The Ordinary Doula Podcast
Welcome to The Ordinary Doula Podcast with Angie Rosier, hosted by Birth Learning. We help folks prepare for labor and birth with expertise coming from 20 years of experience in a busy doula practice, helping thousands of people prepare for labor, providing essential knowledge and tools for positive and empowering birth experiences.
The Ordinary Doula Podcast
E102: Sacred Birth International with Anna Lundqvist
What if birth is a rite of passage, not a procedure? Angie sits down with Swedish mentor and former midwife Anna Lundqvist to explore how intuition, preparation, and grounded advocacy can transform pregnancy, labor, and postpartum. Anna traces her path from Australia’s home birth culture in Byron Bay—where physiological birth and birth centers were the norm—to the painful decision to leave hospital practice after witnessing obstetric violence. When her Australian credential wasn’t recognized back home in Sweden, she stepped fully into education and mentorship, founding Sacred Birth International to support families and train a new kind of birth worker.
We dive into practical ways parents can build inner authority: understanding physiology, clarifying values, practicing consent and refusal, and learning to filter outside advice through personal intuition. Anna explains why “you birth the way you live,” showing how daily habits of presence, breath, and boundaries translate directly into the labor room. For professionals, she outlines the Sacred Birth Worker Mentorship, a comprehensive program that blends deep inner work with clinical awareness—covering variations of normal, trauma-aware care, hospital navigation, and advocacy that is calm, clear, and effective.
Along the way, we talk about the power of community debriefs to prevent burnout, the role of sacred space in any setting, and the quiet beauty of a home birth where attendants step back and a family leads. Whether you’re preparing to give birth or to support it, you’ll leave with language, tools, and confidence to protect physiological birth, honor consent, and keep the mother at the center.
If this conversation resonated, share it with a friend, subscribe for future episodes, and leave a review to help others find the show. Your voice helps keep this work visible and strong.
Visit our website, here: https://birthlearning.com/
Follow us on Facebook at Birth Learning
Follow us on Instagram at @birthlearning
Show Credits
Host: Angie Rosier
Music: Michael Hicks
Photographer: Toni Walker
Episode Artwork: Nick Greenwood
Producer: Gillian Rosier Frampton
Voiceover: Ryan Parker
Welcome back to the Ordinary Doula Podcast with Angie Rosier, hosted by Birth Learning, where we help prepare folks for labor and birth with expertise coming from 20 years of experience in a busy doula practice, helping thousands of people prepare for labor, providing essential knowledge and tools for positive and empowering birth experiences.
SPEAKER_01:I am your host and I love coming on and talking about all kinds of different topics in this work. Today we have a very amazing guest with us. Her name is Anna Lundqvist. She comes to us from Sweden and has had a pretty amazing journey in her own birth work. So we are gonna um hear some of Anna's story and some of the I think I love her view of birth, and I think sometimes we shift away from that. I know a lot of times we shift very far away from a view that Anna's been able to hold on to pretty strongly throughout her work. So Anna, will you introduce yourself a little bit more and then let's get talking in about what it is your work, the work that you do?
SPEAKER_02:Beautiful. Okay. So yes, my name is Anna, and I am currently living in Sweden. I am Swedish and I'm from here, but I've spent most of my adult life traveling and being very nomadic and lived for a very long time on and off in Australia, where I also became a midwife. Now I'm actually deregistered now and have stepped into the role of mentor and educator for Sacred Birth International, which is my my company that I'm a founder of. And proudly today I am educating the new kind of birth worker called the Sacred Birth Worker, um, which I'm hoping is gonna take over the world and do great work. Oh, I would love that. The sacred into the birth room.
SPEAKER_01:Very cool, very cool. Um, so tell us a little bit about your journey to become a midwife. And you were in Australia, right? Yeah. You become a midwife, okay. And was this a in the United States we have different types of midwives? We have um home birth midwives, which are CPMs or certified midwives, or you know, we call them direct entry midwives, and then we have our CNMs who are more hospital-based. What was your journey? What tell us your journey in Australia?
