Episode 1: Where Do We Begin? Birth Support With My Doula Kylie Coad

Mar 24
2 min read

Kylie Coad | Heartfelt Healing Therapies | Birth and Postnatal Doula, Hypnobirthing Practitioner

Close-up view of a serene nursery with soft lighting — Creating new life.

Kylie Coad (heartfelthealingtherapies.com.au) is a birth and postnatal doula, hypnobirthing practitioner and the first wise woman in my own birth story. Kylie supported both my wife Ellen and I through our pregnancies, and most of the women you will hear from in this podcast came to me through her.

I have wanted to record this conversation since I started this podcast. Kylie was with me at the very beginning, first for Ellen's birth, and then as my support in the lead-up to my own.

In this conversation we cover what a doula actually does (and how it differs from a midwife), the six models of maternity care available to Australian women, the intake process Kylie uses with every couple, and what birth consistently reveals about who we are.

SHOW NOTES

What drew Kylie to birth work and the two very different births that changed everything for her [05:00]

The difference between a doula and a midwife and why you might need both [12:00]
Why Kylie describes a doula as 'the oxytocin or the epidural' and what that actually means in practice [15:00]
The six models of maternity care available to Australian women: free birth, home birth, continuity of care, home birth through hospital program, public, and private obstetric [22:00]
Why it is never too late to change your model of care and how to ask for the policies [30:00]
The intake process and why Kylie asks how you were born and what your parents think about birth [35:00]
Muscle memory from your own birth: what it is and why it shows up in your labour [38:00]
The circle of support exercise: mapping your inner, middle and outer circles before the chaos arrives [42:00]
Matrescence: the neurological and identity transformation of becoming a mother [48:00]
What women discover about themselves through birth: resilience, voice, patience, the mother line [54:00]
Why Kylie's bag has got lighter over the years [58:00]