The Healing Birth with Carla podcast explores the topic of birth trauma and how healing can be found. We’ll share the stories of parents who have journeyed from trauma to healing, and we’ll discuss the insights of birth keepers who support others on their healing path.
Listeners can expect to be inspired, to find hope and help on their own birthing journeys, and to learn. This podcast is for anyone who intends to give birth, has given birth, or has a passion for birth in all her reverent and sacred offerings.
Buckle in, this podcast episode with doula, Jenna Shaw, is going to take you on a ride! We fearlessly talk about all the gnarly, taboo topics surrounding birth, delving into the conversations that raise heckles and stir curiosity.
Jenna has been birth passionate since childhood. Despite not having given birth herself, she pours her heart, soul and a sh*t tonne of trust into the women she serves.
It’s hard to convey in a short introduction the depths we explore in this interview, but to give you a taster, a couple of concepts we explore are that the clinical eye is an intervention with risks, and that birth is the ultimate medicine journey.
Other discussion topics include:
The mystery of birth as part of the medicine
Still birth
Free birth
Our culture and the way we live, as an intervention
Physiological birth & undisturbed birth
Thick meconium
Connect with Jenna…
Website: soula.nz (http://soula.nz/)
Instagram: @souladoula (https://www.instagram.com/souladoula/)
Substack: newearthbirth.substack.com (http://newearthbirth.substack.com/)
16 Jul 2026
The Missing Piece After Decades in Birth Work - Amber’s Story
Have you ever assumed that someone who’s been working in birth for decades has probably learnt everything there is to know?
It’s an easy assumption to make. But today’s guest is a beautiful reminder that no matter how much experience we have, there’s always room to deepen our understanding and expand the ways we support women.
Amber Sawyer has a PhD in Biomedical Engineering and has spent many years working in holistic pregnancy, birth and postpartum care. She runs yoga teacher trainings and pregnancy retreats in Spain, and yet she found herself meeting many women - often pregnant with their second or third babies - whose traumatic birth stories were still sitting there, unprocessed. Stories that had never really been spoken about. Stories that unsurprisingly resurfaced with the next pregnancy. Stories that could lead to further trauma, if left unheard and unhealed before giving birth again.
Amber joined my Healing Birth Practitioner Training because she wanted to feel more confident holding those stories safely and helping women to find healing before their next birth.
In this conversation, she shares what surprised her most about the training, how it brought together everything she already knew into one cohesive approach, and how she’s already using it with the women she supports.
I loved this conversation, and I think you will too.
Check out Amber's work...
Website: ambersawyer.com (https://ambersawyer.com/)
Instagram: @amber.a.sawyer (https://www.instagram.com/amber.a.sawyer/) & @embodied.woman.yoga (https://www.instagram.com/embodied.woman.yoga/)
Join my (Carla's) Healing Birth Practitioner Training (https://www.healingbirth.co.nz/hb-practitioner-training) course
22 Jun 2026
A Radical Awakening That Changed Everything - Allura’s Story
Allura Halliwell is not my typical podcast guest. Yes, she experienced a traumatic birth, and yes, she went on to have healing births with her next two children. But what is remarkably unique about Allura’s story is the profound spiritual awakening she experienced a number of years after becoming a mother… something that completely altered everything.
In this podcast episode Allura speaks about her difficult journey into motherhood. Her baby boy was whisked away to intensive care, and for the couple of hours that followed, she was unsure whether her boy had survived. After 10 days in NICU she was finally able to take her baby home, but isolation and depression ensued for Allura, and her son’s unsettledness signalled his own trauma.
Fast forward to when her children were 8, 6 and 4 years old, Allura went on a life changing meditation retreat. It was here that she experienced her transformational awakening - one where she left her body for over an hour, and re-entered this physical plane as an unrecognisable version of herself. Through this, Allura shifted from a stay-at-home mother of three, to a consciousness guide, supporting others to heal core wounds and free themselves from Self-limiting patterns.
Tune in to learn more about Allura’s remarkable story and how her work enables liberating transformation. She is touring the North Island of New Zealand in July and August, so if you’re one of my Kiwi listeners and feel drawn to learn more from Allura, check the show notes for links and offerings.
Also discussed in this episode:
Choosing a medicalised birth as healing
The baby’s experience of birth trauma
The primary need of babies in terms of their own trauma processing
Learn more about Allura's work and offerings:
The Pattern Shift NZ Tour ( https://thepatternshift.com/)
Auckland Retreat (https://auckland.sovereignstateofbeingretreats.com/)
The Consciousness Method™ podcast (https://allurahalliwell.com/podcasts)
Connection Call (https://calendly.com/allurahalliwell/time-to-connect)
NZ Free meditations (https://nz.allurahalliwell.com/meditations)
Who has been a guest on Healing Birth with Carla
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
The Wise Women Network
Naomi
Nathalie
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
2,360
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Spotify
5.0 / 5
14 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 70 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
63
Social presence
94
YouTube
68
Engagement
77
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