Natural Birth
kesrya
member
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Birth classes for homebirthers?
kesrya
member
I got an email today from Babycenter.com for a $20 online birthing class that both my husband and I can log into repeatedly between now and the birth. While I do want to take a birth class, as this is my first baby, watching the free demo got me thinking -- what do homebirth mommies do for classes? I've noticed that many of the hospitals in the area have weekend or one day birth classes, but I would assume that those are geered for women who will be birthing at a hospital, and might not be so relevant for me? Someone on my local bump board suggested I join the "birthing circle" for our emergency back-up hospital. But again, I assume that is more geered to support women who plan outright to be at the hospital.
Any suggestions?
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Re: Birth classes for homebirthers?
Around here, there are quite a few birth classes for "homebirthers". My midwife gave me a list. We decided to do a "Zen Birth" class - focussing on hypno-birthing, mindfulness, and the home birth experience.
Perhaps your midwife could suggest some local options for you?
I wanted to do Bradley, but they were just too far away from where we live. So we did the hypnobabies home course. We signed up for the hospital birthing classes, but decided to cancel because they mostly teach you about epidurals and hospital policy. I also read anything about natural birthing that I could get my hands on and watched a lot of natural/home birth videos on you tube for inspiration.
As long as you do something to educate yourself you will be just fine.
Our MW recommended a class taught by a local API member called BabyBodyBirth ... it teaches methods such as Bradley, Hypnobirthing and Lamaze.
It was $165 for the entire course and we meet for 9 consecutive Mondays for 3 hours each session. So far we have covered an array of topics along with a lot of relaxation techniques. I find it very informative and totally worth the money. The class is fairly small (5 couples) and DH and I are the only ones planning a homebirth, the rest are all doing hospital births.
The instructor is also a Doula.
Our MWs highly recommended classes based on _Birthing from Within_. They were *fantastic*. Great prep for any kind of birth. Definitely geared toward those who want to go intervention-free. (But they do tell you about interventions so you can make informed decisions and still be mindful/present if you do end up truly needing some interventions.)
I remember my MWs chatting about other classes, too. They said hospital/lamaze classes were virtually useless. Waste of time/money.
Isis?
I did the same. Truthfully, I didn't learn very much since I had already done a ton of research, but it was really good for DH.
I also thought the class was a little bit heavy on the whole preparing to deal with hospital policies, etc., but that is understandable since all of the other people in the class were planning to give birth at a hospital or birth center. It was a bit akward at one point when the teacher asked us to state our biggest fear- which for me was that I would need to transfer to a hospital.
The class I took was taught by a nurse MW who worked in hospitals but was planning a homebirth (she was 36 weeks pregnant when she taught the class.