This Doula's Recipe For A Good Birth

Today I am going to write my recipe for a good birth.  From all I have seen and experienced, these are what matter the most.

1.  Where you give birth matters.  A hospital can work, but in my opinion, it is not the safest place to give birth.  If you are healthy and your baby is healthy a birth center separate from a hospital has far better outcomes for you and your child.  Want to hear a scary statistic.  Neither do I, but here it is: The United States ranks 60 out of 180 countries, below China, even Slovakia, for goodness sake in maternal mortality!  Not to disparage China or Slovakia, but seriously we are a first world country with top medical care; this should not be so!  Of course there are many reasons why, and you could get into a very heated debate on this topic which I will not touch for the time being.  My point is that the maternal mortality rate for midwifery model care is much lower.  If you are healthy and your baby is healthy, one of the best preventative steps you can take is to give birth at a birth center with skilled professional midwives.

2. Get regular chiropractic adjustments.  I do not use a chiropractor regularly and have not when pregnant.  But from my own birth experiences (my third baby remaining very high and needing help during labor to descend versus those who've had chiropractic adjustments attesting to the fact that their babies remain quite low and engaged) I have come to the conclusion that adjustments are immensely helpful.  The body is in alignment which means the baby can descend without undue trouble which, in my opinion, really helps things along during labor.  A caveat!  Not all chiropractors are created equal.  Just like not all doctors, nurses, midwives, etc...  You get my meaning.  There are some chiropractors out there who do more harm then good.  Get a referral and make sure who you are seeing is qualified and good at what they do.

3. Eat & Distract.  The best thing you can do when labor starts is to eat a good meal and distract yourself.  Give yourself and your labor the gift of the un-watched pot.  Have a labor project planned i.e. bake something, clean something, garden, go for a walk, go out to dinner, to the movies.  When you can no longer concentrate on anything but what your body is doing, then it is time to whip out your coping mechanisms and call your support team.

4. Just say no to vaginal exams.  Aside from the initial exam upon admittance to the hospital or birth center which serves to give a baseline, there really is no need for frequent or even scheduled/regular interval exams after that.  Although you may think you want to know, it is really not helpful at all and may in fact be harmful as it increases the risk of introducing germs, not to mention the psychological effect of hearing you are not very far along!  You can tell an awful lot about where you are in labor just by watching attentively and listening.  Allow yourself to just trust the process and unless something is not going well, leave well enough alone.

5. Don't break those waters!  Artificial Rupture of the Membranes (AROM) may in fact speed up your labor but it comes with a high risk guarantee.  Although labor may speed up, so will your contractions, in length and intensity.  For many that point may rocket them into a labor pattern that overwhelms them and makes them feel out of control and scared thus necessitating the need for drug intervention when perhaps it may have been avoided.  If you are going for a birth without medication, breaking your bag of waters won't help you as much as you think it will.  Plus, your baby is no longer protected by that soft cushy bag and may experience some stress as a result.

6. Don't rush pushing.  Many well-meaning doctors and nurses decide that when the time comes for pushing that they should act as the woman's cheerleaders.  It is my belief that especially without sufficient knowledge on what to expect from pushing, a woman with excited eager cheerleaders around her is more likely to feel inadequate and pressured rather than supported and encouraged.  The reason being, pushing is not an issue of strength.  Once the baby has descended, the body responds by pushing involuntarily.  The baby is then slowly, I repeat, slowly, maneuvered down the birth canal and out.  Slow is better.  The body knows this instinctively.  Contractions tends to space apart from one on top of the other or every minute or two to sometimes 4 or 5 minutes apart.  This is normal and healthy.  The baby is supposed to crown and go back in.  Pushing hard for 10 seconds is a waste of energy.  Why not just go with your body's urges and push along with your body then let yourself rest?!

One more thing on the topic of pushing...don't be coerced into pushing lying down unless you yourself feel best doing so.  It is far from ideal and will make you and your baby have to work that much harder.  And once again, it can also cause stress for the baby.  In case you didn't know, stress, or variations, decelerations in the baby's heart beat, make everybody very nervous, and with good reason!  Do what you can to avoid stress, don't have your waters broken prematurely, labor and push as much as possible in an upright position, and you will avoid the more common causes for stress.

7.  Finally, and perhaps this should be first, Just Say Yes!  Accepting your labor however it comes and however it goes, will in my mind guarantee a perfect birth for you.  When you believe in your own strength and when you let yourself do what you need to do, your labor will be perfect no matter what happens.  So, when labor starts, don't fight it, don't be scared; be courageous, be strong and say YES!!