CreateYour Own Birthing Class
Experiential, individualized learning; design your own class with modules.
$125 per hour with a 2 hour minimum
(prices negotiable depending on situation and needs of client)
*Classes held in person privately in client home-unless arranged within a group context with client permissions to meet together. Potential space use in Palo Alto for private or small group extra fee if meeting in client home not possible or condusive to learning. Zoom/online classes also available.
Themed Learning Modules:
Building a Mindful Birth Practice: 1 Hour
Prepare for the unknown, explore and perfect your own ways of coping, explore any blocks you may have for coping with the intensity of labor, and learn tools for bringing your mindfulness to your birth experience.
Creating a Space for Opening: 1 hour
Learn about the physiology of opening in birth. Having this understanding will give way to support that physiology, through preparation of our emotions and environment. Explore attitudes, habits and beliefs; ours and those in our birth space to understand how they may effect your labor Creating a birth plan has become a big part of childbirth preparation in recent years, in this workshop you'll create a 'birth plan' of sorts through art exploration.
Power in Labor: 1 hour
Using the intrinsic knowledge your body and mind already have to advantage for laboring. Practice, Positioning, Breath-work, and other types of expressions used by birthing moms for coping.
3-R's: Relaxation, Rythm, Ritual: 1 hour
Implement relaxation for coping with contractions. How does a laboring mother's body and mind understand 'relaxation' in labor. Practice different types of relaxation for different 'stages' of labor. Includes a viewing of Penny Simkin's video 3R's for childbirth.
Birth Laborynth: The Circular path of labor: 2 hours
The ancient tool of the Labyrinth has been used for centuries for meditation, guidance, and metaphor. We will use this tool as a metaphore for labor and birth preparation. Only recently in our culture has birth become a timed, graphed, and controlled event. The "Labor"ynth's series of seemingly endless twists and turns, into the center and out again, give us a better feel for the reality of the timeless space of labor. What tools do we have internally to prepare for the more circular way of labor and birth. If "labor has it's own clock", what clues does our body give us to know what 'time' it is? This workshop includes materials to create a clay laborinth to take with you for personal use.
Birth Tiger Safari: Coping with unwished for surprises: 2 hours
Our bodies respond the same to real or imagined fear. Hunting down and capturing our real or imagined Tigers (fears) about birth, is a beneficial process to learn and use when we are learning coping skills to deal with surprises that may come upin birth and parenting. Wehen we fear, or try to avoid things, our bodies respond with an automatice response of fight or flight, this is couter-productive to our body's birthing hormones and will have an effect on our experience.
Includes art supplies.
Gathering Information and Making Decisions: 1 hour
It's almost as if we learn a new language to prepare for our birth experience. Learn easy tools to use for communication in the labor room, before or after, to help you gather information to help you make decisions.
Our Postpartum Plan: 1 hour
Explore common early parenting dilemas and tools for coping. Create a list of your top concerns and strategies. Make goals for taking care of yourself and your partner after the birth of the baby.
Wise and Compassionate use of Medications and Cesarean in Awareness: 1 hour
When preparing for birth in our culture it's important to understand the use of interventions and medications. In this session parents to be explore the compassionate use of medications, preparation for a cesarean delivery-unexpected or planned, and discuss the use of interventions in labor.
Class Philosophy:
Parents and birth attendants can influence, but not control how a birth unfolds. Birthing From Within* is a holistic approach that gives parents the tools to birth-in-awareness, even when the journey takes unexpected turns.
Birthing From Within classes are unlike any other childbirth classes. Parents learn practical information through thought-provoking dialogues, interesting videos, and multi-sensory activities. Class by class, parent practice and master a variety of proven pain-coping exercises and build their pain-coping confidence. They also explore the wise and compassionate use of drugs and epidurals.
*Create a birth space (wherever you are that will help you open in labor
*Build a pain coping mindset through proven concentration and mindfulness practices
*Reclaim the spirituality of birth
*Explore the wise and compassionate use of drugs and epidurals
*"Lose it" in labor
*Pushing your baby out
*Welcoming your new baby
*Preparing for gentle and mindful transition into parenthood
These classes are complete childbirth preparation, covering material and information covered in more traditional classes, including stages of labor/birth, physiology of normal birth, what to expect, when to call your care-provider, and much more.