LIVE Online Workshops for Pregnancy, Birth + Early Postpartum
7-week LIVE Online Comprehensive series:
Body, Breath, Heart + Mind: A Contemplative Birthing Workshop
Individual LIVE ONLINE Workshops:
1. Understanding Birth
2. Movement and Partner Support for Birth
3. Working WITH the Sensations of Birth
4. Interventions, Consent, Birth Plans
5. Postpartum
6. Newborn Care
7. Breastfeeding + Bonding
Additional Workshops:
Infant Massage
Cesarean Scar Self-Care Workshop
Self-Care for Breast Health
©Lisa Gendron | Agroterra Birth
All education workshops or series are currently being offered online using the Zoom platform. Classes are interactive and community building, providing time to learn from experienced teachers, connect with your birth support and meet other expecting families. Looking for private classes or consultations? Please inquire here.
HOW TO CHOOSE A SINGLE WORKSHOP OR SERIES: Planning on an unmedicated birth? Planning on using epidural/pain medication? Classes are for anyone preparing to give birth, however, they choose to birth. If you have a scheduled cesarean, please contact us for classes that will are supportive in preparing for your cesarean birth and newborn. Women and their birth support can choose individual classes or can take the full 7-week comprehensive series package. Class fees cover both the birthing women and her birth partner/s. Please review our cancellation policies here.

Birthing: Body, Breath, Heart & Mind: a Contemplative Workshop
Pregnancy, birth, and parenting require a leap of faith into the unknown and the uncontrollable. How can we do this, but still remain empowered and safe? Join other couples and explore the journey of birth and postpartum through experiential exercises, mindfulness practices, and conceptual learning. Discover how turning to the wisdom of our bodies, hearts, and minds can guide us in accepting the uncontrollable in birth while remaining empowered in our choices. Mindfulness practices and experiential exercises help guide mother and birth partner toward a deep trust of the woman’s ability to birth, the birth partner’s capacity to support, the baby’s active participation in his/her arrival, and the woman and her family’s readiness to welcome a new baby. Workshops develop knowledge of the birth process, standard US birth practices and interventions, and the family’s choices in childbirth and newborn care. Discussions and resources provided support families in choosing providers, birthing locations, and practices that are supportive of individual belief systems and needs. For individual workshop details, please read the descriptions below. Families who cannot attend the series in sequential order are welcome to choose their dates from any workshops on the schedule. Please email us your details.
My husband and I both found [Open Circle]’s birthing class extremely helpful. Kaeli has a wonderful gift of gently delivering empowering information that helped my husband and I feel more connected in our own unique pregnancy, birth and post-birth experience. The class covered important detailed information about what to expect during the birthing process that was not covered by our healthcare providers. The information [that was] presented also helped us identify and communicate what each of our needs was throughout the birthing process and post-birth.
To Enroll in an ONLINE 7-week series:
To ensure your enrollment, please register at least one day in advance.
1. Choose the correct start date for Class 1. From In to Out: Understanding Birth.
2. Click the “Enroll Now” button.*
3. Choose the series fee ($300**) and complete your payment. We will automatically enter you in the remaining series dates class rosters.
4. To choose different dates for any of your classes, please email us with your chosen dates at least two weeks in advance of the class you are hoping to attend.
Trouble Registering? Step-by-step instructions can be found here.
*Please note, some browsers (including Safari) don’t function well with our website enrollment system. In this case, please register using your Open Circle MindBody account or the MindBody app.
UPCOMING SERIES DATES
Sundays January 3, 10, 17, 24, 31, February 7, 21
Sundays March 7, 14, 21, 28, April 11, 18, 25
Tuesdays March 23, 30, April 6, 13, 20, 27, May 4
TIMES
Sundays 3-6 pm, Tuesdays 6-9 pm
*signifies day changes; please check the schedule carefully
COST $300/couple ($40-$300 IBP)
**Applying for Income and Resource-Based pricing? Please complete the application and call or email us to register.
1. From In to Out: Understanding Birth
Traveling to the “land of birth” is like parachuting into an unknown universe. It can be the adventure of a lifetime, or can be overwhelming and frightening. Understanding how it all works is an important starting point to preparing for a positive, empowered experience. Spend an afternoon or evening with other couples and learn how baby travels from inside to out. Discover the important role of the baby, the mother and the support person. Explore how emotions and thoughts shift and change through the process of birth, and how you can work together with, not against, the natural power of birth.
Can’t thank you enough for your classes on labor/delivery. I was able to deliver him lying down on my side. Your pushing info along laboring techniques all came in very handy. [Our doctor] said we had done our homework!
DATES
COST $60/birth team ($10-$60 IBP)
PROBLEMS REGISTERING ONLINE?
Step by step instructions can be found here:
Class Registration Instructions
2. Labor of Love: Movement and Partner Support for Birth
DATES
COST $60/birth team ($10-$60 IBP)
PROBLEMS REGISTERING ONLINE?
Step by step instructions can be found here:
Class Registration Instructions
3. Power + Pain: Working WITH the Sensations of Birth
DATES
COST $60/birth team ($10-$60 IBP)
PROBLEMS REGISTERING ONLINE?
