What if…

You MUST read this!  If there is nothing else you read during your whole pregnancy, read this one.  And give it out to all your pregnant friends too. Not only does it help prepare you just in case you have an a ’emergency’ childbirth situation, but it helps you to understand that birth is not scary, but pretty straightforward.

This is a booklet called Emergency Childbirth by Dr Gregory White.  It is written for emergency services workers, who may come across a woman about to give birth as they go about their duties.  It covers quite a few different birthing ’emergencies’ and what to do about them.

Here it is:
Emergency Childbirth

I just love this quote “In over 95% of cases of emergency childbirth though the emergency attendant will be overwhelmed with gratitude, and widely praised as a hero or heroine, he or she can smile within themselves at the knowledge that their simple tasks could have been performed by any bright eight-year-old.”  I know my hubby felt that way after my accidental unassisted homebirth!  Everyone congratulated him, and he said ‘but all I did was catch!’  He said, he had so much adrenaline pumping through his system, and all he had to do was stand by and watch and wait (and run to the bedroom to get my printed out copy of this booklet!)

 

 

Hints for Pushing

I love this article!  It has so many helpful hints and tips for how to let your pushing stage be straightforward and productive!  I wish I had read it when pregnant with my first!  This article talks a lot about primips – primips are women having their first babies, and multips are women who have already had one.  But either way, the advice in here is great. 🙂

http://www.glorialemay.com/blog/?p=72

Pushing for Primips

Posted on December 30, 2008 by gloria

This article originally appeared in Midwifery Today Magazine, Issue 55 (Winter, 2000). “Primips”-women having their first babies.

-by Gloria Lemay
The expulsion of a first baby from a woman’s body is a space in time for much mischief and mishap to occur. It is also a space in time where her obstetrical future often gets decided and where she can be well served by a patient, rested midwife. Why do I make the distinction between primip pushing and multip pushing? The multiparous uterus is faster and more efficient at pushing babies out and the multiparous woman can often bypass obstetrical mismanagement simply because she is too quick to get any.

It actually amazes me to see multips [women having second or more babies] being shouted at to “push, push, push” on the televised births on “A Baby Story”. My experience is that midwives must do everything they can to slow down the pushing in multips because the body is so good at expelling those second, third and fourth babies. In most cases with multips, having the mother do the minimum pushing possible will result in a nice intact perineum. As far as direction from the midwife goes, first babies are a different matter. I am not saying they need to be pushed out forcefully or worked hard on. Rather, I say they require more time and patience on the part of the midwife, and a smooth birth requires a dance to a different tune.

 

Birth Story: Cord Prolapse Survival

This is an amazing birth story.  Please don’t think I’m putting it here to scare you, but instead, to educate you, if you have the rare birth complication of a cord prolapse.  This baby was born completely healthy, due to the mother’s quick thinking.  I’ve included down the bottom a ‘How to Handle a Cord Prolapse’ guide from another site.

 

The lady who originally posted this story on her blog is great.  Go check it out her site. 

 

http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2010/11/birth-story-cord-prolapse-at-home.html

Birth story: cord prolapse at home

A reader recently sent me an incredible birth story, and I wanted to share it with you. After a few irregular contractons, she had a cord prolapse at home. She wrote to me:

“This was a planned homebirth…we had called the midwife as soon as my water broke to have her come out (my water had never broke previous to the pushing stage before). Then when I stood to get up, I saw the cord. Feel free to post and link back to me, I thought it was a story you might be interested in hearing. Amazingly, when I went in for my postpartum visit with the OB who did the c-section, the first thing he said to me was, ‘You know, nothing would have been any different if you had planned a hospital birth. You still would have been at home when your water broke and the cord would still have prolapsed.’ I was amazed at how positive he was and how willing he was to admit this was not a ‘home birth’ issue. I think Apollo’s story is important for people to hear…being knowledgeable about that one issue (what to do in case of a cord prolapse) is what saved his life.”

 

Official recommendations

Here’s a bit of research I have undertaken to find out what the official guidelines are on these potentially contentious issues. Long Pregnancies, PROM, Electronic Fetal Monitoring, Breech Birth and VBAC.  I wanted to find more official guidelines on different topics, but I couldn’t think of more topics to look up!  It’s always good to know what the professional organisations recommend, compared to what your doctor is recommending.

 

ACOG (American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists) on
Long pregnancies 2006
http://www.acog.org/publications/patient_education/bp069.cfm

Most women give birth between 38 and 42 weeks of pregnancy. But very few babies are born on their due dates. It is normal to give birth as much as 3 weeks before or 2 weeks after your due date.

A postterm pregnancy is one that lasts 42 weeks or longer.

Problems occur in only a small portion of postterm pregnancies. Most women who give birth after the due date have healthy newborns.

 

Premature Rupture of the Membranes Protocol

What to do if your waters break.  This article linked in my Unassisted Childbirth forums http://www.bornfreeforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=234. The link from the forums to ‘Purebirth Australia’ no longer works, so I don’t know when this was originally published.

From Purebirth Australia
http://www.purebirth-australia.com/chil … ranes.html

Premature Rupture of Membranes (PROM)

This is when your amniotic sac or membranes break prior to labour starting. PPROM is preterm premature rupture of membranes – this is said to occur if the woman’s membranes break prior to 37 weeks of pregnancy.

A dribble of fluid is usually due to a break of the hind-waters and this often reseals itself quickly, and the body produces more amniotic fluid to replace what was lost.

 

Is Induction after the waters break necessary?

This is from a fabulous archived site that has collected a whole heap of midwifery wisdom.  I love this story of a woman whose waters broke at 22 weeks, and the medical response verses her response to this situation. She gave birth at 35 weeks 6 days.  That’s nearly 14 weeks with her waters breaking.

http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/pretermlabor.html#Forestalling
I have only run into this [forestalling preterm labour] one time. Most on the list know the story. A woman with a confirmed rupture at 22 weeks. Initially we referred her out.

The neonatologist wanted to “evacuate her uterus”. Our official back up was willing to let her go home and wait for “the inevitable”. She went home despite the horror stories of the neonatologist. We agreed to a “house arrest” for the duration of the pregnancy. I agreed to see her at her home once a week and she agreed to monitor her own vitals. She worked very hard on her diet and nutrition issues. She did extra [vitamin] C and a variety of herbs to strengthen and tone. There were no vag exams. She had a bout of rhythmic contractions at 28 weeks. She drank a dose of Jagermeister and took a valerian/skullcap/hops combo tincture and meditated

Eventually the contractions stopped.

 

Childbirth Facts What women should know about giving birth

10 Childbirth Facts

What women should know about giving birth

by Ceridwen Morris   |  November 16, 2010

 

http://www.babble.com/pregnancy/giving-birth/10-facts-childbirth-labor-delivery-signs-giving-birth/?page=1#slideshowholder

 

Fact 1: It’s not like the movies
In the movies, the water breaks, everyone panics, mom wobbles up, grabs her belly, and on cue has an enormous contraction, then yells for a taxi. In real life, the water usually breaks during labor and if it does break early, there’s no reason to run screaming to the hospital. Real-life labor is really hard, but it’s not one big screaming emergency. Every labor is unique, but perhaps none more “unique” than the mythical Hollywood birth.

 

Fact 2: Your due date is more like a due month
A full-term pregnancy is anywhere between 37 and 42 weeks. The estimated due date (EDD) is an educated guess, not a firm deadline. The majority of babies are born before or after their due dates; most first-time babies are born an average of four days past the EDD. It can be hard to mentally plan for a whole due month, but a due date is too specific. So, how about a due fortnight?