Can you be a really great instructor without being a mum?

Absolutely. You can be an incredible pre & postnatal instructor without ever having had a baby. But I wasn’t.

I was teaching pre & postnatal classes for five years before becoming a mum. I’d completed the courses, learnt the terminology and technically had the knowledge, but when it came to actually standing in front of someone who was pregnant or postnatal, my mind would often go completely blank. I suddenly found myself questioning everything I knew. Was this exercise safe? Was I going to hurt them? Was it safe for the baby? What if I gave them the wrong exercise? Should they even be doing this? And why did an exercise feel so uncomfortable when, technically, I knew it was considered safe?

I was overwhelmed by the jargon and technical terms, and that overwhelm meant the knowledge I had learnt wasn’t necessarily translating into confident, useful teaching. I’d plan a five-minute core sequence, only to get halfway through it and start questioning every exercise I had chosen. I wasn’t necessarily lacking knowledge; I was lacking the confidence to apply that knowledge to the individual person standing in front of me.

After a while, I realised something really important: completing the training didn’t automatically mean I was delivering great pre & postnatal classes. The qualification had given me a foundation, but becoming a better instructor required much more than remembering a list of exercises, contraindications and technical terms.

So I booked another course, continued educating myself and kept looking for ways to better understand the people I was teaching. Now, as a teacher trainer myself, I still approach pre & postnatal education with the same mindset because there is always more to learn. Movement science evolves, guidance changes, and every person who walks into your class will have a completely different experience of pregnancy, birth and postpartum recovery.

But one of the most valuable things I did wasn’t another qualification. I spoke to mums. Properly.

I asked questions, I listened and I took notes. I learnt about what actually felt good, what didn’t, what people were worried about and what they wished their instructors understood. I started to appreciate the difference between knowing that something is technically appropriate and understanding how that movement might actually feel to the person performing it.

Because although education gives you the knowledge, conversation gives you context.

And yes, becoming a mum changed my perspective. There were things I simply couldn’t fully understand until I experienced them myself, particularly the physical and emotional realities of pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period. Experiencing those changes gave me another layer of understanding that I simply didn’t have before.

But that doesn’t mean you need to become a mum to become a brilliant pre & postnatal instructor. If you’ve never had a baby, or never plan to, you can absolutely be an incredible teacher in this space. You just need to be willing to educate yourself, re-educate yourself and, importantly, listen to the people you are teaching.

So, take a mum or mum-to-be for a decaf coffee. Ask her what she wishes her instructor knew. Ask what movements felt good and which ones didn’t. Ask what made her feel confident and what made her feel anxious. Listen to the answers rather than assuming you already know them, and remember that your role isn’t to have every answer yourself. Sometimes, being a good instructor means knowing when you need to ask another professional for guidance.

Do the groundwork before you’re standing at the front of the room, panicking about that five-minute core sequence.

Because confidence doesn’t come from knowing every technical term or being able to recite every modification from memory. It comes from understanding the principles behind what you’re teaching, knowing how to apply your knowledge to the individual in front of you and having the confidence to adapt when something isn’t working.

That, for me, is what makes a great pre & postnatal instructor. Not whether you’ve personally experienced pregnancy, but whether you’re curious enough to keep learning, humble enough to keep listening and knowledgeable enough to make your clients feel supported, understood and safe.

teim™
training & events in movement