I am not a midwife. I am a teacher

I used to think “you’re not a midwife” was holding me back. Now I see it’s the thing that’s actually pushing me forward.

This Journal entry is available in two ways: you can read it below, or press play to hear me sharing it in my own voice.
(This reflection was recorded at home on a quiet December morning, with my girls playing nearby.)

Since I did my hypnobirthing training, that sentence has lived in my head rent free. It’s never shouted at me, it’s just hovered quietly in the background. Turning up when I’m delivering sessions, nudging me to rein it in, shaping how confidently I speak, how much space I take up, and how carefully I choose my words. Because I am not a midwife. And I don’t want to be a midwife. And for a long time, that felt like a limitation.

I want to be really clear, this isn’t about midwives. It’s not about roles, titles, comparison, or criticism. Midwives do vital, skilled, irreplaceable work. They are central to most women’s births, and good birth support should sit alongside them, not replace them. I have never wanted to replace midwives. I want to work with them. So no, I’m not a midwife.

What I am is a teacher.

Teaching has always been my heart. From the moment I started school, I knew that was what I wanted to do. Teaching, to me, is about breaking things down, making things accessible, repeating without judgement, and helping people connect the dots so they can move forward with confidence. When I taught children in the classroom, I was giving them the tools to access the best possible quality of life for them. And when I teach women and their birth partners, I’m doing exactly the same thing.

I am scaffolding learning. I am educating. I am translating complex systems into something human and understandable. Whether that’s breaking down the mechanics of reading for a four-year-old, or breaking down the maternity system and the physiology of birth for adults, the skill is the same. Teaching is in my blood. It’s in my bones. I will never not be a teacher.

And that’s how it shows up in my work. I don’t tell women what to do. I help them understand. I help them understand the birth process, their bodies, their minds, and how those things work together. I talk about how the system works, what birth actually looks like, what their bodies are doing, what interventions they might come across, what their pain relief options are, and how choice works. I talk about how their decisions can shape their experience, and how they can feel ownership over it all.

What I want, at the end of hypnobirthing, is for women to walk out feeling ownership over their birth. Confident. Capable. Like “I can do this.” In the same way a child leaves my classroom thinking, “I can read that word. I can read that book. I can do this.”

That matters deeply in birth, because birth isn’t just physical. Yes, it’s a physiological process, but it’s also cognitive and emotional. Fear so often comes from not understanding, from the unknown, from feeling out of control. Confidence comes from clarity. Confidence comes from knowing what your body is doing, what to expect, and why. Being taught changes everything.

That’s why “you’re not a midwife” stopped being a limit for me. It became clarity. It became permission. It became a role I could finally stand in fully. So no, I am not a midwife. I don’t need to be a midwife to do this work. What I need is to understand how people learn, how to break complex information into manageable, empowering pieces, and how to support women to feel calm, capable, and in control.

And that, I do know how to do. Before birth, during birth, and beyond.

I don’t need to be a midwife. I need to be a teacher. And I most definitely am a teacher.

I’ve also written about how I support women to feel calm and in control in hospital settings in How Can I Create a Calm Birth Environment (Even in Hospital).