The Childbirth Educator Training is a 6-day course. The curriculum includes:

• Reproductive anatomy and physiology
• Elements of prenatal care
• Women’s experience of pregnancy and labor
• Nutrition and exercise
• Massage, relaxation, and breathing techniques
• Stages of labor
• Comfort measures for labor, including pain medications
• Birth-planning and informed choice
• Medical procedures
• The postpartum period, breastfeeding, and newborn care

Students learn not only what to teach, but how to teach it. The instructors model a variety of teaching techniques including lecture, use of audio-visual aids, role-playing, and small group activities. Students apply their learning through practice teaching sessions, which offer each student a chance to give a short presentation to peers and receive an experienced childbirth educator’s feedback.

Since most expectant parents plan to give birth in a hospital, most opportunities for childbirth educators involve teaching about hospital birth. Therefore, the class focuses primarily on how to teach about hospital birth, although out-of-hospital birth is also addressed.

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