Spent Saturday and Sunday in our Childbirth Preparation class at Mass General. You may recall from an earlier post that Mary and I are also signed-up for a three-hour Infant Care class, and were bemused that "infant care" warrants only three hours, whereas Childbirth Prep merits ten.
We both agree that the course was valuable. But it probably didn't need to be two days long, and in fact they do offer an 8-hour one-day class.
Much of the course focused on what pain relief measures—both pharmacological otherwise—are available to laboring women. We learned that 78% of women who give birth at Mass General do so with epidural pain relief. I was surprised by that number. Another surprising number: 30% of babies delivered there are delivered via cesarean section. Whoa! Of course, that number is artificially inflated by virtue of the fact that many women who expect complications or multiple births opt for Mass General rather than facilities nearer to home. But still. Big number. The national cesarean rate was close to 25% in 2003, according to some sources.
I just want my girlie to have as easy a time as possible. She's got a great attitude about it. So far everything has gone very smoothly. Here's hoping the trend continues!
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