It is Thursday again, and ”On Thursdays Let the Expert Talk” is here!

Please help me welcome today Eleanor Copp, founder of Relaxed Parenting. A place where parents are supported in pregnancy and post birth. A place where parents get help and support with emotional and physical health, and relationships.

At Relaxed Parenting parents can get a better understanding in bonding and attachment difficulties and the effects of interventions and interruptions during the birthing process.

Relaxed Parenting runs training days and 1:1 sessions, and they also work with Midwives and Student Midwives on stress management. 

1. Eleanor, could you tell us about yourself and what you do?

My name is Eleanor and I am 43. I have 4 kids, 2 born in London and 2 born in Somerset. Each birth gave me a different experience, at home, at hospital, in the water, with drugs, without. My husband was a constant support throughout. I now work with him in this work too.

I am a Specialist Midwife in south westUK, working on a Midwife led birthing centre and co running a VBAC clinic, supporting parents to make choices for the next birth.

I also work in private practice as a Hypnotherapist, and assist couples to manage their hopes and desires for their birth experience as well as process any anguish, trauma or anxiety from a previous traumatic event.

I trained in reflexology and did some counselling courses in the 90’s and have always been interested in the psyche. I qualified as a Midwife in 1993 but was traumatized by the training process and took 5 years out and concentrated on women’s health in nursing, working also in acute areas like intensive care and casualty. I returned to Midwifery in 1996 and have been practising ever since alongside my private practice as a Hypnobirth practitioner and a Hypnotherapist. Further training has been focused on relationships and effects of birth on the family.

2. Why did you choose to work with/for this group of women?

I am fascinated by birth memory and bonding and have worked with Ray Castellino, Yehudi Gordon and Mary Jackson on attachment and healthy beginnings. In my work I focus on what may prevent mum from staying in touch with her unborn baby, and there are many things that offer multiple distractions in pregnancy and throughout labor, birth and following.

I worked in brain surgery and intensive care as a nurse and missed out on having rapport with conscious people. I worked in women’s health with miscarriage and termination and followed it on by working as a Midwife with birth instead.  I am a farmer’s daughter!

3. How does your service improve the lives of my readership?

I work with mums post birth that are left with a sense that all is not well and want to explore how their birth left them feeling, they may know what the issue is or they may be unaware.

In pregnancy I work with mums to help them cope with the ongoing stresses of pregnancy in today’s society, and to support them in any way I can. Anyone who works in this way is helped and their baby is helped and births are always without doubt better for mum, as she can utilise skills she has learnt to manage in any situation. Part of birth is being able to accept that there is the unknown, part is working in partnership with the baby and part is being confident and articulate with health care professionals so that the sense of self is not overwhelmed.

I am able to reply to any queries relating to pregnancy and birth, especially on working with midwives and doctors, and negotiating compromise.

4. Any piece of advice for these wonderful women?

Keep your own council and choose carefully your supports. But it is essential to identify those support people.

5. Is there anything else that you’d like to share with us?

I would like to offer to the Coach for Mamas readers a FREE 20 minute Skype consultation. Contact me through Facebook or Twitter and let me know that Coach for Mamas sent you. You can also find me and learn more of what I do through my blog Taunton Birth Forum.

Thank you very Eleanor for sharing your expertise and experience with us today. I really appreciate your input and I believe my readers will do too.

And you, dear reader, thanks again for your support. I hope you have enjoyed today’s interview and remember to come back every Thursday for more. We will be talking with Andrea Winzer, Life Coach, Spiritual Director and founder of Reach for the Light. Don’t miss what she has to say!

Always happy to help, the @coachformamas.