workshops

Caring for your newborn, from the moment you meet them

Newborn Care Class

Join us and learn how to care for your newborn from those very first moments after birth, so that you can enter this new phase of your life confident and ready to begin!

An experiential class, each member in our intimate group setting will receive personalized instruction and hands-on training in how to care for their new baby. Members will leave feeling more familiar with newborn qualities and behaviors, and ready to tailor their new-found skills to their own newborn's unique needs.

In this thorough 4 hour Newborn Care class participants will learn:

  • Interpreting baby's cues

  • Cord care & newborn health

  • Sleep patterns & what to expect

  • What to expect immediately after the birth

  • Tummy time, baby wearing & kangaroo care

  • Jaundice and other common newborn conditions

  • Choosing a pediatrician & knowing when to call them

  • When to feed the baby & how to know they're getting enough

  • Supplies for bathing, diapering, nail trimming, skin care & more

  • How to bond more deeply, improve your sleep & learn to trust your parenting instincts


... And will receive hands-on instruction in:

  • Soothing

  • Swaddling

  • Diapering (cloth, compostable & disposable)

  • Holding baby & transferring them person to person

  • Bathing, nail trimming, the Colic Dance & other skills

  • lothing (what to buy, how to wash it and what to bring the baby home in!)


If the birthing parent is partnered, both parents are strongly encouraged to attend.

 

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:  Rebecca (Plum) Elowen, LM, CPM, IBCLC is a Midwife and Lactation Consultant who offers preconception, prenatal and postpartum midwifery care, lactation consultation, support groups, fertility support, and education in newborn care, breastfeeding and sibling preparation in SF, Marin, Sonoma and the East Bay. She strives always to uphold the midwifery model of care, offering information and empowerment, so that her clients can look back on their accomplishments with pride and a deeper sense of their own true power and wisdom. Rebecca received a B.A. in Psychology (with a emphasis on parent-infant attachment and bonding) from Mills College in 1999, became a Birth and Postpartum Doula in 2001, and became a Licensed & Certified Professional Midwife in 2010. In 2013 she became an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, and in 2018 was trained in Infant Craniosacral Therapy.  Rebecca has taught classes in newborn care, postpartum preparation, childbirth and sibling preparation, and breastfeeding at Carmel Blue, CPMC, Kaiser, Natural Resources, and privately since 2003, and has been facilitating various support groups for new parents since 2007.

Navigate your options & design the birth you envision

Welcoming a baby is a time of transition and transformation that is likely to be filled with joy and challenge. It is also a time of decision-making for yourself and your baby, in a sea of opinions and advice from friends, family, and experts.  This class is designed to give you the information you need to plan for a birth that matches your ideals.   

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The intersection of intelligence, extremely proficient communication, empathy (incredible awareness of others as individuals) and experience, make her a fantastic guide for any couple preparing to meet their baby. She is inclusive in her topics and presents a range of childbirthing options without judgement, if a leaning towards natural strategies, and one takes away that she has long witnessed women in their “power” via childbirth.
— Rachel S., San Francisco

About the Class 

Gents (if any are reading, if not, then tell your husbands ladies), I’ll be the first to admit that I was dragged kicking and screaming to that class. Two-days, four hours each session, and over the weekend no less! That said, I can’t properly express how well served I was, in retrospect, by having attended. It was relaxed, interesting, and really did provide the two of us with the information we needed in the run up to our son’s birth without (and this is key) overwhelming us. I would have been **absolutely** clueless at the hospital had I skipped that one.
— Wilson R, SF

Holistic Childbirth Prep workshops are designed to empower, explore and celebrate the many ways families choose to give birth and create family. This essential workshop is designed to demystify birth while guiding class participants to discover personal beliefs around pregnancy, partnership, birth, and parenthood, which will allow for a truly holistic childbirth experience. Class is designed to meet the needs of families birthing at birth centers, in their homes, at the hospital, or those who haven’t decided yet. This class is relevant to parents having their first, second or third child, depending on the needs of the family. 

