In our final episode for season 6, Kara talks to Dr. Imogen Hines about Induction of labour, specifically planned induction and the surprising reaction it can prompt. As an orthopedic doctor, Imogen was no stranger to research and so when she found out she was pregnant she didn't hesitate to put that to the test researching the birth that was going to be best for her and her baby. Based on her findings and on her personal situation she decided to book for a planned induction at 39 weeks. As a pu...
Oct 16, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Season 6Ep. 10
In this episode we are thrilled to welcome back to the podcast, Amy Dawes - co-founder and CEO of the Australasian Birth Trauma Association to talk with Kara about informed consent. This was the theme of this year's birth trauma awareness week and Kara and Amy do a deep dive on just why it is so important. When Amy was last on the podcast she spoke openly about her personal journey of birth trauma and living with levator avulsion. Now, some years on we welcome her candor as she talks about her o...
Sep 27, 2024•1 hr 12 min
Hayley is a qualified trauma counsellor and mum of two. With her education and expertise she felt well equipped to manage her own trauma from sexual assault, particularly when her first birth was straightforward. Going into her second Hayley felt prepared and excited. However, in the midst of her labour and birth she found herself disassociating and unable to reach anyone who would be able to help her. Bravely sharing her raw yet insightful story, Hayley teaches us how past trauma can impact pre...
Sep 05, 2024•44 min•Season 6Ep. 8
Family is everything to Renee. At 95, she is a living legend, and our oldest guest on Pregnancy Uncut. Renee' s memory is impressively sharp and despite her age, her experiences of her five births remain vivid and profound. Renee now has three grown up children, but she also has two children no longer earthside: she is a survivor of her time, to say the least. Renee is one of ten (10!!) and grew up in a time where resilience reigned and preventable deaths were part of life. She's lived through a...
Aug 23, 2024•46 min•Season 6Ep. 7
When his partner Maddy went into labour with their second child, Matt was excited to meet the new addition to their family, but a cord prolapse leading to emergency surgery, saw him instead, alone in a waiting room looking at the seemingly motionless hands of a clock. When Baby Wren was born, she required intensive breathing support, and soon afterwards Matt and Maddy had to make the impossible decision to palliate or transfer her to Melbourne to see if specialist help could save her. Wren spent...
Jul 18, 2024•1 hr•Season 6Ep. 6
After a complex fertility journey and a birth and post-partum overshadowed by Covid, Isla was hopeful that she was through the complexity and her journey to her next baby would be more straightforward. At first, this seemed to be the case - as Isla naturally fell pregnant with second baby Freddie. Everything seemed to be going well when Isla discovered a lump on her breast. Thinking it was likely nothing, possibly mastitis or something connected to the changes of her body in pregnancy, Isla coul...
Jul 02, 2024•46 min•Season 6Ep. 5
When Candice took her baby boy Emmett home from hospital he had twice failed the standard hearing tests. However, no one seemed too concerned, her pregnancy had been uncomplicated and everything seemed well. However an outpatient audiology consult that should have taken a couple of hours, lasted nearly a full day and maternal instinct started tingling. At the end of that day she was told that Emmett had permanent hearing loss on one side and they were referred for further testing and consultatio...
Jun 13, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Season 6Ep. 4
In this episode we side-step from our usual content to hear the considered insights of Dr. Nisha Khot. Nisha grew up, studied and practiced to become a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist in India - where 'a feminist was born'. After further training and working in the UK she landed on Australian shores, practising and training the next generation of O&G specialists, many (including our co-host Kara) are all the better for it. Working as a consultant, Nisha realised that the injustices...
May 24, 2024•56 min•Season 6Ep. 3
Pip had always seen herself having a family and as a driven and organised obstetrician she had clear expectations about how, and when, that might happen. But rarely do fertility journeys unfold as we expect. After an initial miscarriage that instantly her interactions and understanding of the women in her care, she found herself on an IVF journey that would bring heartbreak, complications, twists and turns that she could never have predicted. Now a mum of four, the family picture belies the jour...
May 12, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Season 6Ep. 2
Following the birth of her first child, Violet, Kirsty experienced a large post partum haemorrhage, which required a hysterectomy to save her life. This would seem to spell an end to her fertility journey and Kirsty, who had always imagined more children, began conversations around surrogacy. However, she couldn't get rid of the nagging feeling that she desperately wanted to carry another child herself. Still deep in postpartum, Kirsty began a journey of discovery about uterine transplant - a su...
