Lawrence & Memorial Hospital Sponsors Childcare Seminar

With the state of affairs in our society today, how do both soon-to-be parents, and parents of recent newborns, cope with an uncertain outlook for their offspring?  Some answers to that question are found through services such as the Childbirth Education Classes conducted at the . The classes are administered by the hospital’s Department of Education Childbirth Education Program. On Saturday, the hospital sponsored an event with the festive title of “Community Baby Shower” showcasing the program’s diverse and comprehensive curriculum designed to educate and inform expectant and recent new parents. 

Although there are small nominal charges averaging about $10.00 for each of the ten separate components - ranging from essentials like infant CPR and on up to therapeutic focused groups, with titles like "Caring for Yourself...After Delivery" - the fees for these classes can be waived in certain instances. Likewise, Saturday’s admission was free to the public.  Sandy Campbell, Coordinator of Childbirth Education, and the chief facilitator of today’s event, now in it’s fourth successful year, said, “We here at the L&M truly understand the issues of the population we serve in this low income area.”  

Those in attendance today were given the opportunity to meet with local health care practitioners, tour the maternity unit, and learn about infant safety, pregnancy and baby health, and additional services offered in the area. In keeping with the celebratory tone of the shower, there were also free door prizes and giveaways. 

A first time expecting couple in attendance was Wendy Wilbert, 35, an event planner, and her husband Rob Wilbert, 40, an engineer. The duo raved about the wealth of insight they gained when Rob participated in the hospital's "Boot Camp For New Dads" class.

“Yes, in the past I did have concerns about the financial impact of raising a child,” he said. “However, as I matured, I realized that like most fears, there is some irrationality in them.”

Continuing, Rob said “And when I participated in the Boot Camp For New Dad’s program, my focus really became centered on the true simple reality of, how to handle a crying a child, mastering the 'Big Five.'"

The Big Five?

“Oh, you mean the five most likely reasons for a newborns crying,” said Matthew Dunnigan, chuckling. 

Dunnigan, an L&M employee, is a facilitator in the Boot Camp For New Dads program.

“One of the things we teach: is there is a primary checklist, if you will, of possible causes for newborns' crying.” He then ran off the list: fever, sleepiness, gas, hunger, or soiled diaper. Dunnigan, a father of three, seemed to have mastered these principles, as evidenced by his five-month old child sitting quiet and content in his lap as he spoke.

Overwhelmingly, the opinion of the parents at the event, was that somehow the desire to raise children overrides any probability of future financial duress.

“We had almost given up on being able to even have children,” said, Christan Carter, 28, attending with her 29-year-old husband John Carter, a cook in the Navy. “But it was like a message to us that things would always work out for the good,  and not to worry so much, because  on the very day that I went in for a procedure in a fertility clinic, I found out in the examination room that I was pregnant.”

The couple, now just weeks away from this first birth, were beaming still, in telling the story, sitting at a table full of some the free childcare items handed out by the hospital on Saturday.