Have it Your Way

From traditional to alternative, there's a world of choices in childbirth education.

By Gayle Sato Stodder

Page 1 | 2 | 3

It’s inevitable: Sometime during pregnancy, you realize (with panic! with dread!) that the living, growing being inside you will have to come out. Not with a dainty parting of curtains or a gentle opening of doors, but with hard work, pushing and sweat: with labor. You realize you need assistance, not of the “let me fetch you some iced tea” variety, but serious, get-down-on-your-haunches help.

You’re in luck. In addition to standard hospital-based childbirth-education classes, a world of choices awaits you — whether you want a tried-and-true approach, the latest tools and techniques or a complete mind/body transformation. Here, a guide to finding a happy fit.

Lamaze
Relax and breathe
Perhaps the best-known program belongs to Lamaze International. Popularized in the 1970s, the Lamaze method is nearly synonymous with childbirth education (witness the frequent lampooning of Lamaze-style breathing techniques in TV and movie depictions of childbirth). This may add up to great brand recognition but a sketchy overall picture of Lamaze and its teachings.

The elaborate breathing techniques that French physician Fernand Lamaze introduced in the 1950s to take a laboring woman’s mind off her pain are still part of Lamaze, but this method is about more than giving labor the old hee-hee-hoo. Lamaze has always been instrumental in promoting a woman’s innate ability to give birth without unnecessary medical intervention and her right to be an active participant in her baby’s birth. Though these ideas no longer seem revolutionary, they are still among the best reasons to take a childbirth-education class.

So what’s modern Lamaze like? Typical courses run 12 hours or more over six weeks and offer a mix of basic information and in-class exercises. “We spend time learning to communicate. We talk about the effects of [anesthesia and other medical interventions] in labor so that women can make informed decisions,” says Teri Shilling, M.S., L.C.C.E., a Lamaze instructor in Gunnison, Colo. Lamaze is not dogmatic about avoiding medications and procedures. But, says Shilling: “We believe all women can get through labor without drugs, and we teach them tools that can make this happen: positioning, conditioning, confidence-building and a variety of active-relaxation methods, [such as] sitting on a birthing ball or dancing slowly with their partner.”

Page 1 | 2 | 3