Lamaze Prepared Childbirth Classes

Empower your birth!

Lamaze education offers practical knowledge and skills for all pregnant women and their birth partners, allowing them to have a sense of mastery during their labor. Topics you will learn about include:
-The normal course of labor and its variations
-Non-medical methods that the mother and her partner can use to help her cope with the purposeful pain of labor
-Commonly used interventions and medications, and their risks and justified uses
-Informed decision-making both in planning for your birth and during birth
-Postpartum care, newborns, and breastfeeding

Lamaze education is the first step toward an empowered birth and positive birth memory.

Top 3 myths about Lamaze:

"Lamaze is all about breathing." This was more true in our mother's generation, but today breathing is only a small part of what Lamaze has to offer. Lamaze is now about offering the information a woman needs to give birth with understanding and acceptance of what her body is doing, and helping mothers and their partners learn a wide variety of techniques to cope with the strong sensations and emotions of labor.

"Lamaze doesn't work." In the past, it was said that Lamaze could make labor painless - in this sense it doesn't "work". However, Lamaze is meant to help mothers work with the pain of labor, lessen it, decide their feelings on medication, and feel in control of their decisions about medications or interventions. If Lamaze helps a mother enter her birth experience without fear, Lamaze worked for her. Or, if it helps her make informed decisions during her labor, Lamaze worked for her. Or, if it helped her get her epidural without panicking despite her fear of needles, it worked for her. Or, if it helps her get through labor without pain medications, even though it hurt, it worked for her. Lamaze works however a woman needs it to, and it does work.

"Lamaze is only if I don't want any drugs." Lamaze is about information and empowerment for every birthing woman. That means you. Whether you want a completely unmedicated birth or an epidural as soon as you get to the hospital, the information and techniques presented in Lamaze can and will be helpful during your experience. All laboring women must cope with some segment of their labor without drugs, and all laboring women may need to make choices that have nothing to do with pain medication.