Lockdown Pregnancy to Parenthood

"In my twenties I became fascinated in women's birth stories, but the underlying current seemed fairly negative sadly, challenging me to embark on training to be a midwife to make a difference to this.  I have been blessed to work as a midwife in Chester for most of my career, and I spent 2 years in Cambodia, South East Asia as a volunteer maternal health adviser.  I was a midwife before I became a wife and mother, many people ask whether my knowledge put me off having a baby - absolutely not, in fact I feel so lucky and enriched by being a mother myself.  Knowledge is power, I already knew a lot about birth, I used a hypnobirthing breathing technique, and I actually enjoyed my labour even with a few complications along the way.  I was helped by being cared for by staff that I knew well and my husband who had attended classes with me, so I felt totally at ease in hospital as it was a place I was very familiar and comfortable with - all things in place to support and enhance my birth experience.  I had been at so many births prior to my own baby's and knew it was going to be amazing, and a very special day, and it was!

When I returned to work as a community midwife, I began to see birth in a whole different way, by supporting women birthing in their home environment, I saw a big change in the nature and power of women birthing their babies.   I went on to train in hypnobirthing with Katharine Graves and it was a literal penny dropping moment, as I discovered more about the environment of birth and the influences on the hormones, it began making a whole new lot of sense.  Hypnobirthing focuses on techniques to bring about changes in the widespread belief that birth is a negative experience and problematic. 

As a busy wife, mother and midwife I would unwind by reading more and more books on birthing, and my life was positively shaped by Ina May Gaskin, Sara Wickham, and by the wonderful 'Positive Birth Book' by Milli Hill, finally we were hearing more about choice, control and positivity.

I realized that the answer to positive birth lay in good quality antenatal education to understand what happens during birth, how we can best prepare and things that we can do to help.  I recognize that not everyone wishes to commit to hypnobirthing, and access to antenatal education is limited, So I looked to newer models of teaching available in the UK with FEDANT and RCM accreditation, and learnt about the Real Birth Company designed by wonderful Midwife Zoe Wright.  Zoe has my admiration and respect for creating such a wonderful course that answered my inner midwifery curiosities and channels my keenness to empower woman and their birth partners with confidence, knowledge and belief in birth.

Confident Birth Chester is about quality antenatal and parent education, combining both the Real Birth Workshop and Hypnobirthing with insight to spinning babies techniques - to suit the needs of the parents to be in the Chester area, and in fact anywhere."