did you go to a childbirthing class?

[beau_9]

i'm 31 wks and have been doing shared care with my gp. i've only seen the ob at the hospital once when i was about 11 weeks, and since then have only seen my gp. i don't have another hospital appoint till i'm 36 weeks, which i will attend weekly till bubs born.
my question is i've been reading lots about giving birth etc and i'm hoping to have a c-section booked (but can't discuss this with the ob till the 36 wk appoint), but should i be going to a childbirthing class. this is our first child and no-one has told me anything about this, just from what i've read in books...
are they worth it or is too late for me to go to one and where do i find out about them if i should go.

[BellyBelly]

Most people tend to go along to the hospital based classes but I strongly recommend you look into independent ones. You can read why below...

9 Reasons Why You Should Choose Independent Birth Education

[queenbee]

We went to an independent one and had one other couple there. It was good and we learnt a bit from it. Good luck with everything!

[saslia]

Nope never went to any with either pregnancy...I read a LOT of books and websites before hand though......

[tenar]

We have just finished a Calmbirth class, which was great. And we are also doing the hospital classes.

We are doing both because:

- the Calmbirth stuff fits in with how we would like the birth to be, and has given us both skills to make it as easy as possible

- the hospital class gives us the chance to learn about the systems and practises at that hospital. Given that we are going to be giving birth within that system, we want to know as much as we can about it before we get there.

If you do want to do some classes, you'd better find a class ASAP. We booked ours at 20 weeks and even then the hospital classes were booking out. There is a great demand on the system at present, given the large number of babies being born. I have the impression that there aren't quite enough classes to go around (or quite enough of any other resource, for that matter).

[Mother Goose]

I did. We went to the hossy one and it was useless. If you're hoping for a C-Sect, some hospitals hold information sessions on them and are worth going to so you are prepared for it - especially if you've never been inside a surgical theatre before.

[roses]

I am also wondering about this. We are booked in for the ones at RPA (sydney) as we are local to there but can anyone else recommend another one where they had a great experience? I am planning on using the birth centre (first child) so all comments would be helpful. Any other classes recommended in the inner west?

[tan32]

i was booked into classes for my first i made it to one class which was about safety, i had my DD 4 weeks early and took her along to the talk about labour as i was still in the hospital. They were never offered to me after the first.

[misskate]

i went to all of the classes at my hospital and found them brilliant, they helped me have a labour and birth with only gas and gave me the skills to know that i wanted to prevent a vacuum, forceps, screw in head montoring of my baby and the monitoring belt on my tummy. and also taught me exactly what to expect. we were pretty confident when we went into the birth suite.

[alioops]

I went when I was pg with DD1 to the hospital classes, then the BC held a class. The hospital class was more broad whereas the BC class focussed on what we were all aiming for, a natural low or no drug birth, and then they basically said if you do need to be transferred then your MW will go with you.

[Mumma2three]

Im doing calmbirth at the moment, awesome! I have only started at 34 weeks and will be finishing at 36 weeks. The teacher worked it around me so I wouldn't miss out. Normally it's over 5 weeks but that would be abit risky if I went early, so Im doing it over two weeks. It's a fantastic course. I did hospital ones with the last two and this beats hands down.
xo

[BellyBelly]

Anyone in Melbourne looking for Calmbirth classes, we have them in the BB Preg Centre run by About Birth.