The effect of prenatal classes on pregnant women when deciding the delivery type and coping with labor pain

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of the study is to determine the impacts of the prenatal classes on pregnant womenwhile determining the type of delivery and coping with pain during delivery.Methods: This study is descriptive. It involves analysis of 247 participants that were selected as samples froma known population of 653 pregnant women who participated in prenatal classes of our hospital. The prenatalclasses took place for 3 weeks and 16 hours in total. They filled the forms regarding the class activities beforeand after the class. The data were evaluated by using SPSS 16.0 packaged software.Results: The mean age of the pregnant women was 27.50 ± 4.60 years. The women, who had their firstpregnancy, were 73.3%. Before the class, 62.8% declared that they were planning to have a vaginal delivery.The ones, who stated that they were afraid of pain, were 78.9%. In interviews after the classes, 89.5% of theparticipants stated that the classes affected their choice of delivery type. The rate of participants that foundclasses relieving for their anxiety and concerns was 94.70%. The rate of participants that had a vaginal deliverywas 81.80%. The influence of the prenatal classes while determining the type of delivery was statisticallysignificant. (p < 0.001 by Mc Nemar test).Conclusions: Participation with the prenatal class removes the anxiety of the pregnant women, encouragesthem to have vaginal delivery and contributes to decreasing the rate of cesarean sections.