In the one day Childbirth Education class with Kelly Gray, we will practice and review the following techniques and information:

• Love and Relaxation: Guided relaxation and the hormones of labor
Hormones are the bridge between the mind-body connection. They allow us to feel emotions and trigger physical responses to our environment and internal thought process. By understanding the hormones of labor, we can begin to understand how our connection to ourselves, our partner, our environment and our birth team will have a dramatic affect on our ability to birth from a place of safety. We'll practice guided relaxation while being informed about why it works beyond just feeling good. 

• Spinning Baby: The role of the baby, optimal fetal positioning, and troubleshooting through birth
One of the most important things we can do to encourage labor naturally and decrease interventions is to create more space in our uterus for the baby to align into the optimal fetal position. In class we will review optimal fetal positioning, exercises and yoga positions for before and during labor, and interventions that may impede optimal positioning and how to troubleshoot positioning when interventions are necessary. 

• Moaning and Moving: Evidence based healthy birth practices, from vocalizations to opening the pelvic floor
From understanding the sounds and positions we turn to during labor to release tension, families can benefit from creating body memories of what empowered birth may sound and feel like. 

• The Landscape of Labor: Understanding the emotional and physiological process of birthing your baby
In addition to myth-busting the textbook stages of labor,  we will have a fuller conversation about the non-linear landscape of labor,  how to support birth as it unfolds, and tools for working with each valley, peak and summit, from a physiological, emotional, and logistical viewpoint. 

• The Role of the Partner: Creating Safety
Partner support is a central focus of class. Birth partners (life partners, family member or trusted friend) will learn how to intuit the woman's needs, engage in the experience, and create an environment that feels safe, protected and conducive to birthing. We will review verbal and non-verbal communication skills, birth room etiquette, and the art of observing birth.  

• Being in Birth: Massage, Acupressure, Positions, Vocalizations, and Breathing Techniques
We will review the art of touch, breath and saying yes to birth. Partners will have a chance to hold, massage and practice pressure points that will assist in getting labor going naturally while creating counter pressure along the hips. 

• Advocacy and Collaboration: Positive Communication Skills with Providers
Class participants will walk away with the terms and phrases most used in the birth room so that they can have informed conversations with their providers. We will review strategies for collaboration, advocacy and informed consent. 

• Understanding Interventions
Most people can agree that safety is paramount to birth, and that the mother's experience is not separate from healthy outcomes but rather an integral aspect to mental and physical health during the childbearing years. We will review common interventions through an evidence based care perspective. By linking our conversation around advocacy and collaboration with providers,  we start to answer questions around necessity of interventions. We will build a toolkit  for decreasing unnecessary interventions, increasing vaginal birth outcomes, and avoiding cesareans. In addition, we will review tools for maximizing positive outcomes when interventions are necessary and review natural counterparts, as well as protecting the micro biome and the breastfeeding relationship. 

• Watching, Hearing, Knowing: Empowered Birth Videos
We will watch uncensored videos of families having empowered births. 

• After-Birth
We will review the sacred hours after birth and discuss how our choices during birth impact breastfeeding, your infant’s immune system, mother’s recovery, mental health, and hormonal balance. We will review common interventions and support offered after birth. 

Each class is kept to seven couples or less, as this allows for individual and hands-on attention from the instructor while allowing for community building with other expanding families. We encourage participants to bring meals, pillows, snacks and other items that will allow them to get comfortable and relax.

This one-day workshop includes an hour lunch break and lots of movement. Please wear clothing that allows for squatting and access to the lower back for massage practice.

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About the Instructor:  Kelly Gray

Kelly is a mother, educator and community organizer.  When she’s not sitting on a birth ball with a model pelvis in her hand, she’s creating forums to raise awareness and expand access to birthing options in Sonoma County. Kelly has been teaching her popular Holistic Childbirth Prep Workshop for over seven years in the North Bay and Bay Area, and spent several years attending low risk and high risk births in San Francisco, and spent three years as a manager of a birth center in the North Bay running their community education center. She has curated an on-going column about reproductive experiences in SQUAT Birth Journal and has been included in the anthology Birth Work As Care Work.

