From pregnancy massage to hypnotherapy, breastfeeding to weaning, slings to cloth nappies and much more, our A-Z of antenatal and postnatal services in the North East will help you find what you’re looking for during pregnancy and beyond.
In addition to the support below your midwife and health visitor are invaluable sources of information, and should be able to let you know about sessions available with your maternity ward and Sure Start children’s centres, for example there may be free sessions on birthing, newborns, breastfeeding and weaning, and appointments for a birth reflection service. For the Gateshead area, these Facebook pages have lots of useful info:
Gateshead Maternity Voices Partnership
Gateshead Early Years and Children’s Centres
Growing Healthy 0-19 Gateshead
There are also some lovely Play Cafes across the North East, many of which run regular activities including pregnancy sessions and baby classes, and you can find dozens of Baby-Toddler Classes & Playgroups in Gateshead to look forward to!
Details are subject to change, please check the latest updates directly with individual providers.
Birthscapes
📌 Across the North East
🤰👶 Antenatal & postpartum services, including hypnobirthing.
◾ Supporting you throughout your parenting journey, services include KG Hypnobirthing, Birth & Postpartum Planning, Birth Debrief Sessions, 3 Step Rewind Phobia/Trauma Support, Mindful Early Parenting and Positive Parenting Workshops, Starting Solids, Mum & Baby Groups and Mindful Mamma Walking Groups, with more to come soon!
👉 Find out more here.
The Bodyworks Clinic
📌 Concord House, Washington, Sunderland
🤰 Pregnancy massage
◾ We have specialist training to relax you, keep you and baby safe and ease your discomfort with a range of rejuvenating techniques. You can have the option to use our pregnancy pillow system which allows you to be treated lying face down – all our clients try to take it home with them!
👉 Find out more here
Bump Cafe & Boob Club
📌 The Nest, Low Fell, Gateshead
🤰👶 Antenatal and breastfeeding support
◾ Bump Cafe is held on selected dates as a free informal session for mums-to-be and their partners to meet and connect with other expectant parents, and to speak to a panel of new mums to hear their experiences and ask questions. Boob Club is a friendly social free weekly group providing a supportive space for breastfeeding women to meet, chat and make new friends! For breastfeeding mums of babies and children of all ages and pregnant women.
👉 Find out more here
Bump, Baby and Beyond
📌 Gosforth, Newcastle
🤰👶 Antenatal course, baby massage and yoga
◾ Online and in person sessions including baby massage and yoga and Daisy Birthing Antenatal course with active birth education, yoga based movement, breathing techniques, relaxation and birth hypnosis, suitable from 16 weeks of pregnancy onwards.
👉 Find out more here
Bump to Baby Yoga
📌 Pelton, Chester-le Street, Durham
🤰👶 Pregnancy & postnatal yoga
◾ Prenatal yoga to support body & mind through breathing, stretching, bonding and relaxation (suitable in 2nd/3rd tri), and postnatal yoga to help heal and recover (6 weeks – 12 months).
👉 Find out more here
City Retreat
📌 Osborne Road, Jesmond, Newcastle
🤰 Pregnancy massage & facials
◾ A range of treatments and packages are available including Pregnancy Massage & Facials using carefully formulated ELEMIS treatments designed to nurture throughout each trimester.
👉 Find out more here
Dream Big Role Play Centre
📌 Grange Villa, Chester-le-Street, Co Durham
🤰👶 Breastfeeding support, postnatal fitness, weaning
◾ Regular well being & breastfeeding support group run by a trained NHS breastfeeding peer supporter, also baby weaning sessions and Sweaty Mama fitness sessions, plus Sensory Snug and indoor and outdoor play.
👉 Find out more here
Durham Cloth Nappy Library
📌 Durham
👶 Cloth nappies
◾ Volunteer run service providing parents access to cloth nappies, with trial kits containing some of the most popular brands and styles, individual loans, and long term hire, as well as troubleshooting your own nappies.
👉 Find out more here
Essential Thyme Complementary Therapies
📌 Osborne Road, Jesmond, Newcastle
🤰 Pregnancy massage
◾ Offering Pregnancy Massage with the aid of pillows or sitting/standing, to help reduce tension in the neck, shoulders and lower back, and to improve circulation, relieve nervous tension and promote relaxation (suitable from 2nd trimester).
