Guest: Christine, Pelvic Physical Therapist & Founder of Sanford Pelvic Therapy

Hosted by: Ana Munoz & Nicolle Maldonado

Runtime: 56:47

💬 Episode Summary

For many new parents, intimacy after birth feels tender—and sometimes painful. But painful sex postpartum isn’t something you just have to live with. In this episode, we sit down with Christine from Sanford Pelvic Therapy, who has over 9 years of experience helping women and birthing people heal, move freely, and reclaim intimacy without fear.

Christine breaks down the common causes of painful sex after childbirth, practical strategies to ease discomfort, and how trauma-informed pelvic therapy can make the path back to pleasure and connection both gentle and empowering. This is the conversation so many wish they’d had sooner.

🌟 In This Episode, We Cover:

• The most common causes of painful sex postpartum
  

• Gentle, evidence-based strategies to reduce and eliminate pain
  

• Why pelvic floor health matters for recovery, intimacy, and daily life
  

• Christine’s unique approach: blending expertise with trauma-informed, compassionate care
  

• Hopeful reminders that healing is possible—and intimacy can feel good again
  

👑 Guest Bio

Christine is a Pelvic Physical Therapist with over 9 years of specialized experience. As a mother of four adult children, she deeply understands the challenges of pregnancy, postpartum recovery, and life’s changes over time. Through Sanford Pelvic Therapy, she helps clients find lasting relief from pain, restore confidence in movement, and enjoy intimacy without fear. Known for her gentle, trauma-informed approach, Christine is passionate about guiding others toward healing. When she’s not in the clinic, you’ll likely find her salsa dancing or tending to her garden.

📲 Connect With Christine Instagram: @sanfordpelvictherapy Website: sanfordpelvictherapy.com

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Guest: Brooke Simmons, IBCLC & Founder of Brooke Simmons Lactation Services

Hosted by: Ana Munoz & Nicolle Maldonado

Runtime: 27:01

💬 Episode Summary

When Brooke Simmons first became a mom, she was given poor advice that nearly derailed her breastfeeding journey. Instead of letting that define her story, she turned it into fuel—eventually becoming an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. In this heartfelt episode, Brooke opens up about the lessons she learned, why having the right support system matters, and how families can feel empowered in both breastfeeding and car seat safety.

She even shares why she invites grandmothers and family members into her sessions, how early to connect with a lactation consultant, and her vision for strengthening the Central Florida Birth Network. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by conflicting advice—or you want to make sure your little one is safe and thriving—this episode is packed with insight, encouragement, and empowerment.

🌟 In This Episode, We Cover:

• How bad advice early in motherhood inspired Brooke to become an IBCLC
  

• The power of bringing family members (yes, even grandma!) into the breastfeeding journey
  

• When and why you should meet a lactation consultant before giving birth (hint: around 32–35 weeks)
  

• Brooke’s signature touch—every session includes a car seat safety review
  

• Her return to the Central Florida Birth Network and vision for its next chapter
  

• A reminder that breastfeeding isn’t one-size-fits-all—it’s about what works best for your family
  

👑 Guest Bio

Brooke Simmons is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and the founder of Brooke Simmons Lactation Services. What began as her own challenging breastfeeding experience turned into a calling to help other families navigate this tender season with confidence and care. With a heart for education, empowerment, and safety, Brooke not only guides families through their unique feeding journeys but also brings expertise as a Child Passenger Safety Technician. She’s passionate about meeting families where they are and helping them feel seen, supported, and safe every step of the way.

📲 Connect With Brooke Simmons Instagram: @brookeibclc Website: www.brookeibclc.com

💖 Loved this episode?

Subscribe & leave a review—it helps this podcast reach more birthing folks and providers in Central Florida.

Tag us on Instagram @centralflbirthnetwork to share your favorite takeaway.

Want to be featured or pitch a guest? Slide into our DMs or visit centralfloridabirthnetwork.com

Guest: Sarah Foster, Full Spectrum Doula & Co-Chair of Central Florida Birth Network

Hosted by: Ana Munoz & Nicolle Maldonado

Runtime: 53:30

💬 Episode Summary

This conversation with Sarah Foster is one you’ll want to sit with. Sarah shares how her own story as a teen mom lit the path to her work as a postpartum doula, advocate, and community builder. Together, we explore what it looks like to not just “bounce back” after birth, but to meet the new version of yourself with compassion and care.

From the rebirth of the Central Florida Birth Network to the vision behind her Legacy Postpartum Retreat, Sarah reminds us that families deserve more than survival—they deserve joy, justice, and rest. This episode is a call to rethink how we support parents in every season of the reproductive journey.

