Prenatal online classes recommended?

May 20, 2021 9:27 PM

My daughter is about to have her first child in a month and all the in-person classes are closed due to Covid. I'd like to sign her up for a friendly and informative english-language class that covers birth, maybe nursing and infant care, etc. Google gives me a flood of options, and my last pregnancy was a medical nightmare so I am unable to search without spiralling so please - recs for good online classes, live or on-demand?
posted by dorothyisunderwood to Education (8 answers total)

Maybe not what you were thinking, but what about a virtual consult with a doula local to your daughter?
posted by piyushnz at 10:46 PM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]

I’ve seen a couple of YouTube ones recommended on one of the pregnancy subreddits. This one is led by an Australian midwife. She filmed it during the Melbourne lockdown last year. Each class is quite long and the audio is dodgy in some of them. I really enjoyed them and found them really useful for what to expect during labour and after (but I’m still pregnant so don’t know how useful they’ll be in reality).

This is the other one I’ve seen recommended a lot but I haven’t watched it yet. There are three classes and it is led by a Canadian midwife.

The Positive Birth Company course has been personally recommended to me by a friend but I can’t comment on the quality as I have not done it (Uk course). I’m probably going to sign up for it at some point though.
posted by poxandplague at 12:29 AM on May 21, 2021 [3 favorites]

The Canadian midwife videos linked above are excellent. I also found the (free) infant care class from the baby academy really helpful. If your daughter is open to breastfeeding, there's a really excellent breastfeeding series on the YouTube channel Global Health Media Project.

There are lots of free infant CPR classes out there too which seems like a good idea but I haven't taken one yet to recommend.
posted by randomnity at 6:51 AM on May 21, 2021

This is not directly what you're asking for, but do you know if there are any local mom's groups in her neighborhood? I joined mine while I was pregnant and honestly learned more about infant care and birth from moms who were a few months ahead chatting about their experiences than I did from the classes I took.
posted by redlines at 7:00 AM on May 21, 2021

Just to clarify, did your daughter ask for you to sign her up for a class? If not, might want to run this idea by her. Also, does she have specific preferences or desires about the type of birth she wants or the type of parenting approach she is planning to use? You might need to tailor your search to accommodate for those.

To get back to your question, though, her hospital likely has some type of class available online. And, if it doesn't, it likely has some recommendations for online materials.
posted by ASlackerPestersMums at 7:46 AM on May 21, 2021

I used both the Positive Birthing Company's Hypnobirthing and post-partum course. Both my partner and I really loved them, and found them useful. The information is very UK specific, so some details didn't support my context in Austria.
posted by pipstar at 12:36 PM on May 21, 2021

Response by poster: To clarify: at her request, looking for a class as even the hospital run ones are currently covid-closed. She’s not interested in hypnobirthing at all and is likely to have a medicalised birth given some issues. The Canadian midwife videos were great, but we’d like something live for q&a if possible. The local parent groups are not doing in person currently, and she isn’t interested in an online forum as English is her third language.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:46 PM on May 21, 2021

You might get some more recommendations over at Reddit on r/BabyBumps.
posted by poxandplague at 8:24 PM on May 22, 2021