22 years old, 8 months pregnant and worked as a director. I stood on the bridge of Riddarfjärden and thought: “I will do something other than theater. Help me find something where I can realize my desire to contribute, use my body and be creative. ”

One month later, Etienne is born. And I was one of those women…

… Who went into full fight, against what was happening in my body. I panicked. I who have been so charged and positive thought “SHIT, what is this? It just hurts! There is no point! ” My poor partner tried to help, but I just got angry. More tense. I was completely terrified.

Luckily I had a midwife to call. She is firm and determined on the phone: “You have two choices; fight or work with it. ” She changes my breathing to silent. Says that “Now you need to work WITH the pain. Because it means your baby ”. She guides me to get heavy in pain. I say you’re crazy, she says trust me. You’re not alone. You are here. She repeats and “flashes her lighthouse”, I just follow. And after a while I start to let go.

I experience it as if I am sucked out of chaos and into work. Suddenly I feel how my child and I meet in the body. My partner gets help to take over as a lighthouse, and in the crucifixion comes the sound. I cry, say “yes” and receive my first child in my trembling arms.

As he lay there in my arms, it was as if a candle was lit and an insight fell into me. I knew that what I had just experienced had changed me completely. And that I would work as a midwife.

As a newly trained assistant nurse, I saw woman after woman face the same stress and fear, and go into the same struggle. I saw how they were left. I saw what traumas were left in their bodies. I started guiding and helping them find the power – in the same way I was helped – and it worked just as magically. Each time. I practiced and started to see patterns. But nowhere in maternity care was there the knowledge I was looking for WHY it works. How are emotions connected to the birth process?

I found that knowledge instead in the physiotherapist education. In parallel with it, I continued to define the tools and started writing my book. When I then started working interdisciplinary with the method, it went quickly. The women started talking to each other. The midwives wondered what was really going on in those rooms. They started coming to the courses, and I developed the nursing model that is used today by several hospitals in Sweden, and which now also spreads abroad through Birth by Heart – our own proud parent organization.

The need for an emotionally secure birth exists all over the world. And wherever it is, our method needs to be there. In women’s bodies and thoughts. It’s all about creating the conditions for them to give birth through the intuitive ability that they all carry within them.

Birth by Hearts vision is a society that feels full confidence in that ability. All parents and children deserve to experience a safe and loving birth and go out into the afterlife – strengthened fundamentally and with more trust in each other and the world.

Whether the birth was easy or difficult is no longer important: “I made it. We did it together. ”

/ Susanna Heli.