mothering

5 Truly Terrifying Things About Birth in the UK

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

As the theme changes from spooky to sparkles, I am jumping on this trend with a quick note today, because honestly, while everyone sharing their fabulous decorations, costumes, and pumpkins – almost all of which have a HUGE impact on the environment and carry their own horror story, there’s also a 365 day crisis in perintal care that’s far scarier than Halloween.

5 truely spooky things, going on every single day within birth, because the system is build to conveyor belt families from pregnancy through to postpartum as conveniently as possible. This is  not because those working in it want to, but because that’s the way policies and systems have been built.

Scary stuff!

So, heres just 5, of the many terrifying things going on in the birth world … all year round.

The lies in antenatal care from professionals in the system – I know I said above that it’s not those working in the system, and most of the time, it isn’t. But the truth is, sometimes it is. Sometimes it is professionals ticking boxes, sometimes it’s disregarding evidence based care, sometimes it’s policy and sometimes it’s someone who’s burnt out and exhausted. But the lies come. And the ripples they create are immense.

Induction rates are incredibly high. When there’s a medical need, induction can be an incredibly useful life-saving tool, and thank goodness for that. However for the majority of women and birthing people induction is often a result of lack of confidence,  misinformation, scarmongering and guidance about ‘big babies’ or  being ‘overdue’. It isn’t based on the latest evidence and induction – in its various forms – ends up being the first step in a sliding scale of interventions which often perpetuate trauam for all those involved.

Lack of trauma informed, neruodivergent aware, autonomy based care is in part related to the point above: induction. However, it goes well beyond that. A lack of well rounded training and resources means that a majority of healthcare professionals, while well intentioned, often don’t have the correct language or experience to be able to support the different women and birthing people that they are seeing. The lack of neurodiverse not knowledge means that a lot of the time, families are treated in ways that cause more harm, coerce all violate their rates to autonomy. The reality of this is that once again, women, birthing people, partners and the babies involved are coming away from birthing within the system with experiences they need to heal from right at the start of this new journey together.

When we have a lack of support and we feel out of control or in danger. Physiological birth is halted, and our bodies go into shut down. This means that a majority of families are starting their journey together with this new baby,  and also having to recover from the experience of pregnancy and birth.

The maternal mortality rate for non white bodies is another incredibly scary aspect of birth in not just the UK but around the Western world. The reality is that biases exist, unconscious ones often doing more harm than we realise. Although most people don’t believe themselves to be racist, these are socialised biases that have informed everything we do, so of course, it is unsurprising that we see them unfold in preintal care too. 


Lastly, the bullying, coercion, and violation that women and birthing are experiencing every day. Unfortunately, almost everyone who has been through the system will have an experience where they have been treated in a less than ideal way. However, the scariest part of this is that they leave, and I, myself have done this too, grateful for the fact that they have come out not as damaged as they could be, and that their baby is there, not damaged or as damaged as could have been.


Halloween is one day.
One commercialised day adulterated from ancient traditions.


The crisis in perinatal care is all year round.

If you’re planning a baby or pregnant – get informed. You and your baby deserve better than what is currently happening.

Where You Birth Matters

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

The way a baby is born impacts them on some level for their whole life.

The way they are born. The people around them. The environment they enter this world into.

Baby’s born into war carry that, (if they survive) into the life they live and it physically alters the DNA of their decendants. This has been heavily weighing on my mind this week, as we watch the events in the middle East unfold- with little to no voice given to the reality birthing women and babies are facing.

Baby’s born into immense privilege carry it too… though not always in the ways we might assume. Privilege often equates to a certain amount of resources over and above others. In the birth world, it’s a little more nuanced than that.

Assuming that you’re birthing outside of a war zone then; what impact does the environment of birth really have? It matters deeply, not just for babies but for mothers and partners too.

We cannot prepare for the future without embracing the meaning and the relevance of the baby’s perspective on life.

-Michel Odent

We know that mothers birthing in supported environments where they feel safe and nurtured pass this information on to their babies. The same is true for mothers who birth in conditions of big T and little t trauma. From hospitals to birthing centers to home births, the space you birth will shape everything from the medical interventions used to the emotional atmosphere surrounding your birth. After numerous conversations about why thinking about this as early on as possible matters, I thought I’d write a little on it.

