AV Aids for Birth Classes – Posters and Images

I’m gathering links to resources, and will continue to add more, but here’s some to get you started. I cover posters, handouts, and illustrations in this post. I have separate posts on where to find videos and 3-D models.

Childbirth Graphics is sort of the grande-dame of AV Aids. They’ve got pelvises, fetal dolls, placentas, posters, and handouts galore. Primarily physical products you can order and have shipped to you. They have digital versions of posters you could use in an online class. Durable and high quality.

Plumtree Baby. Handouts, posters, and PowerPoints. Like Childbirth Graphics, all good stuff, with a really great look.

Transition to Parenthood. I have around 100 free-to-use illustrations depicting labor and birth positions, maternity care interventions, breastfeeding, and more. All .jpgs you can copy and use wherever you want free of charge.

I also have lots of free printable handouts for birth classes. The Guide to Labor Support is a 2 page cheat sheet that covers the theories of fear-tension-pain and gate control, covers counter-irritants and hormones, and more. I have three wallet cards: questions for informed consent and two versions of a comfort techniques reminder.

Brilliant Activities for Birth Educators. This is not a site that sells AV aids… it’s a blog that tells you how to make your own! Lots of fun ideas for interactive activities.

Better Birth Blog – Lauren McClain, birth educator, has created lots of great visually appealing handouts on a wide variety of perinatal topics. They’re primarily digital files you can print or share with clients.

There are free handouts for childbirth ed students and doula clients at these sites, but I haven’t had a chance to review them in detail: Birth Arts and Childbirth Professionals International. (Best Doulas has created handouts from articles published elsewhere, but I would think about copyright issues for sharing those.)

HolmCreative. Shawna Holm has an Etsy shop with printed cards, a positions poster, printable PDF handouts, and vector illustrations.

Educated Birth. Cheyenne Varner creates fabulously inclusive infographics and illustrations that reproductive health workers can purchase to use as teaching tools. You receive digital files – .pdf, .jpg, .png. The basic use pricing is for people with one income stream (e.g. doula), extra use pricing is for professionals with multiple income streams (e.g. doula, CBE). Can then use with unlimited number of clients.

Queen City Birth Work has another great set of inclusive digital illustrations of birthing positions. All proceeds are donated.

Praeclarus Press has free PDF posters of breastfeeding and also labor support by doulas. Inclusive illustrations.

Royal Midwives – active and upright positions – at https://www.rcm.org.uk/media/2313/rcm-a3-positions-poster-download.pdf

Student Midwife Studygram. Jess is a NHS midwife in England. When she was in midwifery school, she began doing anatomy illustrations to help herself learn, understand and remember what she was studying. Now she makes those illustrations available for others to use. Flashcards or PDF’s.

It Starts with Birth on Etsy has printable handouts, and printable posters

Stanford Medicine Photo Gallery: Images of normal newborn appearance (milia, lanugo, etc.)

Birthing with Guinever. Has two versions of a stages of labor poster.

Cost Comparisons

There are many considerations in choosing AV Aids for your class. First, I encourage you to only choose images that show diverse people – diversity in race, orientation / gender / family structure, ability, etc. I think each of the providers listed on this page does a fair job at that, but some place this as a top priority.

Second, look for the ones which best meet your teaching needs and style.

I know that cost is a consideration for many birth professionals, so low cost is always a nice option, but I also balance that with the fact that the people who create these products are working hard to provide great professional images that support working people and deserve decent pay for that work.

I just wanted to give some sense of the cost of items, so tried my best to compare apples to apples. I looked for a Stages of Labor poster on each of these sites (images above). Childbirth Graphics: 22 x 28 stages poster $25. Plumtree Baby 18×24 stages poster $24; Better Birth stages poster 11×17 (I think) $25. Educated Birth – Labor positions poster with comfort techniques – 24×36 $52. HolmCreative has a 12×36 poster of positions for labor for $50. Student Midwife fetal station and mechanics of labor poster, 11.7×16.5, £8 = $12. Birthing with Guinever – .jpg image, free download.

More ideas?

For more links, check out the Pinterest pages for Foothills Birth Services and Tina Gibbs’ Antenatal Teacher board.

If you know of other great sources, add them in the comments!

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