Cuts in NHS antenatal classes have triggered a boom in private lessons and even a market for luxury sessions at five-star hotels and spas.

Dozens of companies have sprung up offering “babymoon” weekends for couples who want to enjoy their last days of freedom while preparing for the birth of their child.

The weekends, costing up to £1,500 a couple, combine instruction on birthing positions and pain relief, and come with gourmet food.

Providers say that the dearth of NHS classes has left thousands of women with no option but to pay if they want authoritative information on giving birth.

The National Childbirth Trust, the charity that provides information for new parents, has discovered that classes have been reduced or cut in 13 different areas in England. Five Primary Care Trusts have asked the NCT to provide classes after complaints from midwives. There is no statutory duty for trusts to offer classes, making them an easy target for budget cuts.

“It is extremely short sighted of the NHS to cut classes,” said Belinda Phipps, chief executive of the NCT. “It means frightened women will show up in the labour ward totally unprepared for what is ahead.”

But the cuts mean that business is booming for the private sector, which has transformed the antenatal experience.Gill Perks, who runs GentleBirth luxury antenatal classes, says that she can barely keep up with demand and is laying on extra classes from next month. She believes many clients turn to her because of the NHS cuts.

“The withdrawal of services in London and Greater London is definitely behind the rising demand we have had,” she said.

“On our course last weekend all the couples were from London and none had been able to access NHS classes. The other factor is that working women are busy and they can’t afford the time to attend a whole series of short classes. They are free at the weekend, when we run the intensive classes.

“One-to-one classes in couples’ homes are also increasingly popular because they fit round their schedule.”

Although GentleBirth offers luxury spa weekends for about £700, its most popular course is a nonresidential two-day weekend the grounds of Canterbury Cathedral for £340.

The company is run by practising midwives who were so alarmed at the state of antenatal education in Kent that they started free classes at Sure Start centres for those who could not afford the luxury packages.

The competition is more intense at the luxury end of the market. The Baby Gurus, based in Scotland, offers three-day luxury breaks at Gleneagles and gothic Mar Hall outside Glasgow for £1,500. Choices offers a two-day break in rural Gloucestershire (£965) and the Good Birth Getaway a two-day course at the five-star Lowry Hotel in Manchester (£880).

–– Educated women are increasingly choosing a career over motherhood. A study, carried out by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, based at the Institute of Education in London, claims that there is a link between education and having children. The results show that 40 per cent of female graduates born in 1970 are still childless at 35. A similar study of women born in 1958 found that at 35, 32.7 per cent were childless.

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