Livebreeders are easy to mate and to give alive. I've done it successfully 4 times.
I've been keeping fish for almost three years now, But I read up a lot about fish keeping before I got them to make sure I was capable of doing it, and in those 3 years I have had a lot experience with livebearers and diseases.
You'll never stop learning, there's always more fih you haven't kept and diseases you haven't seen.
Never heard about putting baking soda in to do it. You'll have to search the internet for that one, I tend to stick to the shop bought chemicals that work.