August 26, 2025
Community in Early Parenthood: Podcast Episode #305
Kristin Revere talks with Jessica Hill about the importance of community in early parenthood. Jessica Hill is the founder of The Parent Collective, a national network of prenatal education classes designed to equip expectant parents with both practical knowledge and a lasting community.
Hello, hello! This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am so excited to chat with Jessica Hill today about the importance of community in early parenthood. Jessica is the founder of The Parent Collective, an ISF certified motherhood coach, a certified Fair Play facilitator – I am such a huge fan of Fair Play – and then a mom to two teenage boys.
Jessica started The Parent Collective after experiencing the tremendous value of a similar prenatal program while living in the UK. That experience made a lasting difference in how her husband and herself navigated the transition to parenthood and inspired Jessica to bring that kind of support to parents here in the United States.
The Parent Collective is a national network of prenatal education classes designed to equip expectant parents with both practical knowledge and lasting community. Unlike traditional childbirth classes, their evidence based, discussion led series groups participants by due date and neighborhood, helping them build meaningful local connections before their babies arrive.
Taught by experienced nurses, midwives, and lactation consultants, their four-week series covers labor and delivery, infant feeding, newborn care, and postpartum recovery while also fostering the kind of friendships that support families through the ups and downs of early parenthood.
Amazing! Welcome, Jessica!
Thanks for having me, Kristin!
I am with you on the importance of community, and I feel like we’ve lost a lot the in person connections with the ease of technology.
Absolutely. I have been saying recently that ever since COVID, I think, when everything shifted to digital and online, there hasn’t been the return because there are benefits, right, to Zoom or social media communities that have cropped up.
Right. If you have a question, you can ask in a group, for example.
Right, and get instant gratification. Whether that person is qualified to answer is another question. I always laugh when I see people posting photos of rashes on Facebook groups. But I think as we’ve seen this shift towards online, I think in person experiences are going to become the ultimate luxury experience just because nothing can replace, as much as we would love to, because it is so convenient – nothing will replace the in person connection that you build in the same space with people and chatting and observing body language and all of that week on week. And what we’re seeing in our classes is that there’s real hunger for that connection. There is a loneliness epidemic, especially in new motherhood, and the couples that join our classes are hungry for that connection and recognizing that in our society, as we’ve moved away from family connections, that we really have to be mindful and build our own villages so that we can set ourselves up for success. It has to be something that you take on yourself, unfortunately. So we’re trying in our small way to help with that.
It is amazing, and I love that fact that it’s so focused on your neighborhood and geographical connections so then moms can meet up for walks in the postnatal phase and their kids can grow up together. I do have a personal story about connection. With my first pregnancy, I took a Lamaze class, and I was a local fundraiser at the time and traveling the state and very busy, but I really wanted that intentional time to connect to other couples who were going through the same thing as I was. I had children later in life, and my friends had older kids in high school or middle school. So I needed a new friend group, and it was so fantastic to have families so my husband could relate to the partners, and we had meet-ups over the years with that first Lamaze class I was in. We went to a botanical garden, and we were all wearing our kids or had them in strollers, and then met up at a farm. For the first several years, we all met up and then at one of the meet-ups, there were three of us that were expecting at the same time with our second. And so that was so beautiful to go through pregnancy all over again with some of my classmates. Ironically, my daughter went through school with one of the children from Lamaze class, from preschool through 8th grade, with this boy. So they joke that they’ve known each other since the womb days.
That’s great! It’s so interesting, and this happened in my experience, as well. There are some of those friendships that are really important in those first few months. Just having what I call “for now” friends. They might not be people that you would be friends with in a different circumstance in your life, but for that immediate life altering phase of new parenthood, just having people that can relate to what color your baby’s poop is, right? These are things that are so top of mind for new parents, but people that are out of that phase could care less and also have no memory. I remember my best friend from college had a baby when my youngest was five, and she called me beside herself about a sleep regression, and I remembered that I’d experienced a sleep regression. I didn’t remember when it was. I didn’t remember what I did to deal with it. You’re in that sort of fever dream of new parenthood. That stuff just leaves your brain to make room for the next phase of potty training or toddler tantrums or whatever the next transition is, and so having those friends, even if they’re short term friends, that are in the weeds with you can just make all the difference in terms of feeling less alone, feeling validated that it’s crazy hard, and just swapping strategies and being able to group think the latest problem that has arisen. I think it can make a huge difference.
