Anna Wise

Tell me about your connection to Birth Companions

One day, in 2006, I was flicking through a magazine and saw an article about women being shackled in labour. It mentioned Birth Companions and I thought: that is it. I need to volunteer for this charity.

I spoke to Denise Marshall, did the training and became a volunteer birth supporter and phone holder.

I remember taking my first call in a Sainsbury’s car park holding my 18-month-old daughter. A woman had gone into labour but there were no volunteers available. I rang Denise and Alison, the volunteer coordinator, and said: “I’m available and I think I’m ready, if you think I’m ready.” They did, so I went. It was the first birth I’d attended other than my own.

I went on to do prison visiting, antenatal groups and community support. Then I applied for a paid administrator job – and didn’t get it! But when the person who did went on maternity leave, I was offered the cover and eventually became permanent.

As Birth Companions grew, my role grew too. I became Operations Manager, then Head of Operations and now Director of Operations.

For a while, I’d done almost every role in the organisation. I think that has made me much better at my job because I understand what delivering a service actually looks like on the ground and what it means to be alongside the women we work with.

Is there a particular moment that has stayed with you?

Every birth I’ve attended has been an incredible privilege. Birth is such an intimate, personal, otherworldly moment.

Recently, a woman contacted Birth Companions hoping to find the person who had supported her when she had given birth 17 years earlier. It turned out that person was me.

What struck me wasn’t that she remembered me personally. Seventeen years later, she remembered the support she had received and that she hadn’t been alone. I think that speaks to the power of simply being alongside somebody during birth.

What still needs to change for the women and babies Birth Companions works alongside?

The systems women encounter – maternity, housing, children's social care, immigration and criminal justice – need to be genuinely trauma-informed, women-centred and built around the women they are meant to support.

They also need to be much more joined up. So much of our frontline work is helping women navigate between systems, understand their rights and make sense of what is happening.

If those systems worked together and were genuinely co-designed with women, we would get far better outcomes for women, their children and future generations. This is what we’re trying to achieve through so much of our work.

What feels unique or special about Birth Companions and its work?

Someone once described Birth Companions as a “movable village”. We go to the woman and create the village around her. I love that because so much of what we do isn’t really about systems and services. It’s about the emotional, heart-based journey.

Finish this sentence: “Birth Companions is...”

Quietly revolutionary. We’re like the grit in the oyster. We work as a critical friend, navigating systems carefully enough to be able to influence them, while always pushing for change.

We don’t always get it right and there’s always more to do, but when I look at things like our Lived Experience Team and the way women are at the heart of our work, I think we are quietly doing something really radical.

Tell me about the object you've chosen and how it connects to your story.

I chose my knitting because I used to take it with me when I supported women in labour.

Births can go on for hours. Knitting gave me something calming and repetitive to do while still being completely present with a woman. It represented what birth support was really about: you weren’t necessarily doing anything. You were a calm presence, holding space and making sure a woman wasn’t alone.

I also have my old Holloway prison visitors pass. It took me such a long time to get because the systems and bureaucracy were so rigid. Before I had it, I could turn up to do a prison visit and find my name wasn’t on the list, then I would sit at the gate hoping somebody would ring down from the Mother and Baby unit and let me in.

Once I finally had the pass, it felt like gold dust. It meant I could draw keys, move around and visit women on different wings. For me, it represents some of the structures and red tape we’ve always had to navigate to be alongside women and give them the support they need.

Photography by Sarah Ainslie