Canada Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Prenatal Classes?
I feel like a post whore today!
So we're debating the prenatal classes now... A wants them (kinda) and I don't - at all. I have yet to really hear of any true benefit from having them. I've heard they are good for the dads, but A doesn't need them, he has raised his neices (and pratically delivered one) - he wants them for my benefit, as I'm more of the ignorance is bliss minset when it comes to L&D.
So my question is - did you go to prenatal classes and if so, do you feel that they helped you during your labour/delivery? If you didn't - why did you not go?
TIA
Re: Prenatal Classes?
We didn't go because after asking people in our area that just had babies, many said they weren't worthwhile. There was one, run by a doula, that was supposed to be great - but it was over $300.
Instead we talked to friends, my OB, and our doula about labour as well as buying the Laugh and Learn DVD on Amazon.
If we didn't have a doula I might feel differently, but I'm not sure.
We took the class when I was pg with DS and enjoyed it a lot. The class we took was offerred at the hospital that I delivered at. It was great getting the info from a hands on nurse, b/c she had seen and done it all so many times before. Also, when I was going through L&D I felt really comfortable there b/c I was in familar surroundings and I had even met several of the nurses during our tour of the ward.
Personally I would recommend taking it at least for your 1st child.
I didn't go. We would have, but my husband's work schedule is impossible to work around and he'd have ended up missing half the classes. I didn't want to go alone and figured that I wouldn't learn anything I couldn't get from a book, so we didn't bother.
My friend went and she said it was pointless. I think as long as you become knowledgeable on your own there is no point. I recommend The Birth Book by Dr William Sears- it had a lot of helpful information.
We did and it was awesome. We opted for a 1 day (9 hours) course. It was led by a local doula/LC and it focused on pain management techniques, breathing exercises and breast feeding. It also went through all the different options for labour and what each decision means (ie: epi also means cathedar). We watched videos of 6 different births under different situations so we could see the pro's and con's of each. We also talked about labour tool kits and what is good to have in yours.
It was definitly more for the couple then just the man. We practiced the techniques we learned a lot but were unable to use most of them due to the induction. We did find the breathing techniques to be useful. If we had not had the induction we would have used a lot of the pain management techniques we learned.
Our prenatal classes = HUGE waste of time and money!
We had them at the hospital, and found them absurdly repetitive. If I ever again see the board with the cartoon faces depicting the stages of labour, I'll probably end up tearing it up with my bare hands.
The very first class, we were divided into small groups to discuss what prenatal/baby books we liked best. And then we had to report back to the group as a whole. Seriously. That was 90% of the first class. For that we paid money. We also saw L&D videos made in the 80s - where a vaginal delivery was done with everything draped and everyone in scrubs, which is not at *all* how that hospital operates.
I understand that they kind of have to be aimed at the lowest common denominator, but anyone who had done any sort of reading or thinking or talking to others was already well ahead of the game.