Practical Information

We advise that you choose the course that is allocated to your due date. However, if this course is full or the dates do not suit, please aim to choose a course that ends at least four weeks before your due date.

If this is not possible, we will be happy to try and find a solution. Please contact us at servicestreasurer@bctbelgium.org or prenatal@bctbelgium.org.

Places are limited on our courses so we cannot always guarantee your first choice. Full courses will no longer be shown on Twizzit. It can be, however, that the course is not yet showing full on the website. Although the website is updated regularly with information on availability, we often have sudden rushes of demand and cannot update it as frequently as required, especially during holidays and festive periods.

Please note that all course administration is carried out by volunteers.

You can find more information about our teachers and which courses they teach on our Meet our teachers page.

Some private health insurance schemes do refund the cost of BCT Birth and Parenting courses.

While our teachers are experienced and highly qualified, they are not medical professionals, thus many Belgian mutuelles/ziekenfonds will not offer a reimbursement.

You will need to check with your own mutuelle, health insurer and/or your employer’s Human Resources department to find out whether or not the costs are reimbursed.

Each course is a planned set of dates, tailored to each individual group, therefore mixing and matching sessions from different courses is not possible.

The in-person sessions of a hybrid course cannot be joined online and we cannot record any sessions for privacy reasons.

If one of you will miss sessions, the other partner can still attend and is welcome to have someone else accompany them for those sessions.

If both of you will miss one session, please contact your course teacher or the booking team as soon as possible and they will outline your options.

If you and/or your partner will miss two or more sessions, it might be better for you to switch to another course if there are still spaces available.

Please contact us immediately at prenatal@bctbelgium.org or servicestreasurer@bctbelgium.org if you are unable to attend the course, so that we can see if there is a suitable alternative available that you might wish to attend.

It depends on the exact circumstances and reason for the cancellation, as well as the timing of the cancellation:

• If you cancel more than six weeks before the start of the course, you will receive a full refund minus an administration fee of €30, which will be waived if your booking was made in the previous 14 days.
• If you cancel for non-medical reasons less than six weeks before the start of the course, you would not normally receive a refund. If a non-medical refund should be granted for a cancellation less than six weeks before the start of the course, the administration fee of €30 will still apply.
• If you have to cancel part way through the course, partial refunds would only be considered for medical reasons, and then on a case-to-case basis.

The BCT has a range of services available to its members throughout pregnancy and early life as a family.

Apart from our Pregnancy in Belgium evenings, which provide practical information on pregnancy and birth, we also have TENS machines and valley cushions for hire.

After the birth, we have a team of postnatal support volunteers to help with everything from general emotional support to feeding concerns. We work in conjunction with Life First to offer First Aid for Parents classes.

We organise information talks and member courses on subjects related to parenting, parenthood and family life.
We have a small library of relevant books at our Clubhouse.

Most importantly, perhaps, we have many parent and baby meet-ups, weekly coffee mornings and playgroups at our BCT Clubhouse and at members' homes throughout Brussels. We also organise events throughout Brussels and surrounding areas to give you many opportunities to meet other families at the same stage as yours.

Read more about the benefits of a BCT membership.