When Leah Hazard was a young girl, her big passion was theater and she dreamt of becoming an actress. After obtaining a degree in English literature from Harvard University and Directing from Glasgow University, she joined a TV company in Scotland. But to her surprise, the job wasn’t that fulfilling. When Leah’s first daughter was born, a traumatic birth experience left her with a lot of questions and she decided to change direction and become a midwife.
For the past 12 years, Leah has been delivering the best maternal care possible and has written numerous books on reproductive health and rights, such as Womb: The Inside Story of Where We All Began, Hard Pushed: A Midwife’s Story and The Father’s Home Birth Handbook. Her new book BIRTH WARS: The Hidden Battles Changing Our Bodies and Our World is coming in 2027.
Together we speak about unexpected career changes, channeling anger into activism, the importance of having mentors and finding a balance between writing and practicing midwifery.
When I say a strong woman, who comes to your mind?
I would say my daughters. They are now 18 and 22 and I admire them enormously. They are everything I wish I could be. They are much smarter and funnier. Most of the work that I’ve done on women’s rights and reproductive rights is because of them. I want the world to be better for them.
When did you have your daughters?
I’m 47 and my daughters were born in 2003 and 2006 way before I was a midwife. Originally, I was working at a television. My first degree was in English Literature and then I came to Scotland to do a one-year Master’s degree in directing and I had hoped to work in the theater but for various reasons I got a position at a television company and I worked behind the scenes for a few years. When my older daughter was born, the experience was pretty difficult and I found that lots of other women felt it very challenging.
What do you mean by challenging?
The birth was difficult but the thing that surprised me and many of my friends was that we thought that we had been prepared but we really weren’t and we felt the care that we were given during labor and afterward was not as it could have been. That experience left me with a lot of questions and that’s when I changed direction.
What did you do?
Even though I had been through two university degrees and had two children I did go back to university to study midwifery in 2013 and I became a doula – providing companionship and support to people during pregnancy, birth and postnatally.
What a big change! How was it perceived by your family?
My parents were shocked that I did go back to university to study midwifery. I had a degree from Harvard in English Literature and they thought “What more could you possibly want than that?” They couldn’t understand that I wanted to study something that wasn’t that intellectual and that I would want to do a job that was physically demanding. In the end, they understood and appreciated it.
It’s interesting how parents always have in mind what their children should study. What type of background did you grow up in?
It was a very academic bookish house. My father was a university professor of biochemistry, he had a lab and was very involved in university. My mother had a similar background but left the university to run her own business. Our home was focused on learning, hard work and study. A lot of that was influenced by my grandparents’ immigrant’s background. Both my maternal grandparents were from what was originally Czechoslovakia and left at the start of World War 2. My paternal grandparents were also refugees from Eastern Europe. My brother and I understood that education was the most important thing in life.
When you were a small girl, which women did you admire?
My mother is definitely quite a strong character. She was very explicit about the fact that women should be independent, to have their own money and live their own life and that wasn’t always easy for her because she was a young woman in the 1960s. I definitely always had the impression that she was very motivated, intelligent and had a strong sense of social justice and the importance of helping other people who are oppressed and struggling.
What about school? Did you have any inspiring teachers?
I went to a very standard state school in a suburban town and the only person who was inspirational was a drama club teacher. He was a great teacher and he understood each student. At the end of each production, he would write a personal letter to each participant saying thank you so much for what you brought to the production and he always added a special joke or story. That compassionate intuitive style of teaching had a big impact on me.
Did you always know what you wanted to do?
From early high school I knew I wanted to do something with theater and I had an idea I wanted to be an actress. I did a few summer drama programs and I was encouraged to do directing but it wasn’t so interesting for me. I then went to study English literature with focus on stage work and I enjoyed that.
In terms of inspiring people, did it get better at Harvard?
There is no doubt that all my teachers were inspirational in terms of their dedication to their subject but most of the courses involved classes of several hundred students and it wasn’t so personal. In the final year, though, I took a creative writing course with Brad Watson and he gave me a lot of encouragement around the fiction I was writing at that time and although I didn’t come back to writing fiction, his encouragement got into my brain and made me think that this is something I could do.
I thought that Harvard was the best place on Earth but now that you’re saying maybe I romanticized it.
There is no doubt that Harvard is an inspirational place but a lot of that comes from the other students and resources that are available to you on the campus. It’s the whole 3D experience. Now I look back and think that I wasted my time because I could have made much better use of the resources I had. I just didn’t know because I wasn’t interested in those things.
Credit: Matt Marcus
I totally feel you. When you look at your career, did you find your calling in midwifery?
The TV definitely wasn’t it. I could have had a happy life working in the theater but it’s such a difficult career to sustain and not very family-friendly. Midwifery has been a vocation for me. There is a big difference between the ideal of midwifery and how it actually exists in the current health system. It’s hard to facilitate everybody’s choices in that industrial system.
For sure! Leah, who has been your biggest supporter?
