Our Classes

We are proud to offer

Pre Natal Classes

In - Person classes will resume in September 2023 for weekend sessions. Virtual classes will continue for evening sessions and weekend morning classes.
For our online group classes, we ask that participants keep their videos on during class.  Like an in-person class, this creates a sense of community and safety.   If you prefer not to be seen, we recommend a private session with one of our instructors

We suggest you take your prenatal classes between 20 weeks and 36 weeks. Be sure to register early in your pregnancy in order to ensure a place is reserved for you. Classes are offered in the following formats:
6 Weekday Evenings OR Full Weekend One Day Condensed
  • Your birth support team – The role of the Midwife, family Doctor, OB, Registered Nurse and Doula
  • Stages and Phases of labour
  • Comfort measures including relaxation and massage techniques
  • Breath awareness
  • All options for pain management
  • Making decisions and giving consent
  • Methods of induction
  • Interventions including IV’s, fetal heart monitors, instrumental deliveries, inductions, and cesarean sections
  • Post-birth procedures for babies
  • Post-birth recovery for women
  • Resources in Ottawa
  • Infant feeding
  • Your birth support team – The role of the Midwife, family Doctor, OB, Registered Nurse and Doula
  • Stages and Phases of labour
  • All options for pain management
  • Interventions including instrumental deliveries, inductions and cesarean sections
  • Infant feeding resources
Topics are presented in a variety of methods including videos, hands-on practice, small group discussion and relaxation exercises. Topics are presented in a lecture-like style to allow for the time required to cover the content in a shorter space of time.

Our one-day condensed classes are excellent for those who may not otherwise have time to take a prenatal class at all, or for those who work shift work. We cover the topics shown in the above table, which offers a comparison to our 6-week series and two-day weekend classes.  We focus on labour and birth, leaving you with reading resources for post-birth.

Cost of classes is $200 (CAD) (per couple) for the two-day class and $175 (CAD per couple) for the one-day class and includes telephone and email contact with your instructor free parking and air-conditioned rooms. 
*a couple is defined as a pregnant person and one support person (which can be a spouse, partner, friend or family member)

What materials are provided for class?  To make the class as interactive and hands-on as possible, we will share a series of links and information sheets five days before your class with your reminder email.  The internet has a wonderful amount of resources and we will link you to up-to-date resources on the net.  You do not need to print them off in advance.   We also strive to reduce environmental impacts by offering all resources in e-formats.

Refund Policy: When cancelling a prenatal class after it has been booked there is a $25 (CAD) administration fee. If the cancellation occurs less than 14 days before the class there is a 50% cancellation fee. If it is less than 7 days there is no refund.  Requests for date changes within 7 days of class will reflect a $75 fee.  Please remember this when booking classes and plan to finish your session by 35 weeks.

People who took our online class during COVID-19 had this to say:

Given the continued need to physically distance, the size of our room rentals and the evolving state of our global pandemic, OCEA will continue to offer all classes online throughout 2022.
We dearly want to support the health of expectant families.

Learning about travel, answering questions related to Covid 19, having her demonstrate baby carriers (I was about to give up on mine before this) and just all of the support for caring for a newborn that we would have otherwise not known.

Bringing Baby Home – with Erin Shaheen

Lilly was incredible, she shared the information that can appear as quite daunting in such a calm, humble matter. At no point did she make my husband and I feel overhwlemed by the information abd when information felt overhwhelming, she ensured to make the time to calm all of our worries and answer all our questions

Pre Natal – with Lilly Bianchi

We had a great 6 week online Prenatal class with Julia! My husband and I really enjoyed the facilitation of the class and topics/information presented and discussed. It was very helpful and informative. We also really appreciated Julia's down-to-earth nature and very realistic views and presentation of the topics. Julia was very detailed but kept it light and realistic with no sugar coating, which is just what we needed! - thank you!!

Pre Natal – with Julia Wykes

Erin was awesome! She took time to ensure ALL questions were answered, nothing was too much trouble and my husband and I feel much more ready for our daughter to arrive having taken this class! Thank you! Xxx

Bringing Baby Home – with Erin Shaheen

Our educator Erin was an expert and was very clear in her method of teaching. All my questions were answered and the class interaction was very good. I would take another course with OCEA.

Bringing Baby Home – with Erin Shaheen

She was very informative and very kind. Thank you again for starting a chat at the end of the class about how all of us were doing and suggesting that we check in again in a week.

Pre Natal One Day – with Brandie Lekovic

The course exceeded expectations-Lilly was organized and took time to answer all questions. She presented information in a way that made myself (first time mom) and my husband feel prepared and less overwhelmed than if we tried to research all the material on our own.

Pre Natal – with Lilly Bianchi

Erin's enthusiasm for babies, parenting, and supporting new parents really made the class shine.

Bringing Baby Home – with Erin Shaheen

It was easy to share questions verbally or in writing, or that you had the opportunity to ask them more privately, before or after the class via text with Julia. It was a nice option that made me feel more at ease.

Pre Natal – with Julia Wykes

The OCEA pre-natal classes are extremely valuable for first-time expecting parents. The information is shared in a very open, practical and fact-based manner without any judgement attached. It's easy to get overwhelmed by all the advice and research that is out there, but the OCEA classes really manage to distill this information and present it in a clear and structured way. The instructors are very experienced and knowledgeable and are great inter-personally. We were particularly impressed by how they handled giving online classes during the pandemic. They also provide a lot of Ottawa-specific information on the amazing resources that are available here. This was particularly useful to us as newcomers. We have many friends who have given birth in other countries, and when telling them about our experience with OCEA they have all said that nothing like this was available to them and it would have been so useful. Overall, we would highly recommend taking these classes.

Pre Natal – with Julia Wykes

Julia was wonderful. Her voice is both lively and soothing to listen to. She’s also really hilarious. I loved the added bits of humour. She gave many opportunities to ask questions throughout the course. If she isn’t sure about something, she accesses her own resources/network and gets back to you with an answer. As COVID protocols are constantly changing within the healthcare domain (hospitals, birth centres, home births), I thought she was very knowledgeable about the current situation within each place. She was very knowledgeable about the birth process and the postpartum period for the family unit. There were many resources that we could access to facilitate some of the topics within the class that could need more attention either in the prenatal period or postpartum period (I.e infant feeding) which was great!

Pre Natal – with Julia Wykes

We would highly recommend the OCEA's Bringing Home Baby class to any expecting parents. Our instructor was extremely knowledgeable and was very generous with sharing her time and vast experience. This was incredibly useful in helping us navigate the overwhelming amount of information available and left us with a great overview of the most important points of caring for a new baby as well as a long list of quality resources for more detailed information when we need it. Thank you so much Erin!

Bringing Baby Home – with Erin Shaheen


 
Reset Filters