Helps you start to talk about it (Why future dads should attend childbirth classes)

Member Name: ariom

Product:	Why future dads should attend childbirth classes
Date:	28/11/08 (167 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Prompts for later discussion, means they know what's going on, someone to talk to

Disadvantages: may stop you making friends as easily

Our antenatal classes were organised in a block of three, all held in the evenings between 7pm and 9pm. We started them in February/March and it was still darkish when we attended. My husband and I were both attending after a long day at work and my husband had been tired from a big project that he'd been working on. I remember him moaning at having to go out, but often getting us a take-away since neither of us would be around to cook in the evenings as our train back didn't give us much time before going out.

One of my main memories was us all being given a sheet of paper for a quiz and my husband writing in big letters over it "Where's the cup of tea?" That said, the sessions themselves, which covered, stages of natural birth, pain relief and feeding were useful for him to attend. I'd read a lot of the information before, but he hadn't and a lot of the things that were important in my birth.
- He hadn't even known about the third stage, but the discussion at the session meant that he asked me after about it.
- I was keen to not use drugs if possible, the sessions taught him that this didn't mean I wasn't using anything and told him how the methods I did plan to use (water, TENs etc) would work.
- There was a very useful part where the men were sent to another room and had to plan what they thought that we'd need in labour and then compare it with our lists of what we wanted.

Overall, I think that it brought a lot of issues up that I hadn't thought of talking to him about, but needed to before labour. Also, I was really glad to have him there as our group was really large and I'd have felt a bit intimidated otherwise, though maybe if he hadn't been I'd have made more friends. In labour I was really glad of these things as I didn't want to talk at all and it meant my husband could communicate my wishes.

Summary: You need to talk about labour - these classses give a prompt