Blog Post 1
Why take a childbirth class?
If you don’t know your choices you don’t really have any. How you labor and birth your baby is as important as learning how to become parents. More important then the time and expense of decorating the nursery.
Invest in Lamaze Healthy Birthing classes to help you understand your choices and more!
*You and your support person will be 2 of at most 8 people in the class.
*Class will be 2 ½ hours each week for 6 weeks so you have time to absorb and ask questions.
*Class is held in the comfort of my home and we have snacks!
*There are games and markers and crayons and colored paper and scissors and laughter and exercise and tennis balls and brains and egg timers and ice pops and rebozos..
*You will learn all about what causes labor and what helps it move along
*Your support person will be confident and ready.
*At the end of 6 weeks your support person will have many tools and ways to work with you and help you during labor and birth.
*You will both leave class with some new friends who are going through the same thing and your kids will be similar ages.
*You and your support person will learn to work together as you start navigating your new role as parents.
*6 weeks after last baby is born everyone gets to come back together to meet the babies!
All this for only $150.00!
Call or email me to sign up for class today!
For the trifecta of Birthing take lamaze class, hire a doula and see a midwife! Stay tuned to learn why.
Blog Post 2
Take Lamaze Healthy Birthing Class AND hire a doula!
Taking a childbirth class and hiring a doula are not interchangeable, but go hand in hand.Taking a good childbirth class (I think mine is of course the best!) provides solid education to help you understand the processes of labor and birth and how to recognize where you are in labor and more. In class we spend time talking about partners role, about postpartum, about dealing with family and friends, about becoming parents.
Then, as your doula I work with you individually to come up with your plans, to prepare both you and your partner for your labor, birth and postpartum time. The birthing persons partner is the person that knows them best and is their closest and best support. But it can be very hard for them as they are watching one of the people they love most in the world through something really trying and sometimes difficult. Childbirth class gives them skills and tools to use and an understanding of what’s happening. A doula gives the partner the support and confidence to feel connected to and to help the birthing partner. And the comfort of not having to be the end-all be-all. To be able to take a break to go to the bathroom, get something to eat and know that the doula is there. Your doula is the person who you know and feel comfortable with in the hospital full of people you don’t know.
A doula is there to provide support to both if labor is long and slow, if labor is fast, when one of you feels like they are reaching the end of their rope and can’t do it anymore they can turn to the doula who is ready to reassure and encourage them. To help find the energy to carry-on to birth the baby. If questions come up during birth and they don’t have the answer they know that they can ask the care provider questions, using skills they learned in class, and then ask them to step away for a minute so the two of them can consult with their doula, can share their concerns, she can remind them of the information they learned and the things that were important to them that they discussed in their private prenatal meetings.
Once the baby is born the doulas role is not over. I work to make sure that the parents are able to implement the postpartum plan they worked out in prenatal meetings so that they both can get the rest they need without partner having to do everything. I am talking to them both, watching and listening for signs of postpartum depression/anxiety, stress and feelings of being overwhelmed. it’s not just the birthing person who suffer from this, the partner goes through some tremendous changes too and often feels the burden of everything. I am checking in to see how breastfeeding is going, how baby is doing. I do a home visit a week after baby’s birth. I continue checking in periodically the next month or so. I am always available for any questions or concerns that come up.
Clients who take my class and hire me as their doula express the highest level of satisfaction and felt the most prepared.
In finding a family member to attend, their role is not the same thing as a Doula, even if that family member has had numerous babies, they don’t understand birth from the other side, from the support person side. Doulas have hours of education and training learning how to best support clients in every birth. Family members just don’t have that and it’s a different role.
Hiring a doula allows the partner to be there for the Birthing person and not have to worry about anything else because they know the Doula has their back!