SPEAKER_02:Well, the curious thing for anyone who doesn't live in the US is that you have so many different kinds of midwives. I think it's up to almost 21 different kinds of midwives around in different states and here and there and everywhere. So in most of the rest of the world, it's one way only, like which is traditionally nowadays in university degrees, right? So the difference with the one in Australia is that it was direct entry mid referee, so three years university degree. And here in Sweden, for example, if you want to be a midwife, you have to be a nurse first, and then you have to work as a nurse before you can become a midwife. So it's a very different journey. So those are the I think the main differences in other countries that you could go those two different routes of being direct entry midwife or nurse first, but both are in in the university basically.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, interesting. Okay, because we have direct entry, obviously, and CNM as well, which are very different pathways. Very sometimes sparks a lot of um feelings about that. But um yeah, I I I love the traditional midwifery model and mindset. So, okay, so you were midwife and practiced in Australia. Um, did you also practice in Sweden?
SPEAKER_02:Well, no, that's a different story. I can just tell that the difference between how I actually entered midwifery was from being a woman's work facilitator for over a decade. And so I was already holding kind of ceremony and sacred space for women where the focus was to drop the masks and get more embodied into who we are as women to reclaim our bodies, our sexuality, our sensuality, our self-love, our voice, our expression in the world, and the rite of passages of women, which is both, you know, our first blade, birthing, menopause, which are you know women's rite of passages, right?
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:So it's very involved in kind of sacred women's business. That's how I was kind of led into midriffery. And so where I actually moved to in Australia is Byron Bay, was Byron Bay, which is a very, maybe you know, a very kind of alternative um place where people from all over the world gather. There's so many different nationalities who live in Byron, they're drawn to the healing of the land because there's crystals in the grid, it's crystals in the earth there. So has been for the indigenous peoples of the land forever, and a gathering place for the indigenous people. So it's very much drawing people from all over the world, myself included. And in this area, they had a birth center and they had home births, and it was a very high percentage of home births, it was like 20-25% home birthing, and almost the rest would birth in a birth center. So all very physiological, natural births, right? And so when I was living there, that's when that was probably a good fit for you, right? Oh, yes. I could never have become a midwife to go straight into the hospital and be there. I never wanted to be in the hospital. Yeah, I already then knew what I wanted to do, which was home birth, midwifery. And so I did the what you did, which was going through the uni, but my mentorship throughout those three years was based where I lived. So I was attending home births and birth-centered births, as well as doing shifts in the hospital. So even though I did the kind of traditional nowadays traditional, which is not very traditional, but you know, today it's true, right? Um university degree, uh, it was balanced by mainly of what I saw was physiological natural births, which actually is very hard in our modern society today to see. Even that's true. I was very, I was very much in a bubble, a very strange alternative bubble that there was so much natural and normal.
SPEAKER_01:It's almost like you went back in time, I imagine, before obstetrics was had a strong foothold in this work. So you got to see a thing that we don't have much time or place to see that anymore.
SPEAKER_02:So yes. And I really noticed that going back to Sweden, which was your question, did I practice in Sweden? So because I didn't do the nurse midway free degree, I'm I was actually not allowed to work in Sweden. It wasn't recognized because I wasn't a real midwife according to them, even though I'd done these three years of uni studies. I'd been working for a few years by then. I I still wasn't recognized as that. I would have to go back to uni to become a nurse, and I have zero interest in that. So already coming back, I knew I wouldn't enter in as a registered midwife in the system, and I also didn't want to. I actually, before then, already in Australia, I only worked for a year in the hospital before I decided to be a home birth midwife, and I went out and did that. And so I already knew I didn't want to work in the hospital, I want to be I didn't want to be part of the system, and so I worked instead as kind of like a spiritual midwife or a midwife dual hour. So I and you know, I worked as a birth worker alongside instead midwives, either at home births, and also sometimes I walked into the hospital with my clients. And that's how I started when I came back to Sweden.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, okay. Wow, what a probably difficult journey in a lot of ways. So tell me a little bit about, and I want to I want to revisit some of that because my brain is firing with a lot of questions, and my heart is firing with a lot of questions about that too. Um, tell us a little bit about Sacred Birth International and what it sounds like that embodies a lot of your work and your philosophies. Tell us a little bit about what that is.