Tag: parent classes Herts

Psoas muscle? Birth? How do they connect? Psoas muscle for birth

Click here to read my updated blog

You might not have even heard of your psoas muscle. It is a bit of a secret muscle – but so important.

These are such amazing muscles that are so important during birth, and they are not spoken about enough. They connect our spine with the top of our femur/thigh bone. We have one on each side of our body. There are four (possibly even 6) muscles in total but the ones on each side almost work together as one.

The Psoas’ primary action is to flex the hips. They also play an essential role in stabilising the spine and offering structural support for your internal organs.

Chronic stress and posture issues can cause the psoas muscles to contract and remain tight. This might result in hip and back issues, digestive problems, shallow breathing, and a feeling of unease that links with anxiety. Sitting for long periods of time, wearing high heels, sleeping in the fetal position, bad posture, and excessive exercise without knowledge of stretching can contribute to these issues.

Our Psoas muscles are such an important part of birth! It’s a fight or flight muscle so any fears, doubts or uncertainty can trigger the muscle to tense up. This then prepares your legs to physically flee the situation.

Sitting deep in the core, when the psoas tight it can restrict space for the uterus and lead to imbalance. This can impact baby’s positioning and ultimately the birth. A tight psoas muscle can also restrict space in the body for your internal organs. These are also severely impacted by the growing baby. Combined together it can cause issues there too, particularly with digestion. psoas muscle for birth

The most important things to note are:

• These muscles need to remain released. When these muscles are tight, it can result in discomfort, low back pain, aches, pelvic imbalance, structural and postural problems, interference of the movement of fluids, constricting of the organs and nerves, and even limiting breathing.
• These muscles are responsible for our fight-flight-freeze response, so if there is adrenaline pumping through your body, they can become tense. And we know that isn’t great for birth.
• They have a real impact on baby’s positioning, your comfort in pregnancy but also in your birth.  The psoas releases and creates a spiralling motion to help baby descend further into the pelvis during birth.
• The nerves of the reproductive organs run very close to the psoas muscles. Tight psoas muscles may restrict these nerves and create more discomfort during your birth. Especially one associated with back pain and or leg referral

 

The great news is that you can work on releasing your psoas muscle during pregnancy. You can learn about birth by taking active birth antenatal classes such as our CubCare range of classes. CubCare Active Antenatal class is a wonderful class to practice the techniques each week. Knowing about birth will lower your chances of the fight-flight-freeze response initiating. You can also work on your mindset to lower the chances of adrenaline entering your body to restrict this important set of muscles. Again, a CubCare antenatal class will work with your choices to help you make the confident decisions you need for your big day.

Birth

Read my updated blog post here

To attend an Active Birth class see here

When you think about birth it is likely you imagine someone laying down in agony, writhing around on the bed and being pumped full of drugs. We have years of conditioning from what we’ve witnessed our whole lives through film and television. Images like that are not helpful and are damaging for expectant parents. Active birth Welwyn

Humans are a product of our experiences. If our only knowledge and experience of birth is from a dangerous fiction, then there is a danger of that becoming our own reality.

It is time to change the narrative, work with our bodies and believe that our bodies are made to do this and therefore absolutely can do this! The answer – mindset and active birth.

What is active birth?

When thinking about birth it is important to remember that humans are mammals; and look to other mammals giving birth for an idea for how we can do it. Active birth Welwyn

A calm, quiet space. Upright positions. And importantly, there is no doubt from the animal in their ability to birth. If it’s a farm animal then perhaps the farmer will be standing by in case of emergency to ensure that their business is protected, but otherwise it is hands off at a distance.

A human left to labour and birth alone, without medical interventions unless medically indicated, will exhibit similar mammal behaviours. A person will rock, sway, rotate, move, squat, bend over, crouch, go on tip toes, rest, sleep and move again. They will dance and move in a quest to help baby to move down as they prepare to be born.

That is active birth.

Active Birth is not a series of moves and positions that can be taught and repeated like a choreographed routine. But a series of instinctive behaviours that a birthing person, and the baby will go through to make space, to change position and to be born.

“ACTIVE BIRTH is not new. It is simply a way of describing how women the world over have always behaved during labour and birth throughout history” Janet Balaskas

But humans are different to animals

The main issue and difference between humans and animals is our brain. As such a highly developed thinking species our thoughts, worries and consciousness often cause issues in birth. An animal doesn’t have the ability to doubt their approach, it is instinct. Humans do. Encouraging our thinking brain to switch off during birth is a post that I will get to, but it is something to work on alongside preparing your body for an active birth.

