In studio classes:
Couples Birthing Skills Workshops
The Couples Birthing Skills Workshop at Coast Yoga is designed to give you the confidence, skills and evidence based information needed to make informed decisions and ensure the best possible birth outcomes for your family.
The class is fully interactive containing practical skills and is based on the most up-to-date medical evidence that is completely independent of any institution.
Birth Education @ Coast Yoga
For those women wanting to discuss the information and practice pain strategies regularly, look at joining the pregnancy yoga classes held by Adele on Friday nights.
Dates and Timings
We are no longer offering Couples Birthing Skills Workshops. Adele will continue to incorporate Birth Education into her Friday Pregnancy Classes with a different topic each week (followed by Yoga).
Recommended by midwives and obstetricians
Midwives and obstetricians across South Australia tell us that after attending classes, couples seem so much more confident and better equipped to deal with birth.
Pregnancy yoga rewires the brain to believe that birth is possible and you can do it. It is important to attend weekly to instil confidence.
Recommended by research
Women who take part in this style of interactive, evidence based workshop which presents birth as a positive and healthy life event, are 60% less likely to have a caesarean birth, 40% less likely to choose to have an epidural and 30% less likely experience perineal trauma than women who attend regular hospital classes.
Terms and Conditions
Full payment is required with all bookings.
Cancellations will be accepted if made 2 weeks before the workshop for change of mind. In this case, fees will be refunded minus a $50 administration fee (or the full amount may be credited or transferred to other passes). Refunds will not be offered for cancellations within two weeks except in extenuating circumstances (such as early arrival of the baby or other medical situations that prevent attendance.)
What will the Childbirth Classes cover and what Birthing Skills will I learn?
- The normal physiology and process of birth.
- Labour and birthing positions for active births (for long/short births as well as for babies in different positions).
- Many useful and easy to learn techniques for pain relief.
- Intervention – how they may affect the mother and baby and how they can be avoided.
- The birth partners role – how to actively help with pain relief, what you can do during each stage of birth to make things faster and easier, how to advocate for your partner and gain confidence as the major support person. Kind of a crash course for partners in birthing!
- Making the most of your birth place and chosen care. Learning that you have choices and how best to discover these.
- How to negotiate and communicate with your birth team for the best possible outcomes.
All the information is based on medical research and a wide variety of people attend from all walks of life, including many health care professionals.
What makes to workshop unique?
The workshop offers an opportunity to learn with your peers and from a couple who have experience with birthing as a team.
The class is fully interactive giving couples an opportunity to actively practice and gain confidence in labour and birthing positions as well as useful and easy to learn techniques for working through pain.
All information is evidence based and is regularly updated so that couples are informed and can make the best choices for themselves.
Peer support is so important when you want to have a normal birth. Pregnancy classes at Coast Yoga provide a supportive environment with likeminded women.
Does the workshop include any physical yoga stretches?
All of the sessions are interactive but there is also time for questions.
An active, experiential session takes place in the morning, teaching couples how to work through pain. Pain techniques are practiced in this session by using yoga poses to simulate the pain of contractions – after all, labour is the experience of sustained muscle contraction, just like yoga.
In the afternoon, couples experiment with guided positions for labour and birth.
Facilitators
Adele Angel; Mother, Yoga Instructor, Evidence Based Birth Educator and Owner/Director of Curious Mama Co.
• Mother of three. One hospital birth and two planned homebirths. All three natural physiological births.
• She has been holding space and been drawn to birth for 15+ years.
• Self proclaimed birth nerd. She loves a good birth research study and is always reading the latest evidence based information or discussing it with anyone who shows an interest.
• A warrior for kindness, authenticity and connectivity she is super enthusiastic about creating a community around families and empowering parents with information in an incredibly special time in their lives.
• Owner and Director of Curious Mama Co. she has been facilitating mothers groups and holding space for mothers for 5+ years.
• Specialises in prenatal yoga and birth preparation.
