Family Centered, Empowering, Outstanding
Prenatal Classes in Vancouver, B.C.
About Our Prenatal Classes in Vancouver
We are a registered non-profit society. We encourage family centered maternity and newborn care, a dynamic process that responds to the needs of the woman and her family. Our teachers, all health professionals and parents, possess extensive training and personal knowledge of pregnancy, birth and parenting issues to facilitate and improve your childbearing experience.
We focus on four essential elements
Knowledge
Knowledge is power! We believe in accurate information. Our content is relevant, interesting, current and evidence-based. Through myth-busting, understanding, and common-sense explanations, we demystify the process of labour and birth so that it’s less intimidating. You will gain confidence!
Comfort Measures & Coping Techniques
Through relaxation, positions, massage, breathing, and coping techniques, we teach about both the physical and emotional sides of childbirth. We demonstrate and practice specific hands-on methods to assist with pain relief and promote labour progress. We teach a wide variety of approaches to coping so you can figure out what works best for you.
Decision-Making
We encourage you to play an active role in your pregnancy, helping you work with health professionals to develop a positive beginning for your new family. Our classes cover all options of coping and care, including situations that might come up. We focus on communicating with your care-team, empowering you to ask questions and make your own best decisions.
Community
We create an inclusive and friendly atmosphere in which you can feel comfortable, get to know your class-mates, trade tips, and begin to grow your village. We support you in developing community through this major life-change.
We are a registered non-profit society. We offer community based prenatal classes in Vancouver, BC, and have been recommended by midwives and physicians across the lower mainland since 1973.
Our Philosophy
We strive to provide comprehensive prenatal classes of the highest quality. We prepare clients by increasing their knowledge of changes in the childbearing year and enhancing their coping skills for childbirth. By increasing their self-confidence, we help expectant parents participate in decision-making for labour and birth in order to have a satisfying experience. We see ourselves as advocates for clients. We promote family-centred maternity care and work to improve the experience of childbirth for parents within the health care system. We strive to give continuity of care in the postpartum period through our online handbook, our parent/baby classes and our breastfeeding/chestfeeding clinics.
Our Goals
To maintain classes of excellent quality by staying on top of new techniques and improved methods of teaching and by regularly reviewing the design and content of our program.
To maintain consistency of instruction while allowing individual teachers autonomy and individuality.
To continue ongoing recruitment of new staff: teachers and other group workers.
To provide support for our new and old members currently active within the organization.
To continue providing stimulating in-service education through group meetings, yearly workshops and conference attendance.
To encourage members to read and update their skills and knowledge.
To increase the self-confidence of our clients in a variety of ways to help them cope better with stress in childbirth and the adjustment to early parenthood.
To provide our clients with a balance of information and hands-on tools so they feel empowered and ready for birth and parenthood.
To offer an alternative style of prenatal education that helps each individual identify and achieve their own goals.
To promote awareness of baby’s experience as well the parents’.