Abby Holmes 𖦹 Midwifery
come home to your body
Abby Holmes offers midwifery and corrective hands-on care for prenatal, antenatal and postpartum women experiencing pain, trauma, or who have simply run out of options in the mainstream medical space.
Abby offers a safe presence, dedicated time, and abundant tenderness to speak your story into words. In a birth debrief, Abby can share information about hormones, the nervous system, pelvic bones, connective tissues, and how a baby moves through this space, with the hope of helping you understand what happened for you and baby.
Soft tissues in the pelvis hold tension as in any other body area. Tension can be conscious or unconscious. Internal pelvic release work is more than just bodywork; it is somatic storytelling. It allows your body to communicate and show you what it has been intelligently holding.
Come for healing, come for answers, come for care.
Services
-
![Internal Pelvic Release]()
Internal Pelvic Release
Internal Pelvic Release Work is an exploration and gentle release of tension in the bones and soft tissues of the pelvis – ligaments, muscles, fascia – felt through the back wall of the vagina.
Gentle, deliberate touch supports a softening of tissue tension which may be interfering with proper pelvic function. This release allows blood, lymphatic fluid, hormones, and energy/ attention to flow.
Internal Pelvic Release is right for anyone experiencing pelvic pain, preparing for birth, or curious to learn more about their pelvic goods and anatomical potential. -
![Scar Release]()
Scar Release
Anything cut or burned during a surgery causes a scar. Any scar has the potential to cause a push-pull.
Scar release work increases tissue potential. Caesarean section scars and vaginal scars benefit enormously from gentle release work.
Tender, deliberate touch brings about a softening of scars, so improving lymphatic blood flow and nervous innervation. This softens and improves the elasticity of all the scar layers and has a ripple effect to its surrounding tissues.
-
![Birth Debriefing]()
Birth Debriefing
Birth is big. No matter how it unfolds, we are always definitively changed by birth.
It is vital you are given a safe space, dedicated time, and abundant tenderness to speak your birth story into words.
Abby will listen, hold, and help you make sense of what went on in your birth. She can share information about hormones, the nervous system, pelvic bones, connective tissues, and how the baby moves through this space, with the hope of helping you understand what happened for you and baby.
-
![Birth Education]()
Birth Education
Arming yourself with education before birth and life as a parents is a well documented protective strategy against birth trauma, postnatal depression and adjustment challenges.
Abby’s education package includes 12 hours of evidence-based information and hands-on skills, including birth physiology, labour strategies, obstetric interventions, hospital policies, postpartum recovery, breastfeeding, and life with a newborn.
-
![Mothers' Blessings]()
Mothers' Blessings
The transition from maiden to mother is one of the most transformative experiences in a woman’s life. When we go through major life events without marking them appropriately, we lose the opportunity to anchor that moment in our experience.
A Mothers’ Blessing exists to honour this. It is a sacred, intimate ceremony rooted in Native American traditions. Unlike a typical baby shower, a Mother’s Blessing is centred around emotional, spiritual, and communal support for the expectant mother.
Abigail Holmes EM
Endorsed Midwife, IPRW Practitioner
Abby is an Endorsed Midwife, Internal Pelvic Release Practitioner and Childbirth Educator. She has been attending births for 7 years, supporting both homebirths and hospital births.
Abby is an advocate for reproductive justice and women's rights in the birth space. She sees prenatal education as a significant protective strategy against trauma, and a catalyst for families knowing their healthcare rights.
Abby considers somatic skills, and the connection between nervous systems that touch can bring, as an integral part of relationship building as a midwife. Abby is a proponent of relationship-based midwifery as the most powerful assurance that you enter parenthood feeling emotionally nurtured and somatically nourished.
Where lowland is, that's where water goes. All medicine wants is pain to cure. — Rumi
Frequently Asked Questions
-
Internal Pelvic Release work identifies tension and invites it to release through tender direct touch, therefore releasing trauma and creating space.
All organs in the body are supported by soft tissue connections. The pelvis being the bony guardian of a woman’s reproductive organs also has a multitude of ligaments, fascia and muscles supporting the bladder, bowel and womb (with her cervix and vagina). The intention of these fibres is to hold the organs in a balanced, suspensory fashion. The capacity of these fibres to accommodate change within the pelvis, most notably pregnancy, is extraordinary.
