Downtown: Birth and Baby Expo

There were certainly no shortages on announcements for last Saturday's Birth and Baby Expo put on by the New Life Birth Center at the Higher Eduction Center downtown. I saw a flier somewhere, saw it in the paper the Thursday before, and heard about it word of mouth from family.

What I didn't gather was that it was more a symposium than an expo, so when my wife and I sauntered in around 10am we expected to see booths with information, product promos, and some good literature. While there were some booths - maybe seven or eight - we were surprised to find that there was a schedule of speakers and panels throughout the day on a variety of birth and baby-related subjects. One of which we'd already missed.

Like most symposia, you couldn't hit all of the talks because they overlapped, but due to the misnomer, the talks were so sparsely populated that overlapping wasn't conducive to informing as many people as possible so much as it was forcing the handful of people there for the day to forgo one talk for another. This caused some talks not even to take place, since there weren't any people attending.

Plus, there was the lack of communication about an entry fee: some things mentioned no fee, others said free, and still others said $3 or a baby toy. Three dollars each certainly wouldn't have dissuaded us from coming, though collecting the entry fee was only mentioned halfway through the day and in passing.

So, it seems logistics and somewhat poor planning overshadowed what was a very informative and beneficial affair. There was a slew of helpful, knowledgeable, and loquacious midwives, doulas, nurses, and mothers there that many people did not avail themselves of.

Perhaps in the future, with the same level of advertising but better execution, the Birth and Baby *ahem* Expo will garner the attendance it deserves and generate some revenue and interest to boot.