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Home › Articles › Birth Methods and Philosophies › Natural and Active

Natural and Active

Childbirth the Bradley Way

By Shel Franco

Pages:  1  2  3  

The Classes
"A typical Bradley method class is 12 weeks and held for two to two and a half hours one night each week," says Amy Madtson, a certified Bradley instructor in Spokane, Wash. "I personally teach a 10-week series that lasts around two hours each week. Classes are usually held in the instructor's home, since we are independent instructors. Some teachers do teach for doctors or in other locations."

Bradley classes include information about the physiology of labor and birth with a strong emphasis on getting mothers to believe, wholeheartedly, that birth can be achieved without drugs and intervention. There is also no patterned breathing involved with this method. Instead, Bradley instructors teach their students to breath deeply within the abdomen. Other class topics include exercise, nutrition, birth plans, communication, natural pain coping methods, coaching techniques, positioning, Cesarean sections and postpartum and newborn care, including breastfeeding. Bradley instructors also stock lending libraries and employ the use of birth videos to further prepare their students.

The Strengths
For women like Jill Yanke, the incomparable knowledge that the classes offer is a large draw to the Bradley method. Following birth, most students exclaim how in control and prepared they felt.

"I learned everything about the birth process, what would be happening to my body and why," says Cheryl in Connecticut. "Being informed allowed me to make the right choices for my family."

Many women are attracted to Bradley classes because of the strong emphasis on natural birth. "[The Bradley method] didn't ever say that if you couldn't do it you could always take the medication," Madtson says, recalling her own Bradley birth. "They actually made me believe that I could do it without the drugs! And that's what I believed and needed to hear."


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