(Texas Tribune)

The Tyler Public Library will hold a pregnancy class that coaches women and their partners on the weeks leading up to delivery through the weeks after childbirth.

The free, three-hour class on Sunday will be at 1:30 p.m. in the maker space in the library at 201 S. College Ave. The class is the second of a two-part series, but participants still can attend if they did not attend the first.

“I’m really passionate about providing women and their partners with an empowering birth experience, and I think that education is the key to empowerment,” said Laura McHugh, who is leading the event.

McHugh is a doula, which she described as a nonmedical professional who helps women get through pregnancy and childbirth similarly to the way translators help people get around foreign countries when they don’t speak the language.

She said the public class would focus on the time shortly before giving birth, when a woman may experience false labor, as well as breathing and getting comfortable during labor and the few weeks after the baby is born.

“A doula is really an empowering thing for a woman to have at her side, and it is something (that can be helpful) if a woman is choosing an elective C-section, or she wants a home birth, or a fully medicalized birth,” McHugh said.

“There’s a place for a doula in whatever kind of birth you want,” she said. “The research shows that a doula dramatically reduces the need for medical intervention, so we’re able to provide alternative support.”

McHugh also addressed stereotypes about doulas being for hippie parents. “We’re professionals,” she said. “I come in in pants and a T-shirt usually, and no long, flowing skirt, no chanting.”

Aleya Stone, a reference librarian at the Tyler Public Library, said the library staff worked closely with McHugh to come up with the right scheduling for the class, and has purchased fitness balls to use during the class.

Stone said the library is thinking about offering future classes as an evening series for several weeks in a row, or something else, depending on what feedback the staff receives about classes.

Stone said birth education classes fit in with her goals as a librarian “to engage the community and bring information and educational programs” to the community.

“We have a lot of people in our community who have knowledge that other people need, and they just need a place to do that,” she said.

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