Apr 01, 2024•51 min•Season 6Ep. 1
Alexandra had always imagined being a mum, but the onset of baby hunger in her late 30s, while a long term relationship with a man who didn’t share her dream, led to a change in direction. After moving back in with her parents, a series of bad dates, time began to outrun her reproductive age, so Alexandra made the pragmatic decision to go it alone using donor sperm. What followed was a journey of discovery; leading her family through their unease and grief of an expected path, encountering stran...
May 09, 2023•42 min•Season 5Ep. 5
Nine years on from a traumatic birth that led to a fourth degree tear, Verity still finds herself wondering if there is more she could have done; asked a different person, articulated herself differently, said the magic words that would have got her the help she so desperately needed. The reality however, is that she pushed and pushed and pushed. Went down every avenue, was articulate in her concerns, her needs and her emotional vulnerability. Had it not been for her mother and a GP who finally ...
Mar 28, 2023•51 min•Season 5Ep. 4
Married to a busy farmer and working as a midwife at their nearest hospital, Marnie’s dream was always to have her family born and bred close to home. She was just 19 weeks pregnant with her second baby, when her rural GP obstetrician found that baby's heartbeat was around half what it should have been, and diagnosed fetal heart block - a rare condition that would shape the pregnancy, birth, and first months of baby Amelia's life. What followed was the opposite of what Marnie had envisaged, with...
Feb 28, 2023•49 min
Heidi is mother to three children but her firstborn, Harry, was stillborn at 38 weeks after a seemingly straightforward pregnancy. The delivery of that news, that no expectant parent should ever hear, was done in a way that lacked the care and compassion it warranted and that memory continues to loom large. Returning home, Heidi and her family were lucky to be surrounded by love and support but there were still moments where she felt isolated and alone. That unique and difficult insight is one t...
Feb 05, 2023•39 min•Season 5Ep. 2
An accomplished writer, musician, journalist, broadcaster and climate activist, Sian Prior has led a fulfilling life. However, she has always felt a chasm where her child should have been and it is only recently that she has given herself the space and compassion to acknowledge the grief that has been with her throughout much of her adult life as a result The grief connected to Sian's journey of infertility and recurrent miscarriage carries its own weight, but has been further exacerbated by hav...
Jan 16, 2023•47 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Claudine had been having a normal second pregnancy but when her 20 week scan showed abnormalities and she received the heartbreaking news that her baby, Sophie had severe Spina Bifida, her and her husband had two weeks to make the hardest decision of any parent. Soon after, Claudine fell pregnant for a third time and took every recommended precaution but again, this time at 18 weeks, she received the same devastating news of Spina Bifida with baby Willow already showing signs of multiple complic...
Nov 30, 2022•59 min•Season 4Ep. 11
Following years of masking and unanswered questions, Annie was finally diagnosed Autistic and ADHD when she was in her late 20s, a delayed trajectory that is not uncommon in women on the spectrum. Annie has also faced several challenges including a history of sexual assault, PTSD, Ehlers Danlos syndrome, and complex mental health (including an eating disorder) . In this episode of Pregnancy Uncut, Annie shares her experience of navigating pregnancy and birth as a neurodivergent woman. She shares...
Nov 05, 2022•54 min•Season 4Ep. 9
Kim and July met at an all-girls school. But when deciding to embark on a relationship, Kim had one important consideration; he identified as male, and wished to take the necessary steps for him to affirm his gender identity as a transgender man. Several years later, Kim’s wife July faced a heart-breaking IVF journey and was unable to conceive. Faced with the possibility of never having the family they longed for, Kim made the difficult decision to pause his hormone therapy, and carry the pregna...
Sep 06, 2022•54 min
Portia has, in her own words, always lived in a larger body. Even when she adopted excessive and almost disordered eating and exercise habits, her body mass index (BMI) remained in the ‘‘overweight’ category. As a doctor working in general practice, Portia understood the significant shortfalls of the BMI as a measurement, and the poor correlation of weight as an independent marker of overall health. Portia is one of a growing group of medical professions in Australia practising HAES-aligned care...
Aug 27, 2022•50 min
As a ultrasound sonographer herself, Naomi was used to diagnosing every kind of pregnancy complication. But nothing could prepare her for the moment when, at 23 weeks of pregnancy, after noticing a slowing in her baby's movements, Naomi placed the probe on her own baby one morning at work. Straight away, Naomi identified that her baby was, in her own words, the sickest baby she had ever scanned. In this episode, Naomi shares her story of baby Emersyn who was diagnosed with severe fetal anaemia s...
