Last updated on October 12th, 2022

Childbirth education is crucial to your birth preparation. It will set the stage for how you experience labor and birth and how you view your experience long after your tiny baby is grown.

I hope that you stay with my until the end. Not only will you get a clear picture of why childbirth education is so essential, but you’ll also get some insight into my childbirth education philosophy and what I can offer you in a childbirth course.

Summary

Your birth experience is something you will remember forever. As a childbirth educator, I believe that preparing yourself for birth through childbirth education is one of the wisest decisions you can make regarding your labor and birth preparation.

Benefits can include, less fear, fewer complications, greater safety and long term positive memories.

History shows it, research confirms it, and our minds and bodies carefully remind us of it for our entire lives.

More information can be found on the Why Childbirth Education? and Services pages.

• Long Term Impact of the Birth Experience
• History of Childbirth
• Childbirth in the Media
• Preparing for a Marathon
• Physiology of Birth
• Pregnancy Planning
• What Do You Learn in a Childbirth Class?
• Who Should Take a Birth Education Class?
• What Does Grow Birth Love Offer for Birth Preparation?
• Recap
• FAQ
• References

Long Term Impact of the Birth Experience

Your birth experience is something you will remember for the rest of your life.

Any woman who has given birth, regardless of age, will remember:

• How they were treated during labor and birth
• The language used to support or defeat them

These factors also set up the postpartum experience positively or negatively.

A mother will be confident or struggle with reacting to her baby due to her birth experience.

Childbirth education will set you up for the birth experience, but also for everything else that follows.

Taking a childbirth education class leads to healthier outcomes for both you and your baby.

Lamaze International White Papers 2020 –
Lamaze International – The leading organization to train childbirth educators

Childbirth education is crucial for the birth experience and the physical demands it puts on your physiology, your birthing body.

So what exactly can childbirth education do for you?

These benefits are:

• Increased confidence in decision making
• Increase in patient safety (knowing how to make decisions about your birth preferences)
• Lower potential for interventions (induction, medication, and even cesarean birth)
• Shorter labors
• Improved breastfeeding (initiating and duration)
• Decrease in postpartum complications
• Increase in positive mental health during and after pregnancy
• Long term positive memories surrounding your birth experience
• Less fear

About Lamaze International ¹

Lamaze White Paper – An Essential Step in Shared Decision-Making for Maternity Care ²

Lamaze White Paper – A Key Strategy to Improve U.S. Maternal & Childbirth Outcomes ³

History of Childbirth

Women have been giving birth for years on end.

In the past, a community of women would surround the laboring woman to help educate and support her in her time of childbirth.

We don’t have much information about what childbirth was like in ancient times, but we can speculate a woman gave birth where she lived and had incredible support ⁴ from other women who had walked through childbirth before.

Being informed leads you to make informed decisions based on your preferences. To have an empowering birth experience, it is necessary to know your options and what to expect.

As a culture, we have overcomplicated birth. The media is a place in which we see this time and time again.

Childbirth in the Media

The media has worked hard for a long time to convince women of all ages that childbirth is something to be feared.

Time and time again, we see it played out in movies and television shows that tell us birth isn’t a natural physical process, but a medical event doomed for problems.

Childbirth is almost always depicted as a time of absolute hysteria and chaos…

via GIPHY

…and with a husband or partner who is equally if not more in a state of panic…

via GIPHY

…or sometimes the complete opposite with a quick, clean and magical birth.

via GIPHY

Let’s take a look at how childbirth usually plays out on the big and small screen:

• Often, a woman is told when she will go into labor.
• Labor often begins at a specific time in the hospital.
• Everything is frantic and rushed.
• The laboring mother, fearful and nervous, does a lot of scary screaming.
• The doctor enforces the laboring mother to “lay back,” while dad is instructed to “hold her legs back.”
• Medical staff directs a mother to “push and breathe” in a certain way.
• Laboring mom follows these rules because she is very anxious, and after all, the doctor “knows best” and she wants to be “a good patient.”
• The doctor delivers the baby for the mom.
• Stress suddenly dissipates after the baby is born, despite the baby being whisked away immediately.

What if, instead, the laboring mother:

• Was educated about what to expect during labor.
• Felt confident about her progress and preferences.
• Was not scared, but excited about the childbirth experience.
• Followed her body’s lead on movement.
• Decided how and when to push.
• Felt comfortable telling medical staff “yes” and “no” without the fear of hostile pushback.
• She felt encouraged through the initiation of breastfeeding and the postpartum period, so she doesn’t fall into a dangerous “normal” slump of lack of confidence and depression.

What if that was the norm?

Preparing for a Marathon

I’m sure there is someone out there who signed up for a full marathon (26.2 miles) without bothering to train. I can also imagine that this person may feel deep regret for their lack of preparation at some point during the race.

Preparing for birth is a lot like preparing to run a marathon. It can be daunting, not to mention mentally, physically and emotionally exhausting.

Waiting until you are in labor to realize, “maybe I should have taken a birth course” won’t do you much good. Being in the trenches of labor contractions and discomforts is not an ideal time for remorse in your lack of preparation.

Physiology of Birth

Childbirth is a safe and normal life event.

This is the first thing I teach about in my courses.

Childbirth education teaches pertinent information about our bodies and what to expect during labor and birth. Without this basic knowledge, it is easy for a laboring woman to get caught up in the “Fear-Tension-Pain” Cycle. ⁵

When we feel fear, it increases how our physical body responds by tensing up. By tensing up, pain that could be moderate increases. This isn’t a made-up process to explain away why we feel fear. It’s a physiological response of how the hormones in the brain communicate and the physical responses we experience if we trust in our uncertainty.

