Hi Baby Talk
Radio listeners this is Renee Canham from
http://www.monkeybums.com. The other day I was having lunch
with a friend of mine and she is pregnant with her first baby and
she said to me do you really think I need to take natural childbirth
class? My answer for her was if you want to have a natural birth
then absolutely!
There are
many different options and many different ways to go. If you’re
having a hospital birth, most hospitals offer courses and these are
mostly to prepare you for hospital births not necessarily a natural
birth. Most of them tell you about the medications that they offer
at hospitals, they tell you about epidurals and c-sections and all
the things they offer. And some do offer some natural childbirth
options in there classes.
Most talked
about in popular natural childbirth method seems to be Lamaze. It
seems to be the most heard. Lamaze believes that women’s bodies can
give birth at home or in a hospital without any help or assistance.
They believe that care givers should respect the birth process and
not really intervene unless there needs to be an intervention.
Lamaze teaches women to trust themselves, they teach a breathing
system to help with pain management. You can get in touch with
Lamaze at
http://www.lamaze.org.
A husband
coached childbirth method talk about called the Bradley method. It
was started when husbands were kind of left out of labor and
delivery to really get husbands involved. They focus on deep
breathing, their classes teach the stages of labor, different
positions of labor, what’s going on and labor and really focusing
with your husband or your partner. You can get more information
about Bradley at
http://www.bradleybirth.com.
A relatively
new method that I’ve been reading up on this pregnancy is a method
called birthing from within. Birthing from within believes that
labor is a right of passage and that childbirth should be classes of
self discovery. They use birth art to work through the birth
expectations and birth fears whether you’ve had one baby or this is
your first pregnancy or you’ve had a bad experience or you’ve had
great experiences. They have exercises that help with pain
management and they do a cool thing where they use ice cubes during
a contraction. There seems to be something for everybody in this
childbirth method. I really like it. They have a great thing that
says labor is hard work, it hurts, and you can do it. It makes it
feel really positive. You can get more information about birthing
from within from
http://www.birthingfromwithin.com.
Another
method I just recently came across is called
http://www.calmbirth.org. It’s a method based on meditation and
you practice breathing and meditating and working on opening and
relaxing and focusing on letting your body do what it needs to do
during labor. They also talk about the connection of energy with
other women that are giving birth. They have CD’s and guided
relaxations and guided meditations to help with birth.
I think
everybody needs to find exactly what’s right for them and I think
it’s great that there are so many different methods out there. If
you like one of these, that’s great, otherwise keep your eyes open
and keep looking for a method or a book that really touches you and
will help you have a great labor. So have a great labor, have a
great delivery and have a great birth. Thanks, talk to you guys
soon.
