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Couples Birth Preparation Group (One Day Session)
Once a month I run a birth preparation workshop for 5 hours. We look intensely at the birth process as a natural physiological process.
The main discussion is of the labour process and issues surrounding it.
Labour
- Exploring the natural physiological process of labour
- How our hormones are designed to help us
- Structure of the Pelvis
- How labour starts and progression
- Ways to induce labour using natural methods
- Ways to accelerate labour using natural methods
- How partners can help, using skills they already have but aren't aware of
- How to use the breath and gravity to help in the various stages of labour
- The use of the birth ball and its role in labour
- The use of water in labour
- Helpful positions for labour and birth
- Issues which relate to both hospital and home births
- Prepare birth preference plans and how to bring them up for discussion with your midwife or birth attendant
- Discussion on monitoring
- Signs of distress
- Instrumental delivery (e.g. forceps), pain relief and c-sections
- What to expect
- When to go into hospital
- What is a contraction?
- How to turn the labours around
- How to use Gas and Air, Epidural and Syntocinon drips to your advantage
- Discussion on third stage of labour
Visual aids are also used in the workshop in the forms of photographs and videos to relate across real situations.
The essence of this workshop is to make labour and birth more understandable and accessible. Through learning about the options that are available and the situations that may arise in birth, hopefully this greater understanding is able to transcend the birth as a predicament.
Couples are invited to bring any of the following items with them:
- Bean bag/Birth ball/Stool
- Rolling Pin
- Food flask
- Water Spray
- Massage Oil
- Flannel/Towel
- Arnica/Rescue Remedy
- Hot water bottle
Breast Feeding
Once a month, by popular request, we have an evening discussion, looking practically at the breast and its role in nourishing our young.
Topics raised are:
- Anatomy of the breast
- Immunoglobulins
- Different milks
- Problems of breastfeeding
- Lactation
- Re-lactation
- Too much milk
- Not enough milk
- Mastitis/ abscesses
- Cracked nipples
- Care of the breast
- Feed myths vs. realities
- The art of expressing
- How long to feed
- Is breast best?
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