The Birth Keepers: I choose this

Off Duty | The Guardian Investigates

The Guardian

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Free Birth Society was selling pregnant women a simple message. They could exit the medical system and take back their power. By free birthing. But Nicole Garrison believes FBS ideology nearly cost her her life. This is episode one of a year-long investigation by Guardian journalists Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is The Guardian.
0:10.4	Hi, I'm Shuin Kala, and I'm Lucy Osborne.
0:14.1	You're listening to The Birth Keepers, a new six-part series from The Guardian Investigates.
0:20.2	Just before we start, this series contains references to baby loss and maternal harm.
0:29.4	Yeah, I have it.
0:34.1	You have it.
0:35.0	You have the crown.
0:36.5	I don't believe it. You have the crown. Yeah.
0:39.5	I don't believe it.
0:42.1	That's the crown.
0:44.0	It's one of them.
0:47.0	Gosh, I recognize it.
0:47.3	Yeah.
1:00.1	It's summer earlier this year. My god guardian colleague, the investigative reporter Lucy Osborne, is in Omaha, Nebraska.
1:13.2	She's interviewing a woman called Serendipity Day, who worked for a business called the Free Birth Society, FBS, led by the influencer, Emily Saldia.
1:20.6	It is gold medal, or like, you know, it's gold-plated metal, probably not real gold.
1:24.9	If you go to her Instagram, you'll see it on her head.
1:34.3	In the Free Birth Society, images of Emily and her crown are everywhere. Like, in the artwork for her podcast, Emily dazes at the camera, the crown on her head has a base of sculpted roses from which it stand long golden spikes.
1:48.2	She's naked, wearing only a white robe which is open to show her baby bump.
1:55.1	It's a beautiful image, but there's something unsettling about it.
2:00.8	It's a bit culty.
2:03.8	Like, she's the leader of all pregnant women.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Guardian, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Guardian and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.