TRUE MIDWIFERY

STUDY SPIRALS

2026

A year-long circle of learning, connection, and remembrance for birth attendants worldwide

WHAT ARE THE

STUDY SPIRALS?

The Study Spirals for 2026 unfold across thirteen monthly gatherings, circling through a wide range of themes and teachings — from the basic needs of the newborn to herbs, movement, human rights in childbirth, and the sacred evolution of the midwife’s path.

Each session takes place on the last Thursday of the month, from 11am–2pm SAST (South African Standard Time) — though occasionally the rhythm shifts to honour births, rest, or holidays. (See below for our “gentle ripples” in 2026.)

All sessions are recorded and uploaded to the platform, so you can return to them anytime during your subscription.

The Study Spirals are an ongoing and organic meeting of what is being called for by the True Midwifery community. Some sessions are guided by guest teachers, while others are led by Ruth Ehrhardt or members of the True Midwifery community.

Every gathering is rooted in the same foundation:

Honouring the basic needs of pregnant, labouring, birthing, and new mothers — and their babies.

If you feel called to join our circles, you can attend a single session (to try it out) or subscribe monthly or for the full year at a discounted rate.

These are your sessions — if you feel drawn to explore or share a particular topic, please reach out. Together, we’ll weave it into the spiral.

🌸 The Origin of the Spirals

The Study Spirals began in 2021, originally as True Midwifery Study Circles — a way to offer connection, education, and support to birthworkers during the isolation of the COVID lockdowns. The circles quickly grew into a vibrant international community of learning and remembrance.

As the gatherings evolved, the name shifted — from Circle to Spiral — reflecting how the wisdom and community created in each meeting continues to flow outward, spiralling into new circles and deeper understandings.

🌀 Why “Spirals”?

“With each new circle that Ruth facilitates there will be a new elixir of sisters and birthkeepers to share stories and create new networks. And hopefully all of our networks will spiral together. Which is really exciting!”

- Billie, student midwife and Silent Birthkeeper 2022

Billie's words captured the essence of what these gatherings truly are: not closed circles, but ever-expanding spirals.

A spiral flows from the centre outwards — always growing, always returning — echoing the natural rhythms of the body and birth itself.

Even the cervix, once thought to open as a circle during labour, is now known to open in a spiral motion — just like so much of life in nature.

🌺 Rooted in True Midwifery

The Study Spirals are grounded in the principles of True Midwifery — respect, connection, and oxytocin-rich learning.

They are spaces for remembering, unlearning, and weaving knowledge across generations and traditions.

Each spiral is unique, yet all are held by the same foundation:

To nurture and sustain the core needs of women and babies through birth, care, and community.

🌀 The 2026 True Midwifery Study Spirals Schedule

Our Study Spirals gather on the last Thursday of each month from 11am–2pm SAST — a steady rhythm for connection, reflection, and learning through the year.

Gentle Ripples in 2026:

• September’s Spiral will be held one week earlier, on Thursday 17 September, to honour Heritage Day (a public holiday in South Africa) that falls on the 24th.
  
  
• October is a special “Blue Spiral” month 🌕 with two gatherings: Thursday 1 October and Thursday 29 October.
  
  
• December’s Spiral will also be one week earlier, on Thursday 17 December, so we can gather before the festive season.
  
  

As always, our spiral remains a living rhythm — if a speaker is called to a birth, becomes unwell, or faces an emergency, we may adjust by swapping sessions or moving to the next available Thursday at the same time.
All other sessions follow our usual rhythm, circling together on the final Thursday of each month.

🌸 2026 Study Spiral Schedule

SESSION 1 — 29 January
The Basic Needs of the Newborn
with Karin Slabaugh

SESSION 2 — 26 February
Breast Massage: Meeting the Heart Through Self Touch
with Hannah Grace

SESSION 3 — 26 March
Ancient Movement for Women’s Reproductive Health
with Samara Hawthorn

SESSION 4 — 30 April
Why Is the Position of the Reproductive System Important for Menstrual Ease and Fertility?
with Nicky Silawu

SESSION 5 — 28 May
Claiming Space: Women’s Rights and the Legal Terrain of Birth
with Marta Busquets

SESSION 6 — 25 June
Becoming a Grandmother: Ancestral Continuum and the Rite of Elderhood
with Samara Hawthorn & Nicola Thompson

SESSION 7 — 30 July
In the Earth of Our Bodies, Turning the Soil (Grief, Creativity, and the Cycles of Birth and Loss)
with Malika Ndlovu

SESSION 8 — 27 August
The Reluctant Midwife
with Joy Horner

SESSION 9 — 17 September
To Be a Birthkeeper: An Act of Love
with Clara Scropetta
Note: This month’s gathering takes place one week earlier to honour Heritage Day (24 September).

