Home | The Power of Birth

“In giving birth to our babies, we may find that we give birth to new possibilities within ourselves.”
– Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn

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Can We Talk About This?! Podcast

Host Amber-lee Buendicho

By sharing stories and insights from both experts and those with lived experiences, we empower you to advocate for your own health and wellbeing. Expect practical tips, education, and a fresh perspective on perinatal health and modern motherhood.

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Here you’ll find spaces to learn, connect, and feel supported - whether you’re seeking evidence-based information, real-life stories, practical tools, or opportunities to collaborate. Each part of this website is designed to nurture you through birth, postpartum, and beyond.

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What No One Told You

The truths about birth and motherhood we all deserve to hear.

Free Tools for Your Wellbeing

Worksheets, guides, and gentle practices you can start today.

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Stories That Heal

Read and share real birth and postpartum experiences - because your story matters too.

Work With Me

Invite me to share my expertise and passion for perinatal mental health as a guest speaker, podcast guest, workshop presenter, or panel contributor. I love partnering with conferences, podcasters, events, mother’s groups, and fellow professionals to create meaningful conversations and impactful education.

Mother.

The identity, the transformation, the responsibility, the relationship, the power, the pain, the love, the stretching, the becoming.

The ache of losing pieces and the wonder of finding something larger in their place.
Love that arrives all at once, and keeps arriving in waves that don't recede.
A constant holding of hands, of breath, of everything that matters.
The one who creates and nourishes life.
And somewhere in it, a woman learning how to exist as both whole, and forever changed.

Acknowledging all mothers today and everyday ❤️‍🩹🩷

#mothers #motherhood #ThePowerofBirth #perinatalmentalhealth #matrescence

📸 @wulliwulli_photography

Some late night reflections...
Tell me it gets better 😆😅

#mothering #psychologist #thepowerofbirth #therapist #perinatalmentalhealth

I LOVE spending time with my little family, AND I also enjoy my alone time (when it happens 😅).

So enjoy this video of me making an iced chai and listening to the birdies in the background 😊

#mothering #thepowerofbirth #perinatalmentalhealth

Just here to remind you...

#motherhood #mantras #perinatalmentalhealth #psychology #thepowerofbirth

Mapping rage cycles is one of my favourite things.

Rage gets a bad reputation, especially in the perinatal period. Mothers are expected to be soft, calm, endlessly patient. So when rage shows up, it’s often buried under shame.

But rage is information.

When we map rage cycles in therapy, we slow things down and get curious about what’s actually happening beneath the explosion. The sleep deprivation. The sensory overload. The mental load. The unmet needs. The nervous system that has been pushed far beyond its limits.

With kids and adults the process looks a little different, but the goal is the same... build awareness of the cycle so we can begin to interrupt it.

We look at:
• what happens *before* the rage
• what happens *during*
• what happens *after*

From there we can start supporting regulation, radical acceptance, self-compassion, and nervous system repair.

Honestly… I love when rage shows up in a session. When rage finally has somewhere safe to land, that’s often where the most powerful work begins.

Did rage surprise you after becoming a mother?

#mumrage #perinatalpsychology #ThePowerofBirth #matrescence #motherhood

On International Women's Day I want every mother to know that you don't have to have it all figured out right now. You are enough for your family exactly as you are. Its ok for love to grow, exhaustion to linger, doubt to visit, and confidence to build - non of it is linear. You'll see over time, one day as you look back, that you did it. You failed. You learned. You grew. And then you'll help others do the same ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

#IWD #internationalwomensday #motherhood ##matrescence #PerinatalMentalHealth

The reality that many of the systems shaping daily life were built around male bodies, male work patterns, and male life trajectories. Motherhood exposes that gap everywhere.

Workplaces
The modern workday was designed around a worker with no caregiving responsibilities.
Yet school hours often run 9–3, childcare is expensive or limited, and children get sick, have appointments, and need care that doesn’t neatly fit into a rigid 9–5 structure. When something gives, it’s often mothers who step back, go part-time, or absorb the flexibility.

Economic systems
Care work keeps families, communities and economies functioning yet most of it is unpaid and invisible in economic data. The planning, coordinating, organising, managing, preparing, responding, and regulating everyone around them. This labour is essential for families to thrive but it’s rarely acknowledged, measured, protected, or redistributed.

