Dear IB Fam,

Let’s be clear: We’ve never been quiet about the culty undercurrents of the contemporary freebirth movement (we were there for some of the earlier waves of this that were VERY different, but more on that another day).

We’ve called it what it is - a tight little echo chamber where sovereignty is often just a mask for control - even at risk to our reputation, being pegged as "jealous" in the same niche, or acting from our "sister wounds" when we have called it out.

So watching it unravel publicly with new articles and videos seeingly every day now is really heartening. This reckoning is long overdue (no pun intended).

I believe in autonomy. Full stop.

And I believe some women are not actually making autonomous choices (not that I'm going to be the police of this, it is just true that I feel this way and it would feel disingenuous to not say so). They’re parroting ideology. They’re trying to prove something. They’re in trauma response. They’re following influencers (who are lying out their teeth) instead of listening to their own inner wisdom.

That’s not empowerment. That’s mimicry dressed up as liberation.

This is where the freebirth lifestyle movement lost the plot. It started as a celebration of undisturbed birth — something beautiful, needed, and radical. But it warped into a purity culture. A spiritual superiority complex. A test you had to pass in order to be respected in certain circles. And at what cost?

The mistake wasn’t loving freebirth. The mistake was believing it was the best or only truly sovereign choice. That anyone who wanted support, made a different plan, or questioned the script was simply unawakened or afraid.

Birth isn’t a test.
It’s not a performance.
It’s not a cult recruitment tool.

It is intimate. Raw. Holy. Sometimes brutal. Sometimes sweet. And it’s different for every woman each time. Which is exactly why no one — not a doctor, not a midwife, not a podcast host, not me — gets to decide what’s best for someone else.

Still, let’s not pretend all choices are equally grounded.

I can support someone’s sovereignty and name the places where I think it’s being co-opted or sold back to her through a slick brand of spiritualized fear.

I can grieve the direction our collective conversation around birth has taken and still hold unwavering love for the women trying to find their way through it.

That’s the work. That’s the call. That’s the heart of what we do at Indie Birth.

Supporting women means telling the truth — not sugarcoating it, not manipulating it, not hiding from it because it’s uncomfortable. It means holding paradox:

Yes, women are wise.
Yes, women are responsible.
Yes, women sometimes get it wrong.
And yes — it’s still their choice to make.

That doesn’t mean we go silent. It doesn’t mean we stop offering education, perspective, or boundaries in our own work. But it does mean we release the fantasy that we — or anyone — can control the outcome of another woman’s path.

I’ve never wanted to be part of a club that tells women how to birth. That's why the Indie Birth definition doesn't say anything about where it happens or who it happens in the presence of.

And I’m not interested in replacing one kind of dogma with another. What I want is a birth culture rooted in actual sovereignty — which requires real education, real discernment, real humility, and real support. It is messy and hard to "brand" and frankly I don't want to.

So even when I don’t like some of the choices I see being made, I’ll still stand for your right to make them. 

Not from a place of performative neutrality.

From a place of deep, grounded respect and acknowledgment that it's all just part of the human science lab experiment we are all part of.

And mostly from the belief that if we want something better for women, we have to keep showing up — clear-eyed, open-hearted, and willing to speak the truth.

- Margo

PS I started a Substack where I will be sharing more things unrelated to birth - I’ll be talking about money, birth, sex, death, probably whales at some point, homeschooling, bad dates, car camping with kids, cookie recipes, twerk tutorials, hypertension in pregnancy, futurist daydreaming, domestic violence, and how I overcame a bout of severe anxiety disorder.