Читать книгу Blooming Birth: How to get the pregnancy and birth you want - Lucy Atkins - Страница 84

‘Ask to use the birth stool if there is one, or sit on the loo at the beginning, when you are learning how to push properly – particularly in a first birth,’ says midwife Jenny Smith. ‘This helps you to feel the urge to push in the correct place, and can reduce the length of the pushing phase. You can come off the loo once you’ve got the hang of pushing so there’s no worry about your baby being born into it!’

OH, WHAT AN ATMOSPHERE | The room may feel busy as the midwife prepares to ‘catch’ and care for your baby. If there are any concerns for you or the baby another midwife, or a doctor, will be called in. The bustle can make you lose focus. Many of us, seeing all this action, get scared that something is wrong. In fact, activity, at this point, is normal, and a doctor can be called in as an extra safeguard. Touching your baby’s head can help you focus in again. It will feel a bit spongy and slimy.

YOUR PARTNER AND PUSHING | He can see his baby, along with a certain amount of blood and fluid, if he peers down there. If he has read Chapter 8 he should, at this point, not crash to the floor (he’ll be hydrated, fed and mentally prepared). You might have planned to video or photograph the actual birth. If your partner is overwhelmed (and he will be) he’ll probably forget about things like cameras. If you have another birth partner with you, arrange in advance that it’ll be her job to take a photo or two.

A WORD ABOUT THE ‘RING OF FIRE’ | When Julia asks clients to break down the fear they have about labour, about 40 per cent of the time they point to this – the moment when the baby’s head comes out (crowns) and the perineum is stretched to its limit. Just thinking about this moment could bring a non-pregnant woman to her knees. But most of us cope perfectly because it brings the baby. It’s not always bad. Julia has an amazing photo of a client laughing as the baby crowns. Having said this, when I gave birth to Sam I do not remember crowning as being particularly amusing: in fact, it was exquisite agony – but it was fleeting and was instantly outclassed by the big baby boy who shot out. This, I have to say, is one of the greatest miracles of motherhood: our ability to forgive and forget. Julia’s water birth experience was very different: ‘I did not feel the ring of fire at all,’ she says. ‘I gave birth under the water, which is known to significantly lessen the pain of this stretching.’

YOUR PARTNER AND YOUR PERINEUM | Sometimes men find the moment at which the next generation appears through their loved one’s holied vagina utterly mind-blowing. If your man removes himself from the room, sits down or sobs, it really is not a sign that he won’t be a good father, or that he’s abandoning you. Frankly he could be swinging from the rafters in a tutu as your baby crowns and you probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid. He’s better off outside, gathering his emotions for fatherhood, than he would be screaming, fainting or openly panicking next to you. Men can also become uncharacteristically emotional when their baby emerges. Julia’s husband Buckley sobbed so much at their second child’s birth that before the cord was cut Kim, the midwife, roused Julia to see if he was OK. ‘It’s all the emotions of life, in just a few seconds,’ says Buckley. ‘It all rushed out of me in sobs of joy and relief.’