Last month we welcomed 12 new students onto our May Antenatal Diploma and honestly, every single time we begin a new cohort I feel so proud and excited I could burst.

There is something really special about watching a new group of people step into birth work and antenatal education together. It’s a big deal to start something new, especially when many of our students are balancing jobs, businesses, children, maternity leave and everyday life alongside their learning. I am always so aware of what a privilege it is when people choose The Perinatal Academy to be part of that journey.

This group includes midwives, nursery owners, office workers, mothers currently on maternity leave, women who have birthed before and women who have not. Every single one of them amazing for wanting to support others in this way.

Our Antenatal & Early Postnatal Diploma is a FEDANT accredited antenatal teacher training course designed for people who want to teach antenatal classes, support families through pregnancy and postpartum, or step into work as antenatal educators, birth workers or doulas in a thoughtful and evidence informed way.

Last night our live session together was all about teaching birth physiology and we explored what it actually means to teach birth in the reality of the maternity system we currently have.

One of the things we kept coming back to throughout the evening was this:

It is one thing to understand physiological birth ourselves and to believe deeply in the importance of protecting it. But we are teaching within a culture and a maternity system where physiological birth is often not the norm for many families.

As antenatal educators, childbirth educators and birth workers, we therefore have to think very carefully about how we teach something that only a percentage of parents may go on to experience.

The aim of this session is never to hand everyone a script or tell them there is one “right” way to teach. I want our students to begin shaping their own thoughtful approach to teaching birth and supporting parents, rather than simply repeating language they have heard from us, social media or online birth culture. This is SO important to us. Authenticity is everything.

A really good discussion we had together was around toxic positivity in birth work and antenatal education.

This can sometimes happen when birth workers have had a very positive personal experience with a certain approach and then unintentionally begin to believe that if anybody prepares in the “right” way, they will achieve a similar outcome themselves.

At the same time, we are also living in a culture where we can consume endless beautifully curated positive birth stories online, often without seeing the wider context, the complexity or the unpredictability behind them. It’s the same with traumatic birth stories too really, but that is probably another blog entirely. And what can happen, without anybody meaning harm, the message can begin to sound something like:

“If you do the work properly, you will get the birth you want.”

But birth is complex! People are complex! Systems are complex! And as antenatal educators, our words carry enormous weight. The way we frame birth and early parenthood can either create space for honesty, fear, uncertainty, grief and vulnerability, or it can unintentionally make parents feel like they should silence those feelings in order to be doing pregnancy “properly”.

We talked a lot about how phrases like: “Don’t be scared, birth is amazing.” “If you stay positive, labour will be easier.” “If you do the work, you will get the outcome.” These all usually come from genuinely good intentions, but can accidentally imply too much control for parents and not enough respect for the realities and unpredictability of birth itself.

Instead, we explored what it looks like to hold both hope and honesty together at the same time and to create space for conversations like: “It is okay to feel nervous.” “Many people feel uncertain about birth.” “Is there anything that feels particularly worrying to you?” “Sometimes birth does not feel fair and you are allowed to feel that.”

Because ultimately, our role is not to convince parents that birth will definitely be calm, empowering or straightforward. Our role as antenatal teachers and birth educators is to help people feel informed, emotionally safe and genuinely heard. We will not be telling parents that if they breathe right they will automatically have a pain free birth. When people feel truly heard and validated, they are often far more able to navigate birth and early parenthood in their own way.

This is the kind of antenatal education we care deeply about at The Perinatal Academy and it is exactly why our diploma exists.

Our September Antenatal Diploma is now open for enrolment and students regularly join us months before the live teaching even begins because as soon as you enrol, you can dive right in and begin learning immediately through the foundational modules.

By the time the live sessions arrive you already feel immersed in the work, connected to the learning and often beginning to shape your antenatal business, confidence and teaching style in the background too.

Come and join our last Antenatal Diploma cohort of 2026. You could be teaching your own antenatal classes and supporting families by the New Year. Whoop!!

Teaching birth without the toxic positivity!

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