Kindred Birth

If you book a caesarean, we can have the right team for your body.”
Said to a strong, weight-lifting woman planning a HBAC - home birth after c-section.

Read that again.

The implication is not subtle:
if you labour spontaneously and later need surgery, the right people might not be on shift…So you should plan surgery in advance?!

💥This is an extraordinary thing to normalise in maternity care.

Because what’s being admitted, indirectly, is that care is not consistent. Skill is not consistent. Staffing is not consistent. And instead of fixing that, the burden is placed on the woman’s body to become more manageable for the system.

Before we even got to that point, the appointment opened with scar rupture. Quoted as 1 in 200. Technically that sits at the upper end of the range. The overall risk of uterine rupture in a planned VBAC is commonly cited around 0.2–0.5% (roughly 1 in 500 to 1 in 200), lower in spontaneous labour and higher with induction. That context matters. It wasn’t offered.

🎯 When the first fear tactic didn’t land, the goalposts moved.

To BMI.

BMI is a blunt population tool. It does not distinguish muscle from fat. It tells you nothing meaningful about fitness, strength, cardiovascular capacity, or metabolic health. And this woman isn’t ‘overweight’ she trains, she lifts heavy, she is strong. But the number was used as a lever anyway.

And then comes the line about the ‘right team’.

That is not informed consent.
That is a system quietly telling you: we can’t guarantee competent, consistent care unless you book the surgery.

So your options become:
risk spontaneous labour, or schedule the pathway that suits staffing.

This is how coercion works now. Not through force, but through framing. One risk. Then another. Then a logistical warning dressed up as medical advice.

Thank you to KW for sharing her story 💥

Do you have a f**kery you want me to unpack?

Or maybe you want to plan your homebirth with your choice front and centre? If this is you comment HOMEBIRTH and I can share how to start planning!

Your grandmother didn’t have more information.
She had less noise.

Less scanning. Less second-guessing. Less external authority sitting louder than her own body.

And because of that, she often leaned into something we’ve drifted away from. Proximity. Keeping her baby close. Responding without over-analysis. Trusting rhythms she could feel rather than metrics she had to track.

That doesn’t mean it was perfect. But it does mean there was an intact thread between body, baby and behaviour.

Now we’re handed infinite information and very little orientation.

Women are trying to mother through apps, schedules and conflicting advice, while undergoing one of the most profound transitions a human can experience.

Matrescence.

A full reorganisation of the brain, body and identity. Heightened sensitivity. A nervous system that is more open, not less. A drive for closeness that isn’t weakness, but biology.

When that transition is unsupported, it can feel like you’re getting it wrong.

When it’s understood, everything starts to make sense.

This is the bridge I built in my work.

Not a return to the past, but a reconnection to what was always there.
Your instincts. Your baby. The physiology that links you.

So you’re not trying to “figure out” motherhood from the outside, but living it from the inside, with context, with support, and with trust.