Your Guide to Labor, Birth, and Breastfeeding

Date: March 26, 2024

Time: 4:00 pm

Seats Available: 12

Pregnancy is an exciting time and the birth and bringing home of a child should be a joyful experience. However, we understand that often times that excitement and joy goes hand-and-hand with anxiety and fear, especially for first-timers. 

We'd love for you to join us for our FREE Labor, Birth, and Breastfeeding class, taught by our experienced labor and delivery nurses. With the proper guidance, education, and support, those anxieties can be relieved and you can become more confident in your abilities during labor, postpartum, and getting your baby off to the best start possible.

Because of the many benefits to breastfeeding your baby, including providing your baby nutrients, boosting your baby's immune system, and helping you bond with your baby, this class will also spend time teaching the basics of breastfeeding.

What to Expect During this Class:

• Before you give birth
  • Making arrangements, taking care of yourself, coping techniques for labor discomfort, how to prepare your body for labor, and more.

• During childbirth
  • Understanding labor, medical interventions, types of births, and more.

• After you give birth
  • Caring for your newborn, postpartum changes and self-care, and more.

• Breastfeeding
  • How breastfeeding works, how to get the best start, how to determine a correct latch, different breastfeeding positions, how to know when to feed your baby, how to know if your baby is getting enough, basics of breast care, how to manage breastfeeding with your new lifestyle
• Facility Tour
  
  • A tour of our labor and delivery unit including our state-of-the-art and spa like rooms is included in this class.

We understand the importance of a support person during this time and encourage you to bring them with you to this class. Please note that the 'Your Guide to Labor, Birth, and Breastfeeding' class is 4 hours in length. A light meal will be provided. 

About the Educators

Samantha Collier, RN and Gretchen Siemers, RN are labor and delivery nurses at Watertown Regional Medical Center with over 20 years of combined nursing experience.

Samantha has 13 years of experience and was fortunate enough to start a labor and delivery position in a fast paced hospital immediately after finishing school and has been in labor, delivery, and recovery ever since. She is a Certified Lactation Counselor and a Certified Car Seat Technician. She enjoys labor and delivery because of the fast pace and critical thinking it requires to keep both mom and baby safe at all times and loves being able to welcome new life into the world and assist in their first meal and ensure they have the safest ride home possible.

Gretchen has 11 years of experience as a Registered Nurse. She is a Certified Lactation Counselor and has been a nurse on the Labor and Delivery unit at Watertown Regional Medical Center since March of 2020. Breastfeeding has been a passion of hers ever since she had her own children. She loves getting to share her knowledge and the joys of breastfeeding with new moms.

They encourage everyone to take this class because delivering a baby can be scary whether it is their first time or their tenth time. Taking this all-encompassing course will help ease apprehension and fears while giving healthy expectations. The goal is to ensure preparedness so the parents may be an active participant in their care.