For some prospective parents, a healthy, happy childbirth means an unmedicated labor and delivery. While many women use analgesics, natural childbirth offers several advantages to both mother and baby, including the absence of potentially harmful side effects. Those who experience natural childbirth also tend to recover more quickly, as an unmedicated labor is rarely invasive.
Natural childbirth, however, requires preparation. Parents who decide to have an unmedicated birth use a variety of techniques to cope with labor pains, from hypnosis to patterned breathing exercises. More than 1 million parents have also turned to the Bradley Method to help them through their birth experience.
Developed by Dr. Robert A. Bradley, the Bradley Method, also known as husband-coached childbirth, encourages deep relaxation, abdominal breathing, and a supportive coach or partner to ensure a healthy and natural labor and delivery. Parents complete a 12-week course taught by a certified Bradley instructor, during which they learn about prenatal nutrition and exercise, the stages of labor, possible complications, and pain management techniques. Students complete workbooks and several labor rehearsals throughout the course.
Unlike the Lamaze technique, the Bradley Method does not encourage distraction or patterned breathing. Rather, Bradley focuses on reacting to the pain using specific relaxation techniques. Bradley coaches use massage, soft lighting, tranquil music, and encouraging words to help the mother manage labor pains. Deep abdominal breathing also helps the mother relax her body, thereby easing the tension and discomfort caused by contractions.
The Bradley Method also stresses allowing labor to progress naturally, avoiding unnecessary interventions like artificially breaking water or inducing labor with medicines like Pitocin. Removing artificial interventions reduces the risk for complications and side effects and gives women a greater chance to have a natural birth.
While several childbirth classes endorse medication as a form of pain management, the Bradley Method does not promote the use of any unnecessary medication during childbirth; its supporters believe the vast majority of women are able to deliver healthy babies without the use of analgesics or surgery. The Bradley Method's official website claims that 86% of its students who graduated achieve a completely natural childbirth.
The Bradley Method does, however, prepare its students for various complications that may arise and lead to an assisted or medicated birth. Coaches learn how to deliver a baby in an emergency situation, as well as the questions to ask health providers if they recommend a cesarean section. Bradley teachers instruct parents to prepare for these complications, but not to assume they will occur.
Anyone wishing to experience a safe, healthy, and natural birth should consider enrolling in a Bradley Method class, as the 12-week course provides a thorough education for soon-to-be parents. To find a certified Bradley instructor or learn more about the Bradley Method, visit the official website.
Kristin Fitzgerald - Kristin Fitzgerald has been a freelance writer since 2011. She focuses on cooking, DIY projects, history, education and politics. ...
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