself immersed in stories. Within the Ubuntu Birth Attendant Reflection Spiral we began sharing the stories that have shaped us as birth attendants. A few days later, within the Silent Birthkeeper, we spent our session reflecting on birth stories themselves and the many ways they continue to teach us. It reminded me that stories are one of the oldest ways knowledge has been passed from one birth attendant to another. Stories are teachers. And they are guides. Long before textbooks and research papers, there were stories. The woman who laboured for days before her baby was born. The breech baby who suddenly flipped in mid labour and surprised everyone by being born head first. The haemorrhage that looked frightening but resolved beautifully. The births that changed everything we thought we knew… These stories become part of us. They quietly shape how we think, how we respond, and what we notice when we sit beside another woman. They feed our intuition: that quiet, embodied knowing that cannot be taught in a classroom but only by sitting with birth. They deepen our gut sense as birth attendants. And they expand our understanding of what is possible. Like a tree that is slowly shaped by the elements, so too are we, as birth attendants, shaped by the births we attend. Over the years, I have learnt as much from the births that unfolded gently as I have from those that ended in heartbreak. Both have been my teachers. But stories ask something important of us. They ask us to learn without projecting. To remain open to the uniqueness of each mother and baby. To allow every birth to unfold on its own terms, rather than through the lens of the last one we witnessed. Perhaps this is why gathering together matters so much. When we share our stories, we preserve knowledge that might otherwise be lost. We remind one another that we are not carrying this work alone. And together we slowly grow not only in knowledge, but in discernment. I feel deeply grateful that the True Midwifery community continues to create spaces where these stories can be spoken, witnessed, and held with great...
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