Birth stories with policy in the room.
Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond treats birth as both intimate experience and public issue. Its conversations move between labour stories, postpartum care, midwifery, legislation, and the systems that shape what families can choose.
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Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond is an Australian birth and parenting podcast with a strong community journalism instinct. It listens closely. The show gives mothers, midwives, doulas, physiotherapists, researchers, and advocates enough room to explain not just what happened, but what it meant inside a larger care system. One episode may follow Oni Blecher through the before and after of a deeply prepared birth. Another may sit with Leila Armour at the threshold of another twin birth, tracing the practical and emotional weight of carrying twins while negotiating hospital assumptions. The show is especially alert to choice. It returns to home birth, VBAC, induction, water birth, continuity of care, and the difference between genuine support and permission managed by institutions. Legal and policy conversations are not abstract here; they are tied to South Australian legislation, restricted birth practices, advocacy networks, and the chilling effect that can leave families with fewer real options. The medical body is also treated with care. Episodes about pelvic physiotherapy, postpartum recovery, breastfeeding support, visitors, fathers, and fourth-trimester care bring the conversation back to ordinary household realities. The show can be tender. It can also be firm. Guests speak about traumatic caesarean, hospital pressure, unsupported transfer pathways, and the loneliness that can follow when birth is treated as compliance rather than relationship. Still, the centre of gravity is not fear. It is preparation, solidarity, and clearer information. Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond is best for listeners who want birth discussed as physiology, rite of passage, family transformation, and political terrain all at once. Its interviews feel unhurried, sometimes looping back over details until the emotional and practical stakes become clear. That spaciousness is part of the point. The show is less interested in polished certainty than in making room for women’s stories, practitioner knowledge, and the difficult work of changing maternity care from the ground up.
Made for: For expectant parents, new parents, birth workers, midwives, doulas, and maternity care advocates who want reflective, practical conversations about birth choices and care systems.
What sets it apart: It links intimate birth experiences to Australian maternity policy and community advocacy, giving personal stories the time and context needed to show how systems shape choice.
Pregnancy Birth & Beyond where stories, science, traditions and new ideas meet. We work and live on Bundjalung Country, Australia. Visit us at www.pbbmedia.org
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Detailed interviews connect birth stories, care choices, and maternity policy without losing sight of the people living through them.
Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond keeps returning to the point where intimate birth decisions meet maternity systems. Its one-to-one interviews give women room to recount labor in physical detail, then widen the conversation to continuity of care, hospital policies, postpartum…
A twin birth plan meets the hospital rulebook; you hear what that collision feels like from inside.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Deep birth preparation meets the body's untidy timing.
Oni Blecher's return to Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond sits in the space between careful preparation and the body's less orderly timing. Her birth philosophy is present from the start, but the labor quickly becomes its own force: sleep between contractions, then hands and knees,…
A personal twin birth story about waiting, caution, and challenging assumptions around timing and water birth.
Late pregnancy is framed here as a stretch of expectation, caution, and shifting advice, as the guest looks back from the end of her second twin pregnancy.
A midwife expands birth preparation into a practical case for postpartum care.
Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond frames Wendy Jackson's visit around a question many parents recognize after a standard hospital birth: why did no one say more about what comes next?
A personal account of how birth policy can press on care, compassion, and a woman's choices.
South Australia's rules on who may attend a birth turn intimate as Catherine Eden describes the response to her home birth and the pressure that followed.
A grounded account of how South Australia's 2013 birth legislation narrowed home-birth choice and unsettled private midwifery.
South Australia's 2013 restricted birth practices legislation anchors a careful look at how legal uncertainty, media pressure, and a chilling effect reshaped the space around home birth.
A thoughtful conversation on childbirth, transformation, and the care women are expected to accept.
Childbirth is treated here as more than a medical event: it becomes a threshold, a point at which identity, care, and power can shift. Midwife Dr Ella Kers brings a clear frame through her term "parturescence," developed in her PhD, and the episode uses it to open a wider…
A grounded conversation about shifting from child care checklists toward trust, connection, and uninterrupted play.
Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond traces Sarah's move from checkbox-led child care and nannying toward a practice shaped by trust, close attention, and real relationship with each child.
Masha Gessen narrates her own cousin's murder-for-hire arrest and custody battle.
Rich Roll interviews recovery and endurance guests, plus 'Roll On' segments with Adam Skolnick.
Peter Attia evaluates longevity science, from CETP inhibitors to protein debates, through evidence.
Rhonda Patrick translates NAD, vitamin D, and coffee research into daily health protocols.
Shawn Stevenson interviews researchers and coaches on nutrition, sleep, hormones, and fitness.
Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-hosts field Cosmic Queries on physics, space, and beyond.
Oni Bletcher interviews Sarah Blandiago about her 19-year career in childcare and nannying.
An interview with Anna Watts, founder of Celebration of Birth, discussing holistic and spiritual approaches to pregnancy and childbirth.
An interview with a physiotherapist about leading a beautiful life during pregnancy and beyond.
An interview with Alicia Staines about how Australian listeners can use the upcoming federal election to advocate for improved maternity healthcare services.
Midwife and researcher Ella Kurz discusses her PhD work on 'parturescence,' a term she coined for the transformative potential of childbirth.
Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond follows Oni Blecher from a 38-week confidence wobble to a 41-week labor that she had prepared for in detail.
Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond speaks with Leela Armour about her second twin pregnancy, her first twin water birth, and the pressure surrounding 41-week twin care.
Wendy Jackson says 97% of mothers give birth in hospital, yet many are still left without continuity, a fourth trimester plan, or enough postpartum support.
Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond speaks with Catherine Eden, a doula from Adelaide, about South Australia’s 2013 home-birth restrictions and the blog post she wrote after her second son was born.
Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond speaks with Adelaide consumer advisor Tessa Kowaliw about South Australia's 2013 restricted birthing practices law and the national call to replicate it.
Interview with midwife Dr.