Birth: A New Story: Recent Episodes
Birth: A New Story
Birth: A New Story is an upcoming documentary film by Samara Concepción that explores birth beyond the industrial model and restores the mystery and miracle of birth.
Eva Maria Bredler is a PhD student, editor, and dancer from Germany.
In her PhD, she’s exploring human rights in the context of pregnancy and childbirth. Her work seeks to bring the body back into the law – a sphere mostly inhabited by rational, autonomous legal subjects without bodies or relationships. As such, the law is unable to grasp pregnancy and childbirth as connected and embodied experiences. While doing research at the University of Oxford, she fell in love with social dancing. Trained as a ballet dancer, she is now focussing on Bachata and wants to inspire people to reconnect both to their own and other people’s bodies on a deeper level.
You can support Birth: A New Story HEREPhotography by Imogen Love
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Matiga is a Space holding Birthworker & Massage therapist from South East London. Walking with women and families along different stages of their maternal journey, she is honoured to witness the transition to earthside by many bright souls that have trusted her presence.
Matiga is currently being gently called to support during the other major life transition, that being departures, and she is excited to see where the roads lead next.
To learn more about Matiga's offerings, please visit https://www.makebadoula.co.uk/
You can support Birth: A New Story HERE
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Raised in the hip hop and muslim community in South London, Nicola Mahdiyyah Goodall has been involved in birth for almost thirty years. She was guided by her adopted mama Rifat Peggy Nafisa Brown - a traditional midwife taught by God, her local Grand Midwives and her local indigenous elders in Portland. Officially trained in 2002 with Michel Odent as one of the first Paramana Doulas. She works actively not only as a doula, but is also part of many different initiatives which promote good health for women.
She is the founder of the Red Tent Doulas training initiative and the director of the Wysewomen - a series of learning circles aimed at women sharing with women through storytelling, publications and healthy social media, to bring back traditional practices in our modern world, a growing apothecary and a publishing company. Red Tent now includes End of Life doula, traditional postpartum, TCM and radical educators preparation. She utilises her many ancestral lines and endeavours to weave them all together to bring back the traditional universal healing modalities we have discarded.
To learn more about Nicola Goodall please visit: https://nicolathebirthkeeper.com/
For Red Tent Doula courses and information please visit: https://redtentdoulas.co.uk/
You can support Birth: A New Story HERE
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In this conversation, Samara Concepción invites Natalie Feary to share how she created the conditions within and around herself to experience an ecstatic home birth after a difficult J incision caesarean.
Natalie is a mother to two children aged 9 and 5 and was born and grew up in London with a Mexican mother and English father. She has worked extensively as a politics and business journalist for both print and broadcast media and is the co-owner of two Mexican restaurants by the name of Santo Remedio in London. Natalie had a wonderful birth experience with the birth of her second child, Cecilia, which was transformative in many ways.
BIRTH: A New Story is an upcoming documentary film by Samara Concepción that explores what is possible beyond the medical model of birth.
You can support Birth: A New Story HERE
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This episode is my second interview with birthkeeper, birth educator and birth activist, Kemi Johnson.
In this episode we focus on dissolving some of the most deeply ingrained myths about birth with the intention of creating new possibilities for families beyond the dominant story about birth.
Kemi Johnson is an experienced Birthkeeper, former NHS and former Independent Midwife in the UK. She provides services to women and families who are seeking more than the conveyor-belt style of care and education that the NHS is providing people with currently.
As well as working with first-time mothers-to-be, Kemi also helps people unravel their thoughts regarding previous birth experiences. They walk away lighter, more informed and able to plan future births with strength and confidence restored.
Half of Kemi’s work is dedicated to coaching other Birthkeepers in their power to support families all over the world.
To find out more about Kemi’s work, please visit https://www.kemibirthjoyjohnson.com/
You can support Birth: A New Story HERE
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Kemi Johnson is an experienced Birthkeeper, former NHS and former Independent Midwife in the UK. She provides services to women and families who are seeking more than the conveyor-belt style of care and education that the NHS is providing people with currently.
