PRC Elective: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Your New Baby
A Step-by-Step Online Program
Length: 7.5 hours
Instructor: Angela Rennie
The instruction manual for pregnancy, birth, and early parenting that you have been waiting for!
Need to know
Finally, a step-by-step video program to guide you through the most magical time of your life, or the life of someone you love.
Course Description
*This is a 0.5 credit PRC-Approved course for on-campus students only. Please note that online PRC Electives taken through Pacific Rim College Online do not qualify for Student Loans.
Learn the skills to confidently navigate the birth experience that you want. This unique pregnancy, childbirth, and newborn educational series takes you on a deep dive into understanding exactly what you can expect every step of the way through this beautiful time of life.
This step-by-step online program is not only a priceless resource, it is also permission for you to stop suffering guilt about all the pregnancy and parenting books that you have not yet got around to reading. With Angela’s exquisite guidance, you can relax into the bliss of knowing that you are not missing a thing.
Watch these incredible classes as Angela takes you through the lessons of each stage of your current or upcoming parenting journey. Each lesson is interwoven with interviews from various experts and women who have been through this magical experience. There is also footage of women going through the process in real-time. Allow these women to huddle around you and show you what is to come.
Appreciate step-by-step lessons about pregnancy, birth, and the first few weeks with your newborn. What does the process really look like? What are the common fears that every woman goes through? Understand the possible medical procedures and keep your voice strong within these processes. Learn how to adapt physically, mentally, spiritually, and so much more.
Be a leader of your own journey and join in the shared wisdom of a seasoned midwife and real women who have “been there”!
By the end of the course, you will be able to:
- Be confident about understanding the entire pregnancy and birth process
- Be savvy about understanding your medical options
- Clear any common fears around pregnancy, childbirth, and the weeks that follow
- Be an informed birth partner to truly be there for the pregnant mom, every step of the way
- Know how to bond with your baby and spark an everlasting relationship of love
- Adjust your diet and lifestyle for the optimal health of you and your baby
- Explore the spiritual side of what it means to be a parent
Lesson plan
1. Intuitive Birthing and Beyond
Meet your instructor, Angela Rennie. A former midwife who will take your hand through the entire process – from pregnancy to the first few weeks with your new baby. In this unit, you explore:
• what is missing from modern-day maternity care
• how to prepare for the practical, emotional, and lifestyle aspects of becoming a parent
• what intuition is, how to access it, and how to use it to help guide your experience
• how to be you in a complex birthing culture
• an insider’s peek at a group of women sharing their birth stories
• what you want from this experience
• important urgent concerns in pregnancy
2. The Pregnant Body – Do Pregnancy Choices Affect My Birth?
How does lifestyle affect your baby? A discussion on body, mind, spirit, and loving life. Here Angela discusses:
• how choices and lifestyle affect you and baby
• your birth place location and the care provider you choose
• facts about pregnancy that you need to know
• how to best treat the body while it changes during pregnancy
• optimal food and exercise for a healthy pregnancy and baby
• the vibrational food scale and how this can benefit you and baby
3. Pregnancy Care – Tests, Procedures, and Fetal Positioning
What to expect in late pregnancy, with a focus on the importance of fetal positioning. Take a deep dive into:
• the power in your decision-making process – having a choice is power
• working with a care provider
• standard tests and procedures in your pregnancy (including post-date pregnancy)
• what you need to know about cesarean sections
• what to expect in late pregnancy, with a focus on the importance of fetal positioning
• kick counts and what they mean
• what position baby should be in before and during labour
• how can you help encourage baby to the best position
4. Labour and Birth
Birth, birth, and more birth – this is what labour may look like. Education is power! Some topics discussed include:
• what is labour and how to understand what is happening during it
• the important difference between Braxton Hicks vs. true labour
• the female reproductive anatomy
• hormones and labour
• exactly what happens at this stage of pregnancy – know what to expect!
