Antenatal Classes

We have been discussing Antenatal Classes in 2nd tri for the last few days so I wondered what other think of them...

Did you go? Why / why not?
Were they beneficial? Did you learn anything new?
Did you find any conflicting information was given?

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Ok we had our first class on Tuesday night & we both fund it to be quite boring. Just some background - we have both read Up The Duff & I have done a lot of researching on the net about different things.

Firstly we had Natalie, the physio, talking to us. Nothing new, just saying that at this stage we shouldn't be doing any strenuous twisting & turning cos it can damage your back etc. Ummmm labour is like doing a 50km marathon in your fully pregnant state, so better do some exercise!! Just all the basic stuff about looking after your body.

The one thing I did learn though was how to do pelvic floor exercises properly. Natalie gave a description of how to find the muscles & what to do about exercising them. Here I was thinking that just pretending to stop a wee was right, but it's a bit more detailed than that. So I found that helpful.

Next up we had Robert, one of the midwives. He was a crack up! Talked us through basically the whole of pregnancy *yawn* Found some things he said were interesting though. He suggested liverwurst & liver pate as being a good source of iron, but I have ready *everywhere* that this is a no-no because of the vitamin A in liver.

Talked about, blood pressure, exerciese and all of those sorts of things. he had everyone squirming when he mentioned sex, his comment "Well we all know you do it, otherwise you wouldn't be here". One thing I thought was good (albet evil!) he said that getting up in the middle of the night to go to the loo all the time was preparing you for waking up to the baby. He said you should wake dad up & say "I'm going to the toilet now" so he gets used to it too!!! Must try that one :badgrin:

Will let you all know next week if it's any more interesting ;)

We went with Kameron but didn't bother with Lachlan. As you already know I found them quite boring as well. We had one class decicated to excersise and me and another girl were quite flexible still. The physio was very impressed LMAO.

Best bit would have been the tour of the hospital at the end and mum was with us and she exclaimed when we went into a delivery room "OMG nothing has changed in 25yers" LMAO

Love

Thanks for that Sarah would love to hear how the rest of your classes go.

LOL @ waking the men up when you go to the loo in the night i think DH would kill me if i did that.

Yeah DP and I went too.
I found them to be alright, even though I already knew most of what was being said. Our midwife was pretty funny, which made the whole experience a lot more enjoyable. I think DP found them incredibly boring though!
Can't remember if any conflicting information was given... probably though! LOL

Hi - we went to them, but I had read a lot beforehand and didn't find out anything new. Some of the dads in our group were a bit stupid.

I went to a public hospital and we just had a midwife do ours we didn't see a physio or anyone else.

Our group kept in touch of a coupla years afterwards, but it has petered out a bit now.

barb.

Yeah, I went to them, but like others have said, if you have read up beforehand they can be quite boring because you know most of what's being said. The only interesting stuff was the hospital-specific stuff, ie. the tour and what their policies/practices are with regard to certain situations. I think the thing that put me off the most was the videos. We watched loads, including one of a forceps delivery including episiotomy. All that served to do was scare the **** out of everyone in the class, even made a couple of girls cry. It was totally unneccessary - even if any of us ended up going through that, you don't need to actually see it. But I guess it is up to each person to decide for themselves - I know if I hadn't gone I probably would be worrying that I had missed something important!

I found my antenatal classes really good, even after heaps of reading and going when I was pg with Alecia, they were much better the 2nd time round.
One thing that I have really taken on board since attending is not to push too much when baby is crowning... increases your chances of a HUGE tear! But the classes I went to were very small and included participation. The worst class was the relaxation class... I hated it! Oh well
But on the whole I found them very benifical. But I wont be going again this time, too much hassle with two kids and living in the middle of nowhere.

Tanya

I went with my Mum to the first class, as XP was not in OZ!
There was about 18 couples & all the ladies had been in Hospital for dehydration due to M/S!!! They were mostly in their late 30's early 40's, I was 24 & another girl was around same age, all seemed to be poncy, pompus snobs!

Mum & I walked out of there giggling & swore we'd never go back!!!

One older guy asked if the new washing machine he had bough with a temp setting up to 80degrees would be enough to kill germs on his babies clothes!!! I could not wait to get outta there!!!

