Episode 132 – Who is Mel and what is she doing?
[00:00:00] Mel: Welcome to the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Melanie Jackson. I'm a clinical and research midwife with my PhD. And each episode, I cast a critical eye over current maternity care practice by grappling with research and historical knowledge to help you get the best out of your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum journey.
[00:00:22] Dan: Hi everyone, and welcome to today's episode of The Great Birth Rebellion. You may notice that this voice sounds a little bit different to Melanie's, and that's because Daniel, I'm her husband and I'm going to be running this episode. I'm going to be interviewing Mel and finding out a little bit more about Mel.
[00:00:37] Dan: Now, obviously I know a fair bit about Mel already, but we want to make sure that you guys understand a bit about who she is, what she's about, how she got to where she is. Mel, can you just start by introducing yourself? Like, I don't know you.
[00:00:53] Mel: As if you don't know me. All right. So. Oh gosh, that's a big open question.
[00:00:59] Mel: All right. My name's Dr. Melanie Jackson. Doctor because, not because I'm a medical doctor, but doctor by PhD.
[00:01:06] Dan: Is that how you go around when someone says, hi, my name's Dan. And you're just like, I'm Dr. Melanie Jackson.
[00:01:15] Mel: No, I do not identify with the doctor title so much. It feels a little bit like showy.
[00:01:22] Mel: Okay. I don't like to say Dr. Melanie Jackson because I feel like I'm showing off, but I am a Dr. Melanie Jackson. And you know, people said, when I, when I've told them that I'm reluctant to say that, they said, you know, PhD is hard and you should just own it, Dr. Melanie Jackson. So, you know, that's where I'm at.
[00:01:41] Mel: I did my PhD in 2014, but that's not who I am. Who I am is a mother to two beautiful children who are both brought up home. I'm a wife. I feel like I'm a. I'm a homemaker and, and gardener. I am a follower of Jesus. That's a big part of my life. I'm a researcher. I'm a midwife. I'm a netballer. I crochet. I've recently taken up knitting.
[00:02:09] Mel: I love to cook. What else? We've got lots of critters, so lots of goats. Dogs, flowers, chickens. That's part of my self care.
[00:02:21] Dan: I love how you've put flowers in there as critters.
[00:02:24] Mel: Yeah, they're alive. They're alive. Who else? Who am I? Maybe? Who am I, Dan?
[00:02:30] Dan: Oh, you're my wife.
[00:02:31] Mel: Yeah.
[00:02:31] Dan: And I know when I introduce you to people, I always go, yeah, this is my wife.
[00:02:34] Dan: She's absolutely amazing. And that she's really on a bit of a mission to make a bit of a difference around the world. And I love the fact that we get to work together. I've only been working with you really like full time type capacity since kind of July ish last year.
[00:02:50] Mel: 2024. Yeah.
[00:02:52] Dan: And so, yeah, it's fun.
[00:02:55] Dan: It's exciting now to actually be on board with something that matters and not something that, you know, I used to work just helping people get a better mark in their HSC. So now I'm doing something that actually matters.
[00:03:06] Mel: Making sure women get a better deal out of their maternity care.
[00:03:09] Dan: Just like that.
[00:03:11] Dan: Yep. That's exactly what we're doing. All right, Mel. Let's go back to the very beginning of your kind of midwifery journey. What made you want to get Into midwifery.
[00:03:21] Mel: Okay. So I was first a naturopath, so I did a bachelor of health science in naturopathy, which is things like herbal medicine and homeopathy and massage and iridology and nutrition and aromatherapy.
[00:03:34] Mel: So I was all, I was qualified and trained in natural therapies and that's where I learned about the body and where I learned about the body's capacity to function and heal itself, given the right ingredients. So as I was doing that, my clientele, a lot of them were women, a lot of them had babies, a lot of them were postpartum or pregnant or pregnant.
[00:03:56] Mel: You know, doing preconception care. And so I thought, what could I do to enhance my qualification to better serve women, mostly. And a big part of a woman's life often is preparing to be pregnant, being pregnant, or recovering from being pregnant while they're parenting. And so I thought, what qualification would, would prepare me for that?
[00:04:18] Mel: And I stumbled upon midwifery. I didn't really know what it was. I just thought it's working with women and babies and that part of their life. So I just kind of looked into it and as I was researching and kind of sharing my intentions with friends, one of my friends said, Hey, considering you're becoming interested in midwifery, would you like to come to my home birth?
[00:04:42] Mel: And I thought, I really need to be prepared if I'm doing that, because she's trusting me to be her support person. And so, I just started searching, you know, books on home birth and how to prepare myself. And I stumbled across Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin. Who coincidentally is now headlining the Convergence of Rebellious Midwives Conference this year.
[00:05:04] Dan: Quick add here, like my job is marketing and advertising, make sure you get your tickets to the Convergence of Rebellious Midwives whichever year you're watching this. If it's this year, 2025, then Ida Mae is the keynote speaker, which is amazing.
[00:05:17] Mel: Yeah. So anyway. Keep going. So I read that and then basically my philosophy that I had developed as a naturopath in understanding Capable the body is of functioning and healing.
[00:05:30] Mel: If you give it the right ingredients, that's the same philosophy that's applied to midwifery. So for so long, midwifery was paired with nursing. Nursing and midwifery, you know, seem to go hand in hand in today's society, but they're two completely different philosophies. Nurses generally look after sick people who are trying to recover and they're in hospital and nurses are charged with their care.
[00:05:53] Mel: Midwifery is different. We're looking after well women most of the time. And so the philosophy of how you care for them has to be different. So that seemed to make sense. Naturopathy and midwifery in a similar philosophical. And so I did, I did midwifery, but the quickest path was actually through a master's of nursing.
[00:06:15] Mel: So I did a master's of nursing first, and then a year of midwifery. And at the end of that three years qualified as a midwife. So that
[00:06:22] Dan: she left out that she actually topped her class in midwifery as well. So you graduated with honors, but you didn't even know what it was.
[00:06:30] Mel: So the story behind that was is.