Fear of childbirth can be decreased. The number one way this is accomplished is through education. The more knowledge you have about childbirth, the less anxiety ⁶ you will have about it.

Fear

It can be decreased through:

• Education.

Perceived danger happens when we lack knowledge.

There is something to be said about how education provides empowerment. When left to flounder through any given situation without basic knowledge, fear increases and confidence plummets.

• Support

Having a loved one or doula close by during childbirth physically provides a real sense of calm and impacts the level of fear a laboring mother feels.

Tension

It can be decreased by:

• Having labor support, such as doulas, partners, etc.
• Relaxation techniques
• Movement
• Hydrotherapy: relaxing in a warm bath or shower

Pain

Having comfort measures in place, which you learn about in birth education, leads to understanding how to manage the pain and feel less discomfort.

The “Fear-Tension-Pain” cycle can be replaced by the “Trust-Relax-Allow” Cycle.

When we have the correct information about childbirth, it sets us up for success:

• We can trust our body’s ability to give birth.
• Trusting our body helps us relax our tension because we know what to expect.
• Therefore, we allow our body to labor and lead us in the birthing space.

This cycle provides us a manageable pathway to recognize how to make order out of the chaos before we even encounter it.

“Oxytocin is a powerful hormone with widespread effects on the brain and body of all mammals, such as labor contractions. Oxytocin also reduces stress by centrally activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes calm, connection, healing, and growth, and reduces activity in the sympathetic nervous system, which reduces fear, stress, and stress hormones and increases sociability. Oxytocin has a short half-life, but its effects can be prolonged because it modulates other brain-hormone systems.” “Hormonal Physiology of Childbearing: Evidence and Implications for Women, Babies, and Maternity Care” (Dr. Sarah Buckley) ⁷

“When you are in labor, if you are tense, your cervix is tense. If you are relaxed, your cervix will be relaxed.” ⁵

Relaxation in childbirth starts with education.

Pregnancy Planning

There is a lot to think about during pregnancy:

• Picking your baby’s name
• Setting up their nursery
• Researching the right gear for your needs
• Creating a baby registry
• Celebrating with friends

We often don’t feel guilty over time spent, sometimes hours upon hours, on these decisions before our child arrives. Though as important as those decisions are, it’s even more important to spend some time educating yourself on things like:

• Building your birth team
• Your rights as a patient
• Comfort Measures
• The Stages of Labor
• Postpartum planning

What you decide on will impact your labor and birth experience.

It’s simple. When you take the time to learn the information necessary for your birth experience, you have a better birth experience.

What Do You Learn in a Childbirth Class?

A quality childbirth class with an educated instructor should leave you feeling confident in:

• Creating your birth team
• Evidence-based practices
• Anatomy and physiology of the pregnant body & functions of each participant
• The role of hormones during labor and birth
• Stages of Labor
• Comfort measures
• Medical interventions
• The immediate postpartum period

Grow Birth Love’s Childbirth Education Course is 8 hours in length. It is typically done in 4, 2-hour sessions, but can be split even more for accommodating your schedule. I cover all these topics in-depth and more. My goal isn’t to encourage you one way or the other with birth preferences.

My goal is to provide YOU with evidence-based information to feel empowered to make decisions that work for you.

Who Should Take a Birth Education Class?

EVERYONE!

Even if you have given birth before, going through a class can help remind you:

• What to expect
• How to cope with discomfort
• Provide you with evidence-based options

It doesn’t matter if you are a first-time parent or already have multiple kids; birth education is here to benefit you.

What Does Grow Birth Love Offer for Birth Preparation?

• I provide private personalized attention to you and your support partner: (doula, friend, spouse, partner).
• 8 hours of one-on-one instruction and discussion.
• A curated list of the best local resources specific to your area. (Think: lactation/baby feeding support, doulas, etc.)
• An opportunity to feel connected and heard rather than getting lost in the audience of a group class.

When should I take a class?

The sooner, the better, but no time is too late.

RECAP

• You will remember your birth experience forever.
• Taking a childbirth education course has significant benefits like confidence in your birth preferences, shorter labor, decreased postpartum complications, a better mental state during pregnancy and postpartum, better breastfeeding success and most importantly, less fear surrounding labor and birth.
• Women are strong and our bodies were made to birth. History has shown us our need for a village and the strength we harness during the birth process.
• The media has projected unnecessary fear into the minds of pregnant women. We often believe it. Birth is a natural event and not something to be feared. Take a class and learn how to trust your body.
• Fear is born from a place of uncertainty. Education brings knowledge and confidence.
• Preparing for birth is much like training for a marathon. Without proper training and preparation, you set yourself up for unnecessary hardship.
• Childbirth is a safe and natural life event.
• The “Fear-Tension-Pain” Cycle can be replaced with the “Trust-Relax-Allow” Cycle with childbirth education.
• When you are relaxed, your body can relax.
• A quality childbirth education course will empower you and educate you on labor and birth’s most vital topics.
• Everyone expecting a baby should take a birth class.
• Grow Birth Love offers a private, personalized, in-depth childbirth education course that caters to your schedule and includes local resources and a one-on-one personable connection.

FAQ

Read This Next

• Your Birth Team Matters
• Why You Should Hire a Birth Doula

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References