154. The Free Birth Society Scam: Isabel's experience with the MatriBirth Midwifery Institute

In this episode I talk with Isabel about how the free birth society's  “sovereign midwifery school” promise turned into confusion, missing transparency, and a culture that punished questions. 

We also unpack what it looks like to unlearn judgment, protect informed consent, and support physiologic birth across the full spectrum from hospital to home.

In this episode we discuss:

• Isabel's early fear of medicalized birth stories and her pull towards home birth
• a traumatic injury as the turning point toward becoming a birth worker
• how Free Birth Society and MMI marketing sold legitimacy and titles
• early wins from self-mastery tools followed by disappointment with course
• red flags around legal risk and the pressure to use labels
• why demonizing the word doula harms clarity and informed consent
• students organizing concerns, then being kicked out or leaving en masse
• German New Medicine as a central lens that felt undisclosed
• rebuilding with nuanced education and practical postpartum and holistic doula training
• developing a new lens on physiologic birth as unfolding best in the place where the mother feels safest

Additional Resources:

MyMaineBirth.com

Closing Song by Kate Sutherland.  You can find Kate's community songs and deep nature connection work online at KateSutherland.ca

The Guardian Article - Title: Infludencer's made millions pushing 'wild' births - now the free birth society is linked to baby deaths around the world

The Guardian Article - Title: She was like a deer in the headlights': How unskilled radical birthkeepers took hold in Canada

The Guardian Article - Title: Five Key Findings from our investigation into the Free Birth Society 

The Guardian Article - Title: Friday Briefing: How the free birth society's philosophy contributed to a preventable death 

Interview - Exposed: the business linked to baby deaths around the world

The Guardian Podcast - the BirthKeepers

Transcript

Unlearning Judgment In Birth Culture

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I think that's part of the unlearning, is I think it created a sort of judgment and righteousness when interacting with other women. Like I know the right way to birth, and you're not doing that, and I'm judging you. And um I don't like that. I don't want that version of myself. I've become so much softer and understanding ever since leaving that dogma. I have come to a yeah, a much more middle ground place with it. And my connections with women have been so much deeper because I'm not holding this judgment anymore that this is the only way to do something. And I now really am passionate about physiologic birth in a different lens and a a lens of physiologic birth happens in the environment where the women the woman feels safest. And for some women, that is the hospital. And for other women, that's at home or alone with their partner. And I want to be able to support women in the full spectrum of that.

Why This Story Matters

Angela 1:23

I'm Angela, and I'm a certified birth photographer, experienced doula, childbirth educator, and your host here on the My Main Birth podcast. This is a space where we share the real life stories of families and their unique birth experiences in the beautiful state of Maine. From our state's biggest hospitals to birth center births and home births, every birth story deserves to be heard and celebrated. Whether you're a soon-to-be mom, a seasoned mother, or simply interested in the world of birth, these episodes are for you. Welcome to episode 154 of My Main Birth. Today's guest is Isabel. Isabel and I first met in the fall of 2024 when we both enrolled in the Free Birth Society's then Matribirth Midwifery Institute, which was marketed and sold with the tagline The World's Leading Sovereign Midwifery School. Quick spoiler, it was not that. And Isabel is here to share all about her experience with the Free Birth Society and MMI. Now, as you hopefully all know by now, I very much support a woman's right to choose where, how, and with whom she births with. So the purpose of these episodes is to separate the beautiful idea of free birth, which can be a perfectly fine option for many healthy women, from the more dangerous ideologies that are promoted by the company, the Free Birth Society. As we wrap up today's episode, I hope you enjoy our new closing song, Walk of the Wild Ones, by Kate Sutherland. You can find more of Kate's community songs and deep nature connection work online at katesutherland.ca. Alright,

Isabel’s Early Beliefs About Birth

Angela 3:12

hi Isabel. Welcome to My Main Birth. Hi! So to get started, would you share a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 3:21

My name's Isabel. I'm a birth and postpartum doula, and I own a business called the Nesting Meadow, where I do doula work and I also sell organic handmade herbal products that are centered around women's wellness. And I live in Oklahoma right now. Awesome.