Aug 10, 2022•59 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Helen is a midwife, academic, lecturer and mum. When a scan at 21 weeks in her first pregnancy showed that her baby girl was on the 3rd centile for weight with high pressure flow in some crucial blood vessels, Helen knew exactly what that meant. Letting go of her hopes for an uncomplicated pregnancy, Helen kept working and looking after other people’s healthy babies, a box of tissues in her car for the inevitable tears that came each day. At 24 weeks she was advised her baby girl may survive, bu...
Aug 07, 2022•53 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Leonie’s son Max was growing small and was in a breech presentation throughout her entire first pregnancy. When his heart rate dropped during monitoring at the 35 week mark, Leonie was whisked into an emergency caesarean birth. Leonie hoped for a vaginal birth after caesarean for her second son, but it wasn’t to be. After two caesarean births and an operation to treat a uterine septum and secondary infertility, Leonie was thrilled to be pregnant with her third son. But at the 20 week mark, her p...
Jul 21, 2022•32 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Haylee was a young, fit, first time mum, and her pregnancy with her first son Fred was progressing beautifully. Haylee was well educated about her health and pregnancy choices, and elected to birth at home with the support of her partner and a private midwife. When her labour at home began to slow, Haylee transferred her care to the local hospital, a short drive away. Unexpectedly, baby Fred was not found to not be coping well with labour and contractions, and Fred was born via emergency caesare...
Jul 19, 2022•48 min•Season 4Ep. 4
When radio presenter Jacinta Parsons was in her early twenties, she began to feel unwell. The symptoms were insidious at first, and easy to dismiss. When she was eventually diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, a severe and chronic inflammatory bowel condition, Jacinta was so unwell that she required multiple hospital stays, invasive procedures, and ultimately, an ileostomy bag. Incredibly it was during this period, when she felt her body was failing her, that Jacinta discovered, with joy, that she wa...
Jun 29, 2022•51 min•Season 4Ep. 3
When school teacher Laura began experiencing unusual symptoms during her third trimester, it was initially thought they might be related to pregnancy. But at 34 weeks, Laura’s symptoms dramatically worsened. At a visit to the hospital, Laura suddenly stopped breathing, and required intubation. Unexpectedly, brain scans revealed a large tumour, putting huge pressure on her brain as it grew during pregnancy. After watching Laura being wheeled away, her husband Torben was later informed that Laura ...
May 20, 2022•39 min
When Kat was 15 years old, her previously pain-free life changed forever. Crippled with severe pelvic and abdominal pain, Kat was suddenly unable to walk down the corridor, let alone attend school. But when her GP dismissed her debilitating symptoms as a ‘normal part of life’, a cycle of uninterested medical care, inadequate treatment and chronic pain began. It would take another 17 long years before Kat heard the word endometriosis from a doctor, and she was finally able to get a diagnosis for ...
May 20, 2022•48 min
Katrina Gorry is a woman accustomed to breaking boundaries. A professional football player and Olympian, she is one of Australia’s most loved sports stars. So when Katrina felt that she wanted to become a mother, she wasn’t prepared to let career timing, professional pressure, or the fact that she was single, stand in her way. Katrina is one of a growing number of women who are choosing to take their fertility into their own hands, to become parents on their own terms. Katrina talks us through h...
Apr 04, 2022•41 min
After the birth of her second child, Anna knew that her family was complete. But just as strongly, she knew that she wanted to be pregnant again. Since she was a teenager, Anna had been drawn to the idea of surrogacy, and the chance to give the ultimate gift to another family. With the support of her family, Anna embarked on a long, complicated, emotional, and ultimately life-changing experience. After meeting couple Matt and Brendan who desperately wished to have a child of their own, Anna unde...
Mar 21, 2022•51 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Isabelle, a journalist and writer, has a son, a daughter, and seven angel babies. For women wishing to conceive, miscarriage is sadly a common experience. Around 40% of women with children experience a miscarriage at some point along their pregnancy journey. But for Isabelle, the pain of loss occurred not once, but seven times, with five of these miscarriages occuring back-to-back. In this episode, Isabelle shares her story of recurrent hope followed by heartache. She explains how the lack of at...
Feb 25, 2022•53 min•Season 3Ep. 8
A nna and her partner were thrilled with the news that they would be expecting not one, but two identical twin girls. Anna was carrying monochorionic or MCDA twins, meaning her two girls were sharing one placenta. When the doctor explained the plan for her pregnancy, a long list of potential complications were briefly mentioned. But everything looked like it was progressing beautifully, and Anna allowed herself to imagine her life as a mum of two. But at 19 weeks, everything suddenly changed. Di...
Feb 15, 2022•56 min•Season 3Ep. 7
