Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Childbirth class

Women are basically in pain for an entire 24 hours, sometimes more. Not looking forward to it. One woman actually began to cry and left the class after the first video we watched about labor and birth.

We took a class that met one day and lasted 5 hours. I value the information we learned, but the class really didn't seem worth it because all we did was watch a string of videos. There was a brief amount of relaxation and breathing techniques taught, but it was all kind of self-explanatory. Then, at the very end we went for a brief tour of the maternity ward at the hospital. The Women's center is completely new at this hospital and is still being worked on. After the tour our host, along with 6 couples took the elevator back to the first floor when the doors violently shut, allowing only one couple to leave. It then remained shut while we called for help and waited close to half an hour for the maintenance crew to get the doors open. If we had been trapped any longer, things could have gotten bad. It's not a good idea to lock 5 pregnant women in an unventilated elevator for more than 30 minutes.


Patricia Stuever said...

Don't let them videos scare you every birth is different both in length of time and in level of pain. I've had 4 myself and they have all been varying degrees. My shortest was born in about 3 hours the longest in about 12. The longest was the least painful. I have done both the natural and the epidural route. My last one on a scale of 1-10 was maybe a 2. The good thing is as soon as your sweet one is born you forget about the pain. Email me if you need anything! :)

Laura Williams said...

Actually, after all the friends I have who've recently had children, I realize how differently each woman responds to pregnancy. But I have to say, out of the amount of women shown in the videos, it certainly seemed like pain and waiting was a big part of labor. Thanks for reassuring me that it's not always the case. I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed as the due date approaches ^_^