Angela 3:42

And just curious, how old are you? I'm 24. Now, getting into birth, would you share a little bit about what your thoughts were on birth when you were younger? Maybe some stories that you heard or things that shaped your views.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

So I grew up kind of how everyone else in our society grew up, I feel like, with super medicalized stories of birth. And I was a child who was super fearful and traumatized by needles and going to the doctor. And I remember being super excited to become a mother. I think after I got my bleed, like that just kind of became a super fascination for me. And I remember talking to my mom, like, mom, like I really want to have a baby someday, but I don't want to go to the hospital. And she was like, Well, sweetie, that's like your only option, you know, and you just kind of have to get through it. I was scared of the needles and all the things, but it really wasn't all that bad. And so I kind of had that perception that like if I wanted a baby, I had to go through this. Um, it wasn't labeled as as traumatic, but implied like um experience. And but then the rest would be great. Like you just have to get through this one experience. And I'm a super curious person by nature, and I was just like, that can't be right. Like there was something in me um that was like that that can't be right. And I have a cousin that was a home birth doula at the time and a midwife's assistant, and she started telling me about the births she was attending, and I started researching online, and I remember being like, I don't know, maybe 14, 15, and announcing to my whole family, like, I will be having my babies at home someday. And that's just how it's gonna happen. And they're like, okay, yeah, right, whatever. Like, you're not gonna be able to handle handle the pain and you're gonna want the epidural. Um, but I just ever since then had kind of this strong conviction that that was the way I was going to go. Um, despite really not having much of an example in my family of it.

Angela 6:34

Wow, that's really interesting. You had that just inner knowing when you were younger when you first announced it to your mom. Do you remember anything about like what your thought process was at that time? Like, was there something that triggered you to make you start thinking that way? I really don't know.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

I I think it was just really an inner knowing. And I had, you know, unrestricted access to the internet. So it was very easy for me to be like ways outside of the hospital to give birth. And and home birth came up, and I started watching birth videos and quietly studying birth from a really young age and just being super fascinated by it.

Angela 7:14

That's awesome. That's very cool that you yeah, just had that intuition. So, yeah. So what yeah, were kind of the next things that you did as you got older.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

So I have a family that's super kind of conventionally, um, they do the conventional education route, and that's pretty expected of us. And and I'll get to this later, but it's funny because my sister and I both didn't really go that route. Um, but right out of high school, I went the college route. So I got a bachelor's. Um, but I really hated college, and the whole time I was like, ugh, like I just feel like there's something different for me. And I ended up switching my major halfway through to women's studies because I was super, you know, interested in um women's rites of passage and and really all things pertaining to women. And it it was an interesting experience. I'm I'm thankful for it, but it it wasn't it wasn't quite what I was interested in and quite what I wanted. And after college, I was planning to go the master's route too. And the summer before starting my master's program, I had a traumatic injury. I

The Injury That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_02 8:49

was shot in the arm, and it kind of woke me the hell up. Like I was like, this is not what I want to do, and I am living for other people and not myself. And I just remember being in the ER and kind of having this vision of like, I want to be a birth worker, like this is what I have wanted to do my entire life, and I have, you know, shoved down that desire to please other people, and I'm I'm done doing that. And so although it was, you know, hard and traumatic, it was so um needed and necessary for me to get that like wake-up call of getting on my path.

Angela 9:47

Wow. Yeah. Oh, so how did things like evolve for you after that? What did you take any courses for like birth work at that point?

SPEAKER_02 10:00

I was on, I had been following Free Birth Society for a long time and always been interested in their courses and what they had to offer. And MMI was being advertised that summer that I had had my injury, and that it was like, yep, that's what I'm doing. Like it was very um, and everything like financially um and logistically just kind of lined up for me to be able to do it. Um, and previously, like when it was first launched and I saw the price point, like there was no way I was gonna be able to do something like that or that I would invest that much in a course that's not accredited in any way. Um, but it just was a like a huge mindset shift afterwards. And the marketing was so wonderful for it. It looked just like everything I had, you know, dreamed of in a in a birth course.