[00:06:32] Mel: Actually, when I first started midwifery, I remember saying, I want to do a really, really good job at this because you can't half ass midwifery because if you are only right 50 percent of the time as a midwife, there's a lot of damage that you can do. So P's don't equal degrees in midwifery because if you stuff it up, the stakes are really high.
[00:06:52] Mel: So I actually consciously went into my degree thinking I am going to get as close to 100% As I possibly can and apply myself to being a really, really good midwife. And then when we were graduating, they were putting everyone in alphabetical order to go up on stage and get their certificates. And they kept trying to put me at the front.
[00:07:14] Mel: And I was like, no, I am a J, J, I need to be over there. They're like, no, you are graduating with distinction. I thought when I got the letter saying you're graduating with distinction, I thought they were telling me what my grade was and actually I was disappointed because I was like, no, I'm pretty sure I got higher distinction.
[00:07:34] Mel: So I was like, oh, well, you know, that's okay. I tried really hard. And it turns out that when you graduate with distinction, you're graduating at the top of your midwifery class. So yes, I did, but I didn't realize it until I was on stage. And one of the people who was congratulating me said, Oh, wow, you must have worked really hard to be the top of your class.
[00:07:59] Mel: And I was like, Oh, am I, am I the top? So graduated midwifery and towards the end of my midwifery degree, I got pulled into, well, actually towards the end of my nursing degree, I got pulled into one of the The lecturer's office, and they said, have you considered doing more research? Like they wanted me to enroll in like a research degree after I did my nursing degree, but I was so shut off to nursing because I did not want to do nursing.
[00:08:32] Mel: I was just doing it to get to midwifery and I was like, no, no, no, not doing that, not doing that, didn't kind of tweak in my mind that maybe someone was suggesting like, Hey, you've got, you've got the capacity to do research. So then actually the same thing happened when I finished midwifery is my lecturer called me in and said, Hey, have you considered an academic career in midwifery?
[00:08:55] Mel: And I said, Oh gosh, no, no, gosh. By then I knew I wanted to be a home birth midwife and I thought I'm going to be a midwife and a naturopath and that's my job. And I was like, no, no, can't do that. She said, Oh, you should consider a PhD. And I said, no, no, that's for smart people. I can't do that. That's for smart people.
[00:09:15] Mel: And she said, have you seen the idiots that are doing PhDs? I mean, I hadn't, in fact, I didn't even know what a PhD was. So she said, look, just go and see Hannah Darlin. So at that time, when I was finishing my degree at Western Sydney University in 2008, Hannah Darlin had just started at Western Sydney University as like, she was, she was Dr.
[00:09:43] Mel: Hannah Darlin, but she wasn't a professor. She was kind of starting. And I just said, Hey, you know, and my lecturer suggested I should come see you about further possibility of doing further research. So she said, well, come bring your transcript, bring your marks. We can have a conversation. So still, I did not know what a PhD was, and I turned up to her office with a few sheets of paper that she told me to bring.
[00:10:12] Mel: And I showed her and she said, yes. You should do some further research. So to go away, have a think about a topic that you would want to research. Make sure that you love it because by the end of your PhD, you're going to hate it. And went away and one night I just shut up in bed. And was like, burthing outside the system.
[00:10:36] Mel: That's what I want to research. I want to research burthing outside the system. So long story short, took that idea to Hannah. She was as excited as I was because that term, that phrase, burthing outside the system. Did not exist. Like now people say it off the cuff, like, yeah, birthing outside the system, blah, blah, blah, they'll say it as if the phrase has always been around, but I pioneered that, that phrase.
[00:11:02] Mel: So that's my claim to fame. That's what got me into the study of midwifery. That's question
[00:11:09] Dan: one. We've
[00:11:10] Mel: done question one.
[00:11:12] Dan: Okay. So you've already talked a bit about your journey into midwifery. Yes. So you've come across, you were interested in expanding your naturopathy stuff and then you did all your study and Hannah and everyone was like, Oh, you're amazing.
[00:11:23] Dan: Let's get you doing more research because you're smart. Even though you didn't think you were smart, it was clear in your transcript that you were. Okay. So
[00:11:31] Mel: I, I still believe that it was just because I really wanted to do a good job. Like I worked really hard and I'm also a stubborn and persistent. So I'm like, I want to learn that and I will not stop until I do.
[00:11:45] Mel: So I don't know if that's smart or just.
[00:11:50] Dan: Yeah. Okay. So you did your year in hospital as your student midwife thing, and you told your person, educator, is that what they're called? So I can't, you can tell I'm not from this world.
[00:12:00] Mel: Well, yeah. Well, I told my educator.
[00:12:03] Dan: Well, she told you that not be here and you said you were going to go and be home birth, right?
[00:12:06] Mel: So what happened? You know, when I did my degree, I did a graduate diploma of midwifery. So there's, there's lots of ways to do it. There's the Bachelor of Midwifery where people, that's their first degree, they'll go to uni and they do placements in hospital for, it's three or four years, Bachelor of Midwifery.
[00:12:25] Mel: I did a graduate diploma in midwifery, which you would do if you were already a nurse, which became a nurse through the Masters of Nursing. So for me, my postgraduate degree in midwifery, you would work four days at the hospital employed as a student midwife, and you would go to uni one day. And so I had virtually a whole year of experience.
[00:12:50] Mel: In the system, as a student midwife, we were super newbie, which means we weren't counted in staff numbers, but we were paid. So our whole job basically was to, that was our year of placement. So we were given some responsibilities, but always supervised. And it was very obvious to the workplace that I was at that I wasn't going to toe the line.
[00:13:14] Mel: And I remember being really confused because we learnt all these things at uni that were very midwifery and evidence based and with a physiological mindset. Of what midwifery is supposed to be. So we learned the theory was great, but then when you went into hospital, you discovered that the hospital didn't practice or didn't encourage you to practice midwifery.
[00:13:42] Mel: They wanted you to just follow policy, follow the workplace culture, sort of do as you were told. There was not a lot of wriggle room. And I was really confused for so long as to why people weren't acting as midwives. And. That caused issues because I'm outspoken and I would question things, well I would question a lot of things because I just, mostly because I wanted to understand why are you doing this when we know so much about why this isn't right.
