I know you have a lot going on when you are pregnant but one thing you don’t want to skip is the childbirth education class.  Yes, you’ll give birth no matter what, but taking a course will better prepare your mind and your body. The knowledge of how your mind and body work together is very empowering, especially for first-time moms.

According to Childbirth Connection, a non-profit group who surveyed 1,600 women, expectant moms are turning to television (68 percent), books (33 percent), friends and relatives (19 percent), and the Internet (16 percent), instead of attending class.

This is scary. Here’s why.

Let’s take a closer look at the information offered on television. The births depicted on television are designed to increase ratings. Showing a natural, easy, tranquil birth such as one achieved through learning HypnoBirthing isn’t exactly going to make for a riveting storyline.  Television births show women in distress, treat birthing as a medical emergency, and infer that women are incapable of birthing without medical intervention.  They instill fear of birthing. When was the last time you saw a normal birth on television? Yet, research is showing many women report their primary birthing education source as reality television.

While I encourage reading good books when you are pregnant, when it comes to practicing what is in the book, many women find they a) don’t do it, or b) don’t know if they are practicing correctly.

Perfect Practice Makes Perfect Execution.

Childbirth education for most women consists of their hospital tour where they prepare you for the necessity of medical interventions.

Oh, and those friends and relatives giving you information? Where did they get their information? Most likely television. 

Wait until you share with them, who were ill-prepared to birth at best, that you want to birth naturally, without an epidural.

“Yeah, you’ll change your mind on that one,” they smirk, as they secretly wish they could turn back time, and had prepared themselves for an educated birth experience.

They will each have a story and a reason why you don’t want to birth naturally.  Not only does drama in birthing abound in media, “good friends” and complete strangers, think nothing of discussing the intimacies of their birthing, unasked. 

Rarely when you announce you are pregnant do people rush to tell you of their wonderful birthing experience. However, they’ll trip over their diaper bags to share an awful and horrific birth story.

Women tend to embellish awful birthing stories with each retelling. A 72 hour labor does sound horrendous until you discover that the first surge she noticed began the time clock and active labor only lasted for about six of those hours. It must be that a 72-hour labor earns you a merit badge that is glitzier than the one for a six hour birth.

You’ve no doubt skimmed the internet looking for information now that you’re pregnant.

The internet.

There’s no place on earth where so much bad information is housed in one place. When you’re pregnant it should be renamed the Scarenet. It’s one of the privileges of living in an age overflowing with information. There’s enough labor misinformation on the net to print out and gift wrap Mother Earth..

How Giving Birth Is Like Changing A Flat Tire

I remember my first flat tire.

Stay with me on this one. I’m coming back to giving birth. I promise.

Fortunately, I was prepared for it, thanks to my father.

I came home and proudly announced we learned to change a tire in driver’s education. My dad’s eyebrow’s arched in that “Really?”  look.

To me, we had learned. In the “Know Your Vehicle” chapter there was a section discussing essential elements of maintenance, including changing a tire.  In class the teacher reviewed the steps for changing the tire, the diagram of proper placement of the jack underneath the car, and we watched a film of someone changing a tire.  He reviewed what could go wrong if you didn’t put the jack in place correctly from the beginning.

I received a “B” on the pop quiz the next class. I left out looking at the owner’s manual and something about setting the hazard lights.

My father wanted to make sure I really knew the information. He took me outside to the driveway, pulled up a lawn chair and said, “Change the tire.” I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t. He informed me there would be no dinner for the family until my tire was changed.

The pressure set in. I looked for the owner’s manual. I remember that was one thing I missed on the test. It was no where to be found. We were the second owners of this car and my dad couldn’t recall ever having seen it.

I began to panic. There were no wedges for the tire. The book said to put wedges under the tire. My dad laughed. Improvise he told me. I was stumped.  Neither the film nor the reading had talked about what happens when you’re missing some of the items necessary to change the tire.

After a few moments of me giving him my best “help me please” eyes, he told me to take a couple of the bigger rocks from the garden and place them behind the tires.

It took several practice runs to correctly place the jack underneath the car. I almost gave up in frustration trying to use it. Despite my protestations that by now some good-looking guy would have pulled over to help me change the tire, he wouldn’t let me off the hook.

The lug nuts were VERY snug. After a painfully long time watching me try to twist the lug wrench, my dad showed me how to leverage my body weight to make removing the nuts easier.

The man in the video had made it look so easy. Just twist and turn. Who would have known I’d need to twist the technique?

Finally, having removed the lug nuts, it was time to remove the tire and replace it with the spare. Somewhere in the rotation of the tire, a lug nut mysteriously vanished. After several minutes retracing my steps and hunting  through the pebbles of the driveway for the nut, my father tossed it to me.

“Put the lug nuts in the car or in a pocket. Don’t leave them on the ground. It’s too easy for them to get lost. Put them where you know you will find them.”  A golden nugget from a sage advisor.

We went way past dinner time. My dad made me repeat the drill a few more times until he felt I knew what I was doing and that I was confident doing it. I blew through it the second time around (and was very careful about where I placed the lug nuts). Third time around was a little over-kill, I thought, until I had a tire blow while driving. Nothing beats live guided practice for preparation. Thank goodness my dad thought to thoroughly prepare me a head of time.

Back To Birthing

You can listen to others who have birthed, watch all the videos on YouTube you want, read several great books, but just like learning how to change a tire, nothing will prepare you for the real thing like practice.

And while you can’t practice actual birth, in HypnoBirthing classes, the exercises and information we give you are designed to build confidence in your body’s ability to birth naturally so when the time comes you feel prepared and confident of your body’s design for birthing.

Going into childbirth blindly, without childbirth preparation, is something that you will later regret.  More hospitals are getting rid of maternity wards as insurance rates and malpractice suits rise and Medicaid reimbursement drops, leaving a smaller number of hospitals to juggle the same number of deliveries. There is little time for staff to offer coaching and support for laboring mothers.

Whether you are learning to change a tire to be prepared for that inevitable time when you’re out of cell phone range and the tire goes flat, or whether you are preparing for the birth of your baby, nothing beats supervised live instruction where you can ask questions, receive feedback, and know that you are doing the steps correctly.

As a HypnoBirthing practitioner, I’m full of little nuggets of advice. Our classes are designed for women to share their wisdom and insight they learn as they read and practice the skills and techniques.

Don’t skip the childbirth education class. In person will beat on-line when it comes to preparation. If a multi-session class doesn’t fit into your time schedule, opt for private sessions where we can design instruction to meet your time frame.