antenatal course #1

Paul and I went to our first of three antenatal classes today. These are put on by the National Childbirth Trust which has local branches. Our class was made up of 6 couples all who live in our area, all due in mid March with their first child. One couple lives even lives one street over from us and kindly gave us a ride home. The facilitator was trained as a nurse and midwife and had moved to teaching antenatal courses after have two children. She has been teaching courses for 23 years now! She was very knowledgable and encouraging.


The course started with some getting to know everyone chats and then we split into groups of men and women and brainstormed things we wanted to get out of the course. She started with some general questions and moved more specifically onto late pregnancy. The bulk of the rest of the course was on the the different stages of the labor process. We went over signs of labor, when to call your midwife and when to go into the hospital. She went over what happens and why and what can help. This included practicing different positions, breathing and also, my favorite...massage techniques.

Paul and I feel a lot more informed already. We are seriously considering changing our birth hospital to one down here so we can stay at home as long as possible and not have to worry about driving all the way up to the hospital I have been going to, which could take an hour or more to drive to in heavy traffic.


I won't go into all the details of what we learned today, but I think the most surprising thing we learned was that you are encouraged to stay in an upright, forward leaning position as much as possible throughout labor and even during the birth. This can be standing, sitting, kneeling or squatting. It isn't all about laying back with your feet up in stirrups like they make it out to be on tv. Being upright and forward allows for greater assistance by gravity and also is a much better pelvic position for moving the baby out of the birth canal. They also want you to do what's most comfortable for you throughout the process. I think the course was also very helpful for the guys in preparing them and enabling them to know how best to help us get through it all.