One familiar face, from the bump through the early days.

Most support for new parents comes in pieces. One person for the birth, someone else for the early weeks, a different class once the baby's here. Every few weeks you begin again with someone new, telling the story of your birth, your baby, your worries, from the start. At the point you're most tired and least sure of anything, you're asked to keep introducing yourself.
Held is the other way round. One person who stays, from the first preparation for birth through the early months, who knows your story because she was in the room for it.

What it is
Held begins before your baby arrives, with the Hypnobirthing and Antenatal Programme. Two unhurried Sundays where you and your partner learn how birth really works, and how to meet the early days that follow, when the feeding and the broken nights and the finding of your feet all arrive at once.
Then your baby comes, and it carries straight on. Baby massage while they're tiny, warm oil and a quiet room and the end of the day made softer. Baby yoga as they grow into it, movement and singing and the two of you learning each other. The same room. The same small circle of faces. The same person each week, who greets your baby by name.
You're never handed on. The person who taught you to breathe through a contraction is the one who later shows you how to settle a fractious evening, and who remembers, because she was there, that this is your first, or your second, or the birth that turned out nothing like the plan.

Why it's worth it
The early months are steep, and it's knowing someone that makes them lighter. When the person in front of you already knows you, there's no explaining from the start, no catching a stranger up. You arrive, and the help is simply there.
Your baby feels it too. A face they know and a room they know, week after week. That steadiness isn't a small thing in the first year. It's what a new little nervous system reaches for and settles into.
And it takes something off you. One relationship to hold, in place of a diary full of separate classes and new faces to manage. You book it once, your places are kept, and you can stop arranging and simply turn up.

How it works 
You join Held through the antenatal programme, and your baby massage and yoga blocks are reserved for you at the member rate, ready for when your baby is old enough. It works out a little less than booking each separately, and the classes are small and fill quickly, so having your place kept means you move from one into the next without watching for dates or hoping there's room.
You're always welcome to come to any single class on its own. Held is simply for the families who'd rather have the whole of it kept for them, by one person who stays.