Often pregnant families planning a homebirth think the common childbirth interventions (vaginal exams, listening to your baby’s heart tones, rupturing the membranes, episiotomy, sutures) done in hospital births will not be done at their home birth …. and are surprised when they are.
‘We never asked our homebirth midwife what childbirth assessments or procedures she might do. I was shocked by the vaginal exams!
Roberta N…
While childbirth interventions done during homebirths can seem to go against the spirit of “natural birth”, these interventions are often necessary for your health and the health of your baby.
The skills you learn from Birthing Better can be used to help make these various assessments and procedures less stressful for you, and provide your partner with active birth coaching skills so that he feels in touch and connected with you and the entire process. After all, he doesn’t want to be useless, and you don’t want him to be either!
Birthing Better skills that help:
- Directed Breathing
- Deep Touch Relaxation
- Focused Teamwork.
- Acknowledging your negative internal voice while managing how you cope.
- Continuing to soften inside your Pelvic Clock
Childbirth interventions can throw you off
The image we often have of a home birth is of a woman birthing at home discovering birth by herself, intuitively knowing exactly what to do, how to cope with the naturally occurring pain of birth contractions, never being told what to do, and certainly never having any intervention and above all achieving a birth orgasm.
In reality, this kind of perfect birth is incredibly rare. This image we have is based on the pervasive mythology of childbirth that is taught and retaught to women and men in the present trend of natural birth versus medical birth and it makes our idea of birth, and especially home birth very unrealistic.
The reality of home birth is different for every expectant parent. Having a vaginal exam at a home birth requires as much focus, relaxation, and acceptance as a VE done in a hospital birth. Sometimes you have to lie on your back and during a labor contraction, the pain can increase.
Birthing women definitely cope better with these slight annoyances by using birthing skills. Certainly, some women intuitively relax, but for most others, learning how-to soften inside their birthing body and relaxing is a learned birthing skill.
Having the skills from Birthing Better in your arsenal can help you keep yourself present during any childbirth interventions you may need during your home birth. They will also help you know what you can expect and how you can stay relaxed and focused on the birthing process and your body even though the pain or intrusion of these procedures.
Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation skills were developed by hundreds of dads and moms many having homebirths even with medically high risks. These skills are housed in Common Knowledge Trust