[00:14:18] Mel: And I was trying to understand more so, but people got offended by that because. I was questioning the way things were done. And so, yes, you know, as it came that students were being invited to kind of apply for a new graduate year, which is typically what midwives do is you, after your student year, you apply and you become a new graduate midwife.
[00:14:41] Mel: And they have a certain number of spots for them. And so you have to interview for that. As that was coming up in conversation with our educator at the hospital, who was in charge of looking after the students, she said, I don't think you should stay here. And, you know, she's basically said, you should go, but we will destroy you.
[00:15:01] Mel: She could see. That I wasn't aligning with what the hospital would do. And if you have a different philosophy to your workplace culture and workplace policies, you get bullied into line. Basically, the midwives who think like I do are pressured in the system to comply with the workplace culture. So she knew that, and it was in kindness that she said, you should not stay here.
[00:15:28] Mel: She knew what was coming for me in my future. Yeah. And I said to it, don't worry, I have plans to be a home birth midwife and towards the end of my student year, I had been doing some placement in time with another home birth midwife who had taken me on for my community placement that we have as a student.
[00:15:49] Mel: And after that week of community placement. She let me stay on, like I asked her, can I keep coming? And she said, yes. And so I was learning from her at the same time as being a student midwife. Looking at it now, I don't know how I managed. I worked as a student midwife four days, uni one day. I was still seeing naturopathy clients and going out with this midwife.
[00:16:16] Mel: I mean, we didn't have kids at that time.
[00:16:18] Dan: No, you must have a really good husband or something.
[00:16:20] Mel: Yeah. It was like, like keeping, you know, the house sorted. So anyway, that's what I did. What was the question?
[00:16:28] Dan: I didn't even get to it.
[00:16:29] Mel: Oh, okay. So don't ask it.
[00:16:31] Dan: So the question I was trying to ask before was about how you actually journeyed into midwifery.
[00:16:35] Dan: It's a. We've got a bit of your educational background and you were at a hospital as a student midwife for a year. And then your educator said, don't be here. You said, I'm not. And now you found yourself a bit of a mentor and then from there, how did you then move into. Thank you. You know, full fledged private practice, take you on your own clients.
[00:16:55] Mel: Yeah. Well, so I knew I couldn't stay at the hospital. I knew my only option if I was going to be a midwife was to be a home birth midwife because I couldn't philosophically rectify how I wanted to work with what I would be expected to do at the hospital. So immediately that was obvious. I felt quite physically unwell as a student midwife.
[00:17:16] Mel: And I think that was just the emotional impact of having to do things I didn't want to do to get my qualification. So I knew that wasn't sustainable. And immediately I didn't do a new grad year. I moved immediately from being a student midwife to a home birth midwife. And that same midwife who mentored me through my student year she, Offered to come to birth with me if I wanted to be a private midwife.
[00:17:44] Mel: And at that time, now it's different. There's all these rules and insurance and requirements, but back then you could just get a birth kit and a website once you were registered and you were a home birth midwife. You know, just your intention made you a home birth midwife. So. It was easier. I didn't have to get insurance or do any extra hours or anything like that.
[00:18:06] Mel: That was before all that happened. So she started coming to a few births of me, but for a while, I was doing births on my own with that level of qualification. And at the beginning, Any client that she couldn't take on, she would just refer on to me. So my client base built pretty quickly, but also I made a really big effort to kind of get into the, the, the scene, I suppose, the home birth scene.
[00:18:35] Dan: So you were saying before that you got to go to birth by yourself. Obviously that's changed. So a whole bunch of rules, insurance has come in. What happened? Like, how did you cope with that change? Cause it's a big change. A lot of midwives retired with that change coming in.
[00:18:50] Mel: Yeah.
[00:18:51] Dan: So how did you go through that?
[00:18:53] Mel: Yeah, well, there was, so 2010, there was a change where our, our registration process changed and our new registration body said everyone, every midwife has to have professional indemnity insurance. Well, we didn't have that as home birth midwives. We were working uninsured. And so there was a portion of midwives who decided they didn't want to do that.
[00:19:18] Mel: There was a really tumultuous time. Then because nobody was coming forward to provide an insurance product for home birth midwives. And so during that year, 2009, 2010. Was possible that home birth midwifery just would have been extinct because we couldn't get an insurance product and therefore we would be in breach of our registration.
[00:19:43] Mel: And so there was a big protest the mother of all rallies it was called and it was in Canberra and it was There was a lot that was going on behind the scenes, you know, the consumer advocates were fighting, midwives were fighting, everyone was fighting against this. And eventually we got given an exemption.
[00:20:01] Mel: So basically we got an insurance product that covered us for antenatal and postnatal care, but we couldn't, they couldn't secure one that would cover birth. So our registration body said, well, you were giving you an exemption. So long as you follow these rules that we're going to set in place. So this is the beginning of the sort of heavier regulation of home birth midwives, that it was a bit scary for a lot of people.
[00:20:31] Mel: And this was me just newly coming in and I thought, how am I going to adapt and You know, meet these requirements, like this feels a bit frightening. And so I proposed to a big group of midwives, actually, why don't we kind of form a private midwifery group practice? At that time, everyone was just working individually and they called, we called ourselves independent midwives.
[00:20:55] Mel: Now it privately practicing midwife is more the terminology. And so I invited all, as many midwives as would come to a meeting that I was holding Was proposing this idea, Hey, like, let's have a, a group practice. And at that time, my ideas weren't very well formed. And I think at the end of that meeting, a lot of midwives became resistant against the idea of a group practice, possibly because of the way I presented it and because of how poorly formed my ideas were at that time.
[00:21:34] Mel: And I was new on the scene and everyone was kind of like, who is this? Just coming in here and making changes. So I think that was the beginning of some resistance towards how. I was doing things that I still think exists today, but four people, well, three people sort of floated to the top as being interested in wanting to pursue this.
[00:21:57] Mel: And Hannah Dahlan, who I was at that time actually working as a research assistant for, which we skipped over that part of the story.