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, it is. I'm so grateful that life has led me here. And that's the beauty, truly, I feel, when you follow your intuition in your heart, you don't let your logic and your mind control your life. And you just trust that the next step is going to unfold before you. You don't know the next step, but you just follow. And that's how I feel like I've lived my life from the beginning of you know, becoming a yoga teacher and a woman's work facilitator and all the things I did before I even stepped into midwifery, and then deciding to become a midwife in a foreign country, not really knowing what I was getting myself into, to be honest. Going through that, um, and very quickly realizing I could never work in that system and having to have go through it for years before I could actually step out with my degree and with that knowledge. Um, it was very painful. I have still, you know, I've had to work through the the trauma of being in that system and and and PTSD and witnessing so much obstetric violence within that system, even though I was so lucky of seeing so much normal, I also saw the other side. Yeah. And so I knew I couldn't stay long and I really couldn't. I barely made it to the first year in the hospital and going, I just cannot do this anymore. I have to step out of the system, which I knew was gonna be punishing me because you have to stay for a few years to then get endorsed to be a proper home birth midwife. So I had to like find other ways to be a home birth midwife with being the second of other midwives and like working in different ways, right? And so, but I couldn't like my heart and my intuition said I couldn't stay, I just couldn't do it to myself or to be in that system. I didn't know how though. So that day when I resigned, I started my Instagram that I then called The Spiritual Midwife, and which I was known for for the first few years in my business. And I created online courses where I wanted to help women understand how to optimize their chances of having a natural birth. So I created the natural birth course. I created a natural birth podcast, and I just wanted to serve and help women because I saw that so few were actually prepared, maybe wanting to have a natural birth and walking into the system and being absolutely railroaded, right? You know this. Oh, absolutely. The horror and the frustration and the sadness and the grief and the rage that I felt as a midwife seeing that was then transmuted into I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna change that, I'm gonna help do something with whatever I can, right? Yeah. So I started as a spiritual midwife for the first three years before spiritual or for before Sacred Birth International was born. And I created my online courses. I did a lot of birth trauma healing online in the whole world. A lot of African women came to me for that. Um and I was working as a home birth midwife in my community, and then after those three years, COVID had happened. It was mid-2021. And where I was in Australia, I was just locked down. Like I couldn't leave the country unless I actually was going to move back to my home country. Yes, that was the only reason you were allowed to travel. And so by then my father had um stage three cancer, he's still alive, but you know, he had this progressive cancer, and I didn't know when I could leave, when I could go back to see my blood family, like my father, and like I felt like I felt drawn to move back home to be closer to them, and uh one thing, but just a lot of things culminated to like okay, it's time to actually return to my homeland.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Again, following your intuition, probably, right?
SPEAKER_02:And meeting just what you said, the reality I couldn't work as a midwife. Yeah, my degree, what I had worked so hard for, I'd gone through all these years of learning and you know, being in this system I hated, just to get this knowledge and information and like have this certificate meant nothing in my country. So I had to reinvent myself. I became that, you know, midwife doula for about a year. And then I fully deregistered because I didn't want to be a midwife anymore. And that's where Sacred Birth International was born, because I could no longer call myself a midwife. So I kind of transitioned first into the spiritual midwitch, and I call myself another spiritual midwitch, kind of you know, like some sort of what am I now? I like they stole midwife, they stole that title, they say they own it, and that if I'm not registered, I cannot call myself that, even though that's the most ancient woman's work, and that has nothing to do with the obstetic nurses that you are today as a midwife most of the time, right?
SPEAKER_01:That's true, they're so different, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So different. So I, you know, I've grieved that a lot. Oh, I bet still am because I will always be a midwife. They can't take that away, but I'm not calling myself that publicly anymore. And that's where the Sacred Birth International was born, and also where I created my full year birth record training, the Sacred Birthwork mentorship. Yes. Very cool. Okay. That's that's the journey, that's the story. Now I'm going to start my fifth cohort in the end of January. It's been two and a half years since the first cohort started, and it's been an absolutely magical journey.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so um you bring a lot of more questions to my mind, which I love. Um I I want to touch on one thing you talked about as you were following your intuition. You kind of described what people do in physiologic birth, right? To be able to um be in tune with the next steps, be able to surrender, be able to move forward and trust that inner part. So that's a really cool analogy, I think, to life. Um, and we see that all the time in birth when we get to see physiologic birth, right? Which in some places is more difficult. So, Sacred Birth International, tell us about um you have different courses, correct? So if tell me first, if I'm a pregnant person, um, what's available there? What are the tenets and philosophies and kind of the basis of those courses?
