Samuel’s Natural Birth at a Birth Center

As Samuel’s one year birthday approaches, I have watched this beautiful montage of his birth once again and am reminded how important it is for a laboring mom to prepare for labor, as Tara and Angel did, by following the four keys to having a baby without unnecessary interventions: 

1. Know What You’re Getting Into:  Learn about the birth process — what’s normal, what it feel like, how she can prepare for each stage — and about the birth facility, whether it’s a hospital or birth center.  Take a tour, know what labor tools they have (tub, massagers, birth balls, etc).
2. Have Strong Support:  Get hands-on information about how partners can support a laboring mom, how a doula can help both mom and dad, and the benefits of a midwife vs. an obstetrician. 
3. Let Go:  Through the practice of conscious breath and movement, moms can learn how to allow the contractions to move through the mom so the hormones can function at their optimal levels. 
4. Stay Low-Risk:  While this isn’t a guarantee for anyone, studies show that making healthy food choices and exercising during pregnancy can increase the chances of remaining low-risk throughout the pregnancy and birth.

Tara and Angel prepared beautifully for their birth at Breath of Life in Largo.  I thank them and Jessica the photographer for sharing their birth experience.

Most pregnancies — about 87% of them — go to full-term, meaning that the mom is at least 37 weeks when her baby arrives.  In about 13% of pregnancies, a mom will go into labor before she hits the end of the 37th week, resulting in a preterm birth.

How should a mom respond if she thinks she’s having preterm contractions?  First, she should contact her obstetrician or midwife immediately.  He or she will probably want to see the mother at the office or hospital.  Some early laboring moms are hospitalized and given medications to help slow the contractions and to help quickly develop the baby’s lungs.  Others are sent home and monitored, while still others may have to birth their babies immediately.

Having a baby unexpectedly early can create a lot of chaos at home, so once mom is settled either at home or in the hospital, she’ll want to get things ready at home for the early arrival of her baby.  It might mean making baby-sitting arrangements for other children or having someone do the grocery shopping so there’s food in the house when she gets home. 

How can pregnant mom prevent preterm labor?  Good prenatal care is number one.  Avoiding things like alcohol, tobacco and drugs is another good preventative measure.  Studies show that stress can increase a mom’s chances of going into labor too soon, so pregnant moms should be sure to rest every day and shorten their “to do” lists.

The March of Dimes has excellent information about the signs of preterm labor and steps to help a premature baby who might need a little extra care and attention in those first few months of his or her life.

Babies who are coaxed into the world with a medically-induced labor before the end of their 39th week in the womb face more health risks. That’s why experts are now urging physicians and hospitals to cut their labor induction rate.

How is your hospital doing? Leapfrog Group can tell you.  Just go to their website to see if your hospital has shared its induction rate. If your hospital isn’t listed, call the hospital and ask to speak with someone who can share that information with you.

What’s the problem with being induced if it’s not medically necessary? If a woman’s body isn’t ready for labor, inducing doesn’t always work. In fact, one Utah study found that women whose bodies were not ready for labor had a Cesrean rate of more than 50% after being induced.

It’s a decision many pregnant women will have to face: is calling a baby into the world a week or two early worth the risk?

The reams of books and articles about what a pregnant woman should eat are just too much! So I’m making it simple with “Easy Eating for Two.”

Healthy eating during pregnancy really boils down to just two things: color and variety. Now that doesn’t mean eating a variety of colorful foods like M&Ms. Let’s be realistic.

It DOES mean choosing from a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables, and foods that contain iron, protein and calcium, and just taking care to not eat the same color or type of food every day.

For instance, if most of the foods you’re eating are whitish — oatmeal, potatoes — you won’t be getting the fiber and calcium you need from veggies like lettuce and kale.

Why eat healthy during pregnancy? Because a baby’s LIFELONG health begins to be developed while still in the uterus. Babies whose moms eat a healthy diet during pregnancy have reduced chances of diabetes and heart disease, and less chance of being obese in adulthood.

Your baby is worth it!

All but 3% of pregnant women have their babies in a hospital. The rest choose a homebirth or a freestanding birth center.

Women choose to birth in a hospital because that’s where they feel the safest, but not all of them want the interventions that hospitals offer: pitocin for inducing labor, epidural and other drugs for pain relief, continuous fetal monitoring, and IV for hydration.

Having a natural birth in a hospital is easy in some hospitals, where the nursing staff understands the natural process of birth and knows how to support a laboring mom who doesn’t want (or need) medical interventions. But in other hospitals, it can be a challenge to have a natural birth since hospital staff has been trained to offer medical options to a laboring mom. But it’s not an impossible task and can be achieved more easily by following these five tips:

1 — Know what to expect in labor. Knowledge helps to relieve fear which can help a laboring mom to relax. Feeling relaxed can help labor progress more quickly. Pregnant moms can get information from certified childbirth educators, and credible websites and books.

2 — Choose experienced support. Midwives and doulas (non-medical labor supporters) understand the process of natural birth and can help keep mom relaxed and focused through massage, position changes, bathing and showering, and through words and actions that encourage and uplift the laboring mom.

3 — Relax during labor. It sounds like an oxymoron, but through deep breathing, focusing inward or on a stationary object, and/or visualization, laboring moms can allow their body and mind to drift into their “labor zone” where their hormones take charge and allow the natural process of birth to take place without the need for outside interventions.

4 — Remain low-risk. Healthy foods and low-impact exercise are the two most controllable things a pregnant woman can do to help maintain good health and reduce her chances of pregnancy complications that will prevent her from having a birth without any interventions.

5 — Tour the hospital. Pregnant moms who see the birthing rooms can then visualize where they will be in labor which can greatly reduce anxiety. It’s important to ask about labor comfort tools such as a birth ball, tub, shower, squat bar and birth stool, as well as to find out if there are hospital policies about having continuous vs. intermittent fetal monitoring and IVs.

Happy Birth Way’s new website is complete! Loaded with information about pregnancy and birth, expectant parents can use the site to find out about epidurals, labor inductions and cesareans.

Monthly webinars are a new Happy Birth Way feature and so are classes by phone. Don’t worry, though — the six-class series and one-day classes are still being offered!

Be sure to check out Happy Birth Way’s new Hip Stuff for Baby – the fanny pack for birth and beyond. Makes a great shower gift, too!

Send us your comments about the new site!