Angela 11:02

So when did you first discover the Free Birth Society?

SPEAKER_02 11:06

So I started off pretty radical in my birth journey. I had heard about home birth and then like was introduced to Free Birth Society around age 18. And that's like the only birth podcast I had ever listened to. And when I um initially started engaging in their content, it was just an automatic yes for me. Like I love the concept of free birth and undisturbed birth, and um I just soaked all of it in. I listened to, you know, season one on. And yeah, from 18 to I guess I started when I was 22 or 23. Can't remember the exact timeline, but that's really the only content that I had been consuming about birth. So super radical.

Angela 12:04

Yeah. So the marketing for MMI was kind of advertised as like the next step from the radical birthkeeper. So if you had been watching it and listening to it since the first season of the podcast, you obviously had heard of like radical birthkeepers and what all of that was. And this was being advertised as like the next level of like the all of the information. Like, I one of the things that resonated with me was like they're like they said that it's the the fire hose of information. Like you're gonna get all of this information that they like took out. They were like saying that they had taken it out of RBK and made that program smaller, and then created this Matribirth Midwifery Institute, the world's leading sovereign midwifery school. It's fancy, right? Yeah, like what were your thoughts as you were thinking about signing up for the program?

SPEAKER_02 12:57

I was enamored by how legit it seemed. Um, I was still kind of coming out of that, like you need like certifications and fancy titles to be respected in society. And I remember telling my partner, like, I can call myself like a sovereign midwife after taking this program. Like, this seems really legit. And I remember that and the earlier marketing and one of the like um like live sessions they did to market, they were like, you know, you can call yourself a sovereign midwife after taking this program. And yeah, that really resonated with me. And then also the way it was marketed, and like you've said, being, you know, your one-stop shop for all the information needed for birth work. And it was really, it was really just a too good to be true um picture of a program.

Angela 14:08

Yeah,

MMI Hype Meets Reality

Angela 14:09

definitely. So the program starts, and what were your initial thoughts as things were kind of getting started?

SPEAKER_02 14:18

So I was really, I really loved it at first, and I think I had kind of a celebrity spellcast. Like I had been following Emily and Yolanda for so many years and had admired their work from behind the scenes. So to be with them in real time on live videos and speaking with them um was really exciting for me. And I yeah, just like always wanted them as mentors. So I think that I was a bit blinded by that when it first started. And but I really did get a lot out of the first quarter, the self-mastery tools. Um I started to see real change in my personal life and in my personal relationship. So I will always give credit to Emily for that. Um however, looking back, that first quarter, like for the investment to only have like, I don't know, I think maybe two to five videos per um week. I I don't remember if that's exactly right.

Angela 15:35

But yeah, it was maybe 10 minutes long, 12 minutes. They weren't long videos. And like one of those like two to three videos each week was just her reading from a book that you can get for ten dollars.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

Like Yeah. Yeah. And like I didn't that didn't fully click back then, but now I'm like, wow, because with my current knowledge of all the wonderful course creators out there that have, you know, information like that for a quarter, if not less, the price. Um and their content is much better. It's just it's shocking now. Um, but back then I really just didn't know any better. Um, and then as it went on, my personal life kind of got scrambly. Like we, our house um leaked had like a big leak, and we were in constant like renovations, and you know, I didn't have a kitchen for a couple of months, so I was scrambled, and the birth content started to pour out during this, and I remember thinking like I think this is just me, like I am not absorbing this at all, like really thinking it was a me problem and where I was at, and then slowly starting to talk to women outside of class and realizing it wasn't just me, and everyone was feeling not everyone, but quite a bit of women were feeling that they weren't absorbing the content. And then when we started actually speaking without fear, um realizing it it wasn't us, it was that the content was really lacking and the content was rambly and scrambly, like it wasn't coherent.

