Pregnancy is a transformative period marked by both joy and challenges, and mental well-being plays a vital role in this journey. This presentation explores the crucial connection between maternal mental health and the peripartum period, focusing on the empowering evidence based practice of mindful meditation. By cultivating awareness and acceptance of the present moment, mindfulness offers expectant parents invaluable tools to navigate the emotional rollercoaster of pregnancy. Drawing upon scientific research and practical techniques this presentation aims to empower birth professionals with knowledge and tools to support their clients to navigate their pregnancy journey with enhanced emotional resilience, emotion regulation and inner harmony.

Participants may earn 1.0 Lamaze Contact Hour and 1.0 hour of CNE.

Birth is an embodied experience! In this session, we will help you understand the power that prenatal yoga has to help get pregnant people connected and attuned with their bodies. Learn how to use movement as a tool to teach the functions of birth. We will explore how to teach childbirth education through movement by exploring the levels of the pelvis, movements for stages of labor and embodied relaxation techniques.

Participants may earn .75 Lamaze Contact Hours and .75 hours of CNE when bundled with other conference sessions.

Gestational diabetes, PIH, anemia, and other pregnancy complications are happening more frequently, especially among disadvantaged groups. Nutrition may be one of the most effective preventive measures, but many – if not most – parents don’t feel like they understand what to eat during pregnancy, and feel overwhelmed trying to figure it out. Lamaze educators and other childbirth professionals are in an ideal position to distribute additional nutrition knowledge. In this session, learn how the Healthy Pregnancy Plate - a simple tool for parents to use when planning meals and eating habits, helps ensure adequate nutrition for pregnancy and postpartum. We will cover how you can quickly and effectively use this in your classes to support healthier pregnancies, better postpartum health, and giving babies a healthy foundation.

Registrants will gain access to a 20-minute pregnancy nutrition curriculum, presentation, and participant handouts that they can incorporate into their childbirth education classes.

Participants may earn 1.25 Lamaze Contact Hours and 1.25 hours of CNE. 

This webinar will explore different ways of teaching mindfulness techniques to your participants. After introducing the core concepts and scientifically proven benefits of mindfulness, explore several techniques yourself and discover why one script does not fit all. Learn to teach confidently beyond the script - introduce your course participants to different mindfulness techniques like the Body Scan and breath awareness meditations and adapt to and modify your teachings for the individual needs of your course participants.

Participants may earn 1.0 Lamaze Contact Hour and 1.0 hour of CNE through CBRN, Approved Provider #15932.

The transition to motherhood, or matrescence, is an identity shift that takes two to three years to traverse. Though we’re increasingly acknowledging the “first forty days” and the physical and emotional shifts that occur in the early postpartum time, the developmental process of matrescence remains unexplored territory. Research shows that having an awareness of the transition to motherhood as a transformational experience is protective of mothers' mental health. Our current lack of nuanced understanding of this process leads new mothers to feel isolated in their experiences, and also to the pathologization of the normal, but often challenging, the experience of this important life transition. During this presentation, participants will receive a "map" for this uncharted territory in our understanding of new parenthood, learning a framework rooted in rites of passage theory and adult development psychology that describes how matrescence unfolds, as well as tangible, evidence-based supports they can provide mothers at each step along the way. 

Participants may earn .50 Lamaze contact hours.