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| Best Position To Give Birth To Large Baby |
It's easier for everyone in hospital if the patient lies down and behaves, but it may be easier for the mother-to-be if she ignores this convention and squats on the floor as everyone used to. For thousands of years women squatted when giving birth, because it was the natural and obvious thing to do. In ancient Egypt the hieroglyphic for "birth' shows a woman squatting and a baby's head poking out of her vagina. The ancient Romans invented the birthing stool, with a hole cut away for the baby to fall through.
Squatting uses that most valuable of natural forces, gravity. If your partner wishes to squat rather than lie down, she must be allowed to. And if she changes her mind five minutes later and wants to lie down, she must be allowed to do that as well.
Birth partner. This is a terrific idea, borrowed from primitive societies, or somewhere else, I forget which. When your beloved gives birth, you will be there, and a midwife will be there and, if you both so decide, a previously appointed birth partner will be there as well, to lend a hand and give support and hold hands and give her massage and do all the things you thought you'd be doing.
Yes, seriously.
The thinking is rigorously practical. Neither you nor the mother-to-be are likely to have been through this before, and the midwife, for all her experience and sympathy, could be a complete stranger. So by bringing along someone else who knows the ropes, the mother-to-be will feel more secure and the father-to-be won't feel overwhelmed by the burden of responsibility for absolutely everything, which is the way it feels at the moment. She (the birth partner isn't usually a man, and if it is, you may start to wonder why) will probably have kids of her own. She shouldn't be the mother-to-be's own mother, as that relationship will be more loaded with baggage than carousel 'A' in Heathrow Terminal Two.
She should be a mate, someone your beloved can trust, someone who - let's be brutal here - isn't you. Unless you're an Alpha Male and like to be in charge all the time, these words should give you a Ready Brek glow of contentment. Someone to share the shit - as one father told me, 'it's the best idea to hit childbirth since afterbirth pate'. Better, some of us might say.
Music at the birth? Candles? Whalesong? One of the main tenets of natural childbirth is that the atmosphere must be right - which is to say calm and relaxed rather than panicked and terror-stricken. So, if you are taking a portable CD player, try and take quiet, restful music rather than, shall we say, AC/DC's Back In Black. Fathers in neighboring birthing rooms have been known to turn up the volume to drown out each other's music, behavior that may speed up the birth but will also later be cited in divorce proceedings. Let her choose the music. If you really don't like Nanci Griffith, that's tough.
Candles are good fun, as they need lighting again after you've blown them all out with one mighty puff. Avoid scented candles - more than half a dozen of these in the same room are deemed to be an instrument of torture by the Geneva Convention.
But essential oils can be amazingly helpful, and calm things right down. (Homoeopathic remedies are also worth looking into: they can be of use before, during and especially after the birth.) Whalesong is available on CD and cassette from all good whalesong stockists. Particularly useful if she's expecting to give birth to a whale.
Having made these decisions, you and your beloved will make a Birth Plan. This is a document that outlines your requirements and preferences for the birth. If you're lucky the midwife will read it before putting it in a file. If you're really unlucky she will set fire to it in front of your face. To find out more, you can check out Best Position To Give Birth To Large Baby.