Category: choices

Baby Feeding, choices, Information, Newborn Baby, postnatal

Five tips for increasing your milk supply

Informed Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond.

We all need to feel loved and held even when everything is going well.

Establishing and maintaining a good supply of milk is one of the top worries that many new parents have about breast/chestfeeding. Our society and the prevalence of formula advertising have made us think that this is a very common problem. But when you’re feeding in a supportive setting with access to knowledgeable support not having enough milk is pretty rare. What is common is to doubt yourself and feel worried. A supportive atmosphere is often a vital component to gaining confidence and knowledge that a small change can make a big difference.

Do you need to worry? Probably not. Keep reading for the signs your baby is getting a good amount of milk and always check with your healthcare provider or your local breastfeeding support group if you have questions or concerns. But remember overall you’re most likely to have nothing to worry about.

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choices, Information, postnatal

Mental and Emotional Health and Wellbeing

Informed Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond.

When we set our topics for our meet-ups we try to find topics that will be interesting to a wide variety of people. Often we talk about perinatal mental health and we sometimes find people aren’t sure if that applies to them. Even people who have struggled with feeling anxious or low mood while pregnant or parenting can be given the impression by society and the healthcare system that they should just get on with it and not moan because other people have it worse. So for future reference, if you see mental health on our topic list and wonder, yes this is for you. Another important note when we’re talking about perinatal emotional and mental health we’re not just talking about mums and birthing people. Partners, dads, all parents can struggle during the year or more around having a baby and all of the same things about reaching out for and providing your self with support apply to all of us.

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birth, choices, Information, Labour

Making a birth plan

Informed Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond.

“Your birth plan will only end in disappointment.”

We hear it said so often birth is unpredictable, you can’t plan a birth, making a birth plan is just setting yourself up for disappointment and feeling guilty.

But in our experience of working with families, it is precisely because birth is unpredictable that having a birth plan is so important and can often be the thing that prevents feelings of guilt and disappointment.

Maybe people don’t like the idea of birth planning because they think making a birth plan means writing down your ideal birth and thinking positively and then all your wishes will come true.

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birth, choices, Information, Labour

Induction of Labour

Informed Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond.

Taking the Mystery out of Induction of Labour

What is induction of labour?

Induction of labour is any process that exerts external influence to try and start the body’s process of labour and birth.

Getting things started yourself

This may include anything you try to do yourself such as having sex or eating curry and anything you have done by a holistic practitioner such as a chiropractor, acupuncturist or reflexologist to help your body do what you want it to do.

Medical Induction

It also includes the ‘stretch and sweep’ or ‘membrane sweep’ procedure which involves your care provider inserting their (gloved) finger into your cervix and separating the membranes holding your waters away from the cervix with a circular sweeping motion. This is sometimes presented as if it’s separate from the medical induction of labour but it is as part of the induction of labour process as it is an intervention with the object of starting labour off.

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choices, Newborn Baby, parenting, postnatal

Normal Newborn Crying

Informed Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond.

What’s a normal amount of crying for my baby to do?

This is almost an impossible question to answer because all babies are so different. The important thing to remember is crying is your baby communicating with you, not to complain or upset you but just to let you know something.

It’s completely normal to not know what it is your baby is trying to say, the idea that we will automatically instinctively know how to care for our baby is a myth. Learning to parent is very often about going through the list of possible reasons your baby might be crying, hungry, tired, need nappy changing, need to burp, need a cuddle, need to pass wind, need to poop, have a small piece of thread caught round their toe, etc, etc.

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choices, Information, Newborn Baby, parenting, postnatal

Normal for a New Parent

Informed Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond.

The original title of this blog was normal infant behaviour. But as I started to write it I realised that it’s not enough to just know what to expect your baby to be like.

As a team when we talked about what we would include in this post many of us reflected on how it feels to be a new parent, especially for the first time. What would we like expectant parents to know? That parenting is hard & however prepared you feel, it could still potentially hit you like a juggernaut.

You feel what you feel – There’s no such thing as a perfect parent

In modern western society, we’re often not really used to being around small babies. When you find yourself pregnant, especially for the first time, there’s so much information on what you should and shouldn’t do it can be very overwhelming and feel like you’re being expected to achieve some kind of perfect parent status without any actual practical support.

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birth, choices, Information, Labour

Help Your Body Birth

Informed Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond.

Informed Birth Planning

Having information about the options that may interest you is an important part of planing your birth. One of the things that you may want to know something about is how your body works to go into and through labour and birth. This knowledge can help you work with it and your baby to feel positive and confident in your birthing decisions and experiences.

This article is mainly about listening to your body in physiological labour conditions but the skill of listening to your body can be useful through all of pregnancy and beyond regardless of what kind of birth you’re planning. There’s no one type of positive birth. You can have a positive home water birth, a positive planned c-section birth, a positive hospital labour ward active birth, a positive birth with an epidural, any kind of birth that feels like the right choice for you.

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birth, choices, Information

Your feelings matter

Informed Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if everyone had all the support they needed through their pregnancy, birth and postnatal experiences? Then everyone would feel positive and proud and no one would get the message having a baby is something to fear. But the reality is things often don’t go to plan and many people don’t experience good support, they can be left feeling sad, angry, guilty all sorts of valid feelings.

Our groups are here for people who have had many different life and birth experiences and we want to make sure everyone feels welcome in our groups. We’re positive about birth and supporting people to have the information they need to prepare for birth. But we’re also here to support people who don’t feel positive about birth for any reason.

Birth is unpredictable, many things are out of our control. Sometimes, however much planning you’ve done, things happen during your labour and birth which are scary, upsetting or disappointing.

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birth, choices, Information, Labour

Confident Birthing Choices

Informed Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond.

When we first wrote this blog post it was the start of the corona virus pandemic. That was a time when lots of things changed very fast and we often didn’t know from week to week what would be on offer in terms of healthcare for labour and birth. Since then we’ve been told that everything has returned to normal. But in our experience, we’ve not returned to the way things used to be, there’s still a lot more uncertainty and last minute changes than used to be usual. From what we can work out this is mainly due to staffing levels in maternity services. It’s generally not an issue for anyone planning to birth in the labour ward. However, those planning a home birth or to birth in the stand alone birthing centres are still being warned there is always the possibility they will be asked to come into the labour ward (or sometimes to the alongside birthing centre) on the day. For anyone having an induction of labour this can also affect how long they will need to wait between being advised to have their labour induced and when they are invited into the hospital to start that process as well as how long that process may take.

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