Father Kissing Pregnant Stomach | Active Birth Taranaki

Empowering families to experience positive childbirth

Mother with baby bump | Active Birth Taranaki
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Active Birth Taranaki offers antenatal education classes in New Plymouth, Stratford and Hawera. Focusing on positive birth experiences, our team is here to help Taranaki mothers through pregnancy and beyond so that they can feel empowered throughout their birth and postpartum experience.

As a not-for-profit community group, we share comprehensive information on diverse approaches to childbirth, including home births, hypnobirthing, water births, ecstatic births, natural hospital births, woman-centred caesareans, and more. 

Our services are designed to help you make informed decisions about which birth options are right for you so that you can feel supported and in control as you prepare for labour and parenthood.

Who We Are

Choices in Childbirth Classes

Our Choices in Childbirth Classes are different from your standard antenatal classes: they enable you to take charge of your labour experience and give you the tools and resources needed for a positive birth.

Introduction to birth mapping

Forget birth plans and wishlists: certified Birth Cartographer and Doula Shannon Engelbrecht will show you how to create a map that clearly states your decisions surrounding any birth scenario. 

Informed decision making

Gain the tools and knowledge to make empowered choices about your birth, ensuring that you feel in control and informed throughout your journey.

Create a positive birthing environment

Your birthing environment plays a significant role in your birth experience. We’ll guide you through how to plan for one that feels right to you.

Hormones in labour and birth

You’ll learn about the amazing journey your hormones will take you on during labour and delivery - and how this process physically and emotionally supports you during childbirth.

Stages of labour

We’ll describe what each stage of labour might look like for you, and things that you can do to support yourself and your baby during each stage.

What to do to ease labour pains

We’ll explain what pain relief options are available for labour in New Zealand and arm you with a toolkit of pain management techniques.

Maternal mental health

Our course covers the importance of taking extra care of your mental health during pregnancy and postpartum, and what maternal mental health services are available to you in New Zealand.

What to expect during postpartum

Many women go into postpartum unaware of the physical and emotional recovery that is needed following childbirth. We’ll make sure you know what’s coming and how to support your recovery.

Attachment

One of the best things you can do for your child’s brain development is to form a strong bond with them - we’ll guide you through some ways to nurture this bond from the get-go.

The benefits of babywearing

Worried about babywearing? Don’t be. It makes life easier for you and makes for a happy bub. We’ll show you how to get started.

Breastfeeding

We’ll explain how breastfeeding works and give you lots of tips to get things off to a good start and resources to get support if you need it.

Baby sleep guidance

Find out what research tells us about baby sleep cycles and gain some helpful takeaways to support both you and your baby’s sleep needs in the first few months postpartum.

Pregnant women chatting | Active Birth Taranaki

Where to start

Start preparing for a positive birth by utilising the resources below:

  1. Sign up for our birth education classes and start building your parenting village
    We believe our     Choices in Childbirth classes are different from any other antenatal class out there because they empower you to create an informed, positive birth experience for yourself. It also connects you with like minded parents and gives you the opportunity to keep up with them on a monthly basis through our facilitated coffee group.    

  2. Familiarise yourself with different birth scenarios by reading our community birth stories
    There are so many beautiful, positive birth stories in Taranaki - and, thanks to our community - we’re lucky enough to be able to share them with you.     Read about a wide range of birth experiences including home births, c-sections, hypnobirthing, waterbirths and more.

  3. Prepare for birth and beyond with these resources
    It’s so important to understand what your options are and to make a plan that’s right for you. We encourage you to do some research on what options and services are available to you     using our large collection of resources - taking note of any that you might want to come back to.

Testimonials

  • “Active birth was a great find for my husband and me. We took antenatal classes too, but they only gave us information about hospital procedure, drugs and contractions, active birth taught us to take charge of creating this moment in time the way we wanted to remember it. I made a really strong connection and we are still close with our little boys growing up together, this has made the early years of parenting so much better.”

  • “The course made me feel empowered in my choices and boosted my confidence despite being a first time mum”

  • “It really helped solidify in my mind that I can do this the way I want to. My partner definitely found a lot of good info for fathers/birthing partners from it and is better informed on how he can help.”

  • “The best thing is feeling like it’s not just me on this journey. You're aware you're not alone but it’s nice to be in a room with other women on a similar journey with similar experiences and enquiries.”