Fertility Awareness and Birth Education: Elevating Women’s Reproductive Health (Episode 565)

Full Transcript: Episode 565

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: This is the Fertility Friday Podcast, episode number 565.

Today I’m sharing another brand new episode in our FAM Practitioner Series. I’m sharing my interview with Feven. She is one of our practitioners and today’s interview is just jam-packed with so much information. She shares her personal experience of birth and how that really transformed her understanding of birth, challenged a lot of her ideas, and even ultimately led her to switch professions. And also how it all intersects with fertility awareness knowledge. So very, very powerful and impactful episode that I’m really excited to share with you.

But before we get into it, let me share a little bit about Feven. Feven Binega-Northcott is a birth, postpartum, and lactation educator, as well as a fertility awareness method practitioner in training based in Bermuda. With over 17 years of experience as a Montessori early years educator and a passion for working with families from pregnancy through early childhood, she brings a holistic and evidence-based approach to reproductive health. Since founding Harmony Birth Services in 2009, Feven has supported over 1,000 families through birth, postpartum, and infant feeding. She left the classroom in 2021 to focus full-time on birth and lactation education, and is also a certified hypnobirthing teacher and trainer of childbirth professionals through Childbirth International. During the height of the pandemic in 2020, she co-founded the Doula Difference alongside two colleagues and helped establish the Grassroots Bermuda Association for Allied Birth Professionals to strengthen the local birth community. In 2024, Feven expanded her work in women’s health by launching WiseCycles, a program dedicated to supporting reproductive well-being — whether for conception, contraception, or hormonal balance. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s episode.

And I’m excited to be here today with Feven. Welcome to the show.

Feven Binega-Northcott: Thank you. I’m so excited. I’m pinching myself.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, it’s funny because you said that when I sent the email to invite your cohort to jump on the podcast, you saw the email and you didn’t think it was actually happening. That can’t possibly be for me. I ignored it, and then it came again the second time and I was like, oh, maybe. Well, I say it all the time — I really do love these episodes. I feel like our listeners who enjoy our FAM Practitioner Series appreciate the authenticity and just the realness of our conversations. Even though at this point you and I have spent many months together and we’ve had many sessions together, I always feel like I learn something new. So really excited for today.

So let’s go ahead and start with one of my favorite questions to ask on these episodes — let us know when you had your first period and what that was like. And I would love to hear a little bit about your journey through your reproductive history, whether that involves contraceptives or not, and ultimately what led you to where you are now with the fertility awareness aspect of your practice.

Feven Binega-Northcott: So I was 12 and a bit when I first had my first period. And having grown up in a household of women and older siblings who were mostly girls, I was kind of anticipating it, thinking that any day now, any month now — so it wasn’t particularly a surprise. And being the highly independent younger sibling, I just handled it and went on with my business. And then it was maybe three, four months until my immediate older sibling said like, you’ve had your period and you never told anyone. I was like, yeah, what is there to tell? It’s normal.

Just as a background — I was born and raised in Ethiopia. So the culture and the coming-of-age culture and aspect of reproductive health is a little bit different to the landscape that I’m in now, or have been in for the last 20-plus years. So it was just a kind of normal experience. I guess normal depends for a lot of people, but it was pretty straightforward. I was unaware that you can have period pains and mood swings and all of the things that a lot of the people that we now work with either normalize or that are part of their lived experience.

So fast forward — I started having children quite early for this part of the world, as I was 22 when I had my son. With no prior use of contraceptives, for a couple of reasons. One, it was culturally not acceptable for a girl to go and seek hormonal contraceptives, so I managed just by avoiding pregnancy to that point. And then I had my son. I moved to Bermuda from Ethiopia, where the culture and just the way birth and parenting was very, very different to what I grew up in. So the birth experience itself was very unexpected, surprising — it’s not anymore, but it was very traumatic. So I went into that early parenting experience very confused, not understanding why my body failed me, and really for both my husband and I just rethinking whether or not we’d have more children.

