Emo Health Unit now offering pre-natal classes

EMO—Many expecting young couples welcome the opportunity to learn about the pregnancy and upcoming delivery by enrolling in pre-natal classes.
And now with the Northwestern Health Unit in Emo offering the classes, in co-ordination with its Fort Frances office, it makes it that much easier for district couples to take part.
“I had always wanted to do it in Emo,” noted public health nurse and pre-natal instructor Anne Marie Vanderaa.
But while the health unit always has been able to offer one-on-one sessions in Emo and Rainy River, Vanderaa explained there wasn’t enough room in its old Emo office to hold a class.
“With the new facility and more space, we’d like to try to offer it twice a year,” she said, adding the first session began earlier this month.
The class, which runs for five weeks, will be offered again near the end of September while sessions will continue to run in Fort Frances.
The two instructors are co-ordinating to ensure the classes in Emo and Fort Frances are not going on at the same time to maximize the opportunities for expecting couples.
“That way, people from the district can go to Fort Frances or people from Fort Frances can come to Emo,” Vanderaa explained, noting it depends on the availability in the class and the time of the pregnancy.
She said couples are encouraged to attend the pre-natal classes as early into their term as possible, but can at any point during the pregnancy.
Currently in her class, there is one mother in her first tri-mester and another one who is due at the end of the month.
“It’s really good for couples to go—both the moms and the dads,” Vanderaa stressed, adding the sessions are fun and informal, but also informative.
“We go one week to the hospital for a tour of the delivery room,” she noted.
“We talk about a healthy lifestyle and how to care for baby and mom. . . . We go over risk factors, and it really helps them with the labour and delivery.”
She added the couples also are informed of resources they can access and that it is a good time for moms-to-be to network.
But the information and support from the classes doesn’t stop once the baby is born. After each couple has had their child, they get together again for a postpartum class.
Vanderaa, who has taught pre-natal classes for four years in Fort Frances, said she’s had a good response for the first session in Emo.
“We got more then we expected,” she remarked, admitting she hadn’t known what to expect.
“But in one of the classes I taught in Fort Frances, four out of the five or six couples were from the Emo area,” she noted. “So we all drove in and that got me thinking, ‘Why can’t I do it in Emo?’”
She also noted several moms in the Emo class are from Barwick and Stratton, and said they wouldn’t have attended the class if they had had to go to Fort Frances.
And she already has two couples signed up for the fall session.
“It’s still not a large space, so we can’t have too many in a class,” she admitted, though adding she’s always being updated with new information to provide to the expecting couples.
In related news, the Northwestern Health Unit will be holding an open house Thursday from 1:30-3:30 p.m. to showcase its new office at 76 Front St. in Emo (the former Sears building).
Refreshments will be served. Vanderaa is encouraging all to come and check out their new space, which already has allowed them to offer new programs like the pre-natal classes.