This year’s conference had an overarching theme of social media and interacting with the “millennial generation”. I’m a Gen X-er. I’m not that different from my students. Even the boomer generation can connect with these moms. We connect because we listen, not because we talk. If we listen to the mothers and the families in front of us, we will know how to teach. I listened on Saturday and this is what I learned:
I had a conversation with a woman who worked in the most fabulous rockabilly store on Decatur St. I was shopping (of course) and she asked me why I was in town. I mentioned that I was playing hooky from the Lamaze Conference.
She rolled her kohl-lined eyes and said, “Ugh, I’d play hooky too!” When I mentioned that I really do kind of like my job, she told me about the Lamaze class she’d taken when she was pregnant, three years ago.
She said her instructor was “boring” and “not relevant”. She said that her in-hospital class only talked about hospital policies. There was very little hands-on with massage, labor postures, breathing, relaxation, etc. She had a movie (and described the InJoy film…) and lots of lecture.
When I mentioned things like the term “evidence-based”, she didn’t know what I meant. When I mentioned eating and drinking during labor, she said her instructor never told her anything but ice chips. And so on…
She felt her class was a waste of time.
My heart broke for her.
After talking for a while longer, she told me, unsolicited, that she wished I’d been her Lamaze instructor. The way I described my classes, and the bit of info I gave her there in the store was more than she could have wanted for a class. She asked me for a business card and told me she’d be in touch if she ever got pregnant with baby #2.
My colleagues, we can do better. 
Women deserve better than a class like this rockabilly beauty had. I’m calling on you, to get on the floor. Show these mamas and their partners how to get into positions for birth. We need to give them the hands-on time they need to explore these labor positions and to figure out what works for their bodies.
We need to tell them they can wear their own clothes to labor. We need to tell them what foods they should be eating during labor.
Invite them to explore their dreams and their fears about birth.
Labor and birth is so much more that squeezing a baby out of your vagina. It is the process of becoming a mother and a family. We need to help mothers and their partners discover their underlying potential. We need to build their confidence and give them the tools they need to have real conversations with their care providers. We need to help them feel secure in their choices and let them own their birth experiences.
My colleagues, our classes aren’t about us and our knowledge. Our classes need to be about what the parents in front of us want and need to know.
My challenge to my colleagues: What change can you make to your classes to help better suit the needs of the students in your classroom?
Ahem, well, that makes my last day at the conference a bit less important… so I’ll be brief. On Sunday, after a mediocre hotel breakfast and a really good round-table discussion I snuck out in search of protein. NOLA did not disappoint and I had the best $6 bacon, egg, potatoes and biscuit EVER. Food cooked in lard is tasty. It left a sheen on my lips for hours. I made it back to hear my friend, Amber McCann, deliver her keynote (and I wish I hadn’t had to leave early). Off on a shuttle to the airport and an uneventful flight home.
I’ll leave you, dear reader, with some final thoughts on my time in NOLA and my time at the Lamaze Conference. I needed this vacation. True enough, it was a working vacation, but the work was good. I feel better now then I did before the conference. Clearing our some head space is just as important as networking with my colleagues and learning new things to bring into my classroom and my business. I’m glad I went.
Sat Nam
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