Member Article

Bdaily goes behind the scenes of Bump Buddies Antenatal with Owner Louise Turnbull

Bump Buddies provides antenatal education workshops in Teesside and also private one-to-one sessions for clients in their own homes. I am an antenatal teacher and former Doula and I also chair the local maternity services liaison committee.

What key challenges has your company recently faced?

We recently launched our antenatal workshops and the prime challenge has been creating public awareness of the availability of this new and exciting service and communicating the high quality of the course. Traditionally people opt for the free classes provided through the NHS or Surestart, but they do not understand that the information level of the majority of these courses is low and are mainly hospital and medically focused. Bump Buddies provides all information from pregnancy through labour to 6 months postnatally and all information is tailored personally to the clients’ choices and personal situations. Whether home-birth or planned ceasarean section, breast or bottle-feeding, we will provide everything needed, judgement free, in a warm and comfortable environment. We also use pregnancy and baby simulators to make the experience much more realistic for parents-to-be than using charts or flipchart drawings. Lastly, to complement the actual workshops and private sessions, we provide personal support to our clients so that they can ask us any question or share any experiences, from signing up through to baby’s 6-month birthday.

What is your biggest achievement over the past 12 months?

My biggest achievement has been getting the business turned around from a Doula service to a full antenatal service in six months and forming alliances with other local baby companies to create a strong offering.

What is your biggest focus for the coming year?

Expanding the range of classes from full, weekend workshops to evening sessions for weekend workers, and starting up one-day refreshers and postnatal support sessions.

If you had to choose one top piece of advice for someone just starting out in business, or is currently operating within your industry sector, what would it be?

Stop and breathe. Everything feels so pressured to be done asap, but actually taking a step back and properly planning and analysing decisions can make for a much better outcome. And avoid anyone who wants to sell something to you in your home. Lots of con merchants play on start-ups.

Can you share with us your view of the current landscape of business, in this region or generally and where your organisation sits within it?

Antenatal classes have traditionally been the domain of the NHS and the National Childbirth Trust (NCT). The NHS classes are free and are usually provided by a midwife in a hospital, a doctors’ surgery, or can be provided through Surestart at their centres. The NCT classes have always been respected as the place to go to get the best information, but at a price. Also often there is stigma attached to NCT classes (inaccurately in most cases) that they are only for people who don’t use pain relief, or only for breastfeeders. In both cases the availability of classes is poor and badly communicated. Bump Buddies has been created to cover the middle ground. We offer the best information, lots of class availability, no judgements and then the added extras of modern technologies, comfortable surroundings and one-to-one support right from booking – a named person you can contact for personal help. With Bump Buddies you get a full service and are very well taken care of.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Louise Turnbull .