I'm here to share on my thoughts after attending the 5 Days Antenatal Course conducted by the famous TMC lactation consultant Mrs Wong Boh Boi. ^.^ She's also the author of the popular "Celebrating Life" series for new parents.

The "Celebrating Life" series by Mrs Wong Boh Boi. You can get the book series for free upon signing up for the FBI/SBI Scheme with TMC.

Basic Course Details

Course Name :	Thomson ParentCraft Centre Childbirth Education Course
Course Venue :	AMK Hub - eXplorerkid / SCGS @ Dunearn Rd
Course Price (Year 2016) :	$284.05 (after 5% discount from TMC FBI/SBI Membership + 7% GST)
No. of sessions :	5 (Last session is a complimentary talk conducted by other doctors)
Course Duration :	2-3 hours per session each week over a period of 1 month
Course Booking :	https://apps.thomsonmedical.com/

For more information on the course outline, you may check out the details in the link below ^.^ http://www.thomsonmedical.com/childbirth-education-course-2/

Interesting pointersImanagedtorememberinmypreggiebrain takeaway from the lessons (which is like 10% of the lesson content?!>.<)

1. Physical and Mental Preparation

• Practical lesson on correct posture when standing, sitting and sleeping to avoid injury and minimise discomfort. 
• Correct posture to get up from sleeping position. 
• How hubby can help me to stand up when I'm sitting on the floor. 
• Do not ever rub tummy in a circular motion. Because this action will create a whirlpool in the womb and disrupt your baby. Instead, you should rub in a upward motion when massaging or applying lotion on your tummy. It must be upward motion against gravity to minimise stretch marks! Talk properly with baby. Etc: "Good morning baby. How are you feeling today?" Avoid "baby talk" like those gaga-googoo-nehneh as this will only hinder the language development of your baby. 
• To know if baby is in good/bad mood, touch the top of your tummy. Hard = Bad mood, Soft = Good mood. If baby is in bad mood, try not to play with her yet as you may irritate her further haha. Practical hands-on of various massage techniques hubby can apply to make me feel better. 
• Play music to baby - 3 times a day for 15 minutes to soothen baby 
• From 36 weeks onward, baby is sensitive to light already. Can shine torchlight on tummy to see baby's respond.
  

  Hands-on session!

  Hubz and his bumpz lol. All the hubbies need to wear this during lesson to have a feel of what we mummies are going through during pregnancy!

   

2. Pain Relief and Labour
This lesson seriously feels like a biology lesson as Mrs Wong talked about the structure of our wombs, cervix, pelvix muscles etc. Frankly speaking, I was already seeing stars 30 minutes into the lesson. Luckily all these information can be found in Mrs Wong's authored book; Guide to Childbirth under the "Celebrating Life!" series.

•  Practical lesson on the various breathing techniques during different stages of labour. (the heehee-hoohoo-haha)
•  Types of pain relief options during labour and the possible side effects. I only know epidural injection prior to this lesson. Didn't know there are other options like laughing gas, intramuscular injection, etc. Good to know these information when you're creating your birth plan. 
•  Different methods of natural delivery. This is pretty irrelevant to me actually. More incline towards FYI. But I didn't know there can be so many different ways to do natural delivery. You can do it in a water bath, in a squatting position, standing position or while hanging yourself in the air?? 0_0 *Mind blowing* Just let me lie down peacefully please.

It was also the first time Hubz and I watched a video on vaginal delivery. I know this kind of videos are readily available everywhere now. But we have been trying to avoid watching it so as not to scare ourselves. I didn't even watch the birthing video of Andie Chen and Kate Pang even though my friends keep sharing it to me on FB. =.= Mrs Wong also never give warning before playing the video one eh. She just play it then halfway through we begin to realise what is the video content about. Hubz is pretty traumatised haha. He's not really a fan of these kind of thing. He can't really take gory and horror movies as well lol. Kind of regretful that I didn't manage to take a video of his reaction as memories haha.


3. Feeding
For this lesson, you can tell I got take down notes diligently hehe.

• Types of feeding techniques (breastfeeding, cup feeding, bottle feeding, syringe feeding, etc) 
• Place chilled cabbage leave to cure sore breast. 
• How to spot for baby's hunger cues before she starts crying. 
• Bottle Feeding 
• Make sure milk is at 37°c temperature. Same as breastmilk temperature! 
• Do not shake milk bottle to mix formula as this will create air bubbles and cause gassy stomach for baby. 
• Mrs Wong discourages the use of glass milk bottles as there are reports of baby accidentally drinking the broken glass fragments and it causes deep cuts in the baby's digestion system. SO SCARY! 
• Mrs Wong also discourages the use of Dr Brown milk bottles due to its multiple small parts that can trap bacteria. Luckily I didn't choose this brand! 
•  Sterilisation of feeding equipment 
• Use warm water to wash milk bottle to remove milk residue more efficiently. 
• Do not put soap directly on the bottle brush. 
• Always air-dry sponge and discard after 1 week of usage 
• Do not push brush into teats to wash. Just rub teats in soapy water to avoid scratching teats. 
• For steam sterilisation, need to steam at least 10minutes. 

