Midwifery Wisdom Podcast

Navigating a midwife license suspension is every practitioner's nightmare. Salli Gonzalez shares the reality of her experience. 
Salli joins us to discuss the sudden news of her license suspension following a baby's death. This conversation addresses the vulnerability of midwives in the current climate, specifically regarding potential repercussions for comments made in online spaces. We look at how quickly professional standing can be challenged and the anxiety that surrounds public discourse for providers.
Beyond the legal and professional, protecting your midwifery practice requires both emotional resilience and a clear understanding of the risks involved in today's digital landscape, especially when maintaining online professional boundaries.
Subscribe for weekly midwifery wisdom breakdowns, and let us know in the comments: what steps are you taking to maintain your professional boundaries? 💬
0:00 The Sudden License Suspension
2:04 A Career Built on Intimate Care
4:25 The Day Everything Changed
8:54 The Accidental Midwife Attorney
24:29 The Weight of Unexpected Outcomes
30:26 Treating Regulatory Boards as Prosecutors
36:04 Screening for Success and Safety
Resources & Links:
💰 Support Salli's legal defense: gofund.me/a54e40705
🌐 Octavia LaVon Martinez, Esq: https://www.octaviamartinezlaw.com/
🐦 Follow Octavia on X: @OctaviaLaVon
📚 Take Augustine's Defensive Charting Courses: https://www.midwiferywisdomcollective.com/ceu-courses-midwifery
🏡 Join our private community: skool.com/midwiferywisdom

Martha Redpath, a CNM turned burnout and boundaries coach, joins Augustine to talk about what happens when the people who hold space for everyone else run out of space for themselves. Martha traces her path from home birth CNM in Vermont to founder of Provider Space Coaching — a pivot that came out of her own reckoning with alcohol, burnout, and eventually grief after losing her husband.
The conversation moves through the state of community-based midwifery today (closures, legal exposure, the pressure CPMs face that CNMs often don't), the martyrdom culture baked into midwifery training, and what it actually looks like to teach boundaries as a clinical skill rather than a personality trait. Martha and Augustine also get into nervous system regulation, the difference between CNM and CPM entry points into boundary-setting, and why the ability to disappoint people — kindly and clearly — might be the most underrated skill in this profession.
Key Topics
Martha's path: nursing → home birth CNM in Vermont → 10 years in a small hospital birthing center → burnout, alcohol, and the pivot to coaching
The current landscape for community-based midwives: closures, lawsuits, board investigations, and the Texas trend of using public social media posts as testimony against midwives
Historical spikes in home birth rates (Ricki Lake's documentary, the ACA, COVID) and where rates stand now
CNM vs. CPM pathways into professional boundary-setting — and why CPMs often enter the field less boundaried
The martyrdom/"lone cowboy" culture in community-based midwifery, and generational shifts around it
Martha's coaching framework: strengths-based reflection across eight life domains, nervous system regulation, "tiny habits," and discomfort resilience
Grief as a parallel thread to birth work, following the loss of Martha's husband
The value of one truly safe confidant ("marble jar friends") for midwives carrying constant on-call stress

Resources Mentioned:

Martha's coaching practice: providerspacecoaching.com — sliding scale fees, one-off debrief calls, and a six-week burnout package built around The Big Life Journal
Student Midwife's Keepsake Journal — the HIPAA-appropriate documentation journal mentioned in the mid-episode ad, with space for 100 birth records and built-in compliance guidance

Editor's note (09/04/2026): This episode was recorded in July 2026, before criminal charges were filed against Althea Hrdlichka in September 2026 related to her Fort Collins birth center. She has not been convicted of any crime. We're leaving this conversation up as recorded; you can find current reporting on the case through local Colorado news outlets.
Show notes:
Althea Hrdlichka opened a birth center in Colorado in 2020 — a state where CPMs were not legally allowed to practice in birth centers. She then changed the law. She opened a second location in 2026. She has attended over 1,000 births and she's far from done.