As well as working with first-time mothers-to-be, Kemi also helps people unravel their thoughts regarding previous birth experiences. They walk away lighter, more informed and able to plan future births with strength and confidence restored.
Half of Kemi’s work is dedicated to coaching other Birthkeepers in their power to support families all over the world.
To find out more about Kemi’s work, please visit https://www.kemibirthjoyjohnson.com/
You can support Birth: A New Story HERE
--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/birth-a-new-story/message
Wholistic Sexuality teacher Sheri Winston is a groundbreaking, award-winning author and teacher who offers empowering, entertaining erotic education for everyone.
She’s the author of the award-winning Women’s Anatomy of Arousal: Secret Maps to Buried Pleasure (which I personally couldn’t recommend enough) and Succulent SexCraft: Your Hands-On Guide to Erotic Play and Practice. She’s also a contributor to the award-winning Secrets of the Sex Masters.
Sheri is the founder of the Intimate Arts Center. She offers pleasure-centered sex-ed for grown-ups via a wide variety of practical and transformational intimate arts educational recorded online classes, books and blogs.
Sheri’s unique holistic offerings are informed by over two decades as a sexuality teacher, on top of decades of practice as a certified nurse-midwife, gynecology practitioner, registered nurse, childbirth educator and massage therapist.
Sheri delights in inspiring people to have a lot more pleasure, fun and fulfillment!
To find out more about Sheri’s offerings, please visit https://intimateartscenter.com/
You can support Birth: A New Story HERE
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My invitation, through this meditation, is to help create the space that is needed to go within and feel all that there is to feel, in the trust that this will, in time, deepen our relationship with what is truly being felt within us. Here’s my offering to you this month, loved ones, and I hope it opens/nourishes you in some way.
With immense Love,
Samara
Music composed by Tommy Khosla
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Carly Mountain is a writer, psychotherapist and women’s initiatory guide, who specialises in working with sexuality, relationships and embodiment. She is author of Descent & Rising: Women’s Stories & the Embodiment of the Inanna Myth.
Carly facilitates people at the threshold of change to deepen intimacy with themselves and their lives. Her writing and work seeks to uncover what has been exiled or hidden within, that is longing to be remembered and reconnected with. A mythopoetic process that leads us back into intimacy with all that we have been estranged from, so that we can become more of who we are, and have always been.
To find out more about Carly’s offerings, please visit https://carlymountain.com/
You can support Birth: A New Story HERE
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Mars Lord is a life coach and a birth activist. A triple award winning doula, mentor, educator and coach with over 15 years of experience.
Mars created Abuela Doulas, a doula preparation course primarily, but not exclusively, for Black and Brown women, and is the Founder of BLA (Black Lives Abuela) Scholarship. This scholarship is to help Black women who wish to become doulas to train and not be held back by socio-economic disadvantage.
She is Inclusion Consultant to several large companies causing them to look deep into their practise to make systemic and structural change.
This interview was recorded in April 2022, following the Shrewsbury maternity scandal in the UK. Mars also refers to the 2021 draft of a highly concerning proposed new guideline on inducing labour by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.
For more information about Mars Lord please visit https://www.marslord.co.uk/
SUPPORT Birth: A New Story HERE
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This episode is an interview from my upcoming documentary film with traditional midwife, educator and anthropologist Naoli Vinaver.
Naolí Vinaver is a Mexican midwife who combines traditional Mexican and contemporary home birth practices, with a profound respect for the physiology of natural birth, having attended over 1800 home births in both Mexico and Brazil. Naolí is a passionate speaker and educator, teaching hundreds of workshops and seminars in over 30 countries around the world.
In this interview Naoli shares her love for the journey of expansion, discovery and transformation that every woman embarks on through pregnancy and birth. Naoli offers her fascinating perspective as an anthropologist on how the medical model of birth became the norm and invites us to consider what safety means beyond survival. Naoli gifts us a deeply holistic approach to subjects such as induction of labour and physiological birth. I absolutely adore Naoli’s ability to embrace the physical, emotional and spiritual dimensions of birth, and beyond, all at once. It’s these conversations that keep me nourished and motivated to continue gestating Birth: A New Story.
