Birth Time

WATCH NOW - Having won over 22 international awards, our documentary is now available to stream via our website. Jo, Jerusha, Zoe & Selina # # # IT'S TIME!
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DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM
by Jo Hunter, Jerusha Sutton, Zoe Naylor and Selina Scoble

BIRTH TIME - Reclaiming women’s birth rights! Our maternity system is broken. We have a postnatal depression epidemic, with su***de being the leading cause of maternal death in the developed world. Birth trauma is rampant. We have incredibly high intervention rates in birth, around the world, yet this is not leadi

ng to better outcomes for mothers and babies. We are losing connection from one of the most powerful, primal and pivotal things we will ever do in our lives. We live in a time where it is has become normal to disregard the importance of a woman’s experience of birth. Our birth and birthing experience largely impacts the way we navigate the world. Isn’t it time that women felt powerful and trusting around their bodies and the birthing process rather than afraid? Isn’t it time that we opened conversations and shared information that meant that women and their partners didn’t go into birth in the dark and full of fear? Isn’t it time that women were guided more confidently towards choosing natural birth as their first port of call? Whether they choose to birth at home or in a hospital. What would it mean if all women, regardless of their socioeconomic status, could choose to work in partnership with one midwife who provided them with continuity of care throughout their whole pregnancy, birth and postnatal period? And for the birth to take place in the venue of their choice and one that suited them and their individual circumstances. What would it take for women to emerge from their births feeling innately powerful, physically well and emotionally safe? Isn’t it time for women’s needs in birth to be heard! In practice, in politics, in funding and in policy. BIRTH TIME.

28/08/2026

Today, many of the private midwives from Sydney and beyond came together to meet with NSW Chief Midwife, Donna Garland, and Midwife Advisor, Katie Farrell.

We had some really important and productive conversations about the issues that matter to private midwives and the women and families we care for. We discussed insurance for second midwives, Medicare item numbers for homebirth, visiting rights for PPMs in NSW hospitals, vexatious reporting of private midwives, and a whole host of other topics.

How lucky are we to have two such passionate, committed women advocating for midwifery and willing to sit down with us, listen and work towards positive change.

Thank you Donna and Katie for your interest, your persistence and, most importantly, your passion for midwifery.
It gives us all so much hope for the future of our profession.

Donna Garland Chief Midwife

23/08/2026

Birth Time: the symposium
8th November 2026
Birth Time: the village, Annandale, Sydney

And our final guest is Dr Rachel Reed!!!

We are absolutely thrilled and honoured that Rachel is coming out of speaking engagement retirement for this intimate event. Rachel is one of the most knowledgeable and influential voices in the world of physiological birth, yet she is also one of the most humble and grounded people you could meet.

We asked Rachel to write a bio for this symposium and true to form, she reluctantly gave us approximately 3 sentences!
Rather than embellishing her bio on her behalf, here is what Rachel wrote…

Rachel Reed is an author, educator, researcher and international speaker. Her focus is childbirth physiology, care provider practice and women’s rights (and rites).

We feel incredibly privileged to have Rachel share her wisdom and experience with us for this special event.

55 seats- will one of them be yours??

22/08/2026

Are you a privately practising midwife in NSW?
We have Donna Garland who commenced this year as the inaugural Chief Midwife in NSW, and Katie Farrell who is the midwifery advisor to Donna, coming to meet with us all and have some conversations around what they can do to support us and our practices and the families we support.
Afternoon tea provided. A big thank you to Ashlee Anslow for organising.
Anyone who’d like to stay behind for an early pub dinner afterwards is more than welcome.
This Friday 28/2 from 1pm.

Donna Garland Chief Midwife
Ashlee Anslow
Jo Hunter

20/08/2026

Birth Time: the symposium
Six legends of the birth world, one deliciously full day, in conversation with Zoe Naylor
8th November 2026
Birth Time: the village

Earlybird tickets available now… $380
Once this event sells out, that’s it.
55 seats in total!

Our next guest is Jane Hardwicke Collings Jane Hardwicke Collings

Jane Hardwicke Collings is a grandmother, former homebirth midwife for 30 years, a teacher, writer and menstrual, childbirth and menopause educator. She offers workshops on the spiritual practice of menstruation, and the sacred dimensions of pregnancy, birth and menopause.
Jane founded and runs The School of Shamanic Womancraft, an international Women’s Mysteries School and an ongoing live teaching path called The Womancraft Way. And, Jane has created the first holistic menstrual cycle charting app – Spinning Wheels.

19/08/2026

And our next guest for Birth Time: the symposium…
Dr Andrew Bisits!

Got your tickets yet??

Andrew Bisits worked in full time public hospital obstetrics from 1984-2025. Andrew was the medical co director of maternity services at the Royal Hospital for Women in Randwick Sydney a tertiary maternity service where 4100 babies are born each year. He did his training in Newcastle, NSW, Australia and worked there for 23 years. During his time he developed a strong interest in models of maternity care that supported normal birth, hence the focus on midwifery teams, primary midwifery, midwifery group practices and home birth. He has had a clinical, research and didactic interest in any area of obstetrics which minimises interventions and maximises the possibility of a safe and normal birth.
Since the planning of the term breech trial (1996) he has looked at various ways of maintaining the capacity to offer vaginal breech birth where appropriate. A large part of this has involved looking at ways to increase the possibility of physiological breech birth. Andrew has research interests in statistics particularly the area of formal causal inference using observational data. Since resigning from his role at the Royal Hospital for Women he has continued in teaching and research initiatives.

