Birthing Classes

Hi
Have any of you attended birthing classes? Did you find them helpful?

I did and Yes they were.
Just ran through the local hospital 1 night a week for 6 weeks.
It was a great chance to get to know other Mum's too (as I was a first time Mum)

Thanks for your reply Dani
My doctor got me to book in today, but I was a bit worried about going. It should be find but. Thanks

Hey Jo

if you are not keen on the hospital based childbirth classes there are private educators who are fantastic...you may not always feel empowered and nurtured by hospital classes, especially if the facilitator is not passionate about education

xx yogababy

I went to the ones our hospital ran and it was great. Like Danni, one night a week for 6 weeks. Well worth it.

Thanks everyone for your reply. I think I will go and see what its like :)

Hi Jo
I'm due to start my classes early next month. They run for 3 hours per week for 4 weeks. I'm also a little nervous about starting them. I've heard good reports though so all should be ok.

Yep, DH and I went to the classes. I found them useful for not only what I didn't know but also to work out what I didn't want or what I didn't like (as in birthing positions)

Nic

I'm a huge advocate for non-hospital based classes (or you can do both independent and hospital based). Why? Because firstly, they often show dodgy birth videos with women screaming and hollering and there is even one that is still used where the mother yells, 'get me a gun... I want to shoot myself...' I think they do this for a reason - most women walk out and want the epidural - perfect! Nice and easy to manage those sorts of women ;)

Also, they only will tell you what they want you to hear. The content is governed by the hospital not a birth education body like NACE. So you will hear stuff based on their policy and what they want you to hear. Independent classes will tell you like it is and give you ideas and information which may not be policy, but is best for you and bub and is not illegal! Do both, see the comparison... and in some cases you will be shocked at the difference. If you want to locate some independent classes contact NACE (national association of childbirth education) and also I do have some contacts who are great. Julie Clarke is from NSW and might be near you, I am not sure, her classes are called Transition Into Parenthood I think. Google her anyways, she is great. Good luck :) Oh and you can also try the Pink Kit - not many teach that.

Thank you Mako. At lease I know I'm not the only one nervous about them.

Thanks everyone for replying. I'm booked into the hospital based classes. I think I will look into the independent based ones as well. :)

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.

Hi Becmc, that is funny as my hospital did all of these methods. We had fit balls in the birthing sweet and they were abit the same about the breathing but were very pro anti-intervention. Yu had the option to have a water birth if you wanted, which I was going to have with Jett.
I guess it depends on what hospital you go to.

We did our hospital classes a couple of weeks ago and found them really good. The midwife was good at taking us through all the different things they had in the birthing suite you could use, all the ways the bed went and the different positions you could lie / sit / kneel etc on it. She had heaps of suggestions for things to bring to make it easier. I found it all a very positive experience and was feeling very confident about the birth after it all. It is a public hospital in a rural area, I don't know if that makes a difference compared to say a private hospital in the city.

Cally, our hospital classes sound like yours and I thought they were good too. But now having been through 2 labours, I can see all the things that they didn't say which really would have helped. I did a lot of reading between my pgs and was so much better prepared second time around. If I had known first time what I know now I would have avoided the epidural which led to slowed labour and foetal distress which led to forceps which led to tear and episiotomy and also led to me being immobile for ages after the birth. Second time around, I knew what positions are more comfortable in labour and also more productive for labour (which often mean not using the bed at all). I also knew how to breathe properly through the contractions which made a huge difference. I highly recommend reading books such New Active Birth or the new one co-written by Sarah Murdoch (I forget the name) or private childbirth education classes. You will be surprised at how helpful this will be. And I can tell you how much better I felt after my second birth for which I used only gas. The fewer drugs/intervention you have, the better you feel afterwards. Just some food for thought for you, based on my experience. Believe me, I wish someone had told me this earlier.

I like the idea of doing both and comparing.