Basically, our human thinking brain instinctively wants to switch off during birth and allow our more animalistic parts of the brain to take over and release the hormones required for birth. If we struggle to allow ourselves to relax, to feel comfortable enough to let our thinking brain switch off, then that can negatively impact labour.

By being active, listening to our bodies and moving around when needed. This can help release negative energy and adrenaline, making the body and brain more comfortable to facilitate birth better.

What are the benefits of an active birth?

We know that being able to move around freely during birth can:

• Increase oxygen flow to the uterus and baby – making contractions more efficient and keeping baby happier
• Utilise gravity – helping the uterine muscle contract and release more efficiently. But also helping baby descend through the pelvis.
• Increase pelvic outlet size, changing the shape of the pelvis as baby moves through – therefore creating a better positioning for baby and making labour more efficient

This means that potentially, being active during labour and birth can:

• Shorten the length of 1^st (dilation) and 2^nd stage (birth) of labour
• Reduce the chance of needing a caesarean
• Reduce the chance of needing instrumental support at birth
• Improve discomfort and lowers the need for medical pain relief – moving releases endorphins, the body’s natural painkiller! But also positioning makes muscles work more efficiently (without restriction, more comfortably)
• Reduce the need for episiotomy – moving around and instinctively changing positions throughout labour makes more space in the body
• Make labour more satisfying – even if things do medically change, higher satisfactions rates are reported by those who have been able to move freely during their labour

When written down it is easy to see the benefits of being active during birth. While it is instinct, the need to move and change position during birth; our social conditioning and lack of seeing this happen means that there is often distrust in our bodies. Or a disbelief that it is possible to have a positive birth experience.

Both of these issues take work. They take commitment to change.

An Active Birth class such as CubCare Active Antenatal class or CubCare Antenatal services can really help make movement in pregnancy enjoyable and help plant the seeds of possibility. Classes are held weekly or as a course in Welwyn Garden City.

Attending classes regularly can help build confidence, knowledge, empowerment – and muscle memory. Feeling comfortable, being relaxed and moving will allow your body to relax and move.

Antenatal education is not all made equal. Make sure you find the right support, education and power.

Is a midwife taught antenatal class best? Midwife antenatal class Welwyn

This question isn’t asked very often, but the question does sometimes come up. With our Daisy Foundation antenatal classes I find that the answer is always very easy. Midwife antenatal class Welwyn

A midwife is absolutely your best friend for your medical antenatal care. They provide amazing care and support to you and your baby. Medical professionals who are highly trained. Highly skilled in ensuring a medically safe arrival of baby. Trained in taking bloods and interpreting results. With special magic powers for knowing baby’s position just by the slightest touch. They can do so much more medically then I could ever write down. Midwives are professionals who will go above and beyond to give you the very best medical care.

But not all midwives would make ideal antenatal teachers.

Presenting to an audience, guiding a group through an educational journey, taking different learning styles into consideration so that everybody can get the best out of the course. Teaching is not for everyone.

So, while your midwife may be the best thing since sliced bread as a midwife, they might not be the best antenatal teachers.

But a midwife can answer my questions on pregnancy?

You may find a “midwife led” antenatal class and think it would be a benefit. But having a teacher who is fully up to date with your rights in childbirth would benefit you much more. Anybody can learn about the birthing process. That process has been going on for millions of years and anybody can become an expert.

A midwife antenatal teacher (as with all antenatal teachers!) will be unable to answer personal medical questions relating to your pregnancy. So, having a midwife deliver your antenatal classes will not help you receive medical advice. Your first port of call in that respect is your own midwife. Somebody with access to your own medical history and records.

Confidence in your Daisy teacher

During my seven years teaching hundreds of clients, there are very few questions that I have been unable to answer. But when it does happen, I always go away and research. I know where to find the evidence and if I ever struggle, I can reach out to the community of 70+ Daisy teachers across the UK.

Somebody knowledgeable, passionate, personable and willing to do the work to make the best experience for their clients is who you want. Somebody who will be there for you throughout pregnancy and through the first year of baby’s life. Continuity. A friendly familiar face.

Your antenatal teacher is highly trained in delivering education and empowering their clients. We do not have to be careful with their employer i.e. the local hospital trust. A non-midwife will only need to consider you, the client. If something feels uncomfortable you do not have to go along with anything just because “it is how it is done” in hospital policy.

How is a Daisy teacher qualified?

