Your antenatal education, have your say!

York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is holding an informal ‘café’ style workshop for parents-to-be and new parents to give their feedback about the Trust’s antenatal education.

The event will take place at Westfield Children’s Centre, Askham Lane, York on Thursday 26 February, between 12 and 1.30pm.

The event is open to both parents-to-be and parents, and babies and children are welcome to attend.  

Christine Foster, Matron for Maternity, Gynaecology and Sexual Health, said: “We want to know what works well and what we could do better.

“We are aware from our Friends and Family Feedback that while the online antenatal classes are well viewed and informative, feedback from women is that they would welcome an additional face-to-face or drop in session – we want local parents to tell us what this session may look like.

“We made the decision to move to online-antenatal education in 2013 because less than 30 per cent of pregnant women were attending antenatal classes.

“While women still have one-to-one appointments with their midwives where they can discuss things face-to-face, feedback has shown that, alongside the online education which can be accessed 24/7, women would welcome an additional session where they could network and meet other mums, ask questions as well as find out about local support groups such as Children’s Centres.

“We are calling upon local parents to tell us what this additional service would look like.”

The Trust has teamed up with the Westfield Children’s Centre to run this informal workshop. If you are interested in attending please email eventsteam@york.nhs.uk .

If you are unable to attend but would like to have your say please visit >> Yorbaby survey. 

Notes to Editors:

In September 2013, York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust was the first Trust in England to introduce online antenatal classes.

The virtual tutorials, which were filmed in the maternity suite at York Hospital, are available on You Tube. The nine videos cover issues from the early stages of labour to infant feeding.

Since it went live on You Tube the Trust’s online antenatal tutorial about infant feeding has been viewed over 379,000 times.  

By releasing midwives from face-to-face classes they are now able to devote more time to complex pregnancy cases and to people who need it most. Antenatal classes are still held for more vulnerable groups, for whom the group atmosphere is more beneficial, and multiple birth classes.  

10 February 2015