Mamas' Stories

Mandy

I met Mandy during the launch of The Birth Experience Journal. She is a very passionate person who can make you believe every word she says. 

Mandy has been working for many years in the creative and marketing industry. She ran her own small agency in Shanghai. Also, here in Shanghai, she created her family. She became a mother to Ella (5 years old) and Ralph (2,5 years old). After the birth of her daughter, Mandy changed the path of her career and started her birth education certification. During this time, she hosted live birth story sharing. She facilitated motherhood circles where she gathered mothers to share their experiences. She also ran group birth education programs.

Upon giving birth to Ralph, Mandy has progressed to create The New School Of Motherhood, where she is coaching women 1 to 1 “to gain confidence in birth and motherhood.”

Birth of Ella and Birth Education

Mandy had a water birth with Ella. She describes the birth of Ella as a ‘transformative’ experience. The process was smooth and beyond her expectations. Mandy realized she was the only person in her friendship circle who intentionally delivered a baby without an epidural. She was in awe of this experience and wanted to understand why this wasn’t the norm. As a result, she decided to study birth education. Mandy wanted to encourage women to experience the same as she had. She says, “Now I know how naive I was as soon as I grasped the immense complexity involved in birth.”

Birth of Ralph

Mandy hoped to have the same experience delivering Ralph as she had with Ella. But things went differently. Postpartum was very challenging, too. “I could not connect with Ralph. I doubted myself as a mother. I felt guilty most of the time for not having the power to bond with my second child,” says Mandy. 

All of this brought her to the point of understanding what was happening. She realized that this was birth trauma, which was not healed. With the word ‘trauma’, Mandy describes a profound loss of safety on one or all three levels: physical, mental, and emotional. Processing and realizing it started to be a healing moment for her. When Ralph was about 12 months old, Mandy could finally start immersing herself in motherhood. She started to feel powerful as a mom. Healing her trauma gifted her a connection with her son, allowing them to know each other.

Mandy also shares she experienced a strong lack of a mother during her childhood period and a sense of understanding what it means to be mothered. She explains that this childhood trauma affected her life, and the birth trauma to Ralph has affected her motherhood journey.

All of it impacted her as a Birth Educator, and it brought her to another level, as a Motherhood Coach, coming to the idea of creating The New School Of Motherhood.

Transforming to The New School Of Motherhood

Most of the time, we don’t really talk about how childbirth happens. We explain briefly how strong contractions were or how quick/long it took us to deliver a baby. Women often try to forget the pain and the stress.

Mandy is changing the perspective about birth itself. She explains that birth is much more complex. It is not just a baby being born; it is also a Mother being born. This moment shapes and transforms us. It affects our motherhood, which means our eternal life. The purpose of her program is to help other women understand what mother they want to become through childbirth. And provide them with tangible steps to achieve this, using birth preparation as a framework.

During her 1-on-1 sessions, Mandy tries to help women realize what it means “to listen to yourself: your body, your mind, your heart, your spirit” and how that can support you during birth. “During the birth, we need to feel safe for our prefrontal cortex to switch off so we can tune into our raw animal instincts. This means our nervous system should stay in a very relaxed state. When this happens, birth will be efficient and effective.” If we feel safe, it will help us release the proper hormones, for instance, oxytocin, the hormone of love, to fight the pain. If a woman is too scared or stressed, high levels of stress hormones can slow oxytocin, which may provoke more intense feelings of pain.

“For mammals to give birth, they need to stay in a safe, calm, dark, and undisturbed place. The moment we take a car to the hospital, it stops being our safe place. Then we arrive at the place with lots of light, with lots of people we see for the first time. It is way too far from what we need physiologically.” Mandy says that modern birth is very medicalized and approaches birth from the lens of pathology. We’re always looking for something wrong without truly understanding that birth is a normal physiological process. Caregivers are trying to do their best, but it’s far from an empowering experience. Mandy states she is not encouraging women to deliver at home. She is encouraging them to understand physiology as a baseline so that we know how to return to feelings of safety for better birthing experiences.

Also, people who are around you are playing a very crucial role. Mandy teaches women what ‘support’ truly means, and what kind of support they need to receive at the moment of birth. “You need to surround yourself with people who will believe in your power and strength. You do not want someone next to you who will question you.”

The presence of a partner during childbirth is a relatively new concept. For centuries, men were not part of birth. Only starting from the 80s, and only in certain countries, did hospitals allow the father’s presence. However, we often hear men say they felt useless during birth. Knowing how to support women can become very beneficial and can strengthen the relationship. Mandy shares a story of a friend who delivered a baby at home, and her husband was the first person who took a baby in his arms. By knowing his role and his part during the childbirth, they created a very significant moment for their family.

I believe that Mandy’s experience can give an opportunity to women to see the magic of birth by turning this moment into the powerful event of your life that prepares you for the rest of motherhood.