I confess: Looking back, I think the prenatal class we took was pretty dumb.
It was one night a week for four weeks (or was it six?) and aside from completely freaking me out about having a c-section (which I ended up having, so I suppose I’m glad I knew ahead of time they strap your arms down) I’m not sure it was very useful.
Image courtesy sweetpeascloth.com
One activity involved planning what we would do in a day with a newborn. The idea was to help parents-to-be understand how much work it is to have a newborn and how hard it is to get anything else done. The class was split – moms on one side, dads/partners on the other. It became a bit of a joke – how often do you have to feed them? How much sleep is reasonable to expect? How many beers can I drink between diaper changes? But of course none of us knew what was reasonable or what to expect. You can’t know until you’re doing it. So overall, not helpful.
Another exercise involved how partners can support moms in late pregnancy and labour. Are some of these things designed to make pregnant women seem totally hormonally messed up? One of the questions was: “What do you do if mom decides she needs to totally overhaul the baby’s room a week before her due date?” Because, you know, you’ve done all that painting and decorating and setting up furniture so it would be insane to change it all because her pregnant self doesn’t like it.
Related aside: Of course my husband, champion that he is, responded, “Say yes,” to this question. I, on the other hand, was much more rational, and wrote, “Look at the room and your options”. And then about, oh, two weeks before Connor was born, I had a total panic that the room wasn’t good enough and bought a bunch of decals that went with his bedding. I thought my artistic husband would freak out – “decals?!” – but he totally went for it and we put them up. Crisis averted.
In any case, thinking about this exercise now it occurs to me that, while I’m sure it’s helpful to understand how you can support your partner while she’s in labour, the prenatal class didn’t focus nearly enough on the actual reality of what happens next.
Looking at our responses to the labour support questions, I think a lot of the strategies involved could actually be applied to supporting a new mom right after birth, and it might have been helpful to mention that.
It doesn’t really matter what the actual questions were (translation: I can’t remember), but here’s what we answered (my answers / Rich’s answers):
- sit down & have a drink / distract her
- watch a movie or TV / run a bath and light candles
- look at the room and the options / say “yes”
- sit down / remind her of what she’s learned
- call midwife or go for a walk / go for a walk
- encourage & give positive feedback / give her a back or foot rub
- encourage her, give a back rub / say “yes”
- encourage her, hold her hand / encourage her
- distract her / practice breathing
- get her to sit down and breathe / get her to sit down
Don’t you think these apply to all the totally overwhelming and hard joyful things that happen after you bring your baby home? And coming from the point of view of someone who dealt with PPD, I know I would have been a lot better off if I’d done more of these things.
Do you think it’s too late to ask for a back rub?
