Melissa J Bruijn

Melissa is an author of "How to Heal a Bad Birth". She is also a founder of Birthtalk.org, an organisation she co-founded with Debby Gould in 2002, specialising in supporting women after a traumatic birth, and towards an empowering birth in any scenario. She has a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Psychology/Music, and had a diverse career before becoming a mother, and discovering a need for services such as Birthtalk.org.

In her ‘previous life’ she ran a successful Early Childhood Music business, and was a Finalist in the Quest Newspaper’s Small Business Awards. She was Music Director for many of South Bank Parkland’s family festivals, including the annual Christmas Festival.

Just prior to her first child’s birth, she was Music Licensing Supervisor at EMI Music/Virgin Records in Sydney, Australia, where she was responsible for the licensing of music for advertisements, movies, and TV shows.

After her first birth, a traumatic experience that ended in a caesarean, Melissa slowly realized that she was not ‘ok’…and found that few people understood what she was going through. Debby, her sister-in-law was a midwifery student at the time, planting various ‘seeds’ and provided a shoulder to cry on, but it took another two and a half years until Melissa realized how heavily her birth had impacted upon her…and that she was not the only one.

Using tools garnered from her Psychology studies at University and beyond, she embarked upon a roller-coaster ride of reading, researching, and soul-searching that was marked by tears, intense anger, feelings of failure, discovery of strengths, new insights, glimmers of hope…and finally, healing. She was supported on this journey by Debby, who shared ideas and information that gave the healing she was experiencing new meaning and depth.

And then, Melissa’s business skills partnered with Debby’s midwifery instincts and their shared determination that there was a better way for women to experience birth and its aftermath. And Birthtalk was born, offering free 'Healing From Birth™' meetings to local women, and expanding to include antenatal education towards an empowering birth.

Since then, she has been providing a voice for women traumatized from their births alongside Debby, writing articles for national journals and magazines such as Birth Matters and Down to Birth, and has been interviewed for national radio, newspapers and television programmes on the issues of Birth Trauma.

Melissa is a co-founder of the Caesarean Awareness Network Australia (CANA). She has written articles for Birth Trauma Truths, Birthtalk.org’s blog, and recently co-wrote, with Debby, a chapter about Birth Trauma, in Birth Journeys – a new book sharing a series of women’s stories, with insights from various birth experts.

And she and Debby have now put everything they have learned from running Birthtalk.org's free 'Healing From Birth™' meetings into their first book, How to Heal a Bad Birth. And in January 2018 they were awarded a Lord Mayor's Australia Day Achievement Award for their work in the community and beyond, supporting women, men and families in the aftermath of a traumatic birth.

Melissa has gone on to have two more babies. Both of these births were empowering, positive experiences – both VBAC births, her second one a beautiful waterbirth.

Melissa lives in Brisbane, Australia with her husband and three children.