Birth Preparation

These sessions are designed specifically around your individual needs, take place in your own home and can change and adapt depending on how your story develops. We can take a structured approach with my Birth Preparation course, or if free flow is more your style, that can work too. My aim is to pass on knowledge and experience and to help you, and your partner if you have one, feel prepared for labour, birth and the immediate postnatal period. Thinking about life with a baby and preparing for this time is a lot easier to do before the baby arrives! Each session lasts for two to three hours and usually, though not exclusively, covers the following topics:

Hopes and fears of birth and parenthood
Understanding inherited views of birth
Your choices, birth options, birthplace
Understanding how the maternity system works
Birth anatomy and physiology
Pelvic floor and exercise
Labour process
Instrumental augmentation, caesarean birth
Hormones of pregnancy birth and bonding
Nutrition and wellbeing
Birth partner’s role
Coping mechanisms: water, massage/counter pressure, visualisation/breathing techniques, hypnobirthing, positions, gas and air, epidural, rebozo
Birth plan (A, B and C) and considering when birth doesn’t go to plan
Induction, understanding the effects of and the reasons for
Birth bag essentials
B.R.A.I.N.
The first few hours, skin to skin, bonding, breastfeeding, bottle feeding
Recovery, rest, support, first forty days or the fourth trimester
Postnatal plan (A, B and C)
Preparing to feed, breastfeeding, bottle feeding and expressing milk
Support options

‘Anna is warm, intelligent and knowledgeable about birth. She remained impartial when it came to my birth wishes, always allowing me to come to my own decisions about every aspect of my birth plan, and only gently offering advice if I asked for her opinion’. Jo

Please call 07980 552232 or email anna@birthstory.co.uk for prices and availability.

Birth Preparation Group

My birth preparation group is a great way to learn about the process of labour and birth, to explore topics such as birth options and ways to cope with labour, in a relaxed environment. You can come with your partner if you have one, or on your own if you’re going solo. My aim is to pass on knowledge and experience and to help you feel prepared for labour, birth and the immediate postnatal period. Thinking about life with a baby and preparing for this time is a lot easier to do before the baby arrives!

The group is also a chance to meet other parents and to bounce ideas, questions and feelings off each other. This after all, is a time when support is of the essence and making connections will help you get through. I’ll also be sharing tips and information from a women’s health physio and a nutritionist.

The sessions run for 4 consecutive weeks at my home in north London, N4. Each session lasts for two and a half hours and usually, but not exclusively, covers the following:

Hopes and fears of birth and parenthood
Your choices, birth options, birthplace
Birth anatomy and physiology
Pelvic floor and exercise
Labour process
Instrumental augmentation, caesarean birth
Hormones of pregnancy birth and bonding
Nutrition and wellbeing
Birth partner’s role
Coping mechanisms: water, massage/counter pressure, visualisation/breathing techniques, hypnobirthing, positions, gas and air, epidural, rebozo
Birth plan (A, B and C)
Due dates and preparing for when things don’t go to plan
Induction
Birth bag essentials
B.R.A.I.N.
The first few hours, skin to skin, bonding, breastfeeding, bottle feeding
Recovery, rest, support, first forty days
Postnatal plan (A, B and C)
Preparing to feed, breastfeeding, bottle feeding and expressing milk
Support options

‘It was like having an expert parent helping us the whole way, without telling us what to do but guiding us through it all with great knowledge’. Adam

Please call 07980 552232 or email anna@birthstory.co.uk for prices and availability.