Day 1 - Child Birth Prep Class (6/7/2008)

We spent part of Mr. Chris' birthday in child birth prep class at Kaiser. The class was actually pretty informative. We were told to bring two pillows and a towel, but during class we were given the option of just staying in our chairs to do the exercise. So we all stayed in our chairs. It was just a relaxation exercise. The program actually doesn't cover breathing or positioning, because they feel that your body will tell you what to do and trying to remember a technique you learned in class will just be counter-constructive. Works for me!

Some other things of interest were:

• They will give you the baby immediately after birth, pre-bath. They want you to hold the baby skin-to-skin for at least two hours and even breastfeed at least once before they give the baby a bath.
  
• The bath and all the other visits (like the pediatrician) take place in the recovery room. The baby is always in the room with you except for circumcision, but you can go with the baby. The only nursery they have is for sick babies. This idea of having the baby constantly in the room with the mother seemed to be disconcerting to quite a few attendants.
  
• Kaiser does have squat bars on the bed. I am very excited about the squat bar!
  
• No bath tubs, but they have large showers large enough for two people.
• They highly recommend you stay at home for early labor. You shouldn't come in until 5-1-1 (Five minutes apart, 1 minute contraction, something to do with an hour. Maybe for a hour - or something like that. I should have written it down obviously).
• It's actually good to have residents delivering the babies because 1) they have very recent education and are up on the latest, 2) since they have shifts it doesn't matter to them that you deliver within a certain time frame. They get to go home regardless. The instructor mentioned that 85% of babies are born M-F 9-5, which isn't a coincidence.
• She discussed some of the pros about the other in-area Kaiser's with L&D. Walnut Creek has midwives, but their outcomes aren't any better than Kaiser Oakland. Hayward is certified as "baby friendly" which means they have a really rigorous breastfeeding education program and their rates of breastfeeding are higher than any other Kaiser. Kaiser Oakland has residents and they are good for the reasons I stated above.
  
• The woman teaching the class was Ed and Roger's postpartum duola.

Next week we are going to cover pain medications. Woo hoo!