Family Health: Healthy Lives, Healthy Families

Our Healthy Lives, Healthy Families Program emphasizes prevention, education and wellness for growing families. This program includes a focus on healthy parenting and healthy kids:

Healthy Parenting Stress Reduction Classes

Mindfulness-Based Childbirth & Parenting
The Mind in Labor: Working with Pain in Childbirth
Mindful Birthing Resources

Healthy Kids, Healthy Lives

Mindfulness-Based Childbirth & Parenting

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This program is an invitation to begin or deepen the practice of mindfulness for meeting the profound changes in our bodies and minds during pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. Through mindfulness meditation, yoga, and group dialogue we will learn a way to fully live the joys and challenges of this transformative time and cultivate lifelong skills for healthy living and wise parenting. Read about the Mindful Birth in Greater Good Magazine.

In this course you will:

Access deep physical and mental relaxation
Learn to engage the mind to work with pain during labor
Understand the physiology of childbirth, breastfeeding, and babies
Practice prenatal yoga for strength and flexibility
Increase confidence and courage for labor and delivery
Develop tools for managing stress in pregnancy, parenting, and daily life

The Mind in Labor: Working with Pain in Childbirth

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Childbirth can be a challenging experience that often involves physical pain and anxiety. How we use our minds to relate to that pain and anxiety can make a huge difference in our labor and delivery experience. Based on the mind/body work at the pioneering Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts, this will be a day for looking deeply at pain and fear during childbirth and for cultivating tools to work with them in the process of giving birth. In this day you will:

Practice various mind/body modalities for working with pain in childbirth
Experience using the breath as an anchor to the present moment
Tap into inner reservoirs of strength, confidence and courage
Learn how to be fully present to give assistance as a birth partner
Begin to cultivate the powerful tool of mindfulness, moment-to-moment awareness, for the challenges of birthing and parenting

This workshop is an excellent complement to any childbirth education class, including refresher classes. It can also be helpful for those who anticipate a birth experience which needs special medical attention or who have had a difficult previous birth experience.

Resources

Mindful Birthing - Programs for Mindful Family Living, founded and taught by Nancy Bardacke, Certified Nurse-Midwife and mindfulness teacher.

*These programs are presented in collaboration with the
UCSF Nationally Designated Center of Excellence in Women's Health.