Soft tissues can hold tension as in any other body area.
Tension can be conscious or unconscious.
Tension can stem from injuries, postural habits, trauma, surgery, hobbies or lifestyle choices.
Tension can restrict movement, flow, expansion, and space of the bones and organs.
Tension in soft tissues can hold memories and emotions. We can hold ‘issues in the tissues’.
During an internal pelvic release session with Abby, tension can be identified and invited to release with tender touch, allowing the tissues to sigh.
When tissues sigh, space is created. Comfort is created.
The vagina is a stretchable tube. Its ability to transform is gobsmacking. Women are usually only familiar with vaginal examinations that explore the top wall – as in a cervix check when in labour or for a pap smear. But the vagina has back and side walls through which tender contact can be made to free tension in the ligaments, muscles, and fascia.
Once you have experienced the felt effects of internal pelvic release, it is difficult to deny the power of human touch, attention, and care.
-
A two-hour session involves conversation, education, and practical work. Every appointment is individualised, but the general flow is as follows:
Education: on the anatomy and unique makeup of your pelvis, including its bones, ligaments and soft tissues, to enhance your understanding and respect of this powerful space.
Internal work: gentle exploration and release of tension in the connective tissues (ligaments, muscles, and fascia), accessed through the back wall of the vagina.
Personalised guidance on self-care after our session, continuing release techniques at home (either on your own or with a loved one’s assistance), and maintaining the benefits of release.
-
Women and birthing people who:
Are preparing for birth
Are healing from birth
Have painful scars from birth
Are experiencing pelvic organ prolapse
Who want to understand why they ‘couldn’t birth’ their baby vaginally
Who are confused about sensations they felt in their labour or stalls in their labour
Who are experiencing pain or trauma in their sex organs
Who have been harmed by another
Who experience painful or no sex
Who feel their pelvic floor is weak
Who feel their pelvic floor is tight or hypertonic​
Who are experiencing anxiety or hypervigilance
Who are experiencing menopausal complications
Women curious to know more about their pelvic goods
…And everyone/everything in between
-
It is always right to have a session in this world of women being poorly educated about their pelvic goods. Until we are educated about the potency of our womb, cervix, vagina and pelvis, we will never claim the power we hold as women.
A session is right for you if you are preparing for birth or are post birth and healing. There is always body preparation or ‘homework’ to do when preparing for one of the most momentous experiences of life – birth. The work supports women in reaching their anatomical potential.
A session is right for you if you are experiencing pelvic pain. Pain leads to tension. Tension leads to more pain. The connective tissues of the pelvis can be invited to soften and support flow and drainage into and out of the pelvic space.
A session is right for you if you have a prolapse or ‘droop’ of your pelvic organs – bladder, bowel, cervix. Pelvic organ prolapse is a massive challenge in a woman’s life, and it affects SO many – those who are fertile, those who are peri menopausal, menopausal and post menopausal.
Pelvic Release Work can help support the release of tissue tension that may interfere with proper function.
A session is right for all women!!
-
The release work is gentle but deliberate. It can feel strong at times when connective tissues are being held as they release. The touch pressure will align with your preferences, and your feedback will be continually saught during the session.
The sensations are ‘weird’. We’re not working through skin and hair and fat like external bodywork. We’re working through the generous back wall of the vagina. Some fibres melt and soften with ease; others need more time and holding. Nothing is forced.
-
No preparation is necessary.
Just bring yourself along for care.
-
Not to me. I am honoured to do this work and even more so when people I know and love trust me to care for them. Remember that I’ve been a midwife for several years and am adept at caregiver professionalism. However, if it feels too weird for you, I can refer you to some other wonderful practitioners.
Book an Appointment
Abby works out of The Pelvic Space in Clifton Hill, her own home in St Kilda, and online, depending on your appointment type. She can also travel to your home on arrangement.
A two-hour session involves conversation, education, and practical work. Every appointment is individualised.
Join the ever-growing body of women getting to know their pelvic space.
