Welcome to the Free Birth Podcast, a supportive space for people who are learning, exploring and

celebrating their autonomous choices in childbirth.

Together, we'll unpack truths, share personal stories,

and claim our ability to birth freely and intuitively. Here's your host, Emily Sal day. This week I had the honor of talking with a personal hero of mine,

midwife Mary Lou Singleton.

Having found feminism at a very early age, Mary Lou

set out on the path of supporting women and families.

She has an eclectic and radical background

from living and training with and under Iname Gaskin,

from being licensed to now unlicensed

and running an alternative community clinic, Mary Lou possesses a wisdom of the

elders that needs to be heard. We dive into the pitfalls of licensing, doula's, the dangers of

ultrasound, and how to build community in our own backyard.

I was born in 1969 and I had a very crappy entry into the world because of industrial

birth practices and my mother didn't see me or hold me or touch me for the first three days of my life

not because I had any problems but because I was being kept in the nursery the

whole time in a little plastic box and I was born on the Christmas holiday and they were

short staffed and my mom kept asking for me and no one brought me for three days.

So I never bonded with my mom and I really think that drove a lot of my my feminism even from like a really early age like I've just always been a women's rights activist. I remember being getting in trouble at a church

picnic for arguing with a priest about women's

women's. Me too. Yeah, I was five years old, you know, I mean that was like, I was really young and an arguing with

priests and getting in trouble.

...