• effacement and dilation of the cervix
• labour timeline, early vs. active, and what to do in each phase
• understanding the umbilical cord
• how to know if the water has broken
• what contractions are and how to time them
• birth intention templates and getting what you want
• right brain vs. left brain in labour
• positions for best labouring and birthing baby
5. Comfort Measures and Chakra Energy
A look at how you and others can best support your labour, plus exploring energy work for ideal birthing flow. You learn about:
• complementary relaxation techniques
• the unpredictably of birth – there are two of you: birther and the birthed
• tools to handle your birth with confidence
• how you and others can best support your labour
• breath work
• perineal massage
• fetal positioning
• the role of doulas
• how to express your need for your experience
• the serene – the space between contractions
• pain management options
• epidurals
• your chakras and you
• exploring energy work for an ideal birthing flow
6. Interventions and Birth Intentions
Learn about the most common items on the intervention menu and how to create your personal birth intentions. In addition, Angela discusses:
• post-date pregnancy vs. post term
• interventions or natural and the options of each
• medical interventions and what to expect
• the power of support
• cesarean emergency vs. elective
• informed choice vs. informed consent
• making choices and how to create your personal birth intentions
• your birthing guest list
• letting go of expectations of the unknown
7. What Are My Barriers and Beliefs? A Look at Self and Letting Go
Take a detailed, honest look at Self. Clear away unwanted baggage prior to becoming a parent and open your world to love and freedom – the best gift you can give your child – in anticipation of this life-changing transition. Additionally, you explore:
• your need for support, guidance and community
• the importance of meditation and feeling safe in your chosen birth environment
• what birth setting will be optimal for you and the options
• what is the most important in the relationship with your caregiver
• the importance of flexibility with change and the unknown
8. Baby’s First Few Weeks, Including Breastfeeding
What does the early postpartum journey look like? From newborn procedures and all the basics to babywearing. You also learn:
• what to expect in the first hours of your baby’s life
• what your newborn exam might look like
• about common newborn procedures
• all about jaundice in your infant
• about breastfeeding: how to and how often, and the positions to do so
• what to expect in the first weeks
• all about feeding, sleeping, diapering, and physical contact
• a step-by-step babywearing 101 lesson
9. Mama After Birth
The early postpartum journey from madness to magic – the first minutes to weeks after birth. Learn about:
• the immediate postpartum moments in the delivery room and what to expect
• what no one talks about postpartum
• your support options
• your post-baby body and what you might experience
• recovery in the early weeks
• honouring rest and healing postpartum
• the ins and outs of the baby blues
• the difference between postpartum depression and anxiety
• postpartum weight loss and exercise
• sex and birth control after baby
• how to make a post-baby nest
• postpartum diet charts
10. Accepting Acceptance – It’s All About Surrender
You’ve got this! A reflection on staying in the moment. Here you explore:
• accepting acceptance
• weaving together all that you have learned
• the practical and the invisible aspects of this program
• your readiness to let go and allow
• the vibrational experience
• finding yourself
• kindness…and opening to others
11. Bonus Units
• mini baby swaddling video
• a guided walking meditation to prepare your mind
• an animated birth video on the 3 stages of labour
• a stunning Birth Documentary that takes an intimate look at 8 births – from early labour to welcoming newborns into the world (with real birth footage!). Prepare for an emotional journey as you receive honorary access into precious moments in each of the families’ lives.
Overcome many potential obstacles in giving birth and allay your fears around becoming a new parent.
What do you get with the program?
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Over 6 hours of stunning online video lessons to guide you every step of the way, at your own pace. You can get started right away!
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Bonus: over 40 quick and easy reference PDFs that you can print and take on-the-go
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Bonus: a guided meditation to bring your mind and spirit into a calm space...now...and now...and now
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Bonus: a mini swaddling video so you can wrap your baby in a snuggly little cocoon
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Bonus: an animated video showing all stages of birth—from effacement and dilation to birth of the placenta
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Bonus: a heart-warming, tear-jerking birth documentary—featuring live births!—of the journeys of 8 couples meeting their babies for the first time
Sample lesson
Bonus
Birth & Labour Documentary
As a bonus to your online course lessons, you will find a birth documentary at the end of your program.
Follow along with 8 women and their birth partners as they go through the process of labour, birth, and the moments afterwards. Sit back and grab your tissues. This documentary is raw and extraordinarily beautiful. You will feel as though you are right in the same room as you watch, in-detail, what each stage of labour can look like. Captured footage includes the early, middle, and late stages of labour; home births; hospital births; and the actual birth itself. Feel the intense joy alongside those in the film when the new infants arrive. You don’t want to miss this!
Enroll Today
Full online program
Gain PRC Campus elective credits
Lifetime access
to materials
100% Secure
checkout
What happens after you sign up?
