Welcome to Making Womb the Podcast
There's no other motherhood podcast like this one. On Making Womb each week Hollie de Cruz and Illiyin Morrison explore how our experiences before birth shape our experiences of motherhood and all it entails. They dig deep to guide you towards finding clarity yourself on the issues that influence you and your relationships so that you feel more able to make informed decisions that affect your family. Get stuck into our episodes below.
Season One
Episode 1 – Motherhood Unpacked
In this first episode your hosts, Hollie de Cruz and Illiyin Morrison start unpacking motherhood straight away, asking questions as well as explaining what to expect from this brand new podcast.
Episode 2 – Instinct
This week Hollie and Illy address that often ignored resource within us – Intuition. What is it? And why we ignore it at our peril! Unfortunately the ideas of 'trusting your instincts' is something that lots of us are uncomfortable with, mistrusting of, embarrassed to admit to even. Why is that?
Growing a baby, birthing a baby and nurturing a baby are all instinctive processes to a large degree but there are so many barriers to that instinctive process. All of this is unpicked and of course Illy and Hollie discuss ways of practicing exercising your instincts.
Episode 3 – Trust
This week - Trust. Why is it important? Who do we trust? For what? Why do we trust them? What influences that? How do we build or rebuild trust? How do we have trust in ourselves? Illy and Hollie discuss all this in relation to pregnancy, birth and motherhood.
Episode 4 – Decision Making
Do you find it hard to make decisions? Do you prefer to pass that responsibility on to someone else or are you confident to make decisions that are right for you and your baby? What influences the decisions we make around pregnancy, birth and parenting? What impact might those influences have on the decisions we make?
Episode 5 – Regret
In this episode we address that uncomfortable emotion, Regret.
Regret's never a pleasant feeling but is it purely a negative, useless emotion? We get into the nitty-gritty or what causes it, how it affects us and what we can do about it.
Episode 6 – Confidence
We talk about confidence in all its forms - self-confidence and confidence in those around us... what shapes it, the impact confidence, or lack of it, has on motherhood and is there such a thing as being overly-confident? The Documentary referred to in this episode is The Black Maternity Scandal: Dispatches on Channel 4.
Season Two
Episode 1 – Slow Family Living with Sydney Piercey
In this episode we chatted with Sydney Piercey about exactly what Slow Family Living is (and isn't and the challenges to it.
Hollie & Illy are interviewed in the latest edition of JUNO Magazine which is out now. JUNO is a natural parenting magazine that inspires and supports families, covering all aspects of family life for all ages. You can buy JUNO from WHSmith & independent newsagents and as a digital edition.
Listen here
Follow Sydney on Instagram @sydney.piercey
Episode 2 – Self Esteem with Anna Mathur
Anna Mathur’s latest Sunday Times Bestseller, Know Your Worth encourages readers to strip back and challenge the beliefs that the world has taught them so far that make them question whether or not they’re good enough.
It’s estimated that roughly 85% of people worldwide (adults and adolescents) have low self-esteem. Low self-esteem is linked to violence, school drop-out rates, teenage pregnancy, suicide and low academic achievement. In this episode Hollie and Illy discuss with Anna exactly what self-esteem is, what influences it, why it matters to us as mothers and how that might affect our children and also what we can do about it.
Listen here
Follow Anna on Instagram @annamathur
Episode 3 – Listening to the Body with
Rene Bozier & Nancy Nunn
Today's guests are Rene Bozier who’s a practicing Private Midwife and homeopath and Nancy Nunn, a Specialist Paediatric Osteopath. Both Rene and Nancy’s approach wellness holistically, treating individuals as a whole and leaning into intuitive clinical expertise developed through their vast experience of women and babies.
They’re going to help us understand why we should be ‘listening to our bodies’ – a phrase that’s bandied around quite a lot in relation to ‘wellness’… but what exactly does that mean? How do we do that? Why should we?
Listen here
Follow Nancy on Instagram @nancy_nunhead_osteopath
Episode 4 – Parenting is Political with Nicola Washington
Our guest today is Nicola Washington who’s going to talk us through why everything is political, particularly parenting. Parenting is political, no matter how you do it.
If you’re someone who claims to not be political or you feel like you ‘don’t like to talk politics’ and certainly not with your kids then lean in as we chat with Nicola about the fact that we’re all political beings.
Listen here
Follow Nicola on Instagram @toomuchmotheringinformation
Episode 5 – Habits, Change & Difficult Conversations with Clemmie Telford
Our guest today is Clemmie Telford. From her blog ‘Mother of All Lists’, her podcast, ‘But Why?’ to her book of the same name and Instagram Clemmie facilitates frank, open, honest discussions, often around difficult subjects.
Clemmie’s a mum of three and has been praised for showing women her vulnerability around the highs and lows of motherhood, the challenges of mental health and the positive impact of being sober. We’re chatting with her today about habits, change and difficult conversations.
Listen here
Follow Sydney on Instagram @clemmie_telford
Episode 6 – Space & Identity with Sophia Cook
Our guest today is Sophia Cook. Sophia & her husband Simon (Cookie) live in South London with their 2 children 2 year old Alfred and 1 year old Edith. Their house renovation featured on Channel 4’s George Clarke’s Old House, New Home.
Sophia & Simon have been together just over 4 years. In that time they’ve renovated a house with a new baby and a TV crew in tow and in the middle of it all Sophia found out she was pregnant with their daughter – they are exactly a year apart to the day! For a brief moment Sophia had 2 children under 1! That’s a lot of change & transitioning in 4 years, so Sophia’s perfect to talk to about the challenges of finding space and a new identity as a mum.
Follow Sydney on Instagram @sophiarcook