• Mentored into the role by former instructor Vanessa Shribman.
Nick Angel; Father, Carpenter, Farmer and Everyday Bloke.
• Father of three. One hospital birth and two planned homebirths. All three natural physiological births.
• Just an everyday bloke who has educated himself on birth and fatherhood, how to actively help with pain management, to hold space and techniques in supporting a birthing partner.
Preparing for a natural birth in Australia
“Coast Yoga has a strong active birth program and has supported women for two and a half decades to prepare for a natural birth.
Putting it into perspective; Australia has one of the highest intervention rates in the world. Less than 15% of women in Australia will have a birth without intervention. Home birth is rare and especially in South Australia, has been maligned and where possible shut down. Evidence-based practice, which is held as the gold standard in patient care, takes hospitals about 17 years to adopt, creating a disconnect between policy and evidence. We are facing an epidemic of bullying towards birthing couples in our hospitals.
As a contrast, around 80% of the women that attend Coast Yoga have natural births, less than 5% end up with a caesarean compared to the average of 36% and most feel positive about their birth experiences. I should add that we are looking at one in three women suffering from post-birth trauma and the mental health issues associated with this.
Simply giving women and birth partners the courage and information to challenge health care professionals, the confidence in their own bodies and the information about evidence based practice makes all the difference.”
– Adele Angel
Who can attend?
Our childbirth classes are for pregnant women and their partners or support person.
Women may also attend alone and same sex couples are welcome.
Is it really necessary for my husband/partner to attend?
Your birth partner plays such an important role as an advocate and loving physical support. Their role can make all the difference in how their pregnant partner feels during and after the birth.
If your partner is unprepared, overwhelmed and uninformed, it will only make things more difficult during labour.
The workshop is a chance for birth partners to learn about birth and the role that they can play. The birth partners who attend, even the reluctant ones, tell us that the workshop made all the difference to them.
Why should I pay $280 for the workshop when the hospital offers birth education?
Hospital workshops are designed firstly to abide by the protocols and rules of the institution. These are not necessarily the best for you and your baby. They socialise couples into expecting to have intervention and presenting birth as a medical event (keep in mind that intervention in birth is the default care, not normal birth).
The Couples Birthing Skills workshop at Coast Yoga is designed purely to give you the best and safest information for you and your baby so that you can make the best decisions for your family. This is free of any information that may be biased towards the smooth working of an institution.
The class is also fully interactive and practical, teaching you both how to use your own resources to birth your baby.
At what stage during pregnancy should I/we attend?
It is recommended to attend at around 25 weeks of pregnancy in order to incorporate some of the content into your birth plan. This also provides an opportunity to practice the techniques learnt. Many couples attend close to term but it is completely up to you!
Pregnancy Yoga classes as an alternative
Alternatively, we run Pregnancy Yoga classes which are designed to help you stay strong, healthy and pain free throughout pregnancy in a safe way with yoga and core exercises.
These are almost an equivalent of the Couples Birthing Skills Workshops, but run weekly and are suitable for women only (12 weeks + pregnant).
During each class we discuss a different topic relevant to birth and cover techniques that are proven to help reduce pain. The class builds confidence for women and more often than not transform how they birth.
These classes are take place every Friday, running at 6.30pm – 8pm.
If I book up for the course, does this mean I won’t need to attend any antenatal/prenatal hospital sessions?
It can be good to know what the hospital policy is in regards to birth. This can help you prepare and be fully informed if you decide not to attend hospital sessions.
It is recommended that you book into the weekly Pregnancy Classes at Coast Yoga too (as mentioned above).
What do I need to bring?
- Couples should dress comfortably, allowing them to move and stretch with ease.
- A plate of lunch to share (hot drinks are provided at the yoga centre).
How do I get to the Yoga Centre?
There is free all-day parking in the new Partridge St car park. Otherwise, there is ample parking for a fee.
Parking in Glenelg on a warm Sunday can be difficult. If possible, come by tram/bus.