SPEAKER_02:Well, that is where the natural birth course and the nourishing postpartum course and my the maiden mother and maga village exists. So that is really for any woman who is like want to consciously conceive, is trying to conceive, is a birth nerd, but not yet a mother, or is pregnant, is in her postpartum era, is in her just mothering era, or is in her maga years, her wise woman years, or even Crown. And so it's really for the full spectrum of being a woman. It's a village for everyone. And in there, I also have my mentees. I also have women like midwives, birth workers that have taken or are taking my the business course for birth workers where I help business, you know, women who want to start their own birth businesses to thrive both in real life and online. And I also have any clients that come to me for one-on-one. So I do birth trauma healing, of course, um still. And I also offer online packages to be like a birth worker for women online as well. So that's what kind of is on offer for pregnant women, but really any woman.
SPEAKER_01:Any woman. I love that how inclusive that is. That's amazing. Because yeah, there's that's a for some people a very small time of life. Um, it's very impactful that stays with us. But some people are gonna be in their birthing years for a long time, and other people it's quite a brief journey. So that's pretty amazing. Um, for someone who has seen inside the system and worked inside the system, and when you're in a system, you get to see all the warts, right? All the ugly parts, um, which and then and you came from outside the system and then left the system. What an incredible perspective you have. Um, so I would imagine that gives you, you know, who you're talking to, right? Like the people that what they're going to be faced with, um, and depending on where they choose to give birth. And one thing that's interesting, and I'm sure you see this a lot, I think as I've seen working with families over 20 years, no matter where someone comes from or their background or their profession, quite often people who are seeking some kind of birth support have something inside of them that says, regardless of their cultural surroundings, that says, you know what, this I can do this. Like this people have been doing this, women have been doing this for thousands and millions of years. There's something about this that I need to tap into. So I think even in systems, when we grow up in these systems and that's all we're surrounded with, there's still something innate inside that reaches for something different. It sounds like you have a really good, you have created a pathway that people can really tap into that innate that is so common, I think, in women. Do they they feel something?
SPEAKER_02:Yes. I mean, as women, we are born with intuition. I truly believe that to a much bigger and stronger degree than men, actually. And I think that's because of our wound. And yeah, and that only grows stronger when you become pregnant, and that even explodes as your birthing, right? And so we've been fooled and taught that it doesn't exist, I think, by because men don't have it as strong as we do, and so we've been gaslit for that, you know, for a very long time. And I think it's starting to resurface and become something that we go at, yes, actually it doesn't exist, but it takes time to cultivate your relationship with that, and both for women who you know just in general want to access that, but also the absolute importance as birth workers to cultivate our relationship to our intuition and be able to drop into our heart consciousness and our womb consciousness to serve women in the birth space. I think that is one of the absolute biggest and most important skills we have, which is not really talked about in any birth worker training that I know of, and something that's very important to me and something that I focus very heavily on in the sacred birth worker mentorship.
SPEAKER_01:And that's something that's not in textbooks, right?
SPEAKER_02:That's not something you'll find in It's feminine wisdom, it's not breaking down.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. And it, yeah, it's passed down. It's um and I and as you said, I think women come with that, right? They absolutely come with that. So it sounds like creating confidence, right? And that's something I see lacking so often in the people, and and I, of course, work in the United States. And so um with a variety of people and a variety of birthing places, of course. Um, but I think, and and and a lot of for a lot of reasons, we are out of touch with our intuition. We do not trust ourselves, we do not turn inward, we don't spend time inward really. And I think part of that is the um social media and or we have access with our phones, we have access to all this information. We have access to all this information out there that is coming from others, but we don't look inward. We don't spend time thinking, how do I feel about this? How do I um how do I want to birth? What do I feel about birth? We're looking to like what influencer is saying, how should I feel about birth? Um, yeah, I think that's it's harder in our world to tap into that.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. And you know what, we are so blessed that there is all this access via our phones to all this information. But what is so important then is to have this strong relationship to self and to your own inner voice so that you can take in that information and then put it through your own internal authority and inner knowing. And go, like, does that resonate with me? Is that true for me? And because that is not something we're taught really in our culture, and not something that we generally cultivate, most women don't even know what that means or how that feels or what to do. Right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's a foreign feeling for some.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and so it's actually part of the natural birth course. There's a part where I teach about my coaching tools about how to access that and how to cultivate that because I think this is so missing and it's key. It's key to anything in life. Being a birth worker, being a businesswoman in birth, being a you know, birthing woman everywhere. Like it is like actually, you all like the most important thing is to check within your inner knowing, not the external, always the inner knowing.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. Very cool. Um, so I imagine, and I've taught many childbirth education classes in hospital, out of hospital, privately, individually. Um, and so much of the work, and it's hard to put all this into some courses, right? Depending on the style and the the clientele of the course, so much of it is um your mindset, what you go in expecting of yourself, right? So imagine in your natural birth course, you're helping people prepare on a pretty foundational level from within, right? Um, tapping inside because what we set out to do, what we believe we can do is pretty powerful. And I'm sure you've seen that in birthing women a lot.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. And also you birth the way you live. So if you're a person that lives disconnected from your intuition, your inner knowing, your body wisdom, if you if your way of treating uncomfortable things is to dissociate and not sit with it, not feel it, not meet the big emotions, then it doesn't matter how many classes you take, how much you learn, how many books you read, how many other stories you listen to. And I've had this very much as my experience too with working with women, right? Doesn't matter what I or anyone else can do for you or share with you, or you know, because if you don't have the relationship with self, you're gonna birth the way you live. So if you live disconnected, you're gonna have a disconnected birth.
