Birth Matters - Local Antenatal courses for local people

Debra Jonckers

Like a snowflake, each woman, labour and birth is total unique. My passion is to give couples the confidence to have the type of birth they would like; to give couples the confidence to be the type of parent they want to be.

Debra was born in South Africa and moved to England in the mid 80's after marrying her ski-instructor who she met on a holiday in Austria. She has lived in Maidenhead for seventeen years. Maarten and Debra have four children. After having worked for an airline for 10 years Debra realised that shift work and 2 children was a very difficult combination so she left and began her training with the NCT (1994). She qualified as an antenatal teacher in 1999 (taking longer than most but she did have another baby in the middle of her training.) Debra found she had a little spare time on her hands after their youngest son started nursery school in 2004 and she decided to fill that time by training to be a infant massage instructor. She decided to go down this route because she had found this to be a very beneficial tool with her own children. Debra successfully completed the training at the end of 2004 and has since been running very popular baby massage and postnatal classes. Now that all Debra's children are in full time school she is yet again going to hit the books and has just started the training to facilitate parenting courses for primary school children and teenagers, so watch this spot.

Areas of Expertise

		Group facilitation and guidance.

		Creating a welcoming, safe, lively, fun and supportive environment in which couples can learn and make new friends.

		Evidence based information.

		Teaching IAIM (international association of infant massage) massage techniques.

		Providing parents with a comfortable, friendly, nurturing environment to confidently discover new skills.

		Facilitating post-natal discussion.

Course format

Debra's course consists of 4 nights, and 1 full Saturday, a tour of the birth centre at Wexham Park Hospital and 5 postnatal sessions with a postnatal supporter and a reunion once all the babies are born.

When not working, Debra is most likely to be…

Racing around Berkshire getting 4 children to various activities usually late!! Down at the magnet Gym (although not as often as she would like). Going out to dinner with her very patient husband. Feeding and laughing with houseful of children and adults ranging from 7-70 years.

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