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Workshops
for Midwives and Childbirth Educators

Lina Clerke offers her Wonderful Birth Workshops for midwives and childbirth educators nationwide. 

If you would like to arrange a workshop in your area, read more about Lina's inspiring presentations.

Need a BIG faith boost?

Renew you passion & regain enthusiasm for instinctive birthing.

 

The Midwives Association presents:

Wonderful Birth

A fun, interactive & hands on day discovering the

Magic of Instinctive Birthing.

Come & be inspired about:

  • Facilitating instinctive birth

  • Prenatal & intrapartum education

  • Assisting women to have normal births

  • Active birth principles

  • How best to use positions which help labour & birth

  • Encouraging hormonal release to occur

  • Avoiding medical intervention

  • How to support women & their partners

  • Using relaxation skills that are guaranteed to work

  • Inspirational videos and photos.

 

For more information or a registration form please contact Lina at lina@linaclerke.com

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About the Presenter - Lina Clerke

Lina Clerke has been teaching relaxation skills and childbirth education to pregnant women and their partners, for over 20 years. She brings to her work the experience of attending many births over those years, most of which were spontaneous and drug free. She runs couples weekend active birth workshops, with particular focus on facilitating natural birth.

Her workshops are dynamic, fun and inspiring. She has presented nationally to midwives and health professionals, offering in-service training, education, workshops and guest speaking at many conferences, universities & hospitals.

She is passionate about helping women to grow within themselves during pregnancy and to become relaxed and empowered as women during childbirth. She is also passionate about helping midwives to facilitate gentle birthing within hospitals.

Lina's training and experience include:

  • Active Birth teacher training in London with Janet Balaskas

  • Childbirth Education with Parent Centres of Australia (now Birth International) – Andrea Robertson

  • Direct entry midwifery training in Australia . She works as a registered midwife in Northern NSW .

  • Yoga & meditation in England , India , USA & Australia

  • Women's health & Midwifery skills with independent midwives

  • Therapeutic, remedial, prenatal & oriental massage in UK & Australia

  • Infant massage

  • Alternative therapies relating to the childbearing year & women’s health.

  • Natural Fertility counseling

  • Singing & voice release work

  • Creative dance, Tai Chi & belly dance

 

 

Sample Workshop Schedule

Workshops are tailored for the needs of parents, midwives, doulas, childbirth educators.

Workshop schedule for hospital midwives

A hands-on, practical day encompassing inspirational teaching and visual aids to stimulate and encourage prospective parents and midwives in the beauty and power of active birth.

  • Motivating and encouraging women to labour instinctively

  • What really happens in labour (versus TV births). Inspiring videos

  • Work and rest cycles, hormones of labour. Assisting optimal hormonal release

  • Relaxation for midwives (yes, the midwife needs to be relaxed!)

Tea break

  • Teaching about the labour process simple and very effective approaches

  • Strategies for working with the intensity of labour

  • Creating a calm and reassuring atmosphere

  • Effective and easy to teach relaxation, massage and breathing skills

Lunch

  • Ways to help the pelvis work optimally, positions, movement

  • Antenatal and in-labour strategies for reducing perineal trauma

  • Valuing and guiding support people. Amazing birth videos

Tea break

  • How to humanize birth when technology is needed

  • Inductions, epidurals, cesarians etc - all is not lost!

  • The first hours after birth. Advocating on behalf of the baby

  • Questions

Participant Feedback from Midwives

Wow Lina What a fantastic workshop so positive!

Up until now I hadn't been to a workshop that concentrated on total belief in the mother's natural ability to birth and you have a special teaching way of showing this to us all” 

Other Presentations Available Include

One Hour Session at ACMI Conference

Working with the voice, breath, movement and touch to release tension and create a deep sense of well being.

These simple techniques work brilliantly to help women during labour. They are also invaluable for mothers during pregnancy and after birth. Midwives especially need to be relaxed and open when looking after women in labour. These techniques will help you to manage stress in the workplace, as well as simply enjoy relaxing in your own time.

