Testimonials

My partner and I highly recommend Chitra’s class! We’ve been very busy during my pregnancy with work, hospital appointments, home renovation, moving house et cetera, and doing the course has helped us to psychologically prepare for the baby coming. Chitra packs a lot into the 4 session course, from scientifically informing parents about everything birth related, to practical information and advice, to considering the emotional impact of having a baby together. The course is really empowering for parents. Chitra is an amazing person and whilst ensuring she covers all of the essentials, she listens to each individual in the class and gives specific advice for different scenarios. Also one more thing – Chitra has a great sense of humour and the course was also really fun, and a chance to meet other parents.

Helen Semple

Chitra is an amazing birth educator, we thoroughly enjoyed attending her classes. With her joy, care and attention to each and every participant, she made late, dark, rainy Friday nights exciting, uplifting, relaxing and incredible helpful and educational. With detail and compassion, Chitra shared a plethora of knowledge and insight into the Dutch healthcare system, practical breathing and relaxation exercises, and all ins and outs around labour preparation, rigorous research-driven knowledge about the labour process and possible interventions, as well as insights into the first phase of postpartum care. She added detailed and useful summaries (and homework ;)) after each session and went above and beyond to answer additional questions and queries. We highly recommend Chitra and are immensely grateful for her warmth, generosity and care.

Anika Marschall

We discovered Chitra’s childbirth course through Access NL. The course itself covered a broad range of topics, including giving birth in the Netherlands, breathing techniques, pain relief, and the role of the birthing partner, among others.

Chitra is extremely knowledgeable, approachable, and kind. She provided us with additional resources and answered all of our questions. Chitra knows how to make participants feel at ease and allows ample time for questions and practical exercises, such as breathing techniques and birthing positions. I firmly believe that my positive childbirth experience was primarily due to taking Chitra’s course. I highly recommend it to expectant parents.

Eleri Aedmaa

I started the ACCESS childbirth preparation course feeling apprehensive about giving birth but thanks to Chitra’s teaching, I felt so much calmer and confident. My husband and I both learned so much including lots of practical techniques for the various stages of birth. Chitra’s course should be essential for all expectant parents. Thank you, Chitra.

Josephine van Willigenburg

We are extremely grateful for finding Chitra and her hypnobirthing course. Really, no words can describe what we feel after the wonderful home water birth of our son. And we really thank Chitra for her support, knowledge and birth preparation. We had an idea of giving birth in the hospital then birthing center, but Chitra gave us confidence for home birth just after first class. She is so kind, so supportive, so resourceful. We were prepared to the fullest for the most wonderful, intimate, peaceful home water birth, but also for unexpected afterbirth complications that we took calmly and with full trust. We’re also feeling well prepared for parenting.

Last summer, our lives changed, when our daughter joined us and we found ourselves starting our journey of becoming her parents. 12 weeks before that day, on a Friday evening at 19:00, after a long day of working behind the computer in the covid reality, 30 weeks pregnant, we logged in to Zoom to join the first session together with 5 other couples, all of us with bellies that fill up the screen, red eyes, low on energy, and – truly want to prepare well for this thing that you cannot prepare for.

Because that is the truth, pregnancy and giving birth are chapters in life that are full of uncertainty.  As Chitra kept on telling us – it is not your ‘due date’ it is your ‘expected date of birth’ and it is not your ‘birth plan’, it is your ’birth wishes’. Every Friday evening Chitra would show up with mountains of knowledge, care, patience, and most of all – presence. We got above and beyond what we ever expected, not only during the course but also in the following weeks, when the pressure started to build up and questions started popping. Chitra was there with answers, ideas, and tips. She opened our eyes to what is possible and mainly helped us remember that we got this and that it will all work out well in the end. And it did.

So the truth is you cannot prepare for this, giving birth or becoming a parent for the first time. But, having Chitra on your side, is the closest that you can get. Thank you Chitra, from all of us.

T, F & Z

I’d like to thank Chitra for a very informative, well structured and useful course on HypnoBirthing. I appreciated that there was no ‘one right way’ to do things, but rather well informed suggestions and guidance, with strong focus on how mother feels, what she thinks is the best way for her to go on about birth. My husband also found the classes very useful from day one. I would thoroughly recommend joining classes with Chitra, it was time well spent!

Yulia Kozak

I can highly recommend the HypnoBirthing preparation course with Chitra. You get a lot of information and with that understanding about what happens at birth and also in the postpartum period. I find it extremely good that all sessions were together with my partner so he also had all this information and feels now also much more empowered to play an active part in supporting me in labor. It was very nice to have this period of 5 Sundays to consciously take time and connect with the pregnancy and the baby together. Thank you Chitra!

Lena Ropert

We came across the hypnobirthing course with Chitra through a friend’s recommendation and we could not have made a better decision! The course was extremely informative, it helps you to be aware of all the options available, pros and cons of everything making it very reassuring and understanding of what’s the journey of a mother and child during birth. I arrived at the course with fear of the birth and I finished the course with a very empowering feeling and at peace. The course was a very open space where everyone was able to openly share, ask any questions and discuss as a group.  We also appreciated very much that it is a course for both partners, which supports the connection of the partner with the birth and how best to support the mother and also feel involved in the process. Chitra takes the time to connect with everyone and is always open to supporting them with their journey, even outside the hours of the course. I can’t recommend her enough.

