Antenatal class and my hunt for a birthing playlist

This weekend just gone the hubby and I attended an antenatal class at our hospital, as part of our preparation for the upcoming birth of our first born. We’ve still got one more class to go yet. This one was more of a foundation and learning what was to come. We crammed it all into a single day session, and by the end of it I was brain fried.

We covered:

• What to expect when you go into labour
• The various stages of labour
• Pain management techniques
• Induction techniques
• When to actually go to the hospital
• What to prepare for hospital (packing list for me, our bub and hubby)
• What not to do when the wife is in labour (i.e. for the partners, how to avoid getting hit in the face by annoying your beloved one)
• Breastfeeding techniques
• Post-birth care
• Tour of the hospital facilities

It was so worth it. I’ve come out of it feeling more comfortable than I expected. Before we went, I would have assumed that the minute my waters broke I would have to make a panicked call to Mario (if he was at work), then a mad dash to the hospital. Just a little unnecessary it seems!

I took a few notes on things to follow up on afterwards, which for anyone else who might be interested I’ve listed below.

Useful resources

• http://www.nancymohrbacher.com/ – The midwife giving the talk about breast feeding couldn’t recommend this site enough. Nancy is a lactation consultant, and has tons of information and tips on breast feeding.  We were warned not to expect breastfeeding to be easy, that it’s in fact challenging, and that this site would help with further information. While we’re in hospital we have the midwives to help us of course, but it doesn’t hurt to read up some more.
• Australian Breastfeeding Association – the midwife explained the Breastfeeding Association hosts various meetups for mothers and bubs where they can all get together, have a chat, and breastfeed in a safe environment with staff on hand to provide advice. There’s fees to join (and I don’t know if I will) but it’s something that I made a note to just read up more about.
• A reminder to myself to buy a hairbrush/comb for bub for the hospital – that hadn’t even crossed my mind that that might be necessary! ?

iPhone apps:

• SIDS/Red Nose app: A useful app with resources for safe sleeping techniques for babies, to help combat SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).
• VacciDate app: An app that helps you keep track of your vaccination dates for your children. As you can tell I’m pro-vaccination, so this is something I’m interested in, and will be actively managing after the birth of the child.

I also wrote a note “child health access”, but I have no idea what that was about.

Hospital facilities

I was really impressed by the hospital facilities. The rooms felt spacious, and as comfortable as you could imagine in a hospital. The bath for water births was large, nicely tiled, and looked inviting.

There was a hot shower with an endless supply of warm water. The private rooms (for post-birth) were the same. We have a large bed in there, which is one of my favourite parts of going private. Mario gets to stay there with me, with our baby in the room. We are there to support each other from the get-go. I think if I was on my own it would be a lot more daunting. They actually joked they have a 2am “dad club” that meet up in the main room when the men are charged with looking after the babies while the partners try to get some sleep.

In all rooms, the best part was that there is a speaker system for you to plug your phone into, which when you’re in labour means….

PLAYLIST TIME!

Let’s make a birthing playlist

Oh hell yes. They encourage us to put together a playlist for us to put through the speakers while we’re in labour. The midwife laughed as she told us about a couple that had played heavy metal, which definitely wasn’t to her taste.

That started a lot of conversation around appropriate music to play, some of the favourites of our group being:

• Eye of the Tiger – Survivor
• Baby Got Back – Sir Mix-a-lot
• We are Done – The Madden Brothers

I discussed it with a friend this morning. She had the brilliant suggestion of “Push it” by Salt n Pepa.

Music is my saviour – I can be in the worst mood, but play the right tune and I will snap out of it. Or if I need something to help me process my feelings, it’s music that helps me through.

Out of curiosity I’ve just checked Spotify, and people have no sense of humour.

Soothing and calming? Pfft. I want to bring this baby in dancing around with smiles and laughter, and a great tune on the radio. After all, this is the baby that was just recently dancing to Prince and Queens of the Stone Age! This baby already has taste!

Does anyone have some great suggestions for me? Spotify is about to get one hell of a workout!

All up, while it sucked a whole day out of my weekend, attending the class was so worth it. I feel so much more calm about the whole thing, and ready. Now just to actually go and pack my hospital bag; just so that when it does happen I’m not trying to figure out what I need on the fly!