We are spoiled for choice in Melbourne. Rhea Dempsey, the International College of Spiritual Midwifery, Di Diddle, Choices for Childbirth with Maternity Coaltion, BaBs, Birthready, Lina Clerke, and LifeKeys at Careforce Church in Mt. Evelyn do a course, too.

I agree with you Kelly about the birth videos. Our culture has changed - these days, many women never get see another woman giving birth before they do it themselves. Now, if I was up on the bridge over that scary river in New Zealand with people hollering, "Just jump!" at me, I'd sure want to see someone bunjee jump a few times first before I hurled myself onto the great unknown myself. Women used to be around birth more in the days of yore. So we become dependent on the media for images of birth. Not much help there - we get bombarded with fairly negative images of birth on TV & in films. So you'd hope that birth classes would show something more realistic and positive images. Yes, some births are difficult and scary - but where do you go to see images of the masses of women who give birth safely, confidently and joyfully? If you only get exposed to the negative, you get conditioned to thinking that's normal. When you see the positive videos, then you become aware of what's truly possible.

I found YouTube quite the education. You can see examples of hospital births, water births, homebirths etc.

We attended birthing classes when we had our DD's and found them invaluable.The midwife we had was funny and bought a great sense of humour to our class and made us all relax.

It is up to you to also do some research of your own about birthing options etc..I would have been happy if I was only told which buzzer to ring outside the hospital if we went into labour after hrs.LOL.

We met some wonderful couples and the private hospital we went to had a reunion for us about 3 months after the last baby was due. 4couples attended and we have all kept in contact since then and have BBQs and regular meet ups with us mums.

Thanks for the information everyone. I'm going to get the book New Active Birth tomorrow. Juile with the negative images of birth on TV & in films that couldn't be more right. They have me terrifed.

New Active Birth is great! Reading that was a light-bulb moment for me: the working uterus likes to tilt forward when it contracts - that's why many women instinctively lean their torso forward during contractions - if you're lying down, the uterus has to tilt forward uphill against gravity --- ahh, so that's why it hurts more! Lots of other good common-sense stuff in there, too.

It was written as a rebuttal to the "Active Management of Birth" obstetric model that was popular at the time, developed in a Dublin hospital - to use drugs and technology to make sure all women dilated one centrimetre per hour, with time limits on how long you were "allowed" to push, and rapid cutting of the cord and delivery of the placenta. ("Mothers aren't humans, they're machines, didn't you know!? I'm sure there's a way we can impose mechanical rhythms on natural ones and over-ride mother nature! We have the technology!")

Here is a place to see a few positive birth images:

https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...ad.php?t=37919

Thanks for the info everyone.

I did (private) hospital classes - utter waste of time & money.

If you had read a single book about labour you knew most of the stuff, and lot of the labour class was just about pain relief ('cos apparently thats "all most women want to hear about"), and they had some other one which was how to dress your baby. Good if you had no experience what-so-ever around children, or had no time to read anything, but i just felt annoyed at wasting my time. The only semi-decent class they had was a 3hr breastfeeding one, but i'm sure the ABA could have done a better job!

Wish i had done some independant classes that were geared to the type of labour i wanted!

JoJo, I was petrified of natural birth until I did a hypnobirthing course. It was the BEST thing I could've done to prepare myself. Like Becmc said, it's about visualisation, relaxation etc. It worked a treat for me and I had a drug free VBAC which was my goal :D I hope you find what works for you and all the best :)

i was wondering if someone could give me some advice as to where i could look for the private classes meantioned - im in Tasmania and the Hospital where the Anti Natal and those ones are based is an hour n half away ( and so is the birthing centre so thats going to be intresting when the time comes ) Was looking for something closer to home and a little better set up havnt heard the greatest reports about the public hospital ones here - Is there an organisation or a group is should contact for the right information instead of blank faces from the ppl i ask .
ps i dont live rural they just stoped Babys and emergancy at the hospital half hour away .

Thanks :)

you could google childbirth educators...but Im not sure of any in Tassie

another option is to perhaps do a hypnobirthing course....such as calmbirth or birthskills

hope this helps

xx yogababy