Introduction:
You may be asking yourself, “Why is a man creating content for a birthing course?” and to be frank, you’d be right in asking that question. I had zero interest in anything related to birthing, babies, or labor so why am I choosing to spend an entire semester creating content for a birthing class?
My fascination with childbirth started in April of last year when my son’s due date was fast approaching and I felt incredibly unprepared for what was to come. I knew my life was going to change, but realistically I had no idea what I was getting myself into. The worst part was when I searched for content a majority of it was geared towards moms and women. There is very little practical, effective, and meaningful content geared towards men wanting to help their partners through labor.
For my educational website course, I decided to create a website called Daddy Doula (unlinked due to subscription fees). The premise was to create content that was easily accessible and aesthetically pleasing. My go-to source for all the content was a midwife and childbirth education expert named Sherry Anderson. She assisted with gathering content and was a wealth of knowledge for me. I had met her when I was in her class as a student and her guidance was invaluable during labor. Even though I saw the value in her course, I struggled to pay attention due to the course being 3+ hours long and largely lecture based.
A picture of my son, Porter.
After going through a 30+ labor, I realized I should have been paying closer attention and wished I could have had the material easily accessible in the hospital. Even after the courses and creating a website based around childbirth I still felt unprepared. It was around this time when Dr. Voithofer approached me about my plan for my Practicum. I hadn’t given it much thought considering how hectic my life had been, but as my final semester quickly approached I reached out to Sherry to see if she’d be willing to collaborate on some online materials to help women and men feel more confident and comfortable with labor and childcare.
She agreed to let me experiment with her class and we started brainstorming how to best accomplish our task. We both wanted to address men’s lack of motivation and provide an alternative source of information to PowerPoint lectures, so creating online modules was a logical place to start.