And then I had my first experience with hormonal contraceptives just about eight weeks after I had my son. Obviously we did not want to get pregnant. And I had severe reactions to it — a lot of weight gain that wasn’t there when I was pregnant, just a lot of changes with mood and depression. Whether it was compounded by the fact that I was in a completely different culture — with a lot of support, nonetheless — it was really, really tricky. So because it was the most common denominator, I was like, well, we’re not doing that again. This did not work. I went back to what I knew before, which was not necessarily in-depth fertility awareness method where I was charting and taking my temperature, but having an awareness of the rhythm of my reproductive cycle.

And then in my early to late 30s, I was having lots and lots of issues leading up to my period — almost two weeks where I was severely depressed, or I felt this doom and gloom, like someone died, and there were no reasons for all of that happening. I saw my physician, who was really progressive at the time, and she mentioned that it’s hormones — but again, it was normalized. This is normal. And I guess knowing what I know now, I go through stages of anger and just disbelief, like this is not normal. But I was led to believe that this was normal.

And so those episodes kind of slowed down towards my late 30s. I actually discovered you — I read The Fifth Vital Sign, kind of in between that phase, after having my son. And when we eventually thought, okay, maybe we can give a second child a chance, we did things completely differently. We went to a childbirth education class specifically for VBAC — vaginal birth after caesarean — we hired a doula, and just really took charge and responsibility for the experience that we really wanted to have. And with my husband’s support and my doula’s support, I had a successful vaginal birth after caesarean, after being told once a caesarean always a caesarean. And you know, you can’t see me, but I’m four foot eleven. So you’re tiny, your husband’s tall, you know, your pelvis — but anyway, we defied the odds. And we weren’t the only couple who achieved vaginal birth after caesarean. For a small island, there were six couples within close to six sessions that attempted and succeeded. And kind of my entry into that reproductive health and women’s health landscape started as I was pushing my daughter out. I looked at my doula and said, I really want to do what you do. This is cool.

So in 2009, I founded Harmony Birth Services, became a certified birth doula. I took my daughter while she was breastfeeding to the doula training. And then kind of to answer your question — how did I get here — it was a series of events where I was working with clients and I would reflect and say, what was missing? What was out of my scope? What was the most pressing challenge that my clients were having that was not easily addressed by the system we have? Is there a better option? So the entry was having my own transformative birth experience, but seeing that being possible for other people and then entering that field. Soon after becoming a doula, I became a childbirth educator. Then I was supporting clients in their breastfeeding journey and became a lactation counselor, a postpartum doula — and then became a trainer of other professionals, which I still am.

Somewhere during my training as a childbirth educator, I came across your work and Lily Nichols’ work because it was talking about prenatal and pregnancy nutrition. As a busy parent, I’m so grateful for audiobooks, because I would listen to your book on audio and Lily’s book and listen to your podcast. And for me, the stage of learning is again, anger and frustration that this is not part of mainstream education for our girls and boys. And then the disbelief, like — applying it to what was happening with me in my 30s and thinking, wow, if I can share this information with just one more person, how amazing would that be?

And because I work and live in a small island community of about 60,000 people, we rely heavily on international best practices and professionals doing amazing work in that field. So you both became my highly recommended reading and resource for my clients and friends and whoever was interested.

I remember getting your email — I think it might have been in the height of the pandemic in 2020 — about this practitioner training. And I thought, I’m going to put that in my professional development goal. For whatever reason, lots was happening in my life at that point — I was leaving the classroom where I had been teaching for 17 years as an early childhood educator and kind of doing the birth work full-time. So the stars didn’t align until last year when the email came out again and I said, yeah, I’m ready. I remember messaging you — I don’t know if it was through an Instagram DM or an email — to say, well, what qualifies as a kind of women’s health practitioner? A doula, a childbirth educator — would that qualify? And you said yes. And kind of the rest is history.

It feels like a long time ago, except it’s been a few months. And little did I know that I was going to be put through the same process that we put our clients through. So I guess I was slightly cocky, if I’m honest, because I was like, oh, I know my body. I have a 28-day cycle. I’ve read your book and heard your podcast. And this is kind of a good learning for me — a lot of the narratives that have been engraved over several years take time to undo.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Can I interject for a minute? Before you jump into all that, I want to thank you for taking us through because I feel like you just took us through 10, 15 years plus of your life. And of course that’s one of the reasons I love starting with that question, because we just get to sit and listen to your story. And I really appreciate you sharing all that.