Gaby & Francisco

Emily

“We got to meet Chitra following the ACCESS child preparation course for expats. What a wonderful person to guide you through the process of mentally and physically preparing for labor (but also for the weeks right before and after). We had the chance to discuss all of our questions and had very interesting conversations with her and the other participants, something you can’t have by just reading a birth preparation book. Chitra is a very positive person that is really on top of her field. What we appreciated the most is that she gave us info and guidance for all sorts of birth scenarios, without any bias towards a certain approach. She also provided us with all sorts of material to study further after the course. Definitely a recommended experience!”

Sofia & Bas

We attended Akriti’s 5-week hypnobirthing birth preparation course, and we were very happy with everything we learned in it. The instructor, Chitra, obviously loves her job, she is very knowledgable, experienced, supportive, and warm. We got much more than we expected from every class, all of our questions were answered, and Chitra also reached out outside classes and after the course to check if any of the couples needed her support with anything, or had any questions. The course itself is great, and it helped us look forward to the birth of our baby without fear. I highly recommend this course to anyone interested in pursuing natural birth with as few interventions as possible.

Dunja & Erwin

We did the english speaking ACCESS birth preparation course with Chitra. We learned a lot and got a lot of info and reassurance about pregnancy, birth and the dutch healthcare system surrounding pregnancy. Chitra is a lovely person who is really supportive and always approachable for help and support. She is very experienced and knowledgeable and shares great tips and resources. I would definitely recommend the course!

Barbara & Serdar

I took a 4week ACCESS childbirth course (online, due to Covid-19) from Chitra. I now feel much more empowered to make meaningful choices in my birth plan. I love her positive attitude towards birth and postpartum. She goes out of her way to help you prepare for your upcoming birth.

Elisa

Chitra knows her subject very detailed, passionate to tell about and explains the background of the things very well. This helps us to remember why and how the things are the way they are. Also her way of sending the summarised notes and other important tips was very useful. We enjoyed the course very much! Thanks.

We are extremely happy to have attended this course. As first timers this was a much needed one. Chitra is a very good trainer and provided us with a lot of useful information, guided us to looking forward for a healthy pregnancy and delivery. The exercises are indeed very useful. Amidst the corona virus we did miss the social interaction and attending the course in person, but very happy to have completed the course online. Overall , we are pleased with the course.

We very much enjoyed the concept and content of the course. It was very informative on all aspects around what to expect when you are pregnant as well as practical steps one can take to prepare for the birth of your child. Overall it was a wonderful experience and we would recommend it to our friends.

I found this course very informative and it gave me and my husband a nice refresher about pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum phase. Chitra was very open for questions and provided us with a lot of materials which was extra to the course.

I heard a lot of good feedbacks from friends about this course and it indeed exceeded our expectations.  For the practice, we had to move from face to face classes to online session due to Corona Virus situation.  We feel now more prepared and we know what to “expect” from the labor/ delivery/postpartum period. I feel more comfortable doing this birth in the Netherlands and we now have all the means to handle it. The breathing technique, positions/massages exercise, all the different steps and how the body is reacting. So a big thank you to Chitra for her help and kindness during these sessions.

Chitra is a caring, compassionate and highly qualified childbirth professional. I attended her 5-week hypnobirthing course, which helped me to have a relaxed and truly enjoyable birth experience. Chitra’s course provided essential information about the basic physiological processes of childbirth and what to expect during delivery, while providing a nurturing and supportive environment in which she taught us to understand and work with those processes in a calm and relaxed way, to manage discomfort and reduce stress, to care for ourselves and to support each other.

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A friend of mine talked to me about this very nice and enthusiastic person preparing women for birth. I therefore contacted Chitra and she sent me some material. I have to admit that the name, “hypno-birthing”, sounded a bit too hippy at the beginning, then, when I read about the main concept of following mother Nature and your own body predisposition to give birth, I thought that was the way I wanted to go. I then discussed with my partner and he agreed that following a natural method based mostly on self-relaxation, which was a good way to bring our child into the world.

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Chitra came recommended by my friend and I was very happy with her course – she is a warm person, makes you feel very comfortable and whole course is intimate, personal and enjoyable. What is more important, she delivers information about the birth so I knew what to expect and how to deal with it – even my husband who knew nothing about labor felt very confident afterwards. That what I value the most – at the end, I was no longer scared, I had no doubts, I learned through the course that I could trust my body – at the end my birth experience is really beautiful one!

Chitra helped me and my partner prepare for the biggest unknown so far – the birth of our first child. During her Hypnobirthing course, we understood what will be happening during birthing and got our preferences for the process crystal clear. That took a lot of pressure of the unknown away. Furthermore, we understood how can my partner help me when the birthing comes – we became a team.

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Chitra’s Hypnobirthing classes are informative, eye opening and a must do for every mum and their partner. Only Because of her classes I could remain calm through what was later classified as a very difficult labor.. she goes through various scenarios and teaches you all the possibilities (best to less ideal) to handle unexpected situations .. my husband because of the classes could help me in ways he would never have thought of on his own … her classes give you a lot of confidence in yourself and your abilities. Her classes can turn labour from a medical event in your life to a very personal experience that you share with your partner.