Everyone takes a birthing class, because you hope they'll tell you all about what it is like to give birth. Some people may refer to these classes as Lamaze class as it was a popular birthing technique developed in the 40s and most of our parents used it. It's all about teaching you to deal with labor pain through breathing and massage. But most birthing classes teach you about all birthing techniques, not just the Lamaze technique.
The birthing class we took was really not helpful. She told us how the body grows and showed us amazing drawings of the baby growing inside a woman's body. She told us how the pelvis works and moves so the baby can get out. She showed us, very briefly, some positions the mom can go in to help relieve pain. But the whole thing was pretty slanted to natural child birth with no drugs. She talked about how drugs could lead to having to use other drugs. So for example the instructor said that an epidural slows down the birthing process, thus causing the need for Pitocin, a drug used to help induce labor and contractions, but that it makes the contractions more painful, so you'll want more from the epidural.
I wanted to know how painful the contractions were going to be, where I'd feel them, how to push... you know relevant things! So I left the class just as anxious about the birth as before the class.
We also took an infant CPR class. This class was WAY more helpful, not for giving birth, but for after the baby is born...She talked about how to prepare your house for a baby, gave us important phone numbers - like poison control, taught us CPR and when to call the pediatrician with our new little one. I would recommend taking this class. The birthing class is up to you!
Hi! We also took a birthing class. It was held at Newton-Wellesley Hospital where we had our baby. I can definitely understand wanting to know all the details! The class at the hospital talked about ways to cope with pain (massage, breathing) but also different drugs, epidurals, etc. The woman teaching the class was a former dula, and her attitude was, it's up to you to make the decision. Whatever will make you most comfortable and for the moment to be as much what you want it to be like as possible. This was very comforting! The class also briefly covered c-sections (which is what I ended up having), of course when you're on the table, you're not really thinking about what you learned about in class! :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that your class seemed more informative to you than mine did to me. I think it was more my anxiety about the whole thing that it was hard to focus on the things the woman was saying. I kept trying to tell myself that woman have been doing this for thousands of years, so it can't be that complicated, especially if cave women did it with no child birthing classes!
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