Day 153: Higher Education

Mary and I started investigating some of the pregnancy-related classes being offered at Mass General. Two of them seem particularly valuable:

• Childbirth Preparation Class
• Infant Care Class

The childbirth prep class is offered in a number of different configurations... one night a week for five weeks; all in one day; two consecutive weekend days. Whichever you choose, it's a minimum of eight hours, and the weekend-long session is a total of 12 hours.

The infant care class lasts three hours.

Is it just me, or is that backwards? I know childbirth is a long, painful, complicated process... but it is something that happens of its own accord - probably successfully - regardless of the mother's (to say nothing of father's) level of preparation.

Care of a newborn infant, on the other hand, seems like a topic which could fill days' worth of classes. What am I missing? Could this be a supply and demand problem? Are people confident in their ability to care for a baby, but frightened of childbirth? What's going on here?