2024 is our LAST YEAR for this one-of-a-kind workshop! Enrol today for one of our remaining dates.

Human physiology hasn’t yet adapted to how we do birth in this culture surrounded by strangers and technology.

This is the education you’re going to need.

Buckle up.

This workshop takes you on an unexpected journey that breaks down the myths and programming that keeps us in bondage to a system that isn’t serving us well. This ain’t yer mama’s childbirth education. And it’s not the usual ‘stages of labour’, ‘make a birth plan’, ‘keep breathing’, ‘just be sure to advocate for yourself’ stuff that results in the same old outcomes: massive rates of interventions, exorbitant rates of surgery, unconscionable explosion of birth trauma, postpartum PTSD, regret, and guilt.

You will not be taught to go with the flow, lower your expectations, listen to your practitioner above the science and your own good sense, or trust an institution that is delivering terrible results.

This is where the rubber meets the road - or the bare feet connect with the earth. This is the actual TRUTH about how humans give birth and why we’re not doing it under our current technocratic paradigm.

Having a baby can be much safer than what we’re seeing now. The key is having the right education and knowing what to do with it.

Welcome to the ultimate fear-busting childbirth education available.

I can’t recommend this enough. Life changing birth experience which gave me the control back after 2 shit show births, 1 of which broke me. ~ JM

Here’s what you’ll learn:

SECTION 1

Is birth safe - have we been saved? (The great deception)

Some time in the last century or two maternal mortality dropped by 90% in the lying-in hospitals. That’s because physicians had to stop killing their patients with their filthy hands that had no business being up in her business. Indeed, hand washing, basic sanitation, and infrastructure changed the face of human mortality for the better wherever there were major improvements. But why was maternal mortality still higher in hospitals? We are urged to birth in hospitals because women used to die and still die in other parts of the world. What’s the actual role of institutional birth on maternal and neonatal mortality? It’s not what you’ve been told. This section sets the stage for all the rest of this workshop’s information. Prepare to have your beliefs challenged.

SECTION 2

Food and supplements (How we grow new humans)

There’s a special place for prenatal vitamins on your medical intake document. “Be a good girl and take your vitamins”. Being a good girl can lead to miscarriage. The research on supplements is surprising, especially because no one in the industry seems to know what it says or follows it for safer outcomes. In fact, one of the most commonly prescribed supplements may actually contribute to gestational diabetes, growth restriction, and preterm birth! Healthy mothers need healthy food to grow healthy babies. You’ll learn what the science has to say about “healthy food”.

SECTION 3

Prenatal care (Scaring the crap out of mothers)

It’s widely assumed that every mother needs prenatal care by a health care professional to ensure she and her baby are “safe”. Absolutely, pregnancy is an important time to take care of yourself. However, when does “prenatal care” become “prenatal scare”? We’re going to take a good look at routine technocratic prenatal care, its tests, their purposes, what’s done with the results, and what the science says. We’ll talk about science-based preventive and wellness strategies that are proven to improve health and wellness and lessen the potential for complications.

SECTION 4

Preparing for birth (Just be pregnant)

Mothers are often inundated with tips and tricks to “prepare” for birth, when in truth, all you really need to prepare is to be pregnant and give it some time. Birth is a hormonal process that results in a physical experience. It’s a finely tuned concert of hormones between mother and baby that has been refined over the millennia. Today’s interference in this process is way above most people’s pay grade. In this section, you’ll get a rock solid foundation in how pregnancy concludes and the birth process begins. You’ll learn about chemical signalling, progesterone, relaxin, oxytocin, surfactants, prolactin, epinephrine, endorphins, and catecholamines. Bring your genius cap - you’re walking out of here with more information than most practitioners.

SECTION 5

Understanding oxytocin (Getting your love on)

Oxytocin is called “the love hormone” because it helps us to fall in love, trust others, calm our minds and hearts, digest our food, enjoy sex, and … birth a baby! When it comes from your own brain, it has some amazing effects. You can actually do things to increase it or to squash it. The synthetic stuff that comes in an IV bag may look chemically identical under a microscope, but it’s no love hormone. It’s a bag of all kinds of badness. You’ll learn why the natural stuff can actually be orgasmic and why the synthetic stuff is sometimes likened to torture. You’ll also know how to optimise the good stuff.

