QUICK! Fun Breathing & Relaxation Ideas Needed!

[naturalbirther]

Ok, so tomorrow night (Tuesday) I am observing my first Relaxation and Breathing class at the hospital I work at. (I'm trainging to teach CB, breastfeeding, and breathing and relaxation classes). After our CB 101 class tonight, my "mentor" mentioned the she was needing something a little more "engaging" to help these mamas and their significant others to get more involved in the class. I told her that I would ask you wonderful ladies!

She said that normally she does a brief overview of L&D and then touches on the three breathing techniques we teach in the CB 101 classes (which are nothing more than the "in through your mouth, out through your nose" at start of contrax, then panting at peak, and back down; breathing for pushing; and the "three hee's and one hoo"). None of that is just real thrilling , but it does take up the first hour. She went on to say that if everyone in the R & B (haha) class has already taken the CB 101 class, then she doesn't do all that, but then she needs something to fill the first hour. She also said that most of the women who come to this class are really interested in laboring w/o meds, so I suggested maybe giving them some stats or easy info to remember that will promote going natural. Does any one have ANY thoughts on what we could fill that hour with? Or even some great "happy place" visualization techniques? Our written ones are really basic. I don't know how in depth we get to go as this will be my first time in the class, but ANY info will help!!! she is REALLY artisitc so i thought maybe even some quick project we could do, like "here's a box of crayons; draw your happy place" so then they could have that for when they are in labor to help remind them to "breath and relax" and also use as their focal point


Ash

[MothertheMother]

Do you have Birthing From Within? There are quite a few good ones in there...

Let me know if you don't and I'll post a couple of them...

[ctowndoula]

I have a labor visualization that I wrote for my classes. It is on my web site, on the Downloads page. Just follow the Professional Resources path.

Relaxation: have moms tense one part of their body (a leg, jaw, etc) and have dad use gentle touch to find it. I use this to introduce doulas in a back-handed kind of way. B/c I can almost always find the tension even when dad can't. Some times just by looking at them.

Have moms try the breathing patterns using iced water ballons. Try different positions and ask them which ones worked best for them. Can do alot of different lessons with this.

Role play, progressive relaxation exercises, practice ctx, there is alot of ideas out there.

I would really suggest doing some reading, there are great books out there, or even better attending a training session. Hospitals around here will usually pay their cbe's way in a training course. Call up the organization you want to certify through and ask about bringing a training to town.

[naturalbirther]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MothertheMother Do you have Birthing From Within? There are quite a few good ones in there... Let me know if you don't and I'll post a couple of them...

My sister gave me the book a while back and told me that it was really amazinf,but being the great sister that I am.... I lost in in the move! Oops!

[beautifulbirth]

Since you have the crayons out.....you could have moms draw a hyponotic like picture, like a spiral or a spirally seashell, spirally spider web, milky way galazy, etc. There are many natural spiral shapes to accompany the natural birthing theme.

If the do draw a spiral on an 8.5X11 piece of paper, taking up most of the room on the paper, mom's can then cut them out to hang in the room This visually helps, as you can see the spiral start small, get larger, then taper off again. They can use this in labor to focus on and remember that the ctx. are spirallingy out of their bodies.(Not spiralling out of control

OOPs, I just read that tonight was your class. Anyway, maybe you can use this in the future. I hope it went well.