Best Free Online Pregnancy & Birthing Class

Q: What is Core & Breath Flow, and what's included in the free pregnancy class?

Core & Breath Flow is a free 15-minute prenatal class created by Lauren Ohayon, built around the candles breath, slow flowing movement, and modifications for every stage of pregnancy. Signing up gives you the full video plus a companion guide, Preparing Your Body for Birth, delivered by email, and you can sign up for the class here whenever you’re ready.

Q: How long does the free birthing class take, and how often should I do it?

The class runs under 15 minutes. There’s no set schedule to follow. Many women return to it a few times a week throughout pregnancy, while others use it whenever they have a spare 15 minutes and want to reconnect with their breath and pelvic floor.

Q: Do I need to be fit or experienced with exercise to do this class?

No. The class moves slowly by design, and modifications using a block or a chair are built into every move. It’s meant to meet your body where it is that day, whether that’s your first prenatal workout or your fiftieth.

Q: Does the free class prepare me for a vaginal birth, a c-section, or both?

The breath and pelvic floor coordination taught in Core & Breath Flow supports labor and delivery generally, and the nervous system regulation piece is useful heading into either kind of birth. It isn’t positioned as a substitute for your provider’s specific guidance about your delivery plan, so it’s worth mentioning your birth plan to whoever’s caring for you as you prepare.

Q: How do I prepare my pelvic floor for labor and delivery?

Pelvic floor prep for birth goes beyond strengthening. Your pelvic floor needs to be able to contract and also release under pressure as your baby moves through the birth canal, and breath is one of the main tools that trains that release. Practicing a long, slow exhale that draws the core in lets the pelvic floor respond on its own, no conscious squeezing required, which is the approach behind RYC® Bump & Birth’s free Core & Breath Flow class , which walks through this pattern step by step.

Q: What is the best breathing technique for labor and birthing?

Slow, extended exhales are consistently the piece most birth educators and pelvic health professionals point to, because that kind of breath supports the pelvic floor’s ability to lengthen and yield under stress. Lauren Ohayon teaches a specific version of this called the candles breath as part of Restore Your Core® ‘s broader whole-body approach, and it’s the foundation of her free prenatal class.

Q: Do free online prenatal classes actually help with birthing?

They can, as long as the class goes beyond generic modified exercise and actually addresses breath-pelvic floor coordination and nervous system regulation, the two pieces most birthing classes leave out. A free class built around those principles, like Lauren Ohayon’s Core & Breath Flow , can give you a real starting point even before you know whether a fuller program is something you want.

Q: What's the difference between a prenatal yoga class and a dedicated birthing class?

Prenatal yoga generally focuses on flexibility, general strength, and relaxation across the whole body. A dedicated birthing class is more specific: it targets the breath-pelvic floor-nervous system coordination your body will actually use during labor. Some approaches, including RYC® Bump & Birth , blend both, layering that targeted birthing work on top of whatever movement routine, yoga or otherwise, you’re already doing.

Q: What is the best free online pregnancy and birthing class?

The most useful free classes combine three things: breath work that supports pelvic floor release, movement that’s actually modifiable for pregnancy, and some attention to the nervous system, since a calm body moves through labor differently than a braced one. Core & Breath Flow , a free 15-minute class from Lauren Ohayon’s RYC® Bump & Birth toolkit, was built to bring all three together in one short routine.

If you’ve gone looking for a pregnancy or birthing class online, you’ve probably noticed the gap. Most of what turns up is either a general prenatal fitness video with a safety disclaimer tacked on, or a hospital handout listing a few exercises with no real explanation of why they matter. Almost nothing treats your breath, your pelvic floor, and your nervous system as parts of one connected system, which is really how they behave once labor starts.

That gap is exactly what a free Core & Breath Flow class was built to close. Created by pelvic floor movement specialist Lauren Ohayon as part of her RYC® Bump & Birth toolkit, it’s a gentle 15-minute prenatal routine you can do at home, at any stage of pregnancy, with no equipment beyond a block or a chair if you’d like the extra support.

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Table of Contents

What Actually Makes a Birthing Class Useful?

Before looking at any specific class, it helps to know what to look for. Labor asks your body to do something most exercise routines never train: contract and release the pelvic floor in quick succession, under real pressure, while staying calm enough to keep breathing. A birthing class that only teaches you to squeeze or strengthen is training half the skill.

