Childbirth class.

Last night, Spenser and I attended what is to be the first of four childbirth classes hosted by our pregnancy care provider, Women's Healthcare Associates. Quite honestly, I signed us up mostly for Spenser's benefit because I wasn't sure he really had much of a vision for how all of this birth thing is going to go down. I've been plowing my way through the ever beloved pregnancy tome What to Expect When You're Expecting, but I learned a bunch of new stuff at last night's class so I think it is already shaping up to be a great investment! Spenser said he was worried that it was going to be some lame thing where we all sit on yoga mats and practice breathing exercises, but that he was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed it, too.

Some things we learned:

• The hormone oxytocin, which regulates labor (and does lots of other interesting things in other circumstances), is a stress-dependent hormone. What that means is that when stress enters the equation and causes a release of adrenaline or other stress hormones, the levels of oxytocin actually decrease, reducing the pace and effectiveness of the labor process. That is why it is important to prepare and take steps to help the mother stay calm throughout the process and feel confident in the birth environment.

• In the past half-century or so, there has been a huge increase in posterior births (sunny-side-up babies - I was one!). This could be due to a number of factors...even potentially the fact that we drive cars, so our right legs are slightly stronger and our pelvises become tilted over time! Sunny-side-up isn't the greatest way for a baby to come out, because it makes it more difficult for the skull to pass through the pelvis and increases the chance that the doctor will need to intervene with forceps, vacuums, etc. Our instructor said that laboring for as long as possible in early labor on hands and knees will reduce the chance of a posterior birth, because the heaviest part of the baby is the spine, so when a mother is on her hands and knees it gives gravity a chance to pull the spine of the baby up and the baby naturally realigns into an easier anterior position (can you visualize that? It's a little hard to describe in words). All of this is potentially harder to achieve the longer a laboring mama spends flat on her back.

At one point in the class, we did this Jungian exercise where the instructor put up a whiteboard and had everyone write down the first word that came to their mind when she said 'childbirth.' The answers were really varied, some positive ('joy', 'aniticipation', 'miracle') some apprehensive ('pain' got three hits)...but one dude just wrote 'vagina'. Seriously? I would now like to publicly thank my husband for not being that one dude who wrote 'vagina'.