SPEAKER_03:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01:So um I don't know about in Sweden, but I think in the United States that's very common.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, which is kind of sad, honestly. Um, that there's so much more potential that can come from our experiences, right? People can gain so much more of themselves, and it's really quite empowering, I think, when people are able to tap in, tap into that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, birth can show you your biggest power as a woman. I mean, it's incredible, and it awakens women. I mean, women a powerful birth experience just awaken to their own power and their own strength and divinity, really.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they find out their capacity, right? Like it's far greater than they ever imagined, I'm sure. Um, very cool. So tell me about you talked about you're starting your fifth cohort. Um, and it's tell me about this program for birth workers.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Oh, it's my baby.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, you love it.
SPEAKER_02:It's it's everything's come together, right? It's like, so I started as a very young woman of being 14 when I sat in a woman's circle for the first time and I had a mentor that was a you know, a MAGA wise woman. And and ever since then, I've like collected things. I've been a student of life. I've loved learning all things about different healing modalities and natural medicine and you know, women's kind of women's sacred ancient business. That's been my thing, right? For like from 14 to like around 30, right? Before I entered into midrifere. And so I've taken all of that and baked that together with my midwifery knowledge. And I've created this really long, extensive, deep, holistic training that is about six months of an intensive learning portal where we dive into absolutely everything. In the first two, or about 10 weeks, we dive on into your birth imprint, your rite of passages, your maternal birthing wisdom, your own experience of having your first bleed in the what that taught you about being a woman, her story, like the midrify, but also story of witches, like vice women, you know, all of it. We dive on into the sisterhood wind and the witch wind, and our relationship to our intuition and the lack thereof, our relationship to our body, our sexuality, our sensuality, finding our own cervix, being in relationship with our bodies so we can help other women be in relationship with their bodies, right? Our own voice, relationship to authority, so we can be strong birth advocates and speak up for women and protect them in the system. Like we go into feminine leadership and what that looks like, and you know, cultivating them for 10 weeks to be the sacred spaceholders that they need to be, holding circles, ceremonies, mother blessing, postpartum ceremonies, all of that, right? Before we even start with conscious conception, pregnancy. We go into, of course, all the depth of physiological birth, natural birth, how to support it, and then we dive on into the postpartum, made-in-to-mother transition, all with a very kind of holistic spiritual also aspect to all of it, not just the medicalized stuff. Like there's a part of that too, because I am a midwife and I can bring that too. And then we dive into medicalized birth, talk about the different kind of variations of normal, like breach and twins and be backs and all of that. And we talk about the true emergencies. We talk about the natural, or sorry, the normal birth of today, which is variants and inductions and epidurals and for all the things, right? And how to navigate that system, support someone and educate someone about that system, their routines, all of the things, and then we dive on into sacred birth advocacy and in the end, also a bit of sacred business and marketing into that too.
SPEAKER_01:That's so cool.
