I attended hospital classes with my first pregnancy and found they did absolutely nothing to prepare me for labour. They didn't cover different positions or breathing or anything. In fact the midwife running them said "if you think you are here to learn how to breathe in labour you are wrong because you already know how to breathe". At the time I thought she was right, but then in labour realised how untrue that was. This pregnancy I have researched positions, hypnobirthing which includes breathing, visualisation, etc, and pain relief. I am having a homebirth so won't have the option of gas, etc, so I need to look into these things but I do think every women should know of the different ways to cope with pain such as warm water, massage, rocking on fit balls etc, which the hospy class I went to definately did not cover.