Episode 5: Birth, The Nervous System and Somatic Healing with Psychotherapist, Anna Siebert

Anna Siebert | Owner/Founder Soma Women's Wellbeing | Somatic Psychotherapist

Anna Siebert (somawomenswellbeing.com.au) is a somatic psychotherapist, former doula and childbirth educator, and the founder of Soma Women’s Wellbeing in Canberra. She has spent decades working at the intersection of trauma, the nervous system and women’s health.

Anna is a woman who has sat inside the system, been failed by it in ways that should not happen, and built something extraordinary in response. 

Her three births are all incredible and all taught her something deep. The first ended in birth trauma and postpartum psychosis. The second, a planned home birth, ended with a torn pelvis following an intervention she did not consent to. The third, a forty minute labour during COVID lockdown, she caught herself. 

We cover a lot of ground in this episode. We talk about what the nervous system actually does during birth, and why the maternity system as it currently exists is fundamentally designed against women’s physiological needs. Bright lights, strangers, direct questions, the smell of a hospital all trigger a threat response that slows labour, diverts blood away from the uterus and puts both mother and baby under physiological stress. 

We talk about why women go along with things they did not want, and why they feel shame about it afterwards. Anna explains what actually happens in a female threat response, shaped by estrogen, oxytocin and decades of social conditioning, and why compliance in the birth room is not weakness, it is a nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do when safety feels threatened.

We talk about what birth trauma actually is. Not the story your mind tells about what happened, but the incomplete response your body is still trying to finish — sometimes years later. Anna explains why talk therapy has limits when it comes to trauma that lives below the level of language, and what somatic therapy can reach that thinking alone cannot. She describes a concept know  as spontaneous cognitive reappraisal, the shift in meaning that emerges naturally from the body when trauma is resolved rather than talked around.

And we talk about why Anna built Soma. A response to something she kept seeing in her therapy room: women who could not get well because what they actually needed was not another one-on-one session. They needed community. Safe ways to move their bodies. A place to land. Soma is that place — a women’s wellbeing centre in Canberra offering yoga, Pilates, somatic therapy, sound healing, acupuncture, massage and women’s circles, with community care places available for women who cannot afford full fees.

SHOW NOTES

• What drew Anna to birth work, and the misdiagnosis at 25 weeks pregnant that lit the fire [00:19]

• Three births: one traumatic, one orgasmic, one she caught herself [02:14]

• The second birth: a connective tissue disorder, a midwife with good intentions, and a pelvis torn open [04:58]

• The third birth during COVID: a forty minute labour, a plan that fell apart, and catching her own baby [10:19]

• What the nervous system actually does in birth and why calm is not always what you want [24:05]

• The sympathetic nervous system is not just fight or flight — it is our moving system [32:54]

• Why being under threat in birth affects the uterus and reduces blood to your baby [37:32]

• How estrogen and oxytocin shape the female threat response in ways we rarely talk about [38:58]

• Why women go along with things they did not want and feel shame about it afterwards [41:33]

• Why knowledge alone is not enough to change what happens when the nervous system is activated [42:29]

• Why talk therapy has limits and what somatic therapy can reach that thinking cannot [41:04]

• What birth trauma actually is: an incomplete response the body is still trying to finish [47:10]

• Spontaneous cognitive reappraisal: what it is and why it matters for healing [48:45]

• We are not broken — we are stuck in a situation that finished, but our body has not realised it yet [48:18]

• What Anna built at Soma, why community is not optional for healing, and the social enterprise model that makes it accessible [49:30]

  
  

CONNECT WITH ANNA

somawomenswellbeing.com.au

Instagram: @somawellbeing_cbr

Soma Women’s Wellbeing is located in Canberra. Yoga, Pilates, sound healing, somatic therapy, acupuncture, massage and women’s circles. Community care places available for those who cannot afford full fees.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Somatic Experiencing: a body-based trauma therapy developed by Dr Peter Levine

• Polyvagal Theory: the science of the social engagement system and nervous system regulation

• Ehlers Danlos Syndrome: a connective tissue disorder affecting joints and connective tissue

• Spontaneous cognitive reappraisal: the meaning-making shift that follows trauma resolution in somatic work

• Soma Women’s Wellbeing Winter Roots programme: community donations to Beryl House supporting women experiencing housing insecurity