As Daisy antenatal and baby teachers, we have gone through a year-long in depth 600-hour learning programme. A year to get us highly qualified to teach you about labour, birth and using your body to help this process. Empowering our clients by instilling confidence and delivering education.

My knowledge of the subject matter deeply etched in my brain. I have read books, investigated research and guidelines, and immersed myself so much in learning that I trained as a Daisy teacher twice! I personally have been teaching for almost 7 years. And I have used the techniques during birth too. I have also trained as a Postnatal Doula and a Babywearing Consultant to continue the support with families. So, you can trust what we’re saying. I am constantly upgrading my knowledge and keeping abreast of new research and information.

There are several midwives who are Daisy teachers, but you do not need to be a midwife to deliver the classes. The fact that many midwives choose to undertake the 600-hour training programme on top of their own midwifery training speaks volumes.

We must undertake an intense full year of training, assessment and complete several assignments to become a Daisy trained teacher. Always remaining up to date with current research and policy and communicate this to clients in a clear and user-friendly way.

Your journey is our commitment. Throughout your baby’s first year of life we are there.

You can have confidence in a Daisy Foundation antenatal course.

In our Daisy Birthing and our Daisy workshops (Active Birth Workshop or our full Daisy Parent course) we spend some time talking about pain relief in labour. Antenatal course Welwyn.

Breathing techniques

Breathing techniques can work wonders when you feel like they are needed. And these can absolutely work for some people as their only form of pain relief. But for others, they form part of the journey and work well alongside medical options.

We know that having techniques to use when you feel like you need them is so helpful. Without having to rely on somebody prescribing, dosing and administering the medication. Medical forms of pain relief, with the exception of Gas and Air also take around 20 minutes to take effect. Antenatal course Welwyn

Breathing and relaxation techniques can bridge that gap from when you decide that you need something extra. And the delay there always will be before working on your body.

In our week three classes we learn our 2nd breath for labour and discussed the different forms of medical pain relief. So I thought I would give a bit of an insight into what we discuss.

Gas & Air

Gas and Air, or Entonox is a popular choice for pain relief in labour. It is generally plumbed into the wall giving the labouring person an unlimited supply. In a home birth settings it is provided in large cylinders which can be replaced and refilled as required.

The gas and air is attached to a large pipe, enabling movement during labour and change position with ease. There is a mouthpiece that is put between your lips and the air taken into your body through inhalation (breathing) through the mouth.

Gas and air can be used on individually, or in conjunction with other pain relieving options. Pain relief such as breathing and relaxation techniques, a birthing pool, TENS, pethidine and even with an epidural for any breakthrough discomfort.

The gas is inhaled through a mouthpiece throughout the duration of a contraction. The aim is it reaching peak effectiveness at the peak of the contraction. It takes about 20 seconds to influence your body, taking the edge off contractions. It doesn’t cross the placenta to baby, so it doesn’t have an side effects for them.

Side effects

Side effects for the birthing person may include – feeling dizzy, nauseous, a change in the sound of your voice, hysteria (laughing), dry mouth and tingly fingers.

All these side effects pass as soon as you stop using the gas and air and breathe fresh air. You will be encouraged to do this in between contractions so plenty of time for fresh air.

It is easy to put the mouthpiece to one side and try something else if you dislike it. Antenatal course Welwyn

Here are my top tips for using gas and air:

1. Breathe in as soon as you start to feel the sensation of a contraction begin. This means that by the time it kicks in (after 20 seconds), you will get the benefit of pain relief at the peak of your contraction.

2. Breathing should be slow, deep and steady – our Centre breath is perfect for this but a slow version of the Escalator breath can be effective too. Timing is essential to enable the gas and air to be effective. So the midwife may talk you through the first couple of contractions until you are confident in using it properly.

3. When you feel that you’ve hit the peak of the contraction and you are starting to relax down the other side, stop using the gas and air. Instead concentrate on relaxing your muscles and focus on long, slow centred breathing. This allows the gas and air to leave your system.

4. Try and keep your jaw, shoulders, arms and hand as relaxed as possible. Tension through your upper body can cause your whole body to tense. This can use adrenaline, and tension in the rest of your body – making contractions seem more difficult!

Get a birth partner to keep reminding you to relax your body, or better still, to hold the gas and air for you!

6. Don’t use it in between contractions otherwise you might find yourself too relaxed – stick with using it for the contractions only.⠀
⠀
7. Keep a bottle of water with a straw nearby as you may find your mouth can get very dry. And use your lip balm!

You can use it in pretty much most birthing situations so know that it’s there for you to use – you never know you may not need it!

Have you thought about using it for your birth?

