The Women Who Guided Me

The Women Who Guided Me is an Australian podcast bringing together wise, experienced women in the birth and postpartum space, in one place, so more women can find them. From doulas and midwives to somatic therapists, bodyworkers and birth educators, women who don't just inform but help you trust yourself. This podcast isn’t just about adding more information but empowering you to own your birth journey. Each episode is a warm, honest conversation with a practitioner whose work genuinely makes a difference, covering everything from birth values and self-advocacy to postpartum healing and recovery. The podcast grew from my own experience — an empowering vaginal breech birth supported by an extraordinary network of women — and my desire to make those wise voices accessible to every woman navigating pregnancy, birth and motherhood.

The Women Who Guided Me is a health podcast hosted by Parris, with 11 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Parris hosts The Women Who Guided Me, a health show with 11 episodes published.

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  Episode #10

  Episode 10: Allowed to Birth — Filming a Global Midwife with Jacinta Lagos

  Aug 9, 202647 min

  Jacinta Lagos is an Argentinian-born filmmaker, birth photographer and videographer now based in the United States. She started out as a wedding videographer, then documented her own two pregnancies and discovered birth photography as its own genre, before training as a doula because she refused to just be “a fly on the wall.” Allowed to Birth: The Journey of a Global Midwife is her debut as a feature filmmaker. It follows midwife Kristine Lauria, who has attended over 5,000 births across more than 25 countries, including war zones and refugee camps, and explores how birth is supported, and sometimes constrained, across very different healthcare systems. This isn't a film that sets out to be anti-hospital or pro-home birth. It's about respectful care, and about the idea that birth can be a magical rite of passage in any setting, including a caesarean, if a woman feels safe, secure and respected. In this conversation, Jacinta talks about what called her to make the film after years spent behind the camera at births, the biggest revelations that came out of filming across such different cultures and healthcare systems, and what she wants women, wherever they're giving birth, to take from it. SHOW NOTES 00:00 - Introduction to Jacinta Lagos and her filmmaking journey 00:24 - Jacinta’s transition from wedding videography to birth documentation 00:49 - The inspiration behind "Allowed to Birth" and witnessing obstetric violence 01:15 - Jacinta’s early work and focus on normalizing birth through media 02:34 - Meeting Christine Laurier and the story of creating the documentary 03:12 - The global perspective on birth practices and cultural influences 03:51 - The meaning behind the film's title and its implications for women’s rights 04:21 - How the film aims to change perceptions on individual and systemic levels 11:28 - Barriers for first-time mothers engaging with birth knowledge 12:55 - Challenging misconceptions about hospital birth and medicalization 14:08 - The importance of respecting bodily autonomy and informed consent 16:39 - The societal normalization of intervention and trauma in birth systems 17:36 - The power of personal stories and first-person experiences in transforming attitudes 19:13 - The inclusivity of the film and its non-graphic approach to birth imagery 22:26 - The serendipity and harmony observed during Jacinta's filmmaking process 27:45 - The transformational power of birth and its significance as a rite of passage 28:45 - Reframing birth as a sacred, culturally meaningful experience 32:45 - How respectful and safe environments enable women to have positive birth experiences 36:38 - Obstetric system challenges: training gaps and misconceptions about risks 40:39 - Jacinta's upcoming plans and the film's reception goals 41:13 - Engaging audiences, sparking conversations, and promoting birth autonomy CONNECT WITH JACINTA & THE FILM Allowed to Birth: The Journey of a Global Midwife Distributed by Common Ground Film Australia Screening across Australia September–November. Canberra screening: 16 September. Follow Common Ground Film Au, Allowed to Birth, or Jacinta's personal account on Instagram for tickets and details.

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  Episode #9

  Episode 9: Pregnancy after Birth Trauma with Rhiannah Pohlman

  Aug 2, 202636 min

  Rhiannah Pohlman (rhiannahrose.com.au) is a naturopath and counsellor supporting women navigating pregnancy and birth after a traumatic experience. Trained by Dr Catherine Bell, she is a birth cartographer, helping women map their births, advocate for their choices and build contingency plans, alongside nervous system regulation and birth story integration. She brings all of this together through Flourish, her pregnancy support program. Rhiannah was called to this work after two traumatic births of her own, each one teaching her something different about what she needed to feel safe. She has taken those lived experiences and built a program to support other women planning for birth after trauma. Rhiannah's first birth was a rural hospital induction that stretched over three days, ending in forceps, a vacuum delivery and a fourth-degree tear, with little support or referral afterwards. The second, years later, began as a healing natural labour just days before a scheduled caesarean, before turning into an emergency when her son's heart rate dropped. Two very different experiences. Both, she says, shaped everything she now does with women. In this conversation Rhiannah shares her birth stories, what she learnt and what changed in her as a result. The beauty in it all is that she still believes in birth and its power for transformation. We talk about what birth trauma actually is, how it can show up in your system, the importance of care providers using trauma-informed language, and what it takes to rebuild self-trust before trying again. In this episode: • Rhiannah’s own two birth stories, and what she learned from each • What birth trauma actually is, and why it’s about how you felt, not what happened • How birth trauma can show up in your day-to-day life, sometimes years later • Why she still believes in birth, and its power for transformation • The importance of care providers using trauma-informed language • Rebuilding self-trust before trying again Content note: this episode discusses birth trauma in detail. If that’s not something you’re up for today, look after yourself and come back to this one another time CONNECT WITH RHIANNAH rhiannahrose.com.au Instagram: @rhiannah_rose Flourish is Rhiannah's full pregnancy support offering, blending naturopathy, nervous system work, counselling and birth mapping for women preparing for birth after a traumatic experience. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE The Birth Map: a structured decision-making and communication tool created by Dr Catherine Bell, birthmap.life Birth cartography: mapping the different pathways a birth can take, so decisions can be made from an informed, rather than reactive, place Nervous system regulation: working with the body's threat response, not just talking through what happened Trauma-informed language: the words and framing used by care providers that can either support or retraumatise a woman

