Pre- and post-natal fitness expert Shakira Akabusi joins Clemmie this week to discuss how she managed her OCD, needle phobia and anxiety during her second birth. Shakira’s positive first birth created high expectations for the second, but she had to fight to get the care she needed and struggled to find time to connect with the pregnancy. Clemmie and Shakira discuss mental health provisions in the NHS, what it feels like to have an epidural and the unfair stigma around pain relief in childbirth. They also take a question about having a phobia of blood loss.  Find out more about Shakira’s campaign at stronglikemum.com Follow Clemmie's Mother of Daughters account: instagram.com/mother_of_daughters/ Follow Clemmie's Gas and Air account: instagram.com/gasandair/ Birth Stories is produced by Hannah Varrall and created by Off Script. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy