DeKALB | Not every child has to be born in a hospital. An expo brought attention to natural living and holistic approaches to child birth Saturday at the House Cafe.

The free event, ‘Birth Matters: A Whole Life Event’, was open to the public and consisted of a number of representatives from holistic businesses and services.

Businesses present at the event included Native Birth Child Education, Healing Arts Massage Center, Crunchy Moms of DeKalb and Prairie Creek Therapeutic Massage & Education Center, 407 W. State St. among several others.

“It’s a great way for families to connect and live a more natural life,” said Patty Ruback, representative of Duck Soup Coop, 129 E. Hillcrest Drive.

Kim Wheaton, a birth doula in the Chicago area, said the event was a really good opportunity to let people know about their services and their options for child birth.

Chrissy Deming of Chissy Deming Photography said the event ran very smoothly and had an impressive turnout.

One attendee, Natasha Gidaszewski, was particularly impressed by a massage from one of the therapists at the event.

“It was pretty amazing,” Gidaszewski said.

Katherine Keyes, certified doula and communications director for the Whole Life Education Center (WLEC), the organization that sponsored the event with the House Cafe, said this was the second annual occurrence of the expo.

“We’re really happy to be able to network with the service providers,” said Keyes

Keyes said WLEC only just started as a non-for-profit organization but has been pleased with its progress.

Keyes said the expo was much bigger than last year’s, and hopes to have more WLEC events throughout the local area in the future.