Choosing where to give birth is a deeply personal decision. The assumption that everyone has the information and resources to choose the way they want is one I just cannot make. Socio-economic factors come into play, race, ethnicity and culture too. In the UK (at least at the time of writing in 2024), you can legally choose where you birth, and that choice can absolutely impact the way your birth story plays out.

Ultimately, its your choice, so get informed! There are far too many women told they can only birth in hospital when truly they do have other options. Equally, if the idea of birthing anywhere outside a hospital gives you shudders, then planning that ahead matters.

I want to preface the next few passages by highlighting that ultimately I believe every single baby comes earthside in the way they need to, with their unique birth resourcing them in various ways. 

What are your options?

Hospital, Birth Centre, Home. I won’t chat freebirth, that’s for another day.

Hospitals are the high tech options, sold to us as high safety, but also the space where the highest levels of birth trauma exist. Hopstials are supposed to be safe – and when they work, they are a blessing. More and more though, especially for women who have no or low ‘risk’ factors the hosptial birth story isn’t a happy one.

Hospitals represent the standard choice for childbirth, they are normalised in the media we consume right from childhood, and other spaces are considered ‘alternative’ or even a little radical. There are an array of medical interventions and expertise available, with health care professionals and a full range of technology on hand to monitor baby and mother throughout labour. There’s access to all sorts of interventions and pain relief options, and of course surgery.

While a cesarean birth can be lifesaving; for many of us in the birth world, we can see that it is the interventions prior that snowballed a healthy birth into an emergency. The conveyor belt system of induction and cesarean births is all a bit too neatly boxed up; and it takes away from the rite of passage birth physiologically is.

Hospital births are often a ticket to the trauma train because procedure trumps real life experience, and women are often gaslit, ignored, or violated. Circling back to babies, this also means babies are being ignored, assaulted and sent the information that the world is scary and unsafe.

Birth is nearly never an emergency, but sometimes it is. If you need to prioritise safety with medical resources, then a hospital birth is a blessing.

If you don’t… Read on.

A birth centre/midwife unit:

Birth centres are often described as kind of like the middle ground between hospital and home. They’re quieter, often offer a pool, can have the lights dimmed and try to be as warm and cosy as possible. Most birth centers will try to encourage birth to be as intervention free as possible, and I’ve heard of some beautiful birth stories with supportive staff in them.

However, with the ever increasing agenda to streamline birth (and yes this is the agenda), more birth centres are being closed or told they can’t operate fully because of staffing levels. Midwife units cannot support birthing women if they aren’t supported themselves; which means being able to access these is getting harder. Added to this is the fact most of them are for babies being born physiologically with little / no risk, and will turn away women who don’t their box.

This isn’t without reason, birth centres aren’t equipped to navigate emergencies or complications, and so err on the slide of caution. Birth centres can be some of the most beautiful, supportive and nurturing spaces, and midwives often go above and beyond to make them so… but they need to be given the resources for that to happen.

Home births:

For a healthy woman, the first intervention in birth and labour is leaving home. This is something I learned only after my 2nd child, and having had both hospital and home births myself, it is something I wholly believe to be true. As a woman, I know my homebirths were far more positive than my hospital ones, and I only got here through research and experience.

As a doula who wholeheartedly supports informed choices, I will never tell a potential client where to birth, but I will absolutely encourage you to really think about what that means to you.

Homebirths are growing in popularity, becoming something many mothers return to. I don’t see this as a a coincidence, it is a remembering. A remembering that sovereign birth is something we all have the right to. A return to reclaim the power of birth. Homebirths are in the comfort of your own space, so autonomy comes more naturally. You aren’t entering someone else’s space, they are visiting yours as a support system for you.

You can choose the environment, the lights the music etc, and if you decide you want to transfer, then that’s okay. It’s a choice you make. For first time mothers, there’s evidence to say that home births are far less traumatic, bonding feels easier and healing is quicker. Because in your space, generally speaking you feel safer, therefore all these processes don’t need to be big and hard, they can flow with ease. You can take breaks, chill out, zone out, and rest without interruption or inspection. There’s a reason mammals find/create dark quiet spaces for birthing, it is a primal instinct to do so. Humans like to think we are different, but hardly so.

Before I sign off, I have a question for you. Did you birth in more than one of these settings? What were your experiences of thr difference ? If you feel called to and safe to share, get in touch. I’d be honoured to hear from you.

With love, until next time,

Rohana x

Why I became a birth photographer?

