Mindful Birthing and Parenting - Experience Mindfulness

Mindful Birthing

Preparing the mind, heart and body for childbirth and beyond!

Mindfulness brings more ease and balance into your pregnancy, can completely transform your birth experience and will be a huge source of support on your journey into becoming a parent!

ABOUT Mindful Birthing

Mindful Birthing offers a more joyful and peaceful approach to pregnancy, birth, and parenting through mindfulness, benefiting the entire family.

During pregnancy, mindfulness supports relaxation, emotional resilience, and overall well-being, fostering a deeper connection with your baby and partner.
Throughout birth, mindfulness calms the mind and relaxes the body, easing pain and contributing to a more positive birthing experience.
Mindfulness helps parents stay present and open-hearted, enhancing the ability to nurture and connect with their child.
It also supports breaking free from intergenerational stress patterns, allowing for more intentional and mindful parenting.
Partners gain valuable stress-reduction skills and tools for supporting their partner and their own parenting journey.

A 5 min audio description of what the program includes

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What are the benefits?

Here are some of the many benefits of practicing mindfulness in this special time:

Improved Emotional Well-being: Embrace powerful body and breath awareness practices to increase vitality, relaxation, and reduce stress during pregnancy. Replace fearful beliefs around birth with trust and confidence
Enhanced Bonding with the Baby: Mindfulness facilitates a deeper connection with baby, fostering a sense of presence and awareness that extends beyond physical changes.
Pain Management during Birth: empowers mothers with effective pain management strategies, promoting a quicker, smoother and overall more positive and empowered birthing experience.
Greater Mind-Body Awareness: encourages body awareness whilst body undergoes huge transformations. Empowers you with insights about birth physiology and the mind-body connection.
Partner support: Enhances partner connection & communication skills. Partners can use their mindfulness skills to support the birthing mother to remain centred and present.
A more optimal hormonal balance: the hormonal environment for you and your baby will be one of calm and ease, which will support the birth process and decrease the likelihood of foetal distress
Positive Impact on Baby’s Development: The positive & calm mental state fostered by mindfulness has a beneficial impact on developing baby, contributing to a nurturing environment.
Life-Long Stress Management Skills: Develop skills to manage stress not only during pregnancy but also throughout the parenting journey and daily life.

what you will learn

The mindful birthing sessions we have together aims at preparing your partner & you for birth and beyond thanks to a combination of childbirth education, information and plenty of hands-on tools & mindfulness practices.

You will learn about:

The physiology of birth, stages of labour & the mind-body connection
Birth anatomy, birthing positions to support the birth & partner support
Train your mind to remain calm and centred in stressful or uncomfortable moments
Mind& body awareness practices to support relaxation during pregnancy, birth and beyond
Mindfulness skills and hands-on practices to support you during birth to manage pain & fear
Birthing preferences & ways to create a supportive & peaceful environment
Partners will learn how to best support you during birth
Feel confident and fully prepared physically, mentally and emotionally for birth thanks to learnt skills, hands-on tools, and practices to cope with pain and fear
After birth: Needs of a postpartum family & creating mindful beginnings
AND LIFE LONG mindfulness skills that can be used in all stages of parenting and life.

Throughout our time together you will learn mindfulness meditations and exercises as a self-regulation approach to the physical and emotional challenges of pregnancy, birth and parenting.

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PRACTICALITIES

Nowadays, I offer the mindful birthing program generally as a private birth preparation. Because these are private sessions, they can be tailored to your specific needs and situation.

To prepare for birth together mindfully, couples usually book 3 sessions lasting approximately 2h to 2h30 hours which is enough to cover the essential knowledge mentioned above.

Price: The price of a mindful birthing preparation includes 3 sessions and is 550 euros. If you both have coverage for mindfulness this will be fully covered by your insurance.

If you need additional support or some extra mindfulness coaching, this can be arranged at a rate of 120 euros per hour.

