Prenatal Classes Plus!

 Our prenatal classes have been running every second Friday evening lately, but we are now seeing the need to have them every Friday.  Last week we had eleven ladies, four husbands, a grandma, and several small children!  Not only is it just getting a bit too crowded on these stifling nights in the middle of Oaxaca's hot season, but it is just too many people to achieve the kind of intimacy and support that we are hoping to create. So the plan now is to divide the ladies into two groups according to their week of gestation, thus creating smaller groups and hopefully facilitating greater trust and communication between the pregnant mamas. 

These classes are important, because they serve a triple purpose.  One is to communicate essential prenatal information such as nutrition, preparing for the birth, comfort measures/breathing in labour, caring for a newborn, lactation counseling, etc.

  

Another purpose is as mentioned above-- to help create a support group for the women that will encourage them throughout their pregnancy and even postpartum. To that end we provide a fun time after each class that the parents can stay and work on a craft, enjoy a snack, and just visit with our doulas and each other.

The third, and actually most important aspect of these classes, is to share the love of God through Jesus Christ.  This means either a short time of testimony by one of our doulas, or a brief gospel message in some other format.  Since this is the most important aspect of the classes, it is also the most difficult.  Please pray that our doulas will learn to present the messages in a gracious, succinct, and winsome manner. And if you know of any fabulous resources to present the gospel creatively in Spanish, please let us know!