Hi I’m Emma, I am a birth processing facilitator and mother to two beautiful children. They are a huge part of the reason I show up for this work. Beyond making me a mother with all the experiences that go with pregnancy, birth and beyond, they have held up a mirror and given me an opportunity to look at myself and the world in ways I had never considered before. They might test me daily, but they also give me the motivation to leave this world at least a little brighter than when I entered it.
I know that personally, when looking for someone to hold me in something as vulnerable as my own birth story, I wanted to know that I resonated and connected with that person. Our interconnectedness as humans is so important, especially for healing, and it plays a really important role in the somatic techniques that I use during birth processing. So this is where you get to read a little bit more about me and how I got to be here, in case this is important to you too.
If you would rather skip ahead to my training, you can do that by clicking below.
Alongside running my birth processing service and learning as much as I can about birth and beyond, you will find me in East Yorkshire where we home educate our two young children amongst the most wonderful and supportive community of friends. I am lucky enough to be close to family (a big reason for the move back up North!) and amongst the chaos and joys of home education, we are trying our hand at gardening, growing veg and being more mindful of our footprint on this planet. It’s never a linear journey and we are no where even close to being perfect (we never will be and having kids no doubt makes this harder than we have ever found it before), but we are doing what we can. I have started to squeeze in strength training where I can to support my future ‘old lady me’, and I am doing my own work to support my nervous system and ensure I am held in my own stories as I support others. I feel very grateful that I am getting to learn and grow and do this work that fills me with joy and purpose. It is so much more than a job, it’s a passion and a calling that has been growing ever since my first birth and in many ways started at the beginning of my first pregnancy.
What still feels like a surprisingly long number of years ago now, I became a graduate in Marine Biology (a dolphin obsession from 10 years of age that never quite went away). I came away with a desire to help others to see and understand the beauty in nature so that they might be inspired to protect it, and so I began volunteering in environmental education and writing a blog about reducing plastic waste. Eventually I decided to study as a science teacher, but the reality wasn’t what I thought it would be and so after graduating, marrying my best friend, saving lots and travelling for while, I decided to get back to where my heart lay. I turned down a job working in business and once again went back to volunteering for environmental education charities. Was it easy? nope, but it was important to me and I wasn't ready to give up on working toward something that I felt was making a difference.
And then we made the biggest life decision of all and we decided to try for a baby. I was lucky enough to fall pregnant fairly quickly and within weeks my life changed overnight. I suffered with hyperemesis gravidarum (severe morning sickness) and had to quit working as I could barely move my head from side to side without wanting to hurl, let alone get on a tube to work. It was a really difficult time that I have had to process as part of my own pregnancy and birth experiences, but what it did do was force me to switch paths from one of nature to nurture.
Hyperemesis gravidarum came bulldozing into my pregnancy very early on and it utterly took over my life. It lasted a whole 21 weeks and it’s safe to say I was miserable. For any of you reading this having experienced the same debilitating nausea and sickness, please know its ok to feel all the feelings around this and I am sending you so much love and strength. For many, me included, this can be a very traumatic experience and is absolutely something that a debrief can also help to process (I have done so myself).
I was lucky enough to be able to enjoy my third trimester feeling much better, and spent the time preparing for birth the best I knew how at the time. I joined an NCT class, did some hypnobirthing courses and learnt much more about physiological birth than I had the knowledge of before falling pregnant. I felt I knew what I wanted and was truly supported by my husband too.
Whilst I felt I had prepared well and done lots of reading around birth and hypnobirthing, I was not prepared at all for how I would need to advocate for myself through the current maternity system. As a result of being coerced and not listened to, my labour fell into a cascade of interventions and violations that led me to experiencing a lot of trauma surrounding my birth.
“I wasn’t sure what to do with all of the feelings I had postpartum; the anger, the hurt, the grief and violation. I was never asked how I was.We were both physically fine, but I wasn’t fine, and my birth was not ok. I was left with trauma that I didn’t truly address until I became pregnant with our second child a couple of years later.”
The scientist in me (Marine Biology nerd here) like to question things, to do the research and find the answers, and so I think I may have gone a little heavier than most at this point! But what I found out was eye opening in so many ways that, not only did it allow me to better understand the process of birth and how to truly support it, it also sparked a little fire inside me that I just couldn’t let go of and which eventually drew me to this work.
I went on to have the most incredibly empowering and healing home birth with my daughter, supported by my husband, two midwives and a wonderful Doula and photographer who captured memories I will treasure forever. I got to experience just how incredible our bodies and birth can be when we trust and support them. And just as importantly I was truly listened to, advocated for and supported throughout my labour.
