A full day built entirely around planning a vaginal birth after caesarean.
You've done this once. What you're carrying isn't a first-timer's fear of the unknown, because you do know. Some of it you'd rather not repeat.
And then there's the second part. The conversations. Evidence quoted at you selectively. Pressure that doesn't stop. Holding your ground while also growing a baby.
This day covers what VBAC labour looks like, how to make sense of evidence and recommendations, navigating personalised plans with your care team, and what your support person needs to be your best support and advocate.
Reserve your placeI'm Jen, a Private Midwife in Sydney. I have been caring for women in birth and motherhood since 2007, across homebirth, hospital birth and the postnatal weeks.
This day is educational, not clinical. It sits alongside your own midwifery care rather than in place of it.
Upcoming dates
The Gathering Space · 160 Flinders St, Paddington
Small group, maximum 4 families
Who this is for
For women who have had a caesarean birth and are planning to birth vaginally this time, and who want preparation that actually speaks to that.
- Women planning a VBAC in a hospital setting
- Partners and primary birth support people
- Those who've done general birth education and want VBAC-specific preparation
- Women who want clear, honest information about the evidence before making decisions
This day assumes VBAC as the intended pathway. It isn't designed for women still weighing up VBAC against a repeat caesarean. That's a different conversation, and one worth having with your care provider first.
Why VBAC needs its own preparation
VBAC labour is not the same as a first labour. It also sits in a different place to a second labour. It carries its own physiology, its own particular demands, and often its own emotional weight from the birth that came before.
General birth education rarely covers any of that. It is usually built around a first labour in a hospital, with VBAC mentioned briefly if at all. This day is built around VBAC specifically. The physiology, the evidence, the dynamics of planning and labouring within a hospital system, and what it takes to stay grounded when the pressure to choose differently does not always stop.
Nothing about your body failed last time. It did exactly what the circumstances of that birth asked of it. This time is its own story, not a retry of the last one.
You already know how to give birth. This day exists so that knowing doesn't get talked over.
Want to understand your previous birth first?
Some women find it useful to go through their previous caesarean before preparing for this birth. What happened, why it unfolded the way it did, and what it means for your options going forward.
The Birth Review and Debrief is a 90-minute clinical appointment for exactly that. It is a separate session to this workshop and can be booked before or alongside your preparation.
Find out more about the Birth Review and Debrief →What the day covers
What VBAC labour looks like
VBAC labour is not the same as a first labour and it is not the same as a repeat caesarean. It has its own physiology, its own pattern, and its own particular demands.
This session covers how VBAC labour commonly progresses, what is different from other labours, what your care team is monitoring and why, and what normal progress looks and feels like, including the parts that can feel unfamiliar or slow.
Navigating your care and staying in your own authority
Planning a VBAC within a hospital involves specific dynamics. Monitoring requirements, consent processes, and the particular pressures that can build as labour progresses.
This session prepares you for those realities. What to expect, what your rights are, how to work with your care team, and how to stay clear in your own decision-making when it matters most.
Informed, in control, and not pressured.
The evidence and how to hold it
There is a lot of information about VBAC. Some of it is useful. Some of it is frightening, selective, or presented without enough context to be helpful.
Uterine rupture is usually the loudest thing in the room. What the actual numbers say, and how that risk compares to how it's sometimes presented to you, is exactly the kind of thing this day works through properly.
This session works through the evidence clearly and honestly. The statistics, what they mean, what they don't mean, and how to hold them steadily when conversations with your care team get complicated. The goal is not to tell you what to decide. It is to help you decide what is right for you from a grounded place.
Your support person
Support people are often expected to be everything for a woman in labour, when often they have never even seen a birth before. With a VBAC there's more again. The recommendations, the monitoring, the conversations that get complicated at exactly the moment she's least able to have them.
So we spend real time on the fundamental needs of a woman in labour, practical and useful tools and strategies, building confidence and dispelling nerves. Genuinely useful and adaptive solutions come from the why underneath each suggestion, not just the what.
I'm trying things too. I've just been trying them for longer.
And your partner has one advantage over me: they already know you better than anyone else in the room. That's worth building on. In a birthing room, having someone beside you who already knows what you've decided, and can say so calmly if a conversation starts to drift, changes the temperature of the whole exchange.
Women who understood their options look back differently. Even when birth didn't go the way they planned, they can see how the birth they had came about, without it becoming something they did wrong. The baby had their own experience, and it was never all in her hands.
What you leave with
Knowing the evidence and knowing what to do with it are two different things. This day is built for the second one.
A vaginal birth after caesarean usually means a faster physical recovery, and holding your baby straight away rather than after surgery. That's a real part of why this path matters to so many women, alongside everything else this day covers.
You'll leave with a realistic understanding of what VBAC labour looks and feels like. Clarity about the evidence and how to hold it when conversations get complicated. Practical preparation for navigating hospital systems and consent. A stronger sense of what support looks like in a VBAC labour. A clearer sense of your own authority in the decisions ahead.
You leave feeling steadier and better oriented, more able to meet this birth as it unfolds rather than bracing for what might happen.
Practical details
Format: Full day, in person. 10:00am–4:00pm. Small group, maximum 4 families. Discussion, explanation and reflection throughout.
Who attends: Pregnant woman and her primary support person. Both attend together for the full day.
Medicare rebates don't apply to birth education. Rebates are for clinical midwifery consultations, which you can book separately if you'd like both. Some private health funds do offer a rebate for antenatal education, so it's worth asking your insurer.
What this can't do
A day of learning doesn't replace individual clinical advice. It won't tell your care provider how to act, and it won't determine what kind of birth you have.
Anyone promising you a particular birth, a pain-free one, or that you'll walk out fully prepared and equipped, is promising something they can't deliver. Much of what makes the difference is what you and your support person do with the information afterwards.
What this day can do is help you understand your options, talk well with the people caring for you, and make the next decision from a steadier place.
How this fits alongside your care
Many families find it most useful at around 28–34 weeks, when birth is coming into focus and the questions are getting specific.
Not ready to book yet?
Start with the Planning a VBAC guide. A clear, honest look at what the evidence actually says, so you can make sense of your options before you decide anything.