The same goes for breastfeeding support groups. Any ways that we can connect, and I do agree that it is so important that people are going through the same stages at the same time and can fully relate to the experience. I know at the botanical garden, I was struggling. My daughter didn’t seem to love the Moby wrap, and she would cry. So my friends from class helped me get her shifted a little bit, and she was happier. But I was trying to figure things out on my own, and just to get feedback from other people and that support of, “No, don’t give up on it.” It helps you keep going.
Priceless, absolutely. I remember my son was one day just feeding every 20 minutes and really just fractious, and I couldn’t console him. This was before social media was really someplace that I could access as an instant resource. And I was panicking, thinking my milk’s drying up and this is the end of my breastfeeding journey and was just in my feelings in a really major way. And I remember texting my group of friends from my prenatal class, and one wrote back immediately and said, “Oh, that’s just your baby getting you ready for a growth spurt. That happened to me last week.” And the way that the cloud just immediately lifted – you have people you can share it with, and you can hear that this is normal and there’s a reason for it. Otherwise, you sort of circle the drain a little bit when you’re in your own head.
Exactly. “What am I doing wrong? What’s wrong with my baby?” And it’s a developmental milestone.
Exactly.
I would love to hear more about your focus on evidence based information. And again, you had talked about some of these support groups not necessarily being led by experts. They could be other moms. And whether it’s a Facebook discussion group or an in-person – in my area, there are play cafés and informal groups or story times. Information can be shared that’s not necessarily accurate. But you still have people that you’re interacting with and support in many ways. Why the focus on having professionals within the birth and baby space, like nurses, midwives, lactation consultants? I love this.
So for a couple of reasons. I mean, one is for me it was really important. The classes that I took were very agenda-driven. They were very pro-natural birth, pro-breastfeeding. And while that’s fine and great for some people, there was a very overt judgment if somebody painted outside the lines of those choices. It was really important to me with our classes that it was very parent-driven. So no matter what your plans for birth or raising your baby, I wanted parents to leave our classes feeling empowered with evidence-based information so that they could be successful in their choices. It wasn’t for us to tell them how they should go about it but more so giving them all the information so that they could be successful.
That’s everything. I do feel like a lot of the out-of-hospital childbirth classes are focused on one way of feeding your baby, one way of birthing your baby.
And if somebody knowingly goes into that and chooses that community, that’s great. That’s wonderful. But I think in my class, I remember there was a woman who knew that she was going to formula feed. And we don’t know what was behind that choice. There could be assault behind that choice. I mean, you have no idea what that person’s experience is. And for her, not only did she feel very othered and judged by it – “Oh, you should at least give it a try. Why are you giving up before you even…” those kinds of statements. But also, she didn’t get the information she needed about safe handling of formula and things like that and how much her baby would be drinking – all of those things, what kinds of bottles to use. And so I just really wanted this to be like a space where everybody was welcome and everybody would feel like they got the information they needed. And I also think in this day and age of there being so much information out there, I often say that all of the information from our classes is out there in the world, but what we do that’s beneficial is edit it, and we’re saying, these are the all the important things that you need to know without all of the extras that are going to leave your head swimming. And also that you can be confident that you’re receiving a consistent message to your doctor, that it’s setting you up for success and opening up lines of communication with your providers so that there aren’t surprises on the day, that you are able to be on the same page about various choices in your labor, whether that’s at what point you need to be induces based on your hospital’s guidelines and the rules that they follow so that you are going in eyes wide open about what’s possible.
And I think it’s also a shorthand for doctors to feel a comfort level that we’re speaking the same language and this isn’t going to be a class that is working against me in some way. I remember in early days, I met with an OB in my town, and she said I’ve stopped recommending prenatal education. And I said, why? What happened? She said, I was having patients who were taking some of these more agenda-driven classes and things didn’t go to plan in their labor and threw them into this depression because they felt like a failure, like they had been told that their body could do this and all of these messages that really had a negative mental health impact on these women. I wanted to go the other direction; we’re here to dial down the anxiety and give you the ability to know your options. Knowing what questions to ask, I think, can have a huge impact on a woman’s experience in their birth, even if it doesn’t go the way that they had hoped. If they feel that they have agency in the process and they know what questions to ask and they know what options are on the table – then they feel like they were a part of the decision making. It wasn’t happening to them. And I think that is huge in terms of how they process it.
As a doula, I see that. Clients who prepare more by taking classes like your series and who ask questions, like have a list as they go into those prenatal appointments with their provider and are really an active participant versus being a patient and just going along with things. Then they might have regrets or trauma. Or, again, those clients who are so set in a plan. I always call it birth preferences and to be flexible.
