Married Life
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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.
Nursecramer and Bradley Method people
I'm a doula, newly trained, and a couple is interviewing me next week and they plan on using the Bradley method. I've attended several births and feel confident, but I don't know much about the Bradley method. Of course I plan on doing some reading and perhaps taking a class if this couple hires me, but I'd like to hear about it from a few people who've used it before I talk to them.
Did you like it? Was it helpful? If so, why/how? If not, why not? What aspects were most helpful to you? If you had a doula, how was she helpful (or not?) Any thoughts are welcome.
Thanks!
Re: Nursecramer and Bradley Method people
Well, I haven't had my baby yet (GAH!), but I did take Bradley and will also be birthing with a doula.
I loved the class, and while my H was kind of "meh" about a couple of the sessions, he is overall very positive about it. He had a lot of questions (how does water birth work, what can he do during the labor to help me, what is all this medical jargon getting thrown around, what is happening to my body) that the class really helped to answer. I liked the class because it had a lot of info about prevention of problems that lead to high risk birth through nutrition and exercise in addition to natural pain management methods. I don't know yet which will end up being most helpful to me, but I have already used the relaxation and pain management for some pretty nasty BH I've had. I think if I hadn't taken the class, I would have been unsettled by that pain and convinced myself that I can't handle unmedicated birth. Since I did well with that pain, though, I still feel pretty confident.
My doula is really glad we took Bradley, or at least something beyond a basic hospital class. I didn't pry, but it seems like she thinks we will know more about what's going on and be able to ask her for what we want (warm compress, counterpressure on my back, rice sock from the refrigerator, etc) instead of her having to run through ideas with me when I am not in a mood to listen and/or trying to talk this out with my H who might not have any idea what will help me. I get the feeling that she's worked with one or two unprepared couples and finds her job easier when people can help her help them.
You can get the Bradley book "Husband Coached Childbirth" on amazon or in most crunchy and many non-crunchy book stores. They advocate the Brewer Pregnancy Diet, which you can read a lot about online if you aren't familiar, and since iBirth came out, this has been getting a lot of talk in classes, too.
I used Bradley and loved it. I did not use a doula, but did consider it (I will use one next time around though). What helped were the pain management techniques and labour positions we learned, how blunt our instructor was (this might be really specific to our instructor, though) and, I think (but cannot really prove), the conditioning we were taught in the months leading up to the birth (i.e., exercises, nutrition, breathing).
Another huge help was Bradley's inclusion of the husband- he was really made to feel like a part of the whole process instead of just a sperm donor and was given specific duties that kind of empowered him, both before, during, and after labour.
I would definitely see about a class, my instructor had a couple of doulas sit in from time to time and while I am sure they learned a lot, they also provided some insight into labour and pain management themselves.
I'm not sure why you hire a doula for bradley... I read the book and thought the bases was "husband coached" childbirth.
are you there to support the husband? or fill in for the husband when he needs a break?
hmmmm.
From what I remember - Bradley reminded me of hypnobirthing. there is a lot of prep and research, of your body and what relaxes you, prior to the event.
I always looked at is as a 5 month process of packing your bag so you've got everything you need for L&D.
For me at least, you've hit the nail on the head. I find that moms who've even just taken prenatal yoga tend to be more able to readily accept and try the pain management techniques I suggest. Dads also are more ready to jump in and help the mom (and me) and are far less intimidated by the whole process. Hospital childbirth classes serve their purpose, but I really feel like families do themselves a good service by going above and beyond, even if they don't plan on an unmedicated birth.
Best wishes to you in the rest of your pregnancy and for your birth!
I can't speak directly to Bradley, but doulas definitely don't replace dads in birth. We help the dads help the mom. In my experience, it's really helpful to have a person who is not emotionally invested in the birth there to keep a clear mind and see the bigger picture. At most of the births I've been to, I suggest comfort measures to the father, who then works with his wife/girlfriend. Or if he knows what he's doing already, I can suggest changes in position, remind mom to go the bathroom every hour, get her drinks of water while Dad applies counterpressure, etc. I can also take over if he's tired/sore/has to go to the bathroom/eat/whatever. This is especially helpful if moms are in labor for a day or more.
For me, a lot of it is to do with my back problems. Sometimes, I can barely walk. Squatting unassisted is totally out of the question. I know there will be times when I need more water or I want to change positions when my H is in the bathroom, filling the birth pool, already doing something else for me like grabbing a snack, or otherwise indisposed. Plus, if I have a long labor, by the end my H will be exhausted if 100% of the burden is on him to help me with all this. Since we are planning a homebirth, I can have them helping me in shifts if need be, so that my doula or my H can be napping on the couch while the other one is helping me walk to the bathroom or whatever. I feel like he can still be really involved, but he won't be dead tired when he holds our baby for the first time.
I know that most women don't have the mobility issues in labor that I am going to have, but once I realized how bad my back was getting, I just couldn't imagine expecting my H to do everything for me if I had a long labor. I had been on the fence about a doula specifically because we did Bradley and want him to be really involved, but I am going to need a lot of help just getting to the bathroom to pee if my back is bad on the day I go into labor. I don't think she's going to keep him from participating, and in fact he might be able to do more of the things I would rather have him doing (back rubs, tending to our pets, holding my knees) because the doula doing things like filling the birth tub or grabbing more towels will free him up for me.
Also, my H has never had a baby, obviously. He's also never attended an entire birth. Our doula has been there and can reassure me if I start freaking out about some normal labor thing, whereas my H can't really do that. If I say, "This feels like X, Y, and Z--what's happening?" he probably won't know and might get freaked out, too.
Of course, I haven't had this baby yet. I might yet eat my words. It might be a quick and easy labor where I am sitting there peacefully between contractions while my H and the doula sit there and play poker, in which case we are paying a lot of money to have somebody to entertain him and help the MW clean up after. Who knows.
Mama... makes complete sense. Looks like you really have it together here. Good Luck with your birth!!!
Thank you! Hopefully it happens SOON. I am f*cking sick of eating eggplant.
I agree with this completely. It helped us both to know what to expect. I read two books (and I may bungle the names a little): the Husband Coached Childbirth by Dr. Bradley and the Natural Birth the Bradley Way (by McCutcheon?) and basically summarized key parts for H as I read. We didn't do very many of exercises from the second book, but I did a lot of the ones Bradley suggested (tailor sitting, rocking, Kegels) and man did it help. I felt more limber than I had in a long time and I had several doctors and nurses comment on it.
As far as relaxing through the contractions, it's hard for me to say how helpful it was. The first twelve hours I labored without pitocin, and they were a breeze. I can remember a nurse coming in and saying how she'd come back when I was awake, and H saying "No, she's relaxing through her contraction right now." It was really easy to stay calm and focused.
After the pitocin, it was awful. Not only could I not relax, I felt so out of control and panicked. It felt painful before, but this was scary pain. If I had to do it again, I would ask for an epi if I knew I was getting pitocin.
But as far as educating and preparing us, the Bradley information was very helpful.