A few aspects of your story stood out to me. What you shared about just not being prepared for birth — not having that information, not necessarily having had a lot of those questions answered — even though you experienced your first period, knew that it was coming, took care of it on your own. In some ways you were very well educated about certain things, and in other ways, just not very much.

Feven Binega-Northcott: Yes. So the way I describe how my husband and I approached our first birth was: we were naive. I come from a culture, and I was also newly arrived in Bermuda. So it was just this belief that birth is normal, everyone does it, it’s a normal physiological process, and the people looking after me have my best interest. And so we did attend a childbirth education class and learned about the process — but nothing really prepared us to navigate the system. And by system, I mean the very heavily obstetric-led system that sees birth and pregnancy as a medical event that needs to be managed every step of the way. And yeah, we were not prepared for that.

I take full responsibility — and part of where I am right now, maybe the reason why I do the work that I do and have done over the years, is because of that experience. I came from a place where I remember hearing — I don’t know what the word is in English — but women having their babies at home, and hearing the signal that a baby had arrived, and women cheering and ululating, and that being a part of my soundtrack. I’m of the generation of kind of Millennials where everything kind of became — because of the political landscape at that time — I’m kind of the last of the generation to see this very holistic and traditional wisdom, whereas the generation after me doesn’t really have that experience. So that was my perspective. And that was the lens through which I was seeing my own experience, only to find out that I was navigating a completely different system.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: And then your experience with birth control. You know, in class we were literally talking about this exact topic because all of our practitioners in your group are now doing their practicum. This topic came up for a client who was approaching some of the same experiences — a caesarean birth, now wanting a vaginal birth after delivery. We always have to talk about what happens at that six-week appointment, because of course that’s when they’re wanting to get everyone on hormonal contraceptives. Those things really struck me — because this was presented as the only alternative.

I feel like that’s really the heart of what we’re trying to do here — the work that you do and the work that I do — we’re trying to put a stop to this idea that this is the only way. Whether it’s birth or preventing pregnancy, there’s not only one way. I professionally and personally have gone through various stages of growth trying to understand and have the best possible outcome for all of us. And now I’m done having children — I have a 16-year-old daughter and my son who is grown up now. And so I want them to have a better experience.

From being angry at the system and being highly critical of the system, now I’m counseling clients and women and families about showing them the limitations. And there is a subtle difference. So when you understand the limitations of a professional — an obstetrician, that is the lens that they see things — unless they’ve done specific training and told you otherwise, that is the scope of their work. You can’t expect a highly trained surgeon to do the work that we do and sit there for 45 minutes to an hour holding hands and unpacking these things. You’re definitely not going to a shoemaker to get a dress made. So just trying to get people to understand the limitations of the people they’re working with so that they can manage their expectations — so there isn’t blame, like my body failed me, or this person didn’t do their job. When we have realistic expectations of what we’re getting into, that’s empowering. And that is a good common ground to work with professionals in the field.

Feven Binega-Northcott: I mean, I could go on for days on that one. But I mean, yes — and just you know, time heals all. And also, professionally, I’ve had cases where I was scratching my head — why? They did all the things. And my role as a doula or childbirth educator or lactation counselor is not to tell them what to do — I give them information and resources based on what they’ve said is important to them and what they’re looking for. And having done all the things, there was still this thing we couldn’t figure out. And there have been a couple of moments where something has come up in class — like, oh, that explains it. I don’t think I’m the only practitioner who goes through this feeling of wanting to fix everything, struggling with things that are unresolved, and to have some reasoning for why certain things turned out the way they did, or why certain protocols didn’t work. That has been very helpful.

