Our antenatal course includes:

• Making decisions during pregnancy

• Place of birth and what your options are locally

• The hormones of labour & physiology behind labour

• The different stages of labour and how it progresses

• Pain relief options; pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical e.g. aromatherapy

• Breathing techniques to use during pregnancy and labour

• Birth options and writing your preferences down

• Active birth and techniques to make labour more comfortable

• Lots of techniques for your birth partner to use to support you including massage techniques and using a rebozo scarf

• What can happen when birth doesn’t go to plan

• Induction of labour and making it as positive and successful as possible

• Caesarean birth options and writing a caesarean birth plan

• A session on birth videos to help you visualise different scenarios and the techniques you might use to help yourself

• What happens after the birth of your baby in different scenarios: including in hospital and at home

• Postnatal changes to your body; physical and emotional

• Writing a postnatal plan for you and your partner

• Your different options for feeding your baby; including a variety of options (breastfeeding, expressing, formula feeding)

• Common challenges with feeding and how to overcome them

• Where you can reach out for support locally with feeding

• Baby care; including bathing, nappies, cord care, dressing baby, holding baby

• Safe sleep and what a newborns sleep is like

• Using a stretchy sling safely with your newborn baby

• The fourth trimester with your baby

• Responsive parenting

• Answers to any of the many questions you might have!

Some of the main differences between ours and other antenatal courses are:

• The course length and the wide variety of the topics covered helps us stand out from other antenatal courses

• It is 50% birth-focused and 50% focused on the postnatal period as we believe that preparation for life with your baby and recovery is just as important as preparing for different birth scenarios within the NHS

• Our course is taught by a midwife which some other antenatal courses aren’t, meaning you are taught about birth from the professionals who look after parents during their pregnancy and birth of their baby. This means all of your questions can be asked about different scenarios and technicalities, options within the NHS and outside the NHS and you’ll get an honest opinion from a midwife who has the experience to back it up!

• You also get ongoing support via WhatsApp from the midwife teaching your course with any questions you have as your pregnancy progresses or after your baby has arrived

• As well as online resources and videos we also have a thorough (and very visual) handout of information to take home which clients cover with notes during the sessions and often read through a few times before they have their baby

• Our course is a mixture of explanation of different topics, lots of time to ask questions, social time in the breaks, lots of activities during each session on different topics, and discussion to suit many people’s different ways of learning

• We have input from other healthcare professionals into the design of the course, including obstetricians, anaesthetists, feeding experts, and babywearing consultants plus all of our collective midwifery knowledge!

• The course is also shaped by the feedback from new parents about what they want included which keeps it up to date and very relevant to birthing in the current maternity system

• Crucially, the course has a non-judgemental ethos at its core. We want you to have a positive birth and postnatal experience - whatever that looks like to you. What makes a positive birth is different from one person to another and we support your choice to make decisions that are right for you, as long as you have the information to support those decisions.

Our discounts include:

• A £25 discount for NHS staff (we have lots of doctors, midwives and nurses doing our courses!)

• 35% off for solo parents - our founder Sophie was a single mum when she had her son and at the time that she initially wrote the course and started teaching

Other options include:

• Payment plans - these can be arranged by using the contact form and can be flexible according to what you need

• Access to The Village Midwife Accessibility Fund - this is a fund set aside to allow people to access our courses. Lots of previous clients donate to it and our founder Sophie puts a portion aside into the fund each month to make sure that everyone can access an antenatal course. Everyone deserves good quality antenatal education and ongoing support to have a positive birth and fourth trimester with their baby and this is at the core of what we do at The Village Midwife.

Absolutely!

• A huge part of our antenatal course is preparation for birth partners. It is crucial to equip birth partners to support you during labour and the postnatal period but it is also important for partners to feel prepared to make sure they have a positive experience of this crucial time themselves.

• We get asked a lot whether the price includes your birth partner - yes, the price is for two of you

• If your partner is unavailable for some of the sessions you are also very welcome to come along on your own, or bring someone else with you!

• Similarly, if you are a solo parent you are welcome to join the classes on your own however you are encouraged to bring whoever is supporting you during labour so that they benefit from the course content!

• No we don’t need to! Our groups are so social that they are all regularly meeting up for pub lunches, coffees and walks with the babies so it isn’t necessary. Plus everyone gets ongoing support from the midwife teaching their course into the postnatal period anyway!

• Everyone gets added to a WhatsApp group during the course which are usually super chatty (and the midwife stays on this group to answer questions and see birth announcements) and then usually parents also make WhatsApp groups for mums and for partners which are even more chatty! Parents use these groups to organise lunches after sessions and meet-ups during the course as well as after.

• In some areas, we also have our popular postnatal course which supports you through the first few months of your babies life and is super social!

• Yes absolutely! The antenatal course is for anyone planning any type of birth

• Part of the antenatal course is discussing caesarean birth and what it involves, going through caesarean birth preferences and how to communicate these, plus an in-depth discussion of recovery from a caesarean birth! We also discuss the postnatal period, baby care and feeding - all of which are super relevant to any birth experience you may have

• Plus, you make a supportive group of friends due at the same time as you and get the ongoing support of the midwife teaching your course - both are invaluable!

• This depends on the location as we make sure there is enough space for everyone at the venue the midwife has chosen to teach in

• As a rule, however, we have a maximum of 10 couples because we want everyone to have the chance to ask questions and the midwife needs to be able to support everyone via WhatsApp with questions after the course

You have a few options:

1. You can catch up using the handout and online resources which have plenty of information in so that you don’t miss out

2. You can organise a 1-1 catch-up session with the midwife teaching your course. There is a cost for this as the midwife organises a time to come to your home, however, people find this very valuable and often book one of these sessions without missing a session!

3. You can sometimes join the equivalent session on one of the other antenatal courses before your due date if there is space or at another location if there is one close by!

• The antenatal course includes some elements of hypnobirthing such as breathing techniques and other tools to help you relax during labour and create a positive mindset surrounding birth, plus a thorough understanding of the physiology behind birth

• We know not everyone wants to cover hypnobirthing - so there is an optional relaxation exercise by Sophie, founder and hypnobirthing teacher, which is available to clients online

• Most of our midwives also offer a 1:1 course in hypnobirthing. The 3-hour hypnobirthing course is only available to The Village Midwife antenatal clients because of the physiology and breathing techniques involved in the antenatal course. The 1:1 course involves 1:1 time to discuss your fears or worries and to go through hypnobirthing techniques in depth including relaxation scripts and visualisations

• The different location pages on the website will suggest which course might be right for you based on your ‘due month’ however it is up to you if you wanted to do it earlier or later for any given reason - we leave it up to you to choose what feels right for you

• If you’re stuck, drop us a message on our contact form for advice and we can help!