Mrs Shaw came up with the idea for the free classes.
“I used to run the classes as pay as you go, but I found that people had to chose, especially with the cost of living, to pay their bills or whether they did something for their physical and mental health,” she said.
Dads are welcome too and some attend classes in Colchester.
Mrs Shaw said “there’s a huge taboo around stay-at-home fathers and postnatal depression in fathers”.
“A lot of the time the midwife will ask how the mums are doing but they don’t actually ask how the dads are doing,” she said.
“What we wanted to do was get dads along to build that bond and be able to put their physical and mental health first.”
There is a “huge” waiting list for classes and more applications for grants to fund extra ones are in the pipeline.
“We want to make these classes available across Suffolk and Essex, so everyone can access it,” Mrs Shaw added.
