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.
I replied:
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 ??
Later on though I was required to do some specific reading around birth, and came across these comments on birth position and estimated blood loss:
"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, V & Charles, C (eds) 2009, The Midwife's Labour and Birth Handbook, 2nd edn, Wiley-Blackwell, West Sussex
"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)."
- Henderson, C & Macdonald, S 2009, Mayes’ midwifery: A textbook for midwives, 13th edn, Baillière Tindall, Edinburgh
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