Angela 17:38

And speaking of that, actually, I'm wondering, um, like before we get into yeah, like how it the downfall of it all. What were your thoughts coming into it the way that you came into it? Like when Yolanda had that call after the birth that she went to? I've kind of been asking that in this all these other episodes.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yeah, I have like a mix of emotions. Like part of me was like, okay, why the heck are we like in this program then? Like, and I remember sharing with my partner, and he was like he was trying to be kind, but he was just like, What, like, why did I help you invest in this? Like, this is this is a red flag, and I was like, Well, no, no, no, like it's just like you don't understand.

Angela 18:32

Like he started the call with I am an international fugitive or like something like that.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Yeah, yeah. And he was like, I well, I was under the impression that this was like perfectly legal and that you could have, you know, a financially successful career from this. You know, I wouldn't have been on board with you signing up for this if I knew you would go to jail. Like I care about your protection and your well-being and our future family's well-being. And I really had to like digest that because I, yeah, I I that wasn't part of the the deal. That wasn't told to us the actual real legal risks of what they were promoting. And yeah, so it was shocking. Um, but I also part of me was like a little fueled by the radicalness of it and like feeling like victimized by the system that women are getting witch hunted in this way. So yeah, long story short, I had kind of a lot of different emotions surrounding it.

Angela 19:53

Yeah, and that's really the biggest thing for anyone that's listening. It is legal for a doula to attend a free birth in most of the states. But the thing is, when you have hardly been to any births and you just attend these online programs and then go out into the community and start calling yourself a sovereign or traditional midwife, that muddies the water because people are expecting different things from someone who's calling themselves that versus a doula. If someone's going to a birth and disclosing that they're just a doula and have limited experience and no practiced midwifery skills, then that's one thing because then the parents are choosing that support with full informed consent, as opposed to showing up and being like, yeah, I'm a traditional midwife, I'm a sovereign midwife, and not being upfront and honest about your experience. I'm not saying that's what the teachers encouraged women to do, but I know that's definitely what people who have taken the program have gone out into the community and done. So that's it's just it's really, that's really not okay. And it it really muddies the waters when people start doing that. I remember them being so focused, even in the first quarter, about the definitions of everything. Like this is what you can call yourself, this is what a sovereign birth is, this is what a free birth is. The definitions were so important to them, especially Emily. Just really wanting to make sure that we knew what the definitions of each of these things were. Like to be a good student, I felt like it was really important to not screw those turns up or you'd be like shunned in front of the class.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

Yeah, yeah. And the word doula was so demonized or like, I don't know, even shamed. And now I'm really embracing the word doula, and I love being a doula. And everyone knows what a doula is. That role is crystal clear, and what they were encouraging was muddy waters, and yeah, I totally agree with you on that. It is unfortunate, unfortunate that the word has been totally co opted, but we can work around that. We don't have to be victims to it, you know? Yes, exactly.

Angela 22:06

So now getting into yeah, like when you started talking with other women about like the course being lacking, like getting into the birth section, like we were all definitely feeling it. And then, you know, eventually towards the end of that birth section, yeah, like we were all kind of talking. What was that like for you going through that?

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Well, I started talking with a couple other women that and on top of that of the birth section being lacking, started to hear personal anedokes of women that have had really horrific personal experiences with Emily, coupled with rumors that Emily and Yolanda did not have the birth experience that they were pretending to have, that they were marketing that they had. And the last one was the most concerning part to me. And intuitively, when I heard that, it was like yeah, that that makes sense, and that's why this content is so lacking. And I was most concerned about that, about women claiming to have so much expertise and then going and teaching and not having much at all, and that creating the content that we're engaging in. And so me and three other women gathered together to kind of bring these concerns to our classmates, and thought we should, you know, gather outside of class to speak about these things freely. And so the four of us scheduled a video call and like created a group chat for it and kind of shared our concerns with everyone. And we had a lot of mixed reactions. Most most of the women were not really available to discuss that or yeah, those issues. Um, but there were a few that were really concerned as well and appreciative that we had created a space to do so.

