My Journey & My Values
After travelling the globe supporting more than 3000 women in 4 different continents, I learned that birth is a sacred rite of passage that needs to be respected and protected. I support women and people to come back to themselves and their innate ability of being loving, attuned mothers. All women and people are worthy of receiving the support they deserve, surrounded by love and compassion.
I met many tribes and communities of wise women while travelling around the world. I always remember the red colour of the Earth, in Africa, while I was going from village to village to support a woman (or more) giving birth. I observed and learnt a lot about childbirth by just being with women and traditional midwives. At every birth, women gather under a hut to support the labouring woman by massaging her back, use of smoke to cleanse and purify, holding her in silence or sometimes singing. In Africa giving birth is a community celebration. I was always amazed to see that, this is lost in many other cultures - like mine.
A family that I helped during a complicated birth in Burundi, Africa, in 2009.
I believe every woman's life-journey is an inner dive to re-remembering and re-discovering our true essence and reclaim our body's wisdom, inner power, reclaiming creation & birth. Women are the leaders of this world, but we have been oppressed and suppressed for a long time.
I have always been a revolutionary and an adventurous soul since I was little. My curiosity and courage brought me to amazing places in the world. My personal and professional growth has always been paramount. I worked in really remote places, in villages in the middle of nowhere assisting women giving birth (giving to light, we say in Italian). In my over 17 years of midwifery, I have witnessed miracles and heartbreaking stories as well. I met incredible women, they have taught me that every woman is her own body's expert. Her own midwife.
Natural twins birth, South Sudan, Africa, 2011
At young age, it never crossed my mind to study midwifery. I don’t remember well how I took that decision, it was like a strong gut feeling pushing me to sit the exam for midwifery. When I graduated, I knew I didn’t want to become a hospital midwife, I was craving knowledge about traditional, real midwifery. So I left for Africa where I volunteered first (in Burundi) then worked as a midwife supervisor/manager with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Malawi, South Sudan, and Kenya. These experiences are unforgettable.
I studied in a very medicalised context, when I assisted births I knew that most of the teachings were really questionable, untrue. And so I unlearnt, self-studied, I observed a lot. I have always given my best to decrease medicalisation & violence in birth, still existing in a worrying extend everywhere in the world.
In Africa, I have learnt a lot about women, the naturalness of birth as well as how to support vaginal breech births, twins, VBAC. In low-resource settings I also witnessed western medicine forcing women to disconnect to their roots, rushing them to give birth in hospitals where they were alone, tied up in bed, and where more than 90% of interventions were unnecessary.
In 2012, I moved to London where I worked as caseloading midwife & team leader providing continuity of care and home births. This was one of my best professional and personal experiences. I have learnt the importance of trusting relationship, how to work with integrity. I advocated for women, supported their choices regardless of guidelines. I am so grateful I have witnessed so many gentle and undisturbed births.
In late 2014 I graduated at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, MSc in Reproductive and Sexual Health Research.
My midwifery team in London 2012-2016
In 2014-2015 I worked in Afghanistan as maternity manager for a birth unit where where 20,000 women per year give birth.
In these years, 2012-2016, I was on and off in Italy assisting home births. And at the end of 2016, I moved to Australia to work as Women's Health Advisor for MSF. I advised 30 maternal projects in improving midwifery care and introducing respectful maternity care. I gave technical support, training, mentoring to maternity hospitals and birth centres in Nigeria, Bangladesh, Uganda, Chad, Pakistan, and more.
I also studied a PgC in Quality care and Leadership at the Institution for Healthcare Improvement.
In Australia I dived deeply into myself. I studied yin & hatha yoga (with Cora Geroux), Reiki (with Jaqui Bushell & Sarah Bruce), meditation (with Lorin Roche), intuitive energy work (with Erin Orion, Katie Sutton, Caroline Padgette). I studied at the School of Shamanic woman's craft with Jane Hardwicke-Collings.
Maya's Home birth in London, 2014
In March 2021, I moved back to the UK for a short period to work as Consultant Midwife. I was one of the senior leaders of maternity services advocating for women and promoting birth physiology. While in the Uk, I certified as Yoga Nidra teacher with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli.
For the past 17 years, my path has been one of deep learning, unlearning, and embodied experience. I have chosen to approach birth with curiosity, respect, and a perspective that honors both modern awareness and ancient wisdom.
I am a certified Compassionate Inquiry® practitioner, having completed mentoring and internship with Dr. Gabor Maté. This approach integrates trauma awareness, the nervous system, and embodied presence, and it informs my work with mothers and families. I am also the creator and teacher of The Portal, a program that brings Compassionate Inquiry into the perinatal field.
Today I am an independent midwife and I am currently studying systemic constellations and vagal nerve regulation through the JAN Method with Janine van der Merwe.
Birth, to me, does not belong to institutions. I have witnessed too much disconnection, trauma, and loss of agency within maternity systems worldwide. Birth longs to return to community, meaning, and sacred space: where a woman is seen, respected, and free.
The way a woman gives birth changes everything. Her story. Her child’s story. Our collective future. When we reconnect to the wisdom of the body and the truth of our voice, we stop giving our power away. We reclaim birth as a birthright. We come home to ourselves.
I am here for the women who feel the call to remember.
Are you ready?
A gift card from one of the women I supported for her vaginal breech birth. UK, 2021
