In this Halloween interlude, Chloe steps away from birth story interviews to explore one of birth’s most mysterious moments: the baby born in the caul, still wrapped in the intact amniotic sac.
She starts with a client’s question about what the amniotic sac looks and feels like, and remembers touching membranes for the first time after her oldest son’s birth: silky, pearly, and otherworldly. She explains what a caul birth is, how partial and complete caul births differ, and why homebirth midwives see them far more often than hospitals do. She also shares her own numbers from 2026: three partial caul births out of 21 births so far this year.
Chloe then makes the clinical case for leaving membranes intact. She covers the cushioning and buoyancy that may help a baby find a better position, the risks of cord compression and prolapse once the waters are broken, infection risk, and what the evidence says about whether amniotomy actually shortens labour. She illustrates this with a recent long labour where a baby in an OP position rotated, the waters broke on their own, and he was born 20 minutes later.
The episode then turns to caul folklore across centuries and continents:
Chloe also busts a common myth about the Dalai Lama. She closes by asking why so many unrelated cultures arrived at similar beliefs, and reflects on intuition as a real part of good midwifery alongside evidence-based care.
Citations: