Impact of classes on postpartum

[tlcdoula]

I am curious if you ladies have seen a correlation between postpartum difficulties (i.e. blues, bonding, trouble caring for selfish and/or baby, breastfeeding, depression, etc) with mothers who haven't had childbirth education classes or had classes that are lacking?

I ask this because the moms I have worked with were all mamas who were in crisis (severe depression) and in all of those cases not one of them took classes and they all perceived their babies as being very, very difficult. I never felt their babies were difficult though - they were just babies who wanted their mommy to hold them, feed them, snuggle them.

So, I am curious about what you ladies have seen since most of you have probably done more work in this area then I have

[Amydoula]

I haven't found any correlation actually. The CBE classes in our area are fantastic but but very pregnancy/birth oriented. My clients who take the classes have better births but it doesn't really affect their postpartum per say b/c the classes just don't cover that stuff. I do however find that the clients that *I* have prenatal contact with do much better than the ones I take on after the fact. I try to do my own sort of prep for posptartum with them and it helps.

[tlcdoula]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amydoula I haven't found any correlation actually. The CBE classes in our area are fantastic but but very pregnancy/birth oriented. My clients who take the classes have better births but it doesn't really affect their postpartum per say b/c the classes just don't cover that stuff. I do however find that the clients that *I* have prenatal contact with do much better than the ones I take on after the fact. I try to do my own sort of prep for posptartum with them and it helps.

That is interesting that they don't do any postpartum stuff in the classes in your area. Here we do some

[Amydoula]

I cover a very very wide range of area, being rural and all, but I am speaking of the classes at the most local hospital. If they want any postpartum classes then they need to take them separately. One is baby care class and the other is a breastfeeding class. I have had some clients take the breastfeeding one but none take the babycare one. I find that with pregnant moms there is this general blinder on about postpartum. They are SOOO focused on the birth postpartum doesn't really occur to them until I make them face the realities of it. I so enjoy it when they contact me whil they are still pregnant b/c I can do so much work then and not have to play as much catch up postpartum.