The Tale of Nathalie Solis Pérez - Interview with The Grace Tales

“Culture influences birth on so many levels, through beliefs we hold about our bodies, our sexuality and our innate power,” says doula Nathalie Solis Pérez. She also looks at how the language we use to talk about birth affects how we perceive and experience it – and how, with the right language, our experience can be completely transformed. For example, take the word ‘delivery’. “It’s surprising that this term is still in use as it suggests that women are not active birth-givers but someone else ‘delivers’ their baby. Babies are not delivered - mothers give birth to them!” she says...

A mother of two boys – Dei, who was 10 weeks old at the time of this photoshoot and Pablo, 6 years – Nathalie grew up all over the world. She was born in Germany before moving to Guatemala, and later Spain. When she was older, she moved to the US before settling in Australia, where she now lives in the Byron Bay hinterland with her family.

With a background in cultural anthropology, Nathalie began her journey to become a doula after the birth of her first son. “To this day I feel so grateful to my midwives for creating the safe space for me to do the work I needed to do,” she says. And if she could change one thing about the Australian maternity care model, it would be for all women to have a primary midwife who cares for them during pregnancy, birth and postpartum. “Being able to establish a relationship with your care provider is so important, and research has shown that midwifery-led continuity of care is the safest type of care for most mothers and babies. Women who receive this need less interventions at birth, less pain relief and are more satisfied with their birth experience. It’s frustrating, exhausting and carries more risk if women receive so-called fragmented care and see different clinicians at each prenatal visit and don’t know who will care for them during labour. We are not meant to give birth surrounded by strangers, but instead with a team of respectful, caring, nurturing and supportive people which we have built a relationship with.”

Here, we get a deeper inside into her world, background and insights on birth.

Read the full interview here.