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

When I had my first child over 7 years ago, I had never heard of birth photography. I had the idea that I wanted to see my baby being born, and I asked if I could have a camera set up. I didn’t really understand why I wanted to, all I knew was it felt deeply important to me.

The hospital I was birthing at said no. I didn’t argue. I didn’t know how.

That birth, my first child, was traumatic in a number of ways and I’ve worked hard to heal my memories surrounding it. Still, I wish I had photos of it. I wish I could see the woman I was in those moments.

Alas, I cannot.

But I learned my lesson. When I fell pregnant again, I spoke to my partner about wanting to hire a photographer, and so we did.

I looked for a local photographer because at that time, nearly 5 years ago, birth photography wasn’t as popular as it is today. We found one who I trusted and got on with, and she agreed to venture out of her normal photography niche and capture my birth. Those photos are some of the most profound ones I have from that time. Unfortunately, my daughter was ready before anyone else, and the moment I craved capture of, was missed.

Still, having the details like the song she was born to, the pictures of me holding her as I stood up, blood dripped down my legs, cord still attached. They are frozen in time, ready to transport me back. They are a gift from my past self, and they are a gift to my future self too. Moments I have to hold forever.

When I got those images I knew that I wanted to give this to other families. I wanted to capture the rawness of these moments, and the intimacy of saying hello for the first time.

We say that you never forget the birth of your baby, and yes in part it’s true. But memories do fade. Time robs us of details. The haze of motherhood buries the deeply vulnerable early hours postpartum.

Documenting them feels like being able to save a sliver of one of life’s most powerful periods. Giving that to others is a privilege and honour.

When I had my 3rd baby, I hired another birth photographer. We planned a homebirth but ended up freebirthing. She documented the minutes I worried I wouldn’t be able to birth my baby, and she captured the moment where he was between worlds, head here, body not yet earthside, me, a portal.

In the months afterwards where I felt like I was drowning, the photographs she gave us reminded me that I could do the hardest things and survive.

Birth photography isn’t a trend, or just a photo to post on Instagram. It’s powerful, and healing far beyond what we may realise at the time.

Would I recommend it? A big YES! Not only because I do it, but because so many women I’ve spoken to have said, nomatter how their births have gone, they would have loved more images. Those who have them, treasure them deeply.

Baby’s are only born once after all, and no two births are the same.

With love,

Rohana x

The Conditioning of Birth

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

We are conditioned by everything in life.

From the moment of your conception right until the moment you are reading this, you have been absorbing and filtering information. You’re doing it right now too. Every second of every single day.

It’s actually really fucking amazing – and, it means, we have a LOT of conditioning to work through whenever we try to break a cycle or move through some shit.

In terms of birth, what does this mean? We’re not constantly thinking about birth (unless you work in the field) or about how babies come into the world. We don’t actively consider the sacred period of postpartum days. We don’t consciously create a negative or traumatic birth. Why would we?

And yet, the percentage of women who experience birth trauma is rising. It is scary and getting scarier. The maternity services in this country (the UK) are deeply overwhelmed, understaffed, and failing. Arguably this is because of funding and politics and a lack of knowledge etc etc. However, I’ll go a step in a different direction here and say it’s also because we are so deeply conditioned in this society to think about birth a medical problem, a painful experience, and something that we have to survive.

We are conditioned from the moment our parents find out we exist; their thoughts and fears and joys about our birth will transmit information to us, in utero, about what birth is like. Then, our actual entrance into this world either confirms these beliefs that have begun to form, or it challenges them. Either way, beliefs are created- often in the last few generations they were not positive ones.

It might sound a little weird but if you get it, you really do get it. These imprints are the first of many foundational layers of our whole belief system. Every single second. Every single day. It’s all absorbed and filtered.

So then, we hear about birth, we hear screams of labour on the tv, or family and friends talking about the pain and trauma. We grow up with messages that birth isn’t beautiful, that it is bloody and breaks us, and so we fear it.

Generations have birthed under the controlled “guidance” of professionals reinforcing these views that birth isn’t safe or joyful or sacred. 

Granted there are exceptions, and someone will say that it’s “not all” but it doesn’t have to be all. It’s some. It’s a majority. And if you have any other racial or economic cards stacked against you, its even more.

Like I said earlier, we don’t consciously create a negative or traumatic birth. However we often do consciously create (also referred to as manifesting) a positive birth experience.  How? By filtering out the noise. By deconditioning our expectations of birth.

