Series One: Birth Trauma

One in three women in Australia experience birth trauma. With so much information flying around on this topic - and off the back of the Birth Experience Study and the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Birth Trauma - we decided to make this the focus of our first series, to bring some clarity and detailed information to this enormous issue.

Episode Five: Trauma informed compassionate care with Billie Harrigan

We had a fabulous chat with Billie Harrigan and discussed what trauma-informed care means and how it can be put into practice. Billie talks about trauma-informed care being as lifesaving as hand washing and CPR. She says it’s one of the most basic skills needed for maternity care, yet it is the most neglected.

Billie has been serving birthing families for about 40 years as a traditional birth companion (what Canadians used to call “the neighbour” and the rest of the world understood to be the community midwife), an educator for parents and professionals, a breastfeeding counsellor, lay pastoral counsellor, and an integrative perinatal health consultant.  

She has taught midwives in 125 countries in the skills of physiological birth and is the author of the world's first certification course for becoming trauma informed specific to the perinatal client. She is the founder of Birth Trauma Ontario, an organisation that focuses on the causes and the solutions for obstetric violence and advocates for prevention through creating alternatives to today's technocratic medicalised birth services industry and its astounding rates of abuse and trauma.

Billie has now turned her attention to training new traditional birth companions as part of this alternative so that parents have more options for welcoming their precious babies. 

Links

Billie Harrigan
Website: www.harriganhive.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/billieharrigan
Bio site: www.bio.site/billieharrigan

Birth Time
Website: www.birthtime.world
Instagram: www.instagram.com/birthtimeworld
Facebook: www.facebook.com/birthtimeworld  

Jerusha
Website: www.jerusha.com.au
Instagram: www.instagram.com/jerushasutton
Facebook: www.facebook.com/jerushasuttonphotography

Jo
Website: www.midwifejo.com.au
Instagram: www.instagram.com/midwifejohunter
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MidwifeJo

BIRTH TIME GIFT CARD: www.birthtime.world/watch-now
THE HANDBOOK: www.birthtime.world/the-handbook
MERCH: www.birthtime.world/shop

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