[00:22:06] Dan: Oh, we're getting to that next. Okay. Yeah.
[00:22:09] Mel: I proposed this to Hannah Dahlan and she said, I want in. And it was at that time she was happy. She was in an academic career. She wasn't in a clinical career.
[00:22:16] Mel: She said, I want to work with you as a private midwife in a group, group midwifery practice. And I had, I was so blown away because I was like, wow, Hannah Dahlan wants to work with me. And then. Two other senior midwives on the home birth scene, both of which who were mentoring me. Who actually, I hadn't even asked to this meeting because I thought, you know, they're established, they're sorted, they've got each other.
[00:22:42] Mel: They were kind of already had a bit of a, had a relationship going and, you know, collegial kind of clinical relationship going. I was like, they don't need me. Who am I to, to be suggesting. Anything to add to their group, their practice, but they said, Oh, we want to be part of your group practice. And I was like, Oh my gosh.
[00:23:01] Mel: So then I found myself with two experienced senior home birth midwives and Hannah Darling, and we started a group practice and I was part of that for 11 years before. Kind of, I had obviously other big dreams and plans, which we are now seeing the fruit of. So decided to leave in order to pursue probably a more balanced family life, but a more balanced work life also, and open myself up to other opportunities.
[00:23:30] Dan: But it was setting up that group practice that really helped you to get through that time. You had lots of support. You had mentors, you had, you know, academics and you had experienced clinical people. And it was, it was a very successful, quite a long time. That group practice. We
[00:23:44] Mel: could navigate all of the changes in a really supportive way.
[00:23:48] Mel: And we all carried the weight. We all took different responsibilities for, you know, finding out things and we tapped into each other's skills. So it was a formal way of just supporting each other. And. The thing that changed then too, was that every midwife had to go out with another private midwife at a home birth.
[00:24:04] Mel: So that was kind of a new thing that if you didn't already have a buddy that that could have been challenging. So this group practice was also a way to sort of guarantee that there was always a second midwife there and that we were always available to our clients.
[00:24:18] Mel: Yeah.
[00:24:19] Dan: Yeah, cool. Now you did mention in that story that you were doing some research with Hannah.
[00:24:23] Mel: Yeah.
[00:24:24] Dan: So earlier you talked about how you would. Top of your class in midwifery and stuff, but then you transferred into eventually getting this PhD done. Talk to me a little bit about how you worked your way into that, because I know you didn't just go straight from a finished student and into a PhD.
[00:24:40] Dan: There are, there's this point system that you've got to achieve certain numbers for to get in. And then you have to get, you know, we wanted a scholarship so that we could afford it. Yeah.
[00:24:49] Mel: So, It was decided, yes, we're doing a PhD and then you have to apply for a PhD. You can't just let it, just let you do one.
[00:24:57] Mel: So I applied and the uni uses this metric system to score you and how many points you get determines if you get into your PhD, so PhD spots are competitive and only the, the people with the highest points get in because. I didn't take the usual path into a PhD. So one of the usual paths would be to do this extra little research degree.
[00:25:23] Mel: It gives you quite a lot of points to get into the PhD program. I didn't want to do that. I was already off the back of two or three degree or three or four degrees. By that time I was like, no, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing another degree. I'm done. And so. I thought I'll try and apply cause I've got a master's of nursing and I have, you know, a little bit behind me.
[00:25:46] Mel: Anyway, they said, no, not enough points. And Hannah said, that's okay. Why don't you come and work for me for a whole year? You can be my research assistant. So Hannah invited me to be her research assistant for a year. And the idea was that we would actually do research. I would learn about how to do research by doing it.
[00:26:09] Mel: And. Basically, the idea was to get some publications because publications equal points to get into a PhD program. So I learned all kinds of things about how to apply for ethics, how to publish, how to do the research process, how to interview, like all these things on the job. And so we did the birth position study that year.
[00:26:31] Mel: And we wrote papers and I presented at conferences, I did the whole thing, you know, and so that's how I learned to research. And then the following year got into a PhD with a scholarship. Yeah, that happened.
[00:26:47] Dan: It did. And so you then did your PhD, that's finished. Although there was a bit of a hiccup in your PhD.
[00:26:53] Dan: I'd take a bit of a break for a while because you got, you got pregnant. Don't
[00:26:58] Mel: call it that. We were blessedly interrupted.
[00:27:05] Dan: You didn't finish the year that you were meant to finish.
[00:27:07] Mel: So
[00:27:07] Dan: you had a child and then you, I remember you bouncing babies to sleep on your back while you finished typing up your PhD.
[00:27:14] Dan: And so the final year,
[00:27:16] Mel: the final six months of the PhD, while I was writing, yeah, we got pregnant in my final year of my PhD, which was fine. You know, we were just kind of happy. It's
[00:27:27] Dan: great. It was great. It was great. It was amazing.
[00:27:30] Mel: Yes.
[00:27:30] Dan: So the reason I mention it is because we're going to transition now from all your academic stuff.
[00:27:34] Dan: We're talking about parenting. So you had two babies. So I
[00:27:37] Mel: had Charlie.
[00:27:38] Dan: Yeah.
[00:27:39] Mel: And then, and I took six months off my PhD, but in that gap, do you remember what I did in that gap? So then the uni said, Oh, hey. Would you like to lecture, would you like to lecture the midwifery students? And I kind of was a bit taken back.
[00:27:56] Mel: I was like, you know, I just had a baby, right? Like, how am I going to do that? And they said, Oh no, no, we would expect that you would just bring the baby. And I was like, well, if I can bring the baby. Yeah, I suppose I could finish my PhD, parent my first child, lecture in midwifery. Okay. So I did. So I taught anatomy and physiology to midwifery students.
[00:28:21] Mel: And I remember I used to, my mum used to come over one day so I could prepare for the class. And then on the way to the lecture, I would pick her up and When I had Charlie with me and her job was to basically hold him and look after him while I did the lecture. Often that didn't work. So I would breastfeed through the lecture or bounce him to sleep through the lecture or another student would hold him.