For more information about Naoli Vinaver please visit: www.naolivinaver.com
Support BIRTH: A New Story HERE
This episode is an interview from my upcoming documentary film with midwife, author and educator, Jennie Joseph.
Jennie Joseph is a British-trained midwife who fights to ensure every person has their healthiest possible pregnancy, birth and postpartum experience with dignity and support.
Jennie created The JJ Way® which is an evidence-based, maternity care model delivering readily-accessible, patient-centred, culturally-congruent care to women in areas that she terms 'materno-toxic zones'.
Jennie is the Founder and President of Commonsense Childbirth which operates a perinatal training division, a clinical division, a national Midwifery school and the National Perinatal Task Force, a grassroots organisation whose mission is the elimination of racial disparities in maternal child health in the United States.
A proud member of The Council of Midwifery Elders, she serves on the Advisory Council for the Congressional Black Maternal Health Caucus, is a Fellow of The Aspen Institute, and has been recognized as a TIME Woman of The Year 2022 for her work in promoting perinatal equity.
For more information about Jennie Joseph please visit https://jenniejoseph.com/
Support BIRTH: A New Story here.
This episode is an interview from my upcoming documentary film with author, therapist and ceremonialist, Mia Kalef.
Mia Kalef is a Chiropractor, Craniosacral Therapist and founder of Emerging Families, a program of therapy, education, and research for the Pre and Perinatal Period. She works with families throughout the childbearing years to resolve the effects of Pre and Perinatal challenges and with adults retrospectively. She is the author of ‘The Secret Life of Babies: How Our Prebirth and Birth Experiences Shape Our World’ and ‘It’s Never Too Late: Healing Prebirth and Birth At Any Age’, which is a practical guide for parents, caregivers, and health care providers I personally couldn’t recommend enough.
In this interview Mia invites us to perceive conception as a spiritual event and babies as emissaries of the greater whole, she shares how babies communicate information, including their memories of their birth experience. Mia also shares concerning research about the imprints caused by common birth interventions which rely on drugs and instruments and how parents can help their infants and children discharge their birth trauma through compassionate listening. Mia also covers how our pre and perinatal experiences shape the future of our world and how we can intentionally co-create the world we want to live in through the way we treat mothers and babies.
For more information about Mia Kalef’s offerings
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In this conversation, Samara Concepción invites Natalie Gyte to share her free birth experience and the journey which led her to that choice. Together, they explore pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period as a continuum, rather than separate chapters.
Natalie is a new Mama to Rose, and a partner to Luke. She has played basketball for England and for team Great Britain at the junior Olympics and has competed in boxing for 8 years - winning a national title in 2019. Natalie is currently navigating a down shift into slow living as she journeys into Motherhood. And she describes this beautiful phase of life - of loving and raising her child - as her highest calling.
BIRTH: A New Story is an upcoming documentary film by Samara Concepción that explores what is possible beyond the medical model of birth.
Find out more at www.birthanewstory.com
In this time of great transition on Earth, Te Kaha's heart-led mission is to be a guide in the transformation and empowerment of others, in their essential reconnection with themselves and with the natural world, as shown to him by his tīpuna (ancestors).
Hapuutanga can be translated as 'The Way of Pregnancy'.
"A major component of the wananga hapuutanga (Maori birthing workshops) is directed straight at us taane (men). Because it is us men who have been sidelined and marginalised within the pregnancy and birthing process. In ancient Tuuhoe tradition it was the husband, father or even brother who was the main kai mahi hapuu (birthing doula). We as men need to re-assert ourselves in supporting, encouraging and empowering our wives through bringing into this world the spirits who have chosen us to be their guardians.