Healthcare systems
Maternal health care often prioritises the baby while postpartum recovery and maternal wellbeing receive far less attention and long-term support. 6 week check-ups, limited mental health screening, and the expectation that mothers will simply “bounce back” from one of the most significant physiological and psychological transitions a human body can experience.

Social expectations
Culturally, mothers are expected to work like they don’t have children and parent like they don’t have paid work. When the strain of these systems becomes visible through burnout, rage, anxiety, or overwhelm the response is usually around that individuals coping strategies and resilience but usually the issue is that the systems surrounding families leave them underresourced.

The caveat is that while these systems claim to support families, the responsibility for holding them together still largely falls on mothers.And when those systems fall short, it is mothers who are expected to absorb the strain.

#mentalload #motherhood #patriarchalmotherhood #ThePowerofBirth #PerinatalMentalHealth

That proud mama moment when your kid is shocked you can do domestic chores like I'm the dad 😂😉
One for the mems

#ThePowerofBirth ##perinatalmentalhealth #motherhood #fairplay #patriarchalmotherhood

Unpopular opinion.
It should be a prerequisite for therapists to be a client before they become a therapist.

You can graduate with honours, ace every assessment, know every acronym, every model, every intervention, understand your code of ethics and still have absolutely no idea what it feels like to sit in the vulnerable chair - role plays don't count 😉

To have your trauma summarised back to you, or handed a worksheet, to be told to “challenge that thought” when what you needed was to be understood.

We rarely require therapists to experience what therapy actually *feels* like. And that’s wild to me!!! Because therapy IS relational.

And without lived experience in the client seat, it’s very easy to hide behind models, to over-structure, to pathologise normal human responses, to move too quickly to “fix.” Being a client forces you to confront your own defences. Your own blind spots.
Your own discomfort with silence, tears, anger. It humbles you. You understand how things are received, and what it takes for someone to actually witness you.

Academic excellence does not equal relational depth.

What do you think, should personal therapy be mandatory in training for therapists?? I'd love to hear about your good and not so good experiences in therapy, there's a lot to learn from them!

#perinatalmentalhealth
#psychologist #therapist #thepowerofbirth
#vulnerability

What a powerful image created by @dianaebolton
I stared at this for a while, deep in thought about what it represents. And then I wondered what other people see what they look at this illustration...
So.. what do you see or feel?

#motherhood #thepowerofbirth #PerinatalMentalHealth #postpartum ##matrescence

If you are in the early days, the trenches of postpartum, I hope this gentle reminder helps.

What do you need less of, and more of?

Sometimes grief shows up. Tonight was one of those nights; missing what was, loving what is, and letting both exist..

Less of judging yourself, shaming yourself, allowing thoughts to define you, blaming yourself, and avoiding... and more of finding #glimmers, naming to tame, allowing joy, resting and unlabelling.

What are you doing less of and more of in 2026??

#ThePowerofBirth ##perinatalmentalhealth #motherhood #anxiety

In case you missed it - here's what’s happening in 2026! 🎉

Even if I'm not super active here, just know I'm always working super hard behind the scenes to be able to one day do what I have always dreamed, to build @thepowerofbirth into something bigger than just me. But for right now as I do the ground work, here's a little update and ways I can support you, collaborate or resources that are available.

Make sure you check out the website, listen to the podcast, download your fave resources and continue to chat and engage with me as its one of my favourite things about this page!

Its a privilege to be part of this work and to connect with you.

I'm looking forward to what this year brings 🩷

#ThePowerofBirth
#CanWeTalkAboutThis
#motherhood #perinatalmentalhealth
#matrescence

In case you needed this reminder, I'll just leave this here x

#ThePowerofBirth #PerinatalMentalHealth ##motherhood #postpartum #matrescence

The sleep deprivation series!
Less of beating yourself up, minimising, comparing and having the same expectations as when you had sleep that fuelled your expanding capacity for more. And more of adjusting, resting, trusting, accepting.

It's hard enough mothering / parenting in a sleep debt, don't be so hard on yourself.

What are you intending to do less of, and more of while in the sleep deprivation era?

#ThePowerofBirth #perinatalmentalhealth #sleepdeprivation #perinatalpsychology #motherhood

Everyone loves to argue about who works harder, paid work or unpaid work at home. I've seen so many couples argue about this (yes that's problematic).
Work is work, even when it's unpaid. Period.