[00:28:46] Mel: He was kind of, they were all very excited about, about having Charlie in the room. So I did that. And then realized if I was going to keep lecturing, I wouldn't be able to finish my PhD because that's kind of what's taking up some of my time. So then went back to finish the PhD. So it took four years instead of three.
[00:29:04] Dan: Yeah. But we had children. This is part we're moving into had we had
[00:29:08] Mel: children
[00:29:08] Dan: transitioning into children, where did you birth your children? I mean, you did already mention that at the very beginning when you introduced yourself. But yeah, we home birth our kids. We
[00:29:15] Mel: home birth our kids. Sure.
[00:29:17] Dan: Give us a brief, not a long description of these births.
[00:29:19] Dan: You know, I think there's another episode. There's a whole
[00:29:21] Mel: episode on my birth, but basically, I mean, they were. Both completely different, both completely fine. But listen to my birth stories. There's, there's an episode. I can't remember what number it is, but yeah, people can search. Just
[00:29:33] Dan: scroll down and now got these two lovely children.
[00:29:39] Dan: What have we done? This is a bit weird to be asked this because I'm doing most of it as well at the moment. Our kids, we chose not to send them to school. Correct. We homeschool them. We live on this lovely big, kind of, well, not big, but farm ish type thing, little homestead. What's the kind of background?
[00:29:59] Dan: Why are we doing that?
[00:30:00] Mel: Yeah. Well, I mean, we home birthed our kids. I was a naturopath to start with. You know, you're qualified as a teacher and you're a school principal for some time. And now we homeschool our children. We grow our own vegetables. We run our own business and company. Like, I think it's quite clear that we have some skepticism around centralized and systemized ways that.
[00:30:29] Mel: So I think that background philosophy underpins a lot of our decision making is that we just have a little bit of a distrust that the system and that society and mainstream government processes are set up for our own good. So we're kind of consciously making decisions that we feel good for us. And that involves good nutrition through growing a lot of our own food.
[00:30:54] Mel: We keep goats for milk and we keep chickens for eggs. You know, we have butchered our own animals before. We don't do that very often, but you know, we have an interest in sustainable food systems, in Sustainable birthing practices in healthful ways to educate our children. That's not to say that schools are not good places, but we both have inside information as to how schools work.
[00:31:20] Mel: Cause you worked in one, my mom's a school teacher, your whole family's school teachers. All of them. You know, I'm a midwife. I know how the system works with birth. You know, and even when we proposed to all of our family that we were going to homeschool, they were a hundred percent in support. And part of that journey of being able to homeschool was that we consciously chose a life that would allow us to do that.
[00:31:43] Mel: And that's where our work, like working for ourselves comes in. Cause we can manipulate our work hours around the needs of our kids, but we also have a lot of support. So I think that's the key to have a setting up this kind of way of doing life is that the people who are in our lives. Supportive, but we've kind of fostered that as well.
[00:32:07] Dan: Now, most midwives will just set up their group practice or whatever they need, private practice, and they will then just work clinically until they retire at a ripe old age of 90 or whatever, they can no longer get down low,
[00:32:22] Mel: but yeah, they'll keep going until they can. You
[00:32:24] Dan: haven't done that, right? You, I mean, you still have your hand in clinical stuff.
[00:32:28] Mel: Yep.
[00:32:30] Dan: Don't really have a full time load of your own clients. Like you're not taking on, you know, 40 or whatever births a year that maybe a normal private practicing midwife would do. Why not? What's, what's, what's happening instead? What's the drive?
[00:32:44] Mel: I mean, I still go to that many births cause I'm backing up my colleagues.
[00:32:49] Mel: So I still go to about 40 to 50 births a year as a clinical midwife, but I have decided to slow down on my own clients because. You know, we live a permaculture lifestyle, you and I, and part of permaculture is encouraging The diversification of your work life and that makes your work life sustainable.
[00:33:13] Mel: So what I felt, it's been 16 years of being on call for me working as a home birth, private midwife, and that takes a toll. You know, in the last few years on the dynamics of our family, like prior to that, things are working really well, but the kids are getting older, they're starting to ask questions of like, why can't we go on holiday?
[00:33:34] Mel: Why can't mom come to, or why are we taking two cars? And so that's a sign to me that it's time to tap into the other diverse. Areas of how I work. So partly I think it's a sustainable way of doing business full stop is to have multiple activity streams, which also equals multiple income streams. But ultimately I've changed the way I work to increase the influence that I have on the birth world.
[00:34:08] Mel: And so if I work as a private midwife only. I can change the lives of approximately 40 families a year. What's become obvious through my work as on the podcast and also I now mentor other midwives. In the last five years I've been mentoring other midwives to become private midwives, and about 150 midwives have been through that mentorship program.
[00:34:36] Mel: What I realized then, even if I only mentor other midwives and 150 of them, and 150 of them. Take on 40 clients a year, that is a greater influence and a greater use of my time than me personally impacting the lives of 40 families. And then in the podcast, you know, we get 50, 000 downloads a month. To me, that.
[00:35:00] Mel: Is that's culture changing activity. And so more so I'm interested in engaging activities that change more people's lives than, than me individually impacting people's lives. I feel I will always be a private midwife in some capacity because I'm not ready to let that go. I think I'm a very good private midwife and I want to keep learning because You learn from every single birth.
[00:35:31] Mel: So I'm not ready to stop learning yet from other women as they give birth and throughout their pregnancies. But certainly I'm interested in diversification, partly because I think it's a sustainable business model, but a sustainable life model as well. And also. I can see that there's other ways to influence a birth culture than just putting myself at the front line of giving the midwifery care.
[00:35:56] Dan: Throughout your journey, I mean, COVID was a thing that impacted everyone, obviously but it particularly impacted us in a way that benefited you. I mean, I was a teacher at the time and everything went, you know, remote. And then I then moved into just doing my own business and consulting and stuff. But we made a purposeful decision during COVID that I would basically stop doing a lot of my work to focus on the children.
[00:36:17] Dan: Basically because hospitals were not letting support people in, all kinds of stuff was happening. And that really impacted you. So can you walk us through the changes that happened?
