34 weeks pregnant continues to bring you one week closer to your baby’s birth. Your belly seems to grow daily. By this time you should clearly be able to find your baby’s head (it’s a large round object that feels hard). Your baby’s butt also feels like a round thing but it’s squishy, not hard.
Baby Center has a bit of information about c-section. They mention that 33% of pregnant women will have a cesarean. However, they don’t mention the reality of how many cesareans are done just because women are not coping with the natural occurring pain of contractions.
It’s pretty hard to assume that 1/3 of all babies or mothers would die or be injured without a c-section. That makes no sense which brings us back to a lack of birth skills. Don’t feel bad, no one has told you to become skilled in these skills.
Birthing Better families want to add at 34 weeks pregnant:
- Cascade of interventions
Unless you’ve lived under a rock throughout your pregnancy, you would have read or heard the term: ‘cascade of interventions’. This means that if you have one type of medical assessment, monitoring or procedure that you’re likely to have another and another and another eventually leading to a cesarean.
There are two primary NON-medical reasons for an unplanned c-section:
- Women not coping
- Birth not progressing
Both of those can be reduced or prevented by becoming skilled. Birthing Better families can’t say this enough!
Having a cesarean is still your baby’s birth. This means Birthing Better families still use their skills however, we wanted to reduce those unplanned cesareans that were clearly not medically necessary.
No-one wants to put a mother or baby at risk. We cannot understate the value of Birthing Better skills.
These are the resources in LESSON ELEVEN
WATCH and READ: Honestly we’ve been given such weird information about how tension impacts birth … if it does! Learn about the four types of tension we all have. You’ll have more control. Did you know that the word ‘relaxation’ is actually a word most of us don’t like but we have a great word instead that works like a gem? Don’t worry about relaxing your shoulders. your baby doesn’t come out your shoulders. All your efforts need to be softening inside your pelvis.
- Video: Manage Tension 5:01
- Video: Four Types of Tension – 2:09
- PDF: Tension – 17 pages
- PDF: Relaxation – 16 pages
Birthing Better skills were developed by moms and dads in the early 1970s in the US and used by many thousands globally in all types of birth. Birthing Better online birthing classes are housed in Common Knowledge Trust.