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April 28, 2005
Birthing Prep Classes. A Retrospective.
So we're now done with our Comprehensive Childbirth Preperation classes, this included 5 classes of Childbirth Prep, 1 Breastfeeding class and a Newborn Care class. A good 21 hours worth of education and information.
Do I think it was worth it? Definitely. I've seen the debate on various online communities, where people ask whether it's worth taking the classes, that they don't really want to spend the money on them, is it really necessary etc. and personally I do think it's worth it. I've done my research, I've read loads online on various sites and magazines, participated in various online communities, I have a burgeoning little library on various related topics, and I'll wager that I've put more time into this whole preperation thing than many ever will. I guess that sounds like an arrogant thing to say, but considering all the people I've seen post into various communities online, or couples at the various classes who were much further along than we are, I know I'm not actually off-base by saying it.
Even the fact that I, we, already knew quite a lot before going into the classes, I still think it was a worthy investment. Especially if you break down the cost of a series of classes over the amount of hours that you're actually there, it's not as bad as you think, especially not when the cost is per couple at that.
There are also some things you just don't get from books... first-hand stories about real-life experiences for a start. Every class we went to was taught by someone who had at least one child of her own. Most work in childbirth education, or as labour support (doulas) or lactation consultants. People who have a wide range of personal hands-on experience outside of just their own, and who have been trained to educate others. And these are people that are availible to you right then and there, to answer whatever question that comes into your head, which is something you certainly cannot do with a book. Online communities certainly gave me information when certain questions would come up, or pointers to places to find more/indepth information, but on the flipside, it's worth remembering that there is still a lot of misinformation out there, and downright ignorance as well. I've ranted on that topic before, when people have sat around on LiveJournal asking random people questions about situations that struck me as potentially very serious, without having called their care provider first. Because really, any person with an internet connection can give their completely unqualified opinion on anything they choose, and it's kind of hard to have to then filter that information to see what's crap and what's useful. Granted, this is all my own unqualified opinion on things, so people can take that with a grain of salt as well... but I think that if you know me at all, that you can place a certain value on the things I say and do with it as you will.
And yes many women give birth just fine without having ever gone to a class, and humans have been giving birth for thousands of years without birthing classes too, though it's worth noting that nowadays it's not like we're readily exposed to birth and babies. So we're missing out on a lot of information that would have been passed down through the community or your family unit in days of yore. As they pointed out during one of our classes, most people who are pregnant have generally never really been in contact with a newborn before their own. It makes me consider that I was quite lucky to have a bunch of cousins to babysit, often from about 2-3 months of age on. Not that babysitting makes you that much more of an expert on parenting, but having had to deal with diapers, feeding, bathing, putting them to bed, reading stories, waking up in the middle of the night (my aunts and uncles would often stay out very late and I'd sleep over and go to bed when I was tired) and entertaining them during the daylight hours on a regular basis over the course of about a decade does make you feel a little less lost about the whole thing. Or at least it makes me feel a bit less lost. Though I realise that the reality of being responsible and on-call 24/7 rather than for just a day or a couple of hours every so often is a huge difference. But at least I've had some training wheels kind of experience.
As for the classes, I highly recommend taking them early. We had ours all through March (with the breastfeeding and newborn care in April), while we're due mid-July. The vast majority of people in our class were due in April, with 2 couples due in May. We were really the stragglers due date wise, but I think that to do it early, allowing yourself the time to digest the information and to have the time to research and read further, or change what you were going to do based on new information you've gained, is better than finishing your classes with 2.5 weeks to your estimated due date (which describes at least one couple in our class), and with virtually no time to change anything. And that's 2.5 weeks left if your baby doesn't decide to come early, which isn't exactly uncommon either. Plus I was very mobile during our classes, and physical discomfort hadn't set in. Sitting on a chair for 3 hours, or in the case of the birthing prep classes on mats on the floor, isn't likely to be the most comfy thing when you're belly is huge, especially not if you have to try and get up off the floor to go get/do something.
Any informational classes you can get your hands on are good. Sometimes they're even taught for free at a local hospital or birthing center, or you can seek out a special pre- and postnatal education center like we did.
We've also gone to two free workshops at the birth ed. place, one was about "What do you really need?" which is good to weed out the real necessities from the crap that you're made to believe from various baby sites are absolutely necessary, but will quite likely only waste your money and space in your apartment. The bottom line really is that your baby mostly needs you, diapers, food and sleep for the first few weeks and months, and not that much beyond that.
Another free workshop we went to was about cloth diapering. This was the first one they did, so a bit of trial and error for the woman teaching it too, but also good for people interested in looking at the alternatives to cloth diapering firsthand. A lot of this was also stuff that we already knew, as we'd been researching cloth diapering extensively for our registry, but once again first-hand experience was good, the ability to ask questions from someone who's done it before.
As a result of that particular class though, PreZ found out that prefold diapers (the square fabric ones) really aren't that hard to fold into shape and put on a baby, so it means I can reorganise the diapering portion of our own registry again, and swap out some of the more expensive stuff for prefolds, which I already had some of on the list, and which are also the cheapest cloth diapering option you can do (basic white cotton prefolds cost maybe $2-3/each depending on the quality, last forever, and do double duty as spit clothes or even cleaning rags later on). It was also nice to see some of the fitted, pocket and All-In-One diaper types that I'd seen online in the flesh just to see what they were like. It would have been nice if she had brand new examples for that though... as the ones she had brought had been used by either her kid or friends' kids, complete with stains. Not so nice for an informational class.
And I think by now anyone who's still reading is thoroughly sick of reading about birthing classes... but this should pretty much conclude all of that.
Posted on 01:50 AM to: Pregnancy