Who are Lazy Daisy and why are they different

I recently came across a relatively new antenatal organisation – Lazy Daisy. They offer movement based pregnancy wellbeing and birth preparation classes.  While they do not talk about interventions and more traditional modes of pain relief as I would advocate what is fantastic is that they focus on

“helping mum eliminate worry or fear before the birth…encouraging her to look forward to her birthing day, however the journey pans out”.

Of course a caesarean may be the outcome but in viewing birth as a positive journey and focusing on the end goal Lazy Daisy’s founder Julie Long reports that

“even when birth has taken a different path to what they hoped, [women] continue to feel in control and so feel 100% positive about the journey. Many of our mums forget to even mention how the journey finishes [vaginal or caesarean] because they are so enthusiastic about describing how they were riding their waves.”

These classes do not claim to be a one stop shop for antenatal preparation but they do seem to encourage women to have more realistic expectations of birth. The classes provide a safe, open and honest environment in which to discuss all aspects of birth. No topic is out of bounds. Lazy Daisy recognise that while natural birth and breastfeeding are desirable goals they also acknowledge that for some women bottle feeding and medical forms of pain relief may be preferrable. They point out that there should be no shame attached to this and they encourage discussion on all topics.

Anja a mother who recently attended Lazy Daisy classes before her home based VBAC said

“We practised techniques to help keep us calm and once in labour I went into a kind of automatic, I could hear the teachers voice from the relaxation sessions and it really worked, my homebirth was a wonderful, calm experience.”

The organisation is growing fast and there are now classes all over the country.