‘A must-read for pregnant women who want to better understand physiological birth and choose their care providers and birth setting accordingly’
– Sophie Walker, founder of Australian Birth Stories
‘My midwife said it was the only thing I need to read’ – Mother-to-be
‘For those who long to heal from a traumatic birthing experience, or for those who hope to avoid one in the first place, this book is an excellent place to begin your birth education’ – Clare Bowditch
‘Reading Beyond the Birth Plan made me realise that even calling in the most amazing supportive birth team could only take me so far’ – Amelia
My weekend birth preparation workshop will guide you to identify, reframe and transform your relationship with functional pain.
You will learn how to normalise ‘crisis of confidence’ moments, and explore the psychological and relationship dynamics which affect birthing potential.
Discover the importance of experienced support to back your intention for normal physiological birthing and learn how to work with pain through a dynamic labour rehearsal, breathing, movement, sound release and support strategies.
This workshop is open to partners and support people. While you can choose to attend earlier or later in pregnancy, ideally you should attend this workshop when you are between 5 and 8 months pregnant.
‘We felt that we got more out of Rhea’s course than all our antenatal classes combined’ – Tania and Jim
‘Rhea and her team are so informative and professional. My partner and I got so much out of her class and feel prepared going forward for a normal physiological birth. We walked away feeling informed, empowered and excited’ – Alex
A midwife and maternal child health nurse, Tushna told me she ‘had to do a lot of “unlearning and mindset rewiring” in pregnancy. ‘Your book Birth With Confidence was one of the best books I could have read when I was pregnant with my first-born son,’ she said.
After a four-day labour, Tushna went on to have ‘an absolutely incredible homebirth … with the support of my amazing private midwife’. Here, she shares the story of Eli’s birth.
Jane says the birth of her second baby, Lily, was ‘a healing and very redemptive birth experience’. ‘My first baby was born with a classic cascade of interventions, I was left feeling disappointed, sad and overwhelmed in the postpartum period, along with a sense of “not being able to do it”,’ Jane wrote to Rhea. ‘I withdrew my interest in the birth world for nearly three years until I found myself pregnant again. I then found your work.’ Here, Jane shares more about her experience.
Alice’s first birth experience ‘left deep scars when it came to trusting care providers’, she says. But research, listening to positive birth stories and reading Birth With Confidence ‘reinforced my belief in my ability to birth on my own terms’, says Alice, who had a successful VBAC for her second baby’s birth.
After a ‘very much unwanted caesarean’, Amelia made different choices for the birth of her second baby, engaging private midwives and a doula for ‘my beautiful homebirth’: ‘Reading Beyond the Birth Plan made me realise that even calling in the most amazing supportive birth team could only take me so far.’
When I gave birth to my first daughter in the late 1970s, I was a healthy, fit, low-risk woman. I was excited and confident about the challenge of physiological birth.
Despite this, and despite my intentions, the birth did not go to plan. I was left traumatised and confused.
In my quest to work out what had happened, my passion for birth education began. I prepared very differently for my second baby’s birth and went on to birth her exactly as I’d hoped.
I wanted to share what I’d learned, so I went on to train as a childbirth educator and counsellor. Since then, I have been privileged to attend more than a thousand births as a birth attendant and have educated thousands of expectant parents, support people, midwives and other medical practitioners about what supports physiological birth.
My passion is to give you a big-picture strategy for birth. I want you to go into labour excited and confident you’ve made the right choices for the birth you want.
Births occur in a context. In my second book, Beyond the Birth Plan, one woman who wanted to avoid medical intervention memorably describes her experience of being offered an epidural eleven times. All the deep-breathing exercises in the world won’t help you if your caregiver is doing that! Research shows most women want a ‘natural’ birth but say they aren’t able to in hospital. My books unpack why that is so, and what women can do about it in their birth preparation.
This is what I mean when I talk about medicalisation. I am not saying we do not need medical intervention ever. I am saying that we need to support physiological birth by recognising it is most often a healthy life event.
I’m assuming you are here because you have a yearning for physiological birth, a yearning to work with your body, your baby and the powerful building intensity of birthing energy. That you are working for a birth directed by the evolutionarily honed hormonal dance between you and your baby.
It’s estimated one in three Australian women will experience some kind of trauma during and after childbirth. While sometimes physical trauma is unavoidable, psychological trauma can have lasting effects.
In fact, one study showed more than 10 percent of Australian women show signs of post-traumatic stress 12 weeks after childbirth.
