The Antenatal Education (Parent Education) team in The National Maternity Hospital play an essential role in promoting, and helping you maintain good health in pregnancy and beyond. We aim to help prepare women and their partners for childbirth and the changes and challenges that their new baby will bring to their lives. We know that a positive birthing experience can positively affect a woman’s long term wellbeing, and aim to empower women and their partners to believe in themselves through a partnership approach.
Following on from great feedback in relation to providing the classes virtually on-line during pandemic restrictions, we will continue to provide many antenatal education classes as live, online interactive webinars delivered using the Webex app. This should be downloaded before the class.
There will be a gradual reintroduction of inperson classes from the beginning of April.
Some of the classes we provide are listed below but please see the full menu of classes at the end of this page.
There are also a couple of Antenatal Education videos linked at the end of this page, that we prepared in conjunction with Whatsupmum that we hope you find useful!
- Pregnancy Wellbeing
- First time mothers/parents preparation for labour and delivery* and Babycare and postnatal classes
- Young Mum’s (women aged 18-21yrs)
- Refresher
- VBAC (vaginal delivery after c section)
- Elective section (for women who know they will be having a planned c section)
- Preparation for Breastfeeding (led by Breastfeeding Midwife)
- Partners'
- Introduction to Hypnobirthing
- Twins
*We suggest that approximately 30 weeks pregnancy is a good time to do your labour antenatal education class and the babycare/postnatal class can be done later in pregnancy.
Other classes available that are run by our colleagues:
Physiotherapy: 'Healthy Bodies After Birth Class' and details of other classes can be viewed on the main Physiotherapy page.
Dietetics: "Tus Mhaith" (good start) - healthy eating for women with a BMI over 25, to book email dietitian@nmh.ie
Perinatal Mental Team: 'Healthy Minds in Pregnancy and Beyond' and 'Supporting Your Postnatal Emotional Wellbeing' a class focussed on mental wellbeing (see below for booking info).
To book your place, just e-mail classes@nmh.ie or call Nicola or Susan (01) 637 3499. When emailing, please include:
- When you are due (Estimated Delivery Date - EDD)
- Your Hospital number if you attended the NMH before under any specialty
- Whether it is your first baby
- If there is anything in particular we need to know about you
If you do not receive a reply from us, please check your spam folder as there is sometimes an issue with hotmail, yahoo and gmail.
To complement and support your antenatal education needs, a team have developed the eLearning Hub, This incredible multidisciplinary team is composed of NMH healthcare professionals including midwives, physiotherapists, lactation consultants, dieticians, paediatricians, obstetricians, psychologists and many more. Each resource takes you through a series of educational modules to help you on your journey through pregnancy and beyond, and will be referenced throughout your classes. We recommend that you review each module prior to the classes.
We need your feedback to help develop our service. Please take a few minutes to complete this evaluation of your class here after you have attended.
There are a wide variety of Classes and Support Groups available for all stages of pregnancy and following birth.