Preparing for Birth: Loving Your Birth Story

If you’ve taken my birth class, you know I usually start the class with a slide that simply says,

“I want you to ❤️ your birth story.”

Birth stories are our rite of passage into parenthood. Whether good or bad, they are the stories of how our babies enter the world. I believe they are neither good nor bad. They are what they are. But all of them are inspiring and heart wrenching adventure stories. All of them tell the story of how you became a parent to your child. We are so excited to share a video interview describing the most recent birth story of one of our Breastfeeding Success owner-founders, Lauren Reyes! It was such an honor to be welcomed into their home and to be able to hear the story firsthand and fresh, and to share it with you here.

Creating a Birth Story You’ll Love

Most people want to plan for their birth. They want to be able to write the story ahead of time. I would never say that this is a bad idea. Planning is great. I help people make their birth plans all the time. However, I am always sure to tell people not to get too attached to that story. That story can help you by giving you inspiration, motivation, and courage. But the story might need to change some when the time comes. It might change in very small ways, or it might be a big change.

Your ability to alter your expectations when this happens will protect you and ensure that you’ll love your birth story anyway. When you can do this, your birth story will be able to humble you and make you wiser and stronger than you thought you could be. You will be fortified and armed with the wisdom that plans are not for keeping, but stories are. And stories are for telling. When you love your birth story, you want to share it with your children and the future.

Why Birth Education and Planning Matter

When you are thinking about writing your plan, it’s best to do some preparation and research first. You’ll have a lot more to write about when you do. My favorite way to gather information is through childbirth education. I took childbirth education classes when I was pregnant and I benefited greatly, so now I teach.  I love my birth stories, and I like to help other people love theirs. Taking a birth class can help, but it’s also good to recognize that we all have slightly different goals, and we all learn differently.

Taking the right birth class can help more than taking one that is not as tailored to your needs. If you watch the attached birth story interview with Lauren, you’ll hear a birth story. This is her SIXTH birth story, actually! Each of her births was different, and she learned something important from each one. She loves them all, but she talks about why and how the last one was different. She talks about how she prepared differently this time. As an older mom with lots of experience, she finally took some time to think about what she really wanted and did the preparation she needed to achieve it.

How to Choose Your Childbirth Education Method

When preparing for this birth, Lauren decided to take a childbirth class. Andrew, the baby’s father, was going to be a parent for the first time, and didn’t know much at all about birth. Lauren is a lifelong learner with loads of energy, and felt she might also have something to learn by taking some of my classes. I would have LOVED to have her in my classes, but I didn’t think that would be quite right for her! Instead, I asked her what was missing from her previous births, and what she hoped to do differently this time. Her answers helped me know what kind of class might be more helpful for her. There are a lot of different kinds of classes out there! What kind YOU should take depends on many things.

Some things to ask

• How much do you already know and what kind of information? If you’ve already done a lot of learning in one specific area or generally, then a basic or general information class might not be the right one for you.
• What kind of learner are you?
  • Do you prefer a self-paced virtual class?
  • Do you like live virtual classes?
  • Do you prefer to be in a classroom like you were as a student?
  • Do you like a more relaxed and casual atmosphere?
  • Do you prefer one-to-one mentorship?
  • Will you do your homework?
• What kind of birth experience do you hope to have?
  • Home birth, birth center, or hospital?
  • Unmedicated or ALL the medicine?
  • Vaginal or surgical birth?
  • Waterbirth or dry bed?
  • Do you think you’ll want a lot of outside support, or are you usually a lone wolf?
  • Are you usually calm and focused, or do you like to be active and loud when you’re working hard?
  • Are you open to interventions or do you prefer to avoid them whenever possible?
• Cost and time are also important considerations. Some classes are expensive and/or require a lot of time in the classroom. Others are self-paced, more affordable, much shorter, or divided up in a way that you can pick and choose what you want to learn.

The conclusion

My birth classes were not the right ones for Lauren. After hearing her preferences and goals, we realized that she needed something different and very specific. She was planning a sixth home birth. The classes I offer focus more on hospital birth and on learning the basics like anatomy and stages of labor. Lauren already knew the basics and mechanics of birth since she had already done it so many times before. She wanted to have a waterbirth, and we don’t really talk much about that in my classes since most facilities don’t have bathtubs.

And most importantly, her ultimate goal was to stay present. She described that in previous births, she would get to a point where she felt out of control. She knew she was capable of giving birth safely, but she wanted to be able to stay present and not panic this time. I recommended Hypnobirthing classes for her, because there is such a big emphasis on mindfulness. It was just the kind of preparation that she needed, and she achieved her goal.

Different Childbirth Education Methods To Explore

The following are some of the more widely recognized methods of childbirth education, but there are many more that are not on this list which can also be great. I encourage you to choose something that feels right for you, even if it’s not mine! That is so important. To have the most impact, the class needs to be one that you can relate to and get the right kind of preparation from.

Hospital-Based Childbirth Classes

I’ll start here because these are probably the most popular. If a hospital offers a childbirth class, many of their patients take it. The content and styles of these classes can vary widely. In general, the classes are usually shorter, and often include a tour of the facility and a lot of information about hospital policy. The classes might be free to the hospital’s patients, but many also do charge a fee, although usually very affordable or possibly submitted to insurance. If the class is free, it might be offered only as an online pre-recorded course, or it might be a very short introduction to birth and the hospital.

Sometimes the classes are taught by a labor and delivery nurse on staff who is not a certified childbirth educator, or a nurse who also has a childbirth educator certification. Other times, hospitals specifically hire professional certified childbirth educators just for the purpose of teaching classes. These teachers are usually certified by large organizations like ICEA or Lamaze. These classes can be good, especially if you’re planning to give birth in that hospital. A benefit to having a staff nurse educator is that you’ll likely get a very in depth understanding of your facility and the practices there. If you’re learning from a professional childbirth educator, a benefit is that you might get more universal and evidence-based information. Also, professional instructors have a lot of training in mentoring, teaching, and structuring a class.

Our Classes

If you’ve taken a class with us, you might have found it on your hospital website. Breastfeeding Success is sort of a hybrid! We have contracts with the hospitals to provide education for their patients. They trust us with this very important privilege and we take that very seriously. We do try to get as much information as possible about each facility that we work with so we can give students some general understanding of policies and practices. However, we do not work in or for the hospitals.

The classes we provide are “recommended” by certain partner hospitals, but our students come to us in a lot of different ways and our classes are open to the community at large. Our instructors are certified childbirth educators who may have also worked as labor and delivery nurses or doulas, in a variety of settings, but not at any one specific facility. Our goal is to provide comprehensive and evidence-based education.

These are a couple of the most common methods for hospital-based childbirth classes.

• ICEA: Educators certified by ICEA often offer their own private classes, but many also teach in hospitals since this training is almost universally endorsed by hospital systems. I am certified by ICEA. What I like about this particular training method is that the focus is very much on offering patient-centered care. The pregnant person is the center of all health care and decision making. The approach emphasizes working with each student based on their own understanding and goals for birth. Classes will offer evidence-based information about anatomy and physiology, and medical interventions, while also providing strategies for managing an unmedicated labor. These classes can vary a lot in length and depth and format. They are often one or two-day classes, but can extend longer. They might be as short as four hours or as long as 10-12, and are usually very affordable.

• Lamaze: This is the method that most people have heard of because it’s been around a long time. Lamaze classes became popular in the 1960s after the book “Thank You, Dr. Lamaze” by Marjorie Karmel was published, around the same time that Grantley-Dick Read’s book “Childbirth Without Fear” was published and “natural childbirth” became more fashionable. Karmel’s book described French obstetrician, Ferdinand Lamaze’s, methods for making childbirth less painful. His ideas were based on childbirth techniques he observed while in Russia. Many of those techniques focused on relaxation, breathing, and continuous support. Today, Lamaze is a great comprehensive method for childbirth education and usually endorsed by hospital systems. There is a strong emphasis on unmedicated childbirth. Lamaze certifies instructors before they can teach the method. Most Lamaze classes meet 4-6 times for a total of about 12 hours of instruction.

Private and Specialty Childbirth Education

In addition to classes offered in or by the hospital, there are a lot of private individuals and companies offering classes in the local community and online. These classes do usually provide comprehensive education so you’ll also learn some anatomy and physiology, just with a particular special focus. With so many options available now, you really can find a class that can help you with your very particular needs. Cost does tend to go up when you choose private specialty classes since the class sizes are usually smaller, and instructors have to pay for classroom space and other business expenses.

A downside to very specialized classes can be that people feel left without any tools if that particular specialty doesn’t work for them. If you take a class that prepares you in only one very specific area, and then things change during birth, you don’t want to feel left without options. I think it’s important to learn about interventions even if you’re not planning to need them. You might also learn about lots of different coping strategies if you want to have an unmedicated labor just in case one thing doesn’t work for you. That might mean taking more than one class (which I think is a GREAT idea if you can!), or finding something that will cover more.

The Bradley Method

This is the class I took when I was preparing for my first birth. Like Lamaze, Bradley method classes focus on preparing people for unmedicated birth. Bradley classes are a little different in their focus by giving more emphasis to preparing the “husband” or birth partner to act as a sort of “birth coach”. There is a lot of focus on natural methods for pain coping, and on avoiding intervention. I learned a lot from this class because it was so comprehensive, however, I ended up being someone who preferred to be left alone during labor. So, my poor “husband-coach” ended up not being able to use most of his newly learned skills. This also might not be a great class for someone who is not intending to have an unmedicated birth. Bradley Method instructors have to complete quite a bit of training to be certified to teach this method. The standard Bradley class is 12 weeks long for a total of 20 classroom hours, and they recommend doing this class during the last trimester of pregnancy.

Birthing From Within

When I decided to become a childbirth educator, I chose this training first, because I felt it was a little more universal than some others, and it’s my personal favorite. I like that the focus is much more on the birthing person and their internal needs and processes. It also gives a lot of emphasis to birth as a rite of passage for new parents, and to maternal mental health. There is plenty of information offered about having an unmedicated birth, but also does not avoid discussions about medical intervention as sometimes being “wise and compassionate”. This method can get a little esoteric for some. If you don’t like doing art, or talking about archetypes and feelings, this might not be the method for you! Birthing from Within instructors complete a significant amount of training before becoming fully certified. These classes usually meet weekly for 5-6 weeks for a total of 12-15 hours of class time.

Hypnobirthing or Hypnobabies

Hypnobirthing is what Lauren talks about in the interview below. These classes can be great, especially if your goal is to have an unmedicated birth and you feel that relaxation and mindfulness strategies are a good way for you to cope with the intensity of labor. There is a lot of focus on reframing and accepting the process of labor, tuning in to your body, and internal strategies to help keep you centered and from letting your mind shift to stressful thoughts which can interfere with labor. Depending on the class, it’s often recommended that you complete this education a little earlier in pregnancy so you can spend more time honing your skills with practice. The classes include homework doing some listening time with audio tracks designed to help you train in these self-hypnosis methods. Instructors undergo rigorous training to achieve a certification to teach. Hypnobirthing classes are usually 12-15 hours of class time. Hypnobabies classes are usually a little longer at 18 hours over 6 weeks, and include some different information.

Birth Boot Camp

Birth Boot Camp might be best known for creating the first online public birth classes. They certify instructors after a significant amount of self-directed online learning and several days of intensive training in person. They provide their instructors with all the necessary classroom materials for a very standardized approach meaning you should receive a very similar experience regardless of the instructor and setting. The approach is focused on giving all people tools for informed decision making regardless of their particular birth plan. You can choose your class based on your birth setting. They have a “Comprehensive” class, or you can choose to take a hospital specific class, or a home and birth center class specific class. There may be local options in your area, but most often people do their online self-paced classes.

Evidence-Based Birth

Originally a website providing information for families on topics related to childbirth with their thoroughly researched and easy to read Signature Articles, Evidence-Based Birth has grown to include childbirth educator training and classes, as well as a great podcast. There is a strong focus on comprehensive and evidence-based information as well as self-advocacy. You may be able to find local classes, but most are online or a hybrid of virtual and in person meetings.

This is not an exhaustive list. There are a lot more out there to choose from. The important thing to remember is that you select a style that works for you. Also, you can learn in so many different ways. If a class setting is not right for you, there are a lot of free resources out there. You can find videos created by great educators, and of course there are plenty of websites, articles, and books. You have a lot of power to create an experience and an outcome that can feel good and lead to a birth story that gets re-told for many years to come.