Holistic motherhood art: from birth to rebirth - womb to world
Along with consciously-parenting and home educating two little ones in Oxfordshire UK I create handmade pregnancy, birth and postpartum education materials and art for doulas, midwives, antenatal and hypnobirthing teachers to print and share with clients - as well as original watercolour holistic art and gifts for birth workers and mamas.
My aim is to make illustrations, handouts and posters that are easy for other non-medical people to understand, and focus on the physiology of birth and holistic comfort measures rather than the common (and often damaging) medical view of pregnancy and birth.
After a traumatic emergency birth and NICU stay following my first hoped-for home birth, I started Womb to World Art when pregnant with her second baby, and expressing myself through art became a big part of preparing for a spiritual, healing birth.
Initially focusing on painting watercolour affirmations, I progressed onto making birth and breastfeeding education printouts for birth workers to share and help spread good news about the magical journey from womb to world. Most recently I have enjoyed creating gifts and accessories for midwives and birth workers including lanyards, pin badges, tote bags, keychains, stationery and jewellery.
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Healing through art
Becoming a mother was the beginning of healing my life-long battle with depression. When we became pregnant with my second daughter 18 months after my traumatic NICU birth, I felt called to start working with a sacred intimacy mentor and it was largely the work I did with her which began my spiritual awakening and led to the start of Womb to World Art.
With every painting since, I have practised the belief that what I create is worthy, and soothed the voice in my head telling me ‘you’re not a real artist’.
I have learnt to see that what I make really does have inherent value – and actually, it is the birth education materials with my cute ‘childish’ drawings that I now love the most - because they are the ones that come authentically from my inner child. I feel blessed that I can call myself a mother, an artist, and now a birth worker too.
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What I wish I had known about NICU
As a NICU mum, I’d love to help lessen the potential trauma for other parents by spreading awareness about why baby might need special care after birth, and the ways that we can still feel like an empowered parent even when baby is poorly.
I’ve created handouts and colouring pages which birth workers can download for free with a licence to print and share with families, and use as teaching tools to have conversations about NICU antenatally - or to help them support families at the time they are in NICU.
I have also created products for NICU nurses and NICU mamas, including badges, greetings cards, ID card holders and tote bags.
Read more about what i wish i'd known at https://www.aims.org.uk/journal/item/parent-empowerment-nicu