SPEAKER_02:Really holistic, big, deep training for those who want to not become um a doula and don't want to become a midwife, they want something in between. And someone who also already sees birth as a rite of passage, sees it as a very sacred event in a woman's life, and who really feels drawn to um hold sacred space and protect that.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, as well. Gosh, that is incredible. You just got me very excited about so many things. Um, so it's some internal work too. People taking this course are gonna be kind of a different person at the end of that.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. And so I have newbies who are just like birth nerds and like, whoa, I want to do this. I love this, right? I don't, you know, and I have mothers who've had a birth experience or several themselves and have woken to the power of birth either through an amazing kind of positive birth experience or through a traumatic one. Both find this. Yeah, I have doulas, midwives, doctors, nurses, lawyers from the UN. I have all kinds of different people who've found this mentorship. It's absolutely amazing. So there's it's really it's built for anyone. So even if you're already a birth worker, you can join, or if you're a total newbie can join, and it will serve you both.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, wow, very cool. Um, and I think you know, someone who's been a birth worker a long time, something that circles back to the why, our big why, as we come back to the basis of our work, right? Which we can get distracted from sometimes for sure. I know I have been based on experiences and um where I serve and work sometimes can influence all of that. So very cool. Okay, so tell me a little bit, something that that um I felt as you were talking about that. Um, working in the system. It is say you you get this this background, this foundational training um that goes pretty deep into your own life. And I and like you said, I think when when we're grounded and solid, we can serve others better, right? When we are filling our own cup. And then we go into the system. Let's talk about that, like how we work inside a system that's difficult to work in.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know, it is really, really hard. But it's definitely doable. And I think the number one key to kind of survive working as a birth worker within the system that is causing so much trauma and harm, actually, to both mothers and babies. That is just the truth, um, is to have the the most deepest, uh, safest relationship with you and your client. So if you, you know, the longer you can work together, the deeper you can work together, the more in-depth discussions and shares you can have that you can really trust each other and you can really educate her, and she can feel really embodied and sovereign in her decision makers before she steps into the hospital. You can be a much more safer and like relaxed and like confident in your advocacy for her. It does, you know, it's hard to advocate for someone who's wishy-washy.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:If I ever step into the hospital system with them, that we do extensive work beforehand. We talk about all the routine procedures and all the ways that things can happen and interventions that are within the system just naturally by default, it just happens like that.
SPEAKER_01:The realities, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I very much educate her on the law and her human rights as a woman and as a human being and as a birthing woman, and really instill that in her so there's no doubt in her that she can absolutely decline absolutely everything. If she wants to walk in there and not be touched and not have anyone in her room, essentially that is her right. Yes, you're gonna have to fight for her a lot if that's really truly her, and she should probably birth in the hospital if she wants to have absolutely difficult, but yeah, you know, but if that is her choice, that is also her right. Like no one can, there's no law that tells you otherwise. The patient's law is very clear, you have to informed them consent for everything. So if she is very embodied and understand that if you made a had a you know, if you've done a good job as a birth worker, she will feel confident in that. And so then you write a birth plan that they'll probably throw out, but you have it in your hand about what she's wanting and not wanting, and then you can very easily advocate for her for that, which is gonna be your main job in there, and it's not the greatest, more most fun job, it's a very sacred job that you have. It's not fun, it's not the why we are there. We want to be with woman, right? We want to serve her, but you're gonna have to be that advocate too. So you need to have a strong, clear voice that is so grounded in your knowing that you are serving the woman. It's not about you, it's about her and her wishes, and you have that on print and you're advocating for her. When we have that, we can actually really safeguard women to have natural births and empowering births in any kind of birth as well, for that matter, it doesn't have to be natural, but we can do that for her. I've had incredible births in hospital where literally there's barely been anyone in the room, it's been pitch dark with like a fake candle or two on the you know, mattress on the floor, birthing like a cat just with us. Like I've had all kinds of births, and I mean not as a midwife then, as a supporter in the system, right? Yeah, birth worker for her. So it's possible, but you as a birth worker have to work on your baggage. That's why that's a big part of my mentorship, right? Because this is what I've seen as a midwife in the hospital. I've seen doulas come in and not do a great job. Yeah, they're scared, they're like daring headlights, they're you know, they're just a bystander when things happen, they don't know what's happening, they don't have that understanding, and they don't have the voice to speak up. Yeah, they don't dare to. You have to if you want to be a birth wicker in the system.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and you have to do it appropriately, right? For it to be impactful.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, which is important. Yeah, which is when if you're grounded within yourself, there's no fight. It's just very communication and like flows, you know, and also if the woman is very secure in her knowing about her own wishes and her rights, she's also gonna be very safe in just saying, get away for me. Like there's not gonna be a routine baggage and examination. I decline. And then you say, She declines, goodbye, you know, and it's very clear. Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And a lot of that comes from the preparation you have done ahead of time. Like you said, having that um deep and safe relationship with your client, which is so important.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and another aspect that's so important if you're gonna work and sustain working in the system that is going to show you a lot of birth trauma happening, is to debrief the births you attend that are like that. And so that's another really important component in the mentorship. It continues that we meet monthly for birth debriefs and QA's for my students so that they can come back and they can share if they've had these experiences or the good ones too, for that matter.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I see that as make or break for you to survive as a birth worker, truly. If you don't have a community that you can debrief with, you're not gonna survive for long. You have to, they're big. Both the magical ones and the amazing ones and the traumatic ones, you have to have a space to share about them.