SECTION 6

Things to know before labour starts (The stuff your mama don’t know)

Your cervix seems to be a massive fixation for our technocratic birth services and their probing fingers. Why does this little bit of tissue at the top of your vagina get so much attention - and should it? We’re going to talk about all the stuff that the technocratic folks like to focus on - your cervix, dilation, the amniotic sac, the waters breaking, the baby pooping before birth, and other stuff that seems to alarm them. Don’t worry, we’ll cover every scary thing you’ve ever thought of regarding birth and we’ll lay a big ole science smack-down on them.

SECTION 7

When the doctor delivers (Hijacking God’s design for power and profit)

Good golly. When men got involved in birth, dissected dead pregnant women, named our parts after themselves, and invented manoeuvres (they also named after themselves) based on dead women with a non-moving foetus, things have never been right since. We’ll cover their ridiculous mansplaining regarding birth that still reigns today in our technocratic model and why there’s no good current science to back much of it up. You’ll learn why labouring women get so many gloved fingers sent up their vaginas and why they’re all on a clock. After this, so much about how we birth will make sense … or not.

SECTION 8

When women give birth (Free from captivity and out of bondage)

And here it is. The reason you followed through all the previous sections. The moment when an ordinary woman experiences an ordinary labour and releases her baby through her ordinary vagina driven by the most normal, ordinary, epic, unbelievable, miraculous, everyday process.

Take a woman out of medical captivity, stop scaring the crap out of her, feed and nourish her, and support her normal pregnancy, labour, and birth physiology - and you will encounter a miracle that will change your life. This will give you goosebumps and tears. Bring the tissues.

We’ll move through the true stages of a woman’s experience: preparation, separation, liminality, emergence, and integration and what happens at each stage.

You’ll grasp how women transition into motherhood through a process that dates back to creation. The design is stunning, along with it’s many back-up safety mechanisms, that has resulted in a planet blessed with humans that each have the potential to make this world a better place.

You’ll learn how to not mess this up to create problems (I’m looking at you, midwives with your stretch and sweeps and Tylenol) and will also learn basic strategies for solving complexities if they arise.

“This course gave me the confidence and reassurance in the birth process as a whole, which lead to having a beautiful, healthy and successful home birth. I gained so much scientific and practical knowledge to feel informed on my rights and safe in my body. I recommend every pregnant woman and their partner attend this course”. ~ Jess

The day ends when all your questions have been answered, all the scary stuff has been discussed, and you feel educated, empowered, excited, and equipped to welcome your baby with the most scientifically accurate and fearless information available.

How you welcome your baby changes you - for better or worse. Get the education you need to make decisions that are right for you.

A certificate of completion is available for birth professionals to count towards their continuing education.

"This workshop is invaluable! Billie masterfully pulls back the veil on institutional obstetrics, guiding her participants to see beyond the matrix of common birth practice, while equipping mothers with real science/evidence/tools to pursue healthy, resilient, peace-filled birth experiences free of trauma and coercion. Billie provides an informed and visionary framework of knowledge, experience and support that restores women to their innate power in their birthing journey. I have been recommending this workshop to my pregnant friends as a critical piece of prenatal preparation; this investment will bear much good fruit for families seeking a more holistic approach to birth." ~ Bonnie L. Canada

In person only. Hosted in Kitchener Ontario. 9am - 5pm. Bring a brown bag lunch and a snack to share.

This is an offering of The Hive Collective - a private member association. Non-members will be required to accept our Guest Agreement.

Cost

Members of The Hive Collective: $300/participant, $395/both parents attending at the same time

Non-members: $350/participant, $445/both parents attending at the same time

How to Register

Members of The Hive Collective can send an e-transfer to finance@billieharrigan.com that includes their name and the date of the workshop in the ‘note’ section of the EFT.

Non-members can email me at billie@billieharrigan.com for the guest agreement. It can be autographed and emailed back to me followed by an e-transfer to finance@billieharrigan.com.

Once we receive your payment, we’ll respond with a confirmation and the address of the day’s event.

Can’t wait to see you there!