The daughter of a traditional South African midwife, I am the mother of four children. I completed the Paramana doula course with Dr. Michel Odent and doula Lilliana Lammers in London in 2010 and studied Advanced Midwifery with Ina May Gaskin and the Farm Midwives in 2011. I qualified as a Certified Professional Midwife midwife in 2013 and am registered as a traditional midwife in South Africa. With colleague Lana Petersen, I started Home Birth South Africa in 2010, a web database for those seeking information and advice on home birth in South Africa. Together, we also ran the Cape Town Home Birth Gatherings, a quarterly gathering for those seeking information and support on home birth in Cape Town and surrounds. This project has been on hiatus since the covid pandemic.I am the author of The Basic Needs of a Woman in Labour, which was first self-published in 2011, a book based on the work of Dr. Michel Odent which explores the hormone oxytocin and the environmental factors that affect it. It is widely available worldwide in both paperback form as well as an ebook and has been translated into 13 different languages.I was part of the team that organized The Cape Town Midwifery and Birth Conference, which was aimed at sharing and collaborating between South African birth professionals and the women they serve for the purpose of promoting and supporting safe pregnancies and births. This project ran between 2013 - 2017.I have been practicing as a traditional birth attendant, attending births at home since 2013. From 2019 - 2021 I have been in a co-care pregnancy and birth care practice called Circle of Elephants Care. I am currently on sabbatical from attending births and teaching and lecturing online.In 2014 I began the project True Midwifery - which is an umbrella for all my birth-related work - my teachings, writings, music, exploration, and services.My personal website is truemidwifery.comI live and work in Kommetjie, a seaside village near Cape Town, South Africa with my partner and our children.
Listed skills include Wellness, Holistic Health, Healthcare, Public Speaking, and 23 others.