Thoughtful Childbirth - Group Sessions $225

Please consider registering to begin when you are 24-30 weeks pregnant. Registration is limited, so register early to reserve your space. Next class begins in the week of October 29th, 2017. The winter session is scheduled to begin in January 2018.
*Have a friend who is pregnant too? Enroll for a class together and you both receive a special discount! Contact us for more information.*
This class includes study guide books and numerous handouts, comfort tools to take with you to your birth, helpful area resources, and 24 hours of the best, most up-to-date evidence-based information in making thoughtful decisions about your birthing options.
Topics covered in this class include:
- Staying healthy and low risk in pregnancy
- The stages of birth: what to expect and what to do
- Optimal fetal positioning and how you can assist it
- How Partners can be active supporters in pregnancy and birth
- The influence of care provider, location of birth, and birth interventions on the birth process
- Communicating and creating a positive, trusting, relationship with care providers
- Unexpected situations and how to move through them
- Creating birth and newborn preferences as a family
- Numerous comfort measures for birth
- Effective positions and techniques for different phases of birth
- Postpartum norms for mother, baby, and the new family
- Beginning breastfeeding
Classes will thoroughly prepare you to be an active, informed, empowered participant in your birth and to develop birth skills to enable to you birth naturally. This class is open to all mothers, whatever their preference for medication. There is much more to learn about birth than whether or not to use an epidural! The extensive number of comfort techniques taught will help every mother be more comfortable during her birth. Mothers who intend to use medication will learn how to minimize risks. And, for mothers who prefer to birth without medication, taking the time and effort to prepare mentally, emotionally, and physically for a natural birth is the best way to achieve one!
While the class draws techniques from well-established methods like Bradley and Lamaze, you can also have the most current research, statistics and tools for childbirth today.
Following a comprehensive and thorough curriculum, group classes contain no more than 6 mothers or couples. This allows for the development of an intimate community; you will have other women and partners with the same concerns and similar experiences with whom to share thoughts. Group discussion and activities enable better retention of material, and friendships are often developed!
This class includes study guides that are yours to keep, as well as use of State College Doula's lending library of books, CDs, and DVDs. A class outline follows:
Thoughtful Childbirth: Outline of Weekly Sessions
Week 1:
Thoughtful Decisions: Birth Team, Birth Location, and the effect on your birth
Prenatal Wellness: Nutrition, Exercise, Positioning for Pregnancy and Birth
Comfort Measures: Focused Relaxation and Breath
Week 2:
Thoughtful Decisions: Developing Positive Communication; Tests in Pregnancy
Prenatal Wellness: Unexpected Outcomes
The Birth Process: Overview of the Birth Process
Comfort Measures: Massage and Touch during the Birth Process
Week 3:
Thoughtful Decisions: Induction and its Options
The Birth Process: How to Know it's Time and Activities for Early in the Process
Comfort Measures: Visualization, Relaxation, the Environment for Birth
Week 4:
Thoughtful Decisions: Positive Communication and Birth Preferences
The Birth Process: Active Labor and its Options
Comfort Measures: Positions for Comfort; Using Relaxation while Active
Week 5:
The Birth Process: Pushing, the Actual Birth, and Immediately After
The Birth Process: Beginning Breastfeeding
Comfort Measures: Positions for Pushing, Expanded Rebozo/Physical/Accupressure techniques
Week 6:
Thoughtful Decisions: Decision-Making and Newborn Procedures
Following the Birth: Postpartum Period, Newborn Normals
Comfort Measures: Skills review with Distraction
Week 7:
The Birth Process: Variations on Average: PROM, Scenic Route, Caesarean Birth
Summing It All Up: Review Game, Identifying Skills/Techniques used in real births
Comfort Measures: Birth Process Rehearsal/Comfort Stations
Thoughtful Childbirth - Private Sessions $549
Taught privately in your home, we meet during times that are convenient for you. If you have a busy schedule, want to have personalized lessons, or are on bed rest, this is the class for you. It can be tailored to your unique need and time frame.