Antenatal yoga Welwyn 

Read my updated blog here 

Learn more about pregnancy, birth and baby

Not enough attention is paid to the uterus, both in life and in pregnancy classes. Just like Ina May Gaskin says, we should be bragging about this amazing muscle. Instead, because of the media, television, and films, when we think of childbirth we are programmed to be scared.

 “There is no other organ quite like the uterus. If men had such an organ they would brag about it. So should we.”

Ina May Gaskin, Leading American Midwife

So what is the uterus?

Pre-pregnancy, the uterus is a pear-shaped organ (7.5cm long and 5cm wide) that fits snugly under your pubic bone. In pregnancy, as your baby grows, your uterus grows with them. It changes its shape and size to ensure your baby is perfectly cocooned and protected as they grow. It gradually inflates like a balloon up to your rib cage, pushing other organs aside. And it increases to a capacity up to 500 times more than before!  Then, after birth, the clever organ returns to its original shape and size (that story is a blog post for another time!)

Importantly, the uterus is a muscle.

By weight, the uterus is the strongest muscle in your body! Do you want to know something even more impressive? Other muscles in our bodies work in pairs usually but the uterus is a pair of muscles all built into one! The muscle fibres that do the alternate jobs are interwoven within the uterus itself. Antenatal yoga Welwyn 

The uterus has horizontal and vertical muscle fibres that do the different jobs that a pair of muscles usually do. The outer muscle layer is vertical and runs up and over the uterus. The inner muscle layer is horizontal, and runs like hoops around the baby. Antenatal yoga Welwyn 

Each layer of muscle fibres have different jobs to do. Throughout pregnancy, the inner horizontal layer of muscles holds the cervix closed, keeping your baby safe inside. In labour this inner layer relaxes, while the outer vertical muscles begin to contract upwards. This pulls the horizontal muscle fibres up around baby’s head (e.g. your cervix dilating). It starts to build a thick layer of muscle at the top of your uterus ready to push baby out.

When the cervix is fully dilated, this big band of muscle is ready to push the baby down out of the uterus, and through the cervix and vagina. We call this the second stage of labour.

How your body practices

It is important to remember that your uterus has been preparing for pregnancy and birth since you first got your period. Each month when the inner lining of the uterus breaks down, the uterine muscles contract to allow the tissue to leave your body. Despite it being on a smaller scale, your uterus has had lots of practice of the process.

Also, during pregnancy, the outer layer of muscle practises for the real thing. Your uterus will contract and relax every day. You will not usually feel these practice contractions until later in pregnancy as that uterus is bigger. We call them Braxton Hicks contractions, and they are helpful for birth. They are completely normal and harmless. They do not change the cervix whilst the horizontal layer of muscle is supporting, and there are no hormones at play helping to change the cervix.

How can you help yourself? Education, education, education.

Understanding how your amazing uterus works is the first step to an empowering birth experience. Education is important so that you feel confident in the process. It will allow you to understand exactly what is happening with your body. To do this you should attend antenatal classes that get into the details of the labour process, what happens and what you can do to help yourself. Classes like our Daisy Birthing, Daisy Parent or Active Birth Workshops will give you this in-depth education.

Another important way that you can help the progress of the uterus in labour is to bypass your brain. Let your body do the work it is designed to do without your conscious brain getting involved. Mammals require a private space with a feeling of safety to birth effectively. When faced with a bright, busy environment with unfamiliar people the brain releases adrenaline so that it can stay alert.

When this stress response has been activated during labour, the horizontal layer of muscles in your uterus tenses up to protect baby from a potential threat to their safety if they were born. Even if we know that this isn’t the case, your body doesn’t. This then makes it difficult for the vertical muscles to move upwards with each contraction, because the lower vertical layer of muscles is pulling on them. This might result in a more difficult sensation with each contraction as the muscles are working in opposition to each other rather than in partnership. This is more uncomfortable for you and in some cases, this can even slow down or stall your labour.

So how can you bypass your brain? Relaxation.

By educating yourself you can learn to trust that your body is doing the job that it is designed to do. The next step is to let you brain do what it needs to do.

Naturally, the conscious part of the brain, responsible for your awareness and conscious thoughts starts to switch off as your labour progresses. This allows the subconscious part, which is responsible for birth, your breathing, digestion, blinking (the bits that happen without you thinking about it) to take over.