The data shows that when paid work and unpaid care happen simultaneously (usually work from home days) women, particularly mothers, are carrying more of the combined load.

Australian data shows:
- women do significantly more hours of unpaid care and domestic labour than men even when both are employed
- on work from home days women still do more unpaid labour than men doing the same work arrangement

So yes, juggling meetings, caring for kids, responding to emails, cooking dinner all at the same time IS HARD!

This really isnt about us vs them or keeping score, it's more about naming the reality so we can start supporting it! Because work is work, unpaid or not.

#thepowerofbirth #unpaidlabour #workiswork #motherhood #mentalload

Thoughts of a therapist..

Being a therapist has changed the way I see people.
After most sessions, I’m left with awe and deep respect for the human nervous system.
At how much people carry.
How much they endure.
How they keep showing up to life parenting, working, loving...
So many people are carrying unimaginable pain and still participating in the world as best they can.
Still showing up. Still trying. Still surviving.

It never ceases to amaze me what people live through and how little of it is ever seen.

#ThePowerofBirth #perinatalmentalhealth #mentalhealth #reflections #thoughtsofatherapist

Less of the things that don't serve you, heal you, help you and more of the things that do!

What are you intending to do less of, and more of?

#ThePowerofBirth #motherhood #mumguilt #mumrage #perinatalmentalhealth

And just like that its 2026! 🎉

I hope you all had a wonderful break over Christmas with your families. We headed to Bali in the new year for a reset and got some beautiful family photos done- making sure I was in them because I exist too!! 😅😆

2026 feels big for me as I have a lot happening behind the scenes including the approaching date of the National Psychology Exam, the final leg for registration and I can finally expand @thepowerofbirth in the way I have always imagined.

Life is busy and my nervous system doesn't always love that so just like you, I am trying to give myself grace, stay present, and do one thing at a time.

One of my focuses for 2026 will be to have more fun and more play. I need more playfulness in my life, everything is so serious and "adult" all the time, I am craving fun and what better way to learn play than through my own kiddies (and even the kiddies I work with!)

What's your focus for 2026??

Thank you for being here and sticking around. Let's see what 2026 brings! 🩷🫰

#ThePowerofBirth #PerinatalMentalHealth #motherhood #psychology #family

7 years ago I brutally birthed a baby and my life was forever changed. It felt like the end of so many things, little did I know it was really the beginning.

I've spent the day thinking about how far we have come, from rocking in this chair 3 weeks postpartum wondering when I will feel *normal* again, wondering if I've lost my mind, wondering if my body will recover, wondering if I will ever sleep again, wondering if this was really it?!... to feeling strong, confident, passionate, and creating something wonderful out of the suffering.

This day is always a good reminder of how far we've come. 7 years. How has it been 7 years!

It's a good life and I'm so glad I get to be his mum 🩷

Sending love to anyone who is in the thick of it right now, if it feels hard, it's because it is hard but you are capable! I hope you also acknowledge just how far you have come. Xx

#birth #birthtrauma #hg #postpartum #birthinjuries

Motherhood myths vs the reality of motherhood.

These myths are dangerous narratives, messages, expectations placed on mothers which in turn, due to their impossible nature, impacts mental health at a time it is the most vulnerable.

There is no bouncing back.
Bonding requires time and intention.
You can feel multiple emotions at once; joy, grief, love, resentment.
Mothering is a learned skill.
Motherhood expands you.
You cannot to it all, you need support.
Recovery is much longer than 6 weeks.
Self care is not always the answer.
Motherhood transforms you.

What would you add?

#myths #motherhoodmyths #realityofmotherhood #ThePowerofBirth ##postpartum #motherhood #kids #parenting ##perinatalmentalhealth ##pregnancy #birth #healing #matrescencesupport #matrescence

Becoming a mum changed the way I saw the world, it changed the relationship I have with myself (and others), and it made me reevaluate what is important in life.

Here are a few of my mantras since becoming a mother, and working with mothers and families. I certainly learned the hard way with some, but can now reflect back and see the growth and the importance of learning that lesson.

I truly believe living by them has helped me figure out my values and live in alignment more, take care of myself physically and emotionally, and expand my capacity to love, give and connect.

Is there one that resonates with you?

