Handouts and Homework for Childbirth Prep Students
Please feel free to print the articles, or these handouts, and hand them out in full with my name on them. Or, feel free to excerpt parts of them for your own handouts. Again, as stated in the copyright information: if you excerpt only a small part of my work, and add your own content, do not use my name. Many of the handouts here are saved in PDF form, so they can be printed with proper formatting. You will need Adobe Reader 6.0 installed on your computer to open these. To download it free, go here www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
This information is all offered free of charge. If you feel like you have derived benefits from it, I would encourage you to consider offering a donation that reflects that value to the organization I work for, Great Starts Birth & Family Education. Also, if this information is helpful, you may want to consider taking our childbirth educator training.
Contents Below
Forms for Feedback from Students
Summaries of Key Concepts Covered in Class
Forms for Feedback from Students:
· Student Info and Feedback Sheet. PDF I give this out on the first night of a class series to gather a little more information about my students so I can adapt my class to best meet their needs.
· Student Input: Ask students what topics they most want to learn about, and how they learn best.
· Ratings: Ask your students to rate: how confident, knowledgeable, etc. they are at the beginning of a class series. (Could do a “post-test” at the end of the series to evaluate the impact of the classes.
· Class Reactions. This is an evaluation to be completed part way through a multi-week series. It gets immediate feedback on how class went that night so instructors can get a sense of where to adjust it from there.
· Class Evaluation. To be completed at the end of a class or class series.
Lunchtime Labor Review (word, PDF) When I teach a one-day seminar version of the childbirth preparation class, I give students this handout at lunchtime, and tell them “If you’re inspired to keep thinking about labor and birth over lunch, and want to review what you’ve learned so far, then go through this labor review quiz together over lunch. If there’s any answer you’re not sure about, you can ask me when we return from lunch. If you need a break from all this, then take a break over lunch. But I would then encourage you to take this handout home, and complete it sometime in the next week, just to be sure you’re familiar with the answers.”
Class Reviews: These are basically “post-tests”, where I ask the students questions related to the objectives I had developed for the class. These are the essential items I want to make certain they learned. If I have extra time at the end of a class, I use these as a class activity: I ask each of the questions, and we discuss the answers to review all the information just presented. If I don’t have time for this in class, I send them home with students, telling them that sometime in the next week, they can look at all the questions, and see if they remember the answers, and if not, all the answers are on the back. Newborn Care, Breastfeeding, Newborn Preparation.
Summaries of Material Covered in a Class Series
· Support Person’s Checklist of Comfort Measures for Labor. (word format, PDF) Breathe and Relax PDF. Breathing PDF.
· Outline and Handouts for 7 week series. (word, pdf) This set of handouts basically summarizes all of the information I cover during the series, along with illustrations of positions for labor and birth.
· “Cliff Notes” for Labor Support. (Publisher, pdf) A 2 page summary of stages of labor, comfort techniques, and positions.
· Doula Guide to Labor and Birth. (htm, pdf) An 8 page document summarizing exercise and nutrition, preparing for the birth, stages of labor, comfort techniques, postpartum information and resources. The “Everything I want to make sure my doula clients know” document.
· Support and Sanity Savers. Encourages expectant parents to plan ahead for help during the early weeks, peer support, nurturing their relationship, and self-care. This is one of the handouts from Birth Education Northwest’s “Baby’s Coming… What do You Need” class. The other handouts cover more tangible topics like: clothes, toys, safety items, food-related items, strollers and slings, and so on.
· Support Person’s Checklist of Comfort Measures for Labor. (PDF) Homework for support people which encourages them to review all the options for comfort techniques, and also gives them a list of ideas to take to the birth with them.
· Couples’ relationship handouts (for postpartum couples, primarily, though the techniques are applicable prenatally: Appreciation, Changing Conflict to Cooperation, Finding Time and Space for the Relationship, and Love Languages.
· Baby Care Plan. There are two versions of this handout. The first version was designed as the organizing handout for Birth Education Northwest’s class called “Baby’s Coming… What do You Need.” It helps expectant parents think out a list of what they need to buy/borrow, but it also encourages them to think out some of the realities of life with baby, like who is responsible for night-time wakeups, who is responsible for laundry, and what obligations they can let slide for the first few months while they get to know their baby. The second version omits the shopping list stuff, and just explores the parenting plan.
· Preparing for Labor: Coping Styles. Helps couples to understand what tools they use to cope with other challenges, so they can think about how to apply those to labor. Tracking your Tigers: Effects of Fear on Labor. Beliefs about Birth: A Values Clarification exercise for moms and support people.
Informed Choice Business Cards
These are cards that you can print and handout to students when you discuss informed choice. They list some of the major questions that students can ask their care provider about the benefits, risks, and alternatives to various interventions. Encourage students to carry the card in their wallet to all appointments.
· Informed Choice Questions Only: A one-sided PDF that you can print on Avery Brand Name Badges (Avery Layout 5383)
· Informed Choice Business Card: A Publisher document that lets you design a business card on one side, and has informed choice questions on the back.
Note: Almost any of the articles in the section of this website called “Childbirth Education on the Web” could also be adapted into handouts for classes.