There are some radical revolutionaries out here doing this work. Deconditioning birth and postpartum, and inviting as many families as we can do the same. Those of us who have seen, heard and sometimes even felt the trauma that can be associated with birthing babies into this world; taking our experience and expertise and molding it into something we share. We are here, and we want better for our collective decendants.

We are here breaking the cycle. Saying no more, doing this sacred work of holding these spaces. Saying enough. Saying the conditioning stops here.

I invite you, regardless of where you are in the experience of birth – having had babies or wanting them, not interested in kids or somewhere in between – what are your beliefs about birth? Where have you been conditioned and where have you consciously created these views?

I’d love to hear.

With love,

Rohana x

Day 40 – Unbecoming

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Did you know, doing something for 40 days rewires our neurobiology?

It’s stronger than a habit.

It’s why, many yoga practices, or meditations etc do 40 days…. its a magic number.

When I committed to these 40 days, I was feeling really unsure, given that our house move is now in 3 days, I knew it would be a push, but actually, it has been such a grounding gift to be able to reflect and hold space for myself. To show up and to say, even when I don’t want to, I will.

I adore writing. I adore reading too, though I do far less of it than I’d like.

I used to think, I’d need things to be on point or have a theme in order to show up. It has boxed me in.

Slowly the self-censorship shackles are being broken.

On that topic, last year, I set intentions around self censorship in my breathwork practice. I was feeling very caged in, and much of it was related either to my own self imposed ideas of what was okay or not, or from what I’d decided comments from those close to me meant. I was frustrated and angry. I wanted change.

My intentions were around letting go of self censorship that didn’t serve me. Allowing myself to step authentically into my voice and feeling able to speak my truth regardless of the voices around me. That didn’t mean to be cruel, it meant, I needed to tune in.

A year later… I’m reflecting on this and realising, the thoughts and intentions I protected out then are my reality now without any real planning. I crafted it.

I won’t lie – it feels fu*king good!

Change isn’t instant…. but it comes. This process has been an anchoring of that.

I won’t continue to write every day, not specifically here at least. But I’ve got some incredible ideas for more shares that have been inspired the past 40 days; and I will continue to share on other platforms.

I consider myself a writer.

Writing is a part of who I am… and when I write, even (especially) if it’s just for me, there is magick in those offerings.

I’m off to write some more pages of intentions… crafting my reality for next year .. and beyond. I’ll leave you with this, a note I had written for myself in May 2023:

Why do we put so much pressure on ourselves and expect change or transformation to be instant? It’s like asking a pregnant woman to birth instantly, without allowing her the process and labour of love and transition she needs in order to bring life earthside. Our instant culture is ruining us… choosing slowness and ease is more radical every day.

From my journalling notes

If you’ve stuck with me these past 40 days, thank you. If you’ve been around longer, thank you. If you’re only just showing up, welcome.

There are many many transformations coming. I’m stocking up on spoons to be able to share them!

I hope you know, whereever you are, you are loved. You are important. You are powerful. You are so much more than enough.

I’ll see you in a few weeks, with love,

Rohana

Connection, Causal Comments and Costumes of our Life

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

I wrote this more than a year ago … for some reason, I thought it wasn’t right to share at the time. Perhaps because I felt raw from the day, or perhaps because I got busy … either way, I’m sharing it now. Because as I read it back, I realised just how much I needed my own words today… and I am so immensely grateful that I have this space to write.

With love, from a past version of myself xox

” I was on the bus today, and of course, bus trips mean lots of people. Always opinions, some lovely, others not; but more recently, as I’ve been building up to solo trips with the kids again in the better weather, with them all being older, and E, now 20 months having lots more opinions about the buggy; I’ve thought about how we use the time travelling to connect.

Today, we played I-spy, our version of the game, using colours instead of phonics, and sometimes throwing in the odd shape or physical reference like ‘tall’ or ‘wide’ instead. The kids sat, and looked around, and E started to whine because he was strapped into the buggy. Luckily, another mum got on, and the connection between him and her daughter began, until he fell asleep!

