Home Birth by Alice Gilgoff

Author:Alice Gilgoff [GILGOFF, ALICE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: NA
Publisher: Midwifery Press
Published: 2013-04-20T04:00:00+00:00

Birth

In the ninth month of pregnancy it is difficult to have perspective, to imagine what it was like when you were not pregnant. It is common to feel as if you have been pregnant forever. Sometimes it is hard to stand or walk for long periods of time. You may have trouble finding a comfortable position in which to sleep and may be waking up more than once during the night just to go to the bathroom. The weight of the uterus presses on your bladder and it just doesn’t hold as much as it used to. You are getting anxious. One mother, expecting twins, said, “I just want to meet them already.”

Often at the end of a day when you are feeling your most lethargic, coming-down-with-a-cold-or-something, impatient and draggiest, labor begins. At its start labor may be distinguishable only to those who have experienced it before or those truly in tune with the rhythms of their bodies. Most of the rest of us, who are busy with activity at an office or school or at home with children, recognize the start of labor when more noticeable signs present themselves.

The earliest of these signs may be what is called the “bloody show.” This is when the mucus plug which caps the bottom part of the uterus breaks open. This causes some mucus mixed with blood to come out through the vagina. The bloody show may be noticed on sheets or panties or on toilet paper after urinating. The appearance of the bloody show means that labor is not far off. Contractions will probably start within a few days. Often contractions start that day.

Another indication that labor is starting is the spontaneous rupture of the membranes, usually referred to as the breaking of the waters. This is when the amniotic fluid that surrounds the baby while she or he is in the uterus begins to leave the woman’s body through her vagina. The fluid may come in a steady trickle, in spurts, or in a big gush. It is clear or whitish and can be distinguished from urine by smell and by the fact that you can’t control it, as you can urine, by contracting your muscles. The appearance of the fluid also means that labor is not far off. Contractions will probably start within a few days. Often they start that very day.

The surest sign of labor is steady contractions. (Contraction times vary from woman to woman, and even from labor to labor in the same woman, almost as much as the total amount of time in labor. Very generally speaking, labor may be from four to twenty-four hours long (usually shorter for subsequent babies) while contractions last from twenty to ninety seconds with one minute to twenty minute intervals (usually longer contractions and shorter intervals as labor progresses).) You may have recognized what are called Braxton Hicks contractions throughout your pregnancy or toward the end of it. Named after the doctor who “discovered” them, Braxton Hicks contractions are uterine

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