Another fantastic birth story from a HypnoBirthing client today.
Her waters broke early one evening, she went briefly to hospital for a check, and within 24 hours she was having 20 second surges every five minutes (she rang me around 7pm to tell me). This intensified through the night, she managed the night with a TENS and HypnoBirthing breathing. When she got to the birth centre at 5am she was 7 centimetres dilated.
The first water leakage must have been hindwaters as as she stepped into her birthing room her forewaters went with a gush. She got straight into a birth pool and after quite a long second stage birthed her little girl. The long second stage was mainly due to the baby's having her hand up by her face.
She had no pain relief besides the TENs at first then the pool - otherwise she depended entirely on the self-relaxation and breathing techniques I had taught her in her HypnoBirthing sessions. Partner stuck her special birth pictures up around the room when they got to hospital. She listened to her HypnoBirthing affirmations throughout the second stage pushing.
In her own words she felt calm and relaxed throughout her labour!
A childbirth educator and doula's scrapbook of birth wisdom, information, media links, research, birth stories - and some of the truly daft things people say and write about birth and babies. Sarah Johnson is a doula and HypnoBirthing practitioner in London, UK. She is also a journalist and author
Showing posts with label natural birth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label natural birth. Show all posts
Friday, April 17, 2009
Monday, September 03, 2007
That moment when you feel you can't go on...
With all my own labours there was a moment when I thought, What WAS I thinking? Why am I doing this? I want to stop! Now! I want to give up and start again tomorrow! Likewise virtually all my birth clients have had a "dark night of the soul" moment when they felt they could not possibly, possibly carry on. This is usually the moment a woman asks for an epidural. It nearly always means that birth is very near the end.
A typical example was my recent client J. who really did not want an epidural but suddenly announced during labour that she must have one, she could not possibly endure another contraction as powerful as the past 3-5. We were in a low tech labour room where epidurals were not administered so we had to walk down the corridor to the high tec unit. The intensity of the contractions indicated that she was in "transition" (as I hate calling the phase covering the end of the cervix's dilation and the beginning of the baby's descent) and the walk really seemed to help things along! As a result she was feeling the urge to bear down within minutes of reaching the second room, the midwife quietly cancelled the anaesthetist and the baby was born not long after.
It is always difficult to explain to a woman that this moment, the moment you feel you cannot go on, is the sign to her supporters that the end, the moment she holds her baby, is almost certainly very close.
After her baby was born, J. said to me, "I am SO glad I didn't have an epidural!"
A typical example was my recent client J. who really did not want an epidural but suddenly announced during labour that she must have one, she could not possibly endure another contraction as powerful as the past 3-5. We were in a low tech labour room where epidurals were not administered so we had to walk down the corridor to the high tec unit. The intensity of the contractions indicated that she was in "transition" (as I hate calling the phase covering the end of the cervix's dilation and the beginning of the baby's descent) and the walk really seemed to help things along! As a result she was feeling the urge to bear down within minutes of reaching the second room, the midwife quietly cancelled the anaesthetist and the baby was born not long after.
It is always difficult to explain to a woman that this moment, the moment you feel you cannot go on, is the sign to her supporters that the end, the moment she holds her baby, is almost certainly very close.
After her baby was born, J. said to me, "I am SO glad I didn't have an epidural!"
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Nancy's triumphant birth on Home Grown Babies!
My lovely HypnoBirthing client from last November, Nancy Evans, featured in the Living2 series Home Grown Babies a few days ago.
Her first labour had been a traumatic hospital experience filled with fear and confusion and at one point Nancy is seen bursting into tears at the memory.
Her birth was amazingly tranquil. She speaks during the labour of how comfortable and peaceful and safe she feels!
For the record, she went into labour about 8am, went into the pool about noon and baby Sid was born just after 2pm. The midwives were amazed by how peaceful and serene Nancy was throughout the labour. Apparently she didn't cry out or complain of pain once.
HYPNOBIRTHING WORKS!!!!
If you are looking out for the series, which will hopefully be repeated, check out episode 9 for Nancy's story.
Her first labour had been a traumatic hospital experience filled with fear and confusion and at one point Nancy is seen bursting into tears at the memory.
Her birth was amazingly tranquil. She speaks during the labour of how comfortable and peaceful and safe she feels!
For the record, she went into labour about 8am, went into the pool about noon and baby Sid was born just after 2pm. The midwives were amazed by how peaceful and serene Nancy was throughout the labour. Apparently she didn't cry out or complain of pain once.
HYPNOBIRTHING WORKS!!!!
If you are looking out for the series, which will hopefully be repeated, check out episode 9 for Nancy's story.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Home Births
Evening Standard 5 April 2007
Delivering the truth on "risky" home births
Any woman with a low risk pregnancy in London would be mad not to consider a home birth, especially if she has had a baby before.