When you can stay relaxed, to allow the conscious part of the brain to slow down and allow the subconscious segment to take over, your birth will seem much easier. There will be little adrenaline, making you aware of your surroundings, and much more oxytocin and endorphins (our wonderful labour hormones). By staying relaxed you will also allow your muscles to relax as well, letting the uterus do its job with as little restriction as possible.

Relaxation in labour can take a surprising amount of effort! Despite knowing the process and what you can do to help yourself it will likely take a lot of reminders and prompting. The more you can prepare your body during pregnancy to allow yourself to stay calm and relaxed. Attending a class or practicing relaxation techniques during pregnancy can really help you during labour. Our Daisy Birthing classes are perfect for that…

Anything else? Oxygen!

Oxygen is one of our favourites at CubCare. Not only does conscious breathing help your muscles to relax, and your conscious brain quieten; it also fuels your muscles so that they can work.

We know that when a muscle that is deprived of oxygen it works less efficiently and creates lactic acid. We also know that lactic acid causes cramp and is extremely uncomfortable! When this happens during a workout, we can stop using that muscle, rest and recover, and pump oxygen in, to breakdown the lactic acid before resuming when we feel better.

During labour, whilst the uterus does go through periods of work and recovery, if lactic acid builds up through lack of oxygen you are unable to make your uterus stop working. So, your uterus will continue contracting, just like you cannot use willpower to stop your digestive system from working. And contracting whilst lactic acid is present will be more uncomfortable, producing adrenaline in your body, and undoing or stalling your hard work! Antenatal yoga Welwyn 

Your uterus is an amazing organ that does not need to be taught or told what to do. When you are feeling fear or stress, that power is incredibly intense and can be overwhelming.

But remember, it is your body creating that power, and you can decide to fight it or use that power and go with it.

Our CubCare Active Antenatal classes provide such an important place to practice techniques that can actively help you in labour. Taking time to prepare, to learn, to understand and to practice can really make your birthing journey more manageable. Less film and television drama, more quiet and unassuming.

Congratulations!

You are pregnant and looking for an antenatal class or NCT course in Welwyn. There are a host of options you could choose from. From parents recommending NCT, to others saying there is no need to do antenatal classes at all. What do you do?! NCT course Welwyn.

Firstly, antenatal education is so important. I have written a blog about this that you can check out here. Or just trust me that the birth of your baby will have an impact on you for a long, long time and you deserve to be as prepared as you can be. NCT course Welwyn.

Secondly, let us look at the big player, the NCT. It is the company that everyone has heard about. Because it has been around the longest is the one that most grandparents to be will recommend. But is it any better than alternative providers? NCT course Welwyn.

What is an NCT course?

NCT stands for National Childbirth Trust, they are a charity and they run private antenatal courses across the UK. Often when parents to be attend private (i.e. not NHS) antenatal classes they are combined together under the heading NCT classes. But they could have attended any numbers of private antenatal courses. Daisy Foundation classes and workshops are one such private antenatal option. NCT course Welwyn.

Speaking to most clients who attended NCT, they will say that they booked because people suggested attending an NCT course to make friends in the local area. They did not look for alternative providers because they did not know that NCT is a company, not a genre.

Once clients have attended one of our pregnancy or postnatal baby classes they will say that they wished they had researched more. They wish they had discovered Daisy during pregnancy. We provide a friendly environment to make friends, but the class itself is of top quality. Delivering important education to you at a time when you need it.

What is Daisy?

A Daisy Foundation class, course or workshop is one of those private antenatal providers. There are three different options for antenatal education.

Daisy Birthing is a weekly mum-to-be or birthing person only movement-based class designed to be done throughout pregnancy. We combine elements of pregnancy yoga, hypnobirthing and antenatal education to provide a unique class. Classes focus on how the process of labour works and how you can help move things along, and cope really well at the same time.

Daisy Parent is designed to be done in conjunction with Daisy Birthing but can be done alone as well. This is a 15hr workshop for mum-to-be or birthing person plus birth partner/s and is a comprehensive way to prepare for labour, birth, the postnatal period and the first few months with baby.

Or we have Daisy Active Birth Workshops. Can be done in conjunction with Daisy Birthing but can be done alone as well. This is a 4hr workshop for mum-to-be or birthing person plus birth partner/s and is an effective way to prepare for labour.

Four ways a Daisy class might be the same as an NCT class

1 – Both Daisy and NCT run antenatal classes. 

That is classes for pregnant people and their birth partners. The NCT’s flagship offering are their antenatal courses that typically run over 15-18 hours (that time includes lunches and a 2hr postnatal reunion). Daisy’s flagship offering is our 9-hour movement-based Daisy Birthing class, but our Daisy Parent course is most like the NCT course. Daisy Parent runs over 14-15 hours, but every single moment of that is education. While there is more than likely a postnatal reunion and time for breaks within the course, these will come as additional time added free of charge.