[00:36:25] Mel: Yeah. I was trying to find the time to care for the increasing number of women who wanted to have a home birth. So prior to that, you and I were sort of splitting our time.
[00:36:38] Mel: You were working in your business. I was working in mine. And so we realized that actually I probably needed five days a week to work and keep up with the amount of demand that there was. And you were trying to find business. So we were like, hang on, this, this makes a whole lot of sense. So during COVID we completely pivoted to me being the main income owner.
[00:37:00] Mel: And doing the five days a week of paid work and you focused your attention on, you know, on the kids and all the other elements of life that goes on. The year before COVID, I started the privately practicing midwifery mentorship, which was kind of perfect timing because so many women wanted home birth midwives.
[00:37:21] Mel: And also midwives are getting very frustrated with the way that the hospital system was responding to COVID and felt like they couldn't keep working in that way. So there was kind of this perfect storm of women wanting home birth of midwives wanted to get out of the system. And then in that I was already offering the mentorship.
[00:37:39] Mel: So that kind of took off as a result of that. And also I made a YouTube video during COVID that focused on the research behind the COVID vaccine for pregnant women. And at that time, no one was doing that because it's a really fine line because our, you know, registration body tells midwives, you have got to tow the line with, you know vaccine information.
[00:38:08] Mel: You've got to tell people to get vaccinated basically. And the video didn't tell people to, or not to get vaccinated. It just presented the current research, which people really appreciated because they couldn't find it anywhere. So the Australian College of Midwives took up that video as part of their training program.
[00:38:26] Mel: Women really appreciated the information. I got reported to ACRA advice for being anti vaccination. I wasn't, and I mean, the, the college was pro vaccination, they were using it, but people basically watched the video and went, well, what does Mel think? Is she pro or anti? And you couldn't work it out because I purposely just presented the research.
[00:38:51] Mel: So people really liked that. And I think that was actually the pivot point. And I realized that I could present information in a way that helped people and that they appreciated and maybe this was a skill that I had that I could keep using. Yeah.
[00:39:09] Dan: Now, after that, things led into the launching of your podcast.
[00:39:14] Mel: Yeah. 2022 Great Birth Rebellion.
[00:39:17] Dan: So why did you bother starting a podcast? Why does it exist? What's the point of it?
[00:39:22] Mel: Originally the Great Birth Rebellion. I thought I was going to write a book. I thought I want to write a book and it's going to be called The Great Birth Rebellion.
[00:39:33] Dan: There might be one coming anyway.
[00:39:34] Mel: Well, there is one coming. We, we know, yeah, that's going to happen. There's still a book coming, but. It was you who said, why don't you make it a podcast? And I'd never really thought of that idea because the idea, the technic, like just the technicality of getting a podcast going didn't, I couldn't really get my head around.
[00:39:56] Mel: I thought, how am I going to write for a podcast, but also. Sort out the technicalities of how do you get one live and how do you do that? Fortunately, that's something that you love is working out that kind of stuff. And I
[00:40:10] Dan: already had a podcast going. And
[00:40:11] Mel: you already had a podcast going. So you were like, I can get it up there.
[00:40:14] Mel: You make it, I can get it up there. And so the Great Birth Rebellion. Was born. I didn't really know how well it would go, but part of my motivation was, is that I was seeing all these clients and I felt like I'd saw a client and, you know, when it came time to talk about a particular topic, I was up to date with the research.
[00:40:36] Mel: Cause as a private midwife, you kind of have to. Be up to date with research so that you can educate your clients. So I was doing all this research and education so that I could care for my clients and I thought, you know, wouldn't it be cool if they could go to, you know, an episode, have a listen, and then we could talk about it more.
[00:40:57] Mel: At our appointments, so, you know, group B strep screening or ultrasounds, whatever the topic is. At first I thought, Hey, this would be a great place to send my clients so that I'm not spending half an hour or 45 minutes talking about a topic. And I did the same sort of lesson every client. So that was my original thinking.
[00:41:18] Mel: And then I thought, Hey, maybe other midwives would also find it a helpful place to send their clients for information. It became bigger than that. I think our first episode had something like 700 downloads, which was kind of, I didn't, I don't know, I didn't know what to expect, but you know, it went to the top of the charts on Apple and, and Spotify and.
[00:41:42] Mel: I thought, whoa, okay, there's people listening. So very quickly I had to kind of realize this was a thing and always the very, very beginning of the podcast, the philosophy was to keep it evidence based. I was very prepared for each episode and I still spend probably 10 to 12 hours in script development for the podcast, because I look at research.
[00:42:13] Mel: I understand it and then translate it basically into a format that most people from midwives, doctors, obstetricians, all the way down to women doulas and not down, but you know, across the full spectrum of people who would find this information valuable, try and explain it in a way that. That doesn't dumb it down so far that actually you don't give information, but is, you know, yeah.
[00:42:39] Mel: Anyway, I think I've found a sweet spot. People seem to appreciate the amount of information. I'm not ever going to compromise on the quality of the content. You know, lots of people have said, you know, maybe you should outsource some of this work. And I'm very reluctant because I feel like, Nope, I'm holding on to this needs to be excellent.
[00:43:00] Mel: And every time I write an episode, I always think if I get reported for this one, could I be, could I defend it? And the Great Birth Rebellion podcast has been reported to ARTproper4 as well, for the, the GBS episode. I re listened to the GBS episode after getting the report and I thought I did. Such a good job on that episode.
[00:43:21] Mel: And, and, and I stand by this and it was brilliant. And you know, yeah, April's like, look, you don't have to answer to this complaint. There's nothing that it was, it was great. So that's kind of where it started.
[00:43:34] Dan: All right. Yeah. Now the title, The Great Birth Rebellion there is an entire episode about what you're rebelling against, but can you give us like a short 30 second version of what we're rebelling against?
[00:43:45] Mel: Well, you know, I mentioned it in the, In the opening part is that there's a discrepancy between what we know is good for women and what women tell us that we want, that they want from maternity care and actually the type of maternity care that's offered to women. So there's, there's a mismatch. It doesn't, the current maternity care system doesn't match the research and it doesn't suit the needs of most women.