-
Enroll
Enroll now and receive immediate access to your new program.
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Download
Download and print the 40+ invaluable and easy-to-reference PDFs.
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Learn
Own your content for life and watch as many times as you need.
Meet your instructor
Angela is the founder of It Starts With Birth, an online lifestyle and education community aimed at encompassing the whole person: body, mind, and spirit. Before creating It Starts With Birth, Angela worked for 9 years as a Registered Midwife and primary care provider to over 550 women and their families. While each of these women’s experiences in preparing for labour and the transition to motherhood was unique, Angela came to identify a pattern in the needs that they expressed along their journeys and created this online program in response!
Read moreAngela studied in the US and graduated from the Seattle Midwifery School (Bastyr University). She spent her early years studying in both Canada and the Caribbean, before settling once again in Victoria, BC, to practice as a Registered Midwife.
Angela’s passion for supporting people on their journey toward parenthood began many years before midwifery school. In the years prior, Angela studied and taught childbirth education, offered breastfeeding support, and worked as a postpartum and birth doula. Her interests and passion have also led Angela to study homeopathy, holistic nutrition, yoga teacher training, Reiki, and spiritual healing (wherein she received mentorship from spiritual healers including a First Nations Haida Shaman).
Angela is a lover of the outdoors. Being atop her favourite mountain and hiking its trails, and sitting with a hot tea and her dogs in the early morning light, are among her greatest pleasures. Her goal for working with women runs parallel to the desire she has for herself and the women in her own life: to inspire women’s evolution toward the amazing lives they deserve!
Read lessWhy isn't this information common knowledge?
“People have not been taught all the real-life details of what actually happens when they bring a new baby into this world! Our culture tends to lack that strong circle of support that guides new parents and partners through this stage of life. I want to help you with this. I want to be your educational support to help you complete this circle.
After attending over 550 births, and being a midwife for 9 years, I want to share with you my knowledge about this entire, beautiful process to help you feel more empowered. It is completely normal to have many fears: body image issues during pregnancy and postpartum, the pain of birth, the health of your baby, birth trauma, postpartum depression/sexual life, and so much more.
My goal is to help you allay these fears by providing you detailed information about what you can expect, each step of the way. Birth is an unpredictable and normal life event. We need to be open to our dream outcome, but also be open to allowing whatever happens to happen. There are two of you intimately involved in the process of birth: the birthing and the birthed.
Having a new baby can open your heart in ways you didn’t know was imaginable. Allowing this opening is the biggest gift that you can give you and your new baby. I hope that you will join me and allow me to help prepare you for your birth so that you too can feel confident, calm, connected, and empowered during this truly magical time of life.”
What can you do after completing this program?
- Understand the pregnancy and birthing process with confidence
- Know how to be with your baby in the first few weeks
- Assist your partner through their birth with ease
- Support a friend or loved one through the birthing process
- Suggest the program to your clients (if you are a doula or midwife) to help fill in their birth education
Enroll Today
Full online program
Gain PRC Campus elective credits
Lifetime access
to materials
100% Secure
checkout
What our students are saying…
“Every single part was useful and you can tell it’s taught from the heart with love… as it should be! The quality of this course is impeccable and should be available to any mum or expecting [parent]. This should be our standard of education towards birth. I am overwhelmed with gratitude that this course is available… and that you included the postpartum depression – the more we hear about it, the more we talk about it, and the more we can understand it to heal it.”
“A great all-encompassing course. I was looking for something that would help me navigate the traditional, medical side of labour and birth and all the necessary need-to-knows as well as the spiritual side of things and this course covered both those areas very well.”
“This program created what the people have been longing to have, real education about birth and everything in between. I found the course covered the material that expecting parents would want to know and a good explanation of all of the procedures to make informed choices.”
“A wonderful class! Empowering aspiring birth support workers and birthing people alike. A positive and compassionate instructor. It was clinical but also had a heart-felt real-life story side to it. “
“Surpassed my expectations. It was a beautiful course. Comprehensive, captivating and heartfelt.”
“It was beautifully put together; there was a real grassroots feeling that made digesting the material so easy. I didn’t expect to be so emotional throughout the whole program; the birthing stories were inspiring. This process of creating babies and birthing them needs to be cherished and honoured; we need more people like Angela educating people and empowering women to bring the next generations into this world.”
