Childbirth Class: Episode 1

Childbirth Class: Episode 1

Last night was the first meeting of our childbirth education class, but don't worry there weren't any birth videos yet. I guess that we start watching the videos next week and every week after that until we are completely desensitized to the whole thing. Sounds like lots of fun.

Anyway, there are about 5-6 couples in the class. We began by going around the room and talking about our ideal births and our fears. The first few people talked about being afraid of the pain and worrying that their baby would be healthy. I have all of those fears too, but I didn't want to just repeat what everyone else was saying so I said that I was afraid that I was going to get hungry during labor and the nurses wouldn't let me eat. Everyone thought that was soooo funny, but I wasn't trying to be funny. This is a real concern!!!! If I'm in labor for 18 hours, I'm going to want a granola bar or something!!!! At least several of the other women in the class said that they completely agreed, after they stopped laughing.

After introductions, we learned about the history of giving birth in an upright posture versus the medical model of lying down. I'm no doctor, but I don't think that it takes an advanced degree to realize that you might as well use gravity to your advantage on this one. I'm sure that we'll be learning all of the fun ways to give birth upright in future classes. We spent the rest of the time this week just learning a breathing technique to help with relaxation during contractions. I'm really interested to see how well I can relax during a contraction. Seems like that will be really really difficult. Oh, well. I just keep telling myself that women have been doing this with midwives and no drugs for thousands and thousands of years. It's the one reassuring thought that I have!