S7 EP197: Allowed to Birth: The Documentary Challenging the Modern Birth Paradigm with creators Jacinta Lagos & Kristine Laurie

Today’s episode is a really important conversation with filmmaker Jacinta Lagos and globally respected midwife Kristine Lauria, the women behind the new documentary Allowed to Birth: The Journey of a Global Midwife.

Jacinta’s journey into birth began behind the camera. She began documenting births and later trained as a doula. But the more births she witnessed, the more she began noticing the stark contrast between what she was seeing in some hospital environments - including trauma, coercion and obstetric violence - and the physiological births she was witnessing at home. Eventually, she reached a point where simply witnessing it wasn’t enough. She wanted to create something that could challenge the way we think about birth.

That eventually connected her with Kristine, whose experience in the birth space spans more than three decades - from an apprenticeship supporting families within Amish communities, where breech and twin birth were treated as variations of normal, to humanitarian work around the world and her work today teaching and supporting practitioners in breech and multiple birth.

Together, they created Allowed to Birth - a documentary that follows Kristine’s extraordinary life and work as a global midwife, using her experiences and perspective as a lens to explore the medicalisation of birth, women’s autonomy, and what becomes possible when birth is understood and supported as a physiological process.

Resources + Mentions:

Instagram:

Allowed to Birth: @allowedtobirth

Kristine: @globalmidwife64

Jacinta: @jacintalagosbirthservices

Allowed to Birth: The Journey of a Global Midwife official website HERE.

Common Ground Films: @commongroundfilmsau

Australia Screening Dates and Tickets information HERE.