👉 Find out more here
Humanist Ceremonies – Kate Owens-Palmer
📌 North East England and beyond
👶 Non-religious Naming Ceremonies
◾ If you’re considering an alternative to a traditional Christening, a Humanist Naming Ceremony is a wonderful way of welcoming your child. Kate is accredited by the Humanists UK to officiate Naming Ceremonies as well as Wedding Ceremonies, renewals of vows, funerals and memorials.
👉 Find out more here.
Humanist Ceremonies – Victoria Bainbridge
📌 North East England and beyond
👶 Non-religious Naming Ceremonies
◾ A Humanist Naming Ceremony can be the perfect way to celebrate the arrival of a new child or creation of a new family. Victoria supports families in planning unique and personal Naming Ceremonies and is an accredited mentor for other Celebrants in the North East.
👉 Find out more here.
Janine Smith Antenatal & Postnatal Practice
📌 Across the North East
🤰👶 Antenatal & postnatal courses
◾ Offering 1:1 consultations, a range of antenatal & postnatal digital courses and small group postnatal sessions with personalised resources, plus digital magazine Mother Cuppa packed full of useful information.
👉 Find out more here
Kathryn Forte Massage Therapy
📌 Sunderland Wall, Pallion Quay, Sunderland
🤰 Pregnancy massage
◾ Offering Pregnancy Massage, with a range of potential benefits including: lowering anxiety and stress, improving sleep patterns and reducing pain. Suitable from second trimester onwards.
👉 Find out more here
The Kind Mind
📌 Gateshead, Newcastle & The Coast
🤰👶 Parent/child mindfulness workshops
◾ Workshops on a range of topics delivered by experienced clinical psychologists, including: parents-to-be and parents with newborns, toddlers, primary school age and teens. Also individual psychology sessions for a bespoke service.
👉 Find out more here
La Leche League Tyne and Wear
📌 Tyne and Wear
🤰👶 Breastfeeding support
◾ A supportive online group for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding in the North East of England, to provide mother-to-mother support, encouragement, information and education.
👉 Find out more here
Milk & Mums
📌 Covering the North East
🤰👶 Lactation consultants, specialist tongue tie practitioner and midwife
◾ Offering antenatal and postnatal workshops, holistic sleep coaching and introducing solids. Also offering tongue tie treatment and breastfeeding help and support.
👉 Find out more here
Mums Bums & Tums
📌 Lobley Hill/Rowlands Gill, Gateshead
👶 Mum & baby fitness classes
◾ Zoomammy, Studio Mamma classes with baby, and Buggy Mums at Watergate park. Sessions are adapted around you and your postnatal recovery, focussing on those weaknesses post birth and helping you feel back to your normal self (suitable from 6 postpartum after GP check).
👉 Find out more here
NCT (National Childbirth Trust)
🤰👶 Antenatal classes & postnatal sessions
◾ A range of online and in person sessions, such as antenatal classes, early days, walk and talk meet ups, twins and multiples sessions.
👉 Find out more here: Durham / Gateshead / Newcastle / Sunderland & South Tyneside
Northern Soul Birth Preparation and Hypnobirthing Classes
📌 Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland
🤰 Antenatal courses, hypnobirthing class
◾ Offering ‘off the shelf’ birth preparation courses as well as tailored mini sessions on hypnobirthing, induction and birth partner skills and top up sessions if you’ve done hypnobirthing before.
👉 Find out more here
One of those Baby Carriers
📌 Gateshead, Northumberland, N Yorks and Cumbria
🤰👶 Baby wearing support
◾ Offering parent support, including sling tuition, sling hires (in person or by post/collection) and free stretchy loans for expectant/new families, with fortnightly meet up in Teams, Gateshead and monthly meets in Saltwell Park.
👉 Find out more here
Parenting North East CIC
📌 Forth Goods Yard, Newcastle
🤰👶 Baby wearing support
◾ A social enterprise offering peer-to-peer support using slings. You can hire or buy a sling or get help with using your own carrier.