When I went into labour my body just took over & the Nurses said WOW, you did such agreat job, where didi you do your Anyenatal Classes? I told them I did not attend as I figured forever & a day babies are born without all this interference... They both nodded & smiled!
So I won't be going this time either!

We went to them and found them really useful.

They were also a great way to network with other people who are due about the same time as you. As we had moved to an area where we didn't know anyone else with kids, it was great to meet people.

We originally formed a mother's group and met weekly. We also had a smaller group from the classes meet with partners on the weekends once a month.

We now (18 months later) still meet monthly (in fact this coming Sunday) and even though we live in Melbourne we still travel up to the Goulburn Valley most months to have a BBQ. It's great to have little friends for Alex who are the same age, and who will grow up together.

We also found the weekend meetings better, as the blokes could also get together and talk about what has been going on.

The funny thing is, that three out of the six mothers are now pregnant again with #2, they're all due in the first week of April (wierd eh) and one is having twins!

Wow Divvy thats great! DH & I went to an all day one off class because we couldn't get sorted to go to the 6 weeks night one... I like others read heaps before so I knew what was going on, and have a pretty good knowledge of medical stuff... so those parts were boring for me, but DH got a bit of a shock when the midwife was showing how the pelvis moves during birth on a skeleton...LOL didn't wind up finishing that part in real life... But DH did meet a guy who we still get together with once a month which is helpful to the other guy who sees DH with Matilda and then usually picks up his act for a few weeks.... (or so his wife tells me :) )

hmm, interesting. seems like more peple say nay than yay.

sarah, i wondered if you could perhaps post another topic re the how to do pelvic floor's. i dont think what i am doing it right.

I didn't do antenatal classes as such. I was 17 when I had my first bub and the hospital had a young mothers group so each appointment I went to we met in the room for a chat and the midwife would ome and get you from the group if you hadn't already been seen. We would watch videos and chat about relative stuff including contraception :D I guess they figured we could all do with some. I didn't do any classes with the next 2 and I'm not planning on any for this bub either. I don't think the hospital with like or support my birthing ideas this time around.

Take care
Trish

Oooh, our classes might be different here.
We have already had our physio class. They said they like to do it earlier in the pregnancy. I don't have my other 4 classes until February.

Still, not getting my hopes up!!

i went when pregnant with joshua
i actually enjoyed mine, it was really informative
as soon as we arrived we did pregnancy excersises to a video tape (quite embarasing! lol ) and then we would sit down on our maps and the woman would show us a baby coming out of a pelvis and how all that worked and we often practised breathign excersises..
oh and at the begining we'd all sit in a circle and have to tell each other about how our week had been :)

i will probly go again, more so for anthonys sake, just so he has an idea of things :)

Yeah, Lesley - I am going to go for similar reasons.
Neil just seems to tune out when I try to give him details. He isn't interested in reading any books and he just doesn't hang around babies all that much so I think he needs to come along to antenatal classes to prepare himself a little better. It's more for him than me. So I know what you mean :)

I think I'm doing it to meet the midwives since I'm shared care and have had very little contact with them. Also I think it will be great to meet other first time mums and dads.
I was quite impressed with a relaxation technique the physio taught us, so I'm hoping we can do a bit more of that, and I think its good - just to be on the safe side.
Shane has never been to classes even though he's had 3 kids! His ex never wanted to go, so its all a bit of fun!
Fi

Will post about the pelvic floor exercises when I get back home Min. Good thinking though, might help everyone!

when i had my eldest son big spunk and i went to one and then 'wagged' the rest. we found them boring and certainly didn't tell us anything we hadn't already read or knew. i figured i didn't need to 'learn' how to breathe i had been doing it for some years by then! :D

good luck with yours though, and blah to his comment on sex, sarah! how inappropriate and childish.

love beckles

i thought it was funny :-s

Must admit that I had thought about not going since I had read so much on the subject!
But then I thought that DP would probably get something out of it anyway, so we both went along.
The 1st class ( even for him) was stuff that I already knew and had mentioned to DP beforehand.
The second class was a little better since it was mainly about once baby was home.
Would I go again? - no I'd spend the money else where.
But if you dont go once you just dont know if you missed out on anything.
Really depends on how much homework you've done along the way.