“I felt it was a very thoughtful and personally curated course; it has a full scope on the process of pregnancy and the tools most helpful to support it—the tips and exercises on navigating the mental and emotional blockages that arise during pregnancy and labour were most useful.”
“Approachable, digestible material with a mix of personal anecdotes and information but presented conversationally, so I found it easy to retain. Pregnancy care and interventions were the most practically informative. Still, I also loved the different women interviewed and the clips of the women’s circle where people shared their experiences, which gave me this real sense of camaraderie, even to strangers I had never met.”
“I found some resonance of a need to re-wild ourselves in and through the birthing process. Angela’s recommendations to work through self issues before the baby is born, to keep up contemplative practices that ‘balance’ hormonal influence, to cultivate yogic practices, to bring awareness to ‘right-brain’ activities, and to create an empowering atmosphere in which to give birth, ask for help, etc. are all toward a more intuitive birthing culture — which of course, I appreciate. Additionally, she provides an important example through being transparent and non-judgmental concerning her biases.”
“Very pleasant and informative. I liked Angela’s way of teaching and enjoyed her presence through the videos. I enjoyed the women’s journeys and their birth clips; this is amazing and unique from other programs! I also liked all the documents you get. The program had a “sisterhood” feeling even though it was online and had no interactions with the students.”
-
“Every single part was useful and you can tell it’s taught from the heart with love… as it should be! The quality of this course is impeccable and should be available to any mum or expecting [parent]. This should be our standard of education towards birth. I am overwhelmed with gratitude that this course is available… and that you included the postpartum depression – the more we hear about it, the more we talk about it, and the more we can understand it to heal it.”
-
“A great all-encompassing course. I was looking for something that would help me navigate the traditional, medical side of labour and birth and all the necessary need-to-knows as well as the spiritual side of things and this course covered both those areas very well.”
-
“This program created what the people have been longing to have, real education about birth and everything in between. I found the course covered the material that expecting parents would want to know and a good explanation of all of the procedures to make informed choices.”
-
“A wonderful class! Empowering aspiring birth support workers and birthing people alike. A positive and compassionate instructor. It was clinical but also had a heart-felt real-life story side to it. “
-
“Surpassed my expectations. It was a beautiful course. Comprehensive, captivating and heartfelt.”
-
“It was beautifully put together; there was a real grassroots feeling that made digesting the material so easy. I didn’t expect to be so emotional throughout the whole program; the birthing stories were inspiring. This process of creating babies and birthing them needs to be cherished and honoured; we need more people like Angela educating people and empowering women to bring the next generations into this world.”
-
“I felt it was a very thoughtful and personally curated course; it has a full scope on the process of pregnancy and the tools most helpful to support it—the tips and exercises on navigating the mental and emotional blockages that arise during pregnancy and labour were most useful.”
-
“Approachable, digestible material with a mix of personal anecdotes and information but presented conversationally, so I found it easy to retain. Pregnancy care and interventions were the most practically informative. Still, I also loved the different women interviewed and the clips of the women’s circle where people shared their experiences, which gave me this real sense of camaraderie, even to strangers I had never met.”
-
“I found some resonance of a need to re-wild ourselves in and through the birthing process. Angela’s recommendations to work through self issues before the baby is born, to keep up contemplative practices that ‘balance’ hormonal influence, to cultivate yogic practices, to bring awareness to ‘right-brain’ activities, and to create an empowering atmosphere in which to give birth, ask for help, etc. are all toward a more intuitive birthing culture — which of course, I appreciate. Additionally, she provides an important example through being transparent and non-judgmental concerning her biases.”
-
“Very pleasant and informative. I liked Angela’s way of teaching and enjoyed her presence through the videos. I enjoyed the women’s journeys and their birth clips; this is amazing and unique from other programs! I also liked all the documents you get. The program had a “sisterhood” feeling even though it was online and had no interactions with the students.”
FAQ
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How long do I own this program for?
You own it for life and can watch as many times as you need to.
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When does this program start?
You can start anytime as this program is self-paced. You can start immediately after sign-up!
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Will this program answer all of my questions around birth?
We know there are a lot of questions, and Angela answers all of the common ones, and educates you to empower yourself to make your own choices!
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What makes this program different from other programs?
This program not only teaches you the step-by-step lessons of what to expect, but it also addresses your spiritual aspect. Having a baby is both a physical and spiritual process, and this course will help prepare you in both realms.
Questions?
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