Kelly's focus on hormones and the mind~body connection, building intimacy between partners, and evidence based care sets her teaching apart from the standard birth class; participants leave feeling excited and confident about birthing their family.  Kelly is passionate about providing  up-to-date information and insights into birth research, support measures, community resources, communicating collaboratively with your providers, and all the powerful dynamics parents face as their children enter this world. Kelly sees the work that she does in helping women and families have empowered births as one part of a life long love letter she is writing to her daughter.

Carmel Blue's Prenatal Classes Coming to Recess

Recess is excited to announce that, in addition to our parenting and safety workshops you've come to rely on, we'll be adding Carmel Blue's acclaimed Prenatal classes to our services starting this July.  

Carmel Blue has been an amazing resource for new & expectant parents since 2010. Founder, Sharone Nassi, dedicated the past 8 years to creating a welcoming community place in North Beach, and helping new families set the foundations for a healthy, happy and supported parenting experience. Her mom/baby groups alone have served over 4500 moms and dads to date, and the childbirth preparation, newborn preparation and CPR classes have served countless more.

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Both Lisa Nowell, Recess' founder, & Sharone agree that in an ideal world, prenatal couples will come to expect support, community and education as an integral part of their prenatal experience. This eases the transition to parenting a newborn, receiving support and knowing how to access it after baby arrives.

By bringing the excellent prenatal support Sharone and her team have curated to the Recess community we've cultivated over the past decade, we will be able to continue to support parents for the full range of the early years.  

We are looking forward to extending the support Recess offers to new parents as we strive to create a culture of connection, support and play to lighten the load for families raising kids in San Francisco. 

 

Visit our Prenatal Page for Current Classes:

 

Recess' offerings for new parents

 

Questions?  Please reach out!

More Music Coming to Recess - Fridays at 10

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This Spring, Mega is coming to Recess to share her musical talents (nestled into a background of Early Childhood Ed) with our community. 

Come play on Friday Mornings at 10am to meet her and enjoy this beautiful, interactive activity.

We all benefit from music in our lives. If we are exposed to music and given the opportunity to explore than no note will be out of reach. Just as a child needs to be exposed to books for literacy, children need to be exposed to live music to play it, enjoy it and try it.

Music education is similar to other early childhood classroom curriculum, it must be joyful and playful. Children play to make sense of their environment, the world they are socialized into and through play children begin to understand how they influence it.

Children need to be able to move their bodies -- and the Recess playspace is a great place to do so. It is important to allow children to feel the rhythm of each song or chant and feel the beats in their bodies. All of the activities she leads include fine and gross motor activities that are both suggested and guided.

Musical classes assist in the development of all of the developmental domains as well as overall health and wellness. Music is calming, relaxing and soothing to any soul no matter the age. During music class children utilize cognitive and language skills whenever they listen to song lyrics and repeat them back. If given a shaker and asked to repeat back a rhythm children must listen and count the beats to copy the rhythm. 

When in class with others, children have an opportunity to practice using social/ emotional skills to wait for their turn to dance in the middle of the circle, or to add a silly word to a song or to bring a movement idea to the group, as well as when the classroom group sings together to create a beautiful melody.  

Children use physical skills to do gross motor activities like hopping, jumping, stomping, twisting, etc as well as using fine motor muscles to hold a shaker, to hold hands, or to copy small body movements. Children will be active participants!

Mega Bloom began working with young children as a Naturalist ten years ago. Over the past decade, Mega has held many positions in various teaching environments from outside the classroom, teaching in gardens and the forest teaching environmental science to most recently teaching in early childhood education classrooms.  Mega has taught toddlers and preschool aged children for the past three years in Oakland, California. When interacting with young children, Mega takes notice of each child's individuality and emphasizes their creative strengths. Mega loves to facilitate music and movement activities with young children! 

 

Hope to see you and your children for the first class March 16th! 

Free for Anytime members - Included in Day Passes