Speaking Up Then Getting Removed

SPEAKER_02 24:41

And then slowly we started being kicked out of the program. And I'm assuming it was for that. Did you get kicked out or what was your recollection of that? Yeah, it's like kind of fuzzy because it was all such a blur. But I remember one of our classmates, she's so fierce, and she was just like demanding answers from them, and they did not like that, and she got kicked out first. And then some really tragic things started to happen in the program. A couple women lost their babies, and one woman addressed Emily and asked, like, why are we not doing anything for these women or acknowledging these women?

Angela 25:33

Yeah, just do the section on how to support women in loss and their like mumbo jumbo that they had to say in their videos about that, and like, so that was like even on top of like it just being the right thing to do, like we had just touched on that in the videos, you know.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

So yeah, and it was like, no, like we're not going to do that. And I think her pers Emily's perspective was that we don't need to do that unless like the mother asks for it. And so I can't understand respecting privacy, but there is a way to honor bereaved mothers while respecting their privacy, like to do nothing is kind of absurd to me, and so she was calling that out, and she got kicked out. And then I think maybe a day or two later, I got kicked out too. I received an email, and I'm not sure, I'm assuming it's because of my involvement in the call and organizing it and leading it. I really do think that there were women in that call that were recording it and sending it directly to Emily and Yolanda. And then, and I paid in full for MMI, so it was pretty devastating to get kicked out like just over halfway through the program and you know, lose that much of a financial investment. And then, yeah, I think another woman got kicked out for sharing one of the Reddit posts. And but as we started to get kicked out, other women were like, whoa, like this is not okay. And so then I mean, women in mass started voluntarily leaving. Um I was one of them.

Angela 27:37

And I didn't fall too. And I was like, I can't do this anymore. Yeah. Also, four of the mentors, like as everyone was like leading up to when everybody left, like there were four of the mentors out of, I think there was like eight or nine mentors altogether. So it's like almost half of the mentors just all left at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

Yeah, that's a really good point, too. I think they left, I don't know, like maybe a week after I did. I don't know. The timeline is still fuzzy, but yeah, were you in our call that we organized?

Angela 28:09

I don't think I ended up making it to the call, but yeah, I've heard I've heard about it. Just curious. Yeah. So what was kind of unfolding for you after as the months went on over the last year?

SPEAKER_02 28:27

I went through a variety of different feelings, kind of like I guess the stages of grief, you could say. You know, when you really think something is gonna be this amazing thing, and it ends up falling apart. And so part of me was you know, felt really good about my decision to stand up for what I felt was right. And but uh another part of me honestly did have a lot of grief of being kicked out and not getting to finish. But, you know, at the end of the day, the content that we were engaging in just like really wasn't worth my time, you know. I I'd spend three hours listening to videos on the on the birth section, and I didn't get anything out of them. You know, they were, as other women have shared on this podcast, they were just, you know, rambly nonsense-nothing videos. I mean, just and something I also wanted to mention is all of the birth section was through the lens of German new medicine, which is something that was not disclosed in the marketing prior to the course. And that perspective is interesting and um valuable in its own right, but for that to be the main objective of the birth section and us not know about it prior was super fraudulent and misleading. And yeah, everything that was in that section was entirely opinion-based, and it was marketed as evidence-based.

Angela 30:25

So yeah, I guess I totally agree. I was like really confused too, because they there were like whole sections, like not just one section, but there was like two or three sections about like Rockefeller medicine and like this is this corruption in the system. And I'm like, I thought everybody like was on the same page with this that signed up for this program anyway. Why are they like teaching like Rockefeller Medicine 101? I thought we knew this. Like, I thought this was like the world sovereign midwifery school. Like, what is going on? It was so weird. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

But when all is said and done, that's all that they have as teachers, is their role in in birth is to tear down the system and to show us how horrible it is and nothing else. They don't provide anything else besides that.

Angela 31:15

Yeah, it's just the pendulum swung so far in like the complete opposite direction when it's really good to just find your own place in this scale, you know, and uh do what feels right to for you know, each person. So now it it's been, I know, like we've all been kind of chatting since we've all left the program. And I think a lot of us have been kind of going through the same things, like recalibrating, finding like our center, like in the birth world.