#motherhood #mothering #family #parenting #parents #mummantra #thepowerofbirth #perinatalmentalhealth #birth #pregnancy #postpartum #womenshealth #supportingparents

If you’ve ever read a list like this and quietly ticked more boxes than you expected… you are not broken, not failing, and not alone.

Motherhood can be both love and loss, expansion and unravelling, devotion and depletion.
You deserve to be held in all of it not just the Instagram-ready parts.

Postpartum depression and anxiety are common, treatable, and real. They do not define you, your worth, or your ability to mother. They do, however, deserve support, softness, and a village that doesn’t turn away when it gets heavy, confronting or risky.

At @thepowerofbirth I advocate for:
• honouring the mother as a whole human, not a role to perform
• psychological safety that allows mothers to tell the truth of their experience without being silenced, judged, or reported
• the right to ask for help without apology, shame, or self-critique
• dismantling the “supermum” narrative, releasing the mask, the grin-and-bear-it smile, the expectation to cope quietly and effortlessly
• naming the darkness without shame

If any of these statements feel familiar, please reach out to a GP, perinatal psychologist, @pandanational , a trusted friend, someone.

Your story matters. Your mental health matters. Your voice matters. YOU matter.

Healing begins where shame ends.

🤍 With you, always.
#thepowerofbirth

Thank you Karen Kleiman for the post @artofholding @postpartumstress

#postpartumtruth #pmads #goodmomshavescarythoughts #pndawareness #perinatalmentalhealth #speakingthesilence #matrescence #motherhoodunfiltered #youarenotalone #thepowerofbirthcommunity

In motherhood, many of us learn to split parts of ourselves. The coping self shows up. The hurting self goes quiet.

Society rewards the version of the mother who holds it together. The regulated one. The grateful one. The strong one. And slowly, the exhausted, overwhelmed, grieving or angry parts get pushed underground.

But what we suppress doesn’t disappear.
It lives in our bodies.
In our nervous systems.
In our relationships.
In our sense of self.

The “mask” becomes a survival response...a way of staying acceptable, attached, safe. Yet healing doesn’t come from perfect coping. It comes from integration.
From making our internal world visible instead of managing it quietly.

Saying the hard things out loud isn’t weakness.
It’s nervous system repair.
It’s resistance against a culture that benefits from mothers staying silent, compliant and depleted.

Shame and fear keep the mask in place.
But truth, spoken, felt, witnessed, loosens it.

You don’t have to keep performing wellness. You don’t have to fragment yourself to be accepted. You’re allowed to be whole.
Messy.
Human.
Seen.

And every time you do… you make it safer for another mother to do the same.

#motherhood #I'mfine #shame
#birth #pregnancy
#perinatalmentalhealthawarenessweek #pmh #perinatalmoodandanxietydisorders #perinatalpsychology #perinatalmentalhealth #postpartum #thepowerofbirth

PERINATAL MENTAL HEALTH IS NOT A NICHE.

when I became a mother, I couldn't believe how invisible the struggle was. How broken the systems are. How much women were just expected to cope.

1 in 5 mothers experience a mood or anxiety disorder
1 in 3 experience a traumatic birth
1 in 10 experience obstetric or midwifery violence
6 babies are born still everyday in Australia
1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss
Up to 100% of mums experience intrusive thoughts of accidental harm, with 50% purposeful harm
1 in 10 fathers experience depression and/or anxiety

And thats why this work matters to me.

#perinatalmentalhealth
#pmh #motherhood
#thepowerofbirth ##matrescence ##rage #maternalsuicide #maternalmentalhealth #perinatalmentalhealthawarenessweek #birth #pregnancy #postpartum

We need more therapists who aren't afraid of unwell mothers.

I said what I said.

Who don't flinch when a mother talks about her rage, intrusive thoughts, or the longing to disappear.
Who have enough clinical confidence, training, and systemic safety.

Because mums have scary thoughts.
Mums are suffering in silence.
Mums are struggling.
But, they filter and minimise the struggle in fear that honesty will cost them their children and autonomy.

Most mothers are not dangerous.
They're overwhelmed.
They're unsupported.
They're terrified of saying too much.

And a [mental health] system where honesty feels unsafe is a system that is failing mothers.

We need more safety. More skill. More clinicians who understand that maternal distress doesn't always equal maternal risk. We need a system that is proactive, not reactive.
Mums dont need surveillance, they need genuine support.

