Marina Fogle on how The Bump Class prepares new mothers for birth

(Photograph of Marina & Chiara by Helene Sandberg)  

There’s a lot of talk of ‘traumatic’ births right now – birth that when you take a look at the reasons they’re considered traumatic, made me realise that antenatal classes needed to up their game. 

Since the birth of my own children, I’ve been fascinated by people’s expectations and birth stories and evolved into a kind of ‘go-to’ Mum for the bewildered and often frightened mums to be.  It was one frosty new year that my sister, Dr Chiara Hunt, a GP and mother of two, and I decided that we would start a series of antenatal classes that would empower rather than frighten and through a series of talks given by specialists (midwives, doctors, physios and breastfeeding consultants) give the knowledge to mums that would enable them to make the decisions that would be right for them.  No judgment, no bias – just facts and evidence based advice…and a whole lot of fun. 

Because the biology of labour can be a dry old subject and when you’re in your third trimester, you’re pretty tired.  Five years on we’ve written a bestselling pregnancy book and our classes are heavily oversubscribed and our inbox is full of emails from grateful mums telling us that even though their birth wasn’t what they’d planned, because they had prepared for every type of birth, the emergency caesarean had been ‘utterly magical’ because nothing could take away from them the moment they met their baby for the first time.

The Bump Classes are run in South Kensington and Parson’s Green.  www.thebumpclass.com  Early sign up essential!

The Bump Class: An Expert Guide to Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond by Dr Chiara Hunt and Marina Fogle is available from Amazon and all good bookshops.