Hi All,
I had my fourth birth this morning!!! I received a call at around 6:30 this morning to say that I had better get in there quick as she was in 2nd stage already.
When I got there she was already pushing, but her husband was encouraging her to "breathe through" a lot of the contractions, so she didn't have a fast 2nd stage, but it was good. Her "big" sister and auntie were also there; big sister was such a brave girl! She was calmly eating away while everything was going on, talking about her baby sister coming soon, and eagerly watching for the head with the rest of us! Apparently she was also having a baby, but as soon as she saw the final parts of the birth she changed her mind (probably looked like to much hard work!). When the midwife suggested to the woman to just push, immediately the baby's head was out! Really amazing little thing, trying to breathe even before the rest of her could be born Such a cutey!
The shoulders were a little more tricky to birth, but the midwife pulled gently up. Baby also had the cord wrapped around her neck twice, but it was loose and easily taken off. She was born around 8:30 with a gush of blood, but apparently that is fairly normal when women birth on their knees (the midwife did immediately give her sytocinon though).
Straight onto mum's breast, and feeding away like a starving child almost immediately. She could be heard suckling from across the other side of the room, just amazing! Mum is doing really well, a little knocked around with the afterbirth pains though (she also needed a few stitches). Baby is fantastic! And the midwife and I decided we both really wanted to bundle up both the little girls and take them home with us, so cute!
7 comments:
Sounds like a very special experience, Karli. I was interested to hear about women bleeding more readily when they give birth on their knees - I have for all three and never had that problem, except for the first but that was most likely because of the length of the second stage.
So do you feel like an old hand yet? :)
Congrats on your fourth birth!
LocaChica
That's really cool! It must be so rewarding, :)
Madd
Wow! I love reading your stories! :) xo
Hi Karli, you will make a wonderful midwife when all your hard work is over, congrats,
Love you xx
Thanks everyone!
I am not entirely sure Cath, Mum said she had the same experiences as you so that's two (actually many more!) stories against one : ) It is highly likely that I misunderstood, or that the midwife was speaking only from her experience ??
No...nowhere near an old hand :P I keep learning more what I DON'T know than anything else at this stage :)
Re: blood loss in upright position:
After reading around a little I found some information abour birthing in upright positions and blood loss which I thought I might share : )
"Blood loss appears to be higher following upright birth (Gupta et al 2004), but this may be due to the ease of measuring blood loss when upright" (Chapman & Charles 2009).
"Gupta and Nikodem (2000) undertook a meta-analysis of controlled studies of positions in the second stage of labour.
They noted that in all the parameters they assessed except one, a policy of upright positions led to benefits for women.
The exception was an increased risk of estimated blood loss above 500mL. In interpreting these findings, it should be noted that 'upright' included kneeling, squatting, sitting, use of a birthing stool/chair, and use of lateral tilt, while 'recumbent' included on the back, lithotomy stirrups, lateral (without the tilt) recumbent and semi-recumbent.
It has also been observed that where maternal preference was elicited, the most frequent positive responses were from those women who had used an upright position (Sleep et al 1989)"
(Mayes' Midwifery, Henderson & Macdonald 2004).
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