I said what I said.

#perinatalmentalhealthawarenessweek #pmh #perinatalmoodandanxietydisorders ##perinatalpsychology ##perinatalmentalhealth #maternalambivalence #shame #supportformothers #depression #pregnancy #postnatal #baby #birth #postpartum #matrescence

So many parents carry guilt. For the times they snapped. Zoned out. Dismissed. Overcompensated. Miscued. Overreacted. Underresponded.
The times they “didn’t do enough”.
The moments they look back on and wish they handled differently.

Most of us were doing the very best we could with what we knew, what we had, and what our bodies and minds were capable of at the time.

And what actually protects our children long-term isn’t perfection, it's reflection.

Research shows that a parent’s ability to think about their child’s mind and their own experiences (called reflective functioning) acts as a powerful buffer for children, even when there has been stress, trauma or rupture in the relationship.

It’s not about never getting it wrong.
It’s about being able to pause, and think about your child's perspective...
“I wonder what was happening for them in that moment?”
“I wonder what was happening for me?”

That capacity to reflect changes the story and it supports healthier emotional outcomes for our children, even if our past wasn’t perfect.

So if you’re holding guilt or shame about your parenting, I have some comforting words for you... Forgive yourself for what you didn’t know.
Honour the parent you are becoming.
And keep choosing to grow, to reflect, and to respond differently now.

Because that is what changes generational patterns.

Not perfection.
Reflection.

If you're interested in joining a Circle of Security group, send me a DM or email to put you on the 2026 waitlist 🩷

#cosp #circleofsecurity
#parenting #parentingprogram #motherhood #fatherhood #perfectparentingdoesntexist #breakingcycles #shame #guilt #responsiveparenting #reflectivepractice #repairnotperfection #guilt #infantmentalhealth #perinatalmentalhealthawarenessweek #pmh #PerinatalMentalHealth

It's Perinatal Mental Health Awareness Week.
A week that honestly should not exist... because it should matter always. But here we are.

I wanted to share softness today. A list of the many things that could help you ride today's waves, or get you through the trenches you might be in.
These aren't big things, they are small things we may overlook or forget about but have big impacts.

Is there anything on this list that you want to do more of? I'll go first... I definitely need more sunshine and radical rest days. Maybe it's time I scheduled that in.

No matter what stage you are in, I challenge you to pick one or two from this list and see how you go with it.

#perinatalmentalhealth #perinatalmentalhealthawarenessweek #pmh #motherhood #parenthood #stillness #softness #birth #pregnancy #postpartum

A bit of vulnerability here tonight...

I had a moment today. A rupture. I yelled at my 6 year old in the afternoon chaos, the overstimulation, no one listening to me, trying to do too much, in the luteal phase of my cycle feeling overwhelmed. So I yelled...
And then when things calmed down… I repaired.

During that repair, my son said something that opened up a huge opportunity:
“I don’t feel like you love me when you’re mad at me.”

I took a breath and told him the truth:
“That’s not how love works. Being mad doesn’t cancel out love.”

He thought about it for a moment and then asked,
“Then what does cancel love?”

And honestly… it was one of the most important conversations we’ve ever had. A conversation about unconditional love, safety, and what it means to come back together after a rupture.

And here’s the part I keep circling back to...
That conversation never would have happened without the rupture.
Without the mistake.
Without me messing up and then choosing to repair.

Parenting isn’t about perfection.
It’s about returning.
Reconnecting.
Showing our kids that love is bigger than our hardest moments.
Modelling healthy, normal relationships.

If you’ve had a moment like this recently, you’re not alone.
Ruptures happen. Repairs heal.
And sometimes… they open the door to the conversations that shape our children forever.

In 2026, I'll be offering the Circle of Security Parenting Program where you can connect, reflect, and learn how secure attachment grows from exactly these kinds of imperfect moments!! Make sure you are following @thepowerofbirth ❤️‍🩹

#thepowerofbirth #responsiveparenting #matrescence #repairnotperfection #motherhoodunfiltered #parenting #circleofsecurity #perinatalmentalhealth

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Gold Coast, Queensland Australia

thepowerofbirth@outlook.com

“In giving birth to our babies, we may find that we give birth to new possibilities within ourselves.” – Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn