Saturday, June 17, 2006

Childbirth Class Series

Thursday evening meant the first of five weekly birthing classes. Two-and-a-half hour sessions filled up with videos, nutritional factoids, and exercises, all curricularized to put minds at ease. Deep breaths, in through the mouth, out through the nose. Phweeeeasy does it.

We were politely asked to fill out and pin on name tags including the attending doctor's name and baby's due date. And then we sat in a classroom for the first hour, running through the series of familiar-making gestures. "Let me tell you a little bit about myself...." Chalked on the board, important notes:

History of OB
1900's - Grantly Dick-Read: "Fear-Pain-Tension Syndrome"
1940's - Fernand Lamaze: "Psycho-prophylaxis"
1950's - Robert Bradley: "Husband-coached Childbirth"

Goals:
1. Understand your body
2. Physically and mentally prepare
3. Trust your body
4. Make sound, informed decisions
5. Pack a "tool belt"

Nutrient of the Week
Protein
B Vitamins

We watched a ten-minute movie, the 1989 low-budget video Hello, Baby. Won't find this one in IMDB. I'll skip over some of the obvious critiques about the stuff on the board; that's not the reason I'm t.here. But I will say that I found it a tiny bit unusual that there were two triangles drawn to correspond to Grantly Dick-Read's century-old research. According to the lesson as told on Thursday, Dick-Read came up with a "syndrome" based in the anticipatory buildup toward childbirth, a pre-birth triad of fear-pain-tension and its antithesis, education-control-relaxation. The pair of three-term cycles were drawn to match with a pair of triangles on the board. The unusual part: the triangles were used only because there were three terms to each sequence or cycle and that they were embattled with each other, even if, as drawn, they didn't initially appear to be at odds. I also didn't know (and so learned) Lamaze was influenced by Russian psychology (including Pavlov). Lamaze's "psycho-prophylaxis," again, as explained Thursday, gets at the idea that the intensities of labor are more bearable with mental and physical distractions--focal points, strict breathing patterns, etc. But are there better distractions than regimented breathing and looking at favorite photos?

For the second half of the class we switched into another room with an open space for various exercises. After an hour in there, the session was over.

Posted by Derek Mueller at June 17, 2006 9:40 PM to Under a Bushel