Over the years of supporting various families through their pregnancy, birth and postpartum journeys, I have been asked numerous times about what birth education I most recommend. Initially I didn’t have a great answer for this, I’d just say, ‘Here are some local options, take a look and decide which one fits you and your family best!’. I didn’t recommend any one education model over another, but I did notice that oftentimes the families undertaking Calmbirth classes had so much more information and preparation, not just for their ‘ideal birth’, but also for the potential changes in plans that can arise – they seemed to have an understanding of and a preparedness for whatever the birth entailed, and tools they could use regardless of where they ended up. I love that I witnessed this before knowing Calmbirth’s motto: ‘With knowledge comes confidence’!

Birthing my third baby, I found that despite having an epic birth team and a fairly good understanding of birth, I really struggled to turn my conscious mind off, to surrender into the experience and stop overanlysing what was happening. I suddenly realised, at a pretty harrowing point, that all of the tools I had were physical, practical, tangible tools (which are important, yes!) and that in order to birth my baby, none of those were actually what I needed – I needed to surrender, and I didn’t know how. My incredible birth photographer met me in the depths of that birth, she used breathing and relaxation techniques to help me relax and surrender, and she guided me through.

After that birth I reflected deeply on the experience, and I honestly felt a bit hypocritical going back to births not having this knowledge and information as part of the tool kit. I decided that I really wanted to become a childbirth educator, not just to offer this as a service to my local community, but to become a better support for the families I was already supporting! I did my usual thing of researching all of my options, digging deep into the various models, asking other educators of their experiences of the program and speaking to families who had undertaken the different types of education. Obviously I ended up choosing Calmbirth (spoiler alert…haha!), but I feel the reasoning behind why I chose Calmbirth over other forms of education is helpful to consider, both for potential future educators and also for families looking into different types of birth education.

I found that:

• Calmbirth was (is) a well-known, reputable childbirth education program with a deep history (over 20 years now!) of supporting families in education and tools for their births. The organisation is supportive of their educators, the families undertaking the education and other organisations supporting families through birth, and they do this seamlessly and professionally. They are constantly increasing the resources available and seeking to improve access to information, through podcasts, posters, booklets, resources, outreach services and more!
• Calmbirth had a stringent training process involving over a month of education split across several weeks, with significant amounts of pre-reading and content, and then the requirement to teach the course several times before becoming accredited. Furthermore, you had to be a practicing birthworker (i.e. someone attending births regularly) to undertake the education and offer the program, which was something not required for many of the other education models. As a birthworker myself, this was really important to me; I want education from people who are currently witnessing and experiencing the models of care available locally.
• Calmbirth was founded by a wonderful Australian midwife, meaning it was very applicable to the Australian birthing climate – again, this is so important to make sure we are providing up to date information for our area! Furthermore, Calmbirth was created with a sound evidence base supporting it at every step of the way, and any additions/edits to the program are always done with such care and clarity, based around the recent available evidence.
• Research undertaken at various points had reported that the Calmbirth program significantly improved outcomes for the families undertaking it, resulting in significant reductions in the rates of medical interventions, pain relief and rates of perinatal anxiety/depression, and resulting in families reporting their birth experiences as positive, irrespective of how they gave birth (with knowledge comes confidence!).
• Calmbirth was also being offered as an antenatal program in local hospitals, and many birthworkers were reporting that they saw significantly better outcomes for the families they supported who had undertaken the education than those who had not.
• Finally, to this date, more than 50,000 couples have accessed the Calmbirth program, with high rates of satisfaction in the program.

So that’s how I settled on Calmbirth as the right choice for me! I wanted to provide evidence based, current, valuable information to my local community with tangible tools that could help, both physically and mentally, in the birth space. I am proud to be able to say I have now shared the Calmbirth program with over 130 couples in my local community and have had nothing but positive feedback from those who have completed the program.