It's 3:42 am...Follow

They've also been endorsed by studies done by the World Health Organization and the American College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians.




So are leeches.

You just want to see pregnant women covered in blood sucking leaches, you sick filthy *****.

Ambrya wrote:

***** all the birthing stuff, this thread just took on a far more interesting turn. Hawt!













Pics please!

Sorry MentalFrog that went right over my head.

Yeah, the hospital doula services are really not the optimal way to work with a doula. While it's nice to see hospitals heeding the studies that are showing the positive effects doulas can have, just throwing a stranger into the mix is a bit questionable. There's some benefit to it in the case of women who are alone or unsupported, uneducated about birth, or who don't speak the language (here on the West coast there's a BIG demand for bilingual doulas,) but in a case such as yours, just bringing a doula in unsolicited isn't the way to go.

Most professional doulas (ones who are engaged privately by the mother and father) establish their relationship with the parents weeks, even months before the birth. There are a number of prenatal visits where a level of familiarity is established, where a birth plan is laid out, where the doula gets to know the parents and what their desires/expectations/fears/concerns are, and they formulate a gameplan based upon all that information where the doula fits into the role the parents want her to fill.





A lot of classes don't. Unfortunately (especially with hospital-sponsored childbirth classes) the emphasis of the class is really upon concepts that, while they are edifying in the abstract, don't really mean much to the mother when she's actually in labor. I mean, what woman in labor really cares about what stage she's in, or whether or not she's in transition? The classes address what's happening physically, but usually from the point of view of someone outside the labor, not someone experiencing it, so there's a bit of a disconnect there. They also try to apply a "one size fits all" approach to pain management and the role of the support person, which really doesn't work all that well in reality.

The birthing center I'm going to offers a class that's kinda modelled after the "Birthing From Within" classes/book by Pam England. The focus of these classes is more upon emotional and psychological preparation, recognizing and addressing fears and concerns about the birth and even the impending parenthood, for both the mother and her partner, and really figuring out an approach that will work best for the mother and partner. I'm fairly certain this is the class I'll be taking. I might also look into hypnobirthing, since self-hypnosis very close to the sort of thing I've done in other situations, so that might be something that works well for me.

Frankly, my biggest concern is Mr. Ambrya, because he's SUCH a caretaker and so very solicitous that if I turn out to need my space, it might be a problem. I need to make sure he's prepared beforehand for that, so that I don't end up hurting his feelings or making him feel rejected or excluded.