Back to School

On Saturday, me and Rob went to our first antenatal class.It was a butt numbing 3 hour long session, split into four parts. The firstpart covered labour, from gore to glory; the second covered the wonder of painrelief, the third - post natal care and the fourth - breastfeeding. All in all the class was pretty informative, if a littlefreaky in places. The labour part mademe want to padlock my legs closed tight. There was a lot of cringing talk aboutnervous babies’ pooing inside of you and turning your amniotic fluid green (uponlearning this I felt surprised and kind of icky, the thought of two babiespotentially unloading themselves inside of me is shockingly not that appealing ...butc’est la vie). Along with that charming factoid we were also informed that thatthe cervix will never completely contract down to its original size, though wewere reassured that this is not such a bad thing as it makes subsequent laboursquicker and a bit easier. Though this is no excuse not to work on your pelvicfloor exercises as your stretchy elasti-girl cervix has nothing to do with howtight those muscles are. The Midwife running the class ended the labour sessionwith performance art, we all had the fun/horror of watching a scary little dollbeing pushed through a model pelvis (more on ‘Chucky’ later). The second session was a brief overview on pain relief andhow you should not be ashamed to ask for it. I didn’t realise there were such acornucopia of options available. From the giddy heights of Gas & Air, thespacey shots of Pethidine to the numbing marvel of an Epidural. I am of thecamp that until I am seeing ‘pink elephants’ and dancing along with thesugar-plum fairy I have not had enough of the pain killing goodness. Though thetough as nails GI-Jane-like women out there who bite down on a piece of woodand bear the pain like Jack Bauer have my full respect (I bow down in thepresence of these goddesses).
The third session basically covered how long it takes beforethey release you from hospital into the wild world to care for your tot(s) andhow if you get the baby-blues this is perfectly natural and what to look outfor if you think you are descending down into the rabbit hole that ispost-natal depression. I hope to goodness that this is not something that toomany women have to experience as it sounds terrible. This session was veryshort and didn’t really touch on recovery time or information on how to copeafter a section. All in all this was the section that I would have liked toknow more about.
The last section and possibly the longest section was on breastfeeding.Enter ‘Chucky’... The midwife spent this session pimping out breastfeeding likeit was a two dollar hooker. The message that ‘breast is best’ was well andtruly covered, along with a healthy dose of guilt-trip for anyone contemplatingformula feeding. The threat of mouth thrush and nipple confusion was bandiedabout for a bit along with the message that it is far more hygienic tobreastfeed. I am not sure how common ‘mouth thrush’ is with formula fed babiesor how many of them suffer from nipple confusion. I do know that a lot ofpeople make formula feeding work without severe risks to their babies health, andin some cases (a lot of them parenting multiples) there are people who manage todo both using formula to top up their breastfeeding. This is done to eithergive themselves a bit of a break as well as getting the dad or other motherinvolved, or just because they have not been physically able to produce enoughmilk to feed their hungry babies. Don’t get me wrong, I am all forbreastfeeding and will be giving it a go myself, I just think that people whochoose not to or who are physically unable should not be judged. Anyway...morepuppet/performance art followed the pro-breastfeeding rally. Out came the strangefake baby (who I have decided to christen Chucky due to its freakiness – and yesin homage to the scariest doll of them all, currently living in a celluloideternity of ‘Child’s Play’ fame). I lie to you not; this doll was one of thescariest I have ever seen. It had afabric body and freaky shovel-like hands and a hard plastic head. Its face wasscrunched up into a frown with its mouth wide open in a scream Munch’s paintingwould have envied. It was horrendous and I am not sure the vision of themidwife popping its open ‘screaming’ mouth onto her breast (over her shirt) todemonstrate breastfeeding positions will ever leave me...
The class ended with us all wondering off to tour the labourward, whilst Chucky lay abandoned on the floor (readying himself to terrorisethe afternoon class!). I am glad we attended the class, it was definitely anexperience.