So do I!
It makes a big difference. Language and how we view things can impact your feelings after delivery. If you’re so set in stone – well, we can’t control our own bodies. I mean, I ended up with preeclampsia, and our baby’s response to the stress of childbirth and pregnancy and so on can vary. There isn’t a formula just from taking a class that you can have this perfect, amazing birth.
Exactly. And I would also throw in there that it can be a real opportunity for teamwork amongst partners. One story that I always think about, which made me emotional when I first heard it, was a woman called me after she and her husband had taken the series. She’d had her baby, and she said, I just need to tell you a story about something that happened in my delivery. She and her husband had taken a class. They had talked in one of the classes about the benefits of tearing naturally versus episiotomies, and she and her husband had a conversation after class. She said, I’d really like to try to tear naturally if at all possible. And fast forward, she’s in labor. The doctor comes in and says, we need to do an episiotomy. She was exhausted. She’s totally spent. She thinks, okay, fine, I don’t have it in me to fight, so she just says, okay, fine. And her husband, knowing her preference, asked the doctor if he could talk to him in the hallway for a minute. And he took him out in the hallway and he said, listen, I know that this was something that was important to my wife. Is there any way we can wait five minutes and just see if she tears naturally? And the doctor said, yeah, of course. That’s no problem. They waited five minutes. She tore naturally. And the outcome was that she felt so held. She felt like he had her back. They were a team. And it was such a beautiful story about them starting out as a team. I just love that story.
That’s amazing. And I feel like these classes and programs are so important for the partner. It does increase their connection, and men especially love to be given roles and want to fix things. In labor, they don’t want to see their love in any sort of discomfort. And so if they have some tools for focusing on relaxation and breathing and drinking water – all of the things, and then advocating is a big one because oftentimes for my clients, the transition phase of labor – they sometimes can’t advocate for themselves because they’re doing the work of labor.
Absolutely. And also just having conversations about preferences, like what kind of touch do you prefer when you’re in labor. Do you just want to be left alone? All of those questions, so that you’re not sort of learning as you go in a high stress situation. And I think it’s also for partners, labor and delivery – up until our classes, oftentimes we see that partners feel like the pregnancy is happening to them, but not happening to them. They’re sort of along for the ride, but they don’t really know what they’re supposed to be doing or how they can be helpful. And I think both meeting other partners that are in a similar boat can give that kind of camaraderie and community. But also, there are these opportunities in the class to say, these are your jobs. To your point, you’re the leader on being the gatekeeper for visitors. You’re the guy who does all the diaper changes when you get home so that mom can recover and focus on feeding or whatever the case may be. It’s so they can feel like they have some direction.
Absolutely. With feeding especially, how to support that. It’s great that your program is all encompassing. I love the newborn care aspect. At Gold Coast, we have a newborn class and a breastfeeding class. I teach comfort measures and we have HypnoBirthing and some other specific classes. But yours covers all of it, plus what I consider one of the most important subjects, which is postpartum recovery and something that is not covered in many classes.
We have more of a deep dive class on postpartum prep, which is about the emotional and physical healing and the transitions. But I think in our series, we also try to really cover the fact that your life is going to turn on its head in an instant. And so how do you prepare for that? This is where you mentioned in the introduction about Fair Play. This is where having those conversations in pregnancy, when it’s still theoretical and people aren’t overwhelmed and emotional and maybe a little bit resentful, which can come up as time goes on – it can be so helpful to have these conversations about how are we viewing this new workload that we’re going to have. How do we want to divide and conquer? How do we want to approach this as a team? And I remember listening to Brene Brown talk about how most people fall down in their systems because they have no system. I remember lying in bed. Our son would wake up in the middle of the night, and my husband and I would be like playing dead in the bed, waiting for the other one to crack first because you don’t have a plan. Whereas if you said, all right, Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, I’m on deck for the middle of the night – or whatever the breakdown is. Then everybody knows where they stand, and you just go, all right. It’s my day. I guess I’m on the hook. So it just removes a lot of potential for conflict and confusion. Introducing those kinds of ideas, how to simplify your life in those early postpartum days and how to manage visitors and how to thrive in that transition because it is a big one!
It is, absolutely! And it’s so important to have those discussions in pregnancy versus trying to figure it out and, again, it could lean to resentment or some conflict if one person is feeling like they’re doing more than the other. Oftentimes, it’s the mother.
