In a garden-level room on a quiet Kips Bay block, an empty circle of chairs surrounds a plush, cream-colored carpet. Though the room is empty of the expectant mothers and partners that usually fill these seats, the energy emanating from Andrea Lee—founder of City Births childbirth education services—provides a glimpse into the passion and care she brings to the work of helping partners become parents. She’s joined by her business partner and head of finance, Rich Forman, a father-of-two who, alongside Lee, has helped create the intimate, nurturing, and supportive environment that expectant parents find within City Births classes and parenting groups.
“I wanted to create a space that everybody can come to, and not feel judged about their choices or decisions,” Lee says of her goals in founding City Births.
After establishing City Births on the West Side near Columbus Circle in 2012, Lee’s reputation and business has grown to the point of opening a second location this summer, in Kips Bay on 25th Street near 3rd Avenue.
At both locations, City Births’ core class offerings are Childbirth Prep, Newborn Care and Breastfeeding, and Infant CPR and Safety. They also offer New Moms Groups, which meet weekly and are run by a Certified Lactation Consultant and Sleep Specialist; Infant Care Only, for adoptive parents and parents who plan on bottle feeding; and Birth and Beyond, which Lee describes as mimicking “the setting of hanging out with girlfriends in your living room sipping wine, talking about what the heck really does happen after birth.” Daddy Bootcamps are facilitated by a member of the New York City Dads Group along with a father (or two) and his baby—“It’ s a really hands-on experience,” Forman says of the class— and City Births also provides lactation assistance, and will coordinate Certified Lactation Specialist visits in the hospital or at home.
Lee—also a founding member of the downtown moms’ group Bowery Babes—previously worked in events and marketing for UBS and Bloomberg, and was inspired to found City Births after her experience taking a childbirth class before the birth of her son Rourke (now 8). The course she took left her feeling confused and insecure in her choices.
“I walked out of there with this feeling of self-doubt that if I didn’t make it through my delivery without an epidural, I somehow wasn’t going to be a good mother,” she says. “I walked out of there, 34, 35 weeks pregnant, and with a lot of confused, conflicting feelings. And I just thought that was an awful place for women to be at 35 weeks pregnant.”
Lee returned to school to become certified as a Childbirth Educator and a Labor Support Companion. When Lee founded City Births in 2012 as a childbirth education center, she focused on creating an environment vastly different from the class she’d taken—one that would objectively present expectant parents with their options when it came to everything from delivery to breastfeeding.
“I thought everybody deserved support, and it’s nobody else’s business what you choose to do in the delivery room, or where you choose to deliver,” she says.
Beyond City Births’ commitment to providing unbiased access to the best resources and information, classes are distinguished by their small size (they’re capped at five couples), length (Childbirth Prep is taught in one day-long or two nighttime sessions), and physician-reviewed curricula. The smaller groups not only allowed Lee and her team of teachers to fit an entire childbirth education course into one day, when many can extend over the course of several weeks, but most importantly, she feels, help pregnant women feel more comfortable asking the questions that they might shy away from in a larger group. “In big groups, no one ever asks about having a bowel movement during the pushing stage,” she says with a laugh.
All class curriculums are reviewed by a local OB-GYN, and the City Births team of teachers meets quarterly with physicians in order to learn about the latest American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology hospital policies, and to discuss deliveries that instructors have attended.
“Most of my teachers are also doulas, so it’s great for the doulas to be able to hear the medical side of what goes on in the medical delivery room,” Lee explains.
The wealth of positive feedback City Births has received from their clients shows their deep appreciation of these efforts.. Currently, City Births has a five-star rating on Yelp, and it received the Best of Manhattan Award for Educational Services for New and Expecting Parents in 2014 and 2015.
As for future plans, Lee and Forman hope to continue opening additional locations throughout the city in order to meet the high demand for their classes and reach more parents. They’ve also begun exploring a retail component of the business, and would like to eventually create an online store for City Births-endorsed products.
With Lee and her team’s supportive, caring approach, City Births has established itself as not only an informative resource, but also a welcoming and reassuring experience expectant and new parents.
“A lot of people come into [our childbirth class] saying they feel like they’re going to be pressured into natural childbirth or homebirth, and they have this idea of what childbirth class is going to look like,” Lee says. “They come in almost with a little bit of a defense wall put up, and they walk out of here feeling confident and not judged, and for me, that is the reward.”
To learn more about City Births, visit citybirths.com!
