138. Call Your Neighbor, Not Your OB with Billie Harrigan

Billie Harrigan is a fierce advocate for restoring safety, sovereignty, and sanity to modern birth practices. With nearly 40 years of experience serving birthing families and teaching traditional birth skills in over 125 countries, Billie offers deep wisdom rooted in the ancestral role of the birth companion. She trains others in trauma-informed care and physiological birth and is a bold voice challenging the medical cartel that has distorted birth into something to be managed, feared, and controlled.She is the founder of: • Birth Trauma Ontario – offering global education on obstetric violence and postpartum PTSD • The Hive Collective – a private member association (PMA) creating holistic alternatives for reclaiming sovereignty over our births, bodies, families, finances, and futures⸻💡 What You’ll Learn in This Episode • What a traditional birth companion really is—and why that role was made illegal • How the system decriminalized midwifery without returning the power to the people • Why it’s statistically safer to birth with your neighbor than in some hospitals • The emotional and physiological impacts of obstetric violence • Birth as a political act of reclaiming bodily autonomy and sovereignty • The illusion of safety sold through fear-based messaging and medical control • Social media’s impact on maternal fear and birth trauma • How nutrition, positioning, and breastfeeding as a learned skill shift outcomes • How women with complexity or “risk factors” can still want and deserve home birth • What it means to “step out of the matrix” when it comes to birth and body wisdom • “What ifs” and navigating uncertainty without falling into fear⸻🔗 Links & Resources • billieharrigan.com • thehivecollective.life • birthtraumaontario.ca • harriganhive.com • IG: @billieharrigan | @birthtraumaontario • Facebook⸻📣 Call to ActionTag the sh*t out of Billie.Send this episode to someone walking the edge of birthwork, trauma healing, or medical liberation.⸻📲 Connect With Us@sophiabirth@bayareahomebirth@bornwildmidwifery🌳 Stay Wild