2 – All teachers have been trained to the highest standards.

 At Daisy we go through a year-long, 500-hour training pathway to enable us to deliver our classes and workshops. With assessments and checks of our teaching standards along the way. We have monthly CPD (continuous professional development) topics, so we are always keeping to date with current guidelines. We are also generally birth and baby geeks, so we’ll be enrolled in all sorts of courses and workshops ourselves to develop our knowledge even further to bring your more information.

3 – To quote the NCT website, we’re innovators, not imitators.

Our Daisy pregnancy and baby programmes have been designed using expertise from clinical hypnotherapists, midwives, health visitors and teachers. Our owner, Mama D (Sian Gilmartin) even won maternity innovator of the year in 2018 – nobody can say we are imitators!
We know our classes and workshops deliver the best education, at the right time. We have delivered to thousands of parents over the years.

4 – Both run “small” groups.

While the NCT limits to 9 couples, we at Daisy generally limit to 6 couples for our Daisy Parent classes and 12 pregnant women and people for our Daisy Birthing classes. From our experience, limiting to 12 people per class (12 individuals or 6 couples) means a truly individual experience. All questions can be answered and there is time for everybody to explore their own views on every subject. Smaller groups do not mean less friendships either, in fact it means the opposite. Because we extend our classes well beyond pregnancy, those who have joined us in pregnancy will be joined by others who have found a Daisy class after their babies have been born. And so naturally your community extends.

Five ways Daisy and NCT are different

1 – All admin contact, classes, workshops, meet ups and support is given directly by the Daisy teacher.

You can book online directly, we do not hide our prices. But we’re available to chat before booking if you’d like to. We do not have separate meet ups hosted by volunteers either. We give our time and energy to supporting our community 100%, and that means hosting free meet up ourselves too. You will be greeted and looked after by me in every class or meet-up you attend. That is amazing if I am your type of person, perhaps not if I rub you up the wrong way! (I try my best to not do that!)

2 – We are self-employed licensees of The Daisy Foundation.

That means we pay to have our own areas and serve the people of that community. It also means we are small players, with little to no marketing budget. We work so hard to get word of mouth recommendations. It also means that we are not necessarily a household name where parents and even grandparents know the name. It does not mean we are not delivering a first-class experience. But it does mean that we rely on every single person that has ever attended a class or a workshop. We need you to sing it loud and proud that they have come to a Daisy class.

3 – Our group education is standardised, our individual support is not

Because we are part of a licenced model, we are trained in not only general perinatal (antenatal and postnatal) education, but we’re also trained to deliver the same high-quality classes and workshops. This means that your education will be the same as someone on the other side of the country. You will get evidence based and truly unbiased education so you can make your own parental choices. You will not get education that your specific teacher deems relevant (although you will get added extras because we like to give everyone as much education as possible!).

Plus, we know that there are vital topics that need to be covered that you might not have any idea about. We do not leave the course planning up to you to choose the content. Any questions are always welcomed, they will either be answered in class or individually depending on the support you need.

4 – We offer a range of pregnancy classes.

From our movement-based Daisy Birthing pregnancy yoga and hypnobirthing inspired weekly classes, our 4-hour active birth workshop to our fully comprehensive Daisy Parent course. There is something for everyone as they prepare for birth, no matter what number child it is. Everything is available by every teacher as well, so your teacher will get to know you, and you will get to feel comfortable with them.

5 – We’re not just for late pregnancy and preparing for baby. Postnatally we are here too.

You can start our classes from 14 weeks pregnant and continue until your baby is 18 months old. Our Daisy Baby classes are perhaps even more sociable than the pregnancy classes, because those connections are even more important when you have a new baby.

Head to my booking page for Welwyn Garden City and surround areas (Potters Bar, Cuffley, to Wheathampstead, Sandridge and Knebworth).

If you are looking for your nearest teacher then click here.

Is Daisy Birthing pregnancy yoga? Pregnancy yoga Welwyn Garden

The words pregnancy and yoga go together hand in hand. The gentle movements and techniques taught in a calming yoga class benefit the pregnant body and mind tremendously. Attending a pregnancy yoga class is often extremely high up on any list of “must dos” for pregnancy and is therefore something that people feel the need to attend even if they have never tried yoga before. Pregnancy yoga welwyn garden.