Step by step instructions can be found here:
Class Registration Instructions
4. Informed Choices: Interventions, Consent and Birth Plans
Because [Open Circle] took the time to teach us about c-sections, and the choices we have, the integrity of our birth plan remained intact . . . Even though [our instructors] weren’t physically present at our birth, I felt like [they] were with us! [Open Circle is] an amazing gift to the RI birth community and I feel so blessed that we were able to cross paths!
DATES
COST $60/birth team ($10-$60 IBP)
PROBLEMS REGISTERING ONLINE?
Step by step instructions can be found here:
Class Registration Instructions
5. A Brave New World: Preparing for the Postpartum
DATES
COST $60/birth team ($10-$60 IBP)
PROBLEMS REGISTERING ONLINE?
Step by step instructions can be found here:
Class Registration Instructions
6. A Baby! Now whatt!? – Newborn Care
DATES
COST $60/birth team ($10-$60 IBP)
PROBLEMS REGISTERING ONLINE?
Step by step instructions can be found here:
Class Registration Instructions
7. The Nursling – Breastfeeding + Bonding
Most women are given strong messages about the importance of breastfeeding for her baby’s health. Some expect it to be a natural and easy process that just happens. Others have heard all kinds of horror stories about the difficulties that can occur. Others feel pressured to try, but uncomfortable and uneasy about the idea of it. Not many of us are told that it is a joint effort between us, our body and our baby, and that like any new skill, it can take time and effort to learn and succeed at. Join us as we explore the wide range of experiences different mothers can have. Learn about the ways we can support the breastfeeding relationship and baby’s health beginning immediately after birth and in the first days and weeks. Explore both benefits and challenges to the newborn and the mother and how and where to reach out for additional help when it’s needed. Class will provide information on: skin-to-skin after birth, the breast-crawl, establishing breastfeeding, understanding the hormones of bonding, milk production and milk release, nursing positions, and breast health. Resources for support with pumping, latch issues, formula feeding and going back to work with be provided.
DATES
COST $60/birth team ($10-$60 IBP)
PROBLEMS REGISTERING ONLINE?
Step by step instructions can be found here:
Class Registration Instructions
Infant Massage
Over the course of five weeks, parents or caregivers are taught a full massage sequence to support the health of their baby, and to cultivate connection between parent and baby. Parents/caregivers will massage their own baby while the instructor demonstrates on a doll. There are many benefits of infant massage for the parents as well as the infants, including a measurable lowering of stress hormones! Topics such as the benefits of infant massage, learning your baby’s cues, and understanding infant behavioral states are explored through group discussions. Special sequences and techniques to support babies with colic or digestive issues, and babies with special needs or sensitivities are also covered.
DATES
COST $125/five-week series ($25-$125 IBP), $50/hour private
PROBLEMS REGISTERING ONLINE?
Step by step instructions can be found here:
Class Registration Instructions
Cesarean Scar Self-Care Workshop
A workshop for women who have had c-sections, perineal tears or episiotomies. How our scars heal can have a vast impact on our health, including organ health, back health, and fertility. How we feel about our cesareans, episiotomies or perineal tears can have an impact on our connection to our bodies, our births, and our babies, and how we feel about future pregnancies. During this workshop you will learn simple massage techniques and movement to support your scar in healing well and functionally. We will spend time exploring ways to reconnecting emotionally to our scars and our bodies.
The type of movement and touch taught will be adapted to when you had your surgical birth, and no time is “too late” to practice the supportive movement and self-massage provided in the workshop. Mothers six-weeks postpartum or less must obtain written clearance to attend from their OB/Midwife.
Instructor Kaeli Sutton is a massage therapist trained in manual scar rehabilitation, and a doula and childbirth educator with many years of experience working with woman who have had cesarean births, both inside the operating room and out.
DATES
COST
$30 ($5-$20 IBP)
PROBLEMS REGISTERING ONLINE?
Step by step instructions can be found here:
Class Registration Instructions
Self-Care For Breast Health
Coming in Spring 2020, this class is for both lactating parents and women/breasted people of all ages.
Breast health is often something we think about only in connection with breastfeeding, or in the case of illness (mastitis, blocked ducts, etc) or disease (cancer, cysts, etc). In actuality, we have the power to support the health of these important parts of our identity, sexuality and reproductive systems on an ongoing basis. Additionally, spending time physically connecting to the breasts also provides an opportunity to develop a more caring and active relationship to our own bodies, and in the case where our connection to our breasts has been broken, to “reclaim,” our bodies as our own.
Join us as we learn self-massage*, supporting the health of our chest muscles and breast tissue, and supporting healthy lymph flow. (Lymph is one of the main “protectors” of our body’s full system, fighting disease and illness throughout our lives). In addition to learning self massage, we will discuss basic breast care and clothing and bra choices that support breast and full system health.
*All massage will be taught and practiced fully clothed, Videos of massage directly on unclothed breasts will be shown.
DATES
COST $75 ($25-$65 IBP)
PROBLEMS REGISTERING ONLINE?
Step by step instructions can be found here:
Class Registration Instructions