🌟 In This Episode, We Cover:

• How Sarah’s experience as a teen mom shaped her calling into birth work
  

• The story of relaunching Central Florida Birth Network with Tamara
  

• Why “we shouldn’t pass down struggle” in the way we raise and support families
  

• The deeper question of postpartum: Are you returning to yourself, or meeting a new version of yourself?
  

• Sarah’s dream project—Legacy Postpartum Retreat—and how it’s creating spaces for rest, healing, and joy
  

👑 Guest Bio

Sarah Foster is a Full Spectrum Doula, Childbirth Educator, and lifelong community builder based in Central Florida. She serves as Co-Chair and Community Outreach Coordinator at Central Florida Birth Network, while also volunteering with Black in Repro. Her advocacy is shaped by her own path as a teen mother and her commitment to creating systems of care that honor families of color and reproductive freedom. Sarah is currently focused on growing CFBN and Legacy Postpartum Retreat—spaces that invite rest, joy, and healing for families across the reproductive journey.

📲 Connect With Sarah Foster Instagram: @sarahfosterdoula

💖 Loved this episode? Subscribe & leave a review—it helps this podcast reach more birthing folks and providers in Central Florida.

Tag us on Instagram @centralflbirthnetwork to share your favorite takeaway.

Want to be featured or pitch a guest? Slide into our DMs or visit centralfloridabirthnetwork.com

✨ Episode Summary: In this deeply nourishing episode, Ana and Nicolle sit down with Tamara Neidermann of The Kindred Feminine—full spectrum doula, herbalist, fertility guide, and original spark behind the current revival of Central Florida Birth Network.

Tamara isn’t just a birth worker—she’s a lighthouse. A walking reclamation of ritual, reverence, and radical self-knowledge.

Together we dive into:

• The power of fertility awareness and how it changes your relationship with your body
  

• Why Tamara doesn't want to make decisions for you—and what radical responsibility looks like instead
  

• Herbology vs. herbalism (and why Ana calls her Professor Neidermann)
  

• Placenta encapsulation: ancient practice, modern support
  

• How Tamara helped resurrect CFBN and what she envisions for community-led birth care
  

Her story is woven with lived experience, fierce integrity, and a devotion to honoring the divine feminine in every stage of the reproductive journey.

This isn’t just an interview—it’s an invocation.

🔗 Where to Find Tamara: Website: thekindredfeminine.com Instagram: @thekindredfeminine

🌿 Work with Tamara for doula support, fertility education, herbal guidance, and placenta services rooted in care and ceremony.

💬 Next Steps (aka your sacred to-do list): ✨ Follow Tamara’s work and wisdom on IG ✨ Share this episode with someone who’s ready to take their power back ✨ Rate and review the Central Florida Birth Podcast—because this conversation deserves to reach every corner of the birthing world

🖤 Because every time we remember the truth of our bodies, we shift the future of birth.

✨ Episode Summary: In this soul-rich episode, Ana and Nicolle sit down with the radiant Aelis Rivera—student midwife, domestic violence advocate, and Secretary of Central Florida Birth Network—to explore how lived experience becomes legacy.

Aelis began midwifery school on her 50th birthday, proving that timing is divine and power isn’t linear. With decades of experience supporting survivors of abuse and years in birthwork as a doula and educator, Aelis is now weaving it all together as she prepares to serve families as a midwife in 2025.

We cover:

• What it means to answer your calling at any age
  

• How survivor advocacy work naturally led Aelis to midwifery
  

• Why inclusive, trauma-informed care isn’t optional—it’s essential
  

• The Domestic Violence Resource List she’s created for Central Florida families
  

• Her vision for merging reproductive care with deep, embodied justice
  

This is more than a career path—it’s a reclamation. A reinvention. A sacred return.

🖤 Connect with Aelis: Instagram: @aelis_rivera Business: Caridad Servicios Perinatales To access the Domestic Violence Resource List: DM her directly on Instagram

📍 Mentioned in the Episode: – Central Florida Birth Network: centralfloridabirthnetwork.org – Commonsense Childbirth School of Midwifery – Moonrise Birth Collective

If this episode moved you, share it with someone who needs to know it’s never too late to begin again. Then come connect with us on Instagram: @centralfloridabirthnetwork🖤 Because everybody benefits when every body has support.

💬 Episode Summary

In this timely solo episode, hosts Ana and Nicolle dive into a critical conversation around VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) and the recent shifts in medical malpractice insurance that are deeply impacting midwives offering homebirth VBAC care.