Exactly. And you’re in survival mode in those early weeks and months, and oftentimes, what I’ve sort of heard from moms in some our new moms groups it that oftentimes women are on maternity leave. They have more paid leave or they take more paid leave than their partners, so they create the systems, and they feel like, okay, well, I’m home. It’s my job. And so they take on all of the stuff: childcare, the home, domestic work, whatever the case may be. And then when they go back to work, if there isn’t a conversation about it, then that all still defaults, and that’s where you see all this burnout and overwhelm in women trying to juggle everything. And that’s where resentment can really ramp up. Because unlike a day job, which is 9:00 to 5:00, 8:00 to 6:00, whatever the case may be – being a parent is a 24/7 endeavor, so you need to figure out some way, some fair way, something that feels fair to you and your partner – you need to figure out a way to divvy up roles so that everybody gets a chance to exhale and have some space for themselves.
It’s so needed. I would love to hear an example – circling back to the topic of community and connection in early parenthood – of a story from your classes and your program of some connections that were made in local communities through The Parent Collective.
Sure – my favorite! As part of our class, we encourage everybody to create a group text or a WhatsApp group so that they can take the community outside of the meetings. And often, groups will meet up for dinner before the class or brunch on the weekend. By week two, there’s a real hunger for building that village. And I just got an email a couple of weeks ago from somebody that said, oh, we just celebrated the first birthdays of our TPC class, and we just wanted to share that this group is a lifeline. Our best friends came out of this experience, and we’ve all stayed this tightknit group. And they sent me a picture of this first birthday party with their entire parent collective group.
That was my experience. I mean, my son is now 16, that I took that class with, and my best friend to this day is from that experience. They live in England, so we travel with them. The kids swap birthday presents with each other still. It’s an intense connection that you can build in that phase of life, and I think the other thing that shouldn’t be discounted is that you’re there with each other through all of these transitions. It’s not just babies. She and I have talked about raising teenagers and hormones and temper tantrums as teenagers and learning to drive and all of these things that we’ve been able to track with each other and be a reality check for each other throughout raising our kids, which has been so special.
It’s so needed! I love the community focus! I would love to hear examples of some areas that you are located in or that your students happen to be living in.
Sure! So we started – I live in Fairfield County in Connecticut, and so we started in Connecticut and New York State, and we are now in the process of launching in 15 locations across the country. We are in New York City. We’re in Philadelphia, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Houston, Austen, Seattle, San Francisco Bay area, and hopefully bringing on a few new locations soon, which is exciting. We have location directors who are boots on the ground in those communities to help spread the word and build that community in their area. And then we’re trying to build inroads into the medical spaces in those communities to just let doctors know we’re a resource for their patients. But it has been quite a journey. I mean, you know how much you’ve expanded and grown different facets of your business. Every day is a learning curve!
I love to hear about the expansion and the accessibility so our listeners who live in some of those areas are able to reach out and get connected or let their friends know. If they’re not currently expecting, it’s a great resource to spread the word on.
Yes, please! We need all the help we can get spreading the word. It’s definitely a labor of love.
Any final tips for our listeners, Jessica?
I would just go back to what we touched on with Fair Play. If any of your listeners are pregnant, I would just really encourage having those conversations while everything is still just abstract and you can be able to get on the same page with your partner so that you can start as you mean to go on because the number of couples that I have talked with, worked with, who are really trying to fix the frustrations of not taking that time – you know, and I think in fairness, we don’t know what we don’t know. So you don’t realize how much work is going to be involved. You’re starting as two independent people who can take care of themselves to having this helpless creature that you’re responsible for. And I think just getting on the same page about what you value as a couple and how you want to raise your family is so important. We have a handout in our curriculum that just has conversation starters. It’s just about sort of opening those lines of communication so that you can really start building that practice of talking it through and being a team. So that would be my last piece of advice.
I like the conversation starter deck. There’s so many different ways to navigate. You can have a facilitator or there’s the book and the deck and so many different ways to engage.
There’s also a documentary, which I really recommend. I think that’s a great entry point for couples if they really want to get into fair play.
So how can our listeners connect with you?
Well, on our website, they can connect with us and find out the locations that we’re running classes. And then they can follow along with us on social media. We’re on Instagram @theparentcollectivetpc. And we have recently joined the world of TikTok, and we’re Parent Collective on TikTok. And we would love your listeners to follow along as we build that community over there, as well.
Amazing! Thank you for chatting with us, Jessica! I loved our conversation, and the topic is so important. We need community now more than ever before!
Thank you so much for having me! I really appreciate it.
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