See our range of classes for pregnancy and preparing for birth by clicking anywhere on this line.

When searching for a pregnancy yoga class in Welwyn Garden City you will come across our Daisy Birthing classes. Are Daisy Birthing classes pregnancy yoga? Do they offer the same benefits? What else does Daisy Birthing offer that pregnancy yoga might not?

Benefits of pregnancy yoga – does Daisy Birthing compare?

The short answer is YES! All of the benefits of a pregnancy yoga class, and more, will be found in every Daisy Birthing class. The great thing about Daisy Birthing is that we include so many other elements too, and we do not compromise on quality.

We believe in packing as much benefit into each class as we possibly can. In an extremely busy world, you want to make sure that your choices give you value for time and money – we certainly do that.

Conducting a quick Google search of the benefits of pregnancy yoga you will get a list of benefits such as:

• Improved sleep.
• Reduced stress and anxiety.
• Increase the strength, flexibility, and endurance of muscles for childbirth.
• Decrease lower back pain
• Reduction in nausea, headaches
• Less shortness of breath
• Reduced hip and pelvic discomfort
• Easing of pelvic girdle pain,SI joint pain, SPD, sciatica

This list could have been written about Daisy Birthing. All these benefits and more are focused on during every single Daisy Birthing class.

What is the difference?

A pregnancy yoga class uses physical exercises and breathing techniques to help balance your mind and body. These are usually hour-long classes and focus primarily on movement. Pregnancy yoga classes will focus mainly on an active pregnancy and helping support your muscles during that time. There will likely be an element of relaxation at the end and there will possibly be a chance to talk or ask questions at the beginning or end.

Our Daisy Birthing classes will give you 1.5hrs each week to work on a host of techniques for pregnancy AND birth preparation. That is at least 9 hours of pregnancy and labour preparation each term. Each class dedicates around 40 minutes of movement and helping you feel more comfortable in pregnancy. But importantly you will also learn positions and movements to use during labour to help you through contractions and that aid delivery.

You will benefit from our moves because we understand the pregnant body and what it needs. Our focus is on balancing your body; this can make pregnancy more comfortable but also aid in giving birth. The movements are all flowing, so there is no holding uncomfortable poses for any length of time. There are also no uncomfortable twists, turns or balancing on one foot; we are about gentle movements, support and balance.

Daisy Birthing offers so much more than just pregnancy yoga.

Each week in Daisy Birthing we also focus on a topic of antenatal education. We link this with the moments and techniques that you will be getting to know and practicing weekly in class. Our aim is for you to instinctively know what to do, how to move and breathe in labour without having to think about what you are doing. Learning to trust your body comes with understanding the process.

We spend about 20 minutes of each class delving into the topic of the week. You will learn the important role of the uterus, the cervix and how it works, and we go through the different forms of pain relief. We will discuss why gravity is so important for labour, what to do when birthing your baby and we discuss the 3^rd stage of labour.

Our classes teach breathing and relaxation techniques that you can use during labour, during pregnancy and in your postnatal recovery too. Thousands of women during birth and hundreds more birth partners in times of stress have used our three breaths. Your muscles will be fuelled correctly as each breathing was carefully designed using hypnobirthing and exercise techniques as the inspiration. They become second nature to you during birth as we practice them each week.

We also spend around 15-20 minutes at the end of each class guiding you through a relaxation. This can send you into a deep relaxation that is often as restorative as a 15-minute nap, but our relaxation scripts also work hard to help release any anxieties around your pregnancy and birth. Our relaxation scripts have been written, and we have been trained by a clinical hypnotherapist so you can be sure of the highest quality.

A class to make friends

Classes are a great opportunity to meet other mums-to-be, while finding some time for yourself away from busy lives. We focus heavily on community and ensure that everybody has a space to chat and ask questions if they wish. Equally there is no pressure to share if you’d rather not.

Because our classes run in 6-week terms, you will see the same people for that complete block of classes. There is no need to start from the beginning each week, every week the groups get more familiar and friendly. Plus our Whatsapp groups provide a great chance to arrange meet ups or ask questions in between classes too.

Interested in Daisy Birthing?

Take a look at our booking page and sign yourself up. You can attend throughout pregnancy from 14 weeks onwards. One term is enough to give you all the tools you need for birth, but each term will allow those techniques to become more ingrained in muscle memory. Daisy Birthing can also be combined with an Active Birth Workshop or our comprehensive Daisy Parent course to really prepare you for birth and caring for baby.