Nicolle breaks down what’s happening on the legal and clinical side, how it’s directly affecting Central Florida families, and what birthing people need to know when navigating their options.

This isn’t fear-mongering—it’s truth-telling. And it’s a call to action.

🔍 In This Episode:

• What’s changing with medical malpractice coverage for midwives
  

• Why VBAC homebirth support is becoming harder to access
  

• The ripple effect on choice, safety, and equity in maternal care
  

• What families need to ask when exploring VBAC options
  

How providers and community members can advocate together

🧭 Resources:

💻 Check the Directory at centralfloridabirthnetwork.org → Find midwives who currently support homebirth VBACs → Connect with professionals offering evidence-based support

📲 Follow for updates + conversations: @centralfloridabirthnetwork

🖤 Why This Episode Matters

Your choices around birth matter.

And when the system starts closing doors, community becomes the key.

Let’s stay informed—and stay connected.

💬 Episode Summary

In this powerful conversation, Ana sits down with Licensed Midwife and community advocate Nicolle Maldonado, founder of Mother of Thousands Midwifery and Clinical Consultant of the Central Florida Birth Network.

Nicolle shares the deeply personal and systemic experiences that shaped her path into midwifery—from witnessing medical racism firsthand, to honoring the ancestral calling passed down from her great-great-grandmother, a traditional Puerto Rican midwife.

This episode is a reclamation, a reminder, and a radical invitation: birth can belong to us again.

🌟 In This Episode:

• The birth that lit the fire: how supporting a Black mother through a traumatic experience led Nicolle to midwifery
  

• The history we’re not taught: the erasure of Black midwives and how systemic racism shaped the modern birth world
  

• Why Nicolle only does home visits—and how it transforms family care
  

• The realities of being the only Latina in her graduating class
  

• Honoring lineage: discovering her great-great-grandmother was a midwife
  

• A passionate encouragement: everyone needs a doula
  

• The body never lies: how systemic injustice lives in the bodies of Black birthing people (Referenced paper: Birthing Blackness in the Body)
  

👣 Connect with Nicolle:

Instagram → @motherofthousandsmidwifery Website →https://www.motmidwifery.com/

🖤 Why This Episode Matters

Midwifery isn’t just about birth—it’s about liberation, lineage, and being seen. Nicolle is doing more than catching babies—she’s catching entire families in a web of care and cultural restoration.

🎧 Listen, Subscribe & Review

This story deserves to be heard.

Help us connect more hearts to this movement:

→ Rate & review on Apple or Spotify

→ Follow @centralflbirthnetwork for more episodes and updates

→ Comment, share, and tag a birthworker who needs to hear this

💬 Episode Summary

In this soulful kickoff to our co-host spotlight series, Nicolle turns the mic toward Ana Muñoz—birth doula, hypnosis practitioner, prenatal massage therapist, and the heart behind Mind & Body Motherhood.

Together they explore what it means to become a “full nervous-system advocate,” how Ana’s own birth work has evolved over a decade of supporting families, and why softness isn’t just a vibe—it’s a strategy.

Ana wraps the episode with a mini guided hypnosis to help neutralize looping thoughts and anchor into presence—because support begins with the breath.

🌟 In This Episode, We Cover:

• Ana’s personal path into birth work and why her daughter was her biggest teacher
  

• What happens when nervous system care becomes the foundation of support
  

• The power of ritual, rest, and redefining what “productive” looks like in pregnancy
  

• A gentle guided hypnosis session to calm reoccurring thoughts and reclaim inner quiet
  

👑 Guest Bio

Ana Muñoz is the founder of Mind & Body Motherhood, a sacred space redefining how women experience care through pregnancy, birth, and beyond.

With over a decade in the birth world as a licensed massage therapist, certified hypnosis practitioner, and doula, Ana bridges nervous system science with embodied support—offering a revolutionary approach to the childbearing year that centers rest, ritual, and unapologetic softness.

Her work is devoted to helping mothers feel deeply supported—not because they earned it, but because it's their birthright. Through in-person sessions, digital resources like the Prenatal Massage Blueprint, and her ever-evolving vision for mentoring fellow birthworkers, Ana is leading the Receptive Era: where support is sacred, and softness is a strategy.

📲 Connect With Ana

• Instagram: @mindandbodymotherhood
  

• Website: mindandbodymotherhood.com
  

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• Follow @centralflbirthnetwork for more magic like this
  

• Leave a review to help the podcast reach more birthing folks in Central Florida
  

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