Finding A Nuanced Birth Middle

Angela 31:47

Um, how has that like been for you? And yeah, do you want to share about like I know you chose a doula program to go with you?

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Yeah, it's been such an interesting experience to kind of unwind from it because, like I said earlier, that was like really the only perception I had of birth. And so after the program and after things settled and my nervous system got like a good break, I started listening to more like middle ground podcasts and um like birthing instincts. I started listening to to them a lot and I really liked them. And then started like following Wapio, and it was just like such a breath of fresh air to hear her nuanced perspectives on things, and then I also went to a couple in-person events with Sister Morningstar, and she also um I share the same sentiments for her, and then yeah, I decided to invest in two doula trainings. So the first is a postpartum only one, and it's by Clover Yoga Postpartum on Instagram, and she does a I think it's 12 modules for postpartum care. It is so in-depth. I cannot recommend it enough. I'm learning so much in her program. I'm not finished with it yet, but I'm really loving it. And then um, I did a holistic doula training with Wapio, and what I loved the most about that was how she interweaves the holistic and the practical so beautifully. Like you get both perspectives, and yeah, that just feels so valuable in applying it to real-world settings. Um so yeah, I'm at a much more, I guess, nuanced perspective of birth now that I have more information in front of me.

Angela 34:16

Yeah, that's awesome. It's really, yeah, it's really a lot of great information that she has to offer as far as the the middle ground goes, you know, and and she still has that that radical side of you can just go out and do this in the woods if you want to, but also like tying in like the practical and like and not have like having that shame that was like in that free birth society community, you know, like it's just there's no right or wrong way to do it. And in that community of the free birth society, there there was only a right way to do it.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Like yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think that's part of the unlearning, is it was I think it created a sort of like judgment and righteousness when interacting with other women. Like I know the right way to birth, and you're not doing that, and I'm judging you, and um I don't like that, I don't want that version of myself. I've become so much softer and understanding ever since leaving that dogma. I have come to a yeah, a much more middle ground place with it. And my connections with women have been so much deeper because I'm not holding this this judgment anymore that this is the only way to do something. And I now really am passionate about physiologic birth in a different lens and a a lens of physiologic birth happens in the environment where the women the woman feels safest. And for some women, that is the hospital. And for other women, that's at home or alone with their partner. And I want to be able to support women in the full spectrum of that from hospital to home birth. And that's really where I'm at with it after all of that.

Angela 36:26

Yeah, definitely. There's there's no right or wrong way. It's just like get all of the information that you can gather and choose what's right for you, you know? Totally. Well, thank you so much, Isabel, for taking the time to chat with me today. It's been such a pleasure talking with you. Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed it.

Closing Song Walk Of The Wild Ones by Kate Sutherland

SPEAKER_00 36:53

Follow the walk of the wild ones into the woods and the darkness. Rebirth the ways of the ancient ones whose tracks were washed away in blood. It falls to us now to open up and taste beyond what we've been fed. Take up the feed, expire cleansing, change to light the path and said, Follow the walk of the wild ones, into the woods and the darkness. Rebirth the ways of the ancient ones, whose tracks were washed away. It falls to us now to open up and taste beyond what we pretend. Take up the phoenix fire cleansing, change to like the pack's head. Step by step through the unknown, I'll be our light and y'all be mine. In darkness, let love like the way to feed the soil of changing times. Step by step through the unknown, I'll be our light and y'all be line. In darkness, let love like the way to feed the soil of changing times, follow the walk of the wild ones, into the woods and the darkness, rebirth the ways of the ancient ones, whose tracks were washed away in blood. It costs to us now to open up and taste beyond the big fen. Take up the phoenix fire cleansing, change to light the past. Step by step through the unknown, I'll be our light and you'll be mine. In darkness, let love light the way to feed the soil of changing times. Step by step through the unknown, I'll be online and you'll be mine. In darkness let love light the way to feed the soil of changing times.