Milli Hill is a writer and freelance journalist with a passion for a world that centres women. Her book The Positive Birth Book is one of the UK’s bestselling pregnancy guides, and has sold over 100k copies since publication in 2017. Her more recent books, Give Birth like a Feminist, and My Period (for preteens), have also topped the Amazon charts. Her fourth book, Ultra Processed Women, was published by HQ (Harper Collins) in July 2025, and her fifth book, The Body Myth, was published in hardback in Summer 2026. To date, Milli’s books have been translated into seven languages.
A freelance journalist since 2013, she has written for many publications, including the Telegraph, Guardian, ipaper, GoodtoKnow, Daily Mail and Mother&Baby Magazine. She has been a columnist for the Telegraph women’s section, and for over two years she wrote a weekly column for BestDaily Magazine, which often went ‘viral’ and won her thousands of followers and acclaim from the likes of Ricki Lake.
As a writer, Milli is best known for raising awareness of women’s voices, rights, and experiences in the birth room. She is a tireless advocate for women’s choices, and for the notion that birth can be positive in any setting, from home to the operating theatre. She has appeared on many podcasts, BBC Radio 2 (Amol Rajan), BBC Radio 5 Live (Emma Barnett), BBC Radio 4 (AntiSocial), talkradio and many more. From 2012 to 2021 she founded and ran the global Positive Birth Movement, with hundreds of groups meeting worldwide to ‘shake up birth’.
She now writes a bestselling substack on feminist issues called WHAT ABOUT WOMEN, with hundreds of paying subscribers.
Journalist and author
Milli studied English Literature at Durham University. Before motherhood she worked as an actor and actor’s agent, and later retrained as a Dramatherapist, a form of creative arts psychotherapy. As a therapist she worked in a leading drug and alcohol rehab, and for the NHS with both adults with a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, and with children in foster care who had experienced trauma and abuse. Following the birth of her second baby in 2010, Milli began writing a blog, The Mule, which gained thousands of followers and topped the charts at the height of its popularity. This led to work as a freelance journalist – her first ever article was published by the Telegraph in 2013, and she went on to be a columnist for their women’s section. This work led in part to the creation of the Positive Birth Movement itself.
Milli edited Water Birth: Stories to Inspire and Inform, published in 2014, and led the charge for changes in attitudes to maternity care via a successful weekly column for BestDaily between 2013 and 2015. BestDaily is sadly no longer online, but you can read her most viral column, ‘A healthy baby is not all that matters’, which at the time had over 100k shares and has since been read over half a million times, here. Her next book, The Positive Birth Book, built on her work at BestDaily and was published by Pinter and Martin in March 2017, quickly becoming a bestseller. The book, like the Positive Birth Movement, has been praised for knocking down the walls of judgement and division between women, so often a part of the birth dialogue. Instead, the book gives women the awareness of their rights and information they need to be the key decision maker in birth, whatever kind of birth they hope for.
Her second book, Give Birth Like a Feminist, was published by HQ Stories (Harper Collins) in August 2019, and has been widely praised for raising the specific issue of women’s rights in the birth room itself.
Her third book, a period guide for preteens, aims to help young girls become better informed about their menstrual health and, through this, feel more positive about their incredible bodies. Just like birth, menstruation can be seen as a powerful expression of women’s health, in spite of often being stigmatised or seen as a weakness. My Period aims to give empowering messages and information about a range of topics from cycle charting to environmentally friendly periods, to a new generation of young women.
Her fourth non fiction book, Ultra Processed Women, was published by Harper Collins in July 2025.
Her fifth book, The Body Myth, came out in paperback in July 2026.
Campaigner and speaker
Milli has used writing and social media to challenge and influence attitudes around pregnancy and birth and was the brains behind leading campaigns such as #SoProud #BirthJustHappened and #metoointhebirthroom.
Milli speaks around the UK and internationally about women’s experiences of childbirth, birth as a feminist issue, women and UPF, and life in the female body. She has spoken at many events, including
Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival
Bradford Literary Festival
FiLiA
Oxford Feminist Union
A Woman’s Place
Waterstones, Gower Street
Expanding Normal Birth, Amsterdam
Propolis Foundation, Prague
Birthrights Dignity in Childbirth Forum, Royal College of Physicians, London
Royal Society of Medicine, Maternity and the Newborn Forum, London
Birth Trauma Conference, London
Association of Breastfeeding Mothers Conference, London
Home Birth Australia, Sydney
Let’s Talk Birth UK Tour (Bath, London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow)
Association of Radical Midwives Summer Meeting, London
Women’s Voices at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, London
Northern Maternity and Midwifery Festival
Northern Ireland Positive Birth Conference, Belfast
Positive Birth Conference, City University
…and many more.
Milli was a member of the Sheila Kitzinger Programme study group at Green Templeton College, Oxford in 2015 and contributed to the report Relationships: the pathway to safe, high quality maternity care. She was an expert speaker at The Baby Show (London Olympia and Excel, Birmingham NEC) from 2017 to 2022.
