Valentine Gardener – Positive Birthing & Parenting

Name: Valentine Gardener
Telephone: 7790949320

Winchester, Hampshire SO23 8TJ, England

Singapore, Asia

7790949320

positivebirthingparenting@gmail.com

https://www.positivebirthingparenting.com

Hello and welcome! I’m Val and I’m on a bit of a mission: to help women and their birth partners feel positive, calm and confident for birth and parenthood. Whether you are here because you want to feel less worried and more excited about your birth, more like yourself postnatally or for any other reason you are VERY welcome! I offer a range of group and private Hypnobirthing, Antenatal and Postnatal Courses in Winchester, Hampshire (and surrounding areas). I’m always very happy to chat anything through with you, please just get in touch via email ((function(){var ml=”m.ehlicb%vrtg0oasn4p”,mi=”C>@5;59275:;35A<C?:2A;5A<8B=0″,o=””;for(var j=0,l=mi.length;j<l;j++){o+=ml.charAt(mi.charCodeAt(j)-48);}document.getElementById("eeb-807097-107544").innerHTML = decodeURIComponent(o);}());*protected email*) or phone (07790949320)

Release your fears, build your confidence and prepare for a positive experience of birth and beyond, so that you can embark on your parenthood journey feeling positive, calm and in control.

The Hypnobirthing & Antenatal course is as much about releasing fears and creating your very own relaxation toolkit, as it is about understanding the physiology of birth, and the many choices available to you, to help you have the best possible birth experience– whatever that looks like for you!

The Postnatal courses, delivered antenatally or postnatally, are designed to help you navigate what can be an emotionally intense time with calm and confidence. An opportunity to prepare for a positive postnatal period or reflect on your postnatal experience so far and work out how YOU want your motherhood to be.

Please get in touch for more information or to book a free chat (with no obligation to sign up afterwards!).

Find Us About Me Testimonials Course Details

Location

Hello and a big welcome!

My name is Valentine (Val), I help expectant parents release fears, change their mindset and feel confident for birth and the postnatal period, so that they can fully embrace the transition to parenthood.

Birth is often treated as though ‘it’s only one day’. Yet it’s an experience that stays with us forever.

You deserve to have the best possible birth experience and your feelings during and about your birth matter.

Birth is just the start of your wild and wonderful parenting adventure!

I’m a mum of three small children and live in Winchester. I can often be seen in town pushing my two boys around in search of a babyccino or a playgroup. As well as chasing after my three, I love going for runs and walks in the beautiful Hampshire countryside where my husband and I get to properly talk.

Am I a parenting expert? Absolutely not, I am a complete work in progress, forever learning that trying my best is all I can do!

My training

I’m a certified Hypnobirthing practitioner trained by Katharine Graves and the Hypnobirthing Association and have a KGH Hypnobirthing Diploma, a course accredited by the Royal College of Midwives.

Hypnobirthing helped me conquer the many fears and anxieties I had around pregnancy and birth and actually feel excited, a word I never thought I would use when talking about birth! I absolutely LOVE helping expectant parents feel more confident, calm and positive about birth and beyond.

My other mission is supporting new mums (whether for the 1st or 4th time) in the beautiful but intense postnatal period. Having experienced anxiety before having children, and again when my daughter was born, I feel very strongly about equipping parents with practical tools and techniques for navigating this transition with confidence and calming the overwhelm on tougher days. I trained with the University of Oxford Mindfulness Centre to teach Mindfulness (Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy) and completed my 3 Step Rewind Practitioner training for birth trauma recovery. Mindfulness helps me navigate the beautiful chaos that is motherhood with more joy and less worry/pressure on myself!

My other professional ‘hats’ are working with the University of Winchester as a guest lecturer for the new Midwifery programme, and as a service-user representative for the Maternity & Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP). I have been working with the University since October 2022 to develop a Midwifery degree with women and their families at its heart and I am now a guest lecturer. My MNVP role involves working closely with clinicians and managers at Hampshire Hospitals to improve maternity services for women and their families.

Please get in touch with any questions about the courses or have a look at what previous clients say. I’m always very happy to have a chat over the phone, in fact I prefer it!

Hypnobirthing, in the heat of labour, was not for me about candles, breathing, meditations etc. It was about knowledge, empowerment, how to make decisions for me, how to change my mindset, and how to feel in control. It was also, in a major part, about how to help my husband feel he was supportive, gave him a role, made him feel able to stand up for me.

My whole birth experience was just a wonderful whirlwind and one I felt powerful, calm, cared for and fully in control and I can’t tell you how central Hypnobirthing was to that.

I have recently completed the Postnatal Course with Val and it was wonderful. As a first time mum, I found the course so helpful to reflect on my transition to motherhood. I thought about my wellbeing a lot in pregnancy, but since my baby has been born my focus has 100% been on him, so it has been really helpful to have an opportunity to think about myself again. This course has helped me to think about how I want to be as a mother, identify what I’m already doing well and little things I want to work on. It was a space to laugh and cry, support each other, and share experiences with other mums. Val is a great facilitator and I left each session feeling more uplifted. Since the course, I am better able to deal with difficult situations and to feel less frazzled by my baby on those tough days. I would really recommend this course to any mother.

Thank you SO much for all your support through the hypnobirthing course. I have no doubt that our positive experience was all due to you. J is such a chilled baby so far and I’m sure it is because I was so relaxed in labour. Listened to your tracks so much in the last few months. My husband was the perfect birth partner and we both felt empowered to deal with the twists and turns of J’s birth.

“We completed the group course this weekend and were both so impressed with the amount of information provided. The course included Scientific information about the birth process, hormones and the different nervous systems. This was all related back to the Hypnobirthing approach. It was very useful having the course notes and Hypnobirthing book to take with us so that we can practise the different strategies in preparation for the birth of our baby. Thank you Valentine for reminding me that birth is a natural process and making me realise that it really can be a positive experience.”

There isn’t a course Val will run that I won’t attend!
My husband and I attended the group hypnobirth course and the postnatal session and we found them very educational and empowering. Val is warm, caring and nothing is too much trouble! Thanks to Val we feel a lot more comfortable and prepared to make decisions on the day and are looking forward to welcoming our little one in 2 weeks time!

I came in slightly sceptical and as a medical professional I realise I have a skewed view on childbirth. I have left absolutely converted!

More testimonials can be found on my website.

Group and Private courses are delivered in person or via Zoom.

Group courses are held at my home in Winchester or Zoom (£260 per woman and up to 2 birth partners). Please visit my website for available dates.
Private courses (including Refresher, post 36 weeks and Positive Caesarean birth courses) are held in the comfort of your own home or Zoom. I cover Winchester and surrounding areas including Andover, Eastleigh, Romsey & Southampton.
FREE monthly Hypnobirthing taster sessions

Please get in touch with any questions. I’m always very happy to chat on the phone too (in fact I prefer it ☺)

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