SESSION 10 — 1 October
Freebirth: How Do We Who Serve Birth Feel About It?
with Deborah Faye (Debs) Rhodes

SESSION 11 — 29 October
Preventing Breast Cancer Is Possible
with Sally Welbeloved

Note: October is a special “Blue Spiral” month with two gatherings.

SESSION 12 — 26 November
Love of Birth and Herbs
with Sophie Paulding Kopecky

SESSION 13 — 17 December
Reclaiming the Word Midwife
with Ruth Ehrhardt & Deborah Faye (Debs) Rhodes
Note: December’s Spiral will be held one week earlier so we can gather before the festive season.

✴️ Please Note

The Study Spirals programme is a living rhythm and, as with birth itself, sometimes it flows differently than planned.

If a speaker is ill, called to a birth, or faces a personal emergency, we may swap sessions or move the gathering to the next available Thursday at the same time.

All changes will be clearly communicated via email and our Telegram group, and recordings will always be made available.

What Participants Are Saying

The Study Spirals are experienced as a deeply nourishing, heart-led space of remembering, connection and shared wisdom.

Participants speak of feeling held, seen and truly listened to within a global circle where every woman’s voice is honoured as a teacher.

Guided with clarity, tenderness and devotion, each gathering weaves ancient knowing with lived experience, leaving women inspired, strengthened in community, and more deeply connected to their purpose and practice.

These study spiral sessions are

for anyone who wants to deepen their learning in nourishing, nurturing, honouring and guarding birth.

Be part of the ripple effect...

🌾 Accessing the Study Spiral Community & Archives

When you join the True Midwifery Study Spirals, you receive more than access to monthly sessions — you step into an ongoing circle of learning, support, and connection.

🌀 Inside Your Learning Space

Once enrolled, you’ll find everything you need within your True Midwifery Study Spirals portal:

• 🧭 Simple step-by-step guide to help you navigate the platform with ease.
• 💾 Recordings of all previous sessions, available for the duration of your subscription.
• 💬 Telegram group link for community conversation, sharing, and updates.

Zoom links for upcoming sessions are sent directly to your email before each gathering.

🌸 Staying Connected

Our Telegram community is where the ongoing conversation unfolds — a space to share reflections, ask questions, and stay informed about upcoming sessions.
It’s a gentle, private place for connection between gatherings.

🌿 Archives & Confidentiality

Your enrolment includes access to our growing Study Spiral archives — a library of teachings and stories from previous years.
You have full access to these recordings for the duration of your subscription.

We ask that you honour the confidentiality of the stories shared within our circles and keep these recordings for your personal learning only.

💗 Support

If you ever need guidance or help accessing your materials, please reach out — we’re here to make sure you feel confident and supported within the spiral.

📧 Email: truemidwife@gmail.com

🌀 Join the Spiral

We invite you to join the spiral — a living, breathing gathering of all who care for birth, babies, mothers, families, and the future of humanity.

These circles are for anyone who feels called to remember, protect, and nurture the sacred beginnings of life — for it is in how we are born, and how we give birth, that the story of our humanity is continually rewritten.

As Michel Odent reminded us, to change the world we must first change the way we are born.

To honour and protect birth is to guard the roots of love, trust, and peace.

Through these Study Spirals, we return again and again to the basic needs of birthing women and babies — safety, warmth, privacy, love, and undisturbed physiological flow.

These are not small things.

They are the foundations of humanity itself.

We gather in this quiet revolution — one of remembering, of softening, of keeping the human in birth.

Each story shared, each remembering spoken aloud, sends ripples outward — strengthening the web of care that holds us all.

✨ You are welcome here — exactly as you are.