Liberating Motherhood S3 Ep1: Sabia Wade: Birthing Liberation
“Everyone is impacted by racism.” — Sabia Wade
We’re back! It’s now Season 3 of the Liberating Motherhood podcast. As promised, this season you’ll be getting an episode every single week. Please consider helping this podcast continue to grow by: heart-reacting on Substack, liking on your favorite platform, leaving a comment on social media, leaving a positive review on your favorite podcast platform, and sharing the podcast with friends. Your support can help the podcast continue to grow and bring on great guests.
The American birthing system is in crisis, with women dying at higher rates now than they did a generation ago. Birth if often traumatic, leaving lasting physical and emotional injuries.
While everyone who gives birth is touched by this system, thing are especially bad for Black women, who die at roughly four times the rate of white women. No amount of education or money can reduce this risk; racism and misogyny are the factors that matter.
Sabia Wade argues that the birth crisis is inseparable from the larger crises our culture faces, and that collective liberation means birth liberation, too. I was so excited to get to talk to her. Here are a few of the topics we discuss:
The Prison Birth Project, prison birth, and the crises facing incarcerated women.
How racism erodes everyone’s humanity, including by divorcing white people from their own humanness.
The competing demands of accountability and inclusion, and how we build bigger, more powerful movements for liberation.
What activism means, and how we cultivate meaningful activism.
Racism in maternity care, the fact that the problem is getting worse, and what we need to do to stop this crisis.
The racist social norms that have steadily pushed Black midwives out of obstetric care.
The racist roots of modern obstetrics and gynecology.
Care is more important than profit—and why a for-profit system will never provide comprehensive care.
How racism limited Black people’s access to medical care, and how Black communities have responded with building their own systems of care. But now, for-profit medicine is seeking to commodify Black bodies and disrupt these community systems of care.
Harm is inevitable, which is why we all must work to be more accountable.
The defensiveness many obstetricians feel when confronted with the racist, misogynist reality of our birthing system.
You can find all of the books I reference on the podcast, as well as many lists of recommended books, at the Liberating Motherhood Bookshop.
About Sabia Wade
Sabia Wade (she/they) is a Black, queer, multi-disciplinary reproductive justice advocate, entrepreneur, and thought leader. As the creator and CEO of Birthing Advocacy Doula Trainings and founder of For The Village, Inc., Sabia has built accessible pathways for community care workers and birth justice advocates across the country.
With roots as a volunteer doula at the Prison Birth Project, Sabia’s work now spans curriculum design, organizational strategy, full-spectrum doula care, and executive coaching. They are also the author of Birthing Liberation: How Reproductive Justice Can Set Us Free, a groundbreaking exploration of bias, healing, and collective freedom in reproductive care.
Beyond advocacy and education, Sabia leads Tend & Mend Healing Studio in Wilmington, NC, offering herbalism, spiritual care, mediumship, Reiki, death doula support, and human design sessions—bringing a holistic, liberatory approach to healing and leadership.
Find Sabia at sabiawade.com. You can also follow her on Instagram or LinkedIn, buy her book here, visit Tend and Mend Healing Studio, learn more about Birthing Advocacy Doula Trainings, or support her nonprofit, which trains the next generation of liberation-focused doulas.
Sabia also was generous enough to offer a discount code for Liberating Motherhood listeners:
Use coupon 15off at Tend & Mend Studio: shop
And for BADT programming: https://birthingadvocacy.thinkific.com/