Birth and Beyond brings forth new midwife…born and bred in the Nimbin Valley, Sunny continues bringing women choice to birth at home.

Birthing a Revolution: The Homebirth Movement and Birth & Beyond in Nimbin

When the sleepy dairy town of Nimbin, nestled in northern New South Wales, hosted the 1973 Aquarius Festival, no one could have predicted how profoundly it would transform the local landscape—socially, spiritually, and politically. The event drew thousands of seekers, artists, and idealists who envisioned a new way of living—close to the earth, outside of mainstream systems, and deeply rooted in communal values. Many stayed, founding communes and experimenting with sustainable living, self-sufficiency, and alternative health practices.

Among the most radical reimagining’s to emerge from this era was the rejection of institutionalized medicine in favour of natural, home-based childbirth. In this new cultural experiment, the act of birth became both a personal and political declaration: a reclaiming of autonomy, sovereignty, and ancestral knowledge. Here, birth was not a clinical procedure—it was a rite of passage, often surrounded by friends, midwives, and intentional community.

It was in this context that Birth & Beyond was born. Established in the late 1970s, the collective quickly became one of Australia’s most enduring community-run birth support organizations. Based at the Nimbin Community Centre—once the local School of Arts—the group provided a welcoming, non-clinical space for education, empowerment, and mutual aid. Expectant mothers could attend prenatal workshops, borrow birthing pools, access peer-led support groups, or connect with experienced midwives operating outside of the hospital system.

What set Birth & Beyond apart wasn’t just its services, but its ethos. It championed birth as a deeply personal act that should be free from unnecessary intervention and dictated not by policy, but by the needs and choices of the mother. The group emphasized collective wisdom, storytelling, and hands-on knowledge sharing, reclaiming birth as a community experience.

Many local stories emerged from this movement, but few illustrate the spirit of Nimbin’s homebirth legacy as clearly as this one: Sunny Hunt was born at home in the Tuntable Valley in the middle of a stormy summer’s night. From there, a midwife was raised. Her life, rooted in the traditions of community-supported birth, came full circle as she herself became a midwife—continuing the legacy she was literally born into.

Over the years, Nimbin became a kind of sanctuary for those seeking to birth outside the confines of the medical model. Midwives in the region often worked independently or in tight-knit collectives, embodying a practice rooted in trust and continuity of care. At a time when homebirth was under increasing legal and political pressure in Australia, Nimbin’s community stood firm in its support for birthing rights, intertwining the movement with the area’s broader feminist, environmental, and countercultural activism.

Today, Birth & Beyond remains an enduring presence. It continues to serves as a health hub for intergenerational knowledge sharing. It has helped normalize homebirth within broader Australian discourse and trained a generation of midwives and advocates who carry its vision beyond the valley.

More than just an organization, Birth & Beyond is a living archive of resistance, resilience, and the radical belief that birth belongs to women and their communities. In Nimbin, birth is not just a beginning—it’s a legacy.