For lots of women the first trimester symptoms are fairly well known, they might hit harder than you expect, but the nausea, sickness, exhaustion are expected and, to some degree, reassuring when you don’t have anything else to show you are pregnant (other than a test!). Then things might pick up a bit and you start to feel a bit more back to yourself. Plus you might have heard that the second trimester is where you feel good – your energy comes back, you aren’t too uncomfo

When I hear someone say that their plan for birth is to just go with the flow I have to take a moment and ask a few more questions. There are two main ways of going with the flow. One can be a good choice, the other not so much. Lots of people are a bit dubious about writing a birth plan. They likely know people who said their birth plan was useless, it was all irrelevant before even getting to hospital or they felt it was ignored. Birth is unpredictable so can you really

You might have been imaging this moment for months. Bought all the stuff, been to the antenatal classes, spoke to friends and family about babies, and in the last weeks of pregnancy couldn’t wait to meet your baby and start parenting. Suddenly pregnancy is over, baby is here and you are in the postnatal ward together, recovering from birth, finding out changing a nappy on a newborn isn’t quite the same as the doll you practiced on, and figuring out feeding your baby. Whil

Whenever I mention the psoas muscle in classes I tend to find no one has heard of them. Not really surprising, they aren’t muscles we tend to talk about or think about very much. I hadn’t heard of them until I started on my training to teach antenatal classes. Now I know that they play a really important role in your pregnancy and your birth. The psoas muscles sit in your pelvis, with two muscles on either side. They are deep in your body running from the lower spine throug

When it comes to considering your preferences for birth you are likely to find something on a template about pain relief. When you are in...