These are traditions that have been practiced by my people for thousands of years. These traditions are also extremely healing for us men. Many of us have been damaged. I can think of no better gift a man can give the emerging child than to be the first human touch upon entry into the world of light. The bond that is created between ourselves as 'Taane' (men) and our child is everlasting; not just for this world, but forever.” Te Kaha
For more information about Te Kaha's London workshop, please visit: https://samaraconcepcion.com/hapuutanga-workshop-with-te-kaha
For more information about Te Kaha and his offerings, please visit his website: https://www.tekahapounamu.com/home
The New Story of Birth recognises that the health and well-being of fathers is essential to our societal health. The changes that accompany pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period are significant, but so is the role that men play in this transformation. A partner’s quality of presence and influence through this time is momentous. How could men be better supported on their journey to fatherhood? Join Adam Jackson, Aubert Bastiat and Samara Concepción to explore the sacred role of the father during pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period.
The New Story of Birth is Wet, Wild and Sexy. Intimate, Untamed and Undisturbed.
Birth, like Sex, is an Altered State - When we don’t interfere with the magnificent design and mystery of birth.
When a birthing woman feels safe, unobserved, undisturbed and free to follow her innate body wisdom, her body starts releasing a fine combination of hormones, including oxytocin and beta-endorphin, which lead her into an altered state or birth trance. This state is essential to the optimal unfolding of birth. Oxytocin, also known as the hormone of love and bonding, is also released during arousal and orgasm, stimulating that feeling of closeness to our partners. After birth, the body is flooded with the most amount of oxytocin a woman will ever experience in her life! This enables her to fall in love and bond deeply with her baby. Birth is The Most Beautiful Love Story.
Join Sheila Kamara Hay and Samara Concepción for a juicy conversation about the importance of integrating pleasure into birth and birth preparation. We’ll be exploring how this benefits the health and well-being of women, babies, families and therefore, society as a whole.
The New Story of Birth recognises that the health and well-being of mothers, fathers, babies and families is integral to the health of society. How would we welcome our children into the world in the new story of interbeing?
Join this conversation between Charles Eisenstein and Samara Concepción to explore how we can restore the radical power of birth to its ancient roots in service of thriving life. Birth: A New Story is an upcoming documentary film by Samara Concepción that explores birth beyond the industrial model and restores the mystery and miracle of birth. You can support the project at: http://birthanewstory.com
The New Story of Birth values the innate body wisdom of women and babies. There is an essential piece missing in our current understanding of birth; the hormonal physiology of birth. In other words, the innate intelligence of the birth process. This magnificent design cannot unfold unless a birthing woman feels safe, held, unobserved, undisturbed and free to follow her innate body wisdom.
Join this conversation between Kelly Brogan and Samara Concepción to explore how we can reclaim our lost reverence for the mystery and intelligence of birth in a time that perceives birth as inherently dangerous, flawed and requiring medical management. Birth: A New Story is an upcoming documentary film by Samara Concepción that explores birth beyond the industrial model and restores the mystery and miracle of birth.
In support of the forthcoming film Birth: A New Story, join this conversation with School of Mythopoetics co-founder Ian MacKenzie and actor Jacob Fortune Lloyd.
Jacob Fortune-Lloyd - Executive Producer Jacob is an actor, theatre and filmmaker based in London. His acting projects include The Queen's Gambit, Wolf Hall, and the upcoming See How They Run and The Power. He has performed on London's West End, volunteer co-produces Matchstick Theatre Company in South East London, and is currently co-developing a number of film and TV projects. He is excited and honoured to be part of bringing this urgent story to life.
Ian MacKenzie - Producer Ian MacKenzie is a filmmaker and writer who lives on the edge of the Salish Sea with his partner and young son. For over 13+ years, he’s been tracking the global emergence of new culture. From the desert of Burning Man to the heart of Occupy Wall St, he has sought and amplified the voices of visionaries, artists and activists who have been working toward planetary system change. He is most known for his films Sacred Economics (2013), Amplify Her (2017), Occupy Love (2013, Producer), and Lost Nation Road (2019).