27 weeks pregnant is just another week closer to The Birth. You are still in this sort of blessed period when you have moved from those early weeks of feeling fat but not showing and before those late weeks when you feel like a washing machine off balance, beached whale or fat and ugly! Enjoy these weeks.
You’ll get useful information from these two websites and we’re not going to repeat what you learn from them. We’re going to discuss what’s missing, the confusing information and we will shine light on the gaps. There is so much information about pregnancy, your coming birth, getting your baby’s room ready, dealing with Life, getting ready to become a parent either for the first time or once again .
These two websites are quite different which means you get lots of information, ideas, questions, and answers. The What To Expect post about 27 weeks pregnant even mentions childbirth classes. But childbirth classes is not mentioned in the post directly but in the ‘recommended reading’ down at the bottom. That tells you that classes aren’t particularly important. Here’s the link to their post on childbirth education classes
As soon as you go to the above link you are taken to multiple hyperlinks. Go ferret around and you’ll find bits and pieces of ideas about ‘doing’ The Birth. But when you get into this Rabbit Warren you know the information is not really valued as being too important.
We believe the most important thing for you to do to get ready for this BIG activity. And why do we place birth and birth-coaching skills way at the bottom or hidden behind all the other stuff? (We’ll explain the WHY in just a moment)
The Baby Center post skips that part and moves toward breastfeeding classes.
Birthing Better families want to add at 27 weeks pregnant:
Here’s where it’s important that you understand why Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation Online Courses are so unique:
- The courses are entirely skills focused for preparing your body for birth (if you didn’t start at 24 weeks, then start now)
- You get birth and birth-coaching skills for absolutely every type of birth.
- The skills become an anchor and focus for this ONE phenomenally BIG event, activity, and experience.
In the last post, Baby Center conducted a survey that said 54% of women found Birth Plans to ‘go out the window’. They didn’t do a survey on how childbirth classes impact birth. In reality, the vast majority of childbirth education classes focus on creating your Birth Plan and discussing the pros/cons of all those assessments, monitoring and procedures (AMPs or ‘interventions).
- WHY are birth skills not stressed as vital, essential and important?
I got involved in childbirth in the early 1970s when everyone took a Lamaze or Bradley class but those courses were both philosophically based toward three goals:
- To achieve a natural birth
- To have a pain free labor, and to have
- Less medical care in births
By the end of the 1970s and after 20+ years of these classes, not enough women achieved these three goals. Birth advocates then assumed birth skills didn’t work.
The fault is NOT skills, it’s coupling skills to specific goals. Skills should have been associated with every birth! Every birthing woman should feel skilled and capable because it’s not hard to learn, practice and use skills to work through the birth of your baby. Every birth-coach should have the skills to help you. Childbirth would be different today if one type of birth was not considered the ideal and all others pushed aside!
At 27 weeks pregnant, here are the resources in LESSON FOUR
READ: There are heaps of twos and threes. Here are eBooks about Two Birth Plans, 3 Birth roles, 3 Births, Two Types of Birthing Behaviors and Two Make a Team. If you’re pregnant with one baby … that’s another two. Pregnant with twins … that’s a three. Have a partner? That’s a two. Choice? Often an either/or. Change? A this or that. Even during The Birth you either choose to use a skill or skills or you choose not to. This doesn’t mean choosing to use skills is easy. Often choosing what skill, and when and how to use it during The Birth requires a deep commitment to filling time with being skilled rather than being passive.
- PDF: Teamwork – 23 pages
- PDF: Two Birth Plans – 11 pages
- PDF: Three Birth Roles – 10 pages
- PDF: Three Birth Stories – 25 pages
- PDF: Two Birthing Behaviors – 10 pages
Birthing Better skills were developed by moms and dads in the early 1970s in the US and used by many thousands globally in all types of birth. Birthing Better online birthing classes are housed in Common Knowledge Trust.