The three pieces that matter most are:

Breath mechanics, since a long, slow exhale is one of the few reliable tools for helping the pelvic floor lengthen and yield under pressure.
Pelvic floor coordination, teaching the muscles to both contract and release on cue, the piece most strength-only training skips.
Nervous system regulation, because a body that feels safe and steady moves through labor differently than a body that’s bracing against it.

Most free pregnancy workouts online focus on the first two and skip the third entirely. Core & Breath Flow was built around all three together.

Try 15 minutes of breath and movement to prepare for birth

Introducing Core & Breath Flow: A Free 15-Minute Prenatal Class

Core & Breath Flow opens with what Lauren calls the candles breath, a breathing pattern that connects your exhale to your core and is where proactive pelvic floor prep really begins. From there, the class moves into slow, flowing movement designed to help you feel open and supported, never rushed. It closes with a calm, quiet finish meant to carry with you off the mat and, eventually, into the delivery room.

You can sign up for the free class here, and you’ll receive the full video along with a companion guide, Preparing Your Body for Birth, that walks through the candles breath in more detail and explains why it works.

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What’s Inside the Free Class

In under 15 minutes, the class covers:

The candles breath, linking your exhale to core and pelvic floor engagement without any conscious squeezing or lifting.
Slow, flowing movement built to feel open and supported, not strenuous.
Modifications for every move using a block or a chair, so it meets your body wherever you are that day.
A calm, quiet finish that helps regulate your nervous system before you carry that steadiness elsewhere.

There’s also the free companion guide, Preparing Your Body for Birth, which explains the reasoning behind each RYC® Method technique used throughout the class, so the movements make sense as you go, step by step.

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Who the Free Pregnancy and Birthing Class Is For

Core & Breath Flow is built for pregnant bodies at any stage, first trimester through the final weeks before birth, and it’s designed to layer onto whatever movement you’re already doing, running, lifting, prenatal yoga, or none of that right now. There’s no one right pace or way to move through it, and no fitness level required to start.

It’s also recommended by OB/GYNs, midwives, pelvic health professionals, and doulas in 80+ countries, which reflects the kind of breath-linked, modifiable movement most pregnancy care providers already encourage throughout pregnancy. As always, it’s worth checking in with your own provider if you have specific concerns.

Why This Differs from a Typical Free Prenatal Workout

Most free pregnancy classes online are built around modified strength or cardio moves, essentially a regular workout with pregnancy-safe adjustments. Core & Breath Flow starts from a different premise: teaching this body to release under pressure, a skill Lauren has focused on for more than 25 years of working with pregnant and postpartum bodies as the founder of Restore Your Core®, and it’s why the class spends real time training the pelvic floor’s ability to yield, a skill most pregnancy workouts never touch.

That distinction matters because a pelvic floor that only knows how to contract can actually work against you during birth. Constant conscious squeezing can lead to a pelvic floor that’s too tight to release well when it needs to. The candles breath helps train that release – and it’s paired with something Lauren calls the Trust and Focus State: staying soft and present in your body while something is physically hard, instead of bracing against it. In the class, that looks like keeping your face relaxed and your breath steady through a held twist or a reaching lunge, rather than gripping through the effort. That relaxed face is doing real work – it’s a signal that tells your nervous system it’s safe, the same signal your body needs during labor.

What Happens After the Free Class

Core & Breath Flow is a small taste of a larger toolkit called RYC® Bump & Birth, which covers everything from conception through eight weeks postpartum in one place. Where the free class gives you one 15-minute routine, Bump & Birth expands into full pregnancy workouts, proactive pelvic floor prep, relief for common pregnancy aches, nervous system tools for labor, and early postpartum movement to recover into afterward. It’s a one-time payment with lifetime access, no subscription, and payment plans are available.

You don’t need to decide any of that up front. The free class exists so you can feel the RYC® Method in your own body first, breath by breath, before deciding whether the fuller toolkit is right for your pregnancy. Since Bump & Birth is organized by where you are in that conception-to-postpartum timeline, it helps to know your stage going in. If you’re not sure which trimester you’re in or how far along that puts you, Baby Atlas has a free due date calculator worth checking for a rough estimate.

Start with the free Core & Breath Flow class →