So time — and having time to experience similar situations or gain new knowledge. But also some kind of self-care practices. The reflective practice that has been a big part of the work I do — just debriefing and unpacking things. Where is this emotion coming from? Am I bringing my own baggage and my own experience into this, or is this because of what happened? And I’ve had lots of great colleagues that I can breathe the experience with and vent with and go into the next client carrying a lot less of that baggage so I can focus on them.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I always use this analogy — I feel like when you first discover fertility awareness, you’re like the puppy. You’re trying to get everybody to do it. You’re just like — do this right now, take my life, change your life too! What happens with time, as you mentioned, is that you kind of settle into the knowledge. And it comes with a little bit of patience. You realize eventually that everyone is going to make the decisions that feel best for them at the time. Once you’ve been in the field long enough, and you’ve been around — maybe just older, maybe just wiser — you realize that everyone comes to things in their own time. You can’t force somebody to do anything. And sometimes the best way to inspire change is literally by living your life in the way that you feel is best and sharing about what you do and talking about it — as opposed to ramming it down people’s throats.

What I’ve found is that people just kind of meander back. And sometimes the person who’s most against it — like, that’s the rhythm method — those can be the people that end up emailing you two years later telling you they’re now certified professionals in the field they were knocking. So you just never know how it’s going to turn out.

So I would love to ask you about your experience in FAMM and how that has kind of transformed your practice.

Feven Binega-Northcott: So as I said, I was not expecting to put myself through the experience. Charting — what do you mean? I know when my period is coming. Again, you know, I’ve grown up and I came into it a little bit later than some people might have. And just thinking — detaching from that rhythm-method mindset and charting and really looking at what’s happening.

Personally, a couple of years ago I had multiple episodes of unexplained bleeding that wasn’t related to my period. We did all the tests and at some point we were thinking it had something to do with my running, because I ran a lot. And I remember my OB and my GP saying — you’re going to be really annoyed because we know you like answers — but we found nothing after doing all of these things. And then about 18 months before I started the program, I had this really unexplained pain where I had to call my husband to come and get me because I couldn’t drive home, and then an ultrasound found fibroids.

So just putting myself through some of the material and really learning about the nutrition — I’ve been pretty into nutrition, but this was nutrition 2.0. And I found out that I was undereating. And Lisa — you’ll laugh — she’s like, coffee again. You and I had back-and-forth conversations about it, and it took me a while to understand how caffeine was impacting my health and suppressing my appetite. So I think from the outside, for my husband and my friends who know me, the biggest visible change is not having coffee first thing in the morning. Everything follows from that. And I hope you understand what that means for an Ethiopian woman. But just understanding — it’s all about building habits and having patience, and seeing the difference between each cycle.

That has been helpful on a personal level. But also now I can work with my clients when they’re first coming to me — just giving them an idea of where our work can go. I’m not saying goodbye to them after two postnatal visits. I’m now starting to work with people getting them into the postpartum period and potentially giving them an option outside of that “you either have birth control or you risk getting pregnant” conversation.

And the way I teach in my childbirth education classes has changed. The way I approach birth physiology and the hormones of birth — seeing it as this beautiful orchestra when the right environment is present — understanding the role of hormones in pregnancy has enhanced my teaching in that aspect. And it has added another population to my potential client base: people who may not necessarily want to get pregnant but want other options for managing their reproductive health — painful periods, PCOS diagnoses, endometriosis, unexplained infertility. Now I get to do this work with girls who are having their first period, with women in my age group kind of exiting on the other side, so it’s expanding my work with clients in a really powerful and really exciting way.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: I love that so much. And I didn’t tell Feven she had to stop drinking coffee — I did not. We talked about coffee, about all the things, we talked about her cycle, and then one of the options was considering, to see what happens. And ultimately she made that decision and saw the effects for herself.

Feven Binega-Northcott: Definitely — there was no telling. It was more information, skepticism, going through those stages, and then let’s try it. And the proof was in the outcome and on my charts and what I was experiencing. And it kind of opened up opportunities for really interesting conversations with my children and my husband. My husband now gets excited when I take my temperature in the morning — he’s like, so, was it a good one? Is it higher? And it’s just wonderful. It opens up lots of conversations and curiosity from other people.

And you know, to your point about helping practitioners relate to their clients differently — I think very few professionals can say that about the work that they do. And I think that’s kind of a unique thing when it comes to this work.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: As we start wrapping up — one question as we draw to a close. If there’s someone who’s listening, thinking about jumping into FAM, maybe they’ve been in the community for a while and they’re wondering if this is the time — what would you want them to know?

