Facilitators

Co-ordinator

Directors

Nadine Edwards

Classes:-

• Yoga for Pregnancy
• Birth Preparation Workshop

I became involved in childbirth issues while I was pregnant with my first child in 1976. After the births of my next two children, I joined the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services and am currently its Vice Chair. I completed a Birth Teacher’s Course through the West London Birth Centre in 1982, and have run groups for pregnant women and their partners since 1985. These turned into the Birth Resource Centre, initially through my work with Andrea St Clair and then through the work of the many people who have been involved with it over the last years.

I run some of the weekly Yoga for Pregnancy groups and one or two of the Birth Preparation Workshops. In the yoga groups, increasingly I aim to bring a simplicity, depth and focus that might contribute positively to women’s physical, emotional and spiritual experience of pregnancy, birth and early motherhood. Whether birth is straightforward or not, women can draw on a sense of inner calm and stillness, responding to their intuitions and bodily sensations.

I completed a PhD on women’s experiences of home births in 2002 now published as a book – Birthing Autonomy: Women’s Experiences of Planning Home Births.

I currently lecture, write chapters for edited book collections, write for lay and midwifery journals and am researching women’s experiences of being on Maternity Services Liaison Committees.
Links:-

• Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services
• Birthing Autonomy: Women’s Experiences of Planning Home Births
• Sheffield Hallam University

Tamsin Grainger
MRSS (Member of the Register of the Shiatsu Society)

Classes:-

• Baby Shiatsu

The baby-shiatsu routine and techniques I teach are derived originally from Shiatsu, based on ancient Chinese theory and Japanese Acupressure methods, which balances the body’s energy, and they can be continued beneficially throughout life. The Shiatsu is merged with up-to-date, practical treatments for common baby ailments (including specific acupressure points) such as colic and constipation, and therefore offers parents a really useful post-natal course. Shiatsu can tone the skin, muscles and internal organs, encourages good circulation (baby’s hands and feet are often cold), and, most importantly promotes good digestion and long sleep. Studies have even shown that massaged babies have tested significantly better in eurological development and mental functioning.

Classes are run in courses of five consecutive weeks allowing parents to learn in small groups (max 10 parents and babies), to try out the routine at home, and to return each week to consolidate, clarify any issues that may have arisen between classes and learn new techniques. Although adult Shiatsu is performed on top of clothing, baby-shiatsu is carried out with gentle, sweet almond oil (available to buy at classes), directly onto the skin. Meeting other parents of new babies and sharing experiences is a valuable part of the course, providing support during the early months of their baby’s lives. Classes are beneficial for babys from a few weeks old to the immediate pre-crawling stage.

I am a qualified Shiatsu practitioner with two children. I trained originally with the Glasgow School of Shiatsu (1990-92) and the course included anatomy, physiology, patholgy, and counselling as well as oriental theory and practice. I have done training courses with Pater Walker, pioneer of baby massage in hospitals and special care settings, England; and Suzanne Yates who is the only lay member of the Avon Maternity Services Board, England. I am also a movement specialist and my classes involve safe, physical development games for parents to play with their children. I am the only practitioner in Scotland to run Parent and Child Shiatsu courses where it is not just the parents who learn to care for their children with Shiatsu, but also the young people who reciprocate.I have worked with children with a range of symptoms such as asthma, dislocated hips, recurrent ear infections, and severe bowel disorder, showing parents how they can aid swift healing, reduce the use of drugs and ease pain.

I have been working in my one-to-one therapeutic practice since graduating in 1992, and teaching baby-shiatsu since the birth of my second daughter in 1996. Over the years, I have delivered baby-shiatsu courses extensively to Health Visitors in Fife for the Fife Health Board, and participated in the Scottish Baby Massage Association. Other experience involves 10 years of Adult Evening/Weekend Beginners Shiatsu Massage Classes for Edinburgh City Council, and I am co-founder and Principal Teacher with The Shiatsu School Edinburgh, training Shiatsu practitioners.

