Congratulations, you’ve just found out you’re pregnant!  Now what? 

If you haven’t already done so, you’ll need to choose a prenatal health care provider and set up an appointment with him or her. But what kind of provider should you get?

According to a Wiser Pregnancy survey, most women choose to work with an obstetrician-gynecologist (ob/gyn), but other options include a family physician, nurse-midwife or high-risk specialist.

The survey found:
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They’ve delivered babies and they’ve cared for hundreds of pregnant patients. Yet when women doctors become pregnant themselves, many turn to birthing classes for help.   

According to a WiserPregnancy survey, 27% of doctor-moms attend a birth preparation course.  Most (82%) doctor-moms attend a general class offered by a hospital. Their next favorite options are Lamaze (28%) and BirthWorks (20%).

By comparison, just under half of women overall attend classes prior to labor and delivery. 

So why do these physicians who’ve seen it all also attend birthing classes? Turns out it’s for the same reason as other women.

Most classes cover labor, delivery, recovery and new baby care.  They also focus on different methods to help you relax, stay calm and manage pain during delivery.  Classes also help many women establish a support network of other pregnant women and their partners – something all the medical knowledge in the world can’t give you.

In addition, if you take an on-site hospital course, you can check out the facility where you’ll be giving birth and become more familiar with the surroundings and staff. 

Of course, that still means that half of all pregnant women don’t take a birthing class. Common reasons for opting out include: not seeing a point to the classes, not having time, having attended a class during a previous pregnancy, class costs being too high or lack of class availability.   

If you attended a birthing class, what part of the course was most helpful?  If you didn’t attend a class, was there a particular reason why not?

Wondering whether to paint that nursery pink or blue?  You may not have to wait so long to find out, thanks to a maternal blood test.

A recent Norwegian study published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology found that a special maternal blood test was 100% accurate in determining a baby’s sex in 200 different pregnancies.

Most parents who want to know the baby’s sex have to wait until the second trimester, when an ultrasound exam can tell if you’re carrying a boy or a girl. 

According to a WiserPregnancy survey, 81% of women have an ultrasound.  Although ultrasound exams are often part of routine prenatal care, 51% of these women have an exam specifically to learn the baby’s sex.   

However, the blood test in the Norwegian study could be particularly valuable for parents who have a family history of a sex-linked genetic disorder,  such as hemophilia or Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Being able to learn the baby’s gender sooner could help parents and doctors make important decisions about managing the pregnancy.

If this test becomes publicly available, it could offer an alternative to riskier prenatal tests such as amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling (CVS) in evaluating the risk of a genetic birth defect. 

Do you plan on learning the baby’s sex before delivery?  Why or why not?

Lamaze, Bradley… different birthing methods have their fans. But the truth is, when it comes to choosing a childbirth class, women care primarily about two things:  location and cost.

Birthing classes aren’t for everyone – only about half (46%) of pregnant women even attend birthing classes, according to a recent WiserPregnancy survey.

But once a woman decides to take a class, the philosophy behind the class isn’t as important as practical considerations.  The #1 factor for pregnant women? Location (26%). Cost is a close runner-up with 23%.  For 20% of women surveyed, a health care provider’s recommendation is the most influential factor when choosing a birthing class.

Despite the passionate loyalty of the most popular birthing classes, only 17% of women surveyed consider birthing philosophy first and foremost. They also don’t put a lot of weight in recommendations from friends and famil – 9% of women rank that highest when choosing a class.  

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To epidural or not to epidural – for many women, that’s a key question.

So what influences a woman’s decision? Peer pressure, concern about the baby’s health, bragging rights? Sure, those can all be powerful influencers.

But what doesn’t seem to play a role is the birthing class a woman attends. Wiser Pregnancy’s recent survey of pregnant women found the following:

• 46% have attended or plan to attend a childbirth education class.
• 65% have had an epidural during delivery.
• 53% who have gone to childbirth education classes have said that the class didn’t help or only somewhat helped them prepare for labor and delivery.

That last statistic, in particular, is pretty interesting. More than half the women who took a birthing class found that it didn’t help or only helped a little.

Whether the choice is Lamaze (which doesn’t advocate for natural or painkiller-assisted birth) or Bradley (which supports natural birth), it turns out that women have pretty much made up their minds about an epidural, regardless of the class.

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