Over the years I have accumulated a list of some Childbirth videos worth watching.
Here are just some of them :
Natural Childbirth of Twins and Triplets
"Birth As we Know It"
This is just a brilliant movie by Elena Tonetti and the trailer captures the spirit of the movie beautifully. Inspiring and moving!
Here's a lovely video of a home water birth at 42 weeks (2 weeks past the due date)
Ok, now EVERYONE needs to know about this : Orgasmic Birth
This is so cool... 3-D animation of vaginal birth
And of course, my own birth video :
Homebirth here in Vancouver, Canada :>
Let me know what you think, and if you have any birth videos to recommend.
Have a lovely day!
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday, November 2, 2009
Women's Identities once they become mothers
This is Not How I Thought It Would Be:Remodeling Motherhood to Get the Lives We Want Today by Kristin Maschka.
http://www.remodelingmotherhood.com/
A must read for all parents.
"After ten years of financial independence, Kate arrived and overnight I became completely financially dependent
on David. On the surface, nothing about our marriage had changed, but below the surface everything had
changed. Before Kate, we had been two independent, self-sufficient people choosing to be together. During that
time I knew, somewhere in the back of my head, that I could walk away and stand on my own two feet if I had to
do it. Once Kate arrived, I felt a nagging anxiety in my stomach. Walking away wasn’t an option anymore. I
couldn’t imagine putting Kate through that and I had no paycheck. I did my best to set aside my worry because I
felt guilty and embarrassed the thoughts even crossed my mind.
Then when Kate was a few months old, I read Ann Crittenden’s book The Price of Motherhood. … the book’s
chapter about what happens to mothers in a divorce shook me to the core and turned a nagging worry into fullfledged
panic. I fumbled around trying to talk to David and suggested, “Maybe, um, I don’t know, I was thinking
perhaps we could consider a post-nuptial agreement?” He hit the roof. To him, I was implying that he was going
to walk out and that I was planning for a divorce. I backed off, fast. But I was still scared, and I didn’t really know
why, or what to do about it, or how to talk about it. I hadn’t dreamed money and who made it could create this
kind of turmoil in our marriage. I hadn’t dreamed I’d ever be financially dependent on anyone. Not having my
own income and, honestly, not having the power that goes with it, made me fearful. Knowing I was fearful made
David angry. Fear and anger, not good emotions to insert into a marriage of two sleep-deprived people.
I’m not the only mother who finds that “money and who makes it” messes with a marriage. In hushed tones in a
kitchen at a party, a friend admitted that one of the reasons she kept working for pay when her son was born was
that she didn’t want to hand all the power over to her husband." – Remodeling Motherhood, Chapter 10, p 223-
224.
The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women
By Susan Douglas, Meredith Michaels
http://www.remodelingmotherhood.com/
A must read for all parents.
"After ten years of financial independence, Kate arrived and overnight I became completely financially dependent
on David. On the surface, nothing about our marriage had changed, but below the surface everything had
changed. Before Kate, we had been two independent, self-sufficient people choosing to be together. During that
time I knew, somewhere in the back of my head, that I could walk away and stand on my own two feet if I had to
do it. Once Kate arrived, I felt a nagging anxiety in my stomach. Walking away wasn’t an option anymore. I
couldn’t imagine putting Kate through that and I had no paycheck. I did my best to set aside my worry because I
felt guilty and embarrassed the thoughts even crossed my mind.
Then when Kate was a few months old, I read Ann Crittenden’s book The Price of Motherhood. … the book’s
chapter about what happens to mothers in a divorce shook me to the core and turned a nagging worry into fullfledged
panic. I fumbled around trying to talk to David and suggested, “Maybe, um, I don’t know, I was thinking
perhaps we could consider a post-nuptial agreement?” He hit the roof. To him, I was implying that he was going
to walk out and that I was planning for a divorce. I backed off, fast. But I was still scared, and I didn’t really know
why, or what to do about it, or how to talk about it. I hadn’t dreamed money and who made it could create this
kind of turmoil in our marriage. I hadn’t dreamed I’d ever be financially dependent on anyone. Not having my
own income and, honestly, not having the power that goes with it, made me fearful. Knowing I was fearful made
David angry. Fear and anger, not good emotions to insert into a marriage of two sleep-deprived people.
I’m not the only mother who finds that “money and who makes it” messes with a marriage. In hushed tones in a
kitchen at a party, a friend admitted that one of the reasons she kept working for pay when her son was born was
that she didn’t want to hand all the power over to her husband." – Remodeling Motherhood, Chapter 10, p 223-
224.
The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women
By Susan Douglas, Meredith Michaels
Healing Through Homebirth
Healing Through Homebirth
by Cynthia Luxford
© 1999 Midwifery Today, Inc. All rights reserved.
[Editor's note: This article first appeared in Midwifery Today Issue 50, Summer 1999.]
I met Jill in January. She knew she was pregnant, but not how far along she was. She had experienced a recent episode of bleeding that lasted for weeks. Without giving her any diagnosis of what was causing her bleeding, the physician had treated her with birth control pills and pain medication.
During our first meeting, she related her history stoically and calmly. She expressed little emotion while telling of her experience of pregnancy, induced labor and the cascade of interventions that ultimately ended in the loss of her firstborn. The cause, she had been told, was that her eight-pound, twelve-ounce baby had a "thin cord" that could not supply the oxygen he needed to withstand the stresses of labor. Her next pregnancy had been a scheduled cesarean. She had not wanted to risk making another "thin cord" or endanger her child's life by having even one contraction. This pregnancy resulted in a healthy baby boy.
Now, pregnant again, she had recalled a bumper sticker she had seen on my car before she became pregnant, retrieving the name of my service from memory. She wondered if her history would make her too high risk for a home delivery. Upon examination of her records, I determined that she was a perfect candidate for homebirth.
We held long conversations about her lost child, talking about the labor with all its interventions, the results of each intervention and how one by one they led to another and another and another. She had entered the hospital at just a little over forty weeks, feeling uncomfortable and crampy, having had a few sleepless nights. She was 80 percent effaced and two centimeters and was having slight contractions. Amniotomy was performed but accomplished nothing. Pitocin was administered and seemed to be working, but the baby didn't seem to like the contractions. Jill changed positions, which helped. Her cervix wasn't dilating much, so more Pitocin was administered. The contractions became much stronger. The baby's heartbeat kept dropping. The Pitocin drip was turned down, and the baby improved. But Jill was becoming more anxious. The only way she felt comfortable was on her hands and knees. The contractions kept coming. The cervix had dilated to about four centimeters. By late evening an epidural was administered. Some of the pain was relieved, but something still didn't feel right to Jill. Because the baby was stressing out with every contraction, someone decided he must be lying on his cord. Hospital personnel performed an amnioinfusion, putting fluid back into Jill's uterus to try to float the cord away from the baby. This didn't help. After many more hours of distress in the mother and baby, suddenly the baby's heartbeat dropped to forty and didn't return to its flat baseline. The Pitocin was withdrawn, but Jill's uterus continued to contract without stopping. She was rushed to the operating room. Asked to move to the gurney, she couldn't move her legs because of the epidural. She dragged herself onto the gurney and nearly fell. No one was helping her. Panic had set in for everyone—this baby was in danger. The records report that at the delivery of this perfect baby boy, there was a thin cord over his shoulder. He never made any respiratory efforts; his heartbeat was 70. Massive heroics were employed—his heartbeat recovered, he required intubation and full respiratory support. He began to convulse. Jill and her husband both observed this. Jill's incision was repaired. Baby was medicated for the seizures and arrangements were made to transport the baby to the University Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. He spent ten days on a respirator with no brain activity. He was removed from the machines and died in his mommy and daddy's arms surrounded by his grandmothers and loving family. The diagnosis was severe asphyxia, followed by seizure disorder, followed by brain death. Jill remembers the reason as she was told—she made a thin cord. It was all her fault. Hospital personnel had done everything they could through medical technology.
I began seeing Jill every week during the beginning of her pregnancy. At twelve weeks I began seeing her every three weeks. At twenty-eight weeks, Jill had an auto accident. She went to the emergency room of the local hospital. During her examination, the attending physician—a family practitioner who had been present at her first delivery—felt it necessary to write this note on the "instructions to patient form" at the bottom of her record: "Baby appears OK. No additional recommendations at this time. You need to be aware that your pregnancy is not a low risk pregnancy and home delivery is not without significant risk!" He did not know anything about her pregnancy, neither had he seen records of it nor asked her how she had been feeling or doing.
During Jill's thirtieth week of pregnancy she became very apprehensive and afraid. She was worried about the baby. Was it having seizures too? Part of her believed that the little one was just fine, part of her remembered a precious newborn seizing and fighting to hang on to life. Jill and I decided that it would be a great relief to her if she could have an ultrasound. The ultrasound detected a wonderfully healthy fetus. The "seizures" were probably the baby rooting and shuddering with the normal central nervous system development.
Jill's pregnancy went post-dates. During one of the prenatals at just over forty weeks she stated that she thought she should just admit herself to the hospital and have another cesarean. She was tired of being pregnant and anticipating the birth, and none of this was helped by the medical community's loud protest to her about what she was doing. The doctor's note on her chart was not easily put aside. Yet Jill was confident in my skills, in her own strength and in the knowledge that by having this baby at home she would become empowered and heal from the previous trauma in her birth experiences. I told her that she would not think much of me as her midwife if I encouraged her to have a cesarean. She laughed and said I was right.
Finally at forty-two weeks plus, Jill's long-awaited labor began. I did not check her cervix. I watched her handling the contractions and assessed their strength by feeling them with my hand. They were strong and coming every three to four minutes. She ate Doritos, drank water and had some tapioca pudding. She laughed about how different the atmosphere was at home than in the hospital. Fetoscope showed this baby to have a healthy, variable heart rate from 132 to 156.
At 5:37 p.m. her membranes ruptured—a beautiful, clear fluid. At this point her contractions became much stronger, and she became more agitated. We kept breathing with her, encouraging her and giving her love and strength. At 6:20 p.m. I checked her cervix. She was eight centimeters! She had never been eight centimeters before! She had a strong circle of women surrounding her—her mother, sister-in-law, best friend and two midwives. Her husband was in the living room with their little boy. He seemed very nervous, and I felt sure that many emotions from the birth of their first child were occupying his thoughts. We kept inviting him to be with Jill and gave him updates. We were lucky he was even in the house. He had tried to leave, but my assistant caught him and asked him to stay.
At this point in her labor, Jill was so afraid she was crying during every contraction. The baby was putting a lot of pressure on her pelvic floor, and she felt ill. She moved to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. The walk there was tearful and dramatic. We ran a hot bath for her, which helped with her level of expression for a while, but soon we were back to the screaming and crying. She kept pleading with us to take her to the hospital, she couldn't do this. All her support people agreed that unless the midwives detected a dangerous development, Jill should stay at home; they knew how much she wanted a homebirth and how long she had been talking about it and planning it. On the way from the bathroom to the bedroom Jill had a very strong contraction and dropped to her hands and knees, crying, "I can't do this." I put my arms around her shoulders and said into her ear that I knew she could do this, I had known it since the first day I met her. If I thought she couldn't do it, I would have booted her out of the practice a long time ago. We were here to help her. Her baby was fine. She was fine. She could do it and was doing it. Then I asked her if she believed me. She said, "Yes!"
Pushing began about 9:40 p.m. She was pushing very hard in McRoberts position, her legs pulled far back, then semi-reclining against her mother. Her best friend rolled up a towel and tied a knot in it and gave it to Jill to pull on while she pushed. The baby was moving down. A little over an hour later the baby began to crown. I went to get the father. While he was watching he kept pacing back and forth in little circles, visibly shaken. This was the moment of truth for all of us. First came the little head along with a hand. Slowly the shoulders came, and then the little baby was born. He coughed and cried. His mommy picked him up and comforted all eight pounds, eight ounces of him. Everyone cried, and the midwives praised God for his loving kindness.
Jill told me that every time she had a contraction the pain from the loss of her firstborn came flooding back to her. The contractions didn't hurt so much; it was her heart that hurt. Now that she had this experience, she said she could do anything. She is more confident and at peace. She is triumphant about her birth and knows that the only significant risk would have been to birth in the hospital again and not experience the healing that this homebirth gave her. She wants her story told so other women who have had similar experiences can feel the wholeness that she now feels. She wants to have another baby, "and this time," she says, "I won't scream." After Alex was born we were informed that the police had come to the apartment in response to a call from a neighbor. We laughed and said she would be the first mom in our practice whose birth announcement would be printed in the police log of the local newspaper.
Cynthia Luxford, LDM, CPM, lives in Otis, Oregon, with her husband and two teenage daughters. She has been practicing on the central Oregon coast for ten years.
If you enjoyed this article, you'll enjoy Midwifery Today magazine! Subscribe now!
by Cynthia Luxford
© 1999 Midwifery Today, Inc. All rights reserved.
[Editor's note: This article first appeared in Midwifery Today Issue 50, Summer 1999.]
I met Jill in January. She knew she was pregnant, but not how far along she was. She had experienced a recent episode of bleeding that lasted for weeks. Without giving her any diagnosis of what was causing her bleeding, the physician had treated her with birth control pills and pain medication.
During our first meeting, she related her history stoically and calmly. She expressed little emotion while telling of her experience of pregnancy, induced labor and the cascade of interventions that ultimately ended in the loss of her firstborn. The cause, she had been told, was that her eight-pound, twelve-ounce baby had a "thin cord" that could not supply the oxygen he needed to withstand the stresses of labor. Her next pregnancy had been a scheduled cesarean. She had not wanted to risk making another "thin cord" or endanger her child's life by having even one contraction. This pregnancy resulted in a healthy baby boy.
Now, pregnant again, she had recalled a bumper sticker she had seen on my car before she became pregnant, retrieving the name of my service from memory. She wondered if her history would make her too high risk for a home delivery. Upon examination of her records, I determined that she was a perfect candidate for homebirth.
We held long conversations about her lost child, talking about the labor with all its interventions, the results of each intervention and how one by one they led to another and another and another. She had entered the hospital at just a little over forty weeks, feeling uncomfortable and crampy, having had a few sleepless nights. She was 80 percent effaced and two centimeters and was having slight contractions. Amniotomy was performed but accomplished nothing. Pitocin was administered and seemed to be working, but the baby didn't seem to like the contractions. Jill changed positions, which helped. Her cervix wasn't dilating much, so more Pitocin was administered. The contractions became much stronger. The baby's heartbeat kept dropping. The Pitocin drip was turned down, and the baby improved. But Jill was becoming more anxious. The only way she felt comfortable was on her hands and knees. The contractions kept coming. The cervix had dilated to about four centimeters. By late evening an epidural was administered. Some of the pain was relieved, but something still didn't feel right to Jill. Because the baby was stressing out with every contraction, someone decided he must be lying on his cord. Hospital personnel performed an amnioinfusion, putting fluid back into Jill's uterus to try to float the cord away from the baby. This didn't help. After many more hours of distress in the mother and baby, suddenly the baby's heartbeat dropped to forty and didn't return to its flat baseline. The Pitocin was withdrawn, but Jill's uterus continued to contract without stopping. She was rushed to the operating room. Asked to move to the gurney, she couldn't move her legs because of the epidural. She dragged herself onto the gurney and nearly fell. No one was helping her. Panic had set in for everyone—this baby was in danger. The records report that at the delivery of this perfect baby boy, there was a thin cord over his shoulder. He never made any respiratory efforts; his heartbeat was 70. Massive heroics were employed—his heartbeat recovered, he required intubation and full respiratory support. He began to convulse. Jill and her husband both observed this. Jill's incision was repaired. Baby was medicated for the seizures and arrangements were made to transport the baby to the University Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. He spent ten days on a respirator with no brain activity. He was removed from the machines and died in his mommy and daddy's arms surrounded by his grandmothers and loving family. The diagnosis was severe asphyxia, followed by seizure disorder, followed by brain death. Jill remembers the reason as she was told—she made a thin cord. It was all her fault. Hospital personnel had done everything they could through medical technology.
I began seeing Jill every week during the beginning of her pregnancy. At twelve weeks I began seeing her every three weeks. At twenty-eight weeks, Jill had an auto accident. She went to the emergency room of the local hospital. During her examination, the attending physician—a family practitioner who had been present at her first delivery—felt it necessary to write this note on the "instructions to patient form" at the bottom of her record: "Baby appears OK. No additional recommendations at this time. You need to be aware that your pregnancy is not a low risk pregnancy and home delivery is not without significant risk!" He did not know anything about her pregnancy, neither had he seen records of it nor asked her how she had been feeling or doing.
During Jill's thirtieth week of pregnancy she became very apprehensive and afraid. She was worried about the baby. Was it having seizures too? Part of her believed that the little one was just fine, part of her remembered a precious newborn seizing and fighting to hang on to life. Jill and I decided that it would be a great relief to her if she could have an ultrasound. The ultrasound detected a wonderfully healthy fetus. The "seizures" were probably the baby rooting and shuddering with the normal central nervous system development.
Jill's pregnancy went post-dates. During one of the prenatals at just over forty weeks she stated that she thought she should just admit herself to the hospital and have another cesarean. She was tired of being pregnant and anticipating the birth, and none of this was helped by the medical community's loud protest to her about what she was doing. The doctor's note on her chart was not easily put aside. Yet Jill was confident in my skills, in her own strength and in the knowledge that by having this baby at home she would become empowered and heal from the previous trauma in her birth experiences. I told her that she would not think much of me as her midwife if I encouraged her to have a cesarean. She laughed and said I was right.
Finally at forty-two weeks plus, Jill's long-awaited labor began. I did not check her cervix. I watched her handling the contractions and assessed their strength by feeling them with my hand. They were strong and coming every three to four minutes. She ate Doritos, drank water and had some tapioca pudding. She laughed about how different the atmosphere was at home than in the hospital. Fetoscope showed this baby to have a healthy, variable heart rate from 132 to 156.
At 5:37 p.m. her membranes ruptured—a beautiful, clear fluid. At this point her contractions became much stronger, and she became more agitated. We kept breathing with her, encouraging her and giving her love and strength. At 6:20 p.m. I checked her cervix. She was eight centimeters! She had never been eight centimeters before! She had a strong circle of women surrounding her—her mother, sister-in-law, best friend and two midwives. Her husband was in the living room with their little boy. He seemed very nervous, and I felt sure that many emotions from the birth of their first child were occupying his thoughts. We kept inviting him to be with Jill and gave him updates. We were lucky he was even in the house. He had tried to leave, but my assistant caught him and asked him to stay.
At this point in her labor, Jill was so afraid she was crying during every contraction. The baby was putting a lot of pressure on her pelvic floor, and she felt ill. She moved to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. The walk there was tearful and dramatic. We ran a hot bath for her, which helped with her level of expression for a while, but soon we were back to the screaming and crying. She kept pleading with us to take her to the hospital, she couldn't do this. All her support people agreed that unless the midwives detected a dangerous development, Jill should stay at home; they knew how much she wanted a homebirth and how long she had been talking about it and planning it. On the way from the bathroom to the bedroom Jill had a very strong contraction and dropped to her hands and knees, crying, "I can't do this." I put my arms around her shoulders and said into her ear that I knew she could do this, I had known it since the first day I met her. If I thought she couldn't do it, I would have booted her out of the practice a long time ago. We were here to help her. Her baby was fine. She was fine. She could do it and was doing it. Then I asked her if she believed me. She said, "Yes!"
Pushing began about 9:40 p.m. She was pushing very hard in McRoberts position, her legs pulled far back, then semi-reclining against her mother. Her best friend rolled up a towel and tied a knot in it and gave it to Jill to pull on while she pushed. The baby was moving down. A little over an hour later the baby began to crown. I went to get the father. While he was watching he kept pacing back and forth in little circles, visibly shaken. This was the moment of truth for all of us. First came the little head along with a hand. Slowly the shoulders came, and then the little baby was born. He coughed and cried. His mommy picked him up and comforted all eight pounds, eight ounces of him. Everyone cried, and the midwives praised God for his loving kindness.
Jill told me that every time she had a contraction the pain from the loss of her firstborn came flooding back to her. The contractions didn't hurt so much; it was her heart that hurt. Now that she had this experience, she said she could do anything. She is more confident and at peace. She is triumphant about her birth and knows that the only significant risk would have been to birth in the hospital again and not experience the healing that this homebirth gave her. She wants her story told so other women who have had similar experiences can feel the wholeness that she now feels. She wants to have another baby, "and this time," she says, "I won't scream." After Alex was born we were informed that the police had come to the apartment in response to a call from a neighbor. We laughed and said she would be the first mom in our practice whose birth announcement would be printed in the police log of the local newspaper.
Cynthia Luxford, LDM, CPM, lives in Otis, Oregon, with her husband and two teenage daughters. She has been practicing on the central Oregon coast for ten years.
If you enjoyed this article, you'll enjoy Midwifery Today magazine! Subscribe now!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Hilarious article about Parenting
I 1st read this article before I had kids, and just didn't find it very funny. I read it again recently and laughed till I cried. I'm sure all you parents out there will know what I mean...
FOLLOW THESE 14 SIMPLE TESTS BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO HAVE CHILDREN.
Test 1 Preparation
Women : To prepare for pregnancy:-
1. Put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front.
2. Leave it there.
3. After 9 months remove 5% of the beans.
Men: To prepare for children:-
1. go to a local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself
2. go to the supermarket. Arrange to have y our salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home. Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.
Test 2 Knowledge
1. Find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run wild.
2. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour.
Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.
Test 3 Nights
To discover how the nights will feel:
1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4 - 6kg, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.
2. At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 11pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am.
4. Set the alarm for 3am.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.
6. Go to bed at 2.45am.
7. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs in the dark until 4am.
9. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up when it goes off.
10. Make breakfast.
Keep this up for 5 years. LOOK CHEERFUL.
Test 4 Dressing Small Children
1. Buy a live octopus and a string bag.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that no arms hang out.
Time Allowed: 5 minutes.
Test 5 Cars
1. Forget the BMW. Buy a practical 5-door wagon.
2. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.
3. Get a coin. Insert it into the CD player.
4. Take a box of chocolate biscuits; mash them into the back seat.
5. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.
Test 6 Going For a Walk
1. Wait
2. Go out the front door
3. Come back in again
4. Go out
5. Come back in again
6. Go out again
7. Walk down the front path
8. Walk back up it
9. Walk down it again
10. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.
11. Stop, inspect minutely and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way.
12. Retrace your steps
13. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.
14. Give up and go back into the house.
You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.
Test 7
Repeat everything you say at least 5 times.
Test 8 Grocery Shopping
1. Go to the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child - a fully grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat.
2. Buy your weekly groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight.
3. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.
Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.
Test 9 Feeding a 1 year-old
1. Hollow out a melon
2. Make a small hole in the side
3. Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it side to side
4. Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon while pretending to be an aeroplane.
5. Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.
6. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor.
Test 10 TV
1. Learn the names of every character from the Wiggles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney.
2. Watch nothing else on television for at least 5 years.
Test 11 Mess
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out:
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains
2. Hide a fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds and then rub them on clean walls. Cover the stains with crayon. How does that look?
Test 12 Long Trips with Toddlers
1. Make a recording of someone shouting 'Mummy' repeatedly. Important Notes: No more than a 4 second delay between each Mummy. Include occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet.
2. Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next 4 years.
You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.
Test 13 Conversations
1. Start talking to an adult of your choice.
2. Have someone else continually tug on your shirt hem or shirt sleeve while playing the Mummy tape listed above.
You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.
Test 14 Getting ready for work
1. Pick a day on which you have an important meeting.
2. Put on your finest work attire.
3. Take a cup of cream and put 1 cup of lemon juice in it
4. Stir
5. Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt
6. Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture
7. Attempt to clean your shirt with the same saturated towel
8. Do not change (you have no time).
9. Go directly to work
You are now ready to have children. ENJOY!!
Question about water birth and other pain coping methods
Question
Does a water birth really reduce the pain?
Natural birth seems like the right option for me. What are some ways to reduce the pain?
Also, when I get my period I have the most horrendous cramps in the world. Would that mean that labour would be pretty bad?
Answer
There are really so many ways to reduce pain in labor. What works for some women may not work for others. Every woman has a different background of experiences, and every labor experience is different. It would be helpful for you to talk with someone experienced about all your preferences, current coping strategies, fears, knowledge base etc.
Having a doula (professional labor support) to discuss things with before labor and to be with you in labor is very helpful. Several studies have shown that doulas reduce the need for epidurals, cesareans, and other interventions.
Another important factor is the doctor or midwife that you choose. Find out how they practice. If you have a doctor who practices with a high rate of interventions - cesareans, epidurals, inductions, etc, you may as well give up your hope for a natural birth.
Medical interventions are necessary and helpful in certain situations, but many practitioners overuse them.
If you choose a caregiver or a hospital that routinely restricts women to lying in bed, using continuous fetal monitoring, or inductions for no medical reason other than being past 40 weeks, then labor is going to be extremely painful. Lying back is the most painful position in labor, and induced labors are way more painful than natural labors.
Also, fear and the adrenalin that it produces increases the sensation of pain greatly. Feeling safe, cared for and supported helps women relax. Having caregivers they trust, and trusting that their bodies know how to give birth. Going within themselves and listening to their bodies is really helful for natural birth. When women in labor feel safe, they produce endorphin hormones. If you've ever run a marathon or something, you'll know that initially your muscles will hurt, but after a while the endorphins kick in and you start to feel euphoric. You don't notice the pain so much, you just feel great.
In labor that can happen too, and the baby gets all the moms hormones, so it feels it too.
Have you noticed how some women say the pain of labor was the worst experience of their lives, while some women say labor was the best experience of their lives.
This difference is due to the different hormones.
Fear, anxiety = adrenalin = slowing down labor and severe pain.
Safety, trust, support, love = oxytocin and endorphins = less pain and feeling great.
Once you've got the basics, you can try out some things women have found useful for dealing with the intensity of labor - moving, changing positions, upright positions, resting in side lying positions or kneeling forward over a chair or exercise ball or their partner, hot packs, ice packs, showers, warm baths, massage, counter pressure on the back and hips, moaning, swaying, making deep sounds, kissing, breathing, visualization, swearing :> , squeezing their partners hand till it turns blue :> ...
Attitude is important too -
The tendency is that when a contraction is starting, to tense up and
resist and think, "oh no, another one. shit!"
But tensing up makes the sensation of pain greater.
It's useful to think, "oh good, another one. That's one more contraction closer to having my baby in my arms. My body is doing great work." Then after the contraction take a deep breath and release all the tension in your body.
A lot of women have found laboring in warm water extremely useful in helping them relax into their bodies and re-energise when tired. The buoyancy helps them change positions easily too. It can help make it easier to move through labor in the water. On the other hand, if has a lot of anxiety, fear, or other issues, getting into water won't make a difference in and of itself. I hope that makes sense :>
As for your period cramps, I don't think that means a more painful labor. I think it means you've developed a bunch of coping strategies that can help you in labor.
Let me know if you have any more questions,
Kaurina JeerisRajan
Childbirth Central
childbirthcentral@gmail.com
Reply:
I greatly appreciate your response. I feel so much more relaxed after I had read your post and most of the information in regards to stress/pain relief I could relate to. Like taking a shower greatly relieves stress and pain for me.
There was not a thing that you had said that I didn't find useful.
Thank you again!
Monday, March 23, 2009
Question about tearing in labor
Question
I have a 10 month old and I'm 8 months pregnant but I'm scared of giving birth again.?
I know I have been through it before but I'm scared to go back through it again. The 1st birth I suffered a 3rd degree tear and lost quite a bit of blood. I'm not really sure why I'm scared to be honest I think it because with it be quite close to my 1st one. Has any one been in the same situtation or some advice would be great, thanx x
Answer:
I'm sorry you had such a traumatizing experience the last time around.
It's understandable that you feel scared now.
I'm a doula (labor supporter) and natural birth educator, and I've had clients who have been terrified for their second birth because of the way their first birth was managed or the way they were treated. I've helped them to be more proactive in the decision making process for their next birth so that they could have a positive experience the second time.
Some questions I would ask you are,
1. What was the worst / most scary parts of your last birth?
2. What are you worried will happen this time?
3. Did you feel supported enough and treated well during the last birth?
4. What would you want to do differently if you could do it over?
5. How could you have done things differently to create an outcome more like what you want?
6. What steps can you take now for this birth?
I can imagine having such a serious tear must have made healing painful and long and interfered with your ability to look after your baby.
Do you know what caused the third degree tear?
Tears do happen sometimes no matter how gentle the birth is, but third and fourth degree tears tend to occur because of some added stress to the perineum.
For example, when women are told to push extremely hard, or have an epidural which can make them unable to feel the urge to push, and so end up pushing really hard but not as effectively. Or an episiotomy could cause the tear to extend into a 3rd degree. Also, forceps or vacuum can also cause severe tears.
These may be avoidable, especially if you know that you have choices.
Are you with the same caregiver now as the last time? How do you feel about your caregiver? Have you discussed your feelings with them and what you can do differently? Do you feel that they are respectful of your needs ?
Have you considered hiring a doula in your area to give you more information, and provide physical and emotional support?
There is a lot to consider and work through. If you do want to discuss more, you can email me.
childbirthcentral@gmail.com
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