childbirth education?

[cottonwood]

I am planning on becoming a childbirth educator, focusing on homebirth and alternative birth choices. For those of you who have taken childbirth education classes, what did you like best? What do you wish was covered that wasn't? What sorts of things and topics would you include in your ideal learning environment?

[hawleyclan]

Hi! To be honest, I took Lamaze with my first baby. After 4 births, I am a firm believer in the Bradley breathing and relaxation techniques. The Lamaze patterns only worked until hard labor, then they frustrated me and caused my husband to get dizzy and sleepy (a fact which took us three births to figure out, you can imagine being in hard labor and looking up at you husband as he begins to "nod off" while breathing- it took 3 births to figure out he was on the verge of passing out- not falling asleep!!)

But since then, I have met a number of birthing mothers who prefer the abdominal breathing and relaxation that the Bradley method uses. They are instinctual when you use them, they work.

I have considered taking the ALACE CBE course because of the level of flexibility and the confidence in normal birth that they have. I originally considered Bradley Training, but the cost was prohibitive, and the requirements and recertification requirements were too involved...

I hope you find what works for you!

The Lord bless you,
Zoie

[Milo]

I took a generic "natural childbirth" class with DH before my first baby was born....the class was 6 weeks long, one night a week. I loved the instructor, and learned a lot about "normal" birth. We practiced the relaxation techiniques...different breathing patterns, visualization, contracting and relaxing various muscle groups. The class was for people who were under midwifery care, and not planning on using any pain meds.

In labor, the knowledge of "what was happening" was helpful to DH, because he knew what was going on, and how he was supposed to be able to help me. The relaxation stuff was useless...I had to find my own way through it, and I did. I was able to use what I learned for my second baby, and tell mothers who ask me now that "every woman and every labor is different. You have to find your own way - do what works for you"

[SagMom]

I took Bradley classes when pregnant with my first and the relaxation and breathing made great sense to me. While pregnant with my 3rd I read the book "Birthing From Within" which was incredible. I hadn't realized until then that, while Bradley did a great job of preparing me physically for birth, there was no emotional/spriritual preparation done. BFW gave me great peace about the coming birth. I really think that emotional preparation is at least as important as physical prep.

[Nee Nee]

homebirth

Optimal fetal positioning, in other words, getting and keeping your baby in the right position for birth. Avoiding the posterior position, and ways of correcting the posterior position. If my midwife had known or cared to help me get my baby into the anterior postion, my planned homebirth may not have been transferred to hospital where my son sustained a head injury from a incompetent Dr.

Good luck with your quest,

R.

http://www.btinternet.com/~wellmother/9909optfoep.htm

http://www.childbirthedu.com/b142.htm
get this book, it is awesome!!

[glad2bemama]

Thank goodness for our homebirth teacher! She was so wonderful-- I actually drew on some of the info she gave us during the labor and birth! She did so many wonderful things. Here are a few-- ( I even saved all of the info and read it for our second child's birth ).

First of all, our class size was only three couples-- this was so nice. We were really able to particpate and get to know both our teacher and each other. She also set the class up so that we alternated bringing a snack for the others and used this time to give support to one another, as well as talk about the importance of nutrition.

There was a lot of emphasision on the birth, but also issues surrounding child care-- postpartum, which is just as important. We discussed circumcision-- she even showed us a film. There was also the cloth v. disposables debate, vaccinations and a strong emphasis on breastfeeding. Our instructor was a LLL leader and was extremely knowledgable-- she even came to our home and helped each one of us after the birth with breastfeeding problems!

She had a wonderful lending library available to us, which also included " Mothering " Magazine! It was an invaluable source as so much of this was new info for all of us and we were all a little broke at the time.

As far as the birth class, we spent some time on all of the natural techniques, but really emphasized the spiritual aspect and the importance of support from our partner. We really talked about our pregnancy in terms of our relationsip and how our body and our emotions were changing as a result. We even wrote and discussed our sexuality with our partners and what our expectations were both during and after the pregnancy. This really helped tremendously.

I could go on and on.. and I am sorry if I wrote a book. I just feel that childbirth ed is so very important and so few people are given what they really need. I was not one of those people. I would be happy to tell you more about the specifics of the class if you wish as I still have all of the handouts and info.

Good luck to you! How exciting to know that you are going to be doing such important and life altering work!!!

[cottonwood]

Hawleyclan, I too am most interested in ALACE, but gosh, $600 is prohibitive enough! lol! How much more is Bradley?

Thank you, everyone, for your replies, this is really helpful!

[cottonwood]

Also, how much did you all pay for your classes?

[Elismama]

Ooh Ooh Ooh- I loved my BirthWorks class!

Birthworks philosophy is that women know how to birth but need to educate themselves properly to make the right choices. Our instructor was great. She did relaxation strategies a bit but most of the class was about exploring birth from different vantage points and talking about our reactions.

The best parts of the class for me were watching birth videos (especially the one, I'm sure many of you have seen it, where they allow two babies to find the nipple- one from a drugged birth, the other from a natural birth). But the very most helpful thing was hearing the sounds a woman makes during labor- I moaned a lot and was so comfortable with it in part because of listening to those sounds.

Birthworks was reccomended to me by my midwife because I was having a homebirth- she thought it especially friendly to homebirth. It cost $165 for 8 or 10 classes, each 2-3 hours in length.

Good luck,
jeanie

[Milo]

A second vote for Optimal Fetal Positioning....we discussed how the baby should be positioned, but not the fact that I could encourage the baby to get into a "good" or "not so good" position.

The difference in intensity and "pain", not to mention length of labor, was so different when my baby was laying the right way!

[Ananda]

BirthWorks...because it's ancient

that's the Birthworks motto and I live by it. I believe birth today is a strange distortion of the beautiful, empowering rite of passage it is meant to be. I am in the Birth Works Childbirth Educator program, it is based on the belief that women know how to give birth. It is an experiential process and not a certain method. BirthWorks doesn't teach a certain way of birthing but encourages the women to find her own voice. Thus I found Birth Works to be the friendliest program for homebirth, birth center & hospital birth.