Couples Active Birth Workshop

WHAT is THE WORKSHOP LIKE ?

Our Active birth workshops are led by  advanced childbirth educator and senior yoga teacher, Suzanne Swan.  Suzanne has been doing this work for over sixteen years and her experience affirms that having the partner involved in the birth process, working hands on as a team with the mother, promotes a positive birth experience and enhances family bonding.

This small group education education class explores practical ways to assist the labouring woman at birth.  The attention is on the partner's participation during the labour and how the birth itself is as much a team effort as the conception. It covers practical mind-body techniques not taught in other hospital classes (ie. breathing, massage and birth positions) and focuses on an undisturbed physiological birth, describing the benefits of an active birth for the mother & baby. 

This workshop complements hospital antenatal classes or other childbirth classes, and is also an excellent refresher for parents. There is clear evidence that using upright positions in the first stage of labour reduces the duration of labour, the risk of caesarean birth and the need for an epidural.

"Birthing is both an internal and a learned experience. Women benefit greatly in birth with this self-knowledge and with a partner and/or support team* who help her work with her body. When a woman experiences the love, attention and touch of her partner during labour she will easily relax and these feelings are passed to the baby." Suzanne Swan, yogababy founder

  WHAT ARE THE WORKSHOP PRACTISES ?

• Natural forms of pain relief such as breath, touch, massage, water, heat, movement, and sound

• Breathing skills to release inner tension and stay focused

• Relaxation skills to enhance the natural hormones of labour

• Massage techniques to ease pregnancy discomforts and enhance labour

• Use of movement to reduce the effect of stress

• Use of sound to connect with a woman's strength and power

• Active birth positioning for 1st and 2nd stage

• Releasing fears and creating positive birth affirmations

• Understanding the birth process and what to expect

• Decision making model for dealing with the unexpected

WHEN ARE THE WORKSHOPS HELD ?

Monthly workshops are held on Sundays from 10am - 5pm

Couples* Active Birth Workshops Sunday (10am-5pm)

Investment: $450 per couple (maximum 6 couples)

Includes 7-hour face-to-face workshop + workbook

Venue: It Takes A Village Midwifery, Kenmore, Brisbane

If the dates don't suit  Private sessions are available with Suzanne Swan.

WHAT ARE THE COSTS ?

Active Workshops are $450 per couple. Enrolment is limited to 7 couples, please book early to secure a space.

TRY OUR ACTIVE BIRTH BUNDLE 

Pregnant women can also attend a monthly Transformational Birth Workshop covering the eight Active Birth Skills (Relaxation, Affirmations, Optimally Positioning Baby, Visualisation, Breathing, Vocalisation & 1st/2nd Stage Birthing positions) that you practice with your partner in the workshop.  The 1-day workshop gives you more practice and in-depth study of the Active Birth Skills.  Request a better birth bundle for both workshops and receive a 10% discount.

*COUPLE/PARTNER/SUPPORT TEAM

Your couple/partner/support team can include:

• Birthing mother and father

• Same-sex couples

• Single mother with support person/doula

• Mother and daughter (birthing)

• Birthing mother, father and support person/doula (additional $50 for third person)

Active Birth or Managed birth?

This article by Janet Balaskas, founder of the global Active Birth movement, clearly describes our approach to birth.

Active Birth is nothing new, and yet when Janet Balaskas founded the Active Birth Movement in the early 1980s, it began a revolution. A decade earlier, many hospitals around the world had adopted what was called ‘Active Management’ of labour—a highly technological approach, which favoured medical control over labour and birth.

Active Management was intended to standardise labour times to a maximum of 12 hours per woman. To achieve this, routine medical interventions were applied—induction of labour via amniotomy and/or Syntocinon drip; epidural anaethesia or the use of narcotic analgesics such as Pethidine; and the attachment of sensors to provide continuous electronic monitoring of the foetus.

As you might have guessed, ‘Active Birth’ was chosen as a deliberate play on words—to contrast with ‘Active Management’ – giving the power of birth back to the mother. But Active Management was only the latest example of the over-medicalisation of childbirth. For hundreds of years, advanced nations had been steadily transforming birth from a natural process into a medical procedure. To find women firmly in control of birth, you had to look back to the 17th Century.

In the early 1600s, European women were in control of how they gave birth. They delivered their babies in upright positions, attended by other women in the secluded and familiar environment of their homes, according to knowledge handed down the maternal line. Midwives carried birthing stools from house to house, with many families passing them down the generations.

This maternal tradition had many advantages. Giving birth upright (by standing, kneeling, sitting on a birth stool or squatting) opens the birth canal, makes contractions more effective, and allows the mother to work with her body in harmony with gravity. It has also been discovered that a darkened and private birth environment stimulates hormonal responses and involuntary reflexes that lead to a better experience for mother and baby.

But in the 17th Century, traditions began to change. Forceps were invented and not long after, European women began to labour lying back, under the instruction of male physicians. Some scholars claim the position became popular after the French King Louis XIV demanded that his mistress give birth on her back, so that he could get a good view.

From there, control over childbirth was gradually prised from women’s hands. The role of the midwife was diminished, and labour was manipulated to suit the birth attendants—but not necessarily the mother or baby.

When Queen Victoria’s child was delivered under chloroform anaesthetic in 1853, the social elite of London followed suit, and birth became almost completely passive - “not only lying down, but unconscious” as Janet Balaskas says.

When she founded the Active Birth Movement, Janet made it her life’s work to spread the message that “nature knows best”. She saw that routinely imposed medical interventions were often counterproductive for women having a normal labour—causing a cascade of avoidable complications. She recognised birth as a profoundly sophisticated physiological process, with its true beginning at love-making and conception, and its true end at the child’s growing independence from the mother. Finally, she realised that our scientific understanding of this process is incomplete—and that therefore, it should only be disturbed when truly necessary.

Birth can unfold spontaneously and magnificently—if only we let it! At Active Birth Australia we are dedicated to helping women reclaim their right to an Active Birth.

TESTIMONIALS

WORKSHOP TESTIMONIALS

“We wanted to pass on our heartfelt thanks for hosting such a wonderful workshop on the weekend. We both benefited greatly - and my husband told me afterwards it was the first time he had been made to feel a valued and important part of our pregnancy and birthing journey. Thank you again so much for enriching this experience for us.”       Karen

“Your workshop gave me complete confidence in my ability to achieve a natural, active birth.”       Workshop participant

“Thank you so much for an informative workshop on the weekend. Both Shaun and I enjoyed it and have taken away some useful skills and tools to help us navigate the birth of our little one in the coming weeks. Your knowledge, calmness and approach to the course made it that much more enjoyable and memorable.”        Workshop participant

“We wanted to thank you for a really wonderful active birth workshop. We both got a lot out of it and were impressed by how practical and user-friendly the information was. Our birth preparations feel much more like a team effort after spending the day together in the active birth workshop and we’re really excited about what lays ahead.”      Rob & Lauren

“Our midwife commented on how in-sync myself and my husband were, and how much strength I drew from him. Thank you for giving him the confidence to support me using a variety of different methods”       Workshop participant

“The Active Birth Workshop was a very complementary day to the ante-natal classes at hospital. I feel much more prepared for the pre-labour and birth now. Ante-natal classes were five x 2.5 hour sessions which highlighted what could go wrong with birth but offered very little in practical advice. The workshop has given me much more confidence and a greater understanding of my role and how to be more effective in the role. Thank you very much!”      Expecting father