Without a doubt, taking a childbirth class before your big day is very important. Taking one with an engaging and experienced teacher is even more important!
That’s why I totally recommend that you take Mandy Irby’s childbirth class “The Ultimate Guide to Taking Control of you Childbirth.”
Mandy is a Certified Lamaze Childbirth Educator, she’s a Peanut Ball trainer (what are peanut balls and how can they help you while you’re in labour? learn more here) and she’s just an all-around awesome person who cares about your birth experience and wants you to BIRTH BOLDLY and without fear.
Keep reading until the end to get your unique coupon code for 20% off of her courses!
Go and check out Mandy’s YouTube channel. She has tons of useful videos on birth, pregnancy and babies. That way you can get to know Mandy before committing to enrolling in her class (I guarantee you are going to love her!). Don’t forget to subscribe when you are there 😉
“Mandy’s on a mission to prepare families to birth boldly so that they can begin parenthood believing in themselves!”
Mandy’s own words: “My absolute favorite part about bedside nursing is when I can help surprise a new mother with her own strength! Labor plays funny tricks with our minds. It makes us vulnerable, it’s raw, it’s scary. Many of us get to a point where we feel utterly defeated, overwhelmed, and that we simply cannot do it. I know the truth, however, and can see the fierceness and power inside each birthing person. When they finally reach the finish line and look back at their journey while holding their little one in their arms, that look of “well dang, I actually did it” is my favorite part of the whole process.”
If I needed to take a childbirth class right now, I would, without a doubt, take Mandy’s course. She is such a thorough, fun teacher and she’s your number one advocate. And it doesn’t hurt that she’s a Lamaze certified childbirth educator who has been teaching pregnant people for years!
If you’re super duper busy, Mandy has a shorter childbirth class for you, read all about it here: Amazing Online Birth Course for Busy Parents
(Babytalk may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. This is at no extra cost to you!)
Why Taking a Childbirth Class is Important
A childbirth class will be so very beneficial for you in many ways. In this day and age, we don’t really see birth very often and it can be hard to know what to expect. We see things in the media and birth is often portrayed as a very scary thing. It’s not!
Taking a class like Mandy’s will really help ease those fears.
And guess what?
Fear is the worst thing you can have in the delivery room! It doesn’t mesh well with labour. The more relaxed and at ease you are, the easier your labour will be! So that’s a pretty good reason right there!
Birth Can Be Scary
It really isn’t! But we hear horror stories about birth all the time and the media is not helpful in representing what an empowered birth looks like.
That means a lot of women go into the process not knowing what their bodies are capable of and their mindset is often not in the right place.
The Ultimate Guide to Taking Control of Your Childbirth will definitely help you feel empowered and maybe you’ll even get over those fears if you have them. She will help to change your mindset so you can go into your birth feeling like you have all the power in the world. You made a beautiful baby and you can birth that beautiful baby!
A lot of language around birth is very negative, we hear things like “failed induction”, “incompetent cervix”, “failure to progress” and other words that describe birth and women in a negative light. This does not help boost women’s confidence!
But Mandy’s childbirth class REALLY helps to turn that around.
Just take it! It’s more than worth it 🙂
Find out What Actually Happens, The Scoop from an Insider
Will you poop on the table? What about tears? The more knowledge you have about the actual process, the less fear you will have!
Mandy has been a labour nurse for a long time and she has seen it all! She will share all her knowledge with you about what might happen during your birth.
Of course, she cannot predict the exact turn of events, neither can I for that matter (us labour nurses don’t have a crystal ball, unfortunately!), but she’ll go over the most common things that happen. Once you know about them, they won’t be as scary anymore.
Do you see a theme here? It’s all about eliminating that fear and giving the power back to you!
Take the fear factor away and all of a sudden birth is a happy event and something to look forward too.
And when fear is off the table the whole process should go much smoother!
Learn About Your Body
What is the first stage of labour? How will my placenta get out? Is there still water around my baby after my water breaks? How the heck is that huge thing going to fit through my vagina?!
These are all things the childbirth class will teach you. Mandy even covers ways to get your body more comfortable during pregnancy.
This class really is the ULTIMATE childbirth class, it covers everything!