Mrs Wong also shared a lot of information on breastfeed as she's a strong advocate of breastfeeding. Most of the theory information like storage guideline, feeding posture, etc can be found in one of her authored book "Guide to breastfeeding". However, I feel that attending the lesson is still beneficial as she shared videos and perform live demonstration on the various feeding methods, which you can't really grasp just by reading from books.


4. Practical Hand-ons Baby Care
This session is most interesting one out of the entire course! From the name itself, you should know why haha. Each couple is given a set of blankets and baby cleaning material which we can bring home after the lesson.

• For new born, make sure diaper is not tight - at least can put 2 fingers inside. 
• Do not let baby wear mittens after 6 weeks as it may cause restriction to her motor development. To clean nose mucus, Mrs Wong suggests tweezing a cotton pad and wiggle it into baby's nose. She discourages using the sucking technique as it actually damages the protective layer inside the nose. For this point, I don't know what I will do eventually because I see a lot of good reviews of Nosefrida which uses the sucking method. And I tried googling the disadvantages of the sucking method online but can't really find much evidence on this claim...hai I will just see how when my baby come out. lol Baby girl may experience period for 1 day from birth to the tenth days. OMG I have no idea!! 
• Baby bath 
• Do not put anti slip mat inside bath tub - risk of bacteria growth 
• Use cotton ball to wipe baby's eyes clean away the crust as baby's tear duct is not functioning properly yet 
• When washing baby's hair, wet the hair > use wash cloth and wipe the head in circular motion > dry the hair quickly with towel. 
• When combing baby's hair, comb from front to back. 
• If baby is tight fisting during bathing, use thumb to circle the back of baby's hand to make her feel more relax. 
• Diaper Changing (for girls since mine is girlgirl haha) 
• Do not use toilet paper to wipe the genital area. 
•  When cleaning the genital area of a baby girl, 
• 1 wipe - genital ( part the libia then wipe from front to back) If there's mucus discharge, pour baby oil on wipe before wiping 
• 1 wipe - groin 
• 1 wipe - backside 
• 1 wipe - anus 
• Do not put talcum powder on baby as the powder can be breathed in by baby and block her bronchi. SO SCARY! 
• Baby clothing 
• Remove clothing label if it irritates baby. 
•  Do not get clothes with embroidery designs as it may irritates baby's skin 
• Wear mitten inside out because there are cases where the loose thread caught the small finger of the baby and severed it. 0_0 
• Do not let baby wear bibs or hats to sleep to avoid SIDS - Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Our practical kit during lesson #4

Our teacher Mrs Wong! Her Chinese name is very cute, call Boh Boi, which pronounce like "boyboy". She said her parents actually gave birth to 9 daughters and she was the youngest. I guess her parents secretly hope she's a boy thus that name haha.

My thoughts:
Overall hubz and I were glad that we attended the course even though it's pretty tiring, especially for working parents as the 5 days courses we opt for were conducted during the weekdays, scheduled from 7pm to 9pm. But the classes usually ends around 10pm as there were simply too much knowledge Mrs Wong wishes to cover with us I guess 0_0. So we were like part time students attending night classes after work haha. But the lessons were pretty interesting though the first two lessons kind of feel like attending biology class back in school when Mrs Wong talked about reproductive system and human parts.

Suggest kiasu couple (like me ^.^) prepare their notebook and phone to take photos/videos which Mrs Wong allow hee. The lessons are abit too much for my preggie brain at the moment >.< But still, it's good for general knowledge lo. I gained some basic knowledge like not all women can go for natural delivery due to their pelvis structure and where's the correct position of our placenta, etc. It's through this course then I realised there can so many complications when it comes to pregnancy. No wonder there's a Chinese saying “生孩子就像在鬼门关里走一趟”. Meaning giving birth to a woman is like a walk near death, which I think is pretty true especially in the olden days when technology is not as advanced compared to the modern days..妈妈好伟大阿！ T_T

I will recommend first time parents to go for some form of antenatal class. Not only to gain the correct knowledge about the entire process of child birth to child care but I believe it's a good way to bond with your partner and get him on board with you in this exciting journey. ^.^ I feel that through this course, my hubz is able to better empathise what I'm going through and learn some useful techniques to make me feel better instead of just listening to my whines. >.<

Me and the love of my life <3 td="">

Thats all for my sharing! Hopefully it gives you new mummies out there some insights who are keen to attend the antenatal class. Ciao~!