You may work privately or in small groups with Cynthia
through your entire pregnancy.
Comprehensive Birth-Prep with Cynthia
Couples are invited to join me in a series of small-group sessions designed to provide consistent support and preparation throughout pregnancy. These sessions combine the benefits of a structured curriculum with the flexibility to address your unique questions and goals each time we meet.
Together in a supportive group of like-minded couples, we’ll:
Develop and refine your birth plan with evidence-based research on the choices you’ll face during labor, delivery, and postpartum.
Practice physiologic and breathing techniques that help sustain oxytocin and reduce common causes of fetal distress.
Explore effective positions and movements to make labor more efficient and birth smoother.
Strengthen emotional resilience with tools to transform anxious thoughts into calm, confident visualizations.
These sessions offer continuity, shared experience, and expert guidance — all to help you approach birth with confidence and calm.
Sessions are ongoing through your pregnancy with at least 2 meetings per month, daytime and/or evening, so you can attend as many as you like once through your pregnancy. Your one payment includes as many as you can attend. At least six sessions is strongly recommended, and there is no maximum during your pregnancy. Come as often as you can. Once you enroll, you will receive the schedule for the next 2-3 months at a time, and sessions can be recorded and sent to you if you miss.
Cost: $795
Quick support when you need it.
Book a 30-min time block to discuss anything with Cynthia prenatally or postpartum, such as, “What are my options with a breech baby?” or “My provider is recommending induction and I don’t know I should wait.”
Duration: 30 minutes
Cost: $95
- Due dates and the actual risk to baby of “going too late”
- Late-pregnancy ultrasound
- Fluid levels too low
- Babies “too big” and “too small”
- Group B Strep
- Labor induction
- Pre-eclampsia
- Early release of membranes
- IV in Labor
- Aspirin, Evening Primrose Oil, and more
- Prenatal, mid-labor and postpartum Pitocin
- Eating in Labor
- Birthing your placenta without interference or assistance
- The safest positions for birth
- Delayed cord clamping and bonding
- Newborn Interventions (e.g. Vitamin K, Erythromycin)
Effectively Partner with Your Provider
Learn your right to decline any test, procedure or intervention
Learn how to exercise your right to request different hospital staff, if necessary
Engage in effective communication, where you retain your autonomy
Learn how to phrase your questions so you get clear, straightforward responses
Create your own birth plan and ensure it is respected
At the end of every Down to Birth Show episode, you hear me say:
Hear Everyone, Listen to Yourself.
Your right to informed consent means each decision before, during and after your birth is in your hands. That may be an overwhelming concept initially. But once you’re well-informed, making decisions becomes easier. You’ll gain a clear vision of the birth you want, and you’ll create the intentions and boundaries that will guide you toward your safest and most satisfying birth. In class, you’ll witness the beauty of birth through my clients’ photos and videos, challenging preconceptions of birth as traumatic or comedic. You may have been led to believe your birth is out of your hands and we’ll all “see how it goes”. That, too, is a false belief. Your medical caregiver might speak as though he or she is in charge of the decisions related to your pregnancy and birth, but neither is that statement morally, ethically or legally true. The truth is, you’re in control of your physiology and even your thoughts. And all decisions related to your pregnancy, birth and baby are yours to make. The degree of responsibility you’re willing to take for your birth will increase your odds of a beautiful, satisfying birth. It has been my honor and joy providing childbirth education to more than two-thousand couples since 2007, and I would be delighted to know you and support you in your journey.
“It is the right – in fact, the responsibility – of every woman to plan her own baby’s birth with the information, honor and freedom to which she’s entitled.”
– Cynthia Overgard, 2007
[Publication: Taking Charge of Giving Birth, Pathways Magazine, 2007]