Curriculum Topic: Group Activity, Ice Breaker
Activity Type: Multi-topic, Labor & Birth
Purpose: This is fun and a wonderful way to increase students’ confidence in their ability to cope when labor gets difficult.
Supplies: Four balls for tossing. Size can vary, but they must be safe to toss and catch.
Instructions:
All participants should have on name tags. Toss a small ball to a participant in your class as you say the name of that person. Instruct the person who receives the ball to toss the ball to another person while saying that person’s name.
Round one: Educator begins the toss, and participants continue to toss the ball to one another while saying the recipient’s name (remembering who they threw the ball to) until everyone has received the ball.
Round two: Repeat the game, everyone throws the ball to the same recipient as last time, but at a faster pace.
Round three: After the first ball is thrown, toss in a second ball to another student; then add a third ball.
Finally a larger fourth ball is tossed into the group. Usually by this time, everyone is laughing and chaos reigns. Bring the exercise to a close.
Talking Points:
Then compare the entire “game” to labor: slow, easy contractions at the beginning; the increased pace of labor; the challenges (extra balls) of transition. Mention that nobody in the group wanted to quit the game when it got chaotic - everyone just kept going. Probably during the game, someone dropped one of the balls. That happens in labor, too; you just pick the ball up and keep going.
Reference: Melanie Schwob and the childbirth educators at St. Anthony’s Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri. Adapted from the Lamaze Toolkit.
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