Birth education
Why a doula of 20 years spent three years writing a birth book
Doula and educator Nadine Richardson explains why she spent three years writing the She Births book, and what it adds for families and birth professionals.
S11 Ep5. Nadine's notes - Why she wrote the She Births book - Part 1
Video from She Births® Education | Nadine Richardson.
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Why did Nadine Richardson write the She Births book?
Nadine Richardson wrote the book because, after more than 20 years as a doula, she saw families needing more than a course could give them. The book makes room for nuanced conversations on induction and prenatal testing, tools for confident decisions and stories from families, and she hopes it becomes a manual for parents and birth professionals alike.
Nadine Richardson has worked as a doula for more than 20 years and has taught her She Births program for about 18. In a short solo episode of the She Births podcast, recorded at home, she explains why she spent three years writing a book, what it covers that a course cannot, and who she hopes will keep a copy close.
The book took far longer than she expected. She describes a three-year gestation from first draft to print, and a final year of writing that began most days around four in the morning with meditation, sun salutes and coffee. The finished book runs to about 100,000 words with more than 300 research citations, which she compares to the length of a PhD.
Her reason for writing it now is the state of maternity care. She says a physiological birth has never been harder to achieve, that almost half of first-time mothers are induced, and that parents need more than facts. In her view they need to understand themselves well enough to make decisions that feel right for their own family.
Key takeaways
- After 20 years as a doula, Nadine Richardson saw that families now need more skills than a course alone can give them.
- The book runs to about 100,000 words and 300 citations, written over three years, much of it before dawn.
- Induction and prenatal testing need longer, more nuanced conversations than a short class or a doula visit allows.
- She hopes the book becomes a shared manual for parents and birth professionals, with community teaching built around it.
1. Why a course was no longer enough
After two decades as a doula and almost 18 years of She Births, Nadine Richardson says she has watched what women need change. The original program, built around a toolkit of practical skills, still works. But the modern system makes a physiological birth harder to reach, and she found that parents needed different information and a deeper understanding of themselves.
She describes the original course as an exercise in compression. When she first wove her tools together, she wondered whether teaching them would take a five-day program. The same problem returned with the book, because there was so much she wanted to include. This time she chose to give away as much as possible rather than hold material back for later.
The book, She Births: Your practical guide to a beautiful birth, was published with Murdoch Books rather than self-published. She calls it a legacy gift, written and edited with great care. It opens with the research behind She Births, then offers illustrations, practical how-tos and an inspiring family story at the end of each of its 11 chapters.
2. The conversations that do not fit in a class
Two topics pushed her toward a longer format. The first is induction. She says close to half of first-time mothers are now induced, often from 41 weeks, and that the offer usually arrives with pressure and advice rather than as a genuine option. She wants parents to hear the full risks and benefits, including the stillbirth figures behind the advice, which she describes as very small risks.
The second is prenatal testing, which she links to the start of a cascade of intervention and to early seeds of doubt. In the book she helps families work out which tests feel right for them, how to interpret the results and how to prepare for them. As a doula, she says, these conversations are almost impossible to fit into a short window of time.
For decisions made under pressure she offers reflective tools for finding what she calls a hell yes and a hell no, along with the BRAIN acronym: benefits, risks, alternatives, intuition and nothing. She treats the intuition step as a skill to practise, because in her experience choices that people later regret are a large contributor to birth trauma.
3. A manual for families and the people who support them
Nadine Richardson wrote the book for pregnant families expecting a first or later baby, and for parents who want to understand an earlier birth that went awry. She also wants doulas, midwives, educators and physiotherapists to use it, and says she would like to see a copy in every clinic as a resource for their sessions with families.
Her view of the wider system is deliberately not binary. She says anger and blame do not serve families, because surgeons, midwives and doulas will always be needed. She remains critical of the lack of continuity of care, the small share of women who get to birth in a birth centre and the fewer than one percent of Australians who choose a home birth.
The business side comes second for her. She hopes a teacher training model will let others run community sessions with the book as their manual, and she invites people who want to teach alongside it to get in touch. The book is sold in Australia through Big W and Booktopia, and in the UK and Europe through Waterstones and Amazon.
