about us

suport_birth

The Jentle Childbirth Foundation (JCF) believes that pregnancy and childbirth should be a positive and personal experience and we nurture this through education, training and research.

JCF aims to:

  • Promote a safe, supportive and nurturing approach to birth, making it a positive experience for all women and their families
  • Develop and distribute evidenced models of care, including:
    • One-to-one midwife support, designed to allay the fear surrounding childbirth
    • Complementary therapies for pregnancy, birth and afterwards
  • Create teams of highly experienced and dedicated carers
  • Scale up the model beyond Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital (QCCH) into the NHS

A recent survey of mothers who have experience of our philosophy of care showed that areas that they found particularly useful were:

  • Comprehensive antenatal preparation (including home visits and birth rehearsals) designed to enable women to have more control over the birth experience
  • Continuity of care and carer
  • Communication – 24 hour on call and text messaging throughout pregnancy
  • Supportive birth environments (e.g. pool, relaxation lighting) on mainstream labour ward
  • Double-bedroom for post-delivery stay with partner and baby

JCF is administered by the IOGT (a charity registered under number 292518) and was officially launched in June 2007. It was spearheaded by Jenny Smith who has been working as a midwife for 27 years, during which time she has delivered somewhere in the region of 1,000 babies. Among her considerable accolades is the St George’s Hospital Special Achievement Award, won in 1998 for pioneering work with water births. She is currently working on a number of clinical trials and a paper for the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Her specialized fields include high-risk pregnancies and deliveries. Jenny lectures widely in Europe and the Middle East on fetal heart monitoring and is collaborating with Philips UK on the latest telemetry research. She has written and contributed to articles for a cross-section of publications, including The Guardian and pregnancy and childcare magazines and most recently Jenny has published Your Body, Your Baby, Your Birth an essential handbook for pregnant women.

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