Research has found that when a woman feels in control of her birthing experience she finds her labour and birth experience more enjoyable.
In order to be in control several things contribute:
Understanding how the birthing body works
Knowledge of what to expect with regard to the birth experience itself.
Knowledge of the hospital and the hospital system.
Knowledge of the options available and tools to deal with labour for both the woman and her birth partner.
In my classes I aim to fill these needs. I offer two types of classes, a traditional 1 day antenatal class which covers labour and birth, the different pain management drugs and techniques, early parenting and breastfeeding. I also offer a 2 day course which covers all of the above combined with hypnobirthing.
Who am I?
I am a midwife and antenatal teacher, a hypnobirthing teacher, a mother (my name is Sarah McCann and I'm a bit of a 'birth junkie!')
I am currently working in a Dublin maternity hospital and I have experience in all 3 Dublin maternity hospitals. I trained as an antenatal teacher with the parent support group - Cuidiu and I have been teaching antenatal classes for 12 years. I trained as a hypnobirthing teacher with Judith Flood on a Royal College of Midwives approved hypnobirthing course and I have been teaching hypnobirthing for the hospital for the last 4 years. I am also a mother to 4 children.
I am passionate about birth and assisting women to have a positive birth experience. In order to have this I believe that women and their partners need to prepare, have access to evidence based information and trust their care givers.
Partial or full refund
As I am a midwife many health insurance policies allow for a partial or a full refund for my classes, depending on the policy.
Facts
Women are designed to give birth and they do it well (World population 7.49 billion!)
Babies are designed to assist in the birth process and they do it well (Did I mention ......World population 7.49 billion?)
When women are relaxed and have faith in their ability to give birth they produce the right hormones to labour and birth well.
Women can learn to relax in labour and are more likely to do it well if they practice.
Partners have a very important role in labour.
Birth is not done to a woman - she does the birthing.
A positive birth experience does not mean perfect, but in order to have a positive birth experience a woman and her partner need to prepare.
A negative birth experience can lead to difficulties with bonding, breastfeeding and postnatal depression.
Interesting articles, audio clips etc.
Some lovely feedback about my hypnobirthing course: "This course has made a huge difference to my outlook on the birthing journey. I thought it was something to get over and done with, a necessary evil, but now it feels much more like an experience that will be challenging but fulfilling. The role of the partner was really informative and I feel reassured that my partner will have sucn an integral role to play. That's very comforting to me. Thanks Sarah" Summary of a study done on mindfulness in pregnancy: https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-017-1319-3
I've been asked countless times to do recordings of the scripts that I read out in class and finally........Thanks to my son Ross - he recorded me reading the scripts and has uploaded them. Thank you to Judith Flood for permission to upload the recordings of her scripts. You can find them at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe2y35RE5KyyQtxwwCjBNUg
