You can go to a childbirth preparation class if you have time and energy. Compared to your mother and grandmother’s generation many fewer pregnant couples are attending childbirth education or birth preparation classes. Now more families are looking for birth education and online birthing classes they can use in the privacy of your own home. Times have certainly changed.

In the 1970s there was a huge societal expectation that expectant families learn birth and birth coaching skills. These classes were Lamaze. The Bradley Method then came along and gave people ‘choice’. Then Active Birth came along followed by Hypnobirthing or Hypnobabies.

Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation Online Course developed in the early 1970s by hundreds of families. We’re just a smaller New Zealand charitable Trust and we actually had to wait until the Internet came along. Books are fading as well as birth classes.

Like many, you go online to find information because childbirth shifted in the mid1970s from becoming skilled to make choices with a Birth Plan

We need both choices and skills

But if you lack choices then you need skills more. Or if your choices change, you’ll still have skills

You need to make a conventional Birth Plan. You know what that is. Birth Plans became popular in the 1980s. You get to think about what you want and don’t want and write that down, give it to your birth provider, cross your fingers or hope for the best.

Your Skills-based Birth Plan is the first step to how you learn birth and birth-coaching skills because you get to learn, practice and write down the skills you’re learning, give that to your birth provider, for use as a reminder during birth and way to get your birth providers to encourage you to use your skills.

24 weeks is your starting point

The very best way to learn Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation skills is to learn in the privacy of your own home from 24 weeks of pregnancy onward. This gives you plenty of time to comfortably learn, practice and remember the skills.

Most childbirth classes start much later. Keep in mind the old adage: ‘The bigger the uterus grows the more the mind goes’. These means don’t leave learning skills too late or you’ll both feel rushed.

Here’s a list of the lessons in Birthing Better online birthing classes

You can follow through each lesson but remember to pick and choose which resources in each lesson that suits your individual situation. Or you can skip around. This is why the Internet is so phenomenal and online learning has become possible for our website … Yeh new technology.

The good thing about learning skills is that you experience them in your body and your body learns the skills. Even if you learn one skill you’ll do better during your birth.

There is a test

That’s sort of the problem. The Birth is sort of a one-off test that you can’t take again the next day. But you’ll remember your baby’s birth all your life. What you remember about your baby’s birth is hugely impacted by whether you used skills or were just carried along. We can’t say that enough.

The best way to learn birth and birth coaching skills is a little every day or two. You can practice most of the Birthing Better skills while you’re doing daily activities. That’s neat because you don’t have to take time from your busy schedule to practice.

Keep in mind though. If you’re too busy to learn birth and birth coaching skills, how do you expect to have time to take care of your baby who will require a phenomenal amount of your time. Can you spare 5-15 minutes every day or two for 16 weeks to learn birth and birth coaching skills? We hope so.

Birthing Better skills were developed by hundreds of moms and dads for use in their baby’s birth … the only one that matters to them! Birthing Better is housed in Common Knowledge Trust.