The national hui is our opportunity to connect with one another as a home birthing community.

Nau mai, haere mai.

Home Birth Aotearoa warmly welcomes you to our annual hui held in Christchurch, for 2021.

It is open to trustees, regional group representatives, midwives, student midwives, their whānau and anyone who is interested in home birth.

We will have thought provoking workshops/ speakers, time to reflect on what has been happening for our regional groups and HBAT over the past year and plenty of time to chat, connect and share kai together.

Tickets are an absolute bargain and cover morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea.

Order of events

9:30am Welcome ceremony, Te Ahuru Mowai. Kei a Wai

10:30am Speaker/ Workshop with George Parker

"Embracing rainbow inclusion in homebirth communities"

11:30am Morning Tea

12pm Speaker/ Workshop with Karen Walker

"Kotahitanga - Addressing inequities in home birth"

1pm Lunch

2pm Speaker/ Workshop with Birgit Baader

"Revitalising the Birthing Field - Trusting feminine power and ancient knowledge and rituals."

3pm Afternoon tea and closing ceremony for those that do not wish to stay for the next event

3:30- 5:15pm Regional group sharing and HBAT AGM

Workshops/ Speakers

George Parker is a queer and non-binary pākehā person, registered midwife, and an experienced rainbow inclusive health educator. George co-taught Queering Healthcare with undergraduate medical students for the past six years, and developed and coordinates the postgraduate course Queering Midwifery at Otago Polytechnic's School of Midwifery. George is now a Lecturer in Health Service Delivery in the School of Health at Victoria University and is researching and writing on gender inclusive perinatal care.

"Embracing rainbow inclusion in homebirth communities"

Home birth can be an appealing choice for rainbow whānau as a way of ensuring safe, quality, respectful and inclusive care. In this workshop we will explore the need for, and how to progress, rainbow inclusion within home birth communities to ensure the home birth experience for rainbow whānau is optimal. We will begin by exploring LGBTIQ+ health inequities and models for understanding these. Focusing particularly on trans, non-binary and other gender diverse whānau, we will then explore the barriers for rainbow inclusive maternity/perinatal care and strategies to address these. The important role of homebirth communities as allies in the movement for rainbow inclusive maternity/perinatal care will be affirmed.

Karen Walker, Ngai Toa rua oku Ngati Porou. Karen is a midwife of 21 years and cares for whānau of the King Country. She is also a Home Birth Aotearoa trustee.

"Kotahitanga - Addressing inequities in home birth"

Kotahitanga whānau. Keeping it simple! Working together.

A karanga centered in love with a wero/ challenge to us all. Simplifying birth at home for all. An empowering korero that will challenge barriers and address inequities in maternity care. A refreshing way forward to inspire confidence for midwives to support birthing at home.

Birgit Baader is an international author, speaker and seminar leader (women & youth work, alternative health sector, conscious birth), co-founder of Ako-A-Rongo Charitable Trust (holistic education). She ran a training and seminar center for individual and social therapy in Germany (ZIST, Penzberg), has been trained in various healing modalities and is an experienced coach, mentor and vision quest facilitator.

Birgit offers Conscious Birth Antenatal classes, Mama mentoring, Postpartum care (body balancing, mentoring, newborn mama program), body and energy balancing for mums/dads & babies to deal with postnatal stress and trauma release, womb healing courses, and also runs training programs for obstetricians, midwives and doulas in Europe. Her book “Birth – Rediscovery of the Female Way / Geburt – Wiederentdeckung des Weiblichen Weges” has been translated into 8 languages and is currently reviewed for the 6th edition.

Birgit inspires women to follow their own unique vision of birth and to stay true to their inner guidance. She shows pathways in how to connect with the intuitive innate feminine knowing around birth and how to prepare for birth, free from restricting external and internal mindsets, imageries and beliefs.

"Revitalising the Birthing Field - Trusting feminine power and ancient knowledge and rituals."

In her presentation, Birgit will share some experiences from her work and talk about the revitalization of the birthing field in a time when ancient knowledge, birthing rituals and trust in a universal feminine power to give birth often are no longer honoured and dismissed.

Other useful information

Babies and children are welcome, as long as you are able to keep them quietly entertained so as to not disrupt the speaker. The venue is large and has wide grounds and some side rooms. Please select the Accompanying Baby/ Child ticket option so that we have your little ones on the guest list. Please note, catering and childcare is not available for accompanying babies/ children so please bring them a lunch box and some games etc.

Refunds

Tickets are refundable up to 30 days before the event. Eventbrite’s fees are non-refundable, so they won't be returned to the ticket buyer.

If you realise you are unable to attend in the 30 days before the event, please notify us as your ticket can be gifted to a midwifery student or unwaged person.

The 30 day cut off allows us to confirm and book the catering numbers. Thank you for your understanding.

The hui ceremony is known as Te Ahuru Mowai and opens with the Kei a Wai.

https://homebirth.org.nz/kei-a-wai/

Please bring a few drops of water from a place that is special to you, so that you can join us in adding your water during the ceremony and introducing yourself, if you would like.

At the end of the hui..."Water was taken from the vessel to create a tincture – so that the energy from the wai of this Hui will be part of the wai of each successive Hui and will grow in potency with every ceremony at every Hui. We will go from strength to strength in our journey as home birthing women, and the Te Ahuru Mowai Vessel is a Home Birth Aotearoa taonga that will travel our country empowering ripples of peace and harmony through home birth."

Contact us

Email - admin@homebirth.org.nz