Get Your Partner Involved in the Childbirth Class
Another major reason to take a childbirth class is to help your partner understand what happens during birth.
If you think you’re afraid of birth, your partner is most likely terrified! Most partners do not like to see there loved ones in pain and they have less of an understanding of how your body works and how the heck the baby is going to come out of you!
Take a class with your partner to ease all those fears and to have the super support that you need during your birth!
The class will cover everything from the anatomy of a woman to what happens postpartum and I’m sure your partner will need all the information he can get! You’ll learn simple support techniques can mean the difference between you being watched in labour and you feeling fully supported by your entire team.
If you both take the class, you’ll be on the same page when the big day finally comes and he (or she!) won’t feel like they were left out of the loop and that you get to have all the good inside jokes with your nurse 😉
Learn About Physical Strategies to Cope
Mandy covers all the different way on how to cope physically with the pain of labour. She’ll teach you the different positions and how they affect your labour and help your baby get into the right position. She goes over these positions very thoroughly with all the props you’re going to need and encourages you to practice as well!
Learn About Mental Strategies to Cope
Coping with the pain isn’t just about the physical! To be able to get through your contractions, you’ll have to have mental strategies in your toolkit! Mandy covers relaxation techniques and meditation and helps you learn how to focus.
Focusing is so important while you are in the throes of labour. It’ll help you get out of you “thinking brain” and into your “primal brain”. Focusing will help you let your body take over the job of birthing.
Don’t ever forget that your body knows EXACTLY what to do, you just have to learn how to tap into that knowledge!
If you’d like to read more about coping methods in labour, check out my post on two helpful ways to cope with your contractions. The Best Way to Cope With Contractions During Labour
Learn About Interventions
Mandy covers everything in this course.
Maybe you are planning to get an epidural, or maybe you want to go natural. Either way, it’s so important to know everything that could potentially happen! She also talks about lots of other types of medications you can get for the pain while in hospital.
She teaches about what happens when you get an epidural. You’ll learn about inductions and how and why they happen and she’ll teach you in detail what would happen during a c-section, should you need one.
Most people don’t plan for a c-section when they go into hospital in labour. But, it’s a real possibility and again, it’s better to be prepared for anything.
One of the modules in the childbirth class covers how to understand whether an intervention is necessary or not. It also teaches you how to have that very important discussion with your provider when you are making the decision whether you will go ahead with the intervention.
That’s an amazing tool to have! Being in a scary place like a hospital at a time when you are very vulnerable can make it hard to have serious discussions with authoritative people like doctors and nurses who deliver babies every day.
This is your day and you are the boss in the delivery room. The class will help you know your rights and have the right discussions with the team.
Make Your Own Birth Plan
Having all this knowledge will help you to prepare your own birth plan, which is a very important thing to have!
Without all the knowledge, how are you supposed to know what to put in your plan? This in-depth online class will help you put all the pieces together so that you know what is important and what is just fluff!
Read more about making your birth plan from Babytalk:Â Make The Perfect Birth Plan. A Step by Step Guide.
What to Expect in the Postpartum Period
Very many women focus so much on the labour side of things, they feel clueless once the baby is out. Have no fear, this class will cover what happens after you have your little squish in your arms.
Mandy teaches all about breastfeeding and skin-to-skin and why it’s so incredible in the beginning.
She also covers postpartum essentials, all the things you’ll get in the hospital or need to bring to the hospital. It’s a great video that explains each thing in detail.
Last, but definitely not least, she will talk to you about postpartum mood and anxiety disorders. They are so common, it’s important to know what to look out for before your baby is here.
And So Much More!
Mandy goes into detail. She dives deep into things. You’ll feel so fully prepared after this class. I guarantee it! I didn’t even cover half of all the information that’s in this class in this post, it’s so jam-packed with everything you need to know to be fully prepared for your hospital birth!
Not only that, she is funny and relatable and just the coolest person. You’re not only going to want her to be your labour and delivery nurse, but you’re also going to want to be her friend!
What are you waiting for! Go get this childbirth class now! 🙂 Yay, you got to the end! Use the code BabyTalk to get 20% off of this amazing class.
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