Tag: pregnancy

birth, Information, postnatal

10 Things You Need To Know About Your Perineum and Pelvic Floor

Informed Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond.

As always none of this information should be taken as advice. Always consult your healthcare provider with any questions or concerns about your health.

1. What is your perineum?

Our bodies and how they work are not sufficiently covered in ‘A level Biology’, let alone sex education at schools. By the time many people become pregnant they may have never really looked at their own vulva. The vulva is the name for the outside area of the genitals, it is often confused with the vagina. The vagina is the tube of muscle inside; it goes from the opening in between the tiny, almost invisible hole where pee comes out (urethra) and the bum hole (anus), all the way up to the cervix -the opening to your womb (aka medically as your uterus.) Your perineum is the area between your vaginal opening and your anus.

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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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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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Information

Five ways Information Can be Your Best Friend

Informed Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond.

1. Information is Not Advice.

Everyone has their own life experiences and opinions which may colour the way they present information and make it seem a lot like advice. Sometimes our own understanding of the world, or previous experiences, can make us feel pressured to make choices that feel implied by the information someone has selected to give us. An important thing to be aware of, and a skill to learn during pregnancy that will serve you very well as a parent and through life, is how to filter what you hear so you can spot the information and separate it from the advice so that you can decide what the right choices are for you. One example of this might be when you’re offered an induction of labour. You will be given information about why you are being offered an induction of labour by your care provider. Some of this may be in the form of advice to take up the offer. You might then think “I’m not sure if this is the right choice for me” and want to chat through with a friend. Your friend may have had an experience of having labour induced and may have negative memories from that. The information about her experience may also feel like advice. You might then also look up information on the internet about induction of labour (if you decide to do this, you’re very welcome to ask in our Facebook group if anyone knows any reliable sources of accurate information) and you may find that information is presented from many different perspectives. Ultimately, however, you will find some things resonate with you and this information is useful for your own decision-making process. Then you are able to discard the other information and advice which isn’t helpful or relevant to you. This can help you feel really confident in your own decisions and is a life skill which can help with your confidence as you learn to parent and throughout life.

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postnatal

Birth plans, postnatal plans, team plans!

Informed Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond.

Planning for your birth isn’t planning for one isolated event. Your birth plan needs to be rooted in the context of planning for the fact that birth is just the start of the rest of your life. It’s a bit like planning your wedding and remembering that you’re not just planning one day but whole marriage.

Your birth and parenting experience is a journey into the great, exciting, unknown.

You can’t control everything, some things will happen that you’re not expecting but you can give yourself the gift of support and knowledge that allows you to not just survive but thrive.

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