Understanding our beautiful, natural design and allowing ourselves to be in alignment leads us to a joyful and empowering childbirth. Sokhna Heathyre Mabin talks about her journey from her initial challenging childbirth experience to birthing naturally full of pleasure and trust in her own body. Listen in as she breaks down how to honor our bodies and trust the process of natural childbirth. Sokhna Heathyre Mabin is a Mother, Yogini, Herbalist, Doula, Sound Therapist, Perinatal counselor, and Performance Artist. Sokhna is an experienced, full-spectrum doula of 17 years. Her private doula practice is MamaSutra Loving Arts, which also houses her herbal apothecary The Tantric Tavern. Sokhna is a co-creator of the WMed Doula Community Program in Kalamazoo, MI, serving women of color with high-risk pregnancies.

In this episode:

Sokhna Heathyre Mabin discusses how her first childbirth could have gone differently - how the doctors and nurses disregarded her birth plan and then ended up doing a cesarean. From this experience, she decided to be a doula with the aim of creating a better birth experience for women. Sokhna shares how her experience with postpartum care at her son's hospital was"atrocious" and she feels that it should be "joyful and colorful and beautiful". The journey to becoming a doula - meeting communities creating a web of care and organizing workshops to provide better postpartum care for birthing people of color Being scared during labor and delivery is too often part of the process. Learn to Trust the process. The natural process and design must not be interrupted, but supported and adjusted to make it happen. Orgasmic birth is life-affirming and connecting to all things.

Key Takeaways:

Pregnancy can be highly sacred and purposeful How women of color are treated differently is an awful reality Creating a bond right after birth is powerful and meaningful Our natural design must not be interrupted Understand your birth story Learn to trust the process by being open

Tweetable Quotes:

“[In] the hospital, that recovery room is atrocious…There's no reason any person should ever be in a gray and dingy space. When they [mothers] are recovering from birth, that needs to be a joyful, colorful, beautiful, and peaceful oasis.” - Sokhna Heathyre Mabin “ I needed to talk about my experience. I needed to share with people that I was hurt for a long time. To not recognize your baby, to not be given a moment to see him or see her… And now we're bonding. Time together is of the essence.” - Sokhna Heathyre Mabin
“And that [natural] birth made me connect. I connected to all things, I connected naturally that everybody came from a mother, that this is the process, that life is this process, it's designed. Sometimes, the design may not work, the alignment may not be there and there are methods that will save our lives, but the method, the process is not to be interrupted. It's to be supported and adjusted.” - Sokhna Heathyre Mabin “Trust the process. If all the things are in alignment, if you've done all of your investigating yourself, find those ways because every baby in every birth is different.” - Sokhna Heathyre Mabin