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  Episode #8

  Episode 8: My Mother's Birth Story

  Jul 26, 202630 min

  I'm in Perth at the moment visiting my family, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to sit down with my mum and talk to her about her birth story, so how I was born. In the lead up to my son's birth late last year, my parents came over from Perth, and I remember asking my mum about her birth story. I found it a really empowering thing to listen to, and it gave me a lot of strength going into my own birth, because she went through something that was really hard and got through it. And I thought, that's in me. That birth story is in me. Her mum had five kids, and my mum will tell you more about it, but she got through some really hard things as well. So that was a real sense of strength for me going into my own birth. And I thought, what a cool thing for women to talk to their mums about how they were born. So I thought let's record my mum's birth story, and how I was born, and put it out there. SHOW NOTES What my mum remembers about her own birth, and what she was told growing up The long road to falling pregnant with me, and the blood tracking that finally got us there Finding out at nine weeks there were two heartbeats, and what happened at the sixteen week scan A pregnancy with no internet, just thick library books, and not really knowing what was going to happen to her body What she didn't want, more than anything, going into labour Waters breaking at a wedding, in stockings, with no panic at all A long induced labour, and the moment she was told it was caesarean or epidural Meeting me for the first time, and the eye contact she still remembers Going up to the ward the next day in her grandmother's pearls to talk to the women who were about to give birth

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  Episode #7

  Episode 7: Informed, Supported, Confident with Dr Catherine Bell, Creator of The Birth Map

  Jul 19, 20261 hour

  Dr Catherine Bell is the creator of the Birth Map, a birth advocate and Managing Director of Maternity Choices Australia. After her own birth experiences left her with questions she didn't have the knowledge to answer, and after listening to countless mothers say they wished they had been better informed, Catherine set out to close that gap. In this episode Catherine walks us through what the Birth Map is and how it differs from a birth plan, what her PhD research found about what women genuinely need to feel prepared for birth, and why the word consent is failing women in the birth room. We also hear stories from her research that bring the findings to life — including a woman who moved to a caesarean pathway with almost joy because the decision was fully hers, and what consistently determined whether women in her study felt at peace with their birth or carried it as trauma. It was not what happened, it was how it happened. Find the Birth Map at birthmap.life. Catherine is also speaking on the panel at the Canberra screening of Allowed to Birth on 16 September at Dendy Cinemas. What's covered in this episode: What the Birth Map is and how it differs from a birth plan How to genuinely prepare for birth in a way that builds confidence rather than anxiety Why informed consent as it currently operates in the maternity system is failing women and what should replace it How to make decisions in labour when time is short and the pressure is on What your rights are as a woman navigating the Australian maternity system How to advocate for yourself with your care provider What Catherine's research found about preventing birth trauma before it happens

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  Episode #6

  Episode 6: 42 Years of Chinese Medicine — Acupuncture, Fertility and Birth with Dr Jan Jamieson

  Jul 12, 202635 min

  Dr Jan Jamieson has been practicing acupuncture and Chinese medicine in Canberra for over 42 years. She holds a Masters of Traditional Chinese Medicine from Western Sydney University and is currently a PhD candidate at ANU, where her research sits at the intersection of fertility and ethics in Chinese Medicine. She is AHPRA registered and a member of the Australian Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Association. Jan did not plan to become an acupuncturist. She was an English teacher when her then-husband enrolled her, without quite asking, in four years of full-time Traditional Chinese Medicine study. That accidental beginning led to one of the most quietly remarkable careers in Canberra's women's health community. For most of those 42 years, Jan has focused almost exclusively on gynaecology and fertility, drawn early to home births and never really looking back. What Jan brings to this conversation is not clinical authority in the conventional sense. It is something rarer: 42 years of sitting with women at the most vulnerable moments of their reproductive lives, watching patterns repeat across generations, and developing a quiet, precise understanding of what the body is actually doing and what it needs. We cover how acupuncture supports women through pregnancy, from first trimester anxiety and nausea to cervical preparation from 36 weeks. We talk about what Chinese medicine sees in conditions like endometriosis that Western medicine has been slow to name, and why Jan was diagnosing it 20 years before it became a mainstream conversation. We talk about fertility and what Jan actually does in her treatment room with women who cannot conceive. Not just the physical interventions, but the emotional weight she holds alongside them. She shares a story about a woman who spent two years in bitterness over her inability to conceive, who one day looked at a friend's baby with nothing but love, and who was pregnant the next morning. We talk about information overload and the tightrope women walk between being informed enough to navigate the system and staying connected to their own instincts. About why partners so often side with doctors over their labouring partner. About what Jan sees in women who come back for a second birth with a fire in them that wasn't there before. What this episode covers: What acupuncture does in pregnancy How to prepare cervix for birth Chinese medicine and endometriosis Natural IVF support VBAC success stories Birth anxiety during pregnancy

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