154. The Free Birth Society Scam: Isabel's experience with the MatriBirth Midwifery Institute

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I talk with Isabel about how the free birth society's “sovereign midwifery school” promise turned into confusion, missing transparency, and a culture that punished questions. We also unpack what it looks like to unlearn judgment, protect informed consent, and support physiologic birth across the full spectrum from hospital to home. In this episode we discuss: Isabel's early fear of medicalized birth stories and her pull towards home birth a traumatic injury as the turning point toward becoming a birth worker how Free Birth Society and MMI marketing sold legitimacy and titles early wins from self-mastery tools followed by disappointment with course red flags around legal risk and the pressure to use labels why demonizing the word doula harms clarity and informed consent students organizing concerns, then being kicked out or leaving en masse German New Medicine as a central lens that felt undisclosed rebuilding with nuanced education and practical postpartum and holistic doula training developing a new lens on physiologic birth as unfolding best in the place where the mother feels safest Additional Resources: MyMaineBirth.com Closing Song by Kate Sutherland. You can find Kate's community songs and deep nature connection work online at KateSutherland.ca The Guardian Article - Title: Infludencer's made millions pushing 'wild' births - now the free birth society is linked to baby deaths around the world The Guardian Article - Title: She was like a deer in the headlights': How unskilled radical birthkeepers took hold in Canada The Guardian Article - Title: Five Key Findings from our investigation into the Free Birth Society The Guardian Article - Title: Friday Briefing: How the free birth society's philosophy contributed to a preventable death Interview - Exposed: the business linked to baby deaths around the world The Guardian Podcast - the BirthKeepers