Conference Event on Childbirth Education in Zagreb

Adult Education for a Positive Pregnancy, Birth and Postpartum (or 3P+ for short) held its final conference event this past Thursday, 23 May 2019, with over 200 people in attendance. There was a lot of interest for the event, and reigstrations were double the expected number, and in the end we reached capacity and had to stop taking registrations a few days before the event.

The main part of the conference event involved presenting the main results of the 3P+ project, including launching the mobile app for pregnant women and their partners. After this, the training project's training events were presented, a preview of the book Pregnant - Your Friendly Guide to the Next Twelve Months was shown. Finally, the thirty participants of the childbirth educator training who completed all the requirements for certification for the two trainings organised in 2018 and 2019 received their official graduation certificates.

This was followed by an interesting talk by Dot Parry, an NCT-certified antenatal instructor from the UK, who spoke about how she uses childbirth education courses to help support men to be great support at births. Dot was followed by Erika Spirić, a well-known Croatian midwife who presented the history of childbirth education in Croatia, with suggestions on how it should look in the future. Jela Ravnjak presented her survey on the the quality and variety of childbirth education currently available in Croatia.

After lunch, Hannie Oor from the Netherlands gave a presentation on what childbirth education in that country looks like, including the increasing number of courses being offered online. Mila Kramna from the Czech Republic presented Aperio's new how to choose a maternity hospital online tool, which includes information for all the maternity hospitals in the Czech Republic. Beverley Lawrence Beech from the UK spoke about how childibirth education can help encourage women to make their own decisions, followed by Dot Parry who spoke about childbirth education for men.

The afternoon session begain with Dulce Morgado Neves and Catarina Barata from Portugal who spoke about the Positive Birth Movement and what it offers in that country. Maider Marana and Patricia Pineda from Spain spoke about the unique informal model of education they have developed at El parto es nuestro (Birth is Ours). Amira Ćerimagić from Bosnia and Herzegovina spoke about her experience as a physician who is also a childbirth educator and what problems she has noticed with colleagues and childbirth educators when it comes to using understandabl but correct language and terms in childbirth education. Liz Kelly from Ireland spoke about how childbirth education can help prevent birth trauma. 

The conference ended with a talk by Daniela Drandić from Roda and Eliška Kodyšová from Aperio who spoke about their experiences in the Erasmus+ project and how this changed them personally but also increased the capacities of their organisations. Members of the audience had an opportunity to ask questions about the Erasmus+ program and share their own experiences during a lively discussion.

An interesting, information-filled day involved midwives, nurses, childbirth educators, advocates and parents from around Croatia and neighbouring countries in the centre of Zagreb and provided a unique opportunity to discuss, share experiences and meet new people.