The sessions we have will be online via Zoom. If you live around Geneva, Switzerland I can come to your house and offer this preparation in person.

Note: I can also host larger group sessions on request. Please reach out if you and your friends wish to organise a group course.

The content that I share in our sessions is in large part based on the Mindful Birthing and Parenting Course and book from Nancy Bardacke. I have trained as a facilitator with Nancy in 2017 and have shared this knowledge with hundreds of birthing couples since. I am also a trained birth doula.

Testimonials

“The mindfulness approach really helped me through the birth process and is appearing to be even more valuable with the newborn.” – Vera

“My partner and I followed the Mindful birthing for the birth of our first baby. Marjorie taught us mindfulness techniques with breathing, meditations, visualisation and counting. My partner learned how to support me during birth and indeed he was the best support ever during the labour! Thanks to her we were extremely well prepared and it was a totally life changing experience! – Lucile

“When I heard about the mindfulness training for pregnant women, I knew the course had found me. This was very helpful for me during labor, especially when I went from 5 to10 cm in just a couple of hours. And indeed, the pain was intense, but using the techniques that I learned, I managed to ‘be in the zone’ and be with the pain, rather than trying to avoid it or trying to run away from it. And this actually is what it’s all about. Being in the moment, being present, rather than distracting yourself or wishing you were in another moment. I can definitely recommend this course to every pregnant woman. Even if it’s not your first child, you will learn things that can change your whole birthing experience, and also for parenthood beyond birth and life in general.” – Marlene

“The Mindful Birthing and Parenting Course gave us a major insight into our daily lifestyle. A lifestyle that wasn’t so helpful in a time of pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. Marjorie taught us many mindful exercises. Especially the pain practices and being with the breath were so valuable during childbirth. For both me and my partner.  The speaking and listening inquiries gave us a good view about one another’s happy thoughts and fears, but also our ideas about parenting. Now our baby is born, it helps us to focus on his needs and approach him with full awareness.  Conclusion: The course allowed us to look at pregnancy, birth and parenting with another perspective. It gave us the most beautiful birth experience and the possibility to truly communicate with each other as partners and with our son. Forever grateful!” – Soraya

“Although the concept and application of mindfulness was not new to us, it was absolutely enlightening to have it applied to this unique time in life and we were able to have a beautiful, intervention-free labour and home birth! Overall, I felt very much in control and connected to my body. I truly believe that this was down to the techniques we had practiced in the weeks prior to birth.  Looking back we characterise the entire process as a great bonding experience for us- we communicated with each other and the midwife really well throughout and I credit the MBCP program for helping us get clear on our birth intentions and do that. Also we found the program provided my partner with a great grounding in how to best support and reassure me during labour. We both felt so much more confident and well-prepared in facing the unknown. Thank you Marjorie for helping us have such a positive, supported, empowered and connected experience.” – Psy

My partner and I felt really prepared for giving birth thanks to the mindfulness sessions, the exercises from the course and the positive birth book. I had an amazing experience. I felt really calm throughout the first phase. All I needed was to lay still on my own and it felt really zen. We ended up staying at home instead of going to the birth centre because I felt so good about the process and being in my bubble. Meanwhile my partner and the midwife prepared the birth bath and that is where I felt I needed to go for the pushing contractions. I needed some guidance by the midwife to handle the transition contractions, and after a couple of pushing contractions my son was born in the bath. It was an amazing experience. Thank you so much again. – Marina

Additional considerations

Before the course begins, we can have an intake meeting to get to know each other. Expectant parents share some background information as well as their needs and expectations around the course and can ask any questions.

Course materials includes guided audio practices and it is recommended to purchase the book ”Mindful Birthing” from Nancy Bardacke.

Note that MBCP is a course that caters to the expectant couple and supports the pregnant woman as well as her partner. People from all backgrounds and sexual orientation are welcome. Single parents are welcome to the course – for optimal support it is strongly recommended to choose a birthing partner to attend the course with you, be it a doula, midwife, mother or friend.