Wednesday 27th May

Important!!!
Please email eventcoordinator@birthweek.org.au to confirm availability and avoid disappointment.

Please check each session carefully as some sessions are already booked out.

Click here to download the entire Program Guide

9.30am Opening

9.45-11.45am Birth Choices

You are pregnant! Now what? In this session we will look at how to choose a model of care for your pregnancy and birth, who your caregiver will be, and where to birth your baby. We will explore the choices available to you, what influences the choices you are able to make, and what the research and statistics tell us about the outcomes of these choices. We will also discuss the recent Maternity Services Review and what these recommendations mean for you.

$20 includes morning tea.

Facilitated by Eastside Midwives -Helen Barrington, Andrea Bilcliff & Karen Heyward. Helen, Andrea & Karen are midwives in private practice, who are passionate about supporting women & their families through the birthing journey. They are committed to the right of women to be able to choose how, where & with whom they give birth. Supporting women planning homebirth or hospital birth, they are experienced in waterbirth, lotus birth & vaginal birth after previous caesarean section. Working together in a group practice enables them provide extra support & backup for their women & each other.

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1-4pm Birthwork

Birthwork session 1-4pm is fully booked out

This session is a mini experiential workshop designed to inspire and awaken you to new ways of interacting with birth. There is always more to discover! Come and experience how to maximise and mobilise pelvic space and how to work well with the body in labour. We will also learn how to use the Reboso – Mexican shawl- as traditionally used to prepare the mother for birth, help correct the position of the baby (posterior, breech, asynclitic, deflexed), and relax her during pregnancy and labour.

We will aim to slow down enough to connect, be present, pay attention, relate and communicate what we feel and experience and do.

$20 includes afternoon tea.

Fiona Hallinan’s experience comes from 20 years of working as a midwife and educator, and now working as a midwife in private practice. Fiona has a particular interest and fascination with exploring the dynamics of women’s bodies in relation to birth, and the evolution of birth wisdom.

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5.30 – 7pm. An Introduction to Healing Birth

This is a special ‘twilight’ addition to our Birth Week program

Dr Gregg. A. Lahood, an anthropologist of childbirth, transpersonal psychologist, collaborative inquiry facilitator, and antenatal educator, offers a conversation into the ’secret’ spiritual and transpersonal depths of birth giving.

In this session Gregg will present a comprehensive outline of birth trauma and its healing. Using a small slide-show presentation, some of the following topics may be explored:

The secret encounter with death at birth
Perinatal psychology
Ego/death and rebirth
Extraordinary events of consciouness
Midwifery and shamanism
The ritual abuse of technocratic birth
Charismatic breathwork: Healing birth

$20 includes a cuppa

After interviewing over 100 mothers, fathers and midwives, over the past seven years Dr Gregg has written a series of important articles in a number of international journals including Women and Birth, The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, The Journal of Pre and Peri natal Psychology and Health and the Australian Religious Studies Review. Gregg also has extensive therapeutic training in transpersonal, humanistic, and creative therapies which he has combined with his childbirth research in a career spanning 20 years. Gregg facilitates workshops and trainings geared to give midwives, doulas, couples and birth supports a set of skills in postnatal ‘interview’ techniques, emotional release training and charismatic breathwork.

7.30-10.30pm Birth Stories

Come and share your birth stories in a safe and supportive space. Whether your birth was in a hospital, birth centre or at home, sharing your story can be a beautiful, affirming and healing experience.

This session is for women only. Includes supper.

Facilitated by Bhava Dokos-Schoell, birth attendant and mother of two young children. Bhava holds all births as sacred Rites of Passage on our ever-deepening journey of being woman.