Authentic parenting

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Pain Free Labour

Posted by Laura Schuerwegen

Written by Ann Bentley, Pain Free Labour

Hi, I am a midwife from Manchester England who is pashionate about giving women the best chance
possible for a lovely labour. I have experienced myself 4 labours, 2 very painful and 2 pain free. Society teaches women that labour will be painful, when they start to labour they become naturally anxious. It is this anxiety and the hormones secreted that cause changes in the body that lead to contraction pain.

The international best-seller Dean Koontz captured the essence of why we accept painful labours so easily when he wrote:

“Fear is the engine that drives the human animal. Humanity sees the world as a place of uncountable threats, and so the world becomes what humanity imagines it to be.”

In our dark dank past women were exploited. No surprise there then. They were not even allowed an education so that they could say “Hey, stop exploiting me you patriarchal society you”. We have had to fight tooth and nail for our relative freedom. The only battle that has yet to be won in the civilised world is childbirth.

Fear of childbirth has been instilled in us for hundreds of years. Doctors have made money out of us by keeping us in fear so that their services are needed to provide a medical model of care to help us birth. Early midwives were burned as witches so that women would turn to the medics in their time of need.

Modern health care follows blindly the believe in painful labours as the norm. There has been no research that I know of to support this belief. Within the UK we pride ourselves on offering evidence based practice and yet there is no evidence that uterine smooth muscle is designed to cause the sensation of pain when contracting normally. Yet we continue to believe. “The world becomes what humanity imagines it to be.”

Perhaps women want painful labours. Perhaps fear is the engine that drives the human animal. Perhaps we only feel comfortable when something we believe in comes true. Any other outcome would be too hard to accept, too big a paradigm shift for us to relate to.

Well tough. Get with the plan. Pain Free Labour has begun to seep into our belief system concerning childbirth. Midwifery led birthing centers are springing up all over the UK. Women are having pain free labours during the first stage when taught how to approach labour. Relaxation techniques are being learnt in parentcraft sessions to keep women from entering the stress/pain cycle often seen in labour.

We are being allowed to learn the truth about labour now in the UK only because the strain on the NHS from medicalised care has become too much. A calm pain free labouring woman in a pool is cheap compared to a theatre full of expensive equipment and staff. The caesarian section rate has reached an all time high. We have lost faith in our innate ability to labour naturally.

If I had not experienced this phenomena of pain free labour personally then I may well have been one of the supporters of offering elective caesarian sections for maternal choice. As a midwife I have helped countless women to have a pain free labour. As an author, I have explained in detail why uterine smooth muscle was never designed to cause the sensation of pain during a normal contraction.

So, who will join me in supporting the massive shift that we need in our belief system that will enable women to labour as nature intended; with medical support on stand by if needed? Who will be brave enough to swim against the tide and face the wrath of humanity when one of their “uncountable threats” is removed leaving them uncertain and afraid? Who will take a leap of faith in order to free women from the last of societies manacles holding us down? Who, maybe you?

Ann and Mark after a pain-free labour

About the author

Midwife from Manchester trying to change the way women approach labour today. My first labour was so horrid that I set out to find a better way to labour before I had my second. My second was wonderful and the first stage was pain free. A midwife from hell made my third very painful as I was not allowed to sit up to labour. My fourth was a home birth and once again pain free. If I can do it then anyone can. Simply follow the advice in my blog and you too can discover the secret that the medics have kept from us for the past three hundred years. The first stage of labour was never designed to cause the sensation of pain. 

Labour well. 

Ann Bentley.

Modern, affluent women are really too posh to push.

A publication in the Lancet (V. 392 I. 10155 P. 1341-1348) by T. Boerma PhD et al explored global trends in outcomes of how we choose to labour with disturbing results.

169 countries were looked at with an impressive total of 98.4% of the worlds births. They found that overall the percentage of caesarean births accounted for 21.1%. The numbers have therefore doubled since 2000 when the figure was 12.1%.

Have women become rubbish at labouring in the past 18 years or is a CS birth simply becoming the norm? The highest number of CS was found to be 5 times more common in affluent societies than in poorer regions. Private hospitals had a 1-6 higher CS rate than public ones. Definitely too posh to push.

In the Dominican Republic  the CS rate was 58.1%! Closely followed by Latin America and the Caribbean at 44.3%. Areas of the world not to visit as your due date approaches!

Medicalisation of birth is of growing concern worldwide. Let us not forget that a CS is major abdominal surgery which can lead to morbidity and mortality for the mothers. It reduces your options for future births as once done your uterus has a scar on it that can rupture during following pregnancies. It is thought that babies born by CS do not have the advantage of being colonised as quickly by much needed good bacteria found in vaginal secretions. Breast feeding baby can become a challenge when mum has a much more painful recovery from the birth and is not as mobile. Not giving babies human milk for the first 6 months of life greatly impacts on their future health and well being.

