The More You Know....

Women are becoming stronger advocates for themselves during pregnancy, birth, and labor. One of the best ways to advocate for yourself is to gather information, consider benefits and risks, and make the best decisions for you and your baby. 

We hate it when we hear that women didn't even know they had options for laboring and birth. Certainly, we know we have some amazing care providers in the area and most women choose who they are most comfortable with. The care providers care for the woman and keep her health and the baby's health and safety a priority. Since this is their main focus as medical professionals there may not be time to discuss different options at the hospital during an office visit or when a patient of theirs goes into labor. It may fall to the pregnant person to seek out education about common procedures during their labor and birth. 

Fortunately, this is exactly what a good childbirth education course can do! Our comprehensive childbirth class covers all topics that might be of interest to a pregnant person: comfort measure options, pain medication options, options for fetal monitoring, options even for procedures that may happen soon after baby is born. We even include a positive, negative, neutral sheet so you can clarify your thoughts and feelings on each topic. 

Another important piece of our childbirth education curriculum is the time we spend on learning about the stages of labor. So many of our clients - and their partners! - have had so much more confidence about knowing when to go to the hospital or birth center because of what they learned in our class. The pregnant person's partner always leaves our class feeling prepared for how to support the laboring mother. We spend time learning different positions and even have a mock labor where couples have a chance to combine positions for labor with comfort measures. When labor really does begin, our childbirth ed students take a deep breath, remember what they've learned, and prepare to labor and birth with a sense of calm and peace. 

Frances Bacon said it best when he said that "Knowledge is Power." The more information you know, the better informed you are. The more informed you are, the more empowered you will feel. The more empowered you feel, the calmer you will be and baby will be here before you know it.