In the capital, a transfer to hospital only takes a few minutes by ambulance. If things look dangerous, a midwife will advise a transfer long before those few minutes become critical.
Last weekend I found myself wondering yet again why humans are the only mammals who respond to birth pangs by running away from home to a huge, unfamiliar building. I am a doula, a professional birth companion. My client and I were trapped for hours in a Victorian pile with bloodstained communal toilets and broken plumbing – a Ghormenghast of a place. Not the cosy nest other mammals prepare, but the labour ward of St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington.
The hospital website boasts of “a caring and pleasant environment, excellent labour facilities with individual birthing rooms and a birthing pool”. We are wedged into a tiny room that is nearly all bed and machinery. One of the rooms opens directly onto Reception, and none have curtains screening the doors. Staff barge in frequently and interrogate my client in mid-contraction. Builder’s rubble fills the one shower stall: the ceiling has fallen in.
A labouring woman needs to be mobile to help her baby to move down – no hope of this in the few inches of space between the bed and door. Someone, somewhere, is playing pop music ceaselessly through the night. The whole building is shouting at us: “Give up! Have a C-section!”
Birth is the work of the instinctive part of our brain, which needs a familiar, private environment to function well. It is not good at accepting strange situations – and it can be very stubborn. So while the thinking part of the brain “knows” that hospital is “safe”, the primal brain is saying, “I don’t know this place or these people, I’m going into emergency mode and slowing down labour right NOW!” Fear increases tension, which increases pain.
A third of Dutch women give birth at home. Dutch women are not known for being masochists: they are known for being sensible. Doctors who gleefully recount the risks of home birth (based on statistics from rural districts in other countries) less often mention the problems of hospital interventions even in wards far more pleasant than Paddington’s Ghormenghast.
Few people realise that a midwife’s homebirth pack includes entonox and other pain relieving drugs, and resuscitation equipment. Few know that home birth in the UK died out only because Sir John Peel , the Queen’s Surgeon-gynaecologist, believed that birth would be safer in hospital than in 1960s working class homes with outside toilets.
Things are different now. We no longer live in slums, we have MRSA in hospitals. It is time to put aside Peel’s patrician scruples, and bring birth home.
Sarah Johnson
Delivering the truth on "risky" home births
Any woman with a low risk pregnancy in London would be mad not to consider a home birth, especially if she has had a baby before.
In the capital, a transfer to hospital only takes a few minutes by ambulance. If things look dangerous, a midwife will advise a transfer long before those few minutes become critical.
Last weekend I found myself wondering yet again why humans are the only mammals who respond to birth pangs by running away from home to a huge, unfamiliar building. I am a doula, a professional birth companion. My client and I were trapped for hours in a Victorian pile with bloodstained communal toilets and broken plumbing – a Ghormenghast of a place. Not the cosy nest other mammals prepare, but the labour ward of St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington.
The hospital website boasts of “a caring and pleasant environment, excellent labour facilities with individual birthing rooms and a birthing pool”. We are wedged into a tiny room that is nearly all bed and machinery. One of the rooms opens directly onto Reception, and none have curtains screening the doors. Staff barge in frequently and interrogate my client in mid-contraction. Builder’s rubble fills the one shower stall: the ceiling has fallen in.
A labouring woman needs to be mobile to help her baby to move down – no hope of this in the few inches of space between the bed and door. Someone, somewhere, is playing pop music ceaselessly through the night. The whole building is shouting at us: “Give up! Have a C-section!”
Birth is the work of the instinctive part of our brain, which needs a familiar, private environment to function well. It is not good at accepting strange situations – and it can be very stubborn. So while the thinking part of the brain “knows” that hospital is “safe”, the primal brain is saying, “I don’t know this place or these people, I’m going into emergency mode and slowing down labour right NOW!” Fear increases tension, which increases pain.
A third of Dutch women give birth at home. Dutch women are not known for being masochists: they are known for being sensible. Doctors who gleefully recount the risks of home birth (based on statistics from rural districts in other countries) less often mention the problems of hospital interventions even in wards far more pleasant than Paddington’s Ghormenghast.
Few people realise that a midwife’s homebirth pack includes entonox and other pain relieving drugs, and resuscitation equipment. Few know that home birth in the UK died out only because Sir John Peel , the Queen’s Surgeon-gynaecologist, believed that birth would be safer in hospital than in 1960s working class homes with outside toilets.
Things are different now. We no longer live in slums, we have MRSA in hospitals. It is time to put aside Peel’s patrician scruples, and bring birth home.
Sarah Johnson
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