We (mums) chat for a while, talking about kids and coping; she shared some wisdoms about being a mum of 7, and I shared some frustrations about villageless parenting. We connected – over the shared experience of splitting ourselves into multiple pieces, stretching so our children could have parts of us, and simultaneously loving the chance and choice to do this, and being exhausted by it. I told her I thought her family must be beautiful, and I admired her honesty. She told me that it gets easier and harder, affirming that no choice is right, but that we do what we can with the knowledge we have.

A brief, meaningful chat, interrupted by a gentleman getting on the bus and sitting down adjacent to my older 2. “you’ve got your hands full” he said gruffly to me.

“Oh I really do” I replied. “Full of love with my amazing children”.

“Uh, not all the time I bet” was his response!

The other mum looked at me and we shared a moment of horror at the roughness in his voice.

“They really are amazing” I told him. It was our stop. We left.

And once again, I thought about connections. Some positive, some negative, all, inevitably will have an impact on our energy fields. Why do some people feel so harshly about children? Why do they judge when there is more than 1? What did he gain? What was so triggering for him? I wondered aloud a little, with the general cautionary calls to my kids about the road. I thought about how hard it might be for some people to see kids being so free and confident, when they might have never been given the chance to be so.

I wondered how my children felt. Though they know we’ve had these comments and conversations before, so they said they were hardly ruffled, more interested in the scrap metal yard instead. But how does this impact children? How do we make them feel when we comment about how hard they are constantly?

What message do we send when we say, I’ve had enough of you? Because in most instances they never get to say that to us.

Thinking about my children, and the brief beautiful encounter with this lady, I remembered a quote I’d read in an email this week by Rupaul that “You’re born naked and the rest is drag”.

Kindness costs nothing.

The appearances we choose every day impact every single human around us. We are born naked, and needing others to survive… as we grow we create costumes for ourselves every season of life… and yet, when we die, we return to the earth .. dust. The short space of time in between, in the costumes we choose may be brief, but it is so powerful.

The lady on the bus today gave me hope… and it was thanks to her, that though the gentleman’s words stung, I could brush them away, and hold my babies close. A year ago, I might have been brought to tears (probably would have!). Thank you, whoever you are. I am grateful.”

That’s it.

That’s the post. A short meeting that left a big impact.

Whatever your day looks like. Wherever you are in the world. I hope you know this:

You are loved. You are important. You are so much more than enough.

The rollercoaster of Motehrhood

| Rohana Aisha Dewfall

Motherhood is a marathon. It’s sweaty and exhausting and often filled with various bodily fluids, not many of them our own. We often find that we are in a cycle of doing and being for everyone else, wearing the same clothes for days or holding back hair while our kids are sick even when we just want to throw up too!

But somehow, despite doing all of the things, often on little sleep and a vague remembrance of what it feels like to have a full cup, we begin to wonder if we are enough.

Am I doing enough?

Am I cooking enough ‘good’ food?

Is the house clean enough?

Do I cuddle my children enough?

Have I been a ‘good enough’ partner recently?

Have I even thought about all the birthdays or friends or the appointments I need to book?

Am I enough? Or am I screwing up?

It’s exhausting!

The mental load of motherhood is enough to break us. We feel guilt glands grow with every ‘to do’ and every ‘should’; and eventually, we end up feeling like we just can’t cope – but that there’s also no way we can stop.

You are holding everything together; almost exclusively at times; with not even a thank you or any notice taken. You are not a superwoman, but you are being asked to be.

But what if there was another way? What if we could, at least, shift the guilt.

Move away from the guilt that we aren’t enough – because my goodness we are!

Our inner critic roars when we get frustrated by broken bananas and bedtime battles; because we are so stretched at every angle, that we cannot see how adding more big feelings is possible. Every time our inner critic pipes up, we buy into the belief that we ‘should’ be doing more.

I call bullshit!

And, in fact; I call so much bullshit, that I created a course on this exact topic. The Rollercoaster of Motherhood in all it’s messy madness doesn’t have to include guilt over not enoughness. It doesn’t have to include overwhelm at all the things society tells us we should be. And it doesn’t have to include days after days where we feel like we are failing; just because we haven’t met the impossibly high standards we (or others) have set for ourselves.

If you’re interested to learn more; contact me. I will be opening opportunity later this year, to work with mothers, and families at a much deeper level than I have been writing; because I believe it’s time we reclaim the power we have raising our children. Reclaim the political act that parenting is; not just so we move away from not feeling enough – but so that our children have better, more positive writing on the walls of their mind.

As ever, thank you for reading. You are amazing!

Rohana