Susan Messina's childbirth class?

[jindc]

Has anyone taken Susan Messina's class lately? She is having a condensed non-weekend class (her next class is too soon for us, and the class after that bumps up very close to the due date). I'll be 26 weeks when the condensed class begins - she said that would be fine. If you've taken the class, is this too far away from the due date?

thanks in advance!

[Anonymous]

I think you'll be fine to take it then. We took her condensed weekend class around 34 weeks. She goes over information about stages of labor, various labor positions, and non-medication pain relief techniques. You'll get handouts, and none of the techniques are anything you need special knowledge/practice to do (take deep breaths, massage, hot shower, etc.). Just take a quick look at the materials closer to your due date.

[jindc]

thanks, PP - did you like the class?

It's expensive, but is it worth it?

her 8 week class bumps up to 10 days before our due date for the last class - I'm guessing that is cutting it too close to the end??

[Anonymous]

I took her 8 week class and thought it was worth it, although I didn't love the written Birthworks materials that we were supposed to read out of class. (I didn't read them all.) She has a great sense of humor and is good at facilitating discussion.

In terms of scheduling, one couple in our class had their baby before the class ended. I wonder if she has policies of discounting the cost if that happens? Don't know.

[jindc]

one last thing! Is it a pain in the butt to get there? We live in logan circle and I have visions of trying to drive thru Georgetown to get there and never being on time....(which is the main reason I decided to not go to Sibley!)

[Anonymous]

Hi jindc--this is MtPResident from PoP I'll be finishing up Susan's 8-week class next Monday, and both my wife & I thought it was fabulous. For what it's worth, due dates in the class (which finishes next week) range from mid-May to late-August. So the earlier 8-week session may not be obscenely early unless it doesn't fit into your schedule. Susan doesn't follow the birthworks thing super closely anymore; she recently switched her reference text to "Natural Childbirth in a Hospital', and we've found it to be well-written and easily accessible.

To answer your other question, we live in Mt Pleasant, but have driven from both Crystal City and Federal Center SW metro area, and the traffic hasn't been bad. We don't typically have any trouble getting there for 7:15, and we haven't been leaving huge amounts of extra driving time. Since we often are chronically late to things, that says a lot!

I hope that helps - I'll keep an eye on this post in case there are followup questions.

[jindc]

hey there! Thanks for the helpful reply....I've reached out to Susan to see what the policy is regarding not being able to finish the class. I just worry that it'll be really uncomfortable to go there for 8 weeks the last bit of pregnancy,ya know?

But, if you say it's worth it, maybe it won't be so bad? The class that starts on May 6th is just TOO soon.

So the big question is...8 week class and just deal with it at the end of pregnancy...or be a little early for the 4 week "summer sizzler" class?

Glad to see it gets good reviews.

[Anonymous]

MtPResident again - I think Susan will be able to give you a sense of her opinion on what previous students have felt on that, and perhaps have a useful suggestion on later 8-week class vs. the 4-week summer sizzler. The class time (approximately 2 hours) always goes by super quickly, and there's always a break halfway through--so that helps too.

[jindc]

She already replied! She said she doesn't recommend the 8 week class because it's cutting it too close to due date. So the summer sizzler class it is!

thanks for your help/recommendations, all! Once we double check that the dates are fine tonight, we'll sign up and have that scratched off the list. Now to find a newborn care/CPR class....sigh...

[Anonymous]

MtPResident again - glad to hear she got back to you with a useful suggestion! I can help on the other list item too. We took an infant care & CPR class at Georgetown, and found it to be interesting and useful--and also less expensive than some options & more thorough than others that were cheaper. We're delivering at GW, so it's not only for those delivering at Georgetown. The class is on Saturdays from 9:30-3pm, with an hour lunch break in the middle. Hope that helps!

[jindc]

hugely helpful....I'm also a GW patient and the Momease classes get really bad reviews. Did you tour GW yet?

[Anonymous]

I toured GW as part of a meet the midwives session awhile back. That was before my first pregnancy, so hopefully not much has changed in the last 15-18 months! Agreed about the reviews on the Momease classes; we decided to stay away from those because they seemed so unreliable from the reviews. But I only found good things about the Georgetown class, and we found it to be useful and organized, etc. --MtPResident

[Anonymous]

I liked the class, but mostly found it useful for facilitating conversations between my husband and me. I also enjoyed watching the childbirth and labor videos. If you think you'll be motivated enough to do that stuff yourself, then I'd recommend just reading "the birth partner" and doing as much mental preparation (meditation, visualization, yoga, etc.) as possible.

[Anonymous]

Oh, and getting there is easy if you take the D2 bus from dupont. drops you off a block or two away.

[Anonymous]

9:27 here. Susan was great; we really liked the class. We also took the Georgetown Saturday infant care/CPR class because it sounded better than others we looked into based on reviews, timing, and price. We thought it was worthwhile and the instructors were good.