Links:-

• http://www.shiatsu.ryoho.co.uk

Jackie Macdonald

Information coming soon

Julie Mason

Information coming soon.
Karla Napier

Information coming soon.
Jenny Newland

I am a mother with 2 children and am also a qualified midwife, with experience of both the NHS and independent practice. I have worked with pregnant women, new parents, children, couples, families in crises and people with addiction problems.

I am currently working towards a UKCP (UK Council for Psychotherapy) accredited qualification in Personal Construct Psychotherapy.

As well as counselling, I also teach flamenco dance.
Lee Seekings-Norman

Classes:-

• Yoga for Pregnancy
• Birth Preparation Workshop

Andrea St.Clair

Classes:-

• Parent and Baby Yoga

I first came to Yoga in my late teens, more than twenty five years ago now! My work with parents with their babies began when I was introduced to childbirth educator Nadine Edwards in 1995. I was already teaching Alexander Technique and had just started my training as a Yoga teacher (with the Scottish Yoga Teachers Association). We started working together and sharing ideas which opened up for me the whole world of pregnancy, birth and parenting from Nadine’s positive, respecting, and nurturing perspective. Our work together developed into what is now the Birth Resource Centre. One of the areas Nadine and I worked on was running postnatal Yoga classes. We came up with a range of Yoga practices which could be adapted for use in a mother’s daily life with her baby. The idea was to help mothers to look after themselves and have fun with their babies at the same time. Later on, after the birth of my son, I took the Birthlight Diploma in Baby Yoga and Massage. Although this was also very much about the parent and baby together, the focus was more on the baby which complemented what I had been doing before. I felt this made my classes more varied and also more balanced in being equally for parents and babies. I now call my classes Parent and Baby Yoga as although it is almost always mothers who come with their babies, I feel it is important that fathers feel welcome and included, especially if they are the main carer for some of the time. And several fathers have come to the class, if only on an occasional basis so far, and seem to have enjoyed it! I have always been comfortable around babies: I was fortunate to grow up with a baby always around, being older than my four siblings and all my cousins. I love seeing the babies and parents having such fun in the classes. I feel that our culture as a whole does not provide an adequate support structure for many families and I enjoy contributing in the way I can to help parents to help themselves through Yoga and/or Alexander Technique and through the Birth Resource Centre as a whole. As well as my Parent & Baby Yoga classes, I also teach Yoga generally to anyone who’s interested, usually one to one or in small groups of three. I taught Yoga on the last Scottish Birth Teachers Association course and I continue to be a part of the SBTA.

Over the years I have developed my own style of Hatha Yoga based on my experience with the Alexander Technique, a style which continues to evolve in a way I find fascinating and refreshing. I continue to teach Alexander Technique and with this too I have a particular interest in working with women during pregnancy, in preparation for birth and in the postnatal period. I live in Edinburgh with my husband Rob, who is also an Alexander Technique teacher, and our son Julien, now almost 4 years old.

Links:-

• Scottish Yoga Teachers Association
• Birthlight Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique
• Alexander Technique International

Daisy Dinwoodie

Daisy Dinwoodie is many things. First and foremost she is a mother of two fantastic little ones, Labhan and Zain, who are teaching her most of what she needs to know in life; about birth, surrender, passion, fun, nutrition, love, play and slowing down. She is passionate about women’s rights of passage into motherhood and believes wholeheartedly in women’s bodies, intuitions and power. She works as a part time support-for-learning teacher in a secondary school and as a doula with women in Edinburgh, West Lothian and Fife. She is one of the facilitators at the PPC’s monthly Homebirth Support Group and has just completed a two-year course with the Scottish Birth Teachers’ Association (at the PPC). She loves and lives by the quote “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage”, by Anais Nin.

Karen Haggis

Information coming soon.

Jenny Wilson

Information coming soon.