17/08/2026

The next guest for Birth Time: the symposium is the incredible Leona McGrath. leonamacgrath
Early bird price for tickets is still live for $380 for a full day immersed in the company of legends of the birth world, so get in now!

Leona is a proud Aboriginal woman and descendant of the Woppaburra & Kuku Yalanji people,
originally from Queensland.
Leona is a mother, grandmother, registered midwife, researcher, and artist. She proudly calls Sydney
home, having grown up in the Redfern and Waterloo communities. With more than 20 years of
professional experience working for government and non-government agencies. Leona has
dedicated her career to improving health and wellbeing, particularly for Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander families and communities. Her work reflects a lifelong commitment to advocacy, cultural
strength, and community connection.
Leona completed her Bachelor of Midwifery in 2008 and worked clinically for several years before
moving into policy. Leona is currently the Manager of the Aboriginal Maternal, Child, Youth and
Family Health team at NSW Health. Leona is a board member of the Rhodanthe Lipsett Indigenous
Midwifery Charitable Trust and the Aboriginal Medical Service in Redfern.
Leona began painting in 1987. Leona has been blessed to have a lot of amazing opportunities
through her art, including designing the pashmina for the Australian College of Midwives. Leona
presented the pashmina at the International Confederation of Midwives Conference in Prague in
2014. Leona was the flag bearer, and she proudly presented for the first time the pashmina of the
Australian, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags.

16/08/2026

Introducing our next guest for Birth Time: the symposium, Denise Love Denise Love

Don’t miss out on tickets to this… it will be a magnificent day of thought provoking, insightful conversation.

Denise Love

Birth & Death Doula, Educator & Pioneer in Doula world

For more than three decades, Denise Love has been a guiding force in the evolution of doula care across Australia and Asia. Beginning her professional journey as a Registered Nurse, she recognised early the profound gaps in emotional, cultural, and relational support surrounding life’s most sacred thresholds.

In 1987, Denise became one of Australia’s first Birth Doula trainers, shaping a generation of doulas with her blend of clinical wisdom, grounded presence, and deep respect for the sacredness of birth. Her work expanded throughout Asia, where she helped establish communitybased doula models that honour local culture, family systems, and traditional knowledge.

Today, Denise continues to teach, mentor, and inspire doulas internationally. Her approach weaves ceremony, nervoussystem steadiness, and mythic understanding of the life cycle — holding birth as both an ordinary miracle and a profound rite of passage.

13/08/2026

Introducing the speakers for Birth Time: the symposium!

Jenny Blyth has supported parents in natural birth for over 45 years. She is an independent birthworker, birth educator, bodyworker, Associate Practitioner of Ortho-Bionomy, Spinning Babies® Approved Trainer, Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner & Trainer, & Internal Pelvic Release Work Practitioner & Trainer. Her particular focus is on body preparation and skills to realise potential in birth & reduce birth trauma. She specialises in pelvic bodywork for wellbeing, balance, comfort & healing. Jenny regularly facilitates workshops in Australia & overseas. She is project co-ordinator for Lao Birthwork, teaching hands-on & emergency skills to health staff in remote areas of Northern Laos. She is also an author – The Down to Earth Birth Book, Birthwork, The little book of Pelvic Jiggling, Amazing Space; & filmmaker -The Big Stretch films & A World of Birthworkers.

She lives in the Australian bush and is a mother of 3 grown adults and grandmother of 4.

Jenny Blyth

Head to our website for tickets to this incredible event held at Birth Time: the village on November 8th.

Don’t miss out ###

11/08/2026

🍀The Birth Time Midwives Collective🍀

Join us in welcoming midwife Angela Morata to the Birth Time Midwives Collective. Ange is returning to private midwifery practice after being on maternity leave and we couldn’t be happier to have her in the fold.

Ange is a midwife of 12 years, wife and mama to 2 beautiful babies. She has worked in a variety of different settings, a high risk tertiary birth unit, Midwifery Group Practice (MGP) and homebirth. Her experience working in hospitals has given her the skills to recognise and manage emergencies and advocate for women’s choices, but her passion and belief in physiological birth and women’s right to have choice is what has drawn her to homebirth and continuity of care in private practice.

She is deeply passionate about continuity of care, physiological birth and how motherhood changes you as a woman. She believes in the sacredness of the rite of passage of birth and how this can have a flow on effect on how you mother.
How you feel and how you are treated during this pivotal moment in your life matters. She believes that empowering women through pregnancy and birth can make empowered mothers who trust themselves and trust their knowing of their bodies and their babies.

Her two births - a homebirth transfer and emergency CS followed by my variation of normal HBAC - taught her so much, but first and foremost reinforced her belief that where and who you birth with matters immensely.

She offers full continuity of care with homebirth as well as postnatal only care in South West Sydney and surrounds.

Angela Morata - Private Midwife

04/08/2026

UPDATE- FOUND!!

Address

Annandale, NSW

Website

http://www.birthtime.world/

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