[00:44:09] Mel: Most women will accept the service that they're getting from the maternity care system because there's not really another option, but it's definitely not optimal. So the Great Birth Rebellion is about rebelling against services that aren't fit for purpose. It's not about, you know, everybody having a home birth or everybody having a free birth.
[00:44:30] Mel: It's about women having their autonomy, having information so they can make decisions, and then. You know, subtle stabs at the imperfections of the system as well. Most CISO women are aware of what they're stepping into. Most women don't have an option to birth anywhere else except for. A public hospital with somebody that they don't know.
[00:44:54] Mel: That's the main option for women. So the, the Great Birth Rebellion is about helping women be as equipped as they possibly can when they're going into that kind of a service to be able to advocate for themselves and get the best birth they possibly can or the best care they possibly can. So. The podcast aims to give information, which is also a rebellious idea in the maternity care system because the maternity care system wants women to just comply with their policies.
[00:45:23] Mel: So it's a rebellious thing to be giving women information that they can use to make their own decisions, unfortunately. There's a mismatch in power. In the maternity care system, society tells us that that's full of experts who know what's best for you and you should just listen to them. And the rebellion is about.
[00:45:43] Mel: Rebellion gets that idea that we should just go along or go with the flow because they know what's best for us. The experts know what's best for us. We know that that's not true. It's the rhetoric that the system wants to peddle that you're safe with us and we will look after you because we know what's best.
[00:46:00] Mel: And so they give you minimal information so that basically you have no option but to comply with what they want you to do. But women want autonomy. And when you take autonomy from women. They get traumatized and we know that one in three women are coming out of their birth traumatized. So we are rebelling against the current way that maternity care is set up because it's not evidence based and it's doing harm.
[00:46:25] Dan: Alright, now we've made some changes to the podcast over time. Do you have future changes planned for the podcast?
[00:46:31] Mel: I don't know that I have changes planned, except that I need to keep clinging to the idea of producing high quality content that people can use. My intention would be to continue the podcast forever.
[00:46:45] Mel: I would love to keep going. People have commented recently that they want more of the podcast. My episodes were on the host doing like covering research. We've recently used a lot more guests. Partly that was because I had the Convergence of Rebellious Midwives Conference on and got particularly busy with that.
[00:47:04] Mel: And it was a relief to know that there was another expert who was across a research topic that I could tap into. But certainly the aim is to keep researching. Interpreting the research and presenting it in the way that people like. And I love feedback. Like if you're listening and you think I have some things that I would love changed, please do write in and let us know.
[00:47:29] Dan: There's obviously been a lot of fruit that's come out of the podcast. We had lots of people who have told us how amazing the information is and how it's changed their birth and and it's fantastic to hear that kind of stuff because otherwise all we do is, you know, we're talking to cameras and microphones and we're sitting there looking at stats going, Oh yeah, people listen to this one.
[00:47:46] Dan: But if you actually write to us, we get to hear stuff, but what's been hard about this? What's been hard about this whole process? And
[00:47:51] Mel: yeah, so creating a podcast to me feels like an artistic and creative journey. Like I often talk about it as being, you know, like creating an artwork, you know, I feel like this, that podcasting or the, or scripting a podcast and creating a podcast for me is a creative art form and I actually find it quite, not painful, but it's.
[00:48:17] Mel: It's an exhausting task in a sense that I'm driven to do a really, really good job and I need to be completely in the zone to create a piece of art, to create a piece of content and an episode that is truthful and helpful. And accurate and that someone can use. So it probably, when I look at my time, I spend two whole days by the time I've scripted, researched, recorded, edited, published, marketed, you know, there's podcasts the posts that go along with it on social media and all of that is about a two day process and I do that every single week.
[00:49:04] Mel: So imagine you're asked to present at a conference every single week. That's what I feel like I'm doing. And the amazing thing is though, that. Each episode in the first week gets about 5, 000 downloads. So that's not even 5, 000 listens. That's 5, 000 people who have downloaded that episode either to listen to it then or later.
[00:49:30] Mel: So I'm sure that the listenership is bigger than that. And I know that, you know, Dan, you're the one who does all the stats and. And over a month we can get over a million impressions on Spotify. So basically it's in front of that many people's faces. So I'm under no illusion that this is an impactful thing.
[00:49:53] Mel: And so I feel very responsible to make it amazing. So, you know, that's how it feels. We, fortunately we've got a little external office that I can use to actually have mental capacity to create something like that. And, and, you know, the quiet, deep workspace that I can do. It's certainly not something that you can do in, you know, an afternoon.
[00:50:16] Dan: All right, now we're coming towards the end of this episode. What are your plans over the next couple of years? Where are you trying to. Go. What do you, where, where are we going with this?
[00:50:24] Mel: Yeah. If I had to think of my big plan and you know, we talk about being 10 X thinkers is just think bigger than you think is possible and aim for that.
[00:50:33] Mel: And my mom always said, aim for the moon. And if you miss, you still get to enjoy the stars. So that's my whole philosophy in life and with the podcast. But I would love to know that any woman who needed this information and any midwife or care provider. Who needed this information, knew that the Great Birth Rebellion podcast existed as a resource that they could use.
[00:50:57] Mel: And for me, that is of global interest, at least to the English speaking world. So I would love to know that any woman, midwife, maternity care worker, birth worker, knew that this was a resource. So we are very interested in sharing that this podcast exists, which partly is your job as the marketing man and IT man of, you know, the Melanie, the midwife journey.
[00:51:26] Mel: And to just keep making great quality content. I also need to be aware that, you know. Working as a private midwife and being a bit noisy like this, it can upset people, people who would register me, for example, as a midwife. So I feel like this is something I could do even if I wasn't still a registered midwife.
[00:51:47] Mel: I could still ruffle feathers.
[00:51:50] Dan: How about not just a podcast? Sure,
[00:51:52] Mel: sure.
[00:51:53] Dan: Long term plan. Beyond the podcast. Well, I am
[00:51:55] Mel: writing a book, the Great Birth Rebellion book. The Convergence of Rebellious Midwives Conference will continue every year. Last year was amazing. This year, you know, is even bigger. We've booked a bigger venue.