Definitely my husband. Is that a feminist thing to say?
Why not?
Yeah, why not. We met when I was 21 and our lives were very different at that point. We have seen each other through different career changes, disappointments and challenges. He is very supportive and proud of what I do and he believes in myself more than I do in myself.
Have you also had any mentors?
Yes, I’m grateful that I’ve had many inspiring mentors. Being mentored by senior colleagues and mentoring junior colleagues is part of the practice and this is how midwives have practiced for thousands of years. In publishing, it’s very different because you are a solitary person writing a book in your pajamas. Nobody is checking on you. You have to be a bit more proactive and find someone who can teach you and guide you. I have been lucky to have writing friends.
How do you combine midwifery and writing?
Initially it was quite difficult. At the time when I managed to sell Womb to the publisher I was working almost full-time as a midwife in the hospital, doing extra shifts and homeschooling my children because Covid-19 hit. I realized very quickly that I can keep doing what I am doing and write an okay book or I can cut on my midwife hours and write a really good book. I left my permanent job and now I work on staff back. I fill in for people who are sick and I can pick when I want to work. Since summer 2020, my main focus has been writing.
How are you balancing these two very different professions?
I’m very fortunate that I don’t have to work at the hospital to pay my bills because I have income from writing and my husband works also. I struggle with how much longer I want to be a midwife because it’s difficult and stressful work in the UK. I don’t know if I’m going to do it forever but now it’s still working.
What book are you working on now?
I’m two thirds way through the first draft of my book BIRTH WARS: The Hidden Battles Changing Our Bodies and Our World, which will be published in the UK in 2027. It’s about the major forces that affect how maternity care is delivered around the world in the 21st century and why we are getting it wrong. I’m talking about birth during immigration, climate change, AI, incarcerated people, private versus public healthcare. I’m looking at how we got to the point where maternity care has become an industrial model – big hospitals, busy people, no time for individualized care.
Sounds interesting! Who are your readers?
The typical reader is probably a woman in her 30’s who is interested in her body, women’s health and rights. But I’ve gotten beautiful feedback from women of different ages, from men and trans and nonbinary people. I’ve recently spoken with one American professor of Biomechanics who reads the book chapter by chapter with her students and thinks about ways that bioengineering could be used in reproductive healthcare. That’s not anything I would ever imagine.
Are there any other women you admire?
I’m a trustee for Amma Birth Companions, a Glasgow charity that supports women and birthing people from migrant backgrounds and other underserved groups during pregnancy, childbirth, and early parenthood. I have to say I admire these women.
What feelings do you associate with feminism?
Feminism is simply the idea that women deserve equal opportunities, rights and respect, which to me is an inarguable proposition. It’s not a principle that says that women are superior or that they deserve special treatment. Feminism should be a natural default position for everyone and a normal starting point for a just society.
How do you feel as a feminist?
My dominant feeling is anger. When I look at what’s happening in the world, it makes me incredibly angry. I joke to people that when I get angry, I write a book and it’s true. In the UK, we are nowhere near an equitable society for women and men. Last week, the Health Secretary in England published National Health Service priorities for 2025-2026 and the word ‘woman’ doesn’t even appear in the document. In Scotland, we’re struggling to hold on to our rights to abortion. We unfortunately have American lobbying groups that have a lot of influence here. When you look at what’s happening in America, it’s shocking and it’s only going to get worse.
How bad can it get?
We’re only a month to Trump’s presidency and it’s appalling. They will come for contraception, which is already happening. It used to be a case that when a woman wanted to use the pill, she had to get her husband’s approval. In some cases, if you want a hysterectomy (removal of uterus), your partner is still asked if he’s okay with it. It will probably go down those lines with contraception as well – it will be almost impossible to access. It’s just really bad news.
It’s always shocking to me that so many women in the US reinforce values that make lives harder for their daughters instead of imagining a brighter future for them.
I don’t know if it’s internalized misogyny or fear of breaking the norm or they genuinely believe they’re doing a good thing. Sometimes women can be much more cruel than men and I’ve seen that in my life as well. In Margaret Attwood’s book The Handmaid’s Tale, the cruelest character who makes sure that patriarchal rules are followed is a woman. Even now some of the senior people in Trump’s administration will be women and I don’t understand why they are pulling up the ladder behind themselves.
Were there times when you were not interested in feminism?
There was a big part of my life where feminism wasn’t in front of mind and I wasn’t active. I just wanted to have fun and do my own thing. But having daughters has definitely opened my eyes, as well as age and experience.
What impact has your work had on your daughters?
That remains to be seen. In the beginning it was surprising for them that I took this direction but now they can see the wider impact that I’m hopefully having and they are proud of me. My older daughter is studying medicine and she is interested in maybe something around sexual health. Younger daughter wants to do something completely different. Any mother hopes that she has given her children the tools they need to be happy, fulfilled and independent.
I’m sure you’ve done a great job! Thanks for channeling your anger into activism and I wish you good luck with your writing!