First Breath · Maternal Health Website Template · sample contentOpen editor Get this website

Skip to content

Classes & circles

Every week, a room full of women who get it

All free, all at 1218 South Court Street. Babies, toddlers and grandmothers are welcome in every one.

Ethiopian women in white traditional dresses laughing together at a celebration

The week

What's on, day by day

Drop in to anything except the childbirth class, which needs a seat saved.

MondayToday

9–11 AM
Blood pressure check
Nurse's room
Health
10 AM–12 PM
Feeding drop-in with Rochelle
Quiet room
Feeding

In more detail

Who each one is for

Sister CircleTuesdays 6 PMPregnant and new mothers

Supper first, then an hour of talk led by a doula. Some weeks there's a topic, some weeks there isn't. Nobody has to speak.

Childbirth classFour Saturdays, 10 AMFrom 28 weeks, with a support person

What labor actually feels like, pain relief options, how to ask for a second opinion, and the first week at home. Starts again October 17.

Teen moms' lunchWednesdays at noonAges 14 to 19

Lunch, homework help and a doula who was a teen mom herself. We can write a note for school.

Dads and partners nightThursdays 6:30 PMPartners, fathers, grandmothers

Led by Marcus, a father of four. How to help in labor and what to do at 2 AM when the baby won't settle.

Photographs

A year of Tuesdays

Shared by mothers in the circle, with their permission.

The first Tuesday back after summer

Ava's first birthday, at circle

Knitted hats from the Thursday volunteers

Mother's Day lunch, three generations

Design notes

Why First Breath looks the way it does

First Breath is written for a pregnant woman in Montgomery who may not yet know what a doula is, and who has good reason to be wary of being talked down to. The site is slow, warm and specific: who will be with you, when, and that it costs nothing.

Built for: Expecting and new mothers in Montgomery and the River Region, most on Medicaid, and the families and donors around them
Navigation: Left sidebar. A fixed column holds the name, every page and the address, so nothing is ever more than one click away on desktop.
Pages: Home, Get a doula, Classes & circles, After the baby, Our doulas, Give a birth kit
Hero: a short action form as the hero: the one thing most visitors came to do (request a ride, ask for help, register a child) can be done before they scroll, with reassurance beside it. Variants: a = headline, reassurance and a photo on the left with the form as a raised card on the right; b = a tall photo carrying the headline, with the form and reassurance on a plain panel beside it; c = headline beside a photo, then the form laid out as one horizontal booking bar; an editorial collage: three photographs placed off-grid and overlapping, with a large headline laid across them like a magazine cover, a small caption and a single quiet link. Variants: a = headline on the left breaking into a cascade of photos on the right; b = three photos in a staggered row with the headline running across all of them; c = headline at top left over a large photo, with two smaller photos pinned to its corners

Typography

Domine sets the headlines. It was designed for reading on screens, so it is sturdy rather than delicate, and its rounded serifs feel like a handwritten care plan more than a hospital leaflet. Figtree carries the body text at 18 pixels because a lot of this site gets read late at night, tired, on a phone.

Color

The deep rose is the camellia, Alabama's state flower, which blooms in Montgomery yards in the middle of winter. The green is its leaf. We kept the pink dark and grown-up on purpose: this is health care for adult women, and baby-shower pastels would undercut that. Both themes pass WCAG AA.

Layout and navigation

A fixed sidebar keeps every page, the phone number and the address in view on desktop, the way a well-run clinic keeps its front desk in sight. On a phone it folds into one menu button. Six pages, each named for something a mother is trying to do.

The hero

Three photographs in a staggered row, a mother walking to her appointment, a newborn's fingers in her parents' hands and a hand resting on a bump, with the headline laid across them. It shows the whole arc of the program before a word is read, and it leads with a Black mother, because Black mothers are who First Breath was started for.

Calls to action

The one action that matters most is Request a doula, so it sits at the top of the sidebar on every page. The others are named for real moments: Text the warmline, Come to Sister Circle, Give a birth kit. None of them say Learn more.

Photography

Mothers, newborns and the women who sit with them. We avoided clinical images of monitors and gloves; the hospital appears once, in black and white, from a sibling's point of view.

Accessibility

Large type, generous spacing, pill buttons with big tap targets, and a check-in form that says exactly who will read it. Crisis numbers appear wherever someone might be in distress, written out in full so they can be dialed without hunting.

Type system

DisplayDomineDomine is a sturdy text serif drawn for small screens: warm and steady, the voice of a nurse who has done this a thousand times.
TextFigtreeFigtree is round and open without being childish, and it stays clear when someone is reading at 3 AM with one hand.

Colour and contrast

Every text pairing is checked against WCAG 2.2 in both themes.

Light theme

Pairing	Sample	Ratio	WCAG
Body text on page	Aa	15.03:1	AAA
Body text on cards	Aa	16.88:1	AAA
Secondary text	Aa	5.87:1	AA
Links	Aa	6.71:1	AA
Button text	Aa	7.53:1	AAA
Accent label text	Aa	7.55:1	AAA
Text on dark bands	Aa	15.03:1	AAA
Muted text on dark bands	Aa	7.96:1	AAA
Text on brand bands	Aa	7.53:1	AAA
Muted text on brand bands	Aa	4.93:1	AA

Dark theme

Pairing	Sample	Ratio	WCAG
Body text on page	Aa	15.39:1	AAA
Body text on cards	Aa	13.99:1	AAA
Secondary text	Aa	6.83:1	AA
Links	Aa	8.61:1	AAA
Button text	Aa	8.84:1	AAA
Accent label text	Aa	9.75:1	AAA
Text on dark bands	Aa	16.33:1	AAA
Muted text on dark bands	Aa	8.24:1	AAA
Text on brand bands	Aa	8.84:1	AAA
Muted text on brand bands	Aa	5.44:1	AA

Designed by Greater Purpose Web. Names, people and events are sample content.