Sophie Girard-Sequeira

I am a fully qualified Active Birth Yoga teacher and Associate of the Active Birth Centre based in London.

I also trained as a breastfeeding counsellor with the Brussels Childbirth Trust (BCT) in 2004 and hold some qualifications in prenatal sophrology.

During my trainings, I got to meet and work with some very inspiring people involved in yoga and childbirth education.

Working with Janet Balaskas and Alice Charlwood at the Active Birth Centre has taught me a lot about the virtues of a gentle and respectful approach to yoga when teaching pregnant women.

My own yoga practice is inspired by the legacy of the late Vanda Scaravelli. Scaravelli's yoga is particularly relevant during pregnancy: using gravity and the breath, women feel more grounded, the spine is freed and space can be made in the body for lightness. In recent years, I have found profound inspiration in Sandra Sabatini's yoga classes.

I was first introduced to Active Birth Yoga in South West London, when I was expecting my first child.

I was then amazed to discover how this gentle, yet powerful yoga practice could awaken the inner intelligence of a woman's body to give birth to her baby. Our modern societies often forget that women's bodies are incredibly well designed for childbirth and don't give women a chance to reconnect to this instinctive ability.

My second child was born in Brussels, where I realised that despite the highly medical environment surrounding pregnancy and childbirth, women can still trust and surrender to the inner intelligence of their body to make childbirth a unique and empowering experience.