[00:52:05] Mel: It's another way of sharing this message. The convergence of rebellious midwives came from this online group of midwives that, that, that I am the mistress of, I
[00:52:19] Dan: suppose, which is called the assembly of rebellious midwives. The assembly
[00:52:21] Mel: of rebellious midwives is an online assembly of rebellious midwives, but also there's obstetricians in there and other birth work other birth workers, registered birth workers.
[00:52:32] Mel: It's kind of a place to go deeper on this, where we, we talk about clients that we've cared for, strategies for midwifery. It, I mean, it's really big. We've got a vagernal club, case review sessions, book club. There's a chat room in there. Like it's a place where you can go as a midwife who thinks maybe a bit like I do.
[00:52:54] Mel: You can go there and find people who are your people. And so. That I want to grow the assembly so that midwives who think a little bit different to them, what they're offered in the system, have a safe place to land and learn from each other. I want to continue that. I want to continue the convergence. I want to continue mentoring midwives to become private midwives because more women want home birth, but if there's not more midwives, then it's going to be a problem.
[00:53:23] Mel: What else? I think that, I mean, that's a, that's pretty big. I want to parent my children too. I'd love. Okay. To do more of that and grow more veggies and milk more goats. And part of growing my business is also to learn about how to grow a business. Not so I can like have a bigger business, but so that I can just focus on what I'm really good at and, and get the information out there and not.
[00:53:48] Mel: Be busy with admin and, you know, things that don't need my attention. So I'm working out how to outsource jobs as well to, to mean that I can keep making great podcasts. And great content and educating people as well as I can without being bogged down by that stuff.
[00:54:09] Dan: All right. And you also have a course, Transformative Birth Work which is around, I know it's not really available at the moment, but you know, we're going to go through it and tidy it up at the moment.
[00:54:18] Dan: Yeah. But it's there to help women also to be better equipped to maintain their autonomy during birth. Finally, what's the goal? What are you trying to achieve with Melody Midwife? Are you trying to Yeah, do we need to completely change systems? Are we trying to, yeah, throw out the patriarchy?
[00:54:34] Mel: No, okay. So I've got an episode two that talks about how do we do that?
[00:54:42] Mel: How do we change the system? Is
[00:54:45] Dan: that the goal to change the system? No,
[00:54:46] Mel: the, well, so some people have this idea that the system is complete rubbish. We need to just burn it down and start again. And to that, I say, you know, if you do that, you're just going to grow weeds. Actually, that's not how ecosystems work.
[00:55:03] Mel: And the maternity care system is an ecosystem of sorts. And the way that you change an ecosystem is that you remove resources from one place and you put them in another place and the place where you put the resources, that's what thrives. On an individual level, if you want to do your part to change the system, you will put your money, time, energy, efforts into parts of the maternity care ecosystem that you want to thrive, what you want to see thrive.
[00:55:35] Mel: So if you're a midwife, for example, and you think this hospital that I work at is just terrible. The stats are terrible, they treat women terribly, the policies are no good, the staff is no good. If you keep working there, you are resourcing that service. And so it's, it's not a system, even if you behave differently within that service, you're not creating system change because you're bolstering up.
[00:56:03] Mel: That part of the maternity care system. It takes effort though. You might have to move house and change jobs and take a pay cut and take a lifestyle change in order to bolster up another part of the system that you believe in more so the hospital with an MGP program or a home birth program, or the big leap of becoming a privately practicing midwife, or if you're a woman, you might have to invest money.
[00:56:30] Mel: Into a private midwife or a doula or something where you can resource another part of a system. Of the maternity care system and remove your resources and support from a part that you don't believe in.
[00:56:44] Dan: So basically what you're trying to do is reorganize the system.
[00:56:48] Mel: Reorganize it. Cause I think we do need doctors and pediatricians and high acuity care workers.
[00:56:54] Mel: The problem is, is there, that's the, the balance is tipped too far in that direction is we're giving well women medical care as opposed to just leaving the medical care for the women who need medical care. And so we need to rebalance the ecosystem. It's currently overrun by too many big trees and it's not balanced.
[00:57:14] Mel: So. I feel like the Great Birth Rebellion is, is going one small way of rebalancing an out of balance maternity care system, hopefully, you know, I'm one part. There's other places, you know, there's documentaries and researchers and midwives and people with amazing ideas that are also doing their part. So if we all just do our little part to resource maternity care options that are more evidence based and more in line with women's needs.
[00:57:45] Mel: Then gradually over time, the system will change slowly and gradually and sustainably.
[00:57:51] Dan: Yeah. Yeah. And you actually have a great talk on that, that you gave at the convergence. It's also an
[00:57:57] Mel: episode and it's a
[00:57:59] Dan: recording as well inside. You can purchase the recordings to last year's conference. So if you want to get the full kind of talk, that's there as well.
[00:58:07] Dan: Now, thanks so much for sharing. All about yourself and about your business and what we're doing here. We're at the end of this episode. So I believe there's a spill at the end about, you know, if you want to get any of the show notes and stuff, that's all
[00:58:21] Mel: there.
[00:58:22] Dan: I'll have to do that. So thank you guys so much for coming and listening or watching us.
[00:58:26] Dan: This is actually on YouTube as well. This episode, if you're listening to the podcast, you can come over to YouTube. It's just Melody the Midwife, and you can watch this on YouTube as well and watch me and Mel laugh at each other and have a chat. Thanks so much for coming and joining us, and we look forward to giving you another episode next week.
[00:58:41] Mel: And you gotta say That has been this week's episode of the Great Birth Rebellion.
[00:58:47] Dan: That has been this week's episode of the Great Birth Rebellion.
[00:58:52] Mel: There you go. To get free access to all the research that's used to create each podcast episode, you can join the mailing list at melaniethemidwife. com or you can join our members hub and financially support the work of this podcast.
[00:59:09] Mel: In the hub, you can ask me questions and premium members get access to a monthly Q& A episode where I answer listener questions. You'll also get episode transcripts and additional resources for each podcast episode. All the details are in the show notes.
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