Carol

wow Carol did you have to pay? Ours was free...I don't think we would have gone if we had to spend $$

Ours is $20 if you have a health card, $100 if not. If you got in and paid before Oct 1 it was $60 before the price hike. So lovely me gave Deb the heads up, and we both managed to get it for a goodish price.
If at the end of it I can say I learnt about 30mins and wasted about 4 nights, I still think its worth it to a certain extent. It will certainly make the whole thing feel far, far more real and about to happen!!
Maybe things will get better Sarah?

Christy - Yes, we had 2 pay! Ours was $200 over a W/end at 4 hrs each day. But we can claim some of it back on our hth ins.
So it'll be interesting to see how much of it we get back!

I`ve just booked in to do my Antenatal Clases today, I don`t start until 10th March, it`s for 4 classes each Thursday night between 6pm and 9pm. It will be costing us $105 I think we get some back from NIB. It`s being run at the Private Hospital by a very good Midwife who has 5 children of her own, she was highly recommened to us by both my OB and his midwife, she doesn`t show too many videos and it`s more hands on, so should be good.

Take Care

Deeanne

I thought it was funny too min!!

We had to pay as well, $50 for 1 intro class & 6 normal classes - the intro class was optional.

Next class is tonight, so will let you all know how it goes.

We had our second class last night. The first night was just about labour and when to come into hospital. Last night was what could go wrong and what sort of drugs you could get. We watched a video which just upset everyone. Even the good example was still traumatic. DH kept on telling me that the baby's head looked like a klingon because of the big ridge on the top.

We had our second class on Tuesday which was a little more interestign than the first one. Not too keen on our midwife / teacher though. It was kinda annoying her saying "when I was pregnant ...." considering her sons are 14 & 19!

We first met everyone in our group (7 couples) and split into boys / girls groups & had to answer "How has my partner changed since the pregnancy?" and "What fears do you have for birth & immediately afterward?" All of the girls pretty well had the same answers!

Then the midwife spoke about the first stage of labour for the rest of the night. IE when is it labour compared to Braxton Hicks, when it's considered premature labour (term labour is between 37 - 42 weeks). And generally about what happens in first stage of labour.

The only major thing I learnt was that while babies are quieter leading up to birth because there isn't much room left they are supposed to still be active (punching & kicking). I had thought that if they were really quiet that it was normal, apparently not!

Next week we are doing our session on relaxtion for birth with the physio. We've been told to take pillows with us, so should be interesting ;)

DH and I are starting our antenatal classes on Thursday night, 2 hours every week for 5 weeks and it's costing us $100.

I think it will be good, I too am like Fi and want to get to know the midwives... and other couple around the same time as me, my g/f is the only other person(besides you girls) I know that is pregnant and she lives in Queensland!

I am looking forward to the classes for DH's sake as well... as well as my own info.

Class number 3 - total waste of effort. We all stood around outside our room for 20mins before making the group decision to leave. Very cranky now.

Sorry to hear Sarah - hopefully No 4 will be OK?? Did the whole class leave? That is terrible! Someone should complain......

Yup we Fi, we all left together. We decided if one was going to go, we all should.

I rang today & was sent all round the hospital before getting to the message bank of the right person. She called back & apologised saying that the booking clerk booked our class in, told the midwife & all the "students" but not the physio. Problem was that the class last night was supposed to be run by the physio. Stupid hey?! So now we have 5 classes after Christmas rather than the 4 we had expected.

We have had two antenatal classes and they have been great. The first one we had though, was on a 37 degree day and the air conditioning hadn't been on in that part of the hospital that we were in (who knows why?) so there we were, 10 pregnant women and their partners in a sticking hot room - I have never been so hot in my life. They gave us plenty of water but it was luke warm - yuck!

Apart from this, they have been really informative and the midwife taking them has been great. The best part is that we got to meet couples that are a couple of weeks due around us - the only ones I know are you girls and my gf in Brisbane! It was good to chat to women that were going to the same ob as me and also had horror of ob's before their new one - glad to know I wasn't the only in the same situation.

We toured the labour delivery room and the midwife told us to make it ours when we are there as it is important for us to be comfortable in our surroundings - I thought that was nice. She also said that if we were ever unhappy with our choice of midwife when we were there, to speak to the midwife-in-charge and don't put up with anything. Not that is likely to happen but some people just don't get on with some people. So I've met two midwives from that hospital and I have been really happy with both of them.

Also, at our 2nd class, she bought along a doppler and gel and we all got to hear our baby's heart beat!

Looking forward to our last 3.