Being a birth and postpartum doula makes my antenatal classes better…
Helping people to navigate birth and baby life in Cornwall with a sense of calm confidence IS my antenatal mission.
My lived experience as a birth and postpartum doula gives me the tools to do it well…
I’ll be honest: when I decided to be a doula, I never imagined I’d end up teaching antenatal …
… and yet here I am & it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
The background is this: before I became a birth doula in 2023, I was a secondary school English teacher, who had spent fifteen years prepping teenagers for GCSE and A-Levels. That was my identity: not Gemma, just Mrs Kitto.
Years in the system, following curriculum, presenting information, pushing kids ‘forward’ had broken me and I couldn’t wait to leave that world behind. The idea of being in education, of teaching anything to anyone made my soul vomit …
So how is it that teaching is still such a big part of who I am and what I do? Because I realised it wasn’t the teaching that was the problem.
The problem was the purpose.
As an English teacher, I knew I wasn’t preparing my students for anything meaningful or useful (Michael Gove, I’m eyeballing you right now), and I am not here for wasted time or a useless life.
But the world of birth? Well that’s different.
In becoming a birth doula, I quickly learnt that the right support was not about the ‘right’ information, or a ticklist, but the individual that mattered.
By giving consistent, personalised and individually-responsive support to families, they’d take the reins of their births, find their belief and their confidence, and step into parenthood assured of their own abilities and strength.
And unlike a GCSE in Literature, this would not be forgotten. In fact it shaped everything that came afterwards: their feeding journeys, their parenting values, the relationship they have with their babies and (importantly) themselves.
In short, I saw that the doula values of consistent, personalised and responsive support transformed lives.
Antenatal classes create valuable preparations for birth…
… but every day I heard stories that showed they weren’t doing that. The reason why blew my doula mind.
Research shows that good quality antenatal courses support more positive birth experiences. Studies have shown that attendance at an antenatal course is associated with…
A greater sense of confidence about birth
A greater sense of confidence about their own abilities to give birth.
A better understand of the stages of labour & when to go to hospital
Increased abilities to make informed choices during labour.
All of which lead to more positive outcomes for the mother, the baby and the family as a whole. But that positive outcome emerges once the baby is born, not once the course has finished…
Now, the funny thing about being a doula is people love to tell you their birth story (and tbh I love to hear it!). Occasionally, I’d hear a tale of joy… but usually not.
I’d here stories littered with phrases like:
“The course we did, didn’t prepare me for what happened to me…”
“If I’d have known, I’d have done it differently but I didn’t know that I was allowed to….”
“We were given the impression that everyone…”
… often followed by explanations of (at best) disappointment, anger and (at worst) fear.
And when we dug into it, talked more deeply about the events that triggered these negative experiences, the root causes it very quickly became clear.
The course content was standardised, often on a national scale, with no flex or personalisation.
The person delivering the course worked for a policy-based organisation, and had to follow the rules.
The course was King: this was the knowledge you needed to know to do it well.
Of course it wasn’t working. How could any antenatal course being run this way possibly work?
Birth doula work showed me how personal, how individual and how nuanced each pregnancy, labour and delivery was, not to mention the postpartum period.
These mass-produced, nationalised courses that knew nothing of the individual in front of them or the local maternity system that they were birthing with.
And then once the course was over, boom - done. No follow-up, no continued support, no point of contact. Just a TrustPilot review form and a ‘thanks for coming’ email.
It was the equivalent of offering everyone a delicious lunch and then giving everyone a cheese sandwich on white bread, irrespective of dietary needs or preference, and then walking out before the meal began.
No continuity of care.
No personalisation.
No responsive support.
And the results of that were NOT okay.
So, I designed my antenatal courses to do the things I knew made a difference…
Because if you’re investing time & money in preparing for birth, it should be worth it!
My antenatal courses come in different shapes and forms: there’s group courses for first-time parents, private antenatal courses delivered in your home to suit your priorities, and a course specifically aimed at second-time parents wanting a better experience.
While the content, angle and price tag of each are different, they all share these same game-changing values…
Personalisation…
No two antenatal courses I teach are ever the same, and that’s a good thing.
About a week before our first antenatal class, I’ll send a welcome email with a pre-course questionnaire for you to complete. This gives me the information about your situation, your priorities, your hopes, your fears and your goals I need to know to tweak the course, add bits-in, switch things around and tailor it to make the most of our time together.
This is great because…
There will be no question over whether what we’ve covered is relevant to you.
You’ll walk away feeling equipped to navigate your birth & baby journey, your way.
2. Continuity of Care…
Every single one of my antenatal clients (both the birthy one, and the partner one!) get office hours WhatsApp access to me from the day our antenatal course begins, the day you go into labour.
That means that between 8am and 8pm every day, you can throw me a question, ask for some information or get signposted to someone who can help you with whatever issue you’re facing, in a fast and reliable way, from someone who know you and what you’re all about.
This is great because…
You get to avoid the confusion of the Google-hole-of-doom, when you need it most.
You get to pick my brain, which is totally clued-up and connected to the Cornish maternity landscape.
3. Responsive Support…
In the land of pregnancy, birth & babies, things can change in an instant. GD tests, growth scans, policy changes, sickness, iron levels, fears, lumps, bumps, changed EDD and last minute revellations, you name it, I’ve supported people to navigate it.
So, if you rock up to our antenatal class one day and everything has changed for you, it’s not a problem. I am not phased. Because I am not governed by an externally-created curriculum, or by a universal policy, I can tweak what I need to, so that I can give you what you need.
This is great because…
You can trust that you’ll get the most out of your antenatal and birth prep, whatever happens.
A change of circumstances doesn’t mean a change of course or loss of money.
Someone once told me that, when I am teaching antenatal classes I am not a doula. I completely disagree.
Just as being a teacher once defined me, now does my life as a doula. It is impossible for me to separate the experiences and knowledge that I use with my birth doula and postpartum doula families, from my antenatal clients for the simple reason that the purpose is all the same.
I am here because I want to make the experience of birth and baby life better for people in Cornwall: while I offer different versions of this support, my core values of personalisation, continuity of care and responsive support lie at the heart of everything I do… and that’s what makes the difference to the families I work with.
Sound good? Get in touch and we’ll start the conversation that could be the game-changer you’re looking for.
