Accepting Radical Responsibility

The concept of freebirth has gained significant attention in recent years. In this podcast, Courtney interviews Cassandra Riquelme, who had a freebirth nearly two-and-a-half years ago.

Cassandra shares the components that led to her decision to freebirth, including her previous birth experiences, her inability to find a midwife, as well as the her personal convictions regarding the medicalization of birth, especially during the Pandemic, a time when medical freedoms were eroding at warp speed. The decision to freebirth is always a deeply personal one, rooted in a desire for sovereignty over one’s own body and birthing experience.

Freebirth is a subject that is often met with contention and judgement, especially from more conventionally-minded individuals who feel birth is inherently dangerous. Cassandra addresses these contentions, as she vulnerably shares her own journey to embracing freebirth, including the fears she navigated and how she came to terms with having no guarantee of outcome. For Cassandra, choosing freebirth was the most empowering experience of her life, as she learned what it meant to take full, radical responsibility.