Feven Binega-Northcott: Do it. Just do it. I know it’s a big time commitment and it is a big personal commitment. But it’s absolutely worth it — even if you don’t turn it into a business offering, it gives you so much insight into ways that you can have improved and better outcomes for your clients, and knowledge that no one can take away from you. If you plan to have children or have children of your own, if you’ve got girls and boys, you’re going to become a completely different parent in the way that you guide your children. It would give you different insights into how you approach conversations around reproductive choices that can have — as you and I know — lasting impact in their lives.

So if this work and this area of working with women and families and reproductive health attracted you, it’s because it was the right thing for you to do. So even if you don’t do it now, do what I did — put it in your long-term or medium-term professional development goal. You will not regret it.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Thank you so much, Feven. Where can people find more about you and connect with you?

Feven Binega-Northcott: They can go to my website, harmonybirth.bm, where all my work and all of the hats that I wear are in there. And I’ve also linked in the show notes specifically about the fertility awareness method work that I do — it’s called WiseCycles. You can find out more about that. I am on Instagram. And although this aspect of the work that I’m doing is relatively new, I’m looking forward to working with as many people outside of Bermuda as possible because the internet is great. I don’t feel like I’ve arrived — I never feel like I’ve arrived in any of the work that I do. It’s an evolving process. Follow me to see what comes next.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Well, thank you so much, Feven. I absolutely love this conversation. It was so nice to have a chance to chat with you and I’m really excited to share this episode. I feel like it’s just very eye-opening in a variety of different ways. So thank you for sharing your experience and your wisdom and your knowledge.

Feven Binega-Northcott: Thank you so much. And I will see you soon — I’ll see you next week.

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack: Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share with a friend. You’ll find the show notes page for today’s episode over at fertilityfriday.com/565.

I hope that you enjoyed today’s episode with Feven. I feel like there were so many nuggets, so many fun pieces of information, so much wisdom that she shared from her experience. I was really struck by her birth story — how traumatic it was, to the point that she even questioned if she wanted to have more children — because her experience was just so the opposite of what she thought it was going to be. And how that really shifted her perspective and inspired her to dive into the birth world.

One of the things I thought was absolutely fascinating was when she shared that realization when she jumped into the FAMM program — and she realized that mentorship meant she was actually going to participate. And like she said, I’m being put through the same things that I’ll be doing with my clients. And she shared how it was a humbling experience. And this is something that many of our practitioners have shared with us.

The practice of actually charting your cycles and learning how to kind of move with that rhythm and flow — and really understanding that this is kind of like a dance. Your body doesn’t do what you tell it to just because you tell it to do so. What we’re doing when we’re tracking is we’re actually kind of on the receiving end. We’re watching and learning how it’s dancing through life and how it’s impacted by the various things that come up. And then we kind of learn how we can contribute to pushing that direction in the way we want it to go. But you can’t just instantly force your cycles to be perfect. I always talk about this concept of a perfect cycle — how it doesn’t exist — because we’re not robots. And so our cycles are always going to be shifting and changing with what’s going on in our lives.

What happens is — prior to the charting information, you might be staying out late, you might be drinking alcohol, you might be skipping meals, and you might think it’s totally inconsequential. But as soon as you start charting in this way and you start to see, oh my goodness, I did this thing and this is how it’s impacting me — it really empowers you. Not pressure. It’s not about learning that you need to be perfect and do everything correctly all the time. But you start to learn the impact in a very meaningful way.

And having to go through that as a practitioner — it really helps you to not just understand this stuff from a head-knowledge perspective, but to appreciate how deep it goes. And it also helps you appreciate the challenge of implementation, because it’s not always easy. We often know what we need to do, but knowing what we need to do doesn’t cause us to do it all the time. Similarly, if it takes our practitioners a little while to figure out how they’re going to negotiate these things and incorporate some of these changes, we have to have that patience, understanding, and empathy — to be that shepherd for our clients to help them navigate that as well.

So with that said, I hope that you have a wonderful weekend whenever you’re tuning into the show. Until next time — be well and happy charting.