Once women discover that labour need not be the negative experience that society teaches us that it will be then perhaps they will begin to take charge of their labour and not put themselves at the mercy of medicalised care. Information on having a more comfortable labour is abundant in this blog.

It would appear that women have lost faith in themselves when it comes to labour and birth. The only way we can change these perceptions is to teach women how labour really works. How to optimise their chance of a normal birth to secure the best outcome for both mother and baby. X

Labour drugs negatively affecting neonatal behaviour.

Research was conducted by Kajsa Brimdyr PhD et al into The association between common labour drugs and suckling when in skin to skin during the first hour after birth.

The findings are not very surprising. Women today are subjected to constant unnecessary medicalised treatments during pregnancy and birth that cannot help but have negative outcomes for both mother and baby. Society often forgets that pregnancy and birth are normal physiological events and not illnesses to be treated by doctors

Drugs used in labour such as Fentanyl (epidural) and Oxytocin (induction of labour with a drip) were previously studied with conflicting results. Brimdyr set out to define how these drugs impact on neonatal behaviour after birth.

The results found a strong inverse correlation between the amount of drugs given during labour compared to Widstrom's  9 stages of newborn behaviour. Especially focusing on no. 8 which is suckling during the first hour after a vaginal birth.

There was an increase in babies not being able to suckle effectively at birth while in skin to skin. Putting a newborn in skin to skin at birth regulates their heartrate, breathing, temperature and normally stimulates them to find food. This was not the case after prolonged amounts of Fentanul and oxytocin were being used in labour. Fentanyl use was found to lower neurobehavioral scores after birth and breastfeeding rates were much lower at 6 weeks post partum.

This outcome is very sad. There are simply too many women suffering from being given these drugs in labour. Babies are the ultimate victims as they are being denied the best start in life by being unable to suckle at the breast.

Research constantly shows that giving babies human milk instead of cow milk increases their intelligence and immune system. Human fed children are much less likely to have eczema, asthma and obesity. Cow fed babies on the other hand do not get these benefits. We are breeding generations of Cow people due to how we treat women during their labour.

Widstom's 9 Instinctive Stages of Neonatal Behaviour During Skin to Skin after Birth.

1. Birth cry - expanding lungs. (this is not necessary as a calm baby after a calm birth simply starts breathing and does not need to cry)
2. Relaxation - baby becomes still. (this behaviour is often noted after pool births when a baby will calmly look around taking in their new surroundings)
3. Awakening - baby starts to move limbs.
4. Activity - baby uses larger movements, head is lifted, eyes remain open.
5. Resting - baby rests between bouts of activity.
6. Crawling - toward the nipple using limbs and head bobbing.
7. Familiarization - nipple found baby licks, tastes and touches area around nipple. (this makes the nipple more erect so baby can find it easier)
8. Suckling - baby self attaches to the nipple and starts sucking.
9. Sleeping - an involuntary action lasting 1 and a half to 2 hours after birth.

Posts in this blog aim to teach women how to approach labour so that their chances of having a medicalised birth is reduced. Read the post on avoiding induction of labour and posts on using relaxation in labour to avoid use of pain relief. See post on not lying down in labour even if you are on a CTG machine to monitor fetal heartrate. Get off the bed and sit on a chair! Good luck. x

Allergies and breast milk.

Remember in the post:-

Breast Feeding - giving baby more than you thought.

       I reported that research had found oligosacharides in breast milk that were only there to feed certain bacteria in the baby's guts, in exchange they  produced compounds that sealed the stomach so that bacteria couldn't get through infecting baby with gastroenteritis, and developed the brain so that your child could become the person they were always meant to be.

New research has now found that the milk of mothers who eat known allergy foods (nuts, eggs, wheat, shellfish) in pregnancy and while breastfeeding protect their babies from those very allergies. This is of course as long as the mother does not already have an allergy to these foods herself!

Not so long ago women were advised not to eat peanuts in pregnancy in case this is what was causing the rise in children with dangerous nut allergies. This turns out to be the wrong advice and children could have been protected if mothers had eaten nuts in the pregnancy and then continued whilst breastfeeding.

It was found that the immunity from allergies was not fully passed on if the mother did not breastfeed. But when a baby is breastfed, immunity is given. When a nursing mother is exposed to a food protein, her milk contains complexes of the food protein combined with her antibodies, which are transferred to the baby through breastfeeding. Aided by a protein in the baby's gut lining and some immune cells, the food protein-antibody complexes are taken up and introduced to the baby's developing immune system triggering the production of protective cells that suppress allergic reactions to the food. This protection persists after the baby is weaned from breast milk on to a more varied diet at six months.

Now that we understand a little better just how good human milk is for our babies we should be shouting it from the rooftops. Imagine if you, and only you, could not only make your baby's brain develop so that they have a higher IQ, protect them from stomach bugs in their vulnerable early months, but also ensure that they do not develop allergies that could endanger their very lives. WOW. Such power.

And yet UK breastfeeding rates are the lowest in Europe. I often wonder why.

Having a Doula in Labour

Happy International Doula Month!

Post from the wonderful women at Orgasmic Birth.

All the time, I hear from women that they aren’t hiring a doula - because they have a great partner, the nurses will be there, they have a midwife, or that their hospital is great.

I like to ask - just because your car is safe, you trust the driver, and the weather is perfect with nearly empty roads - do you not wear your seat belt anyway?

Doulas are the seatbelts for birth - the continuous, supportive, agenda free safety net that is there only to honor and protect your birthing space. 

Not only is a doula there to protect your memory of birth, science and research supports the many benefits including shorter labor, less use of interventions, and healthy MotherBabies.

“Peace on Earth Begins at Birth”

 Doulas are what midwives used to be before all the paper work was heaped on us. We used to be able to rub backs and work with women in labour instead of sitting down writing about women in labour. And yet I have found that only Jewish women, who take birth very seriously, have a doula during their labour and birth. I love them, they do everything I wish I had time to do and they really help the women take control of their labour and as a consequence, labour much better than most women who do not hire a doula. I do not know how much they charge, could a normal lancashire lass even afford one? Please let us know if anyone out there has knowledge on how much you can expect to pay for a doula during your labour. Thank you.

 

 

MUM'S UP AND MOBILE for labour

MUM'S UP AND MOBILE (MUM)

Research by Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust found that when they got mums off the bed and let them move around in labour. freely adopting positions that they felt comfortable in, their normal delivery rate rose from 59.9% to 64.7%.

At Last! A trust that is giving woman centred care instead of work load led care. They should be given a medal!

OK, my blog has been telling women for the past 6 years that they should never lie down in labour or allow themselves to be laid down by hospital staff who do not give a toss if they get a normal delivery or not. Now I am backed up by the whole of Gloucestershire. Yay.

For women who needed a trace of their baby's heartbeat due to a risk factor they used CTG machines that were wireless. However, I have found that even if you only have the wire CTG machines, you can still get your Mum Up and Mobile, you just have to be a little more inventive.

Comments from mums who took part in the project: "Moving more during labour really helped me as I had a quick labour due to me walking all day and using the ball."
Invited to move around as much as I wanted to, informed about wireless monitoring to enable easier movement." 
"Felt able to move as much as I wanted and I was encouraged to find comfortable positions for myself."
It was nice not to be confined to the bed!"
I was encouraged to move around in labour by my midwife but chose not to."

Hopefully, this initiative will spread and become a UK wide project. This will happen faster if women actually mention this research in their birth plan and ask to have the choice of movement during their labour. Giving women back control has been found to empower them to feel confident that, yes, they can do this. They are not just a piece of meat waiting to be processed. They have a choice. A real one.

No matter what you see on One Born Every Stupid Minute, get off the bed, it is no place to labour!

One Born Every Minute

 Just had to share this blog with you on a normal midwives view of One Born Every Minute. All the midwives working on OBEM are simply Obstetric Nurses. Do not trust them with your labour!

Midwifes view of one born every minute.

Kemi Johnson

Seriously OBEM midwives are you dumb???? IT'S 2017!!!!!!!!! Why are you still pulling babies out by their heads from women in stranded beetle position? You are supposed to be the experts in normal birth. Do any other mammals lie back with their legs in the air? Do you poo lying down??? You are promoting a drive angle of the baby right at her perineum creating a higher chance of wounding. You are causing babies to cry when many babies could birth themselves from upright women without a murmur. You're deceiving women into thinking that they couldn't have birthed without you.
STOP IT!!!!
And now that all of the defensive comments have started rolling in, some clarification. Some midwives are the best thing that ever happened to a birthing woman. But I refuse to collude with those that blame editing and pressure to work a certain way. Midwifery, for the moment in the UK remains an autonomous profession. It is a very old one. We have access to knowledge, experience and research. There are plenty of midwives around enabling healthy birth without having their hands all over a woman's perineum, encouraging her into an unfavourable birth position and exposing her to a harder labour with more risk of tearing. The health and future health of all takes priority over feelings. I would rather be considered rude on my own profile page than politely steer women into pushing uphill, potentially suffering increased trauma to their perineums that I 'rescue' them from with my hands on their private parts whilst they lay vulnerable on their backs. This treatment of women in childbirth has gone on long enough. It is coercive and unnecessary. Midwives get together and say NO to practices that you KNOW make no sense. We sign the register to keep women and their children in the centre of our care. I won't be silent.

Well said Kemi, we are with you on this one, yay.