SPEAKER_01:Right. I totally agree. That's true, to process those sometimes. And absolutely, that is vitally important. I and I uh as I trained you, Liz, I teach very much the same thing that um, yeah, you need someone or people to be able to process some births with this. Is hard work, right? It can be very difficult work to do. Yeah, it's so impactful. Yes, but it's also and rewarding. It's just as rewarding as it is difficult. So we're grateful for that. Yes, yes, it's so true. Just like you said, an amazing birth experience or a very traumatic birth experience. We get to touch on all of those. Those are gonna come across come across our awareness for sure. Wow. What incredible work you do. Gosh, you're stirring a lot of cool things within me, which I appreciate. Um, all right, let me see on our time. So, Anna, is there uh uh where can people find more about your offerings and more information about you and your work?
SPEAKER_02:Sacredbirth international.com. Okay, awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Very cool. So you do all all your work, your trainings are online and virtual, so accessible across the world. Yeah. Okay, okay, love that. I love that. We will put that in our show notes so we'll have that that link ready um for people to explore because I think the work you're doing is so incredibly important.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. That's amazing. Well, I'm happy to give you an affiliate link if you want to have that and present to anyone who comes through.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that would be incredible. I I find this work you're doing incredibly important, speaks to my soul. Um, so as we wrap up, any as you look back at our conversation, we've talked about your journey. We've talked about your work, and that has changed a lot over your lifetime. Um, any highlights you want to give us, or um as you look back on on our conversation, any last bits of information or wisdom that you'd like to share?
SPEAKER_02:I just remember one of the absolute first births I ever attended, which was a home birth for this first time mama. And I remember being called actually away from my hospital shift as a student to come to this home birth. And I arrive and it's so quiet. And I walk into this woman's home that I've attended a few times before Queen Italy, and I walk in, I was like, Where is everyone? It's so quiet. And then I just heard her, I can hear her moaning, and she's in the um on the veranda, which there's a birth pool, and her husband is sitting holding her hands, and she's in the you know, birthing phase of actually bearing down and birthing her baby, and he is the best midwife I've ever seen. He's just whispering the right things, and he's so present with her. And the two midwives that are present are just sitting in the corner quiet, and she just birtheds her baby, she lifts it up to put it to her chest, and that is something I'll never forget. The first few births, they just put it so there, yes, indulgeable. Yes, and it was most like one of the most magical awe-inspiring experiences of my life, and that is truly what the birth is to me. That is how I view birth. I've seen a lot of the opposite as well. But that was what the birth is for me. The other ones, they're not that's not the birth, but that's a birth in captivity, it's something very different. But that that first time mama who was just birthing her baby in the water with her husband, essentially we were not really there, we didn't do anything anyhow. We just witnessed her in her absolute divine power, and that is what I want to leave you with.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, that's that's why you do what you do. Yeah, because that that is the pen the potential. Wow. Well, Anna, thank you. This has been um a really refreshing conversation. I sure appreciate your time. And I look forward to a long association with you. I would um love to keep in touch. And thank you for sharing this wisdom. I think this gets lost in our in our work sometimes. Um, so it's good to be grounded and come back to that. So I appreciate that. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Thank you so much for having me. You're welcome. So that is it for this episode. We will wrap up this episode of the Ordinary Do La podcast. Um, we have spent time with Anna Lundqvist from Sweden, and she um her baby is Sacred Birth International, and I am excited to dive into more of her um content and what she has available. Thank you so much for being with us here today. As always, please make a human connection. It is so important to connect with other people. Go out and reach out to someone else today. You will appreciate it, and so will they. Hope to see you again next time.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for listening to the Ordinary Doula podcast with Angie Rosier, hosted by Birth Learning. Episode credits will be in the show notes. Tune in next time as we continue to explore the many aspects of giving birth.