In this episode Augustine sits down with Althea for one of the most unfiltered conversations this podcast has had about what it actually takes to build midwifery infrastructure in a hostile system — the legislation, the license battles, the EMS protocols that she believes are being used deliberately against out-of-hospital providers, the rivals who tried to bring her down, and the moment she almost didn't keep going.
And why she kept going anyway.
In this episode:
Four births that led her to midwifery — and the one that changed everything
Opening a birth center she couldn't legally practice in — and changing the law
A two-year license battle, $70,000 out of pocket, and what pulled her back from the edge
The EMS "stay and stabilize" protocol and what it means for out-of-hospital birth
Why she pays herself zero and what her sustainability plan actually looks like
The homegrown midwife model — and why it's the only one that works
What midwives eating each other is costing the profession
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MidwiferyWisdom
• Birth Center Incubator: https://www.skool.com/birth-center-incubator-4343/about
• Guest Contact: https://tendergiftsmidwiferyandbirthcenter.com/about-us/

When high-profile cases like Lindsay Clancy hit the news, public fear and sensationalism surrounding Postpartum Psychosis (PPP) spike—making clinical clarity and lived experience more vital than ever. 
In this special re-released episode, we sit down with Aaisha Alvi, author of "A Mom Like That: A Memoir of Postpartum Psychosis." Aaisha is a two-time PPP survivor who navigated severe hallucinations, delusions, and several medical dismissals before finally receiving life-saving psychiatric treatment.
Community birth workers, midwives, and doulas are often the primary line of defense in the first 14 days postpartum. In this conversation, we break down:
* The clinical differences between Postpartum Depression (1 in 5) and Postpartum Psychosis (1-2 per 1,000).
* What hallucinations and delusions actually look and feel like from the inside.
* Why calling PPP "rare" leads to dangerous medical dismissals in emergency rooms and clinics.
* Exact red flags, key phrases, and emergency protocols birth workers must use when advocating for a client in crisis.
CONTENT WARNING: This conversation includes discussion of severe perinatal mental health crises, intrusive thoughts, and psychiatric emergencies. 
RESOURCES & LINKS:
• Learn more about Aaisha Alvi & grab her memoir: https://www.aaishaalvi.com
• Follow Aaisha on Instagram: @AaishaAlviWrites
• Postpartum Support International (PSI): Call or text 1-800-944-4773 | https://www.postpartum.net
• National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988
• Explore Midwifery Wisdom courses & resources: https://www.midwiferywisdom.com

Corina was literally born into midwifery. She came into the world in an old school bus on The Farm — the legendary intentional community in Tennessee founded by Stephen Gaskin and Ina May Gaskin — and grew up surrounded by communal living, the absence of money, and birth as an ordinary, community experience. After years of practicing midwifery across six countries, raising three daughters as a single mother, navigating a nine-year mental health journey, and returning to The Farm as part of a new generation of midwives, she has arrived at something extraordinary: a framework for motherhood that she believes could change everything.
This episode is for every midwife who has ever burned out, every mother who has lost herself, and everyone who believes birth work is about so much more than catching babies.
In this episode we cover:
Growing up on The Farm — communal living, kid herds, no money, and birth as a normal community event
Leaving The Farm at 10, landing in Hollywood Florida, and the culture shock of the "real world"
Her first birth on her 21st birthday — and three months apprenticing with Ina May and the Farm midwives that summer
Getting licensed in 1999, practicing in Florida, taking students to Honduras, and attending births across six countries
Becoming a mother as a midwife — and how her first postpartum experience shattered every expectation she had
A nine-year mental health journey including depression, anxiety, and eventually a bipolar diagnosis — and the shame of suffering in silence as "the one who knows"
The vision for Motherfly — a new archetype for motherhood rooted in self-compassion, creativity, and community rather than martyrdom and supermom mythology
What matrescence is, why it matters, and why it should be a household word
Returning to The Farm in 2020 — driving through the Confederate-flag South with her Black daughters, the financial relief, and the racial reckoning of arriving in a predominantly white community
The onboarding meeting that became a confrontation — and the "Midwives for Black Lives" sign that nobody would respond to
Holding Ina May's legacy with nuance — the good, the harm, and the missed opportunity
Founding Community Birth and Wellness with three other midwives — and the spontaneous passing of the torch at the Sanctuary Summit
The Motherfly nine-month group coaching container, the Matrescent Circle, and what's coming next
Why our culture does a so-so job birthing babies and a terrible job birthing mothers
Resources & Links:
🦋 Learn more about Motherfly: motherflymom.com
 📱 Instagram: @motherfly.tribe
 🎙️ Corina's podcast: Mother Tongue — Reclaiming Motherhood from the Patriarchy
 🏡 Join our Skool community: skool.com/midwiferywisdom
 🌿 Birth Center Incubator: https://www.skool.com/birth-center-incubator-4343/about