The use of breath, voice and sound enhances relaxation, during pregnancy, birth and beyond. (And it is good for midwives too!).

Today she will be speaking about relaxation skills and other non pharmacological ways to help women work with pain in labour.

She will be showing you some wonderful active birth photographs from a resource she has designed for childbirth education.

There will be a practical component to her presentation too, so make yourselves comfortable and ready to relax!

Lina is available to speak at or offer in-service half or full day workshops at maternity hospitals / conferences in a range of topics

 

Including

  • ''Inspiring ways to teach antenatal classes''

  • "Promoting active birth to prenatal parents, and in labour ward'' and

  • ''Breathing and other relaxation skills for parents, doulas and midwives''

The key word is ''inspiration'' for both midwives and parents!!

Lina covers a wide range of subjects including:

  • Learn new, innovative & fun ways of teaching Antenatal education

  • How to empower women to believe in themselves & their ability to birth their baby.

  • Learn about hormones and how they help women during pregnancy and labour

  • Learn more about active birth, how to put it in to practice, and how to teach about active birth in your class.

  • How to teach women to let go in labour.

  • How to really support women in labour.

  • Managing pain without drugs

Speaker introduction at presentation on Goraka , Papua New Guinea at Royal Womens Hospital , Melbourne , 2004:

 

Lina Clerke has worked as an independent childbirth educator and birth attendant for over 20 years. She teaches prenatal relaxation classes and has produced a double CD for use in pregnancy and beyond. She runs couples weekend active birth workshops, with particular focus on facilitating natural birth. She has presented in-service education nationally for midwives and childbirth educators, and spoken at conferences, schools, universities and hospitals. An experienced photographer, specialized in birth images, she has created a 160 image photographic resource for childbirth education, which is being used nationally and overseas. Today she will be sharing with us a selection of her photographs from Goroka Hospital , where she worked in the antenatal clinic, labour ward, special care nursery and with rural health care workers earlier this year.

WS for Professioals Testimonials

Participant Feedback from Midwives

 

"Wow Lina What a fantastic workshop so positive! Up until now I hadn't been to a workshop that concentrated on total belief in the mother's natural ability to birth and you have a special teaching way of showing this to us all"

"Best wishes for this new venture, be happy to help if I can. "

"Lina, this was a fantastic workshop. Your ideas were great and it was lovely for you to share your passion with us.

I attended your workshop at Bankstown hosp, and would like to, if poss to start the ball rolling for you to come to our area. I am a midwife at Campbelltown Hospital and boy could this unit use a shake up. And my experience at your workshop has definitely provided the chance for many women to give birth to their babes in any damn way they like. (and I am loving it!). Thanks so much for making my employment one of the most enjoyable experiences ever."

"Lina, thanks once again for reaffirming our belief in physiological birth. We need, as a profession, to examine this regularly - to keep focused and motivated to support women and encourage women to choose active birthing."

"Excellent. I wish I had learnt what I learnt today 12 years ago."

''Many of the Midwifery students here feel today was much more worthwhile than our entire semester of uni so far. What inspiration! I remember now why I started this very expensive course..."

''Very interesting, encouraging and inspiring. Keep up the good work."

''I was in attendance at your in-service on natural birth at Bankstown hospital earlier this year.  Since that time I have experienced some wonderful midwifery moments.  I work at a busy maternity obstetric  hospital unit and take every opportunity to talk up natural birth etc to the old school midwives that i work with (sometimes to the detriment of myself). I have raved about your workshop during lunch breaks and there have been many of my work colleagues that would like to have attended that day."

"Lina, what you have to impart to midwives working in the hospital system I feel is invaluable. We are a very busy unit and if you are interested in this, then there is potential for 2500 women, babies and families per annum who could benefit from your work. Like Bankstown did, it could be opened up to the area health service and wider community.''

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