Once outside of the new-born bubble I couldn’t help but keep reminiscing this beautiful experience, I honestly just wanted to do it all again, a feeling I had never come even close to with my first. But there was also a seed of anger there too. Anger that this didn’t get to be my first experience of birth, that the knowledge that helped me to have this wonderful experience wasn’t new or hidden away in a deep dark box somewhere, but instead just ignored or pushed aside by maternity systems at the expense of our experience and health. This, of course, is not to say that when birth is supported in this way that intervention will never be needed, but considering the majority of women when asked say they would like to birth vaginally, it seems absurd that the systems we birth within do so very little to support it. And perhaps even more concerningly, is that for the majority of women who say they have birth trauma, so often link this to how they felt and how they were treated as much as the experience of the birth itself.
To be heard, understood and treated with compassion is the bare minimum that women and birthing people should expect from our maternity care systems. Coercion and uninformed consent is illegal and yet sadly it still occurs all too often, oftentimes not even recognised for what it is. And this not only leads to a birth that can feel physically disappointing or traumatic in outcome, but also feels emotionally traumatic as well.
One of the greatest realisations I had was coming to see just how many women and birthing people were being left with trauma like me. Silently dealing with this pain whilst in the throes of a whole new season of life, identity and purpose.
I knew I needed to be doing something to help shift this pattern of birth trauma, and so that seed I planted started to grow. It went off in lots of directions, and I explored all the various ways that I might best be able to help and support those who needed it. With time I came to realise that in this season of life and motherhood, my heart lay with supporting women to work through their trauma and/or help them to prepare for birth so they can feel truly empowered and supported.
Held by Emma has been brewing in the depths of my mind ever since and I am finally in a place where I have the capacity to make this offering to the world.
Being able to deliver a safe and effective birth listening service is of the utmost importance to me. I care deeply about you and your story and to ensure that the service I provide is trauma informed and safe, I have or am currently undertaking the courses listed below.
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(2025 - 2026)
I am currently 6 months into this 9 month long mentorship that is led by Bernadette Lack, the founder of ‘Core and Floor Restore’.
Having experienced some of her offerings first hand for my own birth trauma and postpartum journey, I am beyond excited to be able to bring all her knowledge and wisdom to the debriefs I provide to you.
This mentorship involves a lot of inner work and has gone beyond what I had initially anticipated to ensure I am in the best place possible to support you.
This course has taught me how to truly listen and observe, to work in a way which truly centres you, your story and your needs.
Beyond the more traditional listening therapy, this course has also allowed me to explore and experience techniques based in somatic therapy, a body-centered approach that focuses on recognising and processing unfelt feelings in the body that can leave our nervous system feeling ‘stuck’.
This latter part of this mentorship delivers learning around how to support birth preparation that goes beyond the practical ways of supporting birth and focuses instead on the inner patterns that show up for us and our nervous system that can be a barrier to us seeking the birth we want (think people pleasing).
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(2025 - 2026)
This course is run by Alex Heath at The Birth Republic CIC School of Perinatal Health. It is recognised and certified by the Ofqual regulated body AIM.
It is a course provider for many organisations including the NHS and Mind.
This course focuses on the use of techniques based in hypnotherapy to ensure a safe and trauma informed space to be heard. The training encompasses a thorough understanding of the nervous system and how this can be affected by trauma. It teaches the use of solution focused questions to guide you safely to being able to think and feel differently about how your birth experience shows up for you in your day to day life.
This course has also taught me to be able to provide guided relaxations that can be recorded and sent to you for an even greater opportunity to integrate the solutions that come up during a session.
I have completed all the course material and am currently undergoing the assessment process for this course.
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(2024)
Ran by the wonderful Illyin Morrison, a perinatal trauma specialist midwife, a birth debrief facilitator and author of the book ‘The Birth Debrief’. This masterclass was especially beneficial in raising awareness of racism and bias in the healthcare system and how to ensure an inclusive debriefing experience that is cantered around those we are supporting.
Continued Supervision:
In order for me to ensure I am working safely and supporting myself enough to support you, once I have completed the Reconnected Birthing Practitioner training, I will join the Reconnected Birthing Practitioners Community, which provides me with regular mentorship, clinical supervision and peer support.
In addition to this I am always looking for ways to improve, learn and expand my knowledge on the subject of birth trauma and birth (as I said before, I am a bit of a science nerd at heart) and this year (2025) I attended online the CPD certified 2025 Birth Trauma Summit, hosted by Make Birth Better, an organisation dedicated to raising awareness of birth trauma, preventing it and ensuring people can find the support they need.
In my spare time you can also find me attentively listening to podcasts about birth, watching videos about birth, reading papers about birth and listening to a many number of the other wonderful birth workers out there doing amazing work to raise awareness and be part of the solution to ending birth trauma. I am the person who sits on a train, a bus or at a café, trying to discreetly watch the video of a beautiful birth on my phone without startling any passers by.
In all seriousness though, birth trauma is a really big issue, but there is something that can be done about it and there really are so many people working hard to bring about the necessary changes to prevent it, and to support all of us who have or are experiencing it. The following are just a couple of those organisations doing amazing work in this area.
