Demystifying Birth Psychology

Allowed to Birth: Autonomy, Physiological Trust, and the Wisdom of Less

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 06:00:00 -0400

Hosts Ashley Makan and Wendy Bruns welcome global midwife Kristine Lauria, whose decades of experience span home birth, humanitarian settings, breech birth, multiples, and more than 5,000 births across 25+ countries. Lauria reflects on her roots in traditional midwifery and explores how fear, over-medicalization, and loss of embodied skill have reshaped modern birth care. The conversation examines autonomy, physiological birth, breech and multiples, provider regulation, relational safety, and the difference between being at higher risk and being labeled high risk. Lauria discusses why women are so often taught to look outside themselves for authority, what it means to be “allowed” to birth, and how coercion and fear can disrupt labor physiology. She also shares the story behind the documentary Allowed to Birth, the importance of preserving traditional midwifery knowledge, and how prenatal and perinatal psychology changed the way she relates to babies and families in the birth space.

Learn more about Kristine: https://kristinelauria.com/

Learn more about APPPAH: https://www.birthpsychology.com

Demystifying Birth Psychology | Trailer

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:25:00 -0400

Ashley Makan and Wendy Bruns introduce APPPAH's new podcast, Demystifying Birth Psychology.

Learn more about the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH): www.birthpsychology.com

Mothers as the Soil: Innate Design, Co-Regulation, and Postpartum Care

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 07:00:00 -0400

Hosts Ashley Makan and Wendy Bruns welcome midwife, mother, and Innate Postpartum Care creator Rachelle Seliga for a wide-ranging conversation about what becomes possible when we understand human development through the lens of relationship, physiology, and early experience.

Rachelle shares how her work evolved from a deep attunement to babies into a broader understanding of maternal wellness, describing mothers as the soil from which humanity grows. Together, they explore postpartum as a rite of passage, the role of co-regulation in healthy development, and how touch, sleep, feeding, and connection reflect our innate biological design.

The conversation also examines how cultural conditioning can pull families away from physiology, how early experiences from the womb through childhood shape lifelong patterns, and why meaningful change requires support that extends beyond the individual. Rachelle shares how her work with practitioners across disciplines is helping create more integrated, non-hierarchical models of care rooted in relationship, embodiment, and the conditions that allow both mothers and babies to thrive.

Learn More About Rochelle: www.innatetraditions.com

Learn More About APPPAH: www.birthpsychology.com

Where the Human Story Begins | Introducing the APPPAH Podcast

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 07:00:00 -0400

In the first episode of the APPPAH Podcast: Demystifying Birth Psychology, hosts Ashley Makan and Wendy Bruns explore a simple but far-reaching idea: our stories begin long before we have words for them.

They introduce birth psychology and the work of APPPAH, exploring how our experiences during pregnancy, birth, and early life shape the nervous system, relationships, and the ways we move through the world. Wendy shares the origins of APPPAH and the pioneers who helped bring prenatal and perinatal psychology into greater awareness, while Ashley and Wendy share the personal experiences that led each of them to this work.

From pregnancy and loss to childbirth, matrescence, doula work, and discovering APPPAH’s educational programs, this opening conversation offers a personal introduction to the field—and to the larger vision behind the podcast: making birth psychology more accessible, bringing these conversations beyond professional circles, and exploring what becomes possible when we understand more about where the human story begins.

Learn more about APPPAH: www.birthpsychology.com