Do I attend an antenatal class or just go with the flow? NCT Welwyn Hatfield

What probably the most used phrase of a pregnant person and/or their birth partner in the run up to birth? That everyone knows that “birth never goes to plan, so I am just going to go with the flow”. Sound familiar? NCT Welwyn Hatfield

See our range of classes for pregnancy and preparing for birth by clicking anywhere on this line.

Now yes, sometimes birth does not go to plan or to the ideal you have in your head. But that does not mean that is not worth working towards trying to achieve that. Antenatal education is not about achieving the perfect birth. The best antenatal education gives you tools to help give you the best possible chance of your perfect birth. But it should also give you tools to deal with unexpected hiccups, or even medical emergencies.

Our Daisy class offerings give you a perfect choice of finding the antenatal education that works for you, your birth partner and your family.  Daisy Birthing weekly movement based antenatal classes, or Daisy Active Birth labour preparation workshops, or Daisy Parent full antenatal, labour, birth, postnatal recovery, baby care and infant feeding course. NCT Welwyn Hatfield

When I say your perfect birth, remember that I used the word “your” in front. Your ideal birth may be an epidural at the first opportunity or working your way through all the different drugs; or it might be a planned c-section or birth with just gas and air. It could be a water birth, a home birth, or a mixture of many of those things. What your perfect birth looks like is so important. Good antenatal education will help you put tools and techniques into place to make your ideal birth achievable.

I don’t care what type of birth you have

To say that as an antenatal teacher that I don’t care what type of birth you want is inaccurate. The best birth is the best one for you. That is what I care about. I am totally on board with everyone’s choices in birth. I care about you making the best decisions you possibly can.

My job is to help you understand that even with an epidural, the biological process of labour doesn’t change, so you need to continue working with your body. To help you understand that it takes 20 minutes for an epidural to take effect and that’s after a 20 minute procedure. That it may take even longer than that to get hold of the anaesthetist. You need tools to see you through that period of time so that you don’t panic and find things really hard. My job is to give you those tools.

Even with a planned c-section there are so many choices you can make. So many techniques you can learn and use to make yourself feel calmer, more relaxed and less anxious and nervous. There are always choices, options and things to consider and antenatal education helps.

Birth, and becoming a parent is such a pivotal moment in your life; you wouldn’t buy a house, sit an exam, get married, or even decorate a room in your house without a little planning and preparation first. But so many go into birth under prepared.

Doctors know best so I will just do as they say…

There is often the argument that Doctors know best so I will just do what they say – but are you an estate agent, a teacher, a wedding planner or a decorator? No. But you plan and often undertake those tasks yourself so why is birth any different? Some research, planning and understanding of the particular project is really important – if only so you know what choices you have so you aren’t caught off guard by an unexpected choice!

Of course, Drs and midwives are highly skilled and experienced, and their advice and opinion is there to be listened to. But it is your body, your baby, your birth experience. Nobody is in your situation and therefore all decisions are your own. You should be presented with the facts, the choices, the alternatives, and a rundown of the outcome if you do nothing. Only then should you be fully informed to make your choice. The speed and the busyness of the maternity world, questions and options are often masked and occasionally do not even seem like questions or options at all.

Support, knowledge and education is SO important.

Antenatal education is there to help you see the decisions, the choices you may need to make during birth. By outlining them and helping you understand and research whilst still pregnant and able to make rational and processed decisions then you will be in a better position during birth to feel confident in any decisions that need to be made. Feeling supported and in control will go such a long way in helping your feelings around your birth. Feeling supported can take a scary situation and make it less scary. In both our Daisy Birthing and Daisy Parent classes we cover different situations and decisions and give you the skills and confidence to ask questions. Only when you are fully informed can you make confident decisions.

You will never forget

You will never forget the day, or the way you felt when your child entered the world. So, it is SO important to prepare for it, to understand the process and to feel as confident as you can be. Birth trauma is a real problem and affects so many people. It can happen because of a traumatic birth, but often even when things go smoothly “on paper” (by that I mean, everything was straightforward and there were no worrying complications) people can still experience very real birth trauma. Not understanding what is happening, feeling out of control and unsupported can trigger birth trauma in a lot of cases. Help avoid this by preparing for your birth fully, understanding what happens, how things might crop up and how they are dealt with.

I can’t promise you a trauma free, straight forward birth. But agenda free, unbiased and evidence based antenatal education certainly can help.

That’s where I come in…Daisy Birthing weekly movement based antenatal classes, or Daisy Active Birth labour preparation workshops, or Daisy Parent full antenatal, labour, birth, postnatal recovery, baby care and infant feeding course.