Lamaze Class Narrative I took Lamaze and Child birthing classes when I was pregnant with my first child in April of 2006. Throughout the process and especially now that I’ve already had my second child I can see the pros and cons of taking Lamaze classes. Since I am an optimistic person, I will start with the pros. After completing the classes I feel like I was extremely more informed about the labor process itself and the stages of labor and delivery.
I was actually able to see and feel myself going through those stages during my labor and that was very beneficial to me at the time because I was actually able to mentally put myself on a timeline and knew what stage I was in and how many more I had to go. It’s always easier for me personally to get through something tough or painful if I can see the finish line or at least be able to start a count down and say, “Okay, one down, two to go. ” If I hadn’t had the Lamaze class then I would have had no idea what was happening or what to expect to happen next.
One of the other definite pros of the Lamaze classes was learning about the epidural. We learnt how it is put in and some the positive and negative things about having one. I knew that I would probably want to request one when the pain got to be too much but I did have my doubts because I have heard a lot of negatives things about epidurals in the past. Fortunately, my instructor was able to put my worries to rest by educating me further on the topic and giving me enough confidence in epidurals that I decided if I was able to get one during labor I would. I am happy to say I have no regrets on the epidural, whatsoever.
I was thrilled to find out that since I would be delivering my baby at Coffeyville hospital I wouldn’t have to pay for the Lamaze class. They also provided our class with lots of goodies each time we met. This included diapers, formula, magazines for expecting mothers, tons of brochures on parenting, babies, and pregnancy, and coupons for all of the above. I know my entire Lamaze class really appreciated these items because as I have learnt in the past three years having a baby and raising it is very expensive. Our class also only had 3 expecting mothers, one of them being myself.
So we had the luxury of being able to work one on one with the instructor and also being able to ask all the questions we wanted. Now that I have brought up all the positive points there were a few negative ones. Lamaze classes in general have to be at least 12 hours long and it’s usually split up into separate classes. My instructor split our classes up into 3 classes, which meant each class was 4 hours long, I think she was trying to help us out by us not having to meet that extra day; but in my opinion it was a little long especially for an impatient expecting woman to sit through 4 hours with only one break.
My specific Lamaze class was held in the hospital and they didn’t have a special room where a class could be held, so we basically had to take whatever room was available. Unfortunately, that meant one of our classes was actually held in the cafeteria and the other two were held in an empty-available conference room. The conference room was better because there was more privacy and there was carpet, so it was a more comfortable set up for pregnant woman. The cafeteria was noisy at times and the chairs were very hard, which made for a long 4 hours.
We also didn’t get to spend too much time on the floor when we were in the cafeteria due to the floor being too hard. I felt like for as much time as we spent working on the breathing techniques (the shallow breaths and the deep breaths) in my Lamaze class, I would have used them more during labor and delivery, but I really never used them. I know I probably should have, but everyone is different and what works for one person might not work for another. So all in all I do not regret taking the classes but I think if I wouldn’t have taken it I still would have done the same things.
