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Why take prenatal classes?
Breast feeding
& Nursing Inquiry.
This page was created by
Tanya Cruickshank
Nursing Student Kwantlen University College
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Prenatal Education:Advocacy & Facilitating Empowerment
Encouraging clients to attend prenatal classes is important for health care professionals.Encouraging the development and use of prenatal education, including prenatal education that is specialised for certain unique groups, can assist clients in making informed choices. The education provided enables women and their partners to make decisions that reflect their values and beliefs about childbirth and labour and parenting in a health-promoting manner.
Dumas (2002) describes empowerment as "acquiring self-help abilities and attitudes during a difficult period" and explains that by "offering empowerment to pregnant couples means giving power to parents and allowing them control over situations that affect them, rather than leaving them dependent on professionals".
Prenatal education has been shown to have positive effects on both maternal and infant outcomes. Research has focused on a number of areas especially coping strategies taught in prenatal classes. While no direct link between coping strategies and satisfaction with childbirth has been found the majority of participants in prenatal classes " found the classes informative and useful and would recommend the classes to others (Koehn, 1992). Studies have also examined the effects of prenatal education on health promotion behaviours. Both Jackson and Sims-Jones et al. indicate that participants improve lifestyle behaviours as a result of the education. These lifestyle behaviours include - smoking,
- using drugs and alcohol,
- exercise,
- nutrition and
- stress reduction.
It is important to note that many factors influence clients perceptions of pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. O'Meara (1993) notes that "perceptions of childbearing are largely cultural and further influenced by health care professionals, schools, books, magazines and television, as well as by the couples relationship".
References
- Dumas, L. (2002). Focus groups to reveal parents' needs for prenatal education. The
Journal of Perinatal Education, 11(3), 1-9.
- Jackson, C.P. (1995). The association between childbirth education, infant birth weight,
and health promotion behaviors. The Journal of Perinatal Education, 4(1), 27-34.
- Koehn, M.L. (1992). Effectiveness of prepared childbirth and childbirth satisfaction.
Journal of Perinatal Education, 1(2) 35-44.
- O'Meara, C.M. (1993). A diagnostic model for the evaluation of childbirth and parenting
education. Midwifery, 9(1), 28-34.
- Sims-Jones, N., Graham, S., Crowe, K., et al. (1998). Prenatal class evaluation.
International Journal of Childbirth Education, 13(3), 28-33.
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