Dance for Birth
Joyful, flowing movement that helps open your hips, ease tension and build birth confidence.
Dance for Birth is more or less what it sounds like: moving your body, on purpose, for the birth ahead. Gentle choreography and belly dance inspired movement - swaying, circling hips, soft rhythm - with other women or on your own. It is playful, and it is grounding, and it is not really about dancing well. The point is to become familiar with how your body wants to move, so that movement is already yours by the time labour comes. You may find it lifts your mood as much as anything else. You need no dance experience, and no particular kind of body.
Who this is for
This is for you if you're pregnant and would like to move, laugh a little, and feel more at home in a body that keeps changing. Perhaps you feel heavy, or oddly disconnected from it. Perhaps birth frightens you, and you'd like to approach it through your body rather than through more reading. Perhaps you'd simply like to be in a room with other pregnant women. If you have any complication, or have been told to limit activity, please check with your midwife or your doctor first, and tell me what they said.
What happens
We warm up slowly
Breath, and easy movement to arrive. No rush, no performance, and nobody watching you.
We move with rhythm
Swaying, circles, hips, weight shifting from one foot to the other. Simple movements repeated until your body knows them without being told.
We connect it to labour
Which of these movements you might reach for when contractions come, and how they feel standing, leaning, or on all fours.
We finish soft
Slower movement, breath, stillness. The aim is that you leave calmer than you arrived, and that this is the part you carry home.
Common questions
Will this make my labour easier?
I won't promise you that, and I'd be wary of anyone who does. Nobody can guarantee a birth. What I can offer is time to feel more confident and more at home in your body, so that you come to labour with movements ready to reach for.
I can't dance.
Good, because that isn't what this is. There is no choreography to get right and nobody is judging you. If you can sway, you can do this.
How far along should I be?
The classes suit the second and third trimesters best, when the body has settled and the birth begins to feel real. If you're earlier than that, or very close to your due date, just ask and we'll talk about what makes sense for you.
What if I feel silly?
That's common for the first ten minutes, and it usually passes once everyone is moving. If you'd like to ask about it before committing to anything, a free discovery call is a good place to start.