Pregnancy, birth and preparing to bring a new baby home can come with a lot to think about. There’s practical information to learn, decisions to make and, often, a seemingly endless stream of opinions about what you should be doing.
For LGBTQ+ families, there can be an additional challenge: navigating perinatal services and education that are often heavily gendered and built around assumptions about who becomes pregnant, who gives birth and what a family looks like.
Our perinatal education programme was created to offer something different.
Our classes provide an inclusive, affirming and supportive space where you can learn about pregnancy, birth and early parenthood without having to explain or defend your family. Sessions are non-gendered, trauma-informed and non-judgemental, with non-gestational parents recognised as equal members of the family.
Rather than telling you there is one “right” way to give birth or parent, we aim to give you unbiased, evidence-based information so that you can understand your options, ask questions and make informed decisions about your body, care and family.
How Our Perinatal Course Works
Our perinatal course is divided into two sections:
- Antenatal: pregnancy and birth
- Postnatal: preparing for and parenting a new baby
Each section takes place across a weekend and includes two four-hour sessions. You’re welcome to attend the antenatal section, the postnatal section or both, depending on what feels most useful for you and your family.
All classes take place online via Zoom, so you can join us from your own home.
Antenatal Sessions
Our antenatal sessions are designed to help you understand what may happen during later pregnancy and birth, explore the choices available to you and feel more confident participating in decisions about your care.
There is no single “right” way to experience pregnancy or birth. Our role is to help you understand the information and options available so you can decide what feels right for you.
Antenatal Session 1
4 hours
Our first antenatal session explores the physiology of late pregnancy, labour and birth.
We’ll look at what happens within the body as pregnancy progresses towards birth and explore the different stages and processes involved in labour.
Understanding what may be happening can make some of the unfamiliar aspects of birth feel a little less mysterious. It also gives us a foundation for exploring ways you might choose to support yourself and your body throughout labour and birth.
There will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions and discuss what this information might mean for your own preferences and circumstances.
Antenatal Session 2
4 hours
Our second antenatal session focuses on options, care and empowerment.
We explore the different avenues of care that may be available during pregnancy and labour, alongside some of the care, monitoring and interventions you may be offered during the later stages of pregnancy and birth.
We’ll help you understand your options and think about the questions you might want to ask your healthcare team so that you can be actively involved in decisions about your care.
The aim isn’t to encourage one particular type of birth. It’s to help you feel informed about your choices and better equipped to advocate for yourself and your family.
Postnatal Sessions
Preparing for a baby isn’t only about preparing for birth. Our postnatal sessions look beyond labour and help you think about those first days, weeks and months of life with your new baby.
We cover practical baby care alongside feeding, recovery, soothing and some of the everyday questions that can come with becoming a parent.
Postnatal Session 1
4 hours
Our first postnatal session focuses on bringing your baby home and navigating the fourth trimester.
We’ll talk about what those early weeks can look like and work through some of the practical skills and information that can help you prepare.
Topics include:
- What baby products you actually need – and which ones you might decide to skip
- Different feeding options
- Safer sleep
- Bathing your baby
- Eye and umbilical cord care
- Nappy changing
There’s a lot of information aimed at new parents, and an even larger number of products marketed as essential. We’ll help you make sense of some of it so you can decide what works for your family.
Postnatal Session 2
4 hours
Our second postnatal session builds on the first and explores some of the practical and emotional realities of caring for a new baby – while remembering that the people caring for that baby need care too.
We’ll explore:
- Babywearing
- Preparing and arranging your baby’s sleeping and living spaces
- Ways to soothe and respond to a crying baby
- Caring for your postnatal body
- Postnatal nourishment
- Baby massage
By the end of the course, we hope you’ll feel more informed and confident about navigating early parenthood. That doesn’t mean knowing everything or feeling as though you have to manage everything alone.
Part of preparing for parenthood is also knowing where you can turn when you have questions or need some extra support.
Pricing
We use tiered pricing to help make our perinatal education accessible to more families.
Full price
£195 per weekend or £325 for both the antenatal and postnatal sections.
Discounted
£150 per weekend or £260 for both sections.
Concession
£105 per weekend or £175 for both sections.
Payment by instalments is available across all pricing tiers.
To reserve your place, we ask for a 50% non-refundable deposit.
Hardship Places
If our concession price is still beyond what you can comfortably afford, please don’t assume that means our classes aren’t for you.
We offer hardship places in every class. You can contact us directly to ask about reserving one.
We will never ask you to provide evidence or justify why you need a hardship place. We trust you to decide whether this option is right for your circumstances.
Interested in Joining Us?
You don’t need to fit a particular family structure, use particular labels or have a particular vision for pregnancy, birth or parenting to belong in our classes.
Come with your questions, your uncertainties and whatever hopes you have for the journey ahead.
Use the contact form below to enquire about upcoming perinatal education classes, pricing, hardship places or anything else you’d like to know before joining us.
Ready to book?
Click below to be taken to the next available classes.