The psychoeducational model of prepared childbirth education.

Prepared, childbirth education classes are designed to teach the expectant mother how to effectively cope with the childbirth experience through active participation, informed decision making, and noninvasive pain management skills. As knowledge and technology increase, it often becomes difficult for the childbirth educator to complete the important task of determining the essential content for each class. The childbirth educator can follow established guidelines for class content with a review the literature or structure the class to meet the needs of the participants. An approach used less often, but a powerful and effective one, is using a conceptual model as a framework for selecting the essential content for classes.