👉 Find out more here
The Performance Clinic
📌 Kells Lane, Low Fell, Gateshead
👶 LOCband treatment
◾ Assessment, advice and LOCband treatment is available for babies with Positional Plagiocephaly – a condition in which specific areas of an infant’s head develop an abnormally flattened appearance.
👉 Find out more here
The Retreat Whickham
📌 The Knowles, Whickham, Gateshead
🤰 Pregnancy massage
◾ Pregnancy Massage designed for maximum comfort using a Hydratherm system of warm water filled cushions, to help relieve many of the mental and physical stresses unique to the expectant mother.
👉 Find out more here
Ruth Olayinka Clinical Hypnotherapy
📌 Jesmond, Newcastle
🤰 Hypnotherapy
◾ Offering bespoke 1:1 services, including hypnosis/therapy sessions for previous birth trauma resolution, hypnosis and NLP fear release sessions for the birthing mother and fertility support hypnosis. Courses are flexible and can be tailored to fit your needs and budget.
👉 Find out more here
Ruth Willis, Natural Birth & Women’s Health
📌 Blackhall Mill, Gateshead
🤰 Mizan Therapy, Doula Services and Placenta Encapsulation
◾ Mizan massage therapy using traditional healing techniques to improve the health of the reproductive and digestive systems. Placenta Encapsulation pills can help to heal, sustain, and strengthen your body after birth.
👉 Find out more here
The Slumber Mum
📌 Morpeth, Northumberland
👶 Sleep support
◾ Offering 1:1 telephone consultations with follow-up support, home-visits for naptime/bedtime routines (currently taking place remotely), and nursery product consultation to optimise sleeping, bathing and feeding.
👉 Find out more here
Sunderland Physiotherapy Clinic
📌 Roker, Sunderland
🤰👶 Pregnancy massage, physiotherapy & postnatal assessment
◾ Offering Pregnancy Massage using specifically tailored techniques and pillows (suitable from 14 weeks), Physiotherapy to help to ease common pregnancy related pains, and the Mummy MOT assessment to help prevent health complaints (recommended from 6 weeks after delivery).
👉 Find out more here
Sunderland Sling Library
📌 Ashbrooke, Sunderland
🤰👶 Baby wearing support
◾ In Jan 2021 the decision was announced to close the sling library (Lizzie is moving on to pastures new happily), however consultations and sales are ongoing as there are lots of slings that need new loving homes in the big closing down sale.
👉 Find out more here
Sweaty Mama Gateshead South & Durham North
📌 Gateshead and Durham
👶 Postnatal exercise
◾ Fun, effective and interactive workout with your child. Exercise adaptations to suit your fitness and the age/development of your child. Post-natal specialists and trained in safe babywearing too!
👉 Find out more here
Tiny Flutters and Kicks
📌 Newcastle
🤰 Antenatal courses, hypnobirthing
◾ Classes covering labour and birth, including hypnobirthing elements and postnatal segments on the early days of parenthood. A relaxed atmosphere with plenty of opportunity to get to know other participants, with a private Whatsapp group and a post-birth reunion.
👉 Find out more here.
Tiny Toes, Bumps and Babies
📌 Allensford/Consett/Stanley Durham
🤰👶 Antenatal & postnatal support
◾ Offering a unique, supportive service, personalised for every family, including preparation for your newborn, homebirth rental, parent support, aromatherapy, baby massage and tummy time.
👉 Find out more here
YogaNic
📌 Whitley Bay, North Tyneside
🤰👶 Pregnancy & postnatal yoga
◾ Pregnancy Yoga to prepare your body and mind for labour, birth and parenthood, plus postnatal Mummy Nurture sessions and Mum & Baby Yoga with baby massage/yoga, calming and relaxation techniques for you and baby, and gentle yoga sequences from 6 weeks+ for postnatal recovery.
👉 Find out more here
There’s plenty on Gateshead Mumbler to help keep little ones (and big ones!) busy, check here for more ideas and info for playgroups, classes and fun days out from tots to teens!
If you’d like to keep up to date when new resources are added, please click here and like the Gateshead Mumbler Facebook page
