Welcome back to series 3 of The Real Birth Podcast! Kicking off the series is an interview with my good friend Emma, who gave birth to her son in 2016.Emma is a teacher and a single mum to her son Wren. She and her partner at the time struggled with unexplained infertility, but eventually did fall pregnant after trying for several years. Emma has a history of Colposcopy - where tissue is removed from the cervix as part of cancer-prevention treatment. Because of this, she needed to have a cervical stitch placed early in her pregnancy, which would stop her cervix opening too early and preventing early birth.Emma also tested positive for Group B strep during pregnancy, and decided to birth in hospital so she could access antibiotics. Her birth didn't go to plan when there was no one available to administer a much-wanted epidural!I hope you love this episode - I certainly do - and thank you SO much again for joining me for season 3!---------------------------------This season I'm thrilled to be working with my first ever sponsor: Bridge House Pilates.Bridge House Pilates was founded by Meaghan, a Texan-born pregnancy, postnatal and low back pain specialist Pilates teacher now living in Somerset. Meaghan is a fan of the show and reached out to see whether my listeners might be interested in a special discount for her brand new postnatal Pilates course.As well as sponsoring the show, Meaghan has created an exclusive discount for my listeners and I'm really thrilled to be able to offer you guys 20% off the Bridge House Pilates postnatal pilates online course. Here's a bit more about the course:Thinking about moving your body after having a baby can be daunting, not least because you somehow need to get yourself dressed and out the house - but Bridge House Pilates' NEW online, on-demand postnatal course can be enjoyed at any time, all from the comfort of your own home. The course is flexible, bite-sized and perfectly suited to the chaos of new parenthood! Weekly sessions focus on relaxation, building core strength, healing your pelvic floor and addressing common muscular issues such as diastasis recti and back pain. The course is designed with busy new mums in mind. Each week is broken down into 5 videos lasting between 5-15 minutes each. The platform will even track your progress if you get stopped partway through a videoSigning up also grants you lifetime access to all the course material, so you can return to your workouts whenever you need to - even if you go on to have more pregnancies in future.To find out more about Bridge House Pilates' course and to benefit from our sponsorship discount, click here.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices