\n- Early miscarriages are very common. Having a miscarriage when you wanted a baby is always going to be upsetting, but realising that it’s a distinct possibility before you begin may help, at least I think so.\u00a0 It’s difficult to say exactly how common miscarriages are. For the part of the first trimester in which a woman already knows she is pregnant, about 20%?\u00a0 The probability of a miscarriage in this time frame may be even higher with a first pregnancy.\u00a0 The majority of women have probably had at least one miscarriage.<\/li>\n
- We’ve all heard that birth is a dangerous process that claimed the lives of droves of women and infants in the past and continues to do so in third world countries?\u00a0 It’s worth knowing that the most common cause of death ‘in childbirth’ in these contexts is infection in the days following the birth.\u00a0 The second most common cause is attempted abortion (yes, this is classed as death in childbirth).\u00a0 The third most common cause is blood loss from the detachment of the placenta immediately after the birth.\u00a0 None of these dangers are currently a matter of great concern to western women giving birth to full-term infants.\u00a0 Risks tied up with labour and birth\u00a0 as we experience them exist, but are very rare.<\/li>\n
- Although many women report finding labour and birth to be painful, uncomfortable and exhausting, it is extremely rare for there to be any relationship between these discomforts and a real danger to mother or child.\u00a0 There is no need to be scared as well as uncomfortable.<\/li>\n
- Not all women find labour to be painful.\u00a0 One of the most common causes of pain in labour is the position of the mother, and\/or the position of the foetus within the womb.\u00a0 It is easy to change the former, and there are some possibilities for changing the latter, before or even during labour.<\/li>\n
- The phase of pushing the baby into the outside world is more likely to be painful than the earlier stages of labour, yet there is almost universal agreement that this is not a phase in which it helpful to have our sensations deadened by painkillers like epidurals.<\/li>\n
- In case the only births you’ve ever seen before your own are in movies, all that screaming and agonised face-twisting on the part of the mother is just put there for melodrama.\u00a0 At the point at which these actresses are usually screaming, I was inquiring of my husband whether he had indeed given the midwife a parking permit as previously arranged.\u00a0 That sort of thing just doesn’t feel right to movie producers.<\/li>\n
- Everybody seems to go on about the size and estimated weight of their babies compared to their own and the impact it’s going to have on the birth.\u00a0 It’s obviously ludicrous to be concerned about any measurement except the circumference of the baby’s head.\u00a0 Even that’s not so relevant when you consider that the baby’s skull plates are designed to reshape themselves for the birth, whilst the ligaments in the mother’s pelvis are designed to allow the bones to separate.\u00a0 Yes, it is true, they will only do it as a result of significant pressure, but they will do it, and it is safe.<\/li>\n
- Natural births are pretty rare these days, and the medical professionals working with us are unlikely to know what levels of variation occur normally and safely within a natural birth process (length of gestation, length of labour, …).\u00a0 It has become difficult even to research such a thing.\u00a0 Some of the research that has been done seems to be suspect.\u00a0 Interventions intended to keep our pregnancies and labours ‘normal’ may not be based on valid evidence of what normal is.\u00a0 I am talking particularly about things like induction and augmentation, but also various types of monitoring.<\/li>\n
- Most hospitals measure cervical dilation to see how labour is progressing.\u00a0 There seems to be an assumption that the cervix dilates in a linear fashion.\u00a0 I have read a lot of anecdotal evidence that suggests this is not the case.\u00a0 It seems like the cervix can stay exactly where it is for hours, then reach full dilation in minutes.\u00a0 That’s worth thinking about and researching, especially before we allow ourselves to be encouraged\/discouraged by our cervical dilation.<\/li>\n
- The WHO believes that the rate of cesarean section should never need to be higher than 10 to 15% of births.\u00a0 In my view, this already allows a lot of safety margin to include borderline cases.\u00a0 The actual rate is much higher in a lot of countries.\u00a0 Planned cesareans account for some of this figure. Planned cesareans are not at all in the interest of the mother or the foetus, except in very, very rare cases.\u00a0 They do seem to be in the interest of the medical profession.\u00a0 There are almost certainly ‘too many’ emergency cesareans, yet nearly everyone who’s ever had one believes it was necessary in their case.\u00a0 Other people implicate mismanagement of natural birth processes, see point 8.\u00a0 Cesareans cannot always be avoided, but they are more dangerous and more uncomfortable post-partum than natural birth.\u00a0 They arrest the processes surrounding birth in both the mother’s and babies’ bodies, with possible negative consequences.\u00a0 They leave scars, yet apparently fail to protect womens’ bodies from some of the less desired effects of motherhood.\u00a0 It seems sensible to take steps to avoid them, sensible too to consider under what circumstances you might need one, and how you might minimise their impact before labour starts.<\/li>\n
- A woman in our society may give birth to two\/three children on average.\u00a0 Even if she has a dozen, each birth is still an extraordinary and incredibly special moment in her life.\u00a0 That is as it should be.\u00a0 Birth and the immediate aftermath may also represent her (and the father’s) first acts of conscious parenting.\u00a0 Medical professionals involved with birth may attend a dozen a day (or more?).\u00a0 There is a big risk that birth becomes banal for many of them.\u00a0\u00a0 As authority figures with a lot of things to see to, they may not be very sensitive to ‘acts of parenting’.\u00a0 There is the potential for a major clash of perceptions and interests here.<\/li>\n
- The post-partum phase merits more attention than women sometimes seem to give it.\u00a0 Breast-feeding is often not completely problem-free, especially the first time.\u00a0 I believe it’s worth planning to have help available beforehand, such as from the LaLeche league or an experienced friend.\u00a0 Physically, you may feel uncomfortable for some time.\u00a0 In past times, women were expected to spend a day or two in bed after a birth.\u00a0 I ignored this because I felt just fine, and subsequently wished I hadn’t.\u00a0 It’s unlikely that our bodies will ever feel or look exactly as they did before a first pregnancy.\u00a0 Mood swings in early post-partum are normal, but look out for the rarer post-partum depression.<\/li>\n
- The intensity with which a mother bonds with her child, and the length of time it takes to do so varies.\u00a0 It may be virtually instantaneous, even in a mother who was previously ambivalent about the expected child.\u00a0 It may take months, even with a planned and desired birth.\u00a0 I don’t think anyone really understands this process completely.<\/li>\n
- In many cultures birth has been treated as a victory for the mother.\u00a0 I think it should be, no matter how easy, how difficult or how it eventually happened.\u00a0 It’s a pity that our whole entourage comes mostly to coo at the baby, who does not give a damn about anyone except his\/her mother.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recently, an acquaintance who was due to give birth asked me for advice.\u00a0 I think my husband had told her that I’d done a lot of research about it or something.\u00a0 I tend not to be too forward on these occasions.\u00a0 I’m kind of uncomfortable about influencing people about something so personal, and I’m not … Continue reading Thoughts about pregnancy, labour and birth<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[32],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowhousehomeschool.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowhousehomeschool.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowhousehomeschool.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowhousehomeschool.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowhousehomeschool.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowhousehomeschool.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowhousehomeschool.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowhousehomeschool.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowhousehomeschool.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}