Condensed BIRTH CLASS
The Best One Day Childbirth Class in Ann Arbor!
Our condensed birth class, offered through Growth in Her Seasons, helps you to clarify what a positive birth means for you, while empowering you to prepare for it. We focus on practical strategies and skills for helping birth to go well, while fostering an attitude of flexibility and resilience, so that parents are well prepared in the ways that birth can be unpredictable. The Condensed Birth Class is taught by an experienced childbirth educator who has also worked as a doula and helped numerous families navigate the experience of birth, witnessing firsthand the range of strategies that work best.
The class equally serves pregnant persons and their partners/loved ones who want to support them meaningfully throughout the process. The class fee includes attendance for two people.
We focus on four areas of birth preparation
1. What to Expect
This birth class covers what to expect from the full course of labor, emphasizing how to recognize when to go to the hospital or call your midwife, and how to take care of yourself well before that time. Specifics about local hospitals, such as what to expect during the triage process, and standard practices for labor and delivery are also covered.
2. Helping Birth Go Well
The condensed birth class empowers parents with clear and detailed information about how normal labor physiology works, along with strategies for supporting and enhancing this process. We introduce specific actions you can take in each stage of your labor to help your birth go well, thus decreasing the need for medical intervention.
3. Pain Management
We provide a wealth of techniques for laboring without pain medications, while also fully supporting birthing people in their choice to use medical pain relief. We include comprehensive strategies for naturally managing the sensations of labor, as well as clear and unbiased information about medical pain relief options. Comfort measures partners/spouses/birth attendants can use to support the laboring person are also included.
4. Decision-Making
Decision-making is easier when you understand your options. We’ll provide you with a brief orientation to routine hospital procedures and common medical interventions. We emphasize strategies for gathering and understand information from your own doctor or midwife throughout labor and birth. The aim of this portion of class is to prepare you to work with your providers to make the decisions that best reflect your needs and values, no matter what situations may arise in labor.
Class will specifically address the following questions:
What is labor like?
What makes a positive birth experience?
What should you do in early labor?
When will you go to the hospital/birth center or call your provider to join you?
How can you cope with the strong intensity of contractions?
What can partners do about pain in childbirth? How do you support a laboring woman?
What tools promote great labor progress and help it go well?
How do you make decisions in the midst of labor?
Recovery after birth is an important aspect of preparation for a great transition to life with a new baby! Our Welcome Baby! Newborn and Breastfeeding Class covers postpartum recovery, including what to expect during the early weeks after birth, and how to care for recovering mothers and the new emotional landscape for both the birth person and support partner. We strongly recommend taking both of our condensed classes!
The Ann Arbor Birth & Family one-day Condensed Childbirth Class is offered one Saturday per month.
***Please note that this class is offered in a live-virtual format. Participants join for 4.5 hour of real-time instruction, allowing for individualized and responsive learning, and plenty of time for relevant questions with your instructor. Each student also receives exclusive access to a comprehensive prenatal, postnatal, and newborn learning website for enhanced learning. This includes multi-media resources and deep-dive on specialty topics that are available to each participant for 12 months! This class is only offered virtually for optimal convenience for our group class participants.***
This class is taught by doula, childbirth educator, lactation educator and owner of Growth In Her Seasons, Shara Jackson Harper. She is an expert birth professional with extensive experience supporting families through pregnancy, birth, the postpartum adjustment.
Upcoming Classes Sessions for 2024:
June 8th 10:00am-2:30pm
July 27th 10:00am-2:30pm
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this a natural birth class?
This is not a “philosophy of birth” class promoting natural or pharmaceutical approaches to pain relief and interventions. Rather, it is a practical course on how to make those decisions for yourself, and a skills class teaching how to optimize birth physiology and health.
Classes respect the choices of all birthing persons, and encourage them to make decisions based on their knowledge of themselves, coupled with the best insights available from diverse sources of knowledge. The goal is for each family to choose whatever they believe is best for their baby and themselves, and for them to know why they have chosen what they have. We believe that natural birth is a very positive and healthy choice for many families and babies, but not all. We have very high confidence that families who wish to birth naturally are able to, and support them in this desire with practical tools. The class will emphasize comfort measures that help people who are laboring without pain medications, and detailed information on what contractions are like and how to deal with them. It also provides information on how to optimize the function, or physiology, of labor when epidurals and other medications are used. The class does not cover a great deal about the side effects or risks of pain relief options, but does include resources with this information.
Most of our childbirth classes host some parents planning to birth with obstetricians and others with midwives, at hospitals, and at home. Our clients are equally diverse when it comes to their desires for pain management. We believe that this class serves all of these families equally well. There is much about giving birth that is universal, and the bulk of time is spent on these universal aspects of birth. At every turn we encourage you to make your choices personal. We offer examples and tools to facilitate this personal process throughout the class and with online handouts.
Does the Class Fee Cover Attendance for My Partner?
Yes! The course covers attendance for the birthing person and your partner or labor support person of your choosing. If you would like more than two people to attend please contact us so we may plan accordingly! Birthing parents are also welcome to attend on their own.
When should we take classes?
The birth classes are best taken when you feel a desire or need to begin preparing for birth. For some this is early in pregnancy, and for others it comes later. It is never too early to take the class. On the later side, it is ideal if you complete your class by 36 weeks. Many parents do take the class even later. Finishing earlier gives you more time to personally prepare based on ideas the class generates. The postpartum/newborn/breastfeeding class is meant to be taken during pregnancy as well.
Are there class materials?
Class includes access to a class-specific web site full of resources, handouts, and worksheets that will help you continue your education and preparation long after the class is over. You will find these online resources helpful throughout the first year after having your baby.
Are Non-Traditional Families Welcome?
Ann Arbor Birth & Family celebrates and affirms all loving families! Trans and non-binary parents, same-sex couples, solo parents, and non-traditional families of all kinds are welcome and can expect respect and inclusivity at all times. If you would like more than two people to attend please contact the course instructor so we may plan accordingly!