The Bradley Method is a form of natural prenatal education that focuses on medication-free labour and birth, reducing the need for medical intervention in childbirth, and more informed decision-making for expectant parents. Developed by American obstetrician Dr. Robert A. Bradley in 1947, the method is a bit more time and resource intensive than other prenatal classes, requiring at least a dozen sessions in order to cover the twelve units of the course. Proponents believe the majority of women trained in this method will achieve a medication-free birth, though they don’t guarantee it will happen for every one of them. Bradley Method teaching focuses on good nutrition in pregnancy, relaxation and breathing techniques, the relationship with the birth partner, the birth process, breastfeeding, and giving parents the confidence to question their healthcare team about decisions regarding their care.

Why haven’t I heard of this Bradley Method before?

While the Bradley Method is popular among parents in the USA, where Dr. Bradley had an obstetric practice in Denver, Colorado, until he retired in 1985, it may not be taught where you are, or you may not have come across a Bradley Method Certified Childbirth Educator. You can get in touch with the organisation about trained educators in your area. One could also argue that costs, cultural preferences, time requirements, and the increasingly commercialised, pro-intervention operations of some hospitals make investing in this method while pregnant difficult for parents to justify. However, there can be benefits to it even if you don’t achieve a medication-free birth, including a healthier pregnancy and a calmer, smoother labour and delivery. You may also find the relaxation techniques transferable and useful in other areas of your life.

What are The Bradley Method’s Six Needs of Labouring Women?

All the Bradley Method’s techniques are built on responding to what Dr. Bradley defined it as “labouring women’s six needs.” These include:

Complete and deep relaxation
Closed eyes and the appearance of being asleep
Total physical comfort
Relative solitude (total solitude is not recommended while giving birth, either by Unii or Dr. Bradley, and in fact, a birth supporter is key to the success of this method).
A quiet environment
A relatively dark environment

If you are familiar with how keeping oxytocin flowing is important in labour, you’ll see how all six of these requirements are super helpful, but they don’t guarantee that your pain won’t have you asking for an epidural.

What are the Bradley Method’s pain management techniques for labour?

Deep abdominal breathing

This is a very common part of multiple antenatal methods, from Lamaze to hypnobirthing to the basic “box breathing” you may have seen midwives demonstrate online. It is so popular because it is effective. From a Bradley Method educator’s point of view, it’s a normal and natural way to cope with labour pain that means mum uses less energy and avoids hyperventilation, which can be dangerous for her and distress the baby. It also promotes self-regulation and deeper relaxation and helps the uterus move forward into a better state for the pushing stage.

Relaxation, visualisation, and positive affirmations

These are part of the Bradley Method’s positive and pain-free labour and birth preparation, though not as key to the process as they are for hypnobirthing.

Encouragement from the birth partner

The Bradley Method was popularised by Dr. Bradley’s book, Husband-Coached Childbirth (1965), which of course made the assumption that the key birth partner was a husband, a man, and the baby’s father. Interestingly, this isn’t a home birth book—at the time of publication, Dr. Bradley was seen as a pioneer of getting fathers into America’s delivery rooms. However, you don’t need the partner to be a man, your husband, or the father to make the method work. You just need to have the partner you plan to have with you for labour and birth come to the classes.

Childbirth confidence

Knowledge is power, and the labour and birth education you can get as part of the Bradley Method is designed to make a labour coach of the birthing partner and an expert of the birthing mother. When you understand what’s happening to your body, you don’t need to cope with heaps of new information during what can be a strange time in an unfamiliar environment. A confident mum is less likely to become tense and stressed, which in turn makes pain medication less necessary. Dr. Bradley used to say that he didn’t deliver babies; he just “caught babies,” and all the credit really belongs to mothers.

Mensa sana in corpore sano

The Bradley Method’s focus on good nutrition in pregnancy (which seems like an obvious thing to many, but in fact there is no official international guideline and not everyone understands what to eat when they’re expecting, despite information made available by national health authorities), makes you less likely to experience certain complications, improves your sleep and energy levels, and means you head into labour feeling better and less keen on medication than you might otherwise. You’ll also be confident about breastfeeding, hopefully, as the method is very pro-breastmilk about postnatal nutrition.

For more advice on taking care of yourself in pregnancy, labour, and birth, check out Unii’s Antenatal Classes, with prenatal video episodes taught by senior NHS midwives, an award-winning obstetrician and gynaecologist, and six other leading healthcare experts. Only at unii.com.

What is the Bradley Method in antenatal classes?

Unii looks at this American natural childbirth education.