Don't worry guys, I will be recapping Halloween on Friday!! Since I write my posts at least the day before publishing, I don't have Halloween pictures yet cause we haven't gone out yet.

Today, I wanted to talk about birthing classes.  These classes are a very important part of pregnancy, if not for what to actually do in the birthing room, at least to provide new parents more peace of mind.  Since the hubs and I have opposing work schedules and don't have a lot of time home together, the last thing we wanted to do was to use that time to go to prenatal classes.  On the other hand, we could definitely use a brush up on what to expect and techniques to use, and just newborn information in general.  It had been a while since our 3 year old was a baby.  We decided to take to the internet to find a resource that was informative, but didn't take us out of the house.

In my perusing of the inter-webs, I was able to find a series of prenatal classes on YouTube that I actually thought were really well presented.  The videos were provided by Maternity Care Midwives.  I like these videos a lot because they discuss the female anatomy in an easily digestible way.  They talk about things you and your partner can do to ease the discomfort.  They also talk about the differences in anatomy of different women.  I especially liked how they reduced the guilt moms might feel about various birthing decisions.  Based on the locations of our nerves, delivery can be more or less painful for different women.  No one should feel guilty for not requesting drugs just because someone else didn't.

Prenatal Class Part 1 - Prenatal

This first part of the series discusses late pregnancy.  The speaker, Holliday, goes through different things you can do to assist in getting the baby to go down.  She also talks about the different pains a woman might be feeling at this point and why.  There are also techniques you can use to assist labor.

Prenatal Class Part 2 - Labour and Birth

This part of the class discusses actual labor.  She breaks down the various stages and what happens to your body in each stage.  She also discusses what you can do in each stage either for comfort or to assist the process. Fun fact, when they measure dilation in centimeters, its all relative.  They aren't actually measuring centimeters, since all babies are different sizes, its just about how open the cervix is. I found this part especially informative.

Prenatal Class Part 3 - Postnatal

This video discusses what to expect after the baby is born. This is really helpful for new parents who are worried about handling someone so small. She discusses things you can do to calm the baby and explains why they work.

All in all I found this series of videos to be just what we needed to prepare for baby Hailey. I even learned things that I didn't know the first time around. I would recommend watching these videos to anyone in lieu of attending a formal prenatal class.

I hope you find these helpful if you are pregnant or that you pass it along to someone you might know who is pregnant!

Tune in